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.

Spring 2005: Life on Earth

• TEMPLETON RESEARCH FELLOW: Francisco Ayala, evolutionary biologist
  • "Out of Africa: The Origins of Modern Humans and the Biological Insignificance of Race and Ethnicity"
  • "The Evolutionary Transcendence of Humankind: Cultural Evolution vs. Biological Evolution"
  • "Beyond Biology: From Biology to Ethics and Religion"
  • "Between Utopia and Hades: Cloning, Genetic Engineering, and the Future of Humankind"
  • "Intelligent Design vs. Natural Selection: God of the Gaps vs. God of Transcendence"
• Diane Ackerman, poet
  "This Island Earth" - Poet, author and naturalist Diane Ackerman will take listeners into the human heart and into the heart of nature. She will talk about what makes Earth life so special, and about our place in Nature's seamless web. She will explore the reasons why we're drawn to the wilderness and sacred places.
• John Haught, theologian
  "Astrobiology and Cosmic Purpose" - A fundamental issue in today’s dialogue of science with religion is whether there is any overall purpose to the universe. Most religions have believed that the universe is here for a reason. But does science support such a belief? In modern times scientific thinkers have increasingly pictured the universe as essentially pointless, mostly because it has seemed to be essentially lifeless and mindless. Life and mind on Earth seem to be local and unintended exceptions within a pervasively lifeless and mindless cosmos. What then would be the philosophical and theological implications, if any, of the discovery of life—and possibly even intelligent life—elsewhere in the universe? Would such discoveries ever change the minds of those who are convinced that the universe is purposeless?
• Lawrence Kushner, rabbi
  "The Seed and Cell of Creation: A Neo-Kabbalistic Explorations" - Rabbi Kushner will address the question of how scientists might properly read scripture and how theologicans ought to read science. He will use as an example the Story of Eden and the creation of life. He will attempt to do this within the larger framework of a Kabbalistic or Jewish mystical world-view and make some suggestions for how, together, both scientists and theologicans might understand their own lives and life in the universe.
• Mario Livio, astronomer
  "Cosmology and Life" - Dr. Livio will examine recent findings in cosmology and their implications for the emergence of life in the universe and the ultimate fate of life. In particular, he will discuss (i) The requirements for carbon-based life and their dependence on the values of physical constants. (ii) The inflationary model and its implications for the existence of
  a "multiverse." (iii) The nature of dark energy and its relation to anthropic considerations. (iv) The possibility of time-varying constants of nature. (v) The question of the potential rarity of intelligent life.
  
• Lynn Margulis, astrobiologist
  "Gaia's History: The Living Earth from Space" - The talk will focus on the changing life forms that have populated the earth through time. The concept of Gaia posits that the Earth’s surface interactions of sediment, air, water and myriad sensitive growing life forms create a vast self-regulating system. The chemical result of such a system is that it can be detected remotely from space by the presence of highly reactive chemicals such as oxygen in its atmosphere. This concept of detection is at the core of the NASA plan to launch Terrestrial Planet Finder missions, which are now part of the Moon Mars Initiative. Yet the Gaia concept itself, developed jointly with the UK scientist James Lovelock and the extent to which it is appropriate to consider Earth and its organisms as a single living system, and its degree of self-regulation are topics of dispute in the scientific community. Lovelock states “The evidence gathered in support of Gaia is now considerable but as is often the way of science, this is less important than is its use as a kind of looking glass for seeing the world differently..." It is both this creative viewpoint and overview of the history of life on Earth that has prompted the selection of Dr. Margulis for our first Templeton lecture.
• Jack Szostak, geneticist
  "What Can Laboratory Studies Tell Us About the Origin of Life and Evolution?" -Darwinian evolution is the unifying principle of biology, explaning the diversification of life from its simple beginnings some four billion years ago. If we ask how Life on earth began, we are really asking how Darwinian evolution arose. I will discuss current thinking about how complicated chemical systems on the early earth may have assembled into the first simple cells, and I will describe our current efforts to build simple evolving systems in the laboratory as a way of testing these theories.
• Shinzen Young, buddhist/educator
  "Mysticism in World Religion: A Link to Cosmic Religion?" - In every age, in every culture, inside and outside of every religion there have been a few individuals whose spiritual experience goes way beyond the norm. Scholars of religion refer to them as mystics. When mystics meet other mystics there is an immediate sense of camaraderie even though their philosophical backgrounds may differ widely. This contrasts sharply with the mediate antipathy that often pertains among theologians and clerics of competing creeds. This suggests that mystical experience may provide a unifying framework from which we can view terrestrial (and perhaps even extraterrestrial) spirituality. There will be two major themes in this lecture. First, I will attempt to take some of the mist out of mysticism. Specifically we will discuss how concentration power can be systematically cultivated and then applied like a microscope for the goal of unifying and liberating insight. Then, we will talk about ways that scientists and mystics might cross-fertilize each other – not so much in the realm of ideas but rather in terms of solving practical and pressing problems on this planet. Mystics, particularly those from the mindfulness tradition, could give neuro-imagers ideas about “what to look for, where and when” in tracking the neuro-correlates of experience. On the other hand, science may reveal a radically innovative new paradigm regarding what actually happens in mystical practice. It is not difficult to imagine that as the result of such collaboration mystical experience in the future will no longer be the purview of a few extraordinary individuals, but rather the norm of humanity.