The 'science and religion movement': an opportunity for improved public understanding of science? - Special Issue: Science and Religion: Conflict or Conciliation?

The "science and religion movement" of the late 1990s can help improve the climate for acceptance of science and of evolution as a valid science. The theistic science movement, however, is different; it needs monitoring, and its growth would be detrimental to science.

What are we talking about when we talk about science and religion? Science is a way of knowing that attempts to explain the natural world using natural causes. It is agnostic toward the supernatural it neither confirms nor rejects it. So science is methodologically materialistic: matter, energy, and their interactions are used to explain nature. Supernatural causes are ruled out for philosophical as well as practical reasons: science requires testing of explanations against the natural world, and testing requires that some variables be held constant. Supernatural forces by definition cannot be held constant, thus supernatural explanation is outside of what science can deal with. Mostly, methodological materialism is embraced by scientists because it works so well; we have found out a great deal about how the universe operates. To say "God did it" does not lead us to greater understanding and tends to discourage further research. Even conservative theologian Alvin Plantinga agrees that resorting to direct supernatural causes to explain the natural word is a "science stopper" (Plantinga 1997).

As an anthropologist, I define religion as a set of rules and beliefs a people have about a nonmaterial universe and its inhabitants. These may include gods, ancestors, powerful spirits, and other supernatural forces. Usually religion includes ideas about an afterlife, but not always. Religion often but not always includes rules about how people should treat one another (ethics and morals). Religion often but not always includes explanations of the natural world. Religious beliefs almost always include a sense of the "spiritual" - awe, wonder, reverence, faith, and other emotions. (Most Americans are Christians, and although "religion" obviously is far broader than just Christianity, my discussion must for reasons of space be limited to this tradition.)

It would appear that science and religion have little in common, yet in the late 1990s there is substantial activity taking place between them. The American Association for the Advancement of Science has an office to promote "Dialogue Between Science and Religion," and in November of 1997 it hosted a major national conference in Chicago titled, "The Epic of Evolution." Physical, biological, and social scientists were teamed with theologians to discuss the scientific and theological implications of evolution. Dozens (maybe even scores) of "science and religion" conferences have been held since then, including a large "Science and the Spiritual Quest" conference held on the campus of the University of California sponsored by the Berkeley-based Center for Theology and the Natural Sciences (CTNS). Science, Newsweek, Time, and US News and World Report have also covered what has come to be called the "science and religion movement."

To some, this is a puzzling development. After all, isn't religion supposed to be in conflict with science, and aren't scientists all secularists? Apparently not. A strong core of scientists are believers. In 1914, the sociologist James H. Leuba surveyed scientists listed in American Men and Women of Science and found that 42 percent believed in a personal God - much less than in the general public, but still a substantial number. He predicted that through time, fewer scientists would believe in God - but when Leuba's (albeit problematic) questionnaire was readministered to a group of scientists in 1996, researchers found no appreciable change in the number of "believing" scientists - about 39 percent (Larson and Witham 1997). Many scientists don't see religion and science as inherently incompatible.

In fact, this incompatibility view is found in only one of four ways that (Christian) religion and science historically have interacted.

1) The "warfare" model, as illustrated in Andrew D. White's 1896 classic A History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom, presents religion and science as being incompatible. This perspective is echoed today by Phillip Johnson, Richard Dawkins, Paul Kurtz, and many others. Depending on which side of the issue one is on, one concludes either that religion trumps science, or that science trumps religion.

2) The "separate realms" model understands science and religion to focus on different areas of human concern, with science explaining the natural world, and religion dealing with spiritual matters. Here, science and religion don't conflict, because they have little to say to one another. Stephen Jay Gould is a proponent of this view.

3) The "accommodation" model, in which science and religion are more directly engaged; theological understanding is thought to be deepened through the understanding of science. Some Christians wrestling with the theological implications of Darwinism in the early twentieth century, for example, were willing to reinterpret basic concepts of the Fall, Atonement, and Original Sin in the light of evolutionary theory. These theologians were considering such problems as "If humans evolved from apes, there was no original state of grace and the concept of Original Sin must be reinterpreted" (Bowler 1999, 39). The accommodation seems to be largely a one-way street, with science acting as a source for theological reinterpretation rather than the reverse.