Science, Religion & Society: An Online Series
Inaugural Sessions that started during summer of 2020
For 65 years, The Institute on Religion in an Age of Science (IRAS) has held summer Conferences on Star Island, off the coast of Portsmouth, New Hampshire. Due to the current pandemic, we had to postpone our 2020 Star Island conference until the summer of 2021. In order to continue to engage with IRAS themes and the IRAS community, with Star Island’s generous support, we launched a live webinar series: Science, Religion, & Society. Below are the collected session videos.
Upcoming Session:
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The Call to Conserve is Not Working:
What Can IRAS Scholars Add? with Dr. Philip Clayton The program will begin at 4:00 PM CDT, 5:00 EDT, 2:00 PM PDT, 10:00 PM BST. This IRAS webinar is FREE but registration is required. Please register using the link below. If you have questions, contact CJ Love: carolynjlove3@gmail.com |
About the December 14, 2021 webinar:
Presentation Overview: The day when 100,000 people marched in the streets of Glasgow, desperately trying to motivate political commitments by COP26 delegates, the results from a global survey were announced: To put it simply, most of those surveyed agreed that humanity stands at a critical crossroads; at the same time, most admitted that they were not prepared to change their actions or voting behaviors in response. Climate scientists provide data and models; technologists look for clean energy solutions and carbon sequestration; an increasing number of business and political leaders use their power to support the transition. What can IRAS members and allies contribute? In this presentation we will hear that people with the commitments and skill sets of most IRAS members can make four kinds of contributions that could play a crucial role in supporting a transition to an ecological civilization:
Dr. Philip Clayton is President of the Institute for Ecological Civilization. As a visionary thinker Philip leads EcoCiv in expanding and deepening its mission at the intersections of environment and humanity. With his experience as researcher and Ingraham Professor (at CST at Willamette University in Salem, Oregon), Philip is involved in the conceptual development of all EcoCiv’s projects and ensures mission fit. In particular, he helps project leaders think about intersectional societal changes relevant for their particular projects. Philip holds the PhD from Yale University; has held guest professorships at Harvard, University of Cambridge, and University of Munich. He is the author of some 300 articles on science, ethics, and religion, and author or editor of several dozen books, including God and Contemporary Science (1998), The Problem of God in Modern Thought (2000); Mind and Emergence: From Quantum to Consciousness (2004); Adventures in the Spirit: God, World, Divine Action (2008); Transforming Christian Theology: For Church and Society (2012); and co-author What is Ecological Civilization? Crisis, Hope, and the Future of the Planet (2019). He is also the editor of The Oxford Handbook of Religion and Science (2006) and has three additional books in current preparation. |
2020-2021 Sessions: Videos
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Facing Apocalypse: Climate,
Democracy, and Other Last Chances with Dr. Catherine Keller |
Facing Apocalypse: Climate,
Democracy, and Other Last Chances Presented November 11, 2021 About the November 11, 2021 presenter
Dr. Catherine Keller: As the George T. Cobb Professor of Constructive Theology in the Theological School and Graduate Division of Religion of Drew University, Catherine Keller teaches courses in process, political, and ecological theology. Within and beyond Christian conversation, she has all along mobilized the trans-disciplinary potential of feminist, philosophical, and pluralist intersections with religion. Her most recent books invite at once contemplative and social critique of our entangled existence: Facing Apocalypse (2021); Political Theology of the Earth: Our Planetary Emergency and the Struggle for a New Public (2018); Intercarnations: On the Possibility of Theology (2017); and Cloud of the Impossible: Negative Theology and Planetary Entanglement (2014). Keller’s other books include On the Mystery: Discerning Divinity in Process (2008); God and Power: Counter-Apocalyptic Journeys (2005); Face of the Deep: A Theology of Becoming (2003); Apocalypse Now and Then: A Feminist Guide to the End of the World (1996); and From a Broken Web: Separation, Sexism, and Self (1986). |
