bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
SCIENCE AND PSEUDO‐SCIENCE: THE CASE OF CREATIONISM
Authors: Dolby R. G. A.
Published: December 2005

Abstract. The paper reviews criteria which have been used to distinguish science from nonscience and from pseudo–science, and it examines the extent to which they can usefully be applied to “creation science.” These criteria do not force a clear decision, especially as creation science resembles important eighteenth–century forms of orthodox science. Nevertheless, the proponents of creation science may be accused of pious fraud in failing to concede in their political battles that their “science” is tentative and tendentious and will continue to be so while it remains archaic and poorly integrated into the rest of science.
DOES IT MATTER HOW WE GOT HERE? DANGERS PERCEIVED IN LITERALISM AND EVOLUTIONISM
Authors: Barker Eileen
Published: December 2005

Abstract. Creationism and evolutionism are taken to typify a fundamental opposition among the diverse beliefs about creation to be found in the United Kingdom and the United States. A comparison between the two types and the two countries suggests that people may be more concerned about the credibility and consequences of belief in an alternative account of our origins than about the actual method by which we were created. Examples of concern include interpretations of the Bible, ethical implications, and the epistemological standings of revelation and/or science that are thought to follow from acceptance of a particular belief concerning how we got here.
CREATION IN THE BIBLICAL TRADITION
Authors: Brooke George J.
Published: December 2005

Abstract.This paper summarizes the current state of the debates in biblical criticism concerning the nature of Genesis, the genre and setting in life of Genesis l:l–2:4a, and the reasons for the continuing significance of creation motifs in the biblical period. In identifying creation as a vital part of the traditions associated variously with the cult, with wisdom, and with prophecy (even in its later scribal and eschatological forms), Genesis 1: l–2:4a is seen to be the necessary description of how the particularity of Israel is dependent on God, of how humanity is privileged, and of how hope is tinged with judgment.
REFLECTIONS ON THE FIRST TWENTY YEARS OFCASIRAS: A PERSONAL REVIEW
Authors: Sutherland Malcolm R.
Published: December 2005

Abstract. The history of CASIRAS and of Zygon is not only anintellectual history but a personal history‐a history of humanencounter with hopes and disappointments, dreams and conces‐sions. Notwithstanding, it is the story of an ambitious enterprisewith significant achievements and genuine promise of continuedcontributions to this important inquiry.
THE CENTER FOR ADVANCED STUDY INRELIGION AND SCIENCE: A PERSONALPERSPECTIVE
Authors: Riggan George A.
Published: December 2005

Abstract. This brief account of my year as a fellow of the Centerfor Advanced Studies in Theology and the Sciences recounts theinvaluable supports given by the center to my efforts as a theolo‐gian to assess the scientific aspects of the theology of Pierre Teil‐hard de Chardin, summarizes my findings, and indicates some ofthe potential for the support of interdisciplinary studies in religionand the sciences afforded by the successor organization, the Centerfor Advanced Study in Religion and Science.
THE CONTOURS OF AN EMERGING TERRITORY:IMPRESSIONS OF TWENTY YEARS OF ZYGON:JOURNAL OF RELIGION AND SCIENCE
Authors: Peters Karl E.
Published: December 2005

Abstract. Abstract. While the general territory mapped by the founders ofthe Center for Advanced Study in Religion and Science and Zygonremains the same, how one delineates the contpurs of this territorydepends partly on personal histories and on whether one is atheologian, a scientist, a scholar of religious studies, or a philoso‐pher. However, the pluralism in the CASIRAS‐Zygon communitycan be placed in a more comprehensive, evolutionary framework, in which the different approaches exert cultural selection pres‐sures on each other. The most important selection pressure ishaving to make scholarly work usable by nonscholars seekingmeaning for their lives in a scientific age.
THEOLOGY AND SCIENCE IN THE EVOLVING COSMOS: A NEED FOR DIALOGUE
Authors: Wicken Jeffrey S.
Published: December 2005

Abstract. Theology and science are both essential to the process of making sense of the world. Yet their relationship over the centuries has been largely adversarial. The Darwinian revolution, in particular, has necessitated a radical reinterpretation of the traditional dogma concerning creation. In this paper I discuss two general issues that presently obstruct communication between scientists and theologians in this arena and that are brought into acute focus by Wolfhart Pannenberg. First, the need to exercise care in the use of such denotative concepts as field especially in understanding the Darwinian character of the evolutionary process is addressed. Second, the ontological room science necessarily leaves theology in this enterprise is considered.
ON IAN HARBOUR'S ISSUES IN SCIENCE AND RELIGION
Authors: Griffin David Ray
Published: December 2005

Abstract. Although Ian Barbour endorses process organicism in Issues in Science and Religion, his rhetoric against vitalism and dualism makes his discussion of life, mind, and the part‐whole relationship sound like relational emergentism and hence like a denial of process philosophy's nondualistic interactionism. Also his rhetoric against a God of the gaps seems to exclude the God‐shaped hole in Alfred North Whitehead's philosophy. A more consistent articulation of Whitehead's postmodern position would lead to greater adequacy and consistency on these issues, and perhaps also to a more radically postmodern view of science—a view which Whitehead himself only sometimes suggested.
ON TWO ISSUES IN SCIENCE AND RELIGION: A RESPONSE TO DAVID GRIFFIN
Authors: Barbour Ian G.
Published: December 2005

