Lenski, science and religion

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“Science and Religion:  Vive la Différence” 

by Richard E. Lenski 

[This document is the text of a talk that was presented October 18, 1998, in East Lansing, Michigan, as part 

of a forum on "Our Evolving World:  Challenge to Mind and Spirit."  This document is in the public domain 

and may be used without charge and without permission, provided the source is acknowledged.]  

Preface 

Let me begin by thanking Glenn Johnson and Lars Clausen for inviting me to participate in this 

forum, and Philip Hefner for providing a thoughtful and thought-provoking view of the relation 

between religion and science in his book,  The Human Factor: Evolution, Culture and Religion 

(Fortress Press, Minneapolis, 1993).  

Pastor Clausen suggested that I begin by telling you briefly about my own research.  I work in 

evolutionary biology, a field of study that seeks to understand the history and mechanisms by which 

life on earth has changed during the past several billion years.  Most of you probably first 

associate the study of evolution with dusty fossils, many of which demonstrate the existence of 

species that no are no longer alive today.  Certain fossils provide striking evidence for evolution 

because the fossils have combinations of morphological traits that are no longer present in living 

organisms, yet were predicted from an evolutionary theory of relationships among modern-day 

species.  For example, scientists have found fossil birds with exquisite feathers and hind-limbs 

like those of modern birds, but which also have teeth, clawed digits on their fore-limbs, and a long 

vertebral tail like their reptilian ancestors.  Some of you may also know about the evidence for 

evolution that exists within the genes of all living organisms, including ourselves.  The myriad 

similarities and differences among the genes of different organisms provide a material basis for 

evaluating the evolutionary relationships among all organisms, from bacteria to humans.  These 

genetic similarities and differences enable scientists to determine which species are more closely 

related than others, using much the same logic and material that is used to establish paternity in 

lawsuits.  The information in these genes provides independent support for the evolutionary 

derivation of birds from reptilian ancestors.  By digging out fossil bones and sequencing genes, 

scientists can reconstruct historical events.  

But I suspect that few of you think of evolution as an on-going process, one with consequences in 

our lifetime.  And yet, evolution is happening all around us, sometimes with tangible repercussions 

for human welfare.  Consider many disease-causing bacteria that have recently evolved resistance 

to the antibiotics that we use to treat infections.  For example,  Staphylococcus aureus, which is 

often acquired in hospitals following surgery, can cause potentially lethal infections; some strains 

of this species are now resistant to all but one of the antibiotics that were once available for its 

treatment.  By the same token, many agricultural pests have evolved resistance to pesticides that 

we began using only in our lifetime.  Indeed, while much of the public may regard evolutionary 

biology as abstract and far-removed from our present lives, in fact a substantial component of the 

costs of medicine and agriculture reflects an  arms-race with our biological enemies.  While we 

seek to control or eradicate diseases and pests using chemicals and other methods, these enemies 

are evolving genetic defenses against our best weapons.  The evolution of these defenses by our 

natural enemies causes illness and economic devastation, and it forces us to spend more money to 

develop new means of combat. 

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And because evolution is occurring in the world around us, it is possible to perform experiments 

on evolution, just as one can in the fields of  chemistry and physics.  What is required for these 

experiments are organisms, such as bacteria, that have rapid generations and large populations, so 

that one can observe  — on the time-scale of a student’s doctoral dissertation, for example  — 

evolutionary  changes that require many generations and that depend on infrequent genetic events.  

In my laboratory here at MSU, graduate students and I have monitored some 20,000 generations in 

bacterial populations that have been propagated for about ten years as part of one long-running 

experiment.  This experimental approach enables us to address certain evolutionary questions that 

would be difficult to resolve using a retrospective (historical) approach, such as studying fossils 

or comparing genes of living organisms.   

For example, on the theoretical side, how repeatable is evolution?  That is, what are the relative 

roles of chance — from random mutation — and necessity — reflecting natural selection — during 

evolution?  To address this question, we measure changes  that take place when several initially 

identical populations of bacteria evolve in parallel in identical laboratory environments.  On the 

applied side, are bacteria that have evolved resistance to antibiotics inferior to sensitive bacteria 

when they compete for resources, and hence for reproductive success, in the absence of antibiotic?  

If so, then this suggests that we may prevent, or at least slow, the spread of antibiotic-resistant 

bacteria by more judicious use of antibiotics. 

