• Question: is there tension between religious people and scientists or is that a steriotype

    Asked by drtrollface to Rebecca, Philip, John, Ellie, Carol on 3 Jul 2012.
    • Photo: John Welford

      John Welford answered on 3 Jul 2012:

      Not necessarily no. Plenty of scientist and religious people get along fine. In fact some scientists are religious themselves.

      There are SOME aspects of SOME religions that aren’t compatible with SOME PARTS of science though. Probably the biggest tension is between the theories of creationism and evolution.

      Creationism is the religious belief that the earth was created by a supernatural being and that life on earth was put here by them. Some creationists believe that the earth is less than 10 thousand years old.

      Almost all scientists belief in evolution as the explanation for the varied life on earth and that the earth is more like 4.54 billion years old.

      Obviously these two theories are not compatible and therefore can lead to some disagreements and tension. There are plenty of heated debates on the internet about this sort of thing. On the whole though I think there is a stereotype of scientists and religious people arguing that isn’t usually the case.

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