Abstract. In responding to David Griffin's critique of my book, Issues in Science and Religion, I suggest that most of the points which he initially presents as differences between us concerning reduction and emergence are resolved in the second half of his article. I spoke of the emergence of higher‐level “properties” and “activities,” rather than “entities,” but my analysis of whole and parts is similar to his, although it was perhaps not always clearly articulated. We agree also that Alfred North Whitehead's God is involved in every event in ways which avoid the problems of the supernatu‐ralist “God of the gaps,” but we differ as to whether God's action might be taken into account in a new “post‐modern” science.
SELF‐MAINTENANCE AS A RELIGIOUS CONCERN
Authors: Goodenough Ward H.
Published: December 2005

Abstract. Human concern with problems of being and becoming promotes conceptions of ideal states of being, exemplified by paragons and heroes and projected as Utopias or visions of salvation; it leads to regimens for cultivating and maintaining individual ability to meet social expectations; and it produces fantasies, as in myth and popular literature, that rehearse the problems and that offer escape from them and roles to emulate in dealing with them. Many of these regimens and fantasies appear in the rituals and teachings of organized religion. Many also figure in private devotions apart from established religions. The many forms they take constitute much of the religious life of ordinary people. From this viewpoint, there is much to examine in American life.
BARROW AND TIPLER'S ANTHROPIC COSMOLOGICAL PRINCIPLE
Authors: Hallberg Fred W.
Published: December 2005

Abstract. John D. Barrow and Frank J. Tipler's recently published Anthropic Cosmological Principle is an encyclopedic defense of melioristic evolutionary cosmology. They review the history of the idea from ancient times to the present, and defend both a “weak” version, and two “strong” versions of the anthropic principle. I argue the weak version of the anthropic principle is true and important, but that neither of the two strong versions are well grounded in fact. Their “final” anthropic principle is a revision of Teilhard de Chardin's evolutionary cosmology. They rectify Teilhard's factual errors but commit even more serious psychological and religious errors of their own.
REALISM AND OPENNESS IN SCIENTIFIC INQUIRY
Authors: Torrance Thomas F.
Published: December 2005

Abstract. Intrinsic to rigorous knowledge of God is the recognition that positive theological concepts and statements about God arising under the compelling claims of God's reality upon the human mind must have an open revisable structure. A similar combination of critical realism and ontological openness is apparent in the profound change that has taken place in the rational structure of rigorous science from the radical dualism and closed causal system of classical mechanics to the unifying world view and open dynamic field‐theories of modern physics. It is argued that the intersection of theological and natural science in their epis‐temological foundations can enhance their ontological commitment and heuristic thrust.
BELIEFS ABOUT EVOLUTION, MIND, NATURE, AND SOCIETY: EXCERPTS FROM AN INTERVIEW WITH ERVIN LASZLO
Authors: Schaeffer Joseph H.
Published: December 2005

Abstract. Fundamental questions arise in every age, questions such as those concerning the individual in society, social order, labor and exchange, meaning and ethics, and spiritual life and values. In addressing these questions Ervin Laszlo emphasizes insight and understanding, the mutability and flexibility of knowledge, cultural diversity and organizational interdependence, and harmony in nature. General Systems Theory and a theory of general evolution provide the framework for his thinking. He asks that as human beings we assume responsibility for creative, reasoned, ethically sound decisions in dealing with the inner and outer limits of humanity.
SERIOUSLY, BUT NOT LITERALLY: PRAGMATISM AND REALISM IN RELIGION AND SCIENCE
Authors: Robbins J. Wesley
Published: December 2005

Abstract. Critical realists would have us believe that representations have a connection to the world, that of truth or reference for example, which is independent of their usefulness to us. They would have us believe further that knowledge about this connection serves to put religion and science in their proper places with respect to one another. This essay raises pragmatic objections to these belief's.
EXPERIENCE AND EXPLANATION: THE JUSTIFICATION OF COGNITIVE CLAIMS IN THEOLOGY
Authors: van Huyssteen Wentzel
Published: December 2005

Abstract. The justification of cognitive claims in theology can be dealt with adequately only if the epistemological issues of metaphorical reference, experiential adequacy, and explanatory progress are seen as crucial problems for the more encompassing problem of rationality in theology. In order to guarantee any claim to reality depiction the theologian will have to argue for a plausible theory of reference on the basis of interpreted religious experience. In this discussion important analogies between the rationality of theological theorizing and the rationality of science are revealed.
CRITICAL REALISM IN THEORY AND PRACTICE: RESPONSE TO ROBBINS, VAN HUYSSTEEN, AND HEFNER
Authors: Gerhart Mary
Published: December 2005

Abstract. I read Robbins's essay as a hermeneutics of suspicion against the claims of critical realism, especially the tendency of critical realism to achieve correspondence with the world rather than participation in changing it. I read van Huyssteen's essay as an application of critical realism which tends toward correspondence in spite of his correct statement of the theory. I read Hefner's paper as an exposition of both claims and methods capable of conveying truth and genuine knowledge. As such, Hefner's paper illustrates an adequate application of the theory of critical realism and overcomes the suspicion suggested by Robbins.
A TALE OF TWO CONTROVERSIES: DISSONANCE IN THE THEORY AND PRACTICE OF RATIONALITY
Authors: Eger Martin
Published: December 2005

