Science, Philosophy, and Religion

I have blogged a few times about the differences between science and philosophy. I was educated and trained as a scientist, and have found it a struggle to comprehend the philosopher's way of thinking. Since retiring to the country to follow a simpler life, I no longer professionally practice science, so it's given me an opportunity to turn to philosophy to work at trying to grasp some of its concepts. It ain't been easy! It's like moving to another country as an adult—after your inherent language-learning skills have drastically declined from when you were two years old—and struggling with a very different language in a very different culture. But thanks to several online courses in philosophy, I'm beginning to be a bit conversant with it.

Just as a little background (and to remind myself of the contrast), here are the dictionary definitions of the two disciplines:

• Science: “the intellectual and practical activity encompassing the systematic study of the structure and behavior of the natural world, through observation and experiment” Root meaning: “to know.”
• Philosophy: “the study of the fundamental nature of knowledge, reality, and existence.” Root meaning: “love of wisdom.”

So science is an activity, while philosophy is a study. Science is an objective examination of the natural world (which includes humans), while philosophy is a subjective examination of what we humans know or can come to know. While the ancient thinkers believed that we can arrive at truth and knowledge through sheer reasoning, science conducts experiments to develop knowledge. The difference is sort of like the study of the properties of the external world (science) versus the study of the internal world or of our mind's ability to grasp the external world (philosophy).

While today's science is partitioned into many disciplines, philosophy has also grown to be categorized into several branches. One of my online courses defined four subdisciplines in philosophy:

1. Metaphysics—What is there? What's it like?
2. Epistemology—What can we know? How do we know?
3. Value theory—What's good/bad? How can we be good/bad?
4. Logic—Which links it all together. (I quickly become swamped when reading logic. It's yet beyond me.)

When we delve into these four branches, we find ourselves facing moral, aesthetic, and value questions. We get into questions of what we should do, and what is right or wrong.

Science, on the other hand, is amoral (not immoral, as some people would say)—it is by and large unconcerned with the rightness or wrongness of what it studies. Thus, for example, many scientists engaged in the development of the atomic bomb in World War II, with little moral examination. That is not to say that scientists ignored the moral questions. For example, even though he had a hand in initiating the US's atomic bomb program, Einstein later came to regret his role. The point is that science does not include moral evaluations as part of its activities. That's philosophy's business.

I find it interesting how differently many religions approach and interpret these scientific and philosophical questions about the nature of the world and the nature of human knowledge. Religions have a very different perspective. Yes, humans can reason, religions say, but truth comes from the gods, or the one God. Thus, truth (as well as morality and values) is found in scripture or possibly through mystical insight, but not through human reasoning.

This religious perspective is often taken to an extreme by religious fundamentalists, who contend that everything known or worth knowing can be found in scripture. This approach does not really seek understanding through the gradual acquisition of knowledge, but by locating finality (fixed and complete answers) in scripture. This difference is a source of most of the conflict between religion and the disciplines of science and philosophy. This conflict is largely absent, however, with nonfundamentalist religious people—people who may revere scripture, but do not contend that it is the sole repository of knowledge and wisdom.

With every online course I take, my appreciation for both science and philosophy grows. I also gain better understanding of the basis of conflict between how these two cognitive ways of looking at reality clash with religious fundamentalism—and realize that there need not be conflict with all religious belief.

Churlish Churchgoing Children?

Religion has long been humanity's principle source of moral guidance... at least that's what most people have maintained. The conviction is that we humans easily stray from the moral path, or never find it in the first place, without following the precepts of some religious teachings. And indeed, many people have derived comfort and purpose in life from their religions.

That's why the results of a study published in November 2015 in the journal Current Biology are very surprising. The paper, coauthored by seven researchers form universities around the world, is titled “The Negative Association between Religiousness and Children's Altruism Across the World.” What this broad study discovered, after the researchers evaluated some 1200 kids (ages 5-12) from six countries, is that those kids who were religious were less likely to be concerned about the welfare of others than were nonreligious children. In other words, the prosocial behavior of religious kids was consistently found to be less than for kids raised in a secular household. That's remarkable!

The study evaluated kids who fell into three main religious categories: Muslim, Christian, and nonreligious. Besides having fewer altruistic feelings, the religious kids also were more punitive minded and more judgmental than kids raised in secular households—especially the older kids (those near 12). Another surprising result is that the religious parents who were interviewed during this study felt that their children were more empathetic than nonreligious kids—quite opposite to the study's findings.

These results are indeed surprising. Some religious people will no doubt claim the study is invalid. Atheists will, in contrast, site the results as verifying their current beliefs. Such is the behavior of a polarized world. This one study's findings are unlikely to change people's minds.

Several of the questions raised by this study, however, are important to ponder, I think. Is religion vital for moral development, as many religious people have long believed? Can people become ethical when they are raised outside a religious tradition? How can we explain the results of this study? Why is it that nonreligious kids were found to be more prosocial? Does religion really have a corner on morality? Do these results suggest further studies that may shed more light on the issue? (Such controversial results always do.)

The authors did not attempt to interpret their findings—that would go beyond the scientific bounds of their work. Their intent was not to explain why these findings occurred. (We might look to philosophy for that.) Despite the fact that some people would take issue with their results, the study followed rigorous scientific protocol and they did interview a wide spectrum of children. More insights may come in the future. The findings certainly go against the grain of society's long-held beliefs. I think it is simply useful to hear about these unexpected and contrary results and to open our minds to the possibilities they may imply.

Higher Cooperation

Every living thing is imbued with an elemental drive to survive and to procreate. This is fundamentally a selfish urge. All Earth’s creatures act in their own self-interest, in order to live and to succeed in the struggle to send their genes into the future. But if we go overboard in our selfishness, we’d end up the lone survivor on an isolated island, unable to reproduce at all. So our self-interest must somehow be checked in favor of the wider interest of the survival of the species. We all innately know that we must cooperate at some higher level.

Even plants are able control their selfish urges. Recent research shows that the fierce competition between plants for light and nutrients (think weeds in the garden) is not wholly unbridled. Clever experiments have shown that a plant will send out its roots and leaves as fast and as far as it can, trying to get the jump on its competitors. If others of its own species surround a plant, however, it will check its growth, so as not to be a threat to them. Its root system will be limited—giving adjacent same-species plants an opportunity to flourish and to propagate the species. Even plants cooperate at a higher level.

Plants and animals behave this way because an evolutionary process drives them to do so. They can’t “think” about cooperation or competition; evolution has simply infused them with the appropriate “wisdom.” Even cognizant animals (such as Homo sapiens) are often not aware of the consequences or meaning of our actions that promote cooperation—we just do it. (Creatures who were possessed of an unlimited selfishness died out long ago—maybe when they found themselves all alone on that island, with no potential mates.)

But we humans are able to be aware of the consequences of what we do—of the impact of our actions. It’s something that separates us from most other animals. We can look back at what we did and connect the dots. This is a way for morals to enter the picture, when we come to understand the benefits of certain positive behaviors. Morals can give us good reasons to check our self-interest, if we choose to heed them.

And we can also understand—unlike plants and animals—that what we do impacts not only nearby but distant beings as well. We can come to appreciate the exquisite balance and interconnections between all creatures. We can come to revere the many facets of this wonderful creation. Yet, too often we seem to act selfishly, even to the point of harming ourselves and other species—despite our capacity to be moral animals and cooperate at a higher level. Can we learn to act as wisely as plants and animals?