Re: Evidence for "Big Bang Theory"
Kai Henningsen (kai@khms.westfalen.de)
16 May 1995 00:02:00 +0100
Yasha@bigraf.tamu.edu wrote on 04.05.95 in <Yasha-0405951152490001@sewild1.tamu.edu>:
> and trouncing it when it fundamentally contradicts religious thought. In
> reality, science and religion are truly separate realms, each answering
> fundamentally different questions. But then why the hostility? Because
Maybe because they were not invented to answer fundamentally different
questions.
Both religion and science were, I believe, originally invented to explain
the world around us. Both even started with the same methodology - observe
the world, then try to find an explanation.
The fundamental difference comes later - nowadays, religion relies on
dogma, whereas science relies on experiment. The result is a radically
different culture.
Religion is extremely conservative - never question what we know.
Science, on the other hand, is the opposite - people are honored for
successfully challenging what was formerly believed.
In view of the fact that we now have two diametrally opposed ways of
getting explanations for the world around us, I'd say that the hostility
is not surprising. What is _really_ surprising is how little there is of
it!
This may be because science, to be successful, needs to be tolerant -
different views are _needed_ here. While religion does not have that
requirement per se, it has to live in a world where science is
demonstrably vastly more successful (for example, through centuries
(millenia?) of trying, religion has not managed to improve harvest -
science does so quite easily) - so it needs to adopt some of science's
ideas, in a limited fashion, to avoid losing out completely. A limited
tolerance is one of these. History shows that that's an unusual ingredient
of religion, nearly never present where religion has the upper hand.
All the stuff nowadays about religion and science being about different
things is, in my opinion, a smoke screen.
As far as I can tell, religion has even _less_ basis for, say, judgements
about morals, or what goes on after death, than science has. The
difference is that science admits this, while religion doesn't.
Oh well, you might (correctly) infer from this that I have a quite low
opinion of religion.
> And science can't simply ignore the religious realm. After all, many of
> the fundamentalist right have considerable influence on where resources
> can be spent and on what can or cannot be taught in public schools.
Fortunately, it's very much different here in Germany. In fact, the first
I encountered these fundamentalists was when I met Americans on the net,
and it happened more than once that, when I told other Germans about them,
I had a hard time convincing them that such people not only do exist, but
exist in the USA! Most seem to think that this mind set has been extinct
in the "western world" since the middle ages. Hell, that's what I thought
fifteen years ago, before I met the net!
Kai
--
Internet: kai@khms.westfalen.de
Bang: major_backbone!khms.westfalen.de!kai
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