THE ATHEISTS
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There are many scientists who feel that they do not need any religious belief or even a philosophy beyond that of science itself to explain the universe. Some of them are particularly outspoken on the subject. The biologist Professor Lewis Wolpert, of University College, London, says that he can find no evidence in science for a god, and that if there were one he can find no evidence that such a god would match that of any religion. Wolpert upholds the dualism formulated by Galileo. "Science," he says, "is about the external world and does not need God. The world of religion is an internal world and thus unverifiable. Science and religion have no common ground whatsoever."
Another outspoken critic of attempts to bring God into science is Professor Richard Dawkins, also a biologist, from Oxford. The title of his book The Blind Watchmaker turns on its head the assertion of the 18th-century English theologian William Paley, who stated that the likelihood of the intricate structure of the world being the result of chance is comparable to the suggestion that a watch might have been assembled by random causes. In the book, Dawkins uses his knowledge of modern genetics and evolution to show how complex structures in nature, such as the eye, might have come about solely by random variations guided by Darwinian natural selection.
Dawkins suggests that, in asking "why" questions about the universe, the more mystical scientists are doing something that is not scientifically valid. "Why" questions are reasonable in the case of something that has been designed for a purpose, such as a car, a tin opener or a screwdriver, but are not valid when applied to things such as mountains or the universe. In between the two, he suggests, lie living creatures. The purpose of all living creatures, according to Dawkins, is to perpetuate their genes. Living forms in all their diversity are merely survival machines to propagate DNA. His world of the selfish gene seems ever more remote from a caring god than that of the random fluctuations of quantum physics. "So long as DNA is passed on," he writes, "it does not matter who or what gets hurt in the process. Genes don't care about suffering, because they don't care about anything."
THE BELIEVERS
Science, just like any other profession, has its complement of those who, privately or publicly, hold religious beliefs. Historically, when most scientists were amateurs, clergymen were some of the few with the time, education and means to practise it. Even the great Sir Isaac Newton considered his theological works to be of equal importance to his scientific ones. Today there are many professional scientists who, in private, are practising Christians or of other faiths. There are others who hold professional qualifications in both spheres.
The Rev Professor John Polkinghorne, now Master of Queens' College, Cambridge, had a distinguished career in theoretical physics before taking ordination and becoming a vicar. He feels that science and religion should be seen as complementary pursuits capable of trading with each other in rewarding if sometimes puzzling ways. He feels that the worlds of science and religion both explore different aspects of reality, using different language. Together they provide the conceptual framework within which we can seek to make sense of the world as a whole. In his 1993 Gifford Lecture, he said: "What I can aspire to is a candid and honest attempt to explore the foundations of Christian belief and to try to offer explanations for that belief comparable to the kind of explanation one might offer of one's conviction that matter is composed of quarks, gluons and electrons."
Responding to a challenge from the biologist and atheist Professor Lewis Wolpert, who asked why religious experience should be treated as different from any other experience and not subject to scientific enquiry in the normal way, Polkinghorne said: "All experience should be subject to rational enquiry, and part of that necessary rationality is to conform one's investigation to the nature of the entity being investigated. I very much doubt whether Professor Wolpert subjects his enjoyment of music or his encounters with people to `scientific enquiry in the normal way', if that phrase is to be interpreted in some flat, universal catch-all reductionist way."
As an Anglican clergyman, Polkinghorne accepts the totality of Christian belief. He feels that scientists such as Paul Davies, who search for deeper meaning in the universe without the aid of religion, are taking significant steps but will only ever paint a thin and impersonal picture of God. For Polkinghorne, personal religious experience plays an essential part. Another Christian physicist, Professor Russell Stannard of the Open University, agrees. He suggests that most of the references to "God" in recent popular science books and even by Einstein do not refer to a deity but to the fundamental laws of nature. Such a god of physics, he says, is cold and unresponsive to prayer - perhaps a bit like an objective scientist.
Russell Stannard agrees that a central issue is that of the origin of the universe. While he does not underestimate the power of science to describe what must have happened in the first fraction of a second, as theoreticians run the clock backwards through that first second, all the scientific criteria break down. The mathematical equations start producing values of infinity and raise metaphysical questions that science cannot touch. The laws of quantum physics, he agrees, allow for the possibility of a random fluctuation in the nothingness of no time to give rise to the universe. But, he asks, why leave quantum physics in charge of the universe. Where did the laws come from? Could it not be God?
THE OPEN-MINDED
Paul Davies is a British-born mathematical physicist who's now Professor of Physics and Natural Philosophy at the University of Adelaide. He has written many popular books on physics and cosmology as well as highly regarded textbooks. God and the New Physics and The Mind of God set the recent trend to put the deity in a science book title. They also attracted the attention of the Templeton Foundation, a charitable trust for the advancement of religion, and resulted in Davies being awarded the 1995 Temple-ton Prize for Progress in Religion, worth $1m. Previous recipients have included Mother Teresa and Billy Graham, yet Paul Davies says he is not religious in any conventional sense. He does not go to church, read the Bible or pray. But he is deeply interested in the profound issues of existence such as the nature of time, consciousness and the origin of the universe, which for centuries have been the province of theology. He feels that science can not only inform theology but can develop its own framework of ideas that will eventually cater for the spiritual requirements of people in a way that traditional religions are failing to do.
Central to Paul Davies's ideas is the sense of purpose he sees in the universe and our place within it: "I find it very hard to accept that our existence in the world is something that just happens to be. It seems to me that the fact that the universe is self-aware is something that's written into the laws of nature. We are here as part of the action and not just for the ride." Paul Davies is keen to point out that the Templeton Prize is for progress in religion; in order to be able to make progress, this suggests to him, religion does not have all the answers. Science too should be progressive and not dogmatic, he says. Scientists must always be prepared to change their minds in the light of new evidence; that is the power, not weakness, of science. Such an approach brings a sense of humility that tells us we do not yet have all the answers, nor are we not necessarily the pinnacle of creation.
Dr Peter Fenwick of the Institute of Psychiatry in London has investigated the links between brain function and transcendental experience. With the latest scientific tools for scanning the living brain and even recording electrical activity as individual thoughts pass between brain centres, he is able to see how different heightened experiences and emotions are localised in different parts of our minds. But he also finds things that he cannot explain. For example, people who have been pronounced clinically dead but are then resuscitated often seem to experience a sensation of travelling down a tunnel towards a bright light and a deep sense of love. Is this simply the brain being starved of oxygen or does it reflect some other reality? Sometimes, under such circumstances, patients report seeming to float above their bodies. Evidence that this was really the case would transcend science: it would imply that mind was not localised solely in the brain. Evidence for phenomena such as telepathy would do the same. That would open up to science concepts such as the spirit or the soul that have previously been firmly in the realm of religion.
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