Colin Blakemore (Neuroscience, Oxford)
writes an article entitled, "Science is Just One Gene Away from Defeating
Religion." He sees religion and science as opponents in a chess match. One
wonders, is it only a chess match and not a war that engage science and
religion? Thus advances in science are automatically viewed as detraction from
religion. He intimates this when he says that the discoveries of Watson and
Crick were a defeat for religion because previously life was a mystery that
implied spiritual magic.[1] He wants to see religion as some long ago
thing that science is beating. He says, “Charles Darwin's theory of evolution was certainly a vital
move in that chess game - if not checkmate. In an interview for God and the
Scientists, to be broadcast tonight in Channel 4's series on Christianity,
Richard Dawkins declares: ‘Darwin
removed the main argument for God's existence.’"[2]
Why should any success of science be an automatic defeat for religion? Religion
is not about understanding how the physical world works, yet he tells us:
Science has rampaged over the landscape of divine
explanation, provoking denial or surrender from the church. Christian leaders,
even the Catholic church, have reluctantly accommodated the discoveries of
scientists, with the odd burning at the stake and excommunication along the
way… The process of Christian accommodation is a bit like the fate of fieldmice
confronted by a combine harvester, continuously retreating into the shrinking
patch of uncut wheat.Ten days ago, on Darwin's birthday, Richard Dawkins,
Archbishop of Atheism, and Richard Harries, former Bishop of Oxford, conducted
a public conversation in the Oxford University Museum, where Bishop Sam
Wilberforce and Darwin's champion, Thomas Henry Huxley, had debated Darwin's
ideas in 1860. The two Richards were more civilised. But inevitably, Richard H
claimed for religion a territory that science can never invade, a totally safe
sanctuary for Christian fieldmice. Science is brilliant at questions that start
"how", but religion is the only approach to questions that start
"why". Throughout history, human beings have asked those difficult
"why" questions.[3]
Isn’t this really a matter of how we look at it? Since
ministers supported Darwin and
argued that his new scientific discovery was actually a help to the Gospel,[4]
it can hardly be called a defeat. It can’t be science’s job to bully religion
so what is really going on here?
In any
discussion about God in the modern world theology automatically runs into
conflict with science. Both God and science are vying for the same slot as
umpire of reality. God was formerly understood as the authority, the power, the
basis of all, God was the one who spoke “the word from on high.” Now there’s
another umpire. Science seeks to produce a limit on God. Science tells us the
way the world works thus science sets the rules for truth in modernity, perhaps
even to the point of ruling out God? We are told by many voices that God is
merely an ideology. Feuerbach said God was the mask of Money.[5]
God is the involuntary projection of human attributes.[6]
Marx wasted no time in backing it up by codifying it into doctrine. I’m going
to bracket discussion of God for now since we all know the criticism that God
is just an ideology. What about science, the challenger for the job of umpire?
Modern thought tells us science is pure objective observation of facts and direct
proof of all that is reality. Doesn’t the implication of masking ideology come
with that territory? When we examine the nature of modern science, especially in
so far as it is used in opposition to belief in God, we find that there is no
pure objective science, unsullied by the ideological impulse to impose a truth
regime upon reality, rather than to merely umpire.
But first this raises the question, if science is not
this pure unsullied ideal of fact finding, what is science? Science as it is
taught to the beginning student in her freshman year may not be the same as
science defined by the top ranks of professional scientists in their dealings
with each other. One example of the way science is introduced, Christopher G.
