The Divided Scientist

Science and religion have never been easy bedfellows. From Galileo’s trial to the Kansas Board of Education, the histories of science and religion are intertwined in what has long been an antagonistic relationship. But the stakes today are as high as ever—are religion and science reconcilable, or are they fundamentally at odds?

Despite a recent spate of strongly-worded books on both sides of the issue aimed at the public sphere, in the Academy at least, science and religion have, for the most part, reached an uneasy truce—by segregating themselves, utterly and totally.

But a recent article in The New York Times about the case of Marcus R. Ross, a doctoral student in geosciences at the University of Rhode Island (URI), may foreshadow the crumbling of this truce. Ross submitted a scientifically correct thesis about a creature that lived 65 million years ago. His work was deemed scientifically “impeccable” by his dissertation adviser. But Ross is also a believer in “young Earth creationism,” the theory that that the planet is only as old as Eden.

While it may appear inherently intellectually dissonant to work within the strictures of science, which holds that the Earth is millions of years old, during the day, yet privately ascribe to a belief that holds that the Earth is at most 10,000 years old, it is a paradigm that has seemed to work in the modern University: As long as the science that the creationist produces is sound, his views are irrelevant.

But in the current scientific-political climate, controversy has reared its ugly head. Though URI awarded Ross a Ph.D., some scientists have questioned whether universities should award students who hold similar beliefs advanced science degrees. What does it say about an institution, they ask, if someone holding a Ph.D. under its seal gives speeches promoting creationism, using the authority of their legitimately earned degree to promote an agenda fundamentally at odds with current scientific knowledge? Others argue that enforcing some sort of “belief standard” among science doctoral students would be contrary to the bedrock values of intellectual tolerance on which the academy is founded.

At Harvard, the consensus seems to be one of cautious intellectual tolerance, as it should be. The degree requirements for a Ph.D. reflect one’s ability to understand a field and contribute to the scientific community’s knowledge of it. As Gund Professor of Neuroscience John Dowling wrote in an e-mail, as long as graduate students’ “creationist views do not affect their science teaching or research,” they should be given degrees. Though we are uncomfortable with “creationists touting legitimate science credentials to add credence to their preposterous views,” as Johnstone Professor of Psychology Steven Pinker commented in an e-mail, to deny such students a Ph.D. would be to start down a slippery slope of almost Orwellian intolerance.

Nevertheless, universities have a responsibility to their students to carefully vet candidates for scientific teaching posts to ensure that privately held beliefs incompatible with scientific theory do not make their way into the classroom. Still, we believe that in the end, scientists should be judged on their work—not on their personal beliefs.