Where and Why Science and Religion Conflict

By David Kyle Johnson

More than two decades ago, in Skeptical Inquirer, Stephen Jay Gould famously defended the
NOMA thesis—the idea that science and religion cannot be in conflict because they are about
“non-overlapping magisteria.”

The lack of conflict between science and religion arises from a lack of overlap between
their respective domains of professional expertise—science in the empirical constitution
of the universe, and religion in the search for proper ethical values and the spiritual
meaning of our lives.1

To this day, it is common for academics (both believers and non-believers) to regard Gould’s
argument to be the final word on the topic. “Science and religion do not and cannot conflict.”
I will argue, however, that not only can science and religion conflict, but science and
religion do conflict on issues of grandiose significance. Religion is not only about ethics and
meaning; it also makes claims about the empirical universe that are not only fundamentally
unscientific, but that religious believers defend with unscientific reasoning. My full argument to
this effect is lengthy—and for the full argument you can see my recent article in the journal
SHERM2—but to begin the brief argument I will present here, we must first understand a bit
about what religion and science are.

Defining Religion and Science

Religion is notoriously difficult to define; for our purposes here, it will suffice to show that
religion is undeniably not only about morality, meaning, and value. For example (as Gould
himself admits), Christians make claims about the existence of the soul and God. These are
ontological claims (claims about what exists)—not claims about ethics, meaning, or value.
Religions also proclaim the occurrence of miracles. Regardless of what meaning might be drawn
by the happening of a miracle, the claim that a miracle has happened is a claim about an event in
the natural world. As such, it is clearly false that religion only makes claims about ethics and
meaning.
Science is similarly misunderstood. It is not merely a process by which one tests
hypotheses via experiment. Now, it’s important to note that scientific experimentation is
designed to guard against the many ways our experience and memory can lead us astray.
Scientific tests must be rigorously controlled and repeatable. And anything that fails to recognize
the known inaccuracies and biases of human perception and memory, and guard against them,
cannot be said to scientific. But it’s also important to note that scientific reasoning is not
confined to the lab.
As I and others have argued elsewhere, scientific reasoning is best understood as an
exercise in abduction (a.k.a., inference to the best explanation).3 When doing abduction, multiple
hypotheses are compared according to (what Ted Schick calls) the criteria of adequacy:
testability, fruitfulness, scope, simplicity, and conservatism. Does it make novel predictions?
Then the hypothesis is testable. Does it get those predictions right? It’s fruitful. The more a
hypothesis explains, the wider its scope. The fewer assumptions or entities it presupposes, the
simpler (more parsimonious) it is. And the more it coheres with what we already have good
reason to believe, the more conservative it is. The hypothesis that coheres most (among the
competing hypotheses) with these criteria is said to be the most adequate. And the most adequate
explanation is the best explanation; it is the one that should be accepted.4 This is how scientific
discoveries are made, and even how scientific paradigm shifts happen.
Science also does not tolerate logically fallacious reasoning—like appealing to ignorance.
Any line of reasoning that suggests that an inability to prove something false is a reason to think
it true is unscientific. The same is true for arguments that commit the “mystery therefore magic”
fallacy5 or make unfalsifiable ad hoc excuses to save themselves from the evidence.6 Such
mistakes are not only illogical, but contrary to the scientific endeavor.
Now, to be clear, being unscientific is not the same as being non-scientific. My belief
that, say, it is wrong to torture babies for fun is non-scientific. It is not based in scientific
reasoning. And that’s fine; that’s good even. Science does not exhaust the realm of human
knowledge and having some non-scientific beliefs is unavoidable. But to believe something
despite scientific evidence or reasoning to the contrary is unscientific. And as I shall now show,
contrary to the claims of many, a host of religious beliefs are not merely non-scientific—they are
unscientific. Thus science and religion are undeniably in conflict.

