Drees’ TypologyOne of the most important analyses of the
relation between science and religion is that of Willem B. Drees in Religion, Science and Naturalism a) That religion contains a number of
elements other than the cognitive-propositional.
Willem B Drees’ categories of effects on different aspects of religion posed by science (Drees, 1996, 45). This broadens the debate helpfully, and shows that the categories that have received most attention, Drees’ ‘1a. Content,’ form only one aspect of a complex matrix. These categories concern science’s propositional claims and the way they impinge upon the cognitive claims developed by theologies. Drees shows that these interactions do not exhaust the content of science’s interaction with religions, or the challenges science poses to them. See however a critique of Willem B Drees’ typology. b) Drees also recognises clearly that religion is itself a phenomenon in the
evolution of human culture. As such it is an object of scientific study. It
is less evident, though equally important, to note that the activities of
scientific communities are properly the subject of theological and ethical
critique. What values do the communities actually
evince? Are they committed to disinterested enquiry, or merely to a
self-perpetuating search for funding? Does their source of funding constrain
what results they can obtain [as may be the case with those epidemiologists
employed by the tobacco industry, or those climatologists employed by oil companies]? For further thoughts, see religion as evolutionary phenomenon. Also see critical realism in science and religion and consonances between science and religion.
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