Eminent Lives in Twentieth-century Science & Religion

Eminent Lives in Twentieth-century Science & Religion PDF Author: Nicolaas A. Rupke
Publisher: Peter Lang
ISBN: 9783631581209
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 376

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Book Description
Can science and religion coexist in harmony? Or is conflict inevitable? In this volume an international team of distinguished scholars addresses these enduring yet urgent questions by examining the lives of thirteen eminent twentieth-century scientists whose careers were marked by the interaction of science and religion: Rachel Carson, Charles A. Coulson, Theodosius Dobzhansky, Arthur S. Eddington, Albert Einstein, Ronald A. Fisher, Julian Huxley, Pascual Jordan, Robert A. Millikan, Ivan P. Pavlov, Michael I. Pupin, Abdus Salam, and Edward O. Wilson. The richly empirical studies show a diversity of creative engagements between science and religion that defy efforts to set the two at odds.

Eminent Lives in Twentieth-century Science & Religion

Eminent Lives in Twentieth-century Science & Religion PDF Author: Nicolaas A. Rupke
Publisher: Peter Lang
ISBN: 9783631581209
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 376

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Book Description
Can science and religion coexist in harmony? Or is conflict inevitable? In this volume an international team of distinguished scholars addresses these enduring yet urgent questions by examining the lives of thirteen eminent twentieth-century scientists whose careers were marked by the interaction of science and religion: Rachel Carson, Charles A. Coulson, Theodosius Dobzhansky, Arthur S. Eddington, Albert Einstein, Ronald A. Fisher, Julian Huxley, Pascual Jordan, Robert A. Millikan, Ivan P. Pavlov, Michael I. Pupin, Abdus Salam, and Edward O. Wilson. The richly empirical studies show a diversity of creative engagements between science and religion that defy efforts to set the two at odds.

Christianity in the Twentieth Century

Christianity in the Twentieth Century PDF Author: Brian Stanley
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691196842
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 501

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Book Description
"[This book] charts the transformation of one of the world's great religions during an age marked by world wars, genocide, nationalism, decolonization, and powerful ideological currents, many of them hostile to Christianity"--Amazon.com.

The Evolving God

The Evolving God PDF Author: J. David Pleins
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 1623568676
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 193

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Book Description
In focusing on the story of Darwin's religious doubts, scholars too often overlook Darwin's positive contribution to the study of religion. J. David Pleins traces Darwin's journey in five steps. He begins with Darwin's global voyage, where his encounter with religious and cultural diversity transformed his understanding of religion. Surprisingly, Darwin wrestles with serious theological questions even as he uncovers the evolutionary layers of religion from savage roots. Next, we follow Darwin as his doubts about traditional biblical religion take root, affecting his career choice and marriage to Emma Wedgwood. Pleins then examines Darwin's secret notebooks as he searches for a materialist theory of religion. Again, other surprises loom as Darwin's reading of Comte's three stages of religion's development actually predate his reading of Malthus. Pleins explores how Darwin applied his discovery to the realm of ethics by formulating an evolutionary view of the "Golden Rule" in his Descent of Man. Finally, he considers Darwin's later reflections on the religion question, as he wrestled with whether his views led to atheism, agnosticism, or a new kind of theism. The Evolving God concludes by looking at some of the current religious debates surrounding Darwin and suggests the need for a deeper appreciation for Darwin as a religious thinker. Though he grew skeptical of traditional Christian dogma, Darwin made key discoveries concerning the role and function of religion as a natural evolutionary phenomenon.

Galileo Goes to Jail and Other Myths about Science and Religion

Galileo Goes to Jail and Other Myths about Science and Religion PDF Author: Ronald L. Numbers
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674256956
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 317

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Book Description
If we want nonscientists and opinion-makers in the press, the lab, and the pulpit to take a fresh look at the relationship between science and religion, Ronald Numbers suggests that we must first dispense with the hoary myths that have masqueraded too long as historical truths. Until about the 1970s, the dominant narrative in the history of science had long been that of science triumphant, and science at war with religion. But a new generation of historians both of science and of the church began to examine episodes in the history of science and religion through the values and knowledge of the actors themselves. Now Ronald Numbers has recruited the leading scholars in this new history of science to puncture the myths, from Galileo’s incarceration to Darwin’s deathbed conversion to Einstein’s belief in a personal God who “didn’t play dice with the universe.” The picture of science and religion at each other’s throats persists in mainstream media and scholarly journals, but each chapter in Galileo Goes to Jail shows how much we have to gain by seeing beyond the myths.

