Was Stephen Jay Gould Right?

In 1997, the late paleontologist and evolutionary biologist Stephen Jay Gould famously proposed a resolution to the supposed conflict between science and religion. He called it NOMA, or the thesis of non-overlapping magisteria.

A magisterium refers to a domain of teaching authority. And the NOMA thesis maintains that "the magisterium of science covers the empirical realm: what the Universe is made of (fact) and why does it work in this way (theory). The magisterium of religion extends over questions of ultimate meaning and moral values." According to Gould, since these two magisteria do not overlap there is no real conflict (or at least there shouldn't be) between science and religion. As Gould put it, "science studies how the heavens go, religion studies how to go to heaven."