Test of Faith from Faraday Institute for Science and Religion

The "Test of Faith" website has accompanying dvd, book and teacher notes and Youtube channel. Test of Faith was developed by Faraday Institute for Science and Religion at Cambridge University.

The contributors to the book and dvd are suggesting that science cannot know all the answers to serious questions. There is something outside of science, something science will never discover - and that something is god, they claim.

Conversely naturalists say there is no evidence for a god. Scientism claims that there is no serious question that science will not, eventually, be able to answer.

Science and religion are non-overlapping magisteria, Peter Harrison claims.

Reason is just another faith by Mary Midgley in New Scientist

crabsallover says 'Mary Midgley (Wikipedia) thinks 'Reason' is ambiguous. Science subverts religious views. Science alone ('scientism') is not sufficient - different problems need different ways of thinking.'

7: Reason is just another faith

Unconditional reliance on a single authority is never sensible, says philosopher Mary Midgley.

• 23 July 2008
• From New Scientist Print Edition. Subscribe and get 4 free issues.
• Philosopher Mary Midgley

IN 1960 Jawaharlal Nehru, the first prime minister of independent India, wrote: "It is science alone that can solve the problems of hunger and poverty, of insanitation and illiteracy, of superstition and deadening custom and tradition, of vast resources running to waste, of a rich country inhabited by starving people... The future belongs to science and to those who make friends with science."

This was doubtless intended as a manifesto for reason, but it also sums up a major justification people have for objecting to reason. Such pronouncements were common at that time. The crucial words in Nehru's stirring speech, for me, are "science alone". It is this exclusiveness that is the trademark of scientism: the belief in the unconditional supremacy of physical science - or of Science with a capital "S" - over all other forms of thought. Scientism sparked many movements, both in thought and politics, especially during the 20th century, from so-called "scientific socialism" to the doctrine in psychology called "behaviourism".

Taken literally, Nehru's proposal is odd. We might think, for instance, that we obviously need other things, such as good laws, good institutions and a clear understanding of history, as well as science, to solve the problems he named. He surely knew this, but he put science first because he thought it was the only cure for what he considered the central cause of present evils - religion.

This function of subverting religion played a huge part in the widespread exaltation of science at this time, both in the east and west. Throughout the Enlightenment, reformers who were struggling against the power of the church had called for the use of reason to undermine Christianity.

But the term "reason" proved ambiguous and, in the 20th century, the rallying cry shifted to something that seemed more specific, namely science. This had awkward effects. It put off those who did not want to be cured of religion and also - perhaps even more unfortunately - it led to science's functioning like a kind of rival religion itself.

The central question here is about trust. What do you put your faith in? The kind of faith that Nehru expresses in science is absolute. It is not at all the qualified, provisional acceptance that might suit actual scientific findings. It claims to answer not just factual questions but every kind of social and moral dilemma. It offers general salvation.

“The central question here is about trust. In what do you put faith?”

This sort of unconditional, general reliance on a single authority is never sensible, whatever god it may invoke. No system provides an infallible oracle; different problems need different ways of thinking.

Indeed the sciences themselves are various and use all sorts of methods. Of course there are clear cases, such as evolution, where scientific doctrines are needed to correct particular non-scientific ones. But controversy on such topics inevitably involves a wide clash of imaginative visions which cannot possibly fall under the physical sciences.

Science then no longer stands for enquiry but for ideology, authority, a general approach to life which demands to prevail in all conflicts: that is, it is turned into scientism. And, as past experience shows, that ideology can include some very odd components. The most obvious example is eugenics, the programme of "improving" the human race. This was fully accepted as an authentic part of science from the time when the Victorian polymath Francis Galton invented the term and proposed incentives for "the lights of the nation" to breed early and often. That was until the arrival of the Nazis, whose activities suddenly made the fearful overtones of eugenics plain.

Another example - less deadly but perhaps more confusing - was the campaign by behaviourists, led by the psychologist B. F. Skinner from the 1950s, to drive all discussion of subjective experience out of psychology. Though this movement had no real scientific basis it has been extraordinarily successful in paralysing thought for much of the last century. Indeed, it has managed to send the crucial topic of consciousness - of our own most intimate experience - into a limbo which it is now proving very hard to extract it from. The campaign has made, and still makes it hard to discuss our subjectivity not as a delusion but as an objective fact, to say that we do have experiences and inner states.

The behaviourist project was, of course, part of a campaign to subordinate the social sciences and humanities to science, on the assumption that they were all merely "folk" doctrines - primitive, uninstructed habits which needed to be simplified, boiled down and reduced ultimately to physics. Indeed, excepting the long-standing war with fundamentalist churches in the US (which is essentially political), it is the social sciences and humanities that have lately been the main targets of scientistic campaigning.

