Keeping the faith in science

I recently debated science and religion with Professor Richard Dawkins on the TV3 programme, Agenda. Richard Dawkins is very anti-religion and I believe that religion is vitally important. Obviously I would not be the most appropriate judge of the outcome of our debate, but it seemed to me that, in football parlance, we played a two-all draw.

Dawkins portrays religion as a "bad virus of the mind", transmitted culturally from one generation to the next. He calls it a bad virus because he believes it propagates fairytales about the nature of the world and, for many people, clouds, or prevents a proper scientific understanding of the world.

What Dawkins says is partially true, but wrong in essence. Religion is culturally transmitted from generation to generation, and it is true that some things taught in the name of religion are wrong, such as creationism, slavish obedience to hierarchical Church authority, and so on.

However, the essential teachings of Christianity (I cannot speak with insight of any other religion) - love God, love your neighbour, forgive your enemy, help the downtrodden, be humble, compassionate and non-judgmental, be honest and diligent and take responsibility for your own life - are true values that deserve deep respect.

Like religion, science is also transmitted culturally from generation to generation. I obviously believe that the essence of science is good and I spend a considerable part of my time promoting it.

But like religion, science can become corrupted. For example, eugenics, the idea that human stock should be improved through selective breeding, was very popular in mainstream science in the late 19th century and in the first half of the 20th century. It was bad science and eventually underpinned the horrors of the holocaust.

Today there is an influential philosophical position in science called scientism, which holds that science is the only true path to knowledge of all that is.

This arrogant claim is far too large and, if successful, would replace conventional religion with a universal authoritarian materialist scientific "religion". And, God knows, in that event we would not be short of high priests!

Scientists who deny the value of religion would be well advised to ponder the proposition that modern science might not have arisen at all but for Christianity. This argument is strongly made by John Polkinghorne, president of Queen's College Cambridge and fellow of the Royal Society. Until 1979, he was professor of mathematical physics at Cambridge University and had a fine international reputation in the field of particle physics. He is also an Anglican priest.

Modern science arose in 17th-century Europe. It didn't arise in ancient Greece, despite the cleverness of that civilisation. It didn't arise in China, which achieved a sophisticated culture long before Europe did.

Some people think it arose in Europe because of the way Christians think about creation.

First, Christians expect the world to be orderly because the Creator is rational and consistent.

Second, the Creator is free to create the universe whichever way it chooses. Therefore we cannot figure out the nature of the universe just by thinking about it (as the Greeks did): we have to look at it and see. Observation and experiment are essential.

Third, the world is worthy of study because it is God's creation.

Fourth, because the creation is not itself divine, we can poke and prod it without accusations of impiety. These factors together provided a suitable intellectual environment for modern science to begin.

The proposition that Christianity sparked modern science to arise - a science that now so dazzles Richard Dawkins that he turns on that which allowed him to study science in the first place - cannot be proved. To test the hypothesis we would have to re-run history in the absence of Christianity and see what happened. However, it is a proposition worthy of consideration.

We cannot prove or disprove the existence of God. Some things are so big and important they do not lend themselves to proof/disproof in this sense. For example, is it possible to prove that your best friend is really your friend? There is always the possibility that what you interpret as friendship is really motivated by self-interest.

However, in this case, what you cannot prove by reason, you can still know to be true because you apprehend your friend not only through your reason, but through your whole being. And so it is with God - reason can only take you so far. You must apprehend the God question with all your faculties. The big questions depend on how you look on them, as the man in this little story discovered.

A very religious man lived in a region that suffered a massive flood. The waters rose inexorably and to escape he climbed onto his roof. A boat came along and offered to rescue him. He replied: "No thanks, I have faith God will grant me a miracle."

The waters rose up to his chest. A second boat came, but he turned it away, saying: "God will grant me a miracle". The waters rose to the tip of his nose.

A helicopter arrived and dropped a rope ladder. He refused help, saying: "God will send me a miracle."

The waters continued to rise and, eventually, the man drowned. His soul winged its way to Heaven in great depression and was met by St Peter.

"I am devastated. I had such faith, but God let me down," his soul said to Peter.

"I don't know what your problem is," Peter replied. "We sent you two boats and a helicopter."

William Reville is associate professor of biochemistry and director of microscopy at UCC