Word of Wisdom from Stephen Jay Gould

From Mr. Gould's essay, Knight Takes Bishop?

But no battle exists between science and religion--the two most separate spheres of human need. A titanic struggle occurs, always has, always will, between questioning and authority, free inquiry and frozen dogma--but the institutions representing these poles are not science and religion. These struggles occur within each field, not primarily across disciplines. The general ethic of science leads to greater openness, but we have our fossils, often in positions of great power. Organized religion, as an arm of state power so frequently in history, has tended to rigidity--but theologies have also spearheaded social revolution. Official religion has not opposed evolution as a monolith. Many prominent evolutionists have been devout, an many churchmen have place evolution at the center of their personal theologies. Henry War Beecher, America's premier pulpiteer during Darwin's century, defended evolution as God's way in a striking commercial metaphor: "Design by wholesale is grander than design by retail"---better, that is, to ordain general laws of change than to make each species by separate fiat.

The struggle of free inquiry against authority is so central, so pervasive that we need all the help we can get from every side. Inquiring scientists must join hands with questioning theologians if we wish to preserve that most fragile of all reed, liberty itself. If scientists lose their natural allies by casting entire institutions as enemies, and not seeking bonds with soul mates on other paths, then we only make a difficult struggle that much harder.

Hear, hear. Articulately state by one of our great scientific authors, Stephen Jay Gould. I wish he was still alive writing the wonderful essays on evolution he so eloquently wrote for Scientific American. I can't tell how I've enjoyed reading, his essays. The paragraphs from above can be found in the book "Bully for Brontosaurus", a book I could not recommend more highly.