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to explore how religion shapes ideas and institutions.

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Additional support is provided by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

I believe, because of my Jewish background, that diseases are all curable.

It may not, you know, from a scientific point of view,

it may be that there are some diseases we can cure and others not,

but I don't believe that. I don't believe that God gave us a challenge

that we are not able to meet if we gather up all our resources

and all our strengths and focus on what has to be done.

Many of history's greatest scientists considered their work to be a religious endeavor,

a direct search for God. Pioneers like Newton, Copernicus,

even Galileo believed that their discoveries told humanity more about God's nature

than had been known before. But beginning in the early 18th century,

science and religion came to be at odds. The gap widened most famously with the 1859

publication of Charles Darwin's Origin of the Species.

In recent years, though, a new dialogue has begun driven by leading scientists across the world.

Today on Speaking of Faith, we'll explore this new terrain by touching down in three disciplines,

biology, artificial intelligence, and genetics. We'll speak with three scientists,

each of whom is working in a field that's rapidly advancing our understanding of what it means

to be human. From very different perspectives, they suggest that our most sophisticated 21st

...