Summary
Title: Science and Religion: Are They Compatible?
Author: edited by Paul Kurtz & Barry Karr
Publisher: Prometheus Books
ISBN: 1591020646
Pro:
• Many topics covered by many famous authors
I• mportant contribution to an important debate
Con:
• No index
Description:
• Essays addressing the question of whether science and religion are compatible
• Most essays stem from a 2001 symposium on the topic
Book Review
For a long time, the dominant viewpoint at least among scientists has been that science and religion are incompatible. In recent years the opposite viewpoint has tended to be more popular and there has been quite a lot of money available for scholars interested in arguing in favor of the pro-compatibility position. Leading scientists continue to be skeptical of this, often opposing the efforts of large religious foundations to advance their agendas.
The recently published Science and Religion: Are They Compatible? is an outgrowth of a “Science and Religion” symposium held in Atlanta in 2001. Edited by Paul Kurtz and Barry Karr, this book collects not only papers that were delivered at that meeting, but also highly relevant works that have appeared elsewhere. Contributors include Sir Arthur C. Clarke, Richard Dawkins, Richard Feynman, Kendrick Frazier, Martin Gardner, Owen Gingerich, Stephen Jay Gould, James Lovelock, Steven Pinker, Eugenie Scott, Neil deGrasse Tyson, Steven Weinberg, and many more.
A few of the authors defend the thesis that science and religion are compatible — for example, we can read Stephen Jay Gould’s now-famous essay “Nonoverlapping Magisteria,” excerpted from his book Leonardo’s Mountain of Clams and the Diet of Worms, in which he argues that science and religion can be compatible so long as they restrict themselves to their proper and appropriate domains of inquiry.
Most authors, however, argue quite strongly that science and religion are not compatible and that one or the other must give way. Paul Kurtz expresses a common theme when he writes in his introduction:
- “There is a profound difference between science and religion in its conception of truth. Science requires an open mind, free inquiry, critical thinking, the willingness to question assumptions, and peer review. The test of a theory or hypothesis is independent (or at least one would hope) of bias, prejudice, faith, or tradition; and it is justified by the evidence, logical consistency, and mathematical coherence. Science claims to be universal... transcending specific cultures and replicable in any and every laboratory in the world.”
It is worth noting that while Kurtz correctly speaks of what science requires, he does not and cannot speak about what religion requires. It would not be true that religion requires a closed mind, opposition to free inquiry, and gullible thinking. In practice religion normally can be characterized in that way, but it is not absolutely necessary in order to be a religion.
