The views, contents, and opinions expressed herein
do not necessarily reflect those of the University of California.

Gods, Spirits and the Mental Instincts that Create Them

Pascal Boyer

A variety of mental instincts underpin the common features as well as important cultural variations in religion. Mental instincts are specific capacities of normal brains that unfold in normal environments, and were shaped by natural selection. Their workings are revealed by experimental evidence from psychology and neuro-science; their effects on culture are known to anthropologists and archaeologists. In this talk, Pascal Boyer focuses on a number of these instincts: our intuitive assumptions about agency (in self and others), about social relations, about morality, about misfortune, and about contagion. Having these mental systems helps human beings solve many practical problems in dealing with others and with their natural environments; it also makes human minds receptive to a variety of cultural objects, including notions of supernatural beings.

Pascal Boyer studied philosophy in Paris and anthropology in Cambridge before teaching anthropology at King's College, Cambridge University. He has also held positions in Lyons and San Diego and was a Fellow of the Center for Advanced Collective Memory at Washington University in St. Louis. His work combines anthropological fieldwork and psychological experiments, and aims to describe the psychological foundations of culture. His published works include Tradition as Truth and Communication (Cambridge, 1990), The Naturalness of Religious Ideas (Berkeley, 1994), and Religion Explained (Basic Books, 2001).

Program recording date and length: 02-08-02 ~ 1 Hour 46 Minutes

Order Catalog No.: 3683

Darwin, Design, and the Unification of Nature

John Hedley Brooke

John Hedley Brooke is the Andreas Idreos Professor of Science and Religion and Director of the Ian Ramsey Centre at the University of Oxford, where he is also a Fellow of Harris Manchester College. A Former editor of The British Journal for the History of Science, he has been President of the British Society for the History of Science and of the Historical Section of the British Association for the Advancement of Science.

In this talk, Dr. Brooke demonstrates that the claims for the unification of biology routinely refer to the neo-Darwinian synthesis of the 1930s. It is, however, instructive to consider the several respects in which Darwin himself may be said to have achieved a unification: in connecting otherwise disparate phenomena, in describing a single evolutionary process, in looking to just one ultimate origin for all species and in the case of homo sapiens favoring a monogenism over polygenism.

Program recording date and length: 1-11-02 ~ 2 Hours

Order Catalog No.: 3722

Modernity and the Mystical: Science, Technology, and the Task of Human Self-Creation

Thomas Carlson

While many major theorists from the early- and mid-twentieth century could understand the rationality of modern science and technology to be one through which we seek to comprehend, manipulate, and master the world in which we live--thereby excluding from that world any meaningful sense of the "mystical," more recent thinkers are beginning to re-interpret the scientific and technological networks that now define our world in terms of a mystical or quasi-mystical logic that would remain, in fact, fundamental to those networks. This lecture argues that the mystical logic one might indeed see operative in today's scientific and technological networks is tied intimately to the ongoing process of human self-creation that takes place in and through those networks.

Thomas A. Carlson, who received his Ph.D. from the University of Chicago in 1995, is Associate Professor in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara, where he teaches courses treating philosophy and religion, contemporary theory, and the history of Christian thought and culture. He is the author of Indiscretion: Finitude and the Naming of God (University of Chicago Press, 1999) and of numerous articles treating deconstruction, phenomenology, and the traditions of apophatic and mystical theology. He is also translator of several works by French philosopher Jean-Luc Marion, including God without Being (University of Chicago Press, 1991), Reduction and Donation: Investigations of Husserl, Heidegger, and Phenomenology (Northwestern University Press, 1998), and The Idol and Distance (Fordham University Press, 2001).

Program recording date and length: 4-12-02

Order Catalog No.: 3706

The Nothingness of God: Medieval and Modern Perceptions

Thomas Carlson talks about the Medieval Christian notions about the nature of emptiness. ~ Order Catalog No.: 3525

Technology and Social Justice

Freeman Dyson

Freeman Dyson’s talk deals with a collection of stories, illustrating the difficulties that arise when well-meaning people attempt to use technology to help the poor. He describes some failures and some successes. At the end Dyson deduces from these examples some general rules that may help philanthropic enterprises to do good and to avoid doing harm to those they are trying to help. The talk will also include some reflections on the World Economic Forum which he attended in January in Davos, Switzerland. The main theme of the Forum was to steer the processes of economic globalization so as to share the benefits more equitably between rich and poor countries. A number of well-meaning efforts in this direction have not been notably successful.

