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The Row Boat"Had we but world enough, and time..." *
Disassembling Science and Religion6/20/2007 08:57:54I'm in the middle of my first week in Washington on the job at the American Association for the Advancement of Science, in the Dialogue on Science, Ethics, and Religion (DoSER), where I'll be working for the summer. It looks like the two projects I'll be working on are a technology ethics curriculum resource for the national school board association and a grant proposal to improve science literacy at American seminaries. If I can, as well, I'd like to look into the possibility of doing some climate change/"creation care" work. Particularly on the seminary front, it seems like the challenge in developing a presentation begins with taking apart the myths: critique of the ideologies. As Marx said, the critique of religion is the beginning of all critique, and I would add to that science. The challenge, it seems to me, is to disassemble the ideas out there of "science" (as a thing) and "religion" (as a thing), things which may be either in conflict or not. This office goes about that, rightly I think, by starting with the idea of "science literacy" (with its counterpart, "religious literacy" - see Stephen Prothero's much-discussed new book). Framing the issue in terms of literacy crosses the fact/value distinction that Weber spoke of so clearly in "Science as a Vocation." Science and religion, as literacies, are not values that one must choose from, one or another, but rather networks of facts that one must learn in order to be conversant. Values will still arise, for instance in wondering whether one should develop more attention to one literacy over another. And that is a value that this office seeks to engage: science literacy should be important, for religious professionals as for so many others. But the fundamental things, the "science" and the "religion" can be more usefully talked about when we take them, first, as unvalued knowledge in a differentiated society - knowledge about what the scientists think or what the religionists think. Knowing is not the same as valuing. Nevertheless, knowing changes how we evaluate what we value, and in a totally unimpeachable way. In all this (or against it), I've been feeling a real urge to start writing poetry again or work among the poor (which I heard referred to yesterday in Washington-ese as "client populations"). |
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