Mr Spencer insightfully revisits thedust-ups?involving Galileo, Darwin and John Scopes (prosecuted in Tennessee in 1925 for teaching evolution). He traces the interaction of the two disciplines in often fascinating detail. Many pioneering scientists lived in times of religious and political strife and found in “natural philosophy”, as pre-modern science was known, a “ministry of reconciliation”. Thomas Sprat, dean of Westminster and biographer of the Royal Society, opined in 1667 that,? in their experiments, men “may agree, or dissent, without faction, or fierceness”. That was not always true, as Isaac Newton’s spats with his peers showed. Still, says Mr Spencer, by supplying an arena for calmer debate that was beyond clerical control, “Science saved religion from itself.”?

dust-up

n.吵架; 爭吵; 打架;

biographer

n.傳記; 傳記作品;

dean

n.院長; 座堂主任牧師; (鄉(xiāng)間主管若干教堂牧師的)主任牧師; (大學的)學院院長; 系主任; 學監(jiān);

opine

vt.認為; 表達，發(fā)表(意見);

faction

n.派別; 內(nèi)訌; (大團體中的)派系; 小集團; 派系斗爭; 紀實與虛構相結(jié)合的電影(或書等);

spat

n.小爭吵; 口角; 小別扭; (舊時男子用的)鞋罩;

v.吐，唾(唾沫、食物等); 啐唾沫(常表示憤怒或鄙視); 怒斥;(spit的過去分詞和過去式;)

The roll call of scientists who were people of faith runs from Michael Faraday(

邁克爾·法拉第)and James Clerk Maxwell(詹姆斯·克拉克·麥克斯韋) to Gregor Mendel(孟德爾) and Georges Lema?tre, a Belgian priest who, on the basis of mathematical calculations, first proposed that the universe was expanding and therefore had a beginning. In 1933 Lema?tre made what, for Mr Spencer, is a key observation: “Neither St Paul nor Moses had the slightest idea of relativity.” The writers of the Bible could see into “the question of salvation. On other questions they were as wise or as ignorant as their generation.” In other words, science and religion are not different attempts to do the same thing. Lema?tre warned the pope against drawing any theological conclusions from his work on the cosmos.?

In “Rocks of Ages” (published in 1999), Stephen Jay Gould, an evolutionary biologist, argued that the tension between science and religion “exists only in people’s minds…not in the logic or proper utility of these entirely different [subjects]”. He coined the phrase “non-overlapping magisteria” to describe their relationship. One covers the empirical realm, the other the realm of values. Mr Spencer does not think the division is quite so clean-cut. “Science and religion are partially overlapping magisteria,” he thinks. “They overlap within us.” In other words, humans are complex, and should be able to tolerate complexity without declaring war.

magisterium

n.訓導權; 教權; 訓導; 教會訓導; 神秘教會;權威