Morris, Dictionary of Science and Technology: Science
is systematic observations about the workings of the natural world:
1. the systematic observation of the
natural events and conditions in order to discover facts about them and to
formulate laws and principles based on these facts. 2. the organized body of
knowledge that is derived from such observations and that can be verified or
tested by further investigation. 3. any specific branch of this general body of
knowledge, such as biology, physics, geology, or astronomy.[7]
As for a general or popular definition, Webster defines
science:
1
:
the state of knowing : knowledge as
distinguished from ignorance
or misunderstanding
2
a : a department of systematized
knowledge as an object of study science of theology> b : something (as a sport
or technique) that may be studied or learned like systematized knowledge science>
3
a : knowledge or a system of knowledge covering general truths or the
operation of general laws especially as obtained and tested through scientific
method b : such knowledge or such a system of knowledge concerned with the
physical world and its phenomena : natural
science
4
: a
system or method reconciling
practical ends with scientific laws
science and an art>
5
capitalized : christian
science
Number one would include theology. The circularity of number
4 should be apparent. Number 2 does include theology, and also can include
anything that has been rigorously systematized. We know this by the tag phrase
“have it down to a science.” In other words when you tell someone “you have
that down to a science” you can say that about anything from cooking to martial
arts. Number three is one that deals with our usual understanding of science,
what we mean by “science” when we argue with atheists about science. That is
not the only form of knowledge, or “there’s no scientific evidence for God.”
a : knowledge or a system of knowledge covering general truths or the
operation of general laws especially as obtained and tested through scientific
method b : such knowledge or such a system of knowledge concerned with the
physical world and its phenomena : natural
science
We all know what we mean by science. We all know that
science is a pure and true endeavor that is derived from observations of fact
so it can’t be misguided. Yet once we ask “what is the nature of science?” and
begin to really study it we find it’s not all that clear. In fact there seems
to be an epistemological crisis brewing that threatens to pull out all the
nails in everything that modernity has so carefully nailed down. For example
how do we know which version of “science’ the fist two definitions above are
discussing?
It might be
good to consult other sources of definition. There is no official Science Bible
to turn to and get the very most authoritative ruling on the matter. We can
consult other text books. University
of Georgia Geology Department puts
out an online page for students that include many definitions. It moves from
most standard to “revealing.” Dr. Sheldon Gottlieb in his lecture
series, “Religion and Science, Best of Enemies, Worst of Friends,”
Science is an intellectual activity
carried on by humans that is designed to discover information about the natural
world in which humans live and to discover the ways in which this information
can be organized into meaningful patterns. A primary aim of science is to
collect facts (data). An ultimate purpose of science is to discern the order
that exists between and amongst the various facts. [8]
The statement “discern the order that exists between and
among the various facts,” allows for social science such as sociology,
psychology, history, economics, and yet it also opens the door to metaphysics.
The statement itself limits science to the natural world, thus hinting at a
domain of science. Yet the it also leaves unanswered just what that domain is.
For social scientists the limits will be much looser than for physical
sciences. Another statement about the nature of science pins it down to the
natural world: “Science involves more than the gaining of knowledge. It is the
systematic and organized inquiry into the natural world and its phenomena.
Science is about gaining a deeper and often useful understanding of the world.”[9] Of
course science is about a deeper understanding “of the world.” What does that
mean? Is it about understanding the world of metaphysics? Or is it about
understanding the world of politics, or the world of meta ethics? What kind of
understanding? Is that quotation limited to the “natural” world? Does it mean
all “worlds” of our conceptualizing? The more varied the definition the looser
they become. We see the definitions drifting away form the concept of
systematic understandings of the workings of the physical world and nothing
more. It’s in those “stretches” of definition that are probably designed to
allow flexible field of study that we see creeping in various agendas such as
the ruination of religion. This is strictly speaking not a goal of science, not
even part of science’s business. These kinds of hobby horses are inherently
part of science as long as it is not kept to a rigid dogmatic limitation. I am
not arguing for such a rigid dogmatic limitation in the understanding of
science. I am arguing for clearly identifying the distinction between science
and it’s “others.” Being aware we should be leery of assuming that science is
the only form of knowledge.
