There are a handful of scientific facts that can radically change our view of our world and our life – and which indeed did exactly that when they were discovered.  Have you ever considered which scientific facts are most life-changing to you?

I have, at least a little.   After I was asked to give a talk on our immense family tree of all life on Earth, I realized that this was a powerful idea, one of the biggest ideas to be shown by science (and yes, the essence of this idea has already been a main part of many indigenous spiritualities for thousands of years before Darwin and Wallace provided evidence for it).  So I wondered, if I were to make a list of the top 5 life-changing ideas shown by science, what would they be?  In just a few dozen seconds, idea after idea came to mind!  Here is that very rough list – “top 5 ideas”?  That got blown out of the water quickly!

1. We are starstuff (stellar nucleosynthesis)
2. There is no magic life force (“élan vital“)
3. Heliocentrism
4. Earth is a globe
5. The sun in a star (and the stars are suns)
6. Newton’s deterministic Laws of motion
7. Invisible colors (the electromagnetic spectrum)
8. We are all one family tree
9. Age of the earth/geology
10. Chemical cycles (water cycle, oxygen cycle, etc.)
11. How the brain works
12. Both sperm and egg needed for pregnancy
13. Milky way is our galaxy
14. Big bang/the universe had a beginning
15. Nerves are electrical
16. Electricity exists (what is lightning?)
17. Disease caused by microbes, not demons
18. Air exists (plenty of people don’t fully realize that there is material in our face, etc.)
19. Sound has a speed

Whoa, I better stop!  I’m sure I missed some big ones, but this is already well beyond my initial thought of a few ideas.  What is your list like?  Each of these (and more like them) deserves a large place in my life, and maybe even our society – much more so than a Superb Owl (who is also part of our Family Tree), I think.  I can’t wait to focus on each of these – but for now, we have an opportunity to revel in one of them – our immense Family Tree of All Life on Earth!

The Author: Jon Cleland Host

Starstuff, Contemplating: We are assemblages of ancient atoms forged in stars – atoms organized by history to the point of consciousness, now able to contemplate this sacred Universe of which we are a tiny, but wondrous, part.

Dr. Jon Cleland Host is a scientist who earned his PhD in materials science at Northwestern University & has conducted research at Hemlock Semiconductor and Dow Corning since 1997.  He holds eight patents and has authored over three dozen internal scientific papers and eleven papers for peer-reviewed scientific journals, including the journal Nature.  He has taught classes on biology, math, chemistry, physics and general science at Delta College and Saginaw Valley State University.  Jon grew up near Pontiac, and has been building a reality-based spirituality for over 30 years, first as a Catholic and now as a Unitarian Universalist, including collaborating with Michael Dowd and Connie Barlow to spread the awe and wonder of the Great Story of our Universe (see www.thegreatstory.org, and the blog at evolutionarytimes.org).  Jon and his wife have four sons, whom they embrace within a Universe-centered, Pagan, family spirituality.  He currently moderates the yahoo group Naturalistic Paganism.

See Starstuff, Contemplating posts.

See all of Dr. Jon Cleland Host’s posts.