Van Huyssteen J.W. (editor) Encyclopedia of Science and Religion

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SCIENCE FICTION

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though remain based on scientific laws as we

know them. Though it seems that science fiction is

based on science and the material world, most

modern works are character based; science fiction

explores human life and action within the context

of a fictional but possible world. This fictional

world allows the author clearly to explore issues in

a context that is contrived, thus without the myriad

mitigating or confounding factors the real world

might present.

The genre of science fiction can be traced back

to nineteenth-century novels such as Mary Shel-

ley’s Frankenstein (1818) and Jules Verne’s novels

of the 1860s and 1870s (Journey to the Center of the

Earth and Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the

Sea). However, the term science fiction was not

widely used until the 1930s, when a group of pulp

fiction magazines featuring stories based on the

premises of modern science was established. Be-

ginning with Hugo Gernsback’s Amazing Stories

(after whom the Hugo award in science fiction

writing is named), the format was soon copied by

several other American and British publications

( John Campbell’s Astounding Science Fiction, Sci-

ence Wonder Stories). Among writers in Britain, a

genre called scientific romance grew in the years

following World War I with such writers as Olaf

Stapledon, J. D. Beresford, H. G. Wells, and Aldous

Huxley. In the United States, science fiction re-

mained primarily magazine based until the rapid

rise in the production of paperback books in the

1960s, which moved the genre from a predomi-

nance of short stories to novels. The science fiction

novel emerged as a distinct literary genre in the

second half of the century, exemplified in the

works of writers such as Isaac Asimov, Ray Brad-

bury, Arthur C. Clarke, Robert Heinlein, and Kurt

Vonnegut.

As the public became sensitized to the effects

of science through the dropping of the atomic

bomb in 1945, the development of the digital com-

puter, and new advances in biotechnology, science

fiction also became a staple for radio (Orson

Welles’s 1938 radio production of H. G. Wells’s

War of the Worlds), television (The Jetsons, The

Twighlight Zone, Star Trek, The X-Files), and film

plots (Fritz Lang’s Metropolis [1927], Stanley

Kubrick’s Dr. Strangelove [1964] and 2001: A Space

Odyssey [1968], Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner [1982]

and Alien [1979], Steven Spielberg’s E.T. [1982], and

George Lucas’s Star Wars [1977]). Although science

fiction novels continue to be popular and widely

published, a larger contemporary audience is

reached through film and television, mediums that

make it easy for audiences to suspend disbelief

and that appeal to our highly visual culture. The

plots of science fiction films tend to be more ad-

venture- and special-effects-based and less intro-

spective than the written literature, though there

are notable exceptions, such as Kubrick’s 2001: A

Space Odyssey.

Popular themes in today’s science fiction, re-

gardless of the medium, include intelligent com-

puters or robots, alternative worlds, travel to other

planets, encounters with other life forms, the fu-

ture evolution of the human race, and the ravages

of atomic destruction or biochemical warfare. Sci-

ence fiction has also spawned several subgenres in

the late twentieth century, including cyberpunk,

stories that take place in a virtual world sustained

by computers and dominated by multinational cor-

porations (William Gibson’s Neuromancer [1984]

and Scott’s film Blade Runner, based on Philip K.

Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?

[1968]); ecoscience fiction, stories set in either an

ecological utopia or distopia (Vonnegut’s Galapa-

gos [1985], Spielberg’s Jurassic Park [1993], John

Brunner’s The Sheep Look Up [1972]); and feminist

science fiction (Ursula K. LeGuin’s Left Hand of

Darkness [1969], James Tiptree’s “The Women Men

Don’t See” [1973] and “The Screwfly Solution”

[1977]).

Themes related to religion

The early science fiction pulp magazines were de-

voted primarily to adventure stories in which the

exploration of religious themes or any explicit ref-

erence to religion was taboo. However, as science

fiction moved into the mediums of novel and film,

these strictures fell away. Modern science fiction

deals extensively with religion, at times explicitly,

at other times through the exploration of meta-

physical systems, the nature of humanity or of so-

cial structures, the question of mystical powers, or

the nature of moral decision making.

