Science and Soul

About this book

Preeminent scientist Charles Birch credits many pivotal scholars in the science and science religion worlds with shaping his thinking and his world view. In Science and Soul he recalls the leaders in the sciences and sciencereligion field who most influenced him. Vignettes and quotes reveal their thoughts, personalities and interactions and unveil the ways in which shared thinking and ideas evolve into a philosophy of life. Birchs reflections center on twenty people who became his mentors, contributing to his perception of the meaning of life and his views on process thought. They come from the fields of modern evolutionary biology, animal ecology, the philosophy of religion as well as science and religion and include Theodosius Dobzhansky, Charles Elton, Reinhold Niebuhr and Ian Barbour.
These reminiscences open a window on the ways in which seminal thinkers advance their knowledge and understanding and they lead Birch to candid commentary about process thought. He notes that he has published a number of books that discuss what process thought is but Science and Soul is the first book in which he explains what process thought means to him. Scholars frequently have to search through archives and letters to begin to understand the history of ideas in their fields. For science and religion, this book brings those stories together, offering insights into the development of one of the most important minds in science and religion scholarship, as well as the personal lives and constructive ideas of some of the key figures in modern intellectual history.

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