A short discursive forray into science and religion

A Short Essay on Science and Religion, neatly outlining some of the crucial points, written by my friend and scientist Dr. Ed Brooke

Here is my long-awaited missive on some views on science and religion for your reading pleasure! Use/destroy at will...

So, for any that know me, I am going to be arguing for the merry coexistence of science and religion, but I should say that I have been on several sides of this debate through different stages of my life, and know and love people on all sides of it, so I hope that I have a pretty wide view of the topic.

Also, one subject I won't go into is the whole faith vs religion argument. I will be treating it in a very ill-defined way as having a set of beliefs in some kind of god/God that then has some effect on how one lives one's life. Of course many (including people of 'faith') view 'religion' as a set of exclusive clubs that just excuse the right to be nasty to members of other exclusive clubs. I will hold to the more optimistic line...

I will not profer more than my own personal views here - you can look up plenty of other points of view from both sides of the coin online or in many many (too many?) books.

OK, now we have the stage set, let's get down to business.

The subject of 'evidence' has been mentioned, so let's start there. In this science v religion argument, those making the most noise are unsurprisingly the ones at the extremes. But it is worth mentioning that the quiet majority actually sit quite happily in the middle - that is to say that there are many many scientists who have faith and many people of faith who have no problems with the tenets of science. And we are not talking shoddy or fluffy scientists here, but of all levels and abilities. I have heard it say that in university Christian Unions, there are more scientists than artists.

I personally think that scientists like to put a framework on things, and many have found that there are parts of life that no scientific framework will help you solve. So they search for another, and for many the religious framework fits quite nicely.

And so it is for billions of people across the world. Now if there were obvious upsides to being religious then this would be a pretty moot point. But given that some of these people undergo considerable opposition and harm because of their views, then we have to think rather more seriously about this. Why on earth would you believe in something that causes you harm, and that there is little empirical evidence of, unless you actually believed that (a) it was true, and/or (b) it gave you some benefit to your life? Now of course we are not all martyrs, but I think they raise some interesting questions.

Let us return to the point of 'parts of life that no scientific framework will help you solve'. I like to take the example of music here (as it has rather less emotional attachment). Now as any physicist will tell you, music is just a bunch of vibrations in the air particles of various frequencies. The biologist could tell you about how the eardrum picks up the vibrations. The biochemist could tell you how the signal is transferred along the auditory nerves to the brain. The experimental psychologist could tell you about the general behaviour of the parts of the brain that are stimulated. And I am sure there are others who could talk about the importance of music in the development of humankind in terms of reinforcing identity and hence strengthening the group, therefore increasing the likelihood of survival. But none of that makes the slightest bit of difference to the feeling you get when you listen to Beethoven's Fifth, or 'Born Slippy' by Underworld. Nor is it necessary for the enjoyment the same (although I am sure that there are physicists whose enjoyment of music is enhanced greatly by the appreciation of the subtle complexities of interference involved). So I think it is plausible to state that 'an appreciation of music' and 'science' are mutually exclusive.

And I think, dear reader, you can see where I'm going from there. We could apply the same arguments to love, where an understanding of the vaguaries of oxytocin and vasopressin will do nothing to change the effect of the most powerful experiences in one's life. Similarly, understanding the behaviour of pack animals won't change how a person relates to their family and friends. So it is clear to see that in many parts of life, while science already provides a lot of answers to the questions of 'how', that does not necessarily help an individual, scientist or not, to deal with those situations.

That is not to say that there is anything wrong with the science involved - I hold the members of my profession in the highest esteem. It is just that the scientific method is not designed to answer such questions. A useful phrase I have heard is: 'science deals with the what, how and when, faith deals with the who and the why'.

To finish off this line of argument, let's say that science did have all the answers to life's questions. What would that mean for the human race? Firstly you would expect scientists' lives to be 'better' in some way. Well, I think a quick look around would suggest that this is clearly not the case. I know just as many intelligent people who struggle with drink, drugs, affairs, divorces, emotional pain and heartache as I do less intelligent. Being bright is a very useful tool and used wisely can really help to alleviate some of the problems that this world can throw at you. But, and I speak from personal experience here, it is not the be-all and end-all, and resting too much on one's own abilities can lead you down some pretty damaging alleyways. One can say exactly the same about money - there are probably just as many divorced parents at the affluent school that I teach at than at the local comp (if not more).

We are very good at conning ourselves that our lives are better than for those who are less fortunate than ourselves. However anyone who has travelled to what used to be known as the third world would know that the people they meet, often totally uneducated, are just as warm, just as friendly, and just as happy as anyone at home. I know a man who takes UK businessmen to help out 'third world' businesses to aid local development. His observations were that, while the visitors may have had much more in the way of personal wealth, those they were helping tended to be much better off 'spiritually' (i.e. in there sense of wellbeing etc.). So I think that this shows that education (scientific and otherwise) and money, while incredibly useful tools, are not the route to happiness. I think it has been interesting to see that in these economically troubled times, people's satisfaction in their job has actually improved. For once, people are seeing what they have, and are being thankful. Interesting.

