Course Description
The historical interaction of science and religion in Western Society from antiquity to the present. Key historical episodes include the rise of Greek natural philosophy, science in medieval Christendom and Islam, the Galileo affair, religion in the Enlightenment, the Darwinian challenge, and religious implicatons of modern physics.
Additional Requirements for Graduate Students:
Graduate students will be subject to the same requirements for
written exams, class participation and classroom presentations
as undergraduates. In addition, they will be assigned extensive
additional readings in the current research in the field and
will meet weekly with the instructor outside of class for a
discussion session. They will be required to write extra papers
demonstrating their research and interpretive skills, as
appropriate at the graduate level.
Athena Title
HIST SCI & REL
Grading System
A - F (Traditional)
Course Objectives
This course will give students a thorough historical grounding in the age-old and ongoing interaction between science and religion as two fundamental ways of knowing within the Western intellectual tradition. By examining how people in the past have dealt with the creative tension between science and religion, this course should help students both to gain a deeper understanding of how this fundamental issue impacts society today and to address these matters in their own minds.
Topical Outline
1. The secular challenge of Greek natural philosophy 2. Science and the Church Fathers -- East and West 3. Science in Medieval Islam 4. Science in the High Middle Ages 5. Religion and the Copernican Revolution (including Galaleo) 6. Science in the Enlightenment 7. Genesis and Geology 8. The Creation/Evolution Controversy 9. Relativity, Quantum Mechanics and a very Big Bang 10. Religion in an Age of Science