Tag: Religion and Science

What Science Can Learn From Religion

March 31, 2019

Hostility toward spiritual traditions may be hampering empirical inquiry.

Just as ancient doesn’t always mean wise, it doesn’t always mean foolish. The only way to determine which is the case is to put an idea — a hypothesis — to an empirical test. In my own work, I have repeatedly done so. I have found that religious ideas about human behavior and how to influence it, though never worthy of blind embrace, are sometimes vindicated by scientific examination.

Why Native Americans do not separate religion from science

June 9, 2017

“Scientists began thinking and writing about how Native Americans understand the natural world in the 20th century. Instead of seeing a conflict between Western science and Native American knowledge, they started thinking about ways to learn how Native Americans addressed environmental and ecological issues differently.”

https://theconversation.com/why-native-americans-do-not-separate-religion-from-science-75983

Whatever the soul is, its existence can’t be proved or disproved by natural science

August 11, 2016

“When his results were first published, critics argued that the weight loss could be explained by physiologic factors, such as evaporation. Moreover, his report failed to mention several patients in whom he found no weight loss. Finally, subsequent attempts to reproduce his results failed to find any weight loss. Indeed, MacDougall’s vision may have been clouded by confirmation bias, the tendency for investigators to see what they expect.”

https://theconversation.com/whatever-the-soul-is-its-existence-cant-be-proved-or-disproved-by-natural-science-61244?mc_cid=6e8e6bd94e&mc_eid=34e2887073

Can you be a scientist and have religious faith?

January 5, 2016

“I’ve been a scientist for as long as I can remember. Children are born scientists; they experiment with everything, are naturally inquisitive and through this exploration they learn about how the world works. And I’ve never grown out of it. Of course, for many people, their modes of thought change as they find or are brought up with faith. Some manage, somehow, to hold religious beliefs alongside a dedication to the rationality of science.”

https://newhumanist.org.uk/articles/4889/can-you-be-a-scientist-and-have-religious-faith?mc_cid=f607b9a6a4&mc_eid=34e2887073

Can science and religion coexist? Not on Mauna Kea, say Hawaiians.

November 18, 2015

What takes precedent when one particular location has religious but also scientific significance? Do people have a responsibility to make sacrifices in the name of scientific progress?

“Debate over the Mauna Kea project seems to pit conservationists against industry, and religion against science. But for native Hawaiians for whom worship intersects stewardship of the environment, concerns about conservation and freedom of religion have blended into a common cause.”

http://m.csmonitor.com/USA/USA-Update/2015/1111/Can-science-and-religion-coexist-Not-on-Mauna-Kea-say-Hawaiians?cmpid=TW

Book: Faith Versus Fact: Why Science and Religion Are Incompatible

July 5, 2015

“In his provocative new book, evolutionary biologist Jerry A. Coyne lays out in clear, dispassionate detail why the toolkit of science, based on reason and empirical study, is reliable, while that of religion—including faith, dogma, and revelation—leads to incorrect, untestable, or conflicting conclusions.

“Coyne is responding to a national climate in which over half of Americans don’t believe in evolution (and congressmen deny global warming), and warns that religious prejudices and strictures in politics, education, medicine, and social policy are on the rise. Extending the bestselling works of Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, and Christopher Hitchens, he demolishes the claims of religion to provide verifiable “truth” by subjecting those claims to the same tests we use to establish truth in science.”

http://www.amazon.com/Faith-Versus-Fact-Religion-Incompatible/dp/0670026530/ref=cm_wl_huc_item

Can Religion and Science Coexist?

July 5, 2015

“A new book by the evolutionary biologist Jerry Coyne tackles arguments that the two institutions are compatible.

“In the book’s 262 pages, Coyne tackles arguments stating that belief in God is a laudable quality, and reasons instead that faith is detrimental, even dangerous, and fundamentally incompatible with science, even while peacemakers try to find common ground between the two. Coyne, it should be noted, has spent much of his career objecting to religious rejection of Darwinism—he published a bestseller, Why Evolution Is True, that was based on his blog of the same name. In Faith Versus Fact, his overarching argument is that religion and science both make claims about the universe, but only one of the two institutions is sufficiently open to the fact that it might be wrong.

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/07/religion-science-coexist-faith-versus-fact-coyne/396362/?utm_source=SFTwitter

Deepak Chopra blasts scientist who criticized his view of evolution. The scientist fires back.

May 21, 2015

“Scientists disagree vigorously with one another as they attempt to build the case for new advancements; this peer review is the heart of the scientific process, one of the tools and techniques scientists have developed to encourage the flow of good ideas and sift out bad one. Unfortunately, Dr. Chopra chooses to circumvent that path, publishing his claims as self-help books rather than subjecting them to the rigors of scientific review.”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2015/05/20/deepak-chopra-blasts-scientist-who-criticized-his-view-of-evolution-the-scientist-fires-back/?tid=pm_local_pop_b

And a second related article

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2015/05/15/scientist-why-deepak-chopra-is-driving-me-crazy/