Abstract

Religion and Science

The article focuses on the book "Religion and Science," by Bertrand Russell. The "conflict between religion and science" is no longer primarily a conflict between the scientist and the church. That is what it was in the days of Galileo Galilei, astronomer and, to some extent at least, that is what it remained through the days of Charles Darwin, naturalist-the last great scientist whose theories found in organized religion their- most powerful opposition. Almost a generation ago, however, the battle ground was shifted and the conflict became an internal one. Today it looks as though a new phase might be about to begin, as though the authoritarian state might become the defender of a simple obscurantism at least as dangerous as that which the rationalist attributes to the medieval church.