Science is wrong sometimes, therefore anything is possible

[Physics Guy]

I think this challenge from Harris is one of those things that sound like they go further than they really do. There clearly are some questions which people used to answer with teachings drawn from religious texts, but for which better scientific answers have been found—for values of "better" that may take a while to explain but that definitely add up to something that most people want.

Science isn't a magic than can just do anything, though. Science isn't even one thing. In my career in theoretical physics I've migrated from quantum gravity to the microscopic limits of thermodynamics, and en route I've published at least one paper in all the main sub-fields of theoretical physics except nuclear physics. People in these different subfields can talk to each other, all right, but the problems they study are really different, and so are their methods and approaches. Quantum gravity is a pessimistic field in which you show how smart you are by how deeply you appreciate how hard everything is. Theoretical quantum optics is a brash field in which people's attitude is to "Start 'er up and see why she don't go"—start with a simple model and if it's not good enough then we'll soon see what's wrong and fix it. Condensed matter theory is somewhere in between.

Nowadays I'm tackling biochemistry and finding out that chemistry and biology are really awfully different from physics. Their papers don't have equations. I'm like, what else even is there, besides equations? I was expecting maybe horribly complex equations, or simple equations because we can only make crude models, but instead there are just ... no equations? Like, none? And yet biochemistry is hardly an ossified field. On the contrary it seems to be in the springtime of a Golden Age.

Just within natural science as it is today there is a great range of approaches and of degrees of clarity, precision, and confidence. The history of science isn't a simple one of steady progress, either. We've learned an awful lot, and we're still learning, but most of our learning has not just been knocking down longstanding big question after longstanding big question. Instead most of the answers we've found have been answers to questions that we never used to ask. We're not filling in blank spaces on the map. Instead the world we explore just keeps getting bigger and bigger.

When I think about all that, Harris's contrast between science and religion as if they were two brands of screwdriver seems ridiculous. Up to a point I agree that he does have a point, but past that point it collapses.

[Morley]

At this point I think my point stands that Harris's shot was a cheapish one, if you think about the issue seriously.

It does indeed.