Program recording date and length: 5/18/01 ~ 1 Hour 55 Minutes

Order Catalog No.: 3510-C

Uneasy Alliances:
The "Faith Factor" in Medicine;
the "Health Factor" in Religion

Anne Harrington

Medicine offers a rich arena in which to take stock of the current state of relations between science, religion and human experience in the modern era. On the one hand, this branch of practical science has functioned over the past century as a highly successful secularizing force in our society. From antibiotics to surgery, its products have functioned as an apparent great walking advertisement for the practical benefits of scientific epistemologies and methods. At the same time, illness and healing remain imperfectly secularized experiences in our culture; ill people continue to be tempted by the promises and consolations of religion; and the secular culture of medicine itself is not rarely identified as a spiritually corrosive force in an ill person's life.

Program recording date and length: 4-17-03 ~ 1 Hour 30 Minutes

Order Catalog No.: 3792

Reflections of a Physicist after an Encounter
with the Vatican and Pope John Paul II

In the fall of 2000, Walter Kohn, research professor with the Department of Physics at UC Santa Barbara and the winner of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry spoke at a conference in Rome on the theme "Physics in the 21st century." The conference was organized by high-level Italian academics with an international and religion-blind set of prominent speakers. At the same time it was one of some 50 wide-ranging, academic conferences coordinated by the Vatican as part of the Jubilee Year 2000, under the motto, "Fides et Ratio." The closing session of the entire program was convened on the grounds of the Vatican under the aegis of Pope John Paul II, and offered Professor Kohn an opportunity to exchange a few words with the Pope. Walter Kohn discusses this entire experience as a case history of a religious institution playing an active role in science. He also describes and discusses his subsequent correspondence with the Holy See on the subject of religions which make exclusive claims to truth and the ultimate good, in a global age in which science and technology pose both great promises and great threats to mankind.

Program recording date and length: 4/20/01 ~ 2 Hours

Order Catalog No.: 3510-A

The Specific Regime of Enunciation of Religious Talk

Bruno Latour

This lecture by Professor Bruno Latour argues that religion is not about a domain of reality, some specific entities, a certain type of morality, or a belief system—but literally a way of talking, a Verb, as the tradition says, or in a more technical vocabulary: a specific regime of enunciation.

Program recording date and length: 5-10-02 ~ 1 Hour 29 Minutes

Order Catalog No.: 3723

Kabbalah and Contemporary Cosmology:
Discovering the Resonances

Daniel Matt

The big bang serves as the scientific Creation myth of our culture. What does it have to do with God? How can it help us discover a spiritual dimension in our lives and recover a sense of wonder? In answering these questions, I draw on the insights of Jewish mysticism as well as contemporary cosmology. I suggest several parallels, e.g., between what physicists call "broken symmetry" and what Kabbalah calls "the breaking of the vessels." But my purpose is not to demonstrate that 13th-century kabbalists knew what cosmologists are now discovering. Rather, in juxtaposing these two distinct approaches—scientific and spiritiaul—I experiment with seeing each in light of the other. Spirituality and science are two tools of understanding that should not be confused; each is valid in its domain. Occasionally, though, their insights resonate. By sensing these resonances, our understanding deepens, nourished by mind and heart.

Program recording date and length: 3-6-03 ~ 1 Hour 27 Minutes

Order Catalog No.: 3785

Experiencing Evolution:
Darwinism and the Diminution of Religious Belief

Ronald Numbers

Recently the New York Times told of a high school student in Seattle who has "been an atheist since studying evolution in the ninth grade." Although we know that most evolutionists have not become atheists, such stories have circulated for over a century. Indeed, they have fueled the various campaigns against evolution. But the spiritual effects of accepting (or rejecting) evolution remain vague. Drawing on autobiographical accounts from the time of Charles Darwin to the present, this lecture seeks to illuminate the private world in which scientists and laypersons alike have experienced the implications of creation and evolution.

