On Whether Religious People Can Have a Scientific Perspective

I was recently asked the following question on Quora:

Do religious people ever view their religion in a bigger perspective? Like science, (religious) history, psychology, human/religious geography, cosmology, biology, evolution, neuroscience…

My initial answer was short and simple.

Yes, definitely. I love to study these topics and try to piece together the puzzle of how my faith fits into it, particularly what God’s plan is in all of it. 

The questioner wanted more detail, specifically with regards to how I could still believe in God considering what I've studied during my life.

Below is the longer answer I gave. I'm preserving it here because, well, it took a long time to write it. And, Quora can be...squirrelly sometimes as to where answers get moved, if they get renamed, or if they get downvoted out of existence. Furthermore, the current design of Quora makes reading threaded comments tedious.

Special hat tip to Dr. Daniel C. Peterson, who I've gratuitously linked in the footnotes only because he's pretty much covering ALL the bases on this topic with his more recent blog posts on the subject of science vs. religion. Saves me a ton of time and typing and I'm happy to promote his work here.

My short answer is “how can I not?”. But I know that’s not a satisfying answer to anyone but me. :) So, here is my longer answer. 

First, to set aside the ill-conceived notion that one cannot be a scientist and a believer in God (and believe me, I’ve read and do understand ALL of the atheists’ views on this), here’s a list (The Rich, Historic Roll Call of Great Christian Thinkers and Scientists) of all the scientists over the years whose faith enlightened (was the reason for) their even exploring science. In other words, they pursued science because they saw God in it and wanted to know His creation more, not in spite of God (even if the Catholic Church often disagreed). Some like to insist that they were pioneering lone scientific renegades who were rebelliously and atheistically challenging the presumed wisdom of the Christian orthodoxy. But, that’s an incomplete (or disingenuous) reading of history and biography. In fact, many were (and remained even in the face of severe persecution) faithful Christians who maintained their belief in God until they died. See also Western science as a byproduct of medieval Christian theology. 

I was also quite impressed by the book “Signature in the Cell” by Stephen C. Meyer (Signature in the Cell: DNA and the Evidence for Intelligent Design). It’s controversial in secular science circles, for sure, but his thesis made complete sense to me from the perspective of being both a Christian and a computer programmer with an interest in genetics. DNA is very, very literally a computer programming language, with its medium being biology rather than silicon. It is something that can be directly manipulated and changed (and even upgraded!) by the CRISPR CAS9 prokaryotic immune system. Given that DNA uses and gives rise to biological nanomachines of astounding complexity and elegance (that we have yet to duplicate from whole cloth), which, in turn, lead to an escalating and exponential scope of complex systems, organisms, organs, anatomy, and enablement of consciousness itself, there is zero doubt in my mind, after comparing the fundamentals of computer programming with the fundamentals of DNA replication and bio-computation that goes on in the cell, that an Intelligent Mind had to be behind its design. Just by sheer statistical improbability alone that all that DNA is, does, and the information (not just data) that it contains could have emerged by random chance and mutation. Someone imbued DNA with information. Information is a byproduct of intelligence. 

As a student of American History, the main thing that impacts me to this very day is the extreme improbability that the American Revolution should ever have succeeded if it were not from an Outside Influence. There were simply too many improbable “coincidences” for a tiny, disorganized, hungry, diseased, under-armed, ragtag band of inexperienced farmer-soldiers to have ever defeated what was then the greatest military superpower that the world had ever seen. See “Delivered by the Power of God”. 

On the subjects of psychology/neuroscience, you might find Intelligent Design Psychology and Evolutionary Psychology on Consciousness: Turning Water Into Wine an interesting read. See also Intelligent Design's One Valid Scientific Point, written by an anti-intelligent design atheist who sides with ID on the question of what can explain agency (free will). 

