Rolston Media in General Circulation and Online

Holmes Rolston, III

Media in general circulation in Colorado State University Library

(and some other libraries, also some online)

1988.   Detail - Rolston walking in aspen
Online at:    https://hdl.handle.net/10217/236403 

Rolston walking in the aspen in Colorado mountains notices the great detail there, such as the mosses, the lichens, the insects, biological diversity and wealth.  These may be important in ecosystems, but the rare ones often are not, still they contribute to the richness of life on Earth.  We ought  to care for,  to celebrate their conservation.
              Video by CSU for promotional use.  Video by Ron Bend.  Rolston extract only is short video, 1 minute, 24 seconds.

1989.   Rollin-Rolston Debate on Environmental Ethics.  Streaming video, 51 minutes. Windows Media, via Colorado State University.
  Online at:   http://hdl.handle.net/10217/37822

      Bernard E. Rollin and Holmes Rolston, III, both in the CSU Department of Philosophy, debate environmental ethics.   Rollin defends an animal welfare ethic and Rolston defends an ecocentric ethic.   Moderated by David Crocker, CSU Department of Philosophy.   Recorded by CSU Instructional Services on November 29, 1989.   Also available on DVD in CSU Library, general circulation.

Library of Congress Number: GE42 .R655 1989

1990.   Dominion over Nature.   DVD.  1 hour 6 minutes.

1.  The Conquerors.  Discussion of advertisement: "The Conquerors."  Discussion of Pioneer plaque greeting others in space.  Human conquest of space, spaceship Earth, dominion over Earth. 

2.  Models of Dominion: (1) Subjugation Earth Tyrant. (2) Commander Earth Pilot. (3) Domestication Earth Gardener. (4) Steward Earth Trustee. (5) Paternal Earth Father. (6) Prophets, Priests, Kings. (7) Redemption - Earth Redeemer. 

3.  Exploit, Maximize, Optimize 

4.  Multiple values versus Multiple Use

5.  Managed/Endangered Planet. God-man-nature hierarchy, Time Magazine: Endangered Earth. Scientific American: Managing Planet Earth.

6. The meek inherit the Earth. Beatitude: "Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth." Using Earth justly and charitably. 

Library of Congress Number  GE42.R6673 1990

1991.   Incompleteness in Evolutionary History.   DVD format.   47 minutes.

     Evolution as a random walk?  Evolution of biodiversity and biocomplexity.  Evolutionary development generating more out of less.  Life as negentropy.  Information discovered and stored in DNA. 

     Origin of life.  Origin of humans.  Selection of the advanced.  Evolutionary history as a genetically-based information search.  Earth as a prolific, pro-life system, a creativity complementary to religious accounts of creation. 

     Based on Chapter 3 of Holmes Rolston, III, Science and Religion: A Critical Survey.   New York: Random House, 1987, and various reprints.

Library of Congress Number  B818.R66 1991

1992.   Living with Nature.    1 hour.

     Interview in Athens, Georgia, April 6, 1992. 

Living with Nature, Online, streaming video:   http://hdl.handle.net/10217/37820

1.  Values in Nature

2.  Following Nature

3.  Nature and Culture

4.  Aesthetics in Nature

5.  Concept of the Sublime

6.  Wilderness

7.  Increasing Environmental Concern

8.  Government and Business

9.  Sustainability

10.  Residence on Landscapes

11.  Forests

12.  Regulation

Also available on DVD in CSU Library, general circulation.

Library of Congress Number:  GE42.R6677 1992

1993.  Order and Disorder in Nature, Science, and Religion.     DVD format.  1 hour, 10 minutes.

      Plenary Lecture at Fourth Annual Science, Technology, and Religious Ideas Conference, Institute of Liberal Studies,  Kentucky State University,  April 12, 1993

1.  Order in Physics

2.  Disorder in Physics

3.  Disorder in Biology

4.  Order in Biology

5.  Order and Disorder in Science

6.  Order and Disorder in Religion

Questions and Answers.

     Lecture published as: "Order and Disorder in Nature, Science, and Religion." Pages 1-14 in George W. Shields and Mark Shale, eds., Science, Technology and Religious Ideas.   Proceedings of the Institute for Liberal Studies, vol. 4. Frankfort, KY: Institute for Liberal Studies, Kentucky State University, 1993.

Library of Congress Number Q175.R544 1993

1997.    Genetic Creativity: Diversity and Complexity in Natural History.   DVD format.  1 hour.

Lecture 1 of the Gifford Lectures, University of Edinburgh, series 1997/1998.  Lecture given November 10, 1997.

Library of Congress Number  QH426.R6573 1997

Genetic Creativity: Diversity and Complexity in Natural History, Online, streaming video:       http://hdl.handle.net/10217/37813   

Lecture series published as: Genes, Genesis and God: Values and their Origins in Natural and Human History.  New York: Cambridge University Press, 1999.

1997.    Genes, Genesis and God.    DVD format. 1 hour. 

Lecture 10 of the Gifford Lectures, University of Edinburgh, series 1997/1998.   Lecture given December 1, 1997.

