2004 - 2006: University of Arizona
Astrobiology and the Sacred: Implications of Life Beyond Earth
Abstract
Upcoming Lectures and Activities
• Year 1 Theme
• Year 2 Theme
• Year 3 Theme
Project Leaders
Organizing Committee/Working Group
Additional Information
Abstract
The search for life beyond Earth is the last frontier in the continuing scientific and cultural revolution that began with Copernicus. The theory of the origin of the solar system suggests that the condensation of heavy elements into planets is an unexceptional process. From chemistry we learn that organic molecules form under a wide array of conditions, so that we find them in asteroids, comets, in the atmospheres of gas giants (Saturn, Jupiter), and in the interstellar medium. From geology we learn that life began on Earth almost as early as it was possible to do so. Recent findings in biology indicate that life on Earth can survive in a wider range of environments than previously thought. In recent years, the number of planets found around nearby stars has grown to over 115. All of these developments, along with recent progress in astronomical instrumentation, suggest that scientists will soon have the tools to demonstrate that biology is not unique to Earth. This discovery will have profound implications for human culture.
While scientific work in this area accelerates, thoughtful and systematic reflection
on the implications of these developments is in its infancy. In the past it
was thought these findings might constitute a reductionist challenge to traditional
religious faith. Instead we sense an exhilarating rediscovery of the essential
spirituality of humanity in all its diversity. Questions of religious faith,
of meaning in life, of cosmic purpose, of the universality of human values,
are reawakened with a new urgency and a deeper sense of community with the wider
universe beyond Earth. Our sense of global responsibility begins to expand beyond
Earth, to encompass the solar system. This proposal addresses the need for a
rigorous humanistic and theological assessment of the issues that will arise
as the new science of astrobiology begins to achieve successes. The University
of Arizona is among the very best institutions in astronomy, but it is also
true that there is a strong tradition here of the constructive engagement of
science and religion. The Vatican Observatory has only one foreign station -
here in Tucson, in cooperation with the Steward Observatory. We have graduate
and undergraduate courses that deal with the relationships between science and
religion offered by several departments. Catholic, Episcopal, Jewish, Methodist,
Baptist, Islamic, and atheist scientists here discuss and debate both scientific
and religious issues. We have drawn participants not only from Astronomy, Planetary
Sciences, and Molecular-Cellular Biology, but also Religious Studies, Judaic
Studies, Creative Writing, Humanities, and Art History. Because this proposal
crosses departmental lines and encourages interdisciplinary humanistic inquiry,
it is consistent with the university's strategic goals, and consequently is
strongly supported by the institution at the highest levels.
The proposed twin lecture series builds on local expertise in the emerging
field of astrobiology, with a program that extends the discussion to include
scholars in the Arts, the Humanities, and the social sciences. In addition to
acting as the primary vehicle for an annual series of research lectures, the
program will engage in outreach and create curriculum materials for non-science
majors, astronomy majors, and for high school science teachers and their students.
Lectures from each series will be reviewed and published in book form. Each
entire lecture series will be disseminated by live and delayed Internet web-cast,
and will be made available on DVD.
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Upcoming
Lectures and Activities
Note: The University of Arizona was awarded its grant
for the Templeton Research Lectures on April 1, 2004. Stay tuned for updates
as the organizing committee prepares the program for the Templeton Research
Lectures!
Central Research Theme:
Astrobiology is the scientific study of biological processes on the Earth and
beyond. It connects research in physics, chemistry, biology, astronomy and planetary
science. After centuries of speculation, we will soon have the capability of
detecting ancient life or pre-biotic chemistry in the solar system, microbial
life on extra-solar planets by its alteration of global atmospheric chemistry,
and technological civilizations throughout the galaxy. Success in any of these
areas would profoundly affect social discourse at all levels, reawakening religious
questions in a new context. This series pursues these implications by bringing
together voices from the relevant areas to form a new kind of interdisciplinary
networking community that will encourage dialogue, research, and publication
from the participants. Astrobiology has a firm scientific footing and it makes
an excellent platform for gathering scientists, humanists, philosophers and
theologians in an exploration of the role of humans in the universe.
Year 1 Theme: Life on Earth
Research Topics: The history of life on Earth from the perspectives
of chemistry, biology, and paleontology. Earliest evidence for life. Pre-biotic
chemistry and the growth of complexity. Contingency and the rise of human intelligence
and technology. Global environmental consciousness in nature-writing and devotional
literature. Non-human intelligence. The nature and end points of evolution.
Human activity in near space, its effect on our sense of nature and the sacred.
Divine action and the dynamics of the biosphere. Life as computation. Free will
in the context of evolution and complexity.
Year 2 Theme: Life in the
Nearby Universe
Research Topics: Extremophiles on Earth and the range of potential
sites for life. Environmental theology on the scale of the solar system. Implications
of a return to the Moon. Mars as potential biological laboratory, debates on
the philosophical and ethical implications of Martian microbial life. The ethics
of terraforming. Lessons from Europa and Titan, and the prospects for obtaining
evidence of life in the solar system. The current state of searches for extra-solar
planets and the theory of planet formation. Detection of life via atmospheric
chemistry of extra-solar planets. Ethical and religious obligations upon detection
of alien biology. Terrestrial inequalities (race, gender, class, nationalism,
ethnic and religious hatred) and the potential for strife resulting from discoveries
in astrobiology.
Year 3 Theme: Life in a Cosmic
Setting
Research Topics: Evidence for cosmic fine-tuning, anthropic ideas and
the multiverse. The likelihood of planets and biology in vastly different environments
throughout the universe. Interstellar travel and interstellar communication.
