Can you be a good scientist and believe in God?

[AGBF]

I liked Herbert A. Hauptman's courage to say what he really felt. I liked it a lot. One has to have a lot of courage to say something like this in the United States today. The article (link provided) goes on to say that many other scientists believe in God.

"At a recent scientific conference at City College of New York, a student in the audience rose to ask the panelists an unexpected question: 'Can you be a good scientist and believe in God?'

Reaction from one of the panelists, all Nobel laureates, was quick and sharp. 'No!' declared Herbert A. Hauptman, who shared the chemistry prize in 1985 for his work on the structure of crystals.

Belief in the supernatural, especially belief in God, is not only incompatible with good science, Dr. Hauptman declared, 'this kind of belief is damaging to the well-being of the human race.'"

article

Deborah

 

[Sparkster]

I remember during one of my high school science classes (many many years ago) we were learning about evolution. One of the girls in our class disputed the theory of evolution. When the teacher asked her about fossils, she replied that satan put them in there so that we would turn against god and his teachings.

 

[movie zombie]

i recently heard on a radio show someone describing a born again christian genome scientist as claiming to see each gene break through as an understanding of ''god''s'' hand and not having a conflict with his work.

john dobson, a Vedantist monk and inventor of the dobson telescope, in the documentary A SIDWALK ASTRONOMER [gread doc, btw] states that he was an atheist at one point...he now refers to an ''exterior creator'' when discussing the universe.

i guess it may depend on whether one is a strict creationist or not.

peace, movie zombie

 

[AGBF]

Date: 8/24/2005 9:53:00 PM
Author: movie zombie
i guess it may depend on whether one is a strict creationist or not.

That may be the issue for some people. It is not the issue for my father.

My father is a kind, gentle, and loving man who, were it up to him, would not tolerate the cruelty of nature or that of man to man. My father says that if there is a God he must be a real (substitute crude word for part of male anatomy).

On another level he also says that he feels that people who believe in God have a sort of mild psychosis and he recommends that if one wants to maintain a belief in God, he should not be psychoanalyzed.

Deborah

 

[Matata]

I don''t believe in God, doubt that science will find answers to all of our mysteries, and have experienced enough of the supernatural to make me go "hmmmmm."

Why does belief in science and belief in God (substitute supernatural for God for me) have to be mutually exclusive? I like to think about where each touches the other. For instance, science says matter is neither created nor destroyed but just changes form. So if the energy that animates the body (religious folks would call it the "soul") continues to exist but changes form when the body dies, then doesn''t life after death exist, just in a form that we may not recognize? What if that energy moves into another universe? Scientists theorize about multiple universes existing side by side or within others. Could be called heaven, could be related to reincarnation.

I find the potential commonalities in the scientific and religious belief systems to be more facinating than the differences. But then, I also believe in the paranormal

 

[strmrdr]

Well if its an either or situation then Id much rather believe in God than be a scientist there is a much brighter future in it.

 

[AGBF]

Date: 8/25/2005 9:50:45 AM
Author: Feydakin
This is not new news by any stretch.. Many, if not most, of the greatest minds in physics are and have been great believers in faith.. If you do some research on ''String Theory'' you''ll find that most of the people researching it view it as a way to ''prove'' that god exists..

Hi, Steve. I missed you here for a while!

Deb

 

[JCJD]

Well, I''d like to think that I am a good scientist and I strongly believe in God, so yes.

 

[Momoftwo]

There have been surveys done and a large percentage of scientists do believe in God. My father has a PHD in Chemistry and is a strong believer. Check this link and scroll down to where it shows famous scientists and their faith.
http://www.mat.univie.ac.at/~neum/sciandf.html

For more, do a search for science and faith and you'll get quite a few hits. Many scientists do not believe they are mutually exclusive.

 

[ammayernyc]

One theory that I always held onto a little bit was the G-d created the sun and the earth on different days -- so a day wasn''t necessarily 24 hours. It could have been billions of years.

 

[JCJD]

Date: 8/26/2005 10:54:32 AM
Author: AmandaPanda
One theory that I always held onto a little bit was the G-d created the sun and the earth on different days -- so a day wasn''t necessarily 24 hours. It could have been billions of years.

I kinda like this... IMO, how many days, hours, millenia, it took God to create the universe doesn''t matter in terms of the Christian message (or even Jewish and Islamic, who also include Genesis in their holy texts). It is very interesting from both a scientific and a Christian aspect that science has confirmed the order in which Genesis says creation occurred, although I think the rest of scientific findings are just details that don''t matter a bit to my Christian faith while I find them fascinating all the same.

It''s not a black-and-white issue, it''s a continuum. There are completely atheistic people, agnostic people who believe there is a higher power but nothing specific, people of varying religious beliefs, and those who think (to pose an extreme) that we were put here 5 minutes ago by a god who ordained us with fully intact memories and a world that only looks like evolution occurred.

Gotta get to work!

 

[MINE!!]

I think the thing that people fail to think about is the fact that we have no concept of what TIME is to God. Just becuase we think that a day is 24 hours.. does not ness. mean that it really is. For those who beleive in creation, "who is to say that the God that created the entire universe could not make a day be as long as He damned well pleases?" after all, He was the one doing all the work.

I have a wonderful freind that is a Biologist that says when he looks at the world through sceince... it is so miraculous that he cannot help but to reinforce his belief in God. He says that chaos could never create something so complex and in everything he sees a plan. I believe in Creation, but I also believe in Evolution. Did we come from apes.. well maybe not.. but theories are proved and disproved everyday.

