
The Brief
Get Up To SpeedOn the fundamental question--evolution or creation?--Americans are on the fence. According to one survey, while 61% of Americans believe we have evolved over time, 22% believe this evolution was guided by a higher power, with another 31% on the side of creationism. For some, modern science debunks many of religion's core beliefs, but for others, questions like "Why are we here?" and "How did it all come about?" can only be answered through a belief in the existence of God. Can science and religion co-exist?
View Debate PageLawrence Krauss

- Director, Origins Project and Foundation Professor at ASU
A wide-ranging interview with Lawrence Krauss after the publication of his book, A Universe From Nothing.
Following the breakthrough discovery of the Higgs particle, Krauss explains its importance in the universes creation.
Two prominent advocates for science discuss how scientists should approach religion and its followers.
As particle physics revolutionizes the concepts of "something" (elementary particles and the forces that bind them) and "nothing" (the dynamics of empty space or even the absence of space), the famous question, "Why is there something rather than nothing?" is also revolutionized.
Tensions between religion and science will persist unless believers recognise that skepticism is a hallmark of science.
Julian Baggini fears that, as we learn more and more about the universe, scientists are becoming increasingly determined to stamp their mark on other disciplines. Here, he challenges theoretical physicist Lawrence Krauss over 'mission creep' among his peers.
Krauss explains the groundbreaking new scientific advances that turn the most basic philosophical questions on their heads in his newest book.
Michael Shermer

- Founder, The Skeptics Society & Best-Selling Author
“Science and faith do battle as arch rivals Michael Shermer and Deepak Chopra debate in this ABC Nightline Face-off.”
“Science is a verb and a way of thinking about things.”
Shermer and D’Souza debate whether religion is a force for good or evil in the world, and whether morality requires God.
Michael Shermer gives his argument against the existence of God.
“Are atheists who believe in aliens falling for one of humanity's oldest brain biases?”
Shermer discusses his new book and argues, among other things, that religious and scientific attempts at the afterlife are problematic.
“Religion was the first social institution to canonize moral principles, and God as an explanatory pattern for the world took on new powers as the ultimate enforcer of the rules. Thus it is that people are religious and believe in God.”
“I believe that it is time to step out of our religious traditions and embrace science as the best tool ever devised for explaining how the world works, and to work together to create a social and political world that embraces moral principles and yet allows for natural human diversity to flourish.”
“Religion and philosophy have had their say for thousands of years what’s moral and not moral. I’m just saying let’s add to our quiver the arrow of science.”
“Why the decline? One factor is the dramatic spread of democracy around the globe over the past half a century.”
“The arc of the moral universe bends not only toward justice, but toward truth and freedom, and these positive outcomes have largely been the product of societies moving toward more secular forms of governance and politics, law and jurisprudence, moral reasoning and ethical analysis.”
“Religion. It is religion more than anything else that keeps people from wanting others to have the same rights as they do.”
“’There is no one answer to what makes a perfect society,’ he [Michael Shermer] says, and the attempt to create an earthly paradise can turn murderous.”
“Shermer begins with a simple notion: Humans are mortal, and yet it is near impossible to imagine our mortality. You cannot picture your death because you would no longer exist to experience it.”
“Skepticism, it would seem, is context-dependent.”
“We live in the here and now, not the hereafter, so our actions must be judged according to the criteria of this category, whether or not the category of a God-granted hereafter exists.”
Shermer explores what created the universe and explains multiple universes, M-theory, quantum foam creation, and other hypotheses still in their formative stage.
Shermer discusses 12 possible answers to the question of why there is something rather than nothing.
Forget about resurrection - the only way to reach immortality is by creating a legacy.
Shermer examines the difference between supernatural design (creationism) and natural design (evolution).
Scientologys origins were based in a science fictions writers desire to earn money and have no actual basis in science.
Ian Hutchinson

- Professor of Nuclear Science and Engineering, MIT
A critical look at scientism, the belief that science is all the real knowledge that exists.
Hutchinson discusses the science/faith debate, Intelligent Design, and the Christian response.
Science and faith are complementary views of the world.
Dinesh D'Souza

- Author, What's So Great About Christianity
Even if we set aside religious conviction, there are compelling reasons to believe in life after death.
When science, far from disproving God, seems to be pointing with ever-greater precision toward transcendence, imagination and wishful thinking seem all that is left for the atheists to count on.
So does a belief in evolution automatically lead to disbelief in God? Actually, Darwin didn't think that. Darwin was not an "intellectually fulfilled atheist"; rather, he called himself an agnostic.
The best empirical evidence for life after death comes from people who have had near death experiences.
Atheism foolishly presumes that reason is, in principle, capable of figuring out all that there is, while theism at least knows that there is a reality greater than, and beyond, that which our senses and our minds can ever apprehend.
Many of the conflicts that are counted as religious wars were not fought over religion. They were mainly fought over rival claims to territory and power.
An interview with Kings College President Dinesh DSouza: why hell argue against the motion, The World Would Be Better Off Without Religion, at the Nov. 15 Slate/Intelligence Squared U.S. debate.
The undecided person is right to wonder how Christianity will make his life better. After all, he is considering not only whether to believe something but whether to base his life on it. DSouza enumerates some concrete ways in which Christianity can improve our lives.
Across the globe, religious faith is thriving and religious people are having more children. By contrast, atheist conventions only draw a handful of embittered souls, and the atheist lifestyle seems to produce listless tribes that cannot even reproduce themselves.
Stan Guthrie, Breakpoint, November 12 & 19, 2009
An interview with DSouza about his life as a Christian apologist.
Evolutionists have some ingenious explanations for morality. But do they work?
If evolution cannot explain how humans became moral primates, what can?
Dinesh DSouza, the new president of New York Citys only Evangelical college, wants to build a Christain A-team.
FOR
The original problem with religion is that it is our first, and our worst, attempt at explanation.
The irrationality connected to religion is something to be feared.
The conflict between religion and science is inherent and (very nearly) zero-sum.
AGAINST
I am a scientist and a believer, and I find no conflict between those world views.
Belief in God is not antithetical to the advancement of science.
Scientists like Richard Dawkins say the universe has no design, no purpose, no evil and no good, but these things are not the business of science.
Today many scientists say there is no conflict between their faith and their work.
OVERVIEW
Carroll, Shermer, D'Souza and Hutchinson go head-to-head over science and religion at Cal Tech.
Can religion stand up to the progress of science? Excerpts from a discussion between Richard Dawkins and Francis Collins.
Polls
An overview of the changing relationship that religion and science have had in the U.S. both as adversaries and allies.
A minority of Americans believes that humans evolved with no influence from God -- but the number has risen from 9% in 1982 to 16% today.
Most Americans believe in God, 83%. While only 4% of the public say they do not believe in a deity or higher power, a plurality of scientists say they do not (41%).