Library of Congress Number  BJ1311.R652 1997

Genes, Genesis and God, Online, streaming video, 1 hour.    http://hdl.handle.net/10217/37814  

1998. "Let there be light": Science, Theology, and Aesthetic Experience of Nature,   Carl Howie Lectures, Howie Center for Science, Art, and Theology, Union Theological Seminary, Richmond, Virginia.    Three lectures:

Lecture 1.   Planet Gone Wild.     October 9, 1998. 39 minutes.     Online at:    http://hdl.handle.net/10217/70419

     "The Earth produces of itself."  Mark 4.28

1.  Planetary Aesthetics: Earth from Space

2.  The Wild Planet: Biological Beauty

3.  Wildlands and Wonder

4.  The Planet with Promise

Lecture 2.    Animals: Beasts Present in Flesh and Blood.   October 9. 1998.    52 minutes.  Online at:    http://hdl.handle.net/10217/70418

    "The young lions roar for their prey, seeking their food from God."    Psalm 104.21

1.  Born Wild and Free

2.  Beauty in Motion

3.  Predators and Prey

4.  Humans: Aesthetic Animals

Lecture 3.    Life: Perpetually Perishing, Perpetually Regenerated.    October 10, 1998.   1 hour, 6 minutes.  Online at:   http://hdl.handle.net/10217/70420 

    "...green pastures ... through the valley of the shadow of death"    Psalm 23

1.  The Struggle for Survival

2.  The Evolution of Pain

3.  Regeneration and Redemption

4.  A Cruciform Creation

Library of Congress Number H301.N3

R657 1998  pt. 1     pt. 2     pt. 3

1999.    Genes, Genesis and God.    DVD format.  1 hour.

     Keynote address at Philadelphia Center for Religion and Science, April 19, 1999.

    The genesis of life on Earth is keyed to genes, located in organisms in evolutionary ecosystems.   Molecular genetics is integrated into developing natural history, with spectacular levels of achievement and power, resulting in the myriad values of nature and culture.    But there is remarkable scientific and philosophical debate about order and disorder, randomness and probability, the inevitable and the contingent, actualities and possibilities, as these result in increasing diversity and complexity over the evolutionary epic.

     The DNA in organisms is vital sets of information molecules, dramatically perpetuated and elaborated across species lines, stimulated by Earth's dynamic environments.  This biological information originating over time displays a cumulative creativity that, although described by science, is nowhere an implication of biological theory.

     Such genesis invites an account of God as the Ground of Information.

Library of Congress Number  BJ1311.R652 1999

2002.   The Good Samaritan and his Genes. 2002.   Audio CD. 1 hour, 12 mins.   Holmes Rolston lecture at a conference on Biology and Morality, Calvin College, Grand Rapids, Michigan.  Audio with frequent accompanying slides.  November 9, 2002.  58 minutes, 58 seconds.   Online at:   https://hdl.handle.net/10217/234763

The Good Samaritan helping non-genetically related other does not fit well into a Darwinian framework.  The Good Samaritan--some biologists claim--is constitutionally (=genetically) unable to act for the victim's sake.  There must be a self-interested account; the Samaritan, deceived about his motives,  is rewarded with reproductively profitable reputation.  But such behavior, praised and  imitated,  jumps genetic lines and there is no differential survival advantage.

2004. The Science and Religion Dialogue: Why It Matters.   1 hour, 30 minutes.   Rolston lecture only, CSU digital archives.    http://hdl.handle.net/10217/37482 

     Public event sponsored by the International Society for Science and Religion, Sheraton Boston Hotel, August 19, 2004.  Three Templeton Prize Laureates in an exchange across the common borders of science and theology.

    (1)   George F. R. Ellis, 2004 Templeton laureate, theoretical cosmologist

    (2)   Holmes Rolston, III, philosopher, Colorado State University.

    (3)   John C. Polkinghorne, Mathematical Physicist, Cambridge University, and Anglican priest. 

Moderated by Owen Gingerich, Astronomy, Harvard University. Question and answer session at the end. 

Also available on DVD in CSU Library, general circulation.

Library of Congress Number  BL241.E55 2004

2005.  Challenges in Environmental Ethics, Online, streaming video, 55 minutes.   Online at:    http://hdl.handle.net/10217/37816

 DVD format.   55 minutes. Copy in CSU :Library.

    Videoclips, Commentary, Holmes Rolston, III.   Shot at Tamasag, CSU facility near Bellvue, Colorado, February 18, 2005.

    Cases discussed:

1.   Antelope Fence, Red Rim, Wyoming

2.  Hunter's Ethic, Colorado

3.  Bear Hunting

4.  Drowning Whales in Alaska

5.  Drowning Bison in Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming

6.  Elephant Calf Euthanized, Botswana

7.  Wawona Tree, Yosemite National Park, California

8.  Tree Spiking

9.  San Clemente Goats, San Clemente Island, California

10.  Old Growth Forest, Pacific Northwest, USA

11.  Yellowstone Fires, Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming

12.  Home Planet: Earth

Library of Congress Number GE42.R667 2005

2006.    Challenges in Environmental Ethics.    DVD format.    1 hour. 

 Richard J. Burke Lecture, Oakland University, Rochester, MI.    March 14, 2006. 

Library of Congress Number:  GE42.R667 2006

    Online at:    https://hdl.handle.net/10217/236081      

2006.    Genes, Genesis, and God.     DVD format. 1 hour. 

Richard J. Burke Lecture, Oakland University, Rochester, MI.    March 13, 2006.

    Online at:      https://hdl.handle.net/10217/235391

The scientific and philosophical debate about order and disorder, randomness and probability, actualities and possibilities, as they result in increasing diversity and complexity over the evolutionary epic.

Library of Congress Number BJ1311.R652 2006

2006.    Generating Life: Six Looming Questions in Evolutionary Biology.    DVD format.   1 hour.

 University of Montana, Missoula, MT.   July 28, 2006.   Sponsored by the Center for Ethics, University of Montana, Missoula, MT. 

Boxed with panel discussion, Science, Religion, and the Environment, held on July 27, 2006.

Library of Congress Number GE42.R6675 2006 disk 1-2

2006.    Generating Life on Earth: Six Looming Questions.    DVD format.    1 hour.

     Lecture at The Ohio State University, November 2, 2006.

1.  Creating information.

2.  Inevitable vs. contingent creativity.

3.  Possibilities: Omnipresent vs. emerging.

4.  Co-option generating novel possibilities.

5.  Anthropic biology?

6.  Human uniqueness: Intelligent spirit.

Library of Congress Number.  GE42.R66752 2006

      A version of this lecture is published as:

"Generating Life on Earth: Five Looming Questions." Pages 195-223  in F. LeRon Schults, ed. The Evolution of Rationality. Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2006.

