Wertheim received a Templeton Science and Religion Book Award for “Pythagoras’ Trousers,” which traces the history of the relationship between physics, religion and women. She also wrote “The Pearly Gates of Cyberspace,” which explores the religious connotations of cyberspace, and “Faith and Reason,” a one-hour PBS documentary that includes exclusive coverage of a recent Vatican conference on evolution.

Trained as a scientist with degrees in physics, mathematics and computer science, Wertheim has worked for 15 years as a science writer and commentator dedicated to making science accessible to the general public. Her articles have appeared in “New Scientist,” “Omni,” “Australian Geographic,” “Vogue” and “Glamour.”

Next in the Religion, Science and Public Policy Lecture Series at Bates will be Robert Russell, University of California, Berkeley, Center for Theology and Science, on “Science and the Spiritual Quest” March 26 at 7:30 p.m. in the Edmund S. Muskie Archives.

Foerst, who will discuss the religious and psychological implications of artificial intelligence and humanoid robots, believes a mechanistic anthropology can coexist with human values such as dignity and compassion.

“If we are able to rebuild ourselves, does that mean that we are nothing but machines? Can we respect something we can completely analyze and understand? And how might we end up treating our artificial counterparts?” asks Foerst, author of the forthcoming book “God and Computers: Myths of Artificial Intelligence and Their Epistemological Implications” (MIT Press, Cambridge).

Foerst is a postdoctoral fellow at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a research associate at the Center for the Studies of Values in Public Life at Harvard Divinity School.