World Science Day 2018

  1. Lemma
  2. Svetski dan nauke 2018
  3. Serbian
  4. Stevanovic, Aleksandra
  5. Co-existence - Modes of interaction
  6. 12-11-2018
  7. Petrović, Jelena [Interviewee]. World Science Day 2018
  8. Svetigora
    1. World Science Day for Peace and Development
  10. dialogue
  11. 10/11/2018

    1. The interview with theologian Jelena Petrovic was organized on the occasion of the World Science Day for Peace and Development on the 10th November. The World Science Day was established by UNESCO and first celebrated in 2002.  Since 2011 it is marked in Serbia and there are efforts to bring science closer to other aspects of human life.

      Initially, Petrovic explains the essential postulates of scientific research and science on a general note. She emphasized that people very often, even in the church circles, attack science, but most often they do not understand what science is and what it implies, and do not understand neither its methodology nor its changing paradigms. She also pointed at some examples of religious scientists, but also warned that sometimes their statements are taken out of context, not reflecting their actual line of thought.

      Further on, Petrovic stated that religion should not aspire to be something other than religion. It has had many encounters with science and they are complementary; however, they are different. For instance, we may believe that God created the Earth but we may not say that is science.

      Historically, there were some encounters of science and pseudoscience, sometimes fruitful – astrology developed out of pseudoscience for instance, chemistry from alchemy as well, but on the other hand, majority of pseudoscience remained in that domain. 

      Petrovic accentuated that often some aspects of science are being interpreted and for instance the Theory of Evolution by Charles Darwin is understood as the theory of the origin of man, whereas it is of the origin of biological diversity. Therefore, we should be very careful in bringing science close to religion and always bear in mind the difference of their methodology, principles, influences and the like.