The Penultimate Curiosity: How Science Swims in the Slipstream of Ultimate Questions

I bought this intending to skim it (as I do with almost all books) but ended up reading it cover to cover. It’s a tour de force of the history of religious expression and scientific inquiry. If there’s any book that shows these two things are deeply intertwined and not “non-overlapping magisteria,” this is it.In fact the book shows that religious, spiritual and metaphysical aspirations leap constantly ahead of scientific inquiry, feeding it questions, inspiring it and giving it problems to solve.The short chapters are like salted peanuts: You say to yourself “Just a few more…” and then find yourself consuming the whole bag.This is a book that surely took 10-15 years to write and a lifetime of reading and scholarship to research. It’s a synthesis of literally hundreds, maybe thousands of books and sources. In fact it’s difficult to name other books whose background material is more extensive.One candidate might be “COSMOSAPIENS” by John Hands, which is an equally ambitious work. It wasn’t until midway through the book that I noticed that the rather small font endorsements on the back are from some of the top European thinkers in the world today - Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, George Ellis and others. This is no lightweight piece of scholarship.This book begins with ancient cave paintings in France and voyages through ancient religious and cultural history. The first 100 pages of the book is a mini-encyclopedia of religious anthropology. Then the authors turn their attention to the ancient Greeks and Romans; then medieval history and the middle ages and the renaissance. In chapter after chapter, you get backstory that few people have ever heard.Latter parts of the story appropriately center around Oxford. I for one had not realized the great role which specifically Oxford scholars have played in the history of science.The quotes are amazing in quality and quantity. I underlined many sections of this book and bent the corners of many pages. Science has become so large and all encompassing that it’s become easy to dismiss the fact that science always follows religious and metaphysical intuitions. But then it also reshapes them, because once something is known, you can’t un-learn a truth.The sections around page 300 detailing the overlaps between Babylonian and Biblical history are especially fascinating. And the authors always give attention to the anxiety that religious clerics feel about having their ideas and traditions vetted by scientific inquiry.The authors take great pains to make clear the both scientific truths and religious interpretations are provisional, must be held loosely and with an open hand. They show that both sides often fall prey to dogma, but the authors illustrate this without ever getting preachy or self righteous.This, I think, is the key to the book’s transparency and readability. All too often, people writing on this subject get on some soap box and start railing. But Wagner and Briggs never succumb to this. There’s not a trace of polemic. One can sense their humility in attempting to grasp these big questions.But because they do this, what you get is an amazing history of science. In fact if this were the only history of science book you ever had, you could do a lot worse. They string together a chain of events from ancient history to the present in a way that’s most impressive.The “conflict thesis,” the assertion that science and faith have always been at war, has only been around for 150 years and was largely a fabrication by John Draper and friends. If you read this book, which spans 100,000 years of history, you’ll easily see that this is not true. What you’ll see instead is that the two approaches have wrestled with mostly the same questions the whole time.Given the scope and breadth, it’s remarkably easy to read. The page format is relaxing, there are ample illustrations and footnotes, and this book has absolutely none of the triumphant or self-congratulatory tone that is often so off-putting in science / religion books.Excellent job, gentlemen. This is a labor of years of love and research. The exquisite care shows - and puts to rest one of the greatest urban legends of our time, the idea that science and religion are at war with each other. The truth is, man is at war with his prejudices and ignorance, and we must balance curiosity and empiricism with humility. Quoting from the book:“Blaise Pascal had written that ‘we burn with desire to find a firm foundation, an unchanging solid base on which to build a tower rising to infinity’, but science could not provide that foundation.”In the same vein, James Clerk Maxwell wrote:“I think that the results that each man arrives at in his attempts to harmonize his science with his Christianity ought not to be regarded as having any significance, except to the man himself and to him only for a time, and should not receive the stamp of a society. For it is the nature of science especially those branches of science which are spreading into unknown regions to be continually…”Biologist Gary Fugle, author of "Laying Down Arms to Heal the Creation-Evolution Divide" says there is no single place in nature or science where you can draw a dotted line and say "see, on this side here is nature, and this here on the other side is God." It doesn't work that way. In their own fashion, Andrew Briggs and Roger Wagner have expressed this idea well. This book is a big bridge in the science-faith divide.

The authors of this book start with the possibly surprising observation that above the entrances to the Oxford University Museum and Cambridge's Cavendish Lab one finds religious inscriptions. Their journey seeking to understand the presence of these words takes them from before the beginnings of humanity right up to the present day. The result is an extraordinarily eclectic and magisterial work that succeeds in providing its reader with a scholarly and entertaining overview of much of humanity's search for understanding - both of its place in the universe and of the laws governing the same.While the value of this book may rest in this provision of such a comprehensive and yet readable atlas of human curiosity, I would suggest that on the level of simple enjoyment the value of this book lies elsewhere - in the wonderful human stories it paints of some of the key players in this game of understanding. Highlights for me are the accounts of the lives of James Clerk Maxwell, H. W. Acland and John Herschel - all of whom come to life in this book, and for all of whom one can hardly help but develop a strong affection..Additionally this book offers all but the most comprehensively informed reader introductions to new characters whose important contributions to the story of the two curiosities may be new to them. Here the work of the Alexandrian philosopher, theologian and proto-scientist John Philoponus stands out. His pre-figuring and influence on the work of giants such as Galileo was a new revelation to me.Readers can expect to be surprised, informed and possibly inspired by this rather special book.

