Does anybody else find it depressing that as science teaching declines in our schools, we do more than ever to push the sterile fictions of religion on children? As a direct result of government policy, Physics and Chemistry are withering while the enforced study of religion – in faith schools – is swelling.
Despite the claims of woolly-headed kum-by-ya multiculturalists, there is a fundamental conflict between science and religion. Science offers a natural explanation of the world, based on empirical observation and reason. Religion offers a supernatural explanation of the world, based on ‘divine revelation’ – in other words, hallucination.
These two roads lead in different directions. Empirically observing the world will never lead you to conclude that (say) the Archangel Gabriel inseminated a virgin and she produced a Messiah who could produce infinite amounts of fish from a basket.
The more we explore the world with science, the more we find it is not as described in the Holy Books. Their maps, their explanations, their histories – all are empirically false. So the religious can either scramble rather pitifully to deny the facts, as creationists do, or they can turn more and more of their faith into gaseous metaphor, with their ‘God’ reduced to a distant First Cause.
But what then is the use of the religions our government promotes so enthusiastically? As I’ve explained elsewhere, it is false to claim these schools get better results: once you factor in their creamed-off intake, they actually underperform. The religious claim instead their beliefs stir awe and wonder and humility in their pupils. But science stirs more awe and wonder and humility – and it has the added advantage of being true. Think about the fact that at one point in our pre-history, after a series of disasters, there were only two thousand of our humanoid ancestors left, on the brink of extinction, in a single remote part of Africa. We are all descended from that one wondering, waning tribe. Doesn’t that make you feel more wonder – as Christopher Hitchens puts it – than a burning bush?
Religious people talk a lot about being humble, while insisting they know what the creator of the universe thinks – and what he wants us to eat and think and do with our genitals. Scientists, by contrast, show real humility. They subject their theories to constant doubt and scrutiny and acidic testing – and when the evidence is against them, they admit they are wrong.
The philosopher A.C. Grayling is fond of talking about a scientist he knew who worked for fifteen years propagating a theory – until another scientist delivered a lecture in which he demolished it with hard evidence. It ended with the scientists shaking hands. “Congratulations,” he said, “you have proved me wrong.” When could this ever happen to religious people? Whenever we produce proof their views are wrong, they simply engage in more theological somersaults; often, they make their lack of evidence a point of pride.
And our school system pushes this preposterous system of faith on our children every day, while the subjects that require evidence – and save millions of lives every day – are allowed to silently wilt.
A very good article. The reason that faith is being preferred to science, is that science teaches critical thinking, while religion promotes dumb acceptance. It is far more difficult to brainwash a population which can think critically. Technology is still supported, it is the far more philosophical natural sciences which are under threat.
Posted by: Mark Underwood | Thursday, 03 July 2008 at 01:46 PM
As Mark said, Princes, Politicians and Priests don't like a thinking public, they ask the wrong kind of questions.
The church has always been against science and education. If you look at European history, serious philosophical thinking happened in ancient Greece but withered in Rome with the supremacy of the christian church. It then took until the Age of Enlightenment before it once again emerged and the age of scientific discovery began which gave us today's society.
Religion might be against science but you'll not find any of them refusing it's benefits, just it's philosophical and intellectual side, which they can't counter with their theology.
Posted by: flipped | Thursday, 03 July 2008 at 02:24 PM
How many faith-heads do you think might dare read the likes of Dawkins' 'God Delusion', Hitchens' 'God is Not Great' et al, or indeed take any interest in science given that it's unlikely to fit with their beliefs? Not too many - most people only seek out the kind of knowledge they know will be agreeable.
Indoctrinating a child's mind with any kind of religious dogma, before they have had a chance to decide what they believe in, is child abuse and should be outlawed - pure and simple.
Posted by: Kenny | Thursday, 03 July 2008 at 03:35 PM
There's a chance they might pay attention to Derren Brown, whose splendid recent book puts the subject into what we might call a more popular framework. Meanwhile, grateful thanks indeed to correspondents such as Mr. Hari!
Great point about the genuine poetry of reality versus the specious “romance” of myth. Dawkins was on similar ground when he spoke, wonderfully, of the awe with which we should consider, not the comfortable fallacy of our deliberate creation, but the actual and utterly random “triumph against the odds” represented by the existence of each and every one of us. What an excellent antidote to the desperate, erroneous dismissal of the scientific truth as somehow “nihilistic” by the piously sentimental. The only reason for people to require more from life than the starkly beautiful facts of it lies in their own inadequacy.