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Why Do We Hate? Understanding the
Origins of Human Conflict with Dr. Michael Ruse |
Why Do We Hate? Understanding the
Origins of Human Conflict Presented October 12, 2021 About the October 12, 2021 presenter
Dr. Michael Ruse, born (in 1940) in England, taught philosophy for 35 years at the University of Guelph, in Ontario, Canada, and then for 20 years at Florida State University. He is an expert on the history and philosophy of evolutionary biology and has written or edited over sixty books. He is particularly interested in the relationship between science and religion and was a witness for the ACLU in 1981 in its successful attempt to overturn a law mandating the compulsory teaching of Creationism in Arkansas. He has been awarded a Guggenheim fellowship (USA) and a Killam fellowship (Canada). A Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, he has been a Gifford Lecturer and is the recipient of four honorary degrees. He is known for his modesty. For Adam Chin’s biosketch, see the Memorial Scholarship description on pg. 13. |
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Life as Advent: Rethinking God,
Rethinking the Human with Dr. C. J. Love |
A Universe Leading to Life:
Awe, Inspiration, and Purpose Presented September 29, 2021 About the September 29, 2021 presenter
Dr. Jennifer Wiseman is an astrophysicist, author, and speaker. She studies the process of star and planet formation in our galaxy using radio, optical, and infrared telescopes. She is also interested in national science policy and public science engagement, and directs Dialogue on Science, Ethics, and Religion (DoSER) program for the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Dr. Wiseman studied physics at MIT, co-discovering comet Wiseman-Skiff in 1987, and continued in astronomy with her doctoral research at Harvard. She has worked with several international observatories and is currently a senior astrophysicist at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. Dr. Wiseman is a Fellow of the American Scientific Affiliation, a network of Christians in Science. She frequently gives public talks on the excitement of scientific discovery and appears in many venues including The New York Times, The Washington Post, NOVA, and National Public Radio. |
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Life as Advent: Rethinking God,
Rethinking the Human with Dr. C. J. Love |
Life as Advent: Rethinking God,
Rethinking the Human Presented August 18, 2021 About the August 18, 2021 presenter
Dr. C. J. Love is currently co-editing a book that examines how philosophical, theological, and social scientific principles can be applied to our social institutions such as education, social welfare, criminal justice, government, and the economy. She has also published “God, Genetics and Event Phenomenology: Rethinking Common Human Experience of Temporality in Theology, and Its Usefulness in Science, Theology, and Contemporary Culture,” ISSN 2300-6579. C.J. is actively involved in IRAS as the Vise President of Summer Conferences, webinar technician, and is co-chairing the 2022 IRAS summer conference “We” and “They”: Cross Cultural Conversations on Identity. Her interest in science and theology arose after “retiring” from a career in clinical human genetics to full-time parent her three children who are now in their twenties. C.J. developed an interest in theology after taking a moral theology class for fun. She earned her Ph.D. from Loyola University Chicago while raising her three children and defended her dissertation with distinction. |
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A Christian Naturalist Theology:
Living Faithfully in This World Only with Dr. Karl E. Peters |
A Christian Naturalist Theology:
Living Faithfully in This World Only Presented July 28, 2021 About the July 28, 2021 presenter
Dr. Karl E. Peters (Ph.D.) is Professor Emeritus of Philosophy and Religion, Rollins College, Winter Park, FL, where he taught world religions, environmental ethics, and religion and science. He has been editor and co-editor of Zygon: Journal of Religion and Science and is past Co-chair of the journal’s Joint Publication Board. He also is a Past President and Vice-President for Conferences of IRAS. Peters is the author of Dancing with the Sacred: Evolution, Ecology, and God and Spiritual Transformations: Science, Religion, and Human Becoming, as well as many essays in science and religion. This seminar is the result of recent creative thought on developing a Christian Naturalist Theology. He lives on Granby, CT, USA. His website is www.karlpeters.net |
