and paleontologist, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, famously made the evolution of the cosmos the central theme of his posthumous book The Phenomenon of Man (1955). Here he embraced cosmic evolution, and argued for a teleological evolution in w…24. Smocovitis, Unifying Biology, pp. 142–153: 148. Connie Barlow’s book of readings, Evolution Extended: Biological Debates on the Meaning of Life (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1995), clearly shows these wider evolutionary themes.
Cosmos and…
Ursula Goodenough
scientist · 2 mentions across 1 reading
In this course
Goodenough is a biologist and religious naturalist who synthesizes evolutionary science with spiritual meaning, bridging the gap between material biology and questions of cosmic purpose that figures like Teilhard de Chardin raised in the mid-twentieth century. The readings invoke her work alongside broader evolutionary thought to track how biology has increasingly engaged with metaphysical and teleological questions about life's meaning, positioning her as part of a lineage that refuses the separation of scientific and existential inquiry. Her contribution to this genealogy matters for understanding how systems thinking and complexity science have come to absorb spiritual and meaning-making frameworks in contemporary discourse.
Background
Ursula W. Goodenough is a retired Professor of Biology Emerita at Washington University in St. Louis, where she researched on eukaryotic algae. She authored the textbook Genetics and the best-selling book The Sacred Depths of Nature and speaks regularly about religious naturalist orientation and evolution. She contributed to the NPR blog 13.7: Cosmos & Culture from 2009 to 2011.
Wikipedia →Mentioned in 1 reading
Appears alongside
People mentioned in the same passages — sorted by co-occurrence weight.