ADVANCE PRAISE FOR THESACREDDEPTHSOF NATURE
“This book is a gem. Not only are the science passages an exquisite introduction to astronomy, cell biology, and evolution, but her reflections on the meaning she personally derives from such knowledge leave the reader yearning for more. Her passages on the meaning of death—indeed, a celebration of death, for the kind of life and love only it can call forth—is unsurpassed by all the outpourings from the humanities. She is fully, intimately, restfully at home in the universe, in her version of divinity: the sacred depths of nature. And then, able to draw no more from either the science or her own soul, she offers up a poem or psalm from various of the world’s wisdom traditions.”—Connie Barlow, Eco-activist, author of Green Space, GreenTime:TheWayofScience
“A truly fascinating, wide-ranging, beautifully written, and eyeopening book that considers the origins of earth, the origins of life itself, where we are now, where we are most likely heading, and the importance of developing a shared global cosmology and ecomorality that can benefit us all in the future.”—Marc Bekoff, Ecology and Evolution, University of Colorado, author of Rewilding our Hearts: BuildingPathwaysofCompassionandCoexistence
“Ursula Goodenough argues passionately, wisely, and even lyrically for a new, modern, scientifically informed worldview that can tell us both about the universe we inhabit and the moral rules we need to inhabit it well. This is a wonderful account of the history of life by a great biologist. It invites us to find in modern science the profound sense of wonder and belonging, and the deep ethical sense present in all the world’s religious traditions.”—David Christian, History, Macquarie University, author of Origin Story: A Big History of Everything
“Even better the second time around! Engagingly and clearly written, replete with striking metaphors—especially ones from music—and with conscientious respect for the scientifically untrained reader. A convincing demonstration of the integral relation between generously open-minded natural science and equally receptive, nondogmatic religious thought. The two are shown to interact with, jointly inform, and mutually inspire one another in Goodenough’s engrossing version of Religious Naturalism. Here the compelling sacredness of all living and non-living nature is brought into sharp focus.”—Donald Crosby, Philosophy, Colorado State University, author of SacredandSecular:ResponsestoLifeinaFiniteWorld
“Not since Loren Eiseley or Lewis Thomas has biology had such an eloquent spokesperson, nor one with so much heart. Finally, someone who can breathe life into molecules and make us feel it.”— Terrence Deacon, Anthropology and Cognitive Science Program, University of California, Berkeley, author of IncompleteNature: How MindEmergedfromMatter
“What perfect timing for this revised edition of Ursula Goodenough’s classic, TheSacredDepthsofNature.As we witness and experience, emotionally and socially, the unraveling of the biosphere and industrial civilization, a meaningful, reverential worldview grounded in evidence is more relevant than ever. An excellent introduction to the religious naturalist orientation! Only my wife, Connie Barlow’s Green Space Green Time, is even in the same league. Bravo, Ursula!”—Michael Dowd, Ecotheologian, author of Thank God for Evolution
“Tender, yet passionate, Goodenough immerses us in a collective spiritual vision, allowing us to discover and feel the numinous in science, synthesizing these understandings and the religious impulse without doing harm to either. Our best hope for a future.”—Anne Druyan, Writer, director, and producer of COSMOS and cocreator with Carl Sagan of the motion picture CONTACT
“The Sacred Depths of Nature is both a spiritual exercise and a sophisticated, crystal clear, and lyrical primer on what science teaches us about this wondrous universe and the mysterious gift that is being here at all.”—Owen Flanagan, Philosophy, Duke University, author of TheGeographyofMorals
“Hosanna! Here, now, this! The new revised version of The Sacred Depths of Nature is manna from heaven on earth. Muons and neutrinos, eukaryotic sex and somatic death, covenant with mystery, Goodenough’s Gospel of Life is the true myth we and our planet desperately need.”—Michael S. Hogue, Meadville Lombard Theological School, author of American Immanence: Democracy for anUncertainWorld
