In a revolutionary new book, a theoretical physicist attacks the foundations of modern scientific theory, including the notion of time, as he shares evidence of ...

An expanded & revised version of Religion in an Age of Science. Three new chapters on physics & metaphysics in the 18th century and biology & theology in the 19th century. Other new sections included.

Religion and Science is a comprehensive examination of the major issues between science and religion in today's world. With the addition of three new historical chapters to the nine chapters (freshly revised and updated) of Religion in an Age of Science, winner of the Academy of Religion Award for Excellence in 1991, Religion and Science is the most authoritative and readable book on the subject, sure to be used by science and religion courses and discussion groups and to become the (...) introduction of choice for general readers. (shrink)

First published 1966 Includes index Includes bibliographical references Campion Collection.

. In responding to Taede Smedes, I first examine his thesis that the recent dialogue between science and religion has been dominated by scientism and does not take theology seriously. I then consider his views on divine action, free will and determinism, and process philosophy. Finally I use the fourfold typology of Conflict, Independence, Dialogue, and Integration to discuss his proposal for the future of science and religion.

Two definitions of Mach’s principle are proposed. Both are related to gauge theory, are universal in scope and amount to formulations of causality that take into account the relational nature of position, time, and size. One of them leads directly to general relativity and may have relevance to the problem of creating a quantum theory of gravity.

Geoffrey Cantor and Chris Kenny have criticized attempts to classify various ways of relating science and religion. They hold that all typologies are too simple and too static to illuminate the complex and changing historical interactions of science and religion. I argue that typologies serve a useful pedagogical function even though every particular interaction must be seen in its historical context. I acknowledge the problems in making distinctions between categories of classification and examine some alternative typologies that have been proposed. (...) I leave as an open question whether my fourfold typology is applicable to differing religious traditions. Finally I consider some parallels between typologies for science‐religion interactions and typologies for relationships between religions. Can our discussions be both interdisciplinary and interreligious without the danger of imposing the conceptual framework of one discipline or religious tradition on another discipline or tradition? (shrink)

Over 200 health journals call on the United Nations, political leaders, and health professionals to recognize that climate change and biodiversity loss are one indivisible crisis and must be tackle...

In this paper several problems are raised concerning Ian Barbour's four ways of interrelating science and religion—Conflict, Independence, Dialogue, and Integration—as put forward in such publications as his highly influential Religion in an Age of Science (1990) and widely adopted by other writers in this field. The authors argue that this taxonomy is not very useful or analytically helpful, especially to historians seeking to understand past engagements between science and religion.

This richly detailed biography captures both the personal life and the scientific career of Isaac Newton, presenting a fully rounded picture of Newton the man, the scientist, the philosopher, the theologian, and the public figure. Professor Westall treats all aspects of Newton's career, but his account centers on a full description of Newton's achievements in science. Thus the core of the work describes the development of the calculus, the experimentation that altered the direction of the science of optics, and especially (...) the investigations in celestial dynamics that led to the law of universal gravitation. (shrink)

The first mission of Zygon has been the exploration of the relation between Religion and Science. The second, I suggest, has been consideration of the relation between Ethics and Technology. Some articles have given attention to the relation of Religion to Ethics, or that of Science to Technology. The interaction of Ethics and Science, and that of Religion and Technology, are also significant. I give examples of articles or symposia in each of these categories and close with great hope for (...) Zygon's future. (shrink)

This paper describes the experience of an academic institution, the Queensland University of Technology (QUT), developing training courses about research integrity practices in authorship, publication, and Journal Peer Review. The importance of providing research integrity training in these areas is now widely accepted; however, it remains an open question how best to conduct this training. For this reason, it is vital for institutions, journals, and peak bodies to share learnings.We describe how we have collaborated across our institution to develop training (...) that supports QUT’s principles and which is in line with insights from contemporary research on best practices in learning design, universal design, and faculty involvement. We also discuss how we have refined these courses iteratively over time, and consider potential mechanisms for evaluating the effectiveness of the courses more formally. (shrink)

