The Line between Science & Religion

November 14, 2006 by Dr. Mc.

Recently I had a scientist make that all-too-common comment to me that science and religion have no conflict for him. Each has its own domain. I actually have no problem with this idea conceptually. The difficulty comes with where the line falls between them. According to Wikipedia’s summary of the Oxford Dictionary definition, “science in the broadest sense refers to any system of knowledge attained by verifiable means.” The Key word that distinguishes science from other forms of knowledge, such as poetry, history, and religion, is “verifiable.” It is verifiable to say that a fossil bone was found in a certain place in a certain matrix. Likewise it is verifiable to say the bone resembles bones of a certain species, alive or extinct. But it is not verifiable to say that the bone was buried at a certain time in the past or that its species gave birth over time to certain other genus. These are opinions or proposals to be argued based on the evidence. The evidence itself is NEVER conclusive for these latter propositions, because they involve one-time events in the past. Pure science always involves the ability to demonstrate repetition of the findings under controlled conditions. Science by definition cannot prove an historical event. Science also by definition cannot make a proposition about the intervention of God, i.e., whether there was a supernatural force involved in a past or present event. Therefore the conflict between science and religion is not that they do not have separate exclusive domains; it is that some “scientists” have moved the line over into the domain of religion, and fail to recognize it as a religious position.

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