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Show FOCUS: CONVOCATIO 'l'HE UNl:VERSITY JOURNAL • SOUTHERN UTAH UNIVERSITY WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 22, 1995 'Echoes of Darwinism' Human biologist and creationism/evolution researcher and activist Eugenie C. Scott will be speaking at tomorrow's Convocation address at 11 a.m. in the Auditorium The executive director of a national pro- Missouri, has been the executive director volution non-profit science education of NCSE since 1987. NCSE has members organization will speak at tomorrow's in every state. She has worked nationwide SUU Convocation. to communicate the scientific method to the public and to improve how sci nee, as Eugenie C. Scott, executive director of the National Center for cience a way of knowing, is taught in schools. Education, Inc. (NCSE) with headquarters She frequently represents "the scientific in Berkeley, Calif., will present her view" in conflicts between scientific and address at 11 a.m. in the SUU Auditorium. p eudoscientiEic explanations, with The Convocation is free, and the public is appearances on "Hour Magazine," invited to attend. "Geraldo," "Crossfire," " Morning "Dr. Scott's organization provides the Edition," "The Pat Buchannan Show," and central coordinating effort for local "All Things Considered." "Dr. Scott is nationally recognized as a citizen groups located across the nation who are looking to . - - - - - - - - -- - - - - - - - - - . proponent of church.Sc,Ott state separation," share information on public policy Johnson said, "and she serves on the questions, II Lana Johnson, director of nL•••c.·L.S.,_,. _.0 national advisory -.iLlu.a' U " "·" " council of lectures/special Americans United projects at SUU for Separation of explains. "Most, but not all, of these SUlJ Church and State, on the national advisory groups are known as 'Committees of '- 1,,1,ui ~ , , :a :& ' I' council of Correspondence,' Americans for and they consist of scientists, science Religious Liberty, and on the executive teachers, other scholars, clergy, and committee of the National Coalition for concerned citizens Public Education and Religious Liberty." "The uniting factor of the committees Scott has taught at the University of Kentucky, the University of Colorado, and and NCSE i their vigorous opposition to effort to conform the science curriculum in the California State University system. in schools to any group' _'a priori A human biologist, her research has b en metaphysical assumption ' or t any in medical anthrop l gy and skeletal standards other than tho c of the scientific biology. method," Johnson aid. "They ar In 1994, be wa el cted to the particularly pposed to what they call the California Academy of Sciences, and in pseudo cience of' cientific' creationi m." 1993, she was elected a University of cott, who earned a Ph.D . in phy ical Mi souri Arts and Sci nces College Di tinguished Alumnus. anthropology from th Univer ity of 'Dr~ is nationdll.y recogn.ized as a proponent Of separtl.tJ.OiJ., '- soJd Lona., fohnson, director of 'e~•-,det lspec,;al p,•o.:,ects. 1 Us and Them, Nature and Humanism "Does humanism exclude th m mber hip of Homo apiens in a wider ecosystem? I believe it does just the opposite: it requires a recognition of our kinship with nature," writes Thursday's SUU Convocation speaker Eugenie Scott in an article she wrote for Free loquiry magazine entitled "Us and Them, Nature and Humanism." The following is an excerpt from that article. Anthropology shows us that human being t nd to rank other individual in importance, value, or mode of treatment ba ed on kin hip," Scott writes. "As the Bedouin ay, 'Me against my brother; me and my brother against my cou in; me, my brother and my cou in against the world.' "Modern ocietie do not differ from tribal ones in this regard. We tend to treat ther citizens differen tially depen ing on h w much they are like u , which is really just an expression of the tribal1 11 ociety' concern with kinship. In the big cities, we don't have complex extended kin relationships anymore, but we do have same/different and us/ them. People give neither resources nor affection randomly, without concern for the nature of the recipient, and we are more likely to give to those more similar to ourselves. When hurricanes hit, Americans give first to Florida and later to Bangladesh. "We are not alone in this tendency; it grows from our primate or even mammalian past. 'U /Them' is probably a product of natural election: I hare more gene with people who are like me, so if I aid them, I will be insuring more copies of 'my' genes into the next generation. "Biology can and doe operate to produce altruism, but it is not generalized. Altruism i most frequently expressed towards 'us,' with 'them,' however defined, as much farther down the line. "Obviously, if human beings discriminate in their altruism among members of our species, members of other species will be treated with even les consideration. By definition they are even more 'them' than is the most remote human being. The idea of 'dominion over nature' is not restricted to Christianity; human philosophical/ religious systems almost uniformly place humankind above animal . Origin myths of tribal people about with special creation of human apart from animals, or being created last and put in charge of the rest. As a pecies, we (with some exc ptions) appar ntly feel free to exploit nature as we wi h, whether as pre-contact American indians driving herds of horses and buffalo over cliffs, or modern Brazilians burning down the Amazon rain forest. (Continued on page 15) |