Accommodationism Accommodating Science: Neurobiology and the mind 1 27 Mar 201427 Mar 2014 [This is part of the as yet unfinished section of the “Which Science? chapter.] The argument over evolution versus intelligent design … is a relatively small-stakes theological issue compared with the potential eruption in neuroscience over the material nature of the mind. Siding with evolution does not really pose a… Continue Reading
Accommodationism Accommodating Science overview 13 Mar 2014 I have done quite a lot of blogging under this heading lately so I thought it might be useful to get all the posts used in order: On beliefs Why do believers believe silly things? The function of denialism Why do believers believe THOSE silly things? The “developmental hypothesis” of… Continue Reading
Accommodationism Accommodating Science: the backfire effect, and conclusion 10 Mar 201411 Mar 2014 [This is the final section of the book. I will return to the section on neurobiology and religion later.] The backfire effect If science is to be communicated to the wider community in a way that will change how people think, then it would seem an obvious idea to look… Continue Reading
Accommodationism Accommodating science: Strategy 7 Mar 2014 [This is part of the final chapter. It is unfinished, but I have to move on to some other activities, so it may not be completed for a while. Also, the chapter on neuroscience and religion will take a while to work up. So expect one more section soon, and… Continue Reading
Accommodationism Accommodating science: Faith and reason 5 Mar 2014 [This is the penultimate chapter. I can’t be bothered trying to get the references or footnotes included in the posts, so you’ll have to wait for the book. Some of this has appeared on the blog before in less well written form, so don’t worry about the deja vu] All… Continue Reading
Accommodationism Accommodating science: Evolution and change 2 Mar 20146 May 2014 Robert J. Berry is a geneticist at University College London. He is also an evangelical Christian and has written a number of works on the compatibility of religion (his kind, anyway) and evolution (Berry 1975). He was moved to write to the science journal Nature, in which he took to… Continue Reading
Accommodationism Accommodating science: Geology and Time 27 Feb 20142 Mar 2014 Some religions have no real view of history, while others hold to some kind of eternal cycle, but the western religions have a narrative with a beginning middle and end. And in the best known version of this – Christianity, what else? – history is given as a very short… Continue Reading
Accommodationism Accommodating science: Astronomy 27 Feb 201427 Feb 2014 If science and religion do conflict, what are the points of conflict that have occurred? These tend to have arisen in historical contexts as the science evolved. I shall consider five sciences and how religion has responded to them: astronomy, or cosmology, geology, evolutionary biology and biology in general, medicine,… Continue Reading
Accommodationism Accommodating Science: Unpicking the arguments 23 Feb 20144 Mar 2014 So given that it is not entirely clear what religion is, or even what science is, it would help if we could put the arguments clearly. It is hard to find clear statements of either the accommodationist or the anti-accommodationist positions, so what we have to do first is reconstruct… Continue Reading
Accommodationism Accommodating Science: What is the problem? 20 Feb 201423 Feb 2014 [As I write the first draft of my accommodationism book, I will post chapters here under the Category “Accommodationism”. Here is the latest – which comes before Undefining Religion] The religion-versus-science debate took a special turn in the West because of the existence not only of doctrinal religion but of… Continue Reading