StarTalk Radio - Exploring Science and Religion with Richard Dawkins

Episode Date: July 26, 2015

Neil deGrasse Tyson discusses science and religion with evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins. Eugene Mirman hosts, with guest Reverend James Martin. Plus, Bill Nye rants about rocks and evolution. Subscribe to SiriusXM Podcasts+ on Apple Podcasts to listen to new episodes ad-free and a whole week early.

Welcome to StarTalk, your place in the universe where science and pop culture collide. StarTalk begins right now. I'm Neil deGrasse Tyson. I'm the Frederick P. Rose Director of the Hayden Planetarium, right here in New York City. And tonight's topic, science and religion. I've got with me my intrepid co-host, Eugene Merman. Eugene, my comedic co-host. Yeah. Excellent. And we're featuring today my interview with the renowned evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins. He's like primary atheist of the world. And so if you're going to talk about science and religion, you need people like that to find out where are they thinking, where are they taking us, what's it all about.

But we couldn't just feature Richard Dawkins. We need some other views here. And so we combed the landscape, and we found a Jesuit priest. This is the academic order of the Catholic Church, and we have with us Father Martin. Welcome to Star Talk. Thank you very much. All right. You have a business degree, apparently. Is that correct? Did I overhear that? I went to the Wharton School of Business before I entered the Jesuits. Well, we see priests,

we just don't think of priests as doing all this other stuff. But you did. I did. And most of us do. Most of us enter the priesthood with a little life experience. Thank God.

Okay. Oh, thank God. He can say, thank God. That's cool. And the rest of us say, should we really do that? But you have the authority to do so. Feel free to say thank God as much as you want. Well, there'll be more of that coming for sure. I just wanted to give a shout out to the Jesuits. They're often portrayed as those who

prosecuted Galileo, attacking his observations of the known universe that came to Galileo through his observations of the telescope. But I also know the Jesuits as an important scientific arm of the Catholic Church. And in fact, there were tremendous advances that the Jesuits contributed to the measurement of the universe leading up to the Gregorian calendar, which was an improvement over the Julian calendar at the time. and it's the one we use today. So congratulations to your ancestral brethren on that. I take that credit and thank you for it. I hate the Julian calendar, so thank you very much.

So just in case people didn't know, up until 1582, the Julian calendar was used worldwide. Well, in the West it was used. And the Julian calendar was used worldwide. Well, in the West, it was used. And the Julian calendar, advanced by Julius Caesar, was, it was a really good calendar, but it didn't quite get it right. No Wednesdays? So what happens is, I don't know if you knew, but the total number of days does not go evenly into the duration of an earth year. In fact, if you clocked it, you get an extra quarter of a day. Now, how do you make a calendar out of that? You can't have a quarter of a day in the calendar. So what people did was ignore that quarter of a day for four

years. And in the fourth year, you have four quarters, you add up, throw in a day. The leap day was born in the Julian calendar, February 29th. And so that's cool. And that kept things matched up for a long while, but it turned out that the leap day over-corrected by a little bit, but the Romans didn't know this. And that over-correction started accumulating days in the calendar. And that overcorrection started accumulating days in the calendar. And what they noticed in the Catholic Church was that the first day of spring, which was previously March 21st, was drifting in the calendar. And it was becoming later and later.

And so, what do you do about this? You kill Julius Caesar. Problem solved. So the calendar was accumulating days that didn't belong there. And Pope Gregory says, I have to solve this problem. Brings in Jesuit priests. Correct me if I get any of this wrong. I think I'm on this. You know much more about this than I do. I think I got this one. You do. So founds the Vatican Observatory. In so doing, the Jesuits figure out there are 10 too many days in the calendar. That's how many days had accumulated. So, in 1582, the Pope said, let's take 10 days out of the calendar. February 15th followed February 4th in 1582, which makes it complicated when you're paying rent. So, now, now that you've jump-started it, you want to make sure that error doesn't happen again.

What it means is a leap day every four years overcorrects the problem. So every now and then you've got to take out a leap day. When do you do that? It turns out every century is the time you take away a leap day that might have otherwise been there. Every century would normally be a leap year because it's divisible by four, a century year.

You take it out. The year 1900 was not a leap year. The year 1800 was not a leap year. The year 1700 was not a leap year. However, by doing that, you have now under-corrected it by a little bit. Now, you're missing a day over an interval of time. You got to put something back in.

