The Environment: Is It Science, Or Is It Religion? - Year of the Sciences - 2008-2009

The Charles H. Townes Lecture Series in Faith and Reason has been funded through gifts from the John Templeton Foundation and Nobel Laureate Charles H. Townes '35. A Greenville native, Townes was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1964 for his contributions to the development of the maser and laser and the Templeton Prize in 2005 for contributions to the understanding of religion. He holds the rank of University Professor Physics in the graduate school at the University of California at Berkeley and a Furman Trustee.

Dr. Townes spent decades as a leading advocate for the convergence of science and religion. His 1966 article, "The Convergence of Science and Religion," in IBM's Think magazine, established Townes as a unique voice — especially among scientists — that sought commonality between the two disciplines. Long before the concept of a relationship between science and religion became an accepted arena of investigation, his nonconformist viewpoint jumpstarted a movement that until then few had considered and even fewer comprehended. So rare was such a viewpoint at the time that Townes admitted in the paper that his position would be considered by many in both camps to be "extreme." Nonetheless, he proposed, "their differences are largely superficial, and... the two become almost indistinguishable if we look at the real nature of each."

The Environment: Is It Science, Or Is It Religion?

Date/Time/Location	Event Description	CLP?
Tues., Mar. 31, 2009, 7pm Younts Center	Townes Lecture on Faith and Reason: "The Environment: Is It Science, Or Is It Religion?" Speaker: Freeman Dyson	Yes

See 3-31-2009 presentation transcript (made availabe 4/8/2009).

Excerpted from Freeman Dyson's 6/12/2008 article in New York Times Review of Books:

"All the books that I have seen about the science and economics of global warming ... miss the main point. The main point is religious rather than scientific. There is a worldwide secular religion which we may call environmentalism, holding that we are stewards of the earth, that despoiling the planet with waste products of our luxurious living is a sin, and that the path of righteousness is to live as frugally as possible. The ethics of environmentalism are being taught to children in kindergartens, schools, and colleges all over the world.

"Environmentalism has replaced socialism as the leading secular religion. And the ethics of environmentalism are fundamentally sound. Scientists and economists can agree with Buddhist monks and Christian activists that ruthless destruction of natural habitats is evil and careful preservation of birds and butterflies is good. The worldwide community of environmentalists—most of whom are not scientists—holds the moral high ground, and is guiding human societies toward a hopeful future. Environmentalism, as a religion of hope and respect for nature, is here to stay. This is a religion that we can all share, whether or not we believe that global warming is harmful.

"Unfortunately, some members of the environmental movement have also adopted as an article of faith the belief that global warming is the greatest threat to the ecology of our planet. That is one reason why the arguments about global warming have become bitter and passionate. Much of the public has come to believe that anyone who is skeptical about the dangers of global warming is an enemy of the environment. The skeptics now have the difficult task of convincing the public that the opposite is true. Many of the skeptics are passionate environmentalists. They are horrified to see the obsession with global warming distracting public attention from what they see as more serious and more immediate dangers to the planet, including problems of nuclear weaponry, environmental degradation, and social injustice. Whether they turn out to be right or wrong, their arguments on these issues deserve to be heard."


Freeman Dyson

Freeman Dyson is now retired, having been for most of his life a professor of physics at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton University. He was born in England and worked as a civilian scientist for the Royal Air Force in World War II. He graduated from Cambridge University in 1945 with a B.A. degree in mathematics. He went on to Cornell University as a graduate student in 1947 and worked with Hans Bethe and Richard Feynman.

Dr. Dyson's most useful contribution to science was the unification of the three versions of quantum electrodynamics invented by Feynman, Schwinger and Tomonaga. Cornell University made him a professor without bothering about his lack of Ph.D. He subsequently worked on nuclear reactors, solid state physics, ferromagnetism, astrophysics and biology, looking for problems where elegant mathematics could be usefully applied.

Dr. Dyson has written a number of books about science for the general public. "Disturbing the universe" (1974) is a portrait-gallery of people he has known during his career as a scientist. "Weapons of Hope" (1984) is a study of ethical problems of war and peace. "Infinite in all directions" (1988) is a philosophical meditation based on Dyson's Gifford Lectures on Natural Theology given at the University of Aberdeen in Scotland. "Origins of Life" (1986, second edition 1999) is a study of one of the major unsolved problems of science. "The sun, the Genome and the Internet" (1999) discusses the question of whether modern technology could be used to narrow the gap between rich and poor rather than widen it.

Dr. Dyson is a fellow of the American Physical Society, a member of the US National Academy of Sciences, and a fellow of the Royal Society of London. In 2000 he was awarded the Templeton Prize for progress in Religion.

More information: