Free Rocks of Ages by Stephen Jay Gould Page B

through generation, is passed on to all and is in everyone as his own.” In this one instance, Pius may be trangressing the NOMA principle—but I cannot judge, for I do not understand the details of Catholic theology and therefore do not know how symbolically such a statement may be read. If Pius is arguing that we cannot entertain a theory about derivation of all modern humans from an ancestral population rather than through an ancestral individual (a potential fact) because such an idea would question the doctrine of original sin (a theological construct), then I would declare him out of line for letting the magisterium of religion dictate a conclusion with the magisterium of science.

Coda and Segue
    J . S. HALDANE (1860–1936) , A GREAT Scottish physiologist and deeply religious man (also the father of J. B. S. Haldane, the even more famous evolutionary biologist who tended to radicalism in politics and atheism in theology), delivered the Gifford Lectures, a series dedicated to exploring the relationships between science and philosophy, at the University of Glasgow in 1927. Haldane devoted his lecture on “the sciences and religion” to the optimal solution of NOMA, and its central implications for religious thinkers on the subject of miracles and explanations of the natural world. Haldane began:
    It is often supposed that the sciences … are essentially incompatible with religion. At present, this is a widespread popular belief for whichthere seems at first sight to be a substantial basis; and certainly this belief is common among scientific men themselves, although they may say little about it, out of respect for those who do hold sincere religious beliefs and whose lives they admire.
    Haldane then locates the major barrier to NOMA in confusion of all forms of religious belief with the particular claim—which does mix the magisteria in contention and would therefore preclude NOMA—that much of material nature has been constructed by miracles inaccessible in principle to scientific study:
    To those who believed that religion is dependent on a belief in supernatural intervention it seemed to be dying the death of other superstitions. Yet as a matter of fact religion continued to appeal to men as strongly as before, or perhaps more strongly.… I think that [I can] make clear the underlying explanation of this. If my reasoning has been correct, there is no real connection between religion and the belief in supernatural events of any sort or kind.
    Finally, Haldane insists that this attitude toward miracles flows from his own deep and active commitmentto religion, and not from any protective attitude toward his own magisterium of science:
    I can put my heart into this attempt [to formulate the proper relationship between science and religion] because no one can feel more strongly than I do that religion is the greatest thing in life, and that behind the recognized Churches there is an unrecognized Church to which all may belong, though supernatural events play no part in its creed.
    Haldane’s argument underlines the toughness of NOMA and provides an apt transition to the second half of this book, where I ask why so many people continue to reject such a humane, sensible, and wonderfully workable solution to the great nonproblem of our times. NOMA is no wimpish, wallpapering, superficial device, acting as a mere diplomatic fiction and smoke screen to make life more convenient by compromise in a world of diverse and contradictory passions. NOMA is a proper and principled solution—based on sound philosophy—to an issue of great historical and emotional weight. NOMA is tough-minded. NOMA forces dialogue and respectful discourse about different primary commitments. NOMA does not say “I’m OK, you’re OK—so let’s just avoid any talk about science and religion.”
    As such, NOMA imposes requirements that become very difficult for many people. In particular, NOMA does challenge certain particular (and popular)