one bit of empirical evidence render the proposal ad hoc.
58
The alien explanation
would be an agent explanation designed to explain something made by that agent.
Religious explanations are frequently, of course, of exactly that general type as well.
But suppose that Worrall had shown that religious belief did not conform to “the
scientific attitude.” If religion is religion and not science, wouldn’t one expect it not
to conform to norms definitive of something else – science? More importantly, why
should that nonconformity be worrisome for religious believers? Should scientists
worry if told that science does not conform to “the religious attitude”? Recall, fur-
thermore, that Worrall warns us against thinking that even our best fundamental sci-
entific theories are true, and says that not only does science not logically refute basic
theistic beliefs, but that “outright belief at least in fundamental explanatory theories
is not rational, that is, not scientific, even in science” (my emphasis). So why, we
might ask Worrall, should science epistemologically rule all?
Superficially, Worrall’s answer might seem to be that, regardless of its limitations,
science is still the best we’ve got – it has had “enormous empirical success,” whereas
religion has had “no empirical success at all.” But his reason goes deeper than that.
Recall that Worrall’s position constitutes an identification of the rational with the
scientific – a form of scientism. (Note Worrall’s telling phrase: “not rational, that is,
not scientific” (my emphasis).) Thus, if religious belief clashes either with well-accred-
ited results of science or with the scientific attitude, it is thereby automatically in
rational difficulty. In effect, if religious belief has any distinctive character different
from that of science, it virtually thereby fails to conform to the requirements of ration-
ality – making genuine religion rationally unacceptable almost by definition. In par-
ticular, “religious belief must...rely on faith; and faith is unscientific.”
59
It must rely
on faith – that is purportedly essential to its character as religious belief. And faith
evidently cannot demand independent empirical support – that is presumably essen-
tial to its character as faith.
60
And belief despite failure of independent empirical
support constitutes failure to be scientific – that is, failure to be rational. Science
trumps and triumphs because it very nearly just is rationality, and anything purport-
edly substantive but not scientific is afortiorinot rational. With the boundaries thus
drawn, religion’s “clashes with science (or more accurately the scientific attitude) is
inevitable,” and (at least when in conflict with established scientific theory) religious
claims “must, from a rational point of view, give way” (my emphasis).
61
Worrall’s argument, then, rests upon reduction of all evaluation of substantive
matters to one preferred structure of evaluation (evidentialism), all legitimate evidence
to one preferred sort of evidence (empirical), and all rationality to one preferred model
of rationality (science). It seems to me that not only has Worrall not given adequate
Science and Religion
93
58 This example might be far-fetched, but, as David Van Baak remarked to me, the scientific analysis of
the first radio message recovered by a SETI program would have precisely this logical structure.
59 The reference here is to Tennyson, but Worrall clearly endorses the position.
60 This conception of faith would be deeply disputed by many believers.
61 So, as Worrall structures the issue, evaluation is stipulated as empirical, but religion will not get credit
even when it happens to be empirically right. If a religious belief does have the proper empirical creden-
tials, then it is ipso facto science, and not religion after all, and religion, again, does not get credit. One
upshot here is that belief based just on, e.g., revelation is, by definition, not rationally justified – natural
theology is in effect the only even possible justification for substantive religious belief.