“At once expansive and intimate, empirical and immanent, analytical and intuitive, material and spiritual, science and poetry get to dance joyfully together in these pages. TheSacredDepthsofNatureallows us to see and celebrate our fundamental kinship with all beings, united by the forces that propel life’s improbable unfolding. In this time of crisis, we urgently need the planetary ethic that resists the degradation of the shimmering world.”—Robin Wall Kimmerer, Center for Native Peoples and the Environment, SUNY-ESF, author of BraidingSweetgrass: IndigenousWisdom,ScientificKnowledge,and theTeachingsofPlants
“This book is a treasure for all those who seek to connect with a deeper meaning in the universe without jettisoning empirical scientific evidence. Ursula Goodenough dissolves the conventional split between science and religious orientation, showing with delightful prose and breathtaking examples how a deeply scientific investigation can naturally lead us to a ‘covenant with mystery’ and a ‘credo of continuation.’ ”—Jeremy Lent, author of The Patterning Instinctand TheWebofMeaning
“Thank you, Ursula Goodenough, for telling us the science-based story of life on earth and the wonders of our universe in a way that brings them down to the level of our hearts, and deeper still, to the
very place from where our prayers come.”—Peter Mayer, Singer and songwriter, lyricist of “Blue Boat Home”
“I am so glad this important book is being revised for our time. It is wise, calm, and compassionate; it treats us as the mature, complex, and fascinating creatures that we are, and in so doing helps point the way towards a future where we act together far better than at present.”—Bill Mckibben, Founder of 350.org, author of TheFlag,the Cross,andtheStationWagon:AGrayingAmericanLooksBackathis SuburbanBoyhoodandWondersWhattheHellHappened
“To experience the sacred, we need not ask the WHY question, which is, after all, unanswerable. In this absolutely amazing book, biologist Ursula Goodenough shows us that pondering the HOW of things brings us face-to-face with that which is sacred. Through science, poetry, and her own remarkable personal stories, Goodenough shares her profound religious stance as a Credo of Continuation.”—Jennifer Morgan, President, Deeptime Network
“An engaging, authoritative account of the evolution and molecular basis of life from the perspective of a religious naturalist who rejoices in the complexity and wonder of the natural world. A successful cell biologist and gifted writer, Goodenough weaves together our scientific understanding of the appearance, place, and workings of life on earth in the context of the diversity of religious traditions. The book will inspire both scientists and non-scientists to appreciate the magic of our existence and the necessity to preserve that which makes it possible.”—Thomas Pollard, Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology, Yale University, co-author of Cell Biology, 4th edition
“Goodenough’s masterpiece unites the beauty of biology and the wonders of evolution in a magnificent, heartfelt celebration of life. Like its author, this book is eloquent, vibrant, inspiring, and truly one-of-a-kind.”—Barbara Smuts, Psychology, University of Michigan, author of SexandFriendshipinBaboons
“Incisive, comprehensive, witty, and beautiful, with paragraph after paragraph of lucidity and significance. We could be witnessing one of the most important cultural events of the last three centuries—the moment when scientists themselves take their role seriously in forging a planetary wisdom.”—Brian Swimme, Evolutionary cosmologist, California Institute of Integral Studies, coauthor of The JourneyoftheUniverse
“Goodenough gives us a new bridge between science and religion that is both eloquent and elegant. She offers us the poetry, power, and passion of her vision of nature, a vision born from scientific knowledge, nurtured by religious sensibility, and inspired by nature itself. Such a pathbreaking interdisciplinary work illumines the way for each of us—embracing an ecomorality that is comprehensive and compelling.”—Mary Evelyn Tucker, School of the Environment and Forum on Religion and Ecology, Yale University, coproducer of the film JourneyoftheUniverse
“A delicious account of the grandeur and intricacies of natural reality that will have you falling in love with the beauty of scientific knowledge while honoring the grand wisdom of religious valuing. The new chapters on human evolution, human morality, and ecomorality reveal why The Sacred Depths of Nature remains a remarkable gift for our generation. Goodenough demonstrates, in her inimitable lucid, poetic style, a religious naturalist orientation that is uniquely positioned to address—all at once!—such urgent topics as systemic, structural racism, cultural imperialism, and environmental injustices.”—Carol Wayne White, Religious Studies, Bucknell University, author of Black Lives and Sacred Humanity: TowardanAfricanAmericanReligiousNaturalism
