Varieties of accommodationism

This post is a bit of a place marker, but I'm trying to get clear the varieties of accommodationism in the religion/science debate. I don't have an exhaustive typology, but there seem to be a few ways that people try to make a truce between religion and science.

1. The NOMA theory - science is authoritative about empirical issues, while religion is authoritative about issues of morality, "meaning", "purpose" and so on.

2. Natural and supernatural - science examines the "natural" world, while religion reports on a supposed "supernatural" realm involving gods, spooks, and so on.

3. God at work in the gaps - there is room for God to work in nature in ways that we can't detect. Science is authoritative about the natural world, but not in a way that excludes the providence of God.

Are there others? Although these are probably related in various ways, they don't seem to me to be all the same thing, and they address slightly different issues. What they have in common, though, is the idea that science gives us findings about which we can feel justified confidence, including findings about the evolution of life over many millions of years, but there is still an important place for religion. More specifically, these are views that someone might adopt if wanting to defend scientific findings that offend some religionists, while not wanting to offend religionists in general or to deny that religion has a valuable social role.

If, like me, you seriously question the value of religion's social role, you're going to be less impressed by great effort in such a direction.

Edit (since Brian's comment): I've been thinking a bit more about this. It does look as if most positions that could be called "accommodationist" fall into one of these three categories. E.g. Gould's NOMA was essentially 1., and something like this is presented very sympathetically by the NCSE on its website. By contrast, the NAS seems to promote 2., while Francis Collins and BioLogos promote 3.

Of these, 3. is the one that is most likely to be damaging to science. Because it wants to locate a space for certain kinds of divine activities to be carried on in certain kinds of gaps, it could have some tendency to discourage research that aims to plug those gaps. Accordingly, it's at least worthwhile drawing attention to the highly speculative nature of specific hypotheses about how God acts in the gaps (such as by using some sort of interference in quantum-level events in order to guide the process of evolution). Even if we can't disprove such claims, we can emphasise that they are contrivances with no scientific backing. They are transparent attempts to preserve pet religious dogmas, and should in no sense be viewed as science. Their only basis is reasoning that: "Something like X or Y must be true or else religious doctrine R will be falsified. But I can't admit that R is falsified, so something like X or Y must be true."

But, while I can see why hard-pressed scientists get annoyed by this sort of thing, I actually have more sympathy for theists such as Francis Collins than I do for non-believers (atheists, agnostics, sceptics, whatever) who adopt a position such as 1. or 2. in order to grant authority to a religion whose doctrines they don't actually believe. This is appeasement - it's ceding important territory to religion without a fight. Religion does not deserve any grant of authority in the moral sphere - it has no such authority, and that should be the end of it. Nor does it have any plausible claim to reveal supernatural truths about such entities as gods and spooks. But it's as if some non-believers are prepared to give religion whatever authority it wants as long as they are allowed to teach evolution.

But that's not the whole game or even the main game. Religion tells us what we can and can't do with our lives, despite the lack of any credible authority to do so. This is precisely where we should be subjecting its claims to harsh, sceptical scrutiny. Just what credentials do religious leaders have that authorise them to lay down the moral law, or attempt to impose their version of it by the exercise of political power? Absolutely none. It's not good enough to tell religious leaders that we'll accept their claims as moral leaders or experts - or as experts on a spooky realm that mysteriously affects our lives - as long as they'll get off our backs and let us teach science. That's surrender. Conditional surrender, perhaps, but still surrender.

These people are not moral leaders or experts, and there is no such spooky realm. Or, if I'm wrong, let's see what they have to say in their defence. How did they come to have authority on moral issues? Why should we believe that there is any such spooky realm? Let them answer those questions if they can. Until they do, we ought to regard them as essentially charlatans, and we shouldn't be afraid to say so.