Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Reductionism And Holism, Chance And Selection, Mechanism And Mind, Ursula Goodenough

Biology Faculty Publications & Presentations

Despite its rich and deepening panoply of empirical support, evolutionary theory continues to generate widespread concern. Some of this concern can be attributed to misunderstandings of the original concept, some to unfamiliarity with its current trajectories, and some to strongly held fears that it strips the human of cherished attributes. In this essay I seek to deconstruct such misunderstandings, lift up current concepts of what evolution entails, and address some of the existential issues it generates.

From Biology To Consciousness To Morality, Ursula Goodenough, Terrence W. Deacon

Biology Faculty Publications & Presentations

Social animals are provisioned with prosocial orientations that operate to transcend self-interest. Morality, as used here, describes human versions of such orientations. We explore the evolutionary antecedents of morality in the context of emergentism, giving considerable attention to the biological traits that undergird awareness and our emergent human forms of mind. We suggest that our moral frames of mind emerge from our primate prosocial capacities, transfigured and valenced by our symbolic languages, cultures, and religions.

Portions of this article were given by Deacon in a paper at the forty-ninth annual conference of IRAS, “Is Nature Enough? The Thirst for …

A Setback To The Dialogue: Response To Huston Smith, Ursula Goodenough

Biology Faculty Publications & Presentations

Huston Smith's book, Why Religion Matters, offers an eloquent evocation of mystical sensibility. Unfortunately, along the way, he offers a strongly negative and often inaccurate account of the scientific worldview, the claim being that the science is laying siege to the spiritual.