Progress in Science and Religion
A Talk By Freeman Dyson
On the Occasion of receiving the 2000 Templeton Prize
First, a big thank you to
Sir John Templeton and the administrators of the Templeton Foundation for
giving me this undeserved and unexpected honor. Second, a big thank you to the Institute for Advanced Study in
Princeton for supporting me as a
Professor of Physics while I strayed
into other areas remote from physics. Third, a big thank you to
the editors and publishers of my books for giving me the chance to communicate
with a wider public. Fourth. a
big thank you to my wife and family for keeping me from getting a swelled head. And fifth, a big thank
you to the Washington National Cathedral for allowing us to use this magnificent
building for our ceremonies.
Sir John
Templeton has told its clearly the purpose of his awards. They are prizes for
Progress in Religion. But it is up to us to figure out what Progress in
Religion means. Roughly speaking. there have been two main themes in the lives
of the previous prize‑winners. The first theme is practical good works, caring
for the poor and sick, helping the dying to die with dignity. Outstanding among
the doers of good works were Mother Teresa and Dame Cicely Saunders.
The
second theme is scholarly study and teaching, helping people who are committed
to one religion or another to approach God through intellectual understanding,
explaining to the uncommitted the logical foundations of belief. Outstanding among the scholarly prize‑winners
are James McCord and Ian Barbour. I am amazed to find myself in the company of
these great spirits, half of them saints and the other half theologians. I am
neither a saint nor a theologian.
To me,
good works are more important than theology. We all know that religion has been
historically, and still is today, a cause of` great evil as well as great good
in human affairs. We have seen terrible wars and terrible persecutions
conducted in the name of religion. We have also seen large numbers of people
inspired by religion to lives of heroic virtue, bringing education and medical
care to the poor, helping to abolish slavery and spread peace among nations.
Religion
amplifies the good and evil tendencies of individual souls. Religion will
always remain a powerful force in the history of our species. To me, the
meaning of progress in religion is simply this, that as we move from the past
to the future the good works inspired by religion should more and more prevail
over the evil.
Even in
the gruesome history of the twentieth century, I see same evidence of progress
in religion. The two individuals who epitomized the evils of our century. Adolf
Hitler and Joseph Stalin, were both avowed atheists. Religion cannot be field
responsible for their atrocities. And the three individuals who epitomized the
good, Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King and Mother Teresa, were all in their
different ways religious.
One of
the great but less famous heroes of World War Two was Andre Trocme, the
Protestant pastor of the village of Le Chambon sur Lignon in France. which
sheltered and saved the lives of five thousand Jews under the noses of the
Gestapo. Forty years later Pierre Sauvage. one of the Jews who was saved, recorded
the story of the village in a magnificent documentary film with the title, “Weapons
of the Spirit.” The villagers proved that civil disobedience and passive
resistance could be effective weapons, even against Hitler. Their religion gave
them the Courage and the discipline to stand firm. Progress in religion means
that, as time goes on, religion more and more takes the side of the victims
against the oppressors.
For Ian
Barbour, who won the Templeton Prize last year, religion is, an intellectual
passion. For me it is simply a part of the human condition. Recently I visited
the Imani church in Trenton because my daughter, who is a Presbyterian minister.
happened to he preaching there. Imani is an innercity church with a mostly
black congregation and a black minister. The people come to church, not only to
worship god, but also to have a good time. The service is in formal and the
singing is marvelous. While I was there they baptized seven babies, six
black and one white. Each baby in turn was not merely shown to the congregation
but handed around to be hugged by everybody. Sociological studies have shown
that violent crimes occur less frequently in the
neighborhood of Imani church than elsewhere in the
inner city. After the two hour service was over, the congregation moved into
the adjoining
assembly room and ate a substantial lunch. Sharing the food is to me more
important than arguing about beliefs. Jesus, according to the gospels, thought
so too.