     An abbreviated earlier version (which appeared in print later) is:

"Originating Life: Six Big Questions." With questions and commentary. Pages 13-21

in Connie Bertka, Nancy Roth, and Matthew Shindell, eds., Workshop Report: Philosophical, Ethical, and Theological Implications of Astrobiology. Washington, DC: American Association for the Advancement of Science, 2007.

2007.    Down to Earth: Persons in Nature.     DVD format.    Disk 1: 1 hour 15 minutes.    Disk 2: 1 hour, 16 minutes.

Classroom lecture by Holmes Rolston, III, in PHIL 345, Environmental Ethics,  December 4, 2007.

Down to Earth: Persons in Nature, Disk 1, online, streaming video:      http://hdl.handle.net/10217/37817

     Ethics living in place; Earth as home planet; Aristotle and humans as political animals, living in cities; humans as both citizens of cities and residences on landscapes; correcting Socrates (who thought that nature could not teach him anything); living on Western landscapes with "nature in your face": four priorities on the current world agenda (peace and war, population, development, environment); escalating population; escalating consumption (affluenza).

Down to Earth: Persons in Nature, Disk 2, online, streaming video:     http://hdl.handle.net/10217/37818

    Humans as earthling overseers; environmental ethics as respect for life; human biography as storied residence on Earth; test for appreciating a resident environment; three role models for living in nature: Arne Naess, Norwegian philosopher; John Muir; Aldo Leopold, founder of the land ethic. Leopold's experience of thinking like a mountain and seeing "green fire" in a dying wolf's eyes; Earth ethics and overview of the blue planet.

Library of Congress Number GF21.R6673 2007 Disk 1 Disk 2

2008.    Philosopher Gone Wild - Photo-media Biography. Online, streaming video,  43 minutes.   https://hdl.handle.net/10217/185274

       Revised, updated 2020.    Online at:     http://hdl.handle.net/10217/37821

2008.   Three Big Bangs: Matter-Energy, Life, Mind.   Online, streaming video. Windows Media. 1 hour, 23 minutes. Willard O. Eddy Lecture at Colorado State University, September 18, 2008.     Online at:    http://hdl.handle.net/10217/37823       Also on DVD disk in CSU Library, general circulation.

Library of Congress Number:  B818 .R665 2008

2008.    The Future of Environmental Ethics, Online, streaming video, 1 hour, 26 minutes.     University of Wisconsin, Stevens Point, Thomas W. Overholt Lecture. November 20, 2008.    http://hdl.handle.net/10217/37819      Also on DVD disk in CSU Library, general circulation.

Library of Congress Number GE42 .R658 2008

2009.  Sustainable Development vs. Sustainable Biosphere, Online, streaming video, Windows Media, 30 minutes.  American Association for the Advancement of Science, Chicago. February 14, 2009.   Online at :     http://hdl.handle.net/10217/40518              Also on DVD disk in CSU Library, general circulation.

Library of Congress Number:   QH540.5 .R653 2009

2009.    Does Aesthetic Appreciation of Nature Need to be Science-Based?   Online, streaming video, Interview.   http://hdl.handle.net/10217/37809

University of Helsinki, March 25, 2009.    20 minutes.   Also available on DVD in CSU Library, general circulation.

Library of Congress Number:   GE42 .R653 2009

2009.    "Holmes and Jane Rolston: Memories and Recollections."    Holmes Rolston III (1932- ) and his wife, Jane Irving Wilson Rolston (1931- ) interviewed in their home, Fort Collins, Colorado, October 2009, by David Rolston. a relative. 2 DVD disks. In Rolston CSU Library archives, but not in general circulation. Also in Rolston Digital Library archives.       Also online.

Disk 1.    View online.        http://hdl.handle.net/10217/38997                       

Holmes' childhood, Rockbridge Baths, Virginia
Jane's childhood, Richmond, Virginia
Holmes youth, Charlotte, NC
Davidson College and Union Theological Seminary
Holmes Graduate study, University of Edinburgh
Pastor, Walnut Grove and High Point Presbyterian Churches, Bristol, Virginia
Graduate study, Philosophy of Science, University of Pittsburgh

Disk 2         View online.        http://hdl.handle.net/10217/38998

Rolston, Professor of Philosophy, Colorado State University
University Distinguished Professor
Rolston's books and publications
Gifford Lectures, University of Edinburgh, 1997-1998
Templeton Prize, 2003
Intellectual Biography, Saving Creation, 2009

2010.   The Future of Environmental Ethics. Online, streaming video, 56 minutes.      http://hdl.handle.net/10217/80889
Lecture at The Institute for Learning and Teaching (TILT), Colorado State University, September 22, 2010.   A Managed Earth and the End of Nature?   Global Warming: Too Hot to Handle? Human Nature. Pleistocene Appetites?   Sustainable Development vs. Sustainable Biosphere.   Biodiversity: Good for us/ Good in itself. Earth Ethics.  Also on DVD disk in CSU Library, general circulation.

Library of Congress Number:  GE42 .R658 2010

2011.   StoryCorps Interview.   Rolston interviewed by Douglas Yeager.   Audio, 43 minutes.      Listen.    http://hdl.handle.net/10217/48079

Youth in the Shendandoah Valley of Virginia.  The father of environmental ethics exploring new directions interpreting values in nature. Life has a logic, a capacity for creative genesis, and that opens up possibilities for religious interpretation.  Early publications, rejected, later reprinted many times. Personal agenda, loving nature, turns out to be a global environmental crisis.  Recollections of being awarded the Templeton Prize. and of giving the Gifford Lectures, Edinburgh.   The importance of information, beyond matter and energy, in biology, coded in DNA, yet limits to genetic explanations

2011.    Kuhn, Robert Lawrence, Closer to Truth – Rolston Episodes.  54 minutes.  Filmed in Denmark, August 2011.  Used variously on his program, some aired on PBS.  1.  How Humans Differ from Other Animals.  2.  Why Science and Religion Think Differently.  3.  Should Science Talk to Religion?  4.  Do Design Arguments Suggest God? (Three Big Bangs).  5.  Can God Face Up to Evil?  6.  What Kind of World Did God Create?  7.  Evolution and God.

