The Two Cultures

[nameandnature]

I was part of an interesting discussion last night at a party. We got onto science and religion, and one of our number, who I'll call F, was pretty steadfast in asserting that science and religion were the same sort of thing. Her reasons were partly that science grew out of religion, I think, and partly that both are engaged in a search for truth.

We got side-tracked a bit by trying to define religion in a way which doesn't include ballroom dancing, say (funny clothes, weekly meetings, rituals... hmmm). Like the judge asked to adjudicate between erotica and pornography, we know religion when we see it, so we agreed that Christianity was a religion, say, so we could talk about that rather than religion in the abstract.

The scientists (or at least, people who'd studied science as undergraduates) argued that the methods that religion and science were the key difference between them. Christianity typically begins with the statements of the church or of the Bible, science typically begins with a hypothesis which is confirmed (or refuted) by experiment. While it's not true to say that there's no valid knowledge outside the scientific process, where Christianity does make claims about things happening outside people's heads, those claims are susceptible to science, per Dawkins.

F made the point that we might eventually supersede the scientific method with something else, and that science might lead us to evidence for the existence of God. Both of these are things which are possible but haven't happened yet, I suppose.

She also pointed out that people like Dawkins would want to exclude bad or fraudulent scientists from our definition of science, but were happy to rail at the worst of Christianity, people who most Christians think are crazy. In other words, Dawkins is aiming at straw men. I didn't get a chance to think about this properly, but in the Dawkins case, his argument in The God Delusion is intentionally very broad, and takes in the mainstream version of Christianity as well as the fundamentalists. I'd also add that science is better at correcting for bad science than Christianity is at correcting for bad Christians, precisely because it is actually possible to show someone's science to be wrong.

We then talked about reality as a construct and F said that maybe there wouldn't be gravity if people didn't believe in it. Nobody was willing to jump out of the window and try this, although someone did drop a cracker on the table to confirm that they even keep it on at weekends. We did say that it was easy to see how that might be the case if solipsism were true, but it was hard to see how many minds agreed on a reality if each of them had the power to change it (which sort of begs the question, since we were assuming that people do agree). I mentioned that people on uk.religion.christian who think that matter arises from consciousness, and not vice-versa, who might believe something similar to F.

At the end of it all, scribb1e and I were struck by the failure of the majority, who were scientists or mathematicians by education, to connect with F, a liberal arts person, and vice-versa. I hope F didn't feel too put upon. More than that, though, I wondered how many people hold similar sort of views to hers, who I never meet because I mainly have these sorts of discussions with scientists.



[Poll #855650]

Comments

[bluap.livejournal.com]

Not having been raised religiously, I've also felt that my belief in "science" was similar to a religious belief. In both cases, there is a model of the world which you take on trust because someone in authority tells you "this is so". There is little difference between believing that the world was created in 6 days because your priest says so, and believing that the universe was created in a "big bang" because your science teacher says so. In both cases, you choose your own world model, based on what feels "right". The closest I've had to a "religious" relevation was on reading a Scientific American article on Chaotic Inflation - the theory was so elegant, and fit so well with my model of the world that I've chosen to believe it to be true, with no supporting evidence whatsoever.

Of course, Scientists tell you that their story of the world is different, since you can apply the "scientific method" and test it for yourself. However, how many of us actually take this option? In practice, 99.9999% of people take it on trust. How is this any different than taking it on trust that Moses parted the Red Sea, that thunder is created by the Hammer of Odin, or that when we die we will be reincarnated as a dragonfly? And a lot of religions have equivalents to the "scientific method": if we pray enough, or drink the shaman's "special potion" , or meditate, or enter the cave that is the gateway to Hades, then we will have proof of their story of the world.

However, now I've spoke to various religious people, I've realised that the "story of how the world is" is only one part of a modern religion. There is also the "how we should live our lives" (eg morals / "christian values" / burning the heathen etc), the "day-to-day worship" (eg not mixing meat and milk / eating the symbolic body of god / sacrificing goats to ensure a good harvest / etc), and the "what will happen if you're bad" (eg go to hell / lump of coal in Xmas stocking / perpetually pushing a boulder up a mountain).

