A List
9/25/00

'SACRED COWS' OF SCIENCE & RELIGION EXAMINED IN SLU TALK

CANTON -- The Second Annual Niles Memorial Lecture on Science and 
Religion will be given at St. Lawrence University by George V. Coyne, 
director of the Vatican observatory, on the topic "When the Sacred Cows 
of Science and Religion Meet." The lecture will be on Tuesday, October 
10, at 7 p.m. in Herring-Cole; it is open to the public, free of charge.
	According to Coyne, "Both science and religion are drawn at times 
to become 'sacred cows' when faced with such issues as the evolution of 
life on Earth. The constant temptation of religious thought is to seek to 
control God, or to make God the explanation of things we cannot otherwise 
explain. Thus religion becomes a 'sacred cow,' because we seek to make God 
into our own image and likeness. Science at times sees itself as the only 
source of true and certain knowledge, or it fails to realize that the God 
of religious faith is not in the first place an explanation of as-yet 
unanswered human queries. In each instance it makes itself into a 'sacred 
cow.'"
	Coyne has a bachelor's degree in mathematics and a licentiate in 
philosophy from  Fordham University. He carried out a spectrophotometric 
study of the lunar surface for the completion of his doctorate in astronomy 
at Georgetown University and has conducted research at Harvard University, 
the University of Scranton and the University of Arizona Lunar and Planetary 
Laboratory. A member of the Society of Jesus since the age of 18, Coyne 
completed the licentiate in sacred theology at Woodstock College and 
was ordained a Roman Catholic priest in 1965. Coyne joined the Vatican 
Observatory as an astronomer in 1969 and became director in 1978, and is 
also associate director of the UA Steward Observatory. 

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