Rees, ethics, aesthetics and religion

Sir Martin Rees said this right after receiving a huge pile of money from the Templeton Foundation:

[…]I think just as religion is separate from science, so is ethics separate from science. So is aesthetics separate from science. And so are many other things. There are lots of important things that are separate from science.

"Just as"? When is the last time you heard a philosopher of ethics or aesthetics make a claim about the origin of life or of the universe? Or, for that matter, make any claim that directly contradicted hard science?

This insistence that religion and science are non-overlapping magisteria is decidedly strange. Science's magisterium is very clearly defined: it's everything that is a natural phenomenon. If religions want to stop overlapping with that, it's fine by me but are they prepared to do that?

Archived comments

  • Ludovic said on Tuesday, April 19, 2011

    A link to the full text would be nice because we don't quite know the context, and what "separate" means in this specific instance.
  • bleroy said on Tuesday, April 19, 2011

    You are right, this is an oversight. I added a link (http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2011/apr/06/astronomer-royal-martin-rees-interview) and as you'll see this is not out of context: the interviewer's question was spot-on, and the follow-up is telling as Rees dodges the question.