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God the Geometer — Gothic frontispiece of the
Bible moralisée, representing
God's act of Creation. France, mid-13th century
The relationship between religion and science involves discussions that interconnect the study of the natural world, history, philosophy, and theology.
Even though the ancient and medieval worlds did not have conceptions resembling the modern understandings of "science" or of "religion",
certain elements of modern ideas on the subject recur throughout
history. The pair-structured phrases "religion and science" and "science
and religion" first emerged in the literature during the 19th century. This coincided with the refining of "science" (from the studies of "natural philosophy") and of "religion" as distinct concepts in the preceding few centuries—partly due to professionalization of the sciences, the Protestant Reformation, colonization, and globalization.
Since then the relationship between science and religion has been
characterized in terms of 'conflict', 'harmony', 'complexity', and
'mutual independence', among others.
Both science and religion are complex social and cultural endeavors that may vary across cultures and change over time. Most scientific (and technical) innovations prior to the scientific revolution were achieved by societies organized by religious traditions. Ancient pagan, Islamic, and Christian scholars pioneered individual elements of the scientific method. Roger Bacon, often credited with formalizing the scientific method, was a Franciscan friar. Confucian thought, whether religious or non-religious in nature, has held different views of science over time. Many 21st-century Buddhists view science as complementary to their beliefs, although the philosophical integrity of such Buddhist modernism has been challenged. While the classification of the material world by the ancient Indians and Greeks into air, earth, fire, and water was more metaphysical, and figures like Anaxagoras questioned certain popular views of Greek divinities, medieval Middle Eastern scholars empirically classified materials.
Events in Europe such as the Galileo affair of the early 17th century, associated with the scientific revolution and the Age of Enlightenment, led scholars such as John William Draper to postulate (c. 1874) a conflict thesis,
suggesting that religion and science have been in conflict
methodologically, factually and politically throughout history. Some
contemporary atheistic philosophers/scientists (such as Richard Dawkins, Lawrence Krauss, Peter Atkins, and Donald Prothero) subscribe to this thesis. However, the conflict thesis has lost favor among most contemporary historians of science.
Many scientists, philosophers, and theologians throughout history, such as Francisco Ayala, Kenneth R. Miller, and Francis Collins, have seen compatibility or interdependence between religion and science. Biologist Stephen Jay Gould, other scientists, and some contemporary theologians regard religion and science as non-overlapping magisteria, addressing fundamentally separate forms of knowledge and aspects of life. Some theologians or historians of science and mathematicians, including John Lennox, Thomas Berry, and Brian Swimme propose an interconnection between science and religion, while others such as Ian Barbour believe there are even parallels.
Public acceptance of scientific facts may sometimes be influenced by religious beliefs such as in the United States, where some reject the concept of evolution by natural selection, especially regarding Human beings. Nevertheless, the American National Academy of Sciences has written that "the evidence for evolution can be fully compatible with religious faith",
a view endorsed by many religious denominations.
History
Concepts of science and religion
The
concepts of "science" and "religion" are a recent invention: "religion"
emerged in the 17th century in the midst of colonization, globalization
and as a consequence of the Protestant reformation. "Science" emerged
in the 19th century in the midst of attempts to narrowly define those
who studied nature. Originally what is now known as "science" was pioneered as "natural philosophy".
It was in the 19th century that the terms "Buddhism", "Hinduism", "Taoism", "Confucianism" and "World Religions" first emerged. In the ancient and medieval world, the etymological Latin roots of both science (scientia) and religion (religio)
were understood as inner qualities of the individual or virtues, never
as doctrines, practices, or actual sources of knowledge.
The 19th century also experienced the concept of "science"
receiving its modern shape with new titles emerging such as "biology"
and "biologist", "physics", and "physicist", among other technical
fields and titles; institutions and communities were founded, and
unprecedented applications to and interactions with other aspects of
society and culture occurred. The term scientist was coined by the naturalist-theologian William Whewell in 1834 and it was applied to those who sought knowledge and understanding of nature. From the ancient world, starting with Aristotle, to the 19th century, the practice of studying nature was commonly referred to as "natural philosophy". Isaac Newton's book Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica
(1687), whose title translates to "Mathematical Principles of Natural
Philosophy", reflects the then-current use of the words "natural
philosophy", akin to "systematic study of nature". Even in the 19th
century, a treatise by Lord Kelvin and Peter Guthrie Tait's, which helped define much of modern physics, was titled Treatise on Natural Philosophy (1867).
It was in the 17th century that the concept of "religion"
received its modern shape despite the fact that ancient texts like the
Bible, the Quran, and other texts did not have a concept of religion in
the original languages and neither did the people or the cultures in
which these texts were written. In the 19th century, Max Müller noted that what is called ancient religion today, would have been called "law" in antiquity.
For example, there is no precise equivalent of "religion" in Hebrew,
and Judaism does not distinguish clearly between religious, national,
racial, or ethnic identities. The Sanskrit word "dharma", sometimes translated as "religion", also means law or duty. Throughout classical India, the study of law consisted of concepts such as penance through piety and ceremonial as well as practical traditions.
Medieval Japan at first had a similar union between "imperial law" and
universal or "Buddha law", but these later became independent sources of
power.
Throughout its long history, Japan had no concept of "religion" since
there was no corresponding Japanese word, nor anything close to its
meaning, but when American warships appeared off the coast of Japan in
1853 and forced the Japanese government to sign treaties demanding, among other things, freedom of religion, the country had to contend with this Western idea.
Middle Ages and Renaissance
The development of sciences (especially natural philosophy) in Western Europe during the Middle Ages, has a considerable foundation in the works of the Arabs who translated Greek and Latin compositions. The works of Aristotle
played a major role in the institutionalization, systematization, and
expansion of reason. Christianity accepted reason within the ambit of
faith. In Christendom, ideas articulated via divine revelation were assumed to be true, and thus via the law of non-contradiction,
it was maintained that the natural world must accord with this revealed
truth. Any apparent contradiction would indicate either a
misunderstanding of the natural world or a misunderstanding of
revelation. The prominent scholastic Thomas Aquinas writes in the Summa Theologica concerning apparent contradictions:
"In discussing questions of this kind two rules are to observed, as Augustine teaches (Gen. ad lit.
i, 18). The first is, to hold the truth of Scripture without wavering.
The second is that since Holy Scripture can be explained in a
multiplicity of senses, one should adhere to a particular explanation,
only in such measure as to be ready to abandon it, if it be proved with
certainty to be false; lest Holy Scripture be exposed to the ridicule of
unbelievers, and obstacles be placed to their believing." (Summa 1a, 68, 1)
where the referenced text from Augustine of Hippo reads:
"In matters that are obscure and far beyond our vision, even in such as
we may find treated in Holy Scripture, different interpretations are
sometimes possible without prejudice to the faith we have received. In
such a case, we should not rush in headlong and so firmly take our stand
on one side that, if further progress in the search of truth justly
undermines this position, we too fall with it. That would be to battle
not for the teaching of Holy Scripture but for our own, wishing its
teaching to conform to ours, whereas we ought to wish ours to conform to
that of Sacred Scripture." (Gen. ad lit. i, 18)
In medieval universities, the faculty for natural philosophy and
theology were separate, and discussions pertaining to theological issues
were often not allowed to be undertaken by the faculty of philosophy. Natural philosophy, as taught in the arts faculties of the
universities, was seen as an essential area of study in its own right
and was considered necessary for almost every area of study. It was an
independent field, separated from theology, and enjoyed a good deal of
intellectual freedom as long as it was restricted to the natural world.
In general, there was religious support for natural science by the late
Middle Ages and a recognition that it was an important element of
learning.
The extent to which medieval science led directly to the new
philosophy of the scientific revolution remains a subject for debate,
but it certainly had a significant influence.
The Middle Ages laid ground for the developments that took place in science, during the Renaissance which immediately succeeded it.
By 1630, ancient authority from classical literature and philosophy, as
well as their necessity, started eroding, although scientists were
still expected to be fluent in Latin, the international language of Europe's intellectuals. With the sheer success of science and the steady advance of rationalism, the individual scientist gained prestige. Along with the inventions of this period, especially the printing press by Johannes Gutenberg,
allowing for the dissemination of the Bible in languages of the common
people (languages other than Latin). This allowed more people to read
and learn from the scripture, leading to the Evangelical movement. The people who spread this message concentrated more on individual agency rather than the structures of the Church.
