God and Science: An Inner Conflict
Robin Lloyd, LiveScience Senior Editor, LiveScience.com
God and science are inherently at odds, or so goes the
story with roots that reach back nearly 400 years to the
Inquisition's trial of Galileo on suspicion of heresy.
The ongoing effort of U.S. creationists to inject doubt
about evolution into science classrooms in public schools
is an example of that conflict, not to mention the polarizing
arguments over the decades offered by numerous
members of the clergy, politicians, and some atheist
scientists and scholars including Richard Dawkins.
Now a new study suggests our minds are conflicted,
making it so we have trouble reconciling science and God
because we unconsciously see these concepts as
fundamentally opposed, at least when both are used to
explain the beginning of life and the universe.
But what is the source of this seeming "irreconcilable
difference" - are we hard-wired for it, or is it tenacious
cultural baggage?
The experiments
Experiments headed up by psychologist Jesse Preston of
the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and her
colleague Nicholas Epley of the University of Chicago
provide some data to support the argument that the
conflict is inherent, or hard-wired. They found that
subjects apparently cannot easily give positive
evaluations to both God and science as explanations for
big questions, such as the origin of life and the universe,
at the same time.
In one experiment, 129 volunteers, mostly undergrads,
read short summaries of the Big Bang theory and the
Primordial Soup Hypothesis, a scientific theory of the
origin of life.
Half of the group then read a statement explaining that the
theories were strong and supported by the data. The
other half read that the theories "raised more questions
than they answered." All of the subjects then completed a
computer task where they were required to categorize
various words as positive or negative.
During the task, the word "science" or "God" or a neutral
control word was flashed on the screen before each
positive/negative word. For instance, right before the
word "awful" appeared, either the word "God" or "science"
was flashed on the screen for 15 milliseconds - too brief
to be seen but it registers unconsciously.
This is a standard experimental psychology approach
designed to measure latent, or automatic, attitudes
toward (or evaluations of) the priming word - in this case,
God or science. Faster response times mean a closer
association between two concepts, for example "science"
and "great."
Preston and Epley found that subjects who read the
statement in support of the scientific theories responded
more quickly to positive words appearing just after the
word "science" than those who had read statements
critical of the scientific theories. Similarly, those who read
the statement suggesting that the scientific theories were
weak were slower than the other group (who read the
theory-supportive statement) to identify negative words
that appeared after they were primed with the word "God."
The results are detailed in the January issue of the
Journal of Experimental Social Psychology. Financial
support for the study was received from the National
Science Foundation and the Social Sciences and
Humanities Research Council of Canada.
Implications for science's influence
Preston says her research shows that a dual belief
system, for instance the idea that evolution explains
biology but God set the process in motion, does not exist
in our brains.
"We can only believe in one explanation at a time," she
told LiveScience. "So although people can report
explicitly, 'Look, I've been a Christian all my life, and yes,
I also believe in science and I am a practicing chemist,'
the question is, are these people really reconciling belief
in God and science, or are they just believing in one thing
at a time?"
When it comes to the ultimate questions, it's really just
one thing at a time, Preston says.
People rarely think about these problems, however,
most people live their lives without paying much attention
to how the universe started or how life began, Preston
said.
Behind the findings
However, Hampshire College science historian Salman
Hameed says Preston and Epley's framing of the issues
and interpretation of their findings are bound up in a
particular view of science and religion known as the
"conflict thesis." Yes, sometimes particular scientific and
religious claims conflict, but there are numerous examples
of individuals, such as Isaac Newton, who saw no
inherent conflict between their scientific and religious
convictions, Hameed said.
The experiment's results actually may reveal cultural
forces - a specific way of thinking about science and
religion - dating back to the 19th century, Hameed said,
and these have shaped people's thinking about science
and religion.
"If society has been primed that science and religion have
been in conflict, and that is the dominant narrative, then
maybe all we are seeing is the effect of that priming,
rather than the actual conflict," Hameed said. Society and
journalists like conflict stories because they grab
attention, but science and religion interactions are more
complex and defy over-simplistic oppositional categories,
he said.
Preston agrees that there is a cultural opposition that we
are all aware of, which may be a background context for
her experiments, but she said religion and science have
grown apart in the last few centuries because science
developed theories that are inconsistent with doctrine.
"To the extent that culture is the culmination of history - all
our ideas, knowledge, and traditions - the opposition that
grew between religion and science is a part of our
culture," Preston said. "But it is part of the culture
because the contradictions are well known, and become
part of our knowledge structure. The concept of zero as a
number is also part of our culture, for example. The
cultural opposition we see between religion and science
is not a superficial opposition like dog lovers vs. cat
lovers."
The history of the conflict
Some historians trace the idea that science and religion
are in conflict back to Cornell University's Andrew White
and New York University's John William Draper,
proponents of the professionalization of science who
wrote books in the mid-1800s that claimed there was an
inherent conflict between science and religion, citing the
Galileo affair as the classic case.
The affair led to the astronomer's house arrest on
suspicion of heresy (not heresy itself), starting in 1633
until his death in 1642. Galileo argued that the Earth
revolved around the sun, based in part on his telescope
observations, counter to Church teaching that the Earth
was the center of the universe.
But science historians, including John Hedley Brooke,
have questioned the conflict thesis, and others have
poked big holes in simplistic interpretations of the Galileo
story. For instance, some historians point out that Galileo,
a practicing Catholic, didn't want to oppose the Church,
but rather to update its views and prevent it from losing
ground to Protestant scholars. Also, the Church ultimately
sentenced Galileo, who had many political enemies in the
church, on a technicality.
Galileo redeemed
Ultimately, Galileo has been mostly redeemed, thanks to
the ongoing efforts of scientists and, in the end, some
clergy.
The International Year of Astronomy kicked off this month
as a year-long celebration of astronomy timed to
coincide, in part, with the 400th anniversary of the first
recorded observations made by Galileo with a telescope.
In 2000, Pope John Paul II issued a formal apology for
Church errors during the past 2,000 years, including the
trial of Galileo.
And in May of this year, according to the Associated
Press, some Vatican officials will attend an international
conference on the Galileo affair.
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