Does Science Challenge Religion?

A lecture by the Honorary President : Dr Allan Chapman, Wadham College, Oxford

Meeting : 14 February 2008

In the popular view it is often considered that science conflicts with religion, but this belief has become embedded in popular culture through misinformation, poor historical research and sometimes deliberate propaganda. Dr Chapman’s lecture – encompassing the centuries from the mediaeval period to Bruno, Galileo, Darwin and Dawkins – demonstrated, with considerable and extensive historical proof, that such beliefs are generally unfounded, and that they are perpetuated chiefly by those with extremist theological or scientific opinions. Throughout the ages many scientists have been theologians and clerics, from country parsons to bishops, cardinals and popes. Dr Chapman also proposed, with simple logic, that ordinary religious beliefs are compatible with scientific discoveries.