Creationism and The Soul

In a way, Gould refutes his own thesis before he even states it. In his introduction, he
acknowledges that creationism is in conflict with science and that creationism is a religious
doctrine. Obviously, in making a statement about how old the universe is and how life
originated, creationism interjects itself into the realm of science. Because it makes statements
that are empirically and verifiably false, and invokes clearly unscientific defenses (e.g., ad hoc
excuses like “Satan planted ancient fossils to make the universe seem older than it is”),
creationism is unscientific. But, for Gould, this does not show that religion proper is
unscientific; rather creationism is a fringe movement, popular only is certain small
fundamentalist segments of America.
About this, however, Gould could not be more wrong. First, regardless of how popular it
is, creationism is still a counterexample to Gould’s thesis—a clear example of where the
magisterium of science and religion overlap. But second: creationism is wildly popular in
America and has even taken a foothold in Islam.7 Indeed, despite the fact that biblical literalism
(which views the entire Bible as literally true) is a relatively new phenomena, 8 literal readings of
Genesis and the creation story are not new. Creationism (although it may not have been always
called that) has been the dominant view, in Christianity, about the origins of the world, for the
majority of Christianity’s existence.9 Pope Pius XII's Humani Generis, which Gould cites, only
begrudgingly admits that evolution is probably true…and even roots for it to be eventually
proven false. And the fact that the Jesuit priests Gould met at a conference are perplexed by
creationism’s popularity doesn’t change that. Creationism is a religious doctrine and is clearly in
conflict with science.
There is another even more popular religious view that Gould mentions, however, which
is also in conflict with science: belief in the existence of souls. Gould maintains “souls represent
a subject outside the magisterium of science,”10 but this is decidedly not the case. The doctrine
that humans have souls is the suggestion that our mentality is housed in a separable substance—
one that can separate from our body when we die—but neuroscience has shown this to be false.
Our mentality is produced by our brains and cannot exist without it. When certain parts of the
brain cease to function, corresponding elements of our mentality or mental abilities disappear.
Stimulating the brain in certain places produces specific kinds of experiences. Our behavior is a
product of our brain’s neural activity, not the result of decisions made in our soul. Everything the
soul was once thought to do is now known to be done by the brain. Worse still, the idea that
events in a non-material substance could causally affect the material world contradicts many
well-established laws of science, like the conservation of energy and the causal closure of the
physical.11 Belief in the soul is monumentally unscientific.
One might argue the idea that souls exist is not a central religious doctrine, but such an
argument would not have much to stand on. Although it is an idea that was borrowed from Greek
philosophy, it is a doctrine central to works of religious thinkers in the Western world. The
separation of one’s soul from the body upon death is how many religious believers think we
enter the afterlife. As Gould himself admits, Pope Pius XII and Pope John Paul were able to
endorse evolution’s possible truth only because they thought evolution was compatible with the
Catholic belief that human souls are created and bestowed by God. As Baker and Gotez put it,
“Most people, at most times, in most places, at most ages, have believed that human beings have
some kind of soul.”12
Worse still, the defenses religious believers give for the soul to try to counteract the
neuroscientific evidence are, themselves, unscientific. “The soul still exists,” they insist. “It’s
just that causing our brain’s neural activity is how the soul causes our behavior.”13 This is merely
an unfalsifiable ad hoc excuse to save the theory from the evidence, much like the ad hoc
excuses people made to save the idea that heat was due to a substance called phlogiston. Once
you realize that the phenomena in question can be explained merely by physical activity –
whether it be the movement of atoms or the activity of neutrons—there is no need invoke an
extra substance. To do so is non-simple and thus unscientific.

