"Science & Religion: Two Ships in the Night"

[Bill McBlueState]

I think this sounds like a really interesting talk. It's at Hampshire College next week if anyone in western Massachusetts feels like going. I'd say Krauss comes down more on Dawkins's side than on Gould's in evaluating the relationship between science and religion. (me too!)

Hampshire College Lecture Series on Science & Religion Presents

Science & Religion: Two Ships in the Night
by Dr. Lawrence M. Krauss

Thursday, October 23, 2008
5:30p.m., Franklin Patterson Hall, Main Lecture Hall
Hampshire College

Abstract:
At best, science and religion have very little to do with one another. At worst, they are completely incompatible. And what little connection between the two even in the best of cases involves a one-way street. Science may enrich faith, but not vice versa. Dr. Krauss will discuss modern misunderstandings of this limited connection, coming both from science as well as religion, as well as modern abuses that demean both science and faith. The origin and evolution of the universe will serve as a good (or bad) example.

Dr. Lawrence M Krauss is Foundation Professor and Director of the Origins Initiative, Co-Director of the Cosmology Initiative, School of Earth and Space Exploration, BEYOND Center, and Department of Physics at Arizona State University.

[frogmarch]

1. Yes, interesting!

I'm of the mind that religion and science don't mix, and that religion needs to keep its nose where it belongs - in its holy books and whatnot - and to stop trying to corrupt science with superstitious BS.

[TZ]

2. Absolutely.

I also can't stand the folks that think that science is a type of religion...I've had people on THIS SITE of all places tell me I "worship at the alter of science". Idiots.x(

[frogmarch]

3. Same here. What's up with

those people, anyway?

[edhopper]

4. This is just a

rhetorical turn of phrase. I've used it myself. What it means is I don't have religious faith, but rather put my lot with reason and critical thinking.
One doesn't actually "worship" science. One respects it as the best way we have to learn about the world.

[TZ]

5. Ah but it's been used that way when it was thrown at me.

Someone accused me of using "faith based evidence" (in regards to a vaccine)

[edhopper]

6. I misread your OP

I thought you were quoting someone saying "I worship..." in the first person. You are saying someone is throwing that at you as a science/religion equivalence. In that case it is a BS statement.

[johns777]

7. Observation

Religion: any faith based organization.

Evolution: somewhere between nine and 15 billion years ago something, from nothing, went -BANG-. Then against astronomical odds we've arrived where we are today. Please kindly offer any corrections.

How big is 'astronomical'? Some say 'we' can relate to numbers to the 48th power. I have no idea who the 'we' are that can relate to numbers so large as I have enough trouble with trillions. Anyway, 'astronomical' is probably bigger than the 48th power.

As gamblers go, we generally consider Roulette players to be fools. The straight up odds being 35 or 36 to 1 against.

Now what are we to consider those who choose to follow a fellow human with blind faith when the odds are astronomical against?

[cyborg_jim]

8. The standard mistaken application of statistics

"As gamblers go, we generally consider Roulette players to be fools. The straight up odds being 35 or 36 to 1 against. "

No spin of the wheel affects any other spin. The fallacy of gambling is to think it does.

And the fallacy of this analogy is to pretend that evolutionary systems are equivalently without causality.

You don't understand the problem space.

[EvolveOrConvolve]

9. Sure

But if you're going to offer numbers, at least provide the basis for your calculations. Did you pull the "48th power" number out of your ass, or is there a measurable, empirical method of attaining that figure?

And what does the Theory of Evolution have to do with the Big Bang? You're conflating two separate scientific concepts, then using that inadequate comparison as a basis for your fallacious argument. That's just stupid...

[TWiley]

10. You seem to misunderstand

It all hinges on what happened when time equaled zero.

Religious people tend to believe that God existed before time, and somehow pure consciousness (God) created matter from absolutely nothing. This is why miracles are so important to the faithful. It is proof that consciousness has the ability to affect or create matter.

The science and math crowd tends to believe that all matter was compressed into an unthinkably small area and an enormous explosion resulted. Somehow over millions of years, life was created by the random combinations of matter, and somehow, consciousness evolved from life. We see evidence of this daily through the reproductive cycle.

This is the only science vs religion discussion I have ever heard which deserves any merit. Religion looses hands down when it comes to the predictive models of science, logic, and math. Not much new has come from that dark corner (Religion) since the Bronze Age. Virtually all of it has been proven wrong hundreds of years ago.

To call Religion a theory is much too generous. Its basis has no relevance to fact, and it is worthless as a predictive model.