Non-Overlapping Magisteria
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| − | One of the criticisms of the NOMA concept is that, in practice, it is sometimes used as an excuse to try to make religious doctrines ''totally immune'' from examination. Religious individuals often feel that statements concerning [[empiricism|empirical]] [[reality]] - such as the theory of [[evolution]] - that conflict with [[fundamentalism|literal readings]] of religious work are overstepping the "bounds" proposed by NOMA. This is a little strange, because according to the doctrine, religion should have never made statements about reality in the first place. Still, this often leads to NOMA being more of a "one-way street" in the sense that science is not allowed to examine [[miracle]]s or [[prayer|prayer]] or not to conduct any research that would have a detrimental effect on people's ideas about divine intervention. When such research has already been done, NOMA can be used to justify ignoring evidence that doesn't fit the religious worldview. For example, regarding the famously [[prayer#Double-blind tests|negative prayer studies]] it is often questioned whether religious persons would maintain their NOMA stance should the result have been positive; if NOMA says that science can't disprove religious ideas, then it certainly can't provide evidence for them. Of course the science of [[evolution]] has disproved the first Two Chapters of [[Guide to Genesis|Genesis]], modern astronomy has disproved a great deal of biblical cosmology etc. Treating "sacred texts" that are clearly flawed in their understanding of the physical universe as unquestionable guides to morality is clearly inconsistent. [[Ethics | + | One of the criticisms of the NOMA concept is that, in practice, it is sometimes used as an excuse to try to make religious doctrines ''totally immune'' from examination. Religious individuals often feel that statements concerning [[empiricism|empirical]] [[reality]] - such as the theory of [[evolution]] - that conflict with [[fundamentalism|literal readings]] of religious work are overstepping the "bounds" proposed by NOMA. This is a little strange, because according to the doctrine, religion should have never made statements about reality in the first place. Still, this often leads to NOMA being more of a "one-way street" in the sense that science is not allowed to examine [[miracle]]s or [[prayer|prayer]] or not to conduct any research that would have a detrimental effect on people's ideas about divine intervention. When such research has already been done, NOMA can be used to justify ignoring evidence that doesn't fit the religious worldview. For example, regarding the famously [[prayer#Double-blind tests|negative prayer studies]] it is often questioned whether religious persons would maintain their NOMA stance should the result have been positive; if NOMA says that science can't disprove religious ideas, then it certainly can't provide evidence for them. Of course the science of [[evolution]] has disproved the first Two Chapters of [[Guide to Genesis|Genesis]], modern astronomy has disproved a great deal of biblical cosmology etc. Treating "sacred texts" that are clearly flawed in their understanding of the physical universe as unquestionable guides to morality is clearly inconsistent. [[Ethics#Ethics without Religion|Ethics without Religion]] avoids problems with Bronze Age and Iron Age religious texts. |
===Problems with ethics=== | ===Problems with ethics=== | ||
Revision as of 14:35, 13 August 2011
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The Non-Overlapping Magisteria concept (often abbreviated to NOMA) was proposed by Stephen Jay Gould in his book Rocks of Ages. Gould hoped it would be a way to eliminate the conflict between science and religion by suggesting that both contribute to different areas of human existence and give meaning to life in different ways. The NOMA stance affirms the idea that science is based on methodological naturalism and offers no insight into issues of what is morally right or wrong. Gould suggested that although science automatically assumes a lack of supernatural causation in its methods, it does not make any definite statements about the existence of the supernatural. He also argued that the two "magisteria" were so different that they could not inform, comment on or criticize each other.
The topic was revisited by Barbara Smith in her book Natural Reflections and by Stanley Fish in a review of the same.[1] Smith discusses how both religion and science seek what she calls "underneath-it-all status," but that they should not be viewed as competing.
Contents |
Pros
NOMA hopes to provide an end to the conflict thesis between science and religion by establishing a demarcation. The two are proposed as describing entirely different things; science describing what is known and religion giving answers to what cannot be known. Provided one isn't a biblical literalist, this is an attractive position. An advocate of NOMA can be confident that their religious beliefs cannot be affected by the materialism of science, and in theory, science can be confident that supernatural entities cannot mess around with its work regarding the understanding of reality.
Critics of NOMA
Problems with empirical investigation
One of the criticisms of the NOMA concept is that, in practice, it is sometimes used as an excuse to try to make religious doctrines totally immune from examination. Religious individuals often feel that statements concerning empirical reality - such as the theory of evolution - that conflict with literal readings of religious work are overstepping the "bounds" proposed by NOMA. This is a little strange, because according to the doctrine, religion should have never made statements about reality in the first place. Still, this often leads to NOMA being more of a "one-way street" in the sense that science is not allowed to examine miracles or prayer or not to conduct any research that would have a detrimental effect on people's ideas about divine intervention. When such research has already been done, NOMA can be used to justify ignoring evidence that doesn't fit the religious worldview. For example, regarding the famously negative prayer studies it is often questioned whether religious persons would maintain their NOMA stance should the result have been positive; if NOMA says that science can't disprove religious ideas, then it certainly can't provide evidence for them. Of course the science of evolution has disproved the first Two Chapters of Genesis, modern astronomy has disproved a great deal of biblical cosmology etc. Treating "sacred texts" that are clearly flawed in their understanding of the physical universe as unquestionable guides to morality is clearly inconsistent. Ethics without Religion avoids problems with Bronze Age and Iron Age religious texts.
Problems with ethics
Advocates of NOMA - particularly religious ones - sometimes don't afford the same protection to scientific methods to be free from religious input, as such views are still allowed to comment on policies relating to scientific ethics, and essentially having a say on what science can and can't study legally. Issues such as stem cell research show a potential conflict.[2]
Criticism
The system itself has met with some resistance and harsh criticisms from figures such as Richard Dawkins (who suggests that Gould was straining to be apologetic when he proposed it), PZ Myers and numerous other so-called new atheists. These critics propose that questions such as the existence of God can be tested just like any other material hypothesis and that, in principle, even things that are "outside our universe" are still within the grasp of human understanding and the scientific method.[3]
The reasons for this are that God's alleged effects on the material world are, of course, material and can be studied much in the same way that all science really just detects real-world cause and effect relationships. In this sense, critics reject the "non-overlapping" aspect of the two magisteria and conclude that if the two genuinely didn't overlap, supernatural entities would have no effect on the real world and thus their existence, or not, is a moot point. Further archaeologists and historians are able to study the religious texts of Christianity and other religions and give findings about how reliable or unreliable these texts are.
See also
- Accommodationism
- Debate:Is Non-overlapping magisteria merely political correctness?
- Escape hatch
- Goddidit
- Theistic evolution
- Templeton foundation
Footnotes
- ↑ http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/01/18/must-there-be-a-bottom-line/
- ↑ http://www.bigquestionsonline.com/columns/susan-jacoby/the-myth-of-separate-magisteria
- ↑ See Victor Stenger's God: The Failed Hypothesis for a comprehensive examination of this approach.