It was certainly a great lecture by a great scientist, followed by an equally profound response from an eminent religious leader and philosopher. I found it somewhat amusing that -- being a non-religious American soft-matter physicist -- my thoughts ran much closer to those of Archbishop Lord Williams than to those of Professor McLeish. The scientific enterprise as it exists today is largely complementary to the religious one, and it (the scientific enterprise) allows inclusivity, uniting Christians, Jews, Muslims, agnostics, atheists, and people with other religious beliefs in one big tent. This has been remarkably successful from the standpoint of our development of predictive models of natural phenomena and the growth of scientific community as a global "brotherhood and sisterhood". When Professor McLeish talks about the four "wrong turns", my question is "Wrong in what sense?" Returning to the medieval "natural philosophy" model may or may not improve the image of science among some conservative Christian intellectuals, but probably will not help with the broader society (which is increasingly non-religious anyway). On the other hand, de-emphasizing scientific method, model development, mathematics, and -- yes -- objectivity could lead to strains within the scientific community itself. The policing of science to exclude pseudo-scientists would become more difficult if everyone's imagination is considered equally valid and objective criteria are thrown out the window. I know that Prof. McLeish does not mean to encourage this, but I wish that the lecture made a stronger point that once imagination played its crucial role in formulating a hypothesis, the scientific method must take over and "objectively" test it. My imagination can suggest many things about polymers -- some of them will turn out to be true and some will turn out to be false.

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