The Cambridge Scientist: From Atheism to Christianity

Habgood was born on 23 June 1927 at Stony Stratford, Buckinghamshire, where his father served as a general practitioner. He was educated at Eton College (1941–45) and then went to King’s College Cambridge on a State Bursary where he read the natural sciences Tripos. In 1947, he was awarded First Class Honours in Part 1 of the Tripos, studying physics, chemistry, physiology and mathematics. In 1948, he gained First Class Honours in Part 2, focusing on physiology.Footnote ⁵

On his arrival at Cambridge, Habgood was a militant atheist, who took pleasure in making outrageous remarks about religious beliefs and the intellectual and moral qualities of those who held them.Footnote ⁶ Yet his growing friendship with religious colleagues in 1946 made him increasingly aware that something significant was missing from his vision of life. Others seemed to have lives that were ‘better, fuller, and more integrated’ than his.Footnote ⁷ Largely as a result of attending a student mission organized by the Cambridge Inter-Collegiate Christian Union (CICCU), Habgood recalls ‘giving himself to God’ in Great St Mary’s Church on 28 November 1946.Footnote ⁸

Although Habgood initially associated with evangelical Christians at Cambridge, he shifted towards a more centrist and Anglican vision of Christianity, partly on account of his concerns about evangelical hostility towards evolution.Footnote ⁹ He had become involved with the Research Scientists Christian Fellowship at Cambridge, a circle of evangelical scientists which then included Frank H.T. Rhodes, Donald G. MacKay, and John C. Polkinghorne.Footnote ¹⁰ Yet Habgood felt uncomfortable with what he considered to be an uncritical biblical literalism within the group, which led him to detach himself from its discussions. For Habgood, there was an unwelcome inattentiveness to the question of biblical interpretation within the group, which was particularly evident in relation to the question of human origins. As Habgood noted some 40 years later, it seemed that many scientists tended to read the Bible in somewhat simplistic ways. ‘It is a strange phenomenon that even in our own day many religiously-minded scientists are attracted to literalist forms of faith.’Footnote ¹¹

The books that Habgood recalls reading around this time of transition are indicative of his growing appreciation of the intellectual and imaginative aspects of Anglicanism, including William Temple’s three major works Mens Creatrix, Christus Veritas and Nature, Man and God,Footnote ¹² as well as the poems of T.S. Eliot and some essays by Dorothy L. Sayers. All these authors have had a permanent influence on him. Yet Habgood regularly professed himself disappointed by Temple’s lack of knowledge of the natural sciences, so that he was unable to bring his ‘public stature and intellect’ to bear on this important theme.Footnote ¹³

Like many scientists at Cambridge who were interested in the relation of science and faith, he found the writings of the leading Anglican theologian Charles Raven – then at the height of his influence – helpful and important in framing a positive relationship between evolution and religious faith. Raven was Regius Professor of Divinity at Cambridge from 1932 to 1950, during which period he also served as Master of Christ’s College (1939–50), and Vice-Chancellor of the University (1947–49).Footnote ¹⁴ Yet, where Raven held that science and theology use essentially the same method,Footnote ¹⁵ Habgood consistently argued that science and theology used different intellectual methods, adapted to their distinct fields of research and objects of inquiry.

After completing his undergraduate studies at Cambridge by gaining a ‘Double First’, Habgood consolidated his growing interest in physiology by studying for a PhD, with a particular focus on hyperalgesia, an abnormally increased sensitivity to pain. In addition to winning a Research Fellowship at King’s College, Cambridge, he was also appointed a University Demonstrator in Pharmacology in 1950. He published two single-author research papers in leading scientific journals,Footnote ¹⁶ and gained his PhD in 1952. Given his academic record to date, Habgood could easily have gone into academia; yet in 1953, he announced he would be seeking ordination in the Church of England, and went on to enter theological training at Cuddesdon College, near Oxford. This was no precipitate decision; Habgood had begun to lay the foundations for this move in 1951, sensing that his future did not lie in either scientific research, or in academia in general.

What crystallized this decision? Habgood made it clear that a critical factor in precipitating this decision was his growing concern about the tendency of academic scientists to detach and isolate themselves from wider cultural discussion of social, moral and political issues. The brutality of the Korean War (1950–53), and the possibility of its extension into a wider war with China raised significant moral questions, which Habgood’s fellow researchers in Cambridge’s physiology department during this period seemed to regard as being of little importance.

