Re Ben Marsden's query (below)
John Brooke & Geoffrey Cantor's recent book of their 1995-6
Gifford lectures is both useful as a textbook and pretty much
historiographically state-of-the art too.
Details are "Reconstructing Nature: The Engagement of Science &
Religion," 1998 (Publishers: T&T Clark, Edinburgh).
Hope that helps,
Graeme Gooday.
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> Mersenne subscribers may have noticed a recent
> posting concerning Templeton Foundation money - for
> projects/books on Science and Religion. Continuing this theme,
> you'll know that Templeton has already contributed funds towards the
> setting up and teaching of a host (as it were) of
> science-and-religion courses - some of these courses are offered at
> undergraduate level and within history of science centres - others
> within dedicated science-and-religion centres or religious
> studies/theology departments. My question is this: where are the
> books which can successfully cater for all of these audiences -
> assuming they are distinct?
>
> I notice that Gillispie's classic Genesis
> and Geology is back in the shops; I've always found the Lindberg and
> Numbers volume, God and Nature very useful; and there is of course
> Brooke's fundamental (?) Science and Religion from CUP. But the
> book which I guess is likely to grab most attention within a
> theology/religious studies undergraduate context is Ian Barbour's
> new Religion and Science (1998). Barbour has been one of the central
> authors in this field for decades. Yet curiously - perhaps not so
> curiously? - the extensive historical opening section of his new
> book makes few concessions to the historiographic gains of the last
> few decades; the second half (largely derived, I think, from a set
> of Gifford lectures) is so rich and complex that it defies summary -
> but I suggest that it might also be criticized for an apparent
> failure to move with the times in philosophy of science (e.g., in
> searching for parallels between religious action/ theological
> discourse and science construed in a prescriptive (more than
> descriptive) manner a la Kuhn, say).
>
> Now, is there a single text, or collection of texts, which:
> takes us on from Lindberg, Numbers et al;
> is still accessible to (undergraduate) audiences on both
> sides of the putative divide; and does not "undo",
> negate, or ignore the insights a practising historian of science
> might hope to inculcate?
>
> Yours, hopefully,
> Ben
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Dr Graeme Gooday,
Division of History & Philosophy of Science
School of Philosophy
University of Leeds
LEEDS LS2 9JT
U.K.
E-mail: [log in to unmask]
Tel: (0)113 233 3274
Fax: (0)113 233 3265
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