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Science and religion, while often perceived as mutually exclusive, are in fact fully compatible.

There are a few issues on which science and religion- or, more correctly, scientists and theists- seem to reject each other. One such example is the theory of evolution. Here, the religion-oriented theory of Intelligent design is often pitted against the Darwinian theory of evolution. This conflict has portrayed believers in god as un-scientific and ignorant, while it has caused many on the Darwinian side to be highly disparaging and cynical towards religion.

Why must this be? The Rambam (Maimonides), one of the greatest Jewish philosophers in history, wrote the book "Guide to the Perplexed" as a synthesis between the Jewish religion and the science of his time. He synthesized the ideas of Aristotle and other philosophers with the religion he believed in. This is a wonderful example of a compromising approach; rather than claim that everything Aristotle said was false, the Rambam simply showed a synthesis where he and Aristotle agreed and provided refutations to claims of Aristotle's that were not logically sound. The same can be done today. Is there truly an absolute contradiction between Darwinian biology and the religous view? Part of Darwinian biology is rather irrefutable; for example, it is well known that viruses mutate and that humans preserve characteristics with survival advantages. However, the theory that man evolved from apes is not yet solidly proven. The religous approach merely suggests that man was created by god. Now, much like the big bang theory, the Darwinian theory has a problem explaining the initial phase (if everything evolves from a previous species, what was the first species?). This could be explained as the moment of creation, just as in the big bang.

After all, religion and science deal with different questions, and so their answers cannot be contradictory. Science is based on observing the world and answering the question "how?". Physics explains how bodies and forces move and interact; Biology explains how creatures function; Chemistry explains how materials are formed and how various materials interact; and so forth. Religion, on the other hand, explores the "why", which is an unscientific question. The physicist cannot deal with the question "why do we exist", but theists can. Because the topics they deal with are separate, there is no reason they should conflict.

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