Steve over at Speculative Catholic (a great blog) has a bunch of bubble-shaped icons over on the left side-bar that lead you to nice links like "Catholicism in Science Fiction", "Catholic Astronaut List" and "Steve's Photoshops." One of them, "Catholic Scientists", however, does not link to anything! I keep clicking on it, hoping to find out who these marvelous people are, but--nothing.
It's frustrating for me, because if you work in a philosophy department and make your religious faith known you soon find out who your real friends are. Nobody. Well, that's not exactly fair--it's not that anybody is your enemy, but they don't do a very good job of hiding their scorn for religious faith. I suppose there wouldn't be a problem if I were working in a philosophy department at a Catholic School (there the problem would arise only if you were orthodox and working in the theology department), but things are tough here. So I'm always interested when I learn of other scholars, either scientists or philosophers of science, who are devout Catholics.
Two very well-known philosophers of science come to mind right away: Bas van Fraassen and Ernan McMullin. Van Fraassen is at Princeton; McMullin (who just happens to be a priest) is emeritus at Notre Dame. I doubt that either one has to put up with much scorn from his colleagues, because both are internationally respected in their fields and they're both obviously very smart. But I look forward to Steve compiling his list and activating the link--I think it would be a great resource, not just for folks like me but also for apologists and others to know who's out there.
Viva fides et ratio!
1 comment:
Scott:
It might interest you to know that some very important scientific discoveries were made by Catholic priests. See Thomas Woods' new book.
Best,
Mike
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