Science needs objective measurable evidence; Spirituality & religion involve subjective experience
[Note this if from a Facebook post of mine here: https://www.facebook.com/ravi.s.iyer.7/posts/1626880937528477]
A few days ago I was passed a link to an interview of Jerry Coyne on the incompatibility of religion and science, http://fivebooks.com/interviews/jerry-coyne-on-incompatibility-religion-and-science. The interview covers five books which he says, makes his case that "Embracing a scientific worldview excludes the possibility of also believing in God".
I am not a scientist (I am a software technolgist) and so do not want to get into the main part of his argument as mentioned above.
However I thought I should share a couple of extracts from the initial part of the interview, and give my views on it. Here are the extracts (Jerry Coyne's words):
My argument is not that religious people are constantly battling science or trying to prevent it moving forward, but that the methods that religion uses to ascertain truths about the universe are at odds with the methods that science uses.
...
The problem is that this acceptance of faith — which means belief without substantial evidence — as a useful means to ascertain truth has invidious social consequences.
---- end extracts of Jerry Coyne interview ---
Ravi: My take on the above two extracts is that the spiritual quest goes by subjective experience. Science goes by objectively measurable facts and does not accept subjective experience as evidence. While subjective experience is not scientific fact, it is not fiction either! It is a truth felt individually by people.
About the alleged invidious social consequences of spirituality & religion due to belief without (objective) evidence: Well, unpleasant/invidious social consequences of faith in God can certainly be discussed, and attempts should be made to avoid the unpleasant social consequences. But, in my considered view, there are many, many pleasant consequences of faith in God via various religions, as I have experienced in multi-faith and deeply religious India.
On the other hand, there have been many unpleasant consequences of people not believing in a God/Divine spirit that will hold them accountable for their actions (i.e. not believing in Karma, judgement day etc.). The excesses of communist regimes in brutal suppression of dissent may not have been so bad if they believed in a God/divine spirit that will hold them accountable for their deeds and make them suffer for bad deeds they committed.
--- end Facebook post content ---
[Note that I have presumed brother Sai Das would not mind me sharing his comment on this post as this post is free for interested readers without any profit motive whatsoever.]
Given below are selected comment exchanges from the Facebook post:
Sai Das wrote:
I have many Sai Baba devotee friends who are scientists who have no trouble with incorporating one into the other. Spiritual people are completely open to science but most scientists are not open to spirituality. To me, science is the mechanics by which the created universe operates. It's funny how much and firm science types hold onto their unprovens but scoff at spiritual unprovens. They always seem to fall back onto Judeo-Christian-Muslim religious beliefs for their arguments but always seem to shy away from Advaita and Zen discussions.
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Ravi S. Iyer wrote:
Agree in general with Sai Das comment that the anti-religion science types "always seem to fall back onto Judeo-Christian-Muslim religious beliefs for their arguments but always seem to shy away from Advaita and Zen discussions." Sure, there would be some exceptions but most of them do not question Advaita (don't know about the Zen part).
But then Advaita may not bother the anti-religion scientists so much. They are particularly troubled by belief in miracles as that is the cornerstone of many of the religious faithful among most, if not all, religions of the world. e.g. the healing miracles of Jesus, the multiplication of food miracle of Jesus, the miracles of Krishna etc.
Prof. Richard Dawkins, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Dawkins, says that skepticism is vital for scientific inquiry (and I tend to agree with that), but goes further to question the skepticism of theist scientists like Dr. Francis Collins, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_Collins, thereby questioning their scientific aptitude!!! I was shocked when I first came across this line of argument of Prof. Dawkins.
But I think Dr. Collins rebuts the anti-religion scientists including Dawkins specifically, very well in his Caltech 2009 lecture. An extract from it, "If God has any significance in most religions, God has to be, at least in part, outside of nature, not bound by nature. Pantheists might be an exception but most other religions would certainly agree that God is not limited therefore by nature itself. Science is. Science really is only legitimately able to comment on things that are part of nature and science is really good at that. But if you are going to try to take the tools of science and disprove God, you are in the wrong territory. Science has to remain silent on the question of anything that falls outside of the natural world." For more, see https://iami1.wordpress.com/2012/08/10/francis-collins-the-language-of-god-a-scientist-presents-evidence-of-belief-transcript/ .
What a great standard bearer Dr. Francis Collins is for scientists who are theists!
To go a little further, I had posed the question to myself, "Can the Skeptical Scientist Experience Spiritual Miracles/Divine Grace?" And my response was, "I think, as a "skeptical scientist" is expected to be skeptical about everything, the answer is, typically, No." For more on it, please see http://ravisiyer.blogspot.in/2013/08/can-skeptical-scientist-experience.html.
--------------------
Ravi S. Iyer Dear [name-snipped], I would not go so far as to say Science is hit and miss. I think the accomplishments of science in the past few centuries have been truly, truly extraordinary in the long history of humanity. Yes, scientific theories that were in the past accepted as established fact (e.g. Newtonian Mechanics/Classical Mechanics) have got upturned and shown as approximations which break down at atomic and astronomical scales, and been replaced by better theories (e.g. Relativistic Mechanics). But, IMHO, science can be rightfully proud of its processes where established theories can be questioned in the light of new evidence which the theory cannot explain, which then results in efforts for a new theory to be proposed to explain all available evidence at that time.
