Science and Faith

The New York Times had an interesting Op-Ed article, "Taking Science on Faith," on November 24, 2007. Because of my own interest in the relationship between science and faith it caught my eye.

The author, Paul Davies, the director of a research center at Arizona State University, opens the article with the ascendant myth about science and religion; science "is the most reliable form of knowledge about the world because it is based on testable hypotheses. Religion, by contrast, is based on faith. In science, a healthy skepticism is a professional necessity, whereas in religion, having belief without evidence is regarded as a virtue."

He notes, however, that "science has its own faith-based belief system." What is it? One of the basic beliefs undergirding all of science is "the assumption that nature is ordered in a rational and intelligible way." Clearly, if one did not believe this, there would be no reason to do experimentation. If the universe were fundamentally irrational and a meaningless and chaotic collection of matter and energy with no inherent relationship to anything else, science could not exist.

As I was reading this article I was reminded of the excellent book by sociologist Christian Smith, Moral, Believing Animal: Human Personhood and Culture. In it he argues that "The normative is organized by the narrative" (81). In other words, the way we live our lives, the things we believe, those things which we understand to be facts are all a result of the particular narrative out of which we live. The prevalent understanding that the most reliable form of knowledge about the world comes from science emerges from what Smith calls the Scientific Enlightenment narrative. This narrative goes like this:

For most of human history, people have lived in the darkness of ignorance and tradition, driven by fear, believing in superstitions. Priests and lords preyed on such ignorance, and life was wearisome and short. Ever so gradually, however, and often at great cost, inventive men have endeavored better to understand the natural world around them. Centuries of such inquiry eventually led to a marvelous Scientific Revolution that radically transformed our methods of understanding nature. What we know now as a result is based on objective observation, empirical fact, and rational analysis. With each passing decade, science reveals increasingly more about the earth, our bodies, our minds. We have come to possess the power to transform nature and ourselves. We can fortify health, relieve suffering, and prolong life. Science is close to understanding the secret of life and maybe eternal life itself. Of course, forces of ignorance, fear, irrationality, and blind faith still threaten the progress of science. But they must be resisted at all costs. For unfettered science is our only hope for true enlightenment and happiness (71).

As Paul Davies notes, there is not this indivisible wall between science and faith. Science involves faith. One of the benefits of postmodernism is its challenging the notion of science as purely objective. Faith is involved at some level in all areas of life. You can't live without faith in something or someone.