If we can alter ourselves, should we?

Nick Spencer and Peter Harrison open ISCAST’s fifteenth biennial Conference on Science and Christianity with a public lecture in the Melbourne CBD on Friday 6 November. Two of the leading voices on science and Christianity will ask what science can tell us about our world and our genetic future, and what faith brings to those questions. ABC Radio National’s God Forbid host James Carleton will then lead a conversation with both speakers and take questions from the audience.

The lecture opens COSAC 2026, but is open to all.

Details

• Date: Friday 6 November 2026
• Time: 7 p.m. to 9:30 p.m., with supper and a bookstall after the lecture
• Location: Werner Brodbeck Hall, Assembly Hall Building, 156 Collins Street, Melbourne
• In person only
• Tickets: $35 general, $25 ISCAST members, $15 students

Presented in partnership with Scots’ Church Melbourne.

If you’re registered for COSAC 2026 in person, the lecture is already included. Online conference registrations don’t include it, because the lecture will not be streamed.

Talks

What Science and Religion Can Say About Our Genetic Future

Nick Spencer

Our ability to understand, change and “improve” our genetic makeup is greater now than at any time in our history. To quote Bill Clinton (and many others), “we are learning the language in which God created life.” What does that mean for our genetic future? If we can alter ourselves, should we? If so, what are our guiding principles? And what, if anything, can religion contribute to this debate?

What Science Can (and Cannot) Tell Us About Our World

Peter Harrison

We have good reasons for thinking that science offers the most reliable source of truths about the natural world. Most obvious, perhaps, is the remarkable explanatory success of the sciences along with the material benefits and technologies that accompany them. However, questions remain. What must first be true about our world and ourselves for science to be possible at all? Can we make a direct leap from the apparent success and predictive power of the sciences to their ultimate truth? Can the sciences offer guidelines about their own use, application, and limitations? This lecture explores these questions, drawing on examples from the history and philosophy of science.

Speakers

Nick Spencer is senior fellow at Theos, the UK think tank, and host of its podcast Reading Our Times. His books include Magisteria: The Entangled Histories of Science and Religion (2023) and The Landscapes of Science and Religion (2025).

Peter Harrison is professorial research fellow at the University of Notre Dame Australia and emeritus professor of history and philosophy at the University of Queensland. He was previously Idreos Professor of Science and Religion at the University of Oxford. His most recent book is Some New World: Myths of Supernatural Belief in a Secular Age (2024).

James Carleton presents God Forbid on ABC Radio National, a weekly conversation about religion, ethics and the meaning of life.

COSAC 2026

COSAC 2026 continues on Saturday 7 and Sunday 8 November at Catholic Theological College, East Melbourne, and online, with keynote addresses and more than thirty research papers on Christian faith and the sciences.

Learn more or register at cosac.iscast.org.