The situation is perfectly clear. Everyone cares about good science education and Ed can go climb a tree for suggesting otherwise. But some of us also believe that it does no good to pander and condescend to people's religious beliefs by telling them that there is no conflict between science and religion. There is a conflict, it is a big one, and most people find that obvious. Clever people like Miller and Collins can find imaginative ways of reconciling the two, but few people are buying it.Yep. There's a conflict between science and religion, and ignoring it ain't gonna make it go away.
Thursday, November 30, 2006
Jason Rosenhouse on Science v Religion
Jason Rosenhouse has a lengthy posting over on EvolutionBlog. It's well worth reading. Here's a snippet ...
Is that your new intellectual standard? What else will you be teaching in your classes that has as its sole support that "most people find it obvious"?
ReplyDeleteWas Jason's very next post also well worth readin?
once again Larry, I hope your biochemistry is better than your understanding of the diversity of "religion" in the world. There is conflict between science and some religion.
ReplyDeleteMaybe I will use your book next time I teach biochem and make it easy of for my students. I will simply accept any answer that generalizes complex pathways to meaningless statements. You know..."well an enzyme changes this substrate into some product that is different" I mean after all that would describe almost all biochemical reactions at the same level of sophistication as your view of "religion".
And again, most theistic scienctists understand this, and they also understand when they have left the domain of science.
You don't
In this case, Mr. Jason and Mr. Moran are doing more than ranting against religion. You don't really need to know theology to rant against something you don't like. However, Moran and Jason are making a statement about the compatibility of science, in this case evolution, with religion. To make that kind of a statement you DO need to know theology. And if you know nothing about a particular person's religion you are in no position to say that it and evolution are mutually exclusive.
ReplyDelete-just some guy