Table Of ContentES
dC
itedIE
N
b
yC
RE
a
dA
hN
a
D
B
é
tR
e
illeEL
I
G
I
O
N
Creative Lives and Works
SCIENCE AND RELIGION
EDWIN SALPETER, OWEN GINGERICH AND
JOHN POLKINGHORNE
Edited by
Radha Béteille
In conversation with
Print edition not for sale in South Asia (India, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bangladesh,
Mark Turin and Alan Macfarlane
Pakistan or Bhutan)
aninformabusiness
ISBN 978-1-03-211973-1
,!7IB0D2-bbjhdb!
www.routledge.com
RoutledgetitlesareavailableaseBookeditionsinarangeof
digitalformats
CREATIVE LIVES AND WORKS
Science and Religion
Science and Religion: Edwin Salpeter, Owen Gingerich and John Polkinghorne is the
frst time a collection of interviews is being published as a book. These interviews have
been conducted by one of England’s leading social anthropologists and historians,
Professor Alan Macfarlane.
Filmed over a period of 40 years, the fve conversations in this volume, are part
of Social Science Press’s series Creative Lives and Works. These transcriptions also
form a part of a larger set of interviews that cut across various disciplines, from the
social sciences, the sciences and to the performing and visual arts. The current volume
is on three foremost physicists and historians of science.
Edwin Salpeter recounts rather dispassionately his departure from Austria to
Australia to escape Nazi persecution. And in doing so broaches, not only, on the
prevailing anti-Semitic sentiment of the time, but takes the debate forward into
the one between science and religion. Though he only touches upon it, this debate
fnds resonance in the words of Owen Gingerich who belonged to the Mennonite
dispensation and who has been rather vocal about the pro-Christian anti-creationist
ideology. However, it is John Polkinghorne who provides a deep insight into the
ongoing debate on science and religion.
Immensely riveting as conversations, this collection reveals how intrinsically
related science and religion are, how pertinent it is to understand the workings of
science in the context of religion. The book will be of enormous value not just to
those interested in Astronomy and Cosmology as well as the History of Science, but
also to those with an inquisitive mind.
Mark Turin is a British anthropologist, linguist and radio broadcaster who specializes
in the Himalayas and the Pacifc Northwest. From 2014–18, he served as Chair of
the First Nations and Endangered Languages Program and Acting Co-Director of
the Institute for Critical Indigenous Studies at the University of British Columbia in
Vancouver. He is Associate Professor of Anthropology and director of the Digital
Himalaya Project. Turin serves as founding editor of the World Oral Literature
Series with the Cambridge-based Open Book Publishers, which aims to preserve and
promote the oral literatures of Indigenous communities in innovative, responsive,
ethical and culturally-appropriate ways. Turin's work has been recognized by the
Peter Wall Institute for Advanced Studies and the Killam Trust. https://en.wikipedia.
org/wiki/Mark_Turin
Alan Macfarlane was born in Shillong, India, in 1941 and educated at the Dragon
School, Sedbergh School, Oxford and London Universities where he received two
Master's degrees and two doctorates. He is the author of over forty books, including
The Origins of English Individualism (1978) and Letters to Lily: On How the World
Works (2005). He has worked in England, Nepal, Japan and China as both an
historian and anthropologist. He was elected to the British Academy in 1986 and
is now Emeritus Professor of Anthropology at the University of Cambridge and a
Life Fellow of King’s College, Cambridge. Professor Macfarlane received the Huxley
Memorial Medal, the highest honour of the Royal Anthropological Institute in 2012.
CREATIVE LIVES AND WORKS
Science and Religion
Edwin Salpeter, Owen Gingerich
and John Polkinghorne
In conversation with
Mark Turin and Alan Macfarlane
Edited by
Radha Béteille
First published 2022
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2022 Social Science Press
The right of Alan Macfarlane to be identified as author of this work has
been asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or
utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now
known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in
any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing
from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or
registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation
without intent to infringe.
