Re: Science and Religion

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On Mon, 31 Oct 1994, herdrich david j wrote:

> Leo,
>
> It seems to me that falsification is not the difference between science and
> religion. After all, people do lose their faith, so in some sense falsification
> is in principle possible for religious people.

There is always room for individual variation in any human
indeavor. If a few individuals leave a religion for individual reasons,
that is to be expected (by us anyway). But, if a religion, as a whole,
as part of its inherant structure, tries to prove itself wrong, then it
either won't survive or is a science.

> Nonetheless, I do think there
> is a difference, but I have only been able to come up with one. The difference
> between science and religion is that religion *assumes* that there is a _moral
> structure_ to the universe, science does not. At best, science will step aside
> for moral principles, in worst cases, like Rushton et al., it will not.
> In other words, some individuals will put aside their scientific pursuits due
> to their moral principles which have their origins outside of science in some
> form of religious system. So we won't kill people in our experiments not
> because the experiment is not scientific, but because we subscribe to some
> moral (religious, be it organized or not) belief system.
>
> David J. Herdrich
>

Leo T. Walsh (ai653@ksu.ksu.edu)

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