November 2018 Newsletter
In this Clergy Letter Project update, you’ll find the following six items:
- Evolution Weekend and a Free Book Offer;
- Astrobiology News for November 2018: Searching for Extant Life in the Outer Solar System;
- Good News Update: Creationism in Arizona;
- Speaking Productively with Creationists;
- Epperson v. Arkansas: Celebrating a Decision from 50 Years Ago; and
- The Creation Story and Climate Change.
1. Evolution Weekend and a Free Book Offer
I’m thrilled to say that Wipf and Stock has generously donated copies of their exciting new book Astrotheology: Science and Theology Meet Extraterrestrial Life for me to distribute to members planning on participating in Evolution Weekend 2019. The book was edited by Clergy Letter Project member Rev. Ted Peters and many of its 24 chapters were written by Clergy Letter Project members.
The publisher describes this provocative book as follows:
"Astrotheology: Science and Theology Meet Extraterrestrial Life looks at both ends of the telescope: the unfathomable reaches of cosmic space and the excited stirrings within the human psyche. It takes a scientist to explain what we are looking at. It takes a theologian to understand who is doing the looking.
"This book’s scientific authors update readers on astrobiology’s search for extraterrestrial life. Theologians add to the science a theological analysis of the place of space in understanding God’s creative work, the prospects of sharing God’s creation with extraterrestrial neighbors, and the question of whether one or many incarnations are required for cosmic redemption.
"Finally, these scholars lay the foundations for an ethic of space exploration. This book introduces a comprehensive astrotheology with an accompanying astroethic."
Astrotheology might just be the perfect book to help you organize your Evolution Weekend 2019 event! If you agree, let me know and I’ll award a free copy (you pay for postage) to every fourth person who asks until all copies are claimed.
_____ Please enter me in the drawing to win a free copy of Astrotheology: Science and Theology Meet Extraterrestrial Life. If selected, I agree to pay $5 for postage and handling.
______ I plan to participate in Evolution Weekend 2019. Please add me to the growing list of participants.
Name of Congregation:
Location:
Your Name:
The publisher has also agreed to provide a 40 percent discount to Clergy Letter Project members who purchase the book directly from the publisher so if you are not one of the lucky ones to receive a free copy, you can buy a deeply discounted one. Simply use the code CLP when checking out at Wipf and Stock. The coupon will remain active from 18 November through 5 December.
Whether you order the book or not, please take a moment right now to sign up to participate in Evolution Weekend 2019. Please engage your congregation (or school group) in a discussion about the ways religion and science can work together to advance our shared goals, goals like creating a society that celebrates rather than stigmatizes religious diversity, one which understands and values science while recognizing that it does not undermine religious convictions, and one that recognizes that science and religion lead us to the same conclusions about caring for our natural environment and treating all people with the dignity they deserve.
_____ Yes, I definitely want to be a part of this important movement and I plan to participate in Evolution Weekend 2019. Please add me to the growing list of participants.
Name of Congregation:
Location:
Your Name:
2. Astrobiology News for November 2018: Searching for Extant Life in the Outer Solar System
In this month’s Astrobiology News, Clergy Letter Project consultant and Adler Planetarium astronomer Grace Wolf-Chase discusses how and where in our solar system NASA is searching for life – and she touches on some of the implications if it’s found!
My focus during the summer was on some of the scientific and ethical issues involved in the exploration of Mars. This month, I will turn my attention to the cold worlds of the outer Solar System. The best candidate worlds for hosting environments that might support life beyond Earth in our Solar System may not be planets, but moons of the gas and ice giant planets. The journal Astrobiology just published a NASA Roadmap for the exploration of “ocean worlds” in our Solar System.(1) Here an “ocean world” primarily refers to a world that is known or suspected to harbor vast subsurface bodies of liquid, which are deemed plausible environments to support life.(2) The overarching goal of the NASA Outer Planets Assessment Group Roadmap to Ocean Worlds (ROW) is to “identify ocean worlds, characterize their oceans, evaluate their habitability, search for life, and ultimately understand any life we find.”
The first part of this goal - identifying ocean worlds – has already met with considerable success over the past few decades, with the development of numerous techniques for assessing the presence of subsurface oceans on icy worlds.(3) ROW outlines the types of synergistic investigations combining robotic missions and Earth-based research efforts needed to make further progress. It finds the confirmed ocean worlds Enceladus, Titan, and Europa, as well as the candidate ocean world of Triton, to be the highest priority targets for exploration in the next decade.
For Saturn’s moon Enceladus, where Cassinispacecraft measurements have established a potentially habitable subsurface ocean, ROW recommends a series of missions to further assess habitability and search for signs of life. Likewise, several mission concepts are being explored to ascertain the habitability of subsurface oceans on Jupiter’s moon Europa and Saturn’s moon Titan, as well as Titan’s surface lakes or seas of liquid methane and ethane. Although the presence of a subsurface ocean on Neptune’s moon Triton has yet to be established, ROW identifies this world as the highest priority among the candidate ocean worlds because of the extraordinary hints of activity discovered by the Voyager spacecraft. I know I’ll never forget seeing some of the first images of the spectacular geyser-like plumes emanating from Triton when I was at JPL for Voyager 2’s encounter with Neptune on August 25, 1989!
To design a coherent program of exploring the ocean worlds, ROW finds that significant input is needed from Earth studies; in particular, collaborations between Earth oceanographers and planetary scientists studying extraterrestrial oceans need to be developed that extend oceanographic studies to a greater spectrum of conditions. Our home planet provides diverse ocean settings that can provide a wealth of information on a broad range of environments, which may be relevant to other ocean worlds.