Habgood came to realize that there were more important questions in life than those raised by the sciences,Footnote ¹⁷ and that his scientific colleagues seemed disinclined to acknowledge or engage them. This disinterest in the world beyond science all too often arose from a belief that science was intellectually and morally self-sufficient, and need not engage with others. A decade later, Habgood returned to the problem that so troubled him:

The problem that Habgood identified is now generally known as ‘scientism’, which is often portrayed as a form of scientific imperialism, or an attempt to colonize other intellectual disciplines – such as moral philosophy – through an assertion of the exclusive capacity of science to answer the fundamental questions of life.Footnote ¹⁹ Yet at this stage, Habgood’s concern was not so much that science was expansionist and even colonialist in its moral and intellectual ambitions; his concern was it appeared to retreat from a wider discussion of ethical and political concerns into its own ‘tiny fraction of the whole field of knowledge’. Public engagement required a commitment to recognizing the importance of such questions in the first place,Footnote ²⁰ and allowing the various ‘fractions’ of human knowledge and insight to be correlated with each other – a task which Habgood considered to be integral to the public ministry of the church.

Habgood’s views on science and religion have not been the subject of detailed investigation to date.Footnote ²¹ However, they arguably provide the key to his overall vision as a leading Christian public intellectual of his day – above all, the capacity of the Christian faith to engage with the wider domain of intellectual discourse. While individual aspects of Habgood’s understanding of the relation of science and faith merit careful study in their own right, it is his capacity to integrate these to provide a ‘coherent public framework of faith’,Footnote ²² capable of engaging both individual intellects and the public sphere. In what follows, we shall consider some general themes of his approach, before concluding by reflecting on Habgood’s overall vision of such a ‘coherent public framework of faith’ and its relation to his public ministry as a leading representative of the Church of England.Footnote ²³

The Uneasy (and Untidy) Relationship between Science and Religion

Science and religion are both social presences, representing quite distinct communities of reflection and discourse which potentially compete for public approbation and influence.Footnote ²⁴ As we have already seen, however, Habgood was clear that it is both proper and responsible to hold together a rich and complex view of reality, refusing to treat it as an aggregation of watertight or hermetically sealed zones, incapable of meaningful interaction. Reflecting on the notion of ‘integrity’, Habgood notes the demand for integration that it appears to enfold and entail, forbidding us to ‘split up our minds into separate compartments where incompatible ideas are not allowed to come into contact’.Footnote ²⁵ This, it may easily be agreed, is a noble vision. But how is it to be achieved?

Habgood’s answer rests on the recognition of the intractable complexity of reality, which prevents us from achieving any neat conceptual resolutions of the issue. ‘We must learn to live with a certain amount of conflict and untidiness.’Footnote ²⁶ For such reasons, we find ourselves unable to achieve the theoretical precision that some regard as the hallmark of the natural sciences, and rely on broader statements that help us characterize, and then to correlate, the phenomena of science and religion.Footnote ²⁷

In exploring this question, Habgood makes the important point that the use of ‘science’ in the singular, or reference to ‘the scientific method’, fails to appreciate the methodological diversity that is so clearly observed and practised within and across the natural sciences. This habit of speaking, Habgood suggests, may be traced back to the establishment of the British Association for the Advancement of Science in 1831.Footnote ²⁸ In its understandable desire to avoid the fragmentation of individual natural sciences, the founders of the British Association chose to speak simply of ‘science’ – and in doing so, created the expectation that there was a singular method and outlook that was distinctive of all such natural sciences, namely, ‘the scientific method’. Habgood thus argues that it is necessary to recover the older idea of a ‘spectrum of sciences’, developing ‘disciplines of study appropriate to their subject matter’. The natural sciences thus do not occupy a single, narrow position on this spectrum of methodological possibilities, but extend across a range of such regions. The natural sciences are not defined by some ‘nebulous entity called the scientific method’ but rather by ‘general criteria of attention of evidence, and critical and consistent thought’.Footnote ²⁹ These epistemological virtues are not exclusive to the natural sciences, but also extend to the human sciences, even if their mode of application might be different.

