Science and religion

Science has its realm in the natural world. It neither accepts or denies the supernatural, and therefore is not a way of studying any god or other supernatural entities. When members of the human species looked up at the stars and wondered, Homo sapiens took the first step towards a separation of science from superstition. For science is an explanation of natural phenomena by means of natural causes. Since all science excludes supernatural or ultimate causes, some people insist that science must therefore deny the existance of a God, but that is incorrect. It is just as unscientific to claim that there is no God, as it is to claim that there is a God.

Science and values

The procedures of science does not make vaule judgments or moral decisions. The results of scientific investigations by themselves do not carry built-in values.The products of science, whether it is a new antibiotic drug or a nuclear bomb, are not good or bad in themselves. That value judgment is not in the scientific domain. Every person must decide for their own conscience the value or morality of the use of a product of science.

Such things as beauty, love, good, evil, happiness, virtue, justice, liberty, and financial worth are human values that science cannot address. It would be folly to strive for a strictly scientific way of life or a purely scientific government. Science can give us a tool for logical thinking and a basis for logical reasoning about the natural world but not a basis for determining right or wrong.

Science and purposes

The methods of science cannot reveal purposes. Such questions as "does the universe or existance have a purpose?" "Do people live for a purpose?" "Is there a purpose to life?" Science is not designed to investigate such questions. You cannot expect science to "prove" or "disprove" such purposes. At this point it is most important for the reader to realize that science does NOT imply purposelessness in life, living, existance or evolution. Science simply cannot explain such purposes nor does science even have a way of investigating purposes.

The limitations of science

Science is a way of knowing, a form of critical thinking about the natural world. It is limited because it cannot reveal ultimate explanations, supernatural powers, miracles, values, or purposes. Furthermore, science cannot "prove" anything, that is not the goal. But science is a very powerful tool in discovering tentative explainations for ideas concerning the natural world. It is also a very powerful method of critical thinking.

One aim of the physical sciences has been to give an absolutely exact picture of the material world. One achievement of physics in the 20th century has been to demonstrate that that aim is unattainable. Science cannot deal with absolutes, in fact for people there is no absolute knowledge. Those who claim it, whether they are scientists or dogmatists, open the door to tragedy. All information is imperfect. We have to treat it with humility. That is the human condition.
( From Bronowsky, 1973)