Religion and science in America : Populism versus elitism : Redeeming culture : American religion in an Age of Science, 1925-1962 (original) (raw)

Religion and Science in America: Populism versus Elitism

Zygon?, 1998

Historian James Gilbert argues that the dialogue between science and religion is an important dynamic in the creation of contemporary American culture. He traces the dialogue not only in the confines of the academic world but also in popular culture. The science-religion dialogue reveals a basic tension between the material and the spiritual that helps define the core of the American psyche: fascination with material progress yet commitment to traditional religious beliefs. Gilbert's cultural narrative traces the dialogue in a unique way because of the attention given to popular renditions of science and religion in evangelical films used by the military, in televised science programs, in science-fiction literature, and at the Seattle World's Fair in 1962. Gilbert suggests that the discussion between science and religion is significant because it is part of the process of creating new cultural structures necessitated by social, scientific, and technological developments. The tensions between religiously informed commonsense science and professional science work to create new cultural forms in a democratic society. Religion and science in dialogue are part of the process of cultural creation. Dogmatism on the part of either scientists or religionists is countered by the democratic process itself.

Religion and Science in America

Many people assume that the history of religion and science in America is one of conflict. However, this is not the case. While an examination of the relationship between religion and science in America shows a variety of ways that they have related, there are few cases of outright conflict. This article takes a historical approach to the topic of religion and science in America. It looks to how both Native Americans and colonial-era Americans fused religion and science into a single system, the reasons that this approach began to falter during the early republic and antebellum era, and the twentieth-century repercussions. It treats the history of natural theology, natural philosophy, Baconian science, fundamentalism, and the post-Einstein “new physics” of relativity and quantum science. Special attention is paid the famous Scopes Trial, as well as the contemporary Intelligent Design movement.

FROM BELIEF TO UNBELIEF AND BACK TO BELIEF: A RESPONSE TO MICHAEL RUSE

Zygon�, 1994

Historian James Gilbert argues that the dialogue between science and religion is an important dynamic in the creation of contemporary American culture. He traces the dialogue not only in the confines of the academic world but also in popular culture. The science-religion dialogue reveals a basic tension between the material and the spiritual that helps define the core of the American psyche: fascination with material progress yet commitment to traditional religious beliefs. Gilbert's cultural narrative traces the dialogue in a unique way because of the attention given to popular renditions of science and religion in evangelical films used by the military, in televised science programs, in science-fiction literature, and at the Seattle World's Fair in 1962. Gilbert suggests that the discussion between science and religion is significant because it is part of the process of creating new cultural structures necessitated by social, scientific, and technological developments. The tensions between religiously informed commonsense science and professional science work to create new cultural forms in a democratic society. Religion and science in dialogue are part of the process of cultural creation. Dogmatism on the part of either scientists or religionists is countered by the democratic process itself.

Religion and Science at the Turn of the Century

2008

North Americans live in a place and at a time when the practice of religion seems to be making a comeback. Even though Western Civilization has long embraced a secular approach to daily life, banishing religion to the private realms of personal morality, spiritual devotion, and ecclesiastical ritual, many orthodox Christians, Jews, and Muslims continue to assert the public relevance of their faith. This is obviously true in politics, where a number of moral agendas are being pursued, but religious concerns have also been broached in other areas, such as biotechnology research, energy use, and environmental care.

Public Perceptions of Incompatibility between ''Science and Religion''

Narratives of conflict regarding the connections between science and religion receive considerable attention in multiple forums of public discourse. These discussions tend to focus on philosophical, abstract, and/or polemical, rather than empirical issues. Data from a 2007 national survey indicate that a relatively small proportion of American adults perceive incompatibility between science and religion. Those who do are divided evenly into groups privileging science and privileging religion. These groups are markedly different with regard to sociodemographic and religious characteristics. Overall, I advocate a theoretical perspective on "science and religion" that is culturally constructionist, but methodologically empiricist.

Science, the Public and American Culture: A Preface to the Study of Popular Science

The Journal of American Culture, 1981

From the upheaval attendant upon the publication of Darwin's Origin of Species through the cultural aftermath of the orbiting of Sputnik, the American public has experienced nearly a century and a quarter-long relentless, sometimes ruthless, initiation into the mysteries of the scientific enterprise. Exhortations on and exhibitions of the power of a rising empire of knowledge concerning nature whose explanations of human experience historically rivalled in breadth and depth those of church and nation-state further promoted the genteel cultural myth of a n emerging New World civilization, a n Eden-become-Atlantis Arisen,' in the American public imagination of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The power politics of global warfare, techno-industrial culture shock, and the traditional ideological dialectic of manifest destiny-isolationism has established the place of science in modern American civilization and in contemporary popular consciousness. At the the core of this genteel, subsequently realpolitik, indoctrination of the public lies a n incredible variety of media and mediators dedicated to popularizing science.2 The mediators have self-consciously translated complexities of data and speculation into commonplace language and multi-media presentations, replete with symbols, graphics, even moral tags. The extra-academic, non-textbook, media have ranged from the Centennial Exhibition through a maze of science fairs to the U.S.-U.S.S.R Cultural and Technological Exchange Expositions; from zoological gardens privately controlled, city-sponsored, or affiliated with national exhibitions to federally endowed zoos, aquaria, planetaria and science centers; from "cabinets of natural curiosity" to public museums; from Popular Science News to Science News; from novelistic caricatures of science to sci-fi cosmology and mythology; from the non-fiction prose of John Fiske, Spencer F. Baird, Edward Drinker Cope, E.L. Youmans, and E.L. Godkin to that of charismatic scientists cum public pedagogues, including Linus Pauling, Isaac Asimov, Werner von Braun, Jacques Cousteau and Jacob Bronowski. In addition, over the last third of this "golden age" of popularized science, radio, television and film have become significant media forums for mass communications between science and the public. Frequently utilizing formats conceived in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries,s these media have contributed substantially to the general awareness of science as enterprise and social institution. For instance, under federal sponsorship, the "Science Service Radio Broadcasts" over CBS conveyed a