Over the past few weeks, the blogosphere has been alive with a passionate debate about the extent to which science should accommodate religion, leaving it an area in which it has authority - whether it be in respect of truths about morality or truths about a supernatural realm - while denying it authority over empirical claims.
One of the difficulties with all this is that no one has ever distinguished convincingly and sharply between the world of nature and the supposed supernatural realm. After all, if we routinely encountered ancestor spirits that were capable of affecting the world available to us through our senses, and if they behaved in reasonably consistent ways (like human beings and other animals) we would be able to investigate their activities systematically. Their activities would fall into the realm of science, and we might come to think of them as part of “nature”. There is no reason why science cannot investigate claims relating to “supernatural” (by commonsense definitions) entities so long as they actually exist, have the power to affect the material world that we can observe, and behave with some consistency.
Over the centuries, science has abandoned explanations that rely on, say, the actions of disembodied intelligences, since those kinds of explanations have been fruitless. But this is not because science is prevented, in principle, from investigating claims about such things if they exist. It has taken this attitude based on its experience of what constitutes a fruitful approach. So-called methodological naturalism - avoiding the use of supernatural hypotheses - is a relatively recent component of the scientific method, resulting from historical experience. It is not that science rules out supernatural things a priori or that it has no capacity to investigate them if it turns out that some do exist.
By now, the reasonable assumption is that such things as ancestor spirits, gods, angels, and demons really do not exist. It is not that they exist in a separate sphere that can be known through religious experience - but is beyond the methods of science. More likely, they don’t exist at all.
There is more to be said about this, but I’d like to spend more time on another claim, the idea, popularised by Stephen Jay Gould, that science deals with the empirical world, where it has authority, while religion deals with questions of how we ought to live, essentially the realm of morality, where it has authority. Thus, science and religion have separate spheres of authority that do not overlap. According to this view, we are entitled to tell religious leaders to keep out of such matters as the age of the Earth and whether Homo sapiens evolved from earlier forms of life. However, so the idea goes, scientists should not challenge the authority of religion in the moral realm.
In my view, this is comprehensively wrong.
Gould called his idea “Non-Overlapping Magisteria”, or “NOMA”; if it is correct, it gives an extremely important sphere of authority in teaching to religious doctrine, religious organisations, and religious leaders, while holding that religion has no role, even in principle, in offering truths about the empirical world (e.g. truths about the age of the Earth, how it came into existence, or where human beings as a species came from). But Gould is wrong on this in every possible way.
First, religions have, historically, claimed authority to tell us about such matters as the age and origin of the Earth, the origin of humanity, and so on. Religions have acted as encyclopedic explanatory systems. It is not part of the concept of religion that it keep out of such matters. Moreover, if a religion’s more general claims were true, there is no reason why it should not have authority in this sphere. After all, if a god or angel or similar being has inspired the religion’s poets and prophets, or dictated actual text for inclusion in its holy books, the god or angel (or whatever) could easily reveal such facts as the true age of the Earth, the fact that it revolves around the Sun, the fact that it is spherical and rotates on its axis, and the evolutionary origin of human beings. There is no reason in principle why a true religion with genuinely supernatural origins could not have authoritative teachings on all these things.
Religion is not, in its essence or its very concept, confined to matters of morality. One or more religions could have had authority on empirical matters, and a religion still could if a true one came along (its prophet genuinely interacting with a superhuman intelligence). It’s just that, historically, religion has done a poor job when it has offered information about (for example) the age of the Earth or human origins. Empirical investigation, supported by huge amounts of converging evidence, has reached different conclusions.
Supporters of NOMA want to give religion authority over matters of morality while denying that science has any such authority, but again this gets things totally wrong. It is true that science cannot tell us the ultimate point of morality, but neither can religion. The ultimate point of morality, as opposed to the historical origin of morality, is something we decide rather than something we discover, and neither religion nor science can tell us authoritatively what we should decide.
