{"id":2996,"date":"2013-07-15T06:09:19","date_gmt":"2013-07-15T06:09:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/tippling\/?p=2996"},"modified":"2013-07-14T14:14:21","modified_gmt":"2013-07-14T14:14:21","slug":"jerry-coyne-on-science-vs-religion-for-explaining-things-and-being-generally-useful","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/tippling\/2013\/07\/15\/jerry-coyne-on-science-vs-religion-for-explaining-things-and-being-generally-useful\/","title":{"rendered":"Jerry Coyne on science (vs religion) for explaining things and being generally useful"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jerry Coyne, author of Why Evolution is True <\/em>(book <\/a>and blog<\/a>), states this insightful piece<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

…we justify science rather than faith as a way of finding out stuff not on the basis of first principles, but on the basis of\u00a0which method actually gives us reliable information about the universe<\/em>.\u00a0 And by \u201creliable,\u201d I mean \u201cmethods that help us make verified predictions that advance our understanding of the world and produce practical consequences that aren\u2019t possible with other methods\u201d.\u00a0 Take a disease like smallpox.\u00a0 It was once regarded as manifestations of God\u2019s will or displeasure. Indeed, inoculation was once opposed on religious grounds: that to immunize people was to thwart God\u2019s will.\u00a0 You can\u2019t cure smallpox with such an attitude, or by praying for its disappearance. The disease was cured by scientific methods\u2014the invention and testing of inoculations\u2014and completely eradicated on this planet by the use of epidemiological methods. Science gets us to the Moon; religion can do no such thing.<\/p>\n

Scientific understanding advances with time; religious \u201cways of knowing,\u201d even by the admission of theologians, don\u2019t bring us any closer to the \u201ctruth\u201d about God. We know not one iota more about the nature or character of God than we did in 1300, nor are we any closer to proving that a god exists!\u00a0 In what sense, then, has religious epistemology brought us any closer to truth?<\/p>\n

And do we even\u00a0need<\/em>\u00a0a philosophical justification for using the methods of science to understand the universe?\u00a0 Why isn\u2019t it enough to show that science produces understanding and religion doesn\u2019t?\u00a0 Philosophers like Lynch tear out their hair in frustration because they can\u2019t justify,\u00a0a priori<\/em>, why to use science rather than religion.\u00a0 Well, that\u2019s how they earn their living, but I find those efforts a waste of time\u2014at least for scientists\u2019 own work, or for helping resolve the science vs. religion debate. You can\u2019t do that by philosophically justifying why the methods of science are superior to those of faith (Lynch produces no such philosophical justification, by the way). Can you imagine converting creationists to evolution by presenting them with such a philosophical justification?<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

He ain’t wrong there.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jerry Coyne, author of Why Evolution is True (book and blog), states this insightful piece:<\/p>\n

…we justify science rather than faith as a way of finding out stuff not on the basis of first principles, but on the basis of which method actually gives us reliable information about the universe. And by \u201creliable,\u201d I mean \u201cmethods that help us make verified predictions that advance our understanding of the world and produce practical consequences that aren\u2019t possible with other methods\u201d. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[169,20],"tags":[54,384,696],"class_list":["post-2996","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-epistemology-2","category-science","tag-epistemology","tag-jerry-coyne","tag-why-evolution-is-true"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/tippling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2996","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/tippling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/tippling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/tippling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/tippling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2996"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/tippling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2996\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/tippling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2996"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/tippling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2996"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/tippling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2996"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}