 

[Gemklctr]

Interesting debate. Without taking sides, it has recently been argued that evolutionary theory is not necessarily incompatible with a belief in a higher power. In a nutshell, the thesis is that evolution addresses what happened after the first living cell was formed; it does not answer the question of how that first cell came into existence. Notwithstanding the claims of some commenters on both sides, many contend it is that debate, Cosmic Accident vs. Intelligent Design, that lies at the core of the dispute. Harvard has just announced a project to address this "Origins of Life" issue. See http://uspolitics.about.com/b/a/193920.htm Hopefully it will be a legitimate scientific, as opposed to political/theological, investigation.

My $.02.

 

[partgypsy]

i think you can be a good scientist and believe in God. I don''t think you can be a good scientist and believe in intelligent design.

 

[JCJD]

Date: 8/26/2005 3:43:47 PM
Author: part gypsy
i think you can be a good scientist and believe in God. I don''t think you can be a good scientist and believe in intelligent design.

Didn''t we all learn the scientific method in elementary and/or junior high school? Observe. Formulate hypotheses. Make predictions from hypotheses. Test hypotheses and make necessary modifications to the hypotheses. Repeat.

 

[Iceman]

I remember back in highschool our science teacher talked about evolution. I asked then why in all of these Millions of years have we not see another ape change into a human ? Why did evolution stop ? He could not answer that question and the next day we were on other topics

 

[Iceman]

I strongly believe in God. At the age of 50 I was just baptised and redeticated my life to Jesus Christ.

 

[AGBF]

Date: 9/1/2005 5:30:52 PM
Author: Iceman
I strongly believe in God. At the age of 50 I was just baptised and redeticated my life to Jesus Christ.

Ice,

I love you...but you are not a scientist.

Deb

 

[strmrdr]

Date: 9/1/2005 5:30:52 PM
Author: Iceman
I strongly believe in God. At the age of 50 I was just baptised and redeticated my life to Jesus Christ.

Praise the Lord!
Amen!

 

[MissAva]

Yes. I happen to be a child of person who is a scientist. Everyday they work in a feild which some applaud and others despise (IVF and stem cell), but I know for a fact that they are a strong Christian.

 

[stacyQ]

I am a neuropsychologist, and I do research at a medical school. I personally follow the religion of science, but I do not see why a person can''t believe in God AND be a good scientist. A good scientist considers all possibilities, even ones they do not like. A good scientist also need not believe in God to act according to personal morals. I personally believe that use of stem cells is alright, and (having a degree in neuroscience) believe that an embryo is not a viable human until the rudimentary brain is formed (about halway through first trimester), so I have no problem with stem cells obtained from abortion during this time. But I have big problems with aborting older fetuses (not for religious reasons though).

 

[rubydick]

Despite those who dance around the issue, there is a fundamental difference between those who believe in "science", i.e., those who believe truth is both comprehensible and verifiable, and those who believe in "faith", i.e., those who believe there are certain inviolate concepts that are handed down from on high (or up from low).

Like many, I'm somewhere in between. I like to think that someone somewhere at sometime might be able to figure everything out. This is the scientist in me speaking.

And then I think of the sheer magnitude of what that question entails. I look to the heavens, gaze upon the milky way, a dense cluster of stars where every twinkle represents light equal to eons of time on this planet. At that point, I realize the moon really is made of green cheese, or anything else you wish it to be. For our current knowledge of life, living, heaven and hell, is but a grain of sand upon an endless beach that stretches from iternity to the center of each of us.

The great thinkers of humanity were great because they managed to push aside the bullsh*t, they managed to simplify the meaning of life and living. They managed to elucidate a pattern of behavior that was real. From Buddha to Moses through Christ to Mohammad, each strove to provide a means by which members of society could reach for the best while avoiding injury to others. The common message: treat people in a decent manner; treat others as you would like to be treated. Everything else is dogma. If you follow this rule, the world is a wonderful place.

Science is a wonderful thing, an intellectual excercise in separating what appears to be true from simple bullsh*t. And a sense of doing the right thing towards others (religion) is an even greater power, the latter powered and tempered by a firm understanding and unshakable faith in the former.

So the next time your favorite religious leader calls for the death of someone in the name of peace, be skeptical. And the next time your favorite scientist calls for the creation of a "smart bomb," please display an equal degree of dismay.

 

[Superidealist]

Mathematics, the Queen of the Sciences, holds to two great goals, completeness and consistency. Completeness aspires to proving all truths while consistency demands that no falsehood be provable. The former is hoped for, the latter is required.

In 1931, Kurt Gödel (later a friend of Einstein, who some would consider a good scientist) proved that no system of mathematics strong enough to allow proof of basic arithmetic can be both complete and consistent. Since a consistent system is required, all such systems are necessarily incomplete. This means that even in simple systems, truths exist which are not provable within the system.

In other words, some truths cannot be proved and can be known only through faith.

 

[Rank Amateur]

God contains the oceans of knowledge and permits scientists to dip one teaspoon out at a time.

For me, the two are not in conflict.

 

[MrBleeker]

I am a Biology major headed to medical school and I can without question one can believe in God and be a (very valid) scientist.


One needs to realize, one can''t convince another of that same conviction because belief in a God is based on faith while belief in science is based on trial and error in experiments (evidence). I think the 2 mesh very well, and you may not. Refer to previous sentence.

Nice quote above me by the way,

 

[AGBF]

Date: 9/16/2005 5:38:17 AM
Author: MrBleeker
I am a Biology major headed to medical school and I can without question one can believe in God and be a (very valid) scientist.

You wrote something about God in another thread. I followed up your comments here in this thread.

Deb