Course Description and Goals
This course introduces students to some of the historically and conceptually important interaction between philosophy, science and religion from the beginning of the Scientific Revolution to the reactions to Darwinism.
Although the modern science often presented new problems for religion, their relation was not always confrontational. Still, there was tension, and often philosophers tried to provide either a middle ground on which science and religion could amicably coexist or even interpenetrate, or an insurmountable barrier between them so that each could develop in its autonomous sphere. At other times, philosophers appropriated science, or what they perceived as science, in order to attack specific religious views or even religion in general. In this course, we shall try to disentangle all these different strands.

Required Texts
Rental:
Lindberg and Numbers (eds.) God and Nature (UC Press, 1986) (G)
Mattews, The Scientific Background to Modern Philosophy (Hackett, 1989) (M)
Ridley (ed.) The Darwin Reader (Norton, 1987) (R)
Drake (ed.) Discoveries and Opinions of Galileo  (D)
Brooke, Science and Religion (CUP, 1991)  (S)

Material to be downloaded from my homepage (http:www.siue.edu/~evailat); several handouts.

Schedule

week 1. Intro to topic; science and religion in the Middle Ages.
Readings:
Handout on medieval astronomy and theories of motion. See an epicycle at work.
Lindberg, "Science and the Early Church" (G, 19-48)
S, ch. I

week 2. Grant, "Science and Theology in the Middle Ages" (G, 49-75) and S, chs. II-III.

week 3. The six day creation; the God of traditional theology. The reformation and  the Luther/Erasmus controversy on salvation and free will;
Readings:
St. Thomas on the eternity of the world (download) (download-1); The Catholic Encyclopedia article on the hexaemeron; Luther/Erasmus controversy (handout). First quiz.

week 4. The scientific revolution; the astronomical revolution.
Readings:
Copernicus (M 33-44)
Kepler, selections form Mysterium Cosmographicum and Astronomia Nova  (handout)
Selections from Galileo's Sidereus Nuncius (D 23-37; 50-58)
Westman, "The Copernicans and the Churches" (G, 76-114)

week 5.  Galileo and his condemnation;  
Readings:
Galileo (M 53-86); Letter to the Grand Duchess Christina (D, 175-216); Galileo's letter to Castelli and Bellarmino's letter to Foscarini (handout).
Shea, "Galileo and the Church" (G, 114-36)

week 6. A first attempt at systematization: Descartes. Boyle's Corpuscularianism. Pascal's fideism. Second quiz
Readings:
Descartes,  Discourse on Method (download). Letter to Mersenne of April 1624 (handout); M 94-108
Boyle (M 109-23)
Deason, "Reformation Theology and the Mechanistic Conception of Nature" (G, 167-91)
Selection from Pascal's Pensées  (download)
S, ch. IV

weeks 7. A second attempt at systematization: Newton's Deus Pantokrator
Readings:
Newton, M 133-58. First Letter to Bentley (handout).
Bentley, selections from The First Boyle Lecture (handout).
Jacob, "Christianity and the Newtonian Worldview" (G, 238-56).
S, ch. IV.

week 8. Newton's critics; deism and theism 
Readings:
A contemporary account of the Leibniz/Clarke Correspondence (download).
Berkeley, selections from The Principles (download).
Locke, selections from  An Essay on human  understanding (download-1; download-2).
Tindal, selections from Christianity Old As Creation (handout).
S, ch. V.   Third quiz. First paper due

week 9. Naturalism and determinism.
Readings:
D'Holbach, selections from System of Nature (handout).
Roger, "The Mechanistic Conception of Life" (G, 277-95).
Hahn, "Laplace and the Mechanistic Universe" (G, 256-76).
S, ch V .

week 10. Design, miracles, and probability.
Readings:
Spinoza's attack on final causes (download).
Derham, selections from Physico-Theology (handout)
Hume's First Treatise , ch. 10  (download)
Paley, selection from Natural Theology (handout)
S, ch VI . Fourth quiz

week 11. Geology,  scriptures and the discovery of deep time 
Readings:
Burnett, selections from Sacred Theory of the Earth (handout)
Selections from Lyell's Principles of  Geology  (handout)
Rudwick, "The Shape and Meaning of Earth History" (G, 296-321)
Moore, "Geologists and Interpreters of Genesis in the Nineteenth Century" (G 322-50); USGS on geologic time.
S, ch VII. Fifth Quiz

weeks 12-13. Darwin, and darwinism; creationism
Darwin, R 84-135; 175-204. Darwin's letter on God's existence (handout).
Gregory, "The Impact of Darwinian Evolution" (G, 369-90).
Huxley, selections from Agnosticism (handout)

