The relationship between Darwin's theory of evolution and religion has been, to say the least, a controversial topic ever since the publication of On the Origin of Species in 1859. Interestingly enough, evolutionary biologists have had and continue to have quite different views about this relationship. The questions that I want to address in this paper are: (1) what views about the proper relationship between science and religion can we find among contemporary evolutionary biologists? and (2) how should we assess these views? – more specifically, which one (if any) is the most reasonable one to adopt? In relation to these issues, I shall also ask (3) what would count as Darwinian heresy on this matter?

Two radically different perspectives on these issues can be found among evolutionary biologists. On the one hand, we have Darwinians, such as Stephen Jay Gould, who hold that religion and evolutionary biology (or, more broadly speaking, science) are logically distinct and fully separate domains with different subject matters, methods, and aims. On the other, we have those such as Edward O. Wilson and Richard Dawkins, who think that science in general, and especially biology, severely undermines traditional religion and that science, to some extent, can even replace religion. Let us first look at these views in more detail and then assess them critically. Let us also ask whether there is any other way of understanding the relationship between science (and, in particular, evolutionary biology) and religion.