Magisteria: The Entangled Histories of Science & Religion

by Nicholas Spencer

Most things you ‘know’ about science and religion are myths or half-truths that grew up in the last years of the nineteenth century and remain widespread today.

‘A deeply researched history of the interplay between the two ways of understanding the world.’ ECONOMIST, BEST BOOKS OF 2023

The true history of science and religion is a human one. It’s about the role of religion in inspiring, and strangling, science before the scientific revolution. It’s about the sincere but eccentric faith and the quiet, creeping doubts of the most brilliant scientists in history – Galileo, Newton, Faraday, Darwin, Maxwell, Einstein. Above all it’s about the question of what it means to be human and who gets to say – a question that is more urgent in the twenty-first century than ever before.

From eighth-century Baghdad to the frontiers of AI today, via medieval Europe, nineteenth-century India and Soviet Russia, Magisteria sheds new light on this complex historical landscape. Rejecting the thesis that science and religion are inevitably at war, Nicholas Spencer illuminates a compelling and troubled relationship that has definitively shaped human history.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Science, Religion, Philosophy, History Of Science, Theology

568 pages, Kindle Edition

Published March 2, 2023

Reviews

[Beth N · Rating 3 out of 5]

The first thing to note about Magisteria is how incredibly well researched it is. As befits a book that seeks to desensationalise the conflict between science and religion, Nicholas Spencer appears to have read every published (and some unpublished) opinions on the subject since the dawn of written communication. His breadth of knowledge is remarkable and the book provides a comprehensive, chronologically ordered history of these two fields that would be a dream for any researcher.

The effect on the amateur reader, however, is often overwhelming. With so many names and conflicting opinions one is hard-pushed to recall just who thought what about whom, and recalling what it means to be a disciple of any number of lesser-known luminaries and what that is supposed to mean for that individual's outlook is a task that requires either much rechecking of the Index, or much skim-reading and hoping for the best.

Readers with more familiarity with the subject matter (or simply better memories), however, will find a treasure trove of sciento-religious thought, presented in a sometimes witty, scrupulously fair format. If you want to know the truth of public opinion on Galileo, Darwin's doubts and inspirations, a full narration of the famous Scopes trial or when science started to lose God, look no further than this book.

Just be prepared that it will not be a quick read.

[Hannah · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very interesting read, I would, however, have preferred the same level of detail that was present in the later chapters to be present in Part 1.

[Steve · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Magisteria: The Entangled Histories of Science & Religion" is a thought-provoking audiobook written by Nicholas Spencer and narrated by John Sackville. The book delves into the complex relationship between science and religion, challenging the commonly held belief that the two are inherently at odds.

Spencer's writing is engaging and well-researched, drawing on a wide range of historical and scientific sources to weave a compelling narrative. He explores the ways in which science and religion have influenced each other throughout history, highlighting both the moments of conflict and the many instances of productive collaboration.

The narration by John Sackville is excellent, bringing the material to life with clarity and enthusiasm. His delivery is well-paced and easy to follow, making the complex ideas accessible to a wide audience.

One of the book's strengths is its ability to challenge commonly held assumptions about the relationship between science and religion. Spencer demonstrates that the two are not necessarily in opposition, but rather have a complex and intertwined history. He highlights the ways in which religious beliefs have often inspired scientific discovery and how scientific advancements have influenced religious thought.

The book covers a wide range of topics, from the ancient Greek philosophers to modern-day debates about evolution and intelligent design. Throughout, Spencer maintains a balanced perspective, acknowledging the contributions of both science and religion to human understanding.

Overall, "Magisteria: The Entangled Histories of Science & Religion" is an excellent audiobook that offers a nuanced and thought-provoking exploration of the complex relationship between science and religion. It is a must-listen for anyone interested in the intersection of these two domains of human knowledge.

Pros:
* Engaging and well-researched writing style
* Challenges commonly held assumptions about science and religion
* Excellent narration by John Sackville

Cons:
* May be challenging for those without a background in science or religious history
* Some sections may be dense with information

[Henrik van de Ruitenbeek · Rating 5 out of 5]

Zeer compleet en goed gedocumenteerd overzicht van de ingewikkelde, vaak wederzijds stimulerende, maar ook soms gespannen verhouding tussen religie en wetenschap. Hoewel ook de islam en het judaisme worden besproken, ligt de nadruk op het westerse christendom vanaf de latere Middeleeuwen.

Spencer vermijdt eenzijdige benaderingen, zoals het bekende confictmodel. Evenmin verbloemt hij waar het soms schuurde.

In het laatste hoogstuk (over AI) laat hij meer dan elders zijn (theologische) mening doorschemeren. Daar zit genoeg in om op te kauwen.

"Like talk of 'conscience' or 'morality', 'the soul may simply be a necessary shorthand when dealing with creatures that use languageblive in groups, engage in ritual, perceive the future, are cognisant of their changing nature and impending demise, agonise over moral truth, search for meaning, strive for a sense of purpose and are haunted by moments of transcendence. Homo sapiens currently occupies this particular niche on earth but there is in principle no reason why other organisms - carbon ot silicon based - won't do so at some other point." (p414)

[Jim Razinha · Rating 4 out of 5]

NOMA. Gould's position drew fire from all sides (yes, there was concurrence). But his position is not what this book is about, although there is a chapter on it. Mr. Spencer has, in weighty yet easy to read academic detail, defended that religion and science haven't always been at odds. They have in fact been entangled since science began (superstitions came first, of course.) I think my first exposure to a complex (and huge) historical examination was in 1992 and Paul Johnson's Modern Times: The World from the Twenties to the Eighties (It was revised to include the Nineties, but I read the original.) Before that, history was the spoonfed and filtered course texts. This is a big book and I recommend reading it in hard copy because flipping back and forth to the citations is clumsy in e-format if the notes aren't hyperlinked. I received a review copy of this from the publisher Oneworld Publications through Edelweiss, and I appreciate that. My review copy was watermarked "Reading Copy Only" on every page, which made for a distraction I found challenging to push through, and I don't know if the final e-copy will have hyperlinks.

Mr. Spencer lays out - and supports with extensive research - a theme of the war between the two. He says

At first, religion wins, but only by compelling the greatest scientist of the age to deny the truth that the earth moves around the sun; hence Galileo’s parting aside. Almost 250 years later, religion, no longer able to resort to the threat of torture, turns to mockery but meets its match in the form of biologist Thomas Huxley, who ably defends Darwin’s new theory of evolution against the ignorant, browbeating Bishop Samuel Wilberforce. Finally, in the American South, religion, now firmly on the defensive, is publicly humiliated before a huge audience and retreats bruised and bloodied but vowing vengeance. From such material has a popular history of hostility and conflict, of comprehensive victory and humiliating defeat, been spun.

