There is a longstanding perception that religion and science are incompatible and that religious people and scientists make up two distinct and openly hostile groups that will probably never reach a meeting of the minds. Actually, though, there are numerous scientists that are religious and numerous religious people that respect and embrace science, with a third group, the individuals vehemently devoted only to one side or the other, notwithstanding.
The issue of religion versus science has never been so prominent as in the discourse on creationism and evolution. Here, the range of opinions on each side runs the gamut from unthinking full persuasion to open questioning and receptiveness to both scientific and religious explanations. There are people at both extremes of the argument that must by necessity be excluded from any thoughtful consideration of the issues-those religious people who believe that science is completely outside the realm of God and those scientists who believe that religion is completely outside the realm of science. Both extreme positions are nothing more than fundamentalism of different varieties, which Christianity professor Walter Shurden defines as "an attitude of intolerance, incivility and narrowness...that says, 'We have the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth."[1]
In the legitimate debate over creationism and evolution, the reality of both science and religion is acknowledged. Science, though, is not the philosophical endeavor that attempts to examine natural phenomena and ascribe scientific philosophies to them using rationality, since such a process is only one step removed from being a religion of its own in which "scientific" theories are posited and scientists make determinations about what is and is not real based on these unreal and unproven theories. True science, instead, is a study of the natural world that merely quantifies and examines what is. R...