(February 17, 2015 at 10:50 am)watchamadoodle Wrote: This term was mentioned in another thread.
Quote:Non-overlapping magisteria (NOMA) is the view advocated by Stephen Jay Gould that science and religion each have "a legitimate magisterium, or domain of teaching authority," and these two domains do not overlaphttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-overlap...agisterial
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"the magisterium of science covers the empirical realm: what the Universe is made of (fact) and why does it work in this way (theory). The magisterium of religion extends over questions of ultimate meaning and moral value. These two magisteria do not overlap, nor do they encompass all inquiry (consider, for example, the magisterium of art and the meaning of beauty)."
It seems to me that "purpose" and "beauty" are within the magisterium of science too. For example, science can measure psychological wellbeing, productivity, emotional reaction, etc.
Take the example of cooking recipes. Science can measure the quality of recipes in various ways. One recipe might be nutritious. Another recipe might have mass appeal...
I think the motive for such a step is more pragmatic than it is an attempt at saying something literally true. The idea is to get the religious nut cases to stop making ridiculous claims about biology and other matters of scientific interest, and so a kind of truce is declared by putting forth the idea that religion and science are so fundamentally different that they should not attempt to say anything about each other.
This is similar to Obama saying that the Muslim extremists are not really religious. It is not literally true, but it conveys the important truth that the extremists do not represent the majority of Muslims any more than the Inquisition represents the majority of Christians. Obamas aims are political, not academic, and so he chooses his words accordingly.
In this specific case, since religions, like Christianity, typically say that certain things happened in history, obviously, those things can be investigated in precisely the same manner as any other historical claim may be examined.
But, again, I think the motives for such a move are where one should look for understanding why the position is taken. Obviously, if one is going to take such a position, one cannot pretend that it is just a diplomatic move; one must say it is true, or it fails from a diplomatic standpoint.
"A wise man ... proportions his belief to the evidence."
— David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, Section X, Part I.
