Pupils engage with God and the Big Bang Science Conference

Published: 29 November 2011

To help demonstrate the compatibility of science and faith in a meaningful way, a Young Scientist Conference was held at St Anne’s Academy in Middleton entitled ‘God and the Big Bang’, on Friday 25 November.

Two years ago Dr Capon, from Manchester Diocese, led a debate at General Synod on whether science and faith are compatible. General Synod voted overwhelmingly in the affirmative and called for initiatives to allow young people to explore this.

Manchester Diocesan Board of Education has been working for the past year to extend the arguments in Dr Capon's original paper on the 'Compatibility of Science and Religion' into its secondary schools.

An initial working group considered the need for this work to be sustainable and meaningful. Mr Michael Harvey was commissioned to do some initial work reporting results to the Bishop of Middleton, Mark Davies, Mrs Caroline Preece, Head Teacher of St Annes Academy, and Mr John Wilson deputy director of Education.

The working group proposed a pilot of the Young Scientist Conference entitled God and the Big Bang. About 100 Year Ten pupils from five Church of England secondary schools in Manchester Diocese participated in the event. The programme included a keynote address from the distinguished Principal of St John’s Theological College Durham, Revd Professor David Wilkinson, on ‘The search for God in modern cosmology‘.

There was a practical entitled ‘The wonders of science’ led by Jonathan and Clare Foster. Also a Cluedo-style quiz and a Question Time with a panel of scientists.

The conference caught the imagination of the 100 pupils who attended. They asked all kinds of interesting questions of the panel, including:

Do you ever lose your faith in God as you go deeper into science? 
Why were dinosaurs wiped out? Did God not care? 
What does the universe expand into? Is that where God is? 
Did Adam and Eve occur through evolution? 
Is science pushing things too far, by taking things out of God’s hands, like cloning? 
Is there such a things as heaven? And if so where is it? 
Do you believe in the rapture? 
If there is a heaven is there also a hell? 
You believe in God and science. Do you believe that God used science to create the world?

Manchester Diocese hopes the Young Scientist Conference might be repeated in other schools in Manchester Diocese and in other dioceses.


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