And what I like best of this entire book is a simple statement:
"There is no such thing as a – still less the – history of science and religion." Indefinite article. History is biased and analyses of histories are biased. He knows that he is no exception (and yes, he has his own conclusions.)

Spencer rightly says, "Myth-busting is helpful and can be fun but it can still leave a rather negative impression in the mind." It is too easy for skeptics to go negative when debunking some nonsense - and it may be because it is exhausting, but necessary. And he ends his Introduction with "Whatever its merits as a description of how science and religion should interact, Gould’s model patently does not work when it comes to history. The ‘magisteria’ of science and religion are indistinct, sprawling, untidy and endlessly and fascinatingly entangled."

Yes, they are entangled. Should they be? I say no, but there is no dispute that they are. And Spencer details how and why.

Curated notes of mine:
Page 29 [classical science and superstition] Methodological naturalism, the idea that only natural explanations can account for natural phenomena, is one of the characteristics of modern science. In contrast to this, the divine was everywhere in classical science.

Page 29 [on religion adjusting to science] And science does change, its fluid and evolving nature making all attempts to locate religious doctrine within scientific ‘facts’ a perilous business.
Marrying the science of the age would repeatedly leave religion an embittered widow.
{There are apologists for every age. Some explain in the particular meaning of the term, and some excuse, in another definition.}

Page 85 [on Copernicus's publication of his heliocentric system] The year 1543 in science and technology marks the beginning of the European Scientific revolution’, Wikipedia informs us. So the year 1543 is a turning point.
All such ‘turning points’ are arbitrary but there is something particularly problematic about treating 1543 as Year Zero. This is partly because Copernicus first wrote about heliocentrism thirty years earlier.

Page 123 [on Galileo's The Assayer] Beneath the mockery was a serious point. ‘I cannot but be astonished that Sarsi should persist in trying to prove by means of witnesses something that I may see for myself at any time by means of experiment,’ Galileo lamented. ‘How can he prefer to believe things related by other men as having happened two thousand years ago in Babylon rather than present events which he himself experiences?’ Experience – experiment – was a better guide to truth about the natural world than textual authority.

Page 141 [on Robert Boyle's comment that his experiment marked the validation of "New Physics"] It was more than that: it marked the world’s first experiment – in the sense of a planned, organised, hypothesised, designed, observed, measured, repeated and verified procedure, which was soon written up, disseminated and replicated.

Page 176 [on religious legitimzation of science in the late 17th/early 18th century] Science, then, did well from the marriage. And so, at first, did religion. Science was religion’s first defence against atheism. ‘I appeare now in the plane shape of a mere Naturalist, that I might vanquish Atheisme,’ wrote Henry More valiantly in his Antidote against Atheism. In reality, the threat of atheism was never what the divines claimed. The world was not ‘miserably over-run with Scepticisme and Infidelity’ as Anglican bishop and natural philosopher John Wilkins lamented. Nevertheless, physicotheology was a powerful ally in this phoney war.
{The phony war continues.}


Page 231-232 [on Auguste Comte's invention of the Religion of Humanity] Comte prescribed this religion in excruciating detail. An adherent should pray three times a day, once to each of his household goddesses: mother, wife and daughter. He was to cross himself by tapping his head with his finger three times in the place where, according to phrenology, the impulses of benevolence, order and progress were to be found. The Religion of Humanity had nine sacraments, beginning with presentation (a form of baptism), and going through initiation, admission, destination, marriage (at a specified age), maturity, retirement, transformation, and then, seven years after death, incorporation. Comte set out a new calendar, with each of its thirteen months named after great men, from Aristotle and Archimedes to Caesar and St Paul, and festivals that were the scientific-secular equivalent of Saints’ Days. (Gall had the 28th day of Bichat, after the anatomist Xavier Bichat, dedicated to him.) He specified the duties of various, ranked, positivist clergy, their stipends rising in neat mathematical progression. He commissioned new hymns, celebrating holy Humanity. He designed new clothing, most famously waistcoats that buttoned only at the back and could thus only be put on and removed with others’ help (thereby inculcating altruism, another word he coined). As the Grand Pontiff of this new church, Comte regulated all this piety, elevating Clotilde as a kind of Virgin Mary, and Humanity in place of God.
It didn't catch on.
{Joseph Smith's predated Comte by about 25 years and did catch on. And then L Ron Hubbard came along a century later.}

Page 254 [from a review of Darwin's Origin of Species] Who shall number the patient and earnest seekers aft er truth, from the days of Galileo until now, whose lives have been embittered and their good name blasted by the mistaken zeal of Bibliolaters? . . . Extinguished theologians lie about the cradle of every science as the strangled snakes beside that of Hercules; and history records that whenever science and orthodoxy have been fairly opposed, the latter has been forced to retire from the lists, bleeding and crushed if not annihilated; scotched, if not slain.
{Literary. I liked the turn of a phrase: retire from the lists.}

Page 256 [on Bishop Samuel Wilberforce] Disraeli’s colourful phrase, ‘unctuous, oleaginous, saponaceous’.
{Oh my, that's a barb!}

Page 322 [on Bryan's position] Bryan’s worry was the impact the theory had on morality. ‘Our chief concern is in protecting man from the demoralization involved in accepting a brute ancestry,’ he wrote. For him, evolution was synonymous with the doctrine that might, ultimately, was right.
{The ancestry isbrute, and we are not evolutionarily far enough removed to not be still considered brutes.}

Page 328 [ on Darrow's hard line] On Day 2, Darrow discussed the legitimacy of the Tennessee law. He argued that the law established a particular religious viewpoint in public schools. But he went on to note how Christianity was fragmented into hundreds of sects, how such division had left a legacy ‘of hatred . . . war . . . [and] cruelty’ throughout the world, how fundamentalism was unleashing ‘bigotry and hate’ across America, how the Bible was not a book of biology and how most intelligent Christians had not thought it necessary to give up their faith because a literal six-day creation had been found to be nonsense.
{He was right about the hundreds of sects fighting, or at least disagreeing, amongst themselves over which interpretation was the "true" one.}

Page 331 [on Darrow and Bryan] "The world had been shown how intellectually vacuous fundamentalism was, but it had also seen how condescending secular elites could be.
{Those "secular elites" lose the moral high ground when they (publicly) sneer. Keep the snark to themselves and defeat with reason and rational arguments. (Yes, I know, reason rarely sways faith.}

Page 332 [on the perpetuated story that the Scopes trial was a battle between religion and science] This was the version that would pass into history, not the more accurate one of the defence lawyer, Dudley Malone, who commented before the trial that ‘the issue is not between science and religion, as some would have us believe . . . .[but] between science and Bryanism.’
{a key point lost to anyone who doesn't dig into the histories of anything - sift the data to understand the motivations of what was really going on, and the motivations of those reporting it.}

Page 335 [on a remark of Einstein on the Scopes trial] ‘any restriction of academic liberty heaps coals of shame upon the community which tolerates such suppression’
{Einstein would no doubt be dismayed to know that today suppression exists in both political and academic objectives - and it is on the rise again (no shame to found.)}

Page 337 [on a coincidence funny to only me, but I'm noting it] I was watching a television show (science fiction - Night Sky) and just as I got to this page and saw the section head, a character said ‘Spooky action at a distance’.