The point about science admitting its mistakes also rings very true to me. In a run-in with some Jehovah’s Witnesses a while back, I happened to mention the coelacanth as an example of science’s fallibility. My antagonists pounced, simpering: “Ooh, he knows about the coelacanth!” You could tell that they were about to launch into a well-rehearsed “point”; but I had the pleasure of heading them off at the pass by drawing that very distinction in the article – the point being that, once the supposedly-extinct fish was proven to be extant, the scientists admitted their previous error (unlike the inevitable paroxysms of denial of the religious bod faced with similar refutation).
Of course we should get it out of our schools. One could, however, end up arguing the scientific case ad nauseam et infinitum with this lot. So can I propose a resistance to the subject based, not on its invalidity as “intelligent study”, but on the hideous track-record its various adherents have amassed in the far less equivocal area of their behavioural track-record. Indeed, let all “religious education” (pardon my oxymoron) be based around the revolting histories of human deeds perpetrated in the name of various personifications of what is often, laughably enough, the same Bronze Age solar deity. And, for once, let’s get judgmental back on their asses – let’s have a curriculum that declares it to be no coincidence that it’s the most ill-natured, repressed and intolerant unfortunates who get taken in by, and/or stick with, this self-righteous tosh, in the face of all evidence to the contrary.
Posted by: Rob dePlume | Thursday, 03 July 2008 at 04:28 PM
But sometimes science people feel like killing eachother when proven wrong. Although there have not been any major wars so far. No terrorist attack by the betamax people fighitng for use of their technology.
Posted by: dirty european socialist | Thursday, 03 July 2008 at 04:54 PM
So - let's get rid of comprehensive schools, bring back grammar schools and selective education as in mainland europe - that will attract more male teachers (most maths and science teachers are men for innate SCIENTIFIC brain biology reasons) - bring back O levels and difficult A levels for the best third of candidates. In other words, undo ALL the silly policies of the previous 40 years of blunders and silliness. We are not all equal - socialism is a lie. Let;s go back to the way we were - and the europeans still are: selective, fact-based, knowledge-based, exam-based education.
Posted by: Mr Science | Thursday, 03 July 2008 at 05:28 PM
Or better yet, let's create Atheist schools and out perform faith schools in the league tables.
Posted by: Matt | Thursday, 03 July 2008 at 05:39 PM
"But science stirs more awe and wonder and humility – and it has the added advantage of being true."
Well, I don't think even many scientists would say science is "true", whatever that means. There are theories and explanations and they are proposed and tested and argued about and so on and some are considered worth pursuing for many, many years and then they are found to be wrong (viz Newtonian mechanics).
"they can turn more and more of their faith into gaseous metaphor, with their ‘God’ reduced to a distant First Cause."
Nothing wrong with that.I think this is what a lot of scientists do.
Dirac was a Christian. "Beautiful mathematics etc;"
Einstein talked about the "God of Spinoza" and the "old one".
I should think you would need serious religious belief to imagine that there is any way forward in M-Theory at the moment.
Posted by: Sid Smith | Thursday, 03 July 2008 at 05:47 PM
Johann,
Religion is not based on "hallucination" for most people,
though probably could have been for some of its "prophets".
Most religion is based on adherence to the beliefs of your
family or society. Most grown people should be able to see
that there is not a scrap of evidence for their gods but for
some this is a horror unimaginable as it mean cutting themselves
off from their family, or even being thrown out, or worse.
Something happens when you are young that brings some kind
of fear to even contemplate thinking that all those tales they
told had no basis in reality.
That is what is profound about religion, not the gods and prophets,
and it needs explaining. Just look at the indignation, anger and hatred in some religious people, as if their existence is threatened, but how is it threatened - please write about that.
