Yves Gingras receives the Science and Secularism Prize

History Department professor Yves Gingras received the Science and Society Prize during the 18^e awards ceremony of the Secularism and Republic Committee (CLR), held on November 7 at Paris town hall. Every year, since 2003, the CLR rewards personalities from France and other countries who, through their commitments to secularism, have contributed to the defense and promotion of this universal principle. Four prizes are awarded: National Prize, International Prize, Science and Secularism Prize and Culture and Secularism Prize.

The CLR is a non-profit association which promotes secularism in public debate in France. It warns of failures to respect the law of 1905 on the separation of churches and state, reports communitarian accommodations which circumvent or violate republican principles and, at the invitation of the public authorities, participates in the debates preceding the development of legislative texts linked to secularism.

Professor at UQAM since 1986, Yves Gingras directs the Science and Technology Observatory. He is recognized as a pioneer in the history and sociology of science in Quebec. He has received several awards and distinctions during his career, including the Prix du Québec Léon-Gérin in 2018, the highest distinction awarded to a researcher in the human and social sciences by the government of Quebec.

The professor is also the author of numerous works, including L’impossible dialogue. Sciences et religions (Boreal, 2016)). This essay was born from a question: how to explain the strong comeback, since the 1980s-1990s, of the question of relations between sciences and religions and of calls for “dialogue” between these two fields, although they are so far apart in their objects and their methods? In his work, Yves Gingras calls for taking the side of reason in the face of the rise of neo-romantic religious and spiritual movements which reject the findings of the most established scientific research.

During the award ceremony, French physicist and philosopher of science Étienne Klein presented Yves Gingras as someone fighting against the confusion that reigns today between knowledge and beliefs. In his speech, the professor recalled that “science is only the extension of critical reason in the direction of a greater objective understanding of the world, whether natural, social or cultural.”

You can listen to Yves Gingras’ speech on the Viméo channel of the Secularism and Republic Committee.