Svante Pääbo on Religion

From Edge:

The creationists are a much smaller issue in Germany than in America. Most of the e-mails and letters that I get in that vein come from America – much more than from Germany. But the little critical comments we have received have come from that quarter. They are objecting to the idea that there would be a common ancestor with Neanderthals or with chimpanzees. I have been able to work with religious fundamentalists, mostly a graduate students in my lab from the Middle East. In the end, I can’t argue with someone who says, “God is almighty and anything I perceive or think can be put in my head by God because God can play some game and make me think there is evidence there for evolution.” I can’t argue against that. I couldn’t understand why a God would deceive me in such a way. But if that’s the case, then we study God’s deception, right? And then we agreed on that with this graduate student, and then we could work in the framework that we started the evidence for this.

It’s much more the case in the US that when you give talks or are at evolutionary conferences, there can be organized opposition to what’s happening.

There’s no place for religion in scientific conversation. Science has to stay science, and religion. Obviously religion has an important role in the lives of probably eighty percent of the people on the planet today. And it’s an important one. Science need not go out and fight this, but there is no role for religion in science. It’s two different realms. I must admit that if I’m confronted with existential questions or life-and-death things, I tend to become irrational and also think in magical ways. Often when we are confronted with things that threaten the foundations of our life, we tend to go for religious or magical or non-scientific ways of dealing with it. That’s part of being human.

This comes from a much larger article which says some interesting things about, well, a lot of stuff. Mainly, though, Pääbo talks about Neanderthals and DNA.

I’m not sure what I think of this. Pääbo is correct that religion has no place in scientific conversations and that all too often people slip into irrationality when confronted with the “big questions” and/or a crisis. Pääbo seems to be taking a pragmatic approach (or possibly a fatalistic approach)to the issue. One that probably couldn’t work here in the US, where, unfortunately, we do have to fight. Which brings me to another question. Why is it alwas phrased in terms of science fighting religion as if science is the aggressor and religion is the null hypothesis?