Modern Day Miracles

Other religious beliefs which Gould doesn’t mention are also incompatible with science. Take
the belief in modern day miracles, for example. It’s clear that “miracles occur today” is not a
belief about ethics or meaning; and it’s equally clear that it is unscientific. It, for example, rejects
the methodical naturalism (which assumes that natural events have natural causes) that lies at the
heart of all scientific reasoning.14 But the arguments that the religious put forth in favor of belief
in miracles are wholly unscientific as well.
 Take the reasoning process that usually justifies such belief. If someone’s cancer
spontaneously goes into remission, and doctors don’t understand why, the religious will invoke
the divine to explain it. “It’s a miracle. How else do you explain it?” Yet this is the same kind of
unscientific fallacious thinking one embraces if one concludes Penn & Teller have magic powers
because one cannot explain how they seem to catch bullets in their teeth. “It’s magic? How else
do you explain it?” This is the aforementioned “mystery therefore magic” fallacy, and embracing
it is monumentally unscientific.
Or take the process that the Vatican uses for the canonization of saints. Upon the report
that someone was sick, prayed to a deceased Pope, and then got better, if no natural explanation
for the recovery is forthcoming, the Vatican will conclude that it was the deceased Pope that was
the cause of the recovery.15 Not only does this invoke the “mystery therefore magic” fallacy and
extra inexpiable entities (making the “Pope did it” explanation low-scoping and non-simple), it
also employs the same kind of anecdotal reasoning that pseudoscientists use to prop up quack
cures. “Someone was sick, they took my special pill, and now they are better. I can see no other
explanation. My special pill works!” As any logician will tell you, correlation does not
necessarily entail causation. And as any medical professional will tell you, any number of other
things could be the cause of their recovery: they could be subject to the placebo effect, have
already been on the mend, or done something else you weren’t aware of that made them better.
And that’s true, no matter how severe the illness. Only multiple, independent, double blind
studies can establish beyond a reasonable doubt that a particular action or treatment has a causal
effect on an illness. Thinking anything else can is monumentally unscientific.
And then there is the basic unscientific mistakes regarding probability that often lies
behind belief in miracles. Consider the common list of stories that pop up when people ask
“Where was God on 9/11?”

[T]he head of one company survived 9/11 because he took his son to kindergarten.
Another fellow is alive because it was his turn to bring donuts.
Another lady was late because her alarm clock didn't go off on time.
One was late as a result of being stuck on the NJ Turnpike because of an auto accident.
One more survivor missed his bus.16

The list is lengthy and implies God caused these events to save people’s lives. They are “modern
day miracles.” Of course, given the number of people who worked in the twin towers, thing like
this were bound to happen every day. After all, it had to be someone’s turn to bring the donuts.
So there is no need to invoke the supernatural. To think otherwise is to simply misunderstand
basic probability. The likelihood that you will win the lottery is low; that someone will win is
guaranteed. Unlikely events happen all the time. Yet such reasoning is indicative of Christian
reasoning about most miracles. When something that is unlikely to happen to a specific person at
a specific time occurs (perhaps they survived a car wreck, perhaps they threw for exactly 316
yards against the Steelers), they chalk it up to divine intervention. Such reasoning is
monumentally unscientific and thus so is the religious belief in modern day miracles.
 Belief in Holy Men
Sathya Sai Baba was a Hindu man from India who claimed to be a reincarnation of Shiva. To
bolster his claim, he performed miracles in front of giant crowds: healings, disappearances,
omnipotence, turning water into oil—he even raised people from the dead. Eyewitness to these
events abound, are still alive, and proudly believe as a result. There’s even YouTube videos! His
followers number in the millions.
Mention this to the average Christian, however, and they will be quick to apply the
scientific method. What’s the better explanation? That he was a god-man? Or that he used sleight
of hand and illusions, and depended upon people’s gullibility to not see through them? Did he
really resurrect people from the dead? Or did the medically uneducated simply mistake illness
for death and become amazed when someone they thought was dead got better? Or could it even
be that the bulk of these stories are either exaggerated or just made up out of whole cloth?
Clearly, the natural explanations are better. They invoke no extra entities, so are simpler. They
do not contradict known laws (like the dead stay dead) and so are more conservative. And they
can be used to explain a host of other similar “holy-man” stories. And the Christian here is right:
belief that Sathya Sai Baba is a miracle performing man-god is wholly unscientific.
But change the name in the story from Sathya Sai Baba to Jesus and now the natural
explanation is unjustified? Unlike with Baba, belief in the miracles of Jesus, his divine status,
and resurrection is somehow scientific? This, of course, is ludicrous. Indeed, we have more
reason to believe in the miracles of Baba than we do of Jesus: videos and living eyewitnesses.
For the miracles and divine status of Jesus, all we have is third hand accounts, written by non-
eye-witnesses, thirty years after the fact that have been unreliably copied and translated for 2000
years.17 Given their primitive and uneducated state, first century Palestinians were even less able
tell the difference between illness and death, and even more likely to spread false and
exaggerated stories. Clearly, the belief that anyone is or was a miracle performing god-man, in
any religion, is monumentally unscientific.