Certainly, the ultimate point of morality cannot be obedience to the will of a god or a group of gods. This would raise the notorious Euthyphro problem: does conduct become morally correct because it is in accordance with a god’s commands, or should we obey the god’s commands because they track the independent requirements of morality? If the former, we seem to be stuck with the idea that murder and rape are wrong only because of the arbitrary commands of a powerful being (this being could have made murder morally right simply by commanding it). If the latter, then why not find out what the independent requirements of morality actually are, i.e. the requirements that are independent of the god’s will?
It may be, however, that a god could be a reliable advice-giver about morality. This makes more conceptual sense.
Before I come to that, however, note again that neither science nor religion can decide what the ultimate point of morality should be. Should it be individual flourishing? social survival? reduction of suffering? some combination? something else? We can reach a conclusion on this kind of question only by rational reflection on our values, the realm of secular ethical philosophy. When we so do, we can never step entirely out of all our values at once, so there always remains an irreducible element of what we really do most deeply desire the world to be like. “Oughts” can not ultimately be derived from reason alone without that element, as Hume argued in his great Treatise of Human Nature.
However, once we know what we want morality to achieve we are, in practice, at least as likely to get good advice on how to achieve it from science as from religion.
It didn’t have to be like this. If prophets were genuinely receiving information from a god, it might have included reliable information on what best conduces to, say, individual and collective human flourishing. But the holy books seem no more reliable about that than they are about empirical matters such as the age of the Earth. Sophisticated religious adherents tend to interpret the holy books more in keeping with what they know from elsewhere about what conduces to flourishing (or social survival, reduction of suffering, and other such goals). Far from being authoritative, holy books end up needing to be interpreted in the light of secular wisdom about what actually conduces to such goals as flourishing or happiness.
At this point I should concede that science is also limited in this realm. Given the current state of sciences such as psychology, the quality of the advice coming from science may leave something, perhaps much, to be desired. We do not yet have an exact science of what best contributes to, say, individual and collective human flourishing. But science can certainly study this. In principle, it can draw reliable conclusions - at least as reliable as any in the holy books. Science, as it develops, has at least as much, perhaps far more, authority in this area. Unlike the authors of the holy books, science can investigate the issues methodically, discard bad hypotheses, and draw increasingly robust conclusions.
For the moment, however, we must rely to a large degree on such things as historical experience, folk understandings of what makes people happy, our own experience as individuals, and so on. Moral philosophers need to reflect on all of these things. They can also reflect on religious texts from various traditions, of course, since these may contain some wisdom, but no more than on great literature or insightful classics of philosophy. Religion has no special authority in the realm of how we should act and live.
Fortunately, a great deal of our morality is not contentious – we all know (or at least it seems very plausible) that it advances social survival and individual flourishing and reduction of suffering, for example, if children are trained in virtues such as honesty, reasonableness (in the sense of willingness to compromise), kindness, and courage. But where morality is actually contentious - as when we consider such issues as stem-cell research or gay marriage - religion provides a poor guide. It is all too likely to make recommendations that do not conduce to individual flourishing, social survival, reduction of suffering, or any other plausible goal that morality might have.
In short, there is no reason to defer to any specifically or distinctively religious morality. On the contrary, we should emphasise that religion’s claims to possess a special moral authority are entirely without merit.
I conclude that NOMA is comprehensively false. Religion is not confined by its very nature to the moral sphere and in principle it has as much authority in the empirical sphere as anywhere else. I.e., it could have made accurate empirical claims if really in receipt of knowledge from an angel or a god.
Conversely, science has at least as much authority as religion in the moral sphere: science cannot determine the ultimate point that morality should be aiming at, but neither can religion. Once we know what we want to achieve from morality, science is at least as well placed as religion to tell us how to achieve it, though we also need to rely on personal and historical experience, etc., since the most relevant sciences (such as psychology) are relatively imprecise and at an early stage of development.
However we look at it, religion is neither conceptually confined to the moral sphere nor authoritative within that (or any other) sphere. NOMA is a false doctrine. NOMA no more!
