Subtitled “Why Science and Religion are Incompatible”
(Viking, May 2015, xxii + 311pp, including 46pp of acknowledgements, notes, references,and index)
For this next book, I’m going to split summary and notes up into multiple posts. And include some general comments along the way. This is another of what I think as ‘foundational’ nonfiction books in my library, those I consider fundamental treatments of their subjects, those I consider at the core of my own references for this blog and for my worldview.
The most remarkable thing about this book is that it addresses an obvious point that many people simply do not understand, or refuse to understand, or don’t care to understand. You see this over and over again, generally of course among conservatives. Speaking as if the elements of their religious faith should be allowed equal standing with the conclusions of many centuries’ of systematic investigation and verification (i.e. science). I’ve said before that sometimes I suspect that religious faith taught early on simply cripples one’s ability for rational thought. The idea of linking facts and evidence seems elusive to some people, when they can simply assert what they wish to be true, because that’s what they were taught at an early age and that’s what everyone in their community believes. It’s part of their culture.
The basic issue is that one can have “faith” in *anything*, while science is tied to the reality of the world. Why is this not apparent? Because it doesn’t matter to most people.
Summary, Preface and Chapter 1
Preface: The Genesis of This Book
In 2013 the author had a debate with someone who claimed “faith is a gift.” But science and religion regard “faith” in different ways, which makes them incompatible for discovering what’s true about the universe. Both make existence claims about what is real (this was the emphasis of the “new atheists” in the 2000s). The toolkit of science is reliable; that of religion not. Author thus rejects so-called “accommodationism,” the idea that science and religion are complementary (or are “different ways of knowing”). The book focuses on religions that make existence claims, mostly on the Abrahamic faiths.
Ch1, The Problem
Both science and religion make claims about what is real. The former can, and has, disproved many claims of the latter (the creation, the flood, etc.); the latter has no way to challenge the claims of the former. Many people realize this and try to have it both ways, through some kind of “accommodationism.” Yet most people still place faith over science, and take empirical claims about God, the Resurrection, prayer, etc., at face value, without any rational basis, just as believers in pseudoscience take ESP, astrology, and alien abductions. A true “theory of God” would entail five criteria: that God is real; that his properties involve what God actually does; that this theory is testable; that we do test it by observation or experiment; and that this theory explains things otherwise unexplainable. It’s not disrespectful to treat religious dogmas as hypotheses to be examined.
In science, faith is a vice, while in religion it’s a virtue.
Rational scrutiny of religion asks believers only two questions:
1, How do you know that?
2, What makes you so sure that the claims of your faith are right and the claims of other faiths are wrong?
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(There are four further chapters:
Ch2, What’s Incompatible?
Ch3, Why Accomodationism Fails
Ch4, Faith Strikes Back
Ch5, Why Does It Matter?)
Comments
This book, like Bering’s, can be seen as yet another follow-up to the “new atheist” books of the mid-2000s.
I think believers would find Coyne’s two questions naive, or irrelevant. It doesn’t matter to most people what is factual; it only matters that they belong to a family and a community of similar believers. In such communities even the doubters learn not to question, not to express contrary opinions. It’s more important to belong.
Given all the discoveries about human nature and its biases, we understand that there are lots of “facts” that simply strain human credulity, because they lie outside the range of human intuitions, which evolved to handle challenges in the ancestral environment at human scales.
While the tenets of faith have *evolved* to appeal to those base intuitions. If every human has a father, so must the universe. ‘Redemption” is an extension of the aspects of human nature like cooperation and forgiveness and altruism, without which our modern societies would not be possible. Because religious ideas evolve, too. As anyone familiar with religious history knows.
Raw Notes, Preface and Chapter 1
Preface, The Genesis of This Book
Author recalls a 2013 debate in which his opponent claimed ‘faith is a gift’. This book is “about the different ways that science and religion regard faith, ways that make them incompatible for discovering what’s true about our universe”. Both science and religion make existence claims about what is real; the toolkit of science is reliable; that of religion is unreliable. He takes a stance divergent from ‘accommodationism’, that religion and science are somehow complementary.
This is part of a wider war between rationality and superstition.
What distinguishes the works of the ‘new atheists’ is the observation that religious claims are *truth* claims about which we can request evidence. [[ The new atheists were Harris, Dawkins, Hitchens, and Dennett, who wrote popular and controversial books in the 2000s. ]]
Author has personal interest; this conflict arises especially in his profession, that of evolutionary biologist. He hears the opposition when he teaches: charges about being a tool of Satan. He wrote a book about evolution [[ reviewed here ]], only to discover many faithful simply discounted the facts before their noses. Anecdote about talk to a group of businessmen: “I found your evidence convincing, but I still don’t believe it.”
So author read a lot about accommodationism, discovering that the arguments of theology are similar to those of pseudoscience.
Caveats: this book is not concerned with those religions that make no existence claims; focuses mostly on the Abrahamic faiths; recognizes some liberal version of these make only very vague truth claims (versions not held by most people). What most people believe is not, as some claim, a straw man version of religion. (Then p xviii outlines the content of the book.)
The thesis is that understanding reality is best achieved by science, and is never achieved using the methods of faith.
(Author won’t discuss what might replace religion; see book by Phil Kitcher. And won’t discuss history or evolution of religion.)
Ch1, The Problem
No one tries to reconcile religion with sports or literature; because science and religion are competitors about discovering truths about nature.
The conflict has been around since 16th century Europe. Two titles published in the late 1800s captured it: one by John William Draper in 1875, the other by Andrew Dickson White in 1896. These books had their critics. The conflict has not gone away; the number of books about “science and religion” just keep growing. The lack of harmony is shown by the *increasing* number of foundations and conferences etc about the subject.
Some scientists promote accommodationism because, frankly, they need grant money… p7
Or associations that just play it safe. Examples; BioLogos; statements about supposed compatibility. Ironically, most scientists *are* atheists. (…p13 because nonbelievers are drawn to science… or science promotes the rejection of faith.)
Despite such statements, most people would put faith over scientific claims. And most polls indicate that people do think science and religion are often in conflict.
One reason churches are losing members is because younger people see religion as antagonistic to science.
Why has this issue been revived in recent years? Advances in science that have pushed back claims of religion; the rise of the Templeton Foundation; and New Atheism.
Darwin; the push for creationism began around 1960, morphing in ID…
In contrast evidence for evolution grows across many fields. Advances in other fields… p15m
The list of things needing God to explain keeps shrinking.
And the rise of the ‘nones’; churches try to embrace science as best they can.
Templeton Foundation – p17ff. The big questions. Its prizes and grants.
List of New Atheist bk, p21t. Mostly written by *scientists*, and including the theme that religions make empirical claims. The typical examples: God, the resurrection, prayer, etc p22t. More than half of all Americans take these literally. Islam has its own set of claims, as does Christian Science, Hindus, Scientology, etc etc.
Thus we can ask about evidence and reasons to believe. Five criteria for a ‘god theory’ p23-24. Competing claims, religions have splintered; thousands of rival claims.
It is not disrespectful to treat god and religious dogma as hypotheses to be examined.
In science faith is a vice, while in religion it’s a virtue.
Rational scrutiny of religious faith asks believers two questions:
- How do you know that?
- What makes you so sure that the claims of your faith are right and the claims of other faiths are wrong?
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