1. Schooling

2. Personal life

3. Views

4. Other work

5. Critical reception

6. Bibliography
    Non-fiction  Book series  Science articles  Essays  Fiction  Novels  Short stories  Poetry  Blogs  Anthologies containing Peck's work 

7. Awards

8. See also

9. References

10. External links

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. They were badly injured, but survived.^[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

Non-fiction

Book series

• {{cite book|year = 2017|volume = 1|series = Science the Key to Theology|title = Preliminaries|publisher = By Common Consent Press|isbn = 978-0998605203|postscript =  (initial volume in projected two-book series)|url = https://books.google.com/books/about/Science_the_Key_to_Theology.html?id=_3ZNMQAACAAJ}}

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
  • {{cite journal|last1=Abbott|first1=Michael N.|last2=Peck|first2=Steven L.|title=Emerging Ethical Issues Related to the Use of Brain-Computer Interfaces for Patients with Total Locked-in Syndrome|journal=Neuroethics|volume=10|issue=2|pages=235–242|date=8 December 2016|doi=10.1007/s12152-016-9296-1}}
  • {{cite journal|last1=Schuster|first1=Haley|last2=Peck|first2=Steven L.|title=Mars ain't the kind of place to raise your kid: ethical implications of pregnancy on missions to colonize other planets|journal=Life Sciences, Society and Policy|date=25 August 2016|volume=12|issue=1|doi=10.1186/s40504-016-0043-5|pmid=27558392}}

Essays

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

• {{cite journal|title=The Current Philosophy of Consciousness Landscape: Where Does LDS Thought Fit?|journal=Dialogue|date=Spring 2005|volume=38|issue=1|url=https://dialoguejournal.com/wp-content/uploads/sbi/articles/Dialogue_V38N01_48.pdf|deadurl=bot: unknown|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20110119043455/https://dialoguejournal.com/wp-content/uploads/sbi/articles/Dialogue_V38N01_48.pdf|archivedate=2011-01-19|df=}}
• {{cite book|article=An Ecologist's View of Latter-Day Saint Culture and the Environment|title=Stewardship and the Creation: LDS Perspectives on the Environment|date=2006|publisher=Religious Studies Center|location=Provo, Utah|isbn=978-0842526180|url=https://rsc.byu.edu/archived/stewardship-and-creation/ecologist-s-view-latter-day-saint-culture-and-environment|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20170111214938/https://rsc.byu.edu/archived/stewardship-and-creation/ecologist-s-view-latter-day-saint-culture-and-environment|archivedate=11 January 2017}}
• {{cite journal|title=My Madness|journal=Dialogue|date=Summer 2008|volume=41|issue=2|url=https://www.dialoguejournal.com/wp-content/uploads/sbi/articles/Dialogue_V41N02_73.pdf|deadurl=bot: unknown|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20170111212028/https://www.dialoguejournal.com/wp-content/uploads/sbi/articles/Dialogue_V41N02_73.pdf|archivedate=2017-01-11|df=}}
• {{cite news|title=Intelligent Design fails as a pretense to science that tries to set religion and evolution at odds|url=http://archive.sltrib.com/story.php?ref=%2Fopinion%2Fci_9213639|work=The Salt Lake Tribune|date=10 May 2008|deadurl=bot: unknown|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20170111220026/http://archive.sltrib.com/story.php?ref=%2Fopinion%2Fci_9213639|archivedate=11 January 2017|df=}}
• {{cite news|title=America adds a shameful chapter to the history of torture|url=http://archive.sltrib.com/story.php?ref=/opinion/ci_8494994|work=The Salt Lake Tribune|date=8 March 2008}}
• {{cite journal|journal=Chronicle of Higher Education|date=October 2008|volume=55|issue=7|url=https://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ815447|issn=0009-5982|title=Science Suffers when Getting a Grant Becomes the Goal}}
• {{cite journal|title=Crawling Out of the Primordial Soup: A Step toward the Emergence of an LDS Theology Compatible with Organic Evolution|journal=Dialogue|date=Spring 2010|volume=43|issue=1|url=https://www.dialoguejournal.com/wp-content/uploads/sbi/articles/Dialogue_V43N01_7.pdf|deadurl=bot: unknown|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20130616215906/https://www.dialoguejournal.com/wp-content/uploads/sbi/articles/Dialogue_V43N01_7.pdf|archivedate=2013-06-16|df=}}
• {{cite web|title=Crossing Boundaries, Part One|url=http://wilderness.motleyvision.org/2011/crossing-boundaries-part-one-by-steven-l-peck/|website=Wilderness Interface Zone|date=24 May 2011}}
• {{cite web|title=Crossing Boundaries, Part Two|url=http://wilderness.motleyvision.org/2011/crossing-boundaries-part-two-by-steven-l-peck/|website=Wilderness Interface Zone|date=25 May 2011}}
• {{cite journal|title=Why Nature Matters: A Special Issue of Dialogue on Mormonism and the Environment|journal=Dialogue|date=Summer 2011|volume=44|issue=2|url=https://www.dialoguejournal.com/wp-content/uploads/sbi/articles/Dialogue_V44N02_311.pdf}}
• {{cite web|title=Reverencing Creation|website=Sunstone|date=25 June 2012|url=https://www.sunstonemagazine.com/reverencing-creation/}}
• {{cite news|title=Who will do the science if Western land grab is successful?|url=http://www.deseretnews.com/article/765624753/Who-will-do-the-science-if-Western-land-grab-is-successful.html?pg=all|work=Deseret News|date=17 March 2013}}
• {{cite journal|title=Five Wagers on What Intelligent Life Elsewhere in the Universe Will Be Like|journal=Analog Science Fiction and Fact|date=March 2015|volume=135|issue=2}}

