3 July 2008The Independent
Does anybody else find it depressing that as science teaching declines in our schools, we do more than ever to push the sterile fictions of religion on children? As a direct result of government policy, Physics and Chemistry are withering while the enforced study of religion – in faith schools – is swelling.
Despite the claims of woolly-headed kum-by-ya multiculturalists, there is a fundamental conflict between science and religion. Science offers a natural explanation of the world, based on empirical observation and reason. Religion offers a supernatural explanation of the world, based on 'divine revelation' – in other words, hallucination.
These two roads lead in different directions. Empirically observing the world will never lead you to conclude that (say) the Archangel Gabriel inseminated a virgin and she produced a Messiah who could produce infinite amounts of fish from a basket.
The more we explore the world with science, the more we find it is not as described in the Holy Books. Their maps, their explanations, their histories – all are empirically false. So the religious can either scramble rather pitifully to deny the facts, as creationists do, or they can turn more and more of their faith into gaseous metaphor, with their 'God' reduced to a distant First Cause.
But what then is the use of the religions our government promotes so enthusiastically? As I've explained elsewhere, it is false to claim these schools get better results: once you factor in their creamed-off intake, they actually underperform. The religious claim instead their beliefs stir awe and wonder and humility in their pupils. But science stirs more awe and wonder and humility – and it has the added advantage of being true. Think about the fact that at one point in our pre-history, after a series of disasters, there were only two thousand of our humanoid ancestors left, on the brink of extinction, in a single remote part of Africa. We are all descended from that one wondering, waning tribe. Doesn't that make you feel more wonder – as Christopher Hitchens puts it – than a burning bush?
Religious people talk a lot about being humble, while insisting they know what the creator of the universe thinks – and what he wants us to eat and think and do with our genitals. Scientists, by contrast, show real humility. They subject their theories to constant doubt and scrutiny and acidic testing – and when the evidence is against them, they admit they are wrong.
The philosopher A.C. Grayling is fond of talking about a scientist he knew who worked for fifteen years propagating a theory – until another scientist delivered a lecture in which he demolished it with hard evidence. It ended with the scientists shaking hands. "Congratulations," he said, "you have proved me wrong." When could this ever happen to religious people? Whenever we produce proof their views are wrong, they simply engage in more theological somersaults; often, they make their lack of evidence a point of pride.
And our school system pushes this preposterous system of faith on our children every day, while the subjects that require evidence – and save millions of lives every day – are allowed to silently wilt.
