Of course these government and private foundations often overlap. For exam-
ple, the search for a cure for HIV or cancer will both be a breakthrough of basic
research and also will have immediate application in the treatment of illness.
Recently, however, foundations, states, and university consortiums have stepped
in to many high-profile areas where neither government nor private companies have
been willing to go. For example, in 2005, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation gave
$750 million toward basic vaccine science and development, pursuing the prevention
and treatment for diseases afflicting poor countries of low priority to for-profit drug
companies. Within the United States, the state of California has floated a $3 billion
bond issue to fund stem cell research in the wake of the Bush administration’s cutoff
in 2001 of federal funding for such cutting-edge research on religious grounds. The
state of New Jersey has already begun to allocate millions to stem cell research.
Several universities have set up privately funded stem cell research programs, includ-
ing University of California, San Francisco (which raised $11 million), Stanford ($12
million), and Harvard (which hopes to raise $100 million).Science and Religion
in the 21st Century
As a society, we are becoming increasingly scientific. Human beings are curious about
the world and always want to understand it better; science gives them that opportu-
nity. On an almost daily basis, scientists change how we understand the world—from
the furthest reaches of the universe to the tiniest subatomic particles.
We are also becoming increasingly religious. Human beings are also spiritual
beings, and religion helps us navigate our way through the spiritual world. Some reli-
gious institutions may decline in membership, but others are growing dramatically,
and new ones are constantly arising.
And then there is the “science of religion” and the “religion of science.” Some
scientists are attempting to explain religion scientifically, proposing that there is a
“God gene,” or that human beings, unlike other species, are either biologically pro-
grammed or evolutionarily adapted to believe in the supernatural (see, for example,
Dennett, 2006; Harris, 2004). Evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins (2007) argues
that morality results largely from genetic instincts evolved because humans benefit
from cooperation and that religion itself is a by-product of mental abilities evolved
for other reasons. Children, he argues, are “wired” to believe what their parents tell
them because so much of what parents impart is useful or essential information. But
this programming is vulnerable to error, becoming an avenue for useless information
that gets passed along for no other reason than tradition.
At the same time, some evangelical ministers use scientific skepticism (one can
never be absolutely certain that scientific discoveries are the truth) to question bio-
logical facts like evolution or geological facts like the age of Earth. A 2006 Timemag-
azine poll found that nearly two-thirds (64 percent) of Americans say they would
continue to believe what their religion teaches—even if scientists proved it to be wrong
(Masci, 2007).
Some scholars predict a long period of tension between religion and science,
followed by the triumph of one over the other. However, it seems just as likely that
religion and science will coexist, as the growth of both religious ideas and scientific
progress in the United States seems to suggest. Politically, there is always a danger
that either religious fanatics or antireligious totalitarians will seize control of a516 CHAPTER 15RELIGION AND SCIENCE