Program E-Conference Evolution, Original Sin and the Fall
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The Natural Science Underlying Big History
Review Article [Accepted for publication: The Scientific World Journal, v2014, 41 pages, article ID 384912; printed in June 2014 http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2014/384912] The Natural Science Underlying Big History Eric J. Chaisson Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138 USA [email protected] Abstract Nature’s many varied complex systems—including galaxies, stars, planets, life, and society—are islands of order within the increasingly disordered Universe. All organized systems are subject to physical, biological or cultural evolution, which together comprise the grander interdisciplinary subject of cosmic evolution. A wealth of observational data supports the hypothesis that increasingly complex systems evolve unceasingly, uncaringly, and unpredictably from big bang to humankind. This is global history greatly extended, big history with a scientific basis, and natural history broadly portrayed across ~14 billion years of time. Human beings and our cultural inventions are not special, unique, or apart from Nature; rather, we are an integral part of a universal evolutionary process connecting all such complex systems throughout space and time. Such evolution writ large has significant potential to unify the natural sciences into a holistic understanding of who we are and whence we came. No new science (beyond frontier, non-equilibrium thermodynamics) is needed to describe cosmic evolution’s major milestones at a deep and empirical level. Quantitative models and experimental tests imply that a remarkable simplicity underlies the emergence and growth of complexity for a wide spectrum of known and diverse systems. Energy is a principal facilitator of the rising complexity of ordered systems within the expanding Universe; energy flows are as central to life and society as they are to stars and galaxies. -
Completed Thesis
THE UNIVERSITY OF WINCHESTER Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences Human Uniqueness: Twenty-First Century Perspectives from Theology, Science and Archaeology Josephine Kiddle Bsc (Biology) MA (Religion) Thesis for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy February 2013 This Thesis has been completed as a requirement for a postgraduate research degree of the University of Winchester. The word count is: 89350 THE UNIVERSITY OF WINCHESTER ABSTRACT FOR THESIS Human Uniqueness: Twenty-First Century Perspectives from Theology, Science and Archaeology A project aiming to establish, through the three disciplines, the value of human uniqueness as an integrating factor for science with theology Josephine Kiddle Bsc (Biology) MA (Religion) Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences Doctor of Philosophy February 2013 The theme that underlies the thesis is the challenge presented by science, as it developed from the time of the Enlightenment through the centuries until the present day, to Christian theology. The consequent conflict of ideas is traced in respect of biological science and the traditions of Protestant Christian doctrine, together with the advances of the developing discipline of prehistoric archaeology since the early nineteenth century. The common ground from which disagreement stemmed was the existence of human beings and the uniqueness of the human species as a group amongst all other creatures. With the conflict arising from this challenge, centring on the origin and history of human uniqueness, a rift became established between the disciplines which widened as they progressed through to the twentieth century. It is this separation that the thesis takes up and endeavours to analyse in the light of the influence of advancing science on the blending of philosophical scientific ideas with the elements of Christian faith of former centuries. -
Moral Implications of Darwinian Evolution for Human Reference
Andrews University Digital Commons @ Andrews University Dissertations Graduate Research 2006 Moral Implications of Darwinian Evolution for Human Reference Based in Christian Ethics: a Critical Analysis and Response to the "Moral Individualism" of James Rachels Stephen Bauer Andrews University Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.andrews.edu/dissertations Part of the Christianity Commons, Ethics in Religion Commons, Evolution Commons, and the Religious Thought, Theology and Philosophy of Religion Commons Recommended Citation Bauer, Stephen, "Moral Implications of Darwinian Evolution for Human Reference Based in Christian Ethics: a Critical Analysis and Response to the "Moral Individualism" of James Rachels" (2006). Dissertations. 16. https://digitalcommons.andrews.edu/dissertations/16 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate Research at Digital Commons @ Andrews University. It has been accepted for inclusion in Dissertations by an authorized administrator of Digital Commons @ Andrews University. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Thank you for your interest in the Andrews University Digital Library of Dissertations and Theses. Please honor the copyright of this document by not duplicating or distributing additional copies in any form without the author’s express written permission. Thanks for your cooperation. Andrews University Seventh-day Adventist Theological Seminary MORAL IMPLICATIONS OF DARWINIAN EVOLUTION FOR HUMAN PREFERENCE BASED IN CHRISTIAN ETHICS: A CRITICAL ANALYSIS AND RESPONSE TO THE “MORAL INDIVIDUALISM” OF JAMES RACHELS A Dissertation Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy by Stephen Bauer November 2006 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. UMI Number: 3248152 Copyright 2006 by Bauer, Stephen All rights reserved. -
