Science, Religion, and the Human Experience
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Science, Religion, and the Human Experience JAMES D. PROCTOR OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS Science, Religion, and the Human Experience This page intentionally left blank Science, Religion, and the Human Experience edited by james d. proctor 1 2005 1 Oxford University Press, Inc., publishes works that further Oxford University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education. Oxford New York Auckland Cape Town Dar es Salaam Hong Kong Karachi Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Nairobi New Delhi Shanghai Taipei Toronto With offices in Argentina Austria Brazil Chile Czech Republic France Greece Guatemala Hungary Italy Japan Poland Portugal Singapore South Korea Switzerland Thailand Turkey Ukraine Vietnam Copyright ᭧ 2005 by Oxford University Press, Inc. Published by Oxford University Press, Inc. 198 Madison Avenue, New York, New York 10016 www.oup.com Oxford is a registered trademark of Oxford University Press All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of Oxford University Press. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Science, religion, and the human experience / edited by James D. Proctor. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN-13 978–0–19–517532–8; 978–0–19–517533–2 (pbk.) ISBN 0–19–517532–8; 0–19–517533–6 (pbk.) 1. Religion and science. I. Proctor, James D., 1957– BL241.S323 2005 201'.65—dc22 2004029054 987654321 Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper This volume is dedicated to the memory of Ninian Smart, a longtime professor in UC Santa Barbara’s Religious Studies Department and a pioneer in comparative religion and worldview analysis. Professor Smart played a key role in advising the planning committee for the lecture series that led to this volume, and was due to return to UCSB to deliver one of our lectures, though sadly he passed away soon after relocating to Lancaster, UK, in early 2001. We will never know what Ninian’s contribution to this volume would have been, but we do trust the remaining essays convey the spirit of openness, pluralism, and breadth that Ninian’s life and work embodied. This page intentionally left blank Acknowledgments We wish to acknowledge the gracious support of the University of California, Santa Barbara, for sponsoring our Science, Religion, and the Human Experience lecture series from January 2001 through May 2003, and the generosity of the John Templeton Foundation in providing primary financial assistance for this three-year adventure in ideas. Public institutions of higher education and private philan- thropic organizations serve quite different agendas, but the success- ful collaboration of UCSB and the John Templeton Foundation is ev- idenced by the consistently strong university and community participation our lecture series enjoyed, and the wide range of schol- arly viewpoints that were presented and discussed. Special thanks are due to Billy Grassie and the Metanexus Insti- tute for ably administering the Templeton Research Lectures Series on the Constructive Engagement of Science and Religion, of which UC Santa Barbara was an initial awardee. Charles Harper, executive director of the John Templeton Foundation, Pamela Thompson, vice president for communications, and Paul Wason, director of science and religion programs, provided frequent and abundant support. We were grateful to receive dedicated and high-quality adminis- trative and logistic support at UCSB via the College of Letters and Science, the Office of Institutional Advancement (in particular, the Public Affairs Office, Office of Public Events, and Office of Develop- ment), the Office of Instructional Resources, and the Institute for Social, Behavioral, and Economic Research. Support spanned the entire campus, from the Institute for Theoretical Physics to the In- terdisciplinary Humanities Center, and included a diverse faculty viii acknowledgments steering committee drawn from the physical and life sciences, social and be- havioral sciences, and humanities. In all, over sixty UCSB faculty participated in some significant way during the three-year period of the lecture series. UCSB’s Chancellor Henry Yang deserves special recognition for his sustained and enthusiastic commitment to what must have appeared to be a rather un- orthodox scholarly venture taking place on his campus. The editor, Jim Proctor, offers appreciation to the distinguished guest scholars who visited UCSB and presented lectures as a part of our series, then carefully revised their lectures into publishable essays for the present volume. It has been my joy to work with each one of them and get to know the person behind