Faith in Science: Scientists Search for Truth

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Summary: A Good Introduction to the Science/Spirituality Dialogue
Review: As Pope John Paul II points out in his encyclical, Fides et Ratio "(T)he more human beings know reality and the world, the more they know themselves in their uniqueness,...the question of the meaning of things and of their very existence becomes ever more pressing." The book Faith in Science intends to show, at least anecdotally, that this is indeed the case. Like most of the rest of us (or perhaps even more so than the rest of us), some of the world's leading scientists also wrestle with life's ultimate questions.
This book, published in 2001 compiles transcripts of twelve interviews with top scientists (including two Nobel Prize winners) that discuss how the scientists' personal beliefs and faith effect their understanding of life and their practice of science. I found the majority of the interviews insightful and thought provoking, providing a rare insiders' view of the scientists' struggles to make sense of life's questions in a milieu often regarded as devoid of or hostile to religion and theological inquiry. The interviews are as readable as those in popular newsmagazines and can be appreciated by both the general reader as well as the scientific specialist.
The book is ambitious in terms of its scope. The scientists' religious backgrounds range from more traditional monotheistic faiths (Protestant and Catholic Christianity, Islam and Judaism) to less common belief systems. A few of the scientists interviewed are also trained theologians or philosophers in their own right. These scientists' chosen fields range from biology and ecology to astronomy and cosmology, physics, computer science and psychiatry. With this broad scope, the book quickly reveals a diversity of individual approaches when dealing with the question of faith in science. Some of the interviewees have discovered a comfortable home within established religious communities; others have found their presence within these institutions more tentative or untenable. Some describe their need to pursue a religious tradition other than that of their family of origin in order to make sense of their spiritual journey. All accounts represent individual experiences of confronting life's significant questions.
Using this type of approach, the reader looking for a "faith versus science" confrontation may be disappointed. The point of the book is neither to minimize religion, nor to declare its superiority. Instead, the interviews along with book's title subtly raise an ironic question for this post-modern age. With issues such as those surrounding cloning, high-tech weaponry and bio-engineered organisms already present or on the near horizon, can humanity continue to have "faith in science?" Or will the human race ultimately find that a spiritual component working within science is helpful or even vital? What can science contribute to the understandings of theology or spirituality? While these questions remain open, this book does succeed in showing that faith and science can co-exist, interact, and enhance the lives and thinking of some of the world's leading scientists. Perhaps theology and science as broad fields of study can also ultimately learn and grow from the experience of these exceptional individuals.

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Summary: Nuanced and Deep
Review: For anyone interested in issues at the interface of science and religion, this collection of interviews comes highly recommended. Chief among the merits of this volume is its level of engagement, and it is the people involved in this project who insure that the level of this conversation will be deep and its range wide. The core of the book is a set of interviews of twelve scientists conducted by philosopher Philip Clayton and science writer Gordy Slack. They are taken from the proceedings of a 1997 meeting in Berkeley (facilitated by the Science and the Spiritual Quest program under the auspices of the Center for Theology and the Natural Sciences, a pioneer in the field of science and religion), where an international pool of sixty scientists met to discuss the relationships between their scientific work and their religious and spiritual lives. Interviewers Clayton and Slack set a philosophically sophisticated tone and manage at the same time to invite the scientists to talk at a more personal, intimate level, without letting them descend into grandstanding or evoking defensive apologetic. The nuances of each scientist's perspective surface in the interaction. Clayton and Slack probe; they push and encourage scientists to refine their thinking and their statements.
It is also the caliber of scientists that makes the depth of engagement here possible. Their caliber as scientists is beyond dispute; two of the twelve are Nobel laureates, most of the rest are at the top of their fields. But, clearly, they have also been chosen for inclusion in this volume for their ability to articulate and explore their faith or spiritual quest as it interfaces with their lives as scientists. The twelve come from a range of scientific disciplines and of religious stances and spiritualities, and their level of spiritual-religious maturity or of commitment to a particular tradition varies. There are Islamic scientists who speak more of complementarity between modes of knowing than of conflict between science and religion. Others among the twelve are Jewish, Roman Catholic, Anglican. Spiritual struggle is displayed and addressed; the various approaches and traditions are honored.
Taken together, these interviews constitute profound evidence for faith in science in several senses. They exhibit phenomenological evidence that at least some ranking scientists integrate deep faith and excellent science. In addition, the conversations turn, time and again, to points of personal struggle. There is struggle to find integration between one's life in science and one's religious tradition, to resolve epistemological issues, to reconcile belief in human freedom with evidence of bio-genetic determinism.
The conversation is revelatory, as well, of the faith that science itself entails. There are choices to be made at the confluence of science and religion, to be sure. But the choices cannot be distilled into one between purely rational science and a (supposedly irrational) life of faith. Science relies on doctrines, tenets, rituals, and customs which must be taken on faith, and no one seriously arrogates unto him- or herself absolute objectivity anymore. There is, then, an implicit (and sometimes stated) critique of scientism here, an exposure of the beliefs implicit in reductionistic science.
Scientists and theologians ought especially to find this book provocative and perhaps evocative of further discussion. The interviews could be excellent classroom discussion starters and the book could serve well as a sourcebook for courses in religion, the history of science, and in epistemology. Clayton and Slack have provided models, as well, for how to deepen discussion and help people refine their thinking about the science-religion interface.
In the middle of his talk with physicist Arno Penzias, Slack quotes Wittgenstein: 'We feel that when all scientific questions have been answered, the problems of life remain completely unanswered.' To this, Penzias replies: 'The meaning of life is not in science. The meaning of life has little to do with how good our description of the world is. The description of the world we have today is remarkable . . . . [but] with all of this scientific progress we've made, the addition to our understanding of meaning is not all that hot.' But when Slack offers the same Wittgenstein quote to another scientist, a very different response is forthcoming. That is the beauty and the challenge of this book.
If one comes away from the encounter with this array of approaches with any clarity, it is that, at the science-religion interface, humility and modesty are appropriate. It is also clear that these issues are important and that they are not going away ' and that some of our finest minds (meaning persons with fine minds!) and deepest spirits are engaged in working on them. We have so much yet to learn about the universe; our spiritual quests have just begun.