Lawrence M. Principe is the Drew Professor of Humanities at Johns Hopkins University in the Department of History of Science and Technology and the Department of Chemistry. He is the author of The Aspiring Adept: Robert Boyle and His Alchemical Quest (1998), The Scientific Revolution: A Very Short Introduction (2011), and The Secrets of Alchemy (2012). In 2005, he received the Francis Bacon Medal for his contributions to the history of science, and is currently completing a study of chymistry at the Académie Royale des Sciences.
Robert Boyle and the Stubborn Myth of the “Warfare of Science and Religion, June 2014
Robert Boyle styled himself the “Christian Virtuoso” and held that science and religion mutually support one another. This position may sound curious to modern people who have so often been told that an inherent conflict exists between science and religion. Indeed, the conflict myth is constantly repeated even though no serious historians of science accept it. This talk will reveal the myth’s empty foundations and its popularization by two late nineteenth-century authors who confected it for personal and political purposes. A comparison with Boyle’s attitudes, and those of his early modern contemporaries, reveals a completely different dynamic between the two, and raises the question of why this radical shift in thinking took place, and why the myth continues to be repeated to this day.
Boyle’s Scientific Legacy: Discoveries and Practices, June 2014
Boyle’s forty years of scientific experimentation produced various results. Some of these results still form the foundations of modern science, while others, although often ignored, could still contribute to current day issues. Of perhaps even greater continuing relevance are Boyle’s ideas about how to do science and how the scientist should work and behave.