Talking About Science, and the Sacred

Thoughts on reading Discovering a New Sense of the Sacred by Alexander Green


There is much lurking beneath the surface of this seemingly unassailable essay by
Alex Green, forwarded to me by my aerospace engineer father, now retired. It became grist for my mill before I realized that the author is not truly a scientist but a scientifically minded economic technocrat. It is however indicative of what I believe to be an irrational exuberance typical of many scientifically trained, and thus bears addressing. I reproduce Alex Green's essay, footnoting areas I will explore.
Discovering a New Sense of the Sacred
by Alexander Green

Dear Reader,

On March 6, 2009, NASA launched the Kepler Space Telescope to discover planets outside our solar system.

Named after Johannes Kepler - the famous mathematician who devised the laws of planetary motion - it will monitor 100,000 stars similar to our sun for four years, keeping a lookout for habitable, Earth-sized planets.

This week we got exciting news that Kepler has found 15 extrasolar planets (beyond the 510 already known to exist) and identified up to 1,235 other candidates. Fifty-four of these are the right size and orbit a "habitable zone" - the goldilocks region neither too close to a sun nor too distant - where liquid water might pool on the surface of a planet.

It's a fantastic start, especially since Kepler has telescoped only a small part of the galaxy. Scientists believe that if we can find a planet with Earth-like conditions, we may ultimately find signs of extraterrestrial life.

No one can know the odds at this stage, but Dr. Alan Boss of the Carnegie Institution of Science estimates there may be 100 billion habitable planets in the Milky Way. Astrophysicist Duncan Forgan of Edinburgh University suggests there could be thousands of intelligent civilizations in our galaxy alone. And the Hubble Space Telescope has uncovered over 100 billion other galaxies. It's enough to boggle the mind.

I spoke to a neighbor about these developments this week. He was not amazed or elated, however. He was angry.

"They are not going to find life on other planets," he insisted. "I don't care how favorable the conditions are. Life didn't arise 'naturally' on Earth, so it can't arise 'naturally' somewhere else."

"I thought we were talking about science," I said.

"The truth is the truth," he said in a huff - and strode off.

He's right about one thing. Scientists can't yet explain how life arose. What's more, we may never find life beyond our planet. But if I were a betting man...

Four hundred years ago, Galileo's observations through his telescope proved that the earth moved. In his Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems, he claimed that the sun and the planets did not circle the earth, as was commonly believed. Rather the Earth and the planets revolve around the sun.

This finding did not sit well with the Church. Galileo's pronouncements contradicted official Christian doctrine, specifically Chronicles 16:30, Psalm 93:1, Psalm 96:10, Psalm 104:5 and Ecclesiastes 1:5.

Galileo was hauled before the Inquisition, forced to recant and found "vehemently guilty of heresy." His offending Dialogue was banned and he was sentenced to formal imprisonment (later commuted to house arrest, which he remained under for the rest of his life). 6

In a letter to Kepler, Galileo complained that many of those who opposed his doctrines refused to look through his telescope, "even though I have freely and deliberately offered them the opportunity a thousand times." 8

The same prejudice persists in certain quarters today. Some don't like what microscopes, particle accelerators, spectrometers and space telescopes tell us about the universe we live in. They huff and puff about the "arrogance" of science. 1

But the scientific enterprise is not just about discovery. It is also about humility. We strive to understand because we know that we don't know.2

Science promotes knowledge and critical thinking. Conclusions are based on observation, experimentation and replication. Beliefs that aren't supported by testable evidence aren't necessarily untrue. They just aren't science.3

A few weeks ago, my grade-schooler brought home a worksheet describing the scientific enterprise. A scientist, it said:

—Shows curiosity and pursues answers to questions about the world. 7
—Maintains a balance of open-mindedness and skepticism by entertaining new ideas and challenging information not supported by good evidence. 3
—Respects the importance of reproducible data and testable hypotheses.
—Tolerates complexity and ambiguity. 4
—Persists in the face of uncertainties.

What is there to oppose here? In science, a fact is something confirmed to such a degree that it would be unreasonable to withhold assent. Conclusions are never final. Findings are always subject to revision.

Albert Einstein said, "All our science, measured against reality, is primitive and childlike - and yet it is the most precious thing we have." 5

Isaac Newton said, "I do not know what I may appear to the world, but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the seashore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, while the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me."

Conceding what you don't know, admitting when you're wrong; these are strengths, not weaknesses.

Pope John Paul II understood this. During his reign, he made over 100 public apologies for the Catholic Church. In 2000, he apologized for its persecution of Galileo. (Better four centuries late than never.)

Today's Kepler mission is part of the centuries-old quest to expand our horizons and