[Osx-nutters] The separation of church and state.

[Anthony Morton]

>> It only requires you to adopt a scientific approach while you are 
>> doing science.
>
> See that kind of makes it sound like their heart isn't in it. "Got to 
> think that way when I'm on the job, but I can suspend it as soon as I 
> leave the lab." This person is not a scientist for me.

So, essentially what you are arguing is that science is a way of life, 
not just a method for investigating the natural world.  It's rather 
more than most scientists claim for their discipline.

Now, if what you mean by 'science' here is really just the rational 
Enlightenment worldview, as the discussions have been suggesting, it 
may be a defensible position.  The thing is, it's entirely possible to 
be rational about religion as well.  If you read something like Blaise 
Pascal's Pensées, or much of Teilhard de Chardin's stuff, or a lot of 
contemporary high-church theology, there's really nothing anti-rational 
or 'mythic' in there to speak of.  Speculative yes, but scarcely more 
so than the more esoteric realms of theoretical physics.  It really is 
'thinking about God' in the same way that having opinions about Pride 
and Prejudice is 'thinking about literature'.

That's the thing: once you move away from the Biblical-literalist 
smiting-deity style of religion, it ceases to be radically opposed to 
the spirit of scientific enquiry.

At the same time, it's interesting that undergraduate science classes 
seem to be fertile recruiting grounds for religious fundamentalism.  I 
think we teach a naive approach to science at our peril, whether that 
be 'science as natural enemy of religion' or 'science as body of 
unquestionable knowledge'.

Tony M.