I am
content to be one of the multitude of Christians who do not care much about the
doctrine of the Trinity or the historical truth of the gospels. Both as a
scientist and as a religious person, I am accustomed to living with
uncertainty. Science is exciting because it is full of unsolved mysteries and
religion is exciting for the same reason.
The greatest
unsolved mysteries are the mysteries of our existence as conscious beings in a
small corner of a vast universe. Why are we here? Does the Universe have a
purpose? Whence comes our knowledge of good and evil? These mysteries and a
hundred others like them, are beyond the reach of science. They lie on the
other side of the border, within the jurisdiction of religion.
My
personal theology is described in the Gifford lectures that I gave at Aberdeen
in Scotland in I985, published under the title, Infinite In All Directions. Here is a brief summary of my thinking.
The universe shows evidence of the operations of mind on three levels. The
first level is elementary physical processes, as we see them when we study
atoms in the laboratory. The second level is our direct human experience of our
own consciousness.
The
third level is the universe as a whole. Atoms in the laboratory are weird
stuff, behaving like active agents rather than inert substances. They make
unpredictable choices between alternative possibilities according to the laws
of quantum mechanics. It appears that mind, as manifested by the capacity to
make choices, is to some extent inherent in every atom. The universe as a whole
is also weird with laws of nature that make it hospitable to the growth of
mind. I do not make any clear distinction between mind and God. God is what
mind becomes when it has passed beyond the scale of our comprehension. God may
be either a world-soul or a collection of world‑souls.
So I am
thinking that atoms and humans and God may have minds that differ in degree but
not in kind. We stand, in a manner of speaking, midway between the
unpredictability of atoms and the unpredictability of God. Atoms are small
pieces of our mental apparatus, and we are small pieces of God’s mental
apparatus. Our minds may receive inputs equally from atoms and from God. This
view of our place in the cosmos may not be true, but it is compatible with the
active nature of atoms as revealed in the experiments of modem physics. I don’t
say that this personal theology is supported or proved by scientific evidence.
I only say that it is consistent with scientific evidence.
I do not
claim any ability to read God’s mind. I am sure of only one thing. When we look
at the glory of stars and galaxies in the sky and the glory of forests and
flowers in the living world around its, it is evident that God loves diversity.
Perhaps the universe is constructed according to a principle of maximum
diversity.
The
principle of maximum diversity says that the laws of nature, and the initial
conditions at the beginning of time, are such as to make the universe as
interesting as possible. As a result, life is possible but not too easy.
Maximum diversity often leads to maximum stress. In the end we survive, but
only by the skin of our teeth. This is the confession of faith of a scientific
heretic. Perhaps I may claim as evidence for progress in religion the fact that
we no longer burn heretics.
That is enough about me. Let me talk now about the great transformations of the world that we are facing in the future. All through our history, we have been changing the world with our technology. Our technology has been of two kinds, green and grey. Green technology is seeds and plants, gardens and vineyards and orchards, domesticated horses and cows and pigs, milk and cheese, leather and wool. Grey technology is bronze and steel, spears and guns, coal and oil and electricity, automobiles and airplanes and rockets, telephones and computers.
Civilization
began with green technology, with agriculture and animal breeding, ten thousand
years ago. Then, beginning about three thousand years ago, grey technology
became dominant, with mining and metallurgy and machinery. For the last five
hundred years, grey technology has been racing ahead and has given birth to the
modern world of cities and factories and supermarkets.
The
dominance of grey technology is now coming to an end. During the last fifty
years, we have achieved a fundamental understanding of the processes occurring
in living cells. With understanding comes the ability to exploit and control.
Out of the knowledge acquired by modern biology, modern biotechnology is
growing. The new green technology will give us the power, using only sunlight
as a source of energy, and air and water and soil as sources of materials, to
manufacture and recycle chemicals of all kinds.
