P.Z. Myers: What science is all about is exploring the natural world and pursuing what we can know. And what we can know – from what we can observe in the natural world – is that there’s no design.
If you enter “top science blogger” as a search term on Google, you’ll see Paul Zachary “PZ” Myers blog Pharyngula as one of the first on the list. Myers is an American biology professor at the University of Minnesota Morris. He has become well known for his ideas about and criticism of intelligent design – the assertion that certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, not an undirected process such as natural selection – and of attempts to insert intelligent design into the science curriculum in the United States. The science journal Nature has listed Pharyngula as the top-ranked blog written by a scientist. Pharyngula also won the 2005 Koufax Award for Best Expert Blog.
In this interview, Myers talks about why he feels scientists should blog, and why he doesn’t shy away from controversial subjects.
The statement:”there is no design” is rather presumptuous. If one looks at nature analytically, it is absolutely mathmetical. That would suggest a design of sorts. Darwin’s theory of evolution is very flawed as well. Evolution is not slow and stately, it happens in spurts and jerks.
Creationism is a religion. Like socialism, another religion. none of its precepts hold up to scrutiny. I think we humans need to be humble enough to admit what we don’t know and try to learn continuously. Dogma is the anti-thought recipe.
Benjamin Napier – you left out capitalism as yet another religion.
This was interesting, but aren’t there some scientists who are religious?
I think the question of whether science and religion will ever get along remains an interesting one. Not all scientists agree, and one who disagrees with Dr. Myers is Franciso Ayala, this year’s winner of the Templeton Prize, who argues that religion is vital to the American life, a pillar running parallel to science. Can a scientist have it both ways?
I was surprised by PZ Myer’s answer to the question as to whether science and religion can ever be reconciled. He says “no” so definitively. I’ve met many people – citizens and scientists – who have no problem reconciling their religious beliefs, or views of the supernatural, with the scientific process and scientific discoveries. It’s unfortunate that certain religious institutions that are trying to undermine science (i.e., The Discovery Institute), but I don’t think we should lump all religion into that category, by any means. Some of the first scientific scholars were clergy.
As an example of this middle way, see the Clergy Letter Project. Leaders of all denominations are signing this letter to reject creationism: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clergy_Letter_Project
First, I love this pic. But if dinosaurs could explain the bible, now that would be something…
Second, I enjoy PZ’s openness. Go Minnesota!
Third, I believe that science could, theoretically, be perceived as a kind of religion. Its followers adhere to the romance of facts, rather than the romance of faith.
I’m not sure that’s in our power to know who among us is really absolutely correct in our perceptions of reality.
But scientists, I think, might have something of a lead. ;)
“if dinosaurs could explain the bible, now that would be something…”
Ha!
It seems as though the New Atheism movement does little to promote dialogue and only furthers the rift between believers and nonbelievers. Although Myers’ tone does not come off as bitter as, say, Christopher Hitchens or Richard Dawkins, it seems to be divisive. Just as there are scientists who are religious, there are clergy who believe in empirical science.
Both science and religion have a historical and, dare I say, mystical context that weaves a confluence between the two. I understand that Myers has a congregation of followers of his own.
Basically, it seems as though they serve to inform one another and promote healthy dialogue, rather than polarizing one against another.
For the record, if one would pit me in one corner of the arena, I support evolution and spinning Sufis.
Maybe religion is part of human evolution
Eleanor (Admin) wrote: “Maybe religion is part of human evolution.”
That statement is vacuous, Eleanor. It’s careless to speak of ‘evolution’ without carefully qualifying what you’re talking about.
First… it’s a FACT that the genetic makeup of POPULATIONS of creatures/organisms (the GENE POOL) changes, over time (evolves). That is the FACT of ‘biological evolution’… and it is a fact because that’s what we observe, in the lab… in the genome… in embryology… in nature… wherever we look. There has not… EVER… been any new information that credibly disputes that fact. The ONLY dispute… and it is NOT credible… comes from ignoramuses, professional LFJs™ (Liars For Jesus), and the distressingly large number of scientifically-ignorant Christ-cult God-bots who are misled by the LFJs.
Next… in science, ‘theories’ occupy a much higher level of importance than mere facts… and theories do not MAKE-UP facts… theories EXPLAIN facts. So, the ‘Theory of Evolution’ EXPLAINS the FACT of ‘biological evolution’… it tells us HOW the genetic makeup of POPULATIONS of creatures/organisms (the GENE POOL) changes, over time (evolves). THAT is what PZ Myers is talking about.
The word ‘evolution’, though, also has generic connotations. Simply, it means ‘changes, over time’… and it applies to pretty-much everything. The cosmos changes, over time… language changes, over time… the accumulated knowledge-base changes, over time… human culture changes, over time. Religion, of course, is a component… a property… a feature… of human culture. With the benefit of 20/20 hind-sight, it plainly apparent (to anyone who is moderately more intelligent than a cauliflower) that ‘god(s)’ is a human invention… a concept whose original function was to serve as a place-holder for (future) knowledge. Of course, future knowledge was not on the minds of the people who invented the concept; all they were concerned with was explaining stuff, in order to squelch ‘cognitive dissonance’. Once humans reached the point of being able to think abstractly, and communicate ideas, they were confronted with mind boggling questions… like “What holds the sky up?” Not having access to a knowledge-base, technology, and intellectual tools, they had no means to extract answers from nature… and so the only way they had to quell cognitive dissonance was to make-up answers: Ralph holds the sky up… Betsy makes the grass grow… Fred makes the rain fall… George makes the wind blow… Beatrice makes us horny… etc. Somewhere along the line, unscrupulous individuals figured-out that if they pretended to know what Ralph and Betsy and Fred and George and Beatrice wanted of us, and what pissed them off, they could scam other people into bringing them lunch, without actually having to work for it… the birth of ‘religion’.
