Europe's greatest continental divide -- the chasm between scientific research and theology -- has begun to close, as scores of university institutes and medical associations from Arkhangelsk to Zurich are gathering to see how the two fields might help each other. The movement, though, is at a glacial pace, as an increasingly secular Western Europe and a post-communist Eastern Europe continue to resist any efforts that smack of church and state collaboration.
Croatia's University of Zagreb Medical School is typical. Candid discussions concerning religion and medical science take place but never in a formal research environment, said Lucija Fabijanic, a medical student who recently graduated from the school. "Some medical doctors do speak about this topic, but it is mainly not acknowledged by the university and hospital staff," said Fabijanic. "From the medical point of view, I understand that after a long era of communism a lot of people still think that religion is something personal and that it has nothing to do with science and medicine."
Similarly, in Sweden's Karolinska Institutet, where 40 percent of the country's medical academic research is conducted, religion and science are only rarely mentioned in the same breath. Of the 2,814 dissertations published since 1995, only half a dozen mention the words together, and only two -- a 2005 study on Islam's perpetuation of female genital mutilation in Sudan, and a 2000 paper on mortality and injury rates in Northern and Western Europe -- look at religion with more than a passing glance.
Croatia's University of Zagreb Medical School is typical. Candid discussions concerning religion and medical science take place but never in a formal research environment, said Lucija Fabijanic, a medical student who recently graduated from the school. "Some medical doctors do speak about this topic, but it is mainly not acknowledged by the university and hospital staff," said Fabijanic. "From the medical point of view, I understand that after a long era of communism a lot of people still think that religion is something personal and that it has nothing to do with science and medicine."
Similarly, in Sweden's Karolinska Institutet, where 40 percent of the country's medical academic research is conducted, religion and science are only rarely mentioned in the same breath. Of the 2,814 dissertations published since 1995, only half a dozen mention the words together, and only two -- a 2005 study on Islam's perpetuation of female genital mutilation in Sudan, and a 2000 paper on mortality and injury rates in Northern and Western Europe -- look at religion with more than a passing glance.
