Does dualism impede scientific inquiry? Is it that bad?

I think dualism can impede scientific inquiry and it can get in the way of living a realistic life, but it is not as bad as one might expect.

Dualistic thinking –the tendency to perceive and understand the world in overarching categories or to alternate between physical and metaphysical worldviews– might not be awfully obstructive to a progressive life, especially that I see a lot of highly effective people balance it gracefully, and it works fine with them.

Of course, there are problems, but they are few, and they do not usually outweigh the benefits of having a spiritual life that provides comfort, serenity and happiness.

After all, great scientists like Newton, Copernicus and Kepler didn't seem to have a problem with reconciling science and religion. Newton was a Biblical scholar who wrote more on the subject of the Bible than on physics. He was obsessed with finding numerological significance in the Bible. A serious scientist like that today would be considered a nut.

One problem with dualism is that it is only a coping mechanism. It does not promote unity of knowledge. It creates a dichotomy and leads people to live double lives, going to the laboratory with one worldview and then going home or to the church/mosque with another.

Another problem is that there are few instances when this kind of thinking can indeed obstruct scientific inquiry, when certain theories or hypotheses seem to contradict with religions teachings. Two prominent examples of how dualism did not work well are the theory of evolution by natural selection and Heliocentrism (the astronomical theory that the Earth and planets revolve around the Sun and that the Sun is stationary and at the center of the universe.)

See also What can we do to insure that religion does not obstruct science again?