Debate:Is Non-overlapping magisteria merely political correctness?

This is a Debate page. Feel free to add your own spin on the story. Please keep it civil! This debate was created by Etaroced.

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Non-Overlapping Magisteria was proposed by Stephen Jay Gould as a method to stop the conflict between religion and science. It tries to define the role of both as equal but separate. Richard Dawkins and Same Harris have both recently argued that science can directly test claims made of religion and that therefor NOMA can not apply. Dawkins has also gone on to claim that Gould did not actually believe NOMA but was merely proposing it as a form of political correctness. What say thee RationalWiki?

I have never read anything by Dawkins that suggests that he said any such thing. He refers to Gould and NOMA various times in "The God Delusion" and he certainly doesn't' make the point there.--Bob^{bing up and down} 04:36, 4 September 2007 (CDT)

Excellent Idea

I think this is a both excellent and quite obvious principle. There's no doubt that theology has no place in science. But the opposite is equally true: Science should have no place in theology, just as it shouldn't have a place in history or literature studies either. --AKjeldsen 18:45, 24 May 2007 (CDT)

No place in history? Archaeology is crucial in separating myth from history.

MiddleMan 12:01, 3 June 2007 (CDT)

When I read AK's entry above, I thought I detected a whiff of heavy sarcasm smoldering in the background. I may be wrong, however. human^{be in} 13:04, 3 June 2007 (CDT)

You could be right... MiddleMan

Hey, I never answered this! No, no sarcasm at all intended. We had a long period in the 50'ies and 60'ies when positivism was all the vogue among Danish historians, who basically thought that if they could just do things the same way as the physicists and chemists did, they could get rid of all those pesky problems with source interpretation and subjectivity and so. That may sound like a good idea in principle, but let me tell you: It made for some spectacularly bad scholarship. It's amazing what an otherwise competent historian will write when he thinks that his opinion is objectively correct and that he can prove it.

So... no scientific theory in the humanities, thank you. We've been there, it doesn't work, and it takes decades to clean up the mess afterwards.

Also, I would place archaeology with the humanities rather than the sciences. It's true that their methods do incorporate a lot of material from the natural sciences, but the primary focus of the field is to study and interpret the cultures of the past, which means its fundamentals are completely different. --AKjeldsen^Godspeed! 16:04, 21 August 2007 (CDT)

So, are you saying that the entirety of the humanities fall under the "theological/religious" magisteria? Not sure I quite understand you now. human^{be in} 19:10, 21 August 2007 (CDT)

Actually, I was just rambling, but I suppose it could be interpreted to suggest a third "Humanities Magisterium". And maybe a fourth "Social Science Magisterium" as well, if you wanted to make things really complex. --AKjeldsen^Godspeed! 03:00, 22 August 2007 (CDT)

For "NOMA"

The concept of NOMA, as formulated by Popes Pius XII and John Paul II, and Stephen J. Gould (an interesting and unintentional collaboration an the part of the first party) relies on each word of the statement. "Non-overlapping" (they should not intrude into each other) and "magisteria", from the Latin meaning, approximately, "area of instruction". SJG did not state that they never overlap, but that they should strive not to, and that they can thereby coexist harmoniously. Dawkins and others have argued basically that there are overlapping areas in which science is clearly correct and religion clearly wrong, and the entire idea is untenable. I would argue that the idea of NOMA is valid for areas in which the two camps fairly clearly do not overlap ("what is the meaning of life?", "how fast can light travel in a vacuum?"). I would also argue that the most interesting bits occur in what SJG delightfully called the "interdigitations" of the two magisteria. When science and religion begin to encroach upon each other, it is usually a fringe group (e.g. American Creationists) who have created a problem where there should be none. The idea of NOMA is philosophic, not scientific. It is acceptable as a model for allowing science and religion to function in the same world. Given that the human mind seems predisposed to believe in religion (IMO), the conflict will exist for a long time, and a rational method of reconciliation is appropriate. I do not believe it sacrifices a scientist's honesty to admit that there are certain questions we cannot ask, much less answer. The fun part is determining which questions those are.--PalMD^-Talk 19:12, 24 May 2007 (CDT)