So every 400 years, you put the leap day back in. So the year 2000 was one of those 400-year cycles. And most people, February 29th, 2000, said, it's just an ordinary leap day, but it was so not, right? In fact, the last time a century year had a leap day was the year 1600, just a few years after the Gregorian calendar was put into place. So this over-correct, under-correct, over-correct, under-correct will now keep the calendar in top tip-top shape for millennia to come.

And this is one of the many reasons why this calendar is used worldwide. It's one of the most accurate calendars ever devised. Congratulations to your peeps. Well, on behalf of the Jesuit order, you're welcome. Okay. So as we know, Richard Dawkins is very outspoken about sort of religiosity in the world and atheism. And he wants to convince people to think logically, perhaps on the assumption that if you do,

then you won't think religiously, perhaps. I don't know if it's that easy. And when he dropped by my office, I snared an interview with him for a StarTalk, the first thing we discussed was the capacity of the human mind to think logically. If there's any one subject that the most number of people say I was never good at, insert a topic, it's going to be math.

And so I say to myself, if our brain were wired for logical thinking, then math would be everyone's easiest subject. And everything else would be harder. So I'm kind of forced to conclude that our brain is not wired for logic. Many people are extremely illogical, but... And by the way, they get along just fine in life. But I think it's an interesting point that our wild ancestors needing to survive in the presence of lions and drought and famine and things, you'd think logic would be pretty important for survival, wouldn't you?

If not mathematics, at least. be pretty important for survival, wouldn't it? If not mathematics, at least. Well, it could be maybe early people who said, oh, there's a creature there with big teeth. Let me investigate it further. Yes, that's right. Yes. I mean, in a way, that's right. Being too scientific is a bad thing.

Curiosity doesn't always work. I had a cousin who was a little boy, put his finger in the mains and got a shock. So he did it again just to make sure. He's a real scientist, but not very good for survival. Yeah, so we wonder, is logic good for survival or not? Is there any occasion where thinking illogically, illogically, is ever a good thing?

So let me ask you, the Pope, he's a Jesuit. He is. Is he the first Jesuit Pope? He is. Well, congratulations. Okay. And is it right? I was reading this.

He has a degree in chemistry? He does. He has a degree in chemistry and taught chemistry, I think, for several years. And taught chemistry. And then this can't be right. He worked as a nightclub bouncer? At a tango bar. At a tango bar. Before

becoming Pope. Yes, well, we would hope so. He is no longer currently a bouncer at a tango bar. He needs a little pin money from time to time. I know, right, right. So presumably he would be counted among the ranks of people who can think logically. Because so many people think logically all the time. And as I know, right, right. So presumably he would be counted among the ranks of people who can think logically. Because so many people think illogically all the time.

And as I hinted there, they get along just fine in life, it seems. So I wanted to bring that up with Richard Dawkins as well. And I did. Let's see where he takes it. I detach myself more from that battle than you do. You are on the front lines. And I'm way in the back line watching you do this. And I'm saying sometimes people just want to feel rather than think.

Yes, and I keep pushing back to the evolutionary origins of this, and when you have to survive in a hostile environment, it may be that you do need a certain amount of illogical... Gut. Yes. It may be that you need to fear things which logic tells you... But maybe it's a matter of the odds that something is actually dangerous. Or the cost to you, if it is. The cost to you, if it is. The cost to you.

If you see a sort of rustling in the trees, it could be a leopard about to jump on you, but it's much more likely to be the wind, and the logical, rational explanation is probably it's the wind. But when your survival depends upon the remote possibility, the rather lower probability that it might be a leopard, the prudent thing is to be more risk-averse than a scientist probably would. Yes, exactly. And so do you think religion in general is something that emerges from rational thought or from non-rational thought? I think both.

I think religion is based on people's experience of God. And religion is a way of relating to God and relating to one another and through that to God. But, you know, reason and faith are not inconsistent. Logic and faith are not inconsistent. But there are some times that you think illogically. When Professor Dawkins was talking, I was thinking about like falling in love. You might say, I've fallen in love with this person. I want to marry this person. And you say, well, you know, logically that doesn't stack up. Well, you know, in a sense, it's the heart that takes over in some cases. Okay. So, but what you're saying then is when it's not logic,

it's heart or it's spirituality. And so in that case, you're going to say they're compatible or they're two completely different things the way Stephen Jay Gould did, non-overlapping magisteria. I would say that they could combine. So there could be some logical reasons why you would want to get married to somebody, and there could be some illogical heart reasons. So I don't see them as inconsistent at all. Okay, so how does one then get degrees in science and then become religious or is always religious? What is going on in their head? Do they have special experiences with a God that Richard Dawkins hasn't had? And all he needs is a couple of those experiences and he'd convert like this?

