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The God of Monkey Science: People of Faith in a Modern Scientific World

Janet Kellogg Ray
Published by Eerdmans in 2023

The God of Monkey Science examines the history of science denial and anti-intellectualism in the American Evangelical church beginning with the Scopes Monkey Trial of 1925 and follows its contribution to modern-day denial of evolution, climate science, vaccines, and masks. Ray holds a Ph.D. in Curriculum and Instruction from the University of North Texas, a M.Ed. in Gifted Education from Hardin-Simmons University, and a B.S.Ed. in biology from Abilene Christian University and has been teaching biology at the university level for almost 20 years. Janet Kellogg Ray is an enthusiastic science educator raised in a conservative evangelical church community in Texas. She writes as an insider with decades of experience encountering science denial in her own religious community and the classroom.

Understanding the history and ongoing impact of pseudoscience in the church is vital. More churches, pastors, Christian leaders, and lay people need to consider the cost of decades of science denial within the American Evangelical culture. Ray examines the history, causes, and effects of rejecting evidence-based science and implores the Christian community to reconsider their attitude towards science and scientists for the good of their families, their church, their community, and the world. The goal of this book is not to provide Bible verses or scientific evidence to convince lay Christians to change their beliefs about modern science but to show the pattern, history, and cost of science denial in the evangelical church and beyond. I hope this book convinces pastors and church leaders of the risks of science rejection, the importance of science acceptance, and the need for conversations on science in their congregations.

The book is divided into 12 chapters followed by discussion prompts for each chapter that would be useful for a small group study or book club, then several pages of end notes, and finally an index.

Ray explains in chapter one that the reception of her first book, Baby Dinosaurs on the Ark, during the COVID-19 pandemic led her to research the connection between evolution denial by white evangelicals and skepticism by the same community towards COVID-19 evidence-based protection and prevention measures such as masks, vaccines, and limited gatherings. In chapter two we learn that “the purpose of this book is to explore evangelical science denial, and the conversation begins with evolution (p21).” She notes the method utilized by William Jennings Bryan during the Scopes Monkey Trial in 1925 is still used by evangelicals today. Bryan preached “danger to families, to faith, to freedom (p24).”

Chapter three investigates where people get their information and points out that many evangelicals are convinced by speakers from within their tribe regardless of the quality of evidence for their claims. Chapter four provides an overview and examples of the scientific process and explains how general scientific illiteracy and suspicion of the scientific community led to widespread misunderstanding and rejection of genuine COVID-19 prevention and treatment and even acceptance of ineffective recommendations by unqualified voices.

Ray highlights the work of Dr. Kizzmekia Corbett, the lead scientist behind the COVID-19 Moderna vaccine, and Dr. Francis Collins the head of the NIH during the pandemic, both of whom are Christians and worked tirelessly to save lives. And yet, “as the vaccines rolled out to the general population in 2021, 45% of white evangelicals said they definitely would not or probably would not get a COVID vaccine (p61).” Evangelicals chanted faith over fear as a mantra to reject lifesaving COVID-19 treatments and preventions, especially masks, vaccines, and limiting group gatherings.

In chapter 6, the author looks at the history of evangelical anti-intellectualism from the “plain readings” of scripture to evangelical colleges that isolate from rather than collaborate with multi-disciplinary scholarship. Evangelicals saw non-literalistic interpretations of Genesis 1-11 and an acceptance of evolution as an attack on the Christian faith. “We’ve been conditioned: when in doubt or when something challenges long-held beliefs, the true Christian rejects the intellect and elevates faith (p86).”

Evangelicals as underdogs is a common theme in their movies and messages, including their approach to science where alternatives like Intelligent Design and Young Earth Creationism are perceived as unfairly excluded from public school science curricula. “In the fight against evolution, we have been carefully trained. We’ve been told it’s a war and we are up against Goliath. We’ve been told our morals and our beliefs are under attack (p100).” So, when it came to the pandemic, Evangelicals were more concerned about their rights and freedoms than about protecting the vulnerable and reducing the impact of COVID-19 on people’s health.

