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POLITICS BY OTHER MEANS
Science and Religion in
the Twenty-First Century
William Grassie
A Metanexus Imprint
Copyright © 2010 by William Grassie.
Library of Congress Control Number: 2010901676
ISBN: Hardcover 978-1-4500-3849-2
Softcover 978-1-4500-3848-5
Ebook 978-1-4500-3850-8
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Contents
1. Epiphany on the New Jersey Turnpike ......................................................... 11
Religion by Other Means ...................................................................... 15
2. Ten Reasons for the Constructive Engagement of Science and Religion .... 17
3. Metanexus: The Very Idea ........................................................................... 23
4. Beyond Intelligent Design, Scientifi c Debates, and Cultural Wars ............. 32
5. Which Universe Do You Live In? ................................................................ 36
6. Toward a Constructive Theology of Evolution ............................................ 39
7. Universalism and Particularism: Judaism in an Age of Science .................. 60
8. Resources and Problems in Whitehead’s Process Metaphysics ...................72
Peace by Other Means .......................................................................... 85
9. Sleepless in Tehran ....................................................................................... 87
10. Universal Reason: Science, Religion, and the Foundations of
Civil Societies ............................................................................................ 100
11. Science, Religion, and the Bomb ............................................................... 108
12. Engaged Contemplation for a Troubled World .......................................... 117
13. Leeches on the Road to Enlightenment ..................................................... 133
14. Nationalism, Terrorism, and Religion: A Biohistorical Approach ............. 142
15. Entangled Narratives: Competing Visions of the Good Lie ...................... 158
Evolution by Other Means ................................................................. 185
16. Biocultural Evolution in the Twenty-fi rst Century ..................................... 187
17. Useless Arithmetic and Inconvenient Truths ............................................. 207
18. Rereading Economics: New Economic Metaphors for Evolution ............. 218
19. Post-Darwinism: The New Synthesis .........................................................231
20. Eating Well Together: Donna Haraway’s Companion Species Manifesto .... 245
21. In the Heavens As It Is on Earth: Astrobiology and the Human Prospect .... 259
22. A Thought Experiment: Envisioning a Civilization Recovery Plan .......... 271
23. Millennialism at the Singularity: The Limits of Ray Kurzweil’s
Exponential Logic ...................................................................................... 280
Postscript .............................................................................................. 301
24. All My Relations: The Challenge Ahead ................................................... 303
Index ................................................................................................................. 315
17
2. Ten Reasons for the Constructive Engagement
of Science and Religion
This essay was originally published on Metanexus, 2003.12.11.
http://www.metanexus.net/magazine/tabid/68/id/8539/Default.aspx
1. Cultural Ambivalence
When we talk about the domains of science and religion, much less the
constructive engagement between the two, we are confronted with a deep cultural
ambivalence about one or the other. Science for many people brings to mind negative
images of toxic industries, Frankenstein foods, arrogant physicians, dehumanizing
knowledge, nuclear holocaust, and other Promethean tragedies. Similarly, religion
also brings to mind negative images for many of religious wars, inquisitional torture,
fanatical intolerance, genocidal persecutions, and deadly cults. Often juxtaposed
to these negative images of one domain, either religion or science, is generally
a positive and sometimes utopian orientation towards that which is considered
the other. In light of these deep prejudices, many would say that a “constructive
engagement” of the two is foolish and futile. Take this instead as a backwards
compliment, evidence for why this dialogue is both courageous and visionary.
We are clearly going against the tide of some of the deepest prejudices and most
profound ambivalences in our culture today. If for no other reason, this is fertile
and necessary ground for sustained and serious inquiry. “Science and religion” is
a hot spot for cultural evolution.
2. Definitional Ambiguity
There is really no such thing as science or religion. Instead we are confronted
with a vast plurality of religions, seemingly incompatible in their truth claims
and practices, and a multiplicity of scientific disciplines, which may have little
in common with one another. In all of our philosophical attempts to rigorously
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POLITICS BY OTHER MEANS
define either science or religion, these abstract terms, which we use daily with
a common sense understanding, begin to elude comprehension. The modern
university has become a new Tower of Babel, in which we are all speaking
mutually incomprehensible languages when we leave the comfort of our narrow
specializations to engage in interdisciplinary dialogue, which is in some sense also
necessarily an interfaith encounter. There may not be definitive definitions, and
certainly not final answers, but we need to put questions about the Universe and
the Universal back at the heart of the University.