Of course, NOMA is a contentious doctrine. While I have put the case that it is false, that does not entail that, for example, science organisations should say that it is false, or that school students should be taught that it is false. Nor, however, should it be promulgated to students and the public as true. While I’m convinced that religion has no special authority in matters of morality (or in matters involving a supposed supernatural realm if it comes to that), other intelligent and reasonable people may disagree with this assessment.
All I ask from science organisations and school curricula is neutrality on the point, but I am personally convinced that NOMA is a completely specious philosophical doctrine. Those of who are not already convinced of the claims of religion should not buy it, and we should in no way be convinced by its proponents that we ought to back away from our critique of religion. Religion possesses no special authority in the moral sphere, and no one should persuade us to stop saying so.
You are wading into contentious territory, and doing so carefully, and I commend you both for your boldness and your care.
A central claim you are making might be summarized as follows: science has an equal claim to moral authority as does religion, suggesting that NOMA is wrong.
I disagree with the moral authority claim for reasons that strike me as obvious. However, I agree with your distrust of the NOMA doctrine.
- First of all, science makes no claim to moral authority, nor should it be expected to.
- Second, when moral claims have been drawn from science, they have been often disastrously and dangerously wrong. Social Darwinism and the murderous uses it was put to is a case in point. Communism, with its claimed-for basis in scientific materialism, is another.
- Thirdly, a very small percentage of the population are scientists, so any system that ascribes - or attempts to ascribe - authority to science creates a priestly structure empowering "those who know", in this case the scientists. Others therefore have to follow, in this case everybody else.
Religion, which clearly has it failings in living up to its stated goals, is different.
- First of all, it directly focuses on moral issues as a central, if not the central, component of what it does. And, literally for billions of people, it focuses on moral issues such truthfulness, honesty, fairness, compassion, and the need for education as central to its teachings.
- Second, it is for everybody, and at least since Christianity, directly says so. It is phrased so it is accessible to everybody. It does not require a 4 years of undergraduate school and 5 years of graduate school and a Ph.D. thesis.
- Thirdly, it has, and continues to have a track record of tremendous success in achieving moral goals. The elimination of Western European slavery being but one of them. That record continues to expand.
However, there is an important sense in which science is an integral part of addressing moral issues, one which dovetails very well with the moral focus of religion and which suggests that NOMA is inadequate.
And that is that the principles of religion can neither be well-understood nor put into action without the empirical, rational, and pragmatic approaches that science - divorced of its theological trappings - brings to bear.
A case in point is the need to address ecological concerns for the world of our children and their future. Both science, which can supply accurate information and evaluation of various methods to address the problem, and the moral willpower of large numbers of people, mostly folks who are not scientists, are needed ingredients.
This, I think, shows NOMA to be wrong. Both science AND religion working together are needed.
"It is not that science rules out supernatural things a priori or that it has no capacity to investigate them if it turns out that some do exist."
I think that you would have a fruitful discussion with evolutionary biologist Richard Lewontin, who wrote in a January 9, 1997 article, Billions and Billions of Demons:
"Our willingness to accept scientific claims that are against common sense is the key to an understanding of the real struggle between science and the supernatural. We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, in spite of its failure to fulfill many of its extravagant promises of health and life, in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories, because we have a prior commitment, a commitment to materialism. It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counter-intuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door."
Mr Blackford writes: It is true that science cannot tell us the ultimate point of morality, but neither can religion... (R)eligion …can(’t) tell us authoritatively what we should decide.
The difference is that the science cannot tell /anyone/ the ultimate point of morality, but religion can tell those willing to follow it what it is. (I guess it matters what he means by "us.")
Actually, I think that Lewontin is wrong. There is no dogmatic, a priori adherence to material causes. There is just a history of science not finding religion-based causes fruitful. E.g. preformationism of the kind that says God created an infinite set of individuals inside each other dating back to the Garden of Eden was not a fruitful hypothesis - indeed, it is now known to be false. Likewise, diluvian geology is now known to be false (this was well-established during the 19th century). As a result of this history, science now adopts "methodological naturalism" as working rule, but it's not forced to do this a priori. E.g., diluvian geology, which explains geological formations in terms of an act of God in sending Noah's flood, was not ruled out a priori - it has been falsified.
