PSETI Seminar: From the Spirit Board to the 100-Meter: Locating SETI in the Religious History of the United States
From Macy Huston February 16th, 2023
Related Media
From Stephanie Velegol September 15th, 2025 |
From Stephanie Velegol September 15th, 2025 |
From ITLD November 10th, 2021 |
From ITLD September 10th, 2018 |
From ITLD September 27th, 2018 |
From ITLD September 27th, 2018 |
From ITLD October 24th, 2018 |
From ITLD October 26th, 2018 |
From ITLD December 12th, 2018 |
From ITLD December 18th, 2018 |
From ITLD December 18th, 2018 |
From ITLD February 11th, 2019 |
From ITLD February 14th, 2019 |
February 16, 2023
Connor Martini
Abstract:
When we talk about the relationship between science and religion, we tend to get bogged down in controversies and conflicts between Christian theologians and secular scientists—the Scopes Trial, Intelligent Design, etc. But there are other stories to be told about religion and science, stories that are not conciliatory just for the sake of minimizing instances of genuine discord but which serve to highlight the questions that bounce back and forth across the porous boundaries between religion and science and the complex human actors who ask them. These stories become infinitely easier to tell when we allow for “religion” to mean other things besides Christianity and “science” to be more than evolutionary biology. The telling of this story, instead, will attempt to trace a series of questions and concerns though upstate New York in the mid-19th Century, through New Orleans during the Civil War, through the advent of radio telescopes and the genesis of SETI. These questions and concerns look to the horizon of human technological development with a spirit of curiosity and possibility: what is it that we do not know, and what might our tools permit us to hear?
- Tags
- Usage