In Science vs. Religion, Elaine Howard Ecklund investigates the largely-unexamined assumption that science and religion are irreconcilable. In the first systematic study of what scientists actually think and feel about religion, she surveys nearly 1700 scientists from seven natural and social science disciplines at the nation’s top research universities, and interviews 275 of them. Nearly 50 percent of those surveyed are religious, and another 20 percent are what she calls spiritual entrepreneurs, seeking creative ways to work with the tensions between science and faith outside the constraints of traditional religions. Only a few scientists are actively hostile to religion. Yet many Americans see scientists as actively opposed to religion—and there are hotheads on both sides.
She reports some scientists engage the topic of religion in their classes, because an increasing number of religious students are challenging scientists to reexamine the barriers between science and religion. Some scientists were raised apart from a religious tradition, or have had bad experiences with it, or simply know very little about different religious traditions. Others who do practice a religious tradition anticipate hostility from their colleagues and practice a closeted faith. Nearly all of them think about how to interact with the increasing numbers of religious students; some of them choose to be boundary pioneers, introducing a measure of kinship to the controversy. Some turn out to be spiritual atheists, who have no need for God or a god, but sense a Mystery flowing from and leading into science.
Ecklund argues that elite scientists who are boundary pioneers and spiritual atheists may be carriers of a new religious impulse, both deeply committed to the scientific enterprise and to a science-linked spirituality, separate from religious organizations and conventional religious understandings. About one-third of the spiritual entrepreneurs specifically linked their spirituality with helping others; any form of spiritual practice seems to correlate with a scientist being more likely to volunteer, and more likely to want to help students succeed or to care for the environment. She agrees with sociologist Max Weber that intellectuals are more concerned with making meaning from life’s problems, rather than being rescued from them.
Ecklund mentions three myths scientists believe: Ignore religion, and it will go away; all religion is fundamentalism; all evangelical Christians are against science. For their part, religious people also have some myths: atheists are always hostile to religion; science is the major cause of unbelief; there are no religious scientists. One intuitive middle ground that scientists and religious people could share is the struggle for purpose and meaning; the disenchantment of a childhood in which religion was handled poorly; and struggles with the problem of evil in the world. She suggests that faith leaders need to provide scientific members of their community with a forum to discuss the connections between their faith lives and their work as scientists. “They must not be required to leave behind their identities as scientists when they come to the altar (p.151).”
Ecklund points out that scientists with faith are partly to blame for uninformed conversations about religion and science on college campuses, and that they are abdicating their unique and important role on campus. She urges that religious scientists work to foster dialogue about religion and science on their campuses, encourage students to think through and reevaluate the frameworks with which they were raised, and equip their students as ambassadors of scientific knowledge within their own faith communities. Thus, religious scientists could wage peace on the science-and-religion battleground and in the process advance the public transmission of science. Religious scientists need to better reflect the diversity of thought that exists in the country; as one of her interviewees said, “The only diversity that [some scientists] don’t like is intellectual diversity. The other diversities are fine.”
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