Diarmid Finnegan
John Tyndall’s Belfast address: histories and legacies of an infamous lecture
On 19 August 1874, the Irish physicist John Tyndall strode up to the lectern in Belfast's Ulster Hall and, as President of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, addressed a 2,000-strong audience for two hours. It was a lecture that was not, as Tyndall put it ‘the growth of a day’. It represented his mature views on the relationship between science and religion – a subject that he termed the ‘problem of problems’. Tyndall's views were politely applauded in the Ulster Hall but later dissected, lauded and disparaged in editorials, pulpits, pamphlets, papers and poems in Belfast and far beyond. Long recognised as a critical episode in the history of modern science and religion, Tyndall's lecture has been much discussed by historians. The purpose of this talk is to offer a critical overview of Tyndall's seismic intervention and to reflect on how understandings of his controversial address might require expansion and revision in light of more recent work on the histories, and current relations, of science and religion.
Diarmid Finnegan is a reader in Human Geography at Queen’s University.
The event is free though donations are welcome.
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Parking is available.
