Abstract
If you think of Isaac Newton, what image comes to mind? Is it an upright man with Restoration curls who, prism in hand, calmly explains the splitting of light to an attentive audience? Is it a dishevelled sage with tatty cuffs who, lost in thought under a tree, is hit by a falling apple and — eureka!? Is it a desiccated don who, prowling the cloisters like a wild beast, has reduced everything to an equation in his masterpiece, the Principia? Or is it a sulphur-soiled alchemist who, half mad with mercury poisoning, distills reason as a mere by-product of the true search for the elixir of life?
Follow knowledge like a sinking star, beyond the utmost bounds of human thought, beyond the sunset, and the baths of all the western stars.
Alfred, Lord Tennyson
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Further Reading and References
Newton: The Making of Genius, by Patricia Fara is published by Picador (2003).
Leibniz makes this attack on Newton in a letter to Caroline of Ansbach.
The quote from Milton’s Paradise Regained is in Book IV, 1.330.
A few paragraphs from the section headed ‘Alchemy’s inheritors’ was previously in an article for Big Questions Online (www. bigquestionsonline. com), a publication of the John Templeton Foundation.
Steven Weinberg makes his comments about meaning in the Epilogue of his book The First Three Minutes, published by Basic Books (1993); and his comments about a theory of everything in Chapter X of Dreams of a Final Theory: The Scientist’s Search for the Ultimate Laws of Nature, published by Vintage (1994). I also spoke with Weinberg to clarify his views in 2008.
The views of Martin Rees I gathered in an interview conducted in 2008.
The views of Roger Penrose I gathered in an interview also conducted in 2008. He writes about his Platonism in The Emperor’s New Mind, published by Oxford University Press (1999), as well as in other publications since.
The quote from Michel Heller’s The Comprehensible Universe, published by Springer (2008), is found in the Afterthoughts section, ‘The Mind of God and the Mind of Man’.
Paul Davies’ The Goldilocks Enigma: Why is the Universe Just Right for Life? is published by Allen Lane (2006). The long quote comes from Chapter 8, the section headed ‘The laws of physics might be just local by-laws’.
I interviewed Trinh Xuan Thuan in 2008, and his views are discussed at length in The Quantum and the Lotus, a dialogue between him and Matthieu Ricard, published by Three Rivers Press (2001). The long quote of Ricard is in Chapter 9, Chaos and Harmony.
The Tao of Physics: An Exploration of the Parallels between Modern Physics and Eastern Mysticism by Fritjof Capra is published in a 35th anniversary edition by Shambhala (2010). The fi rst long quote is in the preface to the fi rst edition. The second quote referencing Heisenberg and the third quote discussing replacement are in the last chapter ‘The Future of the New Physics’.
The Universe Story: From the Promordial Flaring Forth to the Ecozoic Era – A Celebration of the Unfolding of the Cosmos by Brian Swimme and Thomas Berry is published by HarperOne (1994). He made his pithy comments, quoted here, in an interview with Robert Wright for meaningofl ife.tv.
I discussed these matters with Gordon Lynch. One book where he examines the nature of ‘progressive spirituality’ is New Spirituality: An Introduction to Belief Beyond Religion published by I.B. Tauris (2007).
John Polkinghorne has written about his views in numerous books. I interviewed him in 2008.
The Beginning of All Things: Science and Religion by Hans Küng is published by William B Eerdmans Publishing Co. (2008).
David Attenborough made his comments to the press when Life in the Undergrowth was launched.
Thomas Traherne’s thoughts on fl ies and celestial strangers are in the excellent anthology Thomas Traherne Poetry and Prose, selected and introduced by Denise Inge, published by SPCK (2002), pages 111–14.
Simon Conway Morris has explored his ideas in Life’s Solution: Inevitable Humans in a Lonely Universe published by Cambridge University Press (2008). I also interviewed him in 2008.
Reinventing the Sacred by Stuart Kauffman is published by Basic (2010).
The Philosophy of Science: A Very Short Introduction, by Samir Okasha, published by Oxford University Press (2002), does what it says on the cover.
Thomas Kuhn’s revolutionary ideas are in his 1963 book The Structure of Scientifi c Revolutions (University of Chicago Press).
Karl Popper’s revolutionary ideas are in his 1959 book The Logic of Scientifi c Discovery (Hutchinson).
A very useful summary of issues in the philosophy of science comes from a discussion Brian Magee had with Hilary Putnam, reproduced in Talking Philosophy, published by Oxford University Press (1978), Chapter 12, from which the Putnam quotes are taken.
Walter Isaacson’s biography of Einstein is Einstein: His Life and Universe, published by Pocket Books (2008). It includes a chapter discussing his religious beliefs, Chapter 17 ‘Einstein’s God’. His relevant writings and thoughts are also gathered at www.einsteinandreligion.com, including these quotes.
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© 2011 Mark Vernon
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Vernon, M. (2011). Cosmic Religion: How Science Does God. In: How To Be An Agnostic. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-230-30144-3_3
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