I don't know. It depends on him. I think a lot of times experiences of God are the foundational ways that people have to start believing. But, you know, for example, for a Jesuit like Pope Francis, who starts with faith, he's naturally interested in the natural world. He wants to know more about God's creation. And so why not study chemistry? So once again, not inconsistent as far as I see it. Can we think of this as a transformative time for the Catholic Church? I think so. But I think in terms of science, I think we need to see it as kind of a progression.

I mean, we've been kind of building on these things. And once again, I think one of the reasons that people are listening to Pope Francis is because, in a sense, they like him more, and they're more open. He's the first fun pope. Well, right. He's into the Rolling Stones.

He gets it. So Richard Dawkins feels that religion maybe should have a lesser place in our international politics and culture. More on that when we come back

to StarTalk. StarTalk. At the Rose Center for Earth and Space, the Hall of the Universe. Eugene Merman. Hello. My comedic co-host.

Father Martin, thanks for being here. Pleasure. Please call him Jim. Thank you, Father. We're featuring my interview with Richard Dawkins, who's sort of a patron saint of atheists, if I, can I say that? To us, you can.

And so he's, we're talking about big stuff. We're talking about science. We're talking about religion, how they've intersected or how they don't. As a Jesuit priest, you're representing the academic orders of the Catholic Church. So of course you were going to say

that there's no conflict between science. I say, of course, only because you have to live that intersection. So do you think others who don't think and feel this, we're just missing something here? Do we have to have some religious experience in order to think the same way as you do? That's a good question.

I think religious experience is a kind of... I don't even know what that is, actually. I mean, I'm saying it because other people have said it, but I've had deeply what I felt were deeply spiritual experiences, but I was not invoking deity to account for them. I'd be on a mountaintop. There'd be starlight. I'm alone.

There's clouds below me enshrouding cities. You're describing Zeus's experience. And then I remember throwing lightning at a kid. But then what happened? What did you feel? No, I felt connected to the cosmos. But I didn't, at the time, invoke deity. It was a very private, personal moment.

And nothing supernatural happened. But I felt very deeply, and I would call that a spiritual experience. I would too. And if you came to me for spiritual direction, probably one of the things I would say would be to invite you to consider if that's one way that God has of reaching out to you and speaking to you and touching you. Okay, but there are plenty of people who say God is speaking to them, and they go out and

kill people. Right. Right. But most people do not. That's a good thing that most do not, but most don't have to do not if only some do. But the question is, if you're... Are you the Riddler? I didn't even know if that was a sentence, but his meaning was completely clear.

Can you at least consider the possibility that this is one way for you, a scientist, to have this experience that God is kind of meeting you where you are and trying to invite you into a relationship with God? Yeah, so I'm open to anything. But when you start saying, here's the rest of the package of belief system that needs to go with it, otherwise you're not a devout Catholic or a devout Protestant, then that complicates it. It sure does, but you don't take a person there. It's like starting to teach someone science.

You don't start with the Higgs boson particle. You start with sort of basic elements and you take them there when you're ready. And also, God is beginning this conversation, so you respect that. You don't take them to where they're not ready to go or where they're not called to go right now. So the people who are... So you don't need all the rules, like all the stuff? Well, the rules are important. And don't tell me you don't have rules. You got rules. And so does the scientific community. Yeah, but that's... Sorry. Well, no, but my rules, I can break my rules

if the act of breaking the rules brings me closer to the operations of nature. Can you break your rules? Absolutely. You can. What's the last rule you broke? Is this confession or a confession? So you can covet a neighbor's wife.

Wait, wait. So if they're people who have private beliefs, but then they become a professional scientist, at some point there's a line in the sand there. Well, there may be, but I mean, I know so many Catholic scientists that are happy as Catholic scientists, or Christian scientists more broadly, and they find it, you know, a way of trying to understand the universe and a way of trying to understand God's creation.