One of the intriguing and powerful features of bacteria for this evolutionary research is the fact that 

they can be stored frozen, in a state of suspended animation.  These frozen bacteria can be later 

revived to allow direct comparison, and even competition, with their own evolutionary 

descendants.  Imagine if we  could resurrect our own ancestors — from ten-thousand or a million 

generations ago — and challenge them to a game of chess, or in the struggle for existence.   

My students and I perform these experiments because we find them fascinating, and because 

evolution is a critically important process in the world in which we live.  It is a process that has 

shaped our own being, yet it can also confound our efforts to shape the world for our well-being.  

Response to Hefner’s Theological Theory of the Created Co-Creator 

When Dr. Johnson told me that the focus of this forum would be the dialogue between science and 

religion, I listened politely but cautiously.  I was pleased to hear this would not be another debate 

about evolution  versus  creation, and therefore would not pit  science against religion.  But as the 

magnitude of responding to Dr. Hefner has dawned on me, I’ve almost come to wish that this were 

a debate about evolution and creation!  At least then it would be easy for me to disagree with 

another speaker’s position, and to feel that I had some expert knowledge to contribute.   

Instead, my problem is this:  I am a scientist, one with no special knowledge of either theology or 

philosophy.  And yet I must respond to a distinguished theologian who has thought long and hard 

about the relationship between science and religion, and who has built on subtle philosophical 

underpinnings.  So I begin by admitting that I am in over my head and hoping that I can swim, or at 

least dog-paddle, across this vast lake.  Nonetheless, I do welcome this opportunity to respond, in 

order to express my admiration for Dr. Hefner’s work, but also to convey my own view of the 

relationship between science and religion.  My view is somewhat different from the harmonious 

and integrated vision put forward by Dr. Hefner.  

A good place to begin my reply is with a cartoon featuring  Frank  &  Ernest, which appeared a 

couple of months ago (August 2, 1998).  Ernest asks “What do you think of the idea of humans 

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evolving, Frank?” To which Frank replies “I think it’s worth a try.”  Instead of the familiar image 

about life emerging from the primordial ooze, or our descent from apes, this cartoon strikes us as 

funny because it depicts evolution in a forward-looking fashion, rather than the typical backward 

view.  In fact, it does so at two different levels, at least for me.  First, it is forward-looking in the 

literal sense of suggesting a future course of action.  Second, Frank seems to be conveying the 

progressive view that not all is well with the world as it is, that humans bear some responsibility 

for the problems, and that therefore a new course of action is necessary.   

I think this cartoon captures an important component of Dr. Hefner’s thesis.  In his own words, and 

I quote, “… in the situation to which biocultural evolution has brought us … the life not only of the 

human species, but of the entire planetary ecosystem is made to depend on a great wager going 

well.  This wager is that the cultural systems of information that the co-creator fashions will 

interface with the natural systems and with the global human culture so as to promote survival and 

a wholesome future.”  Dr. Hefner then suggests that “… the wager is not going well.  The cultural 

systems of information are not meshing adequately enough with other systems, and calamity is the 

prospect.”  He therefore proposes  “…revitalization of our mythic and ritual systems, in tandem 

with scientific understandings, so as to reorganize the necessary information.  This may help us to 

put our world together …”   

In a nutshell, I share Dr. Hefner’s profound concern for the future welfare of our species and 

planet.  I agree with him that our species has evolved the unique ability to make decisions that 

profoundly influence the future of the world in which we live.  And I share his view that this 

decision-making ability imposes on all of us a tremendous responsibility to do what it takes to 

ensure a wholesome future for our species and planet. 

As an academic who values creative synthesis, in a world where narrow specialization has 

become the norm, I admire Dr. Hefner’s effort to integrate scientific and religious perspectives.  

But I am also troubled by the idea of integrating two such different ways of knowing.  To clarify 

the reason for my discomfort, I must present my own views of the relationship between science 

and religion.  

Evidence and Faith 

What is the difference between science and religion?  I think it is fair to say that one important 

difference is that science is based on  evidence, whereas religion depends on faith.  From some 

philosophical quarters, this distinction has been criticized as naive, because science (like religion) 

also depends on certain fundamental beliefs that cannot be tested within the scientific enterprise.  

