In his book Rocks of Ages (1999), the late Stephen Jay Gould defended the political hypothesis that science and religion are two “non-overlapping magisteria”—two domains of concern and inquiry that can coexist peacefully as long as neither poaches on the other’s special province. The magisterium of science is factual truth on all matters, and the magisterium of religion, he claimed, is the realm of morality and the meaning of life.
