The call by Lacrema in his letter Islam vs science: Choose your side please to choose either religion or science is as absurd as it is childish.

It reflects a lack of understanding of the philosophical foundations of modern science as outlined in my previous letter Science nothing more than a systematic study of the material world.

It typifies the naivet of those - often with little or no scientific background - who are mesmerised by the achievements of modern science which are undoubtedly remarkable and beneficial to mankind.

Scientism embraces a positivist materialist vision of reality that denies a transcendent reality and the cult of the self-sufficiency of man.

However, with the discrediting of modernism's grand narratives of which includes scientism, there is, today, a sober evaluation on the limitations of modern science, a questioning of its epistemological premises and a concern over technology unrestrained by ethics and spirituality such that the non-sustainability of the planet is a real, grave possibility.

Not that religion must dictate science, but the principle of the non-overlapping magisterium between the two is an outdated dictum. Asking one to choose between science and religion reflects the silly arrogance of latter-day dogmatists of scientism, not science.