Organizations Publications UCSBPrint Help

This list is under development; thanks to Brendon Larson for compilation. Please send information on other relevant weblinks to Jim Proctor.

Organizations

American Association for the Advancement of Science Dialogue on Science, Ethics and Religion
http://www.aaas.org/spp/dser /

[From website:] "The Dialogue has three main objectives: 1. to promote knowledge about developments in science and technology within the religious community; 2. to provide opportunities for dialogue between members of the scientific and religious communities on significant topics for the sake of mutual understanding; and 3. to promote collaboration between members of the scientific and religious communities on projects that explore the ethical and religious implications of scientific developments. The work of the Dialogue is currently organized around the broad themes of evolution, human nature, bioethics, and bioresponsibility. Its functions range from organizing fora, conferences and consultations which enable members of the scientific and religious communities to engage in meaningful dialogue, to developing workshops and training seminars to educate the religious community and journalists who report on religious issues about scientific developments. The Dialogue also undertakes research projects and studies to assess scientific developments and explore their ethical and religious implications. Another major goal is to establish channels of electronic communication with science and religion centers around the world."

Center for Theology and the Natural Sciences
http://www.ctns.org

The mission of CTNS “is to promote the creative mutual interaction between contemporary theology and the natural sciences.  It is a non-profit international membership organization dedicated to research, teaching and public service. It focuses primarily on the relation between contemporary physics, cosmology, technology, environmental studies, evolutionary and molecular biology and Christian theology and ethics.” CTNS is an Affiliate of the Graduate Theological Union (GTU) in Berkeley, California, and offers courses at the doctoral and seminary level.  CTNS hosts public and web discussion forums, and publishes a quarterly bulletin.  Two initiatives include a science-religion course program competition (funded by 12.6 million dollar grant over four years from the Templeton Foundation) and Science and the Spiritual Quest, which “promotes dialogue among leading scientists on the connections between their scientific work and their religious or spiritual identities.”

Chicago Center for Religion and Science
http://www.usao.edu/~facshaferi/CCRS.HTML  

(Has recently changed its name to the Zygon Center for Religion and Science, which has a web site under construction at http://www.zygoncenter.org) The Chicago Center for Religion and Science was a program arm of the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago (LSTC).  It was “dedicated to relating religious traditions and scientific knowledge in order to gain insight into the origins, nature, and future of humans and their environment, and to realize the common goal of a world in which love, justice, and ecologically responsible styles of living prevail.  The purpose is to provide a place of research and discussion between scientists, theologians, and other scholars on the most basic issues pertaining to:  how we understand the world in which we live and our place in that world; how traditional concerns and beliefs of religion can be related to scientific understandings; and how the joint reflection of scientists, theologians, and other scholars can contribute to the welfare of the human community.”

Columbia University Center for the Study of Science and Religion
http://www.columbia.edu/cu/cssr

The Center for the Study of Science and Religion (CSSR) was founded in the summer of 1999 "as a forum for the examination of issues that lie at the boundary of these two complementary ways of comprehending the world and our place in it. By examining the intersections that cross over the boundaries between one or another science and one or another religion, the CSSR hopes to stimulate dialogue and encourage understanding. The CSSR is not interested in promoting one or another science or religion and we hope that the service we provide will be of benefit and offer understanding into all sciences and all faiths." CSSR joins UCSB in being the first institutional awardee of a Templeton Research Lectures grant; click here for their spring 2001 program.

Counterbalance Foundation
http://www.counterbalance.org  

The mission of the Foundation is to “promote interdisciplinary education for a general audience with a specific emphasis on the exploration of appropriate and inappropriate reductionism… We believe that one of the most fruitful places to encourage counterbalance is between the seemingly opposing worlds of science and religion.”   Counterbalance provides access to “the very latest and most credible information in the emerging science and religion field.”  Its website has an extensive glossary, transcripts of the PBS ‘Faith and Reason’ interviews, biographies of researchers in science-religion, a meta archive, and a variety of articles concerning the interface between science and religion.

Institute on Religion in an Age of Science
http://www.iras.org  

IRAS is “a non-denominational, independent society with three purposes:  1. to promote creative efforts leading to the formulation, in the light of contemporary knowledge, of effective doctrines and practices for human welfare; 2. to formulate dynamic and positive relationships between the concepts developed by science and the goals and hopes of humanity expressed through religion; and 3. to state human values and contemporary knowledge in such universal and valid terms that they may be understood by all peoples, whatever their cultural background and experience, and provide a basis for world-wide cooperation.   IRAS hosts an annual week-long conference on science and religion, publishes a newsletter and has both local discussion groups and an on-line discussion forum.  In cooperation with Blackwell, IRAS publishes the journal Zygon.

