Richard Sloan measures the difference between science and religion in the Chronicle.

The view that all human experience can be reduced to the function of biological activity may be satisfying to scientists, but it is anathema to theologians. The researchers Marguerite Lederberg and George Fitchett recognize this problem in an interesting article with the provocative title "Can You Measure a Sunbeam With a Ruler?" In it, they explore the scientific problems with attempts to reduce the experience of religion to the measurable quantities of science. The point of their title is to reiterate a longstanding concern in science: the difficulty of quantifying human experience. By attempting to measure a sunbeam and in so doing reduce it to that which can be quantified by a ruler, we lose the character of the sunbeam itself. While such measurement may be possible, it cannot capture the essence of the sunbeam and in fact may distort it."

Water is H2O, but that fact doesn't dilute or reject the enjoyment I experience when I drink some. But what about the experience of enjoyment ittself? If it turns out that the experience of enjoyment can be reduced to (or identified with) particular patterns of synaptic firing, would it follow that enjoyment loses all its punch? Of course not. The feelings aren't lost by giving a materialist account of them. The worry by Sloan and others is really that this materialistic account will exclude the immaterialistic (supernatural) elements in their worldview. You don't lose the character of the sunbeam; you lose the miraculous or magical account of the source of that character. Sunbeams remain golden, warm, and lovely. Similarly for religious experience. I agree with Sloan that counting the number of people who attend church wouldn't help us much to understand the nature and source of religious experience. But even if we could give a meaningful materialistic (scientific) account of the experiences, that would not change the character of the experience. It would, perhaps, undermine Sloan's assumptions about the source or purpose of those experiences. If those assumptions are wrong, it would be good to know that. I'm much more concerned with those who try to reduce matters of science to religious assumptions and articles of faith.

The Chronicle: 11/3/2006: The Critical Distinction Between Science and Religion

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