A Point of View

[CENTER]By Brian Walden

In his weekly opinion column, Brian Walden considers the gap between science and religion - and what this might mean for the future of humankind. [/CENTER]

Sir Martin Rees, the Astronomer Royal, wrote something recently that chilled me to the bone.

Sir Martin is the winner of the Michael Faraday Prize awarded annually by the Royal Society for excellence in communicating scientific ideas in lay terms. In my case he did almost too good a job.

He pointed out that though the idea of evolution is well-known, the vast potential for further evolution isn't yet part of our common culture. He then gave an example. He said: "It will not be humans who witness the demise of the Sun six billion years hence; it will be entities as different from us as we are from bacteria."


It may well be that this vision of the future leaves you unmoved. After all, six billion years is an almost unimaginable length of time. On top of that, the death of the Sun isn't going to be a jolly business and I suppose that if we're able to summon up any feeling on the matter it ought to be gratitude that there aren't going to be any humans around to suffer when it happens.
These seem sensible arguments and ought to console me - but they don't. This is Easter and I can't help contrasting the Christian promise of my youth with what science expects to happen.

Bashfulness

There's a long established British tradition that in general conversation religion isn't discussed. The great Whig essayist, Joseph Addison, writing in the early 18th Century said: "We have in England a particular bashfulness in every thing that regards religion." That was in an age when belief in God was well-nigh universal. If it wasn't thought to be tactful then, it must be far worse now, in a secular age when Christian belief has declined and other religions are widely practiced.

But it's for that very reason that I think we ought to talk to each other more about the central mystery of life. Widespread agnosticism and the place in society of Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, Sikhism, and Buddhism ought to mean that the climate of opinion is tolerant. Nor do we need to be expert to discuss science and religion, providing we have the humility to learn.
Like many others, I eventually accepted the scientific explanation of the origin and destiny of mankind. But, also like many others, I have no hostility to religion and, in particular, no contempt for Christian faith; quite the contrary. Indeed, at Easter, I confess plainly that I miss the consolations of Christianity.

I had a Pakistani friend, who died after a long illness. As he weakened physically, the subject he most wanted to discuss was the reconciliation of Islam and science. After a time, worried that he might be distressed, I said, very foolishly, that perhaps he could be at peace because Islam involved faith and he was a believer, whereas science operated in a different dimension collecting data, experimenting and seeking to confirm knowledge.

This distinction made him angry. "Have you the slightest idea how close we are to the end of humanity?" he asked. "I'm a scientist and I'm afraid. Only from the morality inside us can we learn restraint and that morality must come from religion."

Unpleasant surprise

I admit I thought he was exaggerating, but I listened and went away and consulted one of the works he'd suggested. I was unpleasantly surprised to discover exactly what my friend was talking about. It wasn't possible nuclear accident, or climate change, but the hypothetical threat posed by technological advances in genetics, robotics and nanotechnology.

Genetics; in that we might intentionally or accidentally create a plague; robotics, where we shall be able to download human consciousness into machines and nanotechnology where a nano-machine might turn the biosphere into dust in a matter of days.
Having heard a fair amount of doom-mongering in my time I'm resistant to it and disinclined to believe that the worst will happen. Nevertheless, lacking the scientific knowledge to judge whether there was a real threat, I asked some of those who did know.

They were amused by my ignorance, but confirmed that without proper constraints the technology is a distant threat. Then somebody told me that not only was I not up to speed scientifically, but that some philosophers, well aware of the scientific facts, were discussing their moral implications. So nothing that I'm saying has the least originality, but neither is it freakish.

Human life

A growing number of people believe that we need a fresh dialogue between science and religion. I mean religion in its widest sense - a belief in the value of human life. Apparently the direction of scientific progress means that we have to make moral judgements about what's permissible and what isn't. We need a moral consensus.

Most emphatically, I don't mean that we need to create a sort of blancmange morality that wobbles about, containing a bit of God, a bit of physics, a dash of Catholicism plus a smattering of Buddhism and a few sprigs of well-meaning atheism. That kind of ethical coalition wouldn't survive, and we need something that will. What we all need is to acknowledge our interdependency.


The hostility between science and religion stemmed from the 18th Century Enlightenment when science was forced to contradict some of the assertions of the Christian churches, particularly the Roman Catholic Church about the history of humanity.
Political liberals had their own quarrel with the Catholic Church, regarding it as a reactionary influence in politics and wanting it separated from a secular state. So the liberals joined the argument on the side of science and we got what became the familiar division of liberal thought and science against religion, though naturally individual liberals and scientists were sometimes believers.

This classic alliance between science and liberal thought in which the opinions of both are mutually reinforced, or the classic opposition between religion and scientific progress no longer operates across the board.

Indeed the present abortion quarrel in Britain is a striking example of a new pattern. Professor Stuart Campbell took photographs of foetuses at between 12 and 24 weeks' gestation and he admits that it never entered his head that the pictures would touch off a national debate. But the photographs were taken by a new technique showing foetuses younger that 24 weeks looking far more developed than had previously been accepted.

The photographs changed some people's minds about late abortion, including Professor Campbell's. He now thinks that "24 weeks if the baby is healthy is too late". The wider significance of this episode is that the Catholic Church, which opposes abortion, finds that science has done something which helps the Church and not necessarily liberal opinion.

Tolerance

Of course Professor Campbell doesn't share the Church's view on abortion. He supports abortion, but not as late as 24 weeks, pointing out that "science has moved on". So has the relationship between science and religion in my opinion. It would be sloppy thinking to claim there are no tensions and ridiculous to suppose that a common agreement can be arrived at.

There can be no agreement, but there can be tolerance. The Prime Minister, Tony Blair, leading a secular party in an increasingly secular society, on Tuesday asked Britain's churches to play a bigger role in national life.

Not just Tony Blair, but many contemporary politicians, want society to get what help it can from both science and religion.

Now, in a spirit of tolerance can I do justice to the Astronomer Royal, Sir Martin Rees, who alarmed me by predicting a future species as superior to humans as we are to bacteria? Well Sir Martin has a dedication to humanity and shares Albert Einstein's view that we need a perspective that's global, humanistic and long term. He can't be expected to share the scientifically illiterate prejudices of somebody like me.

Anyway Sir Martin doesn't rule out a place for humanity. He thinks spaceships launched from Earth might spawn new oases of life elsewhere. You see the interdependent, tolerant world doesn't have to be intellectually dull.