S4 Episode 7: Exposing the oft overlooked historical connections between the natural and the supernatural
In the seventh episode of season four, we are excited to welcome Peter Harrison, Professor Emeritus of History and Philosophy at the University of Queensland, to talk about his latest book, Some New World: myths of supernatural belief in a secular age, which explores the relationship between the natural and the supernatural across time, from […]
Evolution as a Trojan Horse
By Bernard Lightman With the benefit of hindsight, we can now see that over the course of the past 150 years a remarkable reversal has taken place. Whereas once the investigation of nature had derived status from its intimate connections with the more elevated disciplines of ethics and theology, increasingly during the twentieth century these […]
Old Categories, New Territories, and Future Directions: A Response to Bernard Lightman
By Peter Harrison A note from the editor: In a previous article on this site, historian of science Bernard Lightman offered a reflection on the new work of Peter Harrison. Harrison’s book, The Territories of Science and Religion, seeks to outline how conceptions of science and religion have changed throughout history, and details the inadequacy of […]
Peter Harrison’s The Territories of Science and Religion: A New Peter Principle
By Bernie Lightman Peter Harrison’s new book,[i] based on the Gifford Lectures that he delivered at the University of Edinburgh in 2011, is essential reading. It is the most important study of the history of science and religion since the publication in 1991 of John Brooke’s Science and Religion: Some Historical Perspectives, in which Brooke […]