Abstract. The relation between rationality in science and rationality in moral discourse is of interest to philosophers and sociologists of science, to educators and moral philosophers. Apparently conflicting conceptions of rationality can be detected at the core of two current socio‐educational controversies: the creationievolution controversy and that concerning “moral education.” This paper takes as its starting point the recorded views of participants in these controversies; exhibits the contradictions and their effect on the public; relates these contradictions to developments in the philosophy and history of science; and suggests, in a preliminary way, one approach for dealing with the problem.
“RATIONALITY” IN SCIENCE AND MORALS
Authors: Hesse Mary
Published: December 2005

Abstract. Martin Eger's comparison of controversies in science and morals is extended to a consideration of the nature of “rationality” in each. Both theoretical science and moral philosophy are held to be relativist in social and historical terms, but science also has definitive non‐relativist pragmatic criteria of truth. The problem for moral philosophy is to delineate its own appropriate types of social criteria of validity.
ON MARTIN EGER'S “A TALE OF TWO CONTROVERSIES”
Authors: Shimony Abner
Published: December 2005

Abstract. Criticisms are presented against Eger's challenge to the demarcation between the natural sciences and ethics. Arguments are given both against his endorsement of the “new” philosophy of science and against his rejection of the fact‐value dichotomy. However, his educational recommendations are reinforced rather than weakened by these criticisms
A TALE OF TWO CONTROVERSIES: COMMENT
Authors: Green Thomas F.
Published: December 2005

Abstract. The educational controversies that Martin Eger discusses regarding moral education and the teaching of “creationism” arise from taking a single aspect of moral education and making it the whole, and from taking a single aspect of scientific work and assuming that it is the whole. The distinction between teaching science as application and teaching it as education is crucial in confronting these problems.
COMMENTS ON GEORGE WILLIAMS'S ESSAY ON MORALITY AND NATURE
Authors: Hrdy Sarah Bluffer
Published: December 2005

Abstract. Although there is no questioning the heroism of those who “rebel against the selfish replicators” their task seems very nearly insurmountable. I question whether anyone can formulate a broadly acceptable moral system that will not in some respects be constrained by the legacy of generations spent as selfish and kin‐selected replicators.
ON “HUXLEYS EVOLUTION AND ETHICS IN SOCIOBIOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE” BY GEORGE C. WILLIAMS
Authors: Burhoe Ralph Wendell
Published: December 2005

Abstract. I concur with Williams that improving human ethics requires full consideration of the biogenetic facts; but I argue that the understanding of biogenetic facts, and of ethics also, can be improved by a fuller view of nature's mechanism for selecting what is fit, a view recently generated by physical scientists. For me ethics necessarily must fit the evolved genotype, but ethics does not emerge until the rise of cultural evolution, where nature selects a culturetype symbiotic with the genotype. I outline my integrated dynamics of the relation of culturetypes to genotypes and to the laws governing physical systems. The biologist's finding that a living organism is of transient significance compared with its lines of heritage and their consequences, I argue, is constructively important for ethical and theological understanding.
BEFRIENDING AN AMORAL NATURE
Authors: Cobb John B.
Published: December 2005

Abstract. Contrary to George C. Williams, moral judgments of nature are not appropriate, whereas affirmation of the intrinsic value of creation is. The concern for offspring and kin identified by Williams as the principle force of evolution is not inherently evil in its operation in human society. Instead of juxtaposing it as enemy to justice and altruism, we should try to extend the scope of felt kinship to the whole human race.
REPLY TO COMMENTS ON “HUXLEY'S EVOLUTION AND ETHICS IN SOCIOBIOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE”
Authors: Williams George C.
Published: December 2005

Abstract. I agree with comments suggesting that humans must make an unremitting effort to expand a circle of sympathy for others. However, I disagree with the idea, expressed by everyone except Sarah Hrdy, that evolution is in some sense consistently good.
DARWINISM: STILL A CHALLENGE TO PHILOSOPHY
Authors: Wuketits Franz M.
Published: December 2005

Charles Darwin died in 1882—more than a hundred years ago. His doctrine, however, is still alive. Recently there has been particular interest in his ideas among philosophers. These ideas are indeed a challenge to (traditional) philosophy: To take Darwin seriously means to revise—or even to destroy—some positions in (traditional) philosophy. Among the philosophical disciplines which have been affected by Darwin's ideas are epistemology and moral philosophy (ethics). In the present paper I shall discuss the epistemological and ethical consequences of Darwin's doctrine from the point of view of contemporary philosophy of biology; I shall give a brief outline of evolutionary epistemology and evolutionary ethics which both have caused many controversies.
WHAT IS ZYGON: JOURNAL OF RELIGION AND SCIENCE?: PURPOSE, HISTORY, AND FINANCIAL GOALS
Authors: Peters Karl E.
Published: December 2005

