Palaeoanthropology in the periphery. An introduction (original) (raw)
Related papers
Zygon, 2016
who has to his credit a long list of publications in interdisciplinary studies at the crossroads of science, philosophy, and theology. As a philosopher, Clark reflects about these matters today in the interreligious setting of the Kaufman Interfaith Institute of his university. The interreligious context also figures in this most recent work, but only in marginal ways by occasional references (pp. 64, 106, 178, 205) and by appending one chapter on "Judaism and Evolution" and one on "Islam and Evolution" (pp. 207-43). These chapters, however, are merely tokens, because they are far too sketchy and too random to advance the argument significantly. Nevertheless, they show that similar discourses on creation and evolution are pursued within Judaism and Islam as in Christianity. The main line of Clark's reasoning unfolds in the preceding twelve conveniently subdivided and systematically arranged chapters, which, except for two, all have a summarizing "Conclusion." Although this arrangement indicates didactical skill, the author's sometimes very casual style testifies to a rhetorical gift that works with "catchy hook[s]" (p. 223) in order to attract as broad and general audience as possible. However, the same rhetoric every now and then tends to obscure and trivialize the matters discussed. The book opens with a broad general recount of the science-religion debate in Western culture with a special focus on the statement by one prominent representative of the so-called New Atheism, Richard Dawkins, that the "existence of God is a scientific hypothesis like any other" (p. 5). Passionately repudiating this assertion on grounds of the incommensurability of scientific and "metaphysical explanation" (p. 6), Clark wants to show that "theism" does not contradict science, demonstrating his point by discussing those topics which "have received the most attention in the past century" (p. 7) in the said dispute, namely cosmology and evolution. Before delving into the subject matter, the author attempts to define "science" and "religion" so as to lay a proper foundation for what follows. Although he succeeds in explaining "science," he fails to do so regarding "religion." For him it is simply "impossible to define 'religion' in a handy, single, useful, and comprehensive way" (p. 23). Yet despite this lacuna he is eager to advance the dialogue by concentrating on "specific scientific claims. .. and their relationship to specific Christian beliefs" (p. 24). Convinced that "the myth of continual and irreconcilable differences" between science and religion "needs to be put to its well-deserved final rest" (p. 25), the author pleads for the application of an "integration model" in this dialogue, which "encourages a healthy give and take between science and religion" (p. 28) of which the present publication gives a neat demonstration.
Science and Religion as Historical Traditions
After Science and Religion, 2022
2016 saw the publication of Science and Religion: An Impossible Dialogue by French-Canadian sociologist Yves Gingras. 1 The book, it must said, does not constitute a particularly helpful intervention, and against the grain of virtually all recent scholarship presents a reactionary reassertion of the discredited notion of an enduring historical conflict between science and religion. 2 But it does offer an interesting challenge, evident in its title, in that it enquires after the conditions of possibility for a dialogue between science and religion, and raises the normative issue of whether such a dialogue is desirable. By way of contrast, much contemporary science-religion discussion has tended to assume, to some degree uncritically, both the possibility and desirability of dialogue between science and religion. 3 This chapter begins with the question posed by Gingras's book, asking what must be true of 'science' and 'religion' for dialogue between them to be possible. One obvious response to this question is that they must in some sense be commensurable: that is, be the kinds of entities that can be in conversation with each other. My suggestion will be the understanding them in these terms can perpetuate an illicit reification in which they come to be understood primarily as enterprises that deliver propositions about the world. The chapter explores two main alternatives: science and religion as formative practices; and science and religion as historical traditions. The latter argument proceeds by way of a discussion of the problem of incommensurability, and potential solutions to it. In both cases, some form of historically informed philosophy turns out to be vital for an understanding of the relations between science and religion.
