Commemorating Darwin: Global Perspectives on Evolutionary Science, Religion and Politics
By Joel Barnes and Ian Hesketh By the time Charles Darwin died on 19 April 1882, he had become a scientific celebrity, widely known for his studies of evolution that many believed transformed the way humans understood themselves in relation to the natural world. Since then his memory, and his celebrity, have been reshaped and […]
Translating Data, Visualizing the Nation: How Quantitative Data Helped Envision Modern India
By Sayori Ghoshal In 2022, I began working on an INSBS-funded grant project on the impact of race science and statistics on religious and caste identities in colonial India. Under colonial rule, Indian scientists had rejected the claim that Europeans were racially superior to Indians. However, they had not dismissed race as a scientific object. […]
Science, Spiritualism, Stereoscopy: The Spectacular Photographs of ‘Margery’ Crandon
By Dr. Emma Merkling In late 2022 I began working on an INSBS-funded grant project on the scientific testing of the spiritualist medium Mina ‘Margery’ Crandon in Boston, c. 1925. ‘Margery’ was arguably the best-known medium in America at the time, having been made famous by a series of investigations into her mediumship initially funded […]
S2 Episode 7: Science and Islam in the 19th Century with Dr Sarah Qidwai
In this episode, Rachael and Richard talk with Dr Sarah Qidwai, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Regensburg, Germany. Sarah’s work explores transnational and local perspectives on scientific disciplines during the long nineteenth century. In this episode, we discuss the focus of Sarah’s doctoral thesis, the Muslim polymath Sir Sayyed Ahmad Khan (1817-1898), and […]
Engineers communicating science, and the religion and science debates in fin-de-siècle Spain
By Jaume Navarro and Javier Sierra de la Torre In 1876, two Spanish versions of Draper’s History of the Conflict between Religion and Science appeared on the market. One, a translation from the French version, issued in weekly instalments, passed largely unnoticed. But the other, a direct translation from the original version, was highly publicized […]
Tyndall, Draper, and “Eastern” Religions
By Bernard Lightman When John Tyndall, well known physicist and superintendent of the prestigious Royal Institution, delivered his “Belfast Address” in 1874 as President of the British Association for the Advancement of Science he touched off a storm of controversy that lasted for several years. The lecture was a tour de force, covering the entire […]
All the Light Here Comes from Above: Edward Hitchcock, Man of Science, Man of Faith
by Robert T. McMaster Edward Hitchcock (1793-1864) was not the only star in the firmament of American science in the nineteenth century, but he was certainly one of the brightest. Raised among the wheat and rye fields of Deerfield, Massachusetts, he was expected to pursue a farmer’s life, but early in life he developed a […]
Uniformity, biblical criticism and supernatural activity in the 19th century
By Nathan Bossoh In June 1887 the Canadian writer Grant Allen aptly summed up the evolution of science over the preceding fifty years in an article for the Fortnightly Review entitled “The Progress of Science from 1836 to 1886”. After providing an elaborate yet succinct overview of the immense expansion of science, Allen concluded that
Rethinking Science-Religion Conflict Narratives
Public Lecture, Thursday 4th July @ 17:30, University of Birmingham Australian Laureate Fellow Professor Peter Harrison will give a free public talk titled, “Rethinking Science-Religion Conflict Narratives,” on Thursday 4th July at 5:30pm in Lecture Theatre C of the Aston Webb Building at the University of Birmingham. A bio and abstract follow, below the poster […]
Revelatory Evolution and Cosmological Creation Tales: when science is presented like a religion
By Will Mason-Wilkes When you sit down to watch a science documentary you’re probably expecting to learn something about science. You might even be hoping to pick up a few facts to impress your colleagues at the office or your friends at the pub. However, along with these nuggets of knowledge, a science programme will […]
