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Science and Religion: A Very Short Introduction (Very Short Introductions)

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The subject matter of the interaction between science and religion is one fraught with misunderstandings. For a while now, there has been a growing tendency to view these two disciplines as polar opposites of each other, and to characterize the interaction as that of a conflict. It does not help that many scientists are atheists, and many believers are not well versed in science. Consequently, each field is perceived as a caricature of itself when viewed through the eyes of its opponents. And yet, what each one offers in its own right and with the respect to other is much more nuanced and rich than these caricatures would imply. The recent spate of neo-atheist books has rekindled interest in the connection between the two. This new atheism bases itself largely on scientism, the idea that religion is false because it is not science.

There is a paucity of good books that do justice to both fields, which makes it difficult for the serious and intellectually honest novice to receive an objective and yet comprehensive account of them. Thomas Dixon's "Science and Religion - A Very Short Introduction" is a welcome exception and probably the best first introduction to the subject. In line with the other "very short introduction" books, this one is sophisticated and does not condescend to its readers by calling them "dummies" or "idiots." Nevertheless it is a very accessible book that sheds a lot of light on its subject. It would be unreasonable to expect a book this slim to cover all of the different approaches to religion and science, and some adjustments need to be made. For the most part, it uses Christianity as the primary example of religion, and discusses those scientific theories and discoveries that have historically posed the greatest challenges to the Christian worldview. It includes all of the "greatest hits" of the debates between science and religion - the Galileo affair, Darwin and evolution, creationism and intelligent design, and mind and morality. Dixon approaches all of these controversies with a lot of historical insight and manages to stir clear of catering to facile misinterpretations that have become popular in the public conception. Thus, the Galileo affair is viewed against the backdrop of the seventeenth century political and scientific events, from which it becomes clear that much of the latter interpretations are mere mythologizations of the events in question. On the other hand, Dixon is equally careful to avoid the trap of revisionist apologetics that underplay the severity of the punishment that Galileo had to endure and the chilling effect it had on his further scientific endeavors.

By focusing on concrete events and controversies, Dixon enhances the readability of the book. Too often a potentially intellectually honest appraisal of the connection and the interaction between science and religion assumes too much or too little of the reader, and consequently falls into either of the two categories of scholarly philosophizing or amateurish polemicizing. Nevertheless, the right balance can be achieved, and anyone who is new to this subject would greatly benefit from reading Thomas Dixon's succinct yet informative volume.

Thomas Dixon's Science and Religion is, I believe, one of the very best volumes written thus far in the Oxford Short Introduction series. In it, Dixon moves beyond the Enlightenment-generated simplistic model that sees science and religion as opposing poles (a position that, ironically, is embraced by many of today's religious fundamentalists) to offer a much more nuanced analysis of the relationship between the two.

Dixon argues that casual observations about the war between religion and science ought to take several points under consideration. First, it's not at all clear that it makes sense to talk of either science or religion simpliciter. Both are extremely complex terms that accommodate a large number of interpretations. Second, it's not at all clear what the boundaries of either science or religion are. Neither falsification nor testability are, by themselves, sufficient criteria to designate science from pseudoscience, and defining religion is even more problematic. Finally, what frequently gets interpreted as a clash between religion and science is frequently a deeper social or political clash that's opportunistically fought on the science/religion battlefield. It is true that science/religion conflicts, when they can be identified, are disagreements about epistemic authority. But even that is complicated.

To flesh out these claims, Dixon examines the Galileo incident (chapter 2), the reaction of Victorian England to Darwinism (chapter 4), and the current U.S. phenomenon of Intelligent Design (chapter 5), demonstrating how each is much more involved than merely a battle between theists and scientists. He also examines the complicated issue of natural law and miracles (his analysis of the "God of the gaps" move in chapter 3 is especially instructive) and debates about whether morality can rest on a naturalistic foundation (chapter 6). Dixon offers very good documentation for his references (something that isn't always done by Short Introduction authors), and he concludes the volume with an excellent bibliography.

An excellent book that will surely whet reader's appetites (as it has mine) to take a more sophisticated look at the quasi-mythical war between science and religion.

While not perfect, this book serves as an excellent introduction to this subject. Dixon proves to be well informed of the issues and manages to cover quite a lot of ground, and he's also sufficiently fair and balanced in presenting the competing arguments.

Perhaps the broadest lesson one can glean from the book is that science and religion have always had a messy multidimensional relationship, with many areas of potential agreement and disagreement. Part of the reason is that both science and religion are unavoidably framed in sociocultural and historical contexts, dialectically both affecting those contexts and being affected by them. Moreover, science and religion both have fuzzy boundaries, and both face many similar epistemic difficulties with respect to justifying their beliefs (despite the common but mistaken notion that science is purely objective whereas religion rests purely on faith and subjectivity).

The book lays all of this out with the help of many examples, and thereby gives a sense of how complicated matters are, but doesn't provide any final answers. This gives the impression that some disagreement and tension will probably always exist between science and religion, despite whatever progress might be made in finding reconciliations. However, if one wishes to be optimistic, there is still the prospect of finding (creating?) more and more common ground between the two, possibly resulting in worldviews which increasingly draw on the strengths of both, and of course there's already much precedent for this.

