MORAL DECISIONS ABOUT HUMAN GERM-LINE MODIFICATION

Technologies for human germ-line modification may soon enable humanity to create new types of human beings. Decisions about use of this power entail an unprecedented combination of difficulties: the stakes are immense, the unknowns are daunting, and moral principles are called into question. Evolved morality is not a sure basis for these decisions, both because of its inherent imperfections and because genetic engineering could eventually change humans’ innate cognitive mechanisms. Nevertheless, consensus is needed on moral values relevant to germ-line modification. These values could be based on characteristics of human beings that would remain constant regardless of revised genomes.     

Noise,Economy, and the Emergence of Information Structure in a Laboratory Language

The acceptability of sentences in natural language is constrained not only grammaticality, but also by the relationship between what is being conveyed and such factors as context and the beliefs of interlocutors. In many languages the critical element in a sentence (its focus) must be given grammatical prominence. There are different accounts of the nature of focus marking. Some researchers treat it as the grammatical realization of a potentially arbitrary feature of universal grammar and do not provide an explicit account of its origins; others have argued, however, that focus marking is a (grammaticalized) functional solution to the problem of efficiently transmitting information via a noisy channel. By adding redundancy to highlight critical elements in particular, focus protects key parts of the message from noise. If this information‐theoretic account is true, then we should expect focus‐like behavior to emerge even in non‐linguistic communication systems given sufficient noise and pressures for efficiency. We tested this in an experiment in which participants played a simple communication game in which they had to click cells on a grid to communicate one of two line figures drawn across the grid. We manipulated the noise, available time, and required effort, and measured patterns of redundancy. Because the lines in many cases overlapped, meaning that only some parts of each line could be used to distinguish it from the other, we were able to compare the extent to which effort was expended on adding redundancy to critical (non‐overlapping) and non‐critical (overlapping) parts of the message. The results supported the information‐theoretic account of focus and shed light on the emergence of information structure in language.     

Evolution, Sociobiology, and the Atonement

This essay views Christian doctrines of the atonement in the light of evolution and sociobiology. It argues that most of the doctrines are false because they use a false premise, the historicity of Adam and the Fall. However, two doctrines are not false on those grounds: Abelard's idea that Jesus' life is an example and Athanasius' concept that the atonement changes human nature. Employing evolution's and sociobiology's concepts of the egocentric and ethnocentric nature of humanity and the synergy between genes and environments to produce a "nature," this essay shows that these two doctrines can be amalgamated to make sense of the atonement in the late twentieth century.     

Cornell College: Program in Science and Religion

Cornell College in Mount Vernon, Iowa, has established a new interdisciplinary program in science and religion. One of the features of this program is an undergraduate major in science and religion that requires substantial course work in at least one of the natural sciences as well as course work in philosophy, religion, and history. As a result of a grant from the John Templeton Foundation, Cornell College will offer a special course, God and Physics: From Aquinas to Quantum Mechanics (April 1998), and will sponsor an international symposium on creation and contemporary cosmology (April 1999). Opportunities exist for interested scholars to come to Cornell as Templeton Visiting Fellows in order to participate in these activities.     

Anthropocentric Rhetorical Discourse in Popular Science Writing about Human Evolution

Discourse describing evolution in contemporary popular science writing often posits that humans evolved not from an ape, but from a merely ape-like or generalized primate. Contemporary fossil and genetic evidence, though, have revealed what can accurately be described as an extinct ape species as ancestral to the human lineage. The persistence of ambiguous terms in popular science writing may be interpreted as a form of anthropocentric rhetorical discourse. Nonetheless, while such discourse is often justified in terms of increasing the public understanding of science, it may also mitigate (whether consciously intended or not) religion-based resistance to evolutionary theory.     

A CRITIQUE OF EMERGENT THEOLOGIES

This article is an analysis and critique of emergent theologies, focusing on areas of Christology and pneumatology. An increasing number of Christian theologians are integrating (strong) emergence theory into their work. I argue that, despite the range of theological commitments and methodological approaches represented by these scholars, each faces similar problematic tendencies when their Christian doctrines are combined with (strong) emergence theory. It is concluded that the basic logic of emergence theory, whereby matter is seen to precede mind, makes it difficult for emergent theologies to offer an account of salvation, avoid significant issues regarding God's involvement with evil, and maintain divine transcendence. It is concluded, therefore, that Christian theology should look elsewhere for a complementary metaphysical framework with which to bridge scientific and theological discourse.     

Arbitrariness in nature: synergetics and evolutionary laws of prohibition

The philosophical consequences of synergetics, the interdisciplinary theory of evolution and self-organization of complex systems, are being drawn in the paper. The idea of discreteness of evolutionary paths is in the focus of attention. Although the future is open, and there are many alternative evolutionary paths for complex systems, not any arbitrary (either conceivable or desirable) evolutionary path is feasible in a given system. There are discrete spectra of possible evolutionary paths which are determined exclusively by inner properties of the corresponding systems. Synergetics allows us to reveal general laws of self-organization and, therefore, certain limits of arbitrariness of nature in choosing possible paths of evolution as well as in constructing of a complex evolutionary whole. A comparative analysis between the modern synergetic notions and a few ideas of the Western philosophy (F. Nietzsche, N. Hartmann, M. Heidegger) and of the Eastern teachings (Taoism, Buddhism) is made. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Whose Evolution? Which Theology?

The importance of scientific conflicts for theology andphilosophy is difficult to judge. In many disputes of significance, prominent scientists can be found on both sides. Profound philosophical and religious implications are sometimes said to be implied by the new theory as well. This article examines the dispute over natural selection between Richard Dawkins and Stephen Jay Gould as a contemporary instance of such a conflict. While both claim that profound philosophical conclusions flow from their own alternativeaccount of evolution, I suggest that the implication is not as great as is claimed and that the alleged implications have as much to do with their own perceptions of theology as with the actual theories themselves. Nevertheless, evolutionary theory is not irrelevant for theology. Theologians should be aware of the possible implications of evolutionary theory and at the same time theextent and limits of such implications.     

Ralph Burhoe and Teilhard De Chardin: an Affinity in Mysticism?

Religious experience is conditioned and influenced by our understanding of reality, and scientific knowledge contributes to that understanding. Spirituality will be related to knowledge of nature in that experience of God will be mediated in and through a relation to the universe and out of the fulfillment of the creation. Thus a mystical knowledge of God is experienced in and out of a developing evolution of nature, society, and culture. Ralph Burhoe and Teilhard de Chardin share a vision of mystical unity with God as arising out of an integration involving the systems of nature and society.