When Science Meets Religion

PUBLISHERS WEEKLY 29 MAY 2000

This concise introduction to science-and-religion issues provides impressively well-balanced coverage of an increasingly complex family of topics in a single, accessible volume. As one of the better-known authors in the field, even prior to winning the 1999 Templeton Prize for Progress in Religion, Barbour has shown an almost unique ability to coax a "field" out of an unruly bunch of theologians, philosophers and scientists whose arguments often resist summary and synthesis. But this is exactly Barbour's goal as he guides readers through a four-fold typology of the science/religion relationshipDConflict, Independence, Dialogue and IntegrationDthat will be familiar to readers of his Religion in an Age of Science. Barbour's own sympathies are markedly on the side of dialogue and integration, but he makes an unusually successful effort to represent other perspectives in a fair light. Although the book's overall focus is on questions of method, it also manages to introduce readers to most of the topics of current science/religion dialogues. These include four areas based in the religious implications of specific sciences (cosmology, quantum theory, biological evolution and the sciences of "human nature") as well as the more general question of the relationship between God and nature. Barbour navigates with confidence through what has become a very wide literature, balancing coverage of essential "classical" sources (from Augustine to Kuhn) with the background necessary for reading more recent contributions to the field.