LANDSCAPES OF SCIENCE AND RELIGION

This landmark study is essential reading for anyone interested in the complex relationship between science and religion. Readers may recall my review from last year of Nick Spencer's classic book Magisteria, subtitled 'the entangled histories of science and religion.' No future book can afford to ignore the results of this careful research project, both in its elaboration of terminology and due to the fact that it is informed by interviews with over 100 leading thinkers in the UK, including Martin Rees, Bernard Carr, Geoffrey Cantor, Philip Goff, Susan Greenfield, Richard Holloway, Raymond Tallis, Linda Woodhead, Robin Dunbar, Rupert Sheldrake, Bryan Appleyard, and Iain McGilchrist. In addition, the authors conducted a survey through YouGov of over 5,000 UK adults.

Modern scholarly work and public debate were initially framed by the influential books by A.D. White and JW Draper in the late 19th century, following the work of Darwin, Wallace and Sir Charles Lyell. This popularised the conflict thesis, also promoted by TH Huxley with his insistence on purely physical and naturalistic causation in science, a point disputed by Wallace, who also applied the concept of evolution to spirituality. The conflict thesis has more recently been promoted by the new atheists, but other thinkers have favoured a complementary or compatibilist model. This book offers a much more nuanced approach, starting with the metaphor of landscape rather than territory as a path away from essentialism. As the authors point out, the scope of issues is considerable, covering 'human evolution, civilisational development, morality, purpose, neuroscience, spiritual belief and experiences, public health, political action, and religious activism.' (p. 3) They therefore rightly consider it prudent to address the definition of the problem: is there such a thing as religion and science, so that they can be meaningfully compared with one another? Neither term is self-evident or natural - both are socially constructed.

Individual thinkers create their own dichotomies, such as Steven Pinker writing that science is a matter of logic and evidence, while religion relies on dogma, authority or subjective feeling ('naturalism' versus 'supernaturalism'). There is also a qualitative and coherent evidence base for spiritual experience as originally proposed by William James, nor is science immune from the imposition of authority. The task, as the authors see it, is to start by disaggregating the terms science and religion, but this in turn raises the question of the basis and pattern for disaggregation, partly through applying Wittgensteins's ideas of language as usage, and family resemblances as means to disambiguation. The rest of the book falls into two parts: surveying the landscapes of science and religion by defining and disaggregating terms; then touring the landscapes of science and religion: understanding where the disagreements lie.

This entails defining then disaggregating science, and applying the same process to religion before disaggregating public understandings of science and religion. This is an enormously helpful process enabling readers to refine their own understanding in the process. Science is disaggregated into its methods, subjects, presuppositions, objectives, values, and institutional structure in order to capture a family definition of science. Here are the authors include a variety of pertinent observations from interviewees. Then religion is defined in terms of English and American law, then considering anthropological, philosophical and sociological contributions, succinctly summarised on p. 87. Arguably, the belief in an experience of the transcendent is a defining characteristic. Religion is then disaggregated into the elements of transcendence, belief, and commitment, followed by an analysis of formalisation of belief, anthropology and doctrine, and in commitment to rituals, laws, and offices. So far as public views are concerned, the areas covered are religious demographics, education, media, and knowledge, culminating in a discussion of public understandings of both science and religion. The findings are summarised in a series of tables (pp. 134-6).

The second part explores those features that appear in both landscapes, and about which there is genuine and profound disagreement. The four chapters cover metaphysics, methodology, anthropology, and public authority and public reasoning. Each chapter helpfully concludes with a list of outstanding questions. Again, this discussion enables readers to refine and develop their own positions and understanding as each of us is necessarily situated somewhere on a spectrum of arguments. We differ in what we find convincing and persuasive, beginning with metaphysics highlighting religion's general commitment to supernaturalism (not a very helpful term in my view) and science's commitment to naturalism. The important point is that science is also grounded in certain metaphysical commitments that it cannot establish on its own, as amply demonstrated in the Galileo Commission Report. The authors note (p. 153) the emergence of panpsychism as an alternative to naturalism and physicalism without any commitment to ('untenable' - really?) dualism. Miracles provide a nexus point for disagreement, and here much of the discussion is theoretical and could have been further disaggregated with specific examples.

The chapters on methodology and anthropology are equally instructive, and the final chapter on authority and reasoning provides discussion of live issues related to abortion, euthanasia, genetic engineering, and other controversial areas. The authors highlight that 'when people disagree about science and religion, they are disagreeing about the (perceived) profound ethical, social, and political ramifications of each. (p. 228) Moreover, public perceptions are informed by the media narratives in which they are embedded, and which differ between the US and the UK. The fundamental question, which is also an historical one, is one of public – and moral - authority: 'Who has authority to adjudicate on issues of shared public concern – and the attendant question of public reasoning – on what basis?' (p. 230) Here, 'progress' – especially if driven by competition – should be informed by public discussion and ethical debate, as is the case currently with AI, and even more so in its military application to lethal autonomous weapons. The dichotomy of progressive versus conservative can be elided with ancient versus modern, so that ethical conservatives are seen as being behind the times. A further dichotomy not discussed here is that between mechanistic and organic, leading to fundamentally different ways of thinking. I think the authors are right in concluding that in practical terms we are talking about a political power struggle, and the key issues at stake remain the nature of the human being and the need for science to advance in a broader ethical context. As I said at the outset, this book is essential reading for anyone seriously interested in the field.