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Science and the truthfulness of beauty : how the personal perspective discovers creation / Robert Gilbert.
- Format:
- Book
- Author/Creator:
- Gilbert, Robert (Fellow at Magdalen College), author.
- Series:
- Routledge science and religion series
- Language:
- English
- Subjects (All):
- Aesthetics.
- Science--Philosophy.
- Science.
- Science--Aesthetics.
- Religion and science.
- Aesthetics--Religious aspects.
- Physical Description:
- viii, 164 pages ; 25 cm.
- Place of Publication:
- Abingdon, Oxon ; New York, NY : Routledge, 2018.
- Summary:
- When scientists describe their results or insights as 'beautiful', are they using the term differently from when they use it of a landscape, music or another person? Science and the Truthfulness of Beauty re-examines the way in which seeing beauty in the world plays the key role in scientific advances, and argues that the reliance on such a personal point of view is ultimately justified by belief that we are made in the 'image of God', as Christian and Jewish believers assert. It brings a fresh voice to the ongoing debate about faith and science, and suggests that scientists have as much explaining to do as believers when it comes to the ways they reach their conclusions. Book jacket.
- Contents:
- 1 Introduction: In the eye of the beholder 1
- 2 Two different ways of knowing? 16
- How scientists see their work 16
- An account of modern science 18
- An end to hypotheses? 21
- The realism of scientific insight 23
- Scientific method versus religious method? 26
- 3 Beauty everywhere 31
- Classification and statistical analysis 33
- Symmetry 36
- Mathematical equations 38
- Molecular structure 44
- The interior of the living cell 49
- Physiology 52
- The behaviour of animals 54
- 4 Playful beauty 60
- The young fox and the fallow deer 60
- Scientists are like children at play 62
- Playing by the rules 66
- Imaginary worlds: Hypotheses and ideas 67
- Playing games: Experimental process 68
- Toys: Equipment and infrastructure 70
- The fascination of children 71
- 5 Worldly, natural and real beauty 75
- Common points of view: Cosmology, geology and evolution 75
- Evolutionary accounts of the capacity to perceive beauty 78
- Talking about beauty 81
- Faking it: Couldn't I be tricked into thinking something beautiful? 84
- But isn't my perception of beauty something I get from my culture? 86
- Beauty and science: Leaping from subjectivity to objectivity 87
- Sharing our understanding of beauty in a shared world 88
- 6 Where does the beauty come from? 91
- Why is there anything rather than nothing? 91
- Scientific language and the precision of our knowledge 96
- 7 Understanding beauty 112
- Beautiful, moral lives 112
- Why does what we say to each other mean anything at all? 118
- Beauty: Creation and science at a glance 125
- 8 Loving beauty 133
- Appreciating the beauty of something involves being moved by it 133
- Understanding truths about the world requires us to value it for itself 135
- Science requires a relationship to what we study 136
- When we do science we love the world 138
- 9 Conclusion: Truthful beauty 143
- Loving knowledge of the world requires a personal point of view 143
- The personal point of view is irreducible 144
- Can we make sense of this? 146
- The beauty of the world and the image of God 148.
- Notes:
- Includes bibliographical references and index.
- ISBN:
- 9781472472175
- 1472472179
- OCLC:
- 962234714
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