A sausage roll

I ate a sausage roll the other day, but I did not enjoy it. Not because it was a poor quality sausage roll. In fact it was quite good. The reason I did not enjoy it is because I was going against many years of conditioning of not eating pork and thinking of such an act as repulsive. So even if I no longer believe in the reasons for such abstention, going against this training left me with a sort of feeling of guilt. I know this feeling. In the past, when I did something that broke one of the tenets of the religion I was brought up in, I would be left with similar feelings, but stronger. Over the years, I have managed to fight this indoctrination with the aid of questioning (use of which, by the way, is heavily discouraged if it questions the system itself, in this case religion. In other words, made to feel guilty about this as well). It may not seem this way, but this post is not intended for religion bashing. In fact, these feelings made me think about the idea of our moral compass. Made me think about that voice inside us that tells us what is right and wrong. And that feeling of guilt that tells us when, according to our morality, we have done something wrong. Many, if not all, of you reading this post will not consider eating a sausage roll a wrongful act. However, my inner voice was trying to tell me that it is. I ignored that feeling and I know eventually I will not care at all. So what does this say about morals? Is there really such a thing and is it possible to use anything as a guide? Or are they just a convenient level of understanding we have developed, as a society, to sustain the system. Any deviation from these rules (morals), especially if it threatens the integrity of the system, and the protection mechanism (guilt) kicks in. It was a difficult sausage roll!

Science and Religion living in harmony

Although this topic and debate are hackneyed, my thoughts here are inspired by some new experiences. I recently moved to a Physics department situated in the bible belt. It is by no means the heart of the bible belt, so its effects on the University were surprising to me. I was aware of the existence of "evolution deniers" before I arrived in the US, but I did not expect to find them in the Physics department. You may ask why not? This question and its answer are at the heart of my thoughts here.

I have come across researchers from the fields of astrophysics, as well as particle physics, who quite happily state that they do not "believe in evolution". One of the most interesting conversations involved an astrophysicist telling somebody that they should believe in the theory of Relativity, only to state five minutes later that they themselves did not believe in evolution. I find this a curious stance. Leaving aside the point that these things are not a belief system, how can you agree with one scientific theory and deny another, equally amazing and successful, scientific theory. I hear people say that "...he is an intelligent guy... he is researching quantum mechanics, but believes that the dinosaurs were wiped out in the Great Flood." My response is that somebody like that is actually quite stupid, because they have not learnt from their education. (Of course, I would be more forgiving if the person denying a scientific theory had no scientific training. Although, refusing to think is not really excusable!) The greatest human invention, I believe anyway, is the scientific method. It tells us to take our theories and test them. If a theory makes predictions and they match the observations, then it gets a scientific reprieve. This kind of observational confirmation does not prove the theory, but simply states that this is the best we have so far. It is a beautiful system because it tells us to have humility. So any scientist simply denying the evidence for a scientific theory, because it does not suit their beliefs, has somewhat missed the point of their training. 

This is the reason why evolution denying is not compatible with any science department. The theory of evolution is not perfect, but it provides us with a relatively simple and logical explanation for an extremely complex problem; most importantly, there is evidence for the theory. Call it parsimony or Occam's razor, but either way, you are a poor scientist if you replace a simple logical explanation with a belief-driven faith-driven "theory" reminiscent of epicycles. So can Science and religion truly live in harmony in our minds? I do not think so; science asks for evidence and religion wants faith. An attempt to placate both just creates a life of hypocrisy.