the intellect. My hope is that our collective efforts will mark a watershed in the scholarly study of science and religion, one where the human experience is welcomed as an equal partner. Finally, I wish to acknowledge continued support and love from my daugh- ters, Joy and Elise, who mostly heard of our Science, Religion, and the Human Experience series secondhand through discussions at home, but finally showed up for a lecture when it was their daddy’s turn! I look forward to seeing how your many dreams unfold: all the activities culminating in this volume were once just a wild dream as well. Contents Contributors, xi 1. Introduction: Rethinking Science and Religion, 3 James D. Proctor PART I. Theory 2. “Thou Shall Not Freeze-Frame,” or, How Not to Misunderstand the Science and Religion Debate, 27 Bruno Latour 3. Modernity and the Mystical: Technoscience, Religion, and Human Self-Creation, 49 Thomas A. Carlson 4. The Depths and Shallows of Experience, 71 Hilary Putnam 5. In We Trust: Science, Religion, and Authority, 87 James D. Proctor PART II. Cosmos 6. Science, Religion, Metaphor, and History, 111 Jeffrey Burton Russell 7. Kabbalah and Contemporary Cosmology: Discovering the Resonances, 129 Daniel C. Matt x contents 8. The Complementarity of Science and Religion, 143 Harold H. Oliver PART III. Life 9. Darwin, Design, and the Unification of Nature, 165 John Hedley Brooke 10. Darwinism and Christianity: Must They Remain at War or Is Peace Possible?, 185 Michael Ruse 11. Experiencing Evolution: Varieties of Psychological Responses to the Claims of Science and Religion, 205 Ronald L. Numbers PART IV. Mind 12. Gods and the Mental Instincts That Create Them, 237 Pascal Boyer 13. Empathy and Human Experience, 261 Evan Thompson 14. Uneasy Alliances: The Faith Factor in Medicine; the Health Factor in Religion, 287 Anne Harrington 15. The Intersubjective Worlds of Science and Religion, 309 B. Alan Wallace Index, 329 Contributors Pascal Boyer, Henry Luce professor of individual and collective memory, Washington University in St. Louis, and author of The Nat- uralness of Religious Ideas (1994) and Religion Explained (2001). John Hedley Brooke, Oxford University historian of religion and science, and author of Science and Religion: Some Historical Perspec- tives (1991) and Reconstructing Nature: The Engagement of Science and Religion (Oxford University Press, 1998). Thomas A. Carlson, professor of religious studies at UC Santa Barbara, and author of Indiscretion: Finitude and the Naming of God (1999), as well as numerous translations of French philosopher Jean- Luc Marion. Anne Harrington, historian of science at Harvard University, and author of Medicine, Mind and the Double Brain (1987) and Reen- chanted Science: Holism and German Culture from Wilhelm II to Hitler (1997). Bruno Latour, sociologist of science at Centre de Sociologie de l’Innovation, E´cole des Mines de Paris, and author of We Have Never Been Modern (1993) and Pandora’s Hope: Essays on the Reality of Sci- ence Studies (1999). Daniel C. Matt, scholar of Jewish mysticism and author of The Essential Kabbalah (1995) and God and the Big Bang (1996). Ronald L. Numbers, University of Wisconsin historian of Amer- ican science and religion, and author of The Creationists (1993) and Darwinism Comes to America (1998). Harold H. Oliver, professor emeritus of theology, Boston Uni- versity, and author of A Relational Metaphysic (1981). xii contributors James D. Proctor, professor of geography at UC Santa Barbara, director of the Science, Religion, and the Human Experience lecture series, and editor of Geography and Ethics: Journeys in a Moral Terrain (1999). Hilary Putnam, professor emeritus of philosophy, Harvard University, and author of Reason, Truth, and History (1981) and Realism with a Human Face (1990). Michael Ruse, philosopher of science, Florida State University, and author of Mystery of Mysteries: Is Evolution a Social Construction? (1999) and Can a Darwinian Be a Christian? The Relationship between Science and Religion (2000). Jeffrey Burton Russell, professor emeritus of history at UC Santa Barbara, and author of seventeen books, including The Devil: Perceptions of Evil from Antiquity to Primitive Christianity (1987) and A History of Heaven (1998). Evan Thompson, philosopher of mind, York University, and author of The Embodied Mind: Cognitive Science and Human Experience (1993) and Colour Vision: A Study in Cognitive Science and the Philosophy of Perception (1995). B. Alan Wallace, former professor of religious studies at UC Santa Barbara and author of Choosing Reality: A Buddhist View of Physics and the Mind (1996) and The Taboo of Subjectivity: Toward a New Science of Consciousness (Oxford University Press, 2001). Science, Religion,