As insinuated in Logical positivism, the fact that the body of knowledge that intrinsically disavows a religious perspective is infinitely superior in describing reality than the body of knowledge the pre-supposes a religious perspective should eventually cause one to question why you need to pre-suppose the tenants of theology at all? The only reason that religion can insert itself as the dominate force in a question like "what is the meaning of life?" is because there is no verifiable or falsifiable answer to that question. Seems like a God of the gaps of philosophy. If a question can not be answered in such a way that we can have any idea of the accuracy of the response, then thats where God belongs. Etaroced 19:20, 24 May 2007 (CDT)

In defining Religion and Science as Separate but Equal SJgould Make a big steap. It is not practical for Science to try to investigate Religious beliefs or ideas. this Wiki tries to do just that - subject religious ideas such as faith, the soul and biblical interpritations of the the age of the earth to scoientific analysis. I think they a line should be drawn beyond which Science should not pass. (and yes Ill try firefox soon)Tolerance 14:11, 9 April 2008 (EDT)

The soul is purely the realm of faith, unless someone makes a claim about being able to photograph it or some such other testable statement. Once such a statement is made, that statement can be investigated. Likewise, the age of the Earth is something that is testable (If the age is at least X, then Y which is previously unknown should be verifiable). One can tell any story they want about the age of the Earth, but it is certainly a testable statement and thus within the realm of science. The line that science will not pass is "something that cannot be tested" and it stays quite firmly on its side of the line. --Shagie 14:30, 9 April 2008 (EDT)

Thinking about what you've been writing some, and I believe your NOMA line is drawn at "Anything stated by a religious official or written in a religious book is not the domain of science." Unfortunately, this means that anything that I, as the high priest of the Church of Shagie, claim is exempt from scientific scrutiny. For example, my claim about a time cube that creationists have a smaller brain must be taken on faith and accepted as true, because I said it and it is written in my journal. This creates an absurdity - anything that anyone claims to represent religion makes is exempt from scrutiny and science gets boxed away to nothing. One could attempt to narrow this by claiming that their religion is the only one to make statements that can box in science, but that gets to the question of who's religion do you go with? Even accepting one religion, you then have people doing the Bible code all sorts of additional information in there. What is needed for NOMA to work correctly is a definition of the line drawn that is independent of interpretations and unverifiable claims of godhood, prophetical powers, or spiritual insight. That line can be simply stated as "if it is testable, it is the realm of science - if it is not, it is the realm of philosophy and theology." The way to move the line is to find a new test. --Shagie 16:52, 10 April 2008 (EDT)

NO-MA

The idea of NOMA is seductive and dangerous. We are told that there are areas that science cannot reach, cannot even try to reach. This is prima facie ridiculous. Science can explore any area of inquiry, and, if we include mathematics, can explore the probability of various religious ideas being true. A fundamental thought-error made by many is that, since God cannot be disproved, His existence is equally likely as his absence. This is rubbish. I also cannot prove that I will not spontaneously combust 10 seconds after leaving the keyboard--however, based on scientific and mathematical reasoning, it is extremely unlikely. It has often been said that one of the byproduct ideas of QM is that anything that can happen, well, can happen (monkeys, or preferably goats, pounding keyboards to produce the works of Shakespeare). That is not to say it will happen, only that it can be assigned a mathematical probability that is not equal to zero. NOMA is useless because the same is true of God...the probability of his existence does not equal zero, but it comes God damned close. DocSock 19:21, 24 May 2007 (CDT)

The way I see it, NOMA is the proverbial bone one has to throw once in a while, or some scientist invented the term to confuse the angry mob in front of him... MiddleMan 11:59, 3 June 2007 (CDT)

Sneaky on SJG's part

An interesting, to me, aspect of this "philosophical" idea is that although it pretends to give science and religion equal weights and, let's say, equal but different domains, it is science that determines where the line of non-overlap occurs. Religion is left, as mentioned above, to the gaps. At any given point in time, science may have no way of inteliigently and usefully exploring a given area of study; and thus, scientists will "allow" that that topic falls under religion's "magisteria". But as soon as a way to investigate it is developed, religion loses its prerogative.

