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Nick Spencer and Hannah Waites book Playing God is a fascinating exploration of what it means to be human. For too long, the 'science and religion' debate has fixated on creation, evolution, cosmology, miracles and quantum theory. But this, argue Nick Spencer and Hannah Waite, is a mistake. Religious belief has survived, and thrived, under many different models of the universe. It was never intended to be a competing explanation for the science of any age. Where science and religion really do come together - sometimes furiously, sometimes fruitfully - is over the status and nature of the human. And that has never been more important than today. Whether it's the quest for immortality or the search for alien life, the treatment of pandemics or 'animal personhood', AI or mental health, abortion or genetic editing, science is making advances that are posing huge questions about what it means to be human, whether we should change ourselves, and how far we should 'play God'. This book explores such questions as Could science one day 'defeat death'?
What would alien contact mean for humanity?
Has medicine finally found a cure for sadness?
Will AI replace us?
Nick is Senior Fellow at Theos. He is the author of a number of books and reports, including Magisteria: the entangled histories of science and religion, The Political Samaritan: how power hijacked a parable, The Evolution of the West and Atheists: The Origin of the Species. He is host of the podcast Reading Our Times.
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Event Venue & Nearby Stays
The Beacon, Wantage, United Kingdom
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