Research seminars
The Faraday Institute for Science and Religion Research Seminars are held at 1.00 p.m. on alternate Tuesdays in the Garden Room, Library Building, St. Edmund’s College. A free light buffet lunch and drinks are served from 12.30 p.m. onwards. All are welcome.
The Garden Room is on the ground floor of the Library Building which is located in the far left-hand corner as you enter the College grounds. The free buffet lunch is served there.
A poster advertising all the Research Seminars can be downloaded as an Adobe Acrobat pdf file (~700Kb).
Lent term
The Religious Roots of the Idea of Scientific Laws
Dr Lydia Jaeger (Institut Biblique de Nogent-sur-Marne, Paris)
Tuesday 23 February 2010
Abstract
For many, a central task of science is the discovery and formulation of the laws of nature. This characterisation of the scientific enterprise, although almost a commonplace today, is nevertheless of recent origin, more or less contemporary with the birth of modern science. It originated in the seventeenth century, when the leaders of the scientific revolution liked to describe their procedures as a break from Greek science, as transmitted by the medieval scholastics. Laws of nature were introduced as a rival explanation of natural phenomena, which was meant to replace the Aristotelian categories. The talk explores the characteristics of the modern concept of natural law and explains its possible biblical and theological roots. Given the historical background of the modern notion of scientific law, the proposal of contemporary philosopher of science Nancy Cartwright provides us with a stimulating test case for the dependence of the notion of law on religious convictions. She intentionally renounces the concept of exact law and favours instead a return to Aristotelian-like natures. I will show that she provides us with a very telling contemporary example of the links between the (revisited) Aristotelian matter-form scheme, scientific methodology, and the rejection of divine creation as the framework to understand laws of nature - despite the popular idea that modern science and philosophy of science are free of any religious presuppositions.Sustainable Development - Is Religion Relevant?
Prof. Jan Boersema (Institute for Environmental Studies, Vrije University, Amsterdam)
Tuesday 9 March 2010
Abstract
Our Western type of achieving progress through economic growth is often criticized as being the root cause of the present environmental crisis. Most notably the way we harness our natural resources is deemed to be unsustainable. A sustainable development is called for and from the late eighties onwards, the prime question has become how such development can take shape. According to economists, external effects have to be taken into account. By doing so market distortions could be repaired. Over the last few decades this idea turns out to be theoretically and practically not sufficiently viable. Due to the present financial and economic crisis, the very idea of a free market economy is questioned. This gave way to the development of new ideas and to a growing support for earlier pleas for more radical changes. One of the concepts under attack is the idea of progress that is perceived as the ideological engine steering our society and fuelling an ever growing human appropriation of natural resources. In my seminar I will argue: firstly that the idea of progress is intricately bound to our western Christian-humanistic culture and rooted in our perception of time as being linear (Saint Augustine). Secondly that progress in our own history became almost synonymous with the conquest of nature (Keith Thomas); and thirdly that –nevertheless - it is neither necessary (from an environmental viewpoint) nor desirable (from a religious and philosophical stance) to abandon this idea.Further information about the Speakers may be obtained by clicking on the speaker's name above.