Logically speaking, just because all religions can’t be true doesn’t mean one religion can’t be true nor that there can’t be truth in religion. It’s not a binary either/or proposition. Truth is a both/and proposition. You can have truth in both science and religion. And the five physical senses are not the only way to know something is true or part of reality or cosmology (Is genuine knowledge available beyond the sciences?). We cannot begin to “see” the quantum realm of science. Our instruments are limited by the smallness of scale at that level. The quantum world is smaller than the photons we need to bounce off of its properties to see them. All our “seeing” of it is limited to second- and third-hand observations, and that is often limited to related phenomena where we have to infer rather than deduce to make a conclusion. At a certain point, that becomes more like faith than science. Indeed, the more we find out, the more questions we have. 

Again, after reading all the atheists’ objections to the concept of God and a Creator, I can’t understand how anyone can look into the ever-expanding and infinitely complex cosmos and, at the other end, the incredible incomprehensibility of the tiniest yet cosmically impactful quantum phenomena, and not see Pure Intelligence. 

Below are more articles by one of my favorite authors/researchers on this topic, Dr. Daniel C. Peterson. These short articles capture perfectly the essence of all my intended responses to the objections I perceive that you might have. I challenge you to read them all, as I have, before you respond. They’re actually notes he’s blogging about as he writes a book on this very topic (no idea when it will be published). After having reviewed your Quora thoughts on these topics, I think you’ll find his work enlightening as far as understanding how people who are religious can also be scientific (and vice versa!). With this list, I’m giving you everything he’s researched in order of most recent up to January 2018 (there’s much more beyond that).

1. A Note on Science, Scientific Literacy, and Religious Belief
2. On adjusting one’s religious views in the light of science, history, and the like
3. Thoughts on Mormonism and Intellectual Sophistication
4. A few scientists who were also ecclesiastical leaders
5. Objective Proof in Religion
6. Three Physicists
7. Scientific discoveries as religious discoveries
8. “Consistent with what I know about science”
9. The Wonder of It All
10. “Nature is skewed toward life.”
11. “Endless Forms Most Beautiful”
12. The Wisdom of the Nobel Prize
13. “The Lost World of Genesis One”
14. Four Nineteenth-Century Mormon Quotations on Science and Religion
15. Peter Grünberg RIP
16. Ultimate Questions
17. What’s needed for life?
18. What’s Needed for Life (Revisited)
19. “Anything But Pedestrian”
20. “A set of near optimal mechanisms”
21. Of “meaning” and neurons
22. “Mind, intelligence, was somehow embedded in the process”
23. “Highly skewed toward fitness for life”
24. A Slice of Life
25. Did random chance demand the existence of a stellar system suited to life?
26. “When you think about it, it does get spooky.”
27. Our Favorable Location in the Solar System (Part 1)
28. Our Favorable Location in the Solar System (Part 2)
29. Life and our galactic location (Part 1)
30. Life and our galactic location (Part 2)
31. Life and our galactic location (Part 3)
32. “Walking along the Shore”
33. The myth of the “Dark Ages”
34. “Nicely balanced, against all hazards, at an absolutely optimal level”
35. The Culture of Science
36. Reason and Faith, and Some Science News
37. From amino acid soup to the B-Minor Mass
38. “Ditchkins,” Science, and Religion
39. Eagleton on Dawkins and Dennett on Science and Religion
40. “So I ate his lunch!”
41. “From a vantage point outside her body”
42. Death and Consciousness
43. Death and Consciousness, Again
44. On Science and the Church
45. Above our heads, beneath our feet, and beneath our dignity
46. Charles H. Townes, plus some science news
47. Do you know your ABCs?
48. And our bodies have TRILLIONS of these!
49. Lise Meitner, pioneering female Christian physicist
50. The Secret Mental Life of Trees (Part 1)
51. The Secret Mental Life of Trees (Part 2)
52. The Secret Mental Life of Trees (Part 3)
53. “A piper playing at the gates of dawn”
54. Some reflections on probabilities (1)
55. Some Reflections on Probabilities (2)
56. Some Reflections on Probabilities (3)
57. Mind, fundamental to the universe?
58. “There is no truth but what belongs to the Gospel.”
59. Aliens did it.
60. “I think there are clearly religious implications.”
61. “A God of extravagant generosity”
62. “The God Hypothesis”
63. An alternative to the infinite multiverse?
64. A scientist’s dissent
65. “Raffiniert ist der Herr Gott, aber boshaft ist er nicht”
66. A utopian view of science
67. The Intuition of Design
68. “Personal Explanation”
69. The Problem of Consciousness
70. Materialism as a “Non-Starter”
71. We are invisible
72. Darwinism is a good explanatory theory as far as it goes, but . . .
73. “The extension of common sense by other means”
74. Some science-related items of interest
75. Can science (or any other discipline) ever be without unproven assumptions?
76. We’ve only recently begun to recognize its vast scope.
77. Why are some biologists more hostile than physicists to religion and theology?
78. The supposed war between science and religion
79. Scientific discovery as an encounter with the divine
80. Asteroids and Meteorites, Construction and Destruction
81. Unimaginable Vastness and Remarkable Order
82. “Nothing comes from nothing. Nothing ever could.”
83. Star Stuff
84. Four examples of astrophysical fine-tuning
85. “The nature of the universe itself seems to raise the ‘God’ question.”
86. “Robust” fine-tuning in chemistry?
87. “The Demiurge’s hidden message”
88. The universe is both very big and very weird.
89. Scientism as religion. Really.
90. “How to Make Solar Systems”
91. Some good quotations on science and religion
92. “We are stardust, we are golden, we are billion-year-old carbon”
93. “Focusing on the essentials in the biblical story of creation”
94. Inconceivable vastness
95. Hans-Georg Gadamer on Scientism
96. “Scientism,” “cult-acolytes” and me