2012.    Do General Principles Govern All Science?        Aired on PBS, variously, 2012.     26 minutes.  Online at:   http://hdl.handle.net/10217/67469

         On the program Closer to Truth, Robert Lawrence Kuhn interviews:

Geoffrey West, physicist, Santa Fe Institute, on complex adaptive systems

Martin Rees, astrophysics, Cambridge University, on complex systems resulting from simple laws.

Stuart Kauffman, theoretical biologist, Santa Fe Institute and University of Calgary  on super-critical complex systems, molecular and economic.

Holmes Rolston, III, philosopher, Colorado State University, on three Big Bangs: matter-energy, life, human mind, genesis of cognitive complexity, revealing a Logos in creation. (Rolston interview starts at 15 minutes, 20 seconds.)

David Deutsch, physicist, Oxford University, on good explanations in general systems theory.

Among the conclusions: As we get closer to truth, everything seems more interconnected. God is consistent with these general principles, but not required for them.   Also on DVD disk in CSU Library, general circulation.

Library of Congress Number:  Q175.32.C65 K84 2012

2012.   Why Science and Religion Think Differently.       Aired on PBS, variously, 2012.       27 minutes.  Online at:    http://hdl.handle.net/10217/67470

           On the program Closer to Truth, Robert  Lawrence Kuhn interviews four theologians at Helsingør, Denmark, and an atheist in London.

Niels Henrik Gregersen, theologian, University of Copenhagen. Science is more analytical, religion is more synthetic, comprehensive. The two are not at war,. but religion cuts a wider path through all of human experience.

Holmes Rolston, III, philosopher, theologian, Colorado State University (Rolston interview starts at 6 minutes, 30 seconds). Science is good at empirical questions, but does not touch the deeper value questions. After four hundred years of science, the deeper value questions are as sharp and as painful as ever.

Christopher Southgate, theologian, University of Exeter. Science focuses on limited questions, but most aspects of life go beyond to questions of personal experience and transcendent truth, the answers to which are far more difficult.

Celia Deane-Drummond, theologian, Notre Dame University. The study of nature in science can point to God, but religion confronts ethical questions. The goal of the religious search is a transcendent God, who cannot be subject to the scientific analysis appropriate for the physical world.

Anthony A. C. Grayling, philosopher, atheist, New College of the Humanities, London. Science has demands for rationality and is powerfully self-correcting. Religion has faith and suppresses doubt.

Conclusions: Science cannot judge values and meaning, but it does not follow that the diverse religions can. The truth or falsity of religion must stand or fall on its own merits. Each should be assessed in its own light. The ultimate question is whether any transcendent reality exists beyond the reach of science.   Also on DVD disk in CSU Library, general circulation.

Library of Congress Number:  BL240.2 .K84 2012

2012-2014.   What Kind of a World Did God Create?  Online interview on Closer to Truth, Robert Lawrence Kuhn interviews Richard Swinburne, philosopher, Oxford University, John Hick, theologian, Claremont Graduate University, Holmes Rolston, Sarah Coakley, theologian, Cambridge University, Brian Leftow, philosopher, Oxford University, Alister McGrath, theologian, Oxford University, asking what kind of a world did God create.

2012.    Big Bang: Start Up! Set Up? (Three Big Questions).     Lecture by Holmes Rolston, III, with commentary by Roger Culver and Sanford Kern. Recorded February 16, 2012. 1 hour, 10 minutes. Produced by Department of Philosophy, Colorado State University.    Online at    http://hdl.handle.net/10217/67468

             Elements essential to life are made in the stars. Some explode; their matter condensed as planets, on one of which life evolves What should we make of this? Dismiss the puzzle? It really isn't surprising that the universe has produced us. But those who want a fuller explanation will find it impressive to discover that what seem to be widely varied facts cannot vary widely if the universe is to generate matter, life, and mind Might the start up big bang might also be a set up for creative genesis. Does the astrophysics and microphysics shape our metaphysics?   Also on DVD disk in CSU Library, general circulation.

Library of Congress Number: B818 .R667 2012

2012.     Life: Full House! Lonely Planet? (Three Big Questions).     Lecture by Holmes Rolston, III, with commentary by Michael Antolin and John McKay. Recorded March 22, 2012. 1 hour, 13 minutes. Produced by the Department of Philosophy, Colorado State University.  Online at:    http://hdl.handle.net/10217/67472

              Where once there were no species on Earth, there are today five to ten million. Information coded in DNA, a "cybernetic" molecule. makes possible a creative upflow of life struggling through turnover of species and resulting in more diverse and complex forms of life, producing a wonderland of biodiversity. Life is ever "conserved," biologists might say; life is perpetually "redeemed," theologians might say. Is such creative evolutionary natural history probable, improbably, lucky, random, ordered, disordered, inevitable? Is wonderland Earth a lonely planet? What of the human responsibility to respect life? Is life sacred? A gift?    Also on DVD disk in CSU Library, general circulation.

