conference at Wayne State

As earlier announced, I will be a keynote speaker at a conference on
"religion and science" at Wayne State University (Detriot) on Fri, April 21.
 Here are more details, from a news release:

The Religious Studies Program at Wayne State is preparing its 4th Annual
Conference to be held Friday, April, 21, 2006 at Bernath auditorium from
9:15 to 5:15. The timely conference theme this year is "Religion and
Science."

As Professor Edward "Ted" Davis (a Distinguished Professor of the
history of science at Messiah College in Pennsylvania), one of the keynote
speakers at this year's conference, explains in a recent article in
American Scientist, "Recent controversies in Kansas, Ohio, Pennsylvania
and other states over the teaching of evolution have raised fundamental
questions about science, its public image and its role in a religious
society. Although debate has focused on our nation's constitutional
disestablishment of religion, the underlying issues are far broader. How is
science related to religion and morality? Can scientists and religious
authorities cooperate in educating the public about the content and limits
of scientific knowledge, or are they separated by contrary views of what
knowledge is? What are the role and responsibility of religious scientists
in such conversations?"

Professor Davis goes on to note, "These questions are not new." Indeed,
the relationship between religion and thought and knowledge is ancient, and
our nation's current conversation about the relationship between religion
and science is part of that longstanding dialogue, a dialogue that involves,
amongst others, scholars, public school educators and officials, parents,
religious leaders, and politicians. This year's conference seeks to engage
this dialogue in a specifically academic framework by bringing together
Wayne State faculty from the humanities and science. Presentations will be
offered by members of the English, Geology, Philosophy, and Biology
departments. The conference is thus unique in that it is the first time
Religious Studies has included members both the sciences and humanities
faculty since Provost Nancy Barrett reconstituted the WSU College of Liberal
Arts and Sciences under the leadership of Dean Robert Thomas in 2004.
 
Joining Professor Davis as a keynote speaker is Professor Michael Ruse, a
distinguished philosopher and historian of biology, now at Florida State
University. The author of many books on the relationship religion and
science, including Can a Darwinian be a Christian? (Cambridge UP, 2001),
Darwin and Design: Does Evolution Have a Purpose? (Cambridge MA, Harvard UP,
2003) and the recent The Evolution-Creation Struggle (Harvard UP, 2005),
Professor Ruse is well known for his expert testimony in Mclean v. Arkansas
Board of Education over a quarter-century ago, where he argued that
young-earth creationism was not a science. The case was a precursor, of
sorts, to the current legal battles in Dover, Pennsylvania and elsewhere. A
guest on Nightline and numerous other programs, Professor Ruse is also well
known as a lively and engaging speaker, able to negotiate these often heated
disputes with humor and grace. Professor Ruse concludes his The
Evolution-Creation Struggle on a tone I hope will govern the conference:
"Those of us who love science must do more than simply restate our
positions or criticize the opposition. We must understand our own
assumptions and, equally, find out why others have (often) legitimate
concerns. This is not a plea for weak-kneed compromise but a more informed
and self-aware approach to the issues."

Provost Barrett will offer some opening remarks at 9:10. She will be
followed by Professor Davis, whose talk is titled "Why do so many
Americans oppose the teaching of evolution in the classroom." He will be
followed by Professor Mark Baskaran, Associate Professor in WSU's
Department of Geology: "How Old the Humans and the Earth Are - a Divisive
Line Among the Christians." Professor Herbert Granger, Professor of
Philosophy at WSU, will then present the "Nature and Divinity in the
Earliest Days of Natural Philosophy." Professor Richard Grusin, chair of
the English department, will close the morning session by responding to the
presentations with a particular emphasis on the role of media in our current
moment.

There will be a break for lunch and then Professor Michael Ruse presents
"Darwin and the Bible: a very American story," a talk based on his
forthcoming book Darwinism and its Discontents (Cambridge UP, 2006). He will
be followed by Professor William Moore of WSU Biological Sciences:
"Natural Law, Uniformitarianism and Science" and Markus Friedrich,
Associate Professor of Biology at WSU: "Developmental genetics and the
evolution of organismic complexity." Professor Bruce Russell, Chair of the
WSU Philosophy, will act as respondent to the last three speakers.

The event is free and open to the public.

At Wayne, Religious Studies is a small, interdisciplinary program formed in
2001 by the Faculty Council, and has been under the direction of Professor
Arthur F. Marotti in the Department of English. A Religious Studies Minor
was established in that year. Religious Studies as an interdisciplinary
academic activity is well established at the majority of colleges and
universities across the United States - both sectarian and non-sectarian,
private and public. The goal of religious studies is the scholarly
investigation of the world's religions, or religious history, and of the
place of religion in world cultures and societies from the ancients to the
present. Faculty are drawn from a wide range of disciplines - anthropology,
history, philosophy, classics, Near Eastern Studies, Asian Studies,
literature, art history, political science, and sociology. Religious Studies
respects the beliefs and backgrounds of the students who pursue courses in
this area, but it also approaches its objects of study in a thoroughly
scholarly manner. At least in its public university settings, it avoids
proselytizing and tries to maintain both intellectual openness and critical
rigor. The interdisciplinary nature of religious studies is crucial because
the various disciplines, left to themselves, tend to render religion in
their own image. Religion becomes a historical artifact, a literary device,
and anthropological phenomena, etc. The intellectual challenge of Religious
Studies, in some sense, is to study and explain "religion" without
transforming religion into something it is not.

At its best and most practical, then, religious studies illuminates the
ever changing boundaries between the religious and the non-religious, the
way the two supposedly separate realms continually impinge on another.
Understanding and articulating these boundaries is crucial in our
increasingly complex times when long accepted, post-Enlightenment
distinctions - at least as they work themselves out in the public sphere --
seem precariously less stable than we thought. For example, steady and often
astounding advances in science - once thought to signal a decline in
religious activity - actually coincide with a surprising religious
resurgence, a resurgence that takes several forms across the world. In other
words, the seemingly absolute divides between religion and science do not
seem to exist in the forms we believed them to exist. Or, at least, the ways
in which we articulate and understand the divides between religion and
science need serious updating.

If you are interested, or have any questions or relevant comments or
suggestions, please contact me by phone or email. Thank you for your
consideration,

Ken Jackson
Associate Professor, English
Director, Religious Studies Program
Wayne State University
5057 Woodward
Detroit, MI 48202
313 577-7717
Jacksken@aol.com
Received on Mon Apr 10 14:04:44 2006