kicking puppies is bad

The associated press published an article today detailing Case Western’s plans to celebrate the 200th anniversary of Darwin’s birth and the 150th anniversary of his publication ‘On the Origin of Species’. This got me thinking about science and religion (again).

In my opinion, OkCupid doesn’t have enough choices in the “Religion” category. I don’t really identify myself as an atheist or an agnostic (although I am an atheist). I identify myself as a scientist (not to be confused with a Scientologist. Scientologists are crazy).

Is science a religion? Religion is a faith based set of principles which explain humankind’s relationship with the universe**. Neil Greenspan recently said “You could say Einstein influenced people’s basic understanding of the universe, but I think Darwin’s impact was probably greater, in that he changed our view of what man is…” Science does explain humankind’s relationship with the universe.

Is science “faith based”? For people who are *way* smarter than me, it may not be. For me, I accept a lot of scientific theory on faith. I’ll readily admit that I don’t have a solid understanding of Quantum Chromodynamics. But I have faith in the scientific method – so I believe what the scientists tell me about it (and many other areas of science that I don’t completely understand). The contents of peer-reviewed top-tier journals (and the dumbed down versions that made it to my Theoretical Physics textbook in college) *are* what I use to explain my relationship with the universe. And I accept a lot of the contents on faith. I’m not quite smart enough to fully understand *all* of the scientific literature. So, I have no problem concluding that science *is* my religion.

But just because science is a religion, doesn’t mean that religion is a science. By definition science is a system of acquiring knowledge based on the scientific method. And religion generally does not acquire its knowledge using the scientific method. Apparently, other people don’t care about this. A recent news article stated that, “44.2% of adult Americans agreed that an overwhelming body of scientific evidence supports Intelligent Design.” Since when does scientific evidence supports Intelligent Design?!? Intelligent Design is a *religious* theory. The U.S. National Academy of Sciences has stated that intelligent design is not science because it cannot be tested by experiment, does not generate any predictions, and proposes no new hypotheses of its own. It is NOT based in the scientific method and it is NOT science.

I realized earlier today (when reading the AP article about Case Western) that I live in an isolated, educated, and atheist bubble. I can only think of three people I know who might possibly believe in Intelligent Design (I generally avoid talking about religion with my super-religious acquaintances – so I can’t confirm this number). I know THREE *possible* people who *might* support Intelligent Design, but according to the article a “majority of Americans (believe) that God created humans in their present form.”

Where are all these people?*** I’ll go back to my happy isolated bubble now.

** This is a bastard combination of a few definitions of Religion that were floating around on the interweb.
*** This is really a rhetorical question. I know the answer. I lived in Indiana in for almost four years. These people live in Indiana. I’m so glad I moved.