Science and Religion: Are They Compatible?

Nearly all the essays in this collection are either transcripts of papers read at a "Science and Religion: Are They Compatible?" conference or reprints of essays that originally appeared in either the "Skeptical Inquirer" or "Free Inquiry." As such, they're addressed to an educated, nonprofessional audience. But for the most part, they're rigorously argued pieces that challenge the reader to take a close look at the relationship between scientific and the religious worldviews. The minority opinion among the authors, most famously expressed in Stephen Jay Gould's essay (pp. 191-203) defending his NOMA (nonoverlapping magisteria) thesis, is that science and religion aren't incompatible because they ask separate questions, science dealing with facts and religion with values. Paul Kurtz argues (pp. 351-59) for a different kind of compatibility, one that recognizes that religious language is aesthetic but wholly mythical, and thus offers no serious challenge to religion. But most of the authors collected here tend to agree to one degree or another with Jacob Pandian's ("The Dangerous Quest for Cooperation between Science and Religion") suggestion that academic departments of religion be renamed "departments of superstition (p. 171), or Steven Weinberg's ("A Designer Universe?") claim that he's "all in favor of a dialogue between science and religion, but not a constructive dialogue. One of the great achievements of science has been, if not to make it impossible for intelligent people to be religious, then at least to make it possible for them not to be religious. We should not retreat from this accomplishment" (p. 40). The overriding reason for dismissing the truth-value of religious claims is the authors' commitment to methodological naturalism, and the merits of that methodology is defended again and again in their essays. Part I uses the method to deny the cogency of design and cosmological arguments for the existence of God. Part II uses the method to criticize ID and creationism. Part III offers the most explicit defenses of naturalism found in the volume. Part IV focuses on the NOMA thesis. Part V applies the naturalist/physicalist method to questions of after-death existence. Part VI offers natural history explanations for the popularity of religious belief. Part VI offers essays that find great meaning and purposefulness in looking at the world through the lens of methodological naturalism. As one would imagine, the quality of the articles is uneven--the contributions by Feynman and Lovelock, for example, are so flimsy that one wonders why they were included in the first place--but overall quite good. Especially noteworthy are the essays by Victor Stenger on the anthropic principle, Quentin Smith on big bang, Dennett on scientific method, the debate between Gould and Dawkins on NOMA, and Morton Hunt on the biological roots of God-belief. Editor Paul Kurtz's introduction to the collection is excellent. My only reservation ab

This is an all star collection of essays by some very eminent scientists and others, including Richard Dawkins, Steven Weinberg, Richard Feynman, Stephen Jay Gould, Steven Pinker, James Lovelock, Daniel Dennett, etc. Thrown in for "balance" or fairness are essays by some others who espouse views decidedly not congenial with those of Editor Paul Kurtz, who is the founder of the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal. Most noticeable among the latter is William A. Dembski a mathematician and a well known proponent of Intelligent Design. I want to start with his essay which is entitled, "Skepticism's Prospects for Unseating Intelligent Design." Immediately in the title we see employed one of the familiar tactics of the now discredited creationists, namely a statement presented slyly as "a given" about something that is in fact untrue. Dembski has skeptics (or actually evolutionary biology) attempting to "unseat" Intelligent Design. This is bit like the tail trying to wag the dog. The main thrust of Dembski's argument is that more Americas believe in design than in evolution. This "counting heads" sort of argument is obviously not science. It is an attempt to politicize science, to make what is true dependent upon what a majority of people think is true. Dembski writes, "To allow an unevolved intelligence a place in the world is, according to skepticism, to send the world into a tailspin. It is to exchange unbroken natural law for caprice and thereby destroy science." (p. 91) This is insincere since what Dembski really is saying is "To allow God a place..." Science would be glad to allow God a place in the world if it were somehow established that God exists. So far, after many, many centuries of trying, no one has been able to provide any evidence that God exists. Furthermore if God should become scientifically manifested, the skeptic's world would not be thrown into a tailspin. Rather skeptics would have a little less to be skeptical about! What Dembski is really asserting here is the simple statement "If God exists, then skeptics think science will be destroyed." It's really laughable how the euphemistic expressions for God that the Intelligence Designers contort themselves into tend to turn their prose into babblelese. Dembski finishes with some bogus claims for ID, some satirical "action points" for skeptics, and then returns to his main theme: "Poll after poll indicates that for most people evolution does not provide a compelling vision of life and the world." (p. 97) Well, science move aside! The people have voted! Reminds me of the bumper sticker, "God said it. I believe it. That settles it." More typical of the profound thought and expression in the book is the brilliant essay by Steven Weinberg entitled, "A Designer Universe?" This essay includes the famous statement: "With or without religion, good people can behave well and bad people can do evil; but for good people to do evil--th

A MUST READ for anyone interested about magisteria of science and religion. Well written essays (as one would expect with Kurtz as the editor) presenting both sides of this discussion. Never more relevant than today when religionists are making the claim about "biblical science", "creation science" (an oxymoron) ad infinitum. America can be a strange land where mythology and fact are allowed to mingle in some minds. This book will make you THINK.

I attended the "Science and Religion" symposium held in Atlanta in 2001 and it was excellent. But this book is much more than a mere summary of the symposium. The book also includes many contributions by authors who did not attend, such as a chapter on Nonoverlapping Magisteria by the late Stephen Jay Gould and a chapter on Intelligent design by William A. Dembski. At issue is whether religion and science have anything to say to each other and what happens when they tread on each other's turf. It has been argued that science has no business intruding into the realm of religion. But the nature of "science" is poorly understood by many people. It is not a body of knowledge, but rather a means of acquiring knowledge. Some religious claims cannot be be addressed by science because no means are available to investigate them. But on those issues where a means does exist, science has consistently forced religion to retreat and revise itself. This book should be required reading by any school granting degrees in science, and it should be placed in every high school library.

Science and religion are NOT "Nonoverlapping Magisteria." Religion does make claims that science can neither rebut nor even investigate. But it also makes claims that can be and have been disproven. Either the transportation of a Catholic saint/goddess directly to the sky without passing GO and without collecting $200 was a verifiable fact of history, or it did not happen. The dogma that a god played a role in the origin of the universe is religion, and as such is not subject to scientific investigation. The claim that the universe is less than ten thousand years old has nothing to do with religion. It is bad science. But dogmatic religion is one thing. The belief that the universe was intelligently designed, but not necessarily by the god of religion, is something else. Arguments for Intelligent Design are presented by believers, and rebutted by scientists. Why is belief in religion so much higher among the less educated, and so much lower among natural scientists? More than one author offers a credible answer. Other books have considered the question of whether science and religion are compatible, but never so effectively. While "Science and Religion" will not cure incurables, it will give the pragmatically religious something to think about. Buy it or borrow it, but read it.