Journal for the Study of Religion, 2022
Living between Science and Belief We live in an interregnum between the claims of science and those of faith. With this conviction, Charles Villa-Vicencio has commenced with a book, as John De Gruchy succinctly puts it in the Introduction, which was born out of the writer's 'long and often painful personal struggle...to relate religious faith to science' (Villa-Vicencio 2021:ix). As such, Living between science and belief is therefore aimed at 'believers trying to deal honestly with doubt' (Villa-Vicencio 2021:ix). Chapter 1 is Villa-Vicencio's personal take on the (modern) dilemma of living between science and religion, while Chapter 2 is a summary of the traditional debate between what he clearly acceptsà la Gould (2002)as two non-overlapping magisteria. Chapters 3 to 5 is an overview of some of the core moments in the theological development of the three Abrahamic religions. Chapter 6 is about what he believes to be the best challenges that the neurosciences specifically pose to modern believers. The questions underlying the booknot surprisinglyare the following: Can the claims of science be reconciled with those of religion? Should the claims of science be reconciled with those of religion? To these questions, Villa-Vicencio answers with a provisional 'Yes'. Any possibility of reconciliation will require from theologians to not only renounce any scriptural literalism and dogmatic beliefs, but also to be prepared to reexamine all religious claims in light of scientific findings. On condition that these two prerequisites are met, Villa-Vicencio argues, religion
Science and Belief in the construction of the concept of Paleolithic Religion
The study of prehistory established itself as a scientific discipline during the second half of the nineteenth century. The main issues discussed by this new science centered on the origins of humankind, society, technology, art and religion; this intellectual process of the creation of ideas, concepts and categories was projected on the archaeological finds. When archaeological evidence was found that could be interpreted as proof of the existence of religious beliefs in Paleolithic times, there were various reactions and interpretations among prehistorians. The clash between evolutionism and the Judeo-Christian religious tradition was a key element in the development of these different discourses; these two viewpoints implied opposite ways of thinking about human nature. This paper discusses this diversity of narratives, specifically in the context of France, through the contributions of four authors, each with different ideologies and sociopolitical circumstances: Gabriel de Mortillet, Émile Cartailhac, Salomon Reinach and Henri Breuil.
Journal of Interdisciplinary History, 2006
The history of the relationship between science and religion has been the focus of a growing number of books and collections in the almost twenty years that have elapsed since the publication of the present editors' earlier volume, God and Nature. 1 Like its predecessor, the book under review starts by distancing itself from the warfare metaphor used to characterize the relationship between science and religion in the nineteenth century and the ªrst seven decades of the twentieth. More recent scholarship has tended to focus on the interaction-often positivebetween the two areas rather than their conºict. The well-written essays in this book cover material from the Middle Ages through the post-Darwinian debates, highlighting science in the medieval Church, the trial of Galileo, the mechanical philosophy of the seventeenth century, the history of the earth and the book of Genesis, various aspects of the debates about evolution, the Scopes trial, and secularization. Most of the essays are clear, and the excellent, annotated bibliography mentions many important readings. The ªrst ªve articles deal with the medieval, Renaissance, and early modern period. The remaining seven chapters deal with the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, focusing on the English-speaking world. In these respects, the present volume differs from its predecessor, which devoted a larger proportion of articles to the early periods and considered a wider range of linguistic venues. This difference mirrors changes in the history of science, a ªeld in which the center of gravity has moved forward in time from the period of the scientiªc revolution to the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Although the essays in this book largely avoid the clichés of the warfare metaphor, they tend to treat science and religion as separate entities with a history of encounters. There is little consideration of the ways in which each area has penetrated the other and informed its concepts or ways of thinking. The volume would have been enriched by discussions of how the historical approaches of Charles Lyell's geology and Charles Darwin's theory of evolution reºect the inºuence of biblical narrative rather than the Greek emphasis on harmony and form or how nineteenth-century biblical scholarship reºects the application of scientiªc and empirical methods to all areas of intellectual life. Nevertheless, Lindberg and Numbers have produced a useful collection, which does not replace their earlier volume but makes much of its content accessible to a wider, less specialized audience.
Public Understanding of Science, 2013
Atapuerca is an important prehistoric site in northern Spain that yielded the oldest hominid fossils in Europe in 1994. Since 1998 the three co-directors of the research team have in sum (co-)authored more than twenty-five popular science books, a boom without precedent in human-origins research. This paper will put forward three hypotheses. First, that these books were instrumental in achieving public recognition and financial support for the research project. Second, popular books on human origins serve as “enlarged battlefields” and as a meta-forum to expose new ideas to the scientific community. Third, the public visibility of these publications enables their authors to assume new roles that go well beyond their part as paleoanthropologists.
Some Aspects of the Controversial Nexus Between Science and Religion
2020
The present paper takes into consideration a few aspects related to the relation between the two disputed domains of knowledge: science and religion. After having pointed out the main eight warfare and nonwarfare models of interaction between science and religion, the study focuses on the motives of Eastern and Western Christianity breach, which resides on the very different attitude to Science and Nature. The main part of depicting the nexus between the two fields of research is focusing on the doctrine of creation, the one Christian theology truly revolutionized. The Christian Weltanschauung was so new in comparison with Greek cosmology that it had to raise new questions and make radical modifications, especially regarding the understanding of space and time. The Fathers of the Orthodox Church were happy to use the science and philosophy of their time in their theological thinking. However, they did not pursue a natural theology in the sense the term is often now understood based ...