The writer believes some very strange things.

I'm not sure how he squares all his assessments about who has what motivations...

For instance, he thinks that the food people all have the same motivation - but some people say that on each side, people have commercial motivations rather than 'feed the world' motivations.

Then there are vaccine people - don't we all want better health and safety for everyone? Or are there people on both sides of that debate that are interested in their own health at the expense of the community? Or even more, people with financial motivations on both side of the debate?

Even the evolution debate could be framed as a shared motivation - we all want to know the truth about our purpose and meaning in life. How universal and noble a motivation, how strange he couldn't build on that to write in his book... or does he think that the two groups are motivated by their own strains of selfish impulses, rationalizations of their own immoral behavior or inadequate performance, exclusionary social mechanisms, or financial interests?

Really, this author gets less and less interesting the more he writes. Too bad.

BenK:

...Even the evolution debate could be framed as a shared motivation - we all want to know the truth about our purpose and meaning in life. How universal and noble a motivation, how strange he couldn't build on that to write in his book... or does he think that the two groups are motivated by their own strains of selfish impulses, rationalizations of their own immoral behavior or inadequate performance, exclusionary social mechanisms, or financial interests?

Really, this author gets less and less interesting the more he writes. Too bad.

"The meaning of life" really is not a question for Science. Certainly no theory of evolution claims to address that question. Contrary to the beliefs of many, evolutionary science does not even address the Origin of Life. It is a model for describing how species arise, develop, and disappear. What "meaning" this might have is a topic for religious thinkers, poets, artists -- heck! even for political players.

You seem to be lamenting the fact that scientists aren't working to prop up some religious view of the universe. I'd say that, to the extent anybody's doing that, they are, by definition, not scientific.

Science addresses questions about how the PHYSICAL UNIVERSE operates, and attempts to find universal principles that can answer those questions. I see nothing selfish or immoral -- or even anti-religious -- in that search.

well, that's all nice that you have such a clear 'two magisterium' approach to the world, but frankly, most textbooks on evolution do contain an 'early evolution' chapter discussing abiotic/biotic transitions. Not too many that I know of include panspermia, let alone recommend it, either.

It doesn't take too much scratching, in fact, to look at the sociobiologists' work on the evolution of ethics, morality, religion, and so on, to find life scientists trying to sort out the meaning of life via their mechanistic models. In short, evolutionary biology as a field does tend to trod heavy on what you call religious turf, by virtue of the claims of the practitioners. I'm not saying that there is anything inherently selfish, immoral, or anti-religious in the pursuit of science - in fact, people can pursue it with strong religious assumptions, pursue it selflessly, or apply the strictest ethics to their science. These are all possible and do not always go together. However, observation of evolutionary biologists frequently exposes the motivation of the practitioners as unveiling questions of broad application to morals, ethics and the meaning of life - not bad questions, at all.

Ah! but there's a really fundamental difference between science and faith. Science does not rely on Correct Motivations to produce useful results. It's entirely possible to be an excellent scientist, producing valuable results and insights and believe in a religion -- or not. If your research methods or your analysis requires that you have "correct" faith, then it simply isn't science. And it's probably pretty shoddy faith too. But there's certainly no reason a good scientist can't also be a religious person -- or a poet, or a musician. There may or may not be contradictions among those endeavours, but that's hardly an argument against "science". Or religion. or poetry.

In other words, there's no reason a scientist shouldn't entertain the same questions about our mortality, our reason for being here, etc, just the same as other humans do There's also no reason a scientist shouldn't feel awe at the universe -- and even possibly understand that awe as "religion". It's just not pertinate to his scientific studies.

I've seen a number of biology textbooks. The only ones I've seen that talk about "evolution" from the nonliving to the living are in the category of Creation Science (or, if you prefer, IntelligentDesign) -- which makes them simply not science. Just placing them in a high-school science class does not make them science. It's really an admission of impotence on the religious side to insist that there must be some "scientific" validation for their faith.

But, I'll concede you may have seen some textbooks I have not. I'd be interested to know the names and/or authors of those textbooks. I'd also be interested to know if you could cite for us some scientist who's publishing his research somewhere on "the meaning of life".

I wasn't talking about 'biology textbooks' - I was talking about 'evolution textbooks.'

So, in that category fall most prominantly Futuyma; lesser, Barton. I believe each gives it a whole chapter, roughly. Barton at around page 100.

In the category of general textbooks, like Campbell, I think most actually mention 'early evolution' and speculate on pre-cellular/biotic-abiotic transitional life. However, I'm not looking at HS texts; college texts only. Haven't seen HS texts in 15 years or more.

I disagree substantially about the conduct of science. I believe that scientists choose different questions to ask based on their whole identity as persons and that the pursue these with methods tuned toward tools, techniques and standards of evidence that involve more of themselves. A musician can study bird songs in a way that a non-musician would never imagine. Poets can study language scientifically, and express results elegantly. The very notion of linnean classification required concepts imported from other fields.

Walling off science to make it inviolate and universal and then assigning judgements with particular importance - and truth claims - to it is a very clever rhetorical mode. It is similar to claiming that religion is personal and must be banned from the public sphere, discourse, judgement, funding and support - and then defining ones own world view as 'something other than a religion' and giving it entire privilege. Clever rhetoric, dishonest or deluded.

Rather, scientists engage all of themselves in their pursuits; and we all have a religion/world view that informs us of our meaning, purpose and cascades into our lives in many ways.

BenK:

I wasn't talking about 'biology textbooks' - I was talking about 'evolution textbooks.'

So, in that category fall most prominantly Futuyma; lesser, Barton. I believe each gives it a whole chapter, roughly. Barton at around page 100.

In the category of general textbooks, like Campbell, I think most actually mention 'early evolution' and speculate on pre-cellular/biotic-abiotic transitional life. However, I'm not looking at HS texts; college texts only. Haven't seen HS texts in 15 years or more.

I disagree substantially about the conduct of science. I believe that scientists choose different questions to ask based on their whole identity as persons and that the pursue these with methods tuned toward tools, techniques and standards of evidence that involve more of themselves. A musician can study bird songs in a way that a non-musician would never imagine. Poets can study language scientifically, and express results elegantly. The very notion of linnean classification required concepts imported from other fields.

Walling off science to make it inviolate and universal and then assigning judgements with particular importance - and truth claims - to it is a very clever rhetorical mode. It is similar to claiming that religion is personal and must be banned from the public sphere, discourse, judgement, funding and support - and then defining ones own world view as 'something other than a religion' and giving it entire privilege. Clever rhetoric, dishonest or deluded.

Rather, scientists engage all of themselves in their pursuits; and we all have a religion/world view that informs us of our meaning, purpose and cascades into our lives in many ways.

Well, I wouldn't claim to know about the motivations of scientists. I suppose they're as various as everybody else's. It's completely possible that many scientists are, indeed, motivated by religious beliefs to pursue their calling. But it's hardly "walling off" anything to say that the scientific method is distinct from religious fervor. There's no reason a person can't burn incense and conduct a scientific experiment on the same day. I just doubt he'd contribute much to science if he claimed we should accept his experimental result because he "believes" in it.

I'm sure there's much rigorous scientific work done by people with strong religious convictions. But that work is done according to standards that couldn't -- shouldn't -- be applied to religious beliefs. I just don't see your objection to saying that scientific inquiry is not the same as religious inquiry. Just because both spirits can reside in the same person does not mean they must be at war with each other.