thinking 263–5
and Mayan calendar 262–3
and memes 258–9
and ‘moving mountains’ 307
religious, bigger than atheism 322
religious, decline in 256
religious, epidemiology of 270
religious, scientific studies of 318
and science and religion, differences between 252
in spirit world, flourishing of 104–5
in UFOs, see UFOs
see also gods/goddesses; religion
Bell, Alexander Graham 199
Bell, Thomas 106
Bell’s theorem 165, 166
Benford, Gregory 26, 36–7, 55, 264, 270
Berkeley Earth Project 156
Bernard, Dr Raymond 111–12
Berners-Lee, Tim 87
Bertalanffy, Ludwig von 262
Bessell, Friedrich 235
Better Angels of our Nature, The (Pinker) 81, 310
Bhagavata Purana 56
Big Bang 129
before 62–3
difficulties emerge with 242
and finiteness of universe 221
and Genesis 50
inferred relic of 221
mainstream cosmologists propose rivals to 245; see also steady-state theory
and spontaneous space–time existence 241–2
as theory, origin of 239
and the torus 225
see also universe: origin of
Blank Slate, The (Pinker) 253
Blount, Anne 107–8
Bondi, Hermann 239
Borman, Frank 95
Bose, Satyendra Nath 19
Brahmanda Purana 101
brain:
environment’s interactions with 255–6
generation of beliefs by 268
human-scale perception by 24
memory–data combination in 268–9
and personality 39
and uncertainty 265–6
Breaking the Spell (Dennett) 258, 309
Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase and Fable 56
Brief History of Time, A (Hawking) 62, 159
British Humanist Association 252
Brodetsky, Selig 50n
Brown, Capability 38
Brüssow, Harald 135, 141, 142
Buchhave, Lars 297–8
Burgess Shale 184–5, 203
Buridan, Jean 80
Burrows, Edgar Rice 113
Cairns-Smith, Graham 136
Caldwell, Robert 246
Cambrian period 184–5, 203
Cameron Patterson, Clair 35
Campbell, John W. 261
Cantzicnal 53
see also gods/goddesses
Canup, Robin 132
carbon:
Hoyle’s problem with 287–9
uniqueness and necessity of 283–4
carbon-14 17
Carlipp, Steven 225
Carpenter, William 106–7
Cartesian duality, see mind–matter duality
Casanova, Giacomo 112
cat flap 50, 194
Cathars 259–60
see also belief; religion
cathode rays 16, 164
causality 63–4, 70, 71–2, 76–8, 81–7
and butterfly effect 76–7
and chicken-and-egg conundrum 121
and questions of origins 120–47; see also origins
Cellular Cosmogony 109
CERN 158–9
certainty 308–9
rejection of, by science 155
in religion 308
in science 309
Chaac 53
see also gods/goddesses
Character of Physical Law, The (Feynman) 168–9
Chatsworth House 38
chicken-and-egg conundrum 121
see also causality: and questions of origins
Christian Science 126
Chukwa 56
Church of England, and female bishops 23, 321
City of God (Augustine) 103–4
Clarke, Arthur C. 201, 311
Clifton, Edgar 107–8
climate change 77
anthropogenic, scepticism concerning 156–7
Cockroft, John 16
Collapse of Chaos, The (Cohen, Stewart) 82n, 255
Columbus, Christopher 104
communication at a distance, beginnings of 202
see also evolution: of technology
Compton Gamma Ray Observatory (CGRO) 126–7
consciousness 39
Constraints on Variables in Syntax (Ross) 62n
Conway Morris, Simon 184–5
Copernicus, Nicholas 278, 279
cosmic egg 100–1, 239
cosmological constant 241, 243, 244
cosmology 278–302
and Anthropic Principle 282–3, 285–6, 287–8
Babylonian 98–9
Buddhist 56
Copernican 279–81