And once again, I don't see it as inconsistent. So Richard Dawkins has thought about this. Can they merge? Should they merge? Is that impossible? I've thought a lot about it as well. Some of this is being devil's advocate. Sure. Feel free. Yeah, yeah. Does that make me the devil or the advocate of the devil? Right, okay. Let's go to my next clip with Richard Dawkins in my office of the Hayden Planetarium. Imagine that you were going to consult a doctor, and I make him an eye doctor, but you happen to know that he privately doesn't believe in the sex theory of reproduction.

He believes that babies come from storks. Okay. I wouldn't go to that doctor. I'm guessing you would not go to that doctor, but I've met plenty of people, especially in America, who say, it's none of your business what he believes below the waist. He's an eye doctor. Is he a competent, can he repair your cataracts? And I don't think he should be employed in a hospital, because what you're saying about that man is that he's got the kind of mind

which is so adrift from reality that even if he's a competent eye surgeon, I don't think he could be trusted. And that's a fear factor that creates a fear factor that overrides everything else. He's a good eye surgeon. He or she is a good eye surgeon. Right. But there's that lingering risk that the stork theory of reproduction might somehow affect the scalpel. I don't think it needs... So you fear that risk.

I'm not sure it needs to affect the scalpel. I think it's something... Okay, so then you object on principle. I think so, yes. Yeah, not on practice. It's a principle thing. I'm a professor of geography who believes in the flat earth, but... But otherwise makes perfect blows. Yes, yes, quite. Yes, exactly. Where do you take that?

Well, I would say it's a kind of strange presupposition to say that there would be an eye doctor who believes in the stork, because basically there aren't eye doctors who believe in the stork. No, no, but I mean, he made it a very blunt example, but he's talking about people who might be evolutionary biologists by day, but are certain that the whole earth got here 6,000 years ago by night. But then how could they be evolutionary biologists?

Well, this is the whole point he's making. But that's why I think it's kind of a false presupposition. I mean, because you can't be one and the other. But there are such people. I have met them and they are, so they've drawn a line. You don't think such a line can or should exist then? No, I don't think you need to draw a line like that. I mean, I, you know, there's a great definition of theology, which is faith seeking understanding. And so the person starts with faith and says, there are certain things that I can understand and science can

help us understand that. There's two different ways of understanding things, through scientific reason and through revelation, you know, what religion teaches us. I think they're basically coming together, you know, and the more we learn about the world, I think the more mysterious it becomes in a sense. Is there some example you can give? Yeah, well, aren't there, and you would know better than I do, aren't there examples in physics where they say, well, actually, this particle is at one place and another place at the same time, which you kind of take on faith.

No, we measure that. We measure. We don't need... With a space ruler. That's right. But does that not seem to the human brain that one would be in one place at one place in another? Completely, it boggles the mind.

It is mysterious. Well, there you go. It's a quantum mystery. Exactly. That doesn't mean it's divine. But it is a mystery that you believe in. And so that, in a sense, is what religion is, right? Ooh, I like that, a mystery you believe in. When we come back, let's find out if illogical thinking,

it should be a natural part of our society, or maybe we should do something about it when StarTalk returns. We're back with StarTalk, and I'm with my co-host, Eugene Merman. Eugene tweeting at Eugene Merman. I am. Yeah. And I have a living, breathing Jesuit priest in our midst here. Father James Martin.

And you also tweet. I do. At JamesMartinSJ. Exactly. Society of Jesuits. Awesome. The tweeting priest. I'm going to follow you.

I'm going to see what you've been about. It's a great musical. The tweeting priest. I'm going to see what you've been about. It's a great musical. The tweeting priest. Pretty good. We've been featuring my interview with Richard Dawkins, who's like, I think of him as the patron saint of atheists. And he's just fun to listen to, and he's, he's, he's. But we've got some other views here, and I just wanted to sort of tease that out.

The Jesuits are the academic sort of tease that out. The Jesuits are the academic order of the Catholic Church. So getting back to this point where there are scientific frontiers that are mysterious, there are even science that's not a frontier that's mysterious, like some of the phenomenon of quantum physics. But why must the mysterious require that there is a deity who's overseeing it. In your mind, it sounds like they must go together. Well, I think it's not that they must go together, but they do go together. When I look at the universe, and I think of particularly something like the Big Bang, you know, the great question I always ask. The TV show? He's clearly talking about the TV show, yeah.

