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Biology: What One Needs To Know, Ursula Goodenough

Biology Faculty Publications & Presentations

Biology on this planet represents an astonishing experiment in carbon-based chemistry which, over billions of years, has generated billions of species adapted to countless major and minor fluctuations in ecological circumstances. In one sense there is no way to generalize about biology. While biological activities can all be ultimately explained by physical laws (like everything else in the universe), it is the emergent intensely particular properties of organisms that most interest us. This essay represents an attempt to describe some of the more prominent patterns that emerge from the sea of biological particularities, patterns that present many opportunities for religious …

The Religious Dimensions Of The Biological Narrative, Ursula W. Goodenough

Biology Faculty Publications & Presentations

A cell/molecular biologist challenges the thesis that science and religion are two ways of experiencing and interpreting the world and explores instead the possible ways that the modern biological worldview might serve as a resource for religious perspectives. Three concepts—meaning, valuation, and purpose—are argued to be central to the entire biological enterprise, and the continuation of this enterprise is regarded as a sacred religious trust.

This article was originally delivered at the Templeton Symposium,„Science and Religion: Two Ways of Experiencing and Interpreting the World”organized by Zygon: Journal of Religion and Science and the Chicago Center for Religion and Science, 31 …