BIOLOGY: WHAT ONE NEEDS TO KNOW |
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| Authors: | Ursula Goodenough |
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| Institution: | Ursula Goodenough is Professor of Biology at Washington University, St. Louis, MO 63130 and past president of the Institute for Religion in an Age of Science (IRAS). Her E-mail address is . Permission is hereby granted to reproduce this article for class use, with this note: Reprinted from Zygon: Journal of Religion and Science. |
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| Abstract: | Abstract. Biology on this planet represents an astonishing experiment in carbon-based chemistry which, over billions of years, has generated billions of species adapted to countless major and minor fluctuations in ecological circumstances. In one sense there is no way to generalize about biology. While biological activities can all be ultimately explained by physical laws (like everything else in the universe), it is the emergent intensely particular properties of organisms that most interest us. This essay represents an attempt to describe some of the more prominent patterns that emerge from the sea of biological particularities, patterns that present many opportunities for religous reflection. |
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| Keywords: | biology death evolution meaning natural selection sex |
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