Ken Wilson
1 min readJan 20, 2021

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Yes. I don't think most people realize how deep the suspicion of science is within fundamentalism-evangelicalism. Parents of kids will pray that their student get an A in biology, then forget what they have learned. Literally (a dear friend of mine bears witness to this.) I'm fine with the non-overlapping magesteria (Stephen Gould, I think, the biologist came up with this) but as you note it's not entirely non-overlapping--I think that's a simplification. In particular I'm concerned that religious faith also needs to depend on evidence, though what constitutes evidence is broader than evidence understood within the framework of the scientific method. But faith too needs to be verified by evidence (experience can be understood as a form of evidence). The narrow framing of the scientific method is extremely powerful for understanding material reality, but it's not the only evidentiary method. Humans have always learned by acting, observing the consequence of actions, revising based on new information, etc. Often within conservative religious spaces evidence is poo-poohed entirely (or simply cooked up superficially) and "absolute truth" is something entirely rooted in a trusted authority source.

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Ken Wilson
Ken Wilson

Written by Ken Wilson

Co-Author with Emily Swan of Solus Jesus: A Theology of Resistance, and co-pastor of Blue Ocean Faith, Ann Arbor, a progressive, inclusive church (a2blue.org).

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