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Topics and Scope
- Biochemistry and Fine-Tuning: to what extent
can arguments analogous to "fine tuning" in physics and cosmology be applied
to chemistry and biochemistry?
- How optimal are life's nucleotide and amino-acid
alphabets? How were these selected?
- Do the properties of
proteins or protein interaction networks show any evidence of
fine-tuning?
- Are there alternative solvents to water for the
emergence and maintenance of life?
- Are there evidences of
fine tuning and convergence in biochemical pathways (such as the Krebs
cycle)?
- Does systems biology shed new light on the range of
chemistries suited for the emergence of life?
- What is the
relationship between randomness at the molecular level and emergent
biochemical properties?
- Philosophical aspects and potential
theological significance of biochemical fine tuning.
- Evolutionary History and Contemporary Life: Evolution,
Ecology, Ethology
- What features in common do evolutionary trends show?
- Is convergence of evolutionary importance?
- How well do we understand evolutionary simplifications?
- How can we define better the concept of character-complexes?
- How similar are social systems in different groups
of organisms?
- How common are evolutionary reversals?
- To what extent do differently constructed nervous
systems: e.g. mammalian and molluscan, achieve similar mental capacities?
- How similar are different modes of communication?
- Becoming Fully Human: Social Complexity and
Human Engagement with the Natural and Supernatural World
- What is the nature and significance of convergences in
cultural evolution (shamanism, the blossoming at certain times of
monumental religious construction, sacrificial cults and potentially
many others)?
- Is the spiritual sense a human universal or perhaps even more
broadly found among other hominids?
- What does a study of the earliest symbolic cultures (as found at
the Blombos cave site, for example) reveal about the connection of
symbolism with being, spirit, and concepts of the transcendent?
- How do archaeologists evaluate the "religion-drives-innovation"
thesis that is more often proposed in other fields of study and with
other kinds of data?
- What do Neanderthal 'burials' imply about the evolution of a
spiritual sense?
- Can a study of prehistory contribute to the debate in the social
sciences about the nature and importance of human agency and purpose?
The fact that archaeology rarely reveals individuals never mind their
intentions does not necessarily mean all of culture change is due to
extrinsic factors such as climate, outside of any kind of
'purpose'. Has the field progressed to the point where we may be able
to newly enter this territory?
- How can we recognise the spiritual, the religious, and conceptions of the
transcendent from archaeological data?
- What can we know of the religious or spiritual experiences of early Homo sapiens?
- What evidence is there for directionality in human asocial and
technological development?
An expanded discussion of potential research topics, as well as an annotated
bibliography and set of relevant web-links can be accessed on the Background Information resources page
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