Bridging the divide: philosophy meets science

A unique three-year project to bridge the divide between science and philosophy - which embedded early-career philosophers into some of Cambridge's ground-breaking scientific research clusters - is the subject of a new film released today. Academics in the humanities as well as the sciences are beginning to appreciate some of the difficulties arising from the extreme degrees of specialisation - where we are losing the ability to talk to each other. Daniel De Haan The Templeton World Charity Foundation Project, spearheaded by Professor Sarah Coakley, the Norris-Hulse Professor of Divinity at Cambridge, saw three postdoctoral researchers placed into science labs around the University with the aim of addressing the ever-widening gap between those working in the fields of science and those working in fields of philosophy and theology. For three years, Daniel De Haan, Natalja Deng and Peter Woodford worked side-by-side with colleagues from the Department of Experimental Psychology, the Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics (DAMTP) and the Department of Zoology respectively - taking part in cutting-edge research, and being mentored by world-leading thinkers in their subject fields. It is hoped that the huge success of this project - which saw unusually deep philosophical engagement with working scientists - will be a catalyst for similar experiments both in Cambridge and beyond. Professor Coakley said: "Top level, path-breaking science can often go on in universities without any connections to the history and philosophy of science which is coming at the same material from a different direction.