“I have been waiting years for this paean to the universe. With lustrous turns of phrase, skillful explanations of nature, a profound vision of the past, and a prescient sense of the future, Ursula Goodenough reintroduces us to the present moment, the fulsome present, bursting with an invitation to gratitude and reverence. There’s not a single person on this planet who doesn’t need and
deserve this book.”—Wesley
J. Wildman, School of Theology and Faculty of Computing and Data Sciences, Boston University, author of SpiritTech
“The first edition of TheSacredDepthsofNaturewas a revelation to me. Before reading it, I had no idea that the workings of a single cell were so elaborate as to be awe-inspiring. This second edition has brought many more such revelations. Illustrated with lovely photos and poems from wise poets, this is a detailed short treatise on the science of life. It proves once again that a science book can be a page-turner. I learned from every page and could not wait for the next one.”—Paul Woodruff, Philosophy, University of Texas Austin, author of Living Toward Virtue: Practical Ethics in the Spirit of Socrates
“What a beautiful, lyrical, lively, fascinating, and outstanding book. Delightful to read. Awesome achievement.”—Richard Wrangham, Human Evolutionary Biology, Harvard University, author of The Goodness Paradox: The Strange Relationship Between Virtue and ViolenceinHumanEvolution
URSULA GOODENOUGH
THE SACRED DEPTHS OF NATURE
How Life Has Emerged and Evolved
SECOND EDITION
Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide. Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and certain other countries.
Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press 198 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016, United States of America.
© Ursula Goodenough 2023
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, by license, or under terms agreed with the appropriate reproduction rights organization. Inquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above.
You must not circulate this work in any other form and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Goodenough, Ursula, author.
Title: The sacred depths of nature : how life has emerged and evolved / Ursula Goodenough.
Description: Second edition. | New York, NY : Oxford University Press, [2023] | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2022030828 (print) | LCCN 2022030829 (ebook) | ISBN 9780197662069 (hardcover) | ISBN 9780197662083 (epub)
Subjects: LCSH: Biology—Philosophy. | Biology—Religious aspects. | Naturalism—Religious aspects. | Nature—Religious aspects.
Classification: LCC QH331 .G624 2023 (print) | LCC QH331 (ebook) | DDC 570.1—dc23/eng/20220923
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022030828
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022030829
DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780197662069.001.0001
For: RachelCowan
JoanGoodwin EstherHopkins
CONTENTS
Personal 1997 (first edition)
Personal 2022 (second edition)
Introduction
How This Book Is Put Together
1. Origins of the Earth
2. Origins of Life
3. How Life Works
4. How an Organism Works
5. How Evolution Works
6. The Evolution of Biodiversity
7. Awareness and the I-Self
8. Interpretations and Feelings
9. Sex
10. Intimacy
11. Multicellularity and Death
12. Human Evolution
13. Human Morality and Ecomorality
Epilogue: Emergent Religious Principles
Epilogue: The Religious Naturalist Orientation
Endnotes1:LegendstoCoverandChapterFrontispiecesand TextFigureCredits
Endnotes2:FurtherReadings/ResourcesandTextCredits Index
PERSONAL 1997 (FIRST EDITION)
No question about it: I’m writing this book because of my father. He started out as a Methodist preacher but became absorbed—no, obsessed—with a need to understand why people are religious. As Professor of the History of Religion, he poured out book after book on the ancient Jews and early Christians: their art, their texts, their motivations. And then he brought it all home, to me sitting there after dessert trying to look inconspicuous while he and the other Yale scholars drank a great deal of wine and held forth on Plato and Paul and Freud and Sartre. Dad began his famous undergraduate course, The Psychology of Religion, by announcing “I do not believe in God.” He ended one of his last books by admitting “I still pray devoutly, and when I do I forget my qualifications and quibbles and call upon Jesus—and he comes to me.” He was a larger-than-life father, passionate and outrageous and adored. When he died of cancer when I was twenty-two, it was almost more than any of us could bear.
