Kelly James Clark acknowledges that for many people in the contemporary West it can seem as though scientists, from Darwin and Dawkins, have succeeded in disproving religion: God is simply not a convincing scientific hypothesis. Written in a readable and fast paced style,
Religion and the Sciences of Origins (Palgrave Macmillan, 2014) turns this idea on its head, offering multiple ways that science and religion interact and even integrate. Focusing on two major issues - the origin of the universe and the origin of species - Clark unravels the many stories and experiments that have led us to where we are today. He covers luminaries, such as Galileo and Bacon; key ideas, from Cartesian dualism to the Big Bang; and the development of new fields, including evolutionary psychology of religion and neurotheology. Drawing on his training in philosophy, Clark leads readers to contemplate big questions about the nature of morality and the existence of absolutes. He concludes by exploring similar issues in Islam and Judaism, offering new perspectives on the interaction between science and religion.
Dr. Clark is in the Honors Program at Brooks College and is Senior Research Fellow at the Kaufman Interfaith Institute at Grand Valley State University.