The Cambridge Companion to Science and Religion

The Cambridge Companion to Science and Religion PDF Author: Peter Harrison
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1139828371
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 538

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Book Description
In recent years, the relations between science and religion have been the object of renewed attention. Developments in physics, biology and the neurosciences have reinvigorated discussions about the nature of life and ultimate reality. At the same time, the growth of anti-evolutionary and intelligent design movements has led many to the view that science and religion are necessarily in conflict. This book provides a comprehensive introduction to the relations between science and religion, with contributions from historians, philosophers, scientists and theologians. It explores the impact of religion on the origins and development of science, religious reactions to Darwinism, and the link between science and secularization. It also offers in-depth discussions of contemporary issues, with perspectives from cosmology, evolutionary biology, psychology, and bioethics. The volume is rounded out with philosophical reflections on the connections between atheism and science, the nature of scientific and religious knowledge, and divine action and human freedom.

The Warfare between Science and Religion

The Warfare between Science and Religion PDF Author: Jeff Hardin
Publisher: Johns Hopkins University Press
ISBN: 1421426188
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 367

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Book Description
Why is the idea of conflict between science and religion so popular in the public imagination? The “conflict thesis”—the idea that an inevitable and irreconcilable conflict exists between science and religion—has long been part of the popular imagination. In The Warfare between Science and Religion, Jeff Hardin, Ronald L. Numbers, and Ronald A. Binzley have assembled a group of distinguished historians who explore the origin of the thesis, its reception, the responses it drew from various faith traditions, and its continued prominence in public discourse. Several essays in the book examine the personal circumstances and theological idiosyncrasies of important intellectuals, including John William Draper and Andrew Dickson White, who through their polemical writings championed the conflict thesis relentlessly. Other essays consider what the thesis meant to different religious communities, including evangelicals, liberal Protestants, Roman Catholics, Eastern Orthodox Christians, Jews, and Muslims. Finally, essays both historical and sociological explore the place of the conflict thesis in popular culture and intellectual discourse today. Based on original research and written in an accessible style, the essays in The Warfare between Science and Religion take an interdisciplinary approach to question the historical relationship between science and religion. This volume, which brings much-needed perspective to an often bitter controversy, will appeal to scholars and students of the histories of science and religion, sociology, and philosophy. Contributors: Thomas H. Aechtner, Ronald A. Binzley, John Hedley Brooke, Elaine Howard Ecklund, Noah Efron, John H. Evans, Maurice A. Finocchiaro, Frederick Gregory, Bradley J. Gundlach, Monte Harrell Hampton, Jeff Hardin, Peter Harrison, Bernard Lightman, David N. Livingstone, David Mislin, Efthymios Nicolaidis, Mark A. Noll, Ronald L. Numbers, Lawrence M. Principe, Jon H. Roberts, Christopher P. Scheitle, M. Alper Yalçinkaya

Science and Religion Around the World

Science and Religion Around the World PDF Author: John Hedley Brooke
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199793204
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 335

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Book Description
The past quarter-century has seen an explosion of interest in the history of science and religion. But all too often the scholars writing it have focused their attention almost exclusively on the Christian experience, with only passing reference to other traditions of both science and faith. At a time when religious ignorance and misunderstanding have lethal consequences, such provincialism must be avoided and, in this pioneering effort to explore the historical relations of what we now call "science" and "religion," the authors go beyond the Abrahamic traditions to examine the way nature has been understood and manipulated in regions as diverse as ancient China, India, and sub-Saharan Africa. Science and Religion around the World also provides authoritative discussions of science in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam -- as well as an exploration of the relationship between science and the loss of religious beliefs. The narratives included in this book demonstrate the value of plural perspectives and of the importance of location for the construction and perception of science-religion relations.

