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Book review: On Faith and Science, by Edward J. Larson and Michael Ruse

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The relation between religion and science has a long history and it has gone through various phases, some amicable, some not. At present, thanks partly to a loosely knit group of writers who have been called the new atheists—Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennet, A.C. Grayling and others—relations are bad. But there are some non-believers who want to find common ground with religion, and Ruse has long been one of these; not that you would know it from this book, for both he and his co-author Larson are reticent about their own religious views.* No doubt this is due to a wish to appear even-handed, but I think it leads to a certain softening of focus throughout.

Both authors are distinguished academics. Larson is a historian; Ruse is primarily a philosopher of science who also has an interest in history, particularly that of the theory of evolution (see links to my reviews of books under his name in the list of authors). They write alternate chapters, although there is some flexibility, with some chapters containing contributions from both, and it isn't always easy to be sure who is writing at a given moment.

There are chapters looking at cosmology; physics; brain, mind, and soul; geology; evolution in general; and human evolution. The approach in these is historical; they look at how knowledge has evolved over time and how this has interacted with religion—mainly Christianity, but there is some reference to Judaism and Islam and a little to Hinduism and Buddhism. For each topic we get an outline of some of the religious issues that growth in our knowledge has given rise to. It is all done well enough, but there will be few surprises for anyone who is reasonably familiar with the subjects covered.

The last three chapters (7, 8 and 9) are a little different, in that they cover matters that are topical (and controversial) today: sex and gender, eugenics, and living on earth (which looks at global warming and other threats to our survival). In their closing paragraph the authors use the common ground they think exists between two very different people, Pope Francis and E.O. Wilson, to draw a moral for the relationship that ought to obtain between science and religion as it relates to our survival.

I'm sympathetic to the authors' wish to avoid facile condemnation of religion in the name of science, but I enjoyed reading this book less than I expected to. The tone is quite colloquial, almost to a fault, yet at the same time bland and a little flat. And at times the authors' evident desire to avoid giving offence becomes somewhat irritating. For example, they quote from Fritjhof Capra's 1975 book The Tao of Physics and remark that 'he remained an outlier among modern physicists', which seems a considerable under-statement; I wanted to know what they thought of it themselves. They are also fairly non-commital in their references to Richard Dawkins's book The God Delusion, about which Ruse has been scathingly critical elsewhere.

The book concludes with an eclectic annotated bibliography which is quite useful, although I was sorry to see no mention of Taner Edis's books, especially his The Ghost in the Universe, which to my mind is one of the best books on theism by a sceptic who nevertheless takes religion seriously. He has also written well on science and Islam, something touched on only briefly in the present book.

*Ruse has recently publicly identified himself as an atheist, although he prefers the term 'sceptic'. See Why I Think the New Atheists are a Bloody Disaster.

29-07-2018
%T On Faith and Science
%A Larson, Edward J.
%A Ruse, Michael
%I Yale University Press
%C New Haven and London
%D 2017
%G ISBN 978-0-300-216717-3
%P 298pp
%K religion
%O hardcover

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