What Are Science–Religion Debates Really About?
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
Science and Religion: A Very Short Introduction VERY SHORT INTRODUCTIONS are for anyone wanting a stimulating and accessible way in to a new subject. They are written by experts, and have been published in more than 25 languages worldwide. The series began in 1995, and now represents a wide variety of topics in history, philosophy, religion, science, and the humanities. Over the next few years it will grow to a library of around 200 volumes – a Very Short Introduction to everything from ancient Egypt and Indian philosophy to conceptual art and cosmology. Very Short Introductions available now: AFRICAN HISTORY CHAOS Leonard Smith John Parker and Richard Rathbone CHOICE THEORY Michael Allingham AMERICAN POLITICAL PARTIES CHRISTIAN ART Beth Williamson AND ELECTIONS L. Sandy Maisel CHRISTIANITY Linda Woodhead THE AMERICAN PRESIDENCY CLASSICS Charles O. Jones Mary Beard and John Henderson ANARCHISM Colin Ward CLASSICAL MYTHOLOGY ANCIENT EGYPT Ian Shaw Helen Morales ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY Julia Annas CLAUSEWITZ Michael Howard ANCIENT WARFARE THE COLD WAR Robert McMahon Harry Sidebottom CONSCIOUSNESS Susan Blackmore ANGLICANISM Mark Chapman CONTEMPORARY ART THE ANGLO-SAXON AGE John Blair Julian Stallabrass ANIMAL RIGHTS David DeGrazia CONTINENTAL PHILOSOPHY ANTISEMITISM Steven Beller Simon Critchley ARCHAEOLOGY Paul Bahn COSMOLOGY Peter Coles ARCHITECTURE Andrew Ballantyne THE CRUSADES Christopher Tyerman ARISTOTLE Jonathan Barnes CRYPTOGRAPHY ART HISTORY Dana Arnold Fred Piper and Sean Murphy ART THEORY Cynthia Freeland DADA AND SURREALISM THE HISTORY OF ASTRONOMY David Hopkins Michael Hoskin DARWIN Jonathan Howard ATHEISM Julian Baggini THE DEAD SEA SCROLLS Timothy Lim AUGUSTINE Henry Chadwick DEMOCRACY Bernard Crick BARTHES Jonathan Culler DESCARTES Tom Sorell BESTSELLERS John Sutherland DESIGN John Heskett THE BIBLE John Riches DINOSAURS David Norman THE BRAIN Michael O’Shea DOCUMENTARY FILM BRITISH POLITICS Anthony Wright Patricia Aufderheide BUDDHA Michael Carrithers DREAMING J. Allan Hobson BUDDHISM Damien Keown DRUGS Leslie Iversen BUDDHIST ETHICS Damien Keown THE EARTH Martin Redfern CAPITALISM James Fulcher ECONOMICS Partha Dasgupta THE CELTS Barry Cunliffe EGYPTIAN MYTH Geraldine Pinch EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY BRITAIN IDEOLOGY Michael Freeden Paul Langford INDIAN PHILOSOPHY Sue Hamilton THE ELEMENTS Philip Ball INTELLIGENCE Ian J. Deary EMOTION Dylan Evans INTERNATIONAL MIGRATION EMPIRE Stephen Howe Khalid Koser ENGELS Terrell Carver INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS ETHICS Simon Blackburn Paul Wilkinson THE EUROPEAN UNION ISLAM Malise Ruthven John Pinder and Simon Usherwood JOURNALISM Ian Hargreaves EVOLUTION JUDAISM Norman Solomon Brian and Deborah Charlesworth JUNG Anthony Stevens EXISTENTIALISM Thomas Flynn KABBALAH Joseph Dan FASCISM Kevin Passmore KAFKA Ritchie Robertson FEMINISM Margaret Walters KANT Roger Scruton THE FIRST WORLD WAR KIERKEGAARD Patrick Gardiner Michael Howard THE KORAN Michael Cook FOSSILS Keith Thomson LAW Raymond Wacks FOUCAULT Gary Gutting LINGUISTICS Peter Matthews FREE WILL Thomas Pink LITERARY THEORY Jonathan Culler THE FRENCH REVOLUTION LOCKE John Dunn William Doyle LOGIC Graham Priest FREUD Anthony Storr MACHIAVELLI Quentin Skinner FUNDAMENTALISM Malise Ruthven THE MARQUIS DE SADE John Phillips GALAXIES John Gribbin MARX Peter Singer GALILEO Stillman Drake MATHEMATICS Timothy Gowers GAME THEORY Ken Binmore THE MEANING OF LIFE GANDHI Bhikhu Parekh Terry Eagleton GEOGRAPHY John A. Matthews and MEDICAL ETHICS Tony Hope David T. Herbert MEDIEVAL BRITAIN John Gillingham GEOPOLITICS Klaus Dodds and Ralph A. Griffiths GERMAN LITERATURE Nicholas Boyle MEMORY Jonathan Foster GLOBAL CATASTROPHES Bill McGuire MODERN ART David Cottington GLOBALIZATION Manfred Steger MODERN CHINA Rana Mitter GLOBAL WARMING Mark Maslin MODERN IRELAND Senia Pašeta THE GREAT DEPRESSION AND MOLECULES Philip Ball THE NEW DEAL Eric Rauchway MORMONISM HABERMAS James Gordon Finlayson Richard Lyman Bushman HEGEL Peter Singer MUSIC Nicholas Cook HEIDEGGER Michael Inwood MYTH Robert A. Segal HIEROGLYPHS Penelope Wilson NATIONALISM Steven Grosby HINDUISM Kim Knott NELSON MANDELA Elleke Boehmer HISTORY John H. Arnold THE NEW TESTAMENT AS HISTORY OF LIFE Michael Benton LITERATURE Kyle Keefer HISTORY OF MEDICINE NEWTON Robert Iliffe William Bynum NIETZSCHE Michael Tanner HIV/AIDS Alan Whiteside NINETEENTH-CENTURY BRITAIN HOBBES Richard Tuck Christopher Harvie and HUMAN EVOLUTION Bernard Wood H. C. G. Matthew HUMAN RIGHTS Andrew Clapham NORTHERN IRELAND HUME A. J. Ayer Marc