The Importance of Human Nature in Politics

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Most people agree that abortion in the first trimester is okay and then we argue about where to draw the line week 20 or 22 or 24 whatever right so there's very few republicans who think it should be completely 100 band you know. Most liberals or democrats don't think abortion can be committed the day before the birth right even though you can find examples on both sides that are paraded in the media as typical but they're not typical and no. So one final example here like slavery why has it been banned in every country in the world in the last two centuries? Is it just a random relative cultural shift and maybe it'll come back in centuries hence i don't think so.

For many of us, the great scientific discoveries of the modern age — the Big Bang, evolution, quantum physics, relativity — point to an existence that is bleak, devoid of meaning, pointless. But in The Sacred Depths of Nature, eminent biologist Ursula Goodenough shows us that the scientific world view need not be a source of despair. Indeed, it can be a wellspring of solace and hope.

Shermer and Goodenough discuss: origins of her personal beliefs • origins life, RNA, DNA, consciousness, language, morality • myths and religions • what it means to be “religious” • religious naturalism • where the laws of physics came from • why the universe seems so strange • chance and evolution • fine tuning of the cosmos • autocatalysis and emergence • purpose of religion • ethics and morality without religion.

Ursula Goodenough is Professor Emerita of Biology at Washington University. One of America's leading cell biologists, she is the author of a bestselling textbook on genetics, is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and has served as President of the American Society of Cell Biology and of the Institute on Religion in an Age of Science. She lives in Chilmark, Massachusetts, on Martha's Vineyard. Her book, The Sacred Depths of Nature: How Life Has Emerged and Evolved, is now in a second edition. She currently serves as president of the Religious Naturalist Association.