The supposed conflict between science and religion is not only bad history, it also goes unsupported by on-going polls of the religious beliefs of scientists. As the story goes, empirical science uncovers inconvenient truths that religious people resist in a losing battle. But if there was a conflict between science and religion, and furthermore if science has uncovered findings inimical to religion, then one might expect a small and dwindling fraction of scientists who are religious. But a recent poll showed that a majority of scientists (51%) say they believe in God or a higher power. And that is up from the 42% who responded similarly almost a century ago in 1914.
The problem is not so much that religion conflicts with science as it co-opts science. Evolutionary thinking was mandated by leading theologians and religious thinkers in the Enlightenment and Darwin's arguments for the truth of evolution followed suit. As David Masci, senior researcher at the Pew Forum, writes:
But although evolutionary theory is often portrayed as antithetical to religion, it has not destroyed the religious faith of the scientific community.
Indeed not.
But this is not to say evolutionists are predominantly religious today. For Darwin, as Richard Dawkins famously put it, "made it possible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist." Ironically, the religiously motivated and justified theory of evolution has fueled atheism and today the camp is split. Here there is a conflict as the atheist evolutionists and theist evolutionists argue about their differences.
But as Henry Kissinger described academia, the battles are so fierce because the stakes are so small. From the outside the conflict between atheist evolutionists and theist evolutionists is rather meaningless. For the atheists, in spite of all their bluster, are no different than the theists in their religious beliefs. They call themselves atheists, but their convictions about god are as strong as anyone's. (see examples here and here).
So yes many evolutionists are atheists, but as usual the theology rules. Evolutionists are either theists who hold strong religious convictions or atheists who hold strong religious convictions. Either way the science suffers. I guess you could say there is a conflict between religion and science after all.