So as much as it sounds like SJG is "giving" religion a valuable and meaningful place in understanding our universe, all his phrase really means is that clerics can feel free to play in the sandbox of whatever remains that science cannot work on yet. The net process over time is of religion to continually "lose territory". Religionists must therefore, in the end, feel like the indigenous population of what is now the United States - constantly being removed from their lands and confined to smaller and more remote territories. human^{be in} 11:56, 3 June 2007 (CDT)

Yes

And isn't it wonderful?162.82.215.199 11:58, 3 June 2007 (CDT)

Another Objection

Having read the previous posts, the main argument against NOMA seems to be that it is a God of the gaps type of agreement – it allows religion space to do things in areas where science has not yet entered.

While I fully accept the above objection, I also have an objection to the way NOMA is actually used by religious people. It seems to be used as a philosophical hiding place for those who are being pursued by logical agreements. Such people are quite happy to initially use logical arguments to back up their cases - until the going starts to get too hot or the questions start to hit too close to home. At that point they want to escape behind the philosophical “No Entry” sign of NOMA.

This, to me, looks like wanting to have your cake and eat it. Use logic to support your case if it persuades people but then run to NOMA when thing get difficult.

Surely those who support religion and NOMA should begin from the outset by saying there is no logical basis for their case and not try to pretend there is one? Doing otherwise is deceit.--Bob^{bing up and down} 05:00, 4 September 2007 (CDT)

Response

I agree that religion is illogical. It can, however, fill the "illogical" gaps in the human experience, for instance, questions of meaning. That does not make it inherently superior to other philosophies, however, it is very popular, and therefore relevant.

What NOMA allows is a space for a particular unscientific philosophical belief in a scientific world.--DoxXox^-DawkT0wk 10:21, 4 September 2007 (CDT)

Response

Well, if it went no further than that I wouldn't object to it. If I may re-word your statement to something like, "It gives people who simply have to believe in something - however strange - an excuse to do so." OK - let them, if they're acknowledging they're believing in something illogical.

But that wasn't my objection. At the risk of repeating myself myself, NOMA believers want it both ways. Logic until they get stuck - and then hide behind NOMA. And I don't think that's honest.--Bob^{bing up and down} 10:30, 4 September 2007 (CDT)

Response

It semms quite resnoble to me to disacosciate science and religion. while practical back-up may be given to religious ideas I fully accept that they are primerally basd on faith. I fully acknowlege that I wouldn't accept any "evidence" which suggested that God didn't exist on the basid that it must be wrong.Tolerance 14:17, 9 April 2008 (EDT)

For & Against

Basicly I agreewit NOMA - if Religious speakers don't talk ever, in any way whatsoever about the realm of science, then I for one will be glad to agree not to discuss the mumbo-jumbo of religion. The moment they bring a deity into the province of science however they cross the barrier. Otherwise let the children play in their corner. Susan Jayne Garlick^talk 10:41, 4 September 2007 (CDT)

I agree with Susan - NOMA is a very easy way for sane people with varying superstitious approaches to get along well in their discussions. It's the insane, who would like to claim that much of science falls on "their" side of the NOMA line, that present an irreconcilable barrier to communication and learning (see new section below...) human 17:13, 27 November 2007 (EST)

Where does NOMA draw the line?

One thing which I've never understood about NOMA is where its supporters wish to draw the NOMA protection line. Should any religious belief be considered sacrosanct? Or only religious beliefs held by people who support NOMA? For example, many people hold that a worldwide flood occurred a few thousand years ago - and they hold this belief for religious reasons. Would the concept of NOMA protect this idea from rational criticism, and if not, why not?--Bob^{bing up} 16:42, 27 November 2007 (EST)