New Rolston Professor Looks to Moderate Religion-Science Dialogue
Andrew Lustig becomes the college's first Holmes Rolston Professor of Religion and Science.
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8/2/2005
Contact: Bill Giduz 704/894-2244 or bigiduz@davidson.edu
Andrew Lustig’s lifelong pursuit of ever-widening fields of intellectual inquiry has led him to Davidson College. He has accepted the offer to become Davidson’s first Holmes Rolston III Professor of Religion and Science and views the position as an opportunity to influence an important ongoing debate.
In this era when rapid scientific discovery drives the economy and dominates our imaginations, Lustig strongly recommends the need for a more even-handed approach to the dialogue between science and religion.
Today’s conversation seems to proceed from science as a senior partner toward religion as a junior supplicant. Many intelligent people settle on a “God of the Gaps” belief, invoking the divine only to cover phenomena that are as-yet scientifically inexplicable. “But that’s a recipe for endless retreat on the theological side,” Lustig asserts. “Instead of letting science disqualify things at the start, let’s start from a different place. Let’s say, ‘Religion and science aren’t really that different as forms of knowledge.’ In fact, they both appeal to experience, and both make inferences without having ultimate answers. Yes, scientists have an advantage in developing inventions that change the world, but in subtler ways I believe that religious people change the world, too.”
Davidson created the new professorship through the generosity of Holmes Rolston III, a 1953 Davidson graduate who teaches at Colorado State University. Rolston endowed the new chair with the million-dollar-plus award he received as winner of the 2003 Templeton Prize for Progress Toward Research or Discoveries About Spiritual Realities. He was honored for a lifetime of work in the field, which included publication of books such as “Science and Religion” and “Genes, Genesis and God.” Rolston also recently won Villanova University’s 2005 Mendel Medal, which recognizes outstanding scientists who have demonstrated “that between true science and true religion there is no intrinsic conflict.”
Clark Ross, Vice President for Academic Affairs and Dean of the Faculty, said, “The Rolston Professorship will enable us to initiate new areas of study and dialogue in the realm of religion, science, and ethics. Additionally, Andy Lustig with his expertise and experience in medical ethics will be able to contribute to our highly successful medical humanities program. We’re extremely grateful to Dr. Rolston for having made possible this extraordinary opportunity.”
Whereas Rolston is noted primarily for fashioning a religious ethic for environmental preservation, Lustig has become prominent at the Baylor School of Medicine and Rice University for his exploration of religious issues in bioethics and medical ethics. Lustig intends to honor Rolston by leading students to a thoughtful consideration of issues that too often polarize the public. “Yes, there are conflicts between science and religion,” he began. “When you read Genesis as a science book there’s conflict, and when
you view Darwinism as excluding the possibility of a creator God, there’s conflict. We need to consider these matters with more nuance.”
Additional Role As A "Public Intellectual"
During his first semester he will teach an introductory course in “Science and Religion,” and a course in “Ethics, Medicine, and Religion.” In addition to teaching, Lustig hopes to keep developing his role as a “public intellectual” to engage a broader audience on the issues. For the past three years he has written regular columns on ethics for the Catholic lay journal, “Commonweal.” He also was a commentator for “Ethics in Practice,” A show that was broadcast in the Houston area over the Baylor Health Channel, and conducted adult education classes in Houston-area churches as Academic Director of the Institute of Religion in the Texas Medical Center.
For the past five years, Lustig has been engaged in a project he called “my most exciting ever.” As director of Rice University’s “Program on Biotechnology, Religion, and Ethics,” Lustig is project director and co-principal investigator of a million-dollar Ford Foundation-funded investigation entitled “Altering Nature: How Religious Traditions Assess the New Biotechnologies.” Now in its final year, the study has involved about sixty scholars from many disciplines who have studied implications for the religious community of four areas of technology—assisted reproduction, human-machine convergence, gene therapy and enhancement, and enhancing biodiversity with biotechnology.
“The issues are enormously complex and important,” said Lustig. “Some people believe we will inevitably adopt these new technologies, but I believe there’s great merit in thinking carefully every step of the way. For instance, the religious community has no problems with heart valves or artificial knees, but how would they react if we begin inserting computer chips into our brains?”
The project will yield at least one book and a series of white papers for scientific, religious, and technology journals.