This book makes a well-documented case for seeing the historical interaction of science and religion as not nearly so antagonistic as we are often led to believe. It is written in such a way that a reader doesn't necessarily have to read it straight through. So if you don't have a lot of time, you can just focus on chapters of your choosing. That said, there is still so much get out of each chapter. Reading it is not difficult and you will learn so much. It's a book that needs to get read and discussed in our current context. I highly recommend this book.

This book is a series of short stories, each describing a major scientific advance or a collection of advances relevant to a particular area, a particular individual, or a particular theme. I loved it in part because it filled in the story for many of the scientific advances that I knew a little bit about, but but did not know the details of, or the historical context. Further, the brilliant writing style and the relatively short expositions made it easy to fit this book into an otherwise busy schedule. One could, in just a few pages, learn about Babylon exile, the role of Herschel in developing our understanding the universe, and the impact of cholera a 19th century British science, just to name a few they were memorable.Steven BennerFoundation for Applied Molecular Evolution

If you wandered round our leading universities* and asked people at random "Has religion, specifically Christianity, helped or hindered scientific progress?" and "Are science and religion compatible or is it one or the other?", I think you would get a largely negative reply. Yet, as the authors of this brilliant and profoundly thoughtful new book point out, the historical and indeed philosophical evidence points in the opposite direction. The leading metaphor which is used again and again is of scientific curiosity and research "slipstreaming" like a cyclist in a peloton or a flock of geese in a "V' formation, with the lead impetus coming from religious motivation. Hence the intriguing title of the book. The ultimate question is something like "How did the universe come into being, is there a God, what is the meaning (if any) of life?" and the penultimate curiosity and question is "How does the universe work?".In a tremendously learned overview of the history of religion and scientific interaction the authors cover in a rich and imaginative way a whole series of historical characters, some of which are completely new for me. We start with cave paintings, the oldest form we know of art, which were seized on by atheist philosophers as expressing "art for art sake" but on closer analysis turned out to be deeply religious. Anthropologists confirm that even the most obscure and remote societies have complex and refined belief system. Moving on, Greek thinkers are sometimes portrayed as atheists and certainly they were sceptical of the local Greek mythology. But teachers like Xenophanes taught of a greater divine reality -" God is one, greatest amongst the gods and men, in no way like mortals". The famous Socrates said at his trial "Gentlemen I owe a greater obedience to God than to you". These thinkers pulled with them questions of how everything worked and especially mathematics, the language of science, together with astronomy and other scientific disciplines.Moving on to the Christian Era, the writers show that while there were some like Tertullian who famously (and wrongly in my view) said " We have no need of curiosity since Jesus Christ" the large majority of the early church fathers took the opposite view. A completely new Christian thinker who is drawn fascinatingly and had a huge impact on science was Philoponus. Trained in the great cultural centre of Alexandria his thinking on annotation and research had a huge long term positive impact on scientific thinking. This continued in the Islamic world after the conquest of North Africa and in fact the West is indebted to Muslim thinkers and scientists for preserving much of the Greek thinking and scientific research which was lost after the fall of the Roman Empire in the Christian WestIt would be overkill to try and cover every example given, suffice it to say that for me, the evidence is very clear that many of the leading scientists over the years were strongly motivated by Christian belief and that the two quests - to know God and understand how God made the universe and how it works - helped each other. The authors don't try and white wash some attempts to apply whatever the reverse of a slipstream effect would be. Possibly the best known example of all was the attempt by some elements of the Catholic hierarchy (though not all) to silence Galileo's attempts to demonstrate that the earth revolves round the sun not vice versa. And its fair to say that in other cases the church apparatus did squash or at least not encourage scientific exploration. But what is much more important is how the devout scientist in multiple cases was filled and encouraged by his faith to push science forward.One final example will suffice. Michael Faraday, perhaps the preeminent physicist of the C19 is well known for his famous if eccentric religious devotion. Less well known is his contemporary and first ever Cambridge Cavendish Professor of Physics, James Clark Maxwell, who discovered electromagnetism and then brought light electricity and magnetism into a single unified theory. In line with Kepler and Galileo he argued that "It is our ability to discern the shining in the mind of God which proves that the human mind is the work of God." There is a splendid story about the inscription over the doors of both the old (not surprising - Maxwell) and new (very surprising) Cambridge Cavendish Laboratory - ‘The works of the Lord are great; sought out of all them that have pleasure therein’ (Psalm 111 v2)This excellent and well written book also reminds us that the very concept of "religion" and "scientists" are C17th and C19th innovations so for most of history the rigid barriers between faith and science and at times the hostility we see today, were completely absent. there was a unified quest for knowledge and the two sides of the coin helped not hindered each otherLet me leave the final summary of the thesis to Wagner and Briggs. They argue that religion especially Christianity contributed the following:-1. The idea of a single beneficent rational agency whose rationality could be both expressed in mathematics and read in creation2. This agency is not identified with anything within the universe but gives to the whole a law like character3. Truth is not the exclusive property of any single civilisation4. Truth cannot be imposed by force but involves the duty of individual investigation and experiment.The first two are concerned with what God is and the second with who God is. Francis Bacon put it neatly - the two leading motives driving scientific enquiry are "the glory of God and the relief of mans estate".Finally, I recommend the book as it's very accessible to the non scientist. As a humble (?) historian I never found the science in the book was over my O Level Maths Physics and Chemistry. It's also far from hagiographic. Even the devout if somewhat unorthodox believer but truly great Isaac Newton had his faults, ruthlessly suppressing and excluding other researchers in "his" fields and engaging in a PR campaign to discredit his rivals. These scientists were like all of us far from perfect but their search for the penultimate question was greatly aided as they were flying in the slipstream created by the ultimate question - who made the laws that they discovered in the first place?* Despite their amazing and indeed prodigious research Mr Wagner and Professor Briggs for some strange reason seem to have missed the last 30 years of rankings of the top UK universities. Curiously, they seem to be labouring under some understandable if misguided "dark blue" bias. No doubt the true facts will be corrected in subsequent editions!

