Science, Religion and Evolution The Provost announces the first year of an annual series of related lectures on a topic of major campus and broader societal importance. The symposium will bring the University's research and teaching mission to bear on some timely societal issues. It will have the campus community as its core audience but will be directed as well to the Durham, national and international audiences. The substance of the symposium will be worked out with an appropriate committee of faculty and will draw its presenters from outside speakers and members of the University's faculty. Events in the symposium will include public lectures, visits to classes and/or smaller seminars and opportunities for more informal interactions with speakers and panelists.
This year's symposium will address the theme of "Science, Religion and Evolution". It will seek to illuminate questions such as: what are science and the scientific method and how do these engage the subject of evolution? What is the historical relationship of religion and science? How has the theory of evolution itself evolved and what are the pre-eminent scientific puzzles in the theory? What is the relationship of religious belief to the theory of and empirical support for evolution?
The symposium is intended to provide the background for those on our campus and in the broader community required to engage better the debate currently underway in American society regarding the theory of evolution and its scientific status. It will address the relationship between evolution and systems of belief that invoke other or additional explanations to explain the history of past and current living organisms.
2005 - 2006 Series Completed
