Davis Baird is Distinguished Professor Emeritus and retired provost of Clark University and Distinguished Professor Emeritus and retired Dean of the University of South Carolina. He is the author of Thing Knowledge: A Philosophy of Scientific Instruments (2004) and Inductive Logic: Inferring the Unknown (1988).
""[A] timely and engaging close look at the message of an unheralded Unitarian minister of the first half of the twentieth century in the context of the world today."" --W. Bradford Greeley, Minister Emeritus, Main Line Unitarian Church ""Davis Baird's meticulously mounted presentation of his grandfather's mindset and sermons is both a reaffirmation of Jeffersonian liberal scientific values and a remarkable act of filial piety. One might quarrel with his grandfather's optimism but undeniably his was a clarion and eloquent voice of early twentieth-century American progressivism. With grace and energy Davis Baird has recaptured his grandfather's heartening message."" --John Zeugner, Professor of History Emeritus, Worcester Polytechnic Institute ""In Natural Religion, Davis Baird uses his family's past to explain why religion still matters in the present in ways that few might expect. His elegant, heartfelt, and deeply spiritual analysis of his grandfather's sermons and papers touches themes that resonate with our most important human values: peace, nature, compassion, and most of all, our shared stakes in a world that we have the power to steer in better directions than we have done recently."" --Jack Delehanty, Associate Professor of Sociology, Clark University