In 1959 C P Snow gave an influential lecture in which he spoke of the existence in the modern world of two cultures. He perceived the cultures of the humanities on the one hand and of science on the other as failing to share much in the way of common ground. He felt that this was an impediment to the establishment of a general culture suitable for modern life.

I would like to take his concept and rephrase it to encompass the increasing gulf between the cultures of scientifically and technologically literate people and those who are either ignorant of science or who reject it on religious grounds. The world is moving steadily toward more and more need for scientific understanding and applications. In such a world scientifically literate people will play an increasingly important and dominant role. Those ignorant of science and technology for whatever reason will be increasingly marginalized and left behind. Furthermore, they will constitute a serious danger to the world because they will not understand the necessity for behaviors needed to preserve the Earth in its most productive and desireable state. We see that sort of ignorance even in many politicians in technologically advanced societies.

This makes it necessary to consider whether it is wise for non-religious people to "engage" Christians and other religious types in order to pursuade them of the need for considering scientific data in their decisions affecting the preservation of the planet. The latest issue of Reports of the National Center for Science Education supports the view that it is. I am not pursuaded. To urge Christians and other Abrahamic religions to make an effort to understand science and the scientific method is to ask them to entertain two mutually exclusive ways of seeing the world. I do not agree at all with the notion that religion as practiced by Christians is compatible with science. The two modes of thinking are poles apart, and the evidence provided by science gives no support whatever to the existence of any kind of supernaturals, let alone an omnipotent "god". For non-believers to "engage" Christians with the aim of educating them about science is merely to play their game, in which they demand that their fantasies receive some kind of respect by virtue of being "holy". It seems to me better to simply have as little as possible to do with religious behavior and let religious people fall farther and farther behind the manifest course of modern culture. To try to deal in an amicable way with their delusions is simply to fortify them and to waste time and effort.