Posted by: PHCO | Thursday, 03 July 2008 at 07:19 PM
Johann here shows us that he spent too much time studying Skinner and his creepy view of the world when a church or two lay nearby and could have helped him with his angst. It takes far more faith to believe in a big bang than it does to think that Hari or his cohort are the pinnacle of rational reason.Scientism has led us to the dangerous world we live in now and will no doubt crawl around the State for its funding for ID cards and DNA databases all in the cause of progress. Luckily I have read the end of the book and the good guys DO win.Johann needs to learn to pick the real enemies of human creativity as Orwell did...and the church is not your problem,but your scientific tendency to have religion/faith eliminated. Science is far more the faith taught in schools-that it will never deal with the WHYs merely means that children don`t buy the "wonder" of global warming,recycling being taught with no debate ad nauseum.Johann needs to return his Orwell prize and see his ZaNu-labor friends as the real enemy and not the church that is`nt anywhere near being threatening enough to him for his persecuting zeal.
Posted by: chris hartnett | Thursday, 03 July 2008 at 10:08 PM
Orwell suported european integration. Did you know the tories supported slavery. It was the whig party that got rid of slavery. Tories are just slave traders.
Posted by: dirty european socialist | Thursday, 03 July 2008 at 10:36 PM
Chris Hartnett demonstrates yet again the tortuous intellectual leaps people with faith have to go through in order to protect themselves from reality. I won't waste my time providing a point-by-point rebuttal because Chris is obviously too far down the anti-science rabbit hole to engage in rational debate. Indeed, rationality seems anathema to him.
Posted by: Modeski | Thursday, 03 July 2008 at 11:37 PM
My comment has gone. It was rather positive so I suppose it was cut for reasons of dullness! I better spice things up. I remember when Hari was telling us Iraqis were begging for us to bomb them! Yes I agree with Hari this time. Science should be taught better. The Big Bang experiment sounds interesting too although I hope it isn't the end of the World! Maybe my comment won't come up as I don't know my URL address!
Posted by: Colin Sloss | Friday, 04 July 2008 at 09:08 AM
Science only has its own self to blame for losing appeal on many fronts. The arrogance of figureheads such as Richard Dawkins has offended many, and his dogmatism (which is far from atypical) has also painted the public perception of science into a corner from which it now can't just walk away.
If science would, just for one day, consider the possibility that the persistent spiritual impulse must have some biological importance to mankind (which is justified even by Darwinian reasoning alone) then the two sides would no longer need to be sulking in opposite corners of the classroom.
Spiritual institutions, just like scientific ones, are formed from the needs of very large numbers of people, or else they could never survive even one generation, let alone a hundred. The fact that power tends to corrupt such institutions should no more be a point against religion itself, than napalm, or a hideous device such as the atom bomb, designed to roast alive millions of innocent men, women and children, should be a mark against believing in all of science.
If mankind continues to stick with a purely materialist society, it will continue to degenerate as it is doing now. It is probably an unconscious awareness of this which is causing a resurgence of interest in religion. The fact that understanding of religion has not been updated in thousands of years is as much science's fault for an arrogant lack of interest as it is religion's jealous and protective stance.
But the brain remains as complex and mystifying as ever, and if science petulantly refuses to look into the fascinating phenomenon of spiritual experience, which it is always welcome to do even without religion's nod of assent, it only has itself to blame when mankind turns away from it to at least try to examine its own spiritual nature, with whatever admittedly imperfect forms are available to it now.
Posted by: Iain Carstairs | Friday, 04 July 2008 at 09:24 AM
Great! Bring on the double-blind trials for spiritual efficacy, then. Homeopathy on the NHS. Jesus wept.
Posted by: Rob dePlume | Friday, 04 July 2008 at 10:20 AM
Yup i'm in general agreement with this.
I should declare I'm doing an Msc in Science comunication (covering it's history, conflicts and interactions with the public and how knowledge is generated etc etc etc)
Science is about thinking and as Johan says criticaly evaluating the how and why of a given phenomenon, whatever it is.
Belief in all powerful deity is fine - if it helps you through the night - but it ain't necessarily so.
Science is not infallible - it it gets it wrong and there have been some total unmtigated disasters in terms of how science is applied to society.
What science at least tries to do is look for answers to solve problems (some of which are of its own making) and look for answers.
The creationist faith school religous brigrade whatever we want to call it - have major issues with "science" because it presents an alternative way of looking at the universe - i:e trying to understand it
Which means people are less subservient to a myth and a lie - as people ask questions that faith cannot answer - this is what the faith schools don't want.
