It happened on NOVEMBER 7

1867

Marie Curie was born in Warsaw. A scientist, she won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1903, together with her husband Pierre Curie and Henri Bequerel, for their joint research on the radiation phenomena. In 1911, she won a second Nobel Prize, this time in chemistry, for her discovery of radium and polonium. She died on July 4, 1934.

1878

Lise Meitner was born in Vienna. A physicist and student of Max Planck, she was forced to leave Germany due to her Jewish heritage. After briefly residing in Holland and Denmark, she settled in Sweden. She performed research in nuclear physics, reproducing experiments that Enrico Fermi had carried out in Rome on the production of transuranic elements. She also contributed to the discovery of uranium fission. She worked with Otto Hahn who won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1944. Element 109 was named meitnerium, after her.

INTERS.org

Readings on Freedom of Research

Introduction to readings, by Stefano Oliva

John Henry Newman, Christianity and Scientific Investigation. A Lecture Written for the School of Science (1855)

Michael Polanyi, The foundations of academic freedom (1947)

John Paul II, Address to Scientists and Students in the Cologne Cathedral (1980)

A. Einstein, On Freedom, in Out of my Later Years (1950)

Giuseppe Tanzella-Nitti,The Autonomy of the Sciences and Freedom of Research (2002)

Interdisciplinary Encyclopedia of Religion and Science

The Encyclopedia, published by the Centro di Documentazione Interdisciplinare di Scienza e Fede operating at the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross in Rome, provides new, scholarly articles in the rapidly growing international field of Religion and Science (ISSN: 2037-2329). INTERS is a free online encyclopedia.

Anthology and Documents

To emphasize and spread relevant documents within the scientific community, this section provides key materials concerning the dialogue among science, philosophy and theology.

Special Issues

We offer here a selection of comments and documents on special issues in Religion and Science, collected for anniversaries and/or for the relevance of the topics.

Websites on Science and Religion

Articles of Historical Interest

A selection of book reviews from "Reviews in Science, Religion and Theology" (ISSR & ESSSAT)

2009

Documents for the 2009 Anniversary:
International Year of Astronomy
and II Centenary
of Darwin’s birth

in italiano

Break time

Conflicts

Ideas

The limits of science are given by its assumptions. You must know what science assume in order to be sure about the limits of the conclusions you can draw. From a practical point of view, I don't think there is anything in the world which can't be handled in scientific way. It is way of looking at reality, but it is just one way of looking at it, determined by its assumptions. One can also look at it from an aesthetics point of view, from an ethical one, and from a religious one. I don't think that one can be a complete man by being scientific only. I see no reason to deny certain experiences and say that they are not true.

J.J Van Iesel, quoted in F.E. Trinklein, The God of Science (New York: Exposition Press, 1983) p. 27