A number of science fiction novels have dealt

directly with the nature of God. In A Romance of

Two Worlds (1886), Marie Corelli explores the idea

of God as an electrical force. H. G. Wells explores

the nature of a finite or an unknowable God in

God the Invisible King (1917) and The Undying Fire

(1919). Mary Shelley in Frankenstein (1818), one

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of the earliest books in the science fiction genre,

takes as her premise the question of human

usurpation of the prerogatives of God. Stories that

examine what it feels like to be God or to have

godlike powers of omniscience, omnipotence, or

the ability to create life forms range from short sto-

ries such as Edmond Hamilton’s “Fessenden’s

Worlds” (1937) and Frank Russell’s “Hobbyist”

(1947), to novels such as Frank Herbert’s The God

Makers (1972) and Stanislav Lem’s Solaris (1961).

The idea of humans who create a god or comput-

ers that develop godlike powers is raised in Fred-

eric Brown’s “Answer” (1954), Isaac Asimov’s “The

Last Question” (1956), and Martin Caidin’s The God

Machine (1989). Many stories raise the possibility

that a more advanced civilization would seem god-

like to human beings. Philip K. Dick explores the

question of beings with godlike powers in Our

Friends from Frolix 8 (1970) and the Three Stig-

mata of Palmer Eldritch (1964). Stories that posit

an evil or incompetent god include Lester Del

Ray’s “Evensong” (1967), James Tiptree’s Up the

Walls of the World (1978), and Philip K. Dick’s

“Faith of Our Fathers” (1980). John Varley ques-

tions the basic requirements for being a god in his

Titan series (1980).

The nature of humankind is so common a

theme in science fiction that it has been used as a

definition of the genre. Brian Aldiss writes in Tril-

lion Year Spree: The History of Science Fiction

(1986): “Science fiction is the search for definition

of man and his status in the universe which will

stand in our advanced but confused state of

knowledge (science)” (p. 25). Almost all science

fiction works deal implicitly, if not explicitly with

the question of what it means to be human. Com-

mon plot vehicles include confrontation by an

alien race or by intelligent computers, the chal-

lenges of disaster or of a dystopian world, and eth-

ical decision making under limited conditions.

The question of not only what human beings

are but what we might ultimately become is ex-

plicitly dealt with in Olaf Stapledon’s Last and First

Men (1930) and Star Maker (1937). Human trans-

formation into a mystical or spiritual form is also

examined in Arthur C. Clarke’s Childhood’s End

(1953) and 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) and

Philip Farmer’s To Your Scattered Bodies Go

(1955). The evolutionary ideas of Pierre Teilhard

de Chardin are explicitly foundational to George

Zebrowski’s The Omega Point (1972) and appear

implicitly in Clarke’s Childhood’s End. Clarke also

examines what it means to be human from the

perspective of Buddhism in The Fountains of Par-

adise (1979).

A few novels and short stories deal with ex-

plicitly Christian themes. The star followed by the

magi forms the basis for Arthur C. Clarke’s “The

Star” (1955). Richard Matheson’s “The Traveler”

(1952) and Michael Moorcock’s Behold the Man!

(1966) use time travel to examine the crucifixion of

Jesus. While these are among the few stories that

mention Jesus specifically, a figure whose advent

and saving of a culture are messianic in nature is

common and can be found in J. D. Beresford’s

What Dreams May Come (1941), L. Ron Hubbard’s

Final Blackout (1940), and Frank Herbert’s Dune

series (1965). The Apocalypse and the second com-

ing of Christ have also formed a backdrop for much

science fiction. C. S. Lewis wrote a trilogy in the

form of science fiction that moves from a retelling

of the story of the garden of Eden to the days be-

fore the second coming of Christ in which Merlin

plays the role of messiah (Out of the Silent Planet

[1938], Perelandra [1943], and That Hideous

Strength [1946]). Walter Miller’s, A Canticle for Lei-

bowitz [1959] and Vonnegut’s Cat’s Cradle [1963]

continue the apocalyptic theme, examining human

behavior and the role of the church in worlds that

have been or are being largely destroyed.

A number of science fiction novels posit a fu-

ture theocracy, generally in a negative light. This is

a particularly strong theme in feminist science fic-

tion, and societies based on a version of Christian

or Islamic fundamentalism are found in Margaret

Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale (1986), Marion

Zimmer Bradley’s The Shattered Chain (1983),

Sylvia Engdahl’s This Star Shall Abide (1972) and

Sheri Tepper’s Grass (1990), The Fresco (2000), and

The Visitor (2002). Feminist science fiction has also

explored societies that follow a goddess based re-

ligion, a theme in Elizabeth Hand’s Walking the

Moon (1996), Starhawk’s The Fifth Sacred Thing

(1993), Marie Jakober’s The Black Chalice (2000)

and Suzette Elgin’s The Judas Rose (1994). The ef-

fects of a theocracy are also explored outside of a

feminist context, as in Lester Del Rey’s The

Eleventh Commandment (1962), John Brunner’s

The Stone that Never Came Down (1973), and Keith

Robert’s Kiteworld (1985).

