Chapter 2: Cosmic Evolution: History, Culture, and Human Destiny

During the course of the 20th century, a powerful new idea gradually entered human consciousness and culture: that we are part of a cosmos billions of years old and billions of light years in extent; that all parts of this cosmos are interconnected and evolving; and that the stories of our galaxy, our solar system, our planet, and ourselves are part and parcel of the ultimate master narrative of the universe, a story we now collectively term 'Cosmic evolution." Even as in some quarters of popular culture, heated debate continues over Darwinian evolution 150 years after the idea was published, over the last 50 years the much more encompassing idea that Carl Sagan embodied in the phrase "the cosmic connection" has become more and more a part of our daily lives, and will even more in the future as our cosmic consciousness increases.

Cosmic evolution provides the proper universal context for biological evolution, revealing that the latter is only a small part of the bigger picture, in which everything is evolving, including life and culture. The more we know about science, the more we know culture and cosmos are connected, to such an extent that we can now see that the cosmos is inextricably intertwined with human destiny, both in the short term and the long-term, impinging on (and arguably essential to) questions normally reserved for religion and philosophy. It is the purpose of this chapter to uncover the historical evolution of this new understanding of the cosmos, describe the effects on culture so far, and outline the potentially far-reaching impact on the future of humanity.