NOMA

I've been down in Newcastle this week for the first time in years. This was actually a work related trip but it gave me a chance to catch up with friends and family that I haven't seen in a while. It was an enjoyable trip, both from meeting up with people and the drive back up North along the A68 which is an enjoyable and picturesque road - at least when the weather is favourable.

One of my friends became a Jehovah's Witness a few years ago. Jehovah's Witnesses tend to get somewhat of a bad image, partly due to the stereotype of foot in the door evangelicalism and partly through the somewhat distorted image of their beliefs as portrayed by mainstream media. On the whole, I've found them to be both polite and respectful of others, even given their wish to spread their beliefs; and, whilst I don't particularly agree with much of their doctrine, I do think they have taken a courageous stand against such things as nationalism and militarism. Anyway, just as I was leaving, my friend asked if I would be interested in reading a leaflet about science. As I do have an interest in all things scientific, as well as religion and philosophy, I accepted the leaflet with the intention of reading it later.

The leaflet is called The Origin of Life: Five Questions Worth Asking. The questions asked tie in to the Witness's belief of biblical literalism and old-Earth creationism: that is, that God created the Earth in line with Genesis but that the time frame of the "days" are periods, potentially, of millions of years. This differs from some of the young Earth creationists who claim that the world was literally created in six days just over 6,000 years ago. This difference of time frames comes down to a differing theological interpretation of the original biblical texts and their translation. This is all interesting stuff but where the leaflet falls down is in that it chooses not to show how biblical beliefs and scientific discovery can be compatible but instead tries to denigrate the science of evolution.

The questions asked are How did life begin? Is any form of life really simple? Where did the instructions come from? Has all life descended from a common ancestor? and Is it unreasonable to believe the Bible? All the text is a rehash of Intelligent Design arguments and in every case it falls back on the position that if something is difficult to understand in scientific terms, then God must have done it. I couldn't see any form of rational or theological thinking in the leaflet and it tried to make its point mainly by making unfounded or distorted claims about evolutionary biology and then claiming that a literal interpretation of the bible has the answers instead. This is unfortunate, because I do think that religion has something to offer the world but what it does have to offer is not doing bad science. This idea was famously proposed by the palaeontologist and writer Stephen Jay Gould as NOMA.

Non-overlapping Magisteria, or NOMA for short, is the concept that science and religion (and philosophy in general) are not in conflict with each other and are actually complimentary by allowing questions which cannot be answered in one realm to be answered in another. As Gould stated:

"The lack of conflict between science and religion arises from a lack of overlap between their respective domains of professional expertise — science in the empirical constitution of the universe, and religion in the search for proper ethical values and the spiritual meaning of our lives. The attainment of wisdom in a full life requires extensive attention to both domains — for a great book tells us that the truth can make us free and that we will live in optimal harmony with our fellows when we learn to do justly, love mercy, and walk humbly."

The concept of NOMA has been criticised by many, such as the leading atheist Richard Dawkins, and when looking at examples such as the Witness leaflet on evolution it would appear that he has a point. However, I still agree with Gould's stance. Science and religion/philosophy do work in different realms and they can, do and should inform each other. What Five Questions Worth Asking should be about is showing that whilst evolutionary theory may explain why things are as they are, it does not dictate how humans should behave to each other or how our morality is derived. Similarly, science cannot dictate ethics (although it can certainly inform them). An example of this would be the Eugenics movement which became so obsessed about how it could change human beings it forgot to ask whether it should. In fact, there is some evidence that the growth of creationist beliefs in the United States was in response to repugnance at sterilisation programmes which had been introduced by Eugenicists. Rather than rightly pulling the scientists up on legitimate ethical grounds, they merely chose to reject the science outright: a case of Very Overlapping Magisteria and a real missed opportunity by the American evangelical churches to add some balance to a rather bad case of Scientism.

Of all scientific theories, Evolution seems to be the one that most vexes religion. Partly, this may be because it does run in the face of literal interpretations of religious text. I think a greater factor is that it shows nature to be "Red in tooth and claw" which seems to run counter to the idea of an all powerful and forgiving deity. In fact, it merely shows nature as it is, not how mankind should be. That is a matter for philosophical discussion - a matter for NOMA.