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With or without a theocracy, the priest or cleric

is a fairly common protagonist. The strong reli-

gious grounding of such a character allows the au-

thor to examine human behavior in the light of

challenges to one’s religious or moral ground. Ex-

amples of clerical protagonists are found in James

Blish’s A Case of Conscience (1963), Marion Zim-

mer Bradley’s Darkover Landfall (1972), Gordon

Harris’s Apostle From Space (1978), and Lester Del

Ray’s “For I am a Jealous God” (1973).

Science fiction is also an excellent vehicle for

the consideration of moral questions. In Science

Fiction: The Future (1971), Dick Allen describes

the genre as “a form of literature that argues

through its intuitive force that the individual can

shape and change and influence and triumph; that

[human beings] can eliminate both war and

poverty; that miracles are possible; that love, if

given a chance, can become the main driving force

of human relationships” (p. 3). Ethical issues that

are explored in science fiction include the appro-

priate use of technology, human relationships in

the face of hardship, human responsibility in the

face of new technologies, and the conflicts be-

tween disparate social groups or species. Many sci-

ence fiction novels explore the conflicts that result

when two societies with disparate ethical systems

come in contact with one another. Examples in-

clude Isaac Asimov’s The Caves of Steel (1954), Spi-

der Robinson’s Night of Power (1985), and Ken

MacLeod’s The Cassini Division (2000).

Bibliography

Aldiss, Brian W., with Wingrove, David. Trillion Year

Spree: The History of Science Fiction. New York:

Atheneum, 1986. Originally published as Billion Year

Spree. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1973.

Allen, Dick, ed. Science Fiction: The Future. New York:

Harcourt, 1971.

Cassutt, Michael, and Greeley, Andrew M., eds. Sacred Vi-

sions. New York: St. Martin’s, 1991.

Greenberg, Martin H., and Warrick, Patricia S., eds. The

New Awareness: Religion through Science Fiction.

New York: Delacorte, 1975.

Reilly, Robert, ed. The Transcendent Adventure: Studies of

Religion in Science Fiction. Westport, Conn.: Green-

wood, 1985.

Ryan, Alan, ed. Perpetual Light. New York: Warner, 1982.

NOREEN L. HERZFELD

SCIENCE,METHODOLOGICAL

ISSUES

See PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE

SCIENCE,ORIGINS OF

An enquiry into the origins of science is immedi-

ately faced with fundamental questions about the

nature of science itself. Is science a discrete activ-

ity that endures over time? Can it adequately be

distinguished from related human activities such as

magic and religion? Is it a peculiarly Western phe-

nomenon? Traditional histories of science have

tended to answer each of these questions in the af-

firmative. Science is customarily defined as the sys-

tematic description or explanation of natural phe-

nomena along with the habits of mind that make

that possible—typically logic and mathematics.

Working with this understanding of science, histo-

rians have traced the origins of Western science to

Greek thinkers living on the west coast of Asia

Minor in the sixth century

B.C.E.

Science in antiquity

The speculations of these ancient Greek philoso-

phers—principally Thales (c. 625–546

B.C.E.),

Anaximander (c. 611–547

B.C.E.), and Anaximenes

(500s

B.C.E.), all from Miletus—are regarded as dis-

tinctive for three reasons. First, they offered natu-

ralistic accounts of various phenomena that dif-

fered significantly from earlier mythological

explanations that invoked arbitrary or supernatural

causes. Second, they attempted to deal with the

universal rather than the accidental and particular,

and they sought unitary, underlying principles that

could account for the diverse phenomena of na-

ture. Third, they engaged in rational criticism of al-

ternative explanations. On the first count, while

the Greek poets Homer and Hesiod had tended to

attribute lightning or earthquakes to the anger of

Zeus or Poseidon, the Milesian natural philoso-

phers explained these phenomena in terms of the

forces of nature. Thales, for example, believed that

Earth was supported by water, and that earth-

quakes were caused by disturbances in the water

in which the Earth floats. Anaximander suggested

that thunder is caused by the wind. It should be

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noted that the Milesian philosophers were not, on

this account, atheists—Thales had once observed

that “all things are full of gods”—it was just that

they excluded the gods from their explanations.

