science vs religion or reason vs faith

[dastardly stem]

Many say these are reconcilable. Here's a piece arguing they are not:

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10 ... 20.1786221

A few times Mormonism is alluded to for examples:

We could concentrate on the numbers—perhaps the religion with the highest number of eyewitnesses would have the best evidence and we should follow that one. In our religious examples, Mormonism would have the highest number of eyewitnesses for veracity.

In Mormonism, the official organization of the Church relies heavily on testimonials.23 These come in the form of authoritative citations, such as referring to the experiences of Joseph Smith and Brigham Young, but also by citing the testimonials of named church members.

The Mormon Church also emphasizes how testimonials are useful to combat one’s doubts about the veracity of the religion: “Doubts about matters of religion that arise from a lack of knowledge can be constructively resolved. The solutions are instruction, study, and prayer, which result in increased testimony, which drives out further doubts.” Instead of objective evidence, subjective emotions are called upon. Furthermore, personal life stories are used in the same manner as tools for religious conversion or enforcement.24 When testimonials are utilized, we should remember that in many cases, contradictory narratives would also be available but that people tend to treat their own existing beliefs preferentially.25 Without a large number of cases for statistical testing, science would not consider such narrative stories as evidence.

Regarding conflicts between science and religious beliefs within Mormonism, Michael D. Rhodes acknowledges that both the scientific principle and/or the understanding of religion may be wrong.31 However, he does not treat them as equal: “When discrepancies do arise, the revealed word of God must take precedence.”

And a favorite example:

In Mormonism, the Book of Mormon strongly suggests the notion of pre-Colombian Jewish presence on the American continent as well as the use of domestic animals and crops not present in the New World before the European colonization.57 Modern DNA analyses have consistently failed to demonstrate pre-Columbian trans-Atlantic migration to the Americas.58 Regardless, Mormon apologetics reject these data by pointing to Mesoamerican structures as the “limited geography theory” of Mormon engagement in only that geographical area and emphasize that the lack of evidence would not disprove the historicity of the Book of Mormon.59

A case of emotional dismissal of the accumulating DNA evidence is provided by David G. Stewart Jr.: “Claims of critics (…) only demonstrate the profound intellectual poverty of critics’ arguments.”60 This is accompanied by another testimony: “Many teachings currently presented by critics as ‘proof᾽ of Mormonism’s falsehood will one day be recognized as some of the most remarkable evidences of Joseph Smith’s prophetic mission.” Also in these cases, scientific data are processed through experiential thinking to produce evidence that is compelling to the believer but fails to convince the outsider.61 From the viewpoint of science, testimonials lack statistical power and cannot be generalized to be valid for large populations nor to construct viable theories without lots of additional research.

It's a good article overall, even if it refers to Mormonism a bunch. I think it nails a particular problem in these discussions. Here is the concluding line:

The scientific method has been fine-tuned to recognize and counteract biases. Until religions resolve the question of how to deal with data that can disprove the evidence gathered by testimonials and narratives of religious texts and authorities, the integration of the two seems improbable.

I think that pretty much sums it up. The issue with Mormonism here is it relies heavily on personal experiential data, which is heavily biased and easily mistaken. Mormonism is a good example for obvious reasons to us, but it illustrates for other Christians, perhaps, how the reliance of experienctial data over evidence can be problematic and puts the disciplines of rationality in stark opposition to the discipline of religion.

All my best.

[drumdude]

I always thought it was strange that the Bruce R McConkie type Mormons, the literalists, thought that God had to do everything materially.

God couldn't just keep Nephi's vessel afloat, and God couldn't just have Mary become pregnant with a wave of his wand. No, God had to actually command Nephi to build a seaworthy transoceanic vessel. God had to insert his penis into Mary, thrash around for a few frightful minutes, and ejaculate into her vagina. God's sperm had to travel to her ovaries and fertilize the egg that became Jesus.

These are the kinds of ridiculous beliefs you develop when you say that religion and science are compatible. It's so much neater if you just take a step back, call it all one big gigantic magical mystery, and let science do its thing without religious interference. Let the Mormon physicist attend church, and let him believe that the Book of Mormon isn't a literal history without excommunicating him.

[Everybody Wang Chung]

That is a very interesting article. I hope BYP or RFM does a podcast on it. Thanks Stem!

[Philo Sofee]

That is a very interesting article. I hope BYP or RFM does a podcast on it. Thanks Stem!

By dang, it looks video worthy! THANKS for the heads up on this. I am always looking for interesting materials on all subjects.