Modern period
In the 17th century, founders of the Royal Society largely held conventional and orthodox religious views, and a number of them were prominent Churchmen.
While theological issues that had the potential to be divisive were
typically excluded from formal discussions of the early Society, many of
its fellows nonetheless believed that their scientific activities
provided support for traditional religious belief.
Clerical involvement in the Royal Society remained high until the
mid-nineteenth century when science became more professionalized.
Albert Einstein
supported the compatibility of some interpretations of religion with
science. In "Science, Philosophy and Religion, A Symposium" published by
the Conference on Science, Philosophy and Religion in Their Relation to
the Democratic Way of Life, Inc., New York in 1941, Einstein stated:
Accordingly, a religious person is
devout in the sense that he has no doubt of the significance and
loftiness of those superpersonal objects and goals which neither require
nor are capable of rational foundation. They exist with the same
necessity and matter-of-factness as he himself. In this sense religion
is the age-old endeavor of mankind to become clearly and completely
conscious of these values and goals and constantly to strengthen and
extend their effect. If one conceives of religion and science according
to these definitions then a conflict between them appears impossible.
For science can only ascertain what is, but not what should be, and
outside of its domain value judgments of all kinds remain necessary.
Religion, on the other hand, deals only with evaluations of human
thought and action: it cannot justifiably speak of facts and
relationships between facts. According to this interpretation the
well-known conflicts between religion and science in the past must all
be ascribed to a misapprehension of the situation which has been
described.
Einstein thus expresses views of ethical non-naturalism (contrasted to ethical naturalism).
Prominent modern scientists who are atheists include evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins and Nobel Prize–winning physicist Steven Weinberg. Prominent scientists advocating religious belief include Nobel Prize–winning physicist and United Church of Christ member Charles Townes, evangelical Christian and past head of the Human Genome Project Francis Collins, and climatologist John T. Houghton.
Perspectives
According to
Richard Dawkins,
"Not only is science corrosive to religion; religion is corrosive to
science. It teaches people to be satisfied with trivial, supernatural
non-explanations and blinds them to the wonderful real explanations that
we have within our grasp. It teaches them to accept authority,
revelation and faith instead of always insisting on evidence."
The kinds of interactions that might arise between science and
religion have been categorized by theologian, Anglican priest, and
physicist John Polkinghorne:
(1) conflict between the disciplines, (2) independence of the
disciplines, (3) dialogue between the disciplines where they overlap and
(4) integration of both into one field.
This typology is similar to ones used by theologians Ian Barbour and John Haught. More typologies that categorize this relationship can be found among the works of other science and religion scholars such as theologian and biochemist Arthur Peacocke.
Incompatibility
According
to Guillermo Paz-y-Miño-C and Avelina Espinosa, the historical conflict
between evolution and religion is intrinsic to the incompatibility
between scientific rationalism/empiricism and the belief in supernatural causation. According to evolutionary biologist Jerry Coyne,
views on evolution and levels of religiosity in some countries, along
with the existence of books explaining reconciliation between evolution
and religion, indicate that people have trouble in believing both at the
same time, thus implying incompatibility. In a debate with John Staddon, Coyne disputed the idea that the values of secular humanism are just as faith-based as frankly religious beliefs. According to physical chemist Peter Atkins, "whereas religion scorns the power of human comprehension, science respects it." Planetary scientist Carolyn Porco
describes a hope that "the confrontation between science and formal
religion will come to an end when the role played by science in the
lives of all people is the same played by religion today."
Geologist and paleontologist Donald Prothero has stated that religion is the reason "questions about evolution,
the age of the earth, cosmology, and human evolution nearly always
cause Americans to flunk science literacy tests compared to other
nations."
However, Jon Miller, who studies science literacy across nations,
states that Americans in general are slightly more scientifically
literate than Europeans and the Japanese.
According to cosmologist and astrophysicist Lawrence Krauss, compatibility or incompatibility is a theological concern, not a scientific concern. In Lisa Randall's
view, questions of incompatibility or otherwise are not answerable,
since by accepting revelations one is abandoning rules of logic which
are needed to identify if there are indeed contradictions between
holding certain beliefs. Daniel Dennett
holds that incompatibility exists because religion is not problematic
to a certain point before it collapses into a number of excuses for
keeping certain beliefs, in light of evolutionary implications.
According to theoretical physicist Steven Weinberg, teaching cosmology and evolution to students should decrease their self-importance in the universe, as well as their religiosity. Evolutionary developmental biologist PZ Myers' view is that all scientists should be atheists, and that science should never accommodate any religious beliefs. Physicist Sean M. Carroll claims that since religion makes claims that are supernatural, both science and religion are incompatible.
Evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins
is openly hostile to religion because he believes it actively debauches
the scientific enterprise and education involving science. According to
Dawkins, religion "subverts science and saps the intellect".
He believes that when science teachers attempt to expound on evolution,
there is hostility aimed towards them by parents who are skeptical
because they believe it conflicts with their own religious beliefs, and
that even in some textbooks have had the word 'evolution' systematically
removed. He has worked to argue the negative effects that he believes religion has on education of science.
According to Renny Thomas' study on Indian scientists, atheistic
scientists in India called themselves atheists even while accepting that
their lifestyle is very much a part of tradition and religion. Thus,
they differ from Western atheists in that for them following the
lifestyle of a religion is not antithetical to atheism.
Criticism
Others such as Francis Collins, George F. R. Ellis,
Kenneth R. Miller, Katharine Hayhoe, George Coyne and Simon Conway Morris
argue for compatibility since they do not agree that science is
incompatible with religion and vice versa. They argue that science
provides many opportunities to look for and find God in nature and to
reflect on their beliefs.
According to Kenneth Miller, he disagrees with Jerry Coyne's assessment
and argues that since significant portions of scientists are religious
and the proportion of Americans believing in evolution is much higher,
it implies that both are indeed compatible.
Elsewhere, Miller has argued that when scientists make claims on
science and theism or atheism, they are not arguing scientifically at
all and are stepping beyond the scope of science into discourses of
meaning and purpose. What he finds particularly odd and unjustified is
in how atheists often come to invoke scientific authority on their
non-scientific philosophical conclusions like there being no point or no
meaning to the universe as the only viable option when the scientific
method and science never have had any way of addressing questions of
meaning or God in the first place. Furthermore, he notes that since
evolution made the brain and since the brain can handle both religion
and science, there is no natural incompatibility between the concepts at
the biological level.
Karl Giberson argues that when discussing compatibility, some
scientific intellectuals often ignore the viewpoints of intellectual
leaders in theology and instead argue against less informed masses,
thereby, defining religion by non-intellectuals and slanting the debate
unjustly. He argues that leaders in science sometimes trump older
scientific baggage and that leaders in theology do the same, so once
theological intellectuals are taken into account, people who represent
extreme positions like Ken Ham and Eugenie Scott will become irrelevant.
Cynthia Tolman notes that religion does not have a method per se partly
because religions emerge through time from diverse cultures, but when
it comes to Christian theology and ultimate truths, she notes that
people often rely on scripture, tradition, reason, and experience to
test and gauge what they experience and what they should believe.
Conflict thesis
The conflict thesis,
which holds that religion and science have been in conflict
continuously throughout history, was popularized in the 19th century by John William Draper's and Andrew Dickson White's
accounts. It was in the 19th century that relationship between science
and religion became an actual formal topic of discourse, while before
this no one had pitted science against religion or vice versa, though
occasional complex interactions had been expressed before the 19th
century. Most contemporary historians of science now reject the conflict thesis in its original form and no longer support it. Instead, it has been superseded by subsequent historical research which has resulted in a more nuanced understanding:
Historian of science, Gary Ferngren, has stated: "Although popular
images of controversy continue to exemplify the supposed hostility of
Christianity to new scientific theories, studies have shown that
Christianity has often nurtured and encouraged scientific endeavour,
while at other times the two have co-existed without either tension or
attempts at harmonization. If Galileo and the Scopes trial come to mind
as examples of conflict, they were the exceptions rather than the rule."
