Science, Religion & Society Archives - Vatican Observatory Foundation Faith and Science

Rebecca Catto: Using Science to Study Religion

Article 2000 words Level: university A discussion by a sociologist of how people view science, and how they tend to accept it regardless of their religious outlook. This article by sociologist Rebecca Catto was published in Cosmologics magazine, which is a project of the Science, Religion, and Culture program at Harvard Divinity School. Catto writes: People may be entitled to believe what they wish and science unable to adjudicate upon the veracity of all religious beliefs, but it nonetheless ultimately triumphs: “I think inherently there seems to be sort of a wide recognition that people come from different cultural backgrounds and different beliefs, different religions, and if people choose to ignore the scientific facts there’s a long history of that and people are free to believe whatever they want to believe and sort of put their blinders on. I mean that’s a personal choice but when it comes to developing sound governmental policy and scientific policy you’re even building airplanes… well … Continue reading →

The Triumph of the Cross

Article 21 pages Level: university This 2018 article, published in the journal Ohio Valley History, revolves around the Cincinnati Observatory, the oldest professional observatory in the United States and the first public observatory in the Western Hemisphere. The full title of the article is “The Triumph of the Cross: President John Quincy Adams, Archbishop John Baptist Purcell, and the Reclamation of Cincinnati’s Mount Adams as a Sacred Site”. The author of the article, C. Walker Gollar, is Professor of Church History at Xavier University in Cincinnati. Mount Adams was the original site of the observatory, and the article traces conflict related to the observatory that stemmed in part from remarks that Adams gave in a speech for the founding of the observatory, in which Adams claimed that St. Ignatius Loyola founded the Inquisition. The article also traces the parallel history of the observatory and of a Catholic church on Mount Adams, as well as changing views about science both in the … Continue reading →

Astronomy and God: Do anti-religious messages belong in science education?

Article 1000 words Level: all audiences Religion is not part of the pages of Astronomy magazine, but “for some crazy reason, religion creeps into some popular science media”, usually in the form of “religious putdowns” such as were seen in the “Cosmos” TV series. So writes Bob Berman in the August 2014 issue of Astronomy. “The advocacy segments in shows like Cosmos may be well intentioned,” writes Berman, “but I fear they merely harden those who think science is a ‘position’ or ‘view’ of the world rather than an impartial portal to truth.” Click here to access this article courtesy of Astronomy magazine. … Continue reading →

The Popular Creation Story of Astronomy Is Wrong

Article 3000 words Level: all audiences In this May 2018 article in Nautilus, author C. M. Graney discusses Johannes Kepler’s view of the universe, a view that does not conform at all to modern ideas. Graney argues that understanding the views of scientists such as Kepler, even when they are unusual, is important to understanding science today, and important to countering anti-science attitudes. Graney writes: In the early years of the 17th century, Johannes Kepler argued that the universe contained thousands of mighty bodies, bodies so huge that they could be universes themselves. These giant bodies, said Kepler, testified to the immense power of, as well as the personal tastes of, an omnipotent Creator God. The giant bodies were the stars, and they were arrayed around the sun, the universe’s comparatively tiny central body, itself orbited by its retinue of still tinier planets. Click here to access this article from Nautilus. … Continue reading →

Physics Today: Thinking differently about science and religion

Article (Letter to Editor) and Responses 9 pages (total) Level: all audiences In February 2018 the journal Physics Today published a letter by Tom McLeish, Professor of Physics at Durham University, chair of the Royal Society’s education committee, and author of the book Faith and Wisdom in Science (Oxford University Press, 2014). The following June Physics Today published a number of responses to McLeish’s letter, along with additional remarks from McLeish. McLeish writes: Driving an unhistorical and unrealistic wedge between science and religion has got to stop. It leads, in part, to the optionalism that we see in some public and political attitudes toward science, from climate change to vaccination. It damages the educational experience of our children, and it impoverishes our understanding of our own science’s historical context. Human beings live not only in a physical world but within historical narratives that give us values, purpose, and identity. Science sits on the branches and draws from the sap of … Continue reading →