Explaining the Universe

So far I have only discussed conflicts generated by religion encroaching into the realm of science
(by making claims about what exists or has happened in the world). Science and religion can also
conflict, however, when science encroaches into what is traditionally held to be the realm of
religion.
In The Limits of Science, Sir Peter Medawar argues that science cannot answer “ultimate
questions” like “What is the point of living?”18 Regarding this specific question, he seems to be
right. Although a life of scientific research could be meaningful, questions about the meaning of
life are beyond the purview of scientific reasoning. So too are questions about moral right and
wrong.19 That’s not to say that such questions are only within the purview of religion. Indeed,
philosophy has much more to say on these topics, and philosophers are often critical of the
answers that religion provides. But it does seem that, if Gould was right and the realm of religion
was restricted to just ethics and meaning, religious claims would be outside the purview of
science.
However, another ultimate question that Medawar says that science can’t answer is “How
did everything begin?” Medawar defends this view using what he calls “The Law of
Conservation of Information,” which states that no more information can be deduced from a data
set than what it already contains. Since the empirical universe cannot contain its own cause, and
the empirical universe is science’s data set, science cannot discover the universe’s cause—or so
the argument goes. But on this point, Medawar is mistaken. Why? In short because science is not
a deductive method of reasoning where the premises of an argument guarantee its conclusion.
Although scientists occasionally derive conclusions from data sets, science itself (as we saw in
the first section) advances though the process of abduction (aka, inference to the best
explanation)—and abduction is an inductive method of reasoning where premises “merely”
provide support for their conclusion.20 Consequently, laws about the limits of deduction are
irrelevant to the limits of science. Indeed, since to test hypotheses scientists must generate them
—and, as Medawar himself admits,21 this process requires imagination and creativity—scientists
propose and confirm hypotheses that are not “derivable” from the data of the natural world.
What’s more, scientists have already done this for the question “How did everything
begin?” In quantum mechanics, the phenomena of vacuum fluctuations—where particles of
matter come into existence, uncaused, via random oscillations in the “quantum foam” —are
common. In true abductive fashion, physicist Ed Tryon has proposed that our universe is simply
the product of a large-scale version of just such a fluctuation.22 And, indeed, this may be the best
explanation. All known properties of the universe are consistent with this hypothesis, which
makes it conservative; and since the “quantum foam” is for all intents and purposes eternal
nothingness, the theory is monumentally simple. Indeed, anything invoked to explain the foam
would demand an explanation more than the foam itself. This is especially true if one were to
invoke an infinite being with infinite properties, like God, as the explanation. And to do so
would be clearly unscientific. So not only do we have a counter example to Medawar’s thesis,
but we have another example where science and religion can and do conflict—this time, where
science has encroached into religion’s traditional role of answering “ultimate questions.”
Speaking of invoking God as an explanation….