Abstract. This editorial statement describes the purpose of Zygon and the need for such a journal. It then sketches the history of the journal and of its financial affairs. Next it proposes some development projects to expand the impact of the journal around the world, to develop Zygon leadership, and to establish more firmly Zygon's financial base. The statement opens and closes with the news of Zygon's receiving a Gift Subscription Challenge Grant.
SCIENCE AND THE FORTUNES OF NATURAL THEOLOGY: SOME HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVES
Authors: Brooke John Hedley
Published: December 2005

Abstract.The object is to examine strategies commonly used to heighten a sense of the sacred in nature. It is argued that moves designed to reinforce a concept of Providence have been the very ones to release new opportunities for secular readings. Several case studies reveal this fluidity across a sacred‐secular divide. The irony whereby sacred readings of nature would graduate into the secular is also shown to operate in reverse as anti‐providentialist strategies invited their own refutation. The analysis is used to support the claim that the sciences have put fewer constraints on religious belief than is generally assumed.
MIRRORS, PORTALS, AND MULTIPLE REALITIES
Authors: MacDonald George F. , Cove John L. , Laughlin Charles D. , McManus John
Published: December 2005

Abstract. A biogenetic structural explanation is offered for the cross‐culturally common mystical experience called portalling, the experience of moving from one reality to another via a tunnel, door, aperture, hole, or the like. The experience may be evoked in shamanistic and meditative practice by concentration upon a portalling device (mirror, mandala, labyrinth, skrying bowl, pool of water, etc.). Realization of the portalling experience is shown to be fundamental to the phenomenology underlying multiple reality cosmologies in traditional cultures and is explained in terms of radical re‐entrainment of the neurological systems mediating experience in the brain. Phenomenological experiments with mirror portalling devices from both the Tibetan and the Tsimshian religious traditions are reported.
THE WHOLE BRAIN AS THE BASIS OR THE ANALOGICAL EXPRESSION OF GOD
Authors: Ashbrook James B.
Published: December 2005

Abstract. As human beings we inevitably try to explain our experience. In philosophical language, we deal with transcendent assertions and aspirations. The issue, then, is: how can we talk about what matters, given the structures inherent in language and basic to the way we are made? Instead of the philosophical category of Being, I advance a case for giving the human brain privileged status as an analogical expression of God, the symbol‐concept of what matters most, and then suggest the illumination which can come with using that analogical expression, especially as that analogy connects us with the environment at the limbic level and constructs our world at the cerebral level.
SOCIOBIOLOGY, GOD, AND UNDERSTANDING
Authors: Lumsden Charles J.
Published: December 2005

Abstract. This article presents the rationale of a new approach to the debate between sociobiology and religion. In it, I outline a sociobiology that may generate alternative and competing hypotheses about the existence of gods as beings (theisms) and the nature of their participation in the universe. I examine the central theoretical issues of this sociobiology and discuss the strengths and weaknesses of a sociobiological approach to theological issues, including problems pertinent to nontheistic theologies. A concluding case is made for an enriched and revitalized agenda in the dialogue between sociobiology and religion. While consistent with current research on gene‐culture coevolution, the article's treatment expands on earlier work to begin incorporating theoretical terms that carry a more direct theological impact.
TRUTH, RELATIVISM, AND CROSSWORD PUZZLES
Authors: Murphy Nancey
Published: December 2005

Abstract. Neither the correspondence nor the coherence theory of truth does justice to the truth claims made in science and theology. I propose a new definition that relates truth to solving puzzles. I claim that this definition is more adequate than either of the traditional theories and that it offers two additional benefits: first, it provides grounds for a theory regarding the relations between theology and science that may stand up better to philosophical scrutiny than does critical realism; and second, it blocks the move to relativism based on recognition of the plurality of perspectives and the historical and social conditioning of knowledge.
DISCIPLINING RELATIVISM AND TRUTH
Authors: Clayton Philip
Published: December 2005

Abstract. Imre Lakatos's philosophy of science can provide helpful leads for theological methodology, but only when mediated by the disciplines that lie between the natural sciences and theology. The questions of relativism and truth are used as indices for comparing disciplines, and Lakatos's theory of natural science is taken as the starting point. Major modifications of Lakatos's work are demanded as one moves from the natural sciences, through economics, the interpretive social sciences, literary theory, and into theology. Although theology may consist of Lakatosian research programs, it also includes programs of interpretation and programs for living. This conclusion must influence our definition of theological truth and our assessment of theological relativism.
HUMAN LIFE AND CULTURE: DYNAMIC COMPONENTS OF ECOSYSTEMS
Authors: Wolański Napoleon
Published: December 2005

Abstract. Contemporary humanity—especially urban‐industrial civilization with its domination of nature—is disturbing complex, integrated, self‐regulating systems that have evolved over long periods of time. We are threatening not only biological ecosystems but also human self‐regulating capabilities at both the biological and the social‐systems levels. This paper presents examples of such disturbance both in the organism—respiratory‐cardiovascular problems related to environmental pollution‐and at the population level—rates of infant mortality and relations between fertility and mortality in light of economic and emotional factors. Prospects for our future survival and flourishing are thus linked less to technical know‐how than to ecological understanding.
HUMANITY IN THE WORLD OF LIFE
Authors: Zhang Hwe Ik
Published: December 2005