As important
as deciding what science is and what it’s not, is an understanding of it’s
domain. Of course domain will be related to the nature of science and thus
definition of what science is will set an understanding of its domain. For
example, if science is limited to the systemic observation of the workings of
the physical world then it’s domain is the physical world. That means
statements issued in the name of science about the lack of realms beyond the
physical and their alleged non existence are departures form the scientific
mission and bleed into realms of philosophy and metaphysics. If the purveyors
of science as the only form of knowledge want to try and include philosophy in
science as a section of scientific observation, then they must also accept
philosophy as a whole as a valid endeavor and a potentially valid form of
knowledge. Stephen J. Gould, a major voice in science of the late twentieth
century, proposed a concept of division between science and religion called
Non-overlapping Magisteria, or NOMA. The idea is that science and religion are
about different aspects of reality. Their teaching authority (magisteria) is
not competing so they don’t overlap
Science tries to document the factual
character of the natural world, and to develop theories that coordinate and
explain these facts. Religion, on the other hand, operates in the equally
important, but utterly different, realm of human purposes, meanings, and
values—subjects that the factual domain of science might illuminate, but can
never resolved.[10]
Yet Gould’s idea has not gone unchallenged. Richard Dawkins
challenged the notion on the grounds that the areas of interest do overlap. Yet
he didn’t just say ok let’s look at the Genesis creation story, the obvious
point of overlap. No he claimed for science all territory including moral
ground. It’s not just an overlap but there’s no ground left to assign to
religion. He speaks as though science gets to control all of reality, including
ethical theory. See the chapter on ethics for an understanding of the problem
here.
More generally it is completely unrealistic to claim, as Gould and many
others do, that religion keeps itself away from science's turf, restricting
itself to morals and values. A universe with a supernatural presence would be a
fundamentally and qualitatively different kind of universe from one without.
The difference is, inescapably, a scientific difference. Religions make
existence claims, and this means scientific claims.
The same is true of many of the major doctrines of the Roman Catholic
Church. The Virgin Birth, the bodily Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the
Resurrection of Jesus, the survival of our own souls after death: these are all
claims of a clearly scientific nature. Either Jesus had a corporeal father or
he didn't. This is not a question of "values" or "morals";
it is a question of sober fact. We may not have the evidence to answer it, but
it is a scientific question, nevertheless. You may be sure that, if any
evidence supporting the claim were discovered, the Vatican
would not be reticent in promoting it. [11]
He argues that because we don’t have a clear idea of when
the soul emerged our pre-human ancestors then of course the idea is absurd and
we can’t assert that there is a soul. He says: “Well, what are these two
distinctly different domains, these "Nonoverlapping Magisteria" that
should snuggle up together in a respectful and loving concordat? Gould again:
"The net of science covers the empirical universe: what is it made of
(fact) and why does it work this way (theory). The net of religion extends over
questions of moral meaning and value." While Dawkins seems to take the
tact that there’s nothing beyond the material so therefore if Science gets the
material realm then it has everything. Of course it doesn’t dawn upon him that
there might be other ways of looking at the same aspects of life. In so making
this “in your face” attack upon all religion Dawkins reveals clearly an
ideological sense of “all or nothing.” Gould was not as aggressive as Dawkins,
but then he wasn’t as ideological either. Yet he did make provision for the one
obvious point of overlap in the conflict about Genesis fomented by creationism.
He dealt with it by turning to the Catholic Church which regards evolution as
not a problem and which does not insist upon the literal nature of six day
creation. Science has the authority thorough its power as systematic debunker
of bad ideas to demonstrate the falsehood of such literalism.[12]
Gould used the Catholic Church to resolve the problem. The Catholics had never
had the problems with evolution that Protestants had. They had made statements
to this effect historically. On Oct 22, 1996 Pope John Paul II reinforced
this as Gould points out. He points to the document “truth cannot contradict
truth,” the Pontifical Academy of Sciences. He then deals with creationism by
writing it off as fanatical and unscientific. [13] Dawkins is not content. He
wants to remove religion form reality. Thus he asserts that since physical
reality is all there is, and science is about physical reality, there’s nothing
left for religion to be about. While it is true that the scientific domain is
limited to the mechanical workings of the physical world that does not,
however, mean that it can move on from that position and assume that all the
other view points are under its domain.
