The extremes are winning

We've had the BA Festival of Science in Liverpool this week. There was a session on science and religion last Sunday, which was a clear exercise in Kuhnian incommensurability. The philosopher Thomas Kuhn suggested that the supporters of contradictory, competing theories often just don't get what the other side is on about. They can't even agree the basic facts that constitute the evidence, never mind agree on the interpretation of the results. Consequently, even as one theory begins to win the struggle, there are die hard supporters of the old theory that never jump ship. Basically they go to the grave believing that they are right, and the other lot are wrong. Note that Kuhn's examples were all from science. So it will hardly come as a surprise that in a lecture from a physicist (and atheist) about science, he didn't really get what some of his audience were saying, and rather caricatured both science and belief. Equally, there were probably some believers (of various types) in the audience, who weren't really ready to accept that some of the physics being discussed was actually very impressive. Rather they saw it as arrogant, dangerous and confusing.

What struck me about all of this, and some further press coverage of the issue of the teaching of "scientific" young earth creationism in school science lessons, is that the extremes seem to be sweeping all before them. From the science side of things, there's the extreme of those who claim that science is a rigorous process for obtaining infallible knowledge about anything. At no point does it involve such flaky notions as belief or faith. It, itself, is both to be trusted though, and the knowledge it provides is authoritative. Once it has "explained" something, that explanation is the best available, and any other type of explanation is inferior. From the belief side of things comes the view that science is a sort of conspiracy to confuse, baffle and enslave. Much, if not all, of what it produces is to be mistrusted if not feared. It's usually bound up with government or big business, and is aimed at undermining spirituality (of whatever sort). In specifically Christian terms, it is something approaching a satanic conspiracy to undermine belief in God.

The mere fact that I, and many others, manage to operate as a competent (I hope) scientist and a faithful (I hope) Christian, rather suggests this conflict is neither necessary or helpful. Both stem from fundamental, and occasionally willful, misunderstandings of both what science is and how it works, and what (at least) the Christian faith is and how it works.