I went along to the Royal Society last night to the launch of Test of Faith, a project that is concerned with raising the level of popular debate about science and religion. Everyone is familiar with the polarised debate between the New Atheists on the one hand and religious extremists on the other. The trouble with that debate is precisely that it's less a genuine debate about truth, and more an argument between two belief systems, based on the assumption that there is an intellectual choice to be made between science or religion.

Test of Faith is putting the debate about science and religion on a much more intersting footing, by recognising that both of them are concerned with the pursuit of truth, each of them has a different epistemological method, and they are entirely complementary. It was good to see world-class scientists insisting that science must recognise its own constraints in order to be good science, and that theology must occupy all of the ground, not just the little gaps that seem to be left over by science, in order to be good theology. All of them were clear that there is no conflict between science and theology/religion, but that each must be both fearless and humble in their pursuit of truth.

There's a variety of materials available from the project, a very well-made DVD introduces the ideas (three half hour documentary programmes). The Test of Faith documentary has won Silver in the category Best Documentary in the 2009 IVCA (International Visual Communications Association) Awards. There's a couple of accompanying books for leading small group discussion after watching the documentaries, and a book about the spiritual journeys of a dozen or so leading scientists. Here's the trailer: 

The project is ongoing. based at the Faraday Institute, and some materials for schools are in production. It would be good to see a more heavyweight book on the main issues that were raised in last night's discussion, but all in good time…