Abstract. The position and role of humanity in the world of life is examined in the light of the ontological structure of life itself. This problem is approached by considering the possible units of life representing various modes of life phenomena. I argue that the only meaningful unit of life without interposing some special external conditions is “global life” framed in a star‐planet system. Any other possible unit of life exhibited by various kinds of individuals is conditional in the sense that it would leave out an essential part as “co‐life.” The relationship between human being and the global life should be understood in this general scheme of individual and global life. It is emphasized, however, that human being occupies a unique position in global life in the sense that humanity can promote either a cancerous situation or a healthy higher‐order enhancement of the global life.
THE ROLE OF SCIENCE IN PANNENBERG'S THEOGICAL THINKING
Authors: Hefner Philip
Published: December 2005

Abstract. Employing categories derived from the philosopher of science Imre Lakatos, this essay analyzes the theological thought of Wolfhart Pannenberg, with the aim of showing that he is engaged in a research program that takes seriously the various sciences and their understanding of the world on the one hand and the traditions of Christian faith and theology on the other. The course of the argument demonstrates that Pannenberg's thought extends comprehensively to provide a conceptuality that centers on the phenomena of contingency and field and encompasses nearly every realm of science and the breadth of biblical and theological traditions.
TOWARD AN EVOLUTIONARY ECOLOGY OF MEANING
Authors: Wicken Jeffrey S.
Published: December 2005

Abstract. I will discuss some of the implications of the ongoing Darwinian revolution for theology as a constructor and interpreter of human meaning. Focus will be directed toward the following issues: How should we best understand ourselves in the new, evolutionary cosmos? What are the problems with the kind of genetic reductionism espoused by neo‐Darwinism? How are those problems resolved by the “relational” understanding of life made available by thermodynamics and ecology? How do we generate meaning‐structures in this relationally‐constituted cosmos? Finally, how do these developments enrich our understandings of responsibility—to each other and to our private conceptions of God?
THE OMEGA POINT AS ESCHATON: ANSWERS TO PANNENBERG'S QUESTIONS FOR SCIENTISTS
Authors: Tipler Frank J.
Published: December 2005

Abstract. I present an outline of the Omega Point theory, which is a model for an omnipresent, omniscient, omnipotent, evolving, personal God who is both transcendent to spacetime and immanent in it, and who exists necessarily. The model is a falsifiable physical theory, deriving its key concepts not from any religious tradition but from modern physical cosmology and computer science; from scientific materialism rather than revelation. Four testable predictions of the model are given. The theory assumes that thinking is a purely physical process of the brain, and that personality dies with the brain. Nevertheless, I show that the Omega Point theory suggests a future universal resurrection of the dead very similar to the one predicted in the Judeo‐Christian‐Islamic tradition. The notions of “grace” and the “beatific vision” appear naturally in the model.
THEOLOGICAL APPROPRIATION OF SCIENTIFIC UNDERSTANDINGS: RESPONSE TO HEFNER, WICKEN, EAVES, AND TIPLER
Authors: Pannenberg Wolfhart
Published: December 2005

Abstract. Philip Hefner's focus on contingency and field as the guiding concepts in my thinking and his characterization of my theological enterprise as a Lakatosian research program are appropriate and helpful.

I welcome Jeffrey Wicken's holistic approach to the emergence of life. Theology can appropriate the language of self‐organizing systems exploiting the thermodynamic flow of energy degradation for interpreting organic life as a creation of the Spirit of God.

However, I cannot sympathize with Lindon Eaves's equation of “hard science” with a reductionism which raises the double helix to the status of icon; the “meaning” of DNA derives from its place in the total phenomenon of life—not the reverse.

Frank Tipler's cosmology raises the prospect of a rapprochement between physics and theology in the area of eschatology. A Christian cosmology, however, would require at least three modifications: contingency in the history of creation; the uniqueness of Jesus' resurrection; and the relation of these to the problem of evil.
BIOLOGY AND THE SOCIAL SCIENCES
Authors: Wilson Edward O.
Published: December 2005

Abstract. The sciences may be conceptualized as a hierarchy ranked by level of organization (e.g., many‐body physics ranks above particle physics). Each science serves as an antidiscipline for the science above it; that is, between each pair, tense but creative interplay is inevitable. Biology has advanced through such tension between its subdisciplines and now can serve as an antidiscipline for the social sciences—for anthropology, for example, by examining the connection between cultural and biological evolution; for psychology, by addressing the nature of learning and the structure of the unconscious; for economics, by examining economically irrational behavior and by comparing economic activity in humans and other species. Sociology, concerned mainly with advanced literate societies, is relatively remote from the genetic basis of human social behavior. However, moving between biological and social levels of organization generates richness and points to new and unexpected principles.
THEOLOGY AND THE SOCIAL SCIENCES—DISCIPLINE AND ANTIDISCIPLINE
Authors: Murphy Nancy
Published: December 2005

