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Fortunately, over the past half century a number of individuals and small groups dedicated themselves to continuing a dialogue between religion and science. Then in 1994 the John Templeton Foundation began offering substantial monetary awards for classes on religion and science. This input of resources transformed what had been since the 1950s a relatively small discussion among a few scholars and church people into a large international debate. While the volume and pace of work in this area has increased, a peculiarity of the current debate between religion and science is that, with the notable exception of the history of science, the social sciences are usually ignored. They have not been invited to the table.
In this book we argue that without the inclusion of the social sciences the science-religion dialogue is incomplete. Much of the dialogue to date has been an effort either by theologians to talk about science or by scientists (particularly astronomers, physicists, and evolutionary biologists) to talk about religion. This is fine, as far as it goes, but the dialogue so far has tended to be very theoretical and, quite frankly, abstract.
All too often, the focus of discussion has been the impact of scientific theories on religious beliefs. What the social sciences have to offer is a broader perspective on the relationship between religion and science, expanding beyond the realm of theory to include other, more practical, issues like those of technology, ethics, and politics. The social sciences are uniquely equipped with analytical tools to explore both science and religion as practices, as ways of ordering our lives, and as institutions. In this book we will redraw the usual disciplinary boundaries, analyzing science through religious categories. This will expose and demystify some of the images and assumptions that have constructed walls between them. We will argue for the importance of maintaining a creative tension between science and religion, between objectivity and mystery, between Creation and the Word. This, we believe, will allow the dialogue to begin to develop an understanding of science and religion that is both more holistic and oriented toward ethical action.
In this introduction we will first look at some of the reasons the social sciences have been ignored. This involves examining the nature of the process of drawing identity boundaries and the models used to guide the debate. Once we have found a model that invites the social sciences to the table, we will show some of the benefits that they can bring to the game. We conclude the introduction by setting out the framework that we will use for our own exploration of the seamless web of science, religion, technology, and ethics.
Left out of the Game
Why the social sciences have not been major players in the science-religion debate in recent years is not clear. In the past, the social sciences were deeply involved. The founders of modern social science played a prominent role in drawing the boundaries between science and religion in the nineteenth century. For example, August Comte, the founder of sociology, postulated a “Law of Three Stages” that claimed science would replace religion. Historians John Draper and Andrew White first articulated what today would be called the “conflict approach” to the relationship between religion and science later in the century. Karl Marx, Emile Durkheim, Max Weber, and Sigmund Freud, all argued, each in his own way, that science would supplant traditional religion.
In the twentieth century, active involvement in the debate by the social sciences continued. The sociology of religion, in particular, had long discussions on the relationship between science and religion, usually under the rubric of secularization. As the modern science-religion dialogue developed in the 1950s, Ralph Burhoe, the founder of the Institute for Religion in an Age of Science and the journal Zygon—and the person who has perhaps done more than any other to shape the current form of the debate—was also prominent in the early years of the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion, the largest group of sociologists of religion.1 But today, for whatever reason, those drawing the boundaries for the dialogue have left social science outside.
This can be demonstrated by a content analysis of Zygon, regarded as the premier journal in the field by many. The content of articles published between 1994 and the first half of 2000 were analyzed, including review essays but excluding editorial material and book reviews. This period covers the massive increase in the debate due to the John Templeton Foundation’s financial support. Of 281 articles, only 34 (12.10 percent) referred to social science, and of these sociology was mentioned in only 12 (4.27 percent) and psychology in 13 (4.63 percent). Another 13 articles (4.63 percent) mentioned feminism. By contrast, sociobiology was discussed in 42 articles (14.95 percent) and neuropsychology in 29 (10.32 percent). These were articles that mentioned social science, not that necessarily were about social science or were presented from a social science perspective. Some were critical of the social sciences. If social scientists want to find a place at the table, they will have to redraw the boundaries of the debate. This may not be easy. Drawing boundaries has always been a difficult social task. It is a process of definition and demarcation in which criteria of inclusion and exclusion are applied to both define one’s own identity and separate that identity from others. Identities are fluid, and their boundaries are never simply “given” but are constructed as the need arises in specific historical situations.2
For example, what it means to be a scientist is not automatically bestowed by granting a degree. Astronomers are a good illustration. On one occasion (while trying to recruit prospective science majors, for instance), they may need to distinguish their work from that of chemists or biologists and draw lines of distinction between the sciences by appealing to such things as subject matter, specialized techniques, and so on. Studying the stars is what distinguishes them from other scientists. At another time (during, say, a television interview about astrology), they may identify with chemists and biologists as fellow scientists by calling upon a shared scientific method in opposition to “pseudoscience.” Studying the stars, in this case, neither makes them different from other scientists nor establishes any kinship with astrology based on a common “subject matter.”
Because so much energy is expended in boundary work, it is not surprising that the results would be strongly defended. Indeed, challenges to established boundaries are often perceived as threatening. One way of protecting them is to see them as “natural” and “the way things are.” However, problems may result if boundary walls become too high or impermeable. This, we believe, is to a large extent what has happened to science and religion in modern society. The process of demarcating science and religion as separate realms tends to both reify and fragment our systems of meaning. The science-religion dialogue has gone a long way in breaking down the walls, but, we argue, it has not gone quite far enough. In order to make the science-religion dialogue more inclusive of the social sciences, it would be useful to examine how its boundaries have been constructed by analyzing the models of the debate itself. In the current debate there are three models that illustrate ways of relating science and religion. One, that of Ian Barbour, has clearly been dominant and has structured much of the dialogue that has taken place over the past decade. It has recently been challenged by the models of Stephen Jay Gould and of Ronald Cole-Turner.
Ian Barbour’s Models
Ian Barbour actually has two models, one of the relationship between science and religion and another for science, technology, and society. We will look at both (see figs. I.1 and I.2). His model of science and religion has been the dominant one in the debate.3 It is widely copied in textbooks and has been institutionalized in the John Templeton Foundation’s approach to the dialogue.4 A few other scholars have developed models that are variations on Barbour’s.5 Most of what we say about Barbour applies equally to these variants. Barbour’s ap- proach is typological, listing four types of relationship between science and religion.
The first type is conflict, which sees science and religion as mutually exclusive and inherently incompatible. This approach creates strong and thick boundaries between science and religion. Conflict arises because proponents of either science or religion claim a monopoly on truth. Scientific materialists, such as Richard Dawkins, Stephen Weinberg, or Jacques Monod, believe that science is the only valid form of knowledge and that it can explain all of reality. Religion is therefore false. Biblical literalists are examples from the side of religion, arguing that the first two chapters of Genesis give a full and accurate account of the formation of the universe. Scientific theories are therefore false.
The second type is independence. Here the boundaries are also strong and thick, but science and religion are seen as separate spheres that do not make claims upon each other. For theologians and philosophers, such as Karl Barth, Rudolf Bultmann, George Lindbeck, and the early Langdon Gilkey (interestingly, Barbour does not mention any practicing scientists), science and religion have contrasting methodologies, subject matter, and languages that simply do not compete. This approach has been institutionalized in the “mainstream” churches and is probably the position most commonly held by the public.