DrW wrote:nc47 wrote:There are only a few scientific subdisciplines that have the potential come to loggerheads with religion (cosmology, evolutionary biology, neuroscience). 99% of it is unrelated. Cosmology is traditionally thought to be friendly to religion. Evolutionary biology is not a problem if one is educated a BYU. Neuroscience can cause problems if one subscribes to the prevailing (but by no means universal) belief among neuroscientists that people don't have free will because everything is biologically determined. That's small beans to me.
* Cue some boneheaded redneck to post links to statements made by LDS Leaders about the universe and take them literally.
nc47,
It would be difficult to come up with a more boneheaded statement regarding the relationship between science and religion than the one you just made.
Religionists seem very fond of such statements, perhaps because they make religionists feel better about the nonsense they feel obliged to profess. Unfortunately, such statements are no more than wishful thinking.
What statement?
Science and religion are (by definition) fundamentally, diametrically, and irrevocably opposed, whether religionists wish to acknowledge the fact or not.
Whether they are believers or not, the vast majority of scientists don't buy into this view. Take for example, this statement made by the National Academy of Sciences:
Compatibility of Science and Religion
Science is not the only way of knowing and understanding. But science is a way of knowing that differs from other ways in its dependence on empirical evidence and testable explanations. Because biological evolution accounts for events that are also central concerns of religion — including the origins of biological diversity and especially the origins of humans — evolution has been a contentious idea within society since it was first articulated by Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace in 1858.
Acceptance of the evidence for evolution can be compatible with religious faith. Today, many religious denominations accept that biological evolution has produced the diversity of living things over billions of years of Earth’s history. Many have issued statements observing that evolution and the tenets of their faiths are compatible. Scientists and theologians have written eloquently about their awe and wonder at the history of the universe and of life on this planet, explaining that they see no conflict between their faith in God and the evidence for evolution. Religious denominations that do not accept the occurrence of evolution tend to be those that believe in strictly literal interpretations of religious texts.
Science and religion are based on different aspects of human experience. In science, explanations must be based on evidence drawn from examining the natural world. Scientifically based observations or experiments that conflict with an explanation eventually must lead to modification or even abandonment of that explanation. Religious faith, in contrast, does not depend only on empirical evidence, is not necessarily modified in the face of conflicting evidence, and typically involves supernatural forces or entities. Because they are not a part of nature, supernatural entities cannot be investigated by science. In this sense, science and religion are separate and address aspects of human understanding in different ways. Attempts to pit science and religion against each other create controversy where none needs to exist.
So the way you espouse a fringe, wacky view combined with your melodramatic tone makes you sound foolish.
Science generates knowledge and understanding through a continuous and iterative process of free inquiry, observation and experimentation. This is followed by hypothesis generation, testing, and selection. Selected hypotheses are continually evaluated for their explanatory power against as new data become available, and modified or discarded in favor of new models or hypotheses when necessary. In short, the scientific enterprise is evidence based.
I already know that, but thank you.
I forgot to add, in order for science to work it is based on unproven assumptions. The universe is governed by rational and intelligible laws. You can't do science if you believed the universe was a bunch of meaningless gibberish.
The enterprise of religion is based on faith. Faith in this context is best defined as unfounded belief. That is, faith is belief held without evidence, or as is more often the case (and specifically with Mormonism), faith is belief held in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary.
Put as succinctly as possible: science seeks answers based on evidence. Religion claims to already have the answers based on faith.
You have faith all wrong. We have faith because science, though powerful in what it does, does not answer the important questions of life.
Take, for example, the unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics. To explain this, majority of physicists and mathematicians believe math exists in its own invisible, Platonic realm. Faith means we believe this points to something grander; that there is possibly a mathematician monkeying around with the universe.
Through history, religion's answers have traditionally been obtained through revelation as given to self selected humans by one or more of hundreds, or thousands, of imaginary magical deities.
Mormonism's massive problems today stem directly from its failure to recognize, appreciate, and adopt into its belief system, certain truths gained from science, preferring instead to stick with the nonsensical beliefs provided by its leaders until such time as these false beliefs became absolutely untenable in the light of societal acceptance of the relevant science.
The unfounded beliefs of Mormonism (and fundamentalist religions in general) help keep them on the wrong side of history on all kinds of issues. Unfounded belief in their fraudulent scriptures also requires faithful Mormons to become science deniers.
Science deniers? If Mormons have incorrect views on scientific issues it's because they don't care and haven't really examined those issues. My little brother, who's studying at a top-3 engineering school, didn't believe in evolution as he didn't take biology. So I handed him BYU's evolution packet.
The scriptures of Mormonism that are claimed to have come directly from God are filled to the brim with truth claims that are antithetical to science. Adam and Eve, Garden of Eden, Garden of Eden in Missouri, Global Flood of Noah, Tower of Babel, Population of the New World starting in 3000 BC by Transoceanic Migration, and "Kolob Cosmology", are but a few of these. The list of the nonsense in Mormon scriptures goes on and on.
In fact, I have a hard time thinking of a religion with scriptures that are more at odds with science than those of Mormonism. Does your "boneheaded redneck" statement above mean that you do not take Mormon scriptures literally?
Point covered in previous post.
