The Religious Dimensions of the Biological Narrative

A cell/molecular biologist challenges the thesis that science and religion are two ways of experiencing and interpreting the world and explores instead the possible ways that the modern biological worldview might serve as a resource for religious perspectives. Three concepts—meaning, valuation, and purpose—are argued to be central to the entire biological enterprise, and the continuation of this enterprise is regarded as a sacred religious trust. This article was originally delivered at the Templeton Symposium,„Science and Religion: Two Ways of Experiencing and Interpreting the World”organized by Zygon: Journal of Religion and Science and the Chicago Center for Religion and Science, 31 August-2 September 1993. This symposium and its publication were made possible through the generosity of the John Templeton Foundation

What Science Can and Cannot Offer to a Religious Narrative

A molecular/cell biologist offers perspectives on the contributions that the scientific worldview might and might not make to religious though. It is argued that two essential features of institutionalized religions–their historical context and their supernatural orientation—are not addressed by the sciences, nor can the sciences contribute to the art and ritual that elicit states of faith and transcendence. The sciences have, however, important stories (myths) to offer, stories that have the potential to unify us, to tell us what is sacred, what has meaning, and how we might best proceed. This paper, in slightly different form, was first presented before the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Boston, Mass., on 13 February 1993

Creativity in Science

Creativity is a concept far more often associated with art than with science. The creative dimension of scientific inquiry and practice is described and compared with its artistic counterpart; similarities and differences are analyzed. She presented this paper at the Thirty-Seventh Annual Star Island Conference of the Institute on Religion in an Age of Science (IRAS), “Creativity, Non-Conformity, and Madness” at Star Island, New Hampshire, 28 July-4 August 1990

From Biology to Consciousness to Morality

Social animals are provisioned with prosocial orientations that operate to transcend self-interest. Morality, as used here, describes human versions of such orientations. We explore the evolutionary antecedents of morality in the context of emergentism, giving considerable attention to the biological traits that undergird awareness and our emergent human forms of mind. We suggest that our moral frames of mind emerge from our primate prosocial capacities, transfigured and valenced by our symbolic languages, cultures, and religions. Portions of this article were given by Deacon in a paper at the forty-ninth annual conference of IRAS, “Is Nature Enough? The Thirst for Transcendence,” Star Island, New Hampshire, 27 July-3 August 2002

Bringing Religious Naturalists Together Online

Religious Naturalism is a concept that has developed largely in the academy, in trade books, and on several on-line sites that avoid using the term religious. This chapter describes our two-year experience launching the Religious Naturalist Association (RNA), an on-line community that has attracted \u3e 400 members from 47 states in the US and 28 countries. We lift up the challenges and the advantages of exploring the religious naturalist orientation in a virtual context

Review of the algal biology program within the National Alliance for Advanced Biofuels and Bioproducts

In 2010,when the National Alliance for Advanced Biofuels and Bioproducts (NAABB) consortiumbegan, littlewas known about themolecular basis of algal biomass or oil production. Very fewalgal genome sequenceswere available and efforts to identify the best-producing wild species through bioprospecting approaches had largely stalled after the U.S. Department of Energy\u27s Aquatic Species Program. This lack of knowledge included how reduced carbon was partitioned into storage products like triglycerides or starch and the role played bymetabolite remodeling in the accumulation of energy-dense storage products. Furthermore, genetic transformation and metabolic engineering approaches to improve algal biomass and oil yields were in their infancy. Genome sequencing and transcriptional profiling were becoming less expensive, however; and the tools to annotate gene expression profiles under various growth and engineered conditions were just starting to be developed for algae. It was in this context that an integrated algal biology program was introduced in the NAABB to address the greatest constraints limiting algal biomass yield. This review describes the NAABB algal biology program, including hypotheses, research objectives, and strategies to move algal biology research into the twenty-first century and to realize the greatest potential of algae biomass systems to produce biofuels