For all that was known in, say, the 17th century, explanations involving supernatural acts of God COULD have turned out to be fruitful, in which case science would go on using them now. But it didn't turn out that way.
Stephen makes a good point that science does not take on the mantle of moral authority. However, at least two of his three points about religion are incorrect.
1. You don't need advanced degrees to understand most of the first approximation of scientific concepts. Religions, too, have their scholars, who are willing and able to debate fine points, and who have to write PhD theses (or their equivalent) just like scientists. Most people have a simplified view of science and an equally simplified view of religion.
2. Slavery did not get abolished in Western Europe; it transmuted into serfdom, which had the wholehearted approval of the Church. It took waves upon waves of revolts, as well as political action (motivated by both morality and expediency) to change this, and most of these were condemned by the Church.
"There is just a history of science not finding religion-based causes fruitful. ... preformationism of the kind that says God created an infinite set of individuals inside each other dating back to the Garden of Eden was not a fruitful hypothesis. ... Likewise, diluvian geology is now known to be false (this was well-established during the 19th century)."
Best be careful here. Neither of these are notably religious in origin, although I understand the temptation to see as them as such. The later, of course, was a specifically western European hypothesis inspired by the historical genius of Judaism which became a part of an extraordinarily fruitful iteration of thought that prefigured modern geology and of course evolution.
What is of religious origin, history shows, is science itself. The history of astronomy is a case in point. (The history of astronomy, to a surprising degree, IS the history of science).
Starting from Egyptian and Babylonian religious concerns, astronomy was merged into Greek number mysticism with its belief in the sacredness of pure geometrical form. Ptolemy's superb writings took this astronomy and made it into common currency in the Islamic world.
In Islam, the world was considered a sign of God, meaning that to study the world was to glorify God, an approach that encouraged the growth of empiricism and mathematics. For astronomy, extraordinary mathematical, engineering, and observational advances resulted from this empirical bent, leading to a full and rich scientific literature that became the foundation of European astronomy and its subsequent flowerings.
I think the broader thrust of all this may be the following:
The idea of unsophisticated and superstitious supernatural explanations as the religious perspective is pretty much a red herring. Yes, creationism and ID are such things, but delving into their history suggests that are due more to a "high church/low church" political struggle. The "high church" side has morphed into a science-based secular elitism.
In the 17th century, leading religious thinkers were NOT contemplating supernatural acts of God as explanations - that was the domain of the polemicists and fanatics of the war between religionists. Rather, they were doing the opposite. People like the Jesuit-trained Descartes who were setting up science as a truth-seeking way to create unity and an alternative to conflict.
I would agree that most people have a simplified view of science, which is why the danger I warn of is so real.
The danger, and the evidence for it is increasing, is of individuals or groups taking simplistic interpretations of science and turning them into philosophical dogma and recruiting ideological followers. The "accommodationist" discussions on the internet which Russell describes are a skirmish in the ugly cultural war this has engendered. I think it is very dangerous to underestimate the appeal of being an authority.
For (2), you are probably thinking of a different century than I am. Western European slavery was not abolished until the 19th century - and yes, it didn't happen easily. Christianity - this time Protestantism - played a major role in its abolition. If you are a Marxist, I suppose you could say that the factory worker or the immigrant became a serf. Is this what you mean?
Bryce, religion cannot be an _ultimate_ moral authority, because the decision to follow a religious moral code (or any other moral code) is itself a moral decision, which must be based on some prior moral sense.
Each person's ultimate moral source is his/her own moral sense.
It appears to me that evolutionary philosopher Michael Ruse takes a position that combines both yours and Lewontin's: He says:
"And it seems to me very clear that at some very basic level, evolution as a scientific theory makes a commitment to a kind of naturalism, namely, that at some level one is going to exclude miracles and these sorts of things, come what may. Now, you might say, does this mean it's just a religious assumption, does this mean it's irrational to do something like this. I would argue very strongly that it's not. At a certain pragmatic level, the proof of the pudding is in the eating. And that if certain things do work, you keep going with this, and that you don't change in midstream, and so on and so forth. I think that one can in fact defend a scientific and naturalistic approach, even if one recognizes that this does include a metaphysical assumption to the regularity of nature, or something of this nature.
