I want to persuade you that this rather surprising claim is worth taking far more seriously than it usually is. The best way I've found to do that is to show that the most common, simple reasons for denying it don't work. Doing only that much will not, of course, show that the claim is true (and I anyway think it's something of an overstatement), but it might get you to look more carefully at your own views about science, religion, and pseudoscience and to consider responsible opposing viewpoints. That would be a very good thing, because the contemporary debate about the relationship between religion and science, mired in profound ignorance and confusion, has become so badly overheated that our children are getting burned. In an understandable, but ultimately indefensible, reaction to the First Amendment's requirement to keep church and state suitably separate, many schools have excluded discussions of religion from all their curricula. Some friends of religion have understandably, but indefensibly, (over)reacted by trying to present religious ideas as if they were something else. But both sides err in thinking that there are clear differences between religion and science and that each is therefore entitled to special status. At the end of this story, I hope you will no longer be confident that the differences are so very clear, even if you remain convinced (better: unsure) that there are important differences.
If you work through this book, there will be some questions you're better able to answer. Here's one of the more complex ones: Suppose that a system of statements and practices makes reference to uncontrolled, unobserved things, encourages selective expression of emotion, expresses an attitude of awe and wonder toward Nature, seeks to discover some moral truths, is based partly on faith, explains in terms of purposes and intentions, originated in ancient times, contains vague terms, focuses on phenomena for which there are no fully understood physical mechanisms, and has been misused by many evil people who were also utterly dogmatic in their attitudes toward it. Could this system of beliefs be a scientific theory, a religion, a pseudoscience - or none or all of the above? (You can turn to the back of the book for an answer, but that will spoil your fun, and the answer won't make much sense to you if you skip what comes in between.)
I have found it useful to assume at the outset of most of our investigations that there are clear, sharp, simple differences. In every case, however, this assumption turns out to be false; seeing why is highly instructive. While not every sharp difference in kind is best replaced by a difference of degree, most are. This insight is also one that studying this book will help to reinforce.
If I had made this book comprehensive and detailed, no one who might benefit from its instruction would be able to read it, and very few would be able to lift it. I decided instead to focus on the most prevalent and persistent confusions and misunderstandings about these issues that I have encountered in fifteen years of teaching almost five thousand students. Just as an introduction to, say, physics should not present the most recent original work in physics because it would then be unintelligible to beginners (or, even worse, might create the illusion of understanding), so this book strives for wide accessibility and attempts to avoid originality in anything except presentation of ideas. My approach, at least, has the virtue of having been repeatedly field-tested and found workable by those on the front lines (including six colleagues who have taught courses based on various versions of this material). Working through the modest amount of material here has also encouraged a fair number of students to pursue more advanced study in an attempt to get clearer on the questions. If you find that your favorite misunderstanding has been slighted, however, please let me know, and I'll address any widely shared favorites in any future editions (and web pages).
In the concluding bibliographical essay, "Unresolved Questions," I provide appropriately detailed acknowledgments and sources for the ideas and issues that I discuss. The aforementioned six colleagues who have tested much of this material in their classrooms are Thomas Blackson, James Maffie, Douglas Jesseph, Martin Fowler, Daniel Hunter, and, first among equals, Harold Levin. I am very grateful to them and their students for encouragement and helpful suggestions. In addition, there are four people whose work has had an especially powerful influence on my approach and who thus deserve notice up front: Philip Kitcher and Larry Laudan, two leading members of the science/pseudoscience border patrol; Alvin Plantinga, the world's leading philosopher of religion; and Fred Feldman, whose own teaching style shaped my own. To the extent that there is anything good herein, these four are entitled to much of the credit. Any blame is mine.
go to Introduction
2000 David F. Austin