Outgrowing God

Outgrowing God PDF Author: Richard Dawkins
Publisher: Random House
ISBN: 1984853910
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 314

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Book Description
Should we believe in God? In this brisk introduction to modern atheism, one of the world’s greatest science writers tells us why we shouldn’t. Richard Dawkins was fifteen when he stopped believing in God. Deeply impressed by the beauty and complexity of living things, he’d felt certain they must have had a designer. Learning about evolution changed his mind. Now one of the world’s best and bestselling science communicators, Dawkins has given readers, young and old, the same opportunity to rethink the big questions. In twelve fiercely funny, mind-expanding chapters, Dawkins explains how the natural world arose without a designer—the improbability and beauty of the “bottom-up programming” that engineers an embryo or a flock of starlings—and challenges head-on some of the most basic assumptions made by the world’s religions: Do you believe in God? Which one? Is the Bible a “Good Book”? Is adhering to a religion necessary, or even likely, to make people good to one another? Dissecting everything from Abraham’s abuse of Isaac to the construction of a snowflake, Outgrowing God is a concise, provocative guide to thinking for yourself. Praise for Outgrowing God “My son came home from his first day in the sixth grade with arms outstretched plaintively demanding to know: ‘Have you ever heard of Jesus?’ We burst out laughing. Maybe not our finest parenting moment, given that he was genuinely distraught. He felt that he had woken up one day to a world in which his peers were expressing beliefs he found frighteningly unreasonable. He began devouring books like The God Delusion, books that helped him formulate his own arguments and helped him stand his ground. Dawkins’s new book is special in the terrain of atheists’ pleas for humanism and rationalism precisely since it speaks to those most vulnerable to the coercive tactics of religion. As Dawkins himself says in the dedication, this book is for ‘all young people when they’re old enough to decide for themselves.’ It is also, I must add, for their parents.”—Janna Levin, author of Black Hole Blues “When someone is considering atheism I tell them to read the Bible first and then Dawkins. Outgrowing God—second only to the Bible!”—Penn Jillette, author of God, No!

Darwinism and Natural Theology

Darwinism and Natural Theology PDF Author: Andrew Robinson
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
ISBN: 1443838195
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 225

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Book Description
Can Christianity be reconciled with Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection? What relevance do the biological sciences have to religious thought? Does Christian theology have anything to offer when it comes to formulating scientific hypotheses? These questions are among those explored in this collection of essays arising from a meeting of the UK Science and Religion Forum held in Cambridge to mark the bicentenary of Darwin’s birth and the 150th anniversary of the publication of The Origin of Species. The volume brings together contributions from a distinguished group of scholars at the forefront of the field of science-and-religion, including Denis Alexander, R. J. Berry, John Hedley Brooke, Sarah Coakley, Celia Deane-Drummond, David Fergusson, David Knight, Christopher Southgate, Neil Spurway and Kenneth Wilson. The essays are organized around the theme of ‘natural theology’ -– the attempt to draw theological conclusions from reflection on the natural world. The essays cover historical, philosophical and theological perspectives, and explore some contemporary approaches to natural theology in the context of Darwinism.

The Life and Science of Harold C. Urey

The Life and Science of Harold C. Urey PDF Author: Matthew Shindell
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022666208X
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 266

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Book Description
Harold C. Urey (1893–1981), whose discoveries lie at the foundation of modern science, was one of the most famous American scientists of the twentieth century. Born in rural Indiana, his evolution from small-town farm boy to scientific celebrity made him a symbol and spokesman for American scientific authority. Because he rose to fame alongside the prestige of American science, the story of his life reflects broader changes in the social and intellectual landscape of twentieth-century America. In this, the first ever biography of the chemist, Matthew Shindell shines new light on Urey’s struggles and achievements in a thoughtful exploration of the science, politics, and society of the Cold War era. From Urey’s orthodox religious upbringing to his death in 1981, Shindell follows the scientist through nearly a century of American history: his discovery of deuterium and heavy water earned him the Nobel Prize in 1934, his work on the Manhattan Project helped usher in the atomic age, he initiated a generation of American scientists into the world of quantum physics and chemistry, and he took on the origin of the Moon in NASA’s lunar exploration program. Despite his success, however, Urey had difficulty navigating the nuclear age. In later years he lived in the shadow of the bomb he helped create, plagued by the uncertainties unleashed by the rise of American science and unable to reconcile the consequences of scientific progress with the morality of religion. Tracing Urey’s life through two world wars and the Cold War not only conveys the complex historical relationship between science and religion in the twentieth century, but it also illustrates how these complexities spilled over into the early days of space science. More than a life story, this book immerses readers in the trials and triumphs of an extraordinary man and his extraordinary times.