This brilliant book seeks to heal the divide that often exists between science and religion. Referring to man’s connection with a supernatural God as the ultimate curiosity, the authors refer to science as the penultimate curiosity, the need to understand how the world and universe function and are put together.Journeying through history to the earliest records, the book takes us to the time of the first humans, the early philosophers, and the tension that has always existed between those that believe in an invisible God and those who do not. Taking as its starting point, the inscriptions above the entrances to the Oxford University Museum and the Cavendish laboratory in Cambridge, it shows that religious belief underpinned scientific discoveries, and that both worked together for most of history.Often religion and science are pitted against one another, as if faith and certainty are a fork in the road. This binary choice of either or is prevalent in our modern world. It is a power struggle which neither side can win without destroying itself in the process.This book is beautifully written and strikes a tone that allows those of us who believe in the power of both God and science to work together. It does not force us to take sides so it heals the divide… ‘What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder’.

The relationship between religion and science has always been a bit tricky. In various periods of history religion has either been helping science (astronomy pre- and ancient history, mathematics, throughout, science generally middle ages, and so on) or rejecting it (Galileo for one famous example among many) From a distance it might look like one of them has got “issues”. Arguably both are trying to explain away how all “this” came about, and at one level “the big bang” is no more of an explanation than Genesis or whatever creation story exists in other religions.From time to time someone tries to synthesize all the attempts to answer the big question and this book is another one. For something a bit more wacky try:  The Tao of Physics (Flamingo)  from the 1970sThis necessarily brief overview of how science and religion have intertwined cannot be faulted for its erudition. The authors suggest that everyone with an agenda has got an opinion: cave paintings, according to the atheists were just art but others on subjecting them to “closer analysis” suggest deep religious significance (possibly redolent of the ongoing what-is-Stonehenge-all-about-then? debate) The ancients were backing both horses as, in a way, was Isaac Newton. Skipping forward, James Clark Maxwell decided that human mind is the work of God.And so on and so forth.At the time of writing this review there are rumblings that a new Higgs Boson has been discovered, inconveniently its predicted mass might be a bit of a problem for the Standard Model. So the rationalists don’t make all the running either, even without the spanner in the works that is quantum theory. However, one doesn’t have to reach out for rabid atheist scientists to perhaps wonder of any of this, however well written, (and this book is undoubtedly well written) moves the debate forward as neither religion nor science can definitively answer the big question without something fairly major turning up.For me a missing piece is power and money. (This book is light on that point, too). Who’s got it and who’s giving it out. Until recently that would be religion, then. Now it’s governments and multinationals. Religion is getting squeezed out these days. The sociologists have got a fair amount to contribute to the debate (much as I might say that through gritted teeth).It took me a long time to work what I wanted to say about this book but in the end its a well written and interesting account which fails ti answer the “so what?” question The Tao of Physics (Flamingo)

Excellent!

I love this book! It is a quality edition that's beautifully written and illustrated book about the quest for answers which lies not only at the roots of religion and philosophy but also, perhaps surprisingly for many, for the scientific endeavour. The authors, a sceintist and an artist, set out to illustrate from the history of both science and religion that these two are symbiotic sisters in the quest for understanding rather than enemies trying to outdo each other in explanations. It's very readable and pursuasive - unless perhaps for those whose philosophically presuppositions already rule out the supernatural.Ultimately this book will appeal to those who believe that the scientific and religious accounts of the world can be complimentary rather than conflicting - who perhaps see the scientific endeavour as 'thinking God's thoughts after him.' Others who 'find no room for God in their hypotheses' may stil beg to differ.