Science is
limited to the physical domain and it is also limited to a naturalistic
framework. It’s not an automatic qualification to denounce unseen realms. Areas
of concept that defy our direct empirical observation are beyond our understanding
that is not proof in itself that they don’t exist. To then assert that they
must not because knowledge of them is not rendered through science is a
philosophical statement and not a scientific one. Neil deGrasse Tyson in his
article “The Perimeter of Ignorance” demarcates the domain of science by
observing that where scientists run out of factual material they evoke God. Where
factual knowledge ends science’s domain ends, but science can keep extending
the domain by continuing to seek knowledge.[14]
That staves off belief because God is evoked where knowledge runs out. That is
a wrong concept because it imposes the wrong view of religion, that religion is
failed primitive science. Tyson’s concept of the perimeter of ignorance helps
us understand the nature of science and its proper boundary in relation to
other topics. The problem with it is that it seems to imply that religion only
takes over where we have no facts, thus implying that religion is also about
understanding the workings of the world but it just doesn’t proceed by
collecting facts. That may not be Tyson’s true concept. Tyson’s argument turns
out to be a prefect example of the thesis; it’s really a tirade against
intelligent design. So he’s willing to move beyond what we can know about the
workings of the physical world to explain what the working of the physical
world is not predicated upon. Not that I am defending intelligent design. I am
neither an intelligent design advocate nor am I a creationist. What I do seek
is to separate the conflict between science and religion in such a way as to
understand what is really conflicted. Often times what people take to be science
is really one of it’s “others,” the ideologies that ride on the coat tails of
science.
What many take to be a conflict between
religion and science is really something else. It is a conflict between
religion and materialism. Materialism regards itself as scientific, and indeed
is often called “scientific materialism,” even by its opponents, but it has no
legitimate claim to be part of science. It is, rather, a school of philosophy,
one defined by the belief that nothing exists except matter, or, as Democritus
put it, “atoms and the void.”
However, there is more to materialism than this cold ontological negation. For many, scientific materialism is not a bloodless philosophy but a passionately held ideology. Indeed, it is the ideology of a great part of the scientific world. Its adherents see science as having a mission that goes beyond the mere investigation of nature or the discovery of physical laws. That mission is to free mankind from superstition in all its forms, and especially in the form of religious belief.[15]
However, there is more to materialism than this cold ontological negation. For many, scientific materialism is not a bloodless philosophy but a passionately held ideology. Indeed, it is the ideology of a great part of the scientific world. Its adherents see science as having a mission that goes beyond the mere investigation of nature or the discovery of physical laws. That mission is to free mankind from superstition in all its forms, and especially in the form of religious belief.[15]
One of the major “others” of science is materialism.
Materialism is an ideology that tends to be preferred by many scientific types,
and thus is often confused with science, or accompanies it in the world views
of those who do science or a living. It often forms the basic assumption made
in the sciences about domain and about the nature of things. At this point it
would be good to ask about the nature of ideology.
What is ideology?
Webster
defines ideology as “visionary theorizing.” Secondly, it defines ideology as a
“systematic body of concept especially about human life or culture.” Here it
makes three subdivisions: “a : a systematic body of concepts especially about human life or
culture b : a manner or the content of thinking characteristic of an
individual, group, or culture c : the integrated assertions, theories and aims that constitute
a sociopolitical program.” [16] So we see it’s theorizing, it’s not the great fortress of facts
that some wish the mystique of science to imply. An ideology is a social
movement or a political movement. Another dictionary brings this out more
clearly:
1.
the body of doctrine, myth, belief, etc., that guides an individual, social
movement,
institution, class, or large group.
2.
such
a body of doctrine,
myth, etc., with reference to some political
and social plan,
as that of fascism, along with the devices
for putting it into
operation.
3.
Philosophy .
a.
b.
4.
