Should science give us advice as well as facts?

Our world in flowers, balances the science of the earth form and also the beauty, or the spirit captured in flowers

Editor-- Science, says Sam Harris author of “The End of Faith,” might want to look at not just finding out the facts but examining the moral consequences of these facts and provide information not just on what we can do but what we ought to do.

Harris’ book, “The End of Faith,” created a considerable firestorm in the religious community when he examined how faith cannot answer simple questions that science does.  At the same time, scientists responded that there are certain areas where science falls short.  Scientists therefore often give the floor to religious folk when they have difficulty explaining what our moral compass needs to be relative to scientific facts.

The Moral Landscape: How Science Can Determine Human Values” examines the notion of science providing a direction for people to follow as some sort of moral compass.   In this book Harris tells us there will come a time when science will be able to give us information on how to live our lives the best way possible.  But that “best way” remains the disputable question among many,

Harris believes science needs to assume a moral authority along with determining facts so that moral relativism doesn’t continue to absorb human consciousness and have people turn instead to religious myth when facts might be more helpful.

But some writers say that rather than removing religion from the moral values area and replacing it with science as the leader in making pronouncements ab out man’s best direction, perhaps science is better used as it supports religious values.  Some believe that science supports religious truth, and that being the case, values are therefore best determined by religion.

And Slashdot raises an interesting question, "Is Science Just a Matter of Faith."  Many people question science just as they question religion.  A man by the name of Hugh Pickens observes that few people understand some of the scientific issues such as the origins of man and the universe, so in some ways they take the conclusions as fact based on faith.

The final question to ponder, however, is whether religion is scientific. Scientists have determined that there was an ark and a flood.  And historians, outside of the Bible's passages, have observed that there was a man called Jesus who lived and taught the people and was crucified for his ideas and claims.

So there is a balance, one might say, in both science and religion with benefits to both yet problems that confound man as well, things that neither seem to answer by themselves, some say.  Yet there is agreement as well.  On that basis, advice that follows from the merger might be seen as reasonable and potentially helpful.  Uniquely enough, there are religions that teach exactly that.