Science and religion can go hand in hand was the main assertion by Tricia Shepherd at her lecture on Tuesday night for the F.O.C.U.S. (Fellowship of Christian University Students) club at USU. Shepherd hoped to show that science and religion don’t necessarily have to conflict, and it is possible to be both a scientist and a member of a Christian religion.

Shepherd is a physical chemist professor at Westminster College in Salt Lake City. She received her BS and MS at the University of Idaho and her Ph.D. at Virginia Tech. While she doesn’t teach a class on how religion and science can coincide, she has lectured this idea at USU several times, as well as the University of Utah.

The title of shepherd’s speech was “In the Beginning of God ...” She did, however, warn everyone that this is a limited perspective because she is just human. And while she does believe that there is an omnipotent, great God, she does not understand everything about God.

Shepherd used a Venn diagram to show how she believes science, philosophy and religion can work together to solve many questions in life, such as “what is the universe made of?” She believes that all three of these can answer some things alone, but when combined they can answer many more questions.

Shepherd presented a slideshow that showed many mathematical and scientific ideas that have gone head to head with Christian religions in the past. She said historically the Catholic church has had a problem with science, which has shown when scientists such as Copernicus tried to prove that the earth revolved around the sun and not the sun around the earth.

When Galileo, who Shepherd said was one of the creators of science, proved Copernicus’ idea, the Catholic church put him under house arrest. The only reason he had not been put to death was because he renounced his findings, agreeing that the sun revolved around the earth.

Shepherd also made references to people who had religious ties that could not believe the work they had done because of their religion. In particular, Max Planck’s constant is a physical constant that is the basis of all quantum mechanics. However, when Planck came up with the constant, he didn’t believe it himself. He died still unable to believe that his constant was real or that it made sense.

Shepherd believed that these scientists were plagued by having a bias. Even when Planck’s constant was obviously correct and important, he couldn’t accept it because of his beliefs. This has affected many scientists throughout time, including people like Albert Einstein, who believed in god and that god wouldn’t just “roll dice” on the world, as many chaos scientists believe.

Shepherd closed the lecture by urging people who are interested in science to not be afraid to become scientists. She believes there is much good scientists can do without jeopardizing their religious beliefs.

– adam.ward@aggiemail.usu.edu