Disinformation and false claims were commonly used to discredit scientists during COVID-19 but these tactics were not new. “Some of the most egregious denigrations of secular scientists can be found in popular homeschool and Christian private school curricula (p129).” Evangelicals also commonly believe that climate science is an attack on God’s sovereignty and fear the solutions threaten freedom and morality. “Evangelicals balk at long-term creation care that demands acceptance of science—particularly science that butts heads with our theological and theo-political beliefs (p140).”

Chapter eleven provides an overview of stem cells, fetal tissue, and fetal cell lines, what they are, and how they are used in medical research including the development and testing of vaccines and many other drugs and treatments.  I appreciated the author’s discussion of ethics and the need for wise and knowledgeable Christian voices in these conversations. “The Barna Group has told us for years that science denial is wrecking the faith of teens and young adults. … Always among the top six is the tense relationship between the church and science (p176).” “White evangelicals are also the religious demographic least likely to consider the health of their community in making a vaccination decision (p176).” Chapter twelve concludes the book urging Christians to adopt the mind of Christ and live as people of faith who love our neighbors in our modern scientific world.

I found this book quite insightful, and Ray did an excellent job connecting the history of science denial in white evangelicals over the past 100 years stemming from the Scopes Monkey Trial to the rejection of evolution, climate science, vaccines, masking, and other evidence-based COVID-19 treatment and prevention measures. Because this is the same demographic that largely aligns with patriarchy, Christian Nationalism, and far-right-wing politics, it would be interesting to explore these associations which cannot be explained merely by the science denial initiated by the Scopes Monkey Trial. Even so, this book is urgently needed, easy to read (though discouraging at times), and covers an important subject — the perceived conflict between science and faith — which is one of the top reasons cited by people for leaving the church. I strongly recommend this book. The evangelical church needs to do better in this area and reading this book is a great place to begin.

Kristine Johnson

Kristine Johnson is a Senior Advanced Systems Engineer at Honeywell Aerospace Technologies working on a next-generation, GPS-Aided High Integrity Attitude Heading Reference System for navigating commercial aircraft, helicopters, and urban air mobility vehicles (drones for transporting people). Outside of work, Kristine enjoys spending time with her husband and children, reading, cooking, and overseeing the Christian Women in Science (CWiS) Facebook page. She is an ASA Fellow and President of the ASA North Star Chapter, Vice President of the Christian Engineering Society, and is on the Industry Advisory Board for the University of Northwestern’s Engineering program. She is also a professional face painter.

8 Comments

  • Gary Mulder says:

    Thanks for calling attention to this book. I am especially disturbed by this sentence: “The Barna Group has told us for years that science denial is wrecking the faith of teens and young adults.”

  • Jon Witt says:

    Thanks for this excellent review. Understanding the ways in which we construct reality in the contexts of our communities is critical work. Thank you.

  • Henry Baron says:

    Thank you for this! It’s disconcerting to note the extent that science denial has invaded the Reformed community of faith.

  • Marie Ippel says:

    I am a middle school science teaacher, and I am sitting in my classroom right now, reading this during my prep period. There is a big yellow bulletin board at the front of the classroom that says, “Science tells the Love Story between God + Creation.” I hope that we can provide some places where science leads people to God, not away.

  • Nate Van Denend says:

    Based on the review, I think the book misses a few important things. I probably should read the book.
    What do we mean by science? When I worked in a lab for a major research university, science was that which was funded by grants from government or for-profit corporations. Science did not exist in a vacuum but in a social context that had goals and ideals that weren’t necessarily scientific. We were working on a promising drug, the patent for the drug was set to expire soon, the company dropped the funding. Not because of the science, but because of the business. Why is this relevant? Because non-scientific considerations are always relevant. Because Christians who are not scientifically trained still have a sense of when they are being hosed by the “experts.” “More doctors recommend Virginia Slims… etc…”And Christians have a sense that science exists in a broader cultural/economic/social world that directly impacts “the science.” This is what it means to have a Reformed Worldview.
    The Fundamentalist Christians were wrong about evolution (maybe), during the 1920s, but they were not wrong about where the philosophical ideas of believing that we evolved from apes would lead: social darwinism, eugenics in Nazi Germany and a massive effort by overzealous Richard Dawkins types to aim their guns at religion. Dawkins, now realizing the tomfoolery of his enterprise and discovering that he is in fact a cultural Christian after all, is humorous to watch.

