Salvation through science alone: the soteriological potential of science in case studies of Ursula Goodenough, Sam Harris, and E.O. Wilson

Traditional religion has collapsed in the West, at least according to many theorists of the modern religious landscape such as Charles Taylor. This has led to a diversification of what Lois Lee has identified as existential cultures—tropes and communities that address the questions, frailties, and limitations of human life. Mary Midgley’s work on the culture of science has demonstrated that science is one such existential culture. Taking Midgley’s lead, this thesis explores the soteriological potential of science insofar as it has the ability to remediate existential anxiety, meaning that it can facilitate a transition from negative affect to neutral or positive affect regarding the embodied limitations of human life. This requires three moves that comprise part I of the thesis: 1) the responsible deployment of evolutionary theory and cognitive science in the humanities, 2) a robust understanding of the material power of affectivity, and 3) an exploration of salvation as a “religion-like thing” that is not specific to religious doctrine but rather is an affective, phenomenological potentiality inherent to subjects across traditional religious-secular divides. Part II entails three case studies: biologist Ursula Goodenough, who is saved from the thought of death by interpreting the germ-soma distinction of multicellular organisms, popular philosopher Sam Harris, who is saved by the ability science has to disambiguate questions of morality, spiritual belief, and spiritual practice, and zoologist E.O. Wilson, who is saved by the ways in which science helps him develop a more intimate relationship with nature as his sacred home. Identifying science as salvific for these thinkers provides a means by which to theorise about experience beyond traditional religious-secular bounds and demonstrates the affective power inherent to science not just as a discipline but also as a salvific cultural phenomenon.