On Mon, 30 Apr 2018 17:24:28 +0200, Paul Schlyter
wrote:

On Mon, 30 Apr 2018 07:52:01 -0600, Chris L Peterson
wrote:
Is a modern scientist the same as an atheistic scientist?

Not all modern scientists are atheists. Modern science is defined
by a
rich infrastructure, technology, an refined methodology that simply
didn't exist much before a century ago.

But if religion and modern science are mutually incompatible, could
there even be such a thing as a theist scientist?

Even a deist is a theist, and deism (unlike most religions) is, at
least, not _opposed_ by evidence. And indeed, what you find in looking
at the religious beliefs of scientists, is that belief in a personal
god is very low, but quite a few accept some sort of vague "higher
power" that doesn't intervene. Basically, they're deists.

Religion and science are incompatible because they depend upon
fundamentally different epistemologies. The former is faith-based, the
latter is evidence-based. People can hold both in their heads at once,
but they can only bring one forward at a time. The combination usually
results in cognitive dissonance, which is resolved (to some degree,
anyway) by compartmentalization.

Saying science and religion are incompatible is quite a different
thing from saying that scientists can't be religious.