and creation and shape of universe, see under universe
Egyptian 96–8
and fine-tuning 282–95, 299–301
Greek 99–101
Hindu 56–7, 59
Mayan 54
and Occam’s razor 280
Ptolemaic 279–80
standard model of 240
see also creation myths
creation myths 50–62
biblical 61, 104, 108
Buddhist 101
and creator god 124
Egyptian 52–3, 97
evolution of 60–1
Finnish 101
Iroquoian 52
Japanese 101
Mayan 53–5
similar elements found in 60
as window to psyche 60
creationism 23, 36, 61, 108
see also intelligent design
Cuk, Matija 132
cuneiform 98
curved spacetime 23, 64, 78, 217
Cybernetics (Weiner) 80
Danckaerts, Jasper 51
Dark Ages 102
dark energy 244, 246
dark matter 243–4, 245
Darwin, Charles 6–7, 106, 141, 180
and barnacle species differentiation 190n
on Beagle 6
and the wizards (fictional) 7
see also evolution
Darwin, George 35, 130
Darwinism:
neo- 180, 194
religious prejudice against 316–17
social 182
Darwin’s Black Box (Behe) 191
Dauphas, Nicolas 132n
Davis, Andrew M. 132n
Dawkins, Richard 6, 71, 254
Declaration of the Rights of Man 257
Declaration of Independence 257
Dennett, Daniel 76, 258, 309, 317
Descartes, René 79, 80, 169, 310
Descent of Man, The (Darwin) 7
determinism 78
deterministic chaos 76
Devonian period 193, 203
Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion (Hume) 63–4
Dianetics 261
see also Scientology
Discworld, described 1–2
DNA 23, 135–6, 137–44, 183, 192
book encoded in 198
and certainty 309
junk 143
and viruses 140–2
see also origins: life on Earth
Doctrine of the Deluge, The (Leveson) 56
dodecahedral space 219, 220–1
Doppler effect 237
Drake, Francis 105
Dresden Codex 53
Durrer, Ruth 246
Dwyer, Joseph 127
Earth:
and Copernican cosmology, see under cosmology
deduced age of 35–6
heavenly bodies’ distances from 30, 315
life on, origin of 133–47
origin of 129–33
and Ptolemaic cosmology, see under cosmology
shape of 22, 47, 54, 92–114 passim, 212, 218; see also universe, shape of
see also cosmology
Earth 107
Earth not a Globe Review 107
Edamaruku, Sanal 318–20
Eddington, Arthur Stanley 62n, 238
Edison, Thomas 190
Egypt:
cosmology of 96–8
creation myths of 52–3, 97, 100
gods/goddesses in 26, 52
Einstein, Albert 239, 245
and cosmological constant 241, 244
curved spacetime of 23, 64, 78
and dice 165
general relativity theory of 215, 217–18, 238
and origin of universe 241
special relativity theory of 219
and static universe 241–2
and unified field theory 222
electromagnetic waves, discovery of 36
elephant, in mythology 47, 48–9, 55–7, 58–9, 62
Encyclopaedia Britannica 34
End of Time, The (Barbour) 225–6
Enlightenment 257
Enûma Anu Enlil 99
Episode on the Flatland, A (Hinton) 212
Eratosthenes 100
Esalen 262
Escher, Maurits 227, 238
Essay Concerning Human Understanding (Locke) 55
Essential Readings in Biosemiotics (Favareau) 79
eternal inflation 244–5
Euclid 64–5, 213, 214
evolution:
and bacterial ‘motor’ 190–3
and convergence, fossils’ evidence of 185
and creationism 23
cultural 94, 184, 188
and cultural development 94
and exaptation 189–90, 192, 197
as exploration, not purposive 181
and flagellum 190–1
of frogs 83
and genetic assimilation 195
and genetic variability 186
and imagination 195–7
vs intelligent design (q.v.) 156, 181, 186–7, 190–1, 316–17
and irreducible complexity 191–3
Lamarckian