Unscientific defenses of theism

Most arguments for God’s existence—like those which invoke God as the explanation of the
existence or supposed “design” of the universe—are also unscientific. Invoking God as an
explanation not only violates science’s aforementioned methodical naturalistic assumptions, but
also betrays nearly every criteria of adequacy. Without an explanation of how God
created/designed the universe, the “God did it” hypothesis (a) raises unanswerable questions and
thus has very little scope23 and (b) interjects a new entity where none is needed.24 So theists often
engage in unscientific reasoning when they argue for God’s existence.
Unscientific methods of reasoning are also often employed by theists to defend their
belief in God from objections. Take skeptical theism, for example, a common answer to the
problem of evil. The problem of evil is the argument that God can’t exist because God wouldn’t
allow evil to exist in the world. In reply, skeptical theists argue that no evil, in any amount, could
ever count as evidence against God’s existence because God could potentially have reasons we
simply can’t comprehend for allowing evil. So all life on Earth could be eradicated by an
asteroid, and right before he dies the last man standing could just shrug and say “Doesn’t prove
that God doesn’t exist! For all I know, [gasp] God has a reason. [Thud.]”
Elsewhere I have argued that skeptical theism is not probabilistically sound. Even if God
could have reasons we can’t understand for allowing evil, evil still counts as evidence against
God’s existence.25 But skeptical theism is also monumentally unscientific. Why? Because it
makes belief in God unfalsifiable and anything that is unfalsifiable is by definition unscientific.
Skeptical theism essentially makes theism like David Icke’s belief that lizard aliens rule the
world; to every piece of evidence against his theory, Icke replies “the lizard aliens have reasons
for making it seem like they don’t run the world when they actually do.” A world run by lizard
aliens is indistinguishable from one that isn’t.26 In the same way, skeptical theism entails that a
world run by God is indistinguishable from one that isn’t. Both claims are undeniably
unscientific.
Theists will also misapply logical fallacies to defend their theism. Recall the arguments
of atheist Daniel Dennett who suggests that belief in God is something that arose naturally in
society and does not have causal origins in the actual existence of a deity.27 Theists will dismiss
such arguments on the basis of the “genetic fallacy,” which one commits when one wrongly
takes the origin of a belief to be a reason to dismiss that belief.28 This theistic reply, however,
actually misunderstands the genetic fallacy. It is wrong to dismiss the evidence for a belief based
on the origin of that belief; this much is true. The fact that the ring structure of benzene came to
Friedrich Kekulé in a dream is not a reason to dismiss the monumental amount of evidence for
the ring structure of benzene that we have gathered since Kekulé’s dream. But discovering that
belief in the existence of something does not causally trace back to the existence of that thing,
but is instead the product of circumstances and culture, is a reason to doubt the existence of that
thing.
For example, telling the story of how belief in Santa Claus originates in an ancient
mythical pagan deity creates a compelling reason to believe that Santa Claus doesn’t exist. 29
Realizing that belief in the Chupacabra traces back to a story told by Madelyne Tolentino who
had trouble delineating reality from the movie Species is good reason to believe that the
Chupacabra doesn’t exist.30 And cogent arguments that belief in God is something people just
made up are good reason to believe that God doesn’t exist. Dismissing such arguments to
continue to believe in such things in the name of the genetic fallacy is decidedly unscientific.