Crater, Catastrophe, Contingency: an Improbable Journey and the Human Situation: a Review of Books by Walter Alvarez Barry Wood University of Houston
Crater, Catastrophe, Contingency: An Improbable Journey and the Human Situation: A Review of Books by Walter Alvarez Barry Wood University of Houston Correspondence | Barry Wood, [email protected] Citation | Wood, B. (2019) Crater, Catastrophe, Contingency: An Improbable Journey and the Human Situation: A Review of Books by Walter Alvarez. Journal of Big History, III(2); 101 - 114. DOI | http://dx.doi.org/10.22339/jbh.v3i2.3260 alter Alvarez’ big history of our planet and conclude that a city-sized asteroid 10 to 12 miles in Wourselves, A Most Improbable Journey (2017), begins diameter had struck the earth somewhere, causing a with a 1991 expedition to Mexico with two other catastrophic disruption of planetary climate. Since the geologists to search for ejecta from the 110-mile- K-T boundary corresponded with the disappearance diameter Chicxulub crater recently found straddling of numerous megafaunal species, Alvarez theorized the Yucatan Peninsula and Gulf of Mexico. This was that this hitherto unknown asteroid had brought down a follow up episode in a decade-long – and by now the dinosaurs that had dominated the Earth over well-known – story. It began when Alvarez presented the previous 200 million years, along with half the his theory that a large asteroid had struck the Earth world’s wildlife. Following its publication in Science 65 million years ago, causing the extinction of the (1980), his theory received a lukewarm, sometimes dinosaurs. His evidence was a mysterious centimeter- hostile, response in the geological community until thick layer of clay located at the Cretaceous-Tertiary the Chicxulub Crater was discovered a decade later (K-T) boundary in the Apennine Mountains near the and dated at 65 million years. -
Big History: a Working Bibliography of References, Films & Internet Sites
Big History: A Working Bibliography of References, Films & Internet Sites Assembled by Barry Rodrigue & Daniel Stasko University of Southern Maine (USA) Index Books & Articles on Big History…………………………………………...2–9 Works that Anticipated Big History……………………………………....10–11 Works on Aspects of Big History…………………………………………12–36 Cosmology & Planetary Studies…………. 12–14 Physical Sciences………………………… 14–15 Earth & Atmospheric Sciences…………… 15–16 Life Sciences…………………………….. 16–20 Ecology…………………………………... 20–21 Human Social Sciences…………………… 21–33 Economics, Technology & Energy……….. 33–34 Historiography……………………………. 34–36 Philosophy……………………………….... 36 Popular Journalism………………………... 36 Creative Writing………………………….. 36 Internet & Fim Resources on Big History………………………………… 37–38 1 Books & Articles about Big History Adams, Fred; Greg Laughlin. 1999. The Five Ages of the Universe: Inside the Physics of Eternity. New York: The Free Press. Alvarez, Walter; P. Claeys, and A. Montanari. 2009. “Time-Scale Construction and Periodizing in Big History: From the Eocene-Oligocene Boundary to All of the Past.” Geological Society of America, Special Paper # 452: 1–15. Ashrafi, Babak. 2007. “Big History?” Positioning the History of Science, pp. 7–11, Kostas Gavroglu and Jürgen Renn (editors). Dordrecht: Springer. Asimov, Isaac. 1987. Beginnings: The Story of Origins of Mankind, Life, the Earth, the Universe. New York, Berkeley Books. Aunger, Robert. 2007. “Major Transitions in “Big’ History.” Technological Forecasting and Social Change 74 (8): 1137–1163. —2007. “A Rigorous Periodization of ‘Big’ History.” Technological Forecasting and Social Change 74 (8): 1164–1178. Benjamin, Craig. 2004. “Beginnings and Endings” (Chapter 5). Palgrave Advances: World History, pp. 90–111, M. Hughes-Warrington (editor). London and New York: Palgrave/Macmillan. —2009. “The Convergence of Logic, Faith and Values in the Modern Creation Myth.” Evolutionary Epic: Science’s Story and Humanity’s Response, C. -
Introduction Big History's Big Potential
Introduction Big History’s Big Potential Leonid E. Grinin, David Baker, Esther Quaedackers, and Andrey V. Korotayev Big History has been developing very fast indeed. We are currently ob- serving a ‘Cambrian explosion’ in terms of its popularity and diffusion. Big History courses are taught in the schools and universities of several dozen countries, including China, Korea, the Netherlands, the USA, In- dia, Russia, Japan, Australia, Great Britain, Germany, and many more. The International Big History Association (IBHA) is gaining momentum in its projects and membership. Conferences are beginning to be held regularly (this edited volume has been prepared on the basis of the pro- ceedings of the International Big History Association Inaugural Confer- ence [see below for details]). Hundreds of researchers are involved in studying and teaching Big History. What is Big History? And why is it becoming so popular? Accord- ing to the working definition of the IBHA, ‘Big History seeks to under- stand the integrated history of the Cosmos, Earth, Life and Humanity, using the best available empirical evidence and scholarly methods’. The need to see this process of development holistically, in its origins and growing complexity, is fundamental to what drives not only science but also the human imagination. This shared vision of the grand narrative is one of the most effective ways to conceptualize and integrate our growing knowledge of the Universe, society, and human thought. Moreover, without using ‘mega-paradigms’ like Big History, scientists working in different fields may run the risk of losing sight of how each other's tireless work connects and contributes to their own. -
