Source: Huffington Post

By Michael S. Evans

Neukom Fellow at Dartmouth College, author of Seeking Good Debate: Religion, Science, and Conflict in American Public Life.

More than 150 years have passed since Darwin’s On the Origin of Species, and we’re still arguing about science and religion. Outrageous public statements from religious and scientific leaders reinforce the impression of endless conflict, whether it’s Richard Dawkins claiming that religion is a “God delusion,” or Pat Robertson suggesting that opponents of Intelligent Design should not expect God’s help when disaster strikes.

Why? Why does it continue? Why do science and religion seem to generate contentious public debate?

Most answers to these questions assume that something about religion or science causes public conflict to become contentious and intractable. Maybe scientists do not understand religion. Maybe religious people do not understand science. Maybe science and religion offer conflicting claims about human origins, life, or truth. Or maybe religion and science are fundamentally different spheres of life, wherein science is concerned with truth and knowledge, and religion is concerned with values and meaning.

If these explanations are right, then we should expect religion and science to be perpetual sources of confrontation, conflict, and unproductive debate. And if these explanations are right, anyone seeking to minimize this conflict should promote dialogue and reconciliation that reduces misunderstanding of science, religion, or both.

But what if the problem isn’t religion or science? What if there’s a deeper, hidden conflict?

For over a decade, I’ve studied religion and science in American public life. I’ve looked at public arguments about topics ranging from human origins and sexuality to environmental policy and stem cell research. As a sociologist and computational scientist, I’ve used research methods ranging from large-scale machine learning to individual interviews with ordinary Americans. And I’ve come to a surprising conclusion:

Public conflict involving religion and science reflects a fundamental conflict over good debate.

Wait, what? Conflict between religion and science isn’t about religion and science? If you’ve only heard about the Scopes Trial, court battles over Intelligent Design, or religious objections to stem cell research, this might seem implausible. But religion and science are huge, complex, multilayered, and rich. They’re involved in many different issues. It’s implausible that a few incidents, however spectacular, illustrate the bigger picture of religion and science in American public life.

To see the bigger picture, I used machine learning techniques to analyze thousands of newspaper articles involving religion and science. What I found surprised me. Actual conflict between public figures rarely occurs. In fact, when prominent religion and science figures like James Dobson, Pat Robertson, and Richard Dawkins speak out in mass media, they rarely engage one another at all. For them, good debate means advocating their positions and advancing their agendas, not discussing issues with people who disagree with them.

But if public science and religion figures aren’t even talking to each other, why do people ever think that science and religion are in public conflict?

To find out, I interviewed dozens of Americans from different backgrounds and faiths. I asked them to read and respond to things that public figures had said. I asked them what they wanted out of public life. And I found a completely different understanding of good debate. For ordinary Americans, good debate means open, ongoing, and productive discussion among public figures from a variety of perspectives. Religious or not, scientific or not, Americans want public figures to talk to each other, to listen, and to be willing to change their minds about issues.

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