--------------------
A few days ago I was passed a link to an interview of Jerry Coyne on the incompatibility of religion and science, http://fivebooks.com/interviews/jerry-coyne-on-incompatibility-religion-and-science. The interview covers five books which he says, makes his case that "Embracing a scientific worldview excludes the possibility of also believing in God".
I am not a scientist (I am a software technolgist) and so do not want to get into the main part of his argument as mentioned above.
However I thought I should share a couple of extracts from the initial part of the interview, and give my views on it. Here are the extracts (Jerry Coyne's words):
My argument is not that religious people are constantly battling science or trying to prevent it moving forward, but that the methods that religion uses to ascertain truths about the universe are at odds with the methods that science uses.
...
The problem is that this acceptance of faith — which means belief without substantial evidence — as a useful means to ascertain truth has invidious social consequences.
---- end extracts of Jerry Coyne interview ---
Ravi: My take on the above two extracts is that the spiritual quest goes by subjective experience. Science goes by objectively measurable facts and does not accept subjective experience as evidence. While subjective experience is not scientific fact, it is not fiction either! It is a truth felt individually by people.
About the alleged invidious social consequences of spirituality & religion due to belief without (objective) evidence: Well, unpleasant/invidious social consequences of faith in God can certainly be discussed, and attempts should be made to avoid the unpleasant social consequences. But, in my considered view, there are many, many pleasant consequences of faith in God via various religions, as I have experienced in multi-faith and deeply religious India.
On the other hand, there have been many unpleasant consequences of people not believing in a God/Divine spirit that will hold them accountable for their actions (i.e. not believing in Karma, judgement day etc.). The excesses of communist regimes in brutal suppression of dissent may not have been so bad if they believed in a God/divine spirit that will hold them accountable for their deeds and make them suffer for bad deeds they committed.
--- end Facebook post content ---
[Note that I have presumed brother Sai Das would not mind me sharing his comment on this post as this post is free for interested readers without any profit motive whatsoever.]
Given below are selected comment exchanges from the Facebook post:
Sai Das wrote:
I have many Sai Baba devotee friends who are scientists who have no trouble with incorporating one into the other. Spiritual people are completely open to science but most scientists are not open to spirituality. To me, science is the mechanics by which the created universe operates. It's funny how much and firm science types hold onto their unprovens but scoff at spiritual unprovens. They always seem to fall back onto Judeo-Christian-Muslim religious beliefs for their arguments but always seem to shy away from Advaita and Zen discussions.
---------------
Ravi S. Iyer wrote:
Agree in general with Sai Das comment that the anti-religion science types "always seem to fall back onto Judeo-Christian-Muslim religious beliefs for their arguments but always seem to shy away from Advaita and Zen discussions." Sure, there would be some exceptions but most of them do not question Advaita (don't know about the Zen part).
But then Advaita may not bother the anti-religion scientists so much. They are particularly troubled by belief in miracles as that is the cornerstone of many of the religious faithful among most, if not all, religions of the world. e.g. the healing miracles of Jesus, the multiplication of food miracle of Jesus, the miracles of Krishna etc.
Prof. Richard Dawkins, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Dawkins, says that skepticism is vital for scientific inquiry (and I tend to agree with that), but goes further to question the skepticism of theist scientists like Dr. Francis Collins, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_Collins, thereby questioning their scientific aptitude!!! I was shocked when I first came across this line of argument of Prof. Dawkins.
But I think Dr. Collins rebuts the anti-religion scientists including Dawkins specifically, very well in his Caltech 2009 lecture. An extract from it, "If God has any significance in most religions, God has to be, at least in part, outside of nature, not bound by nature. Pantheists might be an exception but most other religions would certainly agree that God is not limited therefore by nature itself. Science is. Science really is only legitimately able to comment on things that are part of nature and science is really good at that. But if you are going to try to take the tools of science and disprove God, you are in the wrong territory. Science has to remain silent on the question of anything that falls outside of the natural world." For more, see https://iami1.wordpress.com/2012/08/10/francis-collins-the-language-of-god-a-scientist-presents-evidence-of-belief-transcript/ .
What a great standard bearer Dr. Francis Collins is for scientists who are theists!
To go a little further, I had posed the question to myself, "Can the Skeptical Scientist Experience Spiritual Miracles/Divine Grace?" And my response was, "I think, as a "skeptical scientist" is expected to be skeptical about everything, the answer is, typically, No." For more on it, please see http://ravisiyer.blogspot.in/2013/08/can-skeptical-scientist-experience.html.
--------------------
Ravi S. Iyer Dear [name-snipped], I would not go so far as to say Science is hit and miss. I think the accomplishments of science in the past few centuries have been truly, truly extraordinary in the long history of humanity. Yes, scientific theories that were in the past accepted as established fact (e.g. Newtonian Mechanics/Classical Mechanics) have got upturned and shown as approximations which break down at atomic and astronomical scales, and been replaced by better theories (e.g. Relativistic Mechanics). But, IMHO, science can be rightfully proud of its processes where established theories can be questioned in the light of new evidence which the theory cannot explain, which then results in efforts for a new theory to be proposed to explain all available evidence at that time.
--------------------
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