Scientific fact vrs. religious faith? [View all]

[Thats my opinion]

Despite the often toxic form of many of these religious conversations, I have learned a few important things, particularly from the atheists who post here. For one thing, they despise the same sort of fundamentalist religion that I despise. Beyond that, they have lured me to take science much more seriously. I have long held that science is not the enemy of religion, science is the enemy of ignorance. No intelligent person, religious or non-religious can afford not to take science seriously.

But insofar as science is simply a collection of unalterable facts, no intelligent scientist would be caught dead trying to affirm that one. The other day in a conversation with a sub-atomic physicist, he suggested that the scientific community is always involved in convictions of things not provable--that's called faith. Right now, he tells me, the debate between Einsteinian relativity and quantum mechanics is raging. Both cannot be right. Advocates of both claim factual knowledge, but are really talking about faithful conclusions based on unprovable faith claims.

It has always been so when science is at its best. Cosmologists were certain that Ptolemy was right. And then they were certain Copernicus was right. Later they were sure that Newton was right and that the universe is a collection of parts. Along come a new generation of scientists convinced that the universe is one giant interconnected cosmic web and the Newtonians had it wrong. It is now clear to the best scientific minds that no one can assume to know incontrovertible facts, and that every observation of a natural phenomenon is conditioned by the agent that observes it. Is is a wave, or is it a particle? And much more.

Any religionist who says, "I have the facts," is in serious trouble. We in the religious world rely on trust without knowing for certain--as Paul says, "we see in a very dim mirror." All good scientists are in the same boat. Those on either side who won't admit it are subjects of ridicule. In science and in religion, a good supply of humility is a necessary virtue.