These thinkers also endeavored to isolate a single

material principle that could account for the varied

forms found in nature. For Thales, this was water;

for Anaximander, “the boundless”; for Anaximenes,

air. Anaximenes also provided an explanation of

the transformations that air would undergo in

order to give rise to the diverse phenomena of na-

ture. Finally, the Milesians engaged in the critical

appraisal of rival theories, providing reasons why

one hypothesis should be preferred to another.

Again, this is quite distinctive, for the purveyors of

myth found it unnecessary to defend their accounts

in the face of alternatives, and seemed untroubled

by inconsistencies between different mythological

accounts.

These features of early Ionian science found

their way into later schools of Greek thought. The

sixth- and fifth-century Pythagoreans, for example,

located the principles of all things in numbers, and

demonstrated how numerical ratios were mani-

fested in nature. They were the first to attempt to

provide knowledge of nature with a mathematical

foundation. The fifth-century atomists, by way of

contrast, proposed that all physical objects were

composed of different arrangements of atoms.

These schools thus anticipated what were much

later to become central features of modern sci-

ence—the mathematization of nature and atomic

theory.

Greek science culminated in the thought of

Aristotle (384–322

B.C.E.), who was to provide such

a comprehensive and compelling account of natu-

ral phenomena that it dominated much of Western

thought up until the seventeenth century. Aristotle

wrote on virtually every contemporary discipline—

physics, logic, biology, psychology, along with

metaphysics, poetry, ethics, and politics. His bio-

logical works were informed by impressively ac-

curate observations of animals, and provide de-

scriptions of their anatomy, reproduction, and

behaviors. He also made enduring contributions to

taxonomy. Most important of all, Aristotle devel-

oped a metaphysical framework that set out the

conditions required for a complete explanation.

These were Aristotle’s four causes, which sought

answers to fundamental questions of the “what,”

the “how,” and the “why” of natural phenomena.

The scientific revolution

When Aristotle’s writings were rediscovered in

twelfth-century Europe, having been preserved in

the interim by Islamic scholars, they became the

cornerstone of the university curriculum, and were

dislodged from this privileged position only after

considerable controversy in the early modern pe-

riod. Over the course of the seventeenth century

the preeminence of Aristotle was successfully chal-

lenged by such figures as Galileo Galilei (1564–

1642), Francis Bacon (1561–1626), René Descartes

(1596–1650), Robert Boyle (1627–1691), and Isaac

Newton (1642–1727). So great was the intellectual

upheaval effected by these individuals that later

historians were to describe their achievements as a

“scientific revolution.” This period witnessed the

birth of experimental methods, the mathematiza-

tion of nature, and the introduction of new taxo-

nomic principles. It might thus be said that if sci-

ence, broadly conceived, had its origins in the

thought of the ancient Greeks, modern science,

with its distinctive use of mathematics and experi-

mentation, began in the seventeenth century.

Non-Western science?

This standard account of the origins of science is

susceptible to a number of criticisms. These con-

cern both Western claims to a monopoly on scien-

tific thinking, and the idea that science has some

identifiable essence or method that endures over

time. One line of criticism points to archaeological

evidence of remarkable technological achieve-

ments in China and the ancient civilizations of the

near East, which preceded the speculations of the

early Greek natural philosophers. However, it

makes sense in this context to distinguish technol-

ogy from science. The former could well be based

on trial and error combined with accumulated ex-

perience. The practical ability to produce useful

artifacts, however impressive, is something quite

different from the systematic attempt to arrive at an

understanding of the operations of nature as a

whole or to provide a theoretical account of laws

of nature.

It has also been suggested that the definition of

science that operates in the standard account is too

restrictive. Science might be defined more broadly

as a set of behaviors geared towards mastery of the

natural environment. On this more inclusive defi-

nition, science can be said to have originated in a

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number of different cultures at different times.

There is a wealth of anthropological evidence that

points to the fact that many traditional societies de-

veloped remarkably sophisticated and complex

understanding of natural phenomena. Whether

such indigenous knowledge counts as science will,

of course, ultimately depend on how the term is

defined. It must be said, however, and without

wishing to devalue such traditional knowledge,

that its inclusion in the category “science” tends to

make that designation rather vague.