3. Metaphysics Matters
When we talk about metaphysics, please stay away from that section of the
bookstore so labeled, which it seems has become a catchall category for wild
speculation and wishful thinking. Metaphysics is the branch of philosophy that
examines the nature of reality, for instance the relationship between mind and matter,
animate and inanimate, substance and attribute, fact and value. Contrary to much
thinking in the sciences today, there is no such thing as a metaphysically free way of
understanding the world. To argue that there is no overarching metaphysical reality,
as in the case of postmodernism, or to argue that this reality is mere materialism,
reductionistically understood, is itself to assert a metaphysical system. The moment
we try to understand how disparate data relate to one another in some kind of
coherent or incoherent system, we are engaged in metaphysical speculation. Some
interpretations may be more adequate than others, but there are no definitive proofs.
While the metanarratives of metaphysics are currently out of fashion in academics,
these are nevertheless the foundations upon which we construct our worldviews
and our world-doings. One exciting aspect of the science and religion dialogue
is to see how science seems to point beyond itself to something more, something
transcendent, although it would be a big leap to necessarily equate this “more”
with the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Jesus, and Mohammed, for example, or the
Buddha nature in all things. Nevertheless, metaphysics matters. We need a more
humble hermeneutics in which we do not use our metaphysical assumptions as a
truncheon to truncate open-end conversations.
4. Relational Revelations
Of course, one need not start with the metaphysics of science. Most people
begin with spiritual convictions and religious commitments for reasons that are
unrelated to the domains of science. One might have personal mystical experiences,
be challenged by moral and existential problems, or simply be raised in a tradition
in which a certain worldview was taken for granted. Today, however, we cannot
ignore the multiplicity of religious traditions, even if we commit ourselves to the
particularism of a single tradition. And while there may be privileged traditions, the
2. TEN REASONS
19
revelations themselves point repeatedly to our f inite ability to understand the Source,
and challenge us to look relationally at the world around us as somehow significant
to that Source. Because all revelations can only be understood relationally, spiritual
humility is always promoted as an important religious virtue. In the theistic
traditions, for instance, we believe in a Creator, Sustainer, and Redeemer of the
Universe. How then could the content of science, as a language about this universe,
be ignored by theists? Contrary to static views of religions, there is a long evolving
and intellectually exciting history of interpreting and integrating scientific insights
into our traditions. Furthermore, the reverse is also true, that our theologies and
philosophies of nature, actually inform the interpretation of our science. While
science strives to be apodictic, the object of religion is apophatic. We should not
be seduced by science-envy to adopt methods either unsuited to the Source or
idolatrous in their expectation of certainty.
5. Science as a Spiritual Quest
I imagine that most scientists actually begin their careers having fallen in
love with the world that they study. Why else would one devote one’s life to the
disciplined and often tedious study of some set of phenomena in painstaking
detail with generally little reward or recognition? In this sense, science can be
thought of as similar to the learning of foreign languages, which requires a lot of
hard work, but also the mystical moment of a profound gestalt shift. Great science
seems to occur most often when the scientist, like the anthropologist or missionary
in a foreign land, “goes native.” A good physicist dreams in the mathematics of
the cosmos; a good chemist thinks within the three-dimensional bonding space
of complex molecules; a good biologist has a feel for the organism. Science can
be thought of not as a privileged epistemology but as altruistic fidelity to the
phenomena. To sustain a love over a lifetime, as most couples discover, requires
a kind of spiritual commitment and discipline. Science itself is a kind of spiritual
discipleship. If scientists experience their love to grow barren and unrequited, then
rage may come to govern their relationship with themselves, each other, and the
object of their study. So there is in the dialogue between science and religion also
a kind of pastoral concern for scientists, that they have healthy and fulf illing lives
and relationships. Fortunately, many scientists today are beginning to speak openly
about how they understand their professions to be a kind of spiritual quest. It is
important to affirm both the realism and the romanticism in the difficult work that
scientists do and for our society to support them in this work.
6. The Sciences of Religion Revisited
In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the social sciences were founded
with a largely hostile understanding of religious phenomena. Religion was generally
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POLITICS BY OTHER MEANS
seen as dysfunctional, regressive, and oppressive, something to be explained away
and replaced with science. Today, there is a growing appreciation of how religion
can also be highly functional and healthful, both for communities and individuals.
Freed of this Oedipal hostility and other apologetic agendas, the tools of the social
sciences can shed new light on religious phenomena in both their functional and
dysfunctional manifestations. As a curious example, psychology, once the overt
enemy of religion, has become a helpmate in the widespread use of psychological
screening tests in the selection and training of new clergy at most seminaries in
the United States today. Similarly, sociology points to the centrality of religion in
the recovery from addictions, in upward mobility for disadvantaged youth, and in
decreased recidivism in prisons. There is an enormous amount of complicated and
exciting research to be done as we revisit the sciences of religion. This research can
hopefully help the religious also to be more authentically faithful.
