The Sacred Depths of Nature

ISBN-13: 9780195126136 / Angielski / Twarda / 1998 / 224 str.

Ursula Goodenough

Opis

This eloquent volume reconciles our contemporary scientific understand ing of reality with our timeless spiritual yearnings for reverence and continuity. Addressing ideas like evolution, emotions, sexuality, and death, The Sacred Depths of Nature brings rich, uncluttered detail to the workings of nature in general and of living creatures in particul ar. Goodenough's clear thinking and writing will allow even non-scient ists to appreciate that the origins of life and the universe are no le ss meaningful in light of our scientific understanding of them. At the end of each chapter, her spiritual reflections respond to nature's co mplexity with a vibrant emotional intensity and sense of reverent wond er.

Recenzje

The groundwork for a religious naturalism is superbly laid - in this respect the detail and precision with which she [Goodenough] presents the context of our human experience is an important advance on previous authors. The structure of her book is also an important innovation, in its alternation of third-person and first-person perspectives. Most importantly of all, she presents a highly coherent case for the possibility of a planetary ethic which bypasses the authority of scriptural tradition deriving its authority instead from science

O autorze

Ursula Goodenough is Professor of Biology at Washington University. One of America's leading cell biologists, she is the author of a bestselling textbook on genetics, and has served as President of the American Society of Cell Biology and of the Institute on Religion in an Age of Science. She lives in St. Louis, Missouri, and in Chilmark, Massachusetts, on Martha's Vineyard.