A Religous organisation is stealing my wifes school and turning it into an academy (with taxpayers money of course) - they have sacked all the science staff as they reject ID and creationism - and are bringing zealots who do not.
BE afraid be very afraid........
Scared - its terrifying this is just the beginning!
They must be stopped and rejected out of hand.
Posted by: Sparky | Friday, 04 July 2008 at 10:56 AM
As someone working at the coalface of teaching, and not in a faith school, may I point out that there are several clear reasons for the calamitous decline in science in schools, and the rise of irrationality both in school and in the students'lives.
Firstly there are the reasons given by Hari, plus a tsunami of curriculum changes against its revival, almost totally driven by results at GCSE. The whole febrile climate in schools is created by constant, incessant measurement by indicators. This has created a generation of passive students, learning what is given to them, a lot via computer intranets. Many resent having to learn actively or do anything with a result more than a few minutes away. open-ended enquiry is unwelcome.
Secondly there is the rise of irrationality and ignorance in their lives, running from the opacity of government, through the climate of fear created by what is wrongly called 'the PC brigade', to the magic of celebrity falsely promoted in the media. This is buttressed by the kind of assembly talks (syndicated in some cases) including 'Why faith is greater than science' - which prompted an unanswered complaint to the head of my school!
Thirdly is the multiplication thousandfold of the web of interpersonal relationships via internet sites (e.g. Facebook, Myspace) and the use of mobiles, so that school is only a partial, and sometimes unwelcome, interruption of their all-encompassing social lives.
I teach psychology currently in a sixth form collegiate and have also taught biology, maths and GNVQ/BTEC. I have students who become profoundly uninterested in the subject once they realise it is scientific, and not about their social lives. I have students from one school who haven't done evolution or conception in biology ("We only did the Immaculate Conception, Sir, every year for five years"), and ALL of my students, whatever their GCSE background, are stunningly scientifically illiterate.
After 35 years in social services and education, I sum it up in one phrase: "Going to Hell in a handcart".
Posted by: John Griffin | Friday, 04 July 2008 at 11:02 AM
I agree with you John Griffin. I used to work in sub sea engineering and when I retired from the industry it had change enormously from when I first stated in the early seventies. Then it was all home grown engineers and technicians who worked out there and built the industry. Now they come from all over the world because we can no longer find any engineers or technicians of our own. No one wants to do it anymore as it's a hard, unglamourous and dirty job that doesn't carry any "cool" points. It seems that everyone now wants to work in the media, as actors or pop stars or in human resources, in finance and to become instant managers and make a fast buck.
Posted by: flipped | Friday, 04 July 2008 at 11:47 AM
"If science would, just for one day, consider the possibility that the persistent spiritual impulse must have some biological importance to mankind (which is justified even by Darwinian reasoning alone) then the two sides would no longer need to be sulking in opposite corners of the classroom."
What? tehre are huge numbers of sicentific studies in this, encouraged by TRichard Dawkins. He appeared on a documentary in which he was tested for just this.
Read Dawkins-disciple Sam Harris' 'The End of Faith', there is a whole chapter on precisely this.
Posted by: Andy P | Friday, 04 July 2008 at 02:20 PM
My dear Johann,
It doesn't matter in the lesst whether science makes you think or not. What matters is that it doesn't make you rich. Science graduates do not in general earn spectacularly higher salaries than other people.
As long as that is true, you won't get parents to worry about science teaching. They don't send their kids to school for abstract knowledge, but for the qualifications which will hopefully land them higher paying jobs than the parents currently have. If a school teaching "superstition" is believed to do better at this than one teaching "reason", they will fight to get their kids into it, even if that means having to feign belief in a load of things which they may take no more seriously than you do.
If they could get the GCSEs without the religion, most of them would probably be happy enough to do so. But at present they can't, or don't believe that they can. As long as that is so, you can drone on about "superstition" until you're blue in the face,but it isn't going to make the slightest differense.
Posted by: Mike Stone | Friday, 04 July 2008 at 06:40 PM
My point about science and religion couldn't be simpler, but all the religion-knockers have missed it entirely. Unless there was some concrete advantage to behaving in accordance to the fundamental principles of religion, that is, according to the sermon on the mount, or the princicples of buddha, or the basic tenets on which islam was formed, they would not be so embedded in the mass culture and have survived attempts to eradicate it, as occurred in Eastern Europe.
