Science and Religion
Some Historical Perspectives

Offers an introduction and critical guide to the relationship between scientific thought and religious belief.

John Hedley Brooke (Author)

9781107664463, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 15 May 2014

576 pages, 43 b/w illus.
21.3 x 13.7 x 3.3 cm, 0.8 kg

'… arguably the most important historical analysis of science and religion since Andrew Dickson White's History of the Warfare of Science and Theology in Christendom (1898).' Ronald L. Numbers, Metascience

John Hedley Brooke offers an introduction and critical guide to one of the most fascinating and enduring issues in the development of the modern world: the relationship between scientific thought and religious belief. It is common knowledge that in western societies there have been periods of crisis when new science has threatened established authority. The trial of Galileo in 1633 and the uproar caused by Darwin's Origin of Species (1859) are two of the most famous examples. Taking account of recent scholarship in the history of science, Brooke takes a fresh look at these and similar episodes, showing that science and religion have been mutually relevant in so rich a variety of ways that no simple generalizations are possible.

Acknowledgments
Introduction
1. Interaction between science and religion: some preliminary considerations
2. Science and religion in the scientific revolution
3. The parallel between scientific and religious reform
4. Divine activity in a mechanical universe
5. Science and religion in the enlightenment
6. The fortunes and functions of natural theology
7. Visions of the past: religious belief and the historical sciences
8. Evolutionary theory and religious belief
Postscript: science and religion in the twentieth century
Bibliographic essay
Sources of quotations
Index.

Subject Areas: History of engineering & technology [TBX], History of science [PDX]