Russell Lawson

Out of necessity, humans have latched onto dating systems and chronologies as the means by which we keep track of ourselves in time. We keep track of where we are through our age, by the face of a clock, by naming generations, and by counting centuries and millennia. How often have you thought about this system by which we tell time?

The culture wars of our times have been centered in universities since the emergence of the Counter Culture in the 1960s. University scholars have often taken the lead in progressive stances on ethical, cultural, and religious issues. For many years I have taught at a variety of colleges and universities, including Christian-based Liberal Arts colleges. I went to universities for my undergraduate and graduate education and witnessed firsthand the growing secularism in the academic world.

Here, Lawson (history, Northeastern State Univ.; Servants and Servitude in Colonial America) asserts that modern science has evolved out of humankind’s need to impose organization and understanding on the world. Making connections between science and mythology, magic, soothsaying, and math, he cites a variety of sources, including ancient works (e.g., The Epic of Gilgamesh; Hippocrates’s Law of Medicine).