Darwin: Science and Religion

In the previous article, Darwin: A query from a commenter, I said that Science and Religion are different.

Of late many people think that Science is another ‘belief system’. If religious people stand by their Religion against all onslaught from rationalists and atheists, ‘believers’ of Science stand by their ‘faith’ against all criticism – refusing to accept debate, reason or scrutiny. 

According to some, ‘believers’ of Science drub down all voice of criticism, refusing to show proof or evidence, not entertaining alternative explanations, not very different from religious people. Scientists talk down upon detractors, not allowing other interpretations of their domain, holding their theories sacred, putting them on a pedestal to be idolized and revered. How are scientists any different from religious priests? If religion is a faith, founded in blind belief and dogma, so is Science, they contest. 

I don’t know why and how Science got such a reputation. Is it because of the way it is taught? Teachers urging students to memorize scientific laws and formulae as if they are ordained by God, not be challenged, immutable, to be held sacred? Parents not able to explain why and how ordinary things work? Society not giving freedom to pursue Science?

It is important to set things right. Here is a very good definition of Science [from American Association of Physics Teachers]:

What is Science?

Science is the systematic enterprise of gathering knowledge about the universe and organizing and condensing that knowledge into testable laws and theories.

The success and credibility of science is anchored in the willingness of scientists to:

1. Expose their ideas and results to independent testing and replication by other scientists. This requires the complete and open exchange of data, procedures and materials, And

2. Abandon or modify previously accepted conclusions when confronted with more complete or reliable experimental or observational evidence.

Adherence to these principles provides a mechanism for self-correction that is the foundation of the credibility of science.

I couldn’t have written it better. Each of those sentences is carefully written and I thank AAPT for that. Let’s go back and look at what Science means.

Science is the systematic enterprise of gathering knowledge about the universe and organizing and condensing that knowledge into testable laws and theories.

Science is about knowledge, something that is discovered, produced and created by humans, in pursuit of our quest to understand this Universe, and then to collect that knowledge in a systematic way – developing theories and laws around it – which are testable.

The word 'testable' is important here. This must be the only word in that sentence that makes Science different from a Religion. While Science actively encourages testing, Religion actively denounces it and shuns it inflicting severe punishment where necessary. Any inquiry into working of God, questioning it or criticizing it will incur the wrath of the entire religious community. For many centuries, such a ‘crime’ was punishable by death- gory death, death after mutilation, death after torture. 

Science urges its scientists to:

Expose their ideas and results to independent testing and replication by other scientists. This requires the complete and open exchange of data, procedures and materials.

It is about disseminating your ideas, however ridiculous they are, and to publish your results, all of them, in entirety, so that other scientists can replicate the same results. If a scientist refuses to explain his or her ideas, other scientists will not accept his theories or his explanations. Scientists demand very high of other scientists. Scientists scrutinize and question other scientists more than anyone else. Scientists are the first in line to doubt the claims of other scientists. They are the last ones to accept a new theory or new explanation. And they don’t do it till it is verified, replicated, tested thoroughly against all conditions. They do their best to disprove it, not ratify it willingly.

When Charles Darwin presented his theories, it was not accepted right away. Most scientists doubted it, and ridiculed it. They did not accept his new theories. In fact, it took many years for biologists across the world to actually come to terms with Theory of Evolution. Many biologists who confronted Theory of Evolution did their best to refute the theory. They looked for evidence to disprove Evolution. However, Darwin’s theory withstood the onslaught of criticism and doubt, not from religious people, but fellow scientists, who were keener to disprove it than the religious people. Over a period of time, scientists began to concede that Theory of Evolution is indeed true. That it is how Nature works. And thousands and millions of new evidences came up suggesting further and further that Theory of Evolution is in fact how nature worked. 

Every new piece of evidence which suggested otherwise was immediately announced to everyone suggesting that Theory of Evolution is at jeopardy, only to be soon discovered that it only corroborates the theory further.

Scientists are mean people who do not let other scientists get away free. They don’t let a scientists take away for credit for nothing. Scientists have to withstand the onslaught of fellow scientist’s questioning, their verification, and their replication. 