The Epic of Evolution: Life, the Earth, and the Cosmos: a Course for Non-Science Majors at Washington University
The Epic of Evolution: Life, the Earth, and the Cosmos: A course for non-science majors at Washington University Ursula Goodenough Dept. of Biology Washington University St. Louis MO 63130 In the early 1990’s I expanded my intellectual interests, moving from the “straight science” I’d been pursuing for decades and into the interface between science and that complex phenomenon we call religious sensibility. My core context in this endeavor has been the Institute on Religion in an Age of Science www.iras.org. Early on I also had the great fortune to encounter the works of Thomas Berry and the abiding friendship and encouragement of Mary Evelyn Tucker, John Grim, and Brian Swimme. The initial outcome of this immersion was publication of a book, The Sacred Depths of Nature, in 1998, wherein I narrate our understandings of life at a molecular/cellular level and offer non-theistic religious responses to these understandings. Since then I’ve written articles, chaired conferences (including one on Ecomorality with Brian and Mary Evelyn), and offered numerous seminars and workshops in the context of this religious-naturalist perspective while remaining fully active in molecular/cellular research and training at Washington University. In 1996 I co-chaired an IRAS conference with Loyal Rue called The Epic of Evolution, with Brian, Mary Evelyn, and John as speakers, and realized that this thrilling narrative was largely unknown and/or misunderstood by humankind. I also became convinced that knowledge of this story had the power to initiate and/or deepen human commitment to an ethos of planetary sustainability. -
HARVARD COLLEGE OBSERVATORY Astro E-8 COSMIC
HARVARD COLLEGE OBSERVATORY Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138 Astro E-8 COSMIC EVOLUTION: The Origins of Matter and Life Instructor: Dr. Eric J. Chaisson, Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics Meets Wednesdays, 7:45 - 9:45 pm, Harvard College Observatory, 60 Garden St., Phillips Auditorium, Bldg. D, across from Radcliffe Quad. Course Abstract: Evolution of the Universe, from its beginning in a cosmic expansion to the emergence of life on Earth and possibly other planets. Big-bang cosmology, origin and evolution of galaxies, stars, planets, life, and society. Scientific discussion of Nature writ large, from quarks to quasars, microbes to minds. Materials largely descriptive, based on insights from physics, astronomy, geology, chemistry, biology, and anthropology. Course Description: This broad survey course combines the essential ingredients of astrophysics and biochemistry to create an interdisciplinary synthesis called “cosmic evolution." Directed mainly toward non-science students, the course addresses, from a scientific viewpoint, some of the time-honored philosophical issues including who we are, whence we've come, and how we fit into cosmic scheme things. Our primary objective is to gain an appreciation for the origin of matter and the origin of life, while seeking unification throughout the natural sciences. The course divides into three segments: • Part I (~10% of the course) introduces some basic concepts, notably those scientific principles needed for the remainder of the course. • Part II (~40% the course) is heavily astronomical, using the concept of space to describe the many varied objects populating the Universe, from nearby planets to distant galaxies; this spatial theme serves as an inventory, explicating known material systems throughout the cosmos. -
Is God Emeritus? the Idea of God Among Religious Naturalists
Is God Emeritus? The Idea of God Among Religious Naturalists Jerome A. Stone Religious naturalism, a once-forgotten option in religious thinking, is making a revival.1 Very close to religious humanism, perhaps overlapping it, it seeks to explore and encourage religious ways of responding to the world or at least ways that are analogous to what we traditionally call religious. The difference between religious naturalism, as I am defining it, and the humanism of classical humanists such as John Dietrich during the time of the Humanist Controversy (1920’s) or the Humanist Manifesto of 1933 is a richer sense of our response to the world. Words like “mystery” and “openness” are more likely to be used by religious naturalists. In the debates between humanists and theists (classical or revisionary) religious naturalism as a viable option has often been overlooked, but no longer. Who are the religious naturalists? Historical roots go back at least to Spinoza and include Henry David Thoreau, and some poets including Whitman and Robinson Jeffers. Former religious naturalists included Samuel Alexander, Santayana, Dewey, Mordecai Kaplan, Ralph Burhoe, founder of Zygon, and such Chicago theologians as Wieman, Meland, and the later Bernard Loomer. Recent religious naturalists include William Dean, Willem Drees, Ursula Goodenough, Charley Hardwick, Henry Levinson, Karl Peters, myself, and perhaps Gordon Kaufman. Several articles in the 2000 issue of Zygon: Journal of Religion and Science are on religious naturalism. I. What is Religious Naturalism? First, the generic definition of religious naturalism, what I think marks the essence of religious naturalism.1 We start with naturalism itself. -
