Religion, Science And Easy Answers

[rug]

September 25, 2012
12:58 pm
by Adam Frank

Heaven and Hell. God and the Devil. For many folks these polar opposites are what religion is all about. And for many folks in science who consider themselves atheists, this is what makes religion so impossible to bear. How can the nature of the world be seen in such simplistic terms? How can such beliefs co-exist with the technologies on which we've built our everyday lives?

I have written a lot about science and religion and, for some time, I've been looking for different ways to frame the discussion. In spite of that search, I am still left wondering at the ways religious fundamentalists of all stripes can ignore the beauty and subtleties of their own traditions, hammering them down into cartoon narratives of a demon-haunted world.

Imagine trying to explain to someone, fundamentalist or not, that their cellphone worked because of magic fairies living inside that tiny box in their pocket. They would, of course, look at you like you were crazy.

Everyone knows that cell-phones work because of radio waves. Sure it's complicated and, in general, few of us really get it. But we all know that cellphones work because the natural world is built in simultaneously subtle and complicated ways.

http://www.npr.org/blogs/13.7/2012/09/25/161736374/religion-science-and-no-easy-answers

[dimbear]

1. I don't see the devil and God as polar opposites at all. The devil is like the guy who got fired

and replaced. Naturally he's blamed for all the current problems.

That's actually the reason the devil (in current imagination) looks so much like Pan, IMHO.

[longship]

2. We knew how cell phones would work in the 19th century.

James Clerk Maxwell was the first person to unify physical properties into a common theoretical mathematical framework. It made predictions that gave rise to a cultural revolution. It not only explained light, but it predicted radio waves which Marconi (and Tesla) leveraged.

It also led the way to relativity. Einstein's two 1905 papers not only changed humanity's outlook on space and time, but his 1916 General Theory of Relativity forever changed the theory of gravity.

One of the more interesting advancements of the twentieth century was made by Hedy Lamarr, the 1930's Hollywood femme fatale who was the inventor of spread spectrum radio, the basis of cell phone technology.

Of course, who could forget Hedley Lamarr:

But that's a different story.

[rug]

3. That's very interesting.

I wonder if the principles of television were known then.

[cbayer]

4. Enjoyed that piece.

He did a good job of distinguishing the nuanced believer from the fundamentalist, a distinction I think we need to make often and clearly.