Are science and religion compatible with one another? More specifically: Can one accept the scientific fact that human beings are the result of the 4 billion year process of evolution in which we share common ancestry with all other organisms that inhabit the earth, and at the same time believe the Biblical and Quranic accounts according to which we are all descended from a single couple who were directly created by God? For many the answer is an unequivocal “No”. This includes the members of creationist organizations such as Answers in Genesis, the Institute for Creation Research and the Discovery Institute who try to discredit the theory of evolution in favour of the belief that humans are a special creation of God. On the other side are atheist scientists such as Richard Dawkins, Jerry Coyne and PZ Myers who argue that acceptance of scientific ideas like evolution renders belief in God untenable.
However, there remains a number of people who take an in-between position. In fact, I suspect a majority of people, professional scientists and laypersons alike, simply hold to their religious beliefs (or lack thereof) with little or no thought given to how these relate to the scientific principles which they accept. But there exist a group of people, often referred to as theistic evolutionists or evolutionary creationists, who are equally as devoted to theism as they are to science and actively work to create a reconciliation between the two.