According to John Adams Napoleon popularized the word “ideology,” which was used by the French philosophes. They used it in a positive light to highlight their own ideas, and in a negative sense to characterize folly of others. Adams said that ideology was an attempt to explain reality because it was too complex.[`18] According to Terry Eagleton there is no one single meaning of the term, yet he seems to have clear enough idea what he means by it. It’s very common to find Marxists and other kinds of social and political revolutionaries using it as though it means the legitimating story telling that the dominate structure uses to justify its power. So ideology is what the other guys say to make themselves seem right. As Eagleton points out, does that mean the rebelling faction doesn’t have their own ideology? They never exaggerate or justify but always tell the truth? He says, “If, for example, ideology means any set of beliefs motivated by social interests, then it can’t simply signify the dominate forms of thought in a society.”[19] Ideology is what the other guy has, he claims. No one owns up to being ideological. Then in his review of Dawkins’s book The God Delusion it’s pretty clear where Eagleton thinks Dawkins can be placed in relation to ideology:
Card Carrying Rationalists like Dawkins, who is the nearest thing to a professional atheist that we have had since Bertrand Russell are in one sense the least well equipped to understand what they castigate, since they don’t believe there is anything there to be understood, or at least anything worth understanding. This is why they invariably come up with vulgar caricatures of religious faith that would make a first year theology student wince.[20]
For practical
purpose I defined ideology thusly: One idea that defines the world and
determines how one sees everything filtering all perceptions through the lens
of its truth regime.
Ideology and Science
It seems
that from the upper echelons of the world of books to the mid level management
of opinion leaders in movements such as new atheism, to the popular level of
the internet and message boards, a myth has spread far and wide that science is
the only form of knowledge. James Felton Keith quotes the architect of physicalism
Otto Neurath as saying: “according to phsyicalism the language of physics is
the universal language of science and any knowledge can be brought back to the
statements on physical objects.”[21]
In 1964 George Richmond Walker wrote: “the thesis that art is important
because, like science it gives us knowledge of reality has not faired well in
modern philosophy [among logical positivists and the analytic school] “…all
cognitive experience belongs to science and they hold that the business of the
philosopher is to analyze the methods, terms, and laws of science in order to
clarify their logical structure and empirical content.” Even though this was
written in the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists way backing 1964,[22]
it apparently has filtered down the masses. We find the whole movement of new
atheism thriving on this idea and the mid level management of that movement and
the popular level are abuzz with it. As Mark Thomas of the popular level
internet group “godless geeks” tells us:
Our understanding of the world around
us, and our abilities to predict what will happen are based on naturalism — the
basis of science. Naturalism is also the basis for how all people live
their lives most of the time.
To be explicit, modern science relies
on methodological naturalism. This means that science doesn’t incorporate
any supernatural or religious assumptions and doesn’t seek any religious or
supernatural explanations. Science is the use of evidence to construct
testable explanations and predictions of natural phenomena, as well as the
knowledge generated through this process. Science also depends on
mathematics, which likewise has no religious or supernatural component.[23]
On the strictly popular level, Answers.com tells us “Science
is the only form of knowledge. There is no way to know something without
it being scientific in some way.”[24]
Stephen Barr comments:
From the positivists this is to be
expected. That’s what their movement was about, philosophy embraced that it’s
not science and seeking to gain its shore of control through the priesthood of
knowledge. That Walker analyzes the fortunes of art as an epistemic resource is
merely the valid job of a top level thinker in the world of letters, it’s what
they do. When popular sources start saying things like “naturalism is the basis
of science” then we have cause for concern. Naturalism is not the basis for how
we know things nor is it the basis of science. Naturalism is a philosophy and
an ideology and science is the basis of it.[225]
I can
understand why one would say that science is naturalistic, because science must
assume naturalistic means of knowing. There’s a big difference in saying that
science must make naturalistic assumptions and that “naturalism”
is the basis of science! The poppy chock that “there is no way to know anything
unless it’s scientific” is just popular twaddle. I know what I had for
breakfast without using science. They are making a leap form “scientific
Knowing” to “naturalism” as though they are the same thing. Naturalism is an
ideological understanding of the world. If science is ordinary and so all
encompassing those ordinary observations that have no systematic nature are
part of science then religious belief is part of science too. These are
philosophical statements they are not scientific statements. They represent a
philosophical doppelganger of science that rides on its coattails. Science is
not a sweeping proclamation on the nature of all reality.
