ABSTRACT
This chapter reviews some of the history of how science and religion have interacted. While the conflict and warfare view of the relationship between science and religion has been thoroughly discredited, it nevertheless remains part of the culture, at least in the United States. The position on science and religion held by Richard Dawkins, Steven Pinker, Daniel Dennett and others is thought by many to be how scientists have always viewed religion with suspicion. Science also has numerous definitions. Originally used to mean knowledge, the definition of science now encompasses both content and methodology. For most people, science refers specifically to the natural sciences of physics, chemistry, biology and related disciplines, and is barely a century old. Biblical literalists, according to Ian Barbour, also see a basic conflict between religion and science. Dawkins is famous as a leading zoologist and proponent of Darwinian evolution.
