The Pontifical Academy of Sciences traces its history to the Academy of the Lynxes, first founded in 1603, of which Galileo was a member. It is a group of 80 life members plus two honorary members, and four members (including the director of the Vatican Observatory) who belong by right of their office within the Vatican.
Its goals are promoting the progress of the mathematical, physical and natural sciences, and the study of related epistemological questions and issues; recognizing excellence in science; stimulating an interdisciplinary approach to scientific knowledge; encouraging international interaction; furthering participation in the benefits of science and technology by the greatest number of people and peoples; promoting education and the public’s understanding of science; ensuring that science works to advance the human and moral dimension of man; achieving a role for science which involves the promotion of justice, development, solidarity, peace, and the resolution of conflict; fostering interaction between faith and reason and encouraging dialogue between science and spiritual, cultural, philosophical and religious values; providing authoritative advice on scientific and technological matters; and cooperating with the members of other Academies in a friendly spirit to promote such objectives.
The best place to start to learn about the PAS is at its own web site (click here).
Modern Cosmology and Life’s Meaning
Book chapter 9 pages, 3600 words Level: university A book chapter by Fr. George Coyne, S. J., Director of the Vatican Observatory from 1978 to 2006, from the 2002 book The Cultural Values of Science, published by the Pontifical Academy of Sciences. Fr. Coyne writes: Cosmology today is ever more human; it stimulates, provokes, ques- tions us in ways that drive us beyond science in the search for satisfaction, while at the same time scientific data furnish the stimuli. In this context the best cosmology, to its great merit, does not pretend nor presume to have the ultimate answers. It simply suggests and urges us on, well aware that not all is within its ken. Freedom to seek understanding and not dogmatism in what is understood characterize the best of cosmology. It is, in fact, a field where certainties lie always in the future; thus it is vital, dynamic and very demanding of those who seek to discover the secrets of … Continue reading →
Modern Cosmology, a Resource for Elementary School Education
Book chapter (PDF) 9 pages, 7000 words Level: all audiences A book chapter from the 2001 book The Challenges for Science. Education for the Twenty-First Century, published by the Pontifical Academy of Sciences. In this chapter Fr. George Coyne, S. J., Director of the Vatican Observatory from 1978 to 2006, writes: (1) We should start teaching children from where they are at present, their current knowledge, interests, fears, and so on; (2) all of us humans, those who teach and those who are taught, “have been made in heaven”, it has been said. This refers to the well known need for stellar nucleosynthesis to provide the chemical abundances required for life in the universe. It has been indicated that one of principal goals of teaching children should be an awareness of this birth of ours from star dust, if only at an elementary level. I would suggest that the didactic order be reversed and that this awareness should be the beginning … Continue reading →
Pope Pius XII – The Structure of the Matter of the Created World as a Manifestation of the Wisdom and Goodness of God
Article 3200 words Level: high school and above A Papal Address to the Plenary Session of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, April 24, 1955. This article has been selected by the Interdisciplinary Encyclopedia of Religion and Science (Inters.org), which is edited by the Advanced School for Interdisciplinary Research, operating at the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross, Rome, and directed by Giuseppe Tanzella-Nitti. Pope Pius XII says to the assembled scientists: As we bid you welcome in this house, whose doors have always been opened wide to those who cultivate the arts and sciences, we desire also to express to Your Excellencies, Members of our Academy, our lively satisfaction. Your life, consecrated as is to the study of natural phenomena, enables you to observe every day more closely, and to interpret, the wonders which the Most High has inscribed on the reality of things. In very truth, the created world is a manifestation of the wisdom and goodness of God, for all … Continue reading →
Science and Religion Advance Together at Pontifical Academy
Article 3 pages Level: all audiences This 2001 article written by Charles Seife for the journal Science discusses the Pontifical Academy of Science, with a side-bar article on the Vatican Observatory. Seife writes: Since its founding, the Pontifical Academy has numbered among its members such scientific luminaries as Alexander Fleming, Niels Bohr, Chandrasekhara Raman, and Werner Heisenberg (elected in 1955)…. Candidates are nominated and elected by the members, although technically they are appointed by sovereign act of the pontiff—who looks for more than mere scientific eminence. The institution’s charter specifies that members must possess “acknowledged moral personality.”… Once on board, members share a simple set of duties: to meet and talk. Members say they choose their own speakers and topics and debate issues freely. “The Catholic Church is supporting this academy,” says Crodowaldo Pavan, a geneticist at the University of Sao Paulo and a member of the academy. “They pay for this meeting and don’t say what we should say—they give us … Continue reading →
