Possible Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson suggested over the weekend that religion was necessary for testing scientific theories because the science could be “propaganda.”

On Sunday, NBC’s Chuck Todd asked Carson, a former neurosurgeon, how science could coexist with his conservative Christian principles.

“A person’s religious beliefs are the things that make them who they are, gives them a direction in their life,” Carson opined. “But I do not believe that religious beliefs should dictate one’s public policies and stances.”

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“I find, a very good measure of correlation between my religious beliefs and my scientific beliefs — people say, how can you be a scientist, how can you be a surgeon if you don’t believe in certain things?” he continued. “Maybe those things aren’t scientific. Maybe it’s just propaganda.”

Watch the video below from NBC’s Meet the Press, broadcast March 1, 2015.