Geoffrey Cantor and Chris Kenny have criticized attempts to classify various ways of relating science and religion. They hold that all typologies are too simple and too static to illuminate the complex and changing historical interactions of science and religion. I argue that typologies serve a useful pedagogical function even though every particular interaction must be seen in its historical context. I acknowledge the problems in making distinctions between categories of classification and examine some alternative typologies that have been proposed. (...) I leave as an open question whether my fourfold typology is applicable to differing religious traditions. Finally I consider some parallels between typologies for science‐religion interactions and typologies for relationships between religions. Can our discussions be both interdisciplinary and interreligious without the danger of imposing the conceptual framework of one discipline or religious tradition on another discipline or tradition? (shrink)

Abstract.In Islam, the acquisition of knowledge is a form of worship. But human achievement must be exercised in conformity with God's will. Warnings against feelings of superiority often are coupled with the command to remain within the confines of God's laws and limits. Because of the fear of arrogance and disregard of the balance created by God, any new knowledge or discovery must be applied with careful consideration to maintaining balance in the creation. Knowledge must be applied to ascertain equity (...) and justice for all of humanity. Research in Islam must be linked to the broad ethical base set forth in the Qur'an and the Sunnah. Whether embryonic stem cell research or cloning is ethically acceptable in Islam depends on the benefits derived from such applications. What is most important for the scholars is to adhere to the concepts of compassion, mercy, and benefit to everyone. (shrink)

This paper provides a reconstruction and analysis of Marx’s early engagements with logic, and especially his studies of Hegel’s logic, on the one hand, and Hegel’s great if often overlooked critic Adolf Trendelenburg, on the other. It itemises the archival evidence that Marx read and planned to compose a Hegelian response to Trendelenburg’s devastating attack on dialectics in his 1840 Logische Untersuchungen – the work that arguably did more than any other single text to destroy the influence of Hegelianism among (...) German intellectuals at the time. It argues that the young Marx was a more sophisticated reader of Hegel and of philosophy in general than is typically acknowledged. Against the backdrop of these claims, it then proposes a new reading of Marx’s work from 1839 to 1842 – one that takes the emphasis off the familiar distinction between materialism and idealism, which was as much an invention of Engels’s later interpretations of the early Marx as it was an invention of Marx himself, and places it instead on what early nineteenth-century thinkers would have understood to be the more comprehensive question of logic. (shrink)

In this essay, I argue that F.H. Bradley’s controversial theory of “degrees of truth and reality” is the logical development of Hegel’s own theory of truth when it is placed within the metaphysical system of the Science of Logic. Despite Bradley’s own claim that with regards to the theory of degrees of truth and reality he is indebted even more than anywhere else to Hegel, this connection has been little examined in the secondary literature. Through a careful examination of both (...) Bradley’s works and the structure of Hegel’s logic, it will become clear that Bradley’s development of the theory is the only logical conclusion that the consistent Hegelian can make. This essay has clear ramifications for our understanding of Bradley’s philosophy and, through uncovering the logical connections that led Bradley to develop the theory, I reveal an important implication of Hegel’s thought that has been entirely overlooked. (shrink)

Charles Barbour argues not only that we can examine the literary and rhetorical aspects of Marx’s texts, but also that, as soon as we begin to do so, those texts begin to take on new and entirely unexpected political implications.

I develop a multilevel, holistic view of persons, emphasizing embodiment, emotions, consciousness, and the social self. In successive sections I draw from six sources: 1. Theology. The biblical understanding of the unitary, embodied, social self gave way in classical Christianity to a body‐soul dualism, but it has been recovered by many recent theologians. 2. Neuroscience. Research has shown the localization of mental functions in regions of the brain, the interaction of cognition and emotion, and the importance of social interaction in (...) evolutionary history and child development. 3. Artificial intelligence. Some forms of robotics use embodied systems that learn by interacting with their environment, but the possibilities for emotion, socialization, and consciousness in robots remain problematic. 4. Relations between levels. Concepts that can help us relate studies of neurons and persons include the hierarchy of levels, the communication of information, thebehavior of dynamic systems, and epistemological and ontological emergence. 5. Philosophy of mind. Two‐aspect theories of the mind‐brain relation offer an alternative between the extremes of eliminative materialism and the thesis that consciousness is irreducible. 6. Process philosophy. I suggest that process thought provides a coherent philosophical framework in which these themes can be brought together. It combines dipolar monism with organizational pluralism, and it emphasizes embodiment, emotions, a hierarchy oflevels, and the social character of selfhood. (shrink)

