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AR 25:24 - A "searing critique" of cosmic narratives

In this issue:

ORIGINS - yet more scientists show Earth is an extraordinary planet "designed by a mind vastly superior to our own"

SCIENCE - the movement to "fashion cosmology, biology, and other sciences into a new religion"

Apologia Report 25:24 (1,481)

June 18, 2020

ORIGINS

"Earth's Story Is One in a Billion" by Neil English -- reports on "an avalanche of new science, which [shows] Earth's exceptional properties for supporting a long-lived biosphere - for the express benefit of humanity in particular - are coming to the fore, and life itself is seen to have 'terraformed' the Earth under divine direction."

English begins by explaining that "the circumstances under which our planetary system was shaped were very unusual. ... The inventory of elements endowed to our solar system might have turned out to be much like that of any other were it not for at least two relatively close-by supernova events, which helped to eject the primordial solar system from a nursery of other stars, and to enrich it with relatively large quantities of heat-generating radioactive elements, such as aluminum 26....

"The aluminum 26, with its short half-life of 730,000 years, provided enough thermal energy to remove excess levels of volatiles....

"The Moon-forming event, which is thought to have occurred about 100 million years after the neonatal Earth formed, in a highly improbable, oblique collision with a Mars-sized object, helped remove still more volatiles from the primordial Earth, allowing it to eventually form relatively shallow oceans, from whose floor the continental land-masses could eventually emerge. ...

"[T]he best scientific evidence now suggests that early life-forms were already complex and biochemically sophisticated. ...

"Just 29 percent of the planet's surface area is covered by dry land, an amount that appears to be highly fine-tuned. ...

"[I]n the space of a short, 10-million-year period starting around 541 million years ago, 80 percent of all existing animal forms appeared on Earth, with no credible evolutionary antecedents. ...

"In recent times, a greater appreciation of the interplay between life and plate tectonics has emerged. Without plate tectonics, our planet wouldn't have a climate stable enough to support life over billions of years. ...

"[W]ithout life speeding up both the weathering at the surface and the sedimentation rate on the sea floor, the fraction of Earth's surface covered by continents would be far smaller.

"Plate tectonics has also had consequences for the maintenance of the Earth's strong magnetic field. ...

"[S]everal mass extinction events ... were followed by equally spectacular mass speciation events, uncannily similar to the scenarios described in Psalm 104. According to Christian astronomer Hugh Ross, these events proved crucial for maximizing both the quantity and longevity of Earth's living creatures....

"[S]cientific discoveries show that the Earth has been highly fine-tuned to sustain a very stable environment for the flourishing of life. ...

"This consensus has been expressed in a number of influential books by scientists who have noted Earth's amazing properties." English names several which "show that, far from being a humdrum planet orbiting an ordinary star, the Earth is an extraordinary planet that was designed by a mind vastly superior to our own." Salvo, Issue #51 - Wtr 2019, <www.bit.ly/2AAiN0G>

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SCIENCE

A recent issue of Zygon: Journal of Religion and Science (54:2 - 2019) features <www.bit.ly/3cyDacg> a book symposium on Consecrating Science: Wonder, Knowledge, and the Natural World, by Lisa H. Sideris (Associate Professor of Religious Studies, Indiana University) [1]. The book addresses what she describes as "the new cosmology [which] proposes to bring humans closer to nature by placing us into the broader narrative of the cosmos. [She] critically examines these science-based cosmic narratives and their particular and problematic modes and objects of wonder."

From the publisher: "Debunking myths behind what is known collectively as the new cosmology - a grand, overlapping set of narratives that claim to bring science and spirituality together - Lisa H. Sideris offers a searing critique of the movement's anthropocentric vision of the world. In Consecrating Science, Sideris argues that instead of cultivating an ethic of respect for nature, the new cosmology encourages human arrogance, uncritical reverence for science, and indifference to nonhuman life. Exploring moral sensibilities rooted in experience of the natural world, Sideris shows how a sense of wonder can foster environmental attitudes that will protect our planet from ecological collapse for years to come."