Habgood often frames the relationship between science and faith in terms of distinct, yet not for that reason incompatible, domains of competence and communities of discourse which require us to recognize and affirm both the ‘detached objectivity of those sciences which study spatio-temporal existence’ and the ‘personal involvement entailed in the study of all that gives mean meaning, value and purpose’.Footnote ³⁰ Habgood is rightly critical of those who simplify the relationship of science and religion simply in terms of respectively posing ‘how’ and ‘why’ questions; nevertheless, the importance of this distinction cannot be overlooked. Habgood’s broad depictions of the concerns of the sciences and religious faith includes this important distinction, but avoids an improper and somewhat simplistic restriction of their activities in terms of it.Footnote ³¹

The issues of unbelief and uncertainty recur throughout Habgood’s writings. A severe critic of those who are intolerant of ambiguity and uncertainty, Habgood found the interaction of science and religion to provide a congenial framework for discussing the place of doubt and criticism in the life of faith. Habgood consistently affirmed that both ‘belief and scepticism are necessary components of any serious thinking’,Footnote ³² and sees the natural sciences as exemplifying – not contradicting – this position. Habgood’s target here are religious fundamentalisms and certain forms of scientific positivism, both of which regard uncertainty as compromising the quest for truth. There is no ‘non-trivial knowledge independent of belief’ in either science or religion.Footnote ³³

In his essay ‘The Scientist as Priest’, Habgood set out what he considered to be the two options with which any thinking person, especially a scientist, was confronted.Footnote ³⁴ On the one hand was the view that ‘we create scientific or mathematical truth by imposing a pattern on a reality which is in essence chaotic and meaningless’. On the other is Habgood’s own view, which is that we discover ‘a truth which is in some sense “really there”, independent of us’. Yet Habgood was clear that adopting such an epistemic realism did not lead to clarity and certainty. Why not? Because we are not simply ‘disclosing what is already there’ but struggling to inhabit that world through developing ways of interpreting it, responding to it and treating it as ‘having a significance beyond our own purposes and desires’.

The Possibility of Interdisciplinarity: Correlating Faith and Scientific Practice

For Habgood, it is clear that there are ‘different kinds of knowledge appropriate to different areas of human experience’.Footnote ³⁵ We must thus recognize that there is a ‘spectrum of knowledge’ extending from knowledge of God to knowledge of the atom,Footnote ³⁶ and avoid impoverishing our grasp of reality by limiting proper knowledge to only one region of this spectrum. Habgood is thus critical of forms of scientific reductionism, which excludes as irrelevant or improper other forms of knowledge. In making this point, Habgood recalls a comment made to him while a student at Cambridge by his physiology supervisor: ‘Some scientists think of a gramophone record as a series of bumps in a groove. They have no interest in actually playing it.’Footnote ³⁷

At one end of this proposed spectrum of knowledge, Habgood places those sciences which allow an objective account of things without reference to the identity, concerns or values of the interpreter. At the other, following to some extent the German philosopher Wilhelm Dithey,Footnote ³⁸ he places those sciences which require active human interaction with the world in the construction of values and meaning. These are different, and rest on different approaches. But what is to prevent them from being woven into a greater whole?

Habgood insists that different communities of knowledge production focus on different regions of this spectrum of knowledge.Footnote ³⁹ This, however, does not necessarily lead to the fragmentation or compartmentalization of knowledge, but is simply a recognition of the intense focus and specialization of such research communities. Habgood’s approach to science and religion thus allows him to hold them together in meaningful dialogue, allowing for the complexity of human experience to be acknowledged and engaged. It is interesting to note that Habgood regards the great eighteenth-century Anglican moralist Joseph Butler as developing a viable approach, of continued value to the church today, not least because of his attentiveness to the ‘actual complexities of human experience’,Footnote ⁴⁰ rather than adopting a rigid theoretical approach to ethics. There is nothing to prevent someone from trying to embrace as many of the points on that spectrum as they can manage.

Perhaps most importantly for Habgood during his period as Archbishop of York, he insisted that the public witness of the Church of England ultimately depended on being able to make connections between different regions of that spectrum – not least with the realm of the moral and political. Habgood was President of the Science and Religion Forum, and in 1983 had chaired this organization’s annual meeting dealing with the topic of ‘The Ethical Challenge of Contemporary Biology’. During Habgood’s periods as Bishop of Durham and Archbishop of York, he championed public debate of the ethical problems posed by scientific advance, based on the need to engage in respectful and informed dialogue across disciplinary boundaries.

