Prof. Martin Clynes (second from left) A row has broken out between two leading scientists over whether science and religion are compatible. Prof. David McConnell, Pro-Chancellor at Trinity College Dublin, a former lecturer in genetics, has said that science has “made it difficult for many people to believe in dogmatic religion”.
The honorary president of the Humanist Association of Ireland wrote in the Irish Times: “I lost my faith because I was introduced at school to the theories of the atom and evolution – science made sense of the material world but religion quite the opposite. This effect of science recommends it to humanists such as myself.”
He also declared that “a fertilised egg is not a person”.
Prof. Martin Clynes, emeritus professor of biotechnology at DCU, challenged this statement.
Individual
He said: “From a biological point of view, though, the life history of each individual human organism begins at fertilisation,” he continued. “The fertilised egg and the embryo at its various stages have all the characteristics that the human individual should have at that stage. Dispose of the individual at any of those stages and you are cutting short the life story of a unique human individual.”
The Irish Catholic columnist and onetime Cambridge physics student Fr Conor McDonough OP, meanwhile, rebutted Prof. McConnell’s dismissal as “a coincidence” the fact of modern science having flowered in Christian Europe and refuted his claims that science disappeared from Europe for 1,000 years until the 16th Century.
“The story of constant opposition between science and the Church is a tired old myth, and it’s disappointing to see it trotted out again,” he wrote.