On the Boundaries

During the two-plus years since I started this blog, I’ve normally posted a new entry every ten days or so. However, it’s been almost a month since my last one, the result of my struggling with what felt like “writer’s block,” a truly new experience for me. So, I’ve been scratching my head and trying…

As it is often said these days, while there have been some periods in history that might border on the things we are experiencing, virtually none of us have lived through such a time as this—a global pandemic which has impacted the United States on a per capita basis more seriously than any other developed…

Several weeks ago my wife, who was reading a novel, sent me a brief quotation from it that had intrigued her: about one of the characters, the author said that “She didn’t have any regrets. Sorrows, but not regrets” (Lisa Unger, Ink and Bone, Loc 1349 [e-book]). I was also intrigued by it—the more so,…

My Experiences of Failure Most of them are not “epic”—they weren’t earth-shaking, life-shattering events. But one or two of them were! I’ll offer just three among the many: I recall so vividly even now a class during my second year of teaching (a story I shared in a blog a couple of years ago).  It…

To establish a context, these reflections began with a story. It happened during an online conversation with my friend, David Johnson, and I don’t remember the situation he had been dealing with, but David clearly thought it had been time to leave it behind and, as he put it, to “Perform the ritual of failure…

            Now something for which I’m sure you are exhaustively ready—some concluding thoughts. What Shall We Say About Meaning and Purpose—or the Lack Thereof?             We’ve tiptoed around this issue as the previous posts have been “peppered” with comments or questions about the role, if any, of religion and teleology in the “model(s)” of nature…

            In the previous post, I explored—perhaps a bit overly much!—our two-fold relationship as an integral part of nature while also as observers of nature. It is that dual role that leads directly to our responsibility as stewards—as guardians and keepers—of the world we inhabit and the world we utilize.  We are Stewards of Nature…

          The previous question was about what “picture” of nature—although we’ve departed from that inappropriate terminology—science might give us. As noted in closing the preceding post, it is finally the “us” that it now comes down to. What is our relationship to the natural world that science continues to dissect and describe for us and…

            In the last two posts, the emphasis has been primarily on the nature of science itself as it has developed, especially in the 19th and 20th centuries—some sketching of its background, how it might be defined, what its characteristics are, how it operates, what form its results might take. And while I’ve already tiptoed…

               In the previous post I tried to establish the lack of clarity or agreement on the characterization of contemporary science. Now, as part of the background against which I will try to sketch some reasonable and inclusive account of the elements at work in the efforts of science to understand the natural world and…