The problem
is no one actually sticks to this. People who do science for a living, people
who just love science and read about it in their spare time, as well as people
who know almost nothing about it other than that society reveres it as the
umpire of reality, all confuse the ends of science with their own agendas. They
all baptize their own projects, beliefs, ideologies and prejudices in the light
of science and confuse the goals and ends of the latter with the former.
Richard Dawkins confuses the goals of science with his own distaste for
religion. Others try to expand science into he realm of ethics, while still
others regard it as the only form of knowledge and use it as a replacement for
metaphysics and epistemology (all the while denouncing metaphysics and
epistemology as “stupid philosophy that makes stuff up’). It’s hard to find
pure scientific motives and at the same time stay within the domain of science
which is firmly planted in the department of “workings of the physical world.” Those
who love and do science are humans and they are prejudiced and biased and they
mix their own motives, agendas and ideologies with the doing of science. For
this reason science is a relative human construct. It is not the only form of
knowledge and it is not the arbiter of all reality. These ideologies that
attach themselves to science are the “others” of science.
E.O.
Wilson’s Consilience: The unity of Knowledge, is a prefect example of
what I’m talking about in terms of mistaking one’s ideological goals for
science. Of course Wilson is one of
the major thinkers in science in this century and at the end of the last
century. Consilience is perhaps his Magnum Opus. In this work Wilson shows us his path and his
ambitions that mark out exactly the syndrome I’m talking about. Even the
subtitle is a frank admission that he’s reducing all forms of knowledge to one.
He points out that in his childhood he loved the classification system of ants.
He was very attracted to the study of ants. He read about the classification
system of Carolus Linnacus, as a boy and was greatly impressed. Then a bit
latter he discovered evolution. He writes about that auspicious moment: “Then I
discovered evolution. Suddenly--that is not too strong a word—I saw the world
in a whole new way…” an insight that he describes as an “epiphany.”[26]
He gives us a key to understanding his fascination. He says that the brilliance
of Ernst Mayr’s 1942 Systematics and the Origin of the Species, “by
giving a theoretical structure to natural history, it vastly expanded the
Linnaean enterprise. A tumbler fell somewhere in my mind and a door opened to a
new world.”[27] That is a wonderful
description of that process whereby new vistas dawn in the mind and one
suddenly realizes “a whole new world lies before me with this…” such was my own
feeling when I first discovered Bruce Wiltshire’s book Metaphsyics,[28]
or when I read William Faulkner for the first time (Light in August).
Both were in my sophomore year of high school. Nor is there anything wrong with
evolution or Darwin and gaining a
larger perspective on science and the world through reading Darwin.
Yet it does seem as though he just doesn’t want to stop classifying all of
reality until he’s classified everything his way. This is so because he argues
for putting everyone under one label, science is the only form of knowledge.
He says:
The enhancement, growing steadily more sophisticated,
has dominated scientific thought ever since. In modern physics its focus has
been the unification of all the forces of nature—electro weak, strong and
gravitation—the hoped for consolidation of theory so tight as to turn the
science into a “perfect” system of thought which by the sheer weight of evidence and logic is made resistant to
revision. But the spell of enchantment extends to other fields as well, and in
the minds of a few it reaches beyond into the social sciences, and still
further as I will explain latter, to touch the humanities.[29]
He’s taking the notion of science organizing our
understanding of reality to the point of redefining our knowledge and subsuming
the understanding of other fields. The term consilience is defined by
Webster’s as “the linking together of principles from
different disciplines especially when forming a comprehensive theory.”