Page 342 {Dirac, getting on Oppenheimer for writing poetry} ‘In science you want to say something nobody knew before in words everyone can understand. In poetry you are bound to say something that everybody knows already in words that nobody can understand.’
{I still love this quote.}

Page 353 [Darwin's ingrained biases] ‘There is no evidence that man was aboriginally endowed with the ennobling belief in the existence of an Omnipotent God’, Darwin wrote in The Descent of Man, citing as his witnesses not ‘hasty travellers, but . . . men who have long resided with savages’. However, he continued, if by ‘religion’ we mean belief in ‘unseen or spiritual agencies’, it was clear that such beliefs were ‘almost universal with the less civilised races’.
{How did Darwin not see the irony? The "more civilized" believed in different, yet the same unseen or spiritual agencies. But theirs was codified, so that makes it okay, I guess.}

Page 384 [on Gould] His attempt to bring peace to what, at the time, was a fractious relationship by separating the two into a magisterium of facts and one of values was thoughtful, well-meaning but ultimately wrong.
{I don't agree (yet). Religions as a source of "values" is largely determined by culture, geography, politics, and similar.}

Page 408 [more on Gould] That does not mean that these are simply non-overlapping magisteria, as Stephen Jay Gould put it. There are plenty of areas in which that is true, where science and religion don’t have much (or indeed anything) to say to one another and don’t really overlap. In some places, NOMA makes sense. But the human being is emphatically not one of them. Indeed, it is over the human that science and religion most clearly do overlap. Humans are both ‘material’ creatures, which are measurable and explicable according to the methods of science, and ‘spiritual’ ones, who talk about and aspire to things like meaning, significance, transcendence, purpose, destiny, eternity and love, which have always been the building blocks of a religious understanding of reality. Science and religion are partially overlapping magisteria, and they overlap within us.
{I don't agree (still, and also still "yet"), and I keep a quote from James Morrow's Only Begotten Daughter in my head that I like: “Science does have all the answers. […] The problem is that we don’t have all the science.” }

Page 410 [on Ray Kurweil and AI] Spencer says Kurzweil is the "St. Paul of this transhumanist gospel" who claimed "with puppy-dog enthusiasm" that re-engineering humanity will make us better. Ending that paragraph with "Amen."
{yes, Kurzweil can be a little wacky, but stepping outside his so far academic, journalism to mock him seemed out of character.}

Page 414 [on what makes us human (over other animals, or even AI] [...] nudge the discussion away from the idea that information, cognition and intelligence are the decisive dimension within our humanity.
{I don't think information or intelligence (yes, that definition fluxes) are unique. It may be that cognition, so far, is the decisive dimension.}

For the editor/publisher

Page 357 "his [linefeed gap] later Folk-Lore in the Old Testament"
{Is this formatting issue of my reader or in the text?}

[Gijs Limonard · Rating 5 out of 5]

4,5 stars; as far as histories of science go, this was an eminently worthwhile read/listen; the main gist of the narrative being the non existence of a neat divide into non-overlapping domains of study (magisteria as in 'role' and 'authority' or in more real life, political terms; 'spheres of influence'); what passes as fact is (aside from mathematics and theoretical physics) never entirely value free, or at the least context dependent and the conscientious scientist will acknowledge as much; as far as the religionists go, this is far from obvious. The author neatly walks you through the relevant historical events and discusses the theme thoroughly. One critical aside; as in much literature on the subject, the usual suspects are paraded along (Bacon, Hume, Descartes, Popper, Kuhn) but the scientist-philosopher who contributed most to the contemplation of the actual generation of new knowledge is omitted entirely; Michael Polanyi. For more on the subject be sure to check out: The Age of Wonder: How the Romantic Generation Discovered the Beauty and Terror of Science; The Map of Knowledge: How Classical Ideas Were Lost and Found: A History in Seven Cities; The Knowledge Machine: How Irrationality Created Modern Science; Personal Knowledge : Towards a Post-Critical Philosophy.

[V · Rating 5 out of 5]

Glorious. V glad I read it.

- I like the framing themes: (1) Religion and Science have largely conflicted on either the question of “Is man / earth special?” or “who gets to decide?”, (2) early science was housed in religion pursuit as a way to understand how God created the natural world. Reading God Human Animal Machine right before was helpful to consider how these themes will never go away, especially with advents in AI. You very quickly hit the questions of what human consciousness is, is it specific to humans, can it be artificially created etc.

- Also liked seeing the many examples of how scientists reconciled their religiosity (and so many foundational thinkers were deeply religious!) with their science. It makes more sense to me how you can hold both these ideas in your head without conflict. The myth busting on many of these scientists was fun too - Einstein not being a practicing Jew, Newton’s religiosity etc.

- Also loved reading more about the three events that scaffolded the narrative - Galileo/Copernicus and the Church, Darwin/Huxley vs Wilberforce and the Scopes Monkey Trial

My only issue was that this book was entirely focused on western religious thought with a short foray on Islamic science and a bit on China. I’d love to understand how Hinduism interacts with Science

Think I’m less likely to disparage scientists who are overtly religious (eg ISRO scientists praying before the Moon lander mission), although I still need to wrap my head around superstitious beliefs and a transactional God vs something like Spinoza’s God.

[Meg Briers · Rating 4 out of 5]

doing good on the promise made to myself to learn about the history of religion due to its importance for the history of astronomy. took me a while as since moving countries i have only had the mental capacity to read this book at the weekends but we got through!

a really well written book because i wasn't sure the subject matter was going to pull me in but pleasantly surprised. main argument is that the problems between religion and science start happening when they both start thinking about what it is to be human and who gets the final say about this. through a VAST historical study we get to see how the two disciplines aren't always fighting each other and how their relationship evolves with new pressures, politics and scientific theories.