Abstract. In this review of papers by E. O. Wilson, Philip Gorski, and Robert Segal, I apply Wilson's description of the relations between a discipline and its antidiscipline (the science just below it in the hierarchy of sciences) to the relations between theology and the social sciences. I claim (contra Gorski) that a common methodology is applicable to natural science, social science, and theology. However, despite the fact that a discipline cannot ordinarily be reduced to its antidiscipline, I claim (with Segal) that it remains to be shown that a theistic interpretation of religious phenomena is superior to a social‐scientific explanation. I see this as work to be done rather than an impossibility. Insofar as it is shown that theology cannot be reduced to social‐scientific explanations, support is provided for the hypothesis of the existence of God.
RALPH WENDELL BURHOE: HIS LIFE AND HIS THOUGHT
Authors: Breed David R.
Published: December 2005

Abstract. This is the first of four installments by the author, presenting an intellectual biography of Ralph Wendell Burhoe. This first segment follows Burhoe from his college years at Harvard through the founding of the Institute on Religion in an Age of Science in 1954. In this period, after his college and seminary study, Burhoe worked at Harvard's Blue Hill Meteorological Observatory and as executive officer of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Throughout his early life he had been concerned with how religion could maintain its credibility as a bearer of truth vis‐à‐vis the sciences, which were displacing religion not only among leading intellectuals, but also in other segments of society. The founding of IRAS provided an important instrument for dealing with this concern.
Editorial
Authors: Peters Karl E.
Published: December 2005

Science and religion share the conviction that the world is intelligible, susceptible to being logically understood, but they delineate this under different paradigms. In the cleanest cases we can say that science operates with the presumption that there are causes to things, religion with the presumption that there are meanings to things.

—Holmes Rolston III
COSMOLOGY, RELIGION, AND SOCIETY
Authors: Bowker J. W.
Published: December 2005

Abstract. It is a mistake to assume that science and religion are competing accounts of the same subject matter, so that either science supersedes religion or religion anticipates science. Using the question of cosmic origins as an example, I argue that the basic task of religion is not the scientific one of establishing the most accurate acccunt of the origin of the universe. Rather, as illustrated from Jewish, Hindu, Chinese, and Buddhist thought, religion uses a variety of cosmologies to help specify the necessary terms and conditions on which human social life is possible in particular ecological niches.
A MODERN LOOK AT THE ORIGIN OF THE UNIVERSE
Authors: Odenwald Sten F.
Published: December 2005

Abstract. In what follows, I review the modern theory of the origin of the universe as astronomers and physicists are coming to understand it during the last decades of the twentieth century. An unexpected discovery of this study is that the story of “cosmogenesis” cannot be completely told unless we understand the fundamental nature of matter, space, and time. In the context of modern cosmology space has become not only the bedrock (so to speak) of our physical existence, it may yield a fuller understanding of the universe itself.
COSMOLOGY AND HINDU THOUGHT
Authors: Balslev Anindita Niyogi
Published: December 2005

Abstract. This paper outlines some major ideas concerning cosmogony and cosmogony and cosmology that pervade the Hindu conceptual world. The basic source for this discussion is the philosophical literature of some of the principal schools of Hindu thought, such as VaiVaiśika, Sānkhya, and Advaita Vedānta, focusing on the themes of cosmology, time, and soteriology. The core of Hindu philosophical thinking regarding these issues is traced back to the Rk Vedic cosmogonical speculations, analyzed, and contrasted with the “views of the opponent.” The relevance of the Hindu worldview for overcoming the conflict between science and religion is pointed out.
PRINCIPLES OF BUDDHISM
Authors: Kawamura Leslie S.
Published: December 2005

Abstract. This paper presents Buddhism as a path theory in which the adherent practices mindfulness in order to see the world as‐it‐is. The world as presented in a human situation is an interdependently originating process to which one can bring meaning but in which meaning is not inherent. The conceptualizing process by which one concretizes reality is the foundation on which human frustrations and disease arise. However, it is by this conceptualizing process that one establishes a cosmological view of the universe. The soteriological consideration in Buddhism is to realize that reality created by the mind is like an illusion, a concretization of an interdependently originating process into a substantive reality. Through this realization one can remove the delusion created by mind and see reality as‐it‐is.
TOWARD A SOUND PERSPECTIVE ON MODERN PHYSICS: CAPRA'S POPULARIZATION OF MYSTICISM AND THEOLOGICAL APPROACHES REEXAMINED
Authors: Clifton Robert K. , Regehr Marilyn G.
Published: December 2005

Abstract. Fritjof Capra's The Tao of Physics, one of several popularizations paralleling Eastern mysticism and modern physics, is critiqued, demonstrating that Capra gives little attention to the differing philosophies of physics he employs, utilizing whatever interpretation suits his purposes, without prior justification. The same critique is applied and similar conclusions drawn, about some recent attempts at relating theology and physics. In contrast, we propose the possibility of maintaining a cogent relationship between these disciplines by employing theological hypotheses to account for aspects of physics that are free from interpretive difficulties, such as the ability to create mathematical structures with extraordinary predictive success.
RELATING THE PHYSICS AND RELIGION OF DAVID BOHM
Authors: Sharpe Kevin J.
Published: December 2005