For example, science  presumes that there is some correspondence between the material universe 

and our sensory perceptions of it.  But science cannot actually prove that the world in which we 

live is “real” as opposed to a phantasm of our befuddled senses.  I will admit, grudgingly, that I 

cannot prove the material reality of that wall behind me.  However, I invite anyone who doubts 

this assertion to try walking through the wall during the next break.  Therefore, I will cling to the 

common-sense view that this distinction between science and religion  — between reliance on 

evidence and on faith — is an important one.  (As a further complication to this distinction, some 

religious persons also claim evidence for their beliefs, as witnessed in recent days by thousands of 

pilgrims who visited a farm in Georgia last week to await a message they said was from the Virgin 

Mary.  One of the pilgrims said he had on other occasions seen  both Jesus and God, and that they 

looked similar, except that God has more white hairs in his beard than does Jesus.  But this 

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religious evidence, unlike that required by science, cannot be reproduced or replicated for a 

skeptic.)  

While I hold to this difficult distinction between evidence and faith  — indeed because I make this 

distinction  — I would maintain that the existence of a supernatural God lies outside the realm of 

scientific inquiry.  Science can only address natural forces in the material universe.  In our work as 

scientists, we must assume that what we observe obeys natural laws, and that no supernatural force 

or being plays tricks with our experiments.  Otherwise, interpretation of nature becomes arbitrary.  

This basic assumption applies to all scientific fields, from nuclear physics and inorganic chemistry 

to molecular genetics and evolutionary biology.  Science therefore is unable to prove, or disprove, 

the existence of a supernatural God.  Thus, while science is based on evidence and religion 

depends on faith, the two can coexist compatibly in our lives precisely  because of their essential 

difference.   

Yet despite the compatibility of science and religion at some level, science places constraints on 

what a religious person can believe about God, if that person also accepts a scientific world view.  

Let me emphasize that I don’t mean that science is infallible.  Scientific claims are always liable to 

revision as new evidence, and even new ideas, emerge.  Nonetheless, those of us who accept the 

validity of the scientific enterprise assume that science tends to converge toward some objective 

truth, even if convergence sometimes involves taking a step back before seeing the way to move 

two steps forward.  Despite this inherent uncertainty of science, those who accept both science and 

religion as two sources of truth generally allow their understanding of science to constrain their 

personal vision of God the Creator.   

For example, if a religious person accepts the scientific evidence that the earth is several billion 

years old, and that all organisms including humans have evolved from a common ancestor, then that 

person must also accept the view that God the Creator was extremely subtle in  his actions, much 

more so than indicated by a literal interpretation of Genesis or the creation stories of most other 

religions.  Within these scientific bounds, and recognizing the inability of science to answer 

questions about the supernatural, one might still imagine very different reasons for God’s subtle 

creativity.  Perhaps God is playful and has allowed all nature the freedom to follow a path that is 

unknown even to him; or perhaps  God is willful and directed the laws of natural creation so that 

they would lead to some ultimate purpose.  But it would be in striking conflict with the scientific 

evidence to suggest that God the Creator took such direct actions as the creation stories would 

have us believe, if we read them as the literal truth.   

Thus, one view of the relationship between science and religion is this: Science can say something 

about what God the Creator has done to bring about creation.  This view is certainly not a new 

one.  Over the centuries, and continuing to the present, many scientists have justified their studies 

on the ground that they are seeking the truth about the universe in which we live, one that God 

created and gave us the powers to explore.  What better way to understand and even worship God 

than to investigate and understand his creation?  The view that science  gives  insight into God’s 

creation, and by extension into God, seems to me entirely sensible, provided that one believes in 

the existence of God the Creator.   

Science and Religion: Vive la Différence 

I now want to suggest a slightly different view of the relationship between science and religion.  It 

is an evolutionary view of their relationship within our culture that I personally find both plausible 

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and liberating, in contrast to the scientific constraints that are placed on religious belief according 

to the previous view.  As I explain this view, it should be apparent that there is an important shift 

in what I mean by religion from the way that I have used it previously, a shift from an emphasis on 

God the Creator to an emphasis on human morality.  Importantly, this shift neither confirms nor 

denies the existence of God; instead, this view simply accepts the scientific impossibility of 

settling that issue. 

While I am not a historian or a theologian, I think the case can be made that many religions have 

historically (and probably prehistorically) been conflicted between two distinct functions.  On the 

one hand, religions have often sought  to provide explanations about the natural world  — how it 

came into being, and especially our own place in the world.  The stories from Genesis of the 

creation in six days, and of the tower of Babel leading to different languages, are two familiar 

examples.  On the other hand, religions have also  sought to direct actions by explaining which 

behaviors were morally acceptable and which were not, and often prescribing rewards and 

punishments (in this life or beyond) to encourage moral behavior.  The ten commandments and the 

parables of Jesus are examples in which religion gives moral direction.  Thus, many religions, in 

an intellectual sense, have served two masters  — understanding our place in nature and giving 

moral guidance.  

