Adam Shapiro, Author at International Research Network for the Study of Science and Belief in Society

S3 Episode 9: Emerging Trends in the History of Science and Religion with Dr Adam Shapiro

In the final episode of the season, James and Will are joined by Dr Adam R. Shapiro, an historian of science, whose work focuses on public understandings and misunderstandings of science and the relationship between science and religion. Adam provides an overview of some of the emerging trends in the history of science and religion and situates his own work within this wider disciplinary movement. The discussion ranges from the development of and public controversies surrounding two space telescopes – the James Webb Space Telescope and the 30 Metre Telescope on Mauna Kea; the role of Natural Theology in the American Declaration of Independence; Adam’s contribution to the second edition of Thomas Dixon’s Science and Religion: A Very Short Introduction; and where and how Adam sees the field moving beyond ‘complexity’. (This episode was recorded in July 2023) This podcast is 52 minutes and 02 seconds long. The keywords associated

Science and Religion, A Very Short Re-Introduction

By Adam R. Shapiro When Thomas Dixon first asked me to work with him to revise and update his excellent 2008 book Science and Religion, A Very Short Introduction, my first thought was to ask why such a text might need a new edition. On the face of it, many of the issues we typically associate with the study of “science and religion” seem timeless, or at the very least long-lasting. Has so much changed in little more than a decade? The question might be answered in two different ways. One might ask what great developments have been made in science and religion as an academic field. It’s been over half a century since Ian Barbour’s description of four different models of science-religion relationship, and over a quarter century since historians of the subject started using the phrase “complexity thesis” to rebut the either/or simplicity of pure conflict or pure harmony