Discussions

Articles/Discussions

PUBLICATION SCHEDULE: SCS posts articles by scientists and other scholars every month from September through December and from February through May. These appear at the beginning of each month.

Members of SCS can discuss these articles on the SCS Member Forum. When possible (and this will be announced each month) the authors of these articles will participate in these discussions to the extent their time permits for a week after the article is posted. Anyone, whether an SCS member or not, can send in a question for the authors of these articles to smpbarr@gmail.com The most interesting questions will be forwarded to the authors, and (if they choose to respond) the questions and responses (as well as excerpts from the most interesting Member Forum discussions about an article) will be posted below the article.

SUBMISSION POLICY FOR ARTICLES: To submit an SCS website article, send the manuscript in Word to the Editorial Committee at smpbarr@gmail.com. You will receive an acknowledgement that it has been received, but no other communication unless the Committee decides provisionally to publish your article. Please do not submit your article simultaneously to other publications. However, if you do not hear from the Editorial Committee within eight weeks, you are free to submit your article elsewhere. Texts of manuscripts should be between 1,500 and 4,000 words. Please put any references or footnotes at the end of the text of the article, not at the foot of each page.

AUTHORS DO NOT HAVE TO BE MEMBERS OF SCS OR CATHOLIC: While most of the articles we publish are by members of SCS or "Scholar Asociates" of SCS, we also have articles by non-Catholic authors.

COMING UP IN FEB to MAY 2021: Articles by James Hannam, Joachim Ostermann, OFM,; Christina Stankey; and Stephen Barr.

Items

Science and Heaven

Stephen M. Barr is President of the Society of Catholic Scientists.
Discussion

Are there "laws of physics" in heaven?

Doing Philosophy

Fr. Joachim Ostermann, OFM, holds a Ph.D. in Biochemistry from the Univ. of Munich and was Asst. Professor of Biochemistry at Vanderbilt Univ. before becoming a Franciscan priest.
Discussion

Franciscan priest and former biochemist tells how his philosophical journey started with the question “What is a human being?”

Round or Square: China, Christianity and the Shape of the Earth

James Hannam has a PhD in the History and Philosophy of Science from the University of Cambridge and has written for numerous scholarly publications.
Discussion

The remarkable story of the Jesuit astronomers in China.

Fr. Erich Wasmann, SJ: Ants, Evolution and the Catholic Faith

Berta M. Moritz has a Ph.D. in Zoology/Biochemistry from the Univ. of Graz, Austria. She works in pharmaceutical drug R&D in industry and academia.
Discussion

A priest-scientist who was an early champion of evolution.

What does neuroscience have to say about free will?

Aaron Schurger is principal investigator (chargé de recherche 1) with the French National Institute for Health and Medical Research (INSERM).
Discussion

Reports that neuroscience has disproved free will are mistaken.

Dorothy Garrod: A Catholic, Woman Pioneer of Archaeology

Kathryn Price is a doctoral student in palaeoarchaeology at University of Reading in the UK.
Discussion

Dorothy Garrod crossed many boundaries: a pioneer scientist and Catholic convert.

Are we meant to be here? Anthropic Coincidences and the Multiverse

Stephen M. Barr is President of the Society of Catholic Scientists.
Discussion

Many features of the fundamental laws of physics seem to be “just right” to make life possible.

A Brief History of Catholic Evolutionism

Kenneth W. Kemp is emeritus Professor of Philosophy at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minnesota.
Discussion

Prof. Kemp gives an overview of the history of Catholic evolutionist thinking and the Church's reception of it.

A Physicist's Faith

Victor F. Hess won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1936 for discovering cosmic rays
Discussion

A republication of a 1946 article by Physics Nobel Prize winner Victor F. Hess, in which he discusses his Catholic faith.

Christian Foundations of the Idea of Laws of Nature

Prof. Peter Harrison is Director of the Institute for Advanced Study in the Humanities, University of Queensland, Australia.
Discussion

A historian expains how the concept of "laws of nature" has roots in Christian belief.

Confession of a Catholic Neuroscientist

Sofia Carozza is a doctoral student in Cognition and Brain Sciences at the University of Cambridge.
Discussion

A Catholic scientist explains how scientific work can be a training ground for a life of faith.

Monsignor Georges Lemaître, Originator of the Big Bang Theory

Jonathan Lunine is David C. Duncan Professor in the Physical Sciences at Cornell University and Director of the Cornell Center for Astrophysical and Planetary Sciences.
Discussion

The scientific community is now recognizing the enormous achievement of the humble priest (and brilliant theoretical physicist) Georges Lemaître who proposed the Big Bang theory 90 years ago.

On What Atheists Say There Is

M. Anthony Mills is a resident senior fellow and director of science policy at the R Street Institute, and a senior fellow at the Pepperdine School of Public Policy.
Discussion

Some people argue that it is irrational to believe in God, since his existence cannot be tested empirically. Does this argument make philosophical sense?

“Nothing but…” Reductionism is Not Good Science: Why I as a neuroscientist reject reductionism.

Patrick McNamara is Professor of Psychology at Northcentral University and an Associate Professor of Neurology at Boston University School of Medicine.
Discussion

A neuroscientist explains why he rejects the radical reductionism that claims to explain away the mind as "nothing but" the motion of matter.

God and Cosmic Order

Stephen M. Barr is President of the Society of Catholic Scientists.
Discussion

The orderliness, lawfulness, harmony and beauty of the cosmos gives evidence of God.

Adam and Eve and Evolution

Kenneth W. Kemp is Professor of Philosophy at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minnesota.
Discussion

Prof. Kemp reviews a recent book on how to reconcile traditional Christian teaching about Adam and Eve and Original Sin with the facts about human origins discovered by modern evolutionary biology and genertics.

The Catholic Tradition and Science

Christopher T. Baglow is Director of the Science-Religion Initiative of the McGrath Institute for Church Life at the University of Notre Dame.
Discussion

This article explores two consistent principles that have guided her understanding of the relation of faith and science. This is a sequel to the article "The Faith-Science War Debunked."

The Faith-Science "War" Debunked

Christopher T. Baglow is Director of the Science-Religion Initiative of the McGrath Institute for Church Life at the University of Notre Dame.
Discussion

This article explores the 19th-century origins of the myth that the Church has historically been "at war" with modern science. This is the first of a pair of articles: the second is "The Catholic Tradition and Science."

St. Augustine and the Beginning of Time

Stephen M. Barr is the President of the Society of Catholic Scientists.
Discussion

St. Augustine was fifteen centuries ahead of his time in his thinking on the nature of time.

What if modern science had started differently?

Christopher M. Graney is an adjunct scholar at the Vatican Observatory.
Discussion

The Copernican Revolution was not what you think.

Science, Beauty and Contemplation

Carlo Lancellotti is Professor of Mathematics at CUNY-College of Staten Island.
Discussion

The real roots of science lie in wonder at the beauty of the cosmos, which also the cure to reductionism ideology.

Saint John Henry Newman: A Co-patron for Scientists?

Berta M. Moritz has a Ph.D. in Zoology/Biochemistry from the Univ. of Graz, Austria. She worked in pharmaceutical drug R&D in industry and academia.
Discussion

The great theologian and saint saw clearly why true relgion has nothing to fear from the discoveries of modern science.

Christianity in Scientific Mythology

Chris Clemens is Jaroslav Folda Distinguished Professor of Phys.ics and Astronomy at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Discussion

Many peculiar myths about religion circulate among scientists.