Some controversies exist over the relationship
of scientific method to religion. For example,
some dispute to what degree scientific method
had its origins in Christian theism, or to
what degree the scientific method as understood
in the 21st century is compatible with religion.
In the 18th century, the birth of the scientific
method was largely credited to the work of
Francis Bacon, Isaac Newton, and John Locke.
Modern history suggests that much earlier
figures such as Roger Bacon and Islamic scientists
also played an important role in shaping the
experimental method. Thomas Jefferson wrote
"Bacon, Locke and Newton... I consider them
as the three greatest men that have ever lived,
without any exception, and as having laid
the foundation of those superstructures which
have been raised in the Physical and Moral
sciences". All three of these men were Christian
theists who nonetheless rejected medieval
Scholasticism with its synthesis of Aristotelianism
and theology. Furthermore, Locke and Newton
both espoused Unitarianism—disbelieving
in the divinity of Christ.{{Dubious|I'm hardly
a theology expert, but aren't "denying the",
and either "Christhood" or "divinity" "of
Jesus" clearer and less likely to be offensive
and cause for argument? Some historians speculate
that Francis Bacon dabbled in esoteric beliefs
such as Rosicrucianism or Freemasonry. Newton
saw God as a masterful creator whose existence
could not be denied in the face of creation.In
his 1925 book Science and the Modern World
Alfred North Whitehead argued strongly for
the idea that Christianity gave the modern
scientific method a boost. Whitehead also
writes: "faith in the possibility of science,
generated antecedently to the development
of modern scientific theory, is an unconscious
derivative from medieval theology". On the
other hand, Bertrand Russell in his 1931 book
The Scientific Outlook portrayed scientific
method and theology as in conflict from the
beginning, arguing that science introduced
induction and therefore reasoning about the
past into Western thought, and that because
Galileo "questioned both Aristotle and the
Scriptures, [he] thereby destroyed the whole
edifice of medieval knowledge." A similar
contrast of views appears in more recent publications.
Christian apologist C. S. Lewis wrote in Miracles
in 1947:
Men became scientific because they expected
Law in Nature, and they expected Law in Nature
because they believed in a Legislator. In
most modern scientists this belief has died:
it will be interesting to see how long their
confidence in uniformity survives it. Two
significant developments have already appeared—the
hypothesis of a lawless sub-nature, and the
surrender of the claim that science is true.
We may be living nearer than we suppose to
the end of the Scientific Age.
Christian philosopher Alvin Plantinga has
echoed Whitehead in writing "It is important
to see that our notion of the laws of nature,
crucial for contemporary science, has this
origin in Christian theism". Plantinga has
argued that belief in God is a "properly basic
belief". Christian philosopher William Lane
Craig argues that scientific inquiry presupposes
belief in God—required to explain why the
universe is intelligible or lawful.
On the other hand, philosophers such as Quentin
Smith have defended the idea that the intelligibility
of the universe does not need God to be explained,
a position known as philosophical naturalism.
Philosopher Kai Nielsen (largely quoting Sidney
Hook) states that what unites philosophers
who call themselves "naturalists" is that
they agree that the scientific method is the
proper way of fixing beliefs, that it is the
only reliable method of arriving at truth,
given its dependence on public verifiability
of its finding. The scientific method does
not need to presuppose any transcendent reality
(sometimes called "skyhooks") to validate
itself. It is justified by the expectations
set by its known successes. Nielsen says that
"metaphysics" can be left to "spirit-seers
and other crazies". Skeptic philosopher Daniel
Dennett has argued in his 2006 book Breaking
the Spell that a full extension of the scientific
method to all knowledge leads ultimately to
a naturalistic understanding of the origins
of religion, echoing Bertrand Russell's dictum
"what science cannot discover, mankind cannot
know". C. S. Lewis' friend and fellow science-fiction
writer Arthur C. Clarke viewed religion as
antithetical to the scientific method, because
religion consists of premature conclusions
concerning the ultimate truth, thus substituting
faith for knowledge. Sidney Hook (the philosopher
quoted by Nielsen) did not limit knowable
truth to what is found in the laboratory.
However, he regarded science as providing
a general paradigm for all rational inquiry,
and regarded religion as metaphysical speculation.
Science provided a model of verifiability
and "critical intelligence" that was in some
ways generalizable to other areas of inquiry,
including (up to a point) public-policy issues.
However, for Hook, asserting the primacy of
scientific method required no foundational
metaphysical beliefs, but was justified by
its empirical success.Recently, biologist
Jerry Coyne (1949– ) has emerged as a strong
advocate of the view that science and religion
cannot be reconciled because they have conflicting
methodologies of what constitutes evidence.
