Science, God, and Belief: readers respond

A number of the articles in our special issue on "Science, God, and (Non) Belief" (March/April 2007) provoked reader reaction. Here's a sampling (see also Joe Szimhart's Forum column, "Why I Burned a Bible," on page 58).--EDITOR

At the Salk Institute forum that was reported in "A Free-for-All on Science and Religion" (March/April 2007), Charles L. Harper, senior vice president of the Templeton Foundation, accused Richard Dawkins of claiming that science has a monopoly on truth. Bearing in mind that science attempts to address questions regarding only nature, and that science makes plenty of errors but does its level best to correct them, I admit to some guilt here, too.

However, my mind is open on this, and I invite Harper--or anyone else--to cite examples where (1) science has come up with an untruth about a fact of nature, (2) some other method of inquiry has clearly demonstrated the error, and (3) science and its practitioners refused to acknowledge the error and correct it. Failing that, maybe science does have a monopoly. In fact, I can't even think of what other method of inquiry there might be.

Don Keith

Waterloo, Ontario

Canada

You invited reaction to your "Science and Religion" special issue. In a sentence, I feel strongly that the magazine should be seen to support the Michael Ruse line on religion rather than the Richard Dawkins one. I think it is important that the SKEPTICAL INQUIRER stick to mapping out and defending the high, solid ground of science and avoid the temptation to skirmish in nearby marshlands, even if they might seem to go with the territory.

The reasons are both tactical and logical. There are very many moderately religious people whose aims include being tolerant, doing the right thing, and understanding science. It would be counterproductive if they felt they were being attacked with weak arguments by people claiming to represent science and reason, especially if this also provided ammunition for their less moderate companions.

I have read The God Delusion and entirely agree with most of it but think Richard Dawkins loses the plot in a couple of areas. Yes, it is possible that there are huge numbers of universes, each with slightly different physical laws, so that ours is no surprise--but there is no evidence for this. Why the laws in our universe are as they are remains an open question, which should not be closed down prematurely. I always liked Isaac Asimov's short story "The Last Question," in which an advanced civilization in the distant future learns, in effect, how to transcend time. This could form the basis of a Cosmic Bootstrap God Hypothesis, with the universe created to order retrospectively by things that develop naturally within it. I'm not sure this is any more far-fetched as a creation story than the randomly self-generating universe idea that Dawkins seems to favor.

There are big, open, and rather wonderful questions that it is foolish to suggest are already answered. I enjoyed the issue, but please keep up the "healthy diversity" and make sure the magazine stays agnostic in areas where the evidence suggests we should be.

Paul Quincey

Teddington, Middlesex

U.K.

I picked up a copy of your magazine focused on Science, God and (Non)Belief, hoping to find informative, original ideas. But, instead of an impartial--albeit skeptical--inquiry, I found the same old diatribes, already much better written by other writers, many times over.

You certainly do not seem to be searching for any truth, because such searchers are first skeptical of themselves and their knowledge, and of the past and present mistakes and follies. (See, for example, the British journal, Philosophy Now.)

While I can understand your concern about the influence of religious dogma on society, or about the lack of scientific literacy; they both can be blamed on the squashing of intellectual curiosity in your country. It started about one hundred years ago, and it merrily continues, while the scientific community does nothing about it. With that in mind, you can hardly fight dogma with dogma, especially since yours cannot be inspiring even for your converts. They just accept it for what it is: dry, lifeless propaganda.

Wence Horak

Kelowna, B.C.

Canada

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