February 2019 Newsletter
In this Clergy Letter Project update, you’ll find the following six items:
- Evolution Weekend 2019: A Recap;
- Astrobiology News for February 2019: A Multidisciplinary Approach to Investigating Life’s Origins;
- What Science Can Learn From Religion;
- Genesis and Science;
- Anti-Evolution Legislation Around the Country; and
- Charles Darwin through Christian Spectacles.
1. Evolution Weekend 2019: A Recap
Yet another successful Evolution Weekend, our 13th, has come and passed. Together we reached out to thousands of people and shared our message about the compatibility of religion and science. Our efforts to ensure that evolution remains a critical piece of scientific knowledge taught in public schools ties in so very well with our belief that religion and science both teach us how to work for a more just, respectful and green world.
In addition to thanking all of you who played a role in this year’s Evolution Weekend events, I want to bring a number of related issued to your attention.
First, if you delivered a sermon as part of your Evolution Weekend event, please share it with me and I’ll post it on our ever-growing sermon page.
Second, if you haven’t yet seen it, you might want to take a look at the essay I wrote promoting Evolution Weekend this year. Although it has a long title (“Religion and Science: Strange Bedfellows? Not if You Want to Combat Hate, Care for the Environment and Teach Evolution!”), it is actually a short read. I’d love to know what you think.
Third, I think you'll enjoy wiewing a short video made by the Reverend Sarah Halverson-Cano from the Fairview Community Church in Costa Mesa, California promoting Evolution Weekend. The video expands on what Sarah's brief note to me said: "As always - we're so happy and thankful to get to participate in this wonderful day! It is truly a beloved Sunday at our church!" Perhaps Sarah's words will encourage you to participate in Evolution Weekend 2020! Yes, feel free to sign up right now to do so. Just drop me a note and I'll start building next year's list.
Fourth, please check our list of participants for Evolution Weekend 2019. If you’re not on the list but should be, let me know and I’ll add you immediately.
Again, thanks to all of you for all you’ve done and for all you will continue to do! Together we are making a difference.
2. Astrobiology News for February 2019: A Multidisciplinary Approach to Investigating Life’s Origins
In this month’s Astrobiology News, Clergy Letter Project consultant and Adler Planetarium astronomer Grace Wolf-Chase discusses multiple ways to search for the origins of life in the Universe.
Over the past couple of decades, we’ve discovered thousands of worlds orbiting distant stars. In combination with decades of research indicating that stars form with planets, we now think there may be more planets than stars in the observable Universe! While the list of potentially habitable worlds seems to grow daily, how abundant life actually is depends upon a question we have yet to answer - how does life get started?
The Prebiotic Chemistry and Early Earth Environments Consortium (PCE3)(1) is the third of five Research Coordination Networks (RCNs) created by NASA to address the increasingly central role of astrobiology in NASA’s science mission to search for life beyond Earth. As with every initiative in astrobiology, PCE3 is drawing on experts across multiple disciplines to conduct research into life’s beginning on Earth, and to explore whether and how life arose elsewhere in the Universe.(2)
A central goal of PCE3 is to “break down language and ideological barriers” in order to facilitate better communication across different disciplines – most notably, between early Earth geoscientists and prebiotic chemists, so that research into the conditions leading to life can be rooted in realistic planetary conditions. Among the tools to facilitate new collaborations is a virtual portal that will make the growing body of knowledge about conditions on the early Earth broadly accessible to diverse scientific communities. Including realistic planetary conditions in prebiotic chemistry experiments will enable models for the emergence of life that are consistent with what we know of Earth’s early history. These studies will, in turn, inform the search for life on other worlds.
What I find most exciting about this new initiative is its potential to provide a paradigm for dialog across different communities in order to inspire novel collaborations and suggest new research avenues. In our highly specialized world, working across different disciplines can be cumbersome at best, if not impossible, given barriers due to discipline-specific language and methods. I encourage you to check out this new consortium, as well as the RCNs organized in 2015 (the Nexus for Exoplanet System Science – NExSS)(3) and 2018 (the Network for Life Detection – NfoLD)(4), and to reflect on how similar initiatives and technology might be employed to facilitate effective communication and collaborations across the sciences and humanities.