Print edition not for sale in South Asia (India, Sri Lanka, Nepal,
Bangladesh, Pakistan or Bhutan)
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
A catalog record for this book has been requested
ISBN: 9781032119731 (hbk)
ISBN: 9781003222446 (ebk)
DOI: 10.4324/9781003222446
Typeset in Plantin Std
by Manmohan Kumar, New Delhi 110020
Contents
Preface vii
Transcriber’s Note ix
Introduction xi
PART I
Edwin Salpeter – In conversation with Mark Turin 3
PART II
Owen Gingerich – In conversation with Alan Macfarlane 25
PART III
John Polkinghorne – In conversation with Alan Macfarlane 65
Appendix 1: Biographical Information – Compiled 125
by Radha Béteille
Appendix 2: Scientifc Terms and Equipment – Compiled 157
by Radha Béteille
Preface
EDWIN SALPETER
‘I had the honour of being introduced to Ed (Edwin) Salpeter
at the very end of his life by his wife Antonia (Lhamo) Shouse
Salpeter, whom I had come to know through the Himalayan studies
community at Cornell University in which we were both active.
Albeit only in passing, I had mentioned to Antonia that I enjoyed
meeting senior scholars from across the disciplines and contributing
to this increasingly collaborative interview project to which Alan
Macfarlane had introduced me: documenting the creativity and
richness of academic lives. Antonia urged me to be swift, as Ed was
in the last stages of his battle with leukemia. On a cold November
afternoon in 2008, with an open fre crackling off-camera but within
earshot, I sat with Ed in his Ithaca, NY, home. He lay on the couch
for the duration of the interview, too weak to sit up.
It was a real privilege to spend a few hours with Ed and to learn
about his extraordinary life. He was a most gracious interviewee:
patient with my ignorance of almost all aspects of astrophysics, and
ready to answer all my stream of questions with enthusiasm and
grace. Since there was no avoiding the reality that death lay around
the corner, our conversation had both an inescapable weight and
a unique openness. Ed spoke with the candour of someone who
knew that there was nothing left to hide and that the interview
would only be released after his passing. Professor Edwin Salpeter
died two weeks later.’
OWEN GINGERICH
I met Owen Gingerich at the International Symposium held in San
Marino 29–31 August 2008 on ‘Creativity and creative inspiration
viii PREFACE
in mathematics, science, and engineering: developing a vision for
the future’ where both he and I gave papers. I was impressed by his
paper and conversations and decided to interview him.
JOHN POLKINGHORNE
I only met John Polkinghorne twice, at the two interviews I did with
him. The frst interview was so interesting that he agreed to come
back for a second. I found his combination of high-level science and
very sophisticated ability in theology to be most fascinating and by
the end of the second meeting the interview was starting to turn more
into a dialogue as I became impressed and intrigued by his views.
Mark Turin and Alan Macfarlane
Transcriber’s Note
The transformation of videographed speeches into the written
word has been a riveting experience. Transcriptions, while retaining
the essence of a conversation, lend a new dimension to the oral
transmission, opening them up to a wider readership, including
those with diminished auditory functions.
The intellectual discourses in the three transcripts on the
history of science, in particular, science and religion, draw in the
reader as a participant. And, while offering a different order of
internal cohesiveness, accentuates the ability of the reader to retain
information, in this case, of knowledge and scholarship.
This collection of transcripts tries to capture the engaging
interactions between Alan Macfarlane, one of Britain’s foremost
social anthropologists, and three eminent physicists and historians
of science – Edwin Salpeter, Owen Gingerich and John Polkinghorne.
Edwin Salpeter paints a vivid picture of the anti-Semitic
sentiments that prevailed in the aftermath of World War II, and
relays his work in the feld of astrophysics with equal ease. Owen
Gingerich, in the process of introducing Mennonite culture, skilfully
introduces the on-going debate between science and religion. John
Polkinghorne begins with his days in applied mathematics and
physics and then moves on to the more fundamental aspects and
linkages between science and religion.
Here, it must however be noted that not being a subject expert
has been somewhat limiting. Besides, I have had to acquaint myself
with speech patterns, accents, diction and intonations in areas that
I was unfamiliar with when I began.
Furthermore, the transcribing of oral transmission leaves little
room to represent facial expressions and non-verbalized sounds such
as chuckles, laughs, sighs and for that matter exclamations, as well
