Update May 3: This post appears in the Scientia Pro Publica blog carnival hosted this week by marine biologist Kelsey Abbot at the Mauka to Makai blog. Check out some of the fascinating science writing available at the carnival, such as GrrlScientist’s post, “(How) Are Birds Affected by Volcanic Ash?”
People sometimes ask me where I fall in the science-religion debates. I teach the one (religion), I study and often write about the other (science). But I think both science and religion often skip too quickly over what ought to be the main attraction: the natural world. The world of fox kits and forests, eating and being eaten, thunder and sunsets. The world immediately available to our senses. This is the world often bypassed in the rush to explore some dimension regarded as more important, more true, or more “real.”