Marilynne Robinson On Jon Stewart: Why Science And Religion Should Not Be At Odds (VIDEO)

Marilynne Robinson, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of "Gilead", appeared on "The Daily Show" last night to discuss "Absence of Mind," her new non-fiction book on the conflict between science and religion.

Robinson maintains that science and religion should not be as much at odds as they are today, and that the conflict between them has developed relatively recently. There should not be such a clear-cut division between science and religion, Robinson said, explaining that both religion and science push against the limits of language and understanding. We should consider them together rather than completely separately, she asserted.

"At this point in time," Robinson said, "we need the best in science from science, and the best in science from religion." But we're not getting that: scientists are "not being scientific" in their disregard for religion, she explained. "I don't think that it's scientific to proceed from the study of ants to a conclusion about the nature of the cosmos."

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Comments

[oldfuzz]

08:37 PM on 07/23/2010

The essential questions are:
What is science? Scientists assume it's definition is intuitively obvious, but reject intuition.
What is religion? By its nature transcends definition, yet fundamentalists try to define it.

Define your terms before your debate is valid. Ms. robinson's book, Absence of Mind, is worth reading if for no other reason than making your mind think about the vagaries of the debate.

[Gary Drechsel]

11:20 AM on 07/17/2010

Oh Jon you really dropped the ball on this one. Lost a little bit of respect for you.

[NeoConsAreFinished]

06:01 AM on 07/17/2010

She is nothing more than a member of the Western Taliban.
Religion is faith.
Science is not.

[laocoon]

07:56 PM on 07/16/2010

Comparing religion and science is misleading to begin with. Spiritual insight/initiation is the proper comparison to science. Religion is the institutionalization of that insight and turns it into dogma. If one compares religion to science it should be to pseudo science to be fair. Both spiritual insight and science share a very important common thread-- an ability to see concepts for what they are and to see and transcend those concepts limits. Bad science will for example assume causation from correlation or synchrenicity. Good science sees through the assumption. Good science is careful to define terms operationally. Spiritual seeking should ground itself in similar objectification of the concepts it finds in its mind. If you study the real initiates whose experiences were institutionalized by later religions, you find that sort of approach. Pythagoras was for example the root of both science and much mysticism in western culture. The very idea of using math to represent natural relationships was essentially his and it was mystical as well.

[ConcernedJoe]

07:26 AM on 07/17/2010

You are not resonating with me. I just don't get your point.

If you are saying spirituality is like pseudo-science or "bad" science and then define such science as science that purposely ignores evidence or falsely analyzes evidence or knowingly lies about findings and/or dovetails conclusions to support desired results then I would agree.

However that is not the (non)science that we science advocates compare to religion or to the spirituality that gets pushed in these pages.

And science has no dogma. Science accepts postulations that fit evidence or situations after destructive testing, and that work - i.e., are useful for accurately and reliably making predictions and explaining phenomena.

Science strives to be an open process and expects - no demands - proper scientific challenges - and is gleeful when a better "truth" is found.

Yes scientists are human and live and work in environments that are not pure. They sometimes have motivations and loyalties that are not consistent with the rules. And sometimes mistakes are made. But the scientific process endures and a vast disinterested community in time corrects the defects. That is what we know of the process confirmed by history - past and in the making.

What is dogma? what in science is dogmatic as you proclaimed elsewhere?

Oh and BTW - elsewhere I meant math deals in Proofs (absolute TRUE/FALSE) and other disciplines not so much. Not all math comes to right conclusions or is absolute truth in algorithm.

[Luna C666]

12:05 PM on 07/16/2010

Science and religion SHOULDN'T be at odds, and eating raw chicken SHOULDN'T give you salmonella either...

[amyen]

09:31 AM on 07/16/2010

The problem with religion is that you can't prove it wrong. That's why it isn't science. In science you can form experiments to test your hypotheses and if the experiment doesn't fit the hypothesis, you have made progress in your understanding. This is impossible in religion.

[esquilax]

08:16 AM on 07/16/2010

Why is it that there are literally hordes of religionists pleading with the scientifically minded for some scraps of consideration of their delusions?

[SonnyDee]

03:44 PM on 07/15/2010

Blah, blah, blah. I hate it when people use people from bygone eras to defend religion. When you live in a world where the denial of the supernatural will get you killed or imprisoned then EVERYONE is religious.

Religion can aid science not one iota. Science does not deal with fairy tails and that is what ALL theism is.

[johnsopinion]

11:01 PM on 07/16/2010

You've got a mind like the steel of a spring-trap.

But why do you always keep it shut?

[ThaGovna]

02:26 PM on 07/15/2010

"Scientists like Newton were profoundly religious people."

I wonder what would have been his fate had he not have been...

[esquilax]

08:27 AM on 07/16/2010

He was a product of his generation. People of that era did not "know" any better. Thanks to his works, and those that followed, we know religion/dogma has nothing to offer, or at the very least is unnecessary.

This is what frightens the religionists most about atheist/science thought; we've moved beyond them.

If only we could stop them infecting the children.

[ThaGovna]

10:19 AM on 07/16/2010

I feel that's pretty much how religion came about; we simply didn't know what to make of the world around us so we created explanations. The fact that they have endured (each altering earlier myths to new times and places) doesn't mean they are correct.

I wouldn't go as far as saying religion has nothing to offer though. True, it has been a significant source of pain for a myriad of reasons (the most pressing to Americans currently being the jihad we feel we can crush), but it has also been a source of joy and hope to many was well.

I also agree with you about how theists being afraid of losing relevance. Before they are able to ride a bike they've been made to believe what they are being taught is infallible. The very fact there is someone else on the planet who thinks differently is a threat, though none would admit I'm sure. When you are threatened you defend yourself; sometimes going as far as ending a life.

