This chapter focuses on Universe Story/Epic of Evolution/Big History movements, forms of science-... more This chapter focuses on Universe Story/Epic of Evolution/Big History movements, forms of science-based ecospirituality that have emerged in recent decades. One of my central claims is that these narratives tend to encourage awe and wonder at scientific information and expert knowledge as that which is most ‘real’, over and above direct encounters with the natural world. As such, I question whether these new myths are likely to engender the environmental values they seek to cultivate. Everyday experiences and encounters with the natural world—encounters not filtered through scientific analysis and explanation—are likely to be devalued in this worldview. This tendency is particularly pronounced in iterations that are inspired by the work of E.O. Wilson and Richard Dawkins, both of whom promote a mythopoeic rendering of scientific information as a robust and superior rival to religion. Espousing a religion based on scientific reality, some proponents of these narratives express attitudes of intolerance toward religious and cultural traditions that do not derive meaning and value directly from science, even though these traditions may embrace green values on their own terms. As a whole these movements discourage sensory, experience-infused forms of engagement with nature that are less dependent upon and mediated by expert knowledge.
иг~ГнЕ real world around us" is a recurring phrase in the writings of Rachel Carson. Carson ... more иг~ГнЕ real world around us" is a recurring phrase in the writings of Rachel Carson. Carson is best known as the author of Silent Spring (1962), the lyrical yet fact-based expose that alerted Americans to the dangers of chemical pesticides in the environment. But Carson's name was already familiar to many in the 1950s and 60s, owing to her best-selling books on the sea and sea life. In those earlier works, Carson evokes a reality that is best apprehended not through facts but as an experience of enchantment and mystery, a sense of wonder or reverence that is more real than facts. Throughout much of her writing, including passages in which she reflects on herself as a writer, Carson clearly delineates reality from factual knowledge. Facts teach us little about the essence of life and ultimate cosmic realities, and can even obscure comprehension of our world. This close association of reality with mystery pervades much of Carson's work. The exception is Silent Spring, where terms such as enchantment and mystery take on a decidedly sinister flavor. Elsewhere portrayed as an inferior form of knowing, factual knowledge is foregrounded in Silent Spring and presented as a corrective to dangerous and destructive forms of enchantment. An analysis of this shift in Carson's writing is helpful in understanding associations of her work both with quasi-religious, apocalyptic fear and with a form of natural wonder and awe that borders on religious.1 In the last few years, the association of Carson with apocalyptic, irrational, fear-driven environmentalism appears to have gained ascendancy in American culture, judging from the numerous and unabated attacks on Carson's work and
I ntellectual debates over morality are one thing; policy formation is another. Sometimes there a... more I ntellectual debates over morality are one thing; policy formation is another. Sometimes there are clear correlations between law or policy and ethics, but that is the exception rather than the rule. Policy represents a response to pressure, interest, and public opinion as much as—if not more than—a deposit of community moral wisdom. Or is this dichotomy so clear? Perhaps a policy can be both politically pragmatic and morally wise. US policy and ethics concerning uses of animals in research illustrate the separation and complex connections among these levels of normative thought. This article will trace a selective and brief history of the movement to improve the treatment of animals involved in research, explain why that movement was largely ignored throughout most of the biomedical ethics revival of the last decades, and show the convergence of these currents in the development of US policy and regulations—although not in bioethics as a whole—over the past 25 yr.
Journal for the Study of Religion, Nature and Culture, 2017
Visions of a high-tech 'good' Anthropocene as well as ambitious world-making proj... more Visions of a high-tech 'good' Anthropocene as well as ambitious world-making projects like Biosphere 2 have roots in a quasi-religious form of cosmism and attendant notions of the noosphere: a planetary sphere of mind. Cosmic perspectives often celebrate and naturalize an image of humans as participants in and ultimately directors of planetary and cosmic processes. This brand of cosmism encourages fantasies of eeing our 'used' planet in search of our presumed interstellar destiny, and it encourages a disregard of earthly, ecological, and even bodily limits. I argue that the turn to planetary and cosmic perspectives is the wrong move for those who care about the future of the Earth and more-than-human life.