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Value of life: Views from Science and Scripture
with Dr. Tariq Mustafa |
Value of life: Views from Science and Scripture
Presented June 17, 2021 About the June 17, 2021 presenter
Dr. Tariq Mustafa is a mechanical engineer with specialization in nuclear engineering and space technology. He graduated from London University with first class honors while also completing an engineering apprenticeship at the Royal Arsenal in Woolwich, UK. He then did post graduate work at the Atomic Energy and Space establishments of UK, the US, and France. He received an Honorary DSc. from the University of Greenwich, U.K. in 2013 and the Pakistan President’s award for lifetime excellence in Engineering in 2021. He has been a prominent speaker in the area of Science, Technology and Engineering in many countries and has worked closely with Prof. Abdul Salam, the Nobel Laureate in Physics. He has been a searcher all his life, particularly on the subject of “Human’s place in the universe” and the connection between reason and revelation. His paper on “The development of Evaluation Criteria for Authenticity of Revelation” was published in the September 2008 issue of the premier Science and Religion Journal Zygon. His most recent book, The Case for God, affirming the existence of the Creator, based on reason and evidence and not mere faith, is available from Amazon books. He is currently president of Pakistan’s National Paralympics Committee and President of the South Asian Paralympics Committee. He is a member of the Executive Council of the Institute for Religion in the Age of Science, USA. |
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The Human Mystery:
Unraveling the Past, Exploring the Future with Ron Cole-Turner |
The Human Mystery:
Unraveling the Past, Exploring the Future Presented May 19, 2021 About the May 19, 2021 presenter
Ron Cole-Turner teaches at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary, where he holds the H. Parker Sharp Chair in Theology and Ethics. For over thirty years, he has explored the impact of science and technology on religious perspectives (especially Christianity), with special attention to human evolution, past and future, including the expanding powers of technology to modify humanity, becoming “transhuman” or “posthuman.” Recent publications include Transhumanism and Transcendence: Christian Hope in an Age of Technological Enhancement (edited, 2011) and The End of Adam and Eve: Theology and the Science of Human Origins (2016). He is a founding member of the International Society for Science and Religion, serving now on the Executive Committee. |
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The Hype and Realities of
Aquaculture in your Community with Barry Antonio Costa-Pierce |
The Hype and Realities of
Aquaculture in your Community Presented April 14, 2021 About the April 14, 2021 presenter
Barry Antonio Costa-Pierce is the Henry L. & Grace Doherty Endowed Professor of Ocean Food Systems and the Program Coordinator the UNE Graduate Program in Ocean Food Systems, a partnership with two universities in Iceland. He is a marine ecologist with broad research interests in how fisheries, aquaculture, and seafood value chains throughout the world interact locally with marine ecosystems, businesses, and people. His current research funded by the U.S. Department of Energy is on the bioengineering of seaweed aquaculture systems. He has worked as an aquaculture and fisheries research scientist and policy expert for international education and research organizations, banks, such as the Food & Agriculture Organization and The World Bank, and for universities throughout the World, having lived long-term for in Asia, the Pacific Islands, Africa, and the Americas, and, more recently, in Europe. In 2017, Barry Antonio was selected by the Swedish Royal Academy of Agriculture and Forestry as the Knut & Alice Wallenberg Professor at the University of Gothenburg, where he now serves as a Senior Advisor to the Director. He served for 20 years as Editor for Aquaculture, the top science journal in this field. Barry is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the American Institute of Fishery Research Biologists. |
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The Vital Breath:
Saving Our Sacred Rainforests with Audrey Kitagawa |
The Vital Breath:
Saving Our Sacred Rainforests Presented March 25, 2021 About the March 25, 2021 presenter