He describes religion as the most "venerable
superstition", which is honored simply for
its power and influence. Coyne has listed
three ways that science and religion are not
compatible:
Only science has a reliable way to settle
truth claims.
Scientific investigation often produces outcomes
contrary to religion, and they have different
philosophical bases.
Religion venerates faith as a virtue, while
science no longer has the need for God as
a hypothesis to explain anything.Both critics
of philosophical naturalism and champions
of scientific method often decry positions
like this as "scientism", a frequent target
of C.S. Lewis, especially in his book The
Abolition of Man (1943), often cited by Christian
apologists today. Lewis regards the position
of scientism as dehumanizing and reductionistic.
Scientism has been similarly criticized by
William Lane Craig, who regards it as self-refuting
in the sense that the validity of science
cannot itself be proven scientifically. Even
non-religious evolutionary biologist H. Allen
Orr (a frequent critic of New Atheist writers)
has commended Stephen Jay Gould for opposing
the view that "all truths are ultimately scientific".
Orr writes "The world is not all science and
there are places where science cannot and
even should not go. But this lesson has come
surprisingly hard to many philosophers and
scientists.... Scientism is naive and it is
hubristic."In response to such criticisms,
Daniel Dennett has said that "when someone
puts forward a scientific theory that [religious
critics] really don't like, they just try
to discredit it as 'scientism'", while his
fellow skeptic Michael Shermer has embraced
the label on the grounds that cosmology and
evolutionary theory now answer the questions
once posed by theology.Also disputed is the
extent of the contribution of ancient non-Christian
civilizations (especially medieval Islam)
to the growth of scientific method. The oldest
natural science is astronomy, developed independently
by Chinese, Indians, Mayans, Egyptians, Greeks,
and Arabs. Science-fiction writer Arthur C.
Clarke has noted that during medieval times,
Muslims made great strides in astronomy and
algebra while scientific development in the
Christian West languished. Robert Briffault,
in The Making of Humanity, asserted that the
very existence of science, as it is understood
in the modern sense, is rooted in the scientific
thought and knowledge that emerged in Islamic
civilizations during this time. Physicist
and priest Stanley Jaki has argued that the
source of the Arab difficulty in getting beyond
Aristotle lay in the Islamic worldview, which
often saw natural phenomenon as a direct product
of the unpredictable will of Allah in conjunction
with the belief that nature was alive and
divine as reflected in their pursuit of astrology
and adherence to folk traditions. However,
other historians have argued that the approach
of Ibn Al-Haytham (Alhazen, c. 965 – c.
1040) to testing and experimentation was a
critical contribution to scientific method.
Robert Briffault, in The Making of Humanity,
asserts that the very existence of science,
as it is understood in the modern sense, is
rooted in the scientific thought and knowledge
that emerged in Islamic civilizations during
the medieval era. According to Matthias Schramm,
Alhazen
was the first to make a systematic use of
the method of varying the experimental conditions
in a constant and uniform manner, in an experiment
showing that the intensity of the light-spot
formed by the projection of the moonlight
through two small apertures onto a screen
diminishes constantly as one of the apertures
is gradually blocked up.
G. J. Toomer has expressed skepticism regarding
this view, arguing that caution is needed
to avoid reading anachronistically particular
passages in Alhazen's work, and while acknowledging
Alhazen's importance in developing experimental
techniques, argued that he should not be considered
in isolation from other Islamic and ancient
thinkers.Alhazen viewed all men as prone to
error, and only God as not, wherefor
I constantly sought knowledge and truth, and
it became my belief that for gaining access
to the effulgence and closeness to God, there
is no better way than that of searching for
truth and knowledge.
It may be simultaneously true both that Christian
thinking played an important role in the rise
of modern science (given theology's commitment
to an intelligible universe—as Alfred Whitehead
and Alvin Plantinga have argued), while at
the same time Christians have periodically
been repelled by the actual findings of science—in
part causing the modern scientific community
to abandon whatever Christian roots early
modern science had. Studies have shown that
in the United States of America scientists
are less likely to believe in God than the
rest of the population. Precise statistics
vary, but generally about 1/3 of scientists
are atheists, 1/3 agnostic, and 1/3 have some
belief in God (although some might be deistic,
for example). This contrasts with the more
than roughly 3/4 of the general population
that believe in some God in the United States.
== See also ==
Science portal
Religion portal
== Notes ==
== Sources ==
Toomer, G. J. (December 1964), "Review: Ibn
al-Haythams Weg zur Physik by Matthias Schramm",
Isis, 55 (4): 463–65, doi:10.1086/349914