But these two functions of religion sometimes come into conflict with one another, especially with 

the emergence of science as another way of explaining the natural world.  This conflict has run 

both ways, with religious groups sometimes challenging scientific findings as heretical, and 

scientists  (or individuals who usurped science) sometimes suggesting that their knowledge gave 

them special authority over issues of morality.  As examples of the former, consider the trial and 

imprisonment of Galileo by the church for stating that the earth revolved around the sun; and the 

effort today of some fundamentalist  groups to impose their creationist beliefs on the science 

curriculum in public schools.  As examples of the latter, industrialists of the Victorian era sought 

to use Darwin’s principle of natural selection to justify their exploitation of the poor and weak; 

and Nazis borrowed pseudoscientific theories of racial differences as a supposed rationale for the 

irrational genocide of the Holocaust.  

By viewing science and religion as two descendants of ancient religion, we can take comfort from 

the fact that these two interwoven realms of ancient religion  — explanation of the natural world, 

and moral direction  — continue to be present in our lives today.  Moreover, by separating  these 

two realms of understanding, each  is freed from the binding constraints of the other.  No longer 

must science be squeezed through the filter of any religious doctrine; and no longer must religion 

depend on justification in the natural world, which is often ruthless and unforgiving of mistakes.  

Let me make it clear that I don’t believe these two realms must be kept absolutely separate.  For 

example, we may use scientific data to inform the ethical course of action in medical practice.  So, 

too, we need scientific information about our impact on nature to weigh moral consequences of 

alternative behaviors with respect to the health of our planet and all its inhabitants.  And religious 

persons may wish to integrate a scientific understanding of the natural world into their religious 

framework in order to promote morality that is maximally consistent with a wholesome future, as 

exemplified by Dr. Hefner.  By the same token, scientists ought not ignore the moral implications 

of their work, for example, with regard to methods of warfare or the impact of their discoveries on 

the environment.  Moreover, scientists may investigate the evolutionary origins of certain moral 

and religious beliefs, such as prohibitions against incest or dietary laws.  And scientists may take 

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spiritual pleasure in expanding our knowledge of the universe, whether to satisfy  human curiosity 

or to promote a wholesome future by informing decisions within a moral framework. 

But my important point is this:  Our understanding of the material world no longer depends on its 

agreement with any religious faith.  At the same time, our moral dimension has the freedom to 

develop, perhaps enlightened by — but without fear of contradiction by — the natural world.   

Conclusion 

My discomfort with Dr. Hefner’s theological theory boils down to this:  He weaves science and 

religion together so tightly as to blur the boundary between them, at least in my own reading.  In a 

sense, he uses scientific evidence to support his religious faith; he uses what is known to support 

the unknowable.  But this could be a hazardous enterprise.  I think the same facts of evolution — 

with the perpetual struggle for existence and genetic rewards for selfishness — could just as easily 

be used to support a religion that both Dr. Hefner and I would find repugnant.  

So I respect Dr. Hefner’s faith, and I admire his inclusive religious tone, even as he holds fast to 

the tenets of his faith.  And I applaud his use of science and religion together to promote a more 

wholesome future for our species and our planet.  But I cannot endorse his theological theory of the 

created co-creator, just as I could not  endorse any theological theory that seeks scientific support 

for a matter of religious faith.  Science depends on internal consistency, whereas religions span an 

enormous range of mutually incompatible beliefs.  Some believe that God is embodied in nature, 

whereas others believe that God exists outside the material universe.  Some believe that morality 

evolved from within nature, whereas others believe that morals are transcendent.  Some preach 

tolerance, while others claim divine support for intolerance.  Some look forward to life after 

death, others fear life after death, while still others view this life as the only one we have.  Some 

welcome the idea of an apocalypse, while others hope for generations without end.   

Science can never settle these differences in faith.  While individual scientists may hold diverse 

religious beliefs, or none at all, science is a way of knowing about the material universe only.  

Having evolved into two distinct cultural functions  — two different ways of knowing — we can 

hope that science and religion together promote a wholesome future.  Let the dialogue continue 

between science and religion.  Mais vive la différence.