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Faith of Biology & the Biology of Faith, The List
Price: $25.00 Award-winning biologist Robert Pollack argues that an alliance between religious
faith and science is not necessarily an argument in favor of irrationality:
The two can inform each other’s visions of the world. Pollack begins by reflecting
on the large questions of meaning and purpose—and the difficulty of finding
either in the orderly world described by the data of science. He considers the
obligation to find meaning and purpose despite natural selection’s claim
to be a complete explanation of our presence as a species a claim that calls
upon neither natural intention, nor design, nor Designer. The book, which focuses
on matters of free will, is about meaning and purpose and the difficulty of
finding either in the data of any science. The first chapter is based on the
three Schoff
Lectures. In this part of the book, Pollack attempts to save meaning from
this pit by a close look at free will, the uniquely dangerous but powerful
human capacity to choose a belief or an action on emotional grounds, rather
than deciding
it on the basis of rational argument. The second chapter considers the consequences
of free will, and the final chapter considers genetic medicine. Basic medical
science makes the promise that it will be able to forestall a particular illness
one day in the future, but only if people today agree in advance to learn their
genetic fates. Pollack addresses questions of ethics and offers a provocative
comparison of two difficult texts whose contents remain incompletely understood:
the DNA “text” of the human genome and the Hebrew record of Jewish
written and oral law. Whether refuting a DNA-based biological model of Judaism
or discussing the Darwinian concept of the species, Pollack, under the banner
of free inquiry, presents a genuine, vital, and well-argued assay of the intersection
of science and religion. Book
of Distinction: 2004 Robert Pollack, Ph.D., is a Professor of Biological Sciences, Lecturer in Psychiatry
at the Center for Psychoanalytic Training and Research, and Director of the Center for the Study of Science and Religion, at Columbia University. He received the Alexander Hamilton Medal from Columbia University, and has held a Guggenheim Fellowship. His Signs of Life: The Language and Meanings of DNA, received the Lionel Trilling Award and his second book, The Missing Moment: How the Unconscious Shapes Modern Science, was released by Houghton Mifflin (1999). The Faith of Biology and the Biology of Faith: Order, Meaning and Free Will in Modern Science is his latest work. He is a member of the Century Association. |
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