Religion, Science, and Media

Historical Context

The relationship between science and religion has been perceived differently through time. In ancient Egypt, for example, God was at the center of the culture; virtually all aspects of life were religious. While people today compartmentalize their lives, distinguishing between sacred and secular domains, ancient Egyptians did not make such clear divisions. One use of chemistry was to preserve the deceased in temple tombs so they could enter the afterlife. Engineering was dedicated to the construction of religious structures such as temples, pyramids, obelisks, and sphinxes. Similarly, the field of medicine in early Greece had a sacred purpose. Like the Egyptians who came before them, the ancient Greeks dedicated their learning and discovery to the worship of the gods.

It was during the period known as the Enlightenment that the science–religion distinction became more pronounced. A historical period as well as a social movement, the Enlightenment produced the scientific method and modern universities; it yielded a worldview based on reason, challenging the dominant perspective of religion. This rivalry placed new emphasis on communication as citizens struggled to accommodate competing outlooks.

Demand for information about both science and religion increased, aided by the rise of printing with movable type. As books were made available, the science–religion interface could be studied more closely, contributing to new opportunities and choices. Isaac Newton's 1687 Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica and Denis Diderot's L'Encyclopédie (1751–1772) offered new outlooks, as did political writings such as Thomas Hobbes's 1660 Leviathan and Jean-Jacques Rousseau's (1762) The Social Contract. Works by Baruch Spinoza questioned religious authority, while Gottfried Leibniz sought to accommodate spirituality and science.

In the late 18th and early 19th centuries, the science–religion juncture again took center stage in the United States as fundamentalist Christian preachers warned of the corroding influence of secularism. Scientific ideas were suspect if they undermined religious values or contradicted holy scripture.

In contemporary society, the association between religion and science is characterized in diverse ways. The conflict-oriented culture wars of the 1990s have given way to wider ranging depictions of science and religion. Although hotly contested issues such as AIDS prevention, stem cell research, and the teaching of evolution in the schools [Page 627]continue to be publicized, contemporary media convey a multiplicity of viewpoints. Pew Forum data suggest that most U.S. adults respect science to a degree, while remaining committed to various faith traditions. Therefore, some media outlets, such as the cable program Religion and Ethics Newsweekly, strive for a balanced presentation of the science–religion relationship.

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