The International Library of Environmental, Agricultural and Food Ethics
78 or ultimate plan of God. The natural world is godlycruciform and deiformRolston claims, pr... more 78 or ultimate plan of God. The natural world is godlycruciform and deiformRolston claims, precisely because of struggle and suffering, not in spite of it. Rolston seriously considers the possibility that the natural world, in its given ordering, rather than its past or ...
Page 1. Intelligent Design, Science Education, and Public Reason Robert A. Crouch, Richard B. Mil... more Page 1. Intelligent Design, Science Education, and Public Reason Robert A. Crouch, Richard B. Miller, Lisa H. Sideris The Poynter Center for the Study of Ethics and American Institutions Indiana University 618 East Third Street ...
This article explores similarities between states of wonder and psychedelic experiences, and cons... more This article explores similarities between states of wonder and psychedelic experiences, and considers the implications of both for cultivating ecological consciousness.
Abstract: This essay focuses on the emotional and relational investments of scientists and others... more Abstract: This essay focuses on the emotional and relational investments of scientists and others engaged in and supportive of genetic technologies used in conservation efforts, with particular attention to the different moral and religious imaginaries that fuel endeavors to save species threatened by climate change and extinction. I argue that two distinct visions and competing religious repertoires can be discerned in the secular landscape of genetic technologies deployed in coral restoration and de-extinction. Each endeavor brings forth its own forms of magic, myth- and meaning-making. At the heart of coral protection is the symbol of the holobiont, suggestive of cooperative endeavors, collective labor, networking, and distributed and embodied knowledge. Central to de-extinction imaginaries are motifs of individual competition, machine metaphors, “selfish” genetic components, and a spirit of entrepreneurial excitement and profiteering. The essay contrasts these two visions as competing accounts of relationality—or the lack thereof—and asks which religious and moral imaginaries we should embrace as we move into an era marked by intensified technological intervention and high-risk efforts to address the effects of climate change. I suggest that the values that drive de-extinction technologies are largely at odds with environmental and social goals of living well together, as humans and more-than-humans, in a present and future world transformed by climate change and species death.
Religion and Extinction, ed. Stefan Skrimshire and Jeremy Kidwell, Indiana University Press, 2024
THE ANTHROPOCENE HAS EMERGED AS a staging ground for a variety of interdisciplinary debates and d... more THE ANTHROPOCENE HAS EMERGED AS a staging ground for a variety of interdisciplinary debates and discussions about the past, present, and future of life on Earth. Among these are disagreements between environmentalists who adhere to traditional conservation practices and objectives-notably, protection and restoration of nature for its own sake-and proponents of what is called the new conservationism. New conservationists, who often identify or align with ecomodernists or ecopragmatists, prioritize economic development and human welfare above the preservation of nature, understood (problematically, perhaps) as pristine wilderness untouched by humans. When framed this way, new conservationism may sound like a benign or positive development, particularly in light of critiques that have shadowed the wilderness ideal for years. This positive impression may be further strengthened by the new conservationists' penchant for the con dent, buoyant language of humans' boundless innovation and creativity and of nature's resilience and almost in nite adaptability. As Eileen Crist observes, Anthropocene boosterism departs from environmentalism's traditionally "dark idiom" of nature's "destruction, depredation, rape, loss, devastation, deterioration," embracing instead the tame, palatable, and even upbeat vocabulary of humans "changing, shaping, transforming or altering the biosphere.