Big History's Risk and Challenge
[Expositions 8.1 (2014) 85–95] Expositions (online) ISSN: 1747–5376 Big History’s Risk and Challenge ERIC J. CHAISSON Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, Harvard University Some twenty years ago, a scattered few, intrepid historians began teaching courses on a wider, slightly precarious stage. They realized that much good and valid history extends far back in time, well prior to the ancient civilizations of Egypt and Sumer thousands of years ago, even beyond the onset of hominins millions of years ago. These “big historians” were thinking expansively, deliberately—in both space and time—identifying and linking many notable events in the deep past, from the origin of the universe to the present day on Earth. It was as though, while trekking up a mountain whose summit holds true knowledge, the big historians began realizing there’s much more to history than we had been led to believe by world, global, or traditional historians who have dominated historiography for decades. Pioneers like John Mears of Texas, David Christian of Australia, Fred Spier of Holland, and Cynthia Brown of California strove to grasp a broader view of who we are and whence we came. They were searching for humanity’s sense of place in the larger scheme of things, attempting to understand how relatively recent happenings on Earth might relate to events that occurred long before any written records. Yet hardly a decade ago, those same big historians, much enthused by their new story- telling agenda, discovered a different breed of scholars on the other side of the mountain. These were mostly astronomers, uncommonly eclectic researchers who had explored for much of the twentieth century much the same cosmology, relating it in articles, books, and classrooms well earlier than had the big historians. -
Religious Naturalism: a Theology for UU Humanists Demian Wheeler
Religious Naturalism: A Theology for UU Humanists Demian Wheeler First Unitarian Society • Minneapolis, Minnesota Sunday, July 30, 2017 I am profoundly grateful for the opportunity to speak with you this morning. Thank you, Kelli, Jim, and David, for the invitation. Our quote of the week comes from Carl Sagan: “A religion, old or new, that stressed the magnificence of the Universe as revealed by modern science might be able to draw forth reserves of reverence and awe hardly tapped by the conventional faiths. Sooner or later,” Sagan predicts, “such a religion will emerge” (Sagan 1994: 50). Indeed, such a religion has emerged; it is called religious naturalism. And this morning I want to suggest that religious naturalism offers a compelling theological vision and spiritual orientation for twenty-first-century Unitarian Universalists—and UU humanists, in particular. I would even wager that there is no religious environment that is more hospitable to a religious naturalist worldview than Unitarian Universalism, especially its humanist flank. What is religious naturalism, exactly? Here is my one-sentence definition: religious naturalism is a perspective that regards nature as both exhaustive of reality and worthy of deep reverence and devotion. On the one hand, nature is all there is; there is no such thing as the supernatural. On the other hand, it is both possible and desirable to live a spiritually fulfilling existence on a completely naturalistic basis. For the religious naturalist, nature itself is capable of evoking awe, wonder, gratitude, amazement, celebration; nature itself is the object of our ultimate concerns and commitments; nature itself is sacred—i.e. -
Mcduffienaturessot17.Pdf
1 2 3 Abstract “NATURE’S SACRAMENT: THE EPIC OF EVOLUTION AND A THEOLOGY OF SACRAMENTAL ECOLOGY” Project under the direction of Dr. Andrew R. H. Thompson The ‘Epic of Evolution’ is the scientific story that reveals that we live in an approximately 14 billion year old universe on a planet that is approximately 4.6 billion years old and that we are a part of the ongoing process of life that has existed on Earth for 3.5-4 billion years. This project focuses on the religious and ecological significance of the evolutionary epic in an effort to seamlessly connect the ecological value attributed as a part of an understanding of the evolutionary connectedness of life on earth with the Divine grace understood to be present in Christian sacramental worship. With a particular emphasis on the Eucharist, I argue that the sacramental perspective of grace being conveyed through material reality provides the potential for Christian sacramental tradition to make a significant contribution to protecting the threatened ecological communities of our planet. Focusing on the work of E. O. Wilson and Ursula Goodenough, I explore the sacramental significance of the Epic of Evolution itself as value is attributed through recognition of the connectedness and kinship characteristic of all Earthly life. Concurrently, by incorporating William Temple’s concept of a ‘sacramental universe’ from Anglican sacramental theology, I propose that the grace that is understood to be present in the substances of the bread and wine of the Eucharist points outward so that it can also be witnessed in all of God’s ongoing Creation.