Are science and faith incompatible?
Let's think about the image of the adoration of the magi. Most likely these were Zoroastrian savants, coming from Persia, dedicated to the study of the sky. It is a very significant image of a scientific activity that leads to God: the study of astronomy allowed them to discover the comet, which they interpreted as the sign of a revelation. In general, in the history of humanity, religious beliefs and the study of the cosmos are mixed in cultural traditions, almost always in an inseparable way. Modern Western science constitutes a novelty from this point of view: it undertakes to study the cosmos with a rigorous method and independently of religious convictions relating to the world. In reality it is no coincidence that this intellectual disposition was born in the Christian West, in fact if on the one hand it is the daughter of Greek thought, on the other it is also indebted to the Judeo-Christian doctrine on creation: the world is not God even if He comes, the world is beautiful and good and deserves to be contemplated and known, the world is entrusted to man; the world has its own legitimate autonomy and rationality, which can be investigated by intelligence even on the margins of faith convictions, even if it ultimately leads to God, when intelligence investigates its ultimate foundations. Furthermore, not only are science and faith compatible (indeed, as we have seen, the modern scientific attitude is ultimately indebted to a certain extent to faith) but faith also needs science and research. Science is good for the believer and for the Church in general, neglecting this field means condemning oneself to the fideism of a double truth or bringing the faith closer to superstition. As Benedict XVI said: "I am increasingly convinced that scientific truth, which is in itself a participation in divine truth, can help philosophy and theology to understand ever more fully the human person and God's Revelation on man , a revelation fulfilled and perfected in Jesus Christ.” (Discourse of the Holy Father Benedict XVI to the participants in the plenary session of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences on 31 October 2008). For further information, the web portal of Interdisciplinary Documentation of Science and Faith.
Is the Church against stem cell research?
The Church's position on stem cells is the following: "research on adult stem cells is accepted and encouraged while that on embryonic stem cells is denied". The embryo is considered by the Church as a life and as such it must in fact be respected. Benedict XVI wanted to praise, during the international congress held precisely on this theme, the doctors and protagonists of this research, because they are able to save many lives, but at the same time he wanted to underline the importance of embryonic life. There are three ethical problems behind the use of embryonic stem cells:
- Is it morally licit to produce and/or use living human embryos for the preparation of embryonic stem cells?
- Is it morally licit to carry out therapeutic cloning, through the production of human embryos and their subsequent distribution for the production of embryonic stem cells?
- Is it morally permissible to use embryonic stem cells and differentiated cells obtained from embryonic ones, supplied by other researchers or commercially available?
The Church gives three negative answers, that's why. For the first problem the embryo is considered as living already from the fusion of the gametes, an individual who begins its gradual development at that moment, being a human being has the right to his own life, therefore the ablation of the internal cell mass of the blastocyst is an immoral and illegal act. For the second problem the answer is negative because therapeutic cloning involves the reproduction and destruction of the embryo, falling back into the first problem. For the third question, it doesn't matter where the embryonic stem cells come from, because even if these are commercially available, using them would mean cooperating with the same supplier. To know more click here.
Why are scientists atheists?
According to a widespread opinion, scientists are generally believed to be atheists, starting from the belief that science and faith are incompatible. Actually, scientists are generally not atheists. Many of the greatest researchers have been, and are, believers (Christians or other religious persuasions). The founders of modern science were already believers: Copernicus and Galileo for physics and astronomy, or Mendel, for genetics, who was an Augustinian friar. Even in the contemporary era we can remember G. Lemaitre, priest and great astrophysicist, who laid the foundations of the theory on the beginnings of the universe known to us today as the Big Bang or F. Collins, the American geneticist who led the team of researchers who deciphered the human genome, who in his "Language of God" shows the harmony between faith and science. We can also recall other great scientists who, although not personally believers, were open to dialogue between science and faith as testified by the words of the great physicist Max Planck, famous for his quantum theory "Science and religion are not in conflict, but they need each other to complete each other in the mind of every man who seriously reflects". For more examples click here. From a sociological and statistical point of view they were conducted several searches to evaluate whether scientists are really atheists or not. A 2009 study among members of the American Association for the Advancement of Science revealed that 51 percent of them believe in God or something beyond the natural world, which is less than that of believers in the general population. On the other hand, a study conducted in 2010 by Rice University on 1700 great scientists shows that 70% are believers.
Have neurosciences shown that there is no such thing as freedom?
In the neuroscientific field, an important objection raised against the existence of free will is considered the discovery on the temporal advances of evoked potentials, conducted by Benjamin Libet in the 80s. In summary this neurophysiologist discovered the presence of neuronal electrical activity 300 ms. before the awareness of the action that was about to be performed. The experimental setting envisaged that a person, sitting in front of a monitor with a particular clock, had to move a finger when he wanted to, and remember, with the help of the stopwatch, the exact moment in which he conceived the desire or in any case the impulse to carry out the action. The experimenter had previously placed electrodes capable of detecting the electrical potential (readiness potential) of this decision-making process, and the result of this study, repeated many times, left no room for doubt: even before the subject was aware of the initiative of his own action, the neural circuits had been activated. In the neurophysiological field, an advance of 300 ms. it is to be considered important. The conclusion that was reached was that free will was essentially an illusion, in fact the human being was “tricked” electrically before his own choice. It seems to us that we are free while we do what we do, but the electrophysiological data deny this impression, the movement begins before we decide it. The only freedom that would remain, according to the electrophysiological data, would be that of inhibiting the course of action, once it has started independently of our will. The right of veto. A first reply to this argument is of a strictly logical nature: chronological antecedence is not necessarily causal, according to the adage post hoc non est propter hoc. What happens before does not necessarily cause what comes after. This decisive importance in every science obliges the result of Libet's experiments to be nuanced. The antecedence of electrophysiological activity does not force us to think that this activity is the cause of the action we are about to undertake. A second observation of a more empirical nature is the following. The electric potential on which the entire Libyan argumentative structure hinges is not easy to interpret. Since it was discovered under the name of Bereitschaftspotential (1964) by H. H. Kornhuber, several experiments have followed to understand what role this potential plays within the action and the results of these subsequent investigations have not been conclusive. In a 2007 work Hermann & al. have shown that this potential is activated even before the action has a specific content, thus invalidating the thesis according to which this electrophysiological parameter is directly correlated to the planned action. On the contrary, in light of new experiments, this electrical potential can be recognized as having the role of preparation or anticipation for action, but not as determining the action itself. Speaking more generally, it can be said that to date there are no scientific reasons to doubt the existence of free will.
