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Article: Biology of the soul.
- Article from:
- The Humanist
- Article date:
- November 1, 1994
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1994 American Humanist Association. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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In 1972, the eminent theologian John Hick published a treatise entitled "Biology and the Soul," which he had earlier delivered as the Eddington Memorial Lecture at Cambridge University. As a biologist interested in issues at the interface between science and religion, I thought that now, at last, I would learn what the biological basis of the soul might really be. Hick's paper summarized in an informed way the mounting evidence that a lot of what we are (including much of our behavior) is dictated by the genes we randomly inherit from our parents. Yet if that is all there is to it, what is left for a divinely infused soul to be responsible for?
Hick didn't ...