Scientists were not in awe of Darwin accepting his every word blindly. He is not idolized nor prayed to. He is not considered infallible. His word is not divine. He is one of the most scrutinized men in the field of Science. His theories are not easily accepted. There are many who confront him and try to poke holes in his theories. Even those who accept Theory of Evolution keep trying to rectify Darwin, correct him, and find flaws in his argument. The best way to honor a scientist who has proposed a new theory is to completely refute him, and refuse to accept everything he says, question everything he says, and then go about verifying his theory ground up, and build your models, only to discover that you have ended up proving his new theory. 

Albert Einstein published three historic papers in 1905. He was a patent clerk in Switzerland. He was not a mainstream scientist working a reputed research lab or a professor at a famous university. And yet, what he published became widely popular. Nobody knew who Einstein was. They did not make him famous because he is one of them. He made him famous in spite of that - only because his papers explained things which were verified by hundred other scientists. Even if one wanted to disprove him they could not. 

Some theories like General Theory of Relativity were so mind boggling that many scientists were reluctant to accept it. Many years later, two independent teams set off to two different continents observed a phenomenon on complete solar eclipse which suggested that General Theory of Relativity was right. Later on, hundreds of experiments verified his theory only to validate it. All attempts to disprove have failed.

Religion on the other hand has a completely different view on this. A priest or a saint is right not because he is proven right, but because he is left unchallenged, because certain people have vouched for it. A miracle worker does not get to repeat his miracle, and instead witnesses confess to it, all in mass delusion. The experiment cannot be repeated and instead accepted as truth without proper investigation. 

Religion differs on all counts here. It does not allow independent testing or replication. It does NOT exchange procedure or data to replicate the experiment.

Scientist are urged to:

Abandon or modify previously accepted conclusions when confronted with more complete or reliable experimental or observational evidence.

Science abandons an existing theory if new evidence disproves it. Scientists are trained to abandon their pet theories in case an experiment disproves it. While some scientists readily abandon their theories, some don’t. However, within a generation or two, such obstinacy doesn’t stand a chance, it withers away. The consensus is reached where egos, personal ambitions, selfishness, etc, are all washed away with time.

Albert Einstein did not accept Quantum Theory when it was presented to him. But after few years, he came around to contribute heavily to this new theory completely abandoning his pet opposition. In the same way, many ideas and theories which existed and were quite prevalent in the past are no longer heard because they have been refuted and abandoned. Phlostigen was popular concept to explain air and its component, but is completely abandoned now. In the same way the concept of aether, Neptunism, Geosyncline theory, etc, are all abandoned.

Enough evidence came up that confronted these theories and refuted them. Scientists abandoned those theories and moved on. That’s how Science works. It allows itself to be corrected in face of new evidence.

The following sentence best summarizes it.

Adherence to these principles provides a mechanism for self-correction that is the foundation of the credibility of science.

The keyword is self-correction. Science corrects itself. Religion does not.

Religion does its best not to correct itself, holding onto its dogma with resolute force, unyielding, and uncompromising. If evidence comes up that contradicts its stories, Religion falsifies that evidence with ruthless suppression, resorting to killing, punishing them with death penalty, and imposing wars. Religion is not ready to change itself. It wants to stay permanent.

When evidence suggests that Earth is not 6000 years old but in fact 4,000,000,000 years old, Religion falsifies that evidence, refuses to accept it, comes up with all kinds of mysterious explanations, cock and bull stories, magic, and miracles to suggest that it is indeed 6000 years old. When evidence suggested that Earth is not center of the Universe and that our planet revolved around Sun, Religion put those evidence gathers to death, and refused to concede the obvious truth for nearly 350 years. 

Science and Religion are not the same. In fact, they are quite opposite in the above ways. 

There should be no ‘believers’ of Science. If there are people who ‘believe’ in Science the way people believe in Religion, then those people have not understood Science at all. May be, they are fighting for Science not knowing what Science is all about. When people like Richard Dawkins fights Religion on behalf of Science, he fights dogma of Religion while supporting the scrutiny of Science. He is fighting against irrationality with tools of rationality. It’s NOT the same as fighting Christianity with Islam where two irrationalities are pitted against each other. 

Unlike religious people, Richard Dawkins does not disallow scrutiny of scientific theories. He does not believe in Charles Darwin just because he happens to be British, or a famous man. Richard Dawkins supports Theory of Evolution because he has accepted it only after it made sense to him, only after studying overwhelming evidence, some of them observing himself, that Evolution by Natural Selection is indeed what best explains our animal and plant life.