Program recording date and length: 2-6-03 ~ 1 Hour 27 Minutes

Order Catalog No.: 3743

The Complementarity of Science and Religion

Harold Oliver

The thesis of the complementarity of science and religion is stated and argued for on the basis of the principle of "relationality," according to which both science, as physics, and religion favor a relational paradigm. Science and religion are seen as saying different things about the same domain, namely, human experience. Other theories, such as the Conflict and Compartment Theories are reviewed. The "substantialist" bias of Western philosophy is discussed, as well as its influence upon science and religion. Attention is given to the difference between the language of science and the language of religion: science is based on the greatest economy of hypothesis; whereas, religious language is mythical, iconic discourse. The latter is relational rather than referential. Human experience is defined as relating, experience. Scientific understanding and religious truth are thereby examined.

Dr. Oliver is Professor Emeritus of Philosophy of Religion at Boston University. He holds a Th.M. degree from Princeton Theological Seminary and a Ph.D. degree from Emory University, and engaged in post-doctoral studies in theology and philosophy at Tübingen University and Basel University. In 1971-72 he was Visiting Fellow at The Institute of Theoretical Astronomy and for many years was a Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society (London). His books that are most relevant for his lecture are A Relational Metaphysic and Relatedness: Essays in Metaphysics and Theology.

Program recording date and length: 4-11-02 ~ 1 Hour 29 Minutes

Order Catalog No.: 3710

In __ We Trust: Science, Religion, and Authority

Jim Proctor addresses the question: How may we understand science and religion as arising from—yet transcending—the human experience. ~ Order Catalog No.: 3808

The Depths and Shallows of Experience

Hilary Putnam

This lecture approaches the broad themes to which this series is devoted, the themes implicit in speaking of "Science, Religion, and Human Experience," by interrogating the notion of experience itself. Both in life and in philosophical reflection, experience is sometimes seen as intrinsically shallow, as mere surface, and sometimes as deep. This "facedness" of experience has deep significance for each of these three themes; but this significance is often misconceived (as when science is thought of as dealing only with the shallows—as, for instance, by Heidegger—and religion as dealing only with the depths). Here Hilary Putnam explores ways of conceiving the relations between our themes that avoid these familiar stereotypes.

Hilary Putnam is Cogan University Professor (Emeritus) at Harvard University, where he taught for 35 years. Before joining the faculty of Harvard, he was Professor of the Philosophy of Science at M.I.T. He has also taught at Northwestern University and Princeton University. He is a past President of the American Philosophical Association (Eastern Division), the Philosophy of Science Association, and the Association for Symbolic Logic. He is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a Corresponding Fellow of the British Academy and holds a number of honorary degrees, including degrees from the University of Pennsylvania, the University of Athens, and the Hebrew University in Jerusalem.

Program recording date and length: 5-09-02 ~ 1 Hour 28 Minutes

Order Catalog No.: 3724

Darwinism and Atheism: A Marriage Made in Heaven?

Michael Ruse

This talk looks at the relationship between evolution and Christianity, from the earliest times, through the work of Charles Darwin, and down to the present, ending with some comments on both the prominent Darwinian atheists like Richard Dawkins, as well as the supporters of "Intelligent Design."

The main theme of the lecture is that Darwinism is a child of Christianity, and that, as is usual in parent-children relationships, there is both love and tension. Ruse argues that Darwin's own work stemmed from his religious background rather than despite it, that his supporter, T. H. Huxley, had very different ends in view, making of evolution a secular religion, and that once the history is understood, the present is much easier to understand.