Library of Congress Number:  B818 .R6675 2012

2012.       Human Singularity. Mind. Spirit. (Three Big Questions).     Lecture by Holmes Rolston, III, with commentary by Wayne Viney and Bryan Dik. Recorded April 26, 2012.     Lecture, 44 minutes.     Discussison, 54 minutes. Produced by the Department of Philosophy, Colorado State University.   Online at:    http://hdl.handle.net/10217/67471

                Humans on Earth are a singularity beyond animal achievements, considering genetics, neuroscience, moral, psychological, philosophical, and spiritual experience. This gives humans a unique dignity. Science has been discovering deep space, deep time, and pushing deep down into subatomic nature On astronomical scales, we are cosmic dwarfs. But another perspective is possible: If we ask where the "deep" thoughts about this "deep" nature are, they are right here. Such thoughts are scientific, they are also philosophical and religious. We alone can ask big questions.  Also on DVD disk in CSU Library, general circulation.

Library of Congress Number:  B818 .R6676 2012

2012.     Cybernetic and Cruciform Nature.      Online at:    http://hdl.handle.net/10217/70422          An event of interviews and lectures, honoring the seven living persons who have both given the Gifford Lectures and been awarded the Templeton Prize, held June 1, 2012, at the British Academy, London.    Interview 22 minutes, Lecture 22 minutes, total 44 minutes.      Group photo:     http://hdl.handle.net/10217/67441

           Natural and cultural history on Earth is a cybernetic process, a creative generate-and-test process, resulting in our planetary wonderland of biodiversity. With the emergence of humans, endowed with unique cognitive faculties, including language and the transmission of ideas from mind to mind, this creative genesis occurs in novel and even more spectacular ways. Humans are the only species that reflects on where we are, who we are, and what we ought to do.

          Cybernetics generates caring, increasingly in sentient life. This cybernetic process is also cruciform. Life is suffering through to something higher. Life has its logos, its logic, its history; life has its pathos. Life is in prolific and pathetic. The fertility is close-coupled with the struggle. Biologists find life perpetually "regenerated"; theologians find life perpetually "redeemed." Both in the divine Logos once incarnate in Palestine and in the life incarnate on Earth for millennia before that: "Light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it."    Also on DVD disk in CSU Library, general circulation.

Library of Congress Number:  Q175.32.E85 R665 2012

2012.     Concerns Concerning Biosciences, Human Nature, and Governing Science.     Seminar, Governing Science: Technological Progress, Ethical Norms, and Democracy, held at Princeton University, Department of Politics, April 13-14, 2012.   Rolston lecture, 45 minutes, April 13, 2012.  Online at:    http://hdl.handle.net/10217/67469

         The biological sciences have developed dramatically in the last half century, raising concerns about their implications for human nature and behavior. While such research can and ought shape policy, policy equally should critique such research. Science, as much as any other human institution, needs its humanist critics--ethicists, philosophers, theologians, policymakers. Analysis of a half-dozen claims coming from biological sciences, to demonstrate that half-truths, if taken for the whole, can be both misleading and dangerous. Fortunately scientists are also good at being their own critics.

           1. Selfish Genes.  2. Genetic destiny.  3. Pleistocene appetites.  4. Monkey's Mind.  5. Neuroscience: Bottom up? Top Down?   6. Enlightening/escalating Self-interest.  7. Ideology: Reasoned Governing Behavior.    Also on DVD disk in CSU Library, general circulation.

Library of Congress Number:

QH332 .R6675 2012

2013.   Three Big Bangs: Matter-Energy, Life, Mind.   Online, streaming video. Windows Media. 1 hours, 32 minutes.  The Carter-Chalker Lectureship on Faith and Contemporary Issues, The College of Idaho, November 7, 2013.  Online at:     http://hdl.handle.net/10217/89539

             Scientific natural history discovers "three big bangs," each marking a serendipitous singularity.

(1)  At the primordial big bang, matter-energy appears, initially in simpler forms, but with the remarkable capacity to generate heavier elements, without which life would not be possible.

(2)  Life explodes on Earth with DNA discovering, storing, and transferring information. Across a singular natural history, life persists in the midst of its perpetual perishing, generating and regenerating billions of species. These increase in biodiversity, with trajectories escalating biocomplexity.

(3)  The human genius, a massive singularity, crosses a trans-genetic threshold, generating language and making possible cumulative transmissible cultures, radically novel in kind and in scale. Life becomes ideational; ideas pass from mind to mind. Ideas generate ideals.

         The nature of matter-energy, the nature of genes and their genesis, invites those at the center of complex caring intelligence to wonder where they are, who they are, and what they ought to do. Human uniqueness on a wonderland Earth generates intense responsibilities. Is there sacred Logos in, with, and under a cybernetic system with such breakthrough creativity?    Also on DVD disks in CSU Library, general circulation.

Library of Congress number: B818 .R665 2013

2013.    Rediscovering, Rethinking Green Fire,  Online, streaming video, 49 minutes.  Lecture at Utah Valley University, April 4, 2013.
Online at:     http://hdl.handle.net/10217/80888 
Aldo Leopold shot a wolf a hundred years ago, the most iconic wolf kill in conservation history.  He recalled the "green fire" in her dying eyes, metaphor and symbol, and his "thinking like a mountain," when launching his land ethic, on a moral frontier.  Leopold is reconsidered, searching for an Earth ethics for the new millennium, thinking like a planet.   1. The Shooting - Rediscovered and Confirmed.  2. Green Fire - Metaphor and Symbol.  3. Game Management - Predators and Prey.  4. Thinking Like a Mountain - Wolves and Ecosystems.  5.  Land Ethic - Respect for Life, Landscape Integrity.   6.  Beyond Green Fire - Thinking Like a Planet.   Also DVD format, copies in Colorado State University Library, and in Rolston Library in Eddy Library, Philosophy Department, Colorado State University.   A newspaper story about Rolston's trip to rediscover the site of the shooting can also be found online at:  http://hdl.handle.net/10217/70409    A print version of this media presentation may be found online at:   http://hdl.handle.net/10217/178142     Also on DVD disk in CSU Library, general circulation.

