
































An Inquiry into the Diverse Articulations of Science & Religion in 

Contemporary Life 

Review by Priscila Santos da Costa

Religion and Science as Forms of Life: Anthropological Insights into Reason and Unreason

by Carles Salazar & Joan Bestard (eds)

Berghahn Books, 2015

Religion and Science as Forms of Life: Anthropological insights into Reason and Unreason is volume

edited by Carlos Salazar and Joan Bestard, and published in 2015. The main purpose of the book is to

present the reader to the different ways in which science and religion relate to each as ‘forms of life’,

that is, as a way of engaging with the world, instead of as a “set of propositions which is what the

analysis of a theory or a doctrine involves” (p. 4). According to the editors, this perspective would

allow for an understanding of how these forms articulate and affect people’s lives, instead of simply

considering  them  in  complete  opposition  to,  or  mutually  exclusive  of  one  other.  The  volume  is

comprised of eleven chapter organized into three parts, “Cognition”, “Beyond Science”, and “Meaning

Systems”.

The first part, “Cognition”, is composed of three chapters, mainly tackling the issue of why religious

and, sometimes, magical beliefs persist in modern societies. The authors write from the standpoint of

cognitive science in order to explain how this could be so, even with the advancement of scientific

reason and of its valued moral position in the western world. In the first chapter, Robert N. McCauley

argues that religious thinking benefits from the fact that it dwells upon and is propelled by what he

defines as “maturationally natural cognitive processing” (p. 28), which are ways of thinking that are

spontaneously developed in all human beings, such as the ability to learn and understand language, to

socially interact and to automatically react to dangerous situations. Scientific representations, on the



other hand, would go against natural cognition and its common-sense assumptions, requiring years of

formal learning and training from individuals.

In “Scientific  vs.  Religious  ‘Knowledge’ in  Evolutionary Perspective” (chapter  2),  Michael  Blume

makes  use  of  evolutionary  theory  to  claim  that  religiosity  is  a  fundamental  element  to  human

development and should not simply be viewed as an inferior type of knowledge when compared to

science. Religious beliefs develop and enhance pro-social human behaviour individually, socially and

institutionally, which is of special importance to setting the grounds from which rational cognition

might later evolve. Based on that, Blume concludes by arguing that instead of treating science and

religion as exclusive modes of knowing, one should understand that both are legitimate, yet different,

ways of approaching reality. In chapter 3, Jesper Sørensen draws on Malinowski’s work to ground his

evolutionist claim that men resort to magic as means of offsetting danger and uncertainty. The author

backs up this position by showing how our cognitive system reacts in face of ritualistic behaviour:

attention to performance, redundancy and clear casual cues lead us to perceive ritual efficacy, even if

there is no actual attainment of goals. Sørensen then states that given the fact that modernity presents

its own risks, and some of them taking “the form of evolutionary recurrent cues of danger” (p. 78), the

realization that ritual and magic as means of confronting those are still  found in Western societies

should not come as a surprise.

Part two, “Beyond Science”, is the longest section of the book, comprising of five chapters throughout

which  science  and  religion  are  presented  as  moral  landscapes  that  participate  in  each  other’s

construction  and  definition.  In  chapter  4,  “Moral  Employments  of  Scientific  Thought”,  Timothy

Jenkins focuses on how scientific knowledge has been incorporated and transformed outside its own

context, such as religious movements that sprang during the 20th century and popular science best-

sellers like The Da Vince Code (Brown 2004) and The God Delusion (Dawkins 2006). Jenkins refers to

these appropriations as being 'moral' because they serve the purpose of answering to questions about

the human condition, such as the existence of good and evil and “explanation[s] of how the world

operates and what is humanity’s place in it” (p. 101) – fictions that the author refers to as ‘theodicies’.

Chapter  5,  “Social  Life  of  Concepts:  Public  and  Private  ‘Knowledge’ of  Scientific  Creationism”,

written by Simon Coleman, draws on his ethnographic work among Christians in the UK to argue that

there are different ways in which creationism is conceptualised as knowledge. Coleman’s informants

were not particularly interested in engaging with creationism, especially in public discussions, and they



were also not pleased with the idea of it being taught in secular contexts, away from the church and

family. In contrast, when discussions about creationism go to the public realm, it is usually initiated by

religious detractors, who already present it as an illegitimate form of knowledge. In the process of

presenting religious views as such, Coleman argues, science (or rather, its advocates) is also creating a

nascence of sorts, namely by not taking into consideration how believers experience creationism, and

subsequent knowledge produced about it by other sciences, such as anthropology. In “The Embryo,

Sacred and Profane” (chapter 6), Marit Melhuss compares political debates that took place in the UK

and in Norway in order analyse how science, politics and religion relate to each other and position

themselves while trying to grasp the moral status of the embryo. Rather than being simply a biological

entity, the embryo has its meaning constantly changed by its insertion in broader discussions about

purpose and use. The ways in which the embryo is conceptualised – for its generative or reproductive

capacities – will inform political positions taken by the State, for example. These positions, however,

are not only defined by science, but will also reach and be influenced by other sources, such as religion.

