Cosmic Chemistry

John C. Lennox MA PhD DPhil DSc is Emeritus Professor of Mathematics at the University of Oxford and Emeritus Fellow in Mathematics and the Philosophy of Science at Green Templeton College. He has lectured on religion and science at many prestigious institutions around the world, and has publicly debated Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens, among others. He is also the author of many books including Cosmic Chemistry and God and Stephen Hawking: Whose Design is it Anyway?

"Anyone who has understood the immense difficulties that reductionism creates in science must be impressed with the care with which the author outlines and dissects the arguments. You don't have to be a theist to benefit from the book. Come to it with an open mind, and enjoy its challenges."

• CONTENTSPrefacePART 1 Surveying the Landscape1. Introduction 102. Matters of Evidence and Faith 193. A Historical Perspective: The Forgotten Roots of Science and Arguments from Design 26PART 2 Science and Explanation4. Science, its Presuppositions, Scope, and Methodology 625. Worldviews and Their Relation to Science: Naturalism and its Shortcomings 876. Theism and its Relationship to Science: God of Gaps, Complexity of God, and Miracles 110PART 3 Understanding the Universe and Life7. Understanding the Universe: The Beginning and Fine-Tuning 1408. The Wonder of the Living World 1579. The Genetic Code 17010. A Matter of Information 18611. Algorithmic Information Theory 19212. Life’s Solution: Self-Organization? 207PART 4 The Modern Synthesis13. Life’s Solution: Evolution? 21814. Evolution: Asking Hard Questions 23115. The Nature and Scope of Evolution 24116. Natural Selection 26017. The Edge of Evolution 27118. The Mathematics of Evolution 280PART 5 The Information Age19. Systems Biology 29820. The Origin of Information: A Word-Based World 31521. Brain, Mind, and the Quantum World 348Epilogue: Beyond Science But Not Beyond Reason 365Notes 375Index 395