The nineteenth-century alliance

Perhaps the most telling criticism is the opposite

contention, that the definition of science that in-

forms the standard account of the origins of sci-

ence is too broad. “Science,” it can be objected, is

a modern category, and not an ancient or even an

early-modern one, and its application to those pe-

riods is anachronistic. The ancient Greeks did not

have a word for science as we understand it, and

thinkers from Thales to Aristotle regarded them-

selves as pursuing “philosophy.” Something similar

is true for other ancient cultures. A comparable sit-

uation also existed in the seventeenth century,

when the disciplines “natural history” and “natural

philosophy” were the closest analogues to modern

science. Isaac Newton thus explicitly identified

himself as being engaged in the pursuit of natural

philosophy. Individuals like Newton did not think

in terms of science and nonscience, and the now-

familiar distinctions between chemistry and

alchemy, astronomy and astrology, even science

and religion, were at this time at best fluid, at worst

meaningless. For much of the seventeenth and

eighteenth centuries natural history and natural

philosophy were intimately linked with religious

concerns and included theological explanations.

For this reason alone they are to be carefully dis-

tinguished from science as we understand it. The

term scientist was not invented until the nineteenth

century, and a good case can be made that it was

only at this time that modern science came into

being. During this period a new alliance of disci-

plines was formed, linked together by the profes-

sional designation “scientist.” Natural history was

superseded by a laboratory-based biology, and for

the first time the sciences began to occupy a cen-

tral place in the university curriculum. Crucially,

just as the new professional category of scientist

now excluded the clergy, who had hitherto played

a central role in natural history and natural philos-

ophy, the sciences eschewed religious explana-

tions. Charles Darwin’s (1809–1882) naturalistic ac-

count of the origins of life helped make this

transition possible. The contemporary idea of sci-

ence as a professional, secular activity that is con-

ducted primarily in a laboratory setting dates from

this period.

In sum, it is possible to answer the question of

the origins of science in four ways:

(1) Science originated amongst Greek natural

philosophers in the sixth century

B.C.E.

(2) Science originates whenever and wherever

human beings attempt mastery of their natu-

ral environment.

(3) The origins of science can be traced to the

“scientific revolution” of the seventeenth

century.

(4) Science began only with the professionaliza-

tion of various scientific disciplines in the

nineteenth century.

While there is something to be said for each of

these alternatives, the last is perhaps the least

anachronistic and most historically respectable.

See also POSTMODERN SCIENCE

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Bibliography

Barnes, Barry, and Bloor, David. “Relativism, Rationalism

and the Sociology of Knowledge.” In Rationality and

Relativism, eds. Martin Hollis and Steven Lukes. Ox-

ford: Blackwell, 1981.

Gross, Paul R., and Levitt, Norman. Higher Superstition:

The Academic Left and its Quarrels with Science. Bal-

timore, Md.: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1994.

Latour, Bruno, and Woolgar, Steve, ed. Laboratory Life:

The Social Construction of Scientific Facts. London:

Sage, 1979.

Pickering Andrew, ed. Science as Practice and Culture.

London and Chicago: University of Chicago Press,

1992.

Sokal Alan. D. “Transgressing the Boundaries: Toward a

Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity.”

Social Text 14, no. 46/47 (1996): 217–252.

Sokal Alan D. “A Physicist Experiments with Cultural Stud-

ies.” Lingua Franca 6, no. 4 (1996): 62–64.

NIELS VIGGO HANSEN

SCIENTIFIC MATERIALISM

See MATERIALISM; SCIENTISM

SCIENTIFIC METHOD

See MODELS; SCIENCE AND RELIGION, MODELS AND

RELATIONS; SCIENCE AND RELIGION,

ETHODOLOGIES; SCIENCE AND RELIGION,

ESEARCH IN; SCIENTISM

SCIENTIFIC REALISM

See CRITICAL REALISM

SCIENTISM

Advocates of the doctrine of scientism believe that

the boundaries of science (that is, typically the

natural sciences) could and should be expanded in

such a way that something that has not previously

been understood as science can now become a

part of science. Thus a possible synonym to scien-

tism is scientific expansionism. How exactly the

boundaries of science should be expanded and

what more precisely is to be included within sci-

ence are issues on which there is disagreement.

Scientism in one version or another has prob-

ably been around as long as science has existed.

From about 1970 to 2000, however, a number of

distinguished natural scientists, including Francis

Crick (b. 1916), Richard Dawkins (b. 1941), and

Edward O. Wilson (b. 1929), have advocated sci-

entism in one form or another. Some promoters of

scientism are more ambitious in their extension of

the boundaries of science than others. In its most

ambitious form, scientism states that science has

no boundaries: eventually science will answer all

human problems. All the tasks human beings face

will eventually be solved by science alone.