Scientists Expand Archaeology Via Satellites

From time to time, I see arguments against the Book of Mormon that go something like this: 

"Scientists and archaeologists already know everything there is to know about ancient cultures and have excavated everything. There is no possibility of anything corroborating the Book of Mormon's claims." 

That is a gross over-generalization, but I don't have the time or patience to re-create them all.

Speaking of gross over-generalizations, here's proof that such statements are just that.

Archaeologists now use LiDAR, which is a remote
sensing technology that measures distance
by illuminating a target with a laser
and analyzing the reflected light.

Pioneer in Satellite Archaeology Wins Million-Dollar Prize 

"With each new batch of images, it becomes increasingly clear that archaeologists have vastly underestimated the size and scale of past human settlements. “What we’re finding is that everywhere you look there are sites,” says Parcak. “Massive sites are turning out to be many times bigger and more complex than we ever imagined.” Parcak estimates that less than 1 percent of ancient Egypt has been discovered and excavated."

Another hole in this over-generalization is that it ignores the effects of looting, not only in our time but over the centuries that preceded us. Who knows how many precious evidences of Israelites in America and the remnants of scattered tribes elsewhere have been stolen, destroyed, or redistributed out of their historical context so that we'll never know where they came from? The article talks about this as well.

"Satellite images have also revealed the accelerating scale of looting at sites around the world—particularly in Egypt, where civil order broke down during the revolution in 2011. According to Parcak, images made from space can be used to track the destruction of archeological sites and could be part of a coordinated effort to reverse the tide of looting and illegal antiquities trafficking."

But, satellite images won't be enough.

"Of course any discoveries made by these high-flying cameras will still need to be confirmed by archeologists working on the ground with trowels and sifting screens. The notion that there will always be a place for old-fashioned digging and discovery is one that Parcak finds comforting."

Book of Mormon naysayers lack imagination and initiative. They like to point at the library or university and say "those guys said they have the answers, so I don't need to know anything else". People like Parcak are the complete opposite of that, and thank goodness God has placed them on Earth.

“After teaching and working in the lab most of the year, I really need to get out in the field,” she says. “If my dirt-to-blood ratio gets below a certain threshold, I go completely bonkers.”

Has DNA Disproven the Book of Mormon?

