Science vs. religion : what scientists really think - File PDF

46Crossing the Picket Lines: The Personal Faith of Scientistswas a group of scientists—even among those who were not religious—whopointed amiably to fellow scientists who had successfully reconciled religionand science. These models they referenced are what I call boundary pioneers .And, surprisingly, these exemplars sometimes adhered to traditional formsof religion, showing that under certain conditions, secular scientists perceivereligious scientists in a very positive light. Scientists often described evangelicalismand fundamentalism—labels used interchangeably—in particularlynegative terms. 38 But secular scientists generally described those theyperceived to successfully combine religion and science in very positive terms,despite the high levels of religiosity (even evangelicalism) of these boundarypioneers.When I asked a sociologist, 39 who described himself as culturally Jewishbut not personally religious, how he sees the connections between religion andscience, he explained that he has great respect for some religious scientists:There are some people with very deep religious beliefs who simply don’t let thosethings conflict. One of the lovely examples that I heard about just recently is thisguy, Francis Collins, whom I actually heard talking about some new developmentsin gene mapping this morning on NPR. He is the director of the genemappingoutfit at NIH, and he’s a very serious born-again Christian and obviouslya firm believer . . . and obviously manages to live very well with that.But Collins is not so much a boundary pioneer because of his ability to reconcilehis own faith with the work that he does as a scientist; I met many scientistswho have found a similar peace. Collins is a boundary pioneer because of hiswillingness to talk openly about such reconciliation. He also probably gains ahearing because he is very skilled at how he talks about such reconciliations andbecause he is a scientist at the top of his field.Scientists who are not religious also participate in the efforts of boundarypioneers. A chemist 40 with no religious identity talked about the intersectionreligion has with her discipline. Concerned for the science education of herreligious students, she tells them, “There are creative ways to integrate thesedifferent parts of your life.” She often refers students to a web site developed bya scientist who does radiometric dating of fossils that are billions of years oldand is “a self-professed, practicing, very religious Christian, taking on a lot ofthe myths that are out there—that are on a lot of fundamentalist Christian websites—about radiometric dating being wrong.” This chemist, then, is pointingto a boundary pioneer to show future scientists that full commitment to sciencecan be held alongside full commitment to Christianity (of a certain kind).Rather than leading students away from faith, she provides them with examples