Author Sees Science, Religion Saving Environment

By Daniel Trotta
Reuters

Tuesday 05 September 2006

New York - Scientist and Pulitzer Prize-winning author E.O. Wilson is out to save life on Earth - literally - and as a secular humanist has decided to enlist people of religious faith in his mission.

The Harvard professor sees science and religion as potential allies for averting the mass extinction of the species being caused by man, as he argues in his latest book, "The Creation: An Appeal to Save Life on Earth" (W.W. Norton), due out today.

Asked whether he could unite two groups with clashing world views, Wilson immediately responded, "I know I can."

Among people of religious faith, "There is a potentially powerful commitment to conservation - saving the creation - once the connection is made and once the scientists are willing to form an alliance," Wilson told Reuters in a telephone interview.

"There are two world views in conflict - religious and secular - but yet they can meet in friendship on one of the most important issues of this century," he said.

Wilson, 77, wrote "The Creation" in the form of a series of letters to an imaginary South Baptist minister - just the opposite of preaching to the converted.

While the scientist believes in evolution, the evangelical Christian interprets the Bible as the literal word of God.

"I may be wrong, you may be wrong. We may both be partly right," Wilson writes.

"Does this difference in worldview separate us in all things? It does not," he goes on, drawing on his former experience as a Southern Baptist to find common ground.

Wilson, who won Pulitzers for general non-fiction in 1979 and 1991, documents how human activity has accelerated the mass extinction of species and says habitat preservation is most urgent. He writes that the world's 25 most endangered hotspots could be saved with a one-time payment of $30 billion, a relative pittance compared to the wealth that nature generates for man.

In the Reuters interview, Wilson called the religious community in the United States a "powerful majority." The Southern Baptist Convention says on its Web site it has 16 million members in 42,000 churches.

Wilson is no longer one, having drifted away from religion in his youth. Wilson considers himself neither atheist nor agnostic but a "provisional deist."

"I'm willing to accept the possibility that there is some kind of intelligent force beyond our current understanding," he said.

As such he said he gets a "uniformly warm response" from Southern Baptists ministers, and sees mainstream public opinion as getting greener.

"The public opinion in the United States has become pastel green, and the green seems to be deepening," he said. "This could be just foolish optimism, but we could be approaching the turning point."



Go to Original

Humans "Hardwired for Religion"
By James Randerson
The Guardian Unlimited UK

Monday 04 September 2006

The battle by scientists against "irrational" beliefs such as creationism is ultimately futile, a leading experimental psychologist said today.

The work of Bruce Hood, a professor at Bristol University, suggests that magical and supernatural beliefs are hardwired into our brains from birth, and that religions are therefore tapping into a powerful psychological force.

"I think it is pointless to think that we can get people to abandon their belief systems because they are operating at such a fundamental level," said Prof Hood. "No amount of rational evidence is going to be taken on board to get people to abandon those ideas."

He told the annual British Association Festival of Science in Norwich that the standard bearers for evolution, such as the biologist Richard Dawkins and the philosopher Daniel Dennet, had adopted a counterproductive and "simplistic" position.

"They have basically said there are two types of people in the world," he said - "those who believe in the supernatural and those who do not. But almost everyone entertains some form of irrational beliefs even if they are not religious.

"For example, many people would be reluctant to part with a wedding ring for an identical ring because of the personal significance it holds. Conversely, many people are disgusted by an object if it has associations with 'evil'."

In his lectures, Prof Hood produces a rather boring-looking blue cardigan with large brown buttons and invites people in the audience to put it on, for a £10 reward. As you may expect, there is invariably a sea of raised hands. He then reveals that the notorious murderer Fred West wore the cardigan. Nearly everyone puts their hand down.

Unfortunately, it is just a stunt: the cardigan is not West's. But it illustrates the way even the most rational of people are can be irrationally made to feel uncomfortable.

Another experiment involves asking subjects to cut up a photograph. When his team then measures their galvanic skin response - i.e. sweat production, which is what lie-detector tests monitors - there is a jump in the reading. This does not occur when a person destroys an object of less sentimental significance.