Most historians today have moved away from a conflict model,
which is based mainly on two historical episodes (Galileo and Darwin),
toward compatibility theses (either the integration thesis or
non-overlapping magisteria) or toward a "complexity" model, because
religious figures were on both sides of each dispute and there was no
overall aim by any party involved to discredit religion.
An often cited example of conflict, that has been clarified by
historical research in the 20th century, was the Galileo affair, whereby
interpretations of the Bible were used to attack ideas by Copernicus on heliocentrism. By 1616 Galileo
went to Rome to try to persuade Catholic Church authorities not to ban
Copernicus' ideas. In the end, a decree of the Congregation of the Index
was issued, declaring that the ideas that the Sun stood still and that
the Earth moved were "false" and "altogether contrary to Holy
Scripture", and suspending Copernicus's De Revolutionibus
until it could be corrected. Galileo was found "vehemently suspect of
heresy", namely of having held the opinions that the Sun lies motionless
at the center of the universe, that the Earth is not at its centre and
moves. He was required to "abjure, curse and detest" those opinions.
However, before all this, Pope Urban VIII had personally asked Galileo
to give arguments for and against heliocentrism in a book, and to be
careful not to advocate heliocentrism as physically proven since the
scientific consensus at the time was that the evidence for heliocentrism
was very weak. The Church had merely sided with the scientific
consensus of the time. Pope Urban VIII asked that his own views on the
matter be included in Galileo's book. Only the latter was fulfilled by
Galileo. Whether unknowingly or deliberately, Simplicio, the defender of
the Aristotelian/Ptolemaic geocentric view in Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems,
was often portrayed as an unlearned fool who lacked mathematical
training. Although the preface of his book claims that the character is
named after a famous Aristotelian philosopher (Simplicius in Latin, Simplicio in Italian), the name "Simplicio" in Italian also has the connotation of "simpleton".
Unfortunately for his relationship with the Pope, Galileo put the words
of Urban VIII into the mouth of Simplicio. Most historians agree
Galileo did not act out of malice and felt blindsided by the reaction to
his book.
However, the Pope did not take the suspected public ridicule lightly,
nor the physical Copernican advocacy. Galileo had alienated one of his
biggest and most powerful supporters, the Pope, and was called to Rome
to defend his writings.
The actual evidences that finally proved heliocentrism came
centuries after Galileo: the stellar aberration of light by James
Bradley in the 18th century, the orbital motions of binary stars by
William Herschel in the 19th century, the accurate measurement of the
stellar parallax in the 19th century, and Newtonian mechanics in the
17th century.
According to physicist Christopher Graney, Galileo's own observations
did not actually support the Copernican view, but were more consistent
with Tycho Brahe's hybrid model where that Earth did not move and
everything else circled around it and the Sun.
British philosopher A. C. Grayling,
still believes there is competition between science and religions and
point to the origin of the universe, the nature of human beings and the
possibility of miracles.
Independence
A modern view, described by Stephen Jay Gould as "non-overlapping magisteria"
(NOMA), is that science and religion deal with fundamentally separate
aspects of human experience and so, when each stays within its own
domain, they co-exist peacefully. While Gould spoke of independence from the perspective of science, W. T. Stace viewed independence from the perspective of the philosophy of religion. Stace felt that science and religion, when each is viewed in its own domain, are both consistent and complete. They originate from different perceptions of reality, as Arnold O. Benz points out, but meet each other, for example, in the feeling of amazement and in ethics.
The USA's National Academy of Science supports the view that science and religion are independent.
Science and religion are based on different aspects of
human experience. In science, explanations must be based on evidence
drawn from examining the natural world. Scientifically based
observations or experiments that conflict with an explanation eventually
must lead to modification or even abandonment of that explanation.
Religious faith, in contrast, does not depend on empirical evidence, is
not necessarily modified in the face of conflicting evidence, and
typically involves supernatural forces or entities. Because they are not
a part of nature, supernatural entities cannot be investigated by
science. In this sense, science and religion are separate and address
aspects of human understanding in different ways. Attempts to put
science and religion against each other create controversy where none
needs to exist.
According to Archbishop John Habgood,
both science and religion represent distinct ways of approaching
experience and these differences are sources of debate. He views science
as descriptive and religion as prescriptive. He stated that if science and mathematics concentrate on what the world ought to be,
in the way that religion does, it may lead to improperly ascribing
properties to the natural world as happened among the followers of Pythagoras in the sixth century B.C. In contrast, proponents of a normative moral science take issue with the idea that science has no
way of guiding "oughts". Habgood also stated that he believed that the
reverse situation, where religion attempts to be descriptive, can also
lead to inappropriately assigning properties to the natural world. A
notable example is the now defunct belief in the Ptolemaic (geocentric) planetary model that held sway until changes in scientific and religious thinking were brought about by Galileo and proponents of his views.
In the view of the Lubavitcher rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, non-Euclidean geometry such as Lobachevsky's hyperbolic geometry and Riemann's elliptic geometry proved that Euclid's
axioms, such as, "there is only one straight line between two points",
are in fact arbitrary. Therefore, science, which relies on arbitrary
axioms, can never refute Torah, which is absolute truth.
Parallels in method
According to Ian Barbour, Thomas S. Kuhn asserted that science is made up of paradigms that arise from cultural traditions, which is similar to the secular perspective on religion.
Michael Polanyi asserted that it is merely a commitment to universality that protects against subjectivity
and has nothing at all to do with personal detachment as found in many
conceptions of the scientific method. Polanyi further asserted that all
knowledge is personal and therefore the scientist must be performing a
very personal if not necessarily subjective role when doing science. Polanyi added that the scientist often merely follows intuitions of "intellectual beauty, symmetry, and 'empirical agreement'". Polanyi held that science requires moral commitments similar to those found in religion.
Two physicists, Charles A. Coulson and Harold K. Schilling, both claimed that "the methods of science and religion have much in common."
Schilling asserted that both fields—science and religion—have "a
threefold structure—of experience, theoretical interpretation, and
practical application."
Coulson asserted that science, like religion, "advances by creative
imagination" and not by "mere collecting of facts," while stating that
religion should and does "involve critical reflection on experience not
unlike that which goes on in science." Religious language and scientific language also show parallels (cf. rhetoric of science).
Dialogue
Clerks studying astronomy and geometry (France, early 15th century)
The religion and science community consists of those scholars
who involve themselves with what has been called the
"religion-and-science dialogue" or the "religion-and-science field."
The community belongs to neither the scientific nor the religious
community, but is said to be a third overlapping community of interested
and involved scientists, priests, clergymen, theologians and engaged
non-professionals. Institutions interested in the intersection between science and religion include the Center for Theology and the Natural Sciences, the Institute on Religion in an Age of Science, the Ian Ramsey Centre, and the Faraday Institute. Journals addressing the relationship between science and religion include Theology and Science and Zygon. Eugenie Scott
has written that the "science and religion" movement is, overall,
composed mainly of theists who have a healthy respect for science and
may be beneficial to the public understanding of science. She contends
that the "Christian scholarship" movement is not a problem for science,
but that the "Theistic science" movement, which proposes abandoning
methodological materialism, does cause problems in understanding of the
nature of science. The Gifford Lectures
were established in 1885 to further the discussion between "natural
theology" and the scientific community. This annual series continues and
has included William James, John Dewey, Carl Sagan, and many other professors from various fields.
The modern dialogue between religion and science is rooted in Ian Barbour's 1966 book Issues in Science and Religion. Since that time it has grown into a serious academic field, with academic chairs in the subject area, and two dedicated academic journals, Zygon and Theology and Science. Articles are also sometimes found in mainstream science journals such as American Journal of Physics
and Science.
Philosopher Alvin Plantinga
has argued that there is superficial conflict but deep concord between
science and religion, and that there is deep conflict between science
and naturalism. Plantinga, in his book Where the Conflict Really Lies: Science, Religion, and Naturalism,
heavily contests the linkage of naturalism with science, as conceived
by Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett and like-minded thinkers; while
Daniel Dennett thinks that Plantinga stretches science to an
unacceptable extent. Philosopher Maarten Boudry, in reviewing the book, has commented that he resorts to creationism and fails to "stave off the conflict between theism and evolution." Cognitive scientist Justin L. Barrett,
by contrast, reviews the same book and writes that "those most needing
to hear Plantinga's message may fail to give it a fair hearing for
rhetorical rather than analytical reasons."
