Science and Religion
New Historical Perspectives

Leading historians explore the complex and contingent histories of religious engagements with science, and challenge the famous 'conflict thesis'.

Thomas Dixon (Edited by), Geoffrey Cantor (Edited by), Stephen Pumfrey (Edited by)

9780521760270, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 1 April 2010

332 pages
25.4 x 17.8 x 2.5 cm, 0.98 kg

'These days, whenever the words 'science' and 'religion' are brought together, they are likely to conjure up other words like 'debate', 'conflict', and 'inevitable'. That set of associations, real or imagined, is the underlying subject of this remarkable book. It distills an enormous amount of scholarship relating to a fascinating set of subjects of contemporary importance in the form of well-researched and nicely written set of essays brought together in honor of the British historian John Hedley Brooke. It celebrates his work in redefining, one might almost say, defining away, the notion of conflict between science and religion.' Science and Education

The idea of an inevitable conflict between science and religion was decisively challenged by John Hedley Brooke in his classic Science and Religion: Some Historical Perspectives (Cambridge, 1991). Almost two decades on, Science and Religion: New Historical Perspectives revisits this argument and asks how historians can now impose order on the complex and contingent histories of religious engagements with science. Bringing together leading scholars, this volume explores the history and changing meanings of the categories 'science' and 'religion'; the role of publishing and education in forging and spreading ideas; the connection between knowledge, power and intellectual imperialism; and the reasons for the confrontation between evolution and creationism among American Christians and in the Islamic world. A major contribution to the historiography of science and religion, this book makes the most recent scholarship on this much misunderstood debate widely accessible.

List of contributors
Preface
1. Introduction Thomas Dixon
Part I. Categories: 2. 'Science' and 'religion': constructing the boundaries Peter Harrison
3. Science and religion in postmodern perspective: the case of Bruno Latour Jan Golinski
Part II. Narratives: 4. Religion and the changing historiography of the Scientific Revolution Margaret J. Osler
5. The late-Victorian conflict of science and religion as an event in nineteenth-century intellectual and cultural history Frank M. Turner
6. Islam, Christianity and the conflict thesis B. Harun Küçük
Part III. Evolution and Creationism: 7. Evolution and creationism in the Islamic world Salman Hameed
8. Understanding creationism and evolution in America and Europe Bronislaw Szerszynski
Part IV. The Politics of Publishing: 9. A global history of science and religion Sujit Sivasundaram
10. The Scopes trial beyond science and religion Adam R. Shapiro
11. Science, religion, and the history of the book Jonathan R. Topham
Part V. Ways Forward: 12. Sciences and religions: what it means to take historical perspectives seriously Noah Efron
13. Simplifying complexity: patterns in the history of science and religion Ronald L. Numbers
14. What shall we do with the 'Conflict Thesis'? Geoffrey Cantor
Select bibliography
Index.

Subject Areas: Philosophy of science [PDA], Religion: general [HRA]