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Science is firmly at the center of both our contemporary understanding of the world and our hope for the future. For some, it has displaced religion, and those who remain religious must contend with challenges posed by science. Few, however, have direct scientific knowledge. Rather the impression of science held by the wider culture is based on the work of science popularizers - public figures who create the image of science received by ordinary people. Furthermore, the opinions of these public intellectuals on the relationship between science and religion are often controversial, personal, and even idiosyncratic. Nevertheless they become widely known and perceived by many as authoritative conclusions derived from science.

Oracles of Science examines the popular writings of the six scientists who most influenced our perceptions of science. Biologists Stephen Jay Gould, Richard Dawkins, and Edward O. Wilson and physicists Carl Sagan, Stephen Hawking, and Steven Weinberg have become public intellectuals, articulating a much larger vision for science and what role it should play in the modern world view. The scientific prestige and literary eloquence of these thinkers combine to transform them into what can only be called “oracles of science.” Curiously, the leading “oracles of science” are predominantly secular in ways that don’t reflect the distribution of religious beliefs within the scientific community. Many of them are even hostile to religion, creating the false impression that science as a whole is incompatible with religion.

Oracles of Science, co-written with Mariano Artigas, takes aim at Richard Dawkins and his anti-religious cohorts, accusing them of misusing science as a weapon against religion. Biologists Stephen Jay Gould, Richard Dawkins, and Edward O. Wilson, and physicists Carl Sagan, Stephen Hawking, and Steven Weinberg, are all put on trial. Oracles of Science will be welcomed by those who are disturbed by the tone of the public discourse on the relationship between science and religion.