[Christina Frøkjær · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a regular magnum opus for the history of how science and religion have been intertwined up through the ages.
I found myself immersed in the chapters even though I needed my best academic glasses.
This is not a light read and I think this book is too massive to be read only once.
I liked the many great discussions of the themes in the chapters and their willingness to let the reader decide.
This is not a book for all readers, but give it time and I believe a large portion of interested readers will find it to be filled with knowledge.

[Henry Sturcke · Rating 4 out of 5]

Every history of science and religion comes with a slant, usually portraying the two in inevitable conflict, with religion as the nemesis, hindering scientific inquiry at every turn. Nicholas Spencer’s Magisteria also has a point of view, one that sees a more complex relationship. The famous set-pieces, such as Galileo’s humiliation in front of the pope, the Huxley-Wilberforce evolution debate, or the Scopes trial, were not as straightforward as usually portrayed, Spencer shows. In the case of the latter, for instance, I learned about the troubling application of evolution to eugenics as a means of eliminating undesirables from society.

He also pokes a hole in Stephen Jay Gould’s peacemaking attempt, which posits that science and religion are two magisteria, each sovereign in its own field of investigation (hence the book’s title). Spencer argues that the two overlap, particularly when it comes to what it means to be human and the vexed question of who gets to say. These two recurrent themes—authority and the nature and status of humanity—are the thread that runs throughout this story, leading us to the threshold of a renewed posing of these questions as we develop generative AI.

I enjoyed reading about the many individuals Spencer portrays. Many of them were familiar names; a reader coming to this book without much prior knowledge might be overwhelmed by the cast of characters, yet since the writing is clear and at times witty, any curious reader should give this book a go.

One takeaway from the book was the repeated caution against what one nineteenth-century author called “spurious reconcilements” of science and religion. While individuals often reject scientific advances because of their presumed conflict with cherished beliefs, there have also been many who rapidly hailed developments and reinterpreted scripture to accommodate them. Where does this leave faith when science marches on and yesterday’s advance is overtaken or abandoned?

This book left me with a deepened appreciation of how both science and religion are grounded in our never-ending effort to understand ourselves and the universe around us. I suspect I’m not the only one who is insatiably curious about both the what and the why. 

[Oyin · Rating 4 out of 5]

There is a lot to be said about the intersection of science and religion, both in how they complement and conflict the other's principles. This book went into extensive detail of how this phenomenon presented itself over the course of human civilisation.

What struck me the most is the way institutional and socioeconomic aspects influenced the way in which religion, in particular Christianity in the West, was pitted against science as the latter advanced in knowledge. Though I would have liked to read more about the science-religion dynamic in non-Western civilisations, that would have taken been an entire book to cover.

Nevertheless, I found it insightful and it provided an in depth look into how the story wasn't always a clash of ideals in the days of antiquity.

[Cara]

"Humans are irreducibly embodied and embedded. Our existence in a unique, bounded body, with physical needs and personal ambitions, in a particular time and a particular place, is fundamental to our humanity, and the respect and rights we afford ourselves."

[Mike Horne · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed reading this. The history of science and religion is more complicated than you think. I had difficulty pulling a thesis out of this. However, I fell asleep listening to this a lot. So I gave it a 4.

[Elaine · Rating 4 out of 5]

A well researched and accessible argument on science and religion and how they have complemented, contradicted, and cooperated with each other throughout history. I especially loved the interweaving of notable paintings and artwork, surprising anecdotes, and thoughtful tangents this book went through.

[Debbie Ginsberg · Rating 4 out of 5]

So I've been avoiding doing other projects and read 14 books in 2.5 weeks....

[Uzoechina Godswill · Rating 4 out of 5]

'Magisteria' by Nicholas Spencer is a fascinating and controversial history of science and religion. It explores the history of the evolution of religion and science in parallel to the relationship between them.

Magisteria by Nicholas Spencer is an accessible book that challenges the common misconception that science and religion have always been at war.

Drawing on a wealth of historical scholarship, Spencer shows how science and religion have been intertwined and interdependent throughout history, from ancient Baghdad to modern AI.
He also explores how science and religion have shaped our understanding of what it means to be human, and who has the authority to define it.

Spencer argues that the idea of a conflict between science and religion is a product of the late 19th century, when science became professionalized and secularized, and religion became defensive and reactionary. He traces the origins and consequences of this narrative, as well as the alternative between them.

[Steph De Mel · Rating 3 out of 5]

Spencer’s dense, scholarly account of the inextricably intertwined histories of science and religion through the ages covers some fascinating subject-matter. Nonetheless, I can’t help feeling that I didn’t quite get what I wanted out of this book. This is probably for two main reasons.

First, Spencer’s text is very much a descriptive history, while I was hoping to have this accompanied by more of a philosophical debate. Second, while I read my fair share of academic non-fiction, I found Spencer’s text particularly inaccessible. It took me much longer than usual to get through, and digest, each page. At the start of each chapter, I’d be excited by the prospect of its contents, but would then emerge at the other end not really feeling that I’d learned as much as I’d hoped.

Further, I wish he’d given more space on the page to considering the relationship between science and religion in contemporary society. The last few pages begin to grapple with some really interesting metaphysical questions at the intersection of AI and ethics, but unfortunately, this section feels very much like an afterthought.

It’s possible that my failure fully to engage with this book is the result of poor timing or tiredness on my part, but whatever the case may be (and although I certainly enjoyed parts of it), “Magisteria” falls a little short of my expectations.

[Richard Marney · Rating 4 out of 5]

A well researched and expansive treatment of the evolution of the relationship between faith in God and humanity’s search for understanding of their world and universe.

At a high-level, much of the material is easily digestible (e.g., Copernicus, Galileo, et.al. versus the church on the question of the heliocentric solar system) but there is much where a lack of adequate familiarity with the author’s’ work (e.g., Mersenne, Hartley, Pascal, et.al.) forces the reader to skim over the pages or detour into side reading.

A worthwhile read, albeit not suitable for sitting by the sea on a holiday as it was tried in my case.

😎

[Chris Maska · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Fight Between Religion and Science Fairly Presented

Explores many of the myths scientists and religious tell about each other. From ancient times to AI, religious folks are not just ignorant rubes and scientists are not just libertines. Both have seen.guilty of serious errors.

