Science, Religion, and the Human Experience

This volume is dedicated to the memory of Ninian Smart, a
longtime professor in UC Santa Barbara’s Religious Studies
Department and a pioneer in comparative religion and worldview
analysis. Professor Smart played a key role in advising the planning
committee for the lecture series that led to this volume, and was due
to return to UCSB to deliver one of our lectures, though sadly he
passed away soon after relocating to Lancaster, UK, in early 2001.
We will never know what Ninian’s contribution to this volume
would have been, but we do trust the remaining essays convey the
spirit of openness, pluralism, and breadth that Ninian’s life and
work embodied.