Conclusion: Replying to objections

Many maintain that the important claims common among the religious are outside of the purview
of science; one can believe them without being unscientific. I have shown that this is false. Some
of the most important and widely held religious beliefs (about miracles, souls, God, and god-
men) are undeniably unscientific—as unscientific as belief in quack medicine, magic, phlogiston,
and lizard aliens. But since I first defended this thesis in a series of posts for Scientia Salon, 31 my
arguments have been subjected to a host of objections. To close, I’d like to briefly reply.
First, my claim is not that all religious beliefs are unscientific. Clearly when religion does
ethics, for example, it’s just being non-scientific. And that’s fine. Philosophy is often non-
scientific too, and there is no problem there. It was also not my goal to prove that all religious
people are unscientific. Although they are rare, some religious people do reject every one of the
beliefs and arguments that I have shown to be unscientific. Perhaps, for them, religion really is
just about morality, meaning, and value. If so, those particular people are not being unscientific.
But such persons cannot save all religious believers vicariously; the fact that one progressive
believer doesn’t believe in miracles doesn’t prevent everyone else’s belief in miracles from being
unscientific.
Religious believers who do reject all the beliefs that I have addressed are probably like
Karen Armstrong, who argues that religious language is non-literal and sees religion as a set of
practices, rather than a set of doctrines.32 She would likely criticize my argument by suggesting
that I am endorsing a naïve literalist view that wrongly thinks it can define, set forth, and defend
the existence of God like a scientific doctrine. My reply to this is straightforward: I’m simply
meeting people where they are at. The literalist view may not be what some academics endorse,
but it does capture the way the vast majority of people approach religion.33 And it’s that approach
I continually hear people claim is compatible with science (including academics who offer up
supposedly scientific arguments for things like God and the soul).34 It is therefore completely
appropriate to identify such views as unscientific and will continue to be until the populace
rejects the naïve literalist view.35
Alvin Plantinga would likely argue that the “sensus divinitatis” (a kind of religious
experience) can provide non-propositional evidence for the religious beliefs in question and,
therefore, make the religious beliefs I have mentioned rational and scientific, despite the
evidence to the contrary.36 But the idea that personal experience can override facts and evidence
is itself monumentally unscientific. Remember science is designed to guard against the ways our
senses can lead us astray because our senses are not as reliable as we assume. How much more
unreliable must something like the “sensus divinitatis” be? Consequently, how much more
unscientific must it be to base belief, or reject scientific evidence and argument, in its name?
Lastly, in response to my arguments, one colleague of mine has said that he
compartmentalizes. He is scientific in the lab, and even in the rest of his life, but chooses to be
unscientific when it comes to religious belief. This, of course, grants me my thesis—but still
needs a reply: Such compartmentalization is perhaps possible, but it is not noble, justifiable, or
rational. It’s something you do to continue to believe what you want. One who does this loses
their right to criticize or correct others when they choose to be unscientific in other realms…like
when it comes to climate change, vaccines, or conspiracy theories. “If you can ignore science to
believe in miracles, why can’t I ignore science to deny climate change?” Given that my
colleague is a scientist, this is clearly something he should want to avoid. Acknowledging that
religious belief is unscientific, but choosing to embrace it anyway, sets a dangerous precedent.
 So don’t be fooled into thinking that religious belief is wholly and completely compatible
with science. It decidedly is not.
1
Gould, Stephen Jay. 1999. “Non Overlapping Magisteria.” Skeptical Inquirer, Vol. 23, No. 4,
56.
2
Johnson, David Kyle. 2020. “Identifying the Conflict between Religion and Science,” SHERM
Vol 2, No. 1. Don’t published until I include the link here. !!!!????? Reminder???.
3
Johnson, David Kyle 2019. “Inference to the Best Explanation and Avoiding Diagnostic Error”
in Ethics and Medical Error (ed Fritz Allhoff and Sandra Borden). New York: Routledge.
forthcoming). See also McMullin, Ernan. 1992. The Inference that Makes Science. Milwaukee,
WI: Marquette University Press.
4
Schick, Theodore, and Lewis Vaughn. 2019. How to Think about Weird Things: Critical
Thinking for a New Age, Eighth Edition. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill, Chapter 5.
5
See Johnson, David Kyle. 2018. “Mystery Therefore Magic” in Bad Arguments: 100 of the
Most Important Fallacies in Western Philosophy (eds Robert Arp, Bruce Robert & Steve
Barbone). Hoboken, NH: Wiley-Blackwell, 189-192.
6
Bennet, Bo. 2012. “Ad Hoc Rescue.” In Logically Fallacious: The Ultimate Collection of Over
