On 19 August 1874, the Irish physicist John Tyndall – now better known as the co-founder of climate science – spoke to 2,000 people for nearly two hours in Belfast’s Ulster Hall. What he said generated one of the most intense controversies about science and religion in the modern period. The aftermath is still felt today.
Tyndall’s three core arguments threatened strongly held religious convictions. The first was that science alone was competent to speak about the material world. The second was that the physical universe contained the “promise and potency” of life, consciousness and reason. The third was that religious believers had no grounds for claiming definite knowledge of the unfathomable mystery at the heart of existence.