Integration
As
a general view, this holds that while interactions are complex between
influences of science, theology, politics, social, and economic
concerns, the productive engagements between science and religion
throughout history should be duly stressed as the norm.
Scientific and theological perspectives often coexist peacefully.
Christians and some non-Christian religions have historically
integrated well with scientific ideas, as in the ancient Egyptian technological mastery applied to monotheistic ends, the flourishing of logic and mathematics under Hinduism and Buddhism, and the scientific advances made by Muslim scholars during the Ottoman empire.
Even many 19th-century Christian communities welcomed scientists who
claimed that science was not at all concerned with discovering the
ultimate nature of reality. According to Lawrence M. Principe, the Johns Hopkins University
Drew Professor of the Humanities, from a historical perspective this
points out that much of the current-day clashes occur between limited
extremists—both religious and scientistic fundamentalists—over a very
few topics, and that the movement of ideas back and forth between
scientific and theological thought has been more usual. To Principe, this perspective would point to the fundamentally common respect for written learning in religious traditions of rabbinical literature, Christian theology, and the Islamic Golden Age, including a Transmission of the Classics from Greek to Islamic to Christian traditions which helped spark the Renaissance.
Religions have also given key participation in development of modern
universities and libraries; centers of learning & scholarship were
coincident with religious institutions – whether pagan, Muslim, or
Christian.
Individual religions
Baháʼí Faith
A fundamental principle of the Baháʼí Faith is the harmony of religion and science. Baháʼí scripture asserts that true science and true religion can never be in conflict. `Abdu'l-Bahá,
the son of the founder of the religion, stated that religion without
science is superstition and that science without religion is
materialism. He also admonished that true religion must conform to the
conclusions of science.
Buddhism
Buddhism and science have been regarded as compatible by numerous authors. Some philosophic and psychological teachings found in Buddhism share points in common with modern Western scientific and philosophic thought. For example, Buddhism encourages the impartial investigation of nature (an activity referred to as Dhamma-Vicaya in the Pali Canon)—the principal object of study being oneself. Buddhism and science both show a strong emphasis on causality. However, Buddhism does not focus on materialism.
Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama, mentions that empirical scientific evidence supersedes the traditional teachings of Buddhism when the two are in conflict. In his book The Universe in a Single Atom
he wrote, "My confidence in venturing into science lies in my basic
belief that as in science, so in Buddhism, understanding the nature of
reality is pursued by means of critical investigation." He also stated,
"If scientific analysis were conclusively to demonstrate certain claims
in Buddhism to be false," he says, "then we must accept the findings of
science and abandon those claims."
Christianity
Among early Christian teachers, Tertullian (c. 160–220) held a generally negative opinion of Greek philosophy, while Origen (c. 185–254) regarded it much more favorably and required his students to read nearly every work available to them.
Earlier attempts at reconciliation of Christianity with Newtonian mechanics appear quite different from later attempts at reconciliation with the newer scientific ideas of evolution or relativity. Many early interpretations of evolution polarized themselves around a struggle for existence. These ideas were significantly countered by later findings of universal patterns of biological cooperation. According to John Habgood, the universe seems to be a mix of good and evil, beauty and pain, and that suffering
may somehow be part of the process of creation. Habgood holds that
Christians should not be surprised that suffering may be used creatively
by God, given their faith in the symbol of the Cross.
Robert John Russell has examined consonance and dissonance between modern physics, evolutionary biology, and Christian theology.
Christian philosophers Augustine of Hippo (354–430) and Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274)
held that scriptures can have multiple interpretations on certain areas
where the matters were far beyond their reach, therefore one should
leave room for future findings to shed light on the meanings. The
"Handmaiden" tradition, which saw secular studies of the universe as a
very important and helpful part of arriving at a better understanding of
scripture, was adopted throughout Christian history from early on.
Also the sense that God created the world as a self operating system is
what motivated many Christians throughout the Middle Ages to
investigate nature.
Modern historians of science such as J.L. Heilbron, Alistair Cameron Crombie, David Lindberg, Edward Grant, Thomas Goldstein,
and Ted Davis have reviewed the popular notion that medieval
Christianity was a negative influence in the development of civilization
and science. In their views, not only did the monks save and cultivate
the remnants of ancient civilization during the barbarian invasions, but
the medieval church promoted learning and science through its
sponsorship of many universities which, under its leadership, grew
rapidly in Europe in the 11th and 12th centuries. Saint Thomas Aquinas,
the Church's "model theologian", not only argued that reason is in
harmony with faith, he even recognized that reason can contribute to
understanding revelation, and so encouraged intellectual development. He
was not unlike other medieval theologians who sought out reason in the
effort to defend his faith. Some of today's scholars, such as Stanley Jaki, have claimed that Christianity with its particular worldview, was a crucial factor for the emergence of modern science.
David C. Lindberg states that the widespread popular belief that the
Middle Ages was a time of ignorance and superstition due to the
Christian church is a "caricature". According to Lindberg, while there
are some portions of the classical tradition which suggest this view,
these were exceptional cases. It was common to tolerate and encourage
critical thinking about the nature of the world. The relation between
Christianity and science is complex and cannot be simplified to either
harmony or conflict, according to Lindberg.
Lindberg reports that "the late medieval scholar rarely experienced the
coercive power of the church and would have regarded himself as free
(particularly in the natural sciences) to follow reason and observation
wherever they led. There was no warfare between science and the church." Ted Peters in Encyclopedia of Religion
writes that although there is some truth in the "Galileo's
condemnation" story but through exaggerations, it has now become "a
modern myth perpetuated by those wishing to see warfare between science
and religion who were allegedly persecuted by an atavistic and
dogma-bound ecclesiastical authority". In 1992, the Catholic Church's seeming vindication of Galileo attracted much comment in the media.
A degree of concord between science and religion can be seen in
religious belief and empirical science. The belief that God created the
world and therefore humans, can lead to the view that he arranged for
humans to know the world. This is underwritten by the doctrine of imago dei. In the words of Thomas Aquinas,
"Since human beings are said to be in the image of God in virtue of
their having a nature that includes an intellect, such a nature is most
in the image of God in virtue of being most able to imitate God".
During the Enlightenment,
a period "characterized by dramatic revolutions in science" and the
rise of Protestant challenges to the authority of the Catholic Church
via individual liberty, the authority of Christian scriptures became
strongly challenged. As science advanced, acceptance of a literal
version of the Bible became "increasingly untenable" and some in that
period presented ways of interpreting scripture according to its spirit
on its authority and truth.
After the Black Death in Europe, there occurred a generalized
decrease in faith in the Catholic Church. The "Natural Sciences" during
the Medieval Era focused largely on scientific arguments.
The Copernicans, who were generally a small group of privately
sponsored individuals, who were deemed Heretics by the Church in some
instances. Copernicus and his work challenged the view held by the
Catholic Church and the common scientific view at the time, yet
according to scholar J. L. Heilbron, the Roman Catholic Church sometimes
provided financial support to the Copernicans.
In doing so, the Church did support and promote scientific research
when the goals in question were in alignment with those of the faith, so
long as the findings were in line with the rhetoric of the Church.
A case example is the Catholic need for an accurate calendar. Calendar
reform was a touchy subject: civilians doubted the accuracy of the
mathematics and were upset that the process unfairly selected curators
of the reform. The Roman Catholic Church needed a precise date for the
Easter Sabbath, and thus the Church was highly supportive of calendar
reform. The need for the correct date of Easter was also the impetus of
cathedral construction.
Cathedrals essentially functioned as massive scale sun dials and, in
some cases, camera obscuras. They were efficient scientific devices
because they rose high enough for their naves to determine the summer
and winter solstices. Heilbron contends that as far back as the twelfth
century, the Roman Catholic Church was funding scientific discovery and
the recovery of ancient Greek scientific texts. However, the Copernican
revolution challenged the view held the Catholic Church and placed the
Sun at the center of the solar system.
Science and religion are portrayed to be in harmony in the
Tiffany window
Education (1890).
