The Believing Scientist

Stephen Barr writes as a theoretical physicist and Catholic about a wide range of issues in science and religion, drawing on his extensive work over the past decades. His first chapter retells the story of science, questioning the conflict thesis and suggesting that the real tension is between religion and materialism. He reminds us that Galileo and Newton overturned the naturalistic theories of Aristotle, arguing that naturalism has a place in the physical and biological sciences, but not so far as the ultimate nature of the human being is concerned – especially as materialism finds it hard to account for consciousness and free will. He then outlines the materialist story of science, which he argues has been overtaken largely by science itself during the 20th century. Themes include cosmology, mechanistic thinking, the dethronement of man, and determinism. There are 26 essays in all, covering evolution, mind, cosmology, reductionism, science as a substitute for religion as well as finding truth through science and what he calls mischievous myths about scientific revolutionaries. There are some stimulating reviews of highly influential books by the likes of EO Wilson, Richard Dawkins, Stephen Jay Gould, Michael Behe and Thomas Nagel. Not all readers will share the author's theological perspective, for instance on divine providence, but he is exceptionally well informed in the field.