COSMOLOGIES: COMBINING SCIENCE AND RELIGIOUS STUDIES TO ENHANCE STUDENTS’ UNDERSTANDING OF TIME AND THEIR RELATIONSHIPS WITH THE PHYSICAL UNIVERSE AND ITS INHABITANTS

Paired courses and shared teaching are a strong model for enhancing undergraduate students’ appreciation of science and religion as alternate approaches to the cosmos. Our courses on “Cosmologies” was an option for studies of “Contemporary Society and the Individual” in Whittier College's liberal education program. The connections between human understanding of time and our relationships with the physical universe and its other inhabitants were central to both courses. “Time and Creation” was taught by a geologist and explored scientific concepts of time and theories of the origin of the Earth, solar system, and the universe. The other course in the pair, “Humans and the Cosmos,” was taught by a religious-studies professor and approached the same subject matter using mythological and religious explanations, with an emphasis on the effect of cultural differences on the perception and understanding of time. Particular attention was paid to non-Western religious traditions. The paired courses introduced students to coherent, reflective approaches, both traditional religious and contemporary scientific thinking, about the cosmos – how it began, its structure and extent, its likely future, and humankind’s place and significance within it. The disciplinary differences were used as starting points for phrasing questions about humans and their group life. The courses emphasized cultural assumptions implicit in various world views, whether “religious” or “scientific.” The course pair revolved around human conceptions of time – mythic, historical, geological, biological; cyclic/linear; non-repeatable/reversible; purposeful/random. We focused on how these ideas impact human self-understanding. Controversial issues were unavoidable, particularly that between evolution and creationism. In so far as this conflict is peculiar to the Western cultural dynamic, we differentiated the West, with its worldviews rooted in historical monotheism and science, from other cultural traditions, especially that of India, where evolution does not create the kind of religious controversies it has in the West. Although interpretations of life’s history certainly differ among various kinds of religion and tradition, no inherent conflict exists between science and religion or between evolution and “tradition.”