“Are We Slaves to Our Genes?”

Over the past few centuries the pendulum has constantly swung between an emphasis on the role of either nature or nurture in shaping human destiny, a pendulum often energised by ideological considerations. In recent decades the flourishing of developmental biology, genomics, epigenetics, and our increased understanding of neuronal plasticity, have all helped to subvert such dichotomous notions. At the same time the field of behavioral genetics continues to extend its reach into the social sciences, reporting the heritability of such human traits as aggression, sexual orientation and religiosity. In parallel the human genome continues to be presented as the ‘blueprint of life,’ encoding human destinies. There are therefore many continuing challenges today to notions of human freedom and moral responsibility with consequent theological implications. These will be discussed within the framework of the Biblical understanding of humankind made in the image of God.

Denis Alexander is the Founding Director [Emeritus] of The Faraday Institute for Science and Religion, Cambridge, where he is Emeritus Fellow of St. Edmund’s College. He is a past chair of the Molecular Immunology Programme and Head of the Laboratory of Lymphocyte Signalling and Development at The Babraham Institute, Cambridge. Alexander was previously Associate Professor of Biochemistry in the Medical Faculty of the American University of Beirut, Lebanon, where he helped to establish the National Unit of Human Genetics. From 1992-2013 he was Editor of the journal Science and Christian Belief, and previously served as a member of the executive committee of the International Society for Science and Religion. Alexander gave the Gifford Lectures at St. Andrews University in 2012.

Publications

• Are We Slaves to Our Genes?
• Creation or Evolution Do We Have to Choose?
• Is There Purpose in Biology?

“How to Build Future Digital Infrastructures Using AI and the Confluence of Technologies That Reflect God’s Kingdom Values”

We are at the birth of the next generation of digital infrastructures due to the confluence of artificial intelligence (AI), 5G wireless network, Internet of Things (IoT), decentralization of the web, from blockchain, to decentralized autonomous organization (DAO), Web3 and other technologies.

This new digital infrastructure will become future societies’ utilities. People will be so dependent on it that any disruption will result in severe impairment to the basics of life, from finance to healthcare, more severe than the inconvenience we experience from today’s power outages.

This talk will first evaluate the past evolutions, from the beginning of the Internet to the current state of information science and technologies, by asking questions that may not have been asked but still need asking. I will discuss how the current state suffers because these questions were left unaddressed.

I will further discuss how important it is to find answers to these questions, learning from the mistakes and ignorance of the past, and argue for the implementations of these answers as computer scientists and technologists converge these technologies to build tomorrow’s digital infrastructures.

Pivotal questions digital infrastructures upon which our lives depend on must answer include:

• Is it truthful?
• Does it reflect justice and righteousness? Or is it biased that leads to invisible oppression and injustice?
• Does it honor the freedom and sovereignty of man?
• Is it fair to all stakeholders?
• Is it auditable, transparent, and be made accountable?
• Is there check and balance of power?
• Does it bless and benefit man or does it belittle man and make them fearful of it?

This talk will end with a call to action to Christ’s disciples whom God has already ordained into the space, to arise, to lead the discussions and implementations, as Christ’s light to this world, strategic for such a time as this.

Joanna Ng is a former IBM-er, pivoted to a start-up founder, focusing on Artificial Intelligence, specialized in Augmented Cognition, by integrating with IoT and Blockchain, in the context of web3, by applying design-thinking methodology. With forty-nine patents granted to her name, Joanna was accredited as an IBM Master Inventor. She held a seven-year tenure as the Head of Research, Director of the Center for Advanced Studies, IBM Canada. She has published over twenty peer-reviewed academic publications and co-authored two computer science books with Springer, The Smart Internet, and The Personal Web. She published a Christianity Today article called “How Artificial Super Intelligence Is Today's Tower of Babel" and published her first book on faith and discipleship in October 2022, titled Being Christian 2.0.

“Science Studies the Question: How? Religion Wonders About the Question: Why?”

In this talk, I will explain the science behind my Nobel winning work on high intensity lasers and why pursuing fundamental and applied science together is important. I will also discuss the new network, TRuST I am co-directing to bring back trust in science, which is vital if we are going to work together to build a sustainable future. Finally, even though as an optical scientist, I understand why the sunset is red and why the colors spread out over the sky, it doesn’t stop me from thanking God every time I see a beautiful sunset.

