For centuries science and religion have inhabited separate realms. But that uneasy truce is breaking down. This year has brought increasingly urgent warnings from prominent scientists about what they see as the threat posed by religious fundamentalism.

As the third millennium unfolds, science is being forced to defend itself – and it is under no illusions about what is at stake. In a speech last month Lord May, outgoing president of the Royal Society, Britain’s scientific academy, said the core values of the Enlightenment that had been at the heart of science since the 18th century – “free, open and unprejudiced questioning and inquiry, individual liberty and separation of church and state” – were “under serious threat from resurgent fundamentalism”. Scientific journals are printing editorials along similar lines.