期刊名称：Evolutionary Psychology: an international journal of evolutionary approaches to psychology and behavior
印刷版ISSN：1474-7049
出版年度：2009
卷号：07
期号：01
页码：82-87
出版社：Ian Pitchford, Ed.& Pub
摘要：This work, a collection of original essays, is a valuable, if uneven, contribution to the growing study of religion from an evolutionary perspective. In introducing the book, editor Rick Goldberg begins with a question: “Does biological science really disprove religion?” (p. xi). He then claims that this work is distinct from other books on science and religion because it refrains from “dipping even once into this omnipresent, 150-year-old disputation” (p. xi). Then, one may wonder, why begin the Foreword by raising that very dispute? It may be, as Goldberg suggests, that he wants it to be clear what his book is not about; to warn the reader against bringing any unwarranted expectations to their reading. As Goldberg recognizes, any discussion that includes both religion and biology is liable to set off alarms and provoke a defensive reaction that may bias the reader, denying the book’s argument a fair hearing. And, in fact, this book is not about the conflict between science and religion, nor is it an attempt to use biology to disprove religion; neither does it present biology through a religiously-filtered lens. Rather the book does what Goldberg claims it is intended to do: “to introduce recent scholarship on human evolution to readers who have an ongoing interest in Judaism and/or the Jewish people” (p. xi). But there is, I believe, another reason to raise the specter of the science/religion clash, even when disavowed as it is here—it is an unavoidable implication of any project that brings biology to bear on religion.
