Barbara Herrnstein Smith’s recent piece in the New York Times on the interaction between religion and science is worth the time. Smith, literary critic at Duke and English professor at Brown, has several thoughtful observations on this often inflammatory topic. For instance, Smith urges that apparent conflicts between science and religion

need not exist in the ongoing lives and experiences of individuals. For neither logic nor rationality requires that all our ideas, impulses, affections, and acts be mutually aligned all the time.

Yet she rightly suspects problems in approaches that compartmentalize religion versus science, or attempt to make them complementary.

The former, as exemplified in Stephen J. Gould’s nonoverlapping magisteria, fails to capture the relation between them and “though seeking to counter views that lead to the dismissal of religion in the name of scientific knowledge, goes some distance to reinforcing them.” Smith continues:

Indeed, I’m inclined to say that Gould’s proposed partition of the territory (that is, facts and accounts of the natural world to science, values and instructions for moral conduct to religion) is, like many political partitions, objectionable in principle and unworkable in practice.

Finally and most seriously, I think that the idea of science and religion as counterpoised monoliths deepens prevailing misunderstandings of both. As I emphasize throughout the book, the kinds of things that can be assembled under the term “religion” are exceptionally diverse. They range from personal experiences and popular beliefs to formal doctrines, priestly institutions, ritual practices and devotional icons — Neanderthal burial rites to Vatican encyclicals. The same can be said of “science,” a term that embraces a wide range of quite different kinds of things — general pursuits and specialized practices, findings and theories, instruments and techniques, ideals and institutions (not to mention a share of devotional icons and ritual practices).

Smith also laments how her thoughtful views (my description, not hers), and the nuanced topic of the interaction between religion and science itself, are so often caricatured. Comments to an earlier column so often missed the point:

A good number consist of off-to-the-races polemics on science and religion having little to do with either the book or column. Others object to my presumed views based on inappropriate surmise.

Welcome to the debate. From newspaper headlines and TV news reports to blog comments, the complexities of both religion and science, not to mention their interaction, are so often lost. But complex they are:

Science and religion, in Gould’s account, are nicely balanced and occupy equally valuable pieces of land, but they remain monoliths — precisely, as one commentator puts it, “rocks of ages.” In “Natural Reflections,” I seek to pulverize both of those rocks, not in order to annihilate them but in order to reveal their complex, copious, varied, and changing composition.

And one of those complexities, so often ignored from the start, is the religion that makes its way into the column labeled as science, and the science that makes its way into the column labeled as religion.

For journalist John Patterson skepticism of evolution is all about bad people up to no good. Our latest sin, according to Patterson, is our less than enthusiastic interest in Jon Amiel's new film, Creation, which portrays Darwin as the heroic scientist who struggles to balance the profound new truth of evolution he has discovered with its impact on his wife's religious sentiments.

It is another example of Whiggish history, ignoring the scientific problems with evolution and its religious mandates and casting skepticism as the sole source of religious concern. The film might be brilliantly produced but do we really need another Inherit-the-Wind rewrite of history?

Patterson and the evolutionists of course disagree. They see the film as accurate history and so it is understandable that they hold works such as Creation in high esteem. What is of concern though are their caricatures and demonization of evolution skepticism. For Patterson, questioning evolution equates to "science-hating." Patterson writes:

the American right has taken a giant leap backwards, down to the knuckle-dragging, bulging-forehead stage of the evolutionary table. Just don't try telling these folks that their grandaddy was a chimp: they may have the smallest brains in America, but they also have the biggest guns.

People of this disposition cannot accept that we are somehow related to monkeys. You can say that about the new president, but not about the ape-like thugs shouting down US senators nationwide throughout August.

It is truly a Bogey Moment. Unfortunately Patterson's invective is not unusual. Evolutionists rarely address the skepticism, but rather attack the skeptic. This is the best they can do.

Last week's review of Richard Dawkins' new book in the Economist hit all the usual chords. Dawkins' purpose is to demonstrate that evolution is a fact--as incontrovertible a fact as any in science, and the Economist is only too happy to propagate the absurdity. First, there are the usual silly evidential arguments that only work with the uninformed, of which there are apparently many. True, species appear abruptly in the fossil record but, explains the Economist, "That any traces at all remain from so long ago is astounding, and anyway it is not the completeness of the fossil record but its consistency that matters." After all, there are no fossil rabbits in the ancient strata. That's right, no rabbits before the Cambrian era. Astonishing, evolution must be true.

After this extreme example of the fallacy of affirming the consequent, the review next explains that:

The mammalian skeleton is consistently recognisable in creatures as various as bats, monkeys, horses and humans. Vestiges such as the stumpy wings of flightless birds, and the hairs that prickle on human skin just like the rising hackles on furry mammals, are further testimony to our shared origins. ... At the microscopic scale, molecular genetics connects the various parts of the grand family tree with fantastic detail and accuracy.

Testimony to our shared origins? Grand family tree? Evolutionists in the know are abandoning the venerable evolutionary tree, but don't tell the people. Here we have the fallacy of confirmation bias. There are multitudes of examples of similarities amongst the species that do not fit the evolutionary pattern. It is a glaring example of selecting the evidences that fit the theory, and ignoring the plethora of contradictions.

But the best is saved until last. As always, the real proof is the religious evidence. As the review proclaims:

Glitches, like the laryngeal nerves that are so neatly laid out in fish but that must detour in animals with necks—by a crazy 15 feet (4.6m) in the case of giraffes—demonstrate the incremental, undirected business of evolution in touching detail.

... among the many puzzles that evolution explains so well are the futility and suffering that are ubiquitous in the natural world. All trees would benefit from sticking to a pact to stay small, but natural selection drives them ever upward in search of the light that their competitors also seek. Surely an intelligent designer would have put the rainforest canopy somewhat lower, and saved on tree trunks? The cheetah is perfectly honed to hunt gazelles—but the gazelle is equally well equipped to escape cheetahs. So whose side is the designer on?

The ichneumon wasp paralyses its prey without killing it and lays its larva inside this convenient source of fresh meat, to eat it slowly alive. This is just one striking instance of the immensity of pain in the animal kingdom, which defies explanation except via the unyielding calculus of competitive survival.

With religious arguments like these who needs scientific evidence? But wait, evolution is supposed to be a fact of science. This is where the lie enters in.

It is fine for evolutionists to proclaim their silly idea a fact--it must be for anyone holding their religious dogma. Such religion trumps science, no matter how compelling. The science consistently goes against evolution, but it doesn't matter. Evolution must be true.

The point here is not whether the evolutionists' religious beliefs are right or wrong. If right, then evolution is no doubt true. The point, rather, is that evolution is driven by such arcane religious beliefs that cannot adjust to modern science.

These seventeenth century Enlightenment arguments laid the foundation for Darwin's religious tome, and evolutionists have applied those doctrines ever since. The sentiment of Dawkins and the Economist come right out of this Enlightenment piety. The evidences have been updated and the language has changed but what's important--the ideas--is still the same.