Science and religion

The myth of conflict, Charles Darwin’s beetle research, epistemic humility, and English country churchyard or Californian fridge?

This week’s guest is Nick Spencer, senior fellow at the faith thinktank Theos, and recent author of Magisteria: The entangled histories of science and religion. Nick joins us to discuss the complicated backstory to how we all came to believe science and faith were inevitably at odds with each other. Where did this myth come from, and what is a more nuanced and truthful account of how religion reacted to the emergence of contemporary science in the last 300 years? Should Christians actually welcome a bright dividing line between our world of faith and spirituality, and the hard-nosed world of science, focused solely on a measurable reality of atoms and molecules? And what might we learn from the surprisingly interesting personal religious lives of some of history’s greatest scientists?

Find out more about Nick’s book and how to order it here.

Listen to other episodes of Matters of Life and Death or find us on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Pocket Casts, Google Podcasts, Podcast Addict, Castbox or whatever app you use to subscribe and receive new episodes sent straight to your device.

Tags
Most read posts
What can we learn from how the early church lived out their faith during their own pandemics?
Navigating the transitions of later life
How are young people different to those who came before, and what can we learn from them?
Living faithfully as we approach retirement, dependence, dementia and death
Investing in the next generation - Lessons from John Stott and others
Recent posts
There may be no straightforward way to turn around a struggling health service
Assisted suicide: Euthanasia tourism takes off in the US amid fresh push to change law in Britain
Innocence and guilt, partial evidence, and living with unknowns
Capacities, calling, relationships - disentangling this foundational theological tenet
The long and sad history of medical trial scandals gains another sobering chapter