Steven L. Peck

Steven L. Peck (born July 25, 1957) is an evolutionary biologist, blogger, poet, and novelist. His literary work is influential in Mormon literature circles. He is a professor of biology at Brigham Young University (BYU)^[1] He grew up in Moab, Utah and lives in Pleasant Grove, Utah.

Schooling

After failing high school history, Peck studied to receive his GED.^[2] Peck received a bachelor's degree in 1986 from Brigham Young University in statistics and computer science with a minor in zoology. His master's is from University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (environmental biostatistics), and his 1997 PhD from North Carolina State University (biomathematics and entomology). His dissertation was titled "Spatial Patterns and Processes in the Evolution of Insecticide Resistance."

Personal life

During their honeymoon, Steven and his wife Lori were hit by a drunk driver in Oregon.^[2] Steven and Lori have five children.^[3]

Views

Peck believes that God "only enters the universe through our consciousness."^[4] He compares scriptural interpretation to scientific interpretation, in that both nature and scriptures are unchanging, but our understanding of them changes over the course of generations.^[4] While the LDS church currently has no official position on evolution, Peck teaches evolution in the courses he teaches at BYU.^[5]

On the subject of writing, Peck says that it is a way for him to explore the complexities in his life.^[6] He stated that anything we do to build our knowledge of the universe helps to build the kingdom of God.^[7]

Other work

In 2008, Peck worked with the United Nations International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna, Austria making models of tsetse fly ecology and population genetics.

Critical reception

Michael Austin at Dialogue's website wrote that Peck is "one of Mormonism's best living writers." Summarizing Peck's book Evolving Faith, he wrote: "Because all knowledge incorporates subjective assumptions, both religion and science require an element of faith." Literal interpretations of scripture cheat "both religion, by ignoring what the author of the text was really trying to tell us, and science, by setting up unnecessary oppositions between important religious principles and easily testable facts." ^[8] At the Association for Mormon Letters, Heather Young wrote that Evolving Faith had "enlarged my appreciation for my time on earth and the part I can play in protecting its immeasurable gifts."^[9] At Common Consent, Steve Evans said the book was "not for beginners" and uses terminology that is difficult to understand, and that the two parts of the book were not well-connected.^[10] Of Wandering Realities, Evans said the stories were "wondrous and rich."^[11]

In A Short Stay in Hell, a man must find the book of his life's story among every possible book. David Spaltro described the novella as "one of the most original and powerfully moving things I’ve ever read" and has acquired the rights to adapt it into a film.^[12] Doug Gibson at the Standard Examiner wrote that a hell that contains an "eternity of the mundane" was a "pretty effective hell."^[13] Derek Lee at Rational Faiths wrote that the novella encouraged reflection on the nature of the afterlife and what living forever would mean.^[14]

BHoges at By Common Consent praised Rifts of Rime's narrative and setting, and said that its discussion of religious topics, while plentiful, were a bit overt.^[15]

Peck is a 2016 finalist for best short fiction, Association for Mormon Letters.^[16]

Bibliography

^[17]

Book series

Latter-day Saint speculative lay theology

• Preliminaries. Science the Key to Theology. 1. By Common Consent Press. 2017. ISBN 0998605204 (initial volume in projected two-book series) 

Science articles

• 2000 "A tutorial for understanding ecological modeling papers for the nonmodeler" (American Entomologist)
• 2001 "Ecological Modeling: A guide for the nonmodeler" (Conservation Biology in Practice)
• 2001 "Antimicrobial and Insecticide Resistance Modeling: Is it time to start talking?" (Trends in Microbiology)
• 2003 "Randomness, contingency, and faith: Is there a science of subjectivity?" (Zygon: Journal of Religion and Science)
• 2004 "Simulation as experiment: a philosophical reassessment for biological modeling" (Trends in Ecology and Evolution)
• 2008 "The Hermeneutics of Ecological Simulation" (Biology and Philosophy)
• 2009 "Whose boundary? An individual species perspectival approach to borders" (Biological Theory)
• 2010 "Death and ecological crisis" (Agriculture and Human Values)
• 2012 "Agent-based models as fictive instantiations of ecological processes" (Philosophy & Theory in Biology)
• 2012 "Networks of habitat patches in tsetse fly control: implications of metapopulation structure on assessing local extinction probabilities" (Ecological Modelling)
• 2013 "Digital ecologies as Tractarian systems" (Philosophy Study)
• 2013 "Life as Emergent Agential Systems: Tendencies without Teleology in an Open Universe" (Zygon: Journal of Religion and Science)
• 2014 "Perspectives on why digital ecologies matter: Combining population genetics and ecologically informed agent-based models with GIS for managing dipteran livestock pests" (Acta Tropica)
• 2016
  • Abbott, Michael N.; Peck, Steven L. (8 December 2016). "Emerging Ethical Issues Related to the Use of Brain-Computer Interfaces for Patients with Total Locked-in Syndrome". Neuroethics. doi:10.1007/s12152-016-9296-1. 
  • Schuster, Haley; Peck, Steven L. (25 August 2016). "Mars ain’t the kind of place to raise your kid: ethical implications of pregnancy on missions to colonize other planets". Life Sciences, Society and Policy. 12 (1). doi:10.1186/s40504-016-0043-5. Retrieved 12 January 2017. 