Library of Congress Number:  GE42 .R355 2013

2013.   Promised Land and Planet with Promise.  22 minutes.   Chapel talk given by Holmes Rolston III at Eastern Mennonite University, Harrisonburg, Virginia, October 23, 2013. 
Audio online:         http://hdl.handle.net/10217/80603    
Anciently Palestine was a promised land.  Landscapes east and west, north and south, on six continents have proved homelands that peoples can come to cherish and on which they can flourish.  My forebears in the Shenandoah Valley, coming from Scotland, loved gospel and landscape, sometimes wondering which love took priority.  When this wonderland Earth is seen as divine gift, grace, that vision makes more alarming that Earth is also a planet in peril.  "A generation goes, and a generation comes, but the earth remains forever."  That ancient certainty needs now to become an urgent future hope.  Today and for the centuries hence, the call is to see Earth as a planet with promise.   Also available as audio CD in CSU Library, general circulation.   Library of Congress Number:  BT695.5 .R667 2013

2014.       Why Wilderness?    Rolston talk at the 2014 Mansfield Conference, "The Storied Past, The Troubled Future:  The Imperative of Wilderness at 50 Years," held at the University of Montana, September 10-12.    46 minutes, with some Q&A.    Online at:     http://hdl.handle.net/10217/86383

               1. Half a Century of Wilderness.  2. Urban, Rural, Wild - Three-Dimensional Persons.  3. Wilderness is for People!?  4. Wilderness as Social Construct? Mind?  5. Wilderness as Social Construct? Hand?   6. The World that Runs Itself.   Montana, the mountain state, can set a national and global example of conserving and celebrating wilderness.  

Library of Congress Number:   GE42.R65 2014

2014.   Rolston viewing a Pasqueflower.  "We walk too hurriedly if ever we pass the season's first Pasqueflower by, too busy to let its meeting stay us for a quiet moment before this token of the covenant of life to continue in beauty despite the storm." "Let winters come, life will flower on as long as Earth shall last."
  Online video, 2 minutes, 43 seconds.     https://hdl.handle.net/10217/192784

2015.  "Three Big Bangs: Matter-Energy Life, Mind.  Are We the Biggest?"   Online,  streaming video:     http://hdl.handle.net/10217/172775.    Lecture at Westminster Canterbury Richmond retirement home, Richmond, Virginia, October 20, 2015.   1 hour, 18 minutes.   

          In our lifetimes, we who are senior citizens have learned from the recent discoveries of scientists some startling facts about the universe.  At the primordial big bang, matter-energy explodes, with the remarkable capacity to generate heavier elements and complexity.  Life explodes on Earth, with DNA discovering, storing, and transferring information, escalating biodiversity and biocomplexity.  The human genius is radically novel, hyper-immensely complex.  The mind that each of us has is by far the most complex thing in the universe.  Living at the center of such caring, loving intelligence we can and must wonder about the big questions.   Is there sacred Logos, in, with, and under such breakthrough creativity?  What have we learned in our lifetimes that helps us to answer the question whether we are the biggest?    Also on DVD disk in CSU Library, general circulation.

Library of Congress Number:  B818 .R665 2015

2015.  "Messaging Morality:  Ethics across the Cosmos."   Rolston lecture at a SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) workshop, February 14, 2015, Mountain View, California. 52 minutes.    Online at:     http://hdl.handle.net/10217/89538
  When we consider active SETI, or METI, transmitting messages that might be received by extraterrestrial intelligence, what might we say about human morality?  Messages will more likely be understood if kept short and basic.  Seek peace!  Be fair!  Tell the truth!  Keep promises!  Taking a longer view, considering transit millennia, we should transmit truths that are both profound and permanently true.   Also available in CSU Library, general circulation.  Library of Congress Number.    BJ1012 .R66 2015  

2015.   "Environmental Aesthetics in China: East West Dialogue."   Environmental Aesthetics in China: East West Dialogue.  Online  at:    http://hdl.handle.net/10217/172773      DVD format.  Also .mp4 file..   58 minutes.   Lecture by Holmes Rolston III presented in Wuhan, China, at the Environmental Aesthetics and Beautiful China International Conference, May 20-23, 2015.  1.  Art and Nature: Chinese Landscape as a Work of Art?  2.  Urban, Rural, Wild: Are the Chinese Three Dimensional Persons?  3.  Residence in Place:  Is China Like No Place Else on Earth?  4.  Ugly?  What on Chinese Landscapes Is Ugly?  5.  Environmental Aesthetics and Ecological Aesthetics:  Beautiful China, Ecosystemic China?  6.  Environmental Aesthetics and Environmental Policy:  Beautiful China, Saving China?

2016.  "Technology and/or Nature: Denatured/Renatured/Engineered/Artifacted Life? "  Online, streaming video.  1 hour, 20 minutes.  Rolston gave this lecture at the Bovray Workhop on Engineering and Applied Ethics at Texas A&M University on February 15, 2016.  His lecture is followed by critical commentary by Clare Palmer, Philosophy, Texas A&M.    In our high-tech world, do we live at the end of nature?  Is the technosphere replacing the biosphere?  Can humans control their genetically inherited Pleistocene appetites in an Anthropocene Epoch?  Is experience of the urban, rural, and wild a three-dimensional life, with life focused on fewer dimensions under-privileged?   Do we, ought we, wish to live on an engineered planet?  Would this fulfill human destiny or display human arrogance, failing to embrace our home planet in care and wonder?  True, we must become civilized.  Be a resident on your landscape.   True, the future holds advancing technology.  But equally: we do not want to live a de-natured life, on a de-natured planet.    Online at:     http://hdl.handle.net/10217/172774.