There’s not necessarily anything wrong with a comprehensive theory. Yet is does
seem subsuming of other fields and thus probably doesn’t consider other view
points very well. Wilson is not an
atheist. He speaks of his view of all embracing scientific view freeing him
from the confines of Christian fundamentalism, but having been passionately
religious in his youth, he turns to the metaphor or symbol of Ionian thought in
science as the new way for those seeking redemption from purposelessness. He
also speaks of the wonderful feeling of the taste of unification in
metaphysics; clearly exceeding the domain of science as studying the workings
of the natural world. He doesn’t see himself as anti-religious but as offering
a way for those who see more than religious traditions allow.[30] Perhaps that is a valid aim for science. On
the other hand the temptation to play God and control all other forms of
knowledge is clearly a strong one for some and it’s made its mark in the new
atheist movement. Why should we have a unified knowledge that subsumes other
fields? That’s at best “totalizing” and at worst fascistic. As Arthur Warmoth
observes, “the idea of the unity of knowledge seems to be a will-of-the-wisp
that has periodically led western philosophy into the dangerous night bogs of
hubris.”[31]
He understands Wilson to seek the
reduction of all meaning to one definition controlled by one discipline, the
sciences. The problem there is that there distinction between making meaning
coherent and making it “unified.”
It
is certainly true that induction, deduction, abstraction, and the exploration
of causal relationships have permitted natural science in the Greco-Christian
West to conquer territories beyond the reach of the scientific efforts of any
other culture. The natural sciences have been uniquely successful in
understanding nature. However, there are other meanings of "meaning"
that have proven important in human intellectual life across many cultures. It
is useful, and it fits into the paradigm of contemporary cognitive science, to
see these different types of meaning as different types of patterns of
abstraction that can be used to order sensory data.[32]
Wilson is just
one thinker, but he is not alone in his attack on forms of knowledge other than
science. He did, however spawn a whole sub-discipline that seems more
ideological than scientific: Wilson
started sociobiology and then it transmogrified into evolutionary psychology.
[1] Colin Blackemore,
"Science is Just One Gene Away from Defeating Religion." The
Guardian. Originally from the Observer. 21st of Febuary,
2009. On Line:
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2009/feb/22/genetics-religion
accessed 10/29/13.
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2009/feb/22/genetics-religion
accessed 10/29/13.
[2] Ibid.
[3] Ibid.
[4] David C. Lindberg, Ronald L.Numbers, ed., God and Nature: Historical Essays on the
Encounter Between Christianity and Science. Berkeley, Los Angelis: University
of California Press, 1986. 372-374.
[5] Van A. Harvey, Feuerbach
and The Interpretation of Religion, Carmbridge: Press Syndicate for the University
of Cambridge, Cambridge
Studies in Religion and Critical Thought, 1995/1997, 4.
Harvey is
professor emeritus, taught religious studies at Stanford Univesity. His Ph.D.
from Yale in 1957. His thesis supervisor was H.Richard Neibhur.
[6] Ibid., 25.
[7] Christopher G. Morris,
Academic Press Dictionary of Science & Technology quoted on in “some
definitions of science” addendum to Geol 1122 “what is and isn’t science” Universlity
of Georgia Department of Geology, on line resource, URL: http://www.gly.uga.edu/railsback/1122sciencedefns.html visited 2/11/11.
[8] Sheldon Gottlieb,
quoted on the University of Georgia addendum Ibid. Originally from his lecture
Harbinger Symposium, “Religion and Science the best of enemies the worst of
Friends,” Mobile,. Alabama, April 3d 1997
[9] University
of Georgia Addendum GEOL 1122 originally: from the Multicultural
History of Science page at Vanderbilt
University.
[10] Stephen Jay Gould, Rocks
of Ages: Science and Religion in the Fullness of Life, New
York: Ballantine Books, 1999, 3.
[11] Richard Dawkins, “When
Religion Steps on Science’s Turf: The Alledged Seperation Between the Two is
not So Tidy.” Council for Secular Humanism, Free Inquiry Magazine volume 18, no 2, no date given. Online
publication URL: http://www.secularhumanism.org/library/fi/dawkins_18_2.html accessed 9/19/13.
The article is credited to volume 18, no 2 but when I
look up the issue sperately the article is not there. Yet it is online at the
page URL above.
[12] Stephen J. Gould, “Non
Overlapping Magisteria,” Leonardo’s Mountain of Clams and the Diet of Worms,
[13] Ibid.
