Society News

New resources for the study of Science and Religion

As a resource for all involved in the Science and Religion field, a new website - International Science and Religion News - is being developed by ISSR to give coverage of forthcoming events and recent publications in the field. In addition, the possibility of a new journal - ISSR Abstracts and Reviews - is being explored.

ISSR makes a public statement on "Intelligent Design"

Questions frequently arise in public debate that require analysis and information based on the field of science and religion. Hitherto, however, statements from scientific bodies and religious groups on such issues have tended to lack impact because of the widespread perception that those who have published them are either under-informed in one field or the other, or else are unrepresentative of the consensus of the best scholars in the field. In this context, the International Society for Science and Religion (ISSR) - as a "learned society" made up of the world's leading experts in the science and religion field - is in a unique position to make the kind of impact that other bodies usually fail to make.

A particular example of the kind of question that requires the kind of expertise that ISSR can provide is that of the status of the concept of "Intelligent Design." On this question, a team of ISSR Members from relevant disciplines has now, after consultation with all ISSR Members, drawn up a statement that can be found through a link on the homepage of this website. The concept of intelligent design is, according to the statement, "neither sound science nor good theology."

The most immediate response to the statement's publication was from the influential think-tank, Ekklesia, which welcomed the statement as "a very important development" because the concept of intelligent design is, according to its spokesman, "a serious category mistake in both theological and scientific discourses. It brings the proper engagement of religion and science into disrepute, and benefits those who wish to pursue dubious ideological agendas at the expense of a common search for truth and wisdom."

ISSR statements on other topics, including cybrids, are now actively being developed.

ISSR Science and Religion Library

There is at present no publicly-accepted set of volumes that comprises an essential reference library in the science and religion field. Moreover, many centres of intellectual activity lack the resources and/or the strategic vision to acquire substantial holdings in this area. The Templeton Foundation, recognizing that the International Society for Science and Religion (ISSR) is uniquely positioned to judge and contextualize the literature of the field, has now given the Society a grant to tackle this issue.

Under the leadership of  Professor Pranab Das of Elon University, with Tom MaCkenzie as Programme Manager and Sharon Mellul as Project Assistant, the Society's members are to be consulted, in order to choose between two and three hundred volumes to constitute an "ISSR Library."A companion volume of reviews of all these works - "The ISSR Companion to Science and Religion Studies" - will also be prepared by selected Members and be available as a stand-alone introduction to the literature of the field.

In the first phase of the project, funded by the Templeton Foundation, between a hundred and fifty and two hundred sets of volumes will be made available on a competitive basis, free of charge, to high impact institutions in targeted (mainly less developed) countries.

Further details of the project may be found on its website: www.issrlibrary.org.

ISSR Research Professorships and Postdoctoral Fellowships

One of the concerns of the International Society for Science and Religion (ISSR) is that the basic infrastructure of science and religion studies in the academic world is not yet satisfactory, partly due to the way in which interdisciplinary studies do not fit neatly into existing academic categories. Because of this problem, the Society is actively exploring schemes for both Professorial and Postdoctoral Fellowships in the field. In both categories, its Executive Committee believe, the expertise and administrative framework that ISSR can provide makes it the ideal body to tackle existing shortcomings in these areas.

Future ISSR Conferences

Future conferences are being actively planned for 2009 and 2010.

In July 2009, an ISSR-sponsored event, organized by John Hedley Brooke on the topic of "The Reception of Darwin in Different Faith Traditions" will, it is hoped, be part of a number of Science and Religion additions to a conference on Darwin (not organized by ISSR) to be held in Cambridge, England. A further conference in Oxford, England, will, it is hoped, be hosted by ISSR and a local organization in 2010, to mark the 350th anniversary of the founding of the Royal Society. Looking further ahead, the possibility of a conference in Alexandria, Egypt, is being actively explored.