Science is not a Religion

By BJ Bjornson

Even if there are those who occasionally treat it that way.

The title refers to the introductory post of David Sloan Wilson�s at Scienceblogs, �Science as a Religion that Worships Truth as its God�. I have a number of critiques about the post, but none as glaring as the title and theme.

The best take-down of said title I�ve seen is from Henry Gee, who notes that science is about the quantification of doubt rather than the pursuit of truth.

I don�t think I�ve read or heard anything more misleading all day, and in this post I hope to explain why I am so concerned.

The short answer (don�t worry, I have a longer one handy) is that it is not the business of science to discover �truth�, because �truth� cannot be judged to be such, in any absolute way. To put it another way, were we to stumble upon the �truth� we could never know that we had done so.

What science is all about, in contrast, is the quantification of doubt.

It is doubt, friends, that fuels science: the testing of hypotheses; the subjection of scientific ideas, grant applications, papers and presentations, to exacting scepticism.

James Hrynyshyn, at the appropriately (for this) titled Island of Doubt adds:

Let me just add that I know that social theorists find these kind of statements annoying. They consider science just another ideology with all the baggage that comes with one. But whenever I get into a debate with one of those social theorists, it's clear they don't understand how science really works. I will continue to insist that science is neither ideology nor religion. No other ideology or religion even comes close to the scientific method's reliance on skepticism to advance understanding.

I would say that it isn�t just social theorists who like to lump science in with religions and other ideologies, as there are significant political and financial gains to be made by doing the same.

While the reliance upon doubt and skepticism make science the very powerful tool that it is, it is also used quite cynically by those who oppose its findings to try and undermine them.

The most common form of this is the �there is actually a lot of controversy over X�, with X being anything from evolution to climate change. This is usually a partial truth, as with something like evolution, there really isn�t any scientific controversy over its occurrence but a fair bit over the exact mechanisms by which it occurs. But even at that, one cannot say as a scientist that evolution in an absolute certainty. As Hrynyshyn says in his post, �a lack of uncertainty is one of the ways you can identify something as unscientific.� We are generally disposed to granting arguments to people who can claim absolute certainty in their positions, whereas as a proper skeptic and scientist, one has to always acknowledge the possibility, however remote, that you may be wrong. Doing so sounds wishy-washy and uncertain, like you are unsure of the merits of your argument, which doesn�t do so well debate-wise with people who can proclaim the certainty of their own beliefs. Of course, belief in something says nothing about its accuracy, but one can be endlessly impressed by how hard folks cling to such beliefs even in the face of contradictory evidence.

Faced with such opposition, it is hard to resist using the language of certainty yourself when engaged in arguments over these topics. Do so, however, and you�re painted as just another ideologue who �believes� in evolution, or climate change, or science itself. And, since as I noted above belief doesn�t imply accuracy, if you can pretend that science is just another belief system, you can also ignore its findings in favour of your own belief system.

(As an aside, my co-workers have noticed that while I tend to shoot down their arguments with some certainty, I usually couch my own arguments with qualifiers like �seems to�, �its likely that�, and so forth. The reason being that it is far easier to know if something is wrong that to be certain that something is right. If the evidence contradicts a claim, you can be certain the claim is incorrect, whereas if the evidence supports the claim, you can only properly have some confidence that the claim is provisionally true, since further research may turn up some contradictions. That scientific way of thinking colours the way I see pretty much everything, it seems.)

All this is a long-winded way of saying that if you want to increase the role of science and scientific thought in the public domain, then it would be best not to attach to it the trappings of an ideology or belief system.

For the last word, we�ll go to PZ Meyers:

Science isn't a religion, period. It doesn't worship anything. Science is a toolbox, and if you must stretch the metaphor even further, doubt is the crowbar we use to get at useful answers�but again, we don't worship the crowbar. We admire it, can ooh and aaah over a particularly well-tricked-out crowbar, and we can relish opportunities to swing it, but it never, ever assumes the role of religion in our our lives.

David Sloan Wilson is going to fit right in. He's giving everyone an excuse to swing their crowbars.

And it appears that there is a lot of swinging going on at scienceblogs, which is the way it should be.