Required Books for RS 102 -
Science and the Sacred
Ian Barbour, Religion in an Age of Science, (1994).
This will be our basic introductory text book which we will read cover to cover. Barbour is the grand dad of the modern study and integration of religion and science. This book is based on Barbour's 1989-1991 Gifford Lectures.
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MORE OF BARBOUR!
Ian Barbour, Religion in an Age of Science (1994).
We'll continue to read this encyclopedic survey book parallel to other readings. We'll be reading chapters 4-7 on Physics and Metaphysics, Astronomy and Creation, Evolution and the Continuing Creation, and Human Nature. We'll conclude this reading intensive unit with Barbour's chapters 8-9 on Process Thought and God and Nature.
Scientific American Special Issue, Life in the Universe, October 1994.
This collection of essays by Carl Sagan, Stephen Jay Gould, Marvin Minsky, Steven Weinberg, and others, will give us technical and philosophical food for thought as we explore the meaning of the modern scientific cosmology. Much of this collection is critical of the teleological arguments of Barbour, Berry, and Swimme.
Thomas Berry and Brian Swimme, The Universe Story:A Celebration of the Unfolding Cosmos, (1992).
This book will give us a poetic and mythic interpretation of the modern scientific cosmology seen as relevation. Berry and Swimme are influenced by the process metaphysics of Whitehead, the evolutionary thought of Teilhard de Chardin, and the prose of Loren Eiseley. This book will be both controvesial and inspirational.
Genesis 1-3.
A new look at an old cosmology that is central to Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. This unit will be supplemented by a lecture by Prof. Norbert Samuelson of Temple University, author of Judaism and the Doctrine of Creation (1994).
Lao Tzu, Tao de Ching.
Reconsidered in light of modern science. We'll supplement this reading of this Chinese classic with an essay by Peter Warshall, "The Morality of Molecular Water," in Whole Earth Review :Spring 1995.
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Carolyn Merchant, The Death of Nature: Women, Ecology, and the Scientific Revolution, (1980).
This feminist historical criticism of 17th Century Enlightenment and Scientific Revolution will provide both a historical overview of this period and some critical philosophical distance on a time in Western European history which continues to profoundly influence our views of nature, women, science and religion.
Sandra Harding, ed., The "Racial" Economy of Science: Toward a Democratic Future, (1993).
This impressive collection of essays is assembled by one of the leading feminist philosophers of science. The collection is organized around themes like: Non-Western Scientific Traditions, the Construction of "Race" by Western Science, IQ Ranking, Who Gets to Do Science?, Science's Technologies and Applications, Values and Methods, and Towards a Democratic Future.
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Donna Haraway, Simians, Cyborgs, and Women: The Reinvention of Nature, 1991.
This award winning collection of essays will push us to reconsider the sciences and religions through the lens of a distinctly postmodern radicalism. We will read ONLY chapter eight and nine: "A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology, and Socialist-Femininsm in the Late Twentieth Century" and "Situated Knowledges: The Science Question in Feminism and the Privilege of the Partial Perspective."
Kevin Kelly, Out of Control: The New Biology of Machines, Social Systems, and the Economic World, 1994.
This collection of essays by the Executive Editor of WIRED Magazine will explore the frontiers of science and society with new paradigms and new implications. Some of the chapter titles are "Hive Mind," "Assembling Complexity," "Industrial Ecology," "God Games," "Artificial Evolution," "Postdarwinism," and "The Nine Laws of God."