Columns:: Worth repeating

since 12/15/98

Columns::September 16, 2002

Worth repeating

Fred Silva, executive director of the United States and Canadian Academy of Pathology, gave a lecture on the relationship of Western science and religion for the Center for Humanities and Arts Sept. 3. Some excerpts:
“What I hope to give you is a balanced, scholarly view of the interactions of science and religion. . . . I think it’s no secret that science has changed the world. If we look at the last 100 years or so . . . there have been stunning revelations, ranging from electronics to computers to the sequencing of the 3.15 billion bases in the human genome to the Hubble and other telescopes . . . to the splitting up of the atom into quarks and other elemental particles. . . . It’s as if science is on fast forward. . . . From the very, very tiny to the very, very large, science has expanded our whole vision of the world. . . . We can trace the Big Bang way back . . . and figure out what is happening from almost the very beginning to the present time. The point is that science is stuck on fast-forward.
“So having that in mind, what is the relationship of Western science to Western religion? . . . Why do we think there is a war between science and religion? . . . Why conflict? Mainly because we’re arrogant, we’re intolerant, we think we know more than we do, and we’re literalists--either in terms of science or in terms of the Bible. What’s been called scientism . . . means science is not only a way (and maybe the best way) of solving certain problems--it is the only way to truth and knowledge. And I think that’s an overcall. I would also suggest to you that Biblical literalism is probably a misreading of the Bible. . . .”

--Beth Roberts

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