[14] Neil deGrasse Tyson,
“The Perimeter of Ignorance,” Natural History, Nov. 2005, on line copy: URL:
[15] Stephen Barr, “Retelling
the Story of Science,” First Things,
March (2003) on line version:
http://www.firstthings.com/article/2007/01/retelling-the-story-of-science-24 accessed 12/9/2013
[16] Marion-Webster’s
dictionary online, “Ideology,” URL: http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/ideology accessed 9/19/13.
[17] Dictionary.com,
American Heritage new Dictionary of Cultural Literacy. 3d, edition,Houghton
Mifflin Company 2005, online resource, URL: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/ideology accessed 9/19/13
[18] Jospeh J. Ellis, Founding
Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation, New York,
New York: Vintage, 2005, 238.
Adams was explaining to Jefferson that he had been too
idealistic in accepting all the French revolution has to offer and the meaning
of the term “ideology” indicated a false infatuation with things only partially
understood, that Jefferson was carried away with the romance and was too open
to the entire program of the philsophes without understand it well enough.
[19] Terry Eagleton, Ideology,
London, Brooklyn
New York: Verso, 1991, 2.
Eagleton is professor of English at Lancaster
University (England)
and is a major literary critic.
[20] Terry Eagleton, “Lunging,
Flailing, Mispunching,” London Review of Books, vol 28, no 20 (19 October)
2006, 32-34.
[21] James Felton Keith,
“Integrationalism: Essays on the Rationale of Abnundance.” Detroit,
Michigan: Think ENXIT press, no date
listed, online URL: http://books.google.com.br/books?id=dgOinwwR-FoC&pg=PA12&dq=%22According+to+physicalism,+the+language%22#v=onepage&q=%22According%20to%20physicalism%2C%20the%20language%22&f=false visited 1/11/11.
[22] George Richmond
Walker, “Art, Science, and Reality,
“ Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists Sept. 1964, 9. on line version: URL:
http://books.google.com/books?id=xgcAAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA9&lpg=PA9&dq=science+is+the+only+form+of+knowledge&source=bl&ots=MZJYHUMFpM&sig=pB9flvCGNQnTWSGqGUH4jsiYbhg&hl=en&ei=F0LuTbqDMo6CtgeRqaSYCQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CBUQ6AEwADgK#v=onepage&q=science%20is%20the%20only%20form%20of%20knowledge&f=true visited 1/11/11
[23] Mark Thomas, “Why
Atheism?: History and Development of Science and Scientific Naturalism.” Web
page URL: http://www.godlessgeeks.com/WhyAtheism.htm visited 1/11/11.
Thomas apparently has some kind of job in computers and
belongs to an organization called “godless geeks.” I quote him because his view
illustrates the thinking at the popular internet level.
[24] Answers.com, Wiki
Answers.”Is science the supreme form of Knowledge?” on line resource: URL:
http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Is_science_the_supreme_form_of_knowledge visited 1/11/11.
http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Is_science_the_supreme_form_of_knowledge visited 1/11/11.
[25] Stephen M. Barr,
“Re-Telling The Story of Science,” Op cit.
[26] E.O. Wilson, Consilience:
The Unity of Knowledge. New York:Vintage
Books, division of Random House,First
edition, 4.
Wilson is
two time winner of Pulitzer prize, he was biologoy professor at Harvard. His
specialty is myrmecology, the study of ants, he is the world’s leading expert.
He is very well known and has won many awards for his popular level writing on
science and humanism.
[27] Ibid. 4
[28] Bruce Wiltshire, Metaphysics:
An Introduction to Philosophy. Indianapolis,
Indiana: Bobbs-Merrill Co., First edition,
1969.
[29] Wilson, Consilience…Op
Cit., 5
[30] Ibid., 6-7.
[31] Arthur Warmoth,
“Reflections on Concilience,” Comments on revew of E.O. Wilson’s Concilience.
On line resource, http://www.sonoma.edu/users/w/warmotha/consilience.html accessed 9/22/13.
Warmoth is professor of psychology at Sonoma
State University.
[32] Ibid.
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