"The further a society drifts from the truth, the more it will hate those who speak it." Orwell
"“The price good men pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men.”
Plato
"The secret of freedom lies in educating people, whereas the secret of tyranny is in keeping them ignorant" Robespierre
Sunday, February 24, 2013
Compatability
Since my Sunday newspaper column is, once again, on a local matter, I offer instead the above thoughts on the compatibility, or lack thereof, between science and religion. Seems a decent Sunday topic.
I've puzzled many times over the fact that some people I know, doctors of very high caliber (by some definition, scientists), are deeply religious. So it's not exactly true that the two are in all ways incompatible in vivo; observation tells us otherwise. It's just that, in order to be both a scientist (meaning anyone who understands and accepts the scientific method, and one who considers her/himself a realist who prefers to base beliefs and actions on demonstrable fact) and a standard-issue religionist, one has to create certain lacunae of thought, entry into which is self-prohibited.
For those who need it, it seems to work. But it's not really compatibility at work: it's compartmentalization. Like potassium and water: they're fine together, long as you put the potassium in a water-tight box.
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