So as I say, I think that one can defend it as reasonable, but I don't think it helps matter by denying that one is making it. And I think that once one has made such an assumption, one has perfect powers to turn to, say, creation science, which claims to be naturalistic also, and point out that it's wrong. I think one has every right to show that evolutionary theory in various forms certainly seems to be the most reasonable position, once one has taken a naturalistic position. So I'm not coming here and saying, give up evolution, or anything like that.
But I am coming here and saying, I think that philosophically that one should be sensitive to what I think history shows, namely, that evolution, just as much as religion -- or at least, leave "just as much," let me leave that phrase -- evolution, akin to religion, involves making certain a priori or metaphysical assumptions, which at some level cannot be proven empirically. I guess we all knew that, but I think that we're all much more sensitive to these facts now. And I think that the way to deal with creationism, but the way to deal with evolution also, is not to deny these facts, but to recognize them, and to see where we can go, as we move on from there."
> "By now, the reasonable assumption is that such things as ancestor spirits, gods, angels, and demons really do not exist. "
It’s unfair to sneak in "creator" (in the form of “gods”) in the middle of a list which includes far-out concepts as ancestor spirits and demons. Is it really a reasonable assumption to say that the universe, which has a finite age, just made itself? Or is it just as reasonable to posit that some sort of creator started things off?
+ Religion has no special authority in the realm of how we should act and live.
+ …we should emphasise that religion’s claims to possess a special moral authority are entirely without merit.
+ However we look at it, religion is neither conceptually confined to the moral sphere nor authoritative within that (or any other) sphere.
+ While I’m convinced that religion has no special authority in matters of morality…
+ Religion possesses no special authority in the moral sphere, and no one should persuade us to stop saying so.
"However we look at it, religion is neither conceptually confined to the moral sphere nor authoritative within that (or any other) sphere. NOMA is a false doctrine. NOMA no more!"
Then defeats his own argument by saying:
"While I have put the case that it is false, that does not entail that, for example, science organisations should say that it is false, or that school students should be taught that it is false."
Why not Russell?
Through the scientific method we have come to know that there is no supernatural. Even if we come to discover other dimensions or universes, these would be part of the natural order of things.
Stephen speaks of the moral accomplishments of religion. But these are not the works of religion but the outcomes of social struggles of human beings who express their morality through particular cultural forms, which reflect a certain level of historical development.
As the culture of rationality develops, of which Transhumanism is one particular expression, religion will fade away. So there is no need to engage in an active campaign against it except by promoting rationality. And part of this promotion of rationality is to teach student that "NOMA is a false doctrine."
Mark Thomson writes: "Through the scientific method we have come to know that there is no supernatural."
I don't think so, Mark. If Roger Bacon were alive today, the man whom many consider one of the founders of the scientific method yet a full-fledged Christian to boot, would surely disagree. He would probably say that reductionism has led many to disbelieve in the supernatural, not that the scientific method has.
"Through the scientific method we have come to know that there is no supernatural. Even if we come to discover other dimensions or universes, these would be part of the natural order of things."
Let me propose a radically different way to think about the supernatural, one that turns your conclusion around 180 degrees. If you understand it, you can understand religion.
My observation, and yes, I'm a working scientist, is that the scientific method has demonstrated very clearly that there is a supernatural. We use it every day - or should - in our work and research.
It is, of course, that which enables to grasp the scientific method, that which enables us to use scientific methods, and that which enables us to understand things.
If you understand what it is, and keep in mind that "super" means above, not superman, and that natural means "nature", not organic, then you can figure out religion, and maybe even break free of all the imagery - the gods, the images - that so bedevils people who don't understand it.
The scientific method is a tool which can be wielded against all forms of mysticism, even those of its originators.
"When you look at the history of what we know about the world, you see a very noticeable pattern. Natural explanations of things have been replacing supernatural explanations of them."
There has never been a replacement of natural explanations with supernatural. We expect this trend to continue.