In.a survey this vast, everything cannot be covered. I would have liked significantly more about Gregor Mendel, the monk who founded the science of genetics and less of an Anglo-ifAmerican perspective. But this is a pretty fair accounting of the dispute between science and religion.

[Diane Jeske · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a 3.5 rounded down.

Spencer’s goal is to show that there has never been a straightforward war between religion and science. But the storyline often gets submerged under a constant deluge of facts about scientists, noting that they were devout or pious. There are some interesting chapters, particularly the ones on Galileo and the Scopes trial, showing how the simple dichotomous narratives are highly misleading. At the end of the book Spencer engages in some amateurish philosophy, thereby ending on a low note. Too much of the book is a dull slog with insufficient theoretical payoff.

[Antonio Gallo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Science and religion have long been viewed as opposing forces. However, the relationship between the two is more complex than a simple dichotomy. While science is concerned with empirical evidence and the natural world, religion is focused on faith and spirituality.

There are those who argue that science and religion are incompatible, citing examples of religious beliefs that contradict scientific findings. However, others argue that the two can coexist, pointing to the many scientists who also hold religious beliefs.

Ultimately, the relationship between science and religion is a complex and multifaceted one. While there may be instances where the two conflict, there are also many instances where they complement each other. It is up to each individual to decide how they view the relationship between science and religion, and how they choose to reconcile any conflicts that may arise.

When I finish reading this interesting book, I'll review this opinion written by AI ...

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La scienza e la religione sono state a lungo viste come forze opposte. Tuttavia, il rapporto tra i due è più complesso di una semplice dicotomia. Mentre la scienza si occupa delle prove empiriche e del mondo naturale, la religione si concentra sulla fede e sulla spiritualità.

C'è chi sostiene che scienza e religione siano incompatibili, citando esempi di credenze religiose che contraddicono le scoperte scientifiche. Tuttavia, altri sostengono che i due possano coesistere, indicando i molti scienziati che detengono anche credenze religiose.

In definitiva, il rapporto tra scienza e religione è complesso e sfaccettato. Sebbene possano esserci casi in cui i due sono in conflitto, ci sono anche molti casi in cui si completano a vicenda. Spetta a ciascun individuo decidere come vedere il rapporto tra scienza e religione e come scegliere di riconciliare eventuali conflitti che potrebbero sorgere.

Quando avrò finito di leggere questo libro interessante, rivedrò questa opinione scritta da AI ...

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La mia tesi finale coglie un aspetto fondamentale del dibattito: scienza e religione non sono necessariamente in conflitto, ma operano in domandi distinti con metodologie incompatibili, rendendo impossibile una vera convergenza. Ecco un'elaborazione strutturata:

1. Radici della percezione di conflitto. Storica. Eventi come il caso Galileo (condanna dell'eliocentrismo) o il dibattito sull'evoluzione (Darwin vs. creazionismo) hanno creato l'idea di un'opposizione insanabile. Epistemologica. La scienza si basa su falsificabilità (Popper), osservazione, ripetibilità e revisione continua. La religione fonda la verità su rivelazione, autorità spirituale e fede, spesso non soggetta a verifica empirica.

2. Coabitazione senza convergenza. Aree distinte ma complementari. Domande diverse, risposte diverse (Stephen Jay Gould: "Magisteri non sovrapposti"). Scienza: "Come funziona l'universo?" (es: leggi della gravità, evoluzione). Religione: "Qual è il significato dell'esistenza?" (es: etica, scopo ultimo, trascendenza). Complementarità pratica. La scienza spiega il meccanismo di un terremoto; la religione offre conforto alle vittime e un quadro di senso alla sofferenza. La medicina cura il corpo; le tradizioni spirituali affrontano il dolore esistenziale.

3. Limiti invalicabili della convergenza. Incompatibilità metodologica. La scienza richiede dati empirici; la fede si fonda sul trascendente non verificabile. Esempio: Il "Big Bang" (teoria scientifica) non confuta né prova l'idea di creazione ex nihilo (concetto teologico). Riduzionismo vs. Olismo. La scienza tende a scomporre i fenomeni in parti analizzabili; la religione cerca una verità unificante e assoluta. Conflitti inevitabili quando i domini si sovrappongono. Es: Creazionismo letterale vs. evoluzione biologica, dove una lettura rigidamente fondamentalista della religione nega evidenze scientifiche.

4. Esempi di dialogo possibile (ma non fusione). Scienziati credenti. Georges Lemaître (padre del Big Bang e sacerdote cattolico): distingueva tra "inizio fisico" e "atto creativo". Francis Collins (genetista, direttore del Progetto Genoma): vede l'evoluzione come "linguaggio di Dio". Filosofia della scienza. Thomas Kuhn: Le "rivoluzioni scientifiche" mostrano che la scienza è un processo culturale, non puramente oggettivo, aprendo spazi per la riflessione metafisica. Etica condivisa. Entrambe promuovono valori come la cura del creato (ecologia) o la dignità umana, pur con fondazioni diverse (bioetica).

5. Perché la convergenza è impossibile? Natura della conoscenza. La scienza è provisionale (le teorie cambiano); la religione cerca verità eterne. Risposte al "perché" ultimo. La scienza rifiuta domande su "scopi cosmici" (es: "Perché esiste l'universo?" è fuori dal suo ambito); la religione fa di ciò il suo centro. Teilhard de Chardin: Un fallimento illuminante. Il suo tentativo di fondere evoluzione e cristianesimo ("Punto Omega") fu rifiutato sia dalla scienza (mistificazione) che dalla Chiesa (eresia).

Scienza e religione possono dialogare quando riconoscono i propri limiti. La scienza non può negare o confermare il sacro. La religione non deve invadere il campo dei fenomeni naturali osservabili.
Collaborano nel rispondere a bisogni umani complessi (materiali, etici, esistenziali), ma restano magisteri separati (Gould). La loro forza sta proprio in questa diversità irriducibile: l'una arricchisce la comprensione del mondo, l'altra dà risposta al desiderio di significato. La convergenza sarebbe la morte di entrambe.

[Edwin Setiadi · Rating 4 out of 5]

The truth behind science vs. religion

This book is intriguing right from the beginning. It started off with a story about 3 pivotal events in history with regards of what appear to be religion vs. science: the abjuration of Galileo, in Rome 22 June 1633; the Huxley vs. Wilberforce debate, in Oxford 30 June 1860; and the Scopes "monkey" trial in Dayton, Tennessee, 20 July 1925 where this time around it was religion that is in the hot seat being humiliated.