Until next month,
Grace Wolf-Chase, Ph.D. (gwolfchase@adlerplanetarium.org)
1. http://prebioticchem.info/
2. https://astrobiology.nasa.gov/news/new-nasa-research-consortium-to-tackle-lifes-origins/
3. https://astrobiology.nasa.gov/research/astrobiology-at-nasa/exoplanets/
4. https://www.nfold.org/
3. What Science Can Learn From Religion
The New York Times, on 1 February, ran an op-ed piece by David DeSteno, a professor of psychology at Northeastern University entitled “What Science Can Learn From Religion.” In his thoughtful essay, DeSteno shares a message that resonates incredibly well with the mission of The Clergy Letter Project. I hope you find his writing as interesting as I did.
4. Genesis and Science
Warren Aney, a wildlife ecologist and a member of The Clergy Letter Project’s list of scientific consultants, has crafted a document comparing the “Revised Standard Version of Genesis 1” with something he calls the “Revised Science Version of Genesis 1.” I suspect you’ll find it helpful and will want to share it with others.
And, as an added bonus, he’s also shared the artwork that students at Southminster Presbyterian Church in Beaverton, Oregon created to illustrate his model. I know you’ll find it helpful and will want to share it with others!
5. Anti-Evolution Legislation Around the Country
In last month’s newsletter I reported on anti-evolution legislation that was introduced in four states (Arizona, Florida, Indiana and North Dakota) since the beginning of the year. Similar troubling legislation was introduced in three additional states in the second half of January (Maine, South Dakota and Virginia). February brought two additional states (Oklahoma and South Carolina) into the fold with proposed legislation that would promote creationism and negatively impact evolution.
Despite the fact that so far this year 18 percent of the US states have had some form of anti-evolution legislation introduced, there is reason to celebrate. The initiatives in almost half of these states have already died. The forces promoting high quality science education have won in North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Dakota and Virginia.
6. Charles Darwin through Christian Spectacles
The Reverend Michael Roberts, a good friend of The Clergy Letter Project (he’s British and thus unable to add his signature to The Christian Clergy Letter from American Clergy), has just posted an insightful blog post entitled “Charles Darwin through Christian Spectacles.” I hope you read the entire piece for yourself, but I’ll share one portion of the conclusion with you: “the whole picture of a five billion year old Earth which first produced life four billion years ago and then ultimately all the intricate variety of life we know today is breathtaking and should fill us with awe and wonder – of the Creator.”
Concluding Thoughts
These are troubling times. As the United States, at least at the level of the presidential administration, moves further away from our democratic allies and offers growing support for despots and dictators, as intolerance of all sorts spreads due to a lack of moral leadership, and as respect for the truth vanishes, the work we are doing seems more important than ever. While promoting the teaching of evolution in public schools and making it clear that this in no way should be seen as an affront to religious belief might seem to be beside the point at times like these, I’d argue just the opposite is the case. We stand for truth, justice, respect and tolerance. We stand for a meaningful way to view, understand and discuss the natural world. We stand for the values of the Enlightenment, values that have enabled humans to create a better, but certainly not yet a perfect, world. I am honored and proud that you stand with me in supporting these critical ideals.
Finally, as always, I want to thank you for your continued support and as I do every month, I urge you to take one simple action. Please share this month’s Newsletter with a colleague or two (or post a link via any social media platform you use) and ask them to add their voices to those promoting a deep and meaningful understanding between religion and science. They can add their signatures to one of our Clergy Letters simply by dropping me a note at mz@theclergyletterproject.org. Together we are making a difference.
Michael
Michael Zimmerman
Founder and Executive Director
The Clergy Letter Project
www.theclergyletterproject.org
mz@theclergyletterproject.org