Today’s popular media often portray science and religion as two opposing forces which are often in conflict. In the European cultural traditions, religion (meaning Christianity) and science have been historically intertwined. Many of the natural philosophers (the term used before “science” was introduced) of the fifteenth through twentieth centuries were also theologians.
Science is both a body of knowledge and a practice. As a practice it is a set of methods for gaining, assessing, and augmenting the sum total of knowledge claims that science holds. Religion (meaning Christianity), on the other hand, is based on faith: a method of arriving at knowledge claims—by simple belief, by assumption, or suspended disbelief. Faith is based on assumptions—faith statements (creed). Reason takes us from premises to conclusions by the means of argument and logic. Science operates by reason, religion by faith.
In his comparison of religion and science, Stephen Jay Gould, in his book Rocks of Ages: Science and Religion in the Fullness of Life, writes:
“Science tries to document the factual character of the natural world and to develop theories that coordinate and explain these facts. Religion, on the other hand, operates in the equally important, but utterly different, real world of human purposes, meanings, and values—subjects that the factual domain of science might illuminate, but can never resolve.”
In general, there are three basic views of the interrelationships between science and religion. First, the conflict or warfare model states that science and religion or scientists and religionists form two separate and warring camps. This is usually the viewpoint of news media.
Historians tend to view conflict model as a fabrication of the late nineteenth century. Its origins lie with two men, John William Draper and Andrew Dickson White. These men had specific political and social purposes when arguing their case. The historical foundations for their work are almost totally unreliable. For example, Draper and White popularized the misconception that prior to Columbus most people thought the world was flat.
The separate realms model states that science and religion operate in fundamentally different realms of knowledge and activity. This is the approach taken by Steven Jay Gould.
Finally, there is the complexity thesis: there’s no one simple description to the science-religion issue.
Welcome to Street Prophets Saturday. This is an open thread in which all discussions of politics, religion, pets, food, weather, art, and daily life are welcomed.
Some of the material in the initial essay was taken from my forthcoming book which deals in part with the origins of religion.