Habgood’s significance in this field is best seen by noting his contributions to public debates about bio-ethics in the 1980s. At this time, the British medical establishment was becoming increasingly receptive to involving figures from outside the world of medicine in the public discussion of medical ethics. Up to that point, medical ethics was seen as a matter for the medical profession itself, which involved the emphasis of professional expertise as a means of excluding unqualified persons from the public discussion of these issues.Footnote ⁴¹ Like many professional bodies in Britain, the medical community tended to see itself as self-regulating, and was suspicious of unqualified outsiders who disturbed this professional balance. Medical ethics was widely seen as little more than the ‘rules of etiquette for doctors’.Footnote ⁴²

By the end of the 1960s, however, a general ‘backlash against professional society’ led to increasing demands for wider accountability within the medical establishment in relation to its research methods and professional judgements.Footnote ⁴³ In part, this growing public mood for increased accountability of the medical profession reflected wide national anxiety about the thalidomide crisis, which came to be seen as symptomatic of failings within the establishment. By 1982, Geoffrey Robertson’s suggestion that ‘interdisciplinary cooperation’ was essential to solving the present and future dilemmas of medical ethics – such as ‘test-tube babies’ – was seen as entirely credible and necessary for maintaining public confidence in the medical profession.Footnote ⁴⁴

On 16 February 1984, the General Medical Council convened a conference in London on the theme of ‘Teaching Medical Ethics’, in which leading representatives of non-medical disciplines were invited to explain how those disciplines might inform and enrich the morality of medical practices. The speakers included the social scientist Margaret Stacey, who was then President of the British Sociological Association and an observer-member of the General Medical Council, and John Habgood.Footnote ⁴⁵ Significantly, Habgood’s contribution was framed in terms of an inter-disciplinary exploration of medical ethics. While Stacey offered the ‘View of a Social Scientist’, Habgood offered the ‘View of a Theologian’. He was not presenting the position of the institutional church in his capacity as Archbishop of York; he was rather offering an interdisciplinary perspective on medical ethics in his capacity as a theologian – something that his views on the relation of science and faith enabled and empowered him to do.

Bioethics became an increasingly important element of Habgood’s public ministry around this time. For example, in his inaugural lecture at the Ian Ramsey Centre at Oxford University in 1985, Habgood mapped out the relation of natural law and bioethics, making the point that the ‘complex new problems’ arising through rapid biotechnological change demanded a correlation of different aspects of this spectrum of knowledge, in the awareness that past correlations no longer seemed able to deal with these new challenges.Footnote ⁴⁶ In a sermon of 22 June 1986, marking the opening of the Annual Meeting of the British Medical Association, Habgood spoke on ‘a basis for medical ethics’, focusing on the value of human persons and human relationships.Footnote ⁴⁷

Although we have noted Habgood’s contributions to discussion of medical ethics during the 1980s in which he played the role of an interdisciplinary theologian and scientist, his interest in these issues arose much earlier. In 1964, he noted that many of the questions he was asked to discuss in the field of science and religion during his visits to English schools were not about the compatibility of science and faith, but rather focused on ‘the moral choices confronting scientists in the practical use of their discoveries’.Footnote ⁴⁸ Nor did Habgood restrict his concerns to medical ethics. In his 2002 work The Concept of Nature, he considers the potential impact of technological advances on the natural world, including genetic modification of crops and the technological enhancement of humanity.Footnote ⁴⁹ Throughout his career, Habgood insisted on the need for science to be brought into critical dialogue with religious thought – and developed an intellectual framework which made this possible, overcoming any threat of intellectual or cultural isolationism, and creating space for the church to engage with such major ethical issues arising from technological advance.

The Debate with Richard Dawkins (1992)

It was perhaps inevitable that Habgood would find himself in conflict with the scientific popularizer and celebrity atheist Richard Dawkins, particularly after the publication of the latter’s Blind Watchmaker in 1986.Footnote ⁵⁰ The confrontation eventually took place at the Edinburgh science festival in 1992. On Wednesday 15 April, Habgood and Dawkins debated the relation of science and faith in the Royal College of Physicians. Journalistic coverage at the time – especially in the Independent –presented this as a triumph for Dawkins, who excoriated religious belief as ‘blind faith’. In a series of sweeping and bold rhetorical pronouncements, Dawkins dismissed religion as infantile, divisive and destructive.

