Evolution on a Cosmic Scale

Monday 7-9 pm
September 28, 2015
The Well Spirituality Center
1515 West Ogden Avenue, LaGrange Park
Presenter: Grace Wolf-Chase, Ph.D.

During the last few decades, science has made tremendous progress in tracing the history of the Universe from rather humble beginnings to the emergence of stars, galaxies, planets, and, at least on Earth, life. Increasingly, new discoveries suggest that environments conducive to life as we know it on Earth may be relatively common in the Universe. Since the mid-1990s, the number of planets discovered orbiting stars other than our Sun (“exoplanets”) has increased exponentially, and so has the number of known exoplanets that are potentially habitable. How do these discoveries inform our thinking about life on other worlds, including intelligent life, and how might they influence theological thinking? The concept of “other worlds” is not new to Christian thought, but for the first time in human history, this concept has moved from the realm of philosophy and abstract thought to empirical scientific investigation.

Presenter Grace Wolf-Chase is an Astronomer at the Adler Planetarium, an Associate at the University of Chicago, and an Affiliated Faculty member of the Zygon Center for Religion & Science. She holds a Bachelor’s degree in Physics from Cornell University and a Ph.D. in Astronomy from the University of AZ.

To register, visit http://www.csjthewell.org/courses/evolution-on-a-cosmic-scale/