To quote Ray Kurzweil:
"Once a planet yields a technology creating species and that species creates computation (as has happened here on Earth), it is only a matter of a few centuries before its intelligence saturates the matter and energy in its vicinity, and it begins to expand outward at the speed of light or greater. It will then overcome gravity (through exquisite and vast technology) and other cosmological forces (or, to be fully accurate, will maneuver and control these forces) and create the Universe it wants."
Intelligence emanating from biological to machine will become like the supernatural in its capacity to manipulate matter and transform the universe.
"It is, of course, that which enables to grasp the scientific method, that which enables us to use scientific methods, and that which enables us to understand things."
This is why the creation of general self improving AI will be the most profound event in the history of humanity. It will invalidate the above statement.
Lots to answer here, and I'll get to some of it either in later comments or on my own blog, but this leapt out from Mark:
=====
Russell says:
"However we look at it, religion is neither conceptually confined to the moral sphere nor authoritative within that (or any other) sphere. NOMA is a false doctrine. NOMA no more!"
Then defeats his own argument by saying:
"While I have put the case that it is false, that does not entail that, for example, science organisations should say that it is false, or that school students should be taught that it is false."
Why not Russell?
======
How do I defeat my own argument? It's one thing to take a particular view on a controversial philosophical question such as the truth of the NOMA doctrine. It's another entirely to think that bodies such as science organisations should take an official stance favouring one's position. There are many issues on which there are good reasons for such bodies to be neutral.
Again, it's one thing to take a particular view on a controversial issue. It's another entirely to think that's one view should be taught as being true to students in high school. Leaving aside constitutional issues in the US - though these are important - there are many pedagogical reasons why I might support a particular philosophical, political, or social view, perhaps even thinking that my arguments for it are overwhelming, while ALSO leaving it to students to make up their own minds on these issues.
Issues of what should be taught as fact, or what should be promulgated as the official views of certain organisations, are quite different from issues as to which view is actually correct.
There is no contradiction. I don't "defeat my own argument". The position I've put is totally consistent.
That doesn't mean I disagree with Mark on other points. I, too, find Stephen R. Friberg's analysis in his various comments rather unconvincing - but that's for another day. Meanwhile, I can't let the claim that my position is somehow inconsistent go unanswered. It isn't at all.
Mark wrote: "Stephen speaks of the moral accomplishments of religion. But these are not the works of religion but the outcomes of social struggles of human beings who express their morality through particular cultural forms, which reflect a certain level of historical development."
I don't know exactly what "expressing their morality through particular cultural forms" means, but I do know that humans also express their morality through what their religion teaches them, which might go against the grain of the surrounding culture.
For example, many consider gossip to be a scourge; certain religious teachers have culled from their sacred writings all the stories that deal with gossip, and have led tens of thousands into taking the issue of avoiding gossip very seriously. However, there is very little movement outside of religious circles to do anything serious about reducing gossip. Do you really think you can completely deny "religion" this accomplishment?
The point I am making is that we have evolved in ways that have enabled us to survive and reproduce. The development of our brain and religion are part of this process.
As our evolution progresses some features of past evolutionary necessity will be superseded by new adaptations required for the continued survival of the species. Rationality is one of these characteristics.
Hence, religion and rationality represent definite stages in the development of humanity's understanding of the universe.
You write: "As our evolution progresses some features of past evolutionary necessity will be superseded by new adaptations required for the continued survival of the species. Rationality is one of these characteristics."
I agree, but I want to note that the time spans we are talking about - maybe ten thousand years - are too short for biological evolution to be at play. Rather, what is happening is learning, both individual and social.
Science typifies a modern high speed learning process. It powerfully combines both reasoned thought - theory, model building, conjecture - with empirical testing. The "wisdom of crowds" approach - the driving force behind Google - is another.
Very clearly, religion has some catching up to do, bit it too has evolved an important and powerful role to play, But, it is very big, and very slowly moving, except when a new prophet shows up every thousand years or so. That doesn't mean that it is inherently anti-rational, but it certainly can get that way at times.
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