Journal for The Study of Religion, Nature and Culture, Jul 30, 2015
This article focuses on New Story/Universe Story/Epic of Evolution movements, forms of science-ba... more This article focuses on New Story/Universe Story/Epic of Evolution movements, forms of science-based ecospirituality that have emerged in recent decades. One of my central claims is that these narratives tend to encourage awe and wonder at scientific information and expert knowledge as that which is most ‘real’, over and above direct encounters with the natural world. As such, I question whether these new myths are likely to engender the environmental values they seek to cultivate. Everyday experiences and encounters with the natural world—encounters not filtered through scientific analysis and explanation—are likely to be devalued in this worldview. This tendency is particularly pronounced in iterations that are inspired by the work of E.O. Wilson and Richard Dawkins, both of whom promote a mythopoeic rendering of scientific information as a robust and superior rival to religion. Espousing a religion based on scientific reality, some proponents of these narratives express attitudes of intolerance toward religious and cultural traditions that do not derive meaning and value directly from science, even though these traditions may embrace green values on their own terms. As a whole these movements discourage sensory, experience-infused forms of engagement with nature that are less dependent upon and mediated by expert knowledge.
Page 1. nvironmental Ethics Ecological Theology and Natural Selection Lisa H. Sideris Page 2. Pag... more Page 1. nvironmental Ethics Ecological Theology and Natural Selection Lisa H. Sideris Page 2. Page 3. Environmental Ethics, Ecological Theology, and Natural Selection COLUMBIA SERIES IN SCIENCE AND RELIGION Page 4. ...
PROFESSIONAL POSITIONS AND APPOINTMENTS: 2018-Present Professor, Department of Religious Studies ... more PROFESSIONAL POSITIONS AND APPOINTMENTS: 2018-Present Professor, Department of Religious Studies 2009-2017 Associate Professor, Department of Religious Studies, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN. Affiliate Faculty in Human Biology. Affiliate Faculty in the Integrated Program in the Environment. 2014-16 Director, IU Consortium for the Study of Religion, Ethics, and Society (CSRES) 2005-2009 Assistant Professor, Department of Religious Studies, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN. 2002-2005 Assistant Professor, Faculty of Religious Studies/McGill School of the Environment (jointly appointed) McGill University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada. 2001-2002 Assistant Professor, Philosophy, Religion, and Environmental Studies, Pace University, New York, NY. 2000-2001 Postdoctoral Fellow, Center for the Study of Religion, Princeton University. Princeton, New Jersey. EDUCATION: 2000 Ph.D., with “distinction,” Critical and Ethical Studies, Department of Religious Studies, Indiana University. Gradua...
Journal for the Study of Religion, Nature and Culture, 2019
The David H. Koch Hall of Human Origins, housed at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural His... more The David H. Koch Hall of Human Origins, housed at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, is one of the most visited science exhibits in the world, but it has sparked controversy since its opening. Critics have worried that ties to Koch Industries have distorted the exhibition's presentation of evolutionary and climate science, but few have undertaken a detailed analysis of these and other influences on the exhibition. I argue that the evolutionary story presented at the Hall constitutes a problematic form of Anthropocene advocacy that minimizes climate concerns. The evolutionary narrative is woven together from a peculiar and somewhat dubious mix of scientific, religious, and metaphysical investments that, taken together, bolster claims of human exceptionalism and species unity, and encourage complacency about our present climate crisis. The Hall of Human Origins advances a religiously inflected notion of what it means to be human that naturalizes climate change as...
This chapter focuses on Universe Story/Epic of Evolution/Big History movements, forms of science-... more This chapter focuses on Universe Story/Epic of Evolution/Big History movements, forms of science-based ecospirituality that have emerged in recent decades. One of my central claims is that these narratives tend to encourage awe and wonder at scientific information and expert knowledge as that which is most ‘real’, over and above direct encounters with the natural world. As such, I question whether these new myths are likely to engender the environmental values they seek to cultivate. Everyday experiences and encounters with the natural world—encounters not filtered through scientific analysis and explanation—are likely to be devalued in this worldview. This tendency is particularly pronounced in iterations that are inspired by the work of E.O. Wilson and Richard Dawkins, both of whom promote a mythopoeic rendering of scientific information as a robust and superior rival to religion. Espousing a religion based on scientific reality, some proponents of these narratives express attitudes of intolerance toward religious and cultural traditions that do not derive meaning and value directly from science, even though these traditions may embrace green values on their own terms. As a whole these movements discourage sensory, experience-infused forms of engagement with nature that are less dependent upon and mediated by expert knowledge.