Fiction

Novels

• {{cite book|title=The Gift of the King's Jeweler|date=2003|publisher=Covenant Communications|isbn=9781591562771}}
• {{cite book|title=The Scholar of Moab|date=2011|publisher=Torey House Press|isbn=9781937226022|title-link=The Scholar of Moab}}
• {{cite book|title=The Rifts of Rime|date=2012|publisher=Sweetwater Books|isbn=9781599559674}}
• {{cite book|title=A Short Stay in Hell|date=2012|publisher=Strange Violin Editions|isbn=9780983748427}}
• {{cite book|title=Gilda Trillim: Shepherdess of Rats|date=2017|publisher=Roundfire Books|isbn=9781782798644}}

Short stories

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

• [https://web.archive.org/web/20170111214119/https://www.lds.org/friend/1995/05/water-mud-and-insects?lang=eng "Water, Mud, and Insects."] The Friend. 1995.
• "The Flaw in the Lord Harrington Senario." HMS Beagle. 2002.^[18]
• [https://bycommonconsent.com/2008/06/08/the-parable-of-the-peccary/ "The Parable of the Peccary."] By Common Consent. 2008.
• "Let the Monsters Tremble for the Adoniah Hath Fallen." Monsters and Mormons. 2011.
• "Stratton Yellows."Warp and Weave. 2011.
• "Question Four." Jabberwocky. 2012.
• "A Classical Haunting." Lissette’s Tales of Imagination #5. 2012
• "Do I Tell Her?" Daily Science Fiction. 2012.
• [https://web.archive.org/web/20170111183242/http://www.grumpsjournal.com/jue3/stories/jue3-peck.html "Dragonfly Miscalculations."] The Journal of Unlikely Entomology. 2012.
• [https://web.archive.org/web/20170111183327/http://www.silverthought.com/peck01.html How the Mother of Vampiro Rojo de Santanás Died at the Hand of the Ethicless Thing.] Silverthought press online. 2013.
• [https://web.archive.org/web/20170111183158/http://www.blackmatrixpub.com/documents/Encounters%2006.pdf "Emergence."] Encounters #5. 2013.
• "The Silence of the River." Quantum Realities: A Journal of Speculative Fiction. 2013
• "Plague Ship." Space Eldritch II: The Haunted Stars. 2013.
• [https://web.archive.org/web/20170111180450/http://www.nature.com/nphys/journal/v10/n1/full/nphys2860.html "Demode."] Nature Physics. 2013.
• [https://web.archive.org/web/20161011021118/https://www.scribd.com/doc/260789086/Irreantum-Volume-15-No-1-2013 A Strange Report From Church Archives.] Irreantum. 2013.
• [https://web.archive.org/web/20150921170603/https://www.dialoguejournal.com/wp-content/uploads/sbi/articles/Dialogue_peckAML.pdf "Two-Dog Dose."] Dialogue. 2014.
• [https://www.sunstonemagazine.com/the-runners-fiction/ "The Runners."] Sunstone. 2014.
• [https://bycommonconsent.com/2014/09/01/workers-celebrate-labor-day/ "Workers Celebrate Labor Day."] By Common Consent. 2014.
• [https://web.archive.org/web/20150429050543/http://www.perihelionsf.com/1501/fiction_9.htm "Down Courthouse Wash."] Perihelion. 2015.
• [https://web.archive.org/web/20170111182427/http://everydayfiction.com/tales-from-pleasant-grove-by-steven-l-peck/ "Tales From Pleasant Grove."] Every Day Fiction. 2015.
• [https://bycommonconsent.com/2015/11/26/escape-of-pleasant-groves-turkey-shoot-flock/ "Escape of Pleasant Grove's Turkey Shoot Flock." ] By Common Consent. 2015.
• "Harbingers" in Dark Lane Anthology, Volume Three. Dark Lane Books. 2016.
• "Incomplete Slaughter." The Colored Lens. 2016.

