The Problem with Science
No, I don’t hate science. It’s wonderful. Sorry if the title was misleading. I guess the problem isn’t with science, exactly. It’s with people’s application of science. Maybe it’s shortsighted of me to say this, but it seems like human knowledge is getting to be so vast in this “information age” that no one person can possibly hope to have a deep understanding in all the important subjects. I know that as our culture develops, our children are learning more and more, earlier and earlier, but this can’t go on forever. Sure, we can picture 1000 years from now having (relative to us) super-intelligent children who have an intuition for calculus at age 3. But I think that it’s obvious to most that our knowledge is growing faster than any evolutionary mechanism is keeping up with. At some point (which may already be here), there is a very real limit to how much one person can master. Will you be a Jack of all Trades, but a Master of None? Will you pick a path, stick with it, and have some authority on the subject?
Map of science
This is incredibly important to our society in the here and now, however. The latest buzz in the United States seems to be about the rise of the “nones”, those suave, smart (and might I say, good-looking?) people who claim no religion. The conflict between theists and anti-theists and/or atheists is growing extremely rapidly, probably because of the incredible communication power of the internet. Here’s how these two things are so intimately linked: the conflict of religion and science (Yes, there is one. Maybe not on every issue or with every person, but there is. Deal with it.) is being brought on just about every front. We have the creation debate which touches biology, evolutionary biology, geology, paleontology, cosmology, physics, particle physics, astronomy and dozens of sub-topics of those. We have debates about scriptural accuracy touching history, archaeology, anthropology, literature and dozens of foreign languages. We have moral debates and afterlife debates, proofs and disproofs of supernatural beings, and arguments about the meaning of life which touch all the spread out fingers of philosophy.
So are we to understand that this debate that is so easily characterized is so easily soluble? No, what it tends to come down to in individual debate is you and your opponent searching for the particular subject in which you each have an advantage of knowledge or experience. Then, you can rest in that comfortable space saying “They may have answers for somethings, but not this one, which proves my point.” If this scenario doesn’t play out, the usual alternative is an appeal to authority (yes it’s a fallacy, yes everyone does it once in a while). It seems reasonable to say that we can’t possibly know everything, so building on someone else’s conclusions makes sense. But it doesn’t play out this way. Theists get slammed for “not thinking for themselves,” and atheists get it back even worse since that’s supposed to be a tenet of the “atheist philosophy”.
What’s the solution? I don’t know. The sum of human knowledge is too vast and is growing all the time. An individual simply can’t keep up. That doesn’t mean that I plan on never drawing another conclusion again. It’s better to be as informed as possible and decide what that means than to be in a state of perpetual inaction and un-decidedness. But I do it knowing full well that the debate will almost certainly never be closed. Blogs full of ranting and railing against the other side for “ignoring the facts” and being ignorant (or stupid, as the blogger decides) are pointless and add to the noise that detracts from real discussion. It’s almost a certainty: the debate will go on. Fight for what’s right, but do it for yourself first. That’s the only person you’ve got a shot at convincing.
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At least there is a debate. As messy as it is, we don’t have one side completely drowning the other or worse burning the other on a stake. As long as there is some discussion there is hope that someone will arrive at the correct answer for now based on best evidence.
That is a very good and important point. I shouldn’t imply that it’s hopeless and we should all bury our heads in the sand, which obviously makes things so much worse. I think, though, that the important thing for everyone to remember is that nobody has some perfect argument that’s going to shut this down. You can be persuasive, but that’s as far as it goes. I see people write about encounters with fundamentalist Christians who “just wouldn’t listen to reason.” You simply can’t go into that situation expecting your super-duper arguments to win them over, and if you start from that perspective, you’ll almost always fail. It’s not practical or logical to treat it that way.
You hit the nail on the head: “the correct answer, for now based on best evidence.” It’s a very noble thing to debate with each other with the goal of sharing information and understanding. But we have to do it knowing that what we have is a modern interpretation of the facts at our disposal.
Science becomes really fun when it no longer explains what it explained. Newton’s laws break down on the quantum level. So like life, the planet, and the universe — good science is always dynamic and changing. And good science is simply a technique of answering questions and providing models to explain observed phenomenon. Religion is dogma, suppression, control, deceit, and superstition. Science and religion are just two different things. Relating science and religion are like relating how to build a canoe and religion — one really has nothing to do with the other.
Debate remains important though since there are people that may have never heard of someone saying that there is no god. Although you may not convince most, at least the idea is available to them. Fear is used in religion and science at least says that not only is it OK to question, but that it’s good to question. Questioning is how you make progress. If something doesn’t make sense then it should be OK to ask why. So the point of the debate of god vs no-god may not be to convince once side or the other, but to at least show the god side that at the very least they don’t have to be afraid to question.
I couldn’t say it better. You hit the nail on the head. Thanks for keeping things in perspective.