The author, Nicholas Spencer, then remarks that "there are stories behind and within the story of each of these famed battles. The single, coherent narrative we have been sold fragments, on closer inspection, into a mess of variously connected tales. There is no such thing as a -still less the - history of science and religion."

I'm sorry, what?

As Spencer explains, "the science of Christendom was considerably more sophisticated than most people give it credit for; medieval science is not a contradiction in terms after all. Nicolaus Copernicus never imagined that his theory was a threat to his religion. Senior Church figures were initially positive about heliocentrism. Almost nobody thought the Copernican decentring of the earth demoted or degraded humans, as Freud later claimed. Giordano Bruno was not made a martyr on account of his science. Galileo’s trial was as much about Aristotle, the Protestant threat and his soured friendship with Pope Urban as it was about heliocentrism. Catholic science did not disappear after Galileo."

Indeed, as Spencer further elaborate, the early scientific societies like the Royal Society were not anti-religion (as portrayed in the brilliant book The Clockwork Universe). In fact, Isaac Newton wrote extensively more about theology than science, and his science did not discredit God from the universe. Moreover, the Enlightenment was actually a period of closest harmony between science and religion, much of the early research of geology was done by clergymen, while even Charles Darwin did not lose faith after discovering evolution and instead until his end of life he denied that evolution was incompatible with theism.

So, naturally, the question would be, what the hell happened between science and religion?

This book is what it says on the tin, a very diligent take on the entangled histories of science AND religion. It provides so many intriguing stories that serve to be the myth-busters of science vs. religion. The book is incredibly well researched, with Spencer often demonstrate his in-depth knowledge on the subject and appears to have read every single books or documents ever produced since the dawn of time.

It is a shame, therefore, that the same strong point of the book can also be the weakness. Because the sheer abundance of characters, stories, quotes, the portrayal of many different eras, and the many debates can be overwhelming at times due to the unclear narrative that dwell too long in the intricate details, making it an unnecessarily difficult book to read.

But it was never intended to be a light reading, especially for a book with a topic as big as science and religion. And if we can digest it, or rely less on the often distracted narrative, the insights from the book can indeed be mind-altering.

The book takes us into an incredible journey through time, with part 1 started from the classical world to 1600 (a period when everyone worshipped God), moving to Islamic Baghdad and Spain, to North Africa and medieval European Judaism, to Christendom, to the spread of Copernicanism through the 16th century, and then to Western Europe where science as we know it now emerged.

Moreover, part 2 of the book takes us through the period when modern science was developed in the 17th and 18th centuries while religion helped to conceive, nurture, and develop it. Part 3 takes us to 19th century where science started to drift apart from religion, where conflicts emerged between science and religion, for better and for worse. And finally part 4, where the story took us from 1900 to present day where all of the authority disputes had been settled, and both science and religion are having the "inconclusive, sometimes beneficial, sometimes fractious, conversations."

It is so fascinating to see that science and religion now seems to be the absolute nemesis while few hundred years ago they were very much compatible and inseparable. And reading this book is crucial to fully understand what science (and religion, for that matter) is really about.

[Aaron · Rating 4 out of 5]

It may be a hard pill to swallow for most moderns on either side of the ideological spectrum that science and religion have not been enemies, but throughout most of the ‘modern’ era (going back to the mid 16th century or so), have in fact been pretty much bedfellows; one supporting the other though yes, at times the relationship has become tense and yes, just as Jodie Foster’s character in Contact was the atheist parallel to Mathew McConaughey’s, at the least since the 20th century, one can say religion and science are taking part in what some may call a ‘sleep divorce’ (or worse). But there’s a history to unravel here and things may not be as they seem.

Historical surveys for this reviewer at least are not my usual reads. Going from chapter to chapter being bombarded with names, places, events, without an anchor in site. It’s tough to keep it all from going in one ear and out the other thus going into Magisteria: The Entangled Histories of Science & Religion gave me a slight amount of trepidation. Thankfully, at least, the main theme of the book had me hooked and the author kept things simple, but with a wealth of footnotes (albeit ‘wealth’ may be a stretch for a few of the chapters such as the one on the Scopes trial that seem to rely on few sources), where to turn next has never been easier.

Religion. Science. Looking at it today—especially when seen in the kinda-sorta black-and-white way Contact portrayed it at times—may show two stark divisions impossible to bring together. It’s ironic though that outside of the last generation or two, the amount of “enlightened atheist” scientists and also armchair philosophers good for writing zingers and not much else, have been quite rare. Newton, devout. Maxwell, pious. Hypatia, “pagan” but god(s)-fearing. Find a scientist of yore and one will also find God. Hand in hand, these giants took religion and consciously or not, dived deep into my favorite Biblical book, Kohelet, and used that, not “trying to prove away God” as their lodestar to get into the bottom of how we tick, how our world operates, what came before, and what will come next.

Magisteria for the most part is not terribly challenging. It’s not written precisely for the lay person, but close enough that even those with weak foundations (such as me) can still gain a great amount of insight. Honestly, the one-two punch of reading this and another book about the Enlightenment—not the kind of dual-wielding for the faint of heart, but helpful given how much Magisteria focused on it—showed that it was always the case of harmonizing one with the other, not separating them or gosh forbid wielding them as political cudgels; that, sadly, came later and now more than ever is an issue of concern.

---Notable Highlights---

The battle has been going on for ages:
‘Ours are reasoned arguments,’ claimed the last pagan emperor, Julian. ‘All your reason can be summed up in the imperative “Believe”.’

Enter Maimonides:
“Ironically, the man who did most to introduce that dimension (heresy) was also the one who did most to legitimise, and then limit, science among Jewish thinkers: the figure around whom, it is no exaggeration to say, the entire history of Jewish intellectual life in the later Middle Ages pivots.”

More from the Rambam:
“The scriptures, he argued, could not contradict reason or that which had been demonstrated by science. If they appeared to do so, it was because they were being read wrongly. This meant that literal readings should be taken figuratively or symbolically. ‘Seeing’, in the scriptures, thus meant ‘understanding’ rather than literally looking with your eyes. God ‘being near’ meant spiritual apprehension rather than physical proximity.”

Dropping the mic:
“The fact that it was a Catholic priest who first established that the universe had a beginning – not by faith, not by dogma, but by flawless mathematics – is an attractive detail within the complex histories of science and religion.”

[Cheryl Gatling]

Stephen Jay Gould once wrote an essay that said that science and religion are non-overlapping magisteria, so there should be no conflict between them. Science deals with material things, and religion with spiritual things. I remember reading that essay in college. That’s where the title of this book comes from. Author Nicholas Spencer says that even at the time Gould wrote it, no one was buying it.

