Chapter 15: Bringing Cosmos to Culture: Harlow Shapley and the Uses of Cosmic Evolution

The focus of this chapter is, on Harlow Shapley. The questions posed are biographical and historical. For example: How and why did Shapley come to identify cosmic evolution as the "greatest theme I know" and use it as a foundation for his vision of science and its ultimate significance for society? How and why did he come to promote his evolutionary perspective as "stellar theology" and "rational religion" in the postwar decades? More generally, how are Shapley s efforts to promote his message of "Life, Hope, and Cosmic Evolution" to be understood within the broader context of a life and career that spanned the great cultural, political, and scientific transformations of the 20th century? To answer these questions we must begin with an examination of Shapley s attempts to connect cosmos and culture in the early decades of the 20th century.