Science in the Service of Peace – St. John Paul II
Article 3000 words Level: all audiences Pope John Paul II in a November 12, 1983 address to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences discusses science, truth, and peace: All knowledge takes its nobility and dignity from the truth that it expresses. Only in the unbiased pursuit of truth do culture and especially science preserve their freedom and are able to defend it from any attempt at manipulation by ideologies or powers. ‘The truth will set you free’: these words from the Gospel enjoy perennial validity and illumine with divine light the endeavours of the scientist who refuses to subordinate his commitment and his research to anything but the truth. Truth is the goal of the whole universe: finis totius Universi est veritas, as one of the greatest thinkers of all time, Thomas Aquinas, wrote. The truth of all beings, their forms and their laws are hidden in the bosom of the Universe, which yearns for its truth to be discovered by the human … Continue reading →
The Cultural Values of Science – St. John Paul II
Article 900 words Level: all audiences Pope John Paul II in a November 11, 2002 address to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences discusses the cultural values of science, and notes that science itself represents a value for human knowledge and the human community: For it is thanks to science that we have a greater understanding today of man’s place in the universe, of the connections between human history and the history of the cosmos, of the structural cohesion and symmetry of the elements of which matter is composed, of the remarkable complexity and at the same time the astonishing coordination of the life processes themselves. It is thanks to science that we are able to appreciate ever more what one member of this Academy has called “the wonder of being human”…. Click here for the full text of John Paul II’s discussion from the Pontifical Academy of Sciences web page. Click here for the full text of John Paul II’s … Continue reading →
Tradition and Today: Religion and Science, in Science in the Context of Human Culture II
Book 333 pages Level: university A scan of a book, Science in the Context of Human Culture II, issued by the Pontifical Academy of Sciences in 1991, including articles by Michael Heller and Fr. George V. Coyne, S. J., who was Director of the Vatican Observatory at the time. Click here to download the complete book from the Pontifical Academy of Sciences. … Continue reading →
Who Discovered the Expanding Universe
Article 22 pages Level: university Historians of science Helge Kragh and Robert W. Smith provide an overview of the discovery of the expanding universe and who might be credited with making that discovery. They argue that, while Edwin Hubble is generally credited with the discovery of the expansion of the universe, and while a number of different scientists did in fact contribute to the discovery in significant ways, in fact Fr. Georges Lemaître discovered the expansion of the universe, insofar as he gave theoretical and observational reasons for it. (Lemaître would go on to become a member of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences in 1936, and to serve as its president from 1960 until his death in 1966). Hubble, meanwhile was ambivilant towards the whole concept of an expanding universe. Kragh and Smith also discuss why Hubble is credited with the discovery. They trace the history of how Hubble’s role in the discovery was elevated, “at the expense of everyone … Continue reading →
Modern Cosmology and Life’s Meaning
Book chapter 9 pages, 3600 words Level: university A book chapter by Fr. George Coyne, S. J., Director of the Vatican Observatory from 1978 to 2006, from the 2002 book The Cultural Values of Science, published by the Pontifical Academy of Sciences. Fr. Coyne writes: Cosmology today is ever more human; it stimulates, provokes, ques- tions us in ways that drive us beyond science in the search for satisfaction, while at the same time scientific data furnish the stimuli. In this context the best cosmology, to its great merit, does not pretend nor presume to have the ultimate answers. It simply suggests and urges us on, well aware that not all is within its ken. Freedom to seek understanding and not dogmatism in what is understood characterize the best of cosmology. It is, in fact, a field where certainties lie always in the future; thus it is vital, dynamic and very demanding of those who seek to discover the secrets of … Continue reading →
Modern Cosmology, a Resource for Elementary School Education
Book chapter (PDF) 9 pages, 7000 words Level: all audiences A book chapter from the 2001 book The Challenges for Science. Education for the Twenty-First Century, published by the Pontifical Academy of Sciences. In this chapter Fr. George Coyne, S. J., Director of the Vatican Observatory from 1978 to 2006, writes: (1) We should start teaching children from where they are at present, their current knowledge, interests, fears, and so on; (2) all of us humans, those who teach and those who are taught, “have been made in heaven”, it has been said. This refers to the well known need for stellar nucleosynthesis to provide the chemical abundances required for life in the universe. It has been indicated that one of principal goals of teaching children should be an awareness of this birth of ours from star dust, if only at an elementary level. I would suggest that the didactic order be reversed and that this awareness should be the beginning … Continue reading →
Pope Pius XII – The Structure of the Matter of the Created World as a Manifestation of the Wisdom and Goodness of God