Perspectives on evolution
In recent history, the theory of evolution has been at the center of some controversy between Christianity and science. Christians who accept a literal interpretation of the biblical account of creation find incompatibility between Darwinian evolution and their interpretation of the Christian faith. Creation science or scientific creationism is a branch of creationism that attempts to provide scientific support for a literal reading of the Genesis creation narrative in the Book of Genesis and attempts to disprove generally accepted scientific facts, theories and scientific paradigms about the geological history of the Earth, cosmology of the early universe,
the chemical origins of life and biological evolution. It began in the 1960s as a fundamentalist Christian effort in the United States to prove Biblical inerrancy and falsify the scientific evidence for evolution.
It has since developed a sizable religious following in the United
States, with creation science ministries branching worldwide. In 1925, The State of Tennessee passed the Butler Act,
which prohibited the teaching of the theory of evolution in all schools
in the state. Later that year, a similar law was passed in Mississippi,
and likewise, Arkansas in 1927. In 1968, these "anti-monkey" laws were
struck down by the Supreme Court of the United States as unconstitutional, "because they established a religious doctrine violating both the First and Fourth Amendments to the Constitution.
Most scientists have rejected creation science for several
reasons, including that its claims do not refer to natural causes and
cannot be tested. In 1987, the United States Supreme Court ruled that creationism is religion, not science, and cannot be advocated in public school classrooms. In 2018, the Orlando Sentinel reported that "Some private schools in Florida that rely on public funding teach students" Creationism.
Theistic evolution
attempts to reconcile Christian beliefs and science by accepting the
scientific understanding of the age of the Earth and the process of
evolution. It includes a range of beliefs, including views described as evolutionary creationism,
which accepts some findings of modern science but also upholds
classical religious teachings about God and creation in Christian
context.
Roman Catholicism
While refined and clarified over the centuries, the Roman Catholic position on the relationship between science and religion is one of harmony, and has maintained the teaching of natural law as set forth by Thomas Aquinas. For example, regarding scientific study such as that of evolution, the church's unofficial position is an example of theistic evolution,
stating that faith and scientific findings regarding human evolution
are not in conflict, though humans are regarded as a special creation,
and that the existence of God is required to explain both monogenism and the spiritual
component of human origins. Catholic schools have included all manners
of scientific study in their curriculum for many centuries.
Galileo once stated "The intention of the Holy Spirit is to teach us how to go to heaven, not how the heavens go." In 1981 John Paul II, then pope of the Roman Catholic Church,
spoke of the relationship this way: "The Bible itself speaks to us of
the origin of the universe and its make-up, not in order to provide us
with a scientific treatise, but in order to state the correct
relationships of man with God and with the universe. Sacred Scripture
wishes simply to declare that the world was created by God, and in order
to teach this truth it expresses itself in the terms of the cosmology
in use at the time of the writer".
Influence of a biblical worldview on early modern science
According to Andrew Dickson White's A History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom
from the 19th century, a biblical world view affected negatively the
progress of science through time. Dickinson also argues that immediately
following the Reformation
matters were even worse. The interpretations of Scripture by Luther and
Calvin became as sacred to their followers as the Scripture itself. For
instance, when Georg Calixtus
ventured, in interpreting the Psalms, to question the accepted belief
that "the waters above the heavens" were contained in a vast receptacle
upheld by a solid vault, he was bitterly denounced as heretical.
Today, much of the scholarship in which the conflict thesis was
originally based is considered to be inaccurate. For instance, the claim
that early Christians rejected scientific findings by the Greco-Romans
is false, since the "handmaiden" view of secular studies was seen to
shed light on theology. This view was widely adapted throughout the
early medieval period and afterwards by theologians (such as Augustine)
and ultimately resulted in fostering interest in knowledge about nature
through time. Also, the claim that people of the Middle Ages widely believed that the Earth was flat was first propagated in the same period that originated the conflict thesis
and is still very common in popular culture. Modern scholars regard
this claim as mistaken, as the contemporary historians of science David C. Lindberg and Ronald L. Numbers
write: "there was scarcely a Christian scholar of the Middle Ages who
did not acknowledge [earth's] sphericity and even know its approximate
circumference."
From the fall of Rome to the time of Columbus, all major scholars and
many vernacular writers interested in the physical shape of the earth
held a spherical view with the exception of Lactantius and Cosmas.
H. Floris Cohen argued for a biblical Protestant, but not excluding Catholicism, influence on the early development of modern science. He presented Dutch historian R. Hooykaas'
argument that a biblical world-view holds all the necessary antidotes
for the hubris of Greek rationalism: a respect for manual labour,
leading to more experimentation and empiricism, and a supreme God that left nature open to emulation and manipulation. It supports the idea early modern science rose due to a combination of Greek and biblical thought.
Oxford historian Peter Harrison
is another who has argued that a biblical worldview was significant for
the development of modern science. Harrison contends that Protestant
approaches to the book of scripture had significant, if largely
unintended, consequences for the interpretation of the book of nature.
Harrison has also suggested that literal readings of the Genesis
narratives of the Creation and Fall motivated and legitimated scientific
activity in seventeenth-century England. For many of its
seventeenth-century practitioners, science was imagined to be a means of
restoring a human dominion over nature that had been lost as a
consequence of the Fall.
Historian and professor of religion Eugene M. Klaaren
holds that "a belief in divine creation" was central to an emergence of
science in seventeenth-century England. The philosopher Michael Foster
has published analytical philosophy connecting Christian doctrines of
creation with empiricism. Historian William B. Ashworth has argued
against the historical notion of distinctive mind-sets and the idea of
Catholic and Protestant sciences. Historians James R. Jacob and Margaret C. Jacob have argued for a linkage between seventeenth-century Anglican intellectual transformations and influential English scientists (e.g., Robert Boyle and Isaac Newton). John Dillenberger and Christopher B. Kaiser have written theological surveys, which also cover additional interactions occurring in the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries.
Philosopher of Religion, Richard Jones, has written a philosophical
critique of the "dependency thesis" which assumes that modern science
emerged from Christian sources and doctrines. Though he acknowledges
that modern science emerged in a religious framework, that Christianity
greatly elevated the importance of science by sanctioning and
religiously legitimizing it in the medieval period, and that
Christianity created a favorable social context for it to grow; he
argues that direct Christian beliefs or doctrines were not primary
sources of scientific pursuits by natural philosophers, nor was
Christianity, in and of itself, exclusively or directly necessary in
developing or practicing modern science.
Oxford University historian and theologian John Hedley Brooke wrote that "when natural philosophers referred to laws
of nature, they were not glibly choosing that metaphor. Laws were the
result of legislation by an intelligent deity. Thus the philosopher René Descartes
(1596–1650) insisted that he was discovering the "laws that God has put
into nature." Later Newton would declare that the regulation of the
solar system presupposed the "counsel and dominion of an intelligent and
powerful Being." Historian Ronald L. Numbers stated that this thesis "received a boost" from mathematician and philosopher Alfred North Whitehead's Science and the Modern World
(1925). Numbers has also argued, "Despite the manifest shortcomings of
the claim that Christianity gave birth to science—most glaringly, it
ignores or minimizes the contributions of ancient Greeks and medieval
Muslims—it too, refuses to succumb to the death it deserves." The sociologist Rodney Stark of Baylor University, argued in contrast that "Christian theology was essential for the rise of science."
Protestantism had an important influence on science. According to the Merton Thesis there was a positive correlation between the rise of Puritanism and Protestant Pietism on the one hand and early experimental science on the other.
The Merton Thesis has two separate parts: Firstly, it presents a theory
that science changes due to an accumulation of observations and
improvement in experimental techniques and methodology; secondly, it puts forward the argument that the popularity of science in 17th-century England and the religious demography of the Royal Society (English scientists of that time were predominantly Puritans or other Protestants) can be explained by a correlation between Protestantism and the scientific values. In his theory, Robert K. Merton focused on English Puritanism and German Pietism
as having been responsible for the development of the scientific
revolution of the 17th and 18th centuries. Merton explained that the
connection between religious affiliation and interest in science was the result of a significant synergy between the ascetic Protestant values and those of modern science.
Protestant values encouraged scientific research by allowing science to
study God's influence on the world and thus providing a religious
justification for scientific research.
