SCIENCE AND RELIGION

New Zealand Listener, Volume 31, Issue 781, 9 July 1954, Page 5

SCIENCE AND RELIGION

Sir-My critic "M.F.MclI.," in dismissing my short letter, proves nothing himself. He considers Professor Leuba’s surveys useless, Francis Bello in Fortune gives the results of a recently-completed

questionnaire to 107 young (under forty) scientists, who were considered by their senior colleagues to be outstanding. "About half were brought up as Protestants; more than one quarter were Jewish; less than 5 per cent came from Catholic families. At present nearly three-quarters of the total have no religious affiliation." As one who knows a great number of very fine people who deny God, I take strong exception to the bigoted view expressed by Selwyn Dawson, "that men denying -God" could use _ the weapons provided by science to conduct themselves to the frontiers of existence. Dr. E. W. Barnes, late Bishop of Birmingham, who will be remembered for his frank forthrightness, thought otherwise when he said: "The followers of Christ, the first great pacifist in human history, might be expected to wean men from the follies of war. Strangely, they and most of their leaders are silenced. It is the men of science who have clearly seen the tragedy of the present situation and who, to their honour, are, notwithstanding criticism and obloquy, working and speaking for international peace." At the Science Congress in Auckland, Australia’s leading atomic physicist, Professor Oliphant, attacked recent statements by religious leaders who described the misuse of science as a menace to the world. Professor Oliphant implied that the world’s sorry state is the fault of the churches for not doing their job better. His attiude towards the Bible is also significantly revealed: "We are told that ... Adam and Eve were driven from the Garden of Eden because they disobeyed the law and ate of the tree of knowledge. It seems strange to me that the exercise of the greatest faculty with which men have been endowed should ever have been regarded as a sin. By a deliberate act, probably the greatest step he ever took, man chose to seek knowledge, thereby setting himself apart from all living things and ensuring his ultimate dominion over the earth. What is called the Fall of Man should be known as the Ascent of Man." It would appear ‘that many religious adherents are ill prepared both intellectually and morally to face the iconoclastic advances of science, and are obvious distressed at the thought of Comte’s prognostication becoming a

reality.

P.

CAMPBELL

(Auckland)

(This correspondence is now closed.-Ed.)