Epistemic and ontological scientism

The most common way of defining scientism is to

say that it is the view that science reveals every-

thing there is to know about reality. Scientism is an

attempt to expand the boundaries of science in

such a way that all genuine (in contrast to appar-

ent) knowledge must either be scientific or at least

be reducible to scientific knowledge. This episte-

mological form of scientism must be distinguished

from its ontological form: The view that the only

reality that exists is the one science has access to.

One common way of stating ontological scientism

is to maintain that nothing is real but material par-

ticles and their interaction. Ontological scientism

entails epistemic scientism, but epistemic scientism

does not entail ontological scientism. This is be-

cause one can affirm the view that knowledge ob-

tainable by scientific method exhausts all knowl-

edge and yet deny that whatever is not mentioned

in the theories of science does not exist. One can

do this because epistemic scientism does not pre-

clude the existence of things that cannot be dis-

covered by scientific investigation or experimenta-

tion. If there are such things, all it says is that one

cannot obtain knowledge about them. Epistemic

scientism sets the limits of human knowledge but

not, like ontological scientism, the limits of reality.

It is often taken for granted that scientism and

traditional religions such as Christianity and Islam

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are incompatible. But this is not necessarily the

case. If, for instance, religion is taken to deal es-

sentially with value questions, religion can be com-

patible with the epistemic and ontological forms of

scientism. Of course, many believers are not satis-

fied with such a conception of religion. They claim

that God really exists, that one can know that God

is love, and so on. Are not such religious beliefs

then incompatible with scientism? After all, scien-

tism denies that it is possible to obtain knowledge

of God or of a divine reality (epistemic scientism)

and that there exists a transcendent or nonphysical

reality beyond the physical universe (ontological

scientism). But to the contrary, scientism does not

necessarily deny these things. While Dawkins,

Crick, Wilson, and others think along these lines,

they could be wrong on scientific grounds. This is

possible because all that scientism claims is that re-

ligious beliefs must satisfy the same conditions as

scientific hypotheses to be knowable, rationally

believable, or about something real. Scientists like

Dawkins, Crick, and Wilson take for granted that

religious beliefs cannot meet these requirements,

which could of course be questioned. The British

philosopher Richard Swinburne (b. 1934), among

others, argues that theism can be confirmed by ev-

idence in much the same way that evidence sup-

ports scientific hypotheses. Therefore, scientism

cannot be equated with scientific naturalism or sci-

entific materialism.

Value scientism and existential scientism

Another way of expanding the boundaries of sci-

ence is to maintain that not only can science fully

explain morality, but it can also replace traditional

ethics and tell people how they morally ought to

behave. Ethics can be reduced to or translated into

science. However, for a claim to be scientistic in

this sense, it must maintain more than that science

is relevant to ethics. Nobody would deny that. It

must rather state that science is the sole, or at least

the most important, source for developing a moral

theory and explaining moral behavior. There are

advocates of this axiological form of scientism

(called value scientism) within the ranks of evolu-

tionary biology. Part of the idea is that evolutionary

theory is rich enough to fully explain morality. The

explanation is, roughly, that morality exists and

continues to exist because it emerged and contin-

ues to function as a strategy adapted to secure the

fitness of the individuals or of their genes. Some,

like Wilson, even think that evolutionary biologists

will be able to discover a genetically accurate and

completely fair code of ethics and thus provide

people with scientific, moral knowledge.

Defenders of scientism can also go beyond

morality and expand the boundaries of science so

that religion or existential questions fall within its

scope. Existential scientism is the view that science

alone can explain and replace traditional religion.

Dawkins, for instance, maintains that since the ad-

vent of modern science, people no longer have to

resort to superstition when faced with deep prob-

lems such as “Is there a meaning to life?” and

“What are we for?” because science is capable of

dealing with all these questions and constitutes in

addition the only alternative to superstition. Wilson

claims that science can explain religion as a whole

material phenomenon and suggests that scientific

naturalism or materialism should replace religion.

Some advocates of scientism endorse both

value scientism and existential scientism. However,

it is important to distinguish these two forms. It is

possible to affirm that evolutionary theory is the

sole, or at least the most important, source for de-

veloping a moral theory and explaining moral be-

havior, while at the same time to deny that biology

or any other science can explain the meaning of

human life or fulfill the role of religion in peoples’

lives. One could maintain that evolutionary theory

can show which ethical principles should be used

when trying to solve moral problems concerning

(e.g., abortion, population growth, conflicts be-

tween people of different classes, genders, or

races) and stop there, thereby accepting that the

choice of religion or worldview is beyond the

scope of science.

