Science vs. religion: teach the difference, resolve the conflict - Special Issue: Science and Religion: Conflict or Conciliation?

Most students leave our universities unaware of the differences between religious and scientific truths - and with virtually no knowledge of how the latter are obtained. These thoughts and materials should help.

In today's world, humankind is better off by far than it has ever been, and education more widely available than at any time in the past. Yet ignorance of the differences between scientific and natural "truths" continues to cause tremendous anguish and suffering the world over. Virtually every issue of the SKEPTICAL INQUIRER features examples and consequences of this ignorance, which is not confined to the "unwashed masses." Paul Kurtz (1998, 48) notes, "Scientific illiteracy is widespread, even among the educated classes, and especially among politicians and the leaders of industry." And this observation applies even more strongly to awareness of the fundamental differences between religion, science, and the unholy (and unscientific) specter of pseudoscience.

For a decade now, I have been teaching introductory-level courses in astronomy and physics that meet science requirements at a state liberal-arts college with no major in the physical sciences. Students interested in a natural science (our biology majors, for example) presumably do learn something about science and the scientific method by immersion (osmosis?) - though seldom in an explicit manner, I find - but they remain unaware of the foundations of scientific truth and of how these differ from those of religion. Nonscience majors leave the university with some exposure to the history of religious and philosophical thought and conflict, but with only a smattering of knowledge of the results (though not of the methodology) of science. In my experience, many in either group cannot even offer a clear explanation of the difference between science and technology! (Science, of course, is knowledge of the laws of nature; technology is the application of this knowledge to the manufacture of material products and devices.) I am sure that many educators - at all levels - share my frustration with this state of affairs, which is why I developed the following material. I make sure that every class I teach gets a dose of it to some extent.

Figure 1 illustrates the fact that science and religion are mutually exclusive and complementary aspects of human epistemology; that is, each deals with a separate domain of human experience. Science deals with the natural world, and religion with the spiritual world; as long as these are kept within their proper spheres of influence, it is obvious that no conflict can possibly exist! One can be both a scientist and, say, a Buddhist or a Moslem (or both, as a matter of fact, since all religious doctrines are mutually exclusive in principle; in practice, intolerance and hatred of other beliefs result from the sociopolitical manipulation of religion, and not from religion per se). Along with this, it is vitally important that students realize the roles of proof in both religion and science. In the former, proof has no meaning; it is replaced by faith. Either you believe (have faith), or you don't; this is the only legitimate "test" for a religion. For the latter, proof resides in putting the question to nature, i.e., in observation and experiment; faith doesn't enter into it, because a putative scientific truth (hypothesis) either passes the empirical tests or it doesn't. This point - that scientific truth is contingent upon an objective natural world and not upon subjective interpretation, and therefore lies on a different epistemological plane than does philosophical truth - seems to be as inscrutable to deconstructionists (and other postmodernist philosophers) as their opaque sophistry is to the rest of us.

It is when someone attempts to mix scientific and religious principles, venturing into the toxic no-man's-land of pseudoscience, that the conflict - and the damage - ensues. Examples of this are legion: "Proof" that the accused is a witch; scholarly "analysis" of scriptures that "show" that one set of beliefs is superior to another and that only its adherents can attain salvation; "evidence" that ancient astronauts visited Earth, that the origin of species lies in contemporaneous divine creation, that one ethnic group is superior to another, that this herbal concoction or that crystal pendant cures cancer. Equally fatuous are "scientific" attempts to prove the existence of God, the continuity of spiritual existence after death, and so on. What these all have in common is an ill-defined and ever-changing blending of faith with selective (and usually fallacious) reasoning, whose proponents glibly switch between one and the other according to the argument with which they are confronted. Point-by-point juxtaposition of the underpinnings of religion and of science, as in figure 1, makes this very clear to the student.

Bringing up the matter of religious truth - how it is imparted by revelation to, and interpreted by, a select few (shamans, prophets, church officials, individual believers, and so on) - is an eye-opener for many students. Of course, those who are religious do resent mention of the fact that these revelations could be credited to dementia, use of psychoactive substances, or outright fraud as well as to divine inspiration; but the ultimate requirement for believers, one by definition both necessary and sufficient, remains faith.