Episode 101 - Science is a Myth

Two Nice Jewish Boys

Science and Religion. The ultimate standoff. It’s hard to imagine two more dichotomous extremes, right? Well, maybe not. Maybe these age old rivals have much more in common than we have been led to believe. Maybe the mythologies that make up religion have nestled in them some deeper truths. Maybe science is a mythology of its own. Do the two not ultimately attempt to answer the same underlying questions: How was the universe created? How did life on earth begin? How does our consciousness work? What is morality? Regardless of your personal beliefs, it’s hard to deny that both Science and Religion are extremely captivating. But whereas the mythologies of religion have been refined to perfection, its stories inducted into sacred canons, crafted into bestsellers, science has been left to the scientists. The mythologies of science have been and are still being written in dry, technical, unapproachable language bereft of any poetic prose that will both enchant the reader and do justice to the vast knowledge scientists possess in 2018. This ambitious mission is exactly what it seems Dr. Oren Harman took upon himself to accomplish in his new book, “Evolutions: 15 Myths that Explain our World” . Dr. Harman is a professor in Bar Ilan University, where he’s the Chair of the Graduate Program in Science, Technology and Society. He studied in Harvard and received his PhD with distinction from Oxford University. His fields of expertise include the history and philosophy of biology, the theory of evolution, the evolution of altruism, the cultural history of science and more. Harman’s work featured in Science, Nature, the New York Times, The Economist and many other honorable platforms. Prof. Oren Harman joins 2NJB today to talk about his very own mythology of science.