"The normal way of dealing with the Book of Mormon
'scientifically' has been first to attribute to the Book of
Mormon something it did not say, and then to refute the
claim by scientific statements that have not been proven."- Hugh Nibley

The Book of Mormon has come under attack by critics on a number of levels. The most recent attack on the authenticity of the Book of Mormon has been under the guise of "science" in the form of DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid) testing on Native American populations. These attacks, spearheaded by former Mormons Thomas W. Murphy (an anthropologist who has been heralded by many as the Mormon Galileo) and Simon Southerton (a plant biologist) essentially run as following:

1. The Book of Mormon claims that all Native Americans are descendants of a Middle Eastern Semite named Lehi.
2. Genetic testing on Native American populations has shown that Indians are not of Middle Eastern descent, but from Asia.
3. Thus, this proves that the Book of Mormon is not a true history.
4. Ergo, this disproves any claim by Joseph Smith to have translated ancient records from real ancient Americans.

These attacks on the Book of Mormon stem from a poor understanding of the claims of the Book of Mormon and an even poorer understanding of genetic science in relationship to the history of ancient populations. In effect, DNA attacks on the Book of Mormon are attacking a straw man that critics have set up against the Book of Mormon. As as been shown again and again by Latter-day Saint scientists, historians and scholars, the Book of Mormon simply does not present a hypothesis that can be tested by DNA. Thus, the DNA evidence does not hurt the Book of Mormon itself, but simply erroneous interpretations of the text of the Book of Mormon.

Take the first part of the argument. Critics claim that the Book of Mormon says that all Native Americans are descendants of Lehi. However, this is poor reading of the text. The Book of Mormon is, as has been shown by Dr. John Sorenson, a linear history, or, in other words, a history that selectively treats few populations. It is not describing the entire history of America in ancient times, but rather select populations.

Furthermore, evidence from the text seems to indicate that when Lehi and his family landed in Mesoamerica (the most likely spot where the events of the Book of Mormon occurred) they encountered and intermingled with native populations that were already present in America. Therefore, if Nephi and his family began intermarrying and mingling with native populations, then their genetic material would be nearly impossible to detect today. This phenomenon is called a population bottleneck. In other words, a genetic drift away from Lehi's genetic structure would take place amongst his descendants as their DNA began to mutate and adapt to the already overwhelming genetic presence of the native population. This bottleneck effect is also perpetuated by massive killings of selected populations that further wipe out whatever genetic material may have been left in the alien population. This is exactly the case with the Nephites, who were, en mass, wiped out (DNA and all) by the thousands.

Another consideration is what is called the founder effect. According to Wikipedia, founder effect is "the loss of genetic variation when a new colony is established by a very small number of individuals from a larger population." (See here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Founder_effect)

In other words, as is attested in the Book of Mormon, when a small number of individuals marries and intermingles into a larger population, the genetic signal of the smaller group can become lost or overpowered by the already prevalent genetic makeup of the larger population that the smaller population is being assimilated into. (Interestingly enough, Murphy admitted this himself in his essay critical of the Book of Mormon based on DNA evidence. See "Lamanite Genesis, Genealogy and Genetics," in American Apocrypha: Essays on the Book of Mormon, ed. Dan Vogel and Brent Lee Metcalfe (Salt Lake City: Signature, 2002), 53)

These and other reasons are important in taking to consideration if one is going to pronounce gloom and doom upon the Book of Mormon based on DNA. Simply put, the Book of Mormon does not present a scenario that can be tested by DNA.

Nevertheless, this has not stopped people (and entire organizations) from heralding this as the final nail in the coffin for the Book of Mormon. Much like Charles Larson, who proclaimed that it was "all over!" based on the controversy surrounding the Book of Abraham, so critics have announced that at last the Book of Mormon has been disproven by science.

One such organization, Living Hope Ministry (LHM), has produced a DVD entitled DNA Vs. The Book of Mormon in which Joel Kramer, the producer of the DVD and the head of LHM, has gleefully announced that the false prophet Joseph Smith and his bogus Book of Mormon has been proven to be a fraud. At the end of his DVD, he urges his watchers to accept fundamentalist Protestantism as the true Gospel and to leave Mormonism.