Relatively congruence regular quasivarieties and quasivarieties of logic have noticeable similarities. The paper provides a unifying framework for them which extends the Blok-Pigozzi theory of elementarily algebraizable (and protoalgebraic) deductive systems. In this extension there are two parameters: a set of terms and a variable. When the former is empty or consists of theorems, the Blok-Pigozzi theory is recovered, and the variable is redundant. On the other hand, a class of membership logics is obtained when the variable is the only (...) element of the set of terms. For these systems the appropriate variant of equivalent algebraic semantics encompasses the relatively congruence regular quasivarieties. (shrink)

Relatively congruence regular quasivarieties and quasivarieties of logic have noticeable similarities. The paper provides a unifying framework for them which extends the Blok-Pigozzi theory of elementarily algebraizable (and protoalgebraic) deductive systems. In this extension there are two parameters: a set of terms and a variable. When the former is empty or consists of theorems, the Blok-Pigozzi theory is recovered, and the variable is redundant. On the other hand, a class of ‘membership logics’ is obtained when the variable is the only (...) element of the set of terms. For these systems the appropriate variant of equivalent algebraic semantics encompasses the relatively congruence regular quasivarieties. (shrink)

The most obvious thing about the universe in which we find ourselves is its structure. Before the scientific revolution, the instinctive reaction of thinkers to the existence of perceived structure was to find a direct reason for that structure. This is reflected above all in the Pythagorean notion of the well-ordered cosmos: the cosmos has the structure it does because that is the best structure it could have. In fact, that is what the word cosmos really means—primarily order, but also (...) decoration, embellishment, or dress. Kepler and Galileo were no less entranced by the beauty of the world than was Pythagoras, and they formulated their ideas in the overall conceptual framework of the well-ordered cosmos. However, both studied the world so intently that they actually identified aspects of motion that fairly soon led to the complete overthrow of such a notion of cosmos. The laws of the new physics were found to determine not the actual structure of the universe, but the way in which structure changes from instant to instant. Ultimately, no explanation is provided for the currently observed structure; it is simply attributed to an initial structure that was never fashioned by the laws of nature but merely continually refashioned thereafter. The initial and boundary conditions for our universe lie outside the purview of science. But all of the structure we observe around us must ultimately be traced back to those mysterious initial and boundary conditions. (shrink)

This paper has two purposes: to provide a contextualised account of the Young Hegelian theory of the state, and to argue that Marx began working on the manuscript known as his ‘Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Law’, not in the Summer of 1843, as most commentators assume, but at least as early as the Spring of 1842. The established narrative describes the Young Hegelians as ‘liberals’, and suggests that Marx ‘Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Law’ represents his rejection of their (...) liberalism and turn towards a more radical democratic and revolutionary position. Conversely, I argue that the Young Hegelians (notably Arnold Ruge and Bruno Bauer) were never liberal (at least not by any standard definition of that term) but articulated a radical and revolutionary theory of the state from the outset – one that understood freedom, not as independence, but as political participation, and that characterised the modern state, not as the guarantor of private rights, but as the institutional framework in which all citizens could realise their public freedom. In this sense, Marx’s ‘Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy Law’ does not represent a break with the Young Hegelians theory of state, but a contribution to it. (shrink)

Abstract.I join others who have expressed profound gratitude for the life and thought of Arthur Peacocke. I recall some high points in my interaction with him during a period of forty years as an intellectual companion and personal friend. Some similarities in our thinking about evolution, emergence, top‐down causality, and continuing creation are indicated. Four points of difference are then discussed: (1) Emergent monism or two‐aspect process events? (2) Panentheism or process theism? (3) Creation ex nihilo and/or continuing creation? (4) (...) Voluntary or necessary limitation of God's power? Even when we differed I have benefited immensely from our ongoing interaction. (shrink)

The Snowden Affair, Wikileaks, the 'lone wolf' terrorist, Clinton's private email account - the secret is arguably the central element of our contemporary political experience. Now, Charles Barbour looks at the basic ontological question 'what is a secret?' Organised as a reflection on Jacques Derrida's later writings on secrecy, four chapters each look at a separate problematic: society and the oath, literature and testimony, philosophy and deception, and time and death. Barbour shows that secrecy is not a negation of our (...) relations with others, but a necessary condition of those relations. We can only reveal ourselves to one another insofar as we conceal as well. (shrink)

Over 200 health journals call on the United Nations, political leaders, and health professionals to recognise that climate change and biodiversity loss are one.