A Catholic, West Coast Childhood
Lustig’s devotion to religion and science can be traced as far back as his childhood, growing up with seven siblings in a Catholic home in Bakersfield, California. The son of a high school mathematics teacher, he found his greatest satisfaction in books that filled the house. He attended a Jesuit high school and thrived on its rigorous curriculum that included exercises such as solving murder mysteries in Latin.
As an undergraduate at the nominally Jesuit University of San Francisco during the heyday of the 1960s peace and love movement, Lustig participated in anti-Vietnam War marches and adopted the shoulder-length hairstyle of the day, but avoided the destructive aspects of the drug culture. He engaged in serious discussions of the Vietnam War based on Catholic social teaching and the first-hand testimony of friends who were drafted. He wrote songs on piano and guitar, and majored in English, fancying himself as a creative writer. “To this day I have works in the drawer that gather dust, particularly poetry,” he admitted.
He also took a smorgasbord of courses in philosophy, history, and science. A faculty mentor suggested he gather those threads of interest by studying the history of science. He did so by enrolling in a graduate program at Princeton University, and discovered a fascinating mix and intellectual brilliance and deep religious conviction in many of the iconic figures of science, including Galileo, Kepler, Boyle, and Newton.
With a Princeton master’s degree in hand, he headed back to the Bay area, and enrolled in Berkeley’s School of Applied Theology. That led back East to the University of Virginia, where he earned his Ph.D. in 1987 in religious ethics. His dissertation covered “Property, Justice, and the General Duty to Assist the Needy,” but he had developed a gnawing curiosity about bioethics that would dominate most of his professional life.
He gained teaching experience as a graduate fellow at the University of Virginia, and for two years was a lecturer in philosophy at the University of Massachusetts in Lowell.
He then had the opportunity to apply his studies to the real world for two stimulating years as a staff ethicist to New York Governor Mario Cuomo’s New York state “Task Force on Life and the Law." “Cuomo was impressive,” Lustig recalled. “He led the legislature to think about the consequences of their actions. I learned a lot about the difference between theory and legislative action, and the give-and-take of power politics.”
From 1987-1989 Lustig co-authored reports on issues such as commercial surrogate parenting, and organ procurement and distribution. “In some ways it was the most influential work I’ve ever done,” he said.
The task force issued recommendations that resulted in passage of a bill to outlaw commercial surrogate parenting and another which allowed people to speak on behalf of loved ones who were medically incompetent.
Immersed In Medical Ethics
A joint offer from Baylor College of Medicine’s Center for Medical Ethics and The Institute of Religion in the Texas Medical Center in 1989 attracted Lustig to Houston because it offered an opportunity to broaden his intellectual path. At Baylor he immersed himself in clinical medical ethics, and quickly discovered the difficulty of reconciling theory on matters such as death and dying with the reality of bedside decisions.
He held a variety of positions while at Baylor College of Medicine, the Institute of Religion, and Rice University, covering medical ethics, health policy, and theological ethics, and was an eminently productive scholar during those appointments. A large majority of the books, chapters, articles, and presentations in his full twenty-seven page curriculum vitae were achieved during his sixteen years in Houston.
But he felt himself becoming mired in administration and drifting further from the stimulating give-and-take of classroom teaching. Davidson's search for a Rolston Professor coincided with a calling he felt back toward an undergraduate atmosphere. In addition, the position promised an exciting opportunity to further broaden his areas of inquiry. “I react to new possibilities that expand the range of the discussion,” he said. “Issues in science and religion provide as broad an interdisciplinary focus as I can imagine,” he said.
The position at Davidson also allow’s Lustig’s wife, Stacie, to return to her roots on the East Coast. Stacie has had a successful twenty-year career in high tech, and is now eager to explore other professional possibilities.
Lustig believes that the undergraduate years are the best opportunity to help students sort through the big issues of personal and professional discovery. “Once students get to medical or graduate school, they’re often focused and locked into a curriculum and don’t have time to look at issues in more wide-ranging fashion,” he said. “In the undergraduate classroom, we can explore complex issues at an earlier point in the students’ educational experience. Working with the excellent students at Davidson will give me the opportunity to interact with persons at the beginning of their careers who are eager to bring their energy to the classroom. I want to be part of that.”
Davidson is a highly selective independent liberal arts college for 1,700 students. Since its founding by Presbyterians in 1837, the college has graduated 23 Rhodes Scholars and is consistently ranked in the top ten liberal arts colleges in the country by U.S. News and World Report magazine. Davidson has recently completed “Let Learning Be Cherished,” a $250 million campaign in support of student financial assistance, academic resources, and community life.
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