John F. Haught is Landegger Distinguished Professor of Theology
at Georgetown University and director of the Georgetown Center for the
Study of Science and Religion. He is the author of numerous books,
including God after Darwin: A Theology of Evolution (Westview Press, 1999).
Many scientists today think of the universe as essentially
purposeless. Likewise, modern and postmodern philosophers have often
been suspicious of any religious claims that the natural world embodies
and eternal meaning or teleology. Not all scientific thinkers subscribe
to this cosmic pessimism, however, and some would even argue that
contemporary knowledge is consistent with a religious sense of cosmic
purpose.
This book offers candid reflections on the question of
cosmic purpose written both by prominent scientists and by scholars
representing the world's religious traditions. Examining the issue from a
wide variety of perspectives, this is the only current book to deal
with cosmic purpose from an interreligious and interdisciplinary
perspective.
Science and Christianity. Are they partners or opponents? Christians
have long debated the relationship of science to faith. With the rise of
Darwinism, however, the issue took on new significance. Darwinism
appeared to undermine the authority of the Bible and the credibility of
Christianity by freeing science of the need for a Creator. Rethinking
the relationship between science and Christianity quickly became a
priority.
- How does a faithful Christian respond to the pronouncements of contemporary science?
- Is science a help or a hindrance to belief?
- Are science and the Bible in conflict?
At the beginning of the twenty-first century, Christians continue to
wonder whether faith and science are partners or opponents. In this book
six Christian scholars sort through the issues as they present four
different views on the relationship of science and Christianity. These
include Wayne Frair and Gary D. Patterson for "creationism," Jean Pond
for "independence," Stephen C. Meyer for "qualified agreement" and
Howard J. Van Till for "partnership." Each contributor responds to the
other scholars, noting points of agreement and disagreement. Editor
Richard F. Carlson offers an introduction to this contemporary debate as
well as a postscript to help us evaluate the strengths and weaknesses
of each view.
Sweeping in scope, penetrating in analysis, and generously illustrated
with examples from the history of science, this new and original
approach to familiar questions about scientific evidence and method
tackles vital questions about science and its place in society. Avoiding
the twin pitfalls of scientism and cynicism, noted philosopher Susan Haack argues that, fallible and flawed as they are, the natural sciences
have been among the most successful of human enterprises -- valuable
not only for the vast, interlocking body of knowledge they have
discovered, and not only for the technological advances that have
improved our lives, but as a manifestation of the human talent for
inquiry at its imperfect but sometimes remarkable best. This
wide-ranging, trenchant, and illuminating book explores the complexities
of scientific evidence, and the multifarious ways in which the sciences
have refined and amplified the methods of everyday empirical inquiry;
articulates the ways in which the social sciences are like the natural
sciences, and the ways in which they are different; disentangles the
confusions of radical rhetoricians and cynical sociologists of science;
exposes the evasions of apologists for religious resistance to
scientific advances; weighs the benefits and the dangers of technology;
tracks the efforts of the legal system to make the best use of
scientific testimony; and tackles predictions of the eventual
culmination, or annihilation, of the scientific enterprise. Writing with
verve and wry humour, in a witty, direct, and accessible style, Haack
takes readers beyond the "Science Wars" to a balanced understanding of
the value, and the limitations, of the scientific enterprise.
Feeling the Spirit of Enquiry The science delusion is the belief that
science already understands the nature of reality. The fundamental
questions are answered, leaving only the details to be filled in. In
this book, Dr Rupert Sheldrake, one of the world's most innovative
scientists, shows that science is being constricted by assumptions that
have hardened into dogmas. The 'scientific worldview' has become a
belief system. All reality is material or physical. The world is a
machine, made up of dead matter. Nature is purposeless. Consciousness is
nothing but the physical activity of the brain. Free will is an
illusion. God exists only as an idea in human minds, imprisoned within
our skulls.
Sheldrake examines these dogmas scientifically, and shows
persuasively that science would be better off without them: freer, more
interesting, and more fun. In The God Delusion Richard Dawkins used
science to bash God, but here Rupert Sheldrake shows that Dawkins'
understanding of what science can do is old-fashioned and itself a
delusion.
2008 Christian Bookseller's Covention Book of the Year Award winner!
World-renowned scientist Richard Dawkins writes in The God Delusion:
"If this book works as I intend, religious readers who open it will be
atheists when they put it down." The volume has received wide coverage,
fueled much passionate debate and caused not a little confusion.
Alister McGrath, along with his wife, Joanna, are ideal to evaluate
Dawkins's ideas. Once an atheist himself, he gained a doctorate in
molecular biophysics before going on to become a leading Christian
theologian. He wonders how two people, who have reflected at length on
substantially the same world, could possibly have come to such different
conclusions about God. McGrath subjects Dawkins's critique of faith to
rigorous scrutiny. His exhilarating, meticulously argued response deals
with questions such as
- Is faith intellectual nonsense?
- Are science and religion locked in a battle to the death?
- Can the roots of Christianity be explained away scientifically?
- Is Christianity simply a force for evil?
This book will be warmly received by those looking for a reliable assessment of The God Delusion and the many questions it raises--including, above all, the relevance of faith and the quest for meaning.
In just a half century, humanity has made an astounding leap in its
understanding of life. Now, one of the giants of biological science,
Christian de Duve, discusses what we've learned in this half century,
ranging from the tiniest cells to the future of our species and of life
itself.
