Reijer Hooykaas

Professor of the History of Science, University of Utrecht

Fact, Faith and Fiction in the Development of Science

In his series of lectures, Hooykaas analyses how fact, faith, and fiction have made up the idea of ‘science’ throughout history. He does not equate faith with religion but asserts that faith is what leads scientists to investigate a particular question at a particular time. Facts are understood not as immutable truths, but phenomena, specific events that are external to the individual subject. Fiction, for Hooykaas, is speculative thought, or intellectual tools applied to certain scientific problems.

Biography

Reijer Hooykaas was born on 1 August 1906 in Schoonhoven, the Netherlands. A pioneer in the history of science, he was the first to hold a chair in the discipline at a Dutch university. In 1945, Hooykaas was Professor of the History of Science at the Free University of Amsterdam, also teaching mineralogy from 1948 to 1960 and instrumental in establishing the collection. He later moved to the University of Utrecht as Professor of the History of Science, retiring in 1976. For many years, Hooykaas was active in the Christian Society of Scientists and Physicians in the Netherlands.

Member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1959, he was President of the International Commission of the History of Geological Sciences from 1976 to 1984. He often spoke at Christians in Science conferences in the UK and gave the Erasmus Lectures at Harvard in 1975. Important works include Natural Law and Divine Miracle (1963), ‘Catastrophism in Geology’, Nieuwe Reeks, 33 (1971), Religion and the Rise of Modern Science (1972), and ‘The Rise of Modern Science: When and Why?’, British Journal for the History of Science 20 (1987).

Published/Archival Resources

Published as Fact, Faith and Fiction in the Development of Science.