NOMA is the idea that science and religion talk to different questions and so both have domains where they remain authoritative.

From wiki

As a theist I found the concept useful, it articulates a reconciliation of faith in science and religion that I think a lot of theists intuitively hold. It offers concessions to both, it restricts religion to questions of ultimate meaning and morality and grants science dominion of how the universe works.

What surprises me is that it’s originator Stephen Jay Gould, was an agnostic and an evolutionary biologist. I can understand the appeal for theists especially theist scientists, I can appreciate how the division into discrete domains would enable the practitioner of both to apply different methodologies using distinct frameworks. But from an agnostic it seems only to say that the author doesn’t, or can’t, know whether there is ultimate meaning or objective moral standards.

What further concerns me is Gould’s statement

It seems wrong to claim a principled position on moral grounds when any moral premise is reliant on a framework one is agnostic on. I get he’s smart so I must be missing something.

I never saw a conflict between science and religion, I still don’t, and that’s why the idea appealed to me but I suspect its concessions are too high a price. If both science and religion look to speak about the real world then when claims conflict at least one of those claims must be wrong. What Gould seems to do is cede the stuff he’s not interested in to protect that which he is. Despite his protestations that it was a morally and intellectually principled position there’s substance to the idea it was designed to provide a framework where largely theistic audiences could accept evolution.

Why are the two domains science and theology, rather than science and philosophy? Very generally, the differences get presented as the 'how' questions vs the 'why' questions. Other than the supernatural element, couldn't theology (at least approximately) be described as being a subset, or particular type of, philosophy? Or is the supernatural element just too important?

Claims of this nature usually tend towards "obviously" or "obviously not" depending on what, precisely, one means. For instance, if one wants to think of a moral prescription for the universe, when they are clearly different domains. Science doesn't offer normative claims, as religion does.

If instead you want to think of religion as a set of truth claims about the nature of the universe then those claims can, and at times have been, questions on which science can give different answers. As in, whether the universe is heliocentric, whether evolution exists, and so on. If you want to think of religion as a "spiritual relationship" or something like this, then this usually doens't overlap with science (although there are certainly some forms of naturalism where one might say one has a spiritual relationship with Mother Earth or Nature or some such capitalized word).

One can think of the two as actors in the world. For instance, I can pray that my cancer is cured, or I can get my next surgery (which is on monday! eek!) to get it cured, or both. This is clearly the same domain (curing my cancer) but giving two different methods for the agents of who and how my cancer is cured.

One can think of them as epistemologies, ie different approaches to discovering truth (opposed to just different truth claims). In science one aims to understand the universe via experimentation and modelling and so on. In religion one aims to understand the universe via study of religious texts, praying, and so on. For example, one can dig up fossils to learn about how any history of life on this planet or one can interpret bible passages.

And so on.

Generally, religion and science tend to stay away from each other, despite these differences. When you abandon the evolution example, most contemporary truth claims are about different subject matter (historically you might say that science "won" its dominance over particular claims in, say, cosmology but instances of this are rarer than one might suspect). The different methodologies to knowledge are applied to different questions. Even agency is complimentary more than contradictory (one might pray I have my cancer cured but still agree I ought to have the surgery).

So I would say that while very different, on balance the do apply those differences in relatively different domains, and overlaps are relatively rare for most of the variety of ways of thinking about it.

I suspect it's too important.

The general framing of the how vs the why is what I suspect gives NOMA its intuitive appeal. The problem is the criteria seems arbitrary, why are questions of morality ceded to religion rather that non religious moral philosophies? It seems that by granting religion dominion of ethics it makes morality contingent on religion. Given the authors agnosticism this may be just a concession that objective moral standards are only available if God but I don't think it's a concession Gould's qualified to make.

Gould states:

That would seem to make philosophy a better choice for a domain. Grant science how the world works and give ethics to philosophers. The problem is it becomes nonsensical to defend a position that they don't over lap. If the philosophy of science can't overlap with science then it's not the philosophy of science. Similarly phil of mind or neurophilosophy.

I also think science should be done ethically and scientific inquiry should inform ethical debate. I don't think you can maintain a separation if both speak to how aspects of the world works. Gould accepts that they bump up against each other but it's the vagueness of the boundary that weakens the argument there is one.

