I don’t in fact think that any of those are critical questions. I think they’re passive-aggressive questions more than anything.
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Are you contending that there is a way to tell if its conclusions are true that’s superior to doing science? If it isn’t science, that should tell us that its conclusions are unwarranted, and that strikes me as being interesting or at least important.
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Many people watch too much Fox News, or perhaps listen to too much Rush Limbaugh.
Please elaborate. I’m dubious.
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They will take the side of the evidence.
My many contacts in ballet tell me that there’s a conspiracy to conceal the fact that tight shoes are becoming a serious problem in their field.
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How so?
They’re questions intended (by the author) to have a predetermined answer, and they’re coming from what appears to be resentment of the prestige of science. Incidentally, much of his reading seems to have involved a misunderstanding of the usages of metaphor in scientific terminology and, as has been mentioned, a confusion about what he has read. He seems not, for example, to have any clear idea what the “central dogma” is, since he thinks that McClintock’s work has something to do with it.
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One of the biologist’s on my campus says the same thing. He has said on numerous occasions that he sees God in the functions of DNA.
I don’t disagree, but when we are talking about the relationship between science and religion as a “thing” – a discipline – a research project – whatever… I’m curious as to how the two might actually relate to each other corporately. @Eddie will be able to fill in a lot of the historical details, but certain metaphysical and epistemological assumptions are typically touted as what theology can bring to science (e.g., contingent universe, stable law giver, etc), but when I hear someone lament the loss of those background criteria and/or motives, I’m not sure what theology offers to the practicing scientist that can’t be accounted for in other ways – perhaps even via philosophical naturalism.
For those scientists who are Christian here at Peaceful Science – how do you see your Christianity influencing your scientific vocation? As a philosopher of science, I’m curious as to how you think it might influence actual ‘scientific’ work in your area of expertise. Does it help with hypothesis generation and/or testing? Does it work more in the background as an ethical constraint? Does Christianity play any role in your professional life (maybe practical life) as a scientist?
Cheers!
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What does theology bring? Or, to rephrase, what could it bring that even secular scientists might value?
Theology could bring questions of importance, offering constructive resistance that presses us into greater scientific knowledge on topics of wider significance. We’ve seen this over and over again in human origins.
Theology can also connect our inquiry into the “long conversation” of discourse on the deeper questions of morality, the transcendent, and the nature of humans. There is a reason that even atheist scientists coin terms like “Mitochondrial Eve”. Theology contains stories and language of meaning, and that is a valuable conversation partner for the scientist.
Theology, of course, is embedded in our culture whether we like it or not. The same is true of science too; it is embedded in our culture whether we like it or not. Seems like, to make sense of everything together, we should be engaging both science and theology together.
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Are you certain that the coiner was an atheist? And I’m pretty sure that everyone regrets the coinage; certainly it’s not a valuable contribution of theology to science.
I think theology has nothing to offer to science.
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Perhaps, as an example, motivating a distinction between genetic and genealogical science in the questions of human origins?
I agree, but then why are so many theologians left out and many philosophers let into the conversation? Why is it that I did a year in the bio department as part of my philosophy degree, but never theologians or religious studies students who didn’t come out of a science background? Moreover, why aren’t there seminary for the scientist programs?
I’m in agreement with this as well. However, this and the last quote are the big picture/great conversations play that I love as a philosopher. I was more interested in the actual daily grind of a scientist and how their faith manifests itself in their work.
How does your faith manifest itself in the research for this paper (as an example):
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31304741
A topic of interest at many Christian colleges is how to bring Christ into the curriculum. I suppose I am asking a related question for those of you in the sciences – how do you bring Christ into your research?
For the record, I’m not really sure what it means to bring Christ into the curriculum and Lutherans have a very down to earth way of answering this question through the concept of vocation. However, all sorts of non-cognitive and extra-cognitive factors go into the scientific project. I’m curious as to how scientists actually assess the value (or contribution) of their faith in their scientific practice.
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Ha-ha! Of course you don’t. However, practicing scientists who are Christians and do not take a NOMA approach (theology and science are non-overlapping cognitive disciplines) must see their faith as influencing their science in certain ways. How? Perhaps, I need to spend some time with biographies of scientists to see examples…
That may well be true. It does not follow that there are not fringe ideas which are justifiably marginalized because they are demonstrably false and those promoting them are motivated by an ideological agenda rather than pursuit of the truth.
You would wish to liken ID creationism and climate denial to, say, the idea that gastric ulcers are caused by H. pylori. In fact, they are the equivalent of Holocaust denialism.
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Let me know when you figure that out.
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Could you spell out what you mean here?
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It’s not obvious to me that it has any effect. I’d like to think that it affects my personal behavior – e.g. more focus on service and less on getting credit – but that’s a difficult hypothesis to test.
No.
Again, hard to test. I have pretty high standards for honesty and transparency in science, but there are plenty of scientists around me who have similar standards without grounding them in Christian faith. In theory, Christianity could have contributions to make to ethical issues related to science ('Should we be doing germline genetic editing?", for example), but in the last few years organized Christianity has largely lost any basis for making moral pronouncements.
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You’re a Christian?
Yes.
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Thanks, I hadn’t realized.
Theology holds back science.
Your inquiry and response seem almost to indicate surprise at the discovery that Steve Schaffner is a Christian. Was there something in Steve’s past postings that gave you reason to think that he was not a Christian? If so, what was that?