Science and religion do overlap, and there has been conflict between them through the years. But the relationship between science and religion has not been one long example of hostility, as most of us have been taught. Sometimes religious people embraced science as a way to learn more about God’s ways by studying God’s works. And some of what appear to be conflicts between religion and science were actually more about something else, like politics. For example, during the Cold War, the United States played up its belief in God, and the Soviet Union emphasized that the cosmonauts had not found God in space, as a way of differentiating one’s self from the enemy.

This book is impossible to summarize because it covers literally thousands of years. It begins with the murder of Hypatia in 451. Hypatia was a pagan mathematician killed by a Christian mob. This story has come down through the ages as an example of science being done dirty by religion, but, according to Spencer, was really about politics.

The book ends with artificial intelligence, and the potential for new questions about who and what gets to be classified as human.

In between there is a chapter on Islam and science, Judaism and science, science in the Christian middle ages, and eventually, Darwin and the science of evolution, with a side adventure into the discredited “science” of phrenology.

The book pays special attention to the trial of Galileo, where, according to Spencer, he did not say “But still it moves,” the Huxley-Wilberforce debate in England, where Huxley supposedly said “I would rather have a monkey for an ancestor than a bishop”, and the Scopes Monkey Trial, where a certain brand of American Christians felt they had been ridiculed (because they had), and became hardened in their opposition to evolution.

As I said, the book is too much information to summarize, but here are some of the major ideas. First, as I have already said, the relationship between science and religion has been complex, sometimes hostile, but sometimes not. Second, the things that most often caused conflict were the issues of what it means to be a human being, and issues of authority. Are humans somehow special beings, or just another animal? Are humans destined to spend an eternity with God, or just to have their atoms returned to the environment? And who gets to decide?

Many people think of the contemporary conflict between science and religion as a distinctly American thing. One thing I didn’t know is that in recent years Islamic fundamentalists have taken up the opposition to evolution.

I feel like the American anti-evolution furor has died down somewhat in recent years. The book doesn’t draw a conclusion about this (that I can remember), but I have my own theories. I think that many of the American Christians who had been pushing for the inclusion of creation science or intelligent design in their local schools gave up, and pulled their kids out to be homeschooled. They still feel just as strongly, but are dealing with it privately. Also, the same segment of American Christians who had raised a stink about evolution have recently transferred their energies to promoting Trump and fighting LGBTQ causes. Those are my personal opinions. And it’s worth repeating that almost all mainline Christian denominations have made peace with evolution lo these many years.

[Irene · Rating 3 out of 5]

The premise was promising, and was fairly interesting (describing the social and intellectual states in which a legendary story occurs, how information was exchanged and developed upon, how the educational system was).

However, after the 40% mark, the book became a series of fact, after fact, after fact. Too many names, too many quotes, too much facts, and it was especially hard to keep track what stance a religious authority was keeping, because it kept changing over time with different people, and the author didn't help to remind the readers what the environmental/social context was. A majority of the book thus quickly became uninteresting and unmemorable.

3 stars for many interesting historical events for the first several chapters, and the sheer amount of information that went into writing such a book.


Additional Thoughts
I'm not docking any stars for this; however, there is a possibility that the author mischaracterized Charles Darwin and Paul Dirac.

In Charles Darwin's case, the author stated that a compromise was made between Darwin's and Wallace's independent discovery of natural selection. (Darwin had thought of this before Wallace, but had not yet published his works given the social and religious climate) The author states a "compromise" was made by publishing Wallace's work, and Darwin providing the abstract.

However, my recollection was that Darwin, who was already a well-established scientist of prominence, had done so in an attempt to help prop Wallace's potentially-budding career (and indeed, later lobbied for and secured a government pension for Wallace who continually had financial difficulties).

With regards to Paul Dirac, the quote I remember was (with regards to Dirac's commentary on Oppenheimer's interest in poetry): "The aim of science is to make difficult things understandable in a simpler way; the aim of poetry is to state simple things in an incomprehensible way. The two are incompatible."

The author's quote, in contrast, had been (in direct quotation marks): "I don't see how you can work on physics and write poetry at the same time. In science you want to say something nobody knew before in words everyone can understand. In poetry you are bound to say something that everybody knows already in words that nobody can understand" (page 342).

Rather different meanings!

(The reason why I think the author's quote may not be accurate is because Paul Dirac was highly precise with his language, so it would seem unusual for him to have used the words "everyone/everybody" and "nobody" in the author's quote, which are too broad and definitive. "Understandable" and "incomprehensible", as used in the quote I remember, are more precise, as "incomprehensible" leaves room for those of a certain background or mind to be able to grasp it, e.g., "it was incomprehensible to him as he did not possess a background in quantum physics". But that is just my thought)

[John Coupland · Rating 5 out of 5]

A history of the relationships between science and religion. Argues that the accepted story of conflict – Galileo, Oxford debates on Darwinism, the Scopes monkey trial – is simplistic as is the “non overlapping magisteria” idea of EO Wilson.

Instead arguing the relationship is complex and often mutually supportive with conflict arising around issues of authority and especially over questions about what it means to be human.

The author starts by making the point that science and religion (were not separate ideas until the 16th century and the clear dominance of science as a system of knowledge wasn’t established until at least the nineteenth.

If we are to be concerned with the complexity that emerges from the interactions of entirely material systems like social human beings, the concepts we will invoke - ethics, love, God, souls - are those theologians have grappled with for millennia.

He wisely points out that the Turing test itself compares a machine to a massively reduced and dissocialized human being passing typed notes under a locked door.

He never tries to define science and religion which bothered me at first. I was bothered at first that the types of knowledge I’m most interested in – technology – doesn’t really feature. But that’s really the point, science only really bothers some religious people depending on the claims it makes.

Making concrete, cars or tin cans is a bigger area of human scientific endeavor but apparently not in conflict with religious ideas. Although it does more with the Marxist efforts to replace human repression and the divine justification of it.

If I was going to criticize the book it would be that it’s too “rich”. There is too much detail for me to absorb as a reader in one attempt. I just don’t know enough about religious or scientific history to slot it all together. Of course, that’s more my failure as a reader than a fault of the author! The writing is light, measured and frequently funny.

Certainly, one of those books that leaves you stunned with the depth of humanist knowledge one person can read, internalize then marshal as arguments. In that way it reminds me of “Orientalism” or Menand’s books. When this author talks about Darwin he doesn’t just draw from “Descent of Man” and “Origin of Species” he includes his letters and the notebooks too. This is a type of scholarship I admire enormously.

