LIST 504: Darwin and the DIvine: Evolution and the Faith Reason Dialogue
(Ideas and Issues in Natural Sciences and Mathematics)

Instructor:  Dr. Anindo Choudhury

The theory of evolution continues to evoke strong sentiments and reactions among the religious, particularly in the United States, and provides an ideal framework to examine the interaction of faith and reason from a variety of perspectives.  Specifically, the course will examine why and how evolutionary theory is perceived as a threat to religion by so many, how atheists have more recently used the theory and framed the debate, how the religious, particularly theologians, have responded to the challenge, how this plays out at various levels of American life, the nature of these debates and confrontations in American politics, and finally how some thinkers, scientists and theologians alike, have attempted to reconcile faith and reason within an intellectual and spiritual framework.  We will also explore whether the reaction that evolution evokes brings to the surface a deeper tension between how science and religion deal with questions of proximate and ultimate causation, human nature, and the meaning and purpose of our existence.