Thus value scientism does not entail existential

scientism. But does existential scientism entails

value scientism? This is less clear. Religions and

worldviews generally include some ideas about

how people should live and what a good life is. If

this is correct then the acceptance of existential

scientism implies also an acceptance of value sci-

entism. But, on the other hand, it is perhaps possi-

ble to say that science alone can answer some ex-

istential questions and thus that science can

partially replace religion. In other words, one

doubts or denies that science can, so to speak, de-

liver the whole package in the shape of a complete

worldview. If this is so, one could maintain, like

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Dawkins, that every organism’s sole reason for liv-

ing is that of being a machine for propagating

DNA, but still deny that science can offer ethical

guidelines for how people should conduct their

lives. Science can answer, at least, some existential

questions, but it can not solve moral problems.

The relation between different forms of

scientism

What then is the relation of value scientism and ex-

istential scientism to the first two forms of scien-

tism? Neither value scientism nor existential scien-

tism entails epistemic scientism or ontological

scientism. It is coherent to claim that science can

answer moral questions and replace traditional

ethics or that science can answer existential ques-

tions and replace traditional religion, without

maintaining that the only knowable reality or the

only reality that exists is the one science has access

to. Although there is no logically necessary con-

nection between the two later forms, on the one

hand, and the two earlier forms of scientism, on

the other, these are, nevertheless, often combined.

This variety of forms of scientism shows that

one should not equate scientism with scientific

naturalism or materialism because there are possi-

ble forms of scientism that do not entail an ac-

ceptance of scientific materialism or naturalism.

This variety also demonstrates that the relation be-

tween scientism and traditional religions is not a

given. Only between existential scientism and tra-

ditional religions is there a direct conflict. Other

forms of scientism may be compatible with tradi-

tional religions.

The main criticism directed against scientism is

that its advocates, in their attempt to expand the

boundaries of science, rely in their argument not

merely on scientific but also on philosophical

premises and that scientism therefore is not sci-

ence proper.

See also MATERIALISM; NATURALISM; PHYSICALISM,

EDUCTIVE AND NONREDUCTIVE; VALUE;

ORLDVIEW

Bibliography

Almeder, Robert. Harmless Naturalism: The Limits of Sci-

ence and the Nature of Philosophy. Chicago: Open

Court, 1998.

Crick, Francis. The Astonishing Hypothesis: The Scientific

Search for the Soul. New York: Scribners, 1994.

Dawkins, Richard. The Selfish Gene, 2nd edition. Oxford

and New York: Oxford University Press, 1989.

Midgley, Mary. Science as Salvation: A Modern Myth and

Its Meaning. London: Routledge, 1992.

Olafson, Frederick A. Naturalism and the Human Condi-

tion: Against Scientism. London: Routledge, 2001.

Smith, Huston. Why Religion Matters: The Fate of the

Human Spirit in an Age of Disbelief. San Francisco:

Harper, 2001.

Sorell, Tom. Scientism: Philosophy and the Infatuation

with Science. London: Routledge, 1991.

Stenmark, Mikael. Scientism: Science, Ethics and Religion.

Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 2001.

Swinburne, Richard. Is There a God? Oxford: Oxford Uni-

versity Press, 1996.

Wilson, Edward O. On Human Nature. Cambridge, Mass.:

Harvard University Press, 1978.

MIKAEL STENMARK

SCOPES TRIAL

Perhaps the most famous symbol of the science-re-

ligion clash, the Scopes Trial took place during July

1925 in the small town of Dayton, Tennessee. On

trial for teaching evolution was high school teacher

John Thomas Scopes, who agreed to serve as de-

fendant in a case to challenge Tennessee’s re-

cently-passed Butler Act (Public Acts of the State of

Tennessee, 1925, Chapter 27). This statute was the

first effective legislation that emerged from the

anti-evolution crusade, the most dramatic manifes-

tation of the religious movement known as Protes-

tant Fundamentalism. The Butler Act prohibited

the teaching in public schools of “any theory that

denies the story of Divine Creation of man as

taught in the Bible, and to teach instead that man

has descended from a lower order of animals.” The

Scopes Trial was precipitated by citizens of Day-

ton, who hoped to use the resulting publicity to

boost their community, and by the American Civil

Liberties Union (ACLU), which hoped to secure a

judicial ruling that such anti-evolution laws were

unconstitutional. The trial attracted worldwide at-

tention, in part because noted attorney Clarence

Darrow (1857–1938) was a member of the defense

team, while famous politician and anti-evolutionist

William Jennings Bryan (1860–1925) assisted the

prosecution.