In this sense, Melhuss argues that the embryo, while being defined by these different worldviews, is

also the entity that causes them to converge and overlap.

In  “The  Religions  of  Science  and  the  Sciences  of  Religion  in  Brazil”  (chapter  7),  Roger  Sansi

highlights the intertwined history of sciences and religion in Brazil.  Sansi describes how scientists

defined their own field by a double movement of creating a gap between their field and the so-called

religions of science (such as spiritualism) and of defining “pure” religions as science’s object of study.

According to the author, while forms of knowledge such as spiritualism, and its mixing of religion and

science, would present a menace to the modernist and European project of purification/objectification

of western (scientific) culture, African religions, such as candomblé, and their placement as a belief of

“others” is perfectly suitable for it.

Chapter 8, “Science in Action, Religion in Thought: Catholic Charismatics’ Notions about Illness”,

written by Maria  Coma,  draws on her  fieldwork among Catholic  charismatics’ healing sessions in

Spain.  Based  on  her  informants’  accounts,  Coma  shows  how  science,  and  biomedicine,  more

specifically, features in healing testimonies. According to her, believers do not exclude biomedicine and

its means of curing illnesses, but rather, they encompass and incorporate this knowledge, subjecting it

to a broader moral framework in which God is ultimately responsible for the healing process. Coma

observes  that,  when considered  as  technology,  that  is,  as  a  tool  for  God’s  ends,  science  is  in  no

opposition to religion, but rather a facilitator of religious deeds.



The third part of the volume, “Meaning System,” comprises the three last chapters of the book. Here,

the authors focus on how meaning is created and its place in people’s lives, instead of concentrating on

the  way  science  and  religion  are  articulated  in  specific  social  contexts.  In  “On the  Resilience  of

Superstition” (chapter 9), João de Pina-Cabral explores the possibility of a different understanding of

concepts  such as  those  of  ‘belief’ and ‘superstition’,  by  introducing the  notion  of  “participation”,

proposed by Lévy-Bruhl (p. 175). Pina-Cabral’s aim is to move from an anthropological position that

considers belief as a set of propositions about the world to one that sees it as an embodied practice

through which humans make sense of their everyday life. In the same vein, Tom Inglis, in chapter 10,

argues  that  more  important  than  grasping whether  or  not  beliefs  are  incongruent  to  each other,  is

understanding how at each moment they are put to use. Based on interviews carried out among Irish

Catholics, Inglis concludes that, for most of them, there is no problem in articulating magical, religious

and scientific beliefs. Rather, different kinds of knowledge were put to work according to their different

needs and purposes, and the important thing was to sustain meaning and coherence in their lives.

In chapter 11,” Can the dead suffer trauma? Religion and Science after the Vietnam War”, Heonik

Kwon extends the discussion about the centrality of meaning in everyday life by analysing how the

Vietnam war differently impacted Vietnamese and American societies. Kwon describes how, during the

1990s, Vietnamese communities started making sense of the traumatic experience of war by performing

commemorative death rituals to those killed during it as a means of liberating their souls, trapped as

they were in perpetual suffering. The author contrasts this practice to, on the one hand, earlier attempts

by the Vietnamese State to situate war efforts and loss within the context of nationalistic sacrifice; and,

on the other, to the medicalization of traumatic personal experiences through the official recognition of

post-traumatic stress disorder in the United States.

Religion and Science as Forms of Life: Anthropological Insights into Reason and Unreason brings

together various theoretical positions from which to consider how forms of knowledge are articulated,

opposed or mingled together, and their impact in different social settings. It is of special interest for

academics  in  the  field  of  anthropology and sociology of  religion,  but  it  can  also be  of  particular

relevance to anyone interested in analyses that explore the categories of ‘superstition’ and ‘belief’.

References Cited

Brown, D. 2004. The Da Vince Code. Londom: Random House



Dawkins, R. 2006. The God Delusion. London: Bantam.

Priscila Santos da Costa is a PhD student in Social Anthropology at the University of St.Andrews,

Scotland. She has done fieldwork in the Parliament of Papua New Guinea and is currently writing her

dissertation.

© 2016 Priscila Santos da Costa