300 Logical Fallacies (Academic Edition). eBookIt.com Publishing, 19. This article is also
available at https://www.logicallyfallacious.com/tools/lp/Bo/LogicalFallacies/8/Ad-Hoc-Rescue
7
Bennett, Drake. 2009. “Islam’s Darwin Problem: In the Muslim world, creationism is on the
rise.” Boston Globe, Oct. 25.
http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2009/10/25/in_the_muslim_world_creationis
m_is_on_the_rise/
8
It was conceived after Darwin wrote The Origin of Species. See Armstrong, Karren. The Bible:
A Biography. New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, 196-7.
9
Rose, Seraphim. 2000. Genesis, Creation and Early Man: The Orthodox Christian Vision.
Platina, CA: Saint Herman of Alaska Brotherhood.
10
Gould, 60.
11
For a more developed version of the augments I mention here, see Johnson, David Kyle. 2013.
“Do Souls Exist?” Think, Vol 12, No 35., 61-75.
12
Baker, Mark and Stewart Gotez. 2010. The Soul Hypothesis: Investigations into the Existence of the
Soul. New York: Bloomsbury. Introduction.
13
For the latest such defenses of the soul, see Baker and Gotez, 2010.
14
See Novella, Steven. 2018. “Methodological Naturalism and Its Critics.” In The Skeptics’
Guide to the Universe: How to Know What’s Real in a World Increasingly Full of Fake (Steven
Novella, Bob Novella, Cara Santa Maria, Jay Novella, and Evan Bernstein.) New York:
Hachette Book Group, Inc., 144.
15
For a rundown of miracles that are being claimed to be the result of prayers of to Pope John
Paul II, see Allen, John. 2011. “Vatican Announces May 1 Beatification of John Paul II.”
National Catholic Reporter. Jan 14. https://www.ncronline.org/blogs/ncr-today/vatican-
announces-may-1-beatification-john-paul-ii
16
Haranda, Tess. 2006. “Where was God on 9/11?” SwapMeetDave.com. Available at
http://www.swapmeetdave.com/United/Where.htm
17
This speaks to the testability and fruitfulness of the “Jesus is a god-man” hypothesis as well;
one would expect firsthand eyewitness accounts written in Jesus own language (and even by
him) if Jesus were a legitimate miracle worker. There are none.
18
Medawar, P.B. 1984. The Limits of Science. New York: Harper and Row Publishers., 66.
19
Although Sam Harris has argued that scientifically measuring pleasure and pain could
determine which actions are morally right or wrong, that’s true only if utilitarianism (the moral
theory which defines right and wrong in terms of overall pleasure and pain) is the correct
morally theory—and to establish that, you need a philosophic argument—not a scientific one.
See Harris, Sam. 2010. The Moral Landscape. New York: Free Press.
20
I put “merely” in quotes because induction is arguable a more powerful and useful form of reasoning.
21
See Medawar (1984, 83-87).
22
Tryon, Edward. 1973. “Is the Universe a Vacuum Fluctuation?” Nature. Vol. 245., 396-397.
23
Ted Schick likens this to explaining why a bridge collapsed by saying “an invisible
incompressible gremlin it with a mysterious ray gun.” Such answers do not expand our
understanding. Notice that it would not help you build a better bridge that didn’t collapse for the
same reason. (See Schick and Vaughn, 198.)
24
If there must be something that is unexplained, it’s simpler to just make that thing the universe, the
singularity, or the quantum foam, itself.
25
See my 2013 article “A Refutation of Skeptical Theism.” Sophia. Vol. 52, No 3., 425-445 See
also my 2017 article “Skeptical Theism Remains Refuted: A Reply to Perrine” Sophia. Vol.56,
No. 2., 367–371.
26
Icke, David. 1999. The Biggest Secret: 2nd edition. David Icke Books.
27
Dennett, Daniel. 2007. Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon. New York:
Penguin.
28
For a famous example of William Lane Craig accusing Richard Dawkins of this fallacy, see
this YouTube video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uX2uRD4wvYs
29
See my 2015 book, The Myths that Stole Christmas: Seven Misconceptions that Hijacked the
Holiday (and How We Can Take It Back). Washington, D.C.: Humanist Press, Chapter 5.
30
Radford, Benjamin. 2011. Tracking the Chupacabra: The Vampire Beast in Fact, Fiction and
Folklore. Albuquerque, NM: University of New Mexico Press.
31
See my 2014 multipart article “Identifying the conflict between religion and science” in
Scientia Salon (ed Massimo Pigliucii). Part I is available at
https://scientiasalon.wordpress.com/2014/04/08/identifying-the-conflict-between-religion-and-
science-part-i/
32
See Karren Armstrong. 2009. “The Case for God.” New York: Anchor Books.
33
Pew researchers have shown that the beliefs I have criticized here are held by the vast majority
of religious people today Pew Forum. 2008. “U.S. Religious Landscape Survey: Religious
Beliefs and Practices: Diverse and Politically Relevant” June.
http://religions.pewforum.org/pdf/report2-religious-landscape-study-full.pdf
34
See Baker and Gotez, 2010. See also Strobel, Lee. 2014. The Case for a Creator: A Journalist
Investigates Scientific Evidence That Points Toward God. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.
35
This reply also rebuts the objections that my conclusion is trivial and that I am committing the
strawman fallacy.
36
See, for example, Plantinga, Alvin. 2000. Warranted Christian Belief. Oxford University Press.
Chapter 6.