Mulholland NUCLEAR WEAPONS RUSSELL A. C. Grayling Joseph M. Siracusa RUSSIAN LITERATURE Catriona Kelly THE OLD TESTAMENT THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION Michael D. Coogan S. A. Smith PARTICLE PHYSICS Frank Close SCHIZOPHRENIA PAUL E. P. Sanders Chris Frith and Eve Johnstone PHILOSOPHY Edward Craig SCHOPENHAUER Christopher Janaway PHILOSOPHY OF LAW SCIENCE AND RELIGION Raymond Wacks Thomas Dixon PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE SEXUALITY Véronique Mottier Samir Okasha SHAKESPEARE Germaine Greer PHOTOGRAPHY Steve Edwards SIKHISM Eleanor Nesbitt PLATO Julia Annas SOCIAL AND CULTURAL POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY David Miller ANTHROPOLOGY POLITICS Kenneth Minogue John Monaghan and Peter Just POSTCOLONIALISM Robert Young SOCIALISM Michael Newman POSTMODERNISM Christopher Butler SOCIOLOGY Steve Bruce POSTSTRUCTURALISM SOCRATES C. C. W. Taylor Catherine Belsey THE SPANISH CIVIL WAR PREHISTORY Chris Gosden Helen Graham PRESOCRATIC PHILOSOPHY SPINOZA Roger Scruton Catherine Osborne STUART BRITAIN John Morrill PSYCHIATRY Tom Burns TERRORISM Charles Townshend PSYCHOLOGY THEOLOGY David F. Ford Gillian Butler and Freda McManus THE HISTORY OF TIME THE QUAKERS Pink Dandelion Leofranc Holford-Strevens QUANTUM THEORY TRAGEDY Adrian Poole John Polkinghorne THE TUDORS John Guy RACISM Ali Rattansi TWENTIETH-CENTURY BRITAIN THE RENAISSANCE Jerry Brotton Kenneth O. Morgan RENAISSANCE ART THE VIKINGS Julian Richards Geraldine A. Johnson WITTGENSTEIN A. C. Grayling ROMAN BRITAIN Peter Salway WORLD MUSIC Philip Bohlman THE ROMAN EMPIRE THE WORLD TRADE Christopher Kelly ORGANIZATION ROUSSEAU Robert Wokler Amrita Narlikar Available soon: 1066 George Garnett STATISTICS David J. Hand AUTISM Uta Frith THE UNITED NATIONS EXPRESSIONISM Katerina Reed-Tsocha Jussi M. Hanhimäki RELIGION IN AMERICA Timothy Beal THE VIETNAM WAR SCOTLAND Rab Houston Mark Atwood Lawrence For more information visit our websites www.oup.com/uk/vsi www.oup.com/us Thomas Dixon Science and religion A Very Short Introduction 1 1 Great Clarendon Street, Oxford OX2 6DP Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide in 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 offi ces in Argentina Austria Brazil Chile Czech Republic France Greece Guatemala Hungary Italy Japan Poland Portugal Singapore South Korea Switzerland Thailand Turkey Ukraine Vietnam Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and in certain other countries Published in the United States by Oxford University Press Inc., New York Thomas Dixon 2008 The moral rights of the author have been asserted Database right Oxford University Press (maker) First published 2008 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, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, or under terms agreed with the appropriate reprographics rights organization. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above You must not circulate this book in any other binding or cover and you must impose the same condition on any acquirer British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Data available Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Data available ISBN 978-0-19-929551-7 1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2 Typeset by SPI Publisher Services, Pondicherry, India Printed in Great Britain by Ashford Colour Press Ltd, Gosport, Hampshire For Emma Dixon This page intentionally left blank Contents Preface xi Acknowledgements xiii List of illustrations xv 1 What are science–religion debates really about? 1 2 Galileo and the philosophy of science 18 3 Does God act in nature? 37 4 Darwin and evolution 58 5 Creationism and Intelligent Design 81 6 Mind and morality 104 References and further reading 127 Index 145 This page intentionally left blank Preface Books about science and religion generally fall into one of two categories: those that want to persuade you of the plausibility of religion and those that want to do the opposite. This Very Short Introduction falls into neither category. It aims instead to offer an informative and even-handed account of what is really at stake. The polemical passion the subject often generates is an indication of the intensity with which people identify themselves with their beliefs about nature and God, whether they are religious or not. The origins and functions of those beliefs form the subject of this book. In recent years the topic of ‘science and religion’ has become almost synonymous, especially in the United States, with debates about evolution. For this reason, two of the six chapters of this book are devoted to evolutionary subjects. The modern American debate about evolution and ‘Intelligent Design’