I’ve volunteered to lead an adult education class at church this fall about how one can be a faithful Christian and a scientist and not fall into Creationist/ID-type thinking. I’d like to read a book on the current philosophy of how scientific inquiry is performed and why. I am a scientist and a devout Episcopalian, so I can talk about my own experiences, but would like to read for a more formal presentation of what science is and how it is done.
So, suggested readings?
Vlad/Igor
You might consider reading about the origins of the Scientific Method. Figure that when things started, there wasn’t the separation between religion and science, where they were considered antithetical. In the beginning, the search for accurate knowledge of the world around us was almost certainly going to be justified by religion (though admittedly, the Islamic religion rather than the Christian.)
I haven’t read this book, but the reviews make it sound like the author was more interested in trying to determine what the first scientists would have been thinking when they started formulating the scientific process. As a historical work, that makes it a bit suspect, but for your purposes, that will probably be quite a nice thing:
I don’t have a specific book recommendation, but just a general bit of advice.
You seem to be on the right track, but I would emphasize teaching that science is a methodology rather than a belief system or a certain set of beliefs. I notice a lot of religious folks or belivers in woo regard science as merely a set of beliefs that some people have faith in, equivelant to their faith in religion or astrology or what have you.
Emphasize that science is really the process we attempt to use to determine the truth in the most objective way we can. Sometimes incorrect predictions, or not having all the data available to us makes us draw erroneous conclusions. But one key aspect of the scientific method is that you don’t come to treat those conclusions as a matter of faith. When new data becomes available, or new theories and models offer a better explanation, science self-corrects. Science is more about the process that any given set of facts or theories.
Excellent points. Thanks for that.
The Language of God by Francis Collins may be along the lines of what you’re looking for. In particular, it contains the best explanation from a Christian point of view of what’s wrong with ID that I’ve seen.
On Understanding Science.
May be out of print.
I can’t add anything to the concise and excellent observation offered by SenorBeef, so I’ll just recommend some of the works of late palaeontologist Stephen Jay Gould whose essays on the history of science, religion, and culture provide a critical but even-handed evaluation of how scientific theories and the methodology behind them have come into acceptance versus traditional authoritative beliefs. His work is naturally biased toward evolutionary science but the discussion more generally applies to all avenues of natural philosophy and modern science, including the errors that have been made the development and acceptance of scientific theories like Lamarackism. His Rocks of Ages: Science and Religion in the Fullness of Life is a great summary of this, and many of the essays in The Lying Stones of Marrakech: Penultimate Reflections in Natural History and Leonardo’s Mountain of Clams and the Diet of Worms: Essays on Natural History expand up this in Gould’s pleasant, accessible but literate manner. Thomas Kuhn’s [The Structure of Scientific Revolutions/url* is the classic text on the applied scientific method, and his *[/url=http://www.amazon.com/Road-since-Structure-Philosophical-Autobiographical/dp/0226457990/]The Road since Structure: Philosophical Essays, 1970-1993 gives a greater breadth of coverage to his ideas. And there is, of course, Karl Popper’s The Logic of Scientific Discovery, which should need no introduction to any student of natural sciences.
Stranger
Science as Falsification. Highly recommend it if you are going to be talking to an audience about what science is and what it isn’t. Which is what you almost certainly will be.
I’ll second the nomination for “Rocks of Ages”. Pretty dry reading at times, but a good argument for science and religion not necessarily being mutually exclusive.