Anyway I have digressed far too far. Hopefully I have shown that there are many questions in this world that science can't answer. And I have also shown that being a scientist or educated does not in itself help you navigate your way through this life. Note (and I apologise to my consulting friends) that the evidence is not necessarily of the type you can plot on a graph. But I hope that you will find it as compelling as I do.

I would hopefully think that we are now at the stage where the phrase 'scientific discovery will make religion redundant' now sounds as ridiculous as 'scientific discovery will make music redundant'. It is worth noting that this phrase was first thrown about hundreds of years ago, and religion doesn't seem to be going anywhere. While in the public press there is much talk of the demise of religion, in fact there is no such thing - for Christianity in the UK a general decrease in the 'traditional' churches has been more than compensated for by an explosion in the newer 'evangelical' churches (I use the term very loosely).

Having spoken at length about science, let's have one quick comment on 'faith'. Some people would suggest that actually not believing in a god is as much a statement of faith as believing in a god. You are still making a comment about how you believe the world works, with little evidence to support the matter. But then we get into the 'Miracle on 34th Street' situation of arguing about whether the onus is on the faithist or the anti-faithist to deliver the proof. And that seems a little silly to me. The big problem is that different people will require different levels of proof. And as mentioned before, these are questions that rarely support graphs or experiments, so the proof provided by one side will rarely be accepted as valid by the other. And this is why we end up always returning to this argument.

And the science vs religion debate has been going furiously for a hundred years with little progress being made on either side (I expect this message to make little difference too...)

A quick word to the scientists. Those who know about the philosophy of science will understand the phrase 'there is no truth in science' (for my mathematician friends, I am fully aware that there is plenty of truth in maths). Science is just a bunch of theories constructed to help us understand the world around us. Let's take the development of gravity. In ancient history people understood that things went towards the earth, and the Romans constructed complicated aqueduct systems based on an understanding of such. Then Newton formulated his theory of gravity, allowing the formulation of equations to predict motion, and eventually the launch of man into space. Now the talk is of gravitons and things of which I know very little, helping us to understand the deepest workings of the universe. Each stage in this development was useful, and each stage modelled the world more accurately. But I don't need to know about gravitons to understand that my teacup will fall to the ground and smash if I let go of it. So different levels of theories are useful for solving different problems. I should know - I teach Chemistry, where from GCSE to A-level we have to completely re-learn how atoms work, and then re-learn it all over again at University! Science changes, it ebbs and flows. As more evidence comes to light previous theories get re-evaluated and new ones get formulated. I don't expect this to end anytime soon.

I think scientists should thus be cautious at putting too much stock in their science, as I saw one internationally reknowned scientist do at a recent talk at school. Great scientist, but a touch misguided in my view.

And a quick word to the anti-scientists (put a scientist and an anti-scientist together in a room and you get an almighty explosion!). Most anti-scientists will at some point have driven a car, taken some aspirin, used a computer, carried a plastic bag, listened to an ipod, made a phone call, eaten food and worn clothes. They need to be aware that everything they do in their daily life has been modified and developed by scientists, all in order that their lives may be easier and more comfortable. And to focus on my own area of expertise, if you get ill you are going to be more indebted to the medical and pharmaceutical scientists than you know. So I think it is curious that these folk should try and poo-poo some areas of science (take, say, evolutionary biology) while being so totally indebted to the rest of the scientific community. It is the same spirit of exploration, discovery and evidence-based research that is being used in each - if you trust in the method in one area, why not trust it in another. Conversely if I were to try and understand the theory of gravity, or how to make plastic, by reading the Bible or Koran, that would be a mistake.

So where are we left up?

Well I hope that I have argued a decent case for the merry co-existence of science and religion (and I am quite chuffed that I have only used the term 'god' a couple of times!). And I hope that I have fired a few warning shots across the bows of both parties lest they get too close to fighting each other. Perhaps I should get a job with the UN peacekeepers.

As with all conflicts, perhaps what I would hope for is that each side would seek to understand the opposition better. I think each would see that there is actually much more common ground between the two than they realise. Both scientists and people of faith want to improve the world in which we live. We all want to feed the poor, heal the sick, share relationships and care for the broken-hearted. We each have our ways of rationalising the world in which we live. So we should hence be a touch careful before we polarise ourselves too far in one direction or the other. If my life is perfectly happy without understanding evolution than that's fine. And if my life is perfectly happy without any kind of faith then I would respect that too. But each side may never know when they might need the other.

And above all, we are all human and make mistakes, and I apologise if I have made any errors here. In this argument each side will naturally try to focus on the weaknesses of the other, but this would be an all too common error. In fact the weaknesses of humanity is one area where faithists (certainly Christians), game theorists and biologists are all very much on the same page!

A good read for understanding other arguments for the middle ground is 'The Language of God' by Francis Collins, top scientist and Christian. Also Cardinal Cormac O'Murphy wrote a good article in the Times on the same subject, prompted by the anniversary of Darwin.