Science vs. Religion: Examining the Conflict and Independence Debate

Discipline, field, principles, laws, branch of knowledge, and area of study—these words and phrases serve as synonyms for the term science because they refer to exploration, collection, analysis, and conclusions. Science depends strongly upon data. Belief, worship, faith, theology, church, and divinity—these words serve as synonyms for the term religion because they refer to devotion displayed to a higher power solely based on following a set doctrine. Religion depends upon personal conviction.

According to these synonyms, science, and religion contradict each other. Philosophers have debated this topic for centuries. Even though it is a simple question, philosophers cannot agree on its answer. As an evolutionary biologist, Stephen Jay Gould defines science as the empirical discipline that explains the universe and defines religion as the search for proper ethical values and the spiritual meaning of life. With his Non-Overlapping Magistrates Thesis (NOMA), Gould claims that science and religion have established their separate domains independently of one another. His argument originates in his assumption that science and religion are independent of one another and, actually, in conflict at the same time. This position seems the most reasonable, and it is the position I will defend here.

Independence, conflict, dialogue, and integration are the four perspectives people take when considering the relationship between science and religion. The four significant positions that people tend to acknowledge concerning this relationship are defined as follows. First of all, we have the stance of independence, representing people who think religion and science are separate and do not conflict with one another. The second is conflict, this view is for the people who believe that the two contradict each other. Thirdly, there are the advocates of dialogue, espoused by people who claim that there can be an exchange between the two. Last but not least, we have the proponents of integration offering the claim that science and religion can be somehow synthesized and combined into one. While all human beings are entitled to their own opinion on the issue, people must also be willing to defend their position and make a reasonable argument in favor of it.

Gould’s NOMA Argument would make his view fall under the category of independence. His arguments consist of two simple premises and a conclusion. The two premises go like this: 1) the NOMA thesis is true and 2) if the NOMA thesis is true, then independence is true. Hence concluding that independence is true. I would like to argue against this argument because I do not agree with both of the premises in the NOMA argument. I would like to agree that science and religion are different, but I believe the two to be in conflict. I would also like to point out that even though I agree with the fact that the two are different, I still cannot believe the first premise since it cannot be proven.

Looking at Gould’s argument the first premise only works if we consider NOMA to be true, but there is no way that we could prove the thesis to be true. Let's look at the definition of the NOMA Thesis, the view that science and religion are two distinct domains with their legitimate authority. We can see it is only an opinion. We cannot consider opinions true if they cannot be proven. I would like to argue that an opinion can not be felt with our senses; hence, it is reasonable to question the NOMA thesis since sometimes our senses play tricks on us. Our senses are not always trustworthy, sometimes we can taste, smell, or see something that is not there. Some people might object to the fact that there are things in the world such as air or gravity that are impossible to see, but we can tell these invisible things to the human eye truly exist because they are a priori, meaning there is reasoning behind them to make us believe in them. In this case, we can not simply assume that the NOMA thesis is true since Gould’s view cannot be proven.

I would also like to argue against the second premise of Gould’s argument. The premise states: that if NOMA is true, independence is true. If we were to ignore the validity of NOMA, I would believe that the relationship between science and religion would be in conflict, not independence. Even though both independence and conflict agree that there is a difference between science and religion, one thinks that they are not related at all while the other shows that there is conflicting information. If we answer the question of does god or a superior being exists, it would be a very easy answer if science and religion agreed, but since they do not, people have mixed opinions on the matter. A scientific or an atheist answer to the “Does a superior being exist?” question might be to argue that there is no solid evidence that they did exist and that books such as the Quran and the Bible were simply books. If we were to read the texts, readers would learn that Jesus was able to turn his blood into red wine, he was also able to get resurrected from the dead, Moses was able to split a sea, etc. If we were to scientifically prove these things did happen, it would be very hard. On the other hand, theists might argue that everything happens for a reason, The Bible is a surviving text that tells the stories of god living, god is so superior that we humans cannot see him. There are indeed things that happen for no reason and you could argue that god is behind it all, some examples people often discuss are evolution and the creation of all matter. There are numerous studies and tests done by scientists such as Charles Darwin who has researched the process of evolution and Georges Lemaître who came up with the big bang theory. These theories are widely accepted and more believable than reasons such as god made it this way because there is reasoning behind the conclusions.

There are billions of religions in the world and billions of scientific concepts in the world, Even if we were able to understand all of it, the question about the relationship between religion and science is still hard to answer. There is always a possibility that there is a religion that favors Gould’s NOMA argument and does prove it to be true that we do not know of, but even then I think there will still be people objecting to the argument. Since science usually has one definite outcome and conclusion, I think sometimes we assume religion to be the same, but there are a lot of simple questions that people ignore. Such as: What is religion? What makes something a religion? How many people have to believe in a religion for it to be considered a religion? etc. After all, there are a lot of answers that remain a mystery and it is impossible to be one hundred percent sure of an outcome. I argued against Gould’s NOMA argument simply because I do not agree with his premises, but that is just my opinion which makes my argument just as untrustworthy as his. Until there is evidence that there is one correct answer to the question people can only guess and assume the answer that they believe the most to be true.