经济学人Are science and religion fated to be adversaries?（下）
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; 争吵; 打架;
biographer
n.传记; 传记作品;
dean
n.院长; 座堂主任牧师; (乡间主管若干教堂牧师的)主任牧师; (大学的)学院院长; 系主任; 学监;
opine
vt.认为; 表达，发表(意见);
faction
n.派别; 内讧; (大团体中的)派系; 小集团; 派系斗争; 纪实与虚构相结合的电影(或书等);
spat
n.小争吵; 口角; 小别扭; (旧时男子用的)鞋罩;
v.吐，唾(唾沫、食物等); 啐唾沫(常表示愤怒或鄙视); 怒斥;(spit的过去分词和过去式;)
The roll call of scientists who were people of faith runs from Michael Faraday(
迈克尔·法拉第)and James Clerk Maxwell(詹姆斯·克拉克·麦克斯韦) to Gregor Mendel(孟德尔) and Georges Lemaître, a Belgian priest who, on the basis of mathematical calculations, first proposed that the universe was expanding and therefore had a beginning. In 1933 Lemaître 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. Lemaître 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.训导权; 教权; 训导; 教会训导; 神秘教会;权威
