A new club is bringing students together to contemplate human existence, life, consciousness, culture and the universe.
The Origins Project Club serves as a student component to the ASU Origins Project, which explores the beginnings of life and the universe, president and biology freshman Samantha Hauserman said.
Before this club, the Origins Project mostly involved professors and faculty, but now students will have a specific place to discuss ideas posed by the project.
The Origins Project, introduced to ASU by faculty member and theoretical physicist Lawrence Krauss, aims to explore questions such as “Who we are we?” and “Where did we come from?” and “How did we get here?” and “Where are we going?” through multidisciplinary lectures, symposiums, workshops and events throughout the year.
This week the Origins Project will host a Science and Culture Festival that will feature lectures and presentations from world-renowned thinkers like filmmaker Werner Herzog and scientist Stephen Hawking.
The Origins Project Club is not currently involved in planning events with the Origins Project, but Hauserman said the two organizations will act as a “support base” for each other.
“After seeing both of the Great Debates, I researched the Origins Project and fell in love with the stuff it does and the people it brings in,” Hauserman said. “I just wanted to find a way that students could engage with, interact and be productive parts of the Origins Project.”
The Great Debate series poses one controversial, fundamental question about life for a distinguished group of scientists and thinkers to debate in an open panel at ASU several times throughout the year.
The most recent debate in February posed the question “What is life?” to biologist and atheist Richard Dawkins and Nobel laureate Sidney Altman.
Members of the Origins Project Club will explore all forms of origin, from the big bang to creationism to morality.
They also plan to coordinate luncheons with guests of the Origins Project, volunteer at events and read books by leaders in the field of origins for discussion.
Last week at their first meeting, members watched a lecture online by Harvard psychology professor Stephen Pinker about language’s influence in psychological evolution, treasurer and political science freshman Scott Ridout said. Nine people in various majors, from engineering to English, attended.
The group plans to watch more origins lectures like this one, and as they expand they hope to sponsor a debate between professors from ASU of different departments and backgrounds, Hauserman said.
Earth and space exploration freshman Sarah Cronk, secretary of the club, added that the club did not aim to get bigger than the Origins Project, but to support the Origins Project and gain student interest in the project at ASU.
Meetings will be held every Monday from 8 to 9 p.m. in the Memorial Union for the next four weeks. Students interested can find the club on the OrgSync website and on Facebook under the name “The Origins Project Club.”
Hauserman said that like the Origins Project, the club will ruminate over fundamental questions of origin from multidisciplinary perspectives; from atheism to religion to science to art — all perspectives and majors are welcome.
“It’s something that when people first hear about it they think it’s science-based and that you’re going to have to know physics to understand what they’re talking about, but it’s not like that all … it’s applicable to all studies,” Cronk said.
Reach the reporter at hhuskins@asu.edu
