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

Dealing with Darwin

Book 265 pages Level: university In this 2014 book published by Johns Hopkins University Press, author David N. Livingstone explores reactions to Charles Darwin’s ideas among different groups of people with apparently the same religious beliefs. The groups he considers are all people with ties to Scottish Presbyterianism. Livingstone shows that these different groups all responded to Darwin in dramatically differing ways. From this Livingstone argues that what might be considered “religious” opposition to Darwin’s ideas, or to other ideas in science, might not be “religious” at all. If “religion” was the driving force in the how these Presbyterians responded to Darwin, then we would expect their responses to be somewhat similar. But since their responses were not, then other factors such as “place, politics, and rhetoric” must carry the greater weight in religious engagements with evolution and other ideas. The full title of the book is Dealing with Darwin: Place, Politics, and Rhetoric in Religious Engagements with Evolution. From … Continue reading →

The Secret History of Science and Religion

Radio program 90 minutes in 3 segments Level: all audiences This series aired on the BBC Radio 4 in 2019 and is hosted by Nick Spencer of Theos Think Tank in the UK. The show features accomplished scholars such as John Hedley Brooke and Bernard Lightman, and touches on scientific figures ranging from Robert Grosseteste to Isaac Newton to James Clerk Maxwell to Georges Lemaître. Spencer argues that the supposed conflict between science and religion hinges on ideas about what it means to be human. Therefore often the conflict is not really about religion and science in the usual way that people think about them. For example, Spencer interviews Fern Elsdon-Baker (Professor of Science, Knowledge and Belief in Society at Birmingham University in the UK), whose research suggests that professed atheists reject a strictly materialistic evolutionary explanation for human origins at a similar rates as professedly religious people. Click here to access the web site of this program, courtesy of … Continue reading →

Seeking the Face of God: The Lives and Discoveries of Catholic Scientists

Audio series 3 hours Level: all audiences This is a series of conversations between Dr. Guy Consolmagno, S. J., Director of the Vatican Observatory, and Dr. Michelle Francl-Donnay, professor of chemistry and the chair of the chemistry department at Bryn Mawr College, and an adjunct scholar of the Vatican Observatory. The interviews are published by Now You Know Media. From the web site of Now You Know: In Seeking the Face of God, two leading scientists from the Vatican Observatory debate what it means to be a practicing Catholic and a professional scientist. Tracing back across 1,000 years of history, you’ll reflect on the role of faith in science…. Beginning with a brief overview of the history of science, Consolmagno and Francl-Donnay highlight Catholic contributions to medicine, mathematics, computer science, astronomy, and chemistry before arriving at the question of our place in the cosmos. While some, like Gregor Mendel, are famous for their discoveries, Consolmagno and Francl-Donnay introduce you to … Continue reading →

Claiming Darwin

Article 4000 words Level: high school and above This article by Myrna Perez Sheldon was published in 2015 in Cosmologics Magazine, which is a project of the Science, Religion, and Culture program at Harvard Divinity School. Sheldon discusses the impact on evolutionists of both the resurgence of Creationism and Stephen Jay Gould’s ideas about “punctuated equilibrium” during the 1970’s and 1980’s. She notes that Gould framed Charles Darwin as a historical figure who had been influenced by his time and place. According to Gould, Darwin’s theory did come down to explaining natural order without recourse to God, but largely because of Darwin’s own historical context—“all the higher order harmony that used to be seen as the source of evidence for God’s benevolence is epiphenomenal upon the struggle of something lower for personal gain. That’s all.” If this framing sounded a great deal like “Adam Smith’s economics translated into nature,” it was “no accident” according to Gould. Gould went on to … Continue reading →

From Cosmologics: On Darwin and Place

Articles (two) 4500 words (total) Level: high school and above These are two articles related to work by David Livingstone of Queen’s University, Belfast, who gave the 2015 Dudleian Lecture at Harvard Divinity School. They were published in Cosmologics Magazine, which is a project of the Science, Religion, and Culture program at Harvard Divinity School. Click here to access “David Livingstone: Putting Darwinism in Its Place” from Cosmologics Magazine. This is an excerpt from Livingstone’s book Dealing with Darwin: Place, Politics and Rhetoric in Religious Engagements with Evolution. Livingstone argues that how Darwin’s ideas were received varied widely. In some places Darwin’s ideas were rejected. He notes how some sought to cast “Darwinism and Catholicism as twin allies against the inductive truths of science and the revealed truths of scripture. It thus became possible to conflate as a single object of reproach an old enemy—popery—and a new one—evolution…. these were indeed the enemies of God.” Others welcomed Darwinism as endorsing … Continue reading →

Religion and Science from a Postsecular Perspective

Article 14 pages Level: high school and above Authors Raphael Sassower and Jeffrey Scholes argue for the existence of a “postsecular” view of religion and science in this 2015 paper from the Journal of Religion and Society. The authors write that, Depending on which scholar one reads, postsecularism represents the failure of secularization, an extension of the secular, a reenchantment of culture, a resurgence of religion, or the harbinger of a new political reality. Each representation may reach slightly different conclusions, some for ideological purposes, but common to all is the recognition that the secular has not made good on its promise to eliminate religion. From the abstract of the article: There are various ways in which religion and science have been perceived to interact in the cultural domain. After critically assessing the “separation view” of their relationship and finding it untenable, this essay recounts various “interaction views” wherein either religion or science is assumed to be taking precedence over … Continue reading →

A Biologist’s Perspective on Science and the Catholic Intellectual Tradition

Article 7 pages Level: high school and above This 2011 article in the Journal of Religion and Society is by Charles Brockhouse of Creighton University. This article provides perspectives on science from two different Catholic scientists—Brockhouse directly, and indirectly Brockhouse’s father, Bertram Brockhouse, who shared the 1994 Nobel Prize in Physics. Charles Brockhouse writes: No consideration of the Catholic Intellectual Tradition would be complete without a treatment of the development of modern experimental (natural) science. Alas, such a work is beyond my expertise and available time as a practicing scientist and lecturer in the general area of genetics and molecular biology…. [T]his chapter offers a distillation of my personal framework. This perspective developed during a lifetime in a family largely formed of converts to Roman Catholicism (and many non-RCs who did not covert) who also placed an enormous emphasis on scholastic development and intellectual rigor. Click here for this article with addition information, from Creighton University. Click here for the article directly, … Continue reading →

History: Science and the Reformation

Article 1800 words Level: all audiences In this 2017 article in in the journal Nature, author David Wootton writes on the Protestant Reformation and the Copernican Revolution: Were the Reformation and this revolution merely coincident, or did the Reformation somehow facilitate or foster the new science, which rejected traditional authorities such as Aristotle and relied on experiments and empirical information? Suppose Martin Luther had never existed; suppose the Reformation had never taken place. Would the history of science have been fundamentally different? Would there have been no scientific revolution? Would we still be living in the world of the horse and cart, the quill pen and the matchlock firearm? Can we imagine a Catholic Newton, or is Newton’s Protestantism somehow fundamental to his science? Wootton notes that “it is still widely argued by historians of science that the Protestant religion and the new science were inextricably intertwined, as Protestantism turned away from the spirituality of Catholicism and fostered a practical … Continue reading →

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 →

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