Taner Edis, born and raised in Turkey, is associate professor of physics at Truman State University and the author of The Ghost in the Universe: God in Light of Modern Science and Science and Non-belief, among other publications. His latest book is An Illusion of Harmony: Science and Religion in Islam.

Inthis conversation with D.J. Grothe, Taner Edis explains reasons hethinks religion persists, and explores the complex relationship betweenscience and nonbelief, detailing how the institutional interests ofscience may prevent some in the science community from working todiminish religion, the New Atheists excepted. He talks about howscientific theories are often misused by paranormalists orsupernaturalists to advance their cultural position, focusing on theNew Age movement's use of quantum physics and on the intelligent designmovement. He examines differences between science and pseudoscience,arguing that often it is not possible to demarcate what is uniquelyscience. And he surveys various scientific approaches of examiningreligion, such as rational choice theory, the secularizationhypothesis, and various evolutionary approaches, such as groupselection theory, the byproduct theory of religion, and memeticapproaches (that religion is a "virus of the mind").