Tuesday, October 31, 2006
When God and science overlap
From The Australian: Surely a chair in science and religion is a contradiction in terms?
Peter Harrison (homepage) - about to take up precisely that chair at Oxford University after many years at Bond University (Queensland, Australia) - laughs good-naturedly at the devil's advocate question. Where some see only conflict between reason and revelation, he sees also a history of co-operation embodied by pious thinkers such as Isaac Newton.
'It's important to understand that (science and religion) are separate operations but I don't think this means that they are, as (evolutionary biologist) Stephen Jay Gould would have it, quite discrete universes or 'non-overlapping magisteria',' Harrison says.
'If you say God created the world, for example, it does seem to me that that's a factual statement of some kind that may have scientific implications, and if it doesn't, you have to wonder what kind of claim it is.'
Continued at "When God and science overlap"
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Read Peter Harrison's paper "Miracles, Early Modern Science, and Rational Religion" (Full Text available via Abstract)
Featured Book: "Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon" by Daniel C. Dennett (Amazon UK | US)
Books on Creationism from the Science and Evolution Bookshop: UK | US
Books on Intelligent Design from the Science and Evolution Bookshop: UK | US
Books on 'Science and Religion' from the Science and Evolution Bookshop: UK | US
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