I went to college with 1950s expectations: find a husband, raise two children, and continue to read novels. But everything changed when I took Zoology 1 as a distribution requirement. Nothing in my girls-school training had led me to understand that creatures are made up of cells and genes and enzymes, that life evolves, that kidneys control blood electrolytes. I was astonished. Better still, I was good at it. And Dad was quite as excited about my unexpected calling as I was. “Ursula a scientist! How splendid!” What a father.
For the next twenty-five years or so I played it straight: biology professorships, research projects, federal grants, graduate and undergraduate teaching. I still do all those things, and with as much pleasure and satisfaction as ever. But as my five children grew and
there was more time for myself, my father’s question returned. Why are people religious? And then: Why am I notreligious?
But was that true? What is being religious anyhow? What about the way I feel when I think about how cells work or creatures evolve? Doesn’t that feel the same as when I’m listening to the St. Matthew Passion or standing in the nave of the Notre Dame Cathedral?
So I joined Trinity Presbyterian Church and spent the next decade singing in the choir, reciting the liturgy and prayers, hearing the sermons, participating in the ritual. I came to understand how this tradition, as played out in a middle-class, mostly white congregation, is able to elicit states of serious reflection, reverence, gratitude, and penance. But all of it was happening in the context of ancient premises and a deep belief in the supernatural. What about the natural? Was it possible to ground such religious sensibilities in the context of a fully modern, up-to-the-minute understanding of Nature?
And so I started reading and listening and reflecting, and out of it has emerged this book. Certainly the most important dialogue has been with Loyal Rue, who has explained to me most of what I understand about theology and philosophy and who has insisted that we scientists speak of what we know and feel. Early on I happened onto an improbable collection of people composing the Institute on Religion in an Age of Science (IRAS), and while the input of many in IRAS has been seminal, this is particularly true for Gene d’Aquili, Connie Barlow, Michael Cavanaugh, Tom Gilbert, Ward Goodenough, Phil Hefner, Bill Irons, Sol Katz, Ted Laurenson, Karl Peters, Bob Schaible, and Barbara Whitaker-Johns. Kirk Jensen of Oxford University Press has provided generous and unwavering support; Carl Smith has helped me understand and experience the religious impulse; John Heuser has continuously infused his perspectives and wisdom; Sine Berhanu and Jeanne Heuser have nurtured my spirituality; Pam Belafonte, Elizabeth Marincola, Sharon Olds, and Betsy Weinstock have nurtured my courage; my children—Jason, Mathea, Jessica, Thomas, and James—bless my life in countless
ways; and no one can emerge from a consideration of religion without thanking William James.
PERSONAL 2022 (SECOND EDITION)
In the 25 years since I wrote the first edition of this book, I continued as a biology professor for 20 years and then retired to Martha’s Vineyard to celebrate my remaining years within oak forests abutting wetlands and the open ocean. Along the way I taught cell biology and evolution courses, participated in exciting scientific research with wonderful colleagues and trainees, and welcomed nine grandchildren.