How did something like that come to be? What could have created that? I always ask questions, which I think is a good question to ask atheists. Why is there something rather than nothing at all? But I would say I have no idea. And I'm perfectly content in that ignorance. I'm not having to find an answer. But that's a great example.

There are religious people who can be content not understanding God completely and not understanding the universe completely. And so, you know, if you can be content... We'll call them creationists. Well, no, no. If you can be content, seriously, in not having to understand that, I can be content in not having to understand God. I can believe in a God... No, no, no. Okay. No, let me just finish. I said something slightly different. No, no, I know. I know. But I'll just say this. I can believe in a God who I don't fully understand.

And I'm saying it's not that I'm happy not knowing. It's that not knowing does not force me to then come up with an explanation I can't justify yet. And I'm going to keep searching. And for me, that is a sense of wonder that excites me and draws me to the frontier. Well, and me too. And it draws me to and trying to understand God better. So I think, that's where I think that the two disciplines are actually closer than one.

So Richard Dawkins, one of his books, of his many books, highly readable and lucid books, Unweaving the Rainbow, Science, Delusion, and the Appetite for Wonder. I had him just reflect on wonder. Let's find out. He thought that Newton was destroying the poetry of the rainbow by explaining the

spectrum. Completely destroying the mystery of it. Deploying the mystery of it. And the message of my book is that you don't, by destroying the mystery, you increase the poetry. You don't decrease it. And I try to go there in all of my work. Whether or not I succeed, that's my intent. I think there's no more reproduced image when people want you to think of God than a sunset with beams of light coming out. But I also know that the surface of the Sun is 6,000 degrees and there's really scattering in the atmosphere, you have water droplets

condensing to make clouds and so where do you differ from this? Maybe I go a little bit further in the direction of good-natured ridicule of absurd ideas like astrology. You're saying it's good-natured, but clearly the people who are on the other side of your wit and intelligence, are they saying you're being good-natured? Possibly not. I don't really care about that. Possibly not. I don't really care about that. Possibly not. I feel stupid next to you. And I know all this stuff, all right? Oh, come on. I have an eye to not just the astrologer that I'm talking to, but the,

for example, the radio audience or whatever it is that are listening in. If you call somebody an idiot, you're not going to change his mind. But you may change the minds of a thousand people listening in. Yeah, so let me ask you something, but just flat out. Sure. Flat out. I don't have a problem if people feel spiritually when they contemplate the cosmos. And I may even feel some of that as well. I'm really talking about, as religion

manifests in the world, the whole other portfolio of things you're supposed to do, the rituals that derive from it, the rules that come down from revealed text, that's a whole other conversation than telling me that I'm experiencing an open door to God when I'm on a mountaintop. I think those are two different things. I think God and religion. I believe you, that you see those as two different things. But most people who are vocal and active and politically motivated do not. But why should that keep you from God? I mean, if you have an experience of God,

why should all the other stuff that distracts you keep you from that? I mean, like saying, you know, I ran into a, I took a terrible course in science once and all the teachers were terrible. Well, does that mean you don't believe in science anymore? No, it means you don't believe or you haven't had a good experience of the other things, of the human element of it. So what I might ask is, which God are you, is it Zeus that I'm coming closer to? Because I am on the mountaintop where Zeus lived. Athena did come out of his head. Right? So maybe there's a particular god that you would rather it be than other gods that have come before people of the past.

But I also know that throughout most of the history of science, some of the greatest scientists have ever lived have been deeply religious themselves. More on that when we return for StarTalk. We're back here on StarTalk, the Hall of the Universe, American Museum of Natural History. Father James Martin, Jesuit priest. We're talking about the relationship between science and religion. And you, as a modern Catholic, have no problem with evolution. Correct. Correct. I can't say the same about other theologians who walk this earth. So what does that mean? It means that...

In the world, in politics, in all of this. Sure. Well, it means that different Christians have different viewpoints on that. I'm a firm believer in evolution. There are some people who don't believe it. I'm not sure how you can't be convinced if you see the kind of archaeology and the sort of the kind of history of the world, but there they are. So I can't account for ignorance.

So Isaac Newton was, being a Brit, he was an Anglican Christian, of course. And some have argued that the problem is not being religious, but what people do with religion in society. Would you agree with that? Of course. Of course. I mean, you see it in, for example— I'm trying to have an argument with you.

