What do you think?
Rate this book
The Religion and Science Debate: Why Does It Continue?
Six acclaimed scholars—including a biologist, a sociologist, a historian, a philosopher, and a physicist—examine the evolution debate.
Eighty-one years after America witnessed the Scopes trial over the teaching of evolution in public schools, the debate between science and religion continues. In this book scholars from a variety of disciplines—sociology, history, science, and theology—provide new insights into the contemporary dialogue as well as some perspective suggestions for delineating the responsibilities of both the scientific and religious spheres. Why does the tension between science and religion continue? How have those tensions changed during the past one hundred years? How have those tensions impacted the public debate about so-called “intelligent design” as a scientific alternative to evolution? With wit and wisdom the authors address the conflict from its philosophical roots to its manifestations within American culture. In doing so, they take an important step toward creating a society that reconciles scientific inquiry with the human spirit. This book, which marks the one hundredth anniversary of The Terry Lecture Series, offers a unique perspective for anyone interested in the debate between science and religion in America.
Eighty-one years after America witnessed the Scopes trial over the teaching of evolution in public schools, the debate between science and religion continues. In this book scholars from a variety of disciplines—sociology, history, science, and theology—provide new insights into the contemporary dialogue as well as some perspective suggestions for delineating the responsibilities of both the scientific and religious spheres. Why does the tension between science and religion continue? How have those tensions changed during the past one hundred years? How have those tensions impacted the public debate about so-called “intelligent design” as a scientific alternative to evolution? With wit and wisdom the authors address the conflict from its philosophical roots to its manifestations within American culture. In doing so, they take an important step toward creating a society that reconciles scientific inquiry with the human spirit. This book, which marks the one hundredth anniversary of The Terry Lecture Series, offers a unique perspective for anyone interested in the debate between science and religion in America.
- GenresReligion
221 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2009
117 people want to read
About the author
Harold W. Attridge
39 books5 followersHarold W. Attridge, Ph.D., is Dean of Yale University Divinity School and Lillian Claus Professor of New Testament. He has published many scholarly contributions to New Testament exegesis and to the study of Hellenistic Judaism and the history of the early Church. He also has served as the president of the Society of Biblical Literature.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
May 4, 2018
This was a collection of lectures by Ronald L. Numbers, Kenneth R. Miller, Alvin Plantinga, Lawrence M. Krauss, and Robert Wuthnow presented at Yale University. Each lecturer had a different perspective on the Science vs. Religion debate presumably because of their different occupations such as a historian, physical scientist, biologist, philosopher, and sociologist. This mixture of occupations allows the reader to gain a wide range of knowledge and different perspectives of what scientists and biblical literalists are actually arguing over. Overall very informative and an interesting read.
July 26, 2011
This volume, like the Gifford Lectures, is part of a series. According, as found in the introduction of this volume, to the deed of Dwight Harrington Terry, the object of the the Lectures on Religion in the Light of Science and Philosophy is that,
a series of lectures be given by men eminent in their respective departments, on ethics, the history of civilization and religion, biblical research, all sciences and branches of knowledge which have an important bearing on the subject, all the great laws of nature, especially of evolution . . . to the end that the Christian spirit may be nurtured in the fullest light of the world's knowledge and that mankind maly be helped to attain its highest possible welfare and happiness upon this earth.
A number of notable titles have come out of the Terry Lectures, including Pail Tillich's The Courage to Be, John Dewey's, A Common Faith, Erich Fromm's Psychoanalysis and Religion, Paul Ricoeur's Freud and Philosophy, and John Polkinghorne's Belief in God in an Age of Science (among a number of others). The Religion and Science Debate is from the one-hundredth such lecture, which was structured not as a single speaker giving a series of lectures from which a tome might arise, but rather a series of panel discussions with a resulting anthology of articles. Because it has taken the form of an anthology, this debate may not rise to the heights of the very best from the Terry Series, but it is a timely volume that may be with us all for some time.
When one brings up the topic of what is supposed to be a conflict between science and religion, one does not look first at method (although one might wish to look at Descartes Bones) but at the peculiar controversy over evolution. By in large, the contributors to this volume focus on the later to illustrate the former. All the contributors are veterans of this debate, and a some (Ronald Numbers and Alvin Plantinga) have been highlighted in this blog before. Let us simply look at each essay in its turn.