An Amazon.com review (given with no source credit detail other than "Journal of the American Academy of Religion") includes: "Perhaps most impressively, the book integrates religious studies, science studies, ethics, and critical naturalism into a methodology that somehow remains coherent even in its multivalence."

Amazon also refers to a JAAR review of Consecrating Science <www.bit.ly/2AxYocK> (which does not include the above remark) which adds: "Consecrating Science ... is a rich and deeply insightful analysis of a family of ambitious historical narratives, each of which is vying to become the new myth everyone lives by."

The inside flap of the book reads in part: "Consecrating Science lays out a detailed and incisive critique of current attempts to fashion cosmology, biology, and other sciences into a new religion. Offering an eloquent alternative to this project, Sideris expands on the insights of Rachel Carson, Loren Eiseley, and Annie Dillard to reveal how we can cultivate a transformative sense of wonder, drawn from our direct and corporeal encounters with the natural world." - R. S. Deese

Responses from the Zygon critics of Sideris include:

* - "In Consecrating Science, Lisa Sideris argues that an anthropocentric and science-based cosmology encourages human arrogance and diminishes a sense of wonder in human experience immersed in the natural world, as found in diverse cultural and religious traditions. I agree with her that science elevated to a commanding worldview, scientism, is a common and contemporary mistake, to be deplored, a lame science. But I further argue that science has introduced us to the marvels of deep nature and vastly increased our human appreciation of nature as a wonderland at levels great and small. Sideris is right to fear consecrating science. She - and the humanists, sages, and saviors - need also to fear blindness to what science has to teach us about cosmogenesis and wonderland Earth." (Holmes Rolston, III)

* - "Sideris makes a compelling case that a new cosmology movement advocates for a new, universal, creation story grounded in the sciences. She fears the new story reinforces elite power structures and anthropocentrism and thus environmental degradation. Alternatively, she promotes genuine wonder which occurs in experiences of the natural world. [Sideris] does not investigate whether and how people react to these new myths. I suggest that methods of documentary studies, applied to popular book reviews on Amazon and Goodreads, shed light on the ramifications of the new cosmologies among the general public." (Sarah E. Fredericks)

* - Consecrating Science "proposes that the call by some science advocates for a new moral framework based on scientific wonder is flawed. Sideris develops a typology of 'wonder' with two separate affective axes: 'true wonder' that is the prerogative of a sort of dwelling with the overwhelming mystery of life, and 'curiosity' that presses to resolve puzzles and break through into a space of total clarity. The former, Sideris writes, is an ethical resource that, by placing the human self against the backdrop of the unknowable cosmic expanse, prompts humility and genuine admiration for nature. The latter is the theater of 'mere science.' This essay ... pushes back on the correlation of wonder with ethical attentiveness and proposes ways that science in its puzzle-solving mode can be brought back into the ethical conversation." (Donovan O. Schaefer)

* -"This article discusses Journey of the Universe ... a project <journeyoftheuniverse.org> that consists of a film, book, conversation series, online classes, and a website. It describes how the creators worked to integrate science and humanities, not privilege or elevate science. It refutes arguments made in Lisa Sideris's Consecrating Science ... that suggest that Journey overlooks religion and distorts wonder." (Mary Evelyn Tucker)

Sideris is provided space where she responds to these "claims that my book misdiagnoses and distorts the work of the new cosmology and its claims to wonder." She discusses "the relationship of wonder to science and ethical engagement; ... the relevance of wonder to nonideal environments and negative affects like fear or grief; and the importance of humanistic and religious studies scholarship for critiquing grand narratives of science, among other themes."

The abstract of an additional paper explains: "The term 'scientism' is often used as a denunciation of an uncritical ideological confidence in the abilities of science. Contrary to this practice, this article argues that there are feasible ways of defending scientism as a set of ideologies...." ("The Rise, Fall, and Resurrection of [Ideological] Scientism" by Christian Baron)

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SOURCES: Monographs

Consecrating Science: Wonder, Knowledge, and the Natural World, by Lisa H. Sideris (Univ of Calif Prs, 2017, paperback, 296 pages) <www.amzn.to/3eN4ftJ>

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