Introduction

This chapter introduces the idea that elites and the public use different forms of reasoning in their views of religion and science. There are three possible relationships between religion and science. The first concerns systemic knowledge where, when there is conflict, religion and science are incompatible ways of knowing that are both logically coherent back to first principles. The second relationship concerns propositional belief where, when there is conflict, individual fact claims between a religion and science are different. The third relationship is moral, and this occurs when a religious group and scientists have different views of what is good. This is rarely talked about in current academic debate, but it is the most important type of conflict for the contemporary public.