Epigraph: “In the creation of the heavens and the earth and in the alternation of the night and the day there are indeed Signs for men of understanding; those who remember Allah while standing, sitting, and lying on their sides, and ponder over the creation of the heavens and the earth: ‘Our Lord, Thou hast not created this in vain; nay, Holy art Thou; save us, then, from the punishment of the Fire.’” (Al Quran 3:191-192)

Written and collected by Zia H Shah MD

Charles Robert Darwin, FRS (12 February 1809 – 19 April 1882) was an English naturalist.^[I] He established that all species of life have descended over time from common ancestors,^[1] and proposed the scientific theory that this branching pattern of evolution resulted from a process that he called natural selection, in which the struggle for existence has a similar effect to the artificial selection involved in selective breeding.^[2]

Darwin published his theory of evolution with compelling evidence in his 1859 book On the Origin of Species, overcoming scientific rejection of earlier concepts of transmutation of species.^[3][4] By the 1870s the scientific community and much of the general public had accepted evolution as a fact. However, many favoured competing explanations and it was not until the emergence of the modern evolutionary synthesis from the 1930s to the 1950s that a broad consensus developed in which natural selection was the basic mechanism of evolution.^[5][6] In modified form, Darwin’s scientific discovery is the unifying theory of the life sciences, explaining the diversity of life.^[7][8]

As his birthday is February 12th, two days ago the world celebrated Darwin’s day.

Rep. Rush Holt

Rep. Rush Holt, 60, is a resident of Hopewell Township, N.J. Born in West Virginia, he inherited his interest in politics from his parents. His father was the youngest person ever elected to the U.S. Senate, at age 29. His mother served as Secretary of State of West Virginia and was the first woman to hold that position.

He is now a U.S. Congressman.  He wrote an article in the Huffington Post on Darwin’s day, titled, On Darwin Day, Promoting Scientific Thinking.  He wrote:

Today is the anniversary of the birth of Charles Darwin. Like Galileo, Newton and Einstein in the physical sciences, Darwin in the life sciences provided a new framework for thinking that led to great new understanding and eventually greatly improved the quality of life for millions of people. I have proposed that this date be recognized officially as Darwin Day as a reminder of the need to promote scientific thinking throughout our society.

Although I am a research scientist and teacher by background, the world in which I live day to day — the world of politics and legislation — is a fairly constrained, unscientific world. The inhabitants of that world do not often break new ground. There are not many new ideas. The work of politicians is to find a balance of existing competing interests that will hold at least for a short time. Science is not like that; it is progressive. Scientists operate on the assumption that through better and better theories drawn from evidence one can have clearer and clearer understanding of how the world works.

Science is not primarily a compilation and refinement of what is known. Science is mostly a very clever technique for venturing into what is not known. Its currency is new ideas. The new ideas are not simply daydreams or unfounded conjectures. They are extrapolations from observation and evidence. The scientists we extol, like Darwin, could see more pathways into the unknown from the commonplace.

So far so good, it is a nice introduction to what science is and what it is not.  The congressman delivers his punch line mid-way into his article as a one line paragraph, when he writes, “But science need not be tied to the divine.”

Here I part company with him.  Compartmentalizing, cribbing and cabinning reality into reason and faith, science and religion, testable and blind, shatters human consciousness, leaving no hope for sublime unity and a complete understanding, in my view.  Here, I am in the distinguished company of the celebrated genius Albert Einstein, who famously said, “Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind!”  Whatever his views were about the Creator or the Deist God and no matter, how strongly he disbelieved in a Personal God, Einstein always tried to bring his religion and science together and extensively spoke about both the subjects.

Albert Einstein, 1935, Princeton University, the top University in USA

Here, I propose to only present a few quotes from him to illustrate my thesis:

That deeply emotional conviction of the presence of superior reasoning power, which is revealed in the incomprehensible universe, forms my idea of God.

That humble attitude of mind toward the grandeur of reason incarnate in existence, which in its profoundest depths, is inaccessible to man.

A belief bound up with deep feeling in a superior mind that reveals itself in the world of experience, represents my conception of God.

The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and all science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: his eyes are closed.

The congressman, in his article, has failed to make a distinction between different domains of knowledge and their interaction. Study of nature is science, study pertaining to Transcendent God, Who is beyond time, space and matter is religion and co-relating these two domains of study, creates the third domain of metaphysics.

Human understanding remains very deficient without appreciating all of these three domains.

If we follow this simple model of boundaries, between the three domains, dialogue and discussion can proceed more smoothly among the believers and the agnostics and unnecessary science and religion conflict avoided. People coming from different traditions, be they religious or scientific, can find enough recognition in this model to conduct a productive dialogue.

Many Muslims today want to prove their religion on the basis of science and will not want a complete separation between the domain of science and religion and will want to show that their metaphysics has greater appeal than that of others.

The Christians did the same until they could, case in point, St. Augustine and Thomas Aquinas.

Further Reading:

Debate: Does the Universe have a purpose?

The Root Cause of Science and Religion Conflict: Wrong Theology!

Albert Einstein’s search for God