Reconciliation of humanity with non-biological life and artificial life. Cosmic
chemistry, life and thermodynamics. Insights from poetry, art, and religious
writing responding to the size and nature of the astronomical universe. Physical
dynamics on a cosmological scale (supermassive black holes, gamma ray bursts,
supernovae, quasars) in the context of prayer and divine action in a God-created
universe. Biology as a cosmological force. Spirituality and morality in the
context of exo-biology.
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Project Leaders
Chris Impey (Chair of the Committee and Principal
Investigator)
Chris Impey is a University Distinguished Professor at the University of Arizona,
and Deputy Department Head of Astronomy. He received his B.Sc. from the University
of London, his Ph.D. from the University of Edinburgh, then he held an SERC/NATO
postdoc at the University of Hawaii, and was a Weingart Research Fellow at the
California Institute of Technology. He has authored over 130 research papers
on extragalactic astronomy and cosmology and has had 17 projects approved with
the Hubble Space Telescope. He is the author of two introductory textbooks with
Bill Hartmann, and is the creator of a web site that serves more than a thousand
students each year with astronomy content and interactive teaching tools. Impey
has won nine University of Arizona teaching grants and awards. For five years,
he was the Associate Director of the NASA Arizona Space Grant, ranked by NASA
as the best among 50 in the country. He was the co-Director of a M.Sc. program
for high school teachers, funded by the NSF. Impey is a founding member of the
editorial board of the Astronomy Education Review, a peer-reviewed
education journal sponsored by the American Astronomical Society. He is currently
Vice President of the American Astronomical Society. Last year, he was one of
six people nationwide chosen as an NSF Distinguished Teaching Scholar, and he
was selected as the Arizona Professor of the Year by the Carnegie Foundation
for the Advancement of Teaching. His research interests center on cosmology,
gravitational lensing, faint galaxies, and dark matter.
Richard Poss (Co-Investigator)
Richard Poss is the Director of the Humanities Program and Associate Professor
of Astronomy. His Ph.D. (University of Georgia, 1986) is in Comparative Literature
with initial training in literature and painting of the Renaissance. Soon after
coming to Arizona he became interested in interactions between science and the
humanities. His research examines the role of astronomical themes in European
poetry, and he has published articles on Petrarch, Dante, Veronica Gambara,
Walt Whitman, on the exploration of Mars, and on reconciling environmental issues
with lunar development. His current interest is the astronomical landscape paintings
of the 18th century Italian artist Donato Creti. Professor Poss regularly teaches
a course entitled "Science and the Humanities" which examines topics
such as robotics and artificial intelligence, planetary science and space exploration,
genetic design and bioengineering. He frequently offers a first-year colloquium
entitled "Science and Human Values in the 21st Century." He has won
a variety of teaching awards, including the UA Foundation Leicester and Kathryn
Sherrill Creative Teaching Award 1994, the Provost's General Education Teaching
Award 2001, the Humanities Seminars Superior Teaching Award 1996, and two Provost's
Teaching Improvement Awards (1991 and 1992).
Timothy Slater (Co-Investigator)
Timothy Slater is an Associate Professor of Astronomy and the Director of the
Science and Mathematics Education Center at the University of Arizona where
his scholarship focuses on the teaching and learning of science. He earned his
Ph.D. at the Univ. of South Carolina in 1993. As part of the Conceptual Astronomy
and Physics Education Research (CAPER) group in the UA Astronomy Department,
his research focuses on inquiry-based curriculum development and authentic assessment
strategies, with a particular emphasis on non-science majors and pre-service
teachers. He also teaches science education pedagogy courses for the College
of Science Science Teacher Preparation Program. He has served multiple terms
as chairman of the Astronomy Education Committee of the American Association
of Physics Teachers and most recently as the president of the Association of
Astronomy Educators. He is an author on more than 70 refereed articles, six
books, and is frequently an invited speaker on improving teaching of science
through educational research as well as on teacher education.
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Organizing Committee/Working
Group
Click on the name of a committee member for biographical information.
- George V. Coyne, S. J.,
Director of the Vatican Observatory
- Alison Hawthorne Deming,
Professor of Creative Writing, English Department
- Paul Ivey, Associate
Professor, Art History
- Thomas Lindell,
Professor, Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology
- Jonathan Lunine,
Professor of Planetary Sciences and Physics; Chair, Theoretical Astrophysics
Program
- Renu Malhotra, Associate
Professor, Planetary Sciences and faculty member, Lunar and Planetary Laboratory
- Alex Nava, Assistant
Professor of Classics and Religious Studies
- Bill Stoeger, S.J.,
Vatican Observatory and adjunct associate professor, Astronomy
- Neville Woolf, Professor,
Astronomy, Director of the NASA Astrobiology Institute - Tucson node
- J. Edward Wright,
Director and Associate Professor of Judaic Studies
- Thomas Fleming,
Associate Astronomer and Senior Lecturer, Astronomy (lecture organizer, publicity,
and web-casting)
- Adrienne Gauthier,
instructional specialist, Steward Observatory (instructional materials development,
and web design)
- Cathy Petry, senior
research specialist, Steward Observatory (events organizer and proceedings
editor)
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Additional Information
Web Site:
http://scienceandreligion.arizona.edu
Contact:
Chris Impey, Ph.D.
University of Arizona
Department of Astronomy
Steward Observatory 334
933 N. Cherry Avenue
Tucson, AZ 85721
Work: 520.621.6522
Fax: 520.621.1532
cimpey@as.arizona.edu
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