иг~ГнЕ real world around us" is a recurring phrase in the writings of Rachel Carson. Carson ... more иг~ГнЕ real world around us" is a recurring phrase in the writings of Rachel Carson. Carson is best known as the author of Silent Spring (1962), the lyrical yet fact-based expose that alerted Americans to the dangers of chemical pesticides in the environment. But Carson's name was already familiar to many in the 1950s and 60s, owing to her best-selling books on the sea and sea life. In those earlier works, Carson evokes a reality that is best apprehended not through facts but as an experience of enchantment and mystery, a sense of wonder or reverence that is more real than facts. Throughout much of her writing, including passages in which she reflects on herself as a writer, Carson clearly delineates reality from factual knowledge. Facts teach us little about the essence of life and ultimate cosmic realities, and can even obscure comprehension of our world. This close association of reality with mystery pervades much of Carson's work. The exception is Silent Spring, where terms such as enchantment and mystery take on a decidedly sinister flavor. Elsewhere portrayed as an inferior form of knowing, factual knowledge is foregrounded in Silent Spring and presented as a corrective to dangerous and destructive forms of enchantment. An analysis of this shift in Carson's writing is helpful in understanding associations of her work both with quasi-religious, apocalyptic fear and with a form of natural wonder and awe that borders on religious.1 In the last few years, the association of Carson with apocalyptic, irrational, fear-driven environmentalism appears to have gained ascendancy in American culture, judging from the numerous and unabated attacks on Carson's work and
I ntellectual debates over morality are one thing; policy formation is another. Sometimes there a... more I ntellectual debates over morality are one thing; policy formation is another. Sometimes there are clear correlations between law or policy and ethics, but that is the exception rather than the rule. Policy represents a response to pressure, interest, and public opinion as much as—if not more than—a deposit of community moral wisdom. Or is this dichotomy so clear? Perhaps a policy can be both politically pragmatic and morally wise. US policy and ethics concerning uses of animals in research illustrate the separation and complex connections among these levels of normative thought. This article will trace a selective and brief history of the movement to improve the treatment of animals involved in research, explain why that movement was largely ignored throughout most of the biomedical ethics revival of the last decades, and show the convergence of these currents in the development of US policy and regulations—although not in bioethics as a whole—over the past 25 yr.
Journal for the Study of Religion, Nature and Culture, 2017
Visions of a high-tech 'good' Anthropocene as well as ambitious world-making proj... more Visions of a high-tech 'good' Anthropocene as well as ambitious world-making projects like Biosphere 2 have roots in a quasi-religious form of cosmism and attendant notions of the noosphere: a planetary sphere of mind. Cosmic perspectives often celebrate and naturalize an image of humans as participants in and ultimately directors of planetary and cosmic processes. This brand of cosmism encourages fantasies of eeing our 'used' planet in search of our presumed interstellar destiny, and it encourages a disregard of earthly, ecological, and even bodily limits. I argue that the turn to planetary and cosmic perspectives is the wrong move for those who care about the future of the Earth and more-than-human life.
The International Library of Environmental, Agricultural and Food Ethics
78 or ultimate plan of God. The natural world is godlycruciform and deiformRolston claims, pr... more 78 or ultimate plan of God. The natural world is godlycruciform and deiformRolston claims, precisely because of struggle and suffering, not in spite of it. Rolston seriously considers the possibility that the natural world, in its given ordering, rather than its past or ...
Page 1. Intelligent Design, Science Education, and Public Reason Robert A. Crouch, Richard B. Mil... more Page 1. Intelligent Design, Science Education, and Public Reason Robert A. Crouch, Richard B. Miller, Lisa H. Sideris The Poynter Center for the Study of Ethics and American Institutions Indiana University 618 East Third Street ...
This article explores similarities between states of wonder and psychedelic experiences, and cons... more This article explores similarities between states of wonder and psychedelic experiences, and considers the implications of both for cultivating ecological consciousness.
