Featuring work by top scholars from around the world, Global Perspectives on Science and Spirituality, a new book edited by Elon University professor Pranab Das, has been published with essays on an array of approaches to science and religion grounded in spiritual traditions ranging from Daoism to Eastern Orthodoxy and treating many scientific disciplines.
Essays cover a spectrum of scientific fields, spanning mathematical physics, robotics, biosemiotics and new schools of theoretical biology, embryonic stem cells, cognitive science, and the concept of opening the human mind to broader ideas of reality. With contributions from researchers in 10 countries, the book also spans a wide variety of faith traditions, philosophical orientations and spiritual approaches.
Features of the book include:
• A look at the science and spirituality dialogue from multicultural perspectives
• Each contributor has been carefully selected as “the best of the best”
• Contributors are highly esteemed scholars from some of the world’s best research institutions
Das is the principal investigator for the Global Perspectives on Science and Spirituality programs, two unique projects that have supported work by top scholars, research groups and institutions in Asia and Eastern and Central Europe. These programs, funded at a total of $4 million, support leading thinkers worldwide bringing new perspectives to the multidisciplinary study of science and the human spirit.
“’Science and religion’ is a field that has been largely dominated by Western scholarship. My projects were among the very first major efforts to internationalize this dialogue,” Das said. “The highly-competitive process winnowed down an applicant pool of more than 150 teams in over a dozen countries to seven final groups who conducted major research projects, undertook large-scale activities like conferences and public events, and have helped shape public awareness through media outreach, debates, dialogue and teacher training.”
“We feel very strongly that this long, challenging project was successful at raising the quality of scholarship, introducing fresh perspectives from non-Western sources and massively increasingly the level of dialogue between science and the religious/spiritual traditions of the countries where we worked.”
Das, a professor of physics, also serves as principal investigator and executive editor of the International Society for Science and Religion Library Project, based at Cambridge University, which aims to select a foundational library of texts in the field of science and religion, and to create a stand-alone volume comprising critical essays on each book and an overall introduction to the Library.
Beginning this year, Das and his team will distribute about 150 complete sets of volumes to colleges, universities and centers around the world through a competitive awards process.
Das, who joined the Elon faculty in 1993, earned his doctorate in physics in 1992 from the University of Texas at Austin. He earned his bachelors degree – in physics and international studies – from Reed College in Oregon.
He has focused his scientific research on chaos theory and nonlinear dynamics.