I wrote:
> > Most scientists believes that the universe is about 12 billion years
> > old (give or take five billion or so). There are some scientists that
> > believe it's much older, some that believe it's much younger.
Erik replied:
>These are not "scientific 'beliefs' " nor "scientific 'truths' ".
>They are interpretations of data (or theories, if you prefer) which
>are subject to revision based on further experimental evidence. All
>scientists are willing to modify or abandon theories if sufficient
>experimental evidence is demonstrated.
1) Beliefs, truths, interpretations of data, call them whatever you will,
it doesn't change the argument. More on that later in this email.
2) It's a stretch to say that "all" scientists are willing to modify or
abandon theories. I think I've heard stories on this very list about
scientists who have tenaciously held to outdated ways of thinking in the
face of overwhelming evidence; I know I've seen such stories in Discover and
Scientific American. However, I will agree that the vast majority of
scientists are willing to revise their ideas based on new evidence. I make
this point only to show that there are no absolutes in this discussion.
Me again:
> > There are some religious folk that believe the universe is only a few
> > thousand years old. There are others that believe that Genesis is a
> > poem and was never meant to be a literal description of what happened,
> > but rather a figurative, symbolic one.
And Erik:
>These are indeed beliefs, in the sense that they cannot be
>experimentally verified or disproved within their context. As beliefs,
>they are orthogonal to science, which relies on experiment to test all
>scientific knowledge and does not attempt to explain phenomenon that
>have no possibility of experimental investigation.
>
1) I'm not disagreeing that science and religion are orthogonal. I am
explicitly agreeing with this. The question at hand was whether there is
intersection between the two.
2) In regard to my statement about beliefs of Genesis being a poem, I
worded that poorly. Let me rephrase: there are secular and some religious
linguists who cite substantial historical and literary evidence that Genesis
was written in a style consistent with the poetry of the time, it terms of
the use of simile and metaphor to describe events, and in terms of the fact
that it's not attempting to document exactly how specific events occurred.
Those linguists (and unfortunately, I couldn't find any web references and
most of my books and magazines are currently still in boxes after having
recently moved) will tell you that Genesis IS a poem. They would consider
it not a belief, but a fact (or an interpretation of data) that simply
hasn't been recognized yet by all linguists who study the languages
involved, probably because of religious orthodoxies.
Just as a reminder of what started all of this... I agreed with someone (JDG
maybe?) that science and religion are orthogonal, but that they do have
areas where they intersect. I'd like to modify that statement. There are
areas where science and religion CAN intersect. Obviously, hardcore
fundamentalist beliefs are going to have few to no intersections with
science, but there are many manifestations of religious belief that will
have lots of intersections.
The very first post that mentioned this orthogonality was made to basically
say that science and religion are not part of the same spectrum; if it was a
single spectrum, there would be an inverse relationship between religion and
science in the life of that person, but with the orthogonal relationship
between science and religion a person can also be both very much a scientist
and very religious at the same time, or both not a scientist and not
religious. I think we all agree that science and religion are orthogonal,
and I and JDG and whoever else mentioned it believe that even though they
are orthogonal, there are points of intersection.
My religious beliefs have continued to grow and change just as my scientific
understanding has. I have revised my worldview based on further evidence as
I have run across that evidence. I could probably spend all day talking
about how the scientific part of my worldview and the religious part of my
worldview are simply different ways of describing the same things, but that
would be counter-productive.
I just reread the paragraph above, and I think we may be using different
definitions about just exactly what we mean by science and religion. You
seem to be saying that there is no intersection between the scientific
method for gathering data about the world around us and the religious method
for gathering this data. I'm not going to argue this one, although I still
think there are a few areas of intersection even here. What I was saying,
and what I think JDG was saying, is that there are intersections between the
scientific worldview and the religious worldview.
Even that definition of the terms leaves much to be desired. There is not
just one scientific worldview. The interpretation of data used by Chinese
doctors is very different in some cases from the interpretation of American
doctors, for example. And there are many different religious worldviews,
ranging from some that think science is evil and the only real truths are
those revealed in scripture, to groups like the Unitarian Universalist
church which recognizes spirituality but says that all ways of believing are
valid.
So how is this for a definition: There are intersections between the some
scientific worldviews and some religious worldviews. Would you agree with
that?
Reggie Bautista
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