I understand what you're saying about stopping people from "infecting" the children, but they are their children to raise. I think a better solution is to get the religious to refrain from dictating to other peoples how they should live their lives. I've no problem with my neighbor being religious as long as they do nothing to alter the way I'd like to live my life when the way I live my life does no harm to anyone.

[reasonable111]

02:07 AM on 07/18/2010

What a bunch of elitist claptrap. You've come to believe your own "superiority" even when someone points out that a religionist came up with something that was clearly a major scientific moment in the history of mankind.

Now you and others "know" better.....

What a laugh.

[Lordsuhn]

12:48 PM on 07/15/2010

I saw this interview and I was struck by the lack of substance in anything she said.

[knerd]

04:13 AM on 07/15/2010

Let's look at the coin and see who's on it. Religion heads. Tails science. Give to science what is science's and give the rest to God.

[f0rTyLeGz]

07:36 PM on 07/14/2010

I dont see anything that religion can bring to science. What has any religious leader said that any scientist should consider?

[KrautMan]

07:41 PM on 07/14/2010

"What has any religious leader said that any scientist should consider?"

Umm, "Recant or burn at the stake!" would be one thing for instance...

[f0rTyLeGz]

08:49 PM on 07/14/2010

Good point!

[whirlpool]

12:55 PM on 07/15/2010

Fr. Richard Rohr has described a theology that a scientist like myself can certainly consider. So has Chet Raymo in his book When God is Gone Everything is Holy.

[iDM]

01:41 PM on 07/14/2010

Jon Stewart made a mistake. It is not anti-matter that pervades our universe, it is DARK MATTER. I am currently working on a research project that is searching for dark matter particles (Weakly Interacting Massive Particles.. also known as WIMPs). This is not just some made up fantasy, dark matter exists, has been proven to exist through a variety of methods such as gravitational lensing and measurements of the rotational velocities of galaxies. It has been shown by many experiments that there is a bunch of matter that is literally invisible to the eye, yet it exerts a necessary gravitational force on galaxies. The problem now is to figure out what exactly this sort of particle could be, hence you have experimenters now attempting to directly detect dark matter. This is not magic or make believe, it is the result of decades of theoretical and experimental work.
I agree with Ms. Robinson in that science and religion need to work together, but the scientific method is 100% more reliable than religious texts and the word of preachers who have no basis for their claims except faith. "Look around you" is not a good reason to believe in a specific god.. who to me seems more human-like than god-like, anyway.

[petegrif]

05:36 PM on 07/14/2010

thank you

[Day Brown]

01:19 PM on 07/15/2010

Religous 'texts' are not limited to Levantine scripture. That's a strawman. Confucian, Taoist and Buddhist texts do not rely on claims of divine authority, but are manifestly true if you meditate on them. None of them define 'god' as an alpha male tyrant.

They are all about getting on in this world, not preparing for the next.

[laocoon]

07:17 PM on 07/16/2010

the true tao does not lord it over others.

[laocoon]

08:24 PM on 07/16/2010

If by Levantine scripture you refer to the Bible, you should consider the first two matters presented in the first book of the New Testament as proof of Jesus being the Messiah. Matthew begins in a very very odd way if you read it with fresh eyes. Does Y in Exodus even define himself at all. When Moses literally insists on a Name, Y gives as a name what can be most literally translated as "I will be what I will be" Not too different from Buddha's word for the ultimate which is almost literally "Thatness" We have let those who are as literalistic as 3 year olds and only rely on some parts --tell us what the Bible means to say. I think we should look deeper.

[AtheistUS]

12:20 PM on 07/14/2010

"...the conflict between them has developed relatively recently" - now, that's really ridiculous.

Meanwhile, CNN right now dives into depth of stupidity, making a vote on their cite on "what came first" with two options: "checken" or "egg". I did not look at results of the vote.

[3fingerbrown]

07:52 AM on 07/15/2010

Well, of course, the word "relatively" is relative, isn't it? If by "relatively" she means within the last 500 or 600 years, she's right. That's a drop in the chronological bucket when considering the entire history of human civilization.

[AtheistUS]

09:26 PM on 07/16/2010

Hm... "the last 500 or 600 years" - and how old is science in your opinion?

[spitpie]

10:49 AM on 07/14/2010

Science studies what is observable. I have absolutely no arguments with the process of science. However, science has taught us how limited humans are in their perception. We can only physically witness so much of the physical world. Therefore, science is not limited, but we are. Of course science cannot observe God - he is not physical. Science can, however, disprove many elements of religious scripture and history, so fundamentalists and bible literalism are screwed. That said, I think it is rather silly to try to take a literal interpretation from a people with a strong history of storytelling a parable. The truth is not always literal.

[AtheistUS]

12:21 PM on 07/14/2010

"Of course science cannot observe God - he is not physical" - He/she/it does not exists?
What means "not physical"?

[Day Brown]

01:29 PM on 07/15/2010

Nietzsche, "The Birth of Tragedy" says that whereas Dionysianism was based on works of theater claiming allegorical truth, the Levantine religions were based on works of literature claiming literal truth.

If you just dont get it, it makes perfect sense to prefer the latter. Ovid does not claim to be giving us the 'veritable word of god'.

Whether Zeus & Hera went to see Tiresias, is not the point. The child of Aphrodite & Hermes, the gods who epitomized sexuality, Tiresias was sometimes a man or a woman, and had sex both ways. So, when Tiresias said the woman got more pleasure from sex, Hera:"you're such a fine judge, I'll make you like all other referees." blinding Tiresias. Zeus:"I cant undo what she did, but if you cant see the present, I'll fix it so you can see the future."

Ovid is not about the nature of gods, but of humanity.