Science and Religion: are they compatible?

UC Connect public lecture: Science and Religion: are they compatible?

Both science and religion seek after truth. But are they compatible? Can belief in God and belief in science be combined into one worldview?

The University of Canterbury is pleased to host British physicist Sir Colin Humphreys, Professor of Materials Science at Queen Mary University of London, Distinguished Research Fellow at the University of Cambridge and a Fellow of Selwyn College Cambridge, as a University of Canterbury Erskine Fellow in 2019.

On Wednesday 18 September, he will be presenting a UC Connect public lecture to a capacity audience on the subject: Science and Religion: are they compatible? Sir Colin will look into the subject of our fine-tuned Universe from the perspective of a scientist and a Christian.

“This talk will consider scientific and Christian truth, and give scientific and Christian answers to why we are here,” he says.

“We will examine two specific cases where science appears to conflict with the Bible: the ‘long day’ of Joshua and the star of Bethlehem. We will suggest that modern science is providing evidence for God.”

Professor Sir Colin Humphreys CBE FRS FREng.

Colin Humphreys is a Fellow of both the Royal Society and the Royal Academy of Engineering. In 2010 he was knighted for ‘services to science’. He has given invited talks at both scientific and theological conferences. In 2003, his book The Miracles of Exodus was published by Harper, and in 2011, Cambridge University Press published The mystery of the Last Supper: reconstructing the last week of Jesus. Both books received considerable media coverage and have been translated into Russian, German, Portuguese, Japanese and Greek, and has a South Asian edition.

Sir Colin is Professor of Materials Science at Queen Mary University of London; Distinguished Research Fellow at the University of Cambridge; and a Fellow of Selwyn College, Cambridge. He founded the Cambridge Centre for Gallium Nitride (GaN) and set up two spin-off companies to exploit the research of his group on low-cost LEDs for home and office lighting. The companies were acquired by Plessey, which is manufacturing LEDs based on this technology. He founded the Cambridge/Rolls-Royce Centre for Advanced Materials for Aerospace. Materials developed in the Centre are now flying in Rolls-Royce engines. He recently set up a new company, Paragraf, to exploit the research of his group on graphene, which promises to revolutionise a wide range of products including sensors, solar cells and electronic devices. Paragraf employs 21 people and has filed 8 patents. Its first product is a Hall effect sensor for measuring magnetic fields. In his limited spare time he writes on science and religion.

UC Connect public lecture: Science and Religion: are they compatible? Presented by UC Erskine Fellow physicist Sir Colin Humphreys, Professor of Materials Science at Queen Mary University of London, Distinguished Research Fellow at the University of Cambridge and Fellow of Selwyn College, Cambridge. 7pm – 8pm, Wednesday 18 September, 2019 in Central Lecture theatre, University of Canterbury’s Ilam campus, Christchurch.

The UC Connect public lecture series offers the community the opportunity to attend topical, interesting, educational lectures on a range of topics given by experts in their fields. To receive notifications on upcoming UC Connect speakers, join our mailing list.

UC Connect lectures are recorded and uploaded to our UC Connect YouTube channel (available to view 1-2 weeks post-event.)

N.B. Registration have reached capacity to attend Science and Religion: are they compatible?, however the lecture will be livestreamed on UC’s Facebook page, and recorded for uploading to the UC Connect YouTube channel, available for viewing about a week afterwards. If you do not manage to register a ticket, you are welcome to arrive on the day and wait for all available seats to be released five minutes prior to the lecture commencing.

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