quote:
Science serves a purpose, religion serves a purpose, secular awareness serves a purpose, social responsibility serves a purpose, but all must acknowledge their limitations and learn to work within their own framework. None, in and of itself, will ever be sufficient enough to reveal all of the unknowns. Society is better served by the integration of these individual concepts.
—Darkstar
So what we have are tools that are meant to answer separate questions. Science is the tool used to explain the physical, natural world. Philosophy/religion is a tool used to explain the metaphysical, moral, and spiritual questions that man asks. They are mutually exclusive. I would argue that society should use all of the tools, but they can not be combined into one.
For example, if we want to make a new pesticide to kill off a mosquito outbreak, do we meditate or apply empirical science? If we want to judge someone's actions, do we use science or socieatl/moral standards steeped in philosophy and religion? If we want to calculate the orbit of a satellite, do we pray about it and hope for a vision, or do we use mathematical formula derived from scientific theories devoid of religious content?
The question is this. What separates evolution and the origin of life from the rest of the sciences? We can reconstruct a crime from the evidence left behind, yet we are supposed to read the bible for reconstructing biological evidence left in the rocks. We can use DNA to determine paternity, but we can't use DNA to determine common ancestory. It seems that creationists and flavors thereof want to reap the benefits of keeping religion out of science unless it disagrees with their religion. Science is good enough to double their lifespan, make non-stick pots, make non-religious theories about orbiting planets, but not good enough to describe species diversity.
Science has never been improved, and very possibly ruined, by the inclusion of religious precepts. It wasn't until society decided to separate religion and science that we finally saw the heights to which human invention could reach. I would argue that the last 100 years has seen the removal of religion from science, and at the same time we also observe the greatest increase in technological discoveries and the greatest increase in solid theories that have withstood prolonged testing. Darkstar argues that science would benefit, but the data argues otherwise.