Science and the Sacred: Ruse, Michael

Michael Ruse is an author and philosopher of biology well known for his works on the creationism and evolution debate. Though not a believer in God, he takes the position that Christianity and evolution are not incompatible. Ruse's latest book, Science and Spirituality: Making Room for Faith in the Age of Science, published by Cambridge University Press, argues against the extremes of both creationism and "new atheism". You can read more about Ruse here.

Blogs by Ruse

Accommodationism in the Religion-Science Debate: Why It’s Incomplete

September 25, 2010

The New Atheists continue to swing out against all and sundry. The Pope is an ever-popular target, especially with his trip to Britain. President Obama is another punching bag these days. [...] But there is always a little venom to spare for the so-called "accommodationists," these being folk who think that one might possibly be onside with science and yet be religious.
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Accommodationist and Proud of It, Part VI

April 16, 2010

My form of Accommodationism says that science can only go so far and that after this if religion wants to take over, science as science cannot stop it. You can use other arguments, theological and philosophical, and this I myself would do. But these are not scientific arguments.
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Accommodationist and Proud of It, Part V: Science and Spirituality

April 9, 2010

I come to my new book, the third volume of the trilogy on science and religion: Science and Spirituality: Making Room for Faith in the Age of Science. The argument in this book is simple –– indeed so simple I worry that others must have already made it. If they have not made it was it because it is obviously wrong?
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Accommodationist and Proud of It, Part IV: Science and Religion

April 1, 2010

After a decade of relative quiet following the Creationist debacle in Arkansas, the coming of the Intelligent Design movement in the 1990s had started again to bring the pot to the boil. I wanted to get involved one more time, but I sensed that what was needed was less a direct attack on Intelligent Design (others were already at work on this) and more something general, drawing on my expertise.
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Accommodationist and Proud of It, Part III: From Historian of Science to Creationism Fighter

March 26, 2010

I had found my métier. On the one hand, my training in the history and philosophy of evolutionary biology had prepared me for their arguments, better I suspect than a training in straight science; on the other hand, my personality, honed by a decade of heavy teaching loads facing many, many undergraduates, made me a natural for the stage, realizing that in these circumstances a good joke will get you much further than a long serious argument.
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Accommodationist and Proud of It, Part II: A Christian Childhood

March 18, 2010

Childhood Christianity just faded away in my early twenties. There wasn’t any kind of Road to Damascus experience in reverse, nor was it a direct function of taking up philosophy. The feelings and beliefs just went. They have never returned.
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Why I Think the New Atheists are a Bloody Disaster

August 14, 2009

Let me say that I believe the new atheists do the side of science a grave disservice. I will defend to the death the right of them to say what they do - as one who is English-born one of the things I admire most about the USA is the First Amendment. But I think first that these people do a disservice to scholarship. Their treatment of the religious viewpoint is pathetic to the point of non-being.
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Accommodationist and Proud of It, Part I

March 13, 2010

I have been called many things in my time, but I truly believe that “clueless gobshite” is a first. In a way, I am almost proud of this. After all, if you are in your seventieth year and someone feels so strongly about your ideas that they refer to you in this way, then you must be doing something right. Or if not exactly right, you must have ideas that others want to challenge so strongly that they pull out this kind of language.
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