Reconciliation in Britain in the early 20th century
In Reconciling Science and Religion: The Debate in Early-twentieth-century Britain, historian of biology Peter J. Bowler argues that in contrast to the conflicts between science and religion in the U.S. in the 1920s (most famously the Scopes Trial),
during this period Great Britain experienced a concerted effort at
reconciliation, championed by intellectually conservative scientists,
supported by liberal theologians but opposed by younger scientists and
secularists and conservative Christians. These attempts at reconciliation fell apart in the 1930s due to increased social tensions, moves towards neo-orthodox theology and the acceptance of the modern evolutionary synthesis.
In the 20th century, several ecumenical organizations promoting a harmony between science and Christianity were founded, most notably the American Scientific Affiliation, The Biologos Foundation, Christians in Science, The Society of Ordained Scientists, and The Veritas Forum.
Confucianism and traditional Chinese religion
The
historical process of Confucianism has largely been antipathic towards
scientific discovery. However the religio-philosophical system itself is
more neutral on the subject than such an analysis might suggest. In his
writings On Heaven, Xunzi espoused a proto-scientific world view. However, during the Han Synthesis the more anti-empirical Mencius was favored and combined with Daoist skepticism regarding the nature of reality. Likewise, during the Medieval period, Zhu Xi argued against technical investigation and specialization proposed by Chen Liang. After contact with the West, scholars such as Wang Fuzhi
would rely on Buddhist/Daoist skepticism to denounce all science as a
subjective pursuit limited by humanity's fundamental ignorance of the
true nature of the world.
The Jesuits from Europe taught Western math and science to the
Chinese bureaucrats in hopes of religious conversion. This process saw
several challenges of both European and Chinese spiritual and scientific
beliefs. The keynote text of Chinese scientific philosophy, The Book of Changes (or Yi Jing) was initially mocked and disregarded by the Westerners. In return, Confucian scholars Dai Zhen and Ji Yun found the concept of phantoms laughable and ridiculous. The Book of Changes outlined orthodoxy cosmology in the Qing, including yin and yang and the five cosmic phases.
Sometimes the missionary exploits proved dangerous for the Westerners.
Jesuit missionaries and scholars Ferdinand Vervbiest and Adam Schall
were punished after using scientific methods to determine the exact time
of the 1664 eclipse.
However, the European mission eastward did not only cause conflict.
Joachim Bouvet, a theologian who held equal respect for both the Bible
and the Book of Changes, was productive in his mission of spreading the
Christian faith.
After the May Fourth Movement, attempts to modernize Confucianism and reconcile it with scientific understanding were attempted by many scholars including Feng Youlan and Xiong Shili.
Given the close relationship that Confucianism shares with Buddhism,
many of the same arguments used to reconcile Buddhism with science also
readily translate to Confucianism. However, modern scholars have also
attempted to define the relationship between science and Confucianism on
Confucianism's own terms and the results have usually led to the
conclusion that Confucianism and science are fundamentally compatible.
Hinduism
In Hinduism, the dividing line between objective sciences and spiritual knowledge (adhyatma vidya) is a linguistic paradox. Hindu scholastic activities and ancient Indian scientific advancements were so interconnected that many Hindu scriptures
are also ancient scientific manuals and vice versa. In 1835, English
was made the primary language for teaching in higher education in India,
exposing Hindu scholars to Western secular ideas; this started a renaissance regarding religious and philosophical thought. Hindu sages maintained that logical argument and rational proof using Nyaya is the way to obtain correct knowledge.
The scientific level of understanding focuses on how things work and
from where they originate, while Hinduism strives to understand the
ultimate purposes for the existence of living things.
To obtain and broaden the knowledge of the world for spiritual
perfection, many refer to the Bhāgavata for guidance because it draws
upon a scientific and theological dialogue.
Hinduism offers methods to correct and transform itself in course of
time. For instance, Hindu views on the development of life include a
range of viewpoints in regards to evolution, creationism, and the origin of life within the traditions of Hinduism.
For instance, it has been suggested that Wallace-Darwininan
evolutionary thought was a part of Hindu thought centuries before modern
times.
The Shankara and the Sāmkhya did not have a problem with the theory of
evolution, but instead, argued about the existence of God and what
happened after death. These two distinct groups argued among each
other's philosophies because of their texts, not the idea of evolution. With the publication of Darwin's On the Origin of Species,
many Hindus were eager to connect their scriptures to Darwinism,
finding similarities between Brahma's creation, Vishnu's incarnations,
and evolution theories.
Samkhya, the oldest school of Hindu philosophy
prescribes a particular method to analyze knowledge. According to
Samkhya, all knowledge is possible through three means of valid
knowledge:
- Pratyakṣa or Dṛṣṭam – direct sense perception,
- Anumāna – logical inference and
- Śabda or Āptavacana – verbal testimony.
Nyaya, the Hindu school of logic, accepts all these 3 means and in addition accepts one more – Upamāna (comparison).
The accounts of the emergence of life within the universe vary in description, but classically the deity called Brahma, from a Trimurti of three deities also including Vishnu and Shiva,
is described as performing the act of 'creation', or more specifically
of 'propagating life within the universe' with the other two deities
being responsible for 'preservation' and 'destruction' (of the universe)
respectively. In this respect some Hindu schools do not treat the scriptural creation myth
literally and often the creation stories themselves do not go into
specific detail, thus leaving open the possibility of incorporating at
least some theories in support of evolution. Some Hindus find support
for, or foreshadowing of evolutionary ideas in scriptures, namely the Vedas.
The incarnations of Vishnu (Dashavatara) is almost identical to the scientific explanation of the sequence of biological evolution of man and animals. The sequence of avatars starts from an aquatic organism (Matsya), to an amphibian (Kurma), to a land-animal (Varaha), to a humanoid (Narasimha), to a dwarf human (Vamana), to 5 forms of well developed human beings (Parashurama, Rama, Balarama/Buddha, Krishna, Kalki) who showcase an increasing form of complexity (Axe-man, King, Plougher/Sage, wise Statesman, mighty Warrior).
In fact, many Hindu gods are represented with features of animals as
well as those of humans, leading many Hindus to easily accept
evolutionary links between animals and humans.
In India, the home country of Hindus, educated Hindus widely accept the
theory of biological evolution. In a survey of 909 people, 77% of
respondents in India agreed with Charles Darwin's Theory of Evolution, and 85 per cent of God-believing people said they believe in evolution as well.
As per Vedas, another explanation for the creation is based on the five elements: earth, water, fire, air and aether.
The Hindu religion traces its beginnings to the Vedas. Everything that
is established in the Hindu faith such as the gods and goddesses,
doctrines, chants, spiritual insights, etc. flow from the poetry of Vedic hymns.
The Vedas offer an honor to the sun and moon, water and wind, and to
the order in Nature that is universal. This naturalism is the beginning
of what further becomes the connection between Hinduism and science.
Jainism
Biology
Jainism classifies life into two main divisions those who are static by nature (sthavar) and those who are mobile (trasa).
Jain texts describes life in plant long before Jagdish Chandra Bose proved that plants have life. In the Jain philosophy the plant lives are termed as 'Vanaspatikaya'
Jainism and non-creationism
Jain theory of causality holds that a cause and its effect are always identical in nature and an immaterial entity like a creator God
cannot be the cause of a material entity like the universe. According
to Jain belief, it is not possible to create matter out of nothing. The universe and its constituents– soul, matter, space, time, and natural laws have always existed (a static universe, similar to that proposed by the steady state cosmological model).
Islam
From an Islamic standpoint, science, the study of nature, is considered to be linked to the concept of Tawhid (the Oneness of God), as are all other branches of knowledge. In Islam,
nature is not seen as a separate entity, but rather as an integral part
of Islam's holistic outlook on God, humanity, and the world. The
Islamic view of science and nature is continuous with that of religion
and God. This link implies a sacred aspect to the pursuit of scientific
knowledge by Muslims, as nature itself is viewed in the Qur'an as a
compilation of signs pointing to the Divine.
It was with this understanding that science was studied and understood
in Islamic civilizations, specifically during the eighth to sixteenth
centuries, prior to the colonization of the Muslim world. Robert Briffault, in The Making of Humanity,
asserts that the very existence of science, as it is understood in the
modern sense, is rooted in the scientific thought and knowledge that
emerged in Islamic civilizations during this time. Ibn al-Haytham, an Arab Muslim, was an early proponent of the concept that a hypothesis must be proved by experiments based on confirmable procedures or mathematical evidence—hence understanding the scientific method 200 years before Renaissance scientists. Ibn al-Haytham described his theology:
I constantly sought knowledge and truth, and it became my belief that for gaining access to the effulgence and closeness to God, there is no better way than that of searching for truth and knowledge.