But after the book was published, I acquired a second life. As an advocate for the religious naturalist orientation (p. 219), I spoke at numerous venues—college seminars, sermons, church-basement discussion groups, conferences, book clubs. I wrote journal articles and blog essays and was interviewed and reviewed. I joined others in founding the Religious Naturalist Association (RNA, https://religious-naturalist-association.org) that in 2022 has some 900 members in 50 states and 40 countries. I shared ideas and feelings with those who embraced the religious naturalist trajectory and with those who offered critiques, thereby greatly expanding and clarifying my understandings. My second life has been both exhilarating and humbling, and the many new ideas and perspectives presented in this second edition were incubated in this rich context.
The mentors, supporters, and family whom I acknowledged in 1997, most of whom, although sadly not all, are happily alive and well in 2022, are thanked again for their invaluable input and their continued belief in me. The concept of emergence anchored much of the first edition, but Terry Deacon and Jeremy Sherman have greatly expanded my understanding of its dynamics in their writings and in many conversations. Over the years, I have greatly benefited from the wisdom and support of Claude Bernard, Thomas Berry, Rachel
Cowan, Susan Dutcher, Terry Findlay, Carol and Daniel Goodenough, Joan Goodwin, Billie Grassie, John Grim, Sam Guarnaccia, Joe Heitman, Michael Hogue, Esther Hopkins, Michael Kalton, Jason Keune, Kent Koeninger, Todd Macalister, Sandra Masur, Sabeeha Merchant, Jennifer Morgan, Janet Newton, Bill Orme-Johnson, Irving, Sarah, and Alessandra Petlin, Lynne Quarmby, Edmund Robinson, Robyn Roth, Jeremy Rutledge, Sue Savage-Rumbaugh, Barbara Smuts, JD Stillwater, Tricia Swift, Brian Swimme, Mary Evelyn Tucker, Sabine Waffenschmidt, Carol Wayne White, Wesley Wildman, Paul Woodruff, and Michael Wysession. I have also greatly benefited from the insights posted on IRAS and RNA social-media forums.
And my grandchildren—Isabella, Delilah, Oliver, Lola, Zora, Luciano, Theodore, Leonardo, and Henry—bless my life in countless ways.
INTRODUCTION
When people talk about religion, most soon mention the major religious traditions of our times, but then, thinking further, most mention as well the religions of indigenous peoples and of such vanished civilizations as ancient Greece and Egypt and Persia. That is, we have come to understand that there are—and have been— many different religions; anthropologists estimate the total in the thousands. They also estimate that there have been thousands of human cultures, which is to say that the making of a culture and the making of its religion go together: each religion is embedded in its cultural history. True, certain religions have attempted, and variously succeeded, in crossing cultural boundaries to “convert the heathens,” but the invaded cultures usually put their unmistakable stamp on what they import, as evinced by the pulsating percussive Catholic masses sung in Africa.
In the end, each of these religions addresses two fundamental human concerns: How Things Are and Which Things Matter. How Things Are is articulated as a Cosmology or Cosmos: How the natural world came to be, how humans came to be, what happens after we die, the origins of evil and tragedy and natural disaster and love. Which Things Matter becomes codified as a Morality or Ethos: the Judaic Ten Commandments, the Christian Sermon on the Mount, the Five Pillars of Islam, the Buddhist Vinaya, the Confucian Five Relations, and the understandings inherent in numerous indigenous traditions.
The role of a religion is to integrate the Cosmology and the Morality, to render the cosmological narrative so rich and compelling that it elicits our allegiance and our commitment to its attendant moral understandings. As a culture evolves, a distinctive Cosmos and Ethos appear in its co-evolving religion. For billions of us, back to the
early humans, the stories, ceremonies, and art associated with our religions-of-origin have been central to our lives.
I stand in awe of these religions. I have no need to take on their contradictions or immiscibility, any more than I would quarrel with the fact that Scottish bagpipe ceremonies coexist with Japanese tea ceremonies. And indeed, the failure of Soviet Marxism to obliterate Russian Orthodoxy, and of Maoism to obliterate Buddhism, Confucianism, or Daoism, and of Christianity to obliterate indigenous understandings, reminds us that projects designed to overthrow religious traditions face strong headwinds.
