As I see it, the most fundamental split—an irreparable one—between science and religion is that religion embraces a supernatural order and genuine science, as opposed to pseudoscience, does not.
From a scientific and objective standpoint, there is simply no way that any purportedly supernatural entity or order can be demonstrated or proven. No scientific methodologies for such exist, nor any credible instruments or measuring techniques. The rejoinder that those things can’t be measured merely reinforces the argument that they are no more fit for scientific inquiry than the astrologer’s claim of “malefic” influences of Mars at an infant’s birth.
Because a supernatural domain cannot be approached in any scientific or objective way, then by my reckoning it doesn’t exist. One need not even deny its existence because to all intents the supernatural entity becomes logically unnecessary or redundant. It doesn’t help us make scientific predictions or explain natural phenomena—say, coronal mass ejections or auroral substorms. Any doubt about the possibility of knowing something must be vastly multiplied for the supernatural domain.
Pope Francis, while he acknowledges Darwinian evolution, is still not prepared to accept the wholly naturalistic process dependent on natural selection—mutation. Instead we read, “Evolution in nature is not inconsistent with the notion of creation, because evolution requires the creation of beings that evolve,” and “He [God] created human beings and let them develop according to the internal laws [emphasis added] that He gave to each one so they would reach fulfillment.”1 However, if the role of random evolutionary forces is neglected and the creation of “souls” is given prominence, then the door of inquiry is left open to supernatural agents.
To a genuine scientist—whether biologist, chemist, or physicist—that ought to be totally, emphatically unacceptable because it basically thumbs its nose at true scientific inquiry.
In my article “The God factor” in the March 1990 issue of Astronomy magazine, I point out that science selectively excludes problems for which no practical method of inquiry exists. The supernatural falls into that category: It is neither measurable nor verifiable. Such an entity is regarded as an “uncaused cause,” but as mathematician John Allen Paulos noted, “If everything has a cause, then God must too, and there is no first cause.”2 Eliminating a first cause—that is, supernatural cause—eliminates the need to posit a realm populated by supernatural beings that can supposedly interact with our world.
What McLeish asks us to do is to look the other way as we embrace a faith-based system, which may occasionally be correct about one scientific discovery or another but nonetheless accepts superstition at its core. Worse, a faith-based system beckons us to give a pass as it upholds a domain for which there isn’t a scintilla of evidence, and in which agents and dogmas can be invoked in detrimental ways anytime a religion decides—for example, in condemning artificial birth control or outlawing abortion.
Is it possible for religion and science to coexist? Possibly, but only if religion is diluted to the point that it’s devoid of all supernatural memes, agents, and explanations. Otherwise, all bets are off and we are left with embracing glorified superstition, and a deleterious form at that, able to use its fantasy agents to subvert objective human inquiry.