With the decline of Islamic Civilizations in the late Middle Ages and
the rise of Europe, the Islamic scientific tradition shifted into a new
period. Institutions that had existed for centuries in the Muslim world
looked to the new scientific institutions of European powers.
This changed the practice of science in the Muslim world, as Islamic
scientists had to confront the western approach to scientific learning,
which was based on a different philosophy of nature.
From the time of this initial upheaval of the Islamic scientific
tradition to the present day, Muslim scientists and scholars have
developed a spectrum of viewpoints on the place of scientific learning
within the context of Islam, none of which are universally accepted or
practiced.
However, most maintain the view that the acquisition of knowledge and
scientific pursuit in general is not in disaccord with Islamic thought
and religious belief.
During the thirteenth century, the Caliphate system in the Islamic Empire fell, and scientific discovery thrived.
The Islamic Civilization has a long history of scientific advancement;
and their theological practices catalyzed a great deal of scientific
discovery. In fact, it was due to necessities of Muslim worship and
their vast empire that much science and philosophy was created.
People needed to know in which direction they needed to pray toward to
face Mecca. Many historians through time have asserted that all modern
science originates from ancient Greek scholarship; but scholars like
Martin Bernal have claimed that most ancient Greek scholarship relied
heavily on the work of scholars from ancient Egypt and the Levant.
Ancient Egypt was the foundational site of the Hermetic School, which
believed that the sun represented an invisible God. Amongst other
things, Islamic civilization was key because it documented and recorded
Greek scholarship.
variant
Ahmadiyya
The Ahmadiyya movement emphasize that "there is no contradiction between Islam and science".
For example, Ahmadi Muslims universally accept in principle the process
of evolution, albeit divinely guided, and actively promote it. Over the
course of several decades the movement has issued various publications
in support of the scientific concepts behind the process of evolution,
and frequently engages in promoting how religious scriptures, such as
the Qur'an, supports the concept. For general purposes, the second Khalifa of the community, Mirza Basheer-ud-Din Mahmood Ahmad says:
The Holy Quran
directs attention towards science, time and again, rather than evoking
prejudice against it. The Quran has never advised against studying
science, lest the reader should become a non-believer; because it has no
such fear or concern. The Holy Quran is not worried that if people will
learn the laws of nature its spell will break. The Quran has not
prevented people from science, rather it states, "Say, 'Reflect on what
is happening in the heavens and the earth.'" (Al Younus)
Surveys on scientists and the general public
Scientists
Distribution of Nobel Prizes by religion between 1901 and 2000
Since 1901–2013, 22% of all Nobel prizes have been awarded to Jews despite them being less than 1% of the world population.
Between 1901 and 2000, 654 Laureates belonged to 28 different
religions. Most (65%) have identified Christianity in its various forms
as their religious preference. Specifically on the science related
prizes, Christians have won a total of 73% of all the Chemistry, 65% in Physics, 62% in Medicine, and 54% in all Economics awards. Jews have won 17% of the prizes in Chemistry, 26% in Medicine, and 23% in Physics. Atheists, Agnostics, and Freethinkers have won 7% of the prizes in Chemistry, 9% in Medicine, and 5% in Physics. Muslims have won 13 prizes (three were in scientific categories).
Global
According
to a global study on scientists, a significant portion of scientists
around the world have religious identities, beliefs, and practices
overall.
Furthermore, the majority of scientists do not believe there is
inherent conflict in being religious and a scientist and stated that
"the conflict perspective on science and religion is an invention of the
West" since such a view is not prevalent among most of scientists
around the world.
United States
In 1916, 1,000 leading American scientists were randomly chosen from American Men of Science
and 42% believed God existed, 42% disbelieved, and 17% had doubts/did
not know; however, when the study was replicated 80 years later using American Men and Women of Science in 1996, the results were very much the same with 39% believing God exists, 45% disbelieved, and 15% had doubts/did not know.
In the same 1996 survey, for scientists in the fields of biology,
mathematics, and physics/astronomy, belief in a god that is "in
intellectual and affective communication with humankind" was most
popular among mathematicians (about 45%) and least popular among physicists (about 22%).
In terms of belief in God among elite scientists, such as "great
scientists" in the "American Men of Science" or members of the National
Academies of Science; 53% disbelieved, 21% were agnostic, and 28%
believed in 1914; 68% disbelieved, 17% were agnostic, and 15% belived in
1933; and 72% disbelieved, 21% were agnostic, and 7% believed in 1998. However Eugenie Scott
argued that there are methodological issues in the study, including
ambiguity in the questions such using a personal definition of God
instead of broader definitions of God. A study with simplified wording
to include impersonal or non-interventionist ideas of God concluded that
40% of leading scientists in the US scientists believe in a god.
Other's have also observed some methodological issues in Lueba's
studies and also the Larson and Witham's findings which impacted the
results.
A survey conducted between 2005 and 2007 by Elaine Howard Ecklund of University at Buffalo, The State University of New York
of 1,646 natural and social science professors at 21 US research
universities found that, in terms of belief in God or a higher power,
more than 60% expressed either disbelief or agnosticism and more than
30% expressed belief. More specifically, nearly 34% answered "I do not
believe in God" and about 30% answered "I do not know if there is a God
and there is no way to find out." In the same study, 28% said they believed in God and 8% believed in a higher power that was not God. Ecklund stated that scientists were often able to consider themselves spiritual without religion or belief in god.
Ecklund and Scheitle concluded, from their study, that the individuals
from non-religious backgrounds disproportionately had self-selected into
scientific professions and that the assumption that becoming a
scientist necessarily leads to loss of religion is untenable since the
study did not strongly support the idea that scientists had dropped
religious identities due to their scientific training.
Instead, factors such as upbringing, age, and family size were
significant influences on religious identification since those who had
religious upbringing were more likely to be religious and those who had a
non-religious upbringing were more likely to not be religious. The authors also found little difference in religiosity between social and natural scientists.
In terms of perceptions, most social and natural scientists from
21 American universities did not perceive conflict between science and
religion, while 37% did. However, in the study, scientists who had
experienced limited exposure to religion tended to perceive conflict.
In the same study they found that nearly one in five atheist scientists
who are parents (17%) are part of religious congregations and have
attended a religious service more than once in the past year. Some of
the reasons for doing so are their scientific identity (wishing to
expose their children to all sources of knowledge so they can make up
their own minds), spousal influence, and desire for community.
A 2009 report by the Pew Research Center found that members of the American Association for the Advancement of Science
(AAAS) were "much less religious than the general public," with 51%
believing in some form of deity or higher power. Specifically, 33% of
those polled believe in God, 18% believe in a universal spirit or higher
power, and 41% did not believe in either God or a higher power.
48% say they have a religious affiliation, equal to the number who say
they are not affiliated with any religious tradition. 17% were atheists,
11% were agnostics, 20% were nothing in particular, 8% were Jewish, 10%
were Catholic, 16% were Protestant, 4% were Evangelical, 10% were other
religion. The survey also found younger scientists to be "substantially
more likely than their older counterparts to say they believe in God".
Among the surveyed fields, chemists were the most likely to say they
believe in God.
Elaine Ecklund conducted a study from 2011 to 2014 involving the
general US population, including rank and file scientists, in
collaboration with the American Association for the Advancement of Science
(AAAS). The study noted that 76% of the scientists identified with a
religious tradition. 85% of evangelical scientists had no doubts about
the existence of God, compared to 35% of the whole scientific
population. In terms of religion and science, 85% of evangelical
scientists saw no conflict (73% collaboration, 12% independence), while
75% of the whole scientific population saw no conflict (40%
collaboration, 35% independence).
Religious beliefs of US professors were examined using a
nationally representative sample of more than 1,400 professors. They
found that in the social sciences: 23% did not believe in God, 16% did
not know if God existed, 43% believed God existed, and 16% believed in a
higher power. Out of the natural sciences: 20% did not believe in God,
33% did not know if God existed, 44% believed God existed, and 4%
believed in a higher power. Overall, out of the whole study: 10% were
atheists, 13% were agnostic, 19% believe in a higher power, 4% believe
in God some of the time, 17% had doubts but believed in God, 35%
believed in God and had no doubts.
