Science Vs Religion

The New York Times bestselling author explains why any attempt to make religion compatible with science is doomed to fail. What we read in the news today is full of subjectivity, half-truths, and blatant falsehoods; and thus it is more necessary now than ever to safeguard the truth with facts. In his provocative new book, evolutionary biologist Jerry A. Coyne aims to do exactly that in the arena of religion. In clear, dispassionate detail he explains why the toolkit of science, based on reason and empirical study, is reliable, while that of religion—including faith, dogma, and revelation—leads to incorrect, untestable, or conflicting conclusions. Coyne is responding to a national climate in which over half of Americans don’t believe in evolution (and congressmen deny global warming), and warns that religious prejudices and strictures in politics, education, medicine, and social policy are on the rise. Extending the bestselling works of Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, and Christopher Hitchens, he demolishes the claims of religion to provide verifiable “truth” by subjecting those claims to the same tests we use to establish truth in science. Coyne irrefutably demonstrates the grave harm—to individuals and to our planet—in mistaking faith for fact in making the most important decisions about the world we live in.

Examines the science versus religion debate by interviewing scientists regarding their own faiths.

The past quarter-century has seen an explosion of interest in the history of science and religion. But all too often the scholars writing it have focused their attention almost exclusively on the Christian experience, with only passing reference to other traditions of both science and faith. At a time when religious ignorance and misunderstanding have lethal consequences, such provincialism must be avoided and, in this pioneering effort to explore the historical relations of what we now call "science" and "religion," the authors go beyond the Abrahamic traditions to examine the way nature has been understood and manipulated in regions as diverse as ancient China, India, and sub-Saharan Africa. Science and Religion around the World also provides authoritative discussions of science in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam -- as well as an exploration of the relationship between science and the loss of religious beliefs. The narratives included in this book demonstrate the value of plural perspectives and of the importance of location for the construction and perception of science-religion relations.

Beyond stereotypes and myths -- Religious people do not like science -- Religious people do not like scientists -- Religious people are not scientists -- Religious people are all young-earth creationists -- Religious people are climate change deniers -- Religious people are against scientific technology -- Beyond myths, toward realities

Do scientists see conflict between science and faith? Which cultural factors shape the attitudes of scientists toward religion? Can scientists help show us a way to build collaboration between scientific and religious communities, if such collaborations are even possible? To answer these questions and more, the authors of Secularity and Science: What Scientists Around the World Really Think About Religion completed the most comprehensive international study of scientists' attitudes toward religion ever undertaken, surveying more than 20,000 scientists and conducting in-depth interviews with over 600 of them. From this wealth of data, the authors extract the real story of the relationship between science and religion in the lives of scientists around the world. The book makes four key claims: there are more religious scientists than we might think; religion and science overlap in scientific work; scientists - even atheist scientists - see spirituality in science; and finally, the idea that religion and science must conflict is primarily an invention of the West. Throughout, the book couples nationally representative survey data with captivating stories of individual scientists, whose experiences highlight these important themes in the data. Secularity and Science leaves inaccurate assumptions about science and religion behind, offering a new, more nuanced understanding of how science and religion interact and how they can be integrated for the common good.

Are scientific and religious ways of knowing compatible or forever at loggerheads? Can the cognitive claims of both religion and science be held simultaneously, or are they mutually exclusive? And what criteria ought we to use to form a judgment? These are the central questions posed by the author who strips away the long-held idea that science and religion can be safely relegated to their own separate spheres -- science to the empirical, religion to the spiritual -- by illustrating the many ways in which religion encroaches upon the domain of science by claiming to have unassailable, revealed knowledge about the universe and human nature. The clashes between these powerful worldviews have steadily increased in number and intensity as more and more people have turned to science for answers to life's mysteries. But are science's ways of knowing to be preferred to those of the world's religions? The author shows that the professed aims of science -- logical compatibility and clarity of explanation based upon observable data and experience -- are the more congenial to human thought and reasoning, unlike religion with its reliance on tradition, mystery, parable and revelation -- none of which can be emprically demonstrated.

"Has science made religion intellectually implausible? Does it rule out the existence of a personal God? In an age of science can we really believe that the universe has a "purpose"? And, finally, doesn't religion hold much of the blame for the present ecological crisis?" "These questions form the nucleus of today's debate between science and religion. This book is a guide for that debate, identifying the questions, isolating the issues and pointing to ways the questions can be resolved." "There are four possible ways, says John F. Haught, that we can view the relationship between religion and science. First, they can stand in complete opposition - the conflict position. Or, we can believe they are so different that conflict is impossible - the contrast position. A third approach holds that while science and religion are distinct, each has important implications for the other. A fourth way views them as different but mutually supportive."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved

That the longstanding antagonism between science and religion is irreconcilable has been taken for granted. And in the wake of recent controversies over teaching intelligent design and the ethics of stem-cell research, the divide seems as unbridgeable as ever. In Science vs. Religion, Elaine Howard Ecklund investigates this unexamined assumption in the first systematic study of what scientists actually think and feel about religion. In the course of her research, Ecklund surveyed nearly 1,700 scientists and interviewed 275 of them. She finds that most of what we believe about the faith lives of elite scientists is wrong. Nearly 50 percent of them are religious. Many others are what she calls "spiritual entrepreneurs," seeking creative ways to work with the tensions between science and faith outside the constraints of traditional religion. The book centers around vivid portraits of 10 representative men and women working in the natural and social sciences at top American research universities. Ecklund's respondents run the gamut from Margaret, a chemist who teaches a Sunday-school class, to Arik, a physicist who chose not to believe in God well before he decided to become a scientist. Only a small minority are actively hostile to religion. Ecklund reveals how scientists-believers and skeptics alike-are struggling to engage the increasing number of religious students in their classrooms and argues that many scientists are searching for "boundary pioneers" to cross the picket lines separating science and religion. With broad implications for education, science funding, and the thorny ethical questions surrounding stem-cell research, cloning, and other cutting-edge scientific endeavors, Science vs. Religion brings a welcome dose of reality to the science and religion debates.