"Beyond Cosmic Dice" offers a new perspective on the purpose and meaning of life free from any divine influence. By rejecting the false premises of religion, readers are free to pave their own road for a better life.
Beyond Cosmic Dice: Moral Life in a Random World (1)
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Editorial Reviews
About the Author
Jeff Schweitzer spent much of his youth underwater pursuing his lifelong fascination with marine life. He obtained his doctorate from Scripps Institution of Oceanography through his neurobehavioral studies of sharks and rays. He has published in an eclectic range of fields, including neurobiology, marine science, international development, environmental protection and aviation. Jeff and his wife live in central Texas, moving there after retiring from the White House as Assistant Director for International Science and Technology.
Giuseppe Notarbartolo di Sciara is an evolutionary biologist with a doctorate from the University of California. He serves as a marine policy advisor to various national and international bodies, and has recently represented Italy in multilateral environmental negotiations. Through appearances on television and radio, and the publication of articles and books, he has been striving to increase public awareness of marine conservation. Giuseppe lives with his family in Northern Italy.
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More About the Author
Dr. Jeff Schweitzer is a marine biologist, consultant and internationally recognized authority in ethics, conservation and development. He is the author of five books including Calorie Wars: Fat, Fact and Fiction (July 2011), and A New Moral Code (2010). Dr. Schweitzer has spoken at numerous international conferences in Asia, Russia, Europe and the United States.
Dr. Schweitzer's work is based on his desire to introduce a stronger set of ethics into American efforts to improve the human condition worldwide. He has been instrumental in designing programs that demonstrate how third world development and protecting our resources are compatible goals. His vision is to inspire a framework that ensures that humans can grow and prosper indefinitely in a healthy environment.
Formerly, Dr. Schweitzer served as an Assistant Director for International Affairs in the Office of Science and Technology Policy under former President Clinton. Prior to that, Dr. Schweitzer served as the Chief Environmental Officer at the State Department's Agency for International Development. In that role, he founded the multi-agency International Cooperative Biodiversity Group Program, a U.S. Government that promoted conservation through rational economic use of natural resources.
Dr. Schweitzer began his scientific career in the field of marine biology. He earned his Ph.D. from Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California, San Diego. He expanded his research at the Center for Learning and Memory at the University of California, Irvine. While at U.C. Irvine he was awarded the Science, Engineering and Diplomacy Fellowship from the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
Dr. Schweitzer is a pilot and he founded and edited the Malibu Mirage, an aviation magazine dedicated to pilots flying these single-engine airplanes. He and his wife Sally are avid SCUBA divers and they travel widely to see new wildlife, never far from their roots as marine scientists.
Dr. Schweitzer's work is based on his desire to introduce a stronger set of ethics into American efforts to improve the human condition worldwide. He has been instrumental in designing programs that demonstrate how third world development and protecting our resources are compatible goals. His vision is to inspire a framework that ensures that humans can grow and prosper indefinitely in a healthy environment.
Formerly, Dr. Schweitzer served as an Assistant Director for International Affairs in the Office of Science and Technology Policy under former President Clinton. Prior to that, Dr. Schweitzer served as the Chief Environmental Officer at the State Department's Agency for International Development. In that role, he founded the multi-agency International Cooperative Biodiversity Group Program, a U.S. Government that promoted conservation through rational economic use of natural resources.
Dr. Schweitzer began his scientific career in the field of marine biology. He earned his Ph.D. from Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California, San Diego. He expanded his research at the Center for Learning and Memory at the University of California, Irvine. While at U.C. Irvine he was awarded the Science, Engineering and Diplomacy Fellowship from the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
Dr. Schweitzer is a pilot and he founded and edited the Malibu Mirage, an aviation magazine dedicated to pilots flying these single-engine airplanes. He and his wife Sally are avid SCUBA divers and they travel widely to see new wildlife, never far from their roots as marine scientists.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A very important book!,
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This review is from: BEYOND COSMIC DICE (Hardcover)
Now is the time for everyone to read this book. You may not agree with all of it, but discussion about these issues of religion, science, and morality goes beyond being simply relevant and is truly necessary given our current world politics. Beyond Cosmic Dice is an easy read, but densely packed with important ideas. Somehow the authors have managed to pull off making the usually dry subjects of ethics, morality and religion humorous without in any diminishing the serious nature of the discussion. This is actually a page turner! I love the chapter titles, and that irreverence is reflected in the text of the book as well, but without ever being disrespectful toward the long-held beliefs that are being so effectively challenged. If you have ever questioned religion's answers to life's mysteries, then this book is a must read. I do not agree with everything the authors say, but find myself in agreement with their biggest ideas about morality and religion. I loved this book and found it a deeply satisfying read.
10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Ziztur loves it, especially the first half,
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This review is from: BEYOND COSMIC DICE (Hardcover)
Beyond Cosmic Dice is perhaps not the book you would expect from the title. To me, the title suggests that the book is primarily about morality and ethics in a world in which there is no ultimate purpose or absolute morality. In a very real way, this is what this book is about, but not in the way you'd think.