[Physics Guy]

The article's abstract reads

Regardless of the model for identifying the relationship between science and religion–conflict, independence, dialogue, integration–insufficient attention has been given to the way evidence is processed in each field. Whereas religious claims are based on experiential evidence, scientific claims are based on experimental evidence. Recognizing this difference, the independence or two-language model along with the ethical alliance model would be the most fitting basis for future religion–science interaction.

And in the final paragraphs the authors further say

Based on our essay, we would not see a continuation of the conflict models [theories that religion and science are in conflict] if both sides accepted that the proof of the other side derives from a different kind of thought process. ... The “two books” and “two languages” models fit well with our observations of different kinds of thought processes and evidence material in science and religion.

I don't think that "religion and science are not reconcilable" is an accurate summary of this paper. It doesn't seem to be at all what the authors are trying to say.

[dastardly stem]

Thanks for the comments everyone. I enjoyed the piece and thought I'd share, glad to see others enjoyed it too.

The article's abstract reads

Regardless of the model for identifying the relationship between science and religion–conflict, independence, dialogue, integration–insufficient attention has been given to the way evidence is processed in each field. Whereas religious claims are based on experiential evidence, scientific claims are based on experimental evidence. Recognizing this difference, the independence or two-language model along with the ethical alliance model would be the most fitting basis for future religion–science interaction.

And in the final paragraphs the authors further say

Based on our essay, we would not see a continuation of the conflict models [theories that religion and science are in conflict] if both sides accepted that the proof of the other side derives from a different kind of thought process. ... The “two books” and “two languages” models fit well with our observations of different kinds of thought processes and evidence material in science and religion.

I don't think that "religion and science are not reconcilable" is an accurate summary of this paper. It doesn't seem to be at all what the authors are trying to say.

I didn't mean that as a summary of the paper, but as a question to discuss. I was hasty yesterday afternoon when I made the post. Should have thought it through a little cleaner. The paper is an evaluation of two distinct methods--one that seems to work and one that seems to be full of problems. They quote the standard lines from Ian Barbour to lay out this thinking:

Science seems to provide the only reliable path to knowledge. Many people view science as objective, universal, rational, and based on solid observational evidence. Religion, by contrast, seems to be subjective, parochial, emotional, and based on traditions or authorities that disagree with each other.1

Science holds a method that seems to work. Religions relies on a method that has many problems.

As a reminder the last line reads:

Until religions resolve the question of how to deal with data that can disprove the evidence gathered by testimonials and narratives of religious texts and authorities, the integration of the two seems improbable.

Religion needs to make a move to resolve the issue in their evaluation, otherwise "integration of the two seems improbable". I'd agree. But I'd wonder what is religion other than "evidence gathered by testimonials and narratives of religious texts and authorities"? At least in our western world anything that resolves that issue isn't religion at all. What is Christianity that doesn't rely on experiential evidence but adopts preeminently evidential methods? Jesus basically disappears into oblivion. It makes me wonder how would religion "deal with data that can disprove the evidence gathered by testimonials and narratives of religious texts and authorities"?

[Physics Guy]

The authors of this paper argue against the possibility of integrating religion and science, to make them both into one thing. That isn't the same thing as saying that they are incompatible, that one cannot accept both.

I don't expect that we will ever integrate physics and history, for example. They are nonetheless perfectly compatible and reconcilable. This paper is not arguing against that kind of compatibility between science and religion, but only against a more radical attempt to merge them together.

[dastardly stem]

The authors of this paper argue against the possibility of integrating religion and science, to make them both into one thing. That isn't the same thing as saying that they are incompatible, that one cannot accept both.

I don't expect that we will ever integrate physics and history, for example. They are nonetheless perfectly compatible and reconcilable. This paper is not arguing against that kind of compatibility between science and religion, but only against a more radical attempt to merge them together.

yeah..its tough because integrating the two feels necessary particularly from an apologetic perspective. And as they say " science can and probably will continue to examine particular religious claims with its methodology, and it can prove or falsify them by a certain probability." I'd say they make some pretty interesting points regarding attempts by apologists and others to integrate, as they call it. Its helpful to attempt it because it works as a good practice in logic, it just so happens it comes out as an example of what not to do. On the whole I'd agree with Ian Barbour's quotation they used, essentially. There are two quite different methods. One is appropriately considered "objective, universal, rational, and based on solid observational evidence". The other is "parochial, emotional, and based on traditions or authorities that disagree with each other". The only way, as they suggest, for these to find any room for integration is for religion to make a move--become less what Barbour describes it as. We have to pretend the claims of religion aren't to be touched, even though they often cry out to be, by our most useful tools of determining truth or usefulness. They are supposed to be two separated fields because trying to integrate them only uncovers the weakness of the one.

