Monthly Archives: May 2005

Evolution and religion and philosophy of science

According to the Boston Globe online, a fellow named Michael Ruse says that some people who are trying to defend Darwinian evolution from the religious right are doing more harm than good.

In an obvious example, Ruse points to the excesses of Social Darwinists. But Ruse, a professor of the philosophy of science at Florida State University, also claims that those promoting evolution as good science sometimes link science to other notions — such as inevitable progress in society….

While Darwin himself, in Ruse’s view, largely abstained from gratuitous social theorizing, many of his fellow scientists, such as the English biologist T.H. Huxley, as well as nonscientists like Herbert Spencer, enthusiastically used the general notion of evolution to argue that society was moving forward through history. While their ideas varied, writes Ruse, ”progress was the backbone of it all” — even though that value, he believes, cannot be wholly justified, or properly derived, from actual evolution by natural selection.

Link

Ruse’s new book, The Evolution/Creation Stuggle, will be published by Harvard University Press in May.

Maintaining contact when teens leave town

Phil from Phil’s Little Blog on the Prairie happened to be in the area today, and he stopped by the Geneva church to say hello to Lindsay and me. I told him how great it is to hear that the Prairie Star District of UU congregations (for whom Phil works as program consultant) has made it an explicit goal to grow lifelong Unitarian Universalists. We got to talking about how to make that happen. We agreed that one crucial moment for retaining young people is when they leave high school, and go off to college, military service, or the world of work. Often that’s when we lose touch with our young people. I mentioned three easy things any UU congregation can do to keep in touch with high school graduates, and Phil suggested I list them here on this blog. People here in Geneva have already heard me say these things, but other people read this blog too — so here are those three things….

(1) Include a time in a worship service in late spring where you recognize all those young people who are graduating from or otherwise leaving high school. You can have an elaborate bridging ceremony if you like, but here’s the simple ceremony I prefer —

Pick a Sunday in June (or after high school graduation) when you replace the “story for all ages” in the regular worship service with a short recognition ceremony (you replace the “story for all ages” because we want the little kids to see what they have to look forward to when they get done with high school). Have the youth group stand on one side of the church with the graduating seniors, and on the other side of the church get a group of people who grew up as Unitarians, Universalists, or Unitarian Universalists. One by one, the graduating seniors walk away from the youth group, are welcomed by the minister(s) halfway, are told that they will always be welcome in this church (and I like to present them with the UU Pocket Guide and a meditation manual), and then are welcomed by the lifelong UU’s on the other side of the church. The message is simple — we’re glad you’ve been with us, you are always welcome here, and here are a bunch of other people who have remained Unitarian Universalists just as we hope you will do.

(2) In the late summer issue of your congregation’s newsletter, place a notice saying that you will send the newsletter to every former member of the youth group, and request college or military mailing addresses. (Usually parents/guardians or friends will send in the addresses.)

(3) If you have a Christmas eve service, plan a youth group reunion. This is a time when college students are usually back home, and those in the military may get leave over Christmas. Reserve a room in the building after the Christmas eve service, or between the two Christmas eve services — supply chips and drinks — invite current youth group members (who may know the grads) — and send out invitations to everyone who is in college or the military, or who is working nearby. (This church tried this for the first time this year, and while there are a few bugs to be worked out, generally it went very well.)

So there you have it — three cheap, easy, effective ways to maintain contact with the young people of your congregation after they leave high school. And thanks to Phil for prompting me to post these three ideas.

An eco-theological celebration

The recent article published in the peer-reviewed journal Science reporting the sighting of a male Ivory-Billed Woodpecker, long thought to be extinct in the United States, is more than a feel-good story for eco-freaks. It’s also a religious story for some of us.

First of all, how often do we get good news about ecology? Mostly the news brings us a litany of ecological disasters. I’m a Universalist, so I know everything is going to turn out all right in the long run — but it’s nice to know that good things are happening right now, as a little encouragement for those of us who are trying to make the world better now, rather than waiting for some kind of afterlife.

There’s more theology than that involved. Those of us who are interested in ecological theology find a religious significance in bio-diversity. We ecological theologians hold that individual religion, individual salvation for individual human beings, is not enough. By extending religious principles to all species, and to eco-systems in general, we are saying that the category of evil also includes destruction of species and of eco-systems — that we can’t create the kingdom of heaven here on earth without rich bio-diversity. (For those of you who are theology geeks, yes, we stole most of this from the Social Gospelers.)

But the heck with theology — let’s just celebrate. Check out the news coverage on NewScientist.com, which includes a copy of the primary evidence involved — the five-second blurry video showing an Ivory-Billed Woodpecker flying — http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn7319. Yes, it’s a blurry video, but I’m just enough of a birder to know that ain’t no Pileated Woodpecker flying along through the swamp.

It will take time for the scientific community to go over the data. In the mean time, the Nature Conservancy has received a multi-million dollar gift to protect more potential habitat of the Ivory-Billed Woodpecker. Check out their report of their efforts to save this habitat at http://www.nature.org/ivorybill/habitat/saving.html — and click on the link in the upper right=hand corner of this Web page to make your own contribution towards saving the Ivory-Billed Woodpecker’s habitat. Heck, you were just going to spend that money at the mall, anyway. Give it to the crazy-looking woodpecker instead. What better way to celebrate?

Back from extinction?

When I was a child, I remember reading about the Ivory-billed Woodpecker, then thought to be extinct. Somehow, this wild-looking bird captured my imagination, and I always had this fantasy that someday someone would discover that the Ivory-billed Woodpecker was not extinct. As I grew older and more cynical, I knew intellectually that my fantasy was ridiculous. Once something is extinct, it’s gone forever.

Except that new evidence seems to indicate that the Ivory-billed Woodpecker is, in fact, not extinct. My dad heard it on National Public Radio’s “Morning Edition” show, in a report titled “Ivory-billed Woodpecker Rediscovered in Arkansas” (available on their Web site at http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4622633).

Hearing that made my day.