Collideoscope

Posted by: David Bunch

The New York Times reviews several books that tackle the issue of how science and religion mix. As you would expect, the Times is not necessarily friendly to religious beliefs and takes great care to highlight the points in the books that slam faith, but the article does make for interesting reading (or at least "skimming").

Overall, it appears that at least a couple of the authors are able to bring themselves to acknowledge the fact that science and religion can exist together and are not mutually exclusive ideas.

If his eminence in science were not so unassailable, a fourth author, the biologist E. O. Wilson of Harvard, might also be taking a chance by arguing that religion and science ought to take up arms together to encourage respect for and protection of nature or, as he calls it in his new book, “The Creation.” Although he writes that he no longer embraces the faith of his childhood — he describes himself as “a secular humanist” — Dr. Wilson shapes his book as a “Letter to a Southern Baptist Pastor,” in hopes that if “religion and science could be united on the common ground of biological conservation, the problem would soon be solved.”

I've read a good bit of the great scientist Stephen Hawking's work and it seems to me that his world view is one in which scientific fact and God based faith can harmonize. It's an idea that I wish more scientists would embrace.

And it's one The New York Times should no be so predisposed to oppose.