🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <7rsg3h$2rss$1@news.hal-pc.org>, 
"charliew" <charliew@hal-pc.org> wrote:
>janettt@my-deja.com wrote in message <7rrk1v$tr6$1@nnrp1.deja.com>...
>>     I discovered a fascinating discussion of three books
>>on the struggle between science and religion at
>>http://www.techdirections.com/html/in_review.html
>
>There is a hidden assumption in this whole subject line.  The assumption is
>that there is an absolute "truth" that science can ultimately answer, if we
>pursue science long enough.  This way of looking at the world is probably
>flawed.  In effect, all of the currently accepted practices of this day and
>time are based on theories that happen to be the best known way of
>explaining sets of scientific data.  There are certainly many different ways
>to explain the same data, and there are probably simpler explanations that
>can be formulated to explain some of the data that we currently take for
>granted.  To conclude that currently accepted scientific explanations are
>necessarily in conflict with currently accepted religious explanations,
>based on the fact that the language of the two explanations seems to be
>"discontinuous", is an opinion that can't be validated by any known
>scientific method.  In effect, the bible (if that is the document that you
>wish to use for your religious core beliefs) is not a scientific document,
>which strongly implies that one who compares science and religion is
>comparing "apples and oranges".

There was recently some discussion of science and religion following
the decision by the Kansas school board to make the teaching of 
evolution optional.  _Time Magazine_ ran an essay on the topic penned
by Prof. Stephen Jay Gould:

<quoting myself from an earlier message>

[snip]  There was a "Viewpoint" article in a recent _Time Magazine_ 
on the topic: "Dorothy, It's Really Oz" by Prof. Stephen Jay Gould 
(23 Aug 99, p.53).

As Gould points out, the whole concern of the Fundamentalists 
demonstrates their lack of understanding of religion as well as 
of science:  "No scientific theory, including evolution, can pose 
any threat to religion-for these two great tools of human understanding
operate in complementary (not contrary) fashion in their totally 
separate realms: science as an inquiry about the factual state of 
the natural world, religion as a search for spiritual meaning and 
ethical values."
</quoting>

Cheers,  Ian S.

ianstDELETE@THISdpi.qld.gov.au