The passing of time has seen this judgement revised, and possibly reversed.Footnote ⁵¹ Dawkins himself has now expressed regret for what he suggests may have been a bullying and bruising treatment of Habgood.Footnote ⁵² Although Dawkins’ basic ideas became a cornerstone of the ‘New Atheism’ following the publication of his God Delusion (2006), the intellectual credentials of this movement are now widely derided, particularly by atheist philosophers.Footnote ⁵³ Habgood’s approach would now be seen as measured and informed, highlighting precisely the issues that are now recognized as undermining Dawkins’s simplistic position.Footnote ⁵⁴

While Habgood may have been perceived as rhetorically ineffective on that occasion, he was nevertheless intellectually compelling on certain key issues, setting out the severe limitations and contradictions of a scientistic worldview, such as that espoused by Dawkins.Footnote ⁵⁵ Habgood pointed out that God did not appear in the scientific account of nature because the methods of science excluded anything that lay beyond the scope of scientific methods – such as the critically important concepts of purpose, feeling and value. This is not to be seen as a criticism of science, but was simply a statement of the focus and limits of the natural sciences.

Habgood, more accustomed to a discussion informed by rigorous dissection of ideas, was perhaps unprepared for the rhetorical aggressiveness of Dawkins, which some journalists appear to have considered indicative of intellectual superiority. Happily, this discussion can now be seen in a rather different perspective.

Public Stature and Public Debates: The Athenaeum Lecture on Science and Theology

Habgood was aware that a productive dialogue between science and religion – such as that which he sustained in the field of medical ethics – required more than an intellectual framework of understanding that created conceptual space within which such a dialogue could be seen as both legitimate and generative. It also required scientists and theologians to trust in each other’s basic integrity and develop a willingness to work together.Footnote ⁵⁷ For this reason, Habgood cultivated social connections and organizational relationships which allowed him to maintain contact with working scientists, and thus position himself as a credible professional and intellectual intermediary between the scientific and religious communities.Footnote ⁵⁸

The strength of Habgood’s credentials as such a cultural and professional intermediary are particularly evident in a lecture he delivered in 1998 at the Athenaeum Club in Pall Mall, London, an institution with a particular concern for the ‘life of the mind’, whose membership included leading scientists and medical professionals, as well as clergy.Footnote ⁵⁹ Like other London clubs, the Athenaeum wielded significant political, social and cultural influence during the late Victorian and Edwardian periods.Footnote ⁶⁰ Although this was in decline in the later twentieth century, the Athenaeum still exercised a degree of cultural influence, particularly in encouraging dialogue and debate across intellectual and professional boundaries.

In 1998, the Athenaeum initiated a series of lectures intended to encourage such dialogue and discussion. Habgood was invited to give the first such ‘Athenaeum Lecture’, with the title – suggested by the Athenaeum – ‘Theology and the Sciences’. Habgood’s invitation to deliver such a lecture rested on two criteria: public stature and intellectual competence. Like Frederick Temple (Archbishop of Canterbury, 1896–1902) and Ian Ramsey (Bishop of Durham, 1966–72), Habgood acted as an institutional and professional bridge between the intellectual worlds of science and theology, and the church and a scientific culture.Footnote ⁶¹ Sadly, none has arisen since Habgood’s retirement in 1995 to continue this tradition of engagement and representation.

Habgood’s lecture represents a remarkable piece of intellectual and professional diplomacy, positioning theology as a viable sphere of discourse in its own right, while at the same time countering possible misgivings and making connections with the interests and concerns of its intended audience. Noting that the Athenaeum’s first secretary was none other than Michael Faraday, Habgood pointed out how the fostering of dialogue and reflection between science and religion was integral to the Athenaeum’s founding vision.Footnote ⁶²

While the ideas contained in that lecture are significant, and have already been touched on earlier in this paper, its full import lies in the Athenaeum’s decision to launch this flagship lecture series by explicitly engaging science and religion as both significant intellectual and cultural presences, and selecting Habgood as embodying the personal and professional virtues they regarded as integral to its purpose.

Darwinism and the Task of Christian Engagement

As noted earlier, Habgood was converted to Christianity from atheism as a student at Cambridge University in November 1946 through a mission organized by the Cambridge Inter-Collegiate Christian Union (CICCU). Although Habgood initially associated with evangelical student circles, he became disturbed by what he considered to be a flippant and superficial attitude towards Darwinism within Cambridge evangelical churches. Habgood’s subsequent uneasy relationship with evangelicalism, which became an increasingly significant presence within the Church of England following the Billy Graham mission at Harringay Arena, in London in 1954,Footnote ⁶³ rested partly on his general anxieties about its simplistic view of biblical exegesis and a more specific concern about its failure to engage evolutionary theory properly.