 This talk was published as  "Technology and/or Nature: Denatured/Renatured/Engineered/Artifacted Life?,  Ethics & the Environment 22, no. 1 (2017): 41-62.
Online at:     https://hdl.handle.net/10217/191135 

2016.  Rolston Interview - NTDTV - Taiwan.  Holmes Rolston interviewed by a TV reporter for NTDTV, New Tang Dynasty TV, about pollution from Formosa Plastics at How-May-Le wetland, June 23, 2016.  2 mins. 49 secs.    Online at:     http://hdl.handle.net/10217/178140.    Also available at CSU Library on DVD disk:
Library of Congress Call Number:  QH87.3 .R665 2016

2016.   Lecture: One Health - Eco-Health at National Taiwan University, Risk Society and Policy Research Center, College of Social Science, June 8, 2016. 1 hour, 17 minutes.
Online at:   http://hdl.handle.net/10217/178135.    There is only one world and only one health. Health effects ripple throughout the web of life. Human health requires thinking in ecological contexts, increasingly in more global ones. This further suggests more inclusive ethical concerns: global, international, and interspecific, beyond the immediate protection of human individuals from disease. Developed countries, which may have thought themselves protected with their high technologies and advanced medical systems, discover they are still linked with health, human and animal, in the developing world, even in wild nature, and vulnerable to disruptions there, to which they may also be contributing. 

    Thinking of health must consider our entwined destiny with our landscapes. Ecology is strikingly like medical science. Both are therapeutic sciences. Ecologists are responsible for environmental health, which is really another form of public health. Health is just as much "skin-out" as it is "skin-in." It is hard to live a healthy life in a sick environment.   Also available on DVD disk at CSU Library.
Library of Congress Call Number:   GF50 .R66 2016

2016.  Lecture: Preaching on the Environment at Taiwan Theological Seminary, Taipei, June 2, 2016.   1 hour, 16 minutes.   Biblical faith originated with a land ethic. Within the covenant, keeping the commandments, the Hebrew people entered a promised land.  Nature is the creative, generative powers on Earth.  Spirit is the animating principle that raises up life from the ground.  Christian citizens ought to join others shaping a public environmental ethic.  Earth is promised planet, planet with promise, sacred, holy ground.  Online at:   http://hdl.handle.net/10217/178138.

2016.   "A Remarkably Free Man."  Sermon at First Presbyterian Church, Fort Collins, September 4, 2016.   Online at:    http://hdl.handle.net/10217/178136    Humans cherish freedom.  Americans live in "the land of the free and the home of the brave."  College students, on leaving home, are free to do their thing.  Many who consider themselves uninterested in religion are keenly interested in being free.  Jesus, as recounted in the gospels, is a remarkably free man.  Though a Galilean peasant, he moved freely among high and lower levels of social status, quick to be forthright and to cut to the quick in criticism.  He revised and transformed both Hebrew and Greek thought, founded a great world faith, and is worshipped by billions of persons. He challenged Herod and the Roman tyranny of his day, and the Hebrew scriptures and religious authorities.  He was little concerned for his own physical needs, health, welfare, or security, though showing great capacity for others in need.  He went to his death, afraid, a prisoner, yet freely under the authority of his divine calling.  His followers have in him a model for more genuine human freedom.   Also available on DVD disk in  CSU Library. 
Library of Congress Call Number: BS2555.54 .R665 2016

2016.  Rolston interview by Pascale Smeesters and Bau Dang Van, September 6, 2016, at Rolston's home.     Available online at:     http://hdl.handle.net/10217/1781397.   What is "nature"? Nature compared with culture. Does true "wilderness" exist? Humans respect a wonderland planet.  Value in nature. Animals and plants value their own survival. Whatever values its own survival has a good of its own. Snakes, mosquitoes with a good of their own?

        Beauty in nature.  Animal motions may show graceful form.  Deer, impala in flight; hawks soaring. Adapted fit results in efficient form in motion.  Dead animals?  Life persists in the midst of its perpetual perishing, and that is beautiful.   Are humans part of or apart from nature? Humans evolved in nature, yet evolved out of nature into culture. We alone can jeopardize or take care of the planet. "I don’t want to live a denatured life on a denatured planet."

       Vegetarians? Humans evolved as hunters, and eating meat is natural. Some industrial farming mistreats animals, and some meat Rolston does not eat. Rolston grew up among farmers, and critics object that this biases his views.  Nature in the Bible. The Hebrews lived closer to nature than most of us now do. All of us ought to see ourselves as living in promised lands, living on an Earth with promise. Jesus found the beauty of wildflowers to exceed the glory of Solomon. Nature in the Bible is part of a wonderland planet.  

2017.  Senior Scholars Oral History - Rolston Interview. 

 57 minutes.  Available online at:    https://hdl.handle.net/10217/210895      Holmes Rolston III interviewed with a focus on his career at Colorado State University.  How Rolston arrived at CSU and became a good fit there, a University Distinguished Professor, on a campus becoming ever more green and gold, the university gaining over forty decades a national, and an international reputation, beyond its significant role in Colorado and Rocky Mountain conservation. Rolston combined his accomplishments as a naturalist with a philosophical searching for meanings and values in nature, pressing the questions not only of who we humans are, but of where we are, and what we ought to do.  Rolston’s mission has been to open up new possibility space for students in their careers in conserving our wonderland Earth. Also on DVD disk in CSU Morgan Library  ELEC MEDIA  LB1778 .R65 2017   

2017.  The Anthropocene! Beyond the Natural?  Presentation at Oregon State University, March 16,  2017, at a book launch for Stephen M. Gardiner and Allen Thompson, eds., The Oxford Handbook of Environmental Ethics, 2017).  Rolston was one of four contributors to the handbook who made short presentations at this event, followed by a panel discussion.   Only the Rolston video presentation, 31 minutes, is online here:     http://hdl.handle.net/10217/181769   The print version of the article is online at:   http://hdl.handle.net/10217/178714  

2017.    "Wonderland Earth in the Anthropocene Epoch,"   Rolston Zoom lecture and discussion sponsored by Yale University Center for Environmental Communication, October 23, 2020, is online at     https://hdl.handle.net/10217/216785.