The Penultimate Curiosity: How Science Swims in the Slipstream of Ultimate Questions

Book 468 pages Level: university This is a book by an artist and a scientist. The artist is Robert Wagner, who has produced several books of illustrated poems and translations of the Psalms, and created a stained glass window for St. Mary’s Iffley in Oxford. The scientist is Andrew Briggs, Professor of Nanomaterials at Oxford, who holds degrees in both physics and theology. The authors argue that over time, science and metaphysics have grown side by side as mankind has asked questions central to our existence. The book, published in 2016 by Oxford University Press, discusses a wide range of historical figures, from Anaxagoras to John Philoponus to Al-Ghazali to Kepler to Maxwell to the scientists working on the Large Hadron Collider. The use of illustrations is a prominent feature of the book. From the publisher, Oxford University Press: When young children first begin to ask ‘why?’ they embark on a journey with no final destination. The need to make sense of … Continue reading →

Father George Coyne Interviewed by Richard Dawkins

Video Approximately 1 hour Level: all audiences This is uncut footage of a 2008 interview by Richard Dawkins with Father George Coyne, S. J., who was Director of the Vatican Observatory from 1978 through 2006. The interview was recorded for Dawkins’ television program “The Genius of Charles Darwin” for Channel 4 in the UK, but was not used. … Continue reading →

An Interview with Reverend George V. Coyne, S.J.

Article 8 pages Level: all audiences This 2018 interview with Fr. George V. Coyne, S. J., Director of the Vatican Observatory from 1978 through 2006, was published as part of John Carroll University’s “Re-engaging Science in Seminary Formation” project. From the introduction to this interview: At every turn during our science in seminaries project, we found ourselves inspired and encouraged by the life and work of Reverend George V. Coyne, S.J., an astrophysicist and former director of the Vatican Observatory for almost 30 years (1978–2006). Father Coyne was not only on the front lines promoting the need for dialogue between scientific and theological communities, but he also unrelentingly advanced the cause of scientific literacy as a critical component of seminary formation. We contacted Father Coyne at Le Moyne College in Syracuse, New York, where he is McDevitt Chair of Religious Philosophy and McDevitt Chair in Physics. He graciously agreed to be interviewed by Reverend John Kartje, Rector-President of Saint Mary … Continue reading →

Pierre Duhem, Entropy, and Christian Faith

Article 18 pages Level: university In this 2008 article published in the journal Physics in Perspective, historian of science Helge Kragh discusses Pierre Duhem and the status of science and religion in the second half of the nineteenth century, when developments in the science of thermodynamics challenged the idea of an eternal, unchanging or cyclic universe. Kragh writes: The French physicist and polymath Pierre Duhem was strongly devoted to Catholicism but insisted that science and religion were wholly independent. In an article of 1905 he reflected at length on the relationship between physics and Christian faith, using as an example the cosmological significance of the laws of thermodynamics. He held that it was unjustified to draw cosmological consequences from thermodynamics or any other science, and even more unjustified to draw consequences of a religious nature. I place Duhem’s thoughts on “the physics of a believer” in their proper contexts by relating them to the late-nineteenth-century discussion concerning the meaning and … Continue reading →

Rather than working against one another, faith and science together offer a fuller picture of creation

Article 850 words Level: all audiences Br. Guy Consolmagno, S. J., an astronomer with the Vatican Observatory, discusses in this article from from Our Sunday Visitor Newsweekly how science and religion sometimes give us different pictures of God’s universe. Click here to access this article directly from Our Sunday Visitor Newsweekly. Rather than working against one another, faith and science together offer a fuller picture of creation We shouldn’t be afraid if science and religion sometimes give us different pictures of God’s universe Brother Guy Consolmagno OSV Newsweekly 10/29/2014 “What do I do if science tells me one thing but religion tells me another thing? Which do I believe?” There’s a false assumption at the center of that question, because neither science nor religion are about believing in “things.” Our religious belief is not in a “thing,” but in a person — indeed, three persons. Our faith is in the Father, Son and Holy Spirit as described and identified in the creed, and in … Continue reading →

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