My concern is very different. As I witness contemporary efforts to generate planetary consensus, I see many high-minded and earnest people attempting to operate within an amalgam of economic, military, and political arrangements, and I find myself crying out “But wait! Where is the religion? What is orienting this project besides fear and greed? Where is the shared cosmology and the shared morality?”
That we need a planetary ethic is so obvious that I need but list a few key words: climate change, ethnic cleansing, fossil fuels, habitat and species preservation, human rights, hunger, inland waterways, infectious disease, nuclear weapons, oceans, pollution, population pressures. To my ear, conversations on these topics are largely cacophonies of national, cultural, and denominational self-interest. Without a common religious orientation, we basically don’t know where to begin, nor do we know what to say or how to listen, nor are we motivated to respond.
My agenda for this book is therefore to outline some possible foundations for such a planetary ethic, an ethic that would make no claim to supplant existing orientations but would seek to coexist with them, informing our global concerns while we continue to orient our daily lives in our cultural/religious contexts.
Any planetary foundation needs to be anchored in a shared worldview a culture-independent, globally accepted consensus as to how things are. From my perspective, this part is easy. How things are is, well, how things are: our science-based understandings of Nature: the Big Bang, the formation of stars and
planets, the origin and evolution of life and sentience on Earth, the very recent advent of language-based consciousness in humans, and the concomitant evolution of human cultures. As science-based inquiry continues, our current understandings will deepen and evolve, but a core narrative is in place:
The universe is a single reality—one long, sweeping spectacular process of interconnected events. The universe is not a place where evolution happens, it is the evolution happening. It is not a stage on which drama unfolds, it is the unfolding drama itself. If ever there were a candidate for a universal story, it must be this story of cosmic evolution . . . .The story shows us in the deepest possible sense that we are all sisters and brothers fashioned from the same stellar dust, energized by the same star, nourished by the same planet, endowed with the same genetic code, and threatened by the same evils. This story, more than any other, humbles us before the magnitude and complexity of creation. Like no other story it bewilders us with the improbability of our existence, astonishes us with the interdependence of all things, and makes us feel grateful for the lives we have. And not the least of all, it inspires us to express our gratitude to the past by accepting a solemn and collective responsibility for the future.
Loyal Rue
This, I believe, is the story that can unite us, because it is true for us all. It is Everybody’s Story.
But that potential carries a crucial caveat. A cosmology works as a religious cosmology only if it resonates, only if it makes the listener feel religious. Yes, the beauty of Nature—sunsets, woodlands, bird song—readily elicits religious responses. We experience awe and wonder at the grandeur, the poetry, the richness of the natural world; it fills us with joy and thanksgiving. Our responses to accounts of the workingsof Nature, on the other hand, are often far less positive. The scientific accounts of how things are, and how they came to be, are more likely, at least initially, to elicit alienation, disenchantment, anomie, and nihilism rather than the celebration just offered by Loyal Rue. Such responses are not likely to motivate allegiance or a spiritual/ethical orientation.
This alienation has several sources that are considered in various chapters of the book. Here I suggest that a primary source derives
from the way that scientific understandings are commonly presented. The language of scientists, while conveying essential precision and depth to other scientists, too often conveys a view of the natural world that can feel cold and mechanical to the outsider. Moreover, the language is often obscure, generating the understandable response that “I can’t get my mind around all that stuff.” And, alas, our science curricula in the schools, while often creative and stimulating, have all too often been experienced as difficult, dry, and boring except for “those science nerds who were good at it.”
This book therefore seeks to present an accessible and engaging account of our science-based understandings of Nature, with a focus on planetary life, and then suggest ways that this account can elicit abiding, fulfilling, and joyous religious responses, generating what has been called a religious naturalist orientation (p. 219), an orientation poised to participate in the development of a planetary ethos. Once we experience a solemn gratitude that we exist at all, share a reverence for how life and the planet work, and acknowledge an imperative that both continue to flourish, our conversations will be infused with intimations of the sacred depths of Nature and our responsibility to nurture that which we deem sacred.
