Under the Microscope:I occasionally write my column on the relationship between science and religion, and no other topic excites as much reaction from readers. My last article in this regard was published on October 11th. I will briefly comment on this reaction while the article remains fresh in your minds.
Some correspondents think I write very often on science and religion, but I do not. For example, over the period from November 30th, 2006, to October 18th, 2007, I wrote two articles on this topic out of a total of 50 articles.
Reaction to my science and religion columns comes mainly in the form of letters to the editor and as letters and e-mails sent to me personally. The letters to the editor seem to divide into two-thirds critical of my efforts and one-third approving. Three-quarters of the personal letters and e-mails are positive and one-quarter are negative. The tone of the negative reaction is often emotional, mainly angry.
Negative correspondents often claim that it is inappropriate for a science columnist to write about religion. But, I do not write on religion, I write on the interaction between science and religion. The interaction between science and religion has a long history and is very topical at present - indeed a whole mini-publishing industry is devoted to the subject. Richard Dawkins recently wrote The God Delusion (Bantam Press, 2006), which was a bestseller in Ireland and elsewhere. Other prominent scientific authors in this field include Daniel Dennet, John Polkinghorne, Alister McGrath, Kenneth Miller, Francis Collins and Lewis Wolpert.
Why would anybody think that I should ignore this important and popular topic? It would look odd, would it not, if I ignored any other topical issue such as climate change, nuclear energy, stem-cell research, or the interaction between science and the economy, or between science and health, etc. But, of course, the real problem many people seem to have who think that I should not write on this topic is that I do not condemn religion as a nonsense. In fact, I approve of mainline Christianity. Almost no scientific author who writes on science and religion is neutral on religion. They are either for or against it and make their position clear, eg Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennet and Lewis Wolpert condemn religion, Francis Collins, John Polkinghorne and Alister McGrath advocate it. I believe most of those who object to my addressing this topic would see no problem at all if I condemned religion.
I am convinced it is possible for a scientist to believe in God without insulting reason and at the same time to accept all that science reveals about the world. I do, of course, concede that belief cannot rest wholly on reason, it also requires faith. I accept that agnosticism, which claims that the evidence is not strong enough to decide either way on the God question, is reasonable. Atheism claims there is no evidence for God and concludes there is no God. But absence of evidence is not evidence of absence and is certainly insufficient grounds on which to base a conclusion of absence. I therefore conclude such a position to be unreasonable. However, an atheist who says: "I find no evidence for God, which goes a long way towards persuading me that there is no God and I am prepared to go the whole way by making an act of faith", is reaching a conclusion without insulting reason.
The central theme of my column of October 11th, which none of my detractors refers to, warned of the danger of overloading science with expectations it cannot fulfil, as Richard Dawkins and his likes would do. I used Marxism as an example of the dangers of such overloading. One unnecessary burden assumed by Marxism is to claim it is "scientific". This gives its analysis an aura of objective authority, but tragically robbed it of the flexibility to change tack when it was quite clearly heading in the wrong direction. Eventually and inevitably, there was a massive backlash against Marxist-based communism. It seems to me that if we put all our eggs in the basket of science we will eventually reap the whirlwind of a big backlash against science when it "betrays" us by failing to lift the impossible loads we would ask it to bear.
In my recent article on science and religion I also referred to the unparalleled atrocities perpetrated under atheistic communist regimes throughout the 20th century. Some correspondents took offence at this, accusing me of claiming that atheism is predisposed to barbarity. Of course that is not my opinion. My point is that the substitution of religion by atheism is no guarantee that barbarity will be eliminated.
I noted in my recent article that atheism is in an aggressive proselytising mode. It is certainly getting lots of attention considering the tiny fraction of the population it represents. The Central Statistics Office figures for 2006 classified the Irish population by religion as follows: Total population (4,172,013); Catholic (3,644,965); Other Christian Denominations (199,234); Muslim (31,779); Other Stated Religions (54,033); No Religion (175,252); Not Stated (66,750). The overwhelming majority (92.14 per cent) of the population is Christian. Those proclaiming No Religion, including the atheists, are in a tiny minority (4.2 per cent). But when you listen to public debate on various ethical issues you could be pardoned for thinking that it is the Christians who are in a tiny minority. William Reville is associate professor of biochemistry and public awareness of science officer at UCC - understandingscience.ucc.ie