Philadelphia Center for Religion and Science (PCRS)  
http://www.pc4rs.org  

The mission of the PCRS is “to promote education, research, and outreach on religion and science issues in the Delaware Valley and beyond through lectures, publications, courses, conferences, dialogues, and electronic media. The four main areas of interest are:  1. Constructive dialogue between religious traditions and science including interested parties from all academic disciplines; 2. Religion and spirituality in health care and healing; 3. Scientific approaches to understanding religion and religious phenomena; 4. Different religious approaches to understanding and relating to science.   PCRS sponsors public lectures, faculty training, workshops for congregations, research seminars, course-development grants, internet publications, and community educational events in the Delaware Valley and beyond. PCRS is also host to the international Meta Lists on Science and Religion with over 3000 subscribers in over 56 different countries http://www.meta-list.org.

Religions of the World and Ecology Conference Series
http://www.hds.harvard.edu/cswr/ecology

“The Religions of the World and Ecology conference series, hosted by the Harvard University Center for the Study of World Religions, was the result of research conducted at the Center over a three-year period. Conferences involved the direct participation and collaboration of some seven hundred scholars, religious leaders and environmental specialists from around the world.  Conferences were held from 1996 through 1998, and have been collated as a series of edited volumes on the intersection between ecology and the world’s religions.”  An ongoing forum is located at http://environment.harvard.edu/religion/Information/home.html

Science and Religion Forum  
http://www.srforum.org  

The Science and Religion Forum promotes discussion between scientific understanding and religious thought; acknowledges that the issues are complex; includes discussion about the social and ethical issues which science and technology bring; and is open to people of any particular religion and none.   The Forum is a British organization that holds an annual conference in the UK and publishes a journal.

Science-Theology Forum (Denmark)
http://www.forumteonat.au.dk  

The Science-Theology Forum is “an interdisciplinary organization, which has the purpose to promote the dialogue between theology and the natural sciences.”   The Forum provides lectures, interdisciplinary study-groups, and an annual symposium.

Templeton Foundation  
http://www.templeton.org  

The John Templeton Foundation was established in 1987 “to encourage a fresh appreciation of the critical importance---for all peoples and cultures---of the moral and spiritual dimensions of life. The Templeton Foundation seeks to act as a critical catalyst for progress, especially by supporting studies which demonstrate the benefits of an open, humble and progressive approach to learning in these areas.”   The Foundation currently funds more than 150 projects, studies, award programs and publications worldwide, including a 12.6 million dollar grant to CTNS to host a world-wide competition stimulating the development of science-religion courses.

Zygon Center for Religion and Science  
http://www.zygoncenter.org

(Site currently under construction, as a replacement for Chicago Center for Religion and Science)

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Journals and Other Publications

Crosscurrents
http://www.aril.org  

CrossCurrents is the journal of the Association for Religion and Intellectual Life, which provides a "global network for people of faith and intelligence who are committed to connecting the wisdom of the heart and the life of the mind."

Science & Spirit Resources
http://www.science-spirit.org  

Science and Spirit Magazine’s website, “Science & Spirit Resources,” covers the broad field of scientific and spiritual thought to foster awareness and dialogue among an inquiring, expanding interfaith and world wide audience, both general and scholarly. It emphasizes the synthesis and integration of spiritual and scientific theories, with a constructive and balanced, provocative and insightful presentation and discussion of issues, ideas and developments in the field.”   To complement Science & Spirit Magazine, this site provides resources, tutorials, and a variety of newsgroups and discussion forums.

Zygon
http://www.blackwellpublishers.co.uk/asp/journal.asp?ref=0591-2385

Zygon “focuses on the questions of meaning and values that challenge individual and social existence today. It brings together the best thinking of the day from the physical, biological, and social sciences with ideas from philosophy, theology, and religious studies. The journal's contributors seek to keep united what may often become disconnected: values with knowledge, goodness with truth, religion with science.”

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Relevant Links at UCSB

Religious Studies Department
http://www.religion.ucsb.edu

"The Department of Religious Studies at UCSB is one of the major centers in North America for the study of religions. It has strong faculty and resources and typically is involved in teaching up to 2,000 undergraduates and some 75 graduate students each quarter." The Department's concentrations include philosophy of religion, sociology of religion, religion and culture, Mediterranean and West Asian religions, South Asian religions, East Asian religions, and religion in America.

UCSB Library
http://www.library.ucsb.edu

Following is a list of on-line search engines and resources on science and religion located at UCSB Library.  In addition, there is a CD-ROM database, the ATLA Religion Database, which indexes journal articles, essays in multi-author books and book reviews, published from 1946 to the present.  Two UCSB librarians who may be helpful for searches are Sylvelin Edgerton, Religious Studies Collection Manager (edgerton@library.ucsb.edu) and Andrea Duda, Interdisciplinary Sciences Collection Manager (duda@library.ucsb.edu).  For a general listing of books concerning the relation between Science and Religion, go to http://www.ctns.org/Course_Program/The_Program/Bibliography/bibliography.html.

Veritas Forum
http://www.veritas-ucsb.org

The Veritas Forum at UCSB, one of a number of such groups on campuses across the United States, is a Christian organization which sponsors programs featuring public lectures and performance "aimed at encouraging the pursuit of truth." It has sponsored a number of events pertaining to science-religion studies, such as explorations of the notion of design in evolution.

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