Playing God

Could science one day ''defeat death''?
What would alien contact mean for humanity?
Has medicine finally found a cure for sadness?
Will AI replace us?

For too long, the ''science and religion'' debate has fixated on creation, evolution, cosmology, miracles and quantum theory. But this, argue Nick Spencer and Hannah Waite, is a mistake. Religious belief has survived, and thrived, under many different models of the universe. It was never intended to be a competing explanation for the science of any age. Where science and religion really do come together - sometimes furiously, sometimes fruitfully - is over the status and nature of the human. And that has never been more important than today.

Whether it''s the quest for immortality or the search for alien life, the treatment of pandemics or ''animal personhood'', AI or mental health, abortion or genetic editing, science is making advances that are posing huge questions about what it means to be human, whether we should change ourselves, and how far we should ''play God''.

These developments are only going to grow in significance. Playing God brings readers up to date with the latest developments but also draws out their moral and religious dimensions. In so doing, it shows how the future of science and religion is inextricably tied up with the future of humanity.

Draws on research sponsored by Theos and by the Faraday Institute, including extensive in-depth interviews with leading scientists, philosophers and theologians working in the eight fields explored in the book Explores and explains eight of the most pressing points of contact between science and religion today, including abortion, AI, aliens, animal personhood, gene editing, life extension programmes, mass vaccination and mental health Nick Spencer himself has made critically acclaimed contributions to understanding developments in religion and science - in both books and articles, as well as in popular BBC radio series Published to tie in with the spring 2024 series of Nick Spencer’s popular ‘Reading Our Times’ podcast