>>> “Religion was invented when the first con man met the first fool.” ~ Dr. James Corbett <<<
Monotheism was probably a consequence of economics. Regular sacrificing to appease and kiss the arses of multiple gods and goddesses undoubtedly got to be pretty expensive… and virgins were probably getting pretty scarce… and so it is logical that somebody would come up with the bright idea of having ONE god who was so powerful that he could handle ALL that stuff, and do EVERYTHING.
The key to understanding this is to realize that 'knowledge' is the ideal cure for 'cognitive dissonance'… but the ILLUSION of knowledge (belief) works just as well, and it is a lot easier to come-by, and a lot easier to propagate, than ACTUAL knowledge. "God did it" is a lot less taxing than years of study and investigation.
Sure, religion 'evolves'. For example, there are many bits of the Wholly Babble that were once regarded as the holy, divine, cosmic, God-given 'truth'. When people began to tease facts out of nature that contradicted that holy, divine, cosmic, God-given 'truth', the Christ-cult would respond by torturing the thinkers of such heretical thoughts and spreaders of such blasphemous ideas, and disposing of them by chucking them into a vat of boiling oil or burning them at the stake… which surely terrorized OTHERS who might be harboring non-canonical thoughts. If you DID have unholy thoughts, that sure was an incentive to keep quiet about them. Eventually, though… usually after a couple hundred years… when the Christ-cult could no longer contain ideas via terror, torture and murder, they would perform a 'miracle', whereby the holy, divine, cosmic, God-given 'truth' was transformed into a 'metaphor', or an 'allegory'… then they would claim that they always KNEW it was a metaphor or an allegory… and then they'd take credit for the new 'knowledge'. This is just one of the ways in which religion has 'evolved'.
Consider human rights, freedom of speech and freedom of religion. These were all anathema to the Christ-cult for about 1,300 years. Gradually though… as these ideals were born of the Enlightenment and the Age of Reason… as a consequence of the REDISCOVERY of the long-lost knowledge of ancient Greece (destroyed by the Christ-cult, as being non-canonical, and blasphemous), recovered from the libraries of Moorish Spain after the 'reconquest', and also from Byzantium… the Christ-cult lost the political power which had perviously allowed them to torture, terrorize and murder. The creation of the USA was the first step in the dissolution of the diabolical alliance that existed between the Christ-cult and the European aristocracy, based upon the 'divine right of kings'. And now… guess what? Human rights, freedom of speech and freedom of religion have 'miraculously' been transformed from heretical, blasphemous, Satanic evils into 'Judeo-Christian values'. 'Cultural evolution' at work. Oh, don't be mistaken… human rights, freedom of speech and freedom of religion ARE STILL anathema to the christ-cult hierarchy; it's just that they can't say so out-loud, in public. Look up 'dominionism'.
I wish to cap Lindsay’s comments about the possible reconcilation between science and religion with this quote from the Dalai Lama: “If scientific analysis were conclusively to demonstrate certain claims in Buddhism to be false, then we must accept the findings of science and abondoned those claims.”
Some “born again” types have posited that dinosaurs appeared at the same time as humans, extremely contrary to reality in the face of scientific fact. I personally have seen parents reaming a child who dared believe the science over the religiousity. Science, to me, represents spirituality much more than any given religion, especially my nightly observations of the sky overhead.
http://www.reasons.org does an excellent job of meshing the Bible and science. There are many of us “born again” believers that are old earth creationists. Humans were not around with the dinosaurs. The Bible, in it’s original writings, and science are very compatible.
Science could get on jolly well with religion if religion would just be factual in it’s claims.
Science is full of ideas that are about as bizarre as the notion of god – relativity and quantum physics leap to mind, but also gravity, prisms, mechanical leverage, the big bang, chemistry (especially explosives), fire, electricity, astronomy etc etc and so on would be pretty bizarre if they weren’t so extensively demonstrated and explained.
The difference is really only in the evidence supporting the bizarre claims, or the lack thereof.
Perhaps we need only wait until we can create universes in a high school lab.
It will always seem peculiar to me why a constant clash exists between science and religion. In past periods science was seen as part of the a spiritual existence, almost a divine birthright for humans. During the Enlightenment, the methodology of science was even applied to religion (Deism). I have never believed that I had to choose between my fascination with science nor my Deistic ideas concerning ethics, compassion, or honor. When I scroll through new scientific information, learn new astronomical discoveries, or examine new evolution information, I do not consider it blasphemous to my belief. Nor do I consider my particular path to spiritual elightenment does not seem to fly in the face of “rational” thought.
Maybe it is best if I explain it this way: I know that if I jump off a building gravity will pull me down to the ground (rational/scientific). I know that if someone pushes me off the building and gravity takes hold, that the choices and ethics I have lived in my life will be judged appropriate.