...in a world dangerously charged with ideology, science needs to take on an evangelical role, vying with religion as teller of the greatest story ever told.

This statement seems to capture the message at a forum at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla, Calif. (Video clips of the forum can be found here.) I fear the religious references ('evangelical,' 'greatest story ever told') are clever but only serve to put the two alternatives on a level playing field. But they are not to be found currently on a level playing field; and we should not consider them to be equivalently supported options. One view supports critical inquiry along with continuous assessment and revision as it systematically confronts the world in all its complexity and detail, and the other does not, perferring a faith that halts inquiry and rejects reason. The latter is the dangerous ideology.

Terry Sejnowski and Roger Bingham offer the folllowing rationale for the meetings of scientists and philosophers.

Just 40 years after a famous TIME magazine cover asked "Is God Dead?" the answer appears to be a resounding "No!" According to a survey by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life in a recent issue of Foreign Policy magazine, "God is Winning". Religions are increasingly a geopolitical force to be reckoned with. Fundamentalist movements - some violent in the extreme - are growing. Science and religion are at odds in the classrooms and courtrooms. And a return to religious values is widely touted as an antidote to the alleged decline in public morality. After two centuries, could this be twilight for the Enlightenment project and the beginning of a new age of unreason? Will faith and dogma trump rational inquiry, or will it be possible to reconcile religious and scientific worldviews? Can evolutionary biology, anthropology and neuroscience help us to better understand how we construct beliefs, and experience empathy, fear and awe? Can science help us create a new rational narrative as poetic and powerful as those that have traditionally sustained societies? Can we treat religion as a natural phenomenon? Can we be good without God? And if not God, then what?

This is a critical moment in the human situation, and The Science Network in association with the Crick-Jacobs Center brought together an extraordinary group of scientists and philosophers to explore answers to these questions. The conversation took place at the Salk Institute, La Jolla, CA from November 5-7, 2006.

it's wonderful to see so many politically and socially active scientists and philosophers bringing their expertise and concerns to bear on such an important issue. We need to make the world safe for critical inquiry and healthy skepticism. We've seen too clearly--recently and throughout history--what happens when religious fundamentalism finds its way into political spheres of influence and power. We see it in the news when airplanes fly into buildingsl and when women can't obtain safe abortions or can't get emergency contraception. And I see it in the classroom when students refuse to consider valid and well-supported scientific theories about how changes in nature take place over time.

A Free-for-All on Science and Religion - New York Times

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