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Science and Nonbelief
Taner Edis
ISBN: 0-313-33078-6
ISBN-13: 978-0-313-33078-0
312 pages
Greenwood Press
Publication: 12/30/2005
List Price: $67.95 (UK Sterling Price: £46.95)
Discount Price: $33.98 Sale Price for U.S. Customers Only. Save 50%. Ends 12/31/2009.
Availability: In Stock
Media Type: Hardcover
Trim Size: 6 1/8 x 9 1/4
Subjects: Reviews:
  • This book, which defends nonbelief effectively from some attacks based on science (particularly those using intelligent design, anthropci principles or paranormal phenomena), could influence an inquirer to that that the claims of Christianity are false. Edis seeks to protect the scientific community's ability to benefit society, both against restrictions coming from religious conservatives, and against recognition of pseudoscientific ideas. The committed Christian reader could be helped to identify arguments to avoid in apologetics, and unresolved conflicts between science and faith.
    —Perspectives on Science and Christian Faith     June 2007
  • This clear, balanced survey of the interactions between science and religious doubt includes issues raised by physics, biology, neuroscience, pseudoscience, and philosophy. Designed for advanced students, it includes some primary sources.
    —VOYA     October 2006
  • [T]his is an intelligent and well-balanced book that carefully considers all the arguments offered on both sides of the issue of science and belief. The author refuses to take the easy way out of saying that science and religion are dealing with different realms: one being limited to facts, the other focusing on meaning....Overall, this is an excellent book for the layman and professional alike. Anyone interested in the subject would find this to be one of the few contemporary books that approaches these controversial issues with more light than heat.
    —Catholic Library World     September 2006
  • In the context not only of the intellectual debates between scientific and supernatural or transcendent realities, but also the political relationship between the social institutions of science and religion, Edis explores what he calls science-minded nonbelief, which takes the naturalism of current science as the leading reason to reject the existence of spiritual realities. He touches on social and well as natural science, discusses philosophical disputes and scientific ideas, and incorporates the complex historical interactions between science and nonbelief.
    —SciTech Book News     March 2006
Description: Can science and religious belief co-exist? Many people— including many practicing scientists—insist that one can simultaneously follow the principles of the scientific method and believe in a particular spiritual tradition. But throughout history there have been people for whom science challenged the very validity of religious belief. Whether called atheists, agnostics, skeptics, or infidels, these individuals used the naturalism of modern science to deny the existence of any supernatural power. Science and Nonbelief chronicles, in a balanced and accessible way, the long history of the battle between adherents of religious doctrines and the nonbelievers who adhere to the naturalism of modern science.

Science and Nonbelief provides a nontechnical introduction to the leading questions that concern science and religion today: What place does evolution hold in the arguments of nonbelievers? What does modern physics tell us about the place of humanity in the natural world? How do modern neurosciences challenge traditional beliefs about mind and matter? What can scientific research about religion tell us about the nature of belief? How do skeptics react to claims at the fringes of science, such as UFOs and psychics?

The volume also addresses the political context of debates over science and nonbelief, as well as questions about the nature of morality. It includes a selection of provocative primary source documents that illustrate the complexity and varieties of nonbelief.
Table of Contents:
  • Science, Philosophy and Religious Doubt
    Philosophers, Doubting and Devout
    The Old Science and the Old Faith
    The European Enlightenment
    Non-Belief Comes of Age
    Science and Non-Belief Today
    Scientific Naturalism
    An Accidential World
    Why Physics is Hard
    The Nature of Modern Physics
    The Burden of Proof
    God in the Cracks of Causality
    Quantum Mysticism
    Cosmic Harmonies
    Fine-Tuning the Universe
    A Moment of Creation?
    Physics and Naturalism
    Darwinian Creativity
    Achieving Complexity
    The Physics of Evolution
    Evolution and Religion
    Old Fashion Creationism
    Intelligent Design
    Creation Through Evolution
    Universal Darwinism
    Minds Without Souls
    Mind and Matter
    Cartesian Dualism
    Machines Who Think
    Genes and Memes
    The Conscious Brain
    Qualia and Subjectivity
    Mind Over Matter
    The God Module
    Parts and Wholes
    Non-Belief Adapts to Brain Science
    The Fringes of Science
    Ultimate Explanations
    Miracles and Rejected Knowledge
    Scripture as Miracle
    From Spiritualism to New Age
    Skiptics vs. Psychics
    Mircles in the Laboratory
    UFO's and Aliens
    Direct Experience of the Paranormal?
    Paranormal Skepticism and Non-Belief
    Explaining Religion
    Too Many Religions
    Religious Studies
    Rational Chioce Theory
    The Secularization Thesis
    Religion and Group Selection
    A Virus of the Mind
    The Religious Mind
    Explaining Theology and Non-Belief
    Morality and Politics
    More Than the Facts
    The State of Science
    The State of Non-Belief
    A Morality of Reason
    The Science of Morality
    Separate Spheres
    An Uneasy Alliance
About the Author: TANER EDIS is associate professor of Physics at Truman State University. While primarily a theoretical physicist, he has also written numerous articles on the secularist tradition in science. He is the author of The Ghost In the Universe: God in Light of Modern Science (2002) and co-editor of Why Intelligent Design Fails: A Scientific Critique of the New Creationism (2004).
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