Abstract. David Bohm's thinking has become widely publicized since the 1982 performance of a form of the Einstein‐Podolsky‐ Rosen (EPR) experiment. Bohm's holomovement theory, in particular, tries to explain the nonlocality that the experiment supports. Moreover, his theories are close to his metaphysical and religious thinking. Fritjof Capra's writings try something similar: supporting a theory (the bootstrap theory) because it is close to his religious beliefs. Both Bohm and Capra appear to use their religious ideas in their physics. Religion, their source for physical hypotheses, provides the motivation to develop and uphold them.
GENDER IS AN ORGANON
Authors: Kehoe Alice B.
Published: December 2005

Abstract. Gender is a social construct. Technically, it is a grammatical structuring category that may refer to sex, as is typical of Indo‐European languages, or to another set of features such as animate versus inanimate, as is typical of Algonkian languages. Gender in language forces speakers of the language to be continually conscious of application of the category, and they tend to project the categorization into their experience of the world and collocate observations under these broad categories. Western science has been developed by speakers of Indo‐European languages employing male/female (and sometimes neuter) genders, and in a cultural tradition that at least since the time of Classical Greece has collocated male with active, creative, rational, and public (political)/dominant (Olympian), and female with passive, irrational/emotional, and private (nonpolitical)/subordinate. Religion and science‐organons for rendering existential experience intelligible‐have always been used by the dominant class as instruments of power, and therefore in Western cultures have been entangled with legitimization of a congeries of concepts collocated with male gender. This paper illustrates the social construction of this congeries by contrasting it with non‐Western usages and valuations.
BODY‐VESSEL‐MATRIX: CO‐CREATIVE IMAGES OF SYNERGETIC UNIVERSE
Authors: Carter Nancy Corson
Published: December 2005

Abstract: In his essay “Goddesses of the Twenty‐first Century,” R. Buckminster Fuller's use of woman and goddess as metaphor suggests a fruitful source of images illuminating synergetic principles. Using five images, clustered as odyvessel‐matrix, the article suggests an epistemology and a heuristic for connecting the personal‐physical and the universal‐metaphysical. These images are (1) the Egyptian goddess Nut, (2) the Greek earth goddesses, (3) Neolithic Maltese goddess temples, (4) the double spiral, and (5) the Apollo Mission's Earth photographs. These images are intended as transformational synergetic/ecofeminist figures to replace images of deprivation, alienation, and destruction with images of abundance, intimacy, and co‐creation.
THE STATUS OF THE ANOMALY IN THE FEMINIST GOD‐TALK OF ROSEMARY RUETHER
Authors: James George Alfred
Published: December 2005

Abstract. Scripture, the creeds, and tradition have provided the raw material that theology has attempted to refine. The contribution of much recent theology comes from new insight into these materials by women, blacks, and the Third World, often as examined by analytic tools derived from post‐Christian ideologies. The theology of Rosemary Ruether stands out because of her choice of sources, among which she includes documents excoriated as heretical by what she calls the patriarchal orthodoxy of the early Christian church. Because of this it is useful to examine this type of theology in relation to other theological inquiries of recent years. The thesis of this paper is that, in her ability to incorporate source material hitherto regarded as heretical, Ruether has demonstrated the scientific character of this kind of theology.
SIX CHARACTERISTICS OF A POSTPATRIARCHAL CHRISTIANITY
Authors: McDaniel Jay
Published: December 2005

Abstract. Christianity is best understood not as a set of timeless doctrines, but as a historical movement capable of change and growth. In this respect, Christianity is like a science. Heretofore, most instances of Christianity have exhibited certain ways of thinking that, taken as a whole, have led to the subordination of women (and the Earth and animals as well) to men in power. This article describes these ways of thinking, then contrasts six ways of thinking and acting that can inform postpatriarchal Christianity and science.
SEXUALITY, RATIONALITY, AND SPIRITUALITY
Authors: Tomm Winnifred A.
Published: December 2005

Abstract. Historical progress has largely been described in terms of the power to order social and ecological realities according to the interests of a few. Their concepts, images, and metaphors have transmitted knowledge (both explicit and tacit) that has come to be regarded as received wisdom. This kind of power, which has shaped (as well as described) history, has belonged primarily to men; whereas women's nature and, accordingly, their power have been defined primarily in terms of sexuality. Men's control of women's sexuality is therefore the source of the disqualification of women as free agents‐that is, as significant participants in, say, scientific and religious meaning‐giving processes. Thus morality requires reevaluation of our assumptions about human nature. Most importantly, it demands that female sexuality be considered within the context of rationality and spirituality.
QUANTUM PHYSICS, PHILOSOPHY, AND THE IMAGE OF GOD: INSIGHTS FROM WOLFGANG PAULI
Authors: Laurikainen K. V.
Published: December 2005

Abstract. Nobel Laureate in physics Wolfgang Pauli studied philosophy and the history of ideas intensively, especially in his later years, to form an accurate ontology vis‐à‐vis quantum theory. Pauli's close contacts with the Swiss psychiatrist C.G. Jung gave him special qualifications for also understanding the basic problems of empirical knowledge. After Pauli's sudden death in 1958, this work was maintained mainly in his posthumously published correspondence, which so far extends only to 1939. Because Pauli's view differs essentially from the direction physics research took after the deaths of the founding fathers of quantum theory, this article attempts to describe the main features in Pauli's revolutionary thought, which is based on nature's “epistemological lesson” as revealed by Pauli's atomic research. Pauli's conclusions have important implications for various issues in Western culture, not least with the limits of science and the relation of science to religion.
CONTEMPORARY EVOLUTIONARY THEORY AS A NEW HEURISTIC MODEL FOR THE SOCIOSCIENTIFIC METHOD IN BIBLICAL STUDIES
Authors: Gnuse Robert
Published: December 2005

