The Gospel of Eve

Francis Bacon, Genesis, and the Telos of Modern Science

Authors

  • Richard Samuel Deese Boston University

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.1558/jsrnc.31095

Keywords:

science, religion, technology, feminism, nature

Abstract

At the dawn of the scientific revolution, Francis Bacon declared its goal: to recover the estate of Adam and restore man's prelapsarian dominion over nature.  Bacon's analogy makes little sense as a rationale for scientific inquiry, however, since Adam's distinguishing virtue in the opening verses of Genesis was his incurious obedience. The animating spirit of science has always been the impudent curiosity of Eve, who conversed with the serpent and dared, in defiance of the threat of death, to taste the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge. As we apply the fruits of scientific inquiry to the creation of new technologies, this contrast between the mythical mother and father of our species takes on a fatal significance. If we aim to recover the estate of Adam we put science in the service of complacent comfort and an incurious domination of nature that will end in catastrophe. When we embrace the gospel of Eve, we engage in a conversation with nature that is inspired by that transcendent curiosity which Einstein identified as "the cosmic religious sense." Informed by this ethos, the fundamental goal of science is not to reclaim an impossible mastery over nature nor to banish death, but to deepen our engagement with life itself.

 

Author Biography

  • Richard Samuel Deese, Boston University
    Lecturer, Division of Social SciencesCollege of General StudiesBoston University

References

Almond, Philip C. 1999. Adam and Eve in Seventeenth-Century Thought (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). Doi: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511585104.

Bacon, Francis. 2017. New Atlantis and the Great Instauration (ed. Jerry Weinberger; Chichester, UK: John Wiley & Sons).

Bennett, D.M. 1881. The Gods and Religions of Ancient and Modern Times, Vol. 2 (New York: Liberal & Scienti?c Publishing House).

Borgese, Elisabeth Mann. 1968. The Language Barrier: Beasts and Men (New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston).

Brand, Stewart. 2009. Whole Earth Discipline: An Ecopragmatist Manifesto (New York: Viking Press).

Carson, Rachel. 1962. Silent Spring (New York: Houghton-Mif?in).

Casti, John. 1990. Paradigms Lost: Tackling the Unanswered Mysteries of Modern Science (New York: Harper Perennial).

Darwin, Charles. 2004 [1871]. The Descent of Man (New York: Penguin Classics).

Des Jardins, Julie. 2010. The Madame Curie Complex: The Hidden History of Women in Science (New York: The Feminist Press at the City University of New York).

Dukas, Helen, ed. 1979. Albert Einstein: The Human Side (Princeton: Princeton University Press).

Dzielska, Maria. 1996. Hypatia of Alexandria (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press).

Einstein, Albert. 1931. Einstein on Cosmic Religion and Other Opinions and Aphorisms (New York: Covici-Friede, Inc.).

Fara, Patricia. 2003. Sex, Botany and Empire (Cambridge: Icon Books).

Farrington, Benjamin. 1963. Francis Bacon: Pioneer of Planned Science (New York: Praeger).

Ferris, Timothy. 2011. The Science of Liberty: Democracy, Reason and the Laws of Nature (New York: Harper Perennial).

Gardner, Martin. 1996. The Night Is Large: Collected Essays, 1938–1995 (New York: St. Martin’s Press).

Greenblatt, Stephen. 2017. The Rise and Fall of Adam and Eve (New York: W.W. Norton & Co.).

Hamlin, Kimberly A. 2014. From Eve to Evolution: Darwin, Science, and Women’s Rights in Gilded Age America (Chicago: University of Chicago Press). Doi: https://doi.org/10.7208/chicago/9780226134758.001.0001.

Hecht, Jennifer Michael. 2003. Doubt: A History (New York: Harper Collins).

Isaacson, Walter. 2011. Steve Jobs (New York: Simon & Schuster).

Klara, Robert. 2011. ‘The Story Behind the Apple Logo’s Evolution’, Adweek, 23 January. Online: http://www.adweek.com/creativity/story-behind-apple-logos-evolution-11672/.

Kripal, Jeffrey. 2007. The Serpent’s Gift: Gnostic Re?ections on the Study of Religion (Chicago: University of Chicago Press).

Kurzweil, Ray. 2005. The Singularity Is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology (New York: Penguin Books).

Lear, Linda. 1997. Rachel Carson: Witness for Nature (New York: Henry Holt & Co.).

Martin, Robert. 2013. How We Do It: The Evolution and Future of Human Reproduction (New York: Basic Books).

McKnight, Stephen A. 2006. The Religious Foundations of Francis Bacon’s Thought (Columbia, MO: University of Missouri Press).

Merchant, Carolyn. 2003. Reinventing Eden: The Fate of Nature in Western Culture (New York: Routledge).

Milton, John. 2000 [1667]. Paradise Lost (ed. John Leonard; London: Penguin Classics).

More, Thomas. 2016 [1516]. Utopia (ed. George M. Logan; trans. Robert M. Adams; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).

Murray, Judith Sargent. 1995. The Selected Writings of Judith Sargent Murray (ed. Sharon M. Harris; Oxford: Oxford University Press).

Ogilvie, Marilyn, and Joy Harvey (eds.). 2000. The Biographical Dictionary of Women in Science (New York: Routledge).

Pagels, Elaine. 1988. Adam, Eve, and the Serpent (New York: Random House).

Pagels, Elaine. 1989. The Gnostic Gospels (New York: Vintage Books).

Peltonen, Markku. 1996. The Cambridge Companion to Bacon (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).

Pesic, Peter. 1999. ‘Wrestling with Proteus: Francis Bacon and the “Torture” of Nature’, Isis 90.1: 81-94. Doi: https://doi.org/10.1086/384242.

Quinn, Susan. 1996. Marie Curie: A Life (Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley).

Rowe, David E., and Robert Schulmann (eds.). 2007. Einstein on Politics (Princeton: Princeton University Press).

Turgenev, Ivan. 1965 [1862]. Fathers and Sons (trans. Rosemary Edmunds; London: Penguin Classics).

Williams, Rosalind. 2013. The Triumph of Human Empire: Verne, Morris, and Stevenson at the End of the World (Chicago: University of Chicago Press). Doi: https://doi.org/10.7208/chicago/9780226899589.001.0001.

Worster, Donald. 1994. Nature’s Economy: A History of Ecological Ideas (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).

Published

2018-02-26

Issue

Section

CLOSED - Special Issue: Religion, Science, and the Future

How to Cite

Deese, R. S. (2018). The Gospel of Eve: Francis Bacon, Genesis, and the Telos of Modern Science. Journal for the Study of Religion, Nature and Culture, 11(4), 435-454. https://doi.org/10.1558/jsrnc.31095