the complementarity of science and religion 153human endeavor, especially one so significant as science, for religion, too,
seeks to elevate the human spirit.
Turning to science, the difference of language becomes obvious. Rather
than myth, we find that science is characterized as the most economical way
of speaking of the natural world. Economy of hypothesis is to be preferred.
Science is an idiom of the subjunctive mode. It is an idiom of “if, then.”
Unfortunately, in media presentations the “if ” is omitted. Then things are
stated as fact without regard to what a fact may be. An article might begin by
saying that “if the red shift is cosmological, the universe is expanding,” only
then continue, “The universe is expanding.” Science depends upon methods
which are time-tested but not necessarily without flaws. Since the time of Ba-
con it has been assumed that the law of induction is trustworthy. But as late
as the twentieth century, logicians have challenged the adequacy of inductive
reasoning.
One of the advantages of science is that it is public and universal. The
community of scientists is not bound to a specific culture and seeks to escape
the idiosyncracies of local cultures. Science does not depend upon individual
sleight-of-hand, nor does it make room for revelation in the religious sense.
Nor is it dogmatic in a negative sense; it is ever revising its more trusted
conclusions. I am always a bit suspicious when I see the word “really” in
scientific papers. In 1971, I was in Cambridge where tensions ran high between
“steady state” and big bang cosmologies. At that time, I ran across an article
by Geoffrey Burbidge, who is now at the University of California at San Diego,
entitled, “Was there really a Big Bang?” My first thought was that the article
would reach a new level of profundity, but discovered, upon inspection, that it
was simply a routine defense of steady state theory.^34 When scientists use the
word “real,” it is often for apologetic reasons.
“The Same Domain”: Human Experience
It has often been said that religion is about the supernatural and science is
about the natural. Scientists do not like this division because it plays into the
hands of the religionist. The scientist who denies the existence of the super-
natural is accused of espousing naturalism. It is more economical to say that
religion and science are about the same domain, namely, human experience.
This is because, as I like to say, experience is all there is. Experience is very
tolerant; it answers the questions we put to it. If we ask spiritual questions, we
get spiritual answers; and conversely, if we ask physical questions, we get phys-
ical answers. If I ask, why the planets move, I don’t expect to get the answer,
“because they are put in motion by angels,” even though Newton thought so.
If I ask if there is a heaven, I do not expect a scientific confirmation. It was