Science does not need to be defended in this way and it is surely not surprising if this kind of reductive chauvinism sometimes confuses the bystanders and makes them hostile.

Read about all the problems with reason in our special issue

Mary Midgley is a moral philosopher, previously at Newcastle University in the UK

From issue 2666 of New Scientist magazine, 23 July 2008, page 50-51

Moral Maze - Radio 4 - Science v Religion - 8pm Wednesday 11th June

Michael Buerk chairs a special edition recorded at the Cheltenham Science Festival. Melanie Phillips, Claire Fox, Michael Portillo and Clifford Longley cross-examine witnesses. If you witnessed the battles between the godly and the godless over the creation of hybrid embryos recently you might think science and religion are unavoidably at odds. Listen (45 mins) Why do so many of our foremost scientists see religion as a threat to their work and why do so many in the church worry that modern science is endangering our most basic respect for shared humanity? As knowledge increases and new technologies abound - especially in the field of medical research - just who is setting the moral agenda? Can science and religion ever have a meaningful dialogue? That's the question for a special edition of the Moral Maze from the Cheltenham Science Festival. Prof Peter Atkins (author: creation revisited) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Atkins Michael Buerk: Peter Atkins I know you are an atheist. You take the view that religion and science are utterly at odds. What do you make of people who believe in God? Peter Atkins: "They are slightly mad - well, almost completely mad! Science is the only way to true knowledge. Religion is a way of discovering what one thinks internally. Science is the way to truth. The sooner we discard religion from this world and particularly from the government of ourselves - the better it will be. " Clifford Longley: I'm a Roman Catholic - so I'm mad? What scientific evidence is there for that? Peter Atkins: You believe in superstition - I believe in facts; I believe you should decide whether there is a god by starting at the bottom ... is their any evidence for the existence of God? If their is evidence we should admit their is a god, so far I've not seen any evidence whatsoever for the existence of god, therefore I do not believe their is a god. Clifford Longley: What can science tell us about love, self sacrifice, heroism, laying down ones life for ones friends? It was sciences exact inability to throw any light on these things - which explains my own journey from atheism to Catholicism! Peter Atkins: science can deal with every reasonable question - I think their is nothing it cannot elucidate, provided you are patient and provided you break the questions down into smaller components. Love, self sacrifice, heroism, laying down ones life for ones friends - Love and these other things is about pychology - Love is about physiology, love is about the workings of the human brain - all reduced to brain chemistry. The brain is a physical object - it works on physical principles. There is nothing beyond the brain and therefore presumably everything that the brain puts out into the world can be subject to analysis. I'm not saying that science can answer these things at the moment but because it is a physical entity it is open to scientific investigation. Science is theoretically able, in principle, to answer all questions. Clifford Longley: So as a scientist - speaking strictly as a scientist - is capital punishment right or wrong? Peter Atkins: Yes I think one can. In a very broad sense now - we need to understand the basis about what is good in the world - and I believe what the nature of goodness has been moulded by our evolutionary inheritance - from ape to human living in a socitey. Also being able to reflect on the consequences of our actions which moulds our view of good. Melanie Philips: there are many scientists that do not share your view that there is nothing that science cannot elucidate eg Sir Martin Rees (Pres. Royal Soc), Sir Peter Medaware, cosmologist Alan Sandage ('I find it quite improbable that order came out of chaos'). Are they all mad? Peter Atkins: Well they are all incomplete scientists. A complete scientist should be an optimist. That the extraordinary tool that mankind has discovered, namely the scientific method, is capable in principle of answering every conceivable real question. If a scientist presents himself as a pessimist then he is betraying his skill. Science is the only way to knowledge and truth. Melanie Philips: science is not about certainty - its about probability - it weighs evidence. The claim that science can know that there is nothing it cannot know is itself unknowable and is therefore unscientific by your own test? What is your scientific evidence for your claim that science knows that there is nothing that science cannot know? Peter Atkins: I did not say I know it but it is my belief! Melanie Philips: Are belief! You mean faith!! Peter Atkins: I think the distinction between a philosopher and a scientist is that a philosopher is a pessimist and a scientist is an optimist. Because of the extraordinary tool that mankind has discovered, namely the scientific method, we are optimistic that this method is is capable in principle of answering every conceivable real question (it might take 100 or 10,00 years). We need to understand what is good; what all of us think of good is moulded by evolution from ape to human; being able to reflect on consequences of actions; Martin Rees - is an incomplete scientist - scientific method is capable of answering every reasonable question; science is only way to knowledge and truth. A philosopher is a pessimist - a scientist is an optimist! Prof. Raymond Tallis Genes for religion is a category unlikely. Science cannot explain consciousness. Prof Robert Winston you can be moral without religion. Religion and Science are both about mans uncertainty.