Recently, while reading some of the writings of the christian scientist Arnold Neumaier, it struck me how christian scientists are often persecuted by other scientists for their faith. For that reason, one often finds that scientists who also believe or practice some religion tend to keep that side of their lives quiet. So I ask myself, why do non-believing scientists have the idea that one should not be a believer when practicing science?
Just to explain why this bothers me, let’s discuss some basic aspects about believe. All sane people need to believe certain things about the world they live in to make sense of it. We believe that the sun will rise everyday simply because it has done so for as long as there were people. We believe a chair will hold us when we sit on it without even thinking about it. Occasionally that my proof to be a false believe, but we nevertheless acted on that believe by sitting on it. There are also deeper believes about the universe and about right and wrong, all of which give us our world views and help us to make sense of things. None of these things are ever subjected to some form of scientific verification. In general, it is simply impossible to test everything that we believe in with a scientific process.
When it comes to science and those that practice it on a professional basis, one finds that these people often believe things concerning scientific knowledge without applying the strict scientific process. It is alarming to realize that some scientists simply believe what they read in textbooks or what they’ve been told by their lecturers without question. Unfortunately, not everything written in textbooks or taught by lecturers is correct. This tendency to take anything scientific for granted is something I call scientistic gullibility. It is surprising how widespread it is. Perhaps it is not reasonable to test everything one reads, but then one should be less certain about one’s own convictions.
Speaking of convictions, what is the benefit of believes? Why is a religion such as christianity based on believe or faith? While science is all about knowledge, religion is about conduct. It strives to govern the actions of people. As it turns out, knowledge does not govern people’s actions. Believe does. It doesn’t help to tell people something to affect their behavior if they don’t believe it. Only if they believe something will it affect their behavior. For this reason, believe (or religion) has an important role to play in human society.
Looking at the strive that exists in the world with all the conflicts, one realizes that some compassion for one’s fellow human being would go a long way to improve matters. But how does on instill such compassion in people? It needs to be grounded in their convictions, in their world view. That is the role that religion can play. Granted, some people use religion to do exactly the opposite. However, simply because people have the ability to corrupt any human activity (even science), it does not mean that that human activity is intrinsically bad.
Flippiefanus 