by Elizabeth Bjorkman
The Institute on Religion in an Age of Science (IRAS) explored "Nurturing Human Nature" at the 47th annual Star Island Conference July 29 to August 5. The speakers engaged our hearts as well as our intellects. A rich variety of workshops provided nurture during a week when nature tested conferees with frequent showers and only occasional sunshine.
The overarching question posed by conference co-chair and UCC minister, The Rev. Dr. Bill Fala, was how can individuals and society create nurturing environments for children which will foster a social order that nurtures and empowers all its citizens? Co-chair and clinical psychologist Dr. Sharon McNamara sketched a complex adaptive systematic approach to developmental psychology which reflects the strong influence of evolutionary thinking currently influencing psychologists' understanding of how an individual child learns a task and then imbeds that knowledge. Children are constantly internalizing their environments and children abused in childhood have biochemical differences from non-traumatized children. Co-chair Sol Katz, anthropologist and Director of the Philadelphia Center for Research in Child Growth and Development sharpened our focus by asking how can we use our knowledge of human nature to find new ways of looking at this perplexing area.
Terry Deacon, a neuroscientist and popular speaker at IRAS conferences whose PhD is in Biological Anthropology addressed the nature verses nurture debate scientifically. He concludes that what we label as human nature requires certain kinds of nurture in order to be expressed and that we need to move away from the misguided engineering metaphor for human beings since attempts at reverse engineering to understand human development have failed. The vast majority of the information that goes into building brains is not in the genes&ldots;but also not in experience! The information for building bodies and brains comes from a complex interaction (Deacon used a weaving metaphor) of nature AND nurture, an epigenetic process where information emerges in development and a process that continues to mystify. Deacon likened the Human Genome Project to the building of a dictionary for a population that does not yet know how to speak the language. We are a species addicted to language, symbols and social interaction which mean the epigenesis, or enfolding, of the genome in context continues.
A Jewish perspective on ethics of the daily, "Mothering and Spiritual Journey", and a glimpse of the contrast between Chinese and U.S. preschool styles highlighted the tremendous variety that exists for nurturers of human nature. The failure of our legal system for child protective services combined with Sarah Hrdy's report on her research on the use of wet nurses in 18th century France shifted the focus to conditions that contribute to non-nurturing behaviors. Hrdy's research shows humans have a heritage of cooperative breeding and maternal instincts have their limits.
Olivera Petrovich, a psychologist, teacher and researcher at Oxford University reported on her research with young children in England and Japan which focuses on innate understanding of core principles. The main problem for researchers, she explained, is not so much that we do not know what the sources of knowledge are. Rather we struggle trying to know how these sources of knowledge combine and interact in the developing mind. She echoed Deacon's insistence on nature AND nurture for in depth understanding. Her research indicates there are some non-concrete understandings of the physical world which appear very early in development contrary to Piaget's hierarchy, e.g. solidity and continuity. Also there is considerable evidence for a primal concept of God in young children. Primal understandings require interactions common to all members of the species between the organism and aspects of the external environment, while innate understandings arise from interactions that occur within the organism itself during ontogeny.
Don Browning, Professor of Ethics and the Social Sciences at the Divinity School of The University of Chicago and director of the Lilly Project on Religion, Culture and the Family, supports conclusions on the importance of families. While nurturing families are important, Browning insists they are not sufficient for producing responsible citizens in this highly individualized, rational and technical culture. Families, for Browning, need to participate in the larger symbolic universe where powerful narratives nurture respect for all persons and nature. Religious symbols, for example, build on our natural inclinations and also put boundaries on them.
Formal presentations concluded first with case studies from the psychiatric practice of long-time IRAS member (since 1958) John Fryer on mentally ill substance abusers from addicted families. Lastly anthropologist Sol Katz presented curious new insights on the unusual nature of the human life cycle, e.g. the long period of post-reproductive life and the curious dominance of the grandmother's role in the nurturing of granddaughters of sons in non-modern cultures.
Beginning at mid week a committee, under the leadership of lawyer and IRAS council member Michael Cavanaugh, began work on a conference statement which sought to summarize the general sense of the conference along with recommendations for action, and a list of some outstanding issues. This statement, which can be found on the IRAS web page at www.iras.org formed the basis for the Friday morning conference wrap-up discussion in the round.
Because of the vast nature of the conference topic, the chaplain, UUA minister The Rev. John Luopa provided key insights and continuity in his daily services of music and meditation. His morning talks can also be found on the IRAS web page. The IRAS seminar this year discussed Kevin Sharpe's soon to be published book, Sleuthing the Divine: The Nexus of Science and Spirit. Next year's conference will build on work done this year when the topic for exploration will be "Human Meaning in a Technological Culture". New conferees are especially welcome.