The often-cited “proof” of suppression of science by my (Catholic) religion is the Galileo case. However, if you look at the facts, it was Galileo’s attempt to explain religion using his science that the Church rejected, not the science. In other words, the Church was suppressing a scientist, but it was because he was trying to be a theologian.

Science, which deals with the physical world, cannot prove anything about the spiritual world. The best it can do is say there is no physical explanation for something, so it must be from the spiritual world, or say that something has a physical explanation, so it must not be from the spiritual world.

Did you ever wonder why the Galileo incident is the only one ever cited to “prove” the Church’s suppression of science? Could it be that it is the only case that’s anywhere close? The Church’s critics conveniently overlook the fact that our western university system was started by Church leaders, in part to promote the study of science. They wanted to find out more about the creator by studying his work!

It seems like you are taking NOMA to be prescriptive rather than descriptive. That is, NOMA is how things ought to be, rather than how they are. I can certainly agree with you that NOMA is how things ought to be.

A western omelet.

Within Gould’s argument, isn’t there a typo in the above quote? I think it should read “there is A way they can be COMPATIBLE”. Sorry for the caps, I don’t know how to use HTML markup in this site, and there’s no “preview” option before submitting. I suggest a short and sweet pop-up guide for formatting text, as some sites, for example, require < i > for italics while others prefer [ i ], so it’s hard to keep track of where to apply each.

Anyway, egg and fish a resounding yes (try some mayo on your next fish taco), but not egg and lamb. Beef and peaches, no, and I’ve never understood pineapple with anything except maybe rum, and only at the hand of experts.

Finally, fundamentalist zealots pushing for, among other things, their creationist agenda on schools, makes Gould’s gentle and conciliatory viewpoint impractical in the contemporary climate of superstition and literal interpretation of ancient texts. Whenever the backwards idiots act aggressively, they should rightfully get an equal and opposite reaction, a lá Richard Dawkins et alia.

While I could certainly be convinced that ethics isn’t really a science per se, it doesn’t follow that it’s part of religion either. After all, ethics and religion have hardly always been the best of friends, and it’s clearly possible for ethics to exist outside any religious framework.

Conflating ethics and religion would seem to be the wont only of certain “over-expansive” religionists, whose claims should be pushed back upon just as hard as those of the other two. (In other words, there are at least three magisteria: science, ethics, and religion.)

But according to Google, omelet wins.

Sean,

That would be the frequentist in you speaking. Perhaps elsewhere in the multiverse there are omelettes made of cosmic eggs too.

Peter