Question: @Thomas Do you think that more people should try to take an interest on science? Also do you feel like the theory of evolution collides awkwardly with people's religious beliefs and how do you feel about people's beleifs compared to what you believe with the theory of evolution?

Thomas Clements answered on 18 Mar 2015:

What a great question Orange!

I could talk to you for hours about this but I don’t want to bore you 😉

1. Do you think that more people should try to take an interest on science?

Yes – it is so important in our lives. Form mobile phones to food or powered flight to sports science, it effects us all. BUT, science is not for everyone and if you love painting then you should do that! You should pursue your passion and don’t let anyone tell you that you can’t.
If you like asking questions about the world you live in science is for you 😀

2. Also do you feel like the theory of evolution collides awkwardly with people’s religious beliefs and how do you feel about people’s beliefs compared to what you believe with the theory of evolution?

This is a tough question. Yes and No.

The problem with religion is that many people take the bible literally -therefore everything was created by a god. So why bother trying to find out how the universe started? Also, if god created the planet and all the animals then evolution must be a lie.
This is difficult for me to accept because evolution has been observed many times.

Science is always about asking questions. Not knowing answers is ok, we just design better experiments to answer them. this can take time – sometime a scientist will not achieve it in their life time, but they will create a foundation for future scientists.

By investigating evolution I am often accused of trying to disprove the bible but it wasn’t my aim – I just wanted to understand the world we live in. It is miraculous and amazing beyond our comprehension but that doesn’t mean there has to be a creator.

I view myself as an agnostic: I simply will not believe in something until you can prove it to me with repeatable observations. This applies to god as much as an other idea. Just trusting a book written 2000 years ago in the middle east by many authors (and many unreliable second hand accounts) seems so daft when there is no way to test it even happened. This is the issue: if you believe in the bible as a literal source of your belief then you’ve stopped questioning and have accepted someone else idea – not very scientific is it?

I don’t know the right answer to this – it is a very controversial topic. Some people feel fine about balancing their integrity as a scientist and having belief, and to me that is fine. All I know is that I need more data to come to a conclusion and the burden is on the believers to prove God exists.