[This is the
pre-edited version of my latest
piece for Nature's online news. Do we really need more about
science and religion? Probably not, although my excuse for this piece is the
recent launch of two fairly high-profile projects pertaining to that topic.
Richard Holmes puts the case much more succinctly in his splendid book The
Age of Wonder: “The old, rigid debates and boundaries – science versus
religion, science versus the arts, science versus traditional ethics – are no
longer enough. We should be impatient with them. We need a wider, more generous,
more imaginative perspective.”]
The ‘war’
between science and religion is stuck in a rut. Can we change the record now?
The 50th anniversary of C.P. Snow’s famous ‘Two Cultures’ lecture has elicited mixed views. Some feel that the divide between the sciences and the humanities is as broad and uncomfortable as it was in 1959; others say the world has moved on. But perhaps we need instead to acknowledge that today’s divisions exist between two quite different cultures.
To my mind, the most
problematic of these is the distinction between those who believe in the value
of knowledge and learning, whether artists, scientists, historians or
politicians, and those who reject, even denigrate, intellectualism in world
affairs. Some have suggested
that these poles are personified by the present and previous incumbents of the
White House.
But others feel that
the most serious disparity is now between those who trust in science and
Enlightenment rationalism, and those guided by religious scripture. This feeling
has apparently motivated the recent launch of the Reason
Project, an initiative organized by neuroscientist and writer Sam
Harris, which boasts a stellar advisory board that includes Richard Dawkins,
Daniel
Dennett, Steven
Weinberg, Harry Kroto, Craig Venter and Steven Pinker, along with Salman Rushdie,
Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Ian McEwan.
The project aims ‘to
spread scientific knowledge and secular values in society’ and ‘to encourage
critical thinking and erode the influence of dogmatism, superstition, and
bigotry in our world.’ It is not hard, given the list of backers, to see what
that means: doing battle with religion.
There are plenty of
reasons why this may be necessary. They are well rehearsed, pertaining mostly to
the conflict between scientific and fundamentalist ways of understanding human
origins. And it’s perilously easy, to the east of the Atlantic, to get
complacent about this: when a wealthy, treacle-voiced American said proudly to
me recently ‘I’m a creationist’, I was reminded that there are places
where this isn’t deemed tantamount to announcing ‘I’m impressionable and
ignorant’.
Important though
such issues are, the Reason Project’s supporters would probably agree that
they pale in comparison with the use (or generally, abuse) of religious dogma to
justify suppression of human rights, maltreatment and murder. To the extent that
those are in the project’s sights, it should be applauded. But with Dawkins (The
God Delusion) and Christopher Hitchens (God Is Not Great) on board,
one can’t help suspecting that the Almighty Himself is the prime target.
This debate now
tends to cluster into two camps. One, exemplified by the Reason Project, insists
that science and religion are fundamentally incompatible, and that the world ain’t
big enough for the both of them.
The other side is
exemplified by another recently launched project, the BioLogos
Foundation, established by the former leader of the Human Genome
Project Francis Collins. In this view, science and religion can and should make
their peace: there is no reason why they cannot coexist. The mission statement
of BioLogos speaks of
‘America’s
escalating culture war between science and faith’, and explains that the
Foundation ‘emphasizes the compatibility of Christian faith with what science
has discovered about the origins of the universe and life.’ (There is,
incidentally, a third camp too, which insists that religion must expunge
heretical science such as Darwinism. Without denying that this is a dangerously
widespread view, its vacuity disqualifies it from discussion here.)
BioLogos is funded
by the Templeton
Foundation, which likewise seeks to identify common ground between
science and religion. To the militant atheists, this is sheer appeasement, if
not indeed capitulation, in an insidious war of stealth where religion
insinuates itself into the heartlands of science.
That is what
evolutionary biologist Jerry Coyne, a board member of the Reason Project,
laments in an essay called ‘Truckling to the Faithful: A Spoonful of Jesus
Helps Darwin Go Down.’ Coyne accuses the US National Academy of Sciences, and
especially its National Center for Science Education, of irenic pandering to the
religious masses.
What the Reason
Project has in its favour is philosophical rigour. That may also be its failing,
because it looks unlikely to venture beyond those walls. Like most utopian
ideas, atheistic absolutism works so long as it ignores what people are like and
remains in a cultural and historical vacuum. Logical neatness and
self-consistency is, unfortunately, not enough.
Sadly, when that is
pointed out – as for example when the Royal Society’s former director of
education Michael Reiss suggested that it was best to understand religiously
motivated delusions such as creationism as world views rather than as mere
ignorance that the right information would set right – scientists tend to
react badly. Reiss, a biologist and an ordained Christian clergyman, was forced
to resign, I suspect because some scientists found a whiff of relativism in his
remarks.
I’m glad people
make it their business to expose bigotry and oppression. If some choose to focus
on instances where those things are religiously motivated – well, why not? But
it seems important to acknowledge that the supposed conflict between science and
faith is actually not that big a deal. What is a big deal is the relatively
recent strength of fundamentalist opposition to selected aspects of scientific
thought, which has made the USA and Turkey the two Western countries with the
lowest proportion of population who believe in evolution. Were it not for such
developments, science and religion could continue their wary truce, with no
compulsion to iron out the differences.
In other words, this
is not a matter of science versus faith, but of the rejection of aspects of
science that challenge power structures. (After all, fundamentalism rarely
objects to technology per se, and indeed is often disturbingly keen to acquire
it.) That’s not to minimize the problem, but recognizing it for what it is
will avoid false dichotomies, and perhaps make it easier to find solutions. The
over-exposed example of Galileo’s trial can still serve here to illustrate the
point. If we choose to believe that the Catholic Church condemned Galileo’s
heliocentrism because it conflicted with scripture, we have an unassailable case
against superstitious dogma. If we recognize that the issue was at least as much
about maintaining the Church’s authority, we have to concede some rationality
in the papal position, however repugnant the motives.
So there is little
to be gained from trying to topple the temple – it’s the false priests who
are the menace. If we can recognize that religion, like any ideology, is a
social construct – with benefits, dangers, arbitrary inventions and, most of
all, roots in human nature – then we might forgo a lot of empty argument and
get back to the worldly wonders of the lab bench. Given the ‘usual suspects’
feeling that attends both the Reason Project and most Templeton initiatives, I
suspect many have come to that conclusion already.
Re-posted with permission to Ex-Minister.org July 14, 2009