Romanes: Religion and Science
Journal Title: Filozoficzne Aspekty Genezy - Year 2010, Vol 7, Issue 0
Abstract
The article presents George John Romanes’ view on the relation between religion and science. Romanes was nineteenth century English evolutionary biologist interested also in theology. According to Romanes, the task of science is to find causes of particular phenomena, while religion is a general theory of reality assuming that everything is ultimately caused by an intelligent agent. Romanes claims that in their pure forms science and religion have no logical contact. However, till recently religion influenced science. As a result of prevalence of faith, there was a habit to referring all phenomena to the deity. When one of these activities crosses its appropriate boundaries, trying to use the methods of the other, the resulting effect is chaos. An attempt to explain particular phenomena in terms of a religious theory of ultimate causes, i.e. intelligent design theory, was a case in point. Romanes suggests that proponents of design argument are too eager in recognizing that there cannot exist other causes of perfect adaptation of organisms except a designer, and that is why they immediately look for examples confirming their thesis. Conversely, Darwin’s aim was to find other causes. For Romanes, emergence of the Darwinian theory of evolution was a turning point when science began to exert significant influence on religion.
Authors and Affiliations
Aleksandra Babij, Alicja Babij
Keywords
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