Science represents the "how the world is" aspect of a religion. As a non-religious person, that aspect of a religion is what you are taught at school, so I naturally felt that it was the most important part of a religion. However, speaking to various current (and ex-) religious people, I have found that a lot of them equate "religion" with the "day-to-day worship" aspect, and ignore the other aspects. Others talk about the "how we should live our lives" aspect. However, a moral code cannot be the entirety of a religion: most western "non-religious" people live by the same moral code as western Christians. And this moral code is a lot different from the moral code of earlier Christians ("burn them, God will know his own" etc).

In summary, I feel that science has some aspects of religion. I also feel that the vast majority of people take science "on faith", in the same way as we might take religious teachings "on faith". However, science doesn't have the "day-to-day" aspects of a religion, which many religious people identify as being the core of their faith. Neither does it have a set of moral values, nor a "what will happen if your're bad" viewpoint. As to which parts are necessary to form a religion, I don't think that it's possible to make a firm line in the sand. Many so-called "religions" are missing one (or more) of the above aspects, making classification as a "religion" a matter of semantics.

[liv]

I don't know you, but I really like this comment. Science isn't a religion, but it sometimes behaves like one, particularly when the actual thing practised by scientists and the scientific establishment diverges from the ideal of what Science should be. Certainly, I have no hesitation in classifying Dawkins' dogmatic materialism with a smattering of communal cohesion as a religion, and a rather dumb one at that.

pw201, have you come across Peter Lipton? You seem to be a bit inclined towards attempting to align your beliefs with those of the most intelligent person you can find, and while Dawkins is undoubtedly intelligent and an excellent communicator, he is also pontificating (and I use that word deliberately) about things that are way outside his field. Philosophy of science is Lipton's actual academic speciality, and he is personally religious, both of which I think make him better qualified to talk about religion than an evolutionary biologist with ego issues. And don't be scared off by the idea of reading high level academic philosophy; Lipton is extremely accessible.

[lisekit.livejournal.com]

Hey, small world! I knew Peter Lipton ten years ago, when he was but a PhD student. Nice chap.

[liv]

I think we must be talking about different people; I am nearly certain that Lipton was not a PhD student 10 years ago. Even a genius doesn't go from PhD student to head of a department of Cambridge University in 10 years. I moved to Cambridge in 1996 and I'm pretty sure he was already faculty by then. Googling suggests he was appointed in about 1991.

[scribb1e.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the reference to the Peter Lipton essay. He lost me a bit in the middle but as far as I can summarise his argument it went something like this:

- religion and science can provide different ways of looking at things.
- sometimes they contradict each other
- this is a problem for someone who is trying to hold both viewpoints

He goes on to discuss how, then, one should read a religious text in the light of scientific knowledge.

After exploring a few different options he comes to the conclusion that the best solution is immersion - that is, suspending disbelief and immersing oneself in the world of the text. A bit like reading a novel, say.

I found this quite interesting because someone had recently suggested it to me as a way to read Buddhist scriptures. It seems a more satisfactory solution than simply ignoring all the bits you think are unlikely (as Lipton points out) resulting in a text full of holes.

His last subtitle is "Religion without Belief". This is certainly possible and even necessary in Buddhism. Traditionally, one of the "fetters" that must be broken in order to gain awakening is that of "fixed view", or dogmatic belief.

I'm not sure how it applies to other religions, though. Christianity or Islam without belief sounds unlikely.

[gjm11.livejournal.com]

I had a look at Lipton's paper. Here's an only-slightly-unkind executive summary:

1. Science and religious belief are in conflict.

2. We could deal with this by abandoning one or the other, but I don't want to.

3. Instead, what we can do is to preserve the *content* of religious belief but change our *attitude* to what it says. In particular, I'll keep all the religious teachings but adopt an attitude of disbelief instead of one of belief to some of them, thus solving the problem.

4. More specifically, I'll interpret the Bible literally and "immerse" myself in religious attitudes and activities, while understanding that much of what the Bible, and my religion, actually say is quite wrong.

5. You might think this is hypocritical, but it's the nearest approach to integrity I can find while preserving my attachment to both science and religion.

Lipton writes well, and he's obviously a clever chap and a pretty clear thinker. That he finds this sort of stuff acceptable seems to me an example of how religion can corrupt an intelligent mind by fostering an acceptance of the unacceptable.