Abstract.Notions of uniform and gradual evolution have been replaced in some circles by biological and paleontological models that postulate that periods of rapid change punctuate long periods of evolutionary stasis. This new theory, calledpunctuated equilibria(or PE for short), may have implications for paradigms in scholarly disciplines other than the sciences. Whereas old evolutionary models exerted great influence upon historians, sociologists, anthropologists, and students of religion for more than a century, the new model may provide heuristic paradigms for research that correlate more adequately with the current observations of scholars. We therefore provide suggestions for deployment of this new scientific paradigm in history and anthropology. In particular, this model can explain the rise of the Israelite state and the religious ethos in the Hebrew Bible, two major concerns of today's socioscientific study of biblical materials. Thus the possibility of an overarching paradigm for the social sciences is entertained.
POSTCRITICAL RELIGION AND THE LATENT FREUD
Authors: Reiser R. Melvin
Published: December 2005

Abstract. Although Freud launches a devastating critique of religion, he makes significant contributions to religious maturity. On the “manifest” level, he attacks religion as illusion; on the “latent” level, however, he is preoccupied with religion as mystery deep in the psyche. This difference is between religion as “critical” or as “postcritical” (Polanyi)—as dualistically split from, or emergent within, the psyche. Postcritical religion appears in Freud as mystery, unity, feeling, meaning, and creative agency. We see why, for Freud, the mother as matrix keeps disappearing and what religious maturity is for “honest smallholders on this earth” who live within matrix as mystery.
DIALOGUE ON SCIENCE, SOCIETY, AND THE GENERATIVE ORDER
Authors: Bohm David , Kelly Sean
Published: December 2005

Abstract. This article is an edited transcription of two conversations at Birkbeck College, London, in February 1987. Its primary concern is a transdisciplinary consciousness that refuses to comply with the tendency toward reductionism and simplification. Some of the problems the dialogue explores are (1) the notion of order (with particular reference to Bohm's recent reflections on the concept of the generative order), (2) the limits of knowledge and the concept of the Absolute, (3) the nature of perceptive or intuitive reason, (4) the relation between matter and mind, and (5) the contemporary global crisis and the possibility of creative evolution.
DIRECTIONS IN HISTORICISM: LANGUAGE, EXPERIENCE, AND PRAGMATIC ADJUDICATION
Authors: Davaney Sheila Greeve
Published: December 2005

Abstract. This article examines the current affirmation within theology of historicism, with its assumption that the historical realm, broadly construed, is the only arena of human activity and knowledge and its repudiation of traditional forms of foundationalism and correspondence theories of truth. The essay performs this task by analyzing the work of Gordon Kaufman and William Dean, setting forth their commonly shared historicism, pragmatism, and constructivist approaches to theology, as well as their differences concerning nonlinguistic dimensions of experience. The essay also focuses on the move by both thinkers to include nature in their understanding of history and to offer biocultural interpretations of human existence.
SEARCH FOR BELIEFS TO LIVE BY CONSISTENT WITH SCIENCE
Authors: Sperry R. W.
Published: December 2005

Abstract. Instead of separating religion and science into “mutually incompatible realms,” the new macromental paradigm of behavioral science permits integration of the two within a single consistent worldview. A new form of causal determinism combines conventional “bottom‐up” with emergent “top‐down” causation. Traditional materialist tenets are overturned, along with the science‐values dichotomy, clearing the way for a science‐based value/belief system. Intrinsic ethicomoral directives emerge in which a revised sense of the sacred would help protect the evolving quality of the biosphere, and the rights and welfare of future generations. Subsequent versions of today's changing worldview raise questions of which interpretation to believe. An analysis of “New Age” thinking is called for, and a brief attempt at such analysis is included.
RALPH WENDELL BURHOE: HIS LIFE AND HIS THOUGHT
Authors: Breed David R.
Published: December 2005

Abstract. The fourth installment from the author's book‐length study of Ralph Wendell Burhoe's life and thought sets forth the substance of his intellectual theological program. Constructed with the intention of laying the foundation for behavior that conforms to the requirements for survival as laid down by the reality system of which we are part, it also aims to provide motivation for such behavior. The heart of the program is formed by concepts of God and soul. The concept of God grounds an understanding of a reality system upon which we are dependent and to which we must conform whereas the concept of soul gives assurance that our behavior does make a difference and that our contributions to the reality system possess an everlasting quality.
RELATING SCIENCE AND THEOLOGY WITH COMPLEMENTARITY: A CAUTION
Authors: Sharpe Kevin J.
Published: December 2005

Abstract. I examine Helmut Reich's recent (Zygon, December 1990) discussion of the complementarity model for relating science and theology and find it confusing. On the one hand, his complementarity purports to make science and theology relevant for each other. It even requires we solve their conflicts. On the other hand, it discourages the overlap of scientific and theological knowledge and thus the direct resolution of their conflicts.