Program recording date and length: 03-07-02 ~ 1 Hour 54 Minutes

Order Catalog No.: 3684

Constructing Cosmos: Science, Religion, History, and Reality

Jeffrey B. Russell

The "history of concepts" is an inclusive approach to truth that illuminates the relationship between science and religion. In the Middle Ages, science and religion formed a unity, as illustrated by a description of the cosmos in the 14th Century. Cracks began to appear in the cosmos by the 16th century with the reception of Copernican theory by academic orthodoxy . Science and religion further diverged from Galileo onward during the scientific revolution of the 17th century and the 18th-century Enlightenment. In the 19th and 20th centuries, "evolution" became an emblem of unnecessary "warfare," when myths and caricatures about the past occurred, including that of the flat earth. Academic orthodoxy of the 20th century fixed on outmoded materialism. Are there many paths to one truth, many truths, or no truth? What are the consequences of these choices for the human condition? Will the 21st century bring victory to one "side" or the other; yet more divergence; new convergence; or recognition of a more complex reality? Is the cosmos most fully understood through metaphor? These are the questions that Professor Russell attempts to answer in this provocative talk given at UC Santa Barbara

Program recording date and length: 4/27/01 ~ 2 Hours

Order Catalog No.: 3510-B

Empathy and Human Experience

Evan Thompson

Empathy, in the most general sense, is the basic affective capacity by which we comprehend another person's experience; accordingly, it underlies all of the particular feelings and emotions we have for others. In this lecture, Evan Thompson examines the human experience of empathy from the perspectives of cognitive science, phenomenological philosophy, and Buddhist contemplative psychology. He argues that human experience depends (formatively and constitutively) on the dynamic coupling of self and other in empathy, and that both phenomenology and contemplative psychology disclose a relational intersubjectivity prior to the reified constructs of self and other. Finally, he suggests that for the dialogue between science and contemplative experience to move forward, cognitive science needs to grow beyond its traditional antipathy to first-person experience by incorporating first-person methods directly into its empirical research.

Evan Thompson is Associate Professor in the Department of Philosophy and a member of the Center for Vision Research at York University in Toronto. He received his B.A. in Asian Studies from Amherst College (1983), and his M.A. (1985) and Ph.D. (1990) in Philosophy from the University of Toronto. He is the author of numerous articles in cognitive science and the philosophy of mind, and has written two published books, Colour Vision: A Study in Cognitive Science and the Philosophy of Perception (Routledge Press, 1995), and (with Francisco Varela and Eleanor Rosch) The Embodied Mind: Cognitive Science and Human Experience (MIT Press, 1991).

Program recording date and length: 02-07-02

Order Catalog No.: 3687

The Origins of Science in Religion: or, Parents and Offspring Should Respect Each Other

Bruce Tiffney

It is an American assumption that science and religion are mortal enemies from time immemorial, yet this assumed enmity is of fairly recent derivation. In fact, the Catholic and then Protestant churches fostered scientific thinking as a way to better know God and were in many respects the cradle in which modern science was nurtured to a point it could start to develop independent of its theological parent. Like most family schisms, the breach became one between science and its parent, in this case the Judeo-Christian tradition, and little involved other religions. The enmity that does exist has been fueled by aspects of religion, but no less by the failure of scientists to accurately project what the basic principles of science involve, and how this both gives science its power and limits its scope.

Born in Massachusetts, Dr. Tiffney earned his bachelor's degree in Geology from Boston University and his Ph.D. in Botany from Harvard University. He taught at Yale University and was a curator in the Peabody Museum of Natural History before moving to UCSB in 1986, where he joined the Department of Geological Sciences.

Program recording date and length: 03-08-02

Order Catalog No.: 3702

The Intersubjective Worlds of Science and Religion

Alan Wallace

Alan Wallace trained for ten years in Buddhist monasteries in India and Switzerland and graduated summa cum laude from Amherst College where he studied physics and the philosophy of science. He earned a doctorate in religious studies at Stanford University where he pursued interdisciplinary research into ways of exploring the nature of consciousness.

In this talk, Dr. Wallace discusses the nature of consciousness and his belief that a "truth-claim" is tested, not in reference to some purely objective realm of existence, independent of all modes of inquiry, but in reference to multiple modes of perceptual and conceptual knowledge. With this criterion of truth, both scientific and religious modes of knowledge are seen to be inextricably embedded in human experience. Moreover, following this model, human consciousness—so long emitted from the scientific worldview—is seen to play a central role in both the natural world of science as well as the world of religious truths.

Program recording date and length: 6/1/01 ~ 1 Hour 53 Minutes

Order Catalog No.: 3510-D