In January 2023, the Science and Security Board of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists moved the hands of the Doomsday Clock forward to 90 s before midnight.

Huston Smith is justifiably critical of scientism, the belief that science is the only reliable path to truth. He holds that scientism and the materialism that accompanies it have led to a widespread denial of the transcendence expressed in traditional religious world‐views. He argues that evolutionary theory should be seen as a product of scientism rather than of scientific evidence, citing authors who claim that the fossil record does not support the idea of continuous descent with modification from earlier life (...) forms. I suggest that he has underestimated the cumulative weight of evidence from many independent fields of science supporting neo‐Darwinism. I argue that methodological (but not philosophical) naturalism is a basic assumption of scientific inquiry. Proponents of intelligent design assume a fixed plan or blueprint, which is compatible with Smith's understanding of God's timeless vision. By contrast, almost all biologists and many theologians today envisage a dynamic and open‐ended process rather than the realization of the unchanging forms in a preexisting plan. (shrink)

Over 200 health journals call on the United Nations, political leaders, and health professionals to recognise that climate change and biodiversity loss are one indivisible crisis and must be tackle...

Introduction Financial conflicts of interest (fCOI) present well documented risks to the integrity of biomedical research. However, few studies differentiate among fCOI types in their analyses, and those that do tend to use preexisting taxonomies for fCOI identification. Research on fCOI would benefit from an empirically-derived taxonomy of self-reported fCOI and data on fCOI type and payor prevalence.Methods We conducted a content analysis of 6,165 individual self-reported relationships from COI statements distributed across 378 articles indexed with PubMed. Two coders used (...) an iterative coding process to identify and classify individual fCOI types and payors. Inter-rater reliability was κ = 0.935 for fCOI type and κ = 0.884 for payor identification.Results Our analysis identified 21 fCOI types, 9 of which occurred at prevalences greater than 1%. These included research funding (24.8%), speaking fees (20.8%), consulting fees (18.8%), advisory relationships (11%), industry employment (7.6%), unspecified fees (4.8%), travel fees (3.2%), stock holdings (3.1%), and patent ownership (1%). Reported fCOI were held with 1,077 unique payors, 22 of which were present in more than 1% of financial relationships. The ten most common payors included Pfizer (4%), Novartis (3.9%), MSD (3.8%), Bristol Myers Squibb (3.2%), AstraZeneca (3.1%), GSK (3%), Boehringer Ingelheim (2.9%), Roche (2.8%), Eli LIlly (2.5%), and AbbVie (2.4%).Conclusions These results provide novel multi-domain prevalence data on self-reported fCOI and payors in biomedical research. As such, they have the potential to catalyze future research that can assess the differential effects of various types of fCOI. Specifically, the data suggest that comparative analyses of the effects of different fCOI types are needed and that special attention should be paid to the diversity of payor types for research relationships. (shrink)

. A brief comparison of the Zygon Center for Religion and Science and the Center for Theology and the Natural Sciences is given. The work and emphases of the two Centers overlap but also differ in significant ways. Without neglecting the physical sciences or the Christian tradition, ZCRS would do well to continue to give high priority to the biological sciences and the dialogue with the major world religions.

Christian solitude -- Bounded solitude in Augustine's Confessions -- The humanist tradition : Petrarch, Montaigne, and Gibbon -- Rousseau's myth of solitude in reveries of the solitary walker -- Thoreau at Walden : soliloquizing and talking to all the universe at the same time -- Twentieth-century varieties of solitary experience -- Thomas Merton and solitude : the door to solitude opens only from the inside -- Solitude, writing, and fathers in Paul Auster's The invention of solitude -- Conclusion: The value (...) of solitude. (shrink)