On Sunday, NBC’s Chuck Todd asked Carson, a former neurosurgeon, how science could coexist with his conservative Christian principles…. “A person’s religious beliefs are the things that make them who they are, gives them a direction in their life,” Carson opined. “But I do not believe that religious beliefs should dictate one’s public policies and stances.”…. “I find, a very good measure of correlation between my religious beliefs and my scientific beliefs — people say, how can you be a scientist, how can you be a surgeon if you don’t believe in certain things?” he continued. “Maybe those things aren’t scientific. Maybe it’s just propaganda.”
It should be an easy distinction to make. Religion requires faith, the belief in something you can’t see, feel, or experience in the realm of certainty. Science is all about the realm of certainty; it’s about what can be seen, proven, and demonstrated to be real and factual. While some may try hard to conflate religion with science, there really isn’t anything in the way of common ground between the two, other than neither by itself holds all the answers to the burning questions of the universe. That’s not to say that a scientist can’t also harbor a sincerely held religious belief, of course. Neither religion nor science hold all the answers to the mysteries of human existence, but to use religion as a filter to judge the validity of science is patently absurd. No reasonable person would try to start a Ford with the key to a Chevy and expect the engine to turn over. Using your religious faith as a way to discern science from “propaganda” is every bit as absurd.
Granted, Ben Carson is doing his best to broaden his appeal among the Rabid Christian Right while simultaneously trying to present himself as serious Presidential timbre. It’s not unlike trying to have your cake and eat it, too. The truth is that he’s going to fail miserably on both counts if he continues trying to establish religion as a counterbalance against scientific “propaganda.” Frankly, science can do a much better job of explaining religion than vice versa, though neither is particularly well-suited for the task.
Religion cannot disprove the validity of science, but science can quite ably demonstrate the religion has little to no basis in empirical reality. Check and mate.
If you’re tempted to argue my point, please keep one thing in mind: Carson has with no hint of irony or apology compared the U.S. with Nazi Germany on more than one occasion. Call me back when Barack Obama decides that killing six million Jews is the thing to do.