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The Scopes Trial generated significant media

comment, virtually all of it negative. Writers such

as H. L. Mencken portrayed Bryan and his sup-

porters as buffoons and dismissed the rural South

as a backward region. Although the trial produced

a few dramatic moments, such as Darrow’s exami-

nation of Bryan as a Biblical expert, the courtroom

activity proved relatively inconsequential. The

ACLU was unable to use the trial as a forum to dis-

cuss evolutionary concepts because the judge had

prohibited expert testimony as irrelevant. Assum-

ing that Scopes would be convicted, the defense

planned an extensive appeal leading to the U. S.

Supreme Court and thus took the Dayton proceed-

ings somewhat casually. The local jury had little

trouble finding Scopes guilty, after which the de-

fense appealed to the Tennessee Supreme Court.

Although this court affirmed that the Butler Act

was legitimate, it overturned Scopes’s conviction

on a technicality and urged the state to drop the

matter. This decision ended all appeals and left the

constitutional status of the Butler Act undecided.

Although the Scopes Trial is often seen as a de-

feat for the anti-evolution forces, it actually served

to stimulate the movement. Mississippi and

Arkansas joined Tennessee in adopting anti-

evolution statutes, all of which remained in place

until the late 1960s. After the Scopes Trial, evolu-

tionary concepts largely disappeared from the na-

tion’s public school science curriculum, as text-

book publishers ignored the topic to maintain

sales. During the final third of the twentieth cen-

tury, new anti-evolution campaigns emerged in the

form of “creation-science” and “intelligent design”

arguments, which sought to convince the public

that evolution was bad science and that there ex-

isted scientific evidence for the literal interpretation

of the Genesis account of creation. Among the

states that attempted to compromise the teaching

of evolution in this fashion were Arkansas, Ari-

zona, California, Indiana, Kansas, Louisiana, New

Mexico, and Tennessee. Although efforts to enact

state legislation to mandate the inclusion of these

concepts in the science curriculum failed to survive

constitutional analysis, the place of evolution in

American public schools remained nebulous in the

early years of the twenty-first century.

See also CREATION; CREATION SCIENCE; CREATIONISM;

ARWIN, CHARLES; DESIGN; EVOLUTION;

UNDAMENTALISM; INTELLIGENT DESIGN

Bibliography

Larson, Edward J. Summer for the Gods: The Scopes Trial

and America’s Continuing Debate Over Science and

Religion. New York: Basic Books, 1997.

Numbers, Ronald L. The Creationists. New York: Knopf,

1992.

Webb, George E. The Evolution Controversy in America.

Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1994.

GEORGE E. WEBB

SCRIPTURAL

INTERPRETATION

The history of the relationship between scriptural

interpretation and the rise of modern science is

complex and convoluted. Within the so-called Abra-

hamic religions of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam,

the relationship was intimately close from the Mid-

dle Ages to early modern era but became distant

during the final decades of the twentieth century.

Key texts

When scholars in the Abrahamic traditions have

addressed the relationship of science and religion,

they have emphasized scriptural texts that assert

God’s role and activity as creator, sustainer, and

governor of the universe. Key texts from the scrip-

tures of Judaism and Christianity include the

following:

• Genesis 1:1–28 31; 2:1–25; 5:1–2; 9:6

• Exodus 20:11

• 1 Samuel 2:8

• 2 Kings 19:15

• 1 Chronicles 16:26

• Nehemiah 9:6

• Job 9:8–9; 10:3, 8; 12:7–9; 26:7–13; 28:23–26;

37:16, 18; 38:4–38

• Psalms 8:3; 19:1, 4; 24:1–2; 33:6–9; 65:6;

74:16–17; 78:69; 89:11–12, 47; 90:2; 95:4–5;

96:5; 102:25; 103:22; 104:2–3, 5–6, 24, 30–31;

119:90–91; 121:2; 124:8; 136:5–9; 146:5–6;

148:5–6

• Proverbs 3:19; 8:26–29; 16:4; 22:2; 26:10; 30:4

• Ecclesiastes 3:11; 7:29; 11:5

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