Alpha to Omega

Dr. Elisabet Sahtouris, biologist, ecologist, futurist and author, examines why scientists should be skeptical of their assumption that the universe is non-living: "… the fundamental belief in Western science is that this is a non-living universe. No one has ever proved this. I don’t think anyone could prove it. It is an assumption. If I say I want to build a science based on the assumption this is a living universe scientists will say – prove it. But, they don’t have to prove their fundamental assumption that this is a non-living universe. Western science has developed the only culture in history, I think, that has developed the concept of non-life." Dr. Sahtouris also explains how our outdated hierarchical models of biology have given way to holarchical models, and how the same transformation is occurring in many of our social and political systems. Resist the Non-Living Universe Assumption Dr. Elisabet Sahtouris is an evolution biologist, futurist, author, an...

by Brian Swimme, Ph. D.M In the Merck Family Fund’s Yearning for Balance national survey, 86 percent of people agreed or strongly agreed that "today’s youth are too focused on buying and consuming things." This is a touchstone issue for children and the future. The following book excerpt deals with how children today discover what it means to be human. How are we initiated into the universe? To answer we need to reflect on what our children experience over and over again, at night, in a setting similar to those children in the past who gathered in the caves and listened to the chant of the elders. If we think in terms of pure quantities of time the answer is immediate: the cave has been replaced with the television room and the chant with the advertisement. One could say that the chant has been replaced with the television show, but at the core of each show, driving the action, and determining whether or not the show will survive the season, is the advertisement. ...