The tension between faith and science predates the famous Church condemnation of Galileo who as a 69 year old scientist was punished for trying to teach the absolutely unforgivable heretical science that the Sun rather than Earth was the center of the universe.
In a recent paper, Princeton economist Roland Bénabou and two colleagues unveiled a surprising finding that would at least appear to bolster the "conflict" camp: Both across countries and also across US states, higher levels of religiosity are related to lower levels of scientific innovation.
The future of the "strong negative relationship" between faith and science is unclear. I expect that people representing more moderate religiosity will bridge the gaps and allow the epistemologies of faith and science to coexist as two unique and valid ways of knowing in ways that allows for innovation to flourish.
Our need for innovations continue to grow as we still have over 2 billion people without access to healthy water, cooking and plumbing and we still have the incredible condition that 85 individuals own as much wealth as the poorest 3.5 billion people on the planet.