Essays

Many of these essays appear in the 2015 Evolving Faith: Wanderings of a Mormon Biologist ISBN 978-0842529440.

• "The Current Philosophy of Consciousness Landscape: Where Does LDS Thought Fit?" (PDF). Dialogue. 38 (1). Spring 2005. 
• "An Ecologist's View of Latter-Day Saint Culture and the Environment". Stewardship and the Creation: LDS Perspectives on the Environment. Provo, Utah: Religious Studies Center. 2006. ISBN 0842526188. Archived from the original on 11 January 2017. 
• "My Madness" (PDF). Dialogue. 41 (2). Summer 2008. 
• "Intelligent Design fails as a pretense to science that tries to set religion and evolution at odds". The Salt Lake Tribune. 10 May 2008. 
• "America adds a shameful chapter to the history of torture". The Salt Lake Tribune. 8 March 2008. 
• "Science Suffers when Getting a Grant Becomes the Goal". Chronicle of Higher Education. 55 (7). October 2008. ISSN 0009-5982. 
• "Crawling Out of the Primordial Soup: A Step toward the Emergence of an LDS Theology Compatible with Organic Evolution" (PDF). Dialogue. 43 (1). Spring 2010. 
• "Crossing Boundaries, Part One". Wilderness Interface Zone. 24 May 2011. 
• "Crossing Boundaries, Part Two". Wilderness Interface Zone. 25 May 2011. 
• "Why Nature Matters: A Special Issue of Dialogue on Mormonism and the Environment" (PDF). Dialogue. 44 (2). Summer 2011. 
• "Reverencing Creation". Sunstone. 25 June 2012. 
• "Who will do the science if Western land grab is successful?". Deseret News. 17 March 2013. 
• "Five Wagers on What Intelligent Life Elsewhere in the Universe Will Be Like". Analog Science Fiction and Fact. 135 (2). March 2015. 

Fiction

Novels

• 2003 The Gift of the King's Jeweler (Covenant Communications) ISBN 9781591562771
• 2011 The Scholar of Moab (Torey House Press) ISBN 9781937226022
• 2012 The Rifts of Rime (Sweetwater Books) ISBN 9781599559674
• 2012 A Short Stay in Hell (Strange Violin Editions) ISBN 9780983748427
• 2017 (forthcoming) Gilda Trillim: Shepherdess of Rats (Roundfire Books) ISBN 9781782798644

Short stories

Some of these stories are collected in the 2015 Wandering Realities: Mormonish Short Fiction ISBN 978-0988323346.

Poetry

Many of these poems appear in the collection Incorrect Astronomy.

Blogs

• By Common Consent^[18]
• Mormon Organon

Anthologies containing Peck's work

• Windows into Hell (Curiosity Quills Press)
• Fire in the Pasture: 21st Century Mormon Poets ISBN 978-0981769660
• As Iron Sharpens Iron: Listening to the Various Voices of Scripture ISBN 978-1589585010
• Editor of a special issue of Dialogue (Vol 44 No. 2 - Summer 2011) focusing on Mormonism and the Environment

Awards

• 2011
  • Warp and Weave science fiction competition: 1st place for "Stratton Yellows"^[19]
  • Brookie and D.K. Brown Fiction Contest: Honorable Mention for "The Problem"^[19]
• Association for Mormon Letters: Best novel for The Scholar of Moab^[20]
• 2012
  • Irreantum Fiction Contest: 2nd place for "A Strange Report from the Church Archives"^[21]
  • Montaigne Medal Finalist for The Scholar of Moab^[22]
• 2014
  • Association for Mormon Letters: Award for short fiction for "Two-Dog Dose"^[23]
• 2015
  • 2015 Analytical Laboratory Reader's Awards: 2nd place for "Five Wagers on What Intelligent Life Elsewhere in the Universe Will Be Like"^[24]

See also

• AML Awards
• Fire in the Pasture
• Mormon views on evolution

References