Irreligious Researchers Differ In Their Views On Faith

Some are vocal in their atheism; others see no conflict between science and religion, as long as the two are kept separate. Historically, the relationship between science and religion has been uncomfortable at best. Scientists today run the gamut of opinion on the compatibility of the two, ranging from those who feel they occupy vastly different realms of thought and reality that will never meet to those who see little reason why they cannot easily coexist. According to philosopher Michael Ruse of the University of Guelph in Ontario, Canada, the two institutions have shared a tenuous rapport. Ruse contends that science and religion have tolerated one another; while there hasn't been all-out "warfare," he says, over the centuries there's been friction. "I suspect that if you polled scientists, you'd probably find that they are probably less inclined than the general public to believe in a Christian God," Ruse observes. In general, most irreligious scientists aren't very vocal about their lack of belief in religion; yet some very prominent scientists belong to organized humanist groups that promote scientific explanations about the origin of the universe and fight for greater separation of church and state. At the same time, some scientists can see room for both religion and science. According to Eugenie Scott, a physical anthropologist and executive director of the Berkeley, Calif.-based National Center for Science Education, religion and science can be compatible as long as each respects the other's domain. Scott's organization monitors the creation-evolution debate. The group, whose 3,000-plus membership includes mostly educators and scientists, serves as a clearinghouse for information and resources in support of evolution. She wrote in The Scientist (Jan. 9, 1995, page 12): "Science and religion can be viewed as different windows on the same universe, different ways of knowing about different kinds of things. . . . The underlying assumption is that science and religion don't conflict so long as religion doesn't try to explain the natural world." "Mainline religions today support 'theistic evolution,' or the notion that evolution is part of 'God's plan,'" Scott says. "There's been a gradual backing away by religions in explaining the natural world, as science has come up with more satisfying explanations. Religions are some of my best allies." Ruse, a professor of philosophy and zoology and editor of the journal Biology and Philosophy, contends that researchers simply aren't very religious: "Many scientists see things in starker terms." Two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning author and evolutionary biologist Edward O. Wilson, a member of the Academy of Humanism, believes that those scientists who are religious don't think about any conflict. Wilson himself doesn't follow any religion, despite being raised as a devout Southern Baptist. According to Wilson, who is Frank B. Baird Professor of Science at Harvard University and curator in entomology at the Harvard Museum of Comparative Zoology, "Many scientists are narrowly focused. It's quite possible for them to do Nobel-level work and be very religious. Many probably don't make the connection. It's only when you get into evolutionary biology and the origin of human nature and consciousness that they begin to see conflict." A commencement address given last May by Francis S. Collins, director of the National Center for Human Genome Research, at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, illustrates Wilson's point. Collins, an evangelical Christian, told the graduates: ". . .there is no fundamental conflict between being a person who believes in the value of the scientific method and being a person of faith. They simply operate in different spheres of your life. Science is intended to explore the natural; faith explores the supernatural." Few scientists approached for this article are as adamant in their position as William Provine, a historian of modern biology who teaches evolution at Cornell University. Provine, an atheist, makes no bones about it: Science and religion are intellectually incompatible. He asserts that the "implications of modern science are inconsistent with religious traditions." Provine believes that this incompatibility stems from "the attempt of religion to derive its practical, ethical principles from ultimate sources that are nonexistent. They have an ultimate basis for morality. "No purposive principles exist in nature; no inherent ethical laws exist. You develop morals on the basis of human experience." Yet he regards the practical values of religion in "how people live together. Christianity, Islam, and Buddhism, for example, all have important things to say about human behavior and should be taken seriously. The conflict comes in assumptions about ultimate things like the meaning of life, death, and the existence of a God. I have a problem with religions claiming to offer the ultimate answers from ultimate sources." He speculates that evolutionary biologists, for the most part, are atheists, "though many haven't seriously thought through the issue." In fact, he thinks many scientists are atheists who prefer not to discuss the matter. An even larger group, he proposes, includes scientists that he terms virtual atheists: "They see a world that works by natural principles, but they also have a feeling of a vague force at work" outside their lives. Likewise, Paul Grobstein, Eleanor A. Bliss Professor of Biology at Bryn Mawr College, sees science and religion as "incompatible because religion thinks that its beliefs are the final answers to questions about the universe and human existence. The scientific perspective should be that you can always continue to explore certain questions and make observations." On the other hand, he adds, "the normal subject matter of religions_where we come from, why we exist_are quite legitimate areas for exploration using the fundamental principles of science." He maintains that if "you broaden science and reduce the strictures of some religions, they are essentially the same thing." "I've often wondered how deeply religious scientists keep these two very different areas science and religion - separate," says National Aeronautics and Space Administration astrophysicist Alan Bunner. "Science is based on evidence, not faith. Yet I know many rational scientists who I respect who maintain strong religious beliefs in irrational things that can't be proven. "Some people I've met are cheating themselves," he says. "They don't apply the same rigorous criticism to their religious beliefs as they do to their examination of the physical world." "I make my existence in science; I don't see a need to reconcile my work with religion," says chemical ecologist Thomas Eisner, Schurman Professor of Biology at Cornell University. "What brings you emotional comfort? For me, it's science and also