“The most practical and important thing about a man [sic] is still his view of the universe … The question is not whether the theory of the cosmos affects matters, but whether, in the long run, anything else does.”
William James, epigraph to “Pragmatism.”
The Research Cluster in Science and Society began in 1999 as the Center for the Study of Science and Religion. In anagrammatical terms, what is now the RCSS was once the CSSR. But whether as RCSS or CSSR, from its inception our work has been about “affecting matters” as well as understanding them; this is how we put it in the initial CSSR prospectus of 1999:
“The CSSR will therefore have a particular reason to focus on the science and scientists involved in social planning, scientific research policy, and strategies for the protecting the future of the planet. The CSSR will address the possible vocational aspects of those men and women who work as scientists but are also called upon to render judgment on social or policy issues, and on the place of religion in the models of human and social behavior used to formulate and vindicate such judgments.”
Beyond all other considerations, our capacity to meet this challenge has always depended on our colleagues, both those in the engineering, physical, biological, medical and social sciences and those in the worlds of religious study and practice who similarly share the wish to be effective in their hopes and prayers for a better world.
Just as affiliation with the Earth Institute (2007-2014) brought the CSSR to a host of problem-solving colleagues in the sciences, the 2015 invitation from Professor of History Pamela Smith to bring our work into the Center for Science and Society has allowed the RCSS to focus on projects initiated by our students, while sharing in the intellectual life of this broadly interdisciplinary Center.
The RCSS at Columbia University 