Abstract: This essay focuses on the emotional and relational investments of scientists and others... more Abstract: This essay focuses on the emotional and relational investments of scientists and others engaged in and supportive of genetic technologies used in conservation efforts, with particular attention to the different moral and religious imaginaries that fuel endeavors to save species threatened by climate change and extinction. I argue that two distinct visions and competing religious repertoires can be discerned in the secular landscape of genetic technologies deployed in coral restoration and de-extinction. Each endeavor brings forth its own forms of magic, myth- and meaning-making. At the heart of coral protection is the symbol of the holobiont, suggestive of cooperative endeavors, collective labor, networking, and distributed and embodied knowledge. Central to de-extinction imaginaries are motifs of individual competition, machine metaphors, “selfish” genetic components, and a spirit of entrepreneurial excitement and profiteering. The essay contrasts these two visions as competing accounts of relationality—or the lack thereof—and asks which religious and moral imaginaries we should embrace as we move into an era marked by intensified technological intervention and high-risk efforts to address the effects of climate change. I suggest that the values that drive de-extinction technologies are largely at odds with environmental and social goals of living well together, as humans and more-than-humans, in a present and future world transformed by climate change and species death.
Religion and Extinction, ed. Stefan Skrimshire and Jeremy Kidwell, Indiana University Press, 2024
THE ANTHROPOCENE HAS EMERGED AS a staging ground for a variety of interdisciplinary debates and d... more THE ANTHROPOCENE HAS EMERGED AS a staging ground for a variety of interdisciplinary debates and discussions about the past, present, and future of life on Earth. Among these are disagreements between environmentalists who adhere to traditional conservation practices and objectives-notably, protection and restoration of nature for its own sake-and proponents of what is called the new conservationism. New conservationists, who often identify or align with ecomodernists or ecopragmatists, prioritize economic development and human welfare above the preservation of nature, understood (problematically, perhaps) as pristine wilderness untouched by humans. When framed this way, new conservationism may sound like a benign or positive development, particularly in light of critiques that have shadowed the wilderness ideal for years. This positive impression may be further strengthened by the new conservationists' penchant for the con dent, buoyant language of humans' boundless innovation and creativity and of nature's resilience and almost in nite adaptability. As Eileen Crist observes, Anthropocene boosterism departs from environmentalism's traditionally "dark idiom" of nature's "destruction, depredation, rape, loss, devastation, deterioration," embracing instead the tame, palatable, and even upbeat vocabulary of humans "changing, shaping, transforming or altering the biosphere.
Journal for The Study of Religion, Nature and Culture, Jul 30, 2015
This article focuses on New Story/Universe Story/Epic of Evolution movements, forms of science-ba... more This article focuses on New Story/Universe Story/Epic of Evolution movements, forms of science-based ecospirituality that have emerged in recent decades. One of my central claims is that these narratives tend to encourage awe and wonder at scientific information and expert knowledge as that which is most ‘real’, over and above direct encounters with the natural world. As such, I question whether these new myths are likely to engender the environmental values they seek to cultivate. Everyday experiences and encounters with the natural world—encounters not filtered through scientific analysis and explanation—are likely to be devalued in this worldview. This tendency is particularly pronounced in iterations that are inspired by the work of E.O. Wilson and Richard Dawkins, both of whom promote a mythopoeic rendering of scientific information as a robust and superior rival to religion. Espousing a religion based on scientific reality, some proponents of these narratives express attitudes of intolerance toward religious and cultural traditions that do not derive meaning and value directly from science, even though these traditions may embrace green values on their own terms. As a whole these movements discourage sensory, experience-infused forms of engagement with nature that are less dependent upon and mediated by expert knowledge.
Page 1. nvironmental Ethics Ecological Theology and Natural Selection Lisa H. Sideris Page 2. Pag... more Page 1. nvironmental Ethics Ecological Theology and Natural Selection Lisa H. Sideris Page 2. Page 3. Environmental Ethics, Ecological Theology, and Natural Selection COLUMBIA SERIES IN SCIENCE AND RELIGION Page 4. ...
