Taner Edis

I would like to make a request that, just once, someone could write a book about the relationship between science and religion that is this good, and not screw up the conclusion. This book was swinging along nicely until the author decided to put Christianity onto a pedestal (figuratively) as some sort of model of how to liberalize enough to make peace with science. While he does back off from that somewhat, pointing out the ridiculous New Age nonsense favored by so many western Christian liberals, it is still a problem. That being said, the rest of this book is quite educational and well written. The author looks at whether Islam and science co-exist with the harmony that apologists promote. The answer probably will not surprise people who pick up this book, which is the problem with books like this - they are usually not picked up by the people who need to read them. The author does concede that the west has been colonialist and prejudiced, but questions whether everything they have done needs to be discarded for that reason. As a secular physicist who grew up in Muslim Turkey, he tries to look beyond the noise and fury and see if there is a core of truth at the center of claims made by both sides. Recommended for anyone who is trying to understand Islam and the west.… (meer)

The author examines the question of whether there is a legitimate battle between science and religion, and the arguments for the existence of God. He begins with philosophy, but quickly dispenses with that, as the philosophical arguments have been covered in great detail elsewhere. He then proceeds to physics, and spends much of the book on the findings of modern physics and the origin of the universe. This book is much less technical than many books of this sort, and the author clearly aimed it an an intelligent reading audience that doesn't want long discussions of the arcana of physics, so you don't have to be well versed in physics language to grasp most of the book. The author makes his thesis plain from the beginning: philosophical arguments for and against god(s) are only the surface of the story. He feels scientific arguments are the best defense against intelligent design, creationism, and the existence of God. Very well written, and dealing honestly and forthrightly with the most sophisticated arguments from both religion and postmodern philosophy. That strength can actually become a weakness at times, however, as the repitition of the arguments against science can become tiresome, and also, one tends to cringe at the particular method of dispensing with those arguments, as the author has left probably several hundred passages that could easily be pulled out of context and used to indicate that the author (a prominent physicist and an outspoken atheist) actually accepts creationism - or intelligent design - or postmodernism. Still, I suppose there's no way to write a good, thoughtful book on the topic that can't be quote mined (even if they're not this wide open). Overall, I recommend this book highly.… (meer)

In this review, I will look at the paperback issue of Edis's book Science and Nonbelief. In it he wants to provide an account of the complicated relationship between science and religion by analyzing the ways in which science supports religious nonbelief. The overarching theme is the struggle between a natural view and a supernatural view which introduces entities in addition to those we find in nature. To do so Edis considers several modern scientific theories that are relentlessly naturalistic and that attempt to show us how the world works. First of all, for Edis, there is no Scientific Method and no Scientific or Religious Truth -- there are methods and there are truths. As a teacher, Edis has learned to be sensitive to the sensibilities of his religious students in order to teach them science. Instead of insulting his students he tries to teach them science and let them sort out the metaphysics for themselves. That style of the sensitive sceptic comes through in his books, and that makes them quite readable without being condescending. A reviewer in Catholic Library World praises the book as intelligent and well-balanced, writing, "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 approach these controversial issues with more light than heat."

The book provides a history and an analysis of "science-minded nonbelief" from the early Greeks to the present. Mark Twain warned us long ago that, "When even the brightest mind in our world has been trained up from childhood in a superstition of any kind, it will never be possible for that mind, in its maturity, to examine sincerely, dispassionately, and conscientiously any evidence or any circumstance which shall seem to cast a doubt upon the validity of that superstition. I doubt if I could do it myself." Edis's book will certainly help anyone who is seriously interested in examining evidence for a naturalistic worldview.

http://tinyurl.com/6lxpyo… (meer)