IS SCIENCE THE NEW RELIGION?

Did you ever ask yourself the reason why science is always right or why we explain everything from the scientific point of view? Because I always do, mostly when the philosophy classes started. One day, I was talking with a friend about science and its new innovations and possible new theories. Then, she said: “How do we know for sure if the scientific explanation of everything is true? Every day I am becoming more aware that science is just the new religion, not just for Atheists but for religious people too.” I got surprised by her thoughts and since then I always think about it.

From my point of view, since we are little, we are taught to base everything we see on science. As far back as I can remember, I always tried to find an explanation for everything (just like everyone does):  the meaning of life and its cycle, how are the planets held in the universe,… and it seems that science has always found an answer for every question.

The problem comes when we start to think for real. If we focus on the explanations they give to us it is always introduced by “The theorem of…”, for example, the gravitation theorem or the evolution theorem. As the name says, every explanation is a theory. The scientists are not sure about anything, and that is why they use the word “theorem”.

When it becomes to the similarity between science and religion are not obvious, but even so, there are some points of each which are alike, for not saying the same.

On one hand, science has its own “priesthood”, which are the well-known scientists. Their opinion and statements are not questioned, until someone better than them demonstrates the opposite or something new. For example, Bohr’s atomic model was accepted until Schrödinger idealized another atomic model. Nowadays, the actual atomic model is more actualized from the Schrödinger’s one, but even so, who guarantees us that the actual atomic model is the one for real? We have to believe that the atomic model is correct to understand the substances.

On the other hand, talking about believing, science implies having a little bit of faith even if we think it is nonsense, considering that science knowledges are based on experiences. As I said before, no one guarantees any explanation that science contributes. This indicates that we can never know for sure anything that comes from the experiences (experiments). We only have to believe in science and have faith.

As a conclusion, I only have to say that everyone who says they are not religious because they do not believe in anything are lying. They believe in science. It is true that science has changed our lives (in the negative or positive way). The kinematic principles, the different forces and energies, … are nothing more than laws that we have to accept without question it to comprehend the way that life works. I have to say that If we could recollect each scientific law and principle, we could write a holy book.