In 2005, Farr Curlin, a University of Chicago Instructor in Medicine and a member of the MacLean Center for Clinical Medical Ethics,
noted in a study that doctors tend to be science-minded religious
people. He helped author a study that "found that 76 percent of doctors
believe in God and 59 percent believe in some sort of afterlife."
Furthermore, "90 percent of doctors in the United States attend
religious services at least occasionally, compared to 81 percent of all
adults." He reasoned, "The responsibility to care for those who are
suffering and the rewards of helping those in need resonate throughout
most religious traditions.". A study from 2017 showed 65% of physicians believe in God.
Other countries
According
to the Study of Secularism in Society and Culture's report on 1,100
scientists in India: 66% are Hindu, 14% did not report a religion, 10%
are atheist/no religion, 3% are Muslim, 3% are Christian, 4% are
Buddhist, Sikh or other.
39% have a belief in a god, 6% have belief in a god sometimes, 30% do
not believe in a god but believe in a higher power, 13% do not know if
there is a god, and 12% do not believe in a god.
49% believe in the efficacy of prayer, 90% strongly agree or somewhat
agree with approving degrees in Ayurvedic medicine. Furthermore, the
term "secularism" is understood to have diverse and simultaneous
meanings among Indian scientists: 93% believe it to be tolerance of
religions and philosophies, 83% see it as involving separation of church
and state, 53% see it as not identifying with religious traditions, 40%
see it as absence of religious beliefs, and 20% see it as atheism.
Accordingly, 75% of Indian scientists had a "secular" outlook in terms
of being tolerant of other religions.
According to the Religion Among Scientists in International
Context (RASIC) study on 1,581 scientists from the United Kingdom and
1,763 scientists from India, along with 200 interviews: 65% of U.K.
scientists identified as nonreligious and only 6% of Indian scientists
identify as nonreligious, 12% of scientists in the U.K. attend religious
services on a regular basis and 32% of scientists in India do.
In terms of the Indian scientists, 73% of scientists responded that
there are basic truths in many religions, 27% said they believe in God
and 38% expressed belief in a higher power of some kind.
In terms of perceptions of conflict between science and religion, less
than half of both U.K. scientists (38%) and Indian scientists (18%)
perceived conflict between religion and science.
General public
Global studies which have pooled data on religion and science from
1981 to 2001, have noted that countries with greater faith in science
also often have stronger religious beliefs, while less religious
countries have more skepticism of the impact of science and technology.
The United States is noted there as distinctive because of greater
faith in both God and scientific progress. Other research cites the National Science Foundation's
finding that America has more favorable public attitudes towards
science than Europe, Russia, and Japan despite differences in levels of
religiosity in these cultures.
Cross-cultural studies indicate that people tend to use both
natural and supernatural explanations for explaining numerous things
about the world such as illness, death, and origins. In other words,
they do not think of natural and supernatural explanations as
antagonistic or dichotomous, but instead see them as coexisting and
complementary.
The reconciliation of natural and supernatural explanations is normal
and pervasive from a psychological standpoint across cultures.
Europe
A study
conducted on adolescents from Christian schools in Northern Ireland,
noted a positive relationship between attitudes towards Christianity and
science once attitudes towards scientism and creationism were accounted for.
A study on people from Sweden concludes that though the Swedes
are among the most non-religious, paranormal beliefs are prevalent among
both the young and adult populations. This is likely due to a loss of
confidence in institutions such as the Church and Science.
Concerning specific topics like creationism, it is not an
exclusively American phenomenon. A poll on adult Europeans revealed that
40% believed in naturalistic evolution, 21% in theistic evolution, 20%
in special creation, and 19% are undecided; with the highest
concentrations of young earth creationists in Switzerland (21%), Austria
(20%), Germany (18%). Other countries such as Netherlands, Britain, and Australia have experienced growth in such views as well.
United States
According
to a 2015 Pew Research Center Study on the public perceptions on
science, people's perceptions on conflict with science have more to do
with their perceptions of other people's beliefs than their own personal
beliefs. For instance, the majority of people with a religious
affiliation (68%) saw no conflict between their own personal religious
beliefs and science while the majority of those without a religious
affiliation (76%) perceived science and religion to be in conflict.
The study noted that people who are not affiliated with any religion,
also known as "religiously unaffiliated", often have supernatural
beliefs and spiritual practices despite them not being affiliated with
any religion and also that "just one-in-six religiously unaffiliated adults (16%) say their own religious beliefs conflict with science."
Furthermore, the study observed, "The share of all adults who perceive a
conflict between science and their own religious beliefs has declined
somewhat in recent years, from 36% in 2009 to 30% in 2014. Among those
who are affiliated with a religion, the share of people who say there is
a conflict between science and their personal religious beliefs dropped
from 41% to 34% during this period."
The 2013 MIT Survey on Science, Religion and Origins examined the
views of religious people in America on origins science topics like
evolution, the Big Bang, and perceptions of conflicts between science
and religion. It found that a large majority of religious people see no
conflict between science and religion and only 11% of religious people
belong to religions openly rejecting evolution. The fact that the gap
between personal and official beliefs of their religions is so large
suggests that part of the problem, might be defused by people learning
more about their own religious doctrine and the science it endorses,
thereby bridging this belief gap. The study concluded that "mainstream
religion and mainstream science are neither attacking one another nor
perceiving a conflict." Furthermore, they note that this conciliatory
view is shared by most leading science organizations such as the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).
A study was made in collaboration with the American Association for the Advancement of Science
(AAAS) collecting data on the general public from 2011 to 2014, with
the focus on evangelicals and evangelical scientists. Even though
evangelicals make up only 26% of the US population, the study found that
nearly 70 percent of all evangelical Christians do not view science and
religion as being in conflict with each other (48% saw them as
complementary and 21% saw them as independent) while 73% of the general
US population saw no conflict either.
According to Elaine Ecklund's study, the majority of religious
groups see religion and science in collaboration or independent of each
other, while the majority of groups without religion see science and
religion in conflict.
Other lines of research on perceptions of science among the
American public conclude that most religious groups see no general
epistemological conflict with science and they have no differences with
nonreligious groups in the propensity of seeking out scientific
knowledge, although there may be subtle epistemic or moral conflicts
when scientists make counterclaims to religious tenets.
Findings from the Pew Center note similar findings and also note that
the majority of Americans (80–90%) show strong support for scientific
research, agree that science makes society and individual's lives
better, and 8 in 10 Americans would be happy if their children were to
become scientists. Even strict creationists tend to have very favorable views on science.
According to a 2007 poll by the Pew Forum,
"while large majorities of Americans respect science and scientists,
they are not always willing to accept scientific findings that squarely
contradict their religious beliefs."
The Pew Forum states that specific factual disagreements are "not
common today", though 40% to 50% of Americans do not accept the
evolution of humans and other living things, with the "strongest
opposition" coming from evangelical Christians at 65% saying life did
not evolve.
51% of the population believes humans and other living things evolved:
26% through natural selection only, 21% somehow guided, 4% don't know.
In the U.S., biological evolution is the only concrete example of
conflict where a significant portion of the American public denies
scientific consensus for religious reasons. In terms of advanced industrialized nations, the United States is the most religious.
A 2009 study from the Pew Research Center on Americans
perceptions of science, showed a broad consensus that most Americans,
including most religious Americans, hold scientific research and
scientists themselves in high regard. The study showed that 84% of
Americans say they view science as having a mostly positive impact on
society. Among those who attend religious services at least once a week,
the number is roughly the same at 80%. Furthermore, 70% of U.S. adults
think scientists contribute "a lot" to society.
A 2011 study on a national sample of US college students examined
whether these students viewed the science / religion relationship as
reflecting primarily conflict, collaboration, or independence. The study
concluded that the majority of undergraduates in both the natural and
social sciences do not see conflict between science and religion.
Another finding in the study was that it is more likely for students to
move away from a conflict perspective to an independence or
collaboration perspective than towards a conflict view.
In the US, people who had no religious affiliation were no more
likely than the religious population to have New Age beliefs and
practices.