Audrey Kitagawa was born and raised in Honolulu, Hawaii. She is a cum laude graduate of the University of Southern California, and a graduate of Boston College Law School. She practiced law in Honolulu for twenty-plus years, and upon retirement in 1996, she had a Martindale-Hubbell AV rating, the highest rating for professional and ethical excellence in the legal profession. Kitagawa is the head of an international spiritual family based in Hawaii. She is also Advisor to the World Federation of United Nations Associations. She serves as a member of many advisory boards and councils, including the Toda Institute for Peace and Global Policy Research, the Executive Council of the World Commission for Global Consciousness and Spirituality and for the Spiritual Caucus of the United Nations. |
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Naturalism — as Religion, within Religions,
or without Religion? with Daniel Spiro, Maynard Moore, & Imad-ad-Dean Ahmad |
Naturalism — as Religion, within Religions,
or without Religion? Presented February 15, 2021 About the February 15, 2021 presenters
Daniel Spiro is a career attorney litigating against corporate fraud. He is a published author, an accomplished speaker, and coordinates the Jewish-Islamic Dialogue Society of Washington, and is the founder of the Washington Spinoza Society. E. Maynard Moore is an ordained clergy member of the United Methodist Church, holds a doctorate in Social Ethics, and is an experienced participant in the continuing science and religion dialogue. Imad-ad-Dean Ahmad earned his doctorate in astrophysics at the University of Arizona, is a recognized scholar in the Sunni tradition, a colleague active in the Muslim Society of Washington, chaplain at The American University, and serves as President of the Minaret of Freedom Institute, an Islamic think-tank in the Washington, DC area. |
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Extraterrestrial Species: Will They Be Moral? Will They Be Religious?
with Dr. Christopher J. Corbally, S.J., Ph.D and Dr. Margaret Boone Rappaport, Ph.D. |
Extraterrestrial Species: Will They Be Moral? Will They Be Religious?
Presented January 28, 2021 About the January 28, 2021 presenters
Christopher J. Corbally, S.J., Ph.D., is a Jesuit priest and an astronomer with the Vatican Observatory Research Group, for which he has served as Vice Director, and liaison to its headquarters at Castel Gandolfo, Italy. He is an Adjunct Associate Astronomer at the Department of Astronomy, University of Arizona, and ministers to a wide variety of Catholics, including Native Americans, in Tucson, Arizona. He is the Co-Founder of The Human Sentience Project, LLC. Margaret Boone Rappaport, Ph.D. is a cultural anthropologist and biologist who works in human cognitive evolution, and as a futurist, lecturer, and author in Tucson, Arizona. As President, Policy Research Methods, Incorporated, she conducted research for federal agencies for 30 years. She lectured at Georgetown and George Washington Universities. Dr. Rappaport is also a prize-winning short story and poetry writer, and the Co-Founder of The Human Sentience Project, LLC. |
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New Materialism, Relational Holism, and Posthuman Life
with Dr. Ilia Delio |
New Materialism, Relational Holism,
and Posthuman Life Presented December 10, 2020 About the December 10, 2020 presenter
Dr. Ilia Delio, OSF holds the Josephine C. Connelly Chair in Christian Theology at Villanova University. Her area of research and writing is systematic and constructive theology. She is the author of over twenty books including Re-Enchanting the Earth: Why AI Needs Religion; Birth of a Dancing Star: My Journey from Cradle Catholic to Cyborg Christian; Making All Things New: Catholicity, Cosmology and Consciousness, a finalist for the 2019 Michael Ramsey Prize; and The Unbearable Wholeness of Being: God, Evolution and the Power of Love, for which she won the 2014 Silver Nautilus Book Award and a 2014 Catholic Press Association Book Award in Faith and Science. Her latest book The Hours of the Universe: Reflections on God, Science and the Human Journey, will be published in Spring 2021. She lectures nationally and internationally on various topics pertaining to faith and science, and in 2020 received an honorary doctorate from Sacred Heart University for her work in Science and Religion. She is founder of the Center for Christogenesis, an online educational resource for the work of Teilhard de Chardin and the integration of Christianity and evolution in the 21st century. |
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We are the Dinosaur, We are the Meteor:
