Religion and Science

Abstract How have anthropologists theorized the relationship between religion and science? This chapter presents two ways of addressing this question. First, I consider how anthropologists have sought to delimit the epistemological boundaries of “religion” and “science” as differentiating fields. Second, I explore how religion and science become entangled in particular ways, and what we gain from engaging these entanglements ethnographically. To illustrate, I present examples of religion and archaeology (with case studies from Hindutva, Mormonism, and creationism) and religion and reproductive science (with case studies from US evangelicalism, Judaism in Israel, and Islam in Egypt). Rather than seeking to separate religion and science as discrete categories, an approach grounded in ethnographic entanglements treats religion and science as lived systems, enmeshed in dialogic relations, always addressing and implicating one another through institutional formations, ritual structures, and everyday performances.