PROFESSIONAL POSITIONS AND APPOINTMENTS: 2018-Present Professor, Department of Religious Studies ... more PROFESSIONAL POSITIONS AND APPOINTMENTS: 2018-Present Professor, Department of Religious Studies 2009-2017 Associate Professor, Department of Religious Studies, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN. Affiliate Faculty in Human Biology. Affiliate Faculty in the Integrated Program in the Environment. 2014-16 Director, IU Consortium for the Study of Religion, Ethics, and Society (CSRES) 2005-2009 Assistant Professor, Department of Religious Studies, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN. 2002-2005 Assistant Professor, Faculty of Religious Studies/McGill School of the Environment (jointly appointed) McGill University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada. 2001-2002 Assistant Professor, Philosophy, Religion, and Environmental Studies, Pace University, New York, NY. 2000-2001 Postdoctoral Fellow, Center for the Study of Religion, Princeton University. Princeton, New Jersey. EDUCATION: 2000 Ph.D., with “distinction,” Critical and Ethical Studies, Department of Religious Studies, Indiana University. Gradua...
Journal for the Study of Religion, Nature and Culture, 2019
The David H. Koch Hall of Human Origins, housed at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural His... more The David H. Koch Hall of Human Origins, housed at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, is one of the most visited science exhibits in the world, but it has sparked controversy since its opening. Critics have worried that ties to Koch Industries have distorted the exhibition's presentation of evolutionary and climate science, but few have undertaken a detailed analysis of these and other influences on the exhibition. I argue that the evolutionary story presented at the Hall constitutes a problematic form of Anthropocene advocacy that minimizes climate concerns. The evolutionary narrative is woven together from a peculiar and somewhat dubious mix of scientific, religious, and metaphysical investments that, taken together, bolster claims of human exceptionalism and species unity, and encourage complacency about our present climate crisis. The Hall of Human Origins advances a religiously inflected notion of what it means to be human that naturalizes climate change as...
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Papers by Lisa Sideris
engaged in and supportive of genetic technologies used in conservation efforts, with particular attention
to the different moral and religious imaginaries that fuel endeavors to save species threatened by
climate change and extinction. I argue that two distinct visions and competing religious repertoires
can be discerned in the secular landscape of genetic technologies deployed in coral restoration and
de-extinction. Each endeavor brings forth its own forms of magic, myth- and meaning-making. At
the heart of coral protection is the symbol of the holobiont, suggestive of cooperative endeavors,
collective labor, networking, and distributed and embodied knowledge. Central to de-extinction
imaginaries are motifs of individual competition, machine metaphors, “selfish” genetic components,
and a spirit of entrepreneurial excitement and profiteering. The essay contrasts these two visions as
competing accounts of relationality—or the lack thereof—and asks which religious and moral imaginaries
we should embrace as we move into an era marked by intensified technological intervention
and high-risk efforts to address the effects of climate change. I suggest that the values that drive
de-extinction technologies are largely at odds with environmental and social goals of living well
together, as humans and more-than-humans, in a present and future world transformed by climate
change and species death.
engaged in and supportive of genetic technologies used in conservation efforts, with particular attention
to the different moral and religious imaginaries that fuel endeavors to save species threatened by
climate change and extinction. I argue that two distinct visions and competing religious repertoires
can be discerned in the secular landscape of genetic technologies deployed in coral restoration and
de-extinction. Each endeavor brings forth its own forms of magic, myth- and meaning-making. At
the heart of coral protection is the symbol of the holobiont, suggestive of cooperative endeavors,
collective labor, networking, and distributed and embodied knowledge. Central to de-extinction
imaginaries are motifs of individual competition, machine metaphors, “selfish” genetic components,
and a spirit of entrepreneurial excitement and profiteering. The essay contrasts these two visions as
competing accounts of relationality—or the lack thereof—and asks which religious and moral imaginaries
we should embrace as we move into an era marked by intensified technological intervention
and high-risk efforts to address the effects of climate change. I suggest that the values that drive
de-extinction technologies are largely at odds with environmental and social goals of living well
together, as humans and more-than-humans, in a present and future world transformed by climate
change and species death.