Warfare: science as the enemy of religion?
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| English: Signature of Stephen Jay Gould (Photo credit: Wikipedia) |
‘science simply cannot (by its legitimate methods) adjudicate the issue of God’s possible superintendence of nature. We neither affirm nor deny it; we simply can’t comment on it as scientists.’
In fact Dawkins and other New Atheists comment rather a lot on this matter, but perhaps that’s because they speak here primarily as militant atheists rather than scientists.
While scholarship has shown that the origins of ‘scientific atheism’ as a faith tradition can be traced back to the eighteenth century, the New Atheism has given it a new importance and profile through its appeal to the natural sciences in defence of its atheist outlook. In the New Atheist world-view, science is about what can be proved to be true whereas religion is about running away from the facts and seeking consolation in outdated, discredited and immoral Bronze Age myths.
For example, Christopher Hitchens regularly asserts that people believed the earth was flat because of religious dogma. It’s a puzzling assertion as historical scholarship long ago showed that virtually every Christian scholar of the Middle Ages acknowledged the sphericity of the earth. Some of them were even able to calculate its approximate circumference. The urban myth that religion demanded a flat earth is now known to have developed in the late nineteenth century, and it’s really time to give it up!
It’s not unreasonable to argue that the New Atheism does more than simply reflect the cultural stereotype of the ‘warfare’ of science and religion; it actually depends upon it for its plausibility. The origins of this idea—often referred to as the ‘conflict thesis’ in scholarly works—lies in the massive social shifts that took place in Victorian England. In the early part of the nineteenth century most English scientists were ordained clergy of the Church of England who saw no tension between their faith and the scientific method. With the passing of time it became increasingly important for scientists to assert their independence of the Church—or any other institution. This led to a significant shift in the dynamics of cultural power as scientists began to wrest cultural and professional authority from their clerical counterparts in shaping intellectual enquiry and values.33
The perception that science and religion were at war with each other was not, as some New Atheist writers seem to think, the result of the Darwinian debates. It actually arose later in the nineteenth century through highly polemical popular works such as John Draper’s History of the Conflict between Religion and Science (1874) and Andrew White’s History of the Warfare of Science with Theology (1896). Through shrewd manipulation of the historical evidence these passionate books portrayed noble, honest, objective and heroic scientists as victims, struggling to defend the truth against odious, manipulative and repressive Catholic clergy.
These two works, today remembered as much for their ideological stridency as their historical inaccuracy, had a deep impact on atheist thinking. Bertrand Russell, for example, draws uncritically on both sources in his History of Western Philosophy. Despite (or perhaps on account of?) their lightweight and superficial reading of history, they established the popular stereotype of the warfare of science and religion that persists to this day, largely through uncritical repetition in the media.
The ‘warfare’ model underlay the appeal to science as a core component of the Soviet Union’s attempt to impose its official atheism on an unwilling and unpersuaded public. In my study I have a photograph of the library of the Timiriazev Scientific Research Institute for the Study and Propaganda of the Scientific Foundations of Dialectical Materialism, taken around the year 1931. This institute, originally dedicated to biological research, became part of the spearhead of the Soviet Union’s attempt to eliminate religion by an appeal to science. On the library wall a massive banner reads: ‘The front line of the battle against religion!’
In the end Stalin’s approach just didn’t work. Belief in God was still rampant in the Soviet Union when he died in 1953, forcing the Communist Party to begin an aggressive programme of indoctrination the following year, decreeing that ‘the teaching of school subjects (history, literature, natural sciences, physics, chemistry, etc.) should be saturated with atheism’. Soviet school textbooks repeatedly asserted the malevolence of religion through breezy slogans such as ‘Religion is a fanatical and perverse reflection of the world’ or ‘Religion has become the means of the spiritual enslavement of the masses.’ Yet all that this socially manipulative programme of using science as a weapon against religion achieved was to lay the foundations for the massive rebirth of belief in God after the collapse of the Soviet Union in the 1990s.
For the record, historians of science are generally agreed to have shown during the 1970s that the ‘conflict thesis’ was historically untenable. The myths on which it depended so critically—especially in popular atheist propaganda—have been comprehensively dismantled, and in recent decades popular culture has become increasingly willing to engage with the more messy complexities of history and culture instead of reducing them to mindless slogans and stereotypes. Everyone knows that ‘science’ and ‘religion’ are shorthand terms for enormously complex and diverse beliefs, practices and communities. Crass generalizations are intrinsically dangerous here.
New Atheism disregards the huge body of scholarly literature concerning the nature and impact of religion. Sadly the same is true of the history and philosophy of science. Why can’t the New Atheism take this literature seriously? To its critics it’s at least a century out of date with its reading.
Yes there are tensions—often serious—between some religious thinkers and some scientists. There always have been and always will be. But we’re also seeing synergies, resonances and the possibility of dialogue and mutual enrichment—perhaps more so today than ever before. The New Atheism is angered and exasperated by the growing number of scientists interested in metaphysical and religious questions, frequently portraying such people in rather hysterical terms as collaborating with the enemy. But that’s only how it looks if you’re psychologically fixated on the historically obsolete ‘warfare’ model. It’s time to move on and leave these discredited certainties of the past behind.
And there are signs that this is happening. In 2008 Richard Dawkins retired as Professor of the Public Understanding of Science at Oxford University. His militant atheism had made this position controversial, linking the affirmation of science with the ridicule of religion. He was succeeded by the distinguished mathematician Marcus du Sautoy. Journalists flocked to interview him, chiefly interested in one question: would he follow in Dawkins’ footsteps, and make this chair a personal pulpit for atheism? Du Sautoy’s answer was crisp and convincing. Though he was an atheist himself, he would ‘absolutely not’ be indulging in anti-religious polemic. His job was to promote science, and he looked forward to doing that with enthusiasm.
These comments provoked anger from some on the Dawkins website. What kind of scientist was this? Why had he not given Dawkins the honour due to him? If du Sautoy was a real scientist he’d be rubbishing religion! What a ridiculous choice for this chair! ‘If he’s going to promote the public understanding of science he has to confront the daily challenges of religion to rationality.’ Just as well Dawkins was still around to tell the truth about science, since this newcomer was clearly not up to the job. Yet du Sautoy’s approach represents an important step back to normality. Maybe there’s hope that civilized conversation will at last take the place of confrontation and ridicule in this important field.
McGrath, A. (2011). Why God Won’t Go Away: Engaging with the New Atheism (pp. 80–84). London: SPCK.
