Flourish in the Future
ingThe goal of this website is to present the Epic of Evolution in ways that inspire you to create a flourishing future. Learning about our magnificent 14 billion year journey can expand your sense of possibility, helping you imagine and create the life of your dreams. This amazing story of the past enlarges our imaginations with creative new possibilities for the future.
Big, Hairy, Audacious Goal
The goal is that by the year 2023, 23 percent of the world’s population is flourishing with an inspiring evolutionary world view that helps them flourish and encourages them to contribute to the ongoing renewal of sentient life of Earth and beyond. These inspired people will create a tipping point. By 2030, everyone on planet Earth will be celebrating this inspiring cosmology and flourishing as a result.
When I first started this Epic of Evolution web site in 2005, this goal seemed beyond possibility. For starters, in 2005, more than 20% of the people on the planet lived in extreme poverty. Second, most people didn’t accept biological evolution as their cosmology (ie Creation Story). Third, most people were unaware of human progress.
Sixteen years later, so much has changed. While many people still continue to struggle, for most people, life is better than it was 15 years ago. Today, fewer than 9% of all people live in extreme poverty. While this is tragic for each of these people, the positive trajectory out of poverty offers them real hope that they will see the end of extreme poverty in their lifetime.
Also, in the past 15 years, thanks to the Internet, scientific data is available to most people on the planet. As a result, today, over 80% of Americans, acknowledge the science of evolution. Not only does evolution explain how humans and species evolved, it explains our psychology, our culture, our appetites. Evolution explains how our universe came to be and how our planet changes over time.
Since 2005, a slew of authors have written books and produced websites highlighting Human Progress, the Great Enrichment, Rational Optimism, and the Innovation responsible for this progress.
If you listen to the news, it may seem that life has gotten much worse. Although problems seem much bigger now than they did 20 years ago, the truth is, our awareness of the problems is bigger. The good news is, our awareness of solutions is also bigger.
And this awareness is great news. Greater awareness means that solutions are closer. Awareness of problems is half the solution. But if you look at the data, so much much progress has happened in other areas, that the goal of a flourishing population seems within reach.
Even better, the science that informs the Epic of Evolution helps us create solutions to our biggest challenges, like enriching billions who live in poverty, preventing super-volcanos or meteor strikes, and optimizing climate change. By understanding what works, we can ensure freedom for all people and create a sustainable and flourishing paradise on Earth and beyond.
Imagine
The human imagination is a powerful creative force, one that has altered the future of life on this planet. The Epic of Evolution inspires our imagination because it reveals a world that is far more spectacular and awesome that anyone could imagine without the gift of the scientific method.
Innovation
With imagination, free flow of information, and a sense of rational optimism, humanity is creating a flourishing future. We much first imagine that future. And a great way to imagine a flourishing future is to understand what created the best of this present moment.
by Cathy McGowan Russell
23 by 23
By the year 2023, 23 percent of the people of the world will enjoy a hopeful and predictive evolutionary world view that inspires them to celebrate and contribute to the the ongoing flourishing of life of Earth and beyond.
“The epic of evolution is science translated into meaningful story.” ~ Connie Barlow
“Our human destiny is integral with the destiny of the earth.” ~ Thomas Berry
“If you study an old-fashioned television screen up close, you’ll see dots of different colors dancing in front of your eyes. You’ll think you are looking at chaos. But stand back, and you will see a picture full of meaning. Something like this happens over and over again as we study the past. Stand too close to the details and it’s hard to see anything but the idiosyncratic actions of individual human beings. Big history helps us stand back from the details and see the patterns. By doing so, it can transform our ideas of what history is about.” ~ David Christian
“As the first truly global creation story, the evolutionary epic has the potential to unite rather than to divide humanity.” ~ David Christian
“Evolution is neither random nor predetermined, but rather an intelligent dance between organism and environment.” ~ Bruce Lipton and Steve Bhaerman
“After all, what nobler thought can one cherish than that the universe lives within us all?” ~ Neil deGrasse Tyson
“Without a meaningful evolutionary worldview it’s impossible to understand yourself, your world, or what’s needed for humanity to survive and thrive in the coming decades.” ~ Michael Dowd
“I find the epic of evolution, from the “Hot Big Bang” to Homo sapiens, an illumination of how the Creator God is and has been creating.” ~ Arthur Peacocke, Biochemist and Priest
“The stories of evolution have the power to unite all peoples.” ~ Lynn Margulis and Dorion Sagan
“Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution” ~ Theodosius Dobzhansky
“It has taken millions of years to make preparations for what we are now to accomplish in this one lifetime. . . . such is the amazement of GOD’s hand . . . known to us as evolution”. ~ Guru Singh
“There is grandeur in this view of life.” ~ Charles Darwin