Lecture at the University of South-Eastern Norway, Faculty of Technology, Natural Sciences and Maritime Sciences, Horten, Norway 24 May 2024.
The quote is from Einstein and it continues like this "The fact that it is comprehensible is a miracle." We now take for granted that nature can be rationally understood and follows laws, and that humans are equipped to understand nature. That was not obvious before the 16th century. I will discuss the life and work of several prominent scientists such as Kepler, Volta, Ampere, Faraday, Maxwell, Lemaître, Kelvin, Anning, and Marconi. Their work gave us definitions of gravity, voltage, current, electromagnetism, paleontology, radio, and the Big Bang. Surprising to many, they all combined their science with a deep Christian faith and several of them even justified their science by that. Philosophers and historians of science like Pierre Duhem and Stanley Jaki have also explained the biblical basis for science. The talk is based on my book "Den innbilte konflikten. Om naturvitenskap og Gud" (The imagined conflict: On science and God), 2021.