Here's a representative quotation, the very end of the article.

Some of the claims of religion may conflict with the claims of science. The immersion solution does not aim to remove that inconsistency, but by distinguishing acceptance from belief it finds a way to achieve consistency of belief with out effacing incompatibility of content. On this approach, we preserve content by adjusting our attitude towards it. We have literalism without fundamentalism; inconsistency without irrationality. There is conflict between some of the claims we invoke, but not in what we believe.To some this may smack of hypocrisy, but in the context of the relation between science and religion I myself think it is one route to personal and intellectual integrity, a route which tries to preserve as much as possible from both religion and science without ignoring the tensions between them.

Lipton frankly characterizes what he's offering as "religion without belief". He wants to preserve the rituals and traditions and (some of) the values of his religion while not actually believing in (what someone more conservative might consider) its key teachings. Well, OK, but it seems very implausible that the best way to live is actually to immerse oneself in a tradition founded on falsehoods.

[scribb1e.livejournal.com]

Bizarrely, Lipton seems to recommend the same approach to the Bible as Dawkins does.

In 'The God Delusion' Dawkins says that he thinks that the Bible (especially the KJV, everyone's favorite) is important to our literature and heritage, comparable to the Iliad. He thinks everyone should read it, but read it like any other work of myth or fiction.

Unless I'm mistaken, that's what Lipton thinks too ;-)

[(Anonymous)]

He's a bit more positive than Dawkins :-) in that he wants not only to read it but to live by it, kinda-sorta, when he considers it appropriate to do so, etc. What he calls "immersion". But yes, he is basically abandoning religion as far as actual *belief* is concerned. A bit like Martin Rees (if Dawkins is to be trusted), who allegedly is a practising Anglican not because he believes Christianity is right but out of a sort of tribal loyalty. (The word "tribe" is allegedly Rees's.)

[gjm11.livejournal.com]

Oops. That was me.

[nameandnature]

You seem to be a bit inclined towards attempting to align your beliefs with those of the most intelligent person you can find

Heh. I don't think that I've entirely aligned my views to those of Dawkins. The God Delusion contains flaws, some of which I mentioned in my review, others of which have been pointed out by other reviewers (while I don't think Terry Eagleton's "not my God" defence can be valid, he's probably right to say that Dawkins is sometimes politically naive). The book is undoubtedly polemical pontification, but I think his main points hold.

Lipton is an excellent writer, but at the end of it all I'm not sure what he has achieved other than a gutting of his religion (although he says that if you're someone who cannot see the point of theism without God, his solution is not for you).

I also don't think his example about different ways of looking at liquids can apply to science and religion as differing theories, since in such cases you can show that one view is equivalent to another in the case you're considering, and to choose one over the other is then a matter of convenience of expression and calculation (at least, one comes across this sort of thing all the time in physics, I don't know about other sciences). I don't think anyone is claiming that of science and religion (it may be that Lipton does not intend to use this as a strict analogy, either, but rather as an example of what immersion means in constructive empiricism).

I think the Brights thing is silly, mainly because it lacks depth. Like their opponents who go on about how Stalin was an atheist, the Brights have the problem of trying to hold together a group of people whose only thing in common is something they don't believe. I suppose Humanism is where its at if you want a community as an atheist (or possibly Buddhism, of course :-)

[ex-robhu.livejournal.com]

I think the Brights thing is silly, mainly because it lacks depth. Like their opponents who go on about how Stalin was an atheist, the Brights have the problem of trying to hold together a group of people whose only thing in common is something they don't believe. I suppose Humanism is where its at if you want a community as an atheist (or possibly Buddhism, of course :-)
I don't agree - the real potential win for the Brights is changing people's view / reaction to people who don't have a supernatural belief. Not so much in the UK but in the US such people are reviled just as homosexuals once were. I think it's pretty clever marketing really. It makes me wonder what people thought when the homosexuals started to call themselves 'gay'.

I don't think the Brights need to hold people together particularly, as you note there isn't a good community that goes along with being a Bright. Perhaps it would be nice if there were, but there isn't.


BTW - thanks for that comment, it's the first legitimate reason I've ever had for this icon :-)