music and poetry. For some, it's delving into the mystical." Eisner, an atheist, notes that creationists have targeted the bombardier beetle, which he studies, as an example of "a creature too complex to have evolved; it had to be created." He explains that the beetle manufactures a pair of explosive chemicals that are stored in an intricate fashion. So complex a design, creationists contend, had to be planned, he says. "The fact that I have overwhelming evolutionary evidence to prove this isn't so I can trace the beetle back to other beetles that don't bombard doesn't seem to matter. "I have a real problem with the creation debate. They claim they can play by their own rules in my arena of science. Religion should be respected as long as it doesn't attempt to be political or represent itself as scientific." Eisner worries that the sciences are under assault by religion: "It's dangerous when evolution is under fire in the schools on religious grounds. Evolutionists go by scientific rules of proof; creationists go on faith. It's absurd to put that in the science classroom." However, Eisner does see some areas where science and religion may come together. He is active in various environmental-preservation causes and agrees with Wilson's contention that the environment is perhaps an appropriate "common ground" for science and religion. In fact, he points out that he can appreciate that scientists and others may be religious. "I only have problems," he says, "when in the name of religion science is being debunked, claiming that it's being done scientifically." Evolutionary biologist Richard Lewontin of Harvard's Museum of Comparative Zoology, who refers to himself as an atheist and a materialist, believes that "to be a scientist, you have to commit yourself to the natural regularity of phenomena in the world. To believe in a God of repeated miracles is to believe that this isn't true." He maintains that logic and empiricism don't exclude the possibility of religion; however, "the logic of evolution denies the Western Bible as literal truth about the beginning of the world." Lewontin asserts that "religion is a fairy tale made up by people." He adds that "there is no logical contradiction between religion and science, because an all-powerful deity allows you to say anything." Some scientists belong to formal "humanist" groups. Such organizations range in size from a few hundred to several thousand members, and are spread around the world. Most hold rallies, publish newsletters, sponsor speakers, and conduct other such activities in support of causes like greater separation of church and state and abortion rights. The Alliance of Secular Humanist Societies, a network of local and regional societies, has chapters in more than a dozen states. One prestigious nontheist organization, the 80-member Amherst, N.Y.-based Academy of Humanism, boasts a membership that includes such eminent scientists as Harvard's Wilson and evolutionary biologist Stephen Jay Gould, Nobel laureate physicist Murray Gell-Mann of the Santa Fe Institute, Nobelist Francis Crick of the Salk Institute, and Cornell University astronomer Carl Sagan. The group follows the tenets of secular humanism, which is critical of what its adherents see as religion's efforts to limit free thought and scientific inquiry. Secular humanism traces its beginnings to ancient Greece, "though it went into eclipse during the Dark Ages and came to fruition with the Renaissance and the democratic revolutions of the 18th and 19th centuries," according to academy founder Paul Kurtz. Kurtz, a professor, emeritus, of philosophy at the State University of New York, Buffalo, says the academy began in 1983 to honor distinguished individuals who follow a scientific and nontheistic viewpoint. He estimates that a "large percentage of members" are scientists, though he does not have exact figures. Kurtz notes that one of the traditions of humanism_basing morality on reason "goes back to great thinkers of Western civilization, such as Aristotle, Kant, and John Mills." In describing secular humanism, Kurtz notes that "we don't exclude religion, but we believe in freedom of consciousness. We support freedom of belief, but we are nonreligious." The academy, as well as nine other groups, are sponsored by the Council for Democratic and Secular Humanism, an umbrella organization whose mission is to foster the growth of democracy and secular humanism. The council, founded in 1980, publishes a monthly magazine called Free Inquiry and supports a number of activities such as conferences and the distribution of published statements on evolution education, the need for population control, and other issues. The Freedom From Religion Foundation in Madison, Wis., was organized in the mid-1970s and fights for church-state separation and abortion rights. The group, which has some 3,300 members, protests the teaching of creation in schools and aims to teach the public about atheism and free thought. Although group spokesman Dan Barker estimates that only a small percentage of its adherents are scientists, he notes that one of the organization's aims is to promote scientific reason. The academy isn't the only humanist group in Amherst. The larger and older American Humanist Association (AHA) began in 1941. It has 5,000 members and another 5,000 or so who receive its publication, The Humanist. AHA's membership in-cludes both theists and nontheists. Like other humanist groups, it promotes greater public awareness of issues such as church-state separation, abortion rights, and "a more participatory democracy," according to executive director Fred Edwords. The organization frequently works with religious groups to promote social issues involving personal liberties, he notes. Edwords estimates that about 10 percent to 20 percent of AHA's members are scientists. Part of its mission, he notes, is to "correct false understanding of science by the public." Scientific issues it advocates include efforts to promote the teaching of evolution, debunk paranormal claims, and improve scientific education. George Williams, an emeritus professor of ecology and evolution at SUNY-Stony Brook, who does not practice religion or believe in a supernatural being, suspects that "there are different shades of belief and disbelief" among scientists. "For example, does religion imply participation in ritual such as prayer?" he asks. He feels that, because religion can be broadly defined, the answer is up to the individual. "The two [science and religion] are inevitably compatible. The things that one gets from introspection, purely at an emotional level, have to be a part of every scientist's life, and have to coexist with the objective and public aspect of his science." Steven Benowitz is a science writer for Penn State University's Milton S. Hershey Medical Center in Hershey, Pa.

Irreligious Researchers Differ In Their Views On Faith

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