Chapter 1 is an extremely compelling description of the difficulties in defining life. Schweitzer explains quite convincingly that life is not an either-or proposition. Rather, the difference between life and non-life is a gradation. Instead of life being white and nonlife being black, life is closer to blue and nonlife is closer to green, with gradual shades in between. One can look at a dog and say, "this dog is definitely alive" and one can look at a rock and say, "this is definitely not alive", but not all things are so easily classified. As he puts it, "Nobody would deny the existence of green or blue, yet nobody can define when one color becomes the other. That inability to draw a clear line between them does not diminish the reality of the two colors" (pp 46). This is important to understand because when people ask, "how did life arise out of nonlife" they imagine life and nonlife as binary constructs, when in fact they are constructs on a spectrum. "Life" is nothing more than "an arbitrary label we apply to distinguish extremes of complexity along a continuum" (pp 47). After explaining that life is an arbitrary label, Schweitzer goes on to briefly explain evolution. What I find most spectacular about this chapter is that while I am a seasoned reader of explanations and treatises on evolution, he offered a very unique perspective. He explains that evolution has no direction, purpose or drive toward complexity. Humans, in all of their complexity, are not abnormal in the grand scheme of evolution. In the grand scheme of evolution, simple, single-celled organisms are much more favored by natural selection than complex beings such as us. As Schweitzer puts it, "bacteria can easily live without us, but we would die quickly without them" (pp 65). Bacteria and other simple organisms outnumber us by both sheer numbers and mass - we are the latecomers, a "biological aberration", and when humanity is gone, the bacteria will go on living, having for all intents and purposes not noticed our coming and going at all. If there is a god and he designed the earth for any type of organism, it is not for complex humans but for the single-celled. The earth is far more suited to their kind, and they can survive where we absolutely cannot. Chapter 3 deals specifically with humans, and the fact that most of the cells in our bodies are not ours (they are the cells of microorganisms using our body as a convenient apartment complex) and most of our DNA is not human either. We are they, and they are us. The other characteristics that we believe make us unique and special (intelligence, tool use, self-consciousness, self-awareness, etc) are not uniquely human. They are present in other species as well, to different degrees. A cheetah could just as easily point out that they are the pinnacle of evolution because they are the fastest land animal, making our claims to superiority quite arbitrary. The only thing that really separates us from everything else is our capacity to choose to be moral. I found the first three chapters to be the most enlightening aspects of the book. These chapters make up part I. Part II of the book (the next 3 chapters) deals briefly with how religion arose and the shortcomings of religious morality. Part III deals with cultivating a natural ethic based on part I. Schweitzer defines a natural ethic as, "based on the principal that with the ability to choose to be good comes the obligation to make that choice; Choosing to be moral is what makes us special. The act of choosing to live a good life is the foundation for all pleasure, peace and happiness" (pp 176). All organisms exploit their environment to the maximum extent possible, and humans are the only organism capable of recognizing this and then rising above this exploitative relationship. We should do so because we can. Schweitzer then lays out moral foundation that he feels arise out of this natural ethic, but he stresses that these are personal guidelines and not universal ones. While I absolutely understand this tack, I feel as though the loose link between the strong and insightful first half of the book and the guidelines for ethical behavior in the second half of the book leave something to be desired. I wanted the book to end as strongly as it started. It didn't, but in a way I think that reflects the reality of morality. I have yet to find a system of morality that operates prescriptively that is also based on solid foundations, and instead I am left with shades of gray and bell curves of behavior. Perhaps that means it is time for me to abandon my childish notion that moral questions can be examined in the same way that we examine other empirical facts about the universe. Beyond Cosmic Dice is written in an accessible, almost conversational style and is an excellent read for non-theists and theists alike. It may even be a good starting point for a theist with a desire to better understand the naturalistic worldview.
9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Interesting irony,
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Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: BEYOND COSMIC DICE (Hardcover)
Beyond Cosmic Dice is a very concise manual describing how intelligent human beings can interpret the world around themselves and develop a peace with that understanding, without necessarily depending on the crutch of an "imaginary friend" to explain and support their need to be the supreme species of the universe.
The author, in an unemotional, fact based manner, helps the reader understand how religions became a crutch, and then a corrupt crutch, praying on the weakness and fear of the unknown of the masses. Ultimately, the author presents a set of guidelines by which our species can live a morally sound life answering only to the basic instincts of good and bad without necessarily creating a totalitarian tautology to describe and encourage such behavior. The irony is that in some future society, they may uncover a copy of this book and its straight-forward ideas, and decide to create an organized following of those ideas that ultimately becomes a religion (the world according to Schweitzer???) in spite of itself! Excellent read! Some chapters are rather demanding of attention (i.e. wading thru all of the contemporary moral philosophies in order to break them down) but for the most part, a very informative and intellectually inspiring book to read.
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