Given that any life populating subsurface oceans on distant icy worlds of the outer Solar System is likely to be “simple” life, why all the interest? There are many answers to this question of course, but perhaps one of the most compelling reasons is that discovering a second genesis of life within our Solar System would greatly increase expectations that the origin of life is very common in our Universe. Our understanding of the requirements for biological life could be dramatically reshaped by whatever may lurk on these cold, remote worlds. On that note, I encourage you to check out the multifaceted theological and ethical reflections on a gamut of possibilities regarding life in our Solar System and beyond in Astrotheology: Science and Theology Meet Extraterrestrial Life, which was launched at Berkeley late last month!(4)
Until next month,
Grace Wolf-Chase, Ph.D. (gwolfchase@adlerplanetarium.org)
1. Hendrix, A. R. et al., “The NASA Roadmap to Ocean Worlds,” Astrobiology, Published Online: 13 Oct 2018 https://doi.org/10.1089/ast.2018.1955
2. Note “liquid” does not necessarily equate to “water,” and need not necessarily be sub-surface. The Cassini-Huygens mission established the presence of large bodies of liquid methane and ethane on the surface of Saturn’s moon, Titan.
3. In one of my earliest Astrobiology postings to the CLP,I mentioned Guy Consolmagno’s theoretical work exploring the possibility of a subsurface ocean on Europa. Guy is the current Director of the Vatican Observatory and the 2014 recipient of the Carl Sagan Medal. The new Roadmap cites one of Guy’s papers among the earliest work on this topic (Consolmagno, G.J., and Lewis, J.S. 1978, “The evolution of icy satellite interiors and surfaces,” Icarus149: 133 – 159.)
4. Ted Peters, ed., with M. Hewlett, J. M. Moritz, and R. J. Russell, Astrotheology Science and Theology Meet Extraterrestrial Life (Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock Publishers, 2018).
3. Good News Update: Creationism in Arizona
Last month I presented a powerfully worded open letter concerning the possibility of creationism intruding into the public science classrooms in Arizona. The letter was sent to Diane Douglas, State Superintendent of Public Instruction for Arizona from Clergy Letter Project member Reverend David Felten. David is Pastor at The Fountains, a United Methodist Church, in Fountain Hills, AZ.
I’m delighted to be able to report that the Arizona State Board of Education did the right thing and adopted science standards that permit students to learn about both evolution and climate change. Additionally, by promoting high quality science instruction, the standards do not privilege any one religion over another.
Details can be found in an article on the KNAU, Arizona’s public radio station, web site and an article on the AZCentral.com web site. The latter article notes that the revised standards now clearly state, “The unity and diversity of organisms, living and extinct, is the result of evolution.” According to the article, the standards’ approval “received thunderous applause from educators and education advocates sitting in the boardroom.”
4. Speaking Productively with Creationists
Paul Braterman, a member of The Clergy Letter Project’s list of scientific consultants, is working on a book exploring how to “discuss evolution and Earth science with biblical creationists, in such a way as to lead them to question their beliefs, rather than digging in deeper?” He begins a dialog on this topic, one close to the heart of The Clergy Letter Project, in a recent blog post. He also notes that he “would greatly value comments” from readers at this stage of his project so please contact him with your thoughts.
5. Epperson v. Arkansas: Celebrating a Decision from 50 Years Ago
John Scopes was put on trial in Tennessee in 1925 for teaching about human evolution. As amazing as it might seem, it took 43 years for the type of law he was convicted of violating to be ruled unconstitutional. Indeed, three years after the Scopes trial, the state of Arkansas passed very similar legislation, legislation that remained on the books for 40 years and which banned the teaching of evolution in public schools. In 1965, the ACLU recruited a new biology teacher, Susan Epperson, to challenge the Arkansas law. In 1968, the US Supreme Court, in Epperson v. Arkansas, found the law unconstitutional, a ruling that effectively ended the teaching of biblical creationism in public schools in the United States.
Now, 50 years after that historic Supreme Court ruling, Kimberly Watson has published an interesting retrospective on the case in Church & State Magazine, a publication of Americans United for the Separation of Church and State. There’s much in this article that makes it worth reading; the historical perspective it provides is as valuable as the look at how the creationist movement has evolved – and continues to evolve – in response to the ruling.
Perhaps one critical factor to keep in mind and to celebrate is the sentiment expressed by Chief Justice Abe Fortas in the majority opinion of the 9-0 ruling in the case: “There is and can be no doubt that the First Amendment does not permit the State to require that teaching and learning must be tailored to the principles or prohibitions of any religious sect or dogma.”
6. The Creation Story and Climate Change
Our good friends at Sinai and Synapses had another striking blog post this month. Here’s the introduction: “In his piece Climate Change and the Power of Story, astrophysicist Adam Frank argues that the way we can address climate change is to move away from the data and the science, and towards stories – especially Big Stories. That’s something religion is really, really good at – but our creation stories are also problematic at times. So what is the story we should be telling about our changing climate – and who is our audience? The Sinai and Synapses Fellows discussed this topic over Slack as part of the Sinai and Synapses Discussion Forum ‘God’s Creation and Our Creation’.”
You can read the full discussion on the Sinai and Synapses web page.
Finally, as always, I want to thank you for your continued support and as I do every month, I urge you to take one simple action. Please share this month’s Newsletter with a colleague or two (or post a link via any social media platform you use) and ask them to add their voices to those promoting a deep and meaningful understanding between religion and science. They can add their signatures to one of our Clergy Letters simply by dropping me a note at mz@theclergyletterproject.org. Together we are making a difference.
.
Michael
Michael Zimmerman
Founder and Executive Director
The Clergy Letter Project
www.theclergyletterproject.org
mz@theclergyletterproject.org