[Ricardo Vladimiro · Rating 3 out of 5]

Magisteria é um livro sobre a história da relação complicada entre ciência e religião, da Grécia Antiga até às questões levantadas pelo crescimento de Inteligência Artificial nos dias de hoje. O ponto central do livro é que ciência e religião têm um relacionamento difícil mas que o conflito e até guerra entre as duas é um exagero.

Spencer define com precisão os motivos da relação complicada. Primeiro define os dois temas fundamentais no conflito: a natureza do universo e a natureza da humanidade. Em segundo define porque é que estes temas geram conflito: por ciência e religião se apresentarem como a autoridade máxima na definição dessas naturezas. Spencer conta detalhadamente toda a relação, do primeiro ao penúltimo capítulo, dos gregos ao New Atheism, desmistificando alguns mitos que corroboram a ideia de conflito e apresentando eventos e documentos que suportam a ideia de que houve mais colaboração e menos conflito do que a cultura actual pressupõe.

O problema fundamental é que todo o livro demonstra o oposto do que o autor pretende provar. O que Spencer demonstra, sem sombra de dúvida, é que a religião era a autoridade vigente, opressora e geradora de conflito até ao final do século XIX e que a partir daí a ciência tomou essa posição, não tanto pela ciência em si, mas pela sua utilização como arma de movimentos políticos e anti-religiosos.

O que me entristece e leva à minha pontuação no livro é que o autor se apresente neutro, à laia de historiador, mas não consegue disfarçar um tom apologético. É capaz de dizer que é irónico achar-se que a primeira experiência científica tenha sido iniciada num mosteiro, mas referir-se a Galileu ter ficado em prisão domiciliária perpétua apenas como um facto histórico sem outra importância. A forma como Spencer escreve é tendenciosa, maximizando o que suporta a sua tese e minimizando o que a contradiz.

Não fosse esta linguagem e este seria um livro brilhante. Historicamente é muito interessante e o último capítulo, sobre Inteligência Artificial e conclusão final é excelente e profundo, mas desaponta por ter um objectivo e perder a neutralidade na pesquisa histórica em favor desse objectivo.

[عبد الله القصير · Rating 4 out of 5]

تأخّر صدور هذا الكتاب أكثر من 15 عامًا، ولو صدر خلال حومة الجدل الذي أثاره الملحدون الجدد أمثال ريتشارد دوكنز وسام هاريس وكريستوفر هيتشنز، لربما مثّل نقطة توازن مهمة وسط الضجيج. ففي ذلك الوقت، كانت الاتهامات ضد الدين حادّة وعنيفة، وأبرزها أن الدين وقف في وجه العلم، وتسبّب في تأخر البشرية.
كقارئ يأتي من خلفية دينية، لم أكن أرتاح لهجوم الملحدين، لكنني في ذات الوقت لم أجد ردودًا فكرية مقنعة ، خاصة في المكتبة العربية، على معاداة الدين للعلم. كان النقاش محتدمًا، والانفعالات تطغى على الحجج، وقلّما وجدت كتابًا يناقش المسألة بعمق واتزان، إلى أن صدر هذا الكتاب.
يرى نيكولاس سبنسر أن تصوير العلاقة بين الدين والعلم كصراع أبدي هو أسطورة، لم تتبلور إلا في أواخر القرن التاسع عشر. ويؤكد أن العلاقة بينهما لم تكن عداوة صريحة دائمًا، بل كانت معقّدة ومتداخلة وفي أحيان كثيرة تعاونية. ولإثبات رؤيته، يستعرض المؤلف أشهر الاحداث التي عادةً ما تُستدل بها على هذا الصراع: مثل محاكمة جاليليو، وصدى كتاب أصل الأنواع لداروين، والخلافات بين الغزالي وابن رشد، ويُعيد تحليلها من منظور نقدي ولمعرفة هل تصلح هذه الحالات كشواهد على عداء جوهري؟ أم أنها استثناءات لا تُعمم؟
الكتاب مميز بأسلوبه الهادئ والمتزن، ويختلف تمامًا عن كتب الجدال الصارخ. يمنح القارئ أدوات للتفكير لا للاستقطاب.
لكن ما يؤخذ عليه هو امتداده الزمني الكبير: من الحضارة اليونانية حتى عصر الذكاء الاصطناعي، وهو ما أضعف التركيز أحيانًا. كما أن تركيزه شبه الكامل على أوروبا، مع إشارات محدودة للحضارة الإسلامية وغياب نسبي لبقية حضارات العالم، يجعل تغطيته غير شاملة. ومع ذلك، يمكن تفهّم هذا القصور، فالتوسّع في كل الحضارات كان سيحوّله إلى كتاب ضخم.

[Jenny Webb · Rating 4 out of 5]

History of the relationship between science and religion, well researched and written from a neutral academically informed perspective. If you regularly read histories in these areas, or read in the areas of history of ideas, media studies, philosophy, or theology, then this will work well for you. If you are looking for a popular history, this is accessible, but it may take some (very worthwhile) work.

The approach takes well-known or pivotal moments in the history of the relationship of science and religion and essentially deconstructs the historical moment i order to closely read the event to see how it may have been appropriated by various sides afterwards, and how these re-visions and re-readings change our understanding of what science and religion are as a concept, field, and approach for understanding and navigating the world.

The final section on AI was particularly well done, drawing on the past patterns and arguing that the current debates that swirl in the Theo-tech space (can, for example, an AI gain sufficient gestalt to quality as ensoulled? Can the sou emerge from the machine?).

Pair with Charles Taylor’s A Secular Age and Jason Ananda Josephson Storm’s The Myth of Disenchantment: Magic, Modernism, and the Birth of the Human Sciences.

[Alex Vanover · Rating 5 out of 5]

Spencer’s Magisteria is complete outline of the historical interplay between science and religion. Throughout it , he highlights the many overlapping issues rational thought / natural philosophy and religious practice share, taking particular heed to the supposed conflict points between the two. He makes the argument, with extensive evidence, that science and religion are not destined to be in opposition as it is commonly thought, and that the conflicts the do arise are often confounded by social and political factors outside of either’s dictionary domain. Where the do clash, Spencer argues it is over What is a human? and Who gets to decide?, noting scientific thought slowly gaining independent authority from its religious origins, and suggesting dogmatism rather than religion or science at their cores is responsible for their conflict. Exhausting, though not exhaustive, given there is the entire history of humanity to cover, Magisteria is a wonderful book giving great context to a world so shaped by religion and science, and for navigating all the nuances their intertwined stories contain.