Our grey
technology of machines and computers will not disappear, but green technology will
be moving ahead even faster. Green technology can he cleaner, more flexible and
less wasteful than our existing
chemical industries. A great variety of manufactured objects could he grown
instead of made. Green technology could supply human needs with fatless, damage
to the natural environment. And green technology could be a great equalizer,
bringing wealth to the tropical areas of the world which have most of the
sunshine, most of the human population, and most of the poverty.
I am
saying that green technology could do all these good things, bringing wealth to
the tropics, bringing economic opportunity to the villages, narrowing the gap
between rich and poor. I am not saying that green technology will do all these
good things. “Could” is not the same as "will". To make these good
things happen, we need not only the new technology but the political and
economic conditions that will give people all over the world a chance to use
it.
To make these things happen, we need a powerful push from ethics. We need a consensus of public opinion around the world that the existing gross inequalities in the distribution of wealth are intolerable. In reaching such a consensus, religions must play an essential role. Neither technology alone nor religion alone is powerful enough to bring social justice to human societies, but technology and religion working together might do the job. We all know that green technology has a dark side, just as grey technology has a dark side.
Grey
technology brought us hydrogen bombs as well as telephones. Green technology
brought us anthrax bombs, as well as, antibiotics. Besides the dangers of
biological weapons, green technology brings other dangers having nothing to do
with weapons.
The
ultimate danger of green technology comes from its power to change the nature
of human beings by the application of genetic engineering to human embryos. If we
allow a free market in human genes, wealthy parents will be able to buy what
they consider superior genes for their babies. This could cause a splitting of
humanity into hereditary castes. Within a few generations, the children of rich
and poor could become separate species. Humanity would then have regressed all
the way back to a society of masters and slaves. No matter how strongly we
believe ill the virtues of a free market economy, the free market must not
extend to human genes.
A few
weeks ago I was attending Mass in St. Stephen's church in England. In Princeton
I am Presbyterian, but in England I am catholic because I go to Mass with my
sister. The reading from the gospel of St. Matthew told of the angry Jesus
driving the merchants and money changers out of the temple, knocking over the
tables of the money-changers and spilling their coins on the floor.
Jesus
was not opposed to capitalism and the profit motive, so long as economic
activities were carried on outside the temple. In the parable of the talents,
he praises the servant who used his master's money to make a profitable
investment, and condemns the servant who was too timid to invest. But he draws
a clear line at the temple door. Inside the temple, the ground belongs to God
and profit‑making must stop.
While I
was listening to the reading, I was thinking how Jesus’s anger might extend to
free markets in human bodies and human genes. In the time of Jesus and for many
centuries afterwards, there was a free market in human bodies. The institution
of slavery was based on the legal right of slave‑owners to buy and sell their
property in a free market. Only in the nineteenth century did the abolitionist
movement, with Quakers and other religious believers in the lead succeed in
establishing the principle that the free market does not extend to human
bodies.
The
human body is God’s temple and not a commercial commodity. And now in the
twenty‑first century, for the sake of equity and human brotherhood, we must
maintain the principle that the free market does not extend to human genes. Let
its hope that we can reach a consensus on this question without fighting
another civil war. Scientists and religious believers and physicians and
lawyers must come together with mutual respect to achieve a consensus and to
decide where the line at the door of the temple should be drawn.
Like all
the new technologies that have arisen from scientific knowledge, biotechnology
is a tool that can be used either for good or for evil purposes. The role of
ethics is to strengthen the good and avoid the evil. I see two tremendous goods
coining from biotechnology in the next century, first the alleviation of human
misery through progress in medicine, and second the transformation of the
global economy through green technology spreading wealth more
equitably around the world.
The two
great evils to be avoided are the use of biological weapons and the corruption
of human nature by buying and selling genes. I see no scientific reason why we
should not achieve the good and avoid the evil.
The
obstacles to achieving the good are political rather than technical.