Climate, Biodiversity, and the Human Future with Dr. Lisa Fullam |
We are the Dinosaur, We are the Meteor:
Climate, Biodiversity, and the Human Future Presented November 17, 2020 About the November 17th, 2020 presenter
Dr. Lisa Fullam joined the faculty of the Jesuit School of Theology at Santa Clara University in August 2003. As Professor of Moral Theology, she teaches courses such as Fundamental Moral Theology, Sexual Ethics, Luther and Ignatius: Conversations Ethics, and Spirituality of Pastoral Ministry, and Issues in Virtue Ethics. She received her baccalaureate and D.V.M. degrees from Cornell University and earned her M.T.S. and Th.D. at the Harvard Divinity School. Dr. Fullam’s research interests include virtue ethics, Thomas Aquinas, biomedical ethics, Ignatian spirituality, and the relationship of spirituality and ethics. She is also accredited as a faculty member at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley. Among her publications is the monograph Curiosity and Skepticism: Virtues for Genomics. |
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It’s the Economy, Friends: Putting Sacred Cows Out to Pasture
with Brian Czech |
It’s the Economy, Friends: Putting Sacred Cows Out to Pasture
Presented October 21, 2020 About the October 21st, 2020 presenter
Brian Czech is the president of the Center for the Advancement of the Steady State Economy (CASSE), an economic think tank and educational organization he founded in 2003. In 2017, Czech signed on as CASSE’s executive director. In this role, Czech oversees all CASSE operations and plays the lead role in policy development, public education, CASSE publications (blog, books, and journal articles) and international outreach. From 1999 to 2017, Czech served as the first conservation biologist in the history of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, as well as a visiting professor of natural resource economics in Virginia Tech’s National Capitol Region. He is the author of several books, including Supply Shock, Shoveling Fuel for a Runaway Train and The Endangered Species Act: History, Conservation Biology, and Public Policy and has authored over 50 academic journal articles. Czech has a B.S from the University of Wisconsin, an M.S. from the University of Washington, and a Ph.D. from the University of Arizona. |
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Navigating Crises and Bridging Cultural Divides with Citizen Science
with Dr. Grace Wolf-Chase |
Navigating Crises and Bridging Cultural Divides with Citizen Science
Presented September 17, 2020 About the September 17th, 2020 presenter
Dr. Grace Wolf-Chase (A.B. Physics, Cornell University; Ph.D. Astronomy, University of Arizona) is a Senior Scientist and Senior Education & Communication Specialist at the Planetary Science Institute. In 1994, she was awarded a National Research Council postdoctoral fellowship to pursue star formation studies at NASA Ames Research Center, and in 1996, a University of California President’s postdoctoral fellowship to continue these studies at U.C. Riverside. She is an Affiliated Member of the Zygon Center for Religion and Science; and Vice President of the Center for Advanced Study in Religion and Science CASIRAS). She spent 22 years integrating astronomical research with public education at the Adler Planetarium, has published dozens of scientific papers, contributed to several books, and currently leads an initiative to engage faith-based communities in research experiences via the Zooniverse citizen science platform. |
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The Unifying Potential of a God that is Real in the Scientific Universe
with Nancy Ellen Abrams |
The Unifying Potential of a God that is Real in the Scientific Universe
Presented August 18, 2020 About the August 18th, 2020 presenter
Nancy Ellen Abrams is a philosopher of science, lawyer, and lecturer at the University of California Santa Cruz. Her book A God That Could Be Real: Spirituality, Science, and the Future of Our Planet proposes a radical, empowering, and future-oriented way of rethinking God in light of undeniable and growing knowledge about the universe, the human brain, and the perilous state of our world. It won the 2015 USA Best Book Award in philosophy. With cosmologist Joel R. Primack, she co-authored The View from the Center of the Universe: Discovering Our Extraordinary Place in the Cosmos, the first book to interpret the place of human beings in the new dark matter/dark energy picture of the universe. Abrams and Primack also co-authored The New Universe and the Human Future: How a Shared Cosmology Could Transform the World. Together the two books won the Chopra Foundation’s “Spirit of Rustum Roy Award” for “contributions to consciousness and to creating a peaceful, just, sustainable, and healthy world.” |
