Science vs. Religion

I’m a biology teacher, and regularly teach about and discuss evolution in the classroom. This frequently gives rise to religious discussions and/or arguments. I have had students tell me, “I don’t believe in evolution. I believe in the Bible.” For them, belief in one precludes belief in the other. This is not dissimilar to scientists who portray religion as little more than superstition, and hold that science and religion are mutually exclusive. If you believe in one, must you automatically disbelieve the other? Is it possible to believe in both?

As much as I dislike sports analogies, let’s think, for the moment, of the differences between science and religion as being similar to the differences between baseball and football. These are two very different games. They have different rules. They place different demands upon the players, and, with a few notable exceptions, individuals who are good enough to play professionally in one do not play professionally in the other.

At the same time, there is no shortage of people who are fans of both. Many individuals are able to happily cheer for both their favorite baseball and football teams, even when the two seasons briefly overlap. Attending a game in one, even being a season ticket holder, does not force you to renounce going to games of the other.

Similarly, science and religion are two very different games, with very different rules. One is based upon belief. The other is based upon doubt. One demands constant revision and documented, reproducible evidence. The other relies upon sacred texts and/or abstract epiphanies of the individual. Again, with a few notable exceptions, individuals who are good enough to play professionally in one do not play professionally in the other.

That does not mean, however, that there are not individuals who are fans of both. Each has its own set of rules, and each provides something different to the individual and to society. Contrary to the pronouncements of authorities in both, they are not mutually exclusive, nor are they, or should they be, in competition with each other. Studying and striving to understand the laws that allow the universe to function does not diminish the wonder of creation. Studying and striving to understand creation and our role within it does not diminish the capacity of the mind. In the words of Einstein, "Science without religion is lame. Religion without science is blind."

Can We Afford Science?

Many in the scientific community are still basking in the euphoria of the post election glow, and as much as I hate throwing them into the cold shower of reality, we have some important questions to address. The economy is heading south, joblessness is rising, people are losing their homes, and the government is spending hundreds of billions of dollars to bail out the financial industry. How do we convince a public staring those cold facts in the face that funding science is important?

Part of the problem is that most people feel disconnected from science. They view science as an abstraction that’s carried out by egg-headed scientists in far away labs. This view has been fostered by politicians and pundits who have a vested interest in promoting anti-intellectualism. They have literally made careers of playing upon the public’s distrust of science and reluctance to spend their hard earned tax dollars on it.

The best way to combat this is to show people that science is concrete, that it has practical uses, that it not only affects their daily lives, but is essential to them. A perfect example of this is CERN’s Large Hadron Collider. For those who are unfamiliar with it ( http://lhc.web.cern.ch/lhc/ ), this is biggest experiment in history, requiring the largest machine ever built. It is a super collider that is 27 miles in circumference. It is so big that it straddles the border between France and Switzerland, and employs scientists from all over the world. This monumental project is designed to take protons and accelerate them to 99.999999% of the speed of light and smash them into similar protons moving in the opposite direction. The purpose is to recreate the conditions of the Big Bang, in order to better understand the nature of matter that makes up the universe.

“Ho, hum. Why should we spend money on that?” This is the reaction of most people when you talk about something like this. Until you point out to them that, in order to allow all of the scientists working on this to communicate with each other, they had to invent a little thing called the World Wide Web. That ubiquitous part of our daily lives, that allows us to shop, keep in touch with our friends and family, research any topic at any time of the day or night, and even read blogs like this, was simply a spin off of the LHC.

While we’re at it, let’s mention that the personal computer that you are reading this on would have never existed without NASA’s manned space exploration program. It was the need to make computers small enough to fit into a spacecraft that led to computer chips that run everything from our cell phones to our cars, home appliances, iPods, BlackBerries, GPS and countless other things that make the modern world possible.

If we can point out things like this, then perhaps scientific funding will be viewed, less as dumping money down an academic black hole, and more as investing in the future.