Science is independent of humanism, atheism and religion [View All]

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It's one of the highest human achievements, but some atheists seem to want to raise science to the level of our saviour

Julian Baggini guardian.co.uk, Friday 21 October 2011 05.00 EDT

'You might find the odd such person standing in front of a painting, only interested in knowing what their brain is doing in response to the visual stimulus, but such a person would be just that: odd.' Photograph: Adrian Dennis/AFP/Getty Images
Last week, I argued that although science and religion clearly can be compatible, they often make for far less comfortable bedfellows than most believers sanguinely maintain. There is, however, another side to the story of science's relation to belief: the idea held by many atheists that science is not only on their side, but is their best buddy. The uncomfortable truth for believers and atheists alike is that science is a loner who never shies from revealing embarrassing truths about anyone who tries to claim ownership of it.

This is not the rather silly view that science is "just another myth", that the physics of Niels Bohr is no more "valid" than the poetry of Beowulf. Indeed, I'm not sure that anyone who gave this more than a second's thought really believes this. John Gray often sounds as though he does, but what he actually says is that science "has become a vehicle for myths", such as that of inevitable progress, not that science itself is no better way of understanding the world than folk beliefs about sun gods or earth spirits.

Talk about "myths" seems to me to be a cheap way of trying to equate secular problems with science with religious ones, when really they are quite different. While the religious merely need to find a way to co-exist with science, atheist humanism often claims too close a kinship with it. Science is portrayed as what underlies and vindicates the humanist outlook. In one very important senses this is right. Atheism may be defined negatively as opposed to theism, but atheists are first and foremost naturalists, committed to a positive view of the universe as containing only natural entities and forces. This view is not held as a matter of faith but because that is what the scientific evidence strongly suggests.

If this represents a marriage of science and atheism, then it has to be admitted that in every other respect, the two enjoy a non-exclusive relationship. Take the claim made a few years ago by the British Humanist Association that agreeing with the statement "scientific and other evidence provides the best way to understand the universe" is a distinguishing characteristic of the humanist outlook, or the international humanists' 2002 Amsterdam Declaration, which maintained "Humanism advocates the application of the methods of science and free inquiry to the problems of human welfare". Both statements are held with equal conviction by many religious believers. It is just that, for them, science leaves many questions open, and in such cases we are entitled to base our judgements on non-scientific grounds. Only the most fanatically scientistic would insist otherwise, demanding that, of which science cannot speak, we must remain silent. You might find the odd such person standing in front of a painting, only interested in knowing what their brain is doing in response to the visual stimulus, but such a person would be just that: odd.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2011/oct/21/science-atheism-humanism-religion?newsfeed=true