God in the laboratory

Can scientists be religious? Sam Harris argues science and faith are completely incompatible, while Robert Winston would like to be more inclusive. Emine Saner adjudicates Last week, the astrophysicist Martin Rees was awarded the Templeton prize, which aims to promote religion. Emine Saner brings together atheist writer and neuroscientist Sam Harris and Professor Robert Winston to discuss the conflict between science and faith. So, should Rees have accepted that award? Sam Harris: No. There is a price paid whenever an eminent scientist pretends that there’s no conflict between the claims of science and religion. I mean no special criticism of Rees – I think he’s someone who believes, perhaps as you do, that it is pragmatic to try to teach science wherever people are willing to listen, and not criticise faith and try to allay the points of conflict as much as possible. That’s a political position which I think is in the end unsustainable. Robert Winston: I see nothing wrong with a scientist accepting the Templeton prize, with somebody trying to promote what they loosely call “spirituality”. Whether it does any good is another matter. I don’t think it takes away at all from his distinction in science. SH: Religious language is, without question, unscientific in its claims for what is true. We have Christians believing in the holy ghost, the resurrection of Jesus and his possible return – these are claims about biology and physics which, from a scientific point of view in the 21st century, should be unsustainable. RW: You talk as if science is an absolute, and I don’t think it is at all. It isn’t the truth either, because I don’t believe there is such a thing as “the truth”. You rail against the ultimate truth of what some people believe – ie religion, God, Jesus, whatever. I don’t, because I don’t think it makes any more sense than railing against scientific truths. I say “truths” in inverted commas, because truths have a habit of being altered as we develop our knowledge. SH: I wouldn’t dispute that the horizon of what we know and consider true changes, but we do this in the context of a background reality which we are dimly coming to understand. I suspect that while you are reluctant to think we can ever grasp absolute truth, we can still recognise falsehood, or how implausible certain [religious] claims are. RW: I suppose I really wonder why you’re so angry. SH: [laughs] Do I sound angry? RW: Yes. You write angrily, too. SH: I’m more worried than angry, and perhaps impatient. I don’t see any reason to believe that we can survive our religious differences indefinitely. I am worried that religion is one of the forces that has balkanised our world – we have Christians against Muslims against Jews. RW: But the irony is that books like yours and [Richard Dawkins's] God Delusion balkanise the world a good deal more, because they polarise views. The God Delusion has caused very aggressive reactions from [people who] previously weren’t aggressive. In my book, I try to

Posted by on April 16, 2011. Filed under News, Politics, World News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.