Last night on the Daily Show, Jon Stewart interviewed the author of “Absence of Mind”, Marilynne Robinson. ”Absence of Mind” is an attack on atheists that fly the banner of science. At the beginning of the interview, Stewart asked some fairly straight forward questions, but only received lace doily answers. It was obvious that Robinson didn’t really have a core thesis to her book, and she only made random claims that religion and science aren’t mutually exclusive. Upon initially not receiving any revealing answers, Stewart failed to ask any more deeper probing questions. In fact, he did the opposite. He started to agree and sympathize with her. This lead to one of Stewart’s worst quotes of the evening:
The more you delve into science, the more it relies on faith.
Stewart was referring to antimatter, inferring that one needs faith to believe in antimatter. There is actually a lot of evidence that support’s antimatter’s existence. Faith is not required to believe in antimatter.
Robinson fails to see the simple fact that religion and science are mutually exclusive by definition. Religion relies on faith, and science relies on evidence. It is impossible to be a religious scientist. If someone claims they are, they are neither truly religious or a true scientist.
After listening to Robinson’s interview, I would not recommend buying her book, as it would most likely be a waste of time.
Link to the interview for Americans
Link to the interview for Canadians
…sorry to everyone else…here’s google
2 Comments on this post
Leave a CommentFunny how the greatest advances in science were made by people who jumped past the “evidence”, proposed an hypothesis, showed faith in it, and then found the proof to convince the rest of the world.
I agree that Stewart’s quote was ridiculous…the deeper you delve into science, the more you find mathematics, not faith.
But your statement about it being impossible for there to a religious scientist was also not only ridiculous, but has been proven false. Ever heard of Lemaitre? or Francis Bacon, since you seem to be such a fan of evidence above all?
BLIND faith and science are mutually exclusive, not faith and science.
Jennie
(prior nuclear chemist in the U.S. Navy and current Catholic)
Comment left on 7.11.2010 by Cynical Musings
All faith is blind by definition.
I would argue that the non-blind faith that you are referring to is more of an educated guess. Scientists at the extremes aren’t disregarding old evidence, they are normally just building upon it or filling in the wholes.
Regarding Lemaitre and Francis Bacon, yes those are examples of religious scientist. You are only using anecdotal evidence, and we don’t want to go down that route do we?
Until there is evidence for a god, science and religion will remain mutually exclusive.
You claim that you are both a scientist and a catholic. It is possible to be both, but not at the same time. When you are at work, you take off your religious hat, and put on your scientist hat. When you leave work, and go to church, you take off your scientist hat. It is impossible to wear both of those hats at the same time.
Comment left on 7.11.2010 by Adrian Corscadden