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Model. On this tier, science and religion are neither in conflict nor in agreement but are, in Stephen Jay Gould’s phrase, “nonoverlapping magisteria” (NOMA).8 Before science began its ascent four centuries ago, religion provided an explanation for the natural world in the form of various cosmogony myths. Since the scientific revolution, however, science has taken over the job of explaining the natural world, making obsolete ancient religious sagas of origins and creation. Yet religion thrives in the modern age because it still serves a useful purpose as an institution for social cohesiveness and as a guide to finding personal meaning and spirituality, a function that science has left largely untouched.

God as a Null Hypothesis

Can the conflicting-worlds and same-world models of science and religion work? Frankly, they cannot. To accept science requires accepting one of its central tenets: that a claim must be falsifiable; that is, there has to be some way to test the claim and show that it is false. If it cannot be proven false, then it cannot be proven true. The philosopher of science Karl Popper made the definitive statement on the matter: “I shall not require of a scientific system that it shall be capable of being singled out, once and for all, in a positive sense; but I shall require that its logical form shall be such that it can be singled out, by means of empirical tests, in a negative sense: it must be possible for an empirical scientific system to be refuted by experience.”9

On the question of God’s existence, what criteria for falsifiability could we establish? If we want to make God’s existence a scientific question that can be decided by empirical evidence, we would need to establish an operational definition of God and quantifiable criteria by which we can arrive at a testable conclusion of the deity’s existence. In experimental science we begin by accepting the “null hypothesis” that whatever is being tested does not exist or has no effect. If the evidence is significant, we may “reject the null hypothesis” and conclude that our subject does exist or has some effect. In subjecting God to experimental science, we would have to begin by accepting the null hypothesis that He does not exist, and then assess the evidence to determine if it is significant enough to reject the null hypothesis.

The claim that intercessory prayer (in which one prays for God to intercede) can effect healing, for example, is testable. If true, it would imply that the deity is acting in our world in some measurable fashion. However, the handful of studies that have found significant differences between the prayed-for experimental group and the not-prayed-for control group have had deep methodological flaws (such as not controlling for age, socioeconomic class, or condition of health before entering the hospital, all of which influence recovery).10 To date, strictly controlled prayer studies, as a testable hypothesis of God’s divine providence, have failed the test.

The numerous other claims by Intelligent Design creationists that science supports belief in God also fall dramatically short of the empirical standards of science. Based on these results, were we to take a strictly scientific approach to the God question, we would have to reject the God hypothesis. Are theists willing to go this far when they attempt to use science to support their religious tenets? I doubt it, which is precisely why the separate-worlds model is the best approach to take for theists.

A Is A: Why Science Cannot Contradict Religion

Darwin’s separate-worlds approach to science and religion worked well for him in both his home and his culture, but it still leaves open the deeper question about whether one can logically believe in God and accept evolution. That is, if carried to its logical conclusion, does the theory of evolution preclude belief in God? This is where the epistemological rubber meets the hypothetical road.

Belief in God depends on religious faith. Acceptance of evolution depends on empirical evidence. This is the fundamental