Ronald Numbers, a historian of science, leads off with an essay which tone and substance is very similar to the introduction he provided to Galileo Goes to Jail, though without the breath found in Galileo. Numbers does not so much go into what caused the conflict or why evolution should be so central. He is content here to look at the players and to see how the partisans seem to be feeding off of each other.
Kenneth Miller's starts by looking at the Dover decision, which basically classed intelligent design as a variant of creationism, that if taught in public schools, would amount to an establishment of religion. As Miller was a primary witness for the plaintiff, it is little wonder that the essay is constructed to present a case against intelligent design. Miller then turns around to argue that just as there is no scientific basis to assert intelligent design, neither is there a scientific case to be made against theism. To some degree, however, theism is not what is on trial here, but a very specific sort of theism. If Christianity requires that Genesis be interpreted in a way consistent with a young earth, then either our current state of knowledge is incorrect or Christianity is false (note the double conditional here). Moreover Miller does not provide a scientific reason to accept religious belief or a non-scientific reason that antitheological partisan would accept.
The philosopher Alvin Plantinga has long had grave reservations about evolution and has been a proponent of intelligent design. He has also criticized what is sometimes called methodological naturalism--the insistence that a scientific explanation be free of anything akin to personal agency or one that would invoke a mental event. These misgivings are mostly muted here. Instead, Plantinga contents himself with the more modest project arguing that proceeding in a scientific manner does not logically lead to a secular point of view--that is a point of view that excludes religion.
Perhaps the weakest contribution was made by Lawrence Krauss (which is a shame, because his Physics of Star Trek is so good). It is not that it so much bad, but it just seems as if it has no connection with any other essay. On the historical end he proceeds as if he had not read (or listened to) Numbers at all and then takes a rhetorical swipe at the phrase methodological naturalism as if it were equivalent to the scientific method (in fairness, "methodological naturalism" is used differently in epistemology than the philosophy of science, but in neither case is such an equivalence made). He also ties the notion of design too closely to that of William Paley. There is an over all a lack of depth. The one criticism of Intelligent Design that is a genuine contribution is that Krauss notes that advocates of Intelligent Design just haven't put the work in. One starts with a proposal or hypothesis and attempts to have it published, studied, refined, tested and eventually--maybe--accepted. Only then is an idea presented in text books as the current state of knowledge. Here Krauss is quite correct. There brilliant ideas that have powerful explanatory power that come out all the time that never find their way into science text-books. Why? because somewhere along the line they are found to be just plain wrong. Intelligent design is an idea which never got to the point of even being found to be wrong in scientific circles.
Robert Wuthnow is a sociologist and takes what must be the most original approach. Instead of looking at the controversy, he focuses on the fact that many Americans find nothing controversial at all. What he is after is the strategies we employ generally in holding conflicting views and how it applies to the matter of science and religion specifically. What he comes up with is that we live in a culture where "all reasonable possibilities can be easily reconciled." Wuthnow finds this disturbing because what is reasonable can vary depending on what one accepts as given. As such, real and profound differences can simply be papered over until a rift is no longer an intellectual game but a societal crisis. Creating a straw figure of an opposing position (as Dawkins and Dennett are often accused) is bad enough, it may be worse to recreate such a figure as a friendly counterpart. His advice is that the controversy should continue so that none of us settle for easy answers.
Summing up: A solid work from noted figures whose backgrounds and positions vary. For the most part the issue of the relationship between science and religion is taken with care and intelligence. It was enough to make wish I'd been in the audience. Recommended for anyone willing to take a critical look at the issue.
a series of lectures be given by men eminent in their respective departments, on ethics, the history of civilization and religion, biblical research, all sciences and branches of knowledge which have an important bearing on the subject, all the great laws of nature, especially of evolution . . . to the end that the Christian spirit may be nurtured in the fullest light of the world's knowledge and that mankind maly be helped to attain its highest possible welfare and happiness upon this earth.
