ACONSILIENCE OF EQUAL REGARD: STEPHEN JAY GOULD ON THE RELATION OF SCIENCE AND RELIGION

Abstract

This article offers a fresh assessment of the views of the American paleontologist and evolutionary biologist Stephen Jay Gould on the relation of science and religion. Gould is best known for his celebrated notion of “nonoverlapping magisteria,” which is often seen in somewhat negative terms as inhibiting dialogue. However, as a result of his critique of the unificationist approach to knowledge developed in Edward O. Wilson's Consilience, Gould later made increased use of the more positive notion of a “consilience of equal regard,” which recognized the porous nature of disciplinary divides and the propriety of interdisciplinary dialogue. Gould's final views on the relation of science and religion, set out in The Hedgehog, the Fox, and the Magister's Pox, published after his death, affirms the distinctiveness and autonomy of science and religion on the one hand, while encouraging their constructive dialogue and productive interaction on the other. This should now be seen as Gould's definitive statement on this question.

Response: Science and Religion—the State of the Art

“…My own experience in recent years suggests that it is pedagogically helpful to explore how one single competent author achieved a personal synthesis or correlation of science and religion (often in the form of their own specific scientific discipline and their personal theological commitments), noting particularly how they derived this, and what they achieved through it. In two recent articles, I explore the foundations and outcomes of two significant approaches—that of the former Archbishop of York and public intellectual John Habgood (McGrath 2021a), and the mature position of the palaeontologist Stephen Jay Gould, which goes far beyond his unsatisfactory earlier notion of “non‐overlapping magisteria” (McGrath 2021b). The pedagogical advantages of such an approach are that it allows an individual's approach to be mastered and assessed, thus helping others to develop their own syntheses, which are informed by both the strengths and weaknesses of some influential paradigms within the field.…”

Evaluating the current state of evolution acceptance instruments: a research coordination network meeting report

“…It is also important to begin establishing a potential consensus about measurement of evolution acceptance across research fields. There are distinct lines of peer reviewed evolution education research in cognitive and developmental sciences (Evans 2001;Evans and Lane 2011;Gervais 2015;Shtulman 2006;Shtulman and Calabi 2012;Shtulman and Schulz 2008;Shtulman and Valcarcel 2012), sociology and social psychology (Baker 2013;Baker et al 2018;Elsdon-Baker 2015;Hill 2014;Leicht et al 2022;McPhetres et al 2021;McPhetres and Zuckerman 2018;Voas 2018, 2021), educational psychology (Dole and Sinatra 1998;Sinatra et al 2014;Southerland et al 2001), theology (Austriaco 2019;Loke 2016;McGrath 2021), and discipline based education research (Asghar 2013;Barnes et al 2020;Eddy et al 2013;Glaze et al 2014;Graves 2019;Holt et al 2018;Jensen et al 2019;Nehm and Schonfeld 2007;Sbeglia and Nehm 2020;Verhey 2005;Wiles 2014) that seek to understand low acceptance of evolution. Unfortunately, researchers in these fields rarely speak across their disciplinary boundaries about how to measure evolution acceptance.…”