SCIENCE and RELIGION: Are They Compatible?

Day 178 of the Lower Puna eruption.  I would think that this phase of activity has ended, but the USGS has not yet made any official announcement.

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I picked up Science and Religion, edited by Paul Kurtz, about a dozen years ago when I began writing my Golden Evolution chapter of SIMPLE SOLUTIONS for Humanity.  Note the subtitle to the left.  I finally finished this collection of papers a few months ago.  I usually only read SaR between holes 1 and 2 at the Ala Wai Golf Course, where the wait can be as long as 45 minutes.

Paul Kurtz  was (he passed away five years ago) an American scientific skeptic and secular humanist, known as the father of secular humanism.  He was the founder of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry and editor of Free Inquiry magazine, from which came this book.  How famous is he?  He has a minor planet named after him.  Of course, there are nearly 7000 of them.  Interested?

Among the contributors to SaR are:  Arthur C. Clarke, Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Stephen Gould, James Lovelock, Steven Pinker, Neil deGrasse, Tyson, Steven Weinberg and Richard Feynman, who asserted that:

...the universal responsibility of the scientist is to remain immersed in “ignorance and doubt and uncertainty,” and that the centrality of uncertainty in science is incompatible with the unconditional faith required by religion.  

From Carl Sagan:

If we ever reach the point where we think we thoroughly understand who we are and where we came from (in his timeless treatise on science and spirituality), we will have failed. Perhaps because, as Krista Tippett has astutely observed, science and religion “ask different kinds of questions altogether, probing and illuminating in ways neither could alone,” some of humanity’s greatest scientific minds have contemplated the relationship between these two modes of inquiry — Galileo in his legendary letter to the Duchess of Tuscany; Ada Lovelace in her meditation on the interconnectedness of everything; Einstein in his answer to little girl’s question about whether scientists pray; Jane Goodall in her poetic take on science and spirit; Sam Harris in his elegant case for spirituality without religion; and physicist Margaret Wertheim in turning to Dante for an answer.

From Pew, science, unlike politics, has a very favorable status:

Are religion and science compatible?

If you ask a scientist if the two are compatible, you will no doubt get a different answer than from those who are not:

This 33% rate materially drops for National Academy of Science biologists (5.5%) and physicists/astronomers (7.5%).  Do they know something we don't?

Over the next few months I will now and then on Sunday provide input from contributors to SCIENCE and RELIGION.

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Typhoon Yutu (known as Rosita in the region),  now down to 112 MPH, will crash into northern Philippines on October 30:

However, instead of then barreling into China, the eye is now expected to take a turn north and perhaps try to squeeze between China and Taiwan.

In the Atlantic, Tropical Storm Oscar will become a hurricane, but turn toward Europe.

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This morning when I awoke, a water lily had bloomed next to my computer:

The aroma was like a pleasantly sweet perfume, evoking youthful memories.

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