Science, Metaphysics, and the Soul

Join Natasha Mitchell and guests to grapple with some gritty paradoxes about science and religion, and in this era of misinformation, conspiracy theories, and existential angst — are they serving the needs they used to? Science drives much of modern life, and yet fewer people are drawn to studying it at school putting scientific literacy at risk. There's been a rise in anti-science sentiment and a questioning the authority of scientific expertise. Many societies are becoming more secular with fewer people claiming to follow a formal religion, yet religious fundamentalists and populists are being elected to power throughout the world.

This episode was first published on 29 May 2024

Speakers

Peter HarrisonHead, Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities, University of QueenslandAuthor, Some New World: Myths of Supernatural Belief in a Secular Age

Anik WaldowProfessor of Philosophy, University of SydneyAuthor, Experience Embodied: Early Modern Accounts of the Human Place in Nature

Charles WolfeProfessor of Philosophy, University of Toulouse-2 Jean-JauresAuthor, The Philosophy of Biology Before Biology: A History of Vitalism

This event was hosted by the University of Sydney's Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences and Department of Philosophy at a conference in honour of the eminent scholar of history of philosophy of science, the late Stephen Gaukroger.