Donna Strickland is a professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Waterloo and is one of the recipients of the Nobel Prize in Physics 2018 for developing chirped pulse amplification with Gérard Mourou, her PhD supervisor at the time. They published this Nobel-winning research in 1985 when Strickland was a PhD student at the University of Rochester. Strickland earned a B.Eng. from McMaster University and a PhD in optics from the University of Rochester.

Strickland was a research associate at the National Research Council Canada, a physicist at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and a member of technical staff at Princeton University. In 1997, she joined the University of Waterloo, where her ultrafast laser group develops high-intensity laser systems for nonlinear optics investigations. She was named a 2021 Hagler Fellow of Texas A&M University and sits on the Growth Technology Advisory Board of Applied Materials.

Strickland served as the president of the Optica (formerly OSA) in 2013 and is a fellow of Optica, SPIE, the Royal Society of Canada and the Royal Society. She is an honorary fellow of the Canadian Academy of Engineering and the Institute of Physics, an international member of the US National Academy of Science and member of the Pontifical Academy of Science. Strickland was named a Companion of the Order of Canada.

“Technology and Hope: Narratives of the Human Future”

What is the human predicament, and how are we saved from it? From science fiction to the transhumanist movement, answers to these questions increasingly center on technology. This presentation will set narratives of "techno-salvation" alongside Christian eschatology, exploring the ways in which emerging technological proposals for human augmentation and/or enhancement can be engaged with from the perspective of a Christian faith. It will outline the future of human being envisioned by many transhumanists, highlighting several opportunities for dialogue with religious perspectives on what it means to be human, and the future(s) that we imagine. How might a contextual and imaginative approach to how we respond to new technologies and practise discernment over their use allow a theological perspective to contribute to these wider conversations?

Victoria Lorrimar is a Senior Research Fellow in the School of Philosophy and Theology at the University of Notre Dame Australia. Her first monograph is Human Technological Enhancement and Theological Anthropology (Cambridge University Press, 2022) and she has published more than a dozen peer-reviewed articles and book chapters on science and religion topics. She is a member of the investigation team for the current "Biocultural Evolution and Theological Anthropology" project funded by the John Templeton Foundation. Her research interests include the imagination and human creativity, human enhancement technologies and biohacking, religion and science fiction and the methodology of science and religion.

Publications

• Human Technological Enhancement and Theological Anthropology (20% discount code here)

“Male, Female, and Intersex in the Image of God”

People with biological sex traits that are a mix of male and female have been known since antiquity—including in the Bible and Christian history. Historically determined by genital appearance, sex assignment has been complicated by the discovery of gonads, chromosomes, and hormones. Advances in neuroscience and genetics are illuminating more nuances to sex development hitherto imperceptible. Each discovery documenting the multifactorial nature of human biological sex blurs the dividing line between male and female and increases the number of people for whom sex assignment is not straightforward. This blurring of lines has been perceived as a threat by many Christians.

Defenders of the Bible have worked to explain away, silence, and erase intersex bodies—justifying forced medical procedures on those born with mixed sex traits. Children are subjected to genital surgeries, gonadectomies, hormone blockers, and hormone replacements to force their bodies away from natural androgyny toward artificial binary phenotypes. These interventions have been documented as causing physical, psychological, and spiritual trauma.

The bodies and experiences of intersex people also provide vital data on the development of gender identity. Anti-transgender legislation, allegedly crafted to protect young people, carves out exceptions which allow physicians to alter the sex traits of intersex children while denying similar interventions requested by adolescents and adults. How can biblical studies and theology help Christians navigate this complex landscape?

Megan DeFranza is the author of Sex Difference in Christian Theology: Male, Female, and Intersex in the Image of God among other publications on sexuality, gender, gender identity, and theology. While a research associate with the Center for Mind and Culture in Boston, she directed the awards winning documentary “Stories of Intersex and Faith.” Integrating interviews from the film with her own theological teaching she created the awards winning 6-part video curriculum for churches "Fearfully and Wonderfully Made: Scripture and the New Science of Gender." Alongside speaking and writing, Megan does private coaching and sex therapy with individuals, couples, and small groups to help bring healing to those harmed by certain Christian teachings on sex, gender, sexuality, and purity culture. www.megandefranza.com.

Publications

• Sex Difference in Christian Theology: Male, Female, and Intersex in the Image of God
• Understanding Transgender Identities: Four Views
• Two Views on Homosexuality, the Bible and the Church
• Intersex, Theology, and the Bible: Troubling Bodies in Church, Text, and Society
• Evangelical Postcolonial Conversations: Global Awakenings in Theology and Praxis