Why Beliefs Matter: Reflections on the Nature of Science

About this book

In the follow-up to his acclaimed Science in the Looking Glass Brian Davies discusses deep problems about our place in the world using a minimum of technical jargon. The book argues that absolutist ideas of the objectivity of science dating back to Plato continue to mislead generations of both theoretical physicists and theologians. It explains that the multi-layered nature of our present descriptions of the world is unavoidable not because of anything about the world but because of our own human natures. It tries to rescue mathematics from the singular and exceptional status that it has been assigned as much by those who understand it as by those who do not. Working throughout from direct quotations from many of the important contributors to its subject it concludes with a penetrating criticism of many of the recent contributions to the often acrimonious debates about science and religions.