[Physics Guy]

I'm not impressed by attempts to bring religion into science, as some Intelligent Design advocates seem to do. But if science could move in the other direction, and take over religion by testing all religious beliefs, then why hasn't this already happened?

It's not as though scientists are just reluctant to tackle religious subjects. Some might be, but plenty would not be. The problem is mainly that few religious beliefs are scientifically testable.

Nonsense can fail to be testable, but so can perfectly sensible stuff that's just hard to control in a lab. Even some important scientific subjects aren't experimentally testable—we have to rely on observing what Nature has provided us, without being able to control it ourselves. If we can get enough observational data, we can try to use statistical controls, instead of laboratory controls, to distinguish causes from correlations or coincidences. As the quantity or quality of data deteriorates, science fades out gradually into speculation. Some subjects interest us so much that we can't resist speculating about them, even when the data is weak.

Science works well for some questions. In particular it works great for questions that can be addressed with reproducibly controlled experiments that can reduce the number of potential causal factors to only a few. Saying that we should resolve every question with controlled experiments is like saying we should resolve financial difficulties by becoming rich, though. Experiments are hard to do, because most things are hard to control. A token effort, that goes through some motions and pays lip service to some list of methodological steps taught in school, will not cut it.

Scientific method is not a magic ritual that guarantees truth if you just follow the steps. You have to actually control all the factors, within your lab space, to make sure—not assume, but really make sure—that only a few issues are on the table. This is usually even harder than it sounds. For one thing there's a bootstrapping problem. How can you know what factor are important for your question when you don't yet understand the question? If you can make a certain amount of progress, you can often use it to go on and make more progress, but if you can't get that initial foothold on the problem, there's nothing to do but give up and look at some other question. As my experimentalist colleagues sometimes put it, "You can't tweak up zero." What they mean is that even a weak signal can often be improved by adjusting your apparatus, if the signal is strong enough to guide you in doing the adjusting, but if you don't have a signal at all, you don't know what adjustments to make, so there's no point in even trying. Turning all the knobs at random never gets you anything. The world is too complicated for that to ever work.

Science doesn't seem to work as well for all questions, and not even for all questions that are important to people.

[dastardly stem]

I'm not impressed by attempts to bring religion into science, as some Intelligent Design advocates seem to do. But if science could move in the other direction, and take over religion by testing all religious beliefs, then why hasn't this already happened?

It's not as though scientists are just reluctant to tackle religious subjects. Some might be, but plenty would not be. The problem is mainly that few religious beliefs are scientifically testable.

Nonsense can fail to be testable, but so can perfectly sensible stuff that's just hard to control in a lab. Even some important scientific subjects aren't experimentally testable—we have to rely on observing what Nature has provided us, without being able to control it ourselves. If we can get enough observational data, we can try to use statistical controls, instead of laboratory controls, to distinguish causes from correlations or coincidences. As the quantity or quality of data deteriorates, science fades out gradually into speculation. Some subjects interest us so much that we can't resist speculating about them, even when the data is weak.

Science works well for some questions. In particular it works great for questions that can be addressed with reproducibly controlled experiments that can reduce the number of potential causal factors to only a few. Saying that we should resolve every question with controlled experiments is like saying we should resolve financial difficulties by becoming rich, though. Experiments are hard to do, because most things are hard to control. A token effort, that goes through some motions and pays lip service to some list of methodological steps taught in school, will not cut it.

Scientific method is not a magic ritual that guarantees truth if you just follow the steps. You have to actually control all the factors, within your lab space, to make sure—not assume, but really make sure—that only a few issues are on the table. This is usually even harder than it sounds. For one thing there's a bootstrapping problem. How can you know what factor are important for your question when you don't yet understand the question? If you can make a certain amount of progress, you can often use it to go on and make more progress, but if you can't get that initial foothold on the problem, there's nothing to do but give up and look at some other question. As my experimentalist colleagues sometimes put it, "You can't tweak up zero." What they mean is that even a weak signal can often be improved by adjusting your apparatus, if the signal is strong enough to guide you in doing the adjusting, but if you don't have a signal at all, you don't know what adjustments to make, so there's no point in even trying. Turning all the knobs at random never gets you anything. The world is too complicated for that to ever work.

Science doesn't seem to work as well for all questions, and not even for all questions that are important to people.

Yeah...I don't think they're interested at all on whether science can answer everything. It seems their appeals to history, in their examples, show they aren't advocating for such. 3 of the researchers involved here are theologians. I don't worry too much about what's reconcilable, nor am i sure what you mean by the word in relation to this matter, but I do find it fascinating when religions have claims that are basically disproved by science and how religionist prefer to believe their religion over the data. We tend toward irreconcilable pretty clearly as that continues to happen.