7. Healthy Semiotics
Sooner or later, everyone gets sick. It is now well established that our beliefs
are powerful medicine. About 30 percent of the effectiveness of any medical
treatment, whether western scientific medicine, or some alternative healing practice,
is the result of the so-called placebo effect. This applies as much to the efficacy
of such mechanical-types of therapy like knee surgery as to more mental-types of
treatments for depression. Modern medicine would like to believe that placebos can
be isolated in the heads of their patients. Double-blind experiments have blinded
researchers to the semiotics of health. We need to talk about deep placebo effects
that are distributed throughout the cultural context of healthcare. So pill-popping
may be an effective placebo in the United States, but it may not be in Brazil, which
doesn’t have a culture of pill-popping. While acupuncture and antibiotics work
somewhat independently of belief systems, even when animals are concerned, such
therapies will work better if you believe in them. Furthermore, belief systems are
often deeply related to social support structures and other attitudinal factors, all
of which profoundly affect one’s immune system and health outcomes. Of course,
in the end, taxes and death are the only certainties. But here too, the beliefs and
attitudes, with which one approaches the obligations of life and the mystery of
death, profoundly affect the quality of life lived. The semiotics of health necessarily
implicated the sciences of medicine in the messiness of cultures.
8. Innumerate Nescience
Surveys suggest that most people in the United States today can’t tell an
atom from a molecule from a cell, don’t have a rudimentary understanding of
electromagnetism, don’t know the difference between a star and a galaxy, and
surely don’t understand genetics or the basic outline of natural history on this
2. TEN REASONS
21
planet. This is quite remarkable if we consider how much money and effort has
been invested over the last sixty years in public science education. Perhaps there
is something wrong in the way we teach science? To paraphrase a quip by Henry
Ford on history, science education has become “one damn fact after another.”
Perhaps the introduction of philosophical, religious, historical, and moral questions
into the science curriculum would reinvigorate science education. Without the big
questions to inspire interest and the metanarratives by which to orient the myriad
details, general science literacy will continue to suffer. This does not bode well for
democracy in an age of accelerating science, nor for continued and expanded public
funding of scientific research. Traditionally, religious questions of meaning and
purpose, virtues and values, can help enliven general science education. Religious
institutions should actually be the primary ally of institutional science in our efforts
to enhance science literacy and public funding of scientific research.
9. Philistine Fideism
Through the subjectivization and commodification of religion in the twentieth
century, we have reached the absurd situation in which everyone claims to be an
expert in religion. As if suffering from a massive wish-fulfillment disorder, most
have reduced their spiritual lives to mere opinion. Any proposition can be true, if
one simply believes in it enough. Religions, of course, are anything but simple. The
study of religion is infinitely fascinating, complex, and highly disciplined. While
the U.S. Supreme Court has repeatedly ruled against the teaching of sectarian
religion in public schools, it has always permitted the teaching of religious history,
the philosophy of religion, sacred text as literature, and comparative religion.
Unfortunately, this is perceived as controversial, so it is largely ignored in most
schools. Of course, it is not likely that there are many teachers out there who would be
adequately trained in teaching religion. The science and religion dialogue, however,
requires that we take a fresh look at religion to try to understand its confounding
particularism and profound universalism. Science provides a wonderful bridge
for interreligious dialogue and for comparative religious studies, while helping to
sharpen philosophical reflection and deepening our appreciation of these received
wisdom traditions. This is a wonderful antidote to Philistine Fideism!
10. Moral Muddles
The dialogue between science and religion stands at the nexus of the great
moral and aesthetic challenges of our age. We live at an extraordinary moment in
the natural history of this planet and the cultural evolution of our species. Over
the last hundred years, there has been a remarkable growth in human population
and resource consumption. We have changed every bioregional ecosystem on the
planet and the atmosphere as a whole. We are about to embark upon the large-scale
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POLITICS BY OTHER MEANS
genetic engineering of other life-forms and of ourselves. Humans are a Lamarckian
wildcard in the Epic of Evolution. It is not only that science and its technology give
us the power to change the world and ourselves; it is that our values and motivations
will increasingly animate this growing power. Metaphysics becomes the motive
force for our future evolution. What values, morals, and aesthetics will govern this
new stage of evolution in the twenty-first century and beyond? These are questions
that cannot be solved by erecting a hermetic and hermeneutical barrier between
science and religion; we need to be involved in a deep dialogue as we muddle our
way into what we hope will be a healthier and safer future.