With wide-ranging erudition, de Duve takes us on a
dazzling tour of the biological world, beginning with the invisible
workings of the cell, the area in which he won his Nobel Prize. He
describes how the first cells may have arisen and suggests that they may
have been like the organisms that exist
today near deep-sea hydrothermal vents. Contrary to many other
scientists, he argues that life was bound to arise and that it probably
only took millennia —maybe tens of thousands of years— to move from
rough building blocks to the first organisms possessing the basic
properties of life. With equal authority, De Duve examines topics such
as the evolution of humans, the origins of consciousness, the
development of language, the birth of science, and the origin of
emotion, morality, altruism, and love. He concludes with his conjectures
on the future of humanity —for instance, we may evolve, perhaps via
genetic engineering, into a new species— he shares his personal
thoughts about God and immortality.
In Life Evolving, one
of our most eminent scientists sums up
what he has learned about the nature of life and our place in the
universe. An extraordinarily wise and humane volume, it will fascinate
readers curious about the world around them and about the impact of
science on philosophy and religion.
Over
the course of human history, the sciences, and biology in particular,
have often been manipulated to cause immense human suffering. For
example, biology has been used to justify eugenic programs, forced
sterilization, human experimentation, and death camps —all in an attempt
to support notions of racial superiority. By investigating the past, the
contributors to Biology and Ideology from Descartes to Dawkins hope to better prepare us to discern ideological abuse of science when it occurs in the future.
Denis R. Alexander and Ronald L. Numbers bring together fourteen experts to
examine the varied ways science has been used and abused for
nonscientific purposes from the fifteenth century to the present day.
Featuring an essay on eugenics from Edward J. Larson and an examination
of the progress of evolution by Michael J. Ruse, Biology and Ideology
examines uses both benign and sinister, ultimately reminding us that
ideological extrapolation continues today. An accessible survey, this
collection will enlighten historians of science, their students,
practicing scientists, and anyone interested in the relationship between
science and culture.
Drawing on New Testament studies and recent scholarship on the
expansion of the Christian church, Gary B. Ferngren presents a
comprehensive historical account of medicine and medical philanthropy in
the first five centuries of the Christian era.
Ferngren first
describes how early Christians understood disease. He examines the
relationship of early Christian medicine to the natural and supernatural
modes of healing found in the Bible. Despite biblical accounts of
demonic possession and miraculous healing, Ferngren argues that early
Christians generally accepted naturalistic assumptions about disease and
cared for the sick with medical knowledge gleaned from the Greeks and
Romans.
Ferngren next explores the origins of medical
philanthropy in the early Christian church. Rather than viewing illness
as punishment for sins, early Christians believed that the sick deserved
both medical assistance and compassion. Even as they were being
persecuted, Christians cared for the sick both within and outside of
their community. Their long experience in medical charity led to the
creation of the first hospitals, a singular Christian contribution to
health care.
Written by distinguished historians of science and religion, the thirty
essays in this volume survey the relationship of Western religious
traditions to science from the beginning of the Christian era to the
late twentieth century. This wide-ranging collection also introduces a
variety of approaches to understanding their intersection, suggesting a
model not of inalterable conflict, but of complex interaction.
Tracing
the rise of science from its birth in the medieval West through the
scientific revolution, the contributors describe major shifts that were
marked by discoveries such as those of Copernicus, Galileo, and Isaac
Newton and the Catholic and Protestant reactions to them. They assess
changes in scientific understanding brought about by eighteenth- and
nineteenth-century transformations in geology, cosmology, and biology,
together with the responses of both mainstream religious groups and such
newer movements as evangelicalism and fundamentalism. The book also
treats the theological implications of contemporary science and
evaluates recent approaches such as environmentalism, gender studies,
social construction, and postmodernism, which are at the center of
current debates in the historiography, understanding, and application of
science.
Editor: Gary Ferngren.
Contributors: Colin A. Russell, David B. Wilson,
Edward Grant, David C. Lindberg, Alnoor Dhanani, Owen Gingerich, Richard
J. Blackwell, Edward B. Davis, Michael P. Winship, John Henry, Margaret
J. Osler, Richard S. Westfall, John Hedley Brooke, Nicolaas A. Rupke,
Peter M. Hess, James Moore, Peter J. Bowler, Ronald L. Numbers, Steven
J. Harris, Mark A. Noll, Edward J. Larson, Richard Olson, Craig Sean
McConnell, Robin Collins, William A. Dembski, David N. Livingstone, Sara
Miles, and Stephen P. Weldon.
"On the threshold of the third millennium, a Christian cannot ignore
the special role of science in the transformation of contemporary
civilization.... In a lucid, compelling way, Science and Belief in the
Nuclear Age describes our responsibility for this intellectual heritage
that is so essential for Christian tradition. Hodgson, without claiming
science should become religion or religion science, convincingly
describes an academic community of intellectual interchange that
replaces former conflicts and partial perspectives by a new integral
vision of science open to theological truth."
Peter Hodgson has lectured on and tutored physics and mathematics in the
University of Oxford for forty years, and has been engaged on research
in experimental and Theoretical nuclear physics for over fifty years. He
was a member of the Council of Atomic Scientists’ Association from
1952-1959 and edited its journal from 1953-1955. He has written about
sixteen books and three hundred research papers and is a Fellow of
Corpus Christi College and the Institute of Physics. He is the President
of the Science Secretariat of Pax Romana, and recently served as a
consultant to the Pontifical Consilium for Cultures.