In DNA Vs. The Book of Mormon, Kramer presents that DNA evidence has proven that the Native Americans are from Asia and not the Middle East. This, he says, disproves the Book of Mormon. However, one thing that Kramer is careful not to tell his watchers is the fact that that very same DNA evidence is being used by secular scientists to bolster Darwin's theory of evolution, which is the polar opposite of the ideology of fundamentalist Evangelicalism. Furthermore, Kramer also omits the fact that the DNA used by scientists to link the Indians to Asian ancestry (the very DNA Kramer is proclaiming disproves the Book of Mormon) is believed to have been transmitted to the Americas from between 20,000 to 12,000 BCE. This is further at odds with the fundamentalist Evangelical view that Adam and Eve lived around 8,000-6,000 BCE.

Here is an apt cartoon illustrating this:

which cartoon is further explained here for the humor-impaired.

So we see a subtle double standard being employed by Evangelical critics of the Book of Mormon. On the one hand, they want to use DNA to disprove Mormonism. On the other hand, they refuse to apply the same standards (indeed, the very same DNA testing) they are subjecting the Mormons to towards their own paradigm. Considering this, one is forced to wonder just what Mr. Kramer's intentions are. Does he really want to proclaim the truth? Or is he simply trying to get a cheap shot off at the Mormons? In this case, I view the latter as more viable.

In conclusion, despite the popular ideas that the public holds about DNA testing, thanks largely in part to TV programs such as CSI, the Book of Mormon simply cannot be tested by DNA one way or another. It simply does not present a hypothesis that can be tested by DNA.

This has been but a brief overview on the issue of DNA and the Book of Mormon. There is much more that could be said about this issue. Therefore, the reader is advised to follow up on this issue by reading the following links.

Kevin Barney, A Brief Review of Murphy and Southerton's "Galileo Event.". A review of an article on DNA and the Book of Mormon that appeared in Anthropology News.

Cooper Johnson, "DNA and the Book of Mormon," (Redding, California: FAIR, March 2002) Some say that DNA research can disprove (or prove) The Book of Mormon. This article examines a presentation on the subject by Dr. Scott R. Woodward at the 2001 FAIR Conference.

Brant Gardner, "The Tempest in a Teapot: DNA Studies and the Book of Mormon," (Redding, California: FAIR, January 2003) A review of what DNA studies can and, more importantly, cannot tell us about the Book of Mormon.

Jeff Lindsay, Does DNA evidence refute the Book of Mormon. The Book of Mormon has come under heavy fire from critics in light of DNA evidence which is said to utterly refute claims of its historicity. These attacks typically rely on several faulty assumptions about the Book of Mormon and leave out important scientific details about the DNA evidence.

Brent Lee Shelton and Jonathan Marks, "Genetic Markers Not a Valid Test of Native Identity," (City Unknown: Council for Reponsible Genetics, 2002) While not directly citing DNA in relation to the Book of Mormon, this article provides an interesting viewpoint that indicates why DNA tests cannot provide conclusive proof of whether a person belongs to a specific ethnic group (such as Lamanites).

The FARMS Review, 2003. Volume 15, Number 2, pp. 25, 35, 91, 129, 165, 183. (PDF, 6.95 MB). Note that while not all of the essays in this edition of the FARMS Review do not deal with DNA, there a number of important essays on the subject contained therein.

Michael Whiting, "DNA and the Book of Mormon," (Provo, Utah: FARMS, January 2003) Published as a PDF and as a 45-minute video presentation concerning DNA and the Book of Mormon. An excellent resource that explains the problems in drawing definitive conclusions about the Book of Mormon based on DNA findings.

See also:

Part 1 - The Book of Mormon and New World DNA


Part 2 - The Book of Mormon and New World DNA


Part 3 - The Book of Mormon and New World DNA