Why do you not let this happen? Well, I mean, that's— who would argue that religion is never bad? No, but that's self-evident. I mean, because, you know, you see all sorts of religious fanaticism and things like that, and fundamentalism and people who are kind of, you know, set in their ways. But, you know, all these scientists that you described are people who saw God's creation and wanted to explore it and understand it, which is a good impulse. So none of this, I think, let's say, should be seen as in conflict.

Let's see what Richard Dawkins has to say about past scientists and their religiosity. I don't think he's going to like it. Newton, Galileo, pre-Darwin. You couldn't not be religious pre-Darwin. At least, I mean, you could, but you would have to be very, very stalwart in your skepticism. Right. Because, some I look around the world, it kind of looks almost obvious, this is going to get misquoted,

it looks almost obvious that there had to be a designer. Until Darwin came along, who can blame Newton and Galileo? So I'm deeply unimpressed by anybody who said that. Okay, by that argument. By that argument. Okay, so he's not impressed with religious scientists of the past. Well, I just wonder if he's impressed with religious scientists of current day. Oh, okay, well, I happen to have that clip.

There you go. Let's hear what he says about contemporary religious scientists. If you actually ask what they believe, they will talk about mystery of the universe, and they have a sort of reverent attitude, which I have as well, and I think you have. But then if you say, do you actually believe in anything supernatural, or you call yourself Christian but you believe that Jesus was born of a virgin or rose from the dead, of course they don't. And so you've got to kind of subtract them off, I suspect. Subtract off the Einsteinian spiritual.

So the Einsteinian is that Spinoza's god. Spinoza's god. Where if there's a god of the universe that is responsible for laws and things and responsible for the universe that science observes, which is kind of untestable at some level. Yeah, I don't think it would even be responsible. I think it was just God is the universe, which is a bit different from thinking that there's an intelligence that started it all. So I think you want to subtract them off. Einstein, unfortunately, muddied the issue by using the word God rather freely.

Everybody wants to claim him for their... People therefore want to claim Einstein, rather like you're afraid of being claimed. Well, I just want to make my own arguments. Exactly. I don't want to use somebody else's argument. Einstein used God as a metaphor, and he said things like, what I really want to know is, did God have a choice in creating the universe? He simply meant, is there only one way for a universe to be?

Or the phrase, I want to know the mind of God. Yes, that's right. So subtract them off, and then you are left with a few who actually do believe in the virgin birth. And I don't know what to make of that. Okay, so he's got his sort of scientist arithmetic. So that clip led in with a pre-established fact that about a third of Western scientists

or American scientists would claim themselves to be religious. These are active scientists who publish papers. And so he's challenging the point that they are as religious as the sort of right-wing religious community might claim for them. Have you seen any of this in your travels? Not really. I mean, I'm not sure if that's anecdotal. I don't know where that...

I mean, the one-third I understand. No, the one-third, we measure that. But the idea that, well, they don't really believe all this stuff. I just want to say one thing. He did say, basically, that Einstein, when he used the word God, didn't know what he was talking about.

So it is a strange thing to say that Einstein was kind of deluded or didn't understand what God was. So I think we need to... No, if you read all of Einstein's references to God, it's very clear that God was metaphor for the laws of the universe, not in the way anybody else who's religious is invoking God. Well, but I think that's assuming a lot. I mean, I think we can understand God in different ways.

Okay, so not to put words in your mouth, but what you might be saying here in this conversation is that for religion to go forward and not be in conflict with science, it needs to embrace what science finds about the natural world and not jump in the face of the scientists and say, that conflicts with my interpretation of scripture, therefore you must be wrong. I agree. And I think most religious scientists, I'm not a religious scientist, would say that and would say, you know, this is helping... Yes, they would, by the way. Yes, yes.

This is helping me understand... The ones I know. Yeah, this is helping me understand God's beautiful world. And I think what happens sometimes is, you know, religion gets caricatured. So obviously, if you're religious, you must not believe in evolution, which I think is a, you know, it's just false.

Well, it's certainly true for some. You're saying it's not true for all. I'd say for a few. When we come back, we're going to find out if you have to give up your religion to believe in evolution. Clearly, the good father here doesn't. But how about others when StarTalk continues? So one of the great questions out there is how do we get more religions or more people who are religious

on board with the moving frontier of science? Recognizing that you don't have to give up your religion unless perhaps your religion requires that there was no evolution. If it requires it, maybe you've got to sort of lose it. That's probably pretty few religions, right? I would think so. Yeah. I'm thinking, right? I would think so. Yeah. I'm thinking, right?