2018.   Wonderland Earth in the Anthropocene.  This lecture by Holmes Rolston III was the keynote lecture at a conference, Wild Places, Natural Spaces, the fourteenth annual conference of the International Association for the Study of Environment, Space, and Place,  at the University of Mary Washington,  Fredericksburg, Virginia on April 27-28,  2018.
Rolston asks about (1) Earth as a wonderland planet, about (2) humans as the wonder of wonders on Earth.   He continues (3) wondering about Anthropocene humans and their efforts to build a (4) managed planet bringing about the end of nature.  He worries that this is (5) Anthropocene arrogance, and recommends, instead that these (6) wonderful humans should consider themselves incarnate on and caring for their wonderland Earth.  Online at:   https://hdl.handle.net/10217/187807 

2018.    Leading and Misleading Metaphors: From Organism to Anthropocene.  Online at:     https://hdl.handle.net/10217/188455     Rolston remarks at a symposium, After the Death of Nature, held at the University of California, Berkeley, on May 2-3, 2018, celebrating the life and work of Carolyn Merchant, an ecofeminist philosopher.  34 mins, 55 secs.    A once nurturing mother Earth became inert and mechanical, manipulated by science, industry and agriculture.  Rolston revisits Merchant in the prospect of an Anthropocene Epoch, boldly embracing perpetual enlargement of the bounds of the human empire.  This symposium launches the publication of a Festschrifft on Merchant, edited by Kenneth Worthy, Elizabeth Allison, and Whitney A. Bauman, After the Death of Nature, Routledge, 2019, in which Rolston's paper is included.

2021.  “Ecological Aesthetics and Ethics in the Post Epidemic Era”   Online at:     https://hdl.handle.net/10217/233885       Rolston was invited to and prepared and delivered a video presentation to the International Symposium on the Development of Ecological Aesthetics in the Post Epidemic Era, held August 28-29, 2021 at Shangdong University, Shangdong, China.   Videographer:  Ron Bend, CSU Media.  Includes Chinese text following Dr. Rolston's lecture. 

The largest and most threatening pandemic in human history has humbled arrogant humans, locked us up. The virus in a couple months has stymied human achievements, aspirations, and freedoms.  The upsetting surprise is that this tiny bit of nothing, not even alive, that you can't see even with a microscope, is upsetting our local and our global ecologies.  We wonder why and how viruses can have their place in a wonderland biosphere.  One big worry is that, developing a vaccine, we will miss this opportunity for more caring, love, and solidarity in our human communities, for pandemic justice.  Biological nature is always giving birth, always in travail.  Death is a necessary counterpart to the advancing of life.  The music of life is in a minor key.  The global Earth is a land of promise, and yet one that has to be died for.  Earthen natural history might be called the evolution of suffering, or, equally, the evolution of caring.  Life is perpetually perishing, yet perpetually regenerated, redeemed.  In the post pandemic normal, it is impossible to go back to where we were.  We must embrace nature and culture on Earth as it is and as it is becoming.  

 2021.  "From Shenandoah to the Mountain West."  Online at:   https://hdl.handle.net/10217/234031       This is a Rolston presentation at the Yosemite/Zoom Author Symposium, on Virtues, Vice, and Ecoflourishing: Multidisciplinary Christian Perspectives, October 21-24, 2021, held near Yosemite National Park.   Rolston gave this presentation on Friday, October 22.  His talk is followed by a response by Kelli Hata, a student at Fresno State University, and a discussion with numerous other conference authors and participants.   1 hr, 25 mins, 14 secs.

Holmes Rolston recalls his life story founding environmental ethics.  He was born in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, with mountains on his skyline and fields, creeks, and rivers as his playground.  His elders loved gospel and landscape, gifts of God.  Moving to a city, he excelled in school, and studied physics and mathematics, theology, and philosophy of science.  He got lost in the stars, loved natural history, and rejoiced in abundant life persisting in the midst of its perpetual perishing.   He discovered natural values in his storied residence in the Appalachians.  He became the father of environmental ethics at Colorado State University.  Earth is a promised land, a wonderland planet, in which one can glimpse divinity.  

2022.  Libenson, Sam and Justin Wong,   "An Interview with Holmes Rolston III," The Harvard Review of Philosophy 29 (2022):131-136. 
      Online at:  https://hdl.handle.net/10217/235823
Holmes Rolston is interviewed by Sam Libenson and Justin Wong.   Environmental ethics is about appropriate caring and respect for wonderland Earth and its inhabitants, each flourishing according to its own nature.  Earth is a marvelously distinct planet with the richness of life that has evolved here.   A wonderland?  Life contains information, encoded in genes, about how to construct and maintain an ongoing form of life.  This is more marvelous than elsewhere in the universe so far as we know.   Part of the meaning of life can be found in science, but not the deeper meanings in religion.  We ought to use technology save half-Earth.

 2023.  Rolston Professor Willa Swenson-Lengyel in Zoom Interview with Holmes Rolston. ebruary 10, 2023 at 12.00 p.m. MST = 2.00 p.m. EST  44 mins, 14 secs.
Anne Wills, Chair of Religious Studies at Davidson College also present.

     Online at:   https://hdl.handle.net/10217/236269
Rolston presents a series of two dozen slides that describe how he moved from being an undergraduate in physics and math at Davidson College in the 1950's through a career  in science and religion for which he was in 2003 awarded the Templeton Prize in Buckingham Palace by Prince Philip and Jack Templeton.  He immediately donated the prize, worth about $1.5 million, to Davidson College to establish an endowed chair in science and religion.  Rolston engages in conversation with Willa Swenson-Lengyel, who in 2022 became the second person named to the chair, about why she took the position and what she expects to accomplish in it.  Discussion of liberal arts and teaching the promising Davidson students how to think creatively in multiple disciplines.