Habgood’s early work Religion and Science (1964) included a chapter summarizing his understanding of the implications of Charles Darwin’s theory of natural selection for Christian theology,Footnote ⁶⁴ curiously making little reference to questions of biblical interpretation – for example, in relation to the interpretation of the opening chapters of Genesis. Habgood can be located within an Anglican tradition of theological reflection, beginning with Charles Kingsley, and continuing through Aubrey Moore, Frederick Temple and Arthur Peacocke, which saw evolution as an amplification of some legitimate theological insights, as well as a critique of a deficient static view of God (such as that expressed in William Paley’s influential Natural Theology, 1802).Footnote ⁶⁵

He developed these ideas further in an article of 1973, providing a succinct synopsis of the core themes of Darwin’s theory, and noting some points at which theological issues were raised.Footnote ⁶⁶ The most important of these concerns the different approaches and outcomes of scientific and theological reflection. ‘We see now that there need be no contradiction between scientific and theological interpretations of the same phenomena, and that theology is concerned with different questions from science, questions of meaning and value rather than empirical inter-relationships.’Footnote ⁶⁷ This point underlies Habgood’s criticism of attempts to ground ethics on scientific grounds – for example, by extending Darwin’s theory of natural selection to social contexts, and thus developing eugenetics as part of a programme of ‘Social Darwinism’.

There are, it has to be said, some concerns that need to be raised about this 1973 paper. Despite the fact that this article was published in the Expository Times, Habgood shows little interest in hermeneutical issues, tending to assume that a modern theological consensus makes such concerns redundant. Consider this statement: ‘Genesis is no longer an issue. With Adam occupying his proper mythological status there seems no good reason to insist that humanity must have begun with a single pair, or even at a definite time.’Footnote ⁶⁸ To more critical readers, this appears to be a theological foreclosure of an exegetical issue – an issue which, then and now, remains problematic for many Christians, Anglican and otherwise. Some will wonder why Habgood did not engage such questions in any detail.Footnote ⁶⁹

Happily, Habgood is on much surer ground when dealing with the religious and cultural significance of Darwin in two lectures given at Oxford University in 1994.Footnote ⁷⁰ These ‘Idreos Lectures in Science and Religion’ focused on two broad questions: the intellectual relationship of Darwinism and religious faith, and the ethical implications of Darwin’s evolutionary theory. Habgood’s historical analysis is surefooted, and echoes and extends the points made before him by Frederick Temple. Yet his discussion of the relation of ‘evolution and ethics’ stands out primarily on account of its clarity and perceptiveness. One of its central arguments picks up some themes in Thomas H. Huxley’s Romanes Lecture at Oxford University in 1893, entitled ‘Evolution and Ethics’. ‘Let us understand,’ Huxley declared, ‘once and for all, that the ethical progress of society depends, not on imitating the cosmic process, still less in running away from it, but in combatting it.’Footnote ⁷¹

Ethics, for Huxley, is a principled resistance to precisely those animal qualities that secured human domination of the living world, and the Darwinian processes that underlie them. Yet this demands the subjugation of animal instincts that linger within us. Our hereditary history continues to shape our present – and it must be resisted, even though it cannot be eradicated. ‘The practice of that which is ethically best – what we call goodness or virtue – involves a course of conduct which, in all respects, is opposed to that which leads to success in the cosmic struggle for existence.’ ^{Footnote 72} Evolution may explain the origins of ethics in encouraging prosocial behaviour within human communities; it cannot itself function as the basis of ethics, in that we are now called to leave behind those former virtues of violence and aggressiveness which are now seen as vices. ^{Footnote 73}

Habgood both echoes and extends these ideas, making the case that morality simply cannot be dissociated from religious faith.Footnote ⁷⁴ Ethics may indeed be informed by the natural sciences; it cannot be determined by them. Habgood offers a sharp and incisive critique of E. O. Wilson’s sociobiological account of the origins of altruism,Footnote ⁷⁵ being careful to criticize over-ambitious interpretations of science, or metaphysically inflated accounts of the scientific project, rather than empirical science itself. Once more, such an approach can be seen to undergird Habgood’s role as a public intellectual, in that it offers a critical engagement between theology and religion, carefully distinguishing between the core beliefs and practices of authentic science and their more questionable application by those with particular social and cultural agendas.