Science, philosophy and religion

Yesterday, while surfing the net, I found this book called “Galileo, Darwin and Hawking: The Interplay of Science, Reason and Religion” by Phil Dowe – now at the University of Queensland (UQ). This is the publicity blurb for it from Dove Booksellers :

The history of the interaction of science and religion is fraught with tension rather than harmony. Only recently have philosophers like Phil Dowe begun to seriously relate these two pillars of human civilization. This fascinating book discusses with insight and verve the relationship between science, reason, and religion, giving special attention to the most conflicted topics - cosmology, evolution, and miracles.

Providing a concise introduction to the philosophy of science suitable for all readers, Dowe's “Galileo, Darwin, and Hawking” shows that there are basically four ways to relate science and religion. Two of them, "naturalism" and "religious science," present these endeavours as antagonistic. By contrast, the "independence view" understands them as wholly unrelated. Finally, the "interaction view" sees religion and science as complementary. Dowe defends this last perspective as most truthful and helpful to our time, arguing his case by exploring the history of science, highlighting the life and work of three giants of science: Galileo Galilei, Charles Darwin, and Stephen Hawking.

I’ve added it to my “must buy” list – this is exactly the sort of “interplay” I’m interested in. Part of the reason I want to study physics is so that I understand enough about it to start to ponder what it all means. I’m mindful of the admonition from John Baez in his “How to learn maths and physics”:

Warning: there's no way to understand the interpretation of quantum mechanics without also being able to solve quantum mechanics problems - to understand the theory, you need to be able to use it (and vice versa). If you don't heed this advice, you'll fall prey to all sorts of nonsense that's floating around out there.

Whilst I am very much attracted to the idea that modern physics is starting to confirm some very old spiritual ideas – eg everyone and everything is connected – I really don’t want to take such ideas on board unless there is a solid basis for them – and if that means I have to understand quantum mechanics in order to evaluate these ideas, then that is one of my aims.

Now if only I was healthy enough to actually attend UQ and study physics, philosophy and religion properly.