A key component of any religious cosmology is its focus on the human. Even as we acknowledge that our advent on the planet was but an evolutionary moment ago, even as we gaze into the heavens with urgent questions about our significance, the significance and future of humankind remain central to our religious sensibilities.
The religious naturalist orientation has no problem here. Being at home with our natural selves is the prelude to both morality and ecomorality, and there are many ways to see human beings as noble and distinctive even as we are also animals who are inexorably part of the whole. A planetary ethic must be anchored both in an understanding of human nature and an understanding of the rest of Nature. This, I believe, can be achieved if we all start out with the same kinds of perspectives on how human nature flows forth from whence we came.
HOW THIS BOOK IS PUT TOGETHER
A Lutheran-raised friend who read an early draft of the first edition of this book remarked that it was set up like a Daily Devotional booklet, also found in Evangelical and Catholic traditions. A Daily Devotional, he explained, contains a collection of short bible-based stories, each followed by a religious meditation on the story’s theme. While I wasn’t familiar with the genre, that’s basically how the chapters of this book are constructed.
Each chapter begins with a story about the dynamics of Nature. Most are about biology since that is what I best understand, and most are about biology at the level of molecules and genes and cells, since this is what cries out to be understood. The stories recount what has been called the Epic of Evolution or Journey of the Universe or, my favorite, Everybody’s Story: our current understandings of the origins of the universe and the planet; the origins of chemistry and life; the workings of cells and organisms; the patterns of biological evolution and the resultant biodiversity; awareness and feelings; sex and intimacy; multicellularity and death; human evolution; and morality and ecomorality. Throughout, I have done my best to bridge C.P. Snow’s “two cultures”—persons fluent in science-based worldviews vs. persons oriented within the arts and humanities. For readers not well versed in scientific concepts and terminology, I have tried to render my accounts accurate, understandable, and meaningful. Those who know the terrain will, I hope, find themselves engaged by the analogies and story lines that are used to explain the familiar.
I often use anthropomorphic language in these descriptions— amino acids prefer to do something and enzymes recognize something—because that’s how we humans think: we follow narratives with protagonists that have agency. Indeed, biologists use such analogies/metaphors all the time; we speak of orphaned
receptors and proteins that serve as chaperones and genes that hitchhike. While we hold robust science-based understandings of the molecules and mechanisms of which we speak, it’s usually easier to communicate those understandings in carefully chosen anthropomorphic frames that convey the essence of a process.
Then, at the end of each story, I offer a short response, the analogue of the Christian meditation, as a nontheistic religious naturalist (p. 219). These reflections draw heavily on traditional religious concepts and on readings and conversations, but in the end, each reflection is personal, describing the particular religious/spiritual sensibility elicited in me when I think about a particular facet of the story. For example, the existence of the Cosmos invokes in me a sense of mystery; the exuberance of biodiversity invokes humility; and an understanding of the evolution of death offers me helpful ways to think about my own death. If the religious naturalist orientation is to flourish, it will be because other writers find themselves called to reflect on the dynamics of Nature from their own cognitive, experiential, and cultural perspectives—in which case this book will become one of a series of Daily Devotionals.
Human memory, they say, is like a coat closet: The most enduring outcome of education is that it creates rows of coat hooks so that later on, when you come upon a new piece of information about something, you have a hook to hang it on. Without a hook, the new information falls on the floor. Some readers with scanty scientific backgrounds have told me that while they were reading one of my stories about Nature, it felt like they understood everything I said, but the next day they could scarcely remember a thing about it.
No hooks, I explain. Then I remind them that there isn’t going to be a test, and that as they were reading they were creating hooks for their next encounters with scientific explanation. And then the important part: The point of hearing a story for the first time is not to remember it but to experience it.
