Science Archives
One question that often comes up is whether there is an incompatibility between science and religion. This issue came up recently when there was a talk on in Leeds advocating the idea that you can accommodate both in a coherent worldview.
Proponents of the idea argue that there are many people who are both scientists and religious - Francis Collins, head of the Human Genome Project being a good example of this.
Would analogy that could be given however is the idea of the smoking doctor.
When at work the doctor advocates and practices appropriately, he tells his patients not to smoke because it is damaging to their health. Outside of work however, even know he knows the rational course of action is not to smoke, he does it anyway.
Similarly, it could be that such scientists spend their day advocating science and reason, which they ultimately know is the best methodology, cannot bring themselves to bring such rationality to their personal lives.
Recently we had the comedian Robin Ince kindly give a talk to Leeds Atheist Society and one of the things he talked was one of his favourite Richard Feynman quotes which I also love.
The story goes like this. He was walking through the woods one day when someone asked him "see that bird standing on the stump there? What's the name of it?"
Richard said "I haven't got the slightest idea."
He replied, "It's a brown-throated thrush. Your father doesn't teach you much about science."
Richard smiled to himself because his father had taught him about science. Indeed, one of the things he had taught him was as follows.
In English, we call the bird a brown-throated thrush. In German it's called a halsenflugel, and in Chinese they call it a chung ling. But knowing all these names doesn't tell you anything about the bird.
It doesn't tell you that it flies south for the winter, it sings or that it teaches it's young to fly.
All this fact tells you is about humans and about what different humans in different parts of the world call this type of bird.
It's interesting then to relate this to a lot of the talk that is going on in the political spheres at the moment. We need to "bring back real education" they cry. The example given would be that children would be taught the kings and queens of England so they would know them off by heart.
But really, such a task as memorising names doesn't tell you anything about English history. It doesn't tell you what life was like, the background, the culture - it's just a list of names and nothing more.
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