1. Science and Religion – an inevitable tension?
I think ... that faith is one of the world’s great evils, comparable to the smallpox virus but harder to eradicate. Faith, being belief that isn’t based on evidence, is the principal vice of any religion.”
Richard Dawkins, Humanist in Canada, Winter 1999
“Man knows at last that he is alone in the universe’s unfeeling immensity, out of which he emerged only by chance” Jaques Monod, Chance and Necessity
Science and Religion – an inevitable tension?
Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction."

2. Is there a tension between Science and Religion?
Why is this an important issue for teachers?
How does this affect our students?
What informs the attitude of students, teachers, the public, scientists about the relationship between science and faith?
How can we understand the “roots” of this tension and how to perhaps resolve it?

3. A male, chauvinist, ethnocentric history of ideas!

4. Galileo and the Mathematization of WorldView
Philosophy [nature] is written in that great book which ever lies open before our eyes - I mean the universe - but we cannot understand it if we do not first learn the language and grasp the symbols in which it is written. The book is written in the mathematical language, and the symbols are triangles, circles and other geometric figures, without whose help it is impossible to comprehend a single word of it; without which one wanders in vain through a dark labyrinth.
(Galileo Galilei, Letter to Dowager Duchess Christina)

5. By What Standard do we Find Truth?
Rediscovery of Greek thought
turmoil of Reformation/Counter-Reformation
Introduction of new sets of questions and categories

6. Newton... Nature and Nature's Laws lay hid in night:
God said: "Let Newton be!
and all was light.

7. What Does Newton’s World Look Like?
The world METAPHOR changes during the time of Newton
Kingdom gives way to Clock!
Theologians (“pulpeteers”) latch on to Newton
Newton ushers in an era of unprecedented mathematical precision as a way to describe nature

8. Newton’s successors and a radically changing vision
Newton’s successors and a radically changing vision ... The rise of Modernity
theism
deism
atheism

9. Taking stock...Backgrounding Science
it is historically and culturally delimited
it makes - a priori metaphysical and epistemological assertions about the natural world
it is socially situated

10. The Necessary Parting of Ways...
The modernist world view and science founded in this view leads to bleak prospects for humans!
We strive for an objectivity that ultimately must exclude us!
This ultimately leads to a skewed sense of value and meaning...
Truth becomes diminished to “mere” propositional truth – relational truth is lost

11. Worldviews in Collision
“Science and Religion are diametrically opposed at their deepest philosophical levels. And because the two worldviews make claims to the same intellectual territory - that of the origin of the universe and humankind’s relationship to it - conflict is inevitable”
The Humanist, (May-June, 1986),. 26.

12. Quotables ...
“We are survival machines - robot vehicles blindly programmed to preserve the selfish molecules known as genes.”
Richard Dawkins, The Selfish Gene
“I think ... that faith is one of the world’s great evils, comparable to the smallpox virus but harder to eradicate. Faith, being belief that isn’t based on evidence, is the principal vice of any religion.”
Richard Dawkins, Humanist in Canada, Winter 1999
“Man knows at last that he is alone in the universe’s unfeeling immensity, out of which he emerged only by chance”
Jaques Monod, Chance and Necessity

13. Scientific Materialism
science is the only reliable path to objective, timeless, value-neutral knowledge
matter and energy are the fundamental entities of the universe.

14. Biblical Literalism
Belief that scripture is inerrant , infallible and clear (not in need of interpretation)
Rooted in a naïve realistic epistemology

15. the struggle between scientific materialism and biblical literalism is like a fight between a Boa Constrictor and a Wart Hog. Each tries to swallow the other whole. The fight can be avoided if they occupy different territories or if they pursue more appropriate diets!
Ian Barbour, Religion in an Age of Science
Conflict

16. In “the end, science as we know it has two basic types of practitioners. One is the educated man who still has a controlled sense of wonder before the universal mystery, whether it hides in a snail's eye or within the light that impinges on that delicate organ. The second kind of observer is the extreme reductionist who is so busy stripping things apart that the tremendous mystery has been reduced to a trifle, to intangibles not worth troubling one's head about. The world of secondary qualities - colour, sound, thought is reduced to illusion. The only true reality becomes the chill void of ever streaming particles.”
Loren Eiseley, "Science and the Sense of the Holy"

17. Independence...
science and religion occupy completely separate territory. As soon as a physicist realizes that her “language” is not the same as a theologian’s “language” the conflict evaporates and they can become civil once again! It was all a big misunderstanding.

18. Dialogue and Integration
science and religion make potentially overlapping claims but the claims can refer to complimentary aspects of the same reality.

19. Reductionist methodolgies have proven extremely useful in understanding some aspects of natural phenomena but can reductionism function as the sole method of acquiring useful knowledge.
Is it necessarily true that all complex phenomena can be understood in terms of simpler underlying parts or does complexity impose its own top-down structure that is not reducible?
Dialogue and Integration

20. The Durability of Religious Belief
many scientists maintain a belief in a personal God and participation in a religious community
religion exists and is practised in all cultures
religion is a “real” phenomenon in as much as it can be studied historically, anthropologically, sociologically ....
religion contains objective practices and ideas

21. How Science Informs Religion
Lessons of physics and the shift from naive realist to critical realist positions has led to the realisation that reality is “seen through a glass darkly”. This challenges us to begin to understand the extent to which a particular religion (Christianity, Islam, etc) is a model about God and our relationship to God.
The laws of nature challenge our understanding of how God acts within the universe (the problem of divine action and primary and secondary causes)

22. The Durability of Religious Belief
many scientists maintain a belief in a personal God and participation in a religious community
religion exists and is practised in all cultures
religion is a “real” phenomenon in as much as it can be studied historically, anthropologically, sociologically ....
religion contains objective practices and ideas

23. How Science Informs Religion
Lessons of physics and the shift from naive realist to critical realist positions has led to the realisation that reality is “seen through a glass darkly”. This challenges us to begin to understand the extent to which a particular religion (Christianity, Islam, etc) is a model about God and our relationship to God.
The laws of nature challenge our understanding of how God acts within the universe (the problem of divine action and primary and secondary causes)

24. How Religion Informs/Transforms Modern Science
· Religion provides a the corrective lens to re-focus scientific questions and concerns to human ends.
· Religion challenges science to be aware of its metaphysical underpinnings and structural limitations