Brian-Fosdick exchange (handout); Behe, Dembski, and their critics (handout).
Numbers, "The Creationists" (G, 391-423). Common anti-evolutionist claims and the standard answers to them
S, ch VIII .

Handout from Ruse's book "Can a Darwinian be a Christian?"

Discussion of intelligent design at Philosophy Talk

week 14. The return of design; a godless world?
Davies, " The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Science" (handout).

Russell, A Free Man's Worship (download)
Nagel, The Absurd (handout)
S, Postscript. Sixth quiz;

week 15. Discussion. (This does not mean mini-lectures on the topics for the final). Second paper due.

Course requirements and grades
1) Six multiple choice quizzes, each worth 4% of the course grade. Some will be in class, some take-home. No make-ups unless in extreme circumstances.
2) Some possible unannounced in-class pop quizzes, each worth 2% of the course  grade (for extra points). Only those present in class can take them.
3) Two papers, typed, double-spaced. The first, 5 full pages long, will be worth 30% of the course grade; the second, 4 full pages long, will be worth 20% of the course grade.
4) A final exam, consisting of a multiple choice quiz and a short essay, worth 26% of the course grade. The topic of the short essay will be chosen by me out of the following Topics for the final exam.
5) There are 100 possible points in this course. The breakdown in terms of grade is as follows: 100-90: A; 89-79: B; 78-68: C; 67-57: D; 56 or fewer: F.

Academic policies

1) The issues we deal with in this course are complex and require a considerable amount of background knowledge without which discussion quickly degenerates into nonsense. Unavoidably, there will be a considerable amount of lecturing.
2) Since SIUE is not highschool and treating adults as children produces infantilism, I do not take roll or require attendance. However, students are responsible for knowing what has been said in class. Papers or quizzes may be based on classroom discussions not derived from any written material. If for any reason you miss some classes, make sure to find out, from some other student or from me, what has been done in class.
3) There will be no make-ups unless in extreme circumstances.

4) Plagiarism will be dealt with in accordance with CAS draconian guidelines.

Papers
First and foremost
Be aware that you cannot write a satisfactory paper in one evening or one night unless you have thought about it at length before. You are encouraged to give me rough drafts of your papers.  Keep in mind that I can return them with significant comments only if: i) they are given to me at least one full week before the papers are due; ii) they are written reasonably clearly.  Rough drafts consisting only of disjointed paragraphs or, worse, mere paragraph headings cannot be properly evaluated.  You may turn in your rough drafts as many times as you like, compatibly with the above requirements.
Grading criteria
A paper providing mere information adequately and accurately in clear prose substantially free of spelling and grammatical mistakes will be in the C/B- range.  A paper which in addition to meeting this requirement shows some originality supported by reasonably clear and cogent arguments will be in the B/A- range. A paper  showing significant originality, clarity and cogency will be in the A range.
My reading a student's rough draft of a paper does not entail, although it makes it somewhat likely, that the paper, even if my comments are considered, will get a B or an A. Often a bad paper must be revised more than once to become good. Papers merely consisting of a composite of material taken from web sites, articles, or books are not acceptable. You need to provide thoughts of your own.
Half a letter grade will be subtracted from a given paper for every solar day  it is late.
Spelling and grammar
It goes without saying that  papers should be written in correct English.  Students who feel unsure about their command of grammar should make sure to remedy the problem as quickly as possible.
Out of carelessness or ignorance, many students often confuse the following words:
it's/its; there/their; cite/site; principal/principle; than/then; to/too/two; who's/whose; weather/whether; conscience/conscious; since/sense; coarse/course.
In addition, philosophy students are often guilty of the following misspellings:
arguement; diety; devine; concieve; decieve; percieve; sieze; truely; wholely.
If unsure about how to spell these words correctly, check a dictionary.