Poetry

Many of these poems appear in the collection Incorrect Astronomy.

• 1992
  • Fly Fishing in Middle Earth (American Tolkien Society)
• 2008
  • "Sage" (Red Rock Review 22)
• 2010
  • "The Five Known Sutras of Mechanical Man" (Tales of the Talisman)
  • "Winter Gifts" (Victorian Violet Press Poetry Journal 5)
  • [https://web.archive.org/web/20160707010326/http://wilderness.motleyvision.org/2010/courthouse-wash-on-a-january-morning-by-steven-peck/ "Courthouse Wash on a January Morning"] (Wilderness Interface Zone)
  • "The Antlion" (Wilderness Interface Zone)
  • [https://web.archive.org/web/20170111202341/http://wilderness.motleyvision.org/2010/the-slaying-of-trickster-gods-by-steven-l-peck/ "The Slaying of Trickster Gods"] (Wilderness Interface Zone)
  • "Pond Ducks" (Wilderness Interface Zone)
• 2011
  • "A Patchwork" (Wilderness Interface Zone)
  • [https://web.archive.org/web/20170111202613/http://wilderness.motleyvision.org/2011/string-theory-by-steven-l-peck/ "String Theory"] (Wilderness Interface Zone)
  • [https://web.archive.org/web/20170111202932/http://wilderness.motleyvision.org/2011/bobcat-by-steven-l-peck/ "Bobcat"] (Wilderness Interface Zone)
  • [https://web.archive.org/web/20170111202741/http://wilderness.motleyvision.org/2011/her-fathers-critique-by-steven-l-peck/ "Her Father's Critique"] (Wilderness Interface Zone)
  • [https://web.archive.org/web/20130925042520/http://www.thepedestalmagazine.com/gallery.php?item=18235 "The Complete Text of the First Ten Volumes of Dr. Fleckwain’s Very, Very Short Steampunk Novels"] (The Pedestal Magazine)
  • [https://web.archive.org/web/20130925051027/http://www.silverblade.net/content/?p=1264 "Walks the Ape Warder"] (Silver Blade)
• 2012
  • Temptations in the Desert (Wilderness Interface Zone)
• 2013
  • "The Steam Wolves Hunt" (Abyss & Apex)
  • Incorrect Astronomy (collection) {{ISBN|978-0615830827}}
• 2014
  • As Nature Beckons to the Desolate Machine (Wilderness Interface Zone)

Blogs

• By Common Consent^[19]
• [https://web.archive.org/web/20141218065113/http://sciencebysteve.com/ Mormon Organon]

Anthologies containing Peck's work

• Windows into Hell (Curiosity Quills Press)
• Fire in the Pasture: 21st Century Mormon Poets (Peculiar Pages) {{ISBN|978-0981769660}}
• Monsters & Mormons (Peculiar Pages, 2011)
• As Iron Sharpens Iron: Listening to the Various Voices of Scripture {{ISBN|978-1589585010}}
• Editor of a special issue of Dialogue ([https://www.dialoguejournal.com/archive/issue-details/?in=181 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"^[20]
  • Brookie and D.K. Brown Fiction Contest: Honorable Mention for "The Problem"^[20]
  • Association for Mormon Letters: Best novel for The Scholar of Moab^[21]
• 2012
  • Irreantum Fiction Contest: 2nd place for "A Strange Report from the Church Archives"^[22]
  • Montaigne Medal Finalist for The Scholar of Moab^[23]
• 2014
  • Association for Mormon Letters: Award for short fiction for "Two-Dog Dose"^[24]
• 2015
  • 2015 Analytical Laboratory Reader's Awards: 2nd place for "Five Wagers on What Intelligent Life Elsewhere in the Universe Will Be Like"^[25]

See also

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

References

External links

• Steven L. Peck's official site

• Damias callida
• Damias catarrhoa
• Damias choiseuli
• Damias coeruleomarginata
• Damias cupreonitens
• Damias dichroa
• Damias elegans
• Damias esthla
• Damias flavicollis
• Damias flavidior
• Damias fuliginosa
• Damias gelida
• Damias germana
• Damias imitatrix
• Damias insignis
• Damias isabella
• Damias lata
• Damias leptosema
• Damias leucidia
• Damias marginipuncta
• Damias mendax
• Damias metallica
• Damias milnensis
• Damias mixta
• Damias monoleuca