@ uke_master, I agree with a lot of that, science and religion stay out of each others way often enough that a large % of populations retain some confidence in both. What I object to is some formalisation of a boundary between the two.

If the dichotomy is presented:

Is: Science
Ought: Religion

Then Gould can, consistent with Hume's principle that you can't derive an ought from an is, hold that science can't tell us what we ought to value. Similarly Religion doesn't tell us how the world is outside of certain metaphysical claims inaccessible to science. He seems to over reach though and makes religion authoritative in that magisteria.

Again, I would cede this ground to philosophy, not religion, but I think this is correct. I do not think there is any empirical investigation that can tell us what humans find valuable or beautiful, or which is the "best" ethical system, because any criteria for judging these things will be based on subjective criteria, anyway. Sam Harris recently posited that science could determine the best ethical system because it was possible to evaluate what made humans happiest and promoted their flourishing based on brain scans, etc. The problem, obviously, is that not everyone agrees that actions that make humans the happiest are the most ethical. I would agree that the ethical system that promotes human happiness and flourishing is probably the best one, but my defense of that is entirely philosophical, not scientific.

From the wiki article:

I think there is a lot of validity in Gould's opinion. I think the NOMA attitude would serve the goal of making science more accepted by the religious. Dawkins wants to have a scientific revolution that replaces religion and is thus critical of this view, but I think he's trying to do the improbable.

Gould is seeming to try for scientific evolution and I think that's a much more realistic goal. Neither method will reach the fundamentalists but NOMA could very well reach a majority of religious-minded people.

As to the validity of NOMA, I don't think it matters. Both sides can use it on each other to increase mutual respect. I think such a truce is much more productive than a war between the two sides.

Is NOMA aimed only at a US audience ?

I agree, both that what we ought to value is outside the scope of science and that it's the domain of philosophy rather than religion.

I'm also sympathetic to an account of what's good being the well-being of conscious creatures and again I agree that's defensible on philosophical rather than sceintific grounds. There's a presumption that's what we should value which Harris accepts.

NOMA can't grant the magisteria to religion, science can't give to religion what may not belong to religion, it may restrict religion to ethical rather than scientific conversations but it can't make it authoritative.

I do think it's specifically aimed at a US audience and that it's a function of the challenge evolution has being accepted by parts of that audience.

I thought Science and Religion were necessarily mutually exclusive because science employs Methodological Naturalism and can't accept supernatural answers or explanations for what we observe?

Since science simply doesn't need supernatural gods to explain anything ('I had no need for that hypothesis'...) I don't see how it can't be in conflict with a system that does.

Yes, to the extent that religion makes factual claims about the world, it can be mutually exclusive from science, which is why Gould thinks creationism makes for both bad science and bad religion. Plenty of people disagree with this idea, but science is largely incapable of evaluating the supernatural claims of religion, and religion provides very poor natural claims in relation to science.

"There was a massive flood that killed everyone except a single family and two of each animal within the last 10,000 years" is a testable empirical claim that is undeniably false under any scientific (or historical, for that matter) scrutiny.

"There is an afterlife" or "karma affects your spiritual health" are not testable empirical claims and thus are outside the magisterium of science.

Science employs Methodological Naturalism within its magisterium, but one needn't hold to this when not practicing science. Science simply can't (and shouldn't) attempt to evaluate supernatural claims. Of course, many of us think the notion of accepting the supernatural without evidence is quite silly, but this is a philosophical stance, not a scientific one.

It seems more like a taxonomic classification that only exists because there is an incentive to be diplomatic. Even worse, the notion that something legitimately belongs outside scientific discourse because it can't be explained or disproven is ridiculous. If that was the case, scientific advancement would be paradoxal: It is not possible to field new theories without being exploratory.

I'd call it at best a hoax, at worst fraudulent.

There is nothing in NOMA that suggests that new theories and exploratory investigations are outside the purview of science.

I don't really like it either (although I don't see much that science has to say on whether being nice to cows or having a cracker with wine on Sunday mornings leads to a nice afterlife), but it isn't really fair to say that it changes the nature of science.

Actually that is exactly what is stated. That the authority of religion and science is non-overlapping, both intellectually and morally; Science should only exist in the empirical.

The position only works for theoretical and exploratory research if you constantly shift the goalpost, but by doing so it is also rendered irrelevant.