A number of notable titles have come out of the Terry Lectures, including Pail Tillich's The Courage to Be, John Dewey's, A Common Faith, Erich Fromm's Psychoanalysis and Religion, Paul Ricoeur's Freud and Philosophy, and John Polkinghorne's Belief in God in an Age of Science (among a number of others). The Religion and Science Debate is from the one-hundredth such lecture, which was structured not as a single speaker giving a series of lectures from which a tome might arise, but rather a series of panel discussions with a resulting anthology of articles. Because it has taken the form of an anthology, this debate may not rise to the heights of the very best from the Terry Series, but it is a timely volume that may be with us all for some time.
When one brings up the topic of what is supposed to be a conflict between science and religion, one does not look first at method (although one might wish to look at Descartes Bones) but at the peculiar controversy over evolution. By in large, the contributors to this volume focus on the later to illustrate the former. All the contributors are veterans of this debate, and a some (Ronald Numbers and Alvin Plantinga) have been highlighted in this blog before. Let us simply look at each essay in its turn.
Ronald Numbers, a historian of science, leads off with an essay which tone and substance is very similar to the introduction he provided to Galileo Goes to Jail, though without the breath found in Galileo. Numbers does not so much go into what caused the conflict or why evolution should be so central. He is content here to look at the players and to see how the partisans seem to be feeding off of each other.
Kenneth Miller's starts by looking at the Dover decision, which basically classed intelligent design as a variant of creationism, that if taught in public schools, would amount to an establishment of religion. As Miller was a primary witness for the plaintiff, it is little wonder that the essay is constructed to present a case against intelligent design. Miller then turns around to argue that just as there is no scientific basis to assert intelligent design, neither is there a scientific case to be made against theism. To some degree, however, theism is not what is on trial here, but a very specific sort of theism. If Christianity requires that Genesis be interpreted in a way consistent with a young earth, then either our current state of knowledge is incorrect or Christianity is false (note the double conditional here). Moreover Miller does not provide a scientific reason to accept religious belief or a non-scientific reason that antitheological partisan would accept.
The philosopher Alvin Plantinga has long had grave reservations about evolution and has been a proponent of intelligent design. He has also criticized what is sometimes called methodological naturalism--the insistence that a scientific explanation be free of anything akin to personal agency or one that would invoke a mental event. These misgivings are mostly muted here. Instead, Plantinga contents himself with the more modest project arguing that proceeding in a scientific manner does not logically lead to a secular point of view--that is a point of view that excludes religion.
Perhaps the weakest contribution was made by Lawrence Krauss (which is a shame, because his Physics of Star Trek is so good). It is not that it so much bad, but it just seems as if it has no connection with any other essay. On the historical end he proceeds as if he had not read (or listened to) Numbers at all and then takes a rhetorical swipe at the phrase methodological naturalism as if it were equivalent to the scientific method (in fairness, "methodological naturalism" is used differently in epistemology than the philosophy of science, but in neither case is such an equivalence made). He also ties the notion of design too closely to that of William Paley. There is an over all a lack of depth. The one criticism of Intelligent Design that is a genuine contribution is that Krauss notes that advocates of Intelligent Design just haven't put the work in. One starts with a proposal or hypothesis and attempts to have it published, studied, refined, tested and eventually--maybe--accepted. Only then is an idea presented in text books as the current state of knowledge. Here Krauss is quite correct. There brilliant ideas that have powerful explanatory power that come out all the time that never find their way into science text-books. Why? because somewhere along the line they are found to be just plain wrong. Intelligent design is an idea which never got to the point of even being found to be wrong in scientific circles.
Robert Wuthnow is a sociologist and takes what must be the most original approach. Instead of looking at the controversy, he focuses on the fact that many Americans find nothing controversial at all. What he is after is the strategies we employ generally in holding conflicting views and how it applies to the matter of science and religion specifically. What he comes up with is that we live in a culture where "all reasonable possibilities can be easily reconciled." Wuthnow finds this disturbing because what is reasonable can vary depending on what one accepts as given. As such, real and profound differences can simply be papered over until a rift is no longer an intellectual game but a societal crisis. Creating a straw figure of an opposing position (as Dawkins and Dennett are often accused) is bad enough, it may be worse to recreate such a figure as a friendly counterpart. His advice is that the controversy should continue so that none of us settle for easy answers.
