For International Women's Day

It's International Women's Day, so let's talk about women.

Let's talk about the fact that mainstream history has a tendency to treat women's contributions in one of two ways. Generally speaking, it's either minimised, or mythologised.

Boudica led a revolt of several native tribes against the Romans in Britain. It was a big thing in its day, and Camulodunum (among others) certainly noticed, but in the grand scheme of things it was another provincial rebellion that was put down by the Roman Empire. The long-term strategy against such events was romanisation, which continued and succeeded across southern Britannia, and to variable extents as you went north.

Science and Faith: A Quaker Perspective

A popular trope these days depicts faith and religion as opposed to science. The logic behind this is simple – science is based on testability, reproducibility, and acting based on evidence. Religion by it's nature is considered to require actions based on faith, rather than evidence, and many religious claims are inherently untestable, or at least such tests as may be argued to be possible have factors that make such testing not reproducible; in terms of philosophy or science, the claims are unfalsifiable.

Anti-religion advocates also often point to religious persecution of scientists, as in the case of Galileo Galilei, or of religious authorities resisting the adoption or teaching of science, as in the case of evolution (for some time) or the attempts to have schools teach intelligent design as science. However, it is also true that many great scientists have been religious, such as the (Quaker) astronomer Arthur Stanley Eddington, and the polymath Blaise Pascal. There are also cases of cultures and times where religion, even relatively authoritarian religion, has been a dominant feature of life, yet sciences have flourished – most notably the Islamic Golden Age.

The debate about whether religion in general is compatible with science will carry on in many places, especially online forums and blogs, for a long time yet. In this post, I will be addressing specifically the underlying assertion that faith stands opposed to reason and evidence, and applying specifically my own non-theist Quaker approach to faith to look at the implications.