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Return to E-mail Discussion page Previous in threadNext in thread I must comment on this. But before I do, please tell me what "religion" means to you and McCauley. -rjh At 06:56 PM 01/28/2001 -0500, you wrote: >Hi SII-mailing list folks, > >I heard an interesting talk this weekend by Robert N. McCauley, >a professor of philosphy at Emory University. The talk was >entitled "Examining the cognitive foundations of the conflicts >between religion and science." > >He was arguing that religion (not theology, just religion) >comes "naturally" to humans, in terms of our innate cognitive >functioning, and that science, in particular the scientific >method, is "unnatural" and hard to learn. He was careful >to say he doesn't attach values to either of these facts, >although after the talk he told me that he personally feels that >"science" is the most important human creation, period. > >His argument for religion is that humans inherently look for >agents who are causing things to happen, apparently this is >observable even in 1-yr-olds. So, supernatural agents are >just an extension of this built-in agent-finding part of us. >Further, once we assume an agent is causing something to >happen, that brings along a whole bunch of assumptions and >knowlege, making it easy to construct explanations of stuff. >He also pointed out that religious behavior is universal, >that is, particular religions do come and go but that no human >population has ever really been without religion. If you >include burying the dead as religious behavior, then even the >Neanderthals would be counted as having religious behavior. >One conclusion he drew from this is that science is no threat >to religion, that science will never stamp out religion. > >The more interesting argument was about the unnatural-ness of >the scientific method. He says that the scientific method is >all about having theories and then looking hard for concrete >evidence to refute or support them. Further, scientists do >share the innate human tendencies to fool themselves, so as >a whole you see things like peer-review that are mechanisms >to help us do the unnatural, that is, really strenuously test >the theories. He pointed out that it is hard to learn science >and that people have to train for years and years to really >become good scientists. Also, whereas religious behavior >started as far back as we can tell, the scientific method is >relatively new in human history. The basic point is that being >curious, wanting answers, may be innate, natural behavior, >but the scientific method as a way to produce answers is hard, >unnatural stuff for humans. One quick point -- he does put >theology in a similar category of unnaturalness, as opposed to >"religion". > >His conclusion is that we *do* have to fear science dying >out some day, because it's not something innate, and thus >would be easy to lose somehow. At least, possible to lose, >as opposed to religion which seems built-in. > >One last minor point -- in his talk he did not attempt to >answer the question about nature -vs- nuture for these topics. > >Anyway, I thought y'all might be interested. > >--Eric > ==================================== - - - - - - Russell J. Hamilton, Ph.D. - - - - - - - - - - - - The University of Chicago - - - - - - - - - - - - Radiation & Cellular Oncology - - - - - - - - - - - - phone: 312-996-3630 - - - - - - - - - - - - fax: 312-413-3068 - - - - - - - - - - - - e-mail: rj-hamilton@uchicago.edu - - - - - - - - - - - - WWW: http://www.rado.uic.edu/~rjh - - - - - - ===================================== |
