One of the themes in my class lately has been investigating the tired trope of "science versus religion."  Specifically, why does it persist? What is it that fuels the endless books and Facebook conversations? In class we were primarily asking this question through the story of Darwin's reception here in the US. Much of the opposition to evolutionary theory has been couched in the language of science: from Creation Science to Intelligent Design, opponents have attempted to use the tools of biologists and physicists to explain why evolution is just too far fetched, why this world and our place in it are too precarious to have been the product of brute force and blind chance. While there is still some genuine scientific debate about the various possible mechanisms involved in the evolutionary process (e.g. genetic drift, evo-devo, natural selection, etc.), there is no question that the model which best explains the available body of evidence is evolution.

But this then raises an interesting question: if this debate still happens (e.g. in Dover, PA.), and it's not really about the evidence involved, then what is going on here? Why are there congressmen, congresswomen and senators who, on the floor of congress, argue that evolution is "just" a theory? What lies beneath these questions about the epistemic and scientific legitimacy of evolution? How have the courts been put into the interesting position of deciding what is and what is not science? After all, we don't drag astrologers to court on the grounds that their physics is a bit wonky. Then again, astrology doesn't tend to get put on high school syllabi.

To understand what is happening here, we must take note of a trend in the sciences which has been slowly coming to the fore since the advent of quantum mechanics at the turn of the last century. The best and probably most prominent example of this trend is Stephen Hawking's latest book, The Grand Design. In the third chapter, "What is Reality?", Hawking makes the rather startling claim that there is no truth to the matter of whether the earth revolves around the sun or whether the sun revolves around the earth.  What?!  How can the world's most prominent physicist make the claim that Copernican model of the solar system isn't "true"?

Hawking is reflecting a sobering of the scientific project.  Most scientists who are careful with their language will admit that science is not in the business of objective truth after all. Science builds models of the universe using methodological naturalism (i.e. no miracles allowed in the models). But these models must forever remain the theoretical constructs they are; any leap from model to the nature of reality is unjustifiable. Which model you choose to explain your evidence and make your predictions simply depends on what your goals and values are. All knowledge rests upon a set of these assumptions, assumptions which can't be tested or discovered, values with which one can only agree or disagree.

This position is far from uncontested. Right from the start, Leibniz thought that Newton's theory of gravity wasn't science (or what they called "natural philosophy"). Why?  Because it didn't address why bodies are attracted to each other. Leibniz's charge was the Newton had only described the phenomenon of gravity, not explained it.  Newton basically agreed, and he had to invoke God to explain this spooky "action at a distance." This fight over the nature of science and its limits is one of the facets of the continuing debate about science and religion today. Who has the right to claim access to truth? Some scientists, like Hawking,  don't think science is capable of making that claim; others like Richard Dawkins, might not be so humble.

But there is one more piece to this puzzle. A very similar process was happening elsewhere as science came onto the scene: the creation of the modern nation-state. As science got out of the objective truth business, so did government. Utility, democracy, and voting were the new tools for legitimating power, not the divine right of kings. Meanwhile, just prior to the American Revolution, religious revivals were being sparked across the US and Europe. This new evangelical Christianity emphasized a personal rebirth, a one-on-one contact with God. It was an intimate and private Christianity. With science and government abstaining from making capital-T, Truth claims, space was created for religion to ask about the meaning and purpose of life. Galileo's quip became one of the founding principles of the modern Western world: "The intention of the Holy Spirit is to teach us how one goes to heaven, not how the heavens go." Private religion could now live side-by-side with public science; each used different core assumptions and, accordingly, asked different questions and allowed different answers. The government no longer demanded fidelity in belief, only in action. A private space was carved out in our hearts for religion and in our lives for politics.

So why is it still religion versus science? Because questions about truth, knowledge, nature, and humanity are all inextricable from one another. The modern answers to many of these questions grew out of the same soil. They are like different branches of one, evolutionary tree. There is still contention between science and religion because there is still contention between the private and public spheres, between the state and the federal levels, between the individual and government; because we can't justify our core assumptions and values to one another with any appeal other than, "This is what I believe";  because walls which separate always need maintenance and justification. If you scratch the surface of questions about knowledge and truth, about rights and nature, beneath you will find questions about how we should maintain and govern society, about where to draw the line between the state and the individual, between utility and truth.

I'll leave you with the advice I passed on to my students: historicize, historicize, historicize. Michel Foucault described his work as attempting to write a "history of the present."  In other words, he wasn't doing history for history's sake. He looked to the past to understand the way we live now. All our debates, ideas, practices, and institutions have a history, a history which is important for understanding how they function today. I don't buy the mantra of "those who don't remember the past are doomed to repeat it." Rather, those who ignore the weight of history which is still present today run the risk of asking the wrong questions. And if we don't ask the right questions, our answers will be wasted.