    It was not science that drove the decision making around Covid either. Science works too slow for that, as a Biologist should know. Minimally tested vaccines were rolled out with lightening speed. To test the long term impact of a novel RNA vaccine you need a long term. Everyone knew that viruses don’t drop to the floor after 6 feet, and when pressed I think it was Dr. Fauci who said the 6 foot number was made up. So Christians, like they did back in the days of Scopes, asked the deeper questions about culture/economics/social context which they could see. And there they could see that distancing people hurt vulnerable people. They got vaccinated and then got Covid anyway. They wore masks and washed hands and stayed 6 feet apart and got covid anyway. They saw pharmaceutical company profits go through the roof while they had to stay home. To dismiss Christians as science deniers is ridiculous. It is the scientists who need to ask, “is what I am saying within my lane?” “Am I using my credential as a scientist to go beyond what the data is saying?” “Am I making stuff up because I don’t actually have any data?” Does the fact that I am funded by Company X impact my science? And how so? The problem is not anti-science Christians (who will all take Tylenol when they are sick and go in for a surgery, and drive that technical wonder called a car). The problem is overzealous scientists pretending to be philosophers and social engineers and profiteers and being blind to that, or thinking that they are somehow immune from broader social forces, and getting rejected for that reason.

    • Sara Tolsma says:

      While it certainly is true that scientists are human and the institutions they work within are human institutions, I have found that most scientists do their best to use the tools at their disposal to get a better and better understanding of the natural world and leave it better than they found it. Most scientists are quite altruistic!

      And there are some serious misunderstandings around many of the issues you raise. For example, mRNA vaccines have been in development for a long time. The first mRNA vaccines were tested in mice in the 1990s. An mRNA vaccine for rabies was tested in humans in 2013. It was clear that the technology was safe and could be effective but the delivery vehicle was tricky. Nanotechnology was used in conjunction with mRNA vaccines and that finally worked well. Additionally, coronaviruses have been studied for decades. The perception that mRNA vaccines against SARS CoV2 dropped on the scene from nowhere isn’t true. It was an urgent culmination of decades of work, the vast majority of which went on without getting much attention.

      I might point your attention not only to this book, which is quite convincing when you examine the evidence for science-denial but many other books including one reviewed here last month: The Deadly Rise of Anti-Science https://reformedjournal.com/the-deadly-rise-of-anti-science-a-scientists-warning/ which points at science denial in the wider culture–not just people of faith.

  • It is not surprising that science and scripture mix like oil and water. Scripture is based on revealed truths that are accepted by faith. These truths are often not provable by empiric means. the Bible is a prescientific book with no awareness of scientific method. Science is based on empirical evidence derived from observable and measurable phenomena. As such, science has no interest in the spiritual. We may talk of God’s two revelations of scripture and nature as being compatible, however, they speak in unrelated languages.
    The relationship of science and scripture is made nearly incomprehensible when one takes the view that every word of the Bible is divinely inspired. When push comes to shove those hiding to Biblical inerrancy will always reject science when it is viewed as conflicting with scripture. Until Christians view the Bible as infallible but not inerrant science will continue to be suspect.

    • Sara Tolsma says:

      While I agree with much of what you say, I’m more optimistic about the relationship between science and faith than you express here and I spend a lot of time thinking, writing, and teaching about the harmony between science and faith. Biologos has some really nice resources about science and faith in harmony. If you are interested, check them out http://www.biologos.org