Can Celebrity Scientists Change The Way People Think About Science And Religion?

Stephen Jay Gould famously described the relationship between science and religion as one of "non-overlapping magisteria," with science restricted to facts and theories about the empirical universe, and religion to questions of moral meaning and value.

This is one way to understand the relationship between science and religion: two compartments with a solid wall between them, fixed and non-porous.

But it's by no means the only, or even the most popular, approach.

A common alternative is to regard science and religion as partners in a shared enterprise — collaborative and ultimately compatible. Francis Collins, the director of the National Human Genome Research Institute and a devout Christian, is a well-known proponent of a view along these lines. In a arranged by , he argued that "Gould sets up an artificial wall between