I mean... Well, I hope so. But, and I frankly, I have a confession to make, Priest. This is your second confession. I'm listening. I don't understand people

who can't believe in evolution. I don't understand people who don't look at, you know, the sort of carbon dating and things like that and fossils. I can't understand it.

And I have a hard time understanding why people cannot accept the fact that God can work through evolution, that it's just as much of a miracle of creation if it takes 10 million years or 50 million years as if it took seven days. So I don't understand that. All right, so how about this?

As you may know, atheists as a community are ranked last in who anyone would elect to high office. Last. Okay. After, you know, serial killers or something. Is it because they're preachy? And so there's, in some ways, a bias, a discriminatory force in society against atheists. Have you thought of this?

In fact, let me lead with the clip, and then we'll get your reaction to it. Richard Dawkins in my office. I think you're exaggerating the desire of the secular movement to convert everybody to our point of view. We're not like missionaries knocking on the door and sort of saying, have you found Jesus and that sort of thing. Or have you not found Jesus? Have you lost Jesus yet? It isn't really like that. It's rather more, we want to convert you not to atheism, but to the view that atheists should not be discriminated

against. That there should not be... That's a purer message there. It's a purer message, and it's a very important one in the United States where atheists can't get elected to Congress. You don't have to say, yes, I'm converted, I'm now a born-again atheist, but you have to say, I no longer will discriminate against somebody because of his lack of religion. When I vote, I will look at the record and vote on other grounds. There are real problems with young people coming out, just like there was coming out as gay, with their parents. I mean, you get teenagers thrown out of the house because they've come out as an atheist.

Well, I mean, I agree with him. Atheists should not be discriminated against. And I should say, you know, in the old saying, some of my best friends are atheists and agnostics. But I'd also say, you know, it's ironic, you know, he said he's not a missionary, but he does have a mission. I mean, his mission, he's written all these books, and his mission is to convince people not only the validity of atheism, but that, you know, religious people are basically— Maybe he was thinking door-to-door missionaries. Yeah, but his mission, the thing that kind of compels him and sends him out is to convince people that not only that atheism is correct,

but also that religious people are basically idiots, you know. So when we're talking about discrimination, we have to be careful. There are places where people who are religious, you know, are seen as basically insane or idiots. Except you can't discriminate unless you have the power to do so. True. This is a well-known fact. So you can't say that atheists are discriminating against anybody when atheists are not in charge of anything. They run some bars.

Let me say, I mean, I'm not going to claim discrimination, but, you know, there have been places where I have been, you know, in social situations and, you know, public events where people assume, you know, that you're basically, that I am basically an idiot or I don't believe in evolution or I don't believe in science or I'm small-minded or I'm homophobic or I'm sexist or whatever because I wear a collar or because I'm religious. So there is that kind of... So they started the conversation with that bias against you. Yeah. Yeah. And so I do experience that. But then you enlightened them. Right. And I think- By the way, that's why I don't associate with any label other than that as a scientist. I don't even go there. I said, you're

going to have to have the conversation with me. I agree. And then formulate whatever the hell you want to call me after that. And that's why I think it's- Sorry, I used whatever the hell. No, not at all. I think that's why it's difficult to say- Whatever the heaven you want to call me after that. Sorry, I used whatever the hell. No, not at all. I think that's why it's difficult to say. Whatever the heaven you want to call me after that. I agree, and that's why I think it's difficult. Or we shouldn't say religious people think this or religious people think that because it is a label that is applied to people

and often applied to make them seem uneducated, insane, or just idiots. As if you have to check your brain at the door. So, you ever wonder whether there'd ever be a scientific test for God? We'll find out when StarTalk continues. StarTalk. The Hall of the Universe, or the Rose Center for Earth and Space.

I don't mean to boast, but I'm like Buds with Bill Nye, the science guy, just so you know. And he's taken on this topic in a big way. He recently published a book on evolution. And he actually debated the director of a creationist museum where the entire premise is that there was no such thing as evolution. Let's check in on Bill Nye's weekly rant. Can science and religion coexist? Well, sure.

