Science & Religion Lecture: Vatican Observatory astronomer, George V. Coyne (Video)

As part of Hampshire College Lecture Series on Science & Religion, George V. Coyne from the Vatican Observatory gave a lecture on The Dance of the Fertile Universe in late March. There are many misconceptions regarding the Vatican observatory - many people have this idea that the Church is still upset with Galileo or that the purpose of the telescopes must be to search for God's hideout, or something like that. Well...check out this talk. George V. Coyne is the Director Emeritus of the Vatican Observatory and you can get his views directly here. He is an excellent speaker and he is very funny. If you don't have time to watch the whole talk, please listen to the Q&A session (about 50 minutes into the video) and you will get a very good idea of Coyne's views about science and religion - and the value he places on scientific inquiry. Here is the abstract and the video:

Abstract

The Dance of the Fertile Universe

Did we come about by chance or by necessity in the evolving universe? Did God make us? Can we conclude that there is Intelligent Design to the universe? To what extent can the natural sciences address these questions? As to chance or necessity the first thing to be said is that the problem is not formulated correctly. It is not just a question of chance or necessity because, first of all, it is both. Furthermore, there is a third element here that is very important. It is what we might call the 'fertility' of the universe. So the dance of the fertile universe is a ballet with three ballerinas: chance, necessity and fertility. What this means is that the universe is so fertile in offering the opportunity for the success of both chance and necessary processes that such a character of the universe must be included in the search for our origins in the universe. In this light I am going to try to present in broad strokes what I think is some of the best of our modern scientific understanding of the universe and then return to the questions above.

George V. Coyne, S.J. is a Jesuit Priest and an astronomer. He is Director Emeritus of the Vatican Observatory and Adjunct Professor of Astronomy at the University of Arizona. He is the author of Wayfarers in the Cosmos: The Human Quest for Meaning.