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̽��ֱ��1663 charter of the Royal Society declares that its activities shall be devoted “to the glory of God the Creator, and the advantage of the human race”. Yet other documents associated with the early Royal Society note that its fellows scrupulously avoided "meddling with Divinity, Metaphysics, Moralls”.

In the 350th anniversary year of the Royal Society, Professor Harrison’s lecture, entitled “Religious Influences in the Founding of the Royal Society” will consider these contradictory founding statements, and offer an account of the roles which religion did, and did not play, in its pursuits and aspirations.

Professor Harrison is Andreas Idreos Professor of Science and Religion at the ̽��ֱ�� of Oxford. He has published extensively in the area of cultural and intellectual history, with a particular focus on the philosophical, scientific and religious thought of the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries.

He is the author of ̽��ֱ��Bible, Protestantism, and the Rise of Natural Science (Cambridge, 1998), ̽��ֱ��Fall of Man and the Foundations of Science (Cambridge, 2007). He is currently editing ̽��ֱ��Cambridge Companion to Science and Religion (Cambridge, 2010) and will deliver the Gifford Lectures in Edinburgh in 2010-11. Professor Harrison is a founding member of the International Society for Science and Religion and a Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities.

̽��ֱ��Faraday Institute of Science and Religion is an academic research enterprise based at St Edmund's College, ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge. ̽��ֱ��Institute has several aims: ̽��ֱ��first is to conduct scholarly research into and publish research on the subject of science and religion along with invited groups of experts.) (They) also provides short-term courses, seminars and lectures on science and religion.

̽��ֱ��lecture is free and open to the general public. ̽��ֱ��lecture starts at 5.30pm, Queen's Lecture Theatre, Emmanuel College.