Prompted by the concerns about legitimacy that Josh Reeves expresses in his book Against Methodology in Science and Religion: Recent Debates on Rationality and Theology, this article considers how the field of science and religion, and the disciplines and scholars that comprise it, should think about the pursuit of legitimacy today. It begins by examining four features of any conferral of legitimacy on an object. It then looks more closely at distance and its effects on judgments of legitimacy. It first notes how longer distances can enable a wide range of factors other than the internal features or inherent merits of the object to influence judgments of its legitimacy. It then explores the factors that persons who have significant expertise in or experience with the object may consider when judging its legitimacy. It closes by posing three questions that anyone designing a strategy to increase the perceived legitimacy of an object might ask.

中文翻译：

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合法性与科学和宗教领域

乔希·里夫斯（Josh Reeves）在他的《反对科学和宗教中的方法论：理性与神学的近期争论》一书中表达了对合法性的担忧提示，本文考虑了科学和宗教领域以及构成该领域的学科和学者如何思考当今对合法性的追求。它从检查对象合法性授予的四个特征开始。然后，它更仔细地研究距离及其对合法性判断的影响。首先要指出的是，更长的距离可以使物体的内部特征或固有优点以外的各种因素影响其合法性的判断。然后，它探讨了对对象具有丰富专业知识或经验的人在判断其合法性时可能会考虑的因素。最后，提出了三个问题，任何设计策略以提高对象的合法性的人都可能会问。