There are billions of deeply religious people all around the world who accept the laws of nature as we discovered through the process of science. Most of the astronomy that we started with was developed in the Islamic world about a millennium ago, and the calendar that everybody uses all over the world was developed by Jesuit priests. Heck, the Vatican has its own astronomer, for crying out loud. But from time to time, you'll meet people who insist that the Earth is somehow six or ten thousand years old.

Well, that's just not possible. When we look at rocks like this, we can find where radioactive elements have replaced non-radioactive elements that have the same chemistry, and we've determined that the Earth is about 4.54 billion years old, not thousand years old. About half of what we learn, we learn informally in places like this, in museums. So I encourage you all to come to a museum like this one and listen to the rocks.

Bill Nye, as always, telling it like it is. So here we go. We're featuring my interviews with Richard Dawkins and we have to ask the question, if there is a designer, if there is a God, can you test for it? Because as a scientist, that's what we do. If you're going to make a claim, I want to test it. These are the methods and tools of our trade. And so I brought up this issue with Richard Dawkins. Let's see where he goes with it. There is a designer of the universe. That is a stupendous scientific fact. It's not something you can say, well, we only think about that on Sunday. It actually would affect

your attitude to the expanding universe if you thought that there was an intelligence that set it all in motion. And we may differ a little bit about this because you've been quite eloquent about the need to separate all that and just simply not ask the question, but just do your science well. But don't you agree that astronomy would look, cosmology would look very different

if you thought that the whole thing, the laws of physics, had been planned in advance by an intelligence? Isn't that a gigantic scientific fact if it were true? I would ask, if it were true, how would we test for that? Or if we supposed it was true, how might we test for it? Yeah, so do you have any thoughts on that? Because it, here's, let me pose it a different way. If in fact the universe is the science fair project of a hyper-intelligent species. That's pure energy.

Can we distinguish between that entity and what in your theology you would call God? I think the answer to that question is, I don't know. But I often say this, with the greatest respect for Mr. Dawkins, Professor Dawkins, I really do hope that when he comes to the end of his life and he meets, and I believe this, and he meets God, I hope he will be pleasantly surprised. I really do. He's been asked that question and I can recite his answer. Not verbatim, but in principle.

You know what his answer is? He would ask God back, why did you create a world that was so convincing of your absence? How about because I wanted a little faith? Ooh.

Ooh. Ooh. Come back in. Or how about this? I hope Richard and God do this for years. Or how about this? How about this? How about this? Why did you insist on believing in something that you had to understand? Why could you not believe in something that was beyond you? Well, this would be like a tennis match up there. Right. And you know what? I think God might win. There has to be, in all of these examples, there has to be what's called,

I'm sure you know it, the first cause. I mean, it is illogical to think that these things suddenly started to happen. There has to be what Aristotle called the uncaused caused, you know? The thing that caused everything. And by that, we call God, right? I mean, that's the name that we give God. Although you remove that requirement for God himself God is the

uncaused cause right and so there has to be something that begins us by the way I don't assume that you that's everything has to have a cause that's just how the world has manifested thus far but I don't that's not a scientific sort of cause and effect is not one of the basis of science cause it's gotten us very far yeah but I don't I mean when you do an experiment don't scientific sort of cause and effect? Isn't that one of the basis of science, cause and effect? It's gotten us very far. Yeah. But I don't... I mean, when you do an experiment, don't you look at cause and effect? Yes, but what I'm saying is I don't then say the whole universe has to follow this rule.

Right. I'm open enough to other possibilities that maybe the universe always was. Right. But see, I, in that case, am probably being more logical and scientific. I would say that the human mind, as we understand it, presumes causes and effects. And at some point, you have to have this kind of uncaused cause, because that doesn't make sense to have this infinite regress. And by that, I say that's God. Well, a quote that I've uttered that now I've seen on t-shirts, but I'm happy to repeat

it here, is that the universe is under no obligation to make sense to us. Neither is God. Whoa! I think we've got to wrap it up there. Father Martin, thank you for being on StarTalk. It's been my pleasure. Excellent.

Eugene, always great to have you as my co-host. You've been watching StarTalk, here in been my pleasure. Excellent. Eugene, always great to have you as my co-host. You've been watching StarTalk, here in the whole of the universe of the Rose Center for Earth and Space in New York City. I'm Neil deGrasse Tyson, your personal astrophysicist, and as always, I bid you to keep looking up. Bye.