A new series of Christmas lectures begin at Sunderland Minster next Wednesday (December 6) looking at the conflict between religious faith and science – beginning with an expert on the human mind.
The first of the weekly Advent Lectures will begin with Dr Harry Erwin, an experimental neuroscientist at the University of Sunderland. Dr Erwin is originally from California and his research has included a stint working with bats to try to discover how they use sound to track and capture their insect prey.
Dr Erwin’s current research looks at how the mind processes sound, and how this can be translated into creating a ‘listening’ robot.
He said: “My interest is in how the mind works, how we perceive the world, not in the physics of the human brain. The way our minds experience and understand the world says something quite positive about the experience of religious faith in many people.
“A lot of scientists are critical of religion, but for the human mind religion is a part of reality. If physicists and engineers truly want to understand the human mind they need to be more tolerant of the idea of God.”
Dr Erwin’s talk is free and takes place at 12.30pm at Sunderland Minster (opposite the Sunderland Empire Theatre). The next lecture in the series is on Wednesday December 13. Dr David Wilkinson, Durham University, will look at how in the last 30 years cosmologists have made startling discoveries about the nature of the Universe that raise questions about the existence of God.