Question: Does religion have an inherent conflict with science?
DeGrasse Tyson: Most religious people in America, fully embrace science. So the argument that religion has some issue with science applies to a small fraction of those who declare that they are religious. They just happen to be a very vocal fraction so you got the impression that there are more of them than there actually is. It’s actually the minority of religious people who rejects science or feel threatened by it or want to sort of undo or restrict the… where science can go. The rest, you know, are just fine with science. And has been that way ever since the beginning. And by the way, there’s no tradition of scientists knocking down the door, the Sunday school door, telling the preacher what to teach. There’s no tradition of scientists picketing outside of churches nor should there be some [emergent] tradition of religious fundamentalists trying to change the curriculum in the science classroom. There’s been a happy coexistence for centuries. And for that to change now would be unfortunate. Because I’ve seen this happen in other nations and the other states where the consequences are that you just basically recede back to the cave because that’s where you land when you undermine the scientific and technological innovations that come about when you’re a properly trained scientist or technologist. Consider also that in America, 40% of American scientists are religious. So this notion that there’s some… that if you’re a scientist, you’re an atheist or if you’re religious, you’re not a scientist, that’s just empirically false. It’s an empirically false statement. And what I mean by religious is that you can pose the question in a way that is unambiguous. You don’t ask, well, do you go to church every Sunday ‘cause plenty of people go to church, like, just for the pie, you know, or the social scene after the service. You ask people, do you pray to [a person or] God. If you say yes to that, you’re religious by, presumably, anybody’s standards of your conduct. And it’s the yes to that question that applies to 40% of scientists. So… Well, there’re plenty of atheists who are scientists or not scientists to paint this as some built-in conflict is… There maybe a conflict but many… plenty of people in this country coexist in both worlds.
Discuss
HerbieP on February 22, 2009, 4:35 AM
I’d like to know how you can make the unscientific assertion that ‘most americans fully embrace science’. I’m not aware of a study that has addressed this question. However my own subjective view is that few americans have any understanding of science.
That there have been ‘centuries of happy co-existence’ is also a wild subjective assertion, a few contrary examples might be Galileo, Giordano Bruno and Charles Darwin. Obviously when science was in its infancy most scientists were also religious since they were individuals in religious communities. As science has developed it has either come into conflict with irrational belief or belief has given ground. As you say only a minority of zelots in the US hold to an ancient creation myth but have you watched Fox lately? Irrational belief, which is the enemy of science, is very much alive and well and a majority pratice.
It appears that you, a practicing scientist, are not above making unscientific assertions unconnected with your field.
Peter McNally on February 22, 2009, 9:15 PM
Most who have seriously studied the full body of evidence come to the conclusion that it takes a lot more faith to believe we are here by accident, than it does to believe that we live in a world that was created by design. And I am sorry but I don’t buy that it was committee.
As we study more from a scientific perspective we find that there is more we can not explain…that the complexities of the creation are far more intricate and connected that we have previously thought.
It takes more faith not to believe that one God created the universe. I have found that science serves to support the case for intelligent design, and I am thankful we have discipline.
HerbieP on February 23, 2009, 4:01 AM
Clearly Peter you are one of the minority of religious zealots that I was referring to.
At heart science is a method not a belief system.
Statements such as ‘…the complexities of creation…’ already assume that there is a ‘creation’ and hence a ‘creator’. Whilst science is silent on the subject the very notion of a ‘creator’ is philosophically naive.
Before claiming that science supports your belief system you should be aware that ‘creation science’ (an oxymoron at best) has no peer reviewed published research and hence is simply not science.
It takes no faith what so ever not to believe something. This is a clearly ludicrous assertion. You can of course believe whatever you like. However to justify a belief you require objective evidence. I’d be interested to hear what the evidence for your own position is.
Musycks on February 24, 2009, 6:29 PM
Mr Tyson makes a couple of interesing leaps of logic. You cannot reconcile the fact that millinos of Americans believe the earth was ‘created’ about 8,000 years ago, with the statement that religion and science happily co-exist. What is apparent is a lot of people cherry pick science the way they cherry pick bible quotes. If the science points overwhelmingly towards a universe billions of years old, then the science is wrong, for no other reason than it is, no evidence required.
Peter, you deny the facts of evolution with an absurd claim that cannot be supported. First cause creator solution is no answer to anything, you’ve just taken a complex question and added an even more complex and unlikely cause, because who created your creator? what we know now from the quantum world is that matter spontaneously comes into existance all the time, no creator required.
I guess you’d be amongst the 40% of Americans who believe Jesus will return sometime within the next 50 years? That’s where religion leads you Mr Tyson.
Richard Oakes on February 26, 2009, 6:50 PM
I think this short sound bit doesn’t do justice to the depth of Mr. Tyson’s scholarship and his contribution the field of astronomy.
I am inclined to forgive him for “making nice” with the Christians. As an American public figure, he is sort of obliged to do.
Peter.
It is gross misundertanding of the evolutionary process, to explain life on earth, in its various forms as “accidental”. It might be more accurate to say that any life form is “imporbable” given the number of perputations that failed and are now extinct. However, once you understand the evolutionary process, originally decribed by Darwin, and later validated and expanded by 20th Century geneticists, the sequence of long chances that led to the current permutation of human life, makes more sense than the creative activities of a diety for whose existance there is no emprical evidence.
Your God is the God of the gaps (“We don’t understand this. God must have done it!”), and he is fast running out of places to hide. If God did exist, one has to admire his industrious efforts of conceal his existance from the test of empirical proofs.
RO
HerbieP on February 27, 2009, 11:04 AM
Welcome back Mr Oakes.
I’m not as forgiving as you of Mr Tyson. Being an expert in one field does not give one the right to make sweeping statements about another. It is ‘making nice’ to believers that is often exploited by the crazy fundamentalist surge in the US and sets the public understanding of science back. I’m not suggesting taking a confrontational Dawkins approach but neither should a respected scientist give the impression that there is no conflict between science and belief. It is irresponsible.
Musycks on March 1, 2009, 3:50 PM
RO… I second that HP welcome.
and it’s a sad fact of American public life that this is the level of discourse on the subject. Mr Tyson gives the impression that science is full of believers, when it’s more likely that believers are in the minority if you ask about a creationist/interventionist god.
He may be a great scientist but this little sound bite is pointless and shallow… it says something when an English comedian can be more coherant and direct on the subject in the same time frame!
and of course you Melbournians tend to be more tactful than us sin city types in Sydney!
Lee . on August 13, 2009, 2:49 PM
Neil deGrasse Tyson on NOVA scienceNOW:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/sciencenow/cosmic/
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