I say the book isn't perfect mainly because "religion" is mostly taken to mean Western monotheisms, especially Christianity, as Dixon acknowledges up front; I would have preferred to see Eastern views included as well, and I think that would have considerably reshaped the book. I also would have preferred a deeper treatment of the philosophical issues Dixon touches on, in exchange for a bit less time spent on detailing historical cases.

But these "imperfections" are largely matters of (my) preference, and again the bottom line is that Dixon has done an excellent job of presenting this subject at an introductory level. I highly recommend the book, and those who enjoy it may want to move on to the extensive The Oxford Handbook of Religion and Science (Oxford Handbooks in Religion and Theology) edited by Philip Clayton.

This is a highly informative little book and makes a great sequel to Bertrand Russell's take on the subject (see Religion and Science). More up to date and detailed, Dixon's book shows that the issue is not so simple as 'religion' vs 'science'. There are and were other factors at play. As he writes, "the real conflict is a political one about the production and dissemination of knowledge." While he does strive to present the two competing views with equal force, it would have been nice to see more coherent arguments presented against 'scientific materialism', such as those of Whitehead and his followers, e.g. David Ray Griffin. The book shows a bias towards a materialistic worldview, and Griffin does a great job showing how philosophically incoherent a view it really is. But even despite its flaws, it's a great book. I really liked his discussion of "God in the gaps", and the accounts of the ordeals of Galileo, Darwin, and the rise of evolutionary thought are well worth the price of the book.

This is a well-written and engaging little book. However, it is not what I thought it will be. It was overly thematic, and not so much a chronological history of the relation between science and religion. I concur with other reviewers that Dixon's fifth chapter was superficially done. I have this view not because I am an advocate of the positions he discusses in that chapter; rather, I hold this view because I have read books which have treated the subject more accurately (e.g., see Ronald L. Numbers' The Creationists: From Scientific Creationism to Intelligent Design, Expanded Edition). In Dixon's last chapter, he makes the acute observation that "while we are used to the idea that religious believers will look at ethical and political questions through the lenses of their particular faith commitments, we have not yet learned to be quite so attentive in the case of those who claim to speak for science" (p. 121). Yet he then goes on, in merely two pages, to give examples of the "naturalistic fallacy." In hindsight, I think it would have been more productive to begin with the naturalistic assumptions either implicit or explicit in the historical figures he discusses, especially those figures who were/are explicitly anti-religion.

In short, there are better introductions out there. See John Brooke's Science and Religion: Some Historical Perspectives (Cambridge Studies in the History of Science); Peter Harrison's The Bible, Protestantism, and the Rise of Natural Science, and The Fall of Man and the Foundations of Science; Toby Huff's The Rise of Early Modern Science: Islam, China and the West; or for a more complex history of the relation between science and religion, see Frances Yates' Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition, and RC Series Bundle: The Rosicrucian Enlightenment (Routledge Classics).

A refreshing aspect of this book is it's even-handedness. There are so many books that seem to not only say that religious belief and science are incompatible, but these books do so in a very rude manner that doesn't do much but preach to the choir. Dixon himself seems to take a conciliatory middle ground, where the disagreements are made to stem from politics, as well as from particular interpretations of scriptures or difficult ideas of god. For instance, Dixon discusses how religious sentiment fires a unique set of areas in the brain, leaving the possibility for something beyond our understanding without necessarily endorsing a purely natural or supernatural explanation. I thought the strongest part of the book was on the politics of science and belief. I learned how the Catholic Church censored Galileo for promoting an understanding of the universe opposed to the Church's views, as Rome was trying to assert itself in the wake of the Protestant Reformation. Dixon also notes how the Creationist/ID debate is based in challenging the 1st Amendment as much as it is about what constitutes "good" science. I personally wished he would cover more about miracles and focus on the use of science to explicitly prove or disprove the existence of god. Given that this is a "Very Short Introduction", I would recommend this as a stepping stone into a very difficult topic.

This short introduction does have a number of the virtues listed in earlier reviews, for which we are in the author's debt. But there were two significant problems with Dixon's attempt to be even-handed presenting conflicting views on the topic. First, since Dixon isn't writing to reach any conclusions on the topic, he doesn't feel compelled to fill out opposing arguments in sufficient detail to really join the issues. Perhaps this is asking too much for such a short treatment, but without it, much is lost. Second, when he gets to the section on Intelligent Design, Dixon comes across with the same sneering contempt of a partisan, and again, without sufficiently detailed argument to warrant this posture. I.e. the treatment doesn't remain even-handed.

An addition to personal library, do not know when chance will arise to read as seminary still requires another year of reading, no time for personal pursuits at this time.

Besides the varying attitudes towards various religion and science topics, its section on further reading suggests that the author does not keep up with journal reviews and general consensus of the religion and science community. Skip this book. A book with a much greater degree of integrity is Exploring Science and Belief (Questions of Faith).