Unfortunately a large number of people in many countries are strongly opposed
to green technology, for reasons having little to do with the real dangers. It
is important to treat the opponents with respect, to pay attention to their
fears, to go gently into the new world of green technology so that neither human
dignity nor religious conviction is violated. If we can go gently, we have a
good chance of achieving within a hundred years the goals of ecological sustainability
and social justice that green technology brings within our reach.
Now I
have five minutes left to give you a message to take home. The message is
simple. “God forbid that we should give out a dream of our own imagination for
a pattern of the world.” This was said by Francis Bacon, one of the founding
fathers of modem science, almost four hundred years ago. Bacon was the smartest
man of his time, with the possible exception of William Shakespeare. Bacon saw
clearly what science could do and what science could not do. He is saying to
the philosophers and theologians of his time: look for God in the facts of
nature, not in the theories of Plato and Aristotle.
I am
saying to modern scientists and theologians: don’t imagine that our latest
ideas about the Big Bang or the human genome have solved the mysteries of the
universe or the mysteries of life. Here are Bacon's words again: “The subtlety
of nature is greater many times over than the subtlety of the senses and
understanding.”
In the
last four hundred years, science has fulfilled many of Bacon's dreams, but it
still does not come close to capturing the full subtlety of nature. To talk
about the end of science is just as foolish as to talk about the end of
religion. Science and religion are both still close to their beginnings, with
no ends in sight. Science and religion are both destined to grow and change in
the millennia that lie ahead of us, perhaps solving some old mysteries,
certainly discovering new mysteries of which we yet have no inkling.
“The subtlety of nature
is greater many times over than the
subtlety of the senses and understanding". Francis Bacon
After
sketching his program for the scientific revolution that lie foresaw, Bacon
ends his account with a prayer: "Humbly we pray that this mind may be
steadfast in us, and that through these our hands, and the hands of others to
whom thou shalt give the same spirit, thou wilt vouchsafe to endow the human
family with new mercies.” That is still a good prayer for all of us as we begin
the twenty-first century.
Science
and religion are two windows that people look through, trying to understand the
big universe outside, trying to understand why we are here. The two windows
give different views, but they look out at the same universe. Both views are
one‑sided, neither is complete. Both leave out essential features of the real
world. And both are worthy of respect.
Trouble
arises when either science or religion claims universal jurisdiction, when
either religious dogma or scientific dogma claims to be infallible. Religious
creationists and scientific materialists are equally dogmatic and insensitive.
By their arrogance they bring both science and religion into disrepute. The media
exaggerate their numbers and importance.
The
media rarely mention the fact that the great majority of religious people
belong to moderate denominations that treat science with respect, or the fact
that the great majority of scientists treat religion with respect so long as
religion does not claim jurisdiction over scientific questions. In the little
town of Princeton where I live, we have more than twenty churches and at least
one synagogue, providing different forms of worship and belief for different
kinds of people. They do more than any other organizations in the town to hold
the community together. Within this community of people, held together by
religious traditions of' human brotherhood and sharing of burdens, a smaller
community of professional scientists also flourishes.
I look
out from the pampered little community of Princeton, which Einstein described
in a letter to a friend in Europe as "a quaint and ceremonious village,
peopled by demi‑gods on stilts". I look out from this community of bankers
and professors to ask, what can we do for the suffering multitudes of humanity
in the world outside.
The
great question for our time is, how to make sure that the continuing scientific
revolution brings benefits to everybody rather than widening the gap between
rich and poor. To lift up poor countries, and poor people in rich countries,
from poverty, to give them a chance of a decent life, technology is not enough.
'Technology must be guided and driven by ethics if it is to do more than
provide new toys for the rich. Scientists and business leaders who care about
social justice should join forces with environmental and religious
organizations to give, political clout to ethics‑ Science and religion should
work together to abolish the gross inequalities that prevail in the modern
world. That is my vision, and it is the same vision that inspired Francis Bacon
four hundred years ago, when he prayed that through science God would
"endow the human family with new mercies".