Press Release ESSSAT Prizes 2020

Abstract Because of the proportions of the Roman Catholic population in Argentina, which nowadays reaches more than the 80%, and the importance it has had in its history, we must say that the relationship between science and religion had been basically between science and Roman Catholic religion. Later on, there was a Protestant presence in the dialogue but not until the last part of the XX century. During the Viceroyalty period (from the XVI century until beginning of the XIX) there was a peaceful coexistence between both worlds. Many of the Catholic missionaries were responsible for founding schools and universities. The Jesuits in particular promoted the study of the sciences by the creation of observatories, museums and research centers. With the arrival of illuminist and positivist ideas in the XIX century, science and religion began to have a conflictive relationship. At that time, some important research centers were created but under the influence of Aguste Comte´s ideas. According to him, science is the upmost stage of humanity which is coming to remove other imperfect stages such as the religious and the metaphysical ones. La Plata University, for instance, was founded at the end of that century with a observatory, a Natural History Museum –which is even now the most important in South America- and research centers on physics, chemistry, etc. As regards theology, it had not been developed much until that moment. The great effort of the Church had been placed on evangelization and catechism so theology did not have proper tools to dialogue with the scientific world. Consequently, a conflict between both fields began, with only a few of exceptions. As evidence of such crisis, I am going to mention Ernesto Sábato, physicist, thinker, novel writer, fine arts artist and recipient of a Cervantes Prize. In the last years, a new cultural situation has been produced, which is characterized by the search of bridges between both worlds.

2015

The state of the debate surrounding issues on science and religion in Latin America is mostly unknown, both to regional and extra-regional scholars. This paper presents and reviews in some detail the developments made since 2000, when the first symposium on science and religion was held in Mexico, up to date. I briefly introduce some features of Latin American academia and higher education institutions, as well as some trends on the public reception of these debates and atheist engagement with it in Mexico and Argentina. The primary conclusion of this paper is that, even though the discussion is new to Latin American academic circles, it is gaining traction and will certainly grow in the coming years.

Almagest 10(2), 2019

The theoretical prediction of Higgs boson was arguably one of the most important contributions in particle physics in the 20th century, with significant implications for modern cosmology. Its reported discovery in 2012 was celebrated as one of the most significant scientific achievements of all times. The fierce public discourse that followed was at large ignited by the media-hyped nickname “God particle” attributed to Higgs boson. The debate regarding the science-religion relation reinvigorated once again and plenty theologically informed views were expressed. In this paper, I take into consideration the authoritative views expressed by the Catholic Church and the Greek-Orthodox Church and I discuss them in comparison with each other, as well as in juxtaposition with other views expressed in the public discussion on the issue, in an attempt to draw philosophically interesting inferences.

While I was not elected as a Councillor of the Medieval Academy of America, I remain deeply honored to have been nominated and I congratulate the new Councillors on their appointments.

This bibliography involves: the issues of VOICES, the Theological Journal of EATWOT. The EATWOT's collaborations with other Journals. Some special documents. Also the publications of the Latin American Section of EATWOT (ASETT, Asociación Ecuménica de Teólogos/as del Tercer Mundo), specially the «Along the Many Paths of God» series, in four languages. And other older publications o 1993 and 1988.