Michael Ruse gets Jerry Coyne‘s goat, but I like him. I haven’t read Ruse’s new book yet either, but the blurb makes me– unlike Coyne– eager to read it:
“In Science and Spirituality: Making Room for Faith in the Age of Science, Michael Ruse offers a new analysis of the often troubled relationship between science and religion. Arguing against both extremes – in one corner, the New Atheists; in the other, the Creationists and their offspring the Intelligent Designers – he asserts that science is undoubtedly the highest and most fruitful source of human inquiry. Yet, by its very nature and its deep reliance on metaphor, science restricts itself and is unable to answer basic, significant, and potent questions about the meaning of the universe and humankind’s place within it: Why is there something rather than nothing? What is the ultimate source and foundation of morality? What is the nature of consciousness? What is the meaning of it all? Ruse shows that one can legitimately be a skeptic about all of these questions, and yet why it is open for a Christian, or member of any faith, to offer answers. Scientists, he concludes, should be proud of their achievements but modest about their scope. Christians should be confident of their mission but respectful of the successes of science.”
[Ophelia Benson thinks Ruse is gratuitous, random, childish, and frightful. Maybe living in Florida can do that to a Brit.]
But like Coyne (and unlike J&M) I reject the inquiry-blocking assumption that theologians possess special knowledge forever beyond the reach of science.
Up@dawn 