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Theology & Covid-19: Etiological and teleological models at the nexus with science
with Dr. Arvin Gouw |
Theology & Covid-19: Etiological and teleological models at the nexus with science
Presented July 16, 2020 About the July 16th, 2020 presenter
Dr. Arvin Gouw is the vice president for research and development at the Rare Genomics Institute (RGI), where he oversees the Rare Genomics Task Force (RGTF) and the BeHEARD Challenge (Help Empower & Accelerate Research Discoveries), which provide grants globally to rare disease researchers, foundations, and patient families. Dr. Gouw is also a research fellow in Oncology at Stanford University School of Medicine and an affiliate scientist at UC Berkeley/LBNL, developing cancer drugs and drug screening platforms, and serves as affiliate faculty at the Center for Science, Religion, and Culture (SRC) of Harvard Divinity School. Dr. Gouw holds a Ph.D. from Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, an M.Phil. in philosophy from the University of Pennsylvania, an M.A. in theology from St. Mary’s Seminary and University Ecumenical Institute of Theology, and an M.A. in endocrinology and a B.A. in molecular cell biology–neurobiology from UC Berkeley. |
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Will Modern Civilization be the Death of Us? Does our modern techno-industrial society destroy the biophysical basis of our existence? with Dr. William Rees
Will Modern Civilization be the Death of Us? Envisioning Tomorrow’s Earth
with Ruben Nelson |
Will Modern Civilization be the Death of Us? A two part series presented June 29 & 30, 2020
Part 1
Will Modern Civilization be the Death of Us? Does our modern techno-industrial society destroy the biophysical basis of our existence? with Dr. William Rees. William Rees is a population ecologist, ecological economist, Professor Emeritus and former Director of the University of British Columbia’s School of Community and Regional Planning. His research focuses on the biophysical requirements for sustainability and on the implications of global ecological trends for global civilization. Dr. Rees is perhaps best known as the originator and co-developer of ‘ecological footprint analysis’ (EFA), a quantitative tool that shows the extent to which humanity is in ‘ecological overshoot’. Overshoot poses a serious challenge to policies promoting the continued growth of the human enterprise—we would need almost five Earth-like planets to support just the present world population sustainably. Part 2
Will Modern Civilization be the Death of Us? Envisioning Tomorrow’s Earth with Ruben Nelson. Ruben Nelson, Executive Director of Foresight Canada, is an internationally respected futures researcher and practitioner of strategic foresight. He was first to apply the concept of 'paradigm change' to whole cultures in 1975. He coined the term 'civilization overshoot' in 2018. He explores the new reading of human history that will enable us to see why our Modern Techno-industrial cultures are almost wholly blind to (1) destroying biophysical existence (2) the emerging reality that the Modern Techno-industrial civilization has already entered a long, irrevocable decline (3) accepting that Modernity is our past, but not our future, and (4) realizing that our new work is to transcend our past at every scale, from personal-to-civilizational, becoming Consciously Co-creative. |
Most sessions are moderated by Dr. Ron Cole-Turner, unless noted otherwise.
Moderator Ron Cole-Turner teaches at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary, where he holds the H. Parker Sharp Chair in Theology and Ethics, a position relating theology and ethics to developments in science and technology. He is an ordained United Church of Christ minister and a founding member of the International Society for Science and Religion.
Moderator Ron Cole-Turner teaches at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary, where he holds the H. Parker Sharp Chair in Theology and Ethics, a position relating theology and ethics to developments in science and technology. He is an ordained United Church of Christ minister and a founding member of the International Society for Science and Religion.
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