The relationship between science and religion has been a longstanding divisive one. In fact, some researchers have gone ahead to notice that science is an unnatural occurrence as compared to the natural occurrence of religion (McCauley, 2000). Such sentiments could only go further to describe the strained relationship between the two disciplines. This paper offers an objective response to the claims of science evolving from religion.
Notably, it is important to bear in mind that both disciplines are part of the larger ‘philosophy’. Philosophy is in fact the study of knowledge, or the love of knowledge if directly translated from the Greek language. As a result, both science and religion seek to explain common phenomena in the earth such as the existence of laws of nature and why things happen as they do. Determining whether religion informs and/or influences science or vice versa is similar to the question of whether the egg came before the hen – it has an elusive answer.
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Nonetheless, there seems to be an ingrained aspect of religion in the human mind that is not the case with science. Religion is able to affect even the strongest minds into interpreting scientific data. Due to the early exposure that religion gets in an individual’s mind, it can influence the thinking of scientists. Research has shown that religious beliefs among zoology students affected their individual interpretation of scientific results (Sinclair & Baldwin, 1996). Scientists with strong religious beliefs rejected the theory of evolution offering theism as their counterargument. Furthermore, one can argue that an atheist point of view is strongly led by the opposition of theism to propose alternative scientific explanations for their stand.
In conclusion, one could argue that the ability to ingrain religion into the person at a very tender age contributes significantly to one’s interpretation of science. After all, most scientists who propose opposing points of view often come from a religious interpretation to offer an alternative scientific explanation.
References
McCauley, R. N. (2000). The naturalness of religion and the unnaturalness of science. Explanation and cognition , 61-85.
Sinclair, A., & Baldwin, B. (1996). The Relationship Between College Zoology Students' Religious Beliefs and Their Ability to Objectively View the Scientific Evidence Supporting Evolutionary Theory. New York: Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association.