Article 3200 words Level: high school and above A Papal Address to the Plenary Session of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, April 24, 1955. This article has been selected by the Interdisciplinary Encyclopedia of Religion and Science (Inters.org), which is edited by the Advanced School for Interdisciplinary Research, operating at the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross, Rome, and directed by Giuseppe Tanzella-Nitti. Pope Pius XII says to the assembled scientists: As we bid you welcome in this house, whose doors have always been opened wide to those who cultivate the arts and sciences, we desire also to express to Your Excellencies, Members of our Academy, our lively satisfaction. Your life, consecrated as is to the study of natural phenomena, enables you to observe every day more closely, and to interpret, the wonders which the Most High has inscribed on the reality of things. In very truth, the created world is a manifestation of the wisdom and goodness of God, for all … Continue reading →
Science and Religion Advance Together at Pontifical Academy
Article 3 pages Level: all audiences This 2001 article written by Charles Seife for the journal Science discusses the Pontifical Academy of Science, with a side-bar article on the Vatican Observatory. Seife writes: Since its founding, the Pontifical Academy has numbered among its members such scientific luminaries as Alexander Fleming, Niels Bohr, Chandrasekhara Raman, and Werner Heisenberg (elected in 1955)…. Candidates are nominated and elected by the members, although technically they are appointed by sovereign act of the pontiff—who looks for more than mere scientific eminence. The institution’s charter specifies that members must possess “acknowledged moral personality.”… Once on board, members share a simple set of duties: to meet and talk. Members say they choose their own speakers and topics and debate issues freely. “The Catholic Church is supporting this academy,” says Crodowaldo Pavan, a geneticist at the University of Sao Paulo and a member of the academy. “They pay for this meeting and don’t say what we should say—they give us … Continue reading →
Science in the Service of Peace – St. John Paul II
Article 3000 words Level: all audiences Pope John Paul II in a November 12, 1983 address to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences discusses science, truth, and peace: All knowledge takes its nobility and dignity from the truth that it expresses. Only in the unbiased pursuit of truth do culture and especially science preserve their freedom and are able to defend it from any attempt at manipulation by ideologies or powers. ‘The truth will set you free’: these words from the Gospel enjoy perennial validity and illumine with divine light the endeavours of the scientist who refuses to subordinate his commitment and his research to anything but the truth. Truth is the goal of the whole universe: finis totius Universi est veritas, as one of the greatest thinkers of all time, Thomas Aquinas, wrote. The truth of all beings, their forms and their laws are hidden in the bosom of the Universe, which yearns for its truth to be discovered by the human … Continue reading →
The Cultural Values of Science – St. John Paul II
Article 900 words Level: all audiences Pope John Paul II in a November 11, 2002 address to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences discusses the cultural values of science, and notes that science itself represents a value for human knowledge and the human community: For it is thanks to science that we have a greater understanding today of man’s place in the universe, of the connections between human history and the history of the cosmos, of the structural cohesion and symmetry of the elements of which matter is composed, of the remarkable complexity and at the same time the astonishing coordination of the life processes themselves. It is thanks to science that we are able to appreciate ever more what one member of this Academy has called “the wonder of being human”…. Click here for the full text of John Paul II’s discussion from the Pontifical Academy of Sciences web page. Click here for the full text of John Paul II’s … Continue reading →
Tradition and Today: Religion and Science, in Science in the Context of Human Culture II
Book 333 pages Level: university A scan of a book, Science in the Context of Human Culture II, issued by the Pontifical Academy of Sciences in 1991, including articles by Michael Heller and Fr. George V. Coyne, S. J., who was Director of the Vatican Observatory at the time. Click here to download the complete book from the Pontifical Academy of Sciences. … Continue reading →
Who Discovered the Expanding Universe
Article 22 pages Level: university Historians of science Helge Kragh and Robert W. Smith provide an overview of the discovery of the expanding universe and who might be credited with making that discovery. They argue that, while Edwin Hubble is generally credited with the discovery of the expansion of the universe, and while a number of different scientists did in fact contribute to the discovery in significant ways, in fact Fr. Georges Lemaître discovered the expansion of the universe, insofar as he gave theoretical and observational reasons for it. (Lemaître would go on to become a member of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences in 1936, and to serve as its president from 1960 until his death in 1966). Hubble, meanwhile was ambivilant towards the whole concept of an expanding universe. Kragh and Smith also discuss why Hubble is credited with the discovery. They trace the history of how Hubble’s role in the discovery was elevated, “at the expense of everyone … Continue reading →