This is conveniently and patronisingly described as "whatever gets you through the night" as if it were simply a child's fantasy. And yet the spiritual geniuses who founded the major religions clearly had advanced morality and were some of the most eloquent human beings Earth has ever produced. In the light of scientific knowledge today, we can say these were genetic gifts.
The genetic result of materialism is obvious to anyone with access to a newsagent; the same deterioration can be seen in wealthy families. It is not a trivial matter at all. But if the best the scientific community can do is to mock religion as a waste of good scientific energy, to describe it in terms of a child's fairytale, it is missing the entire point of religion.
Religion is clearly an expression of the evolutionary impulse within man: both the goal and the path to be followed for healthy evolution have been described in admittedly fantastic terms, but the fact that the surviving religions arose in agrarian societies thousands of years old should explain this.
Mocking an ancient expression of spirituality now is no different than if we were to rdicule the whole science of astronomy or medicine because our theories of Earth and space and biology 2,000 or even 5,000 years ago seem worthless to us now. Just because they did not describe the truth accurately enough then was no reason not to explore and enlarge upon them.
The arrogance of science can also be seen in magazines such as New Scientist, where God is described as a bumbling and incompetent "creator". And yet you ask a scientist how exactly physical energy is converted into consciousness within the brain, and there's nothing but a big silence.
No thinking parent wants their kids to be exposed to such arrogance in the classroom: to have the guesswork of a 19th century naturalist rammed down everyone's throats along with a contempt for genuine spiritual belief.
Posted by: iain carstairs | Saturday, 05 July 2008 at 12:14 PM
the arrogance of science? are we on the same planet, carstairs?
Posted by: alan gordon brown | Sunday, 06 July 2008 at 12:26 AM
This gave me a good chuckle. I have faith and I am also a historian with specialist knowledge of the cultural history of science. And in the church that I belong to there are many people with far greater scientific credentials than Johann 'invading North Korea would be a brilliant idea' Hari.
In truth people like Johann Hari is a parasite on science. They have no knowledge of what science is: like navigation it is a means of discovery, not of creation or ideology.
The scientific method is invaluable. But Hitchens and Hari just resort to intuition and sentimental screeching whenever an ethical issue requires hard work. Before the Iraq war leading Middle East specialists advised Blair against war in Iraq. Hitch and Hari just wanted to look like 'decents' so, despite having no knowledge of Iraq, supported the bloodshed. Hari then said that triggering a nuclear war with North Korea (which would also destroy South Korea and possibly Japan) would be a genius plan.
http://johannhari.com/archive/article.php?id=72
Remember comrades: religion bad, thermonuclear war good. 'Religious people' stupid, atheists smart. The reigious wicked, atheists good. Yes, 'religious people' and 'the religious' are Johann's favourite strawmen, or women as in the case of Melanie Phillips. I have faith and have only ever seen Ms Phillips as a idiotic monster. But guess which 'smart athiest' did 'love' this representative of 'the religious':
http://johannhari.com/archive/article.php?id=313
Whilst Hari claims that empiricism disproves religion he has no idea about religion. Nowhere in the Bible is the Virgin Mary inseminated, and the Archangel Gabriel announced that she would give birth to the Son of God. As usual he is completely ignorant.
There are two types of religious people. There are those, like myself who would see faith as being defined by Hamlet: 'there are more things in heaven and earth Horatio, than are dreamed of in your philosophy'.
Then there are those like Melanie Phillips and Tony Blair who hate difficult ethical decisions and lose interest in facts they don't want to hear and use their faith to justify making illogical decisions. Johann Hari would fail to see this difference, and that is because he is so similar to Ms Phillips and Mr Blair in believing in what he wants to believe.
Posted by: Gregor | Sunday, 06 July 2008 at 03:36 PM
Hari is right to assert that science is more humbling than religion. It is arrogant to assume that our beliefs should be true, without any basis in fact. The most humble thing is to realize that ones beliefs or assumptions could be completely wrong.
What is striking about most believers is their profound sense of self-importance. If God or something God-like truly exists, why would such a being view us as anything more than insects, if not tapeworms or bacterium?
Posted by: George Arndt | Sunday, 06 July 2008 at 07:22 PM