Summing up: A solid work from noted figures whose backgrounds and positions vary. For the most part the issue of the relationship between science and religion is taken with care and intelligence. It was enough to make wish I'd been in the audience. Recommended for anyone willing to take a critical look at the issue.
October 20, 2024
This is a collection of essays, ostensibly on the debate between religion and science, but mostly concentrating on the clash between science and science education and religion in the United States. It is of very limited value, the interesting essay by Laurence M. Krauss being the only one that is at all worth reading (without Krauss' essay, I would have given it one star). The rest are more or less elaborate farces which explore different ways to evade the question that they are allegedly discussing. There is much elaborate kicking of naughty atheists like Richard Dawkins, derided for his harsh language by representatives of a tradition which rose to dominance by burning people alive. There is even more hilarious evasion of the fact that religion cannot even begin to answer the questions which it presumes to ask of science. What point is there in asserting that there cannot be design in nature without a Designer when one does not dare venture to explain who designed the Designer? The whole of orthodox theological thought on this matter depends crucially on ignoring this infinite regress without even the honesty of openly asserting that it's turtles all the way down.
September 3, 2022
This book focuses on the bitter fights between renown scientist and Theologians. Each side trying to get their understanding the origin of humans in textbooks and classrooms. If I knew the book was about the theory of evolution and its place in a religious world I wouldn't have picked it up. So the title was misleading. However if you can get over the technical wording there is some interesting perspectives here.
August 25, 2019
Not as engaging as others I've read on this subject.
May 10, 2012
The title of this book is is perhaps a little misleading, in that instead of being about the religion and science debate generally, it is primarily about the teaching of evolution in American public schools – a debate which has been going on for some 80+ years. The book came out of the centenary celebrations of the Terry Foundation Lectures at Yale University which brought together a group of eminent persons from a variety of fields to probe the contemporary version of the debate. Interestingly, they also offer some suggestions for raising the level of the debate in both its scientific and religious spheres.
The introduction by Keith Thomson, a professor emeritus of natural history, introduces the controversy from an historical perspective. His paper briefly summarizes and contrasts the contributions of the other authors and rightly highlights that which all at least infer - that much of the contemporary debate is driven by ignorance instead of insight – from both sides.
The Princeton sociologist Robert Wuthnow explores the fertile ideological ground of the debate and highlights the difficulty of compartmentalizing science and religion into different spheres in one’s life without creating deep cognitive dissonance. For example – the conflict that comes when considering the content of hymns sung on Sunday alongside the material benefits that come from scientific advances in computer technology or medicine. As the final contribution in the book Wuthnow does address the ongoing nature of the debate – why does it still continue? Because both sides of the floor are guilty of pretty much the same things: ignorance of their own tradition, as well as of the tradition in which their opponents stand. That is - the faulty equation of science and secularism or of religion and fundamentalism, or the preference for scoring points instead of addressing the genuine issues within a believer's and in an unbeliever's position.
The introduction by Keith Thomson, a professor emeritus of natural history, introduces the controversy from an historical perspective. His paper briefly summarizes and contrasts the contributions of the other authors and rightly highlights that which all at least infer - that much of the contemporary debate is driven by ignorance instead of insight – from both sides.
The Princeton sociologist Robert Wuthnow explores the fertile ideological ground of the debate and highlights the difficulty of compartmentalizing science and religion into different spheres in one’s life without creating deep cognitive dissonance. For example – the conflict that comes when considering the content of hymns sung on Sunday alongside the material benefits that come from scientific advances in computer technology or medicine. As the final contribution in the book Wuthnow does address the ongoing nature of the debate – why does it still continue? Because both sides of the floor are guilty of pretty much the same things: ignorance of their own tradition, as well as of the tradition in which their opponents stand. That is - the faulty equation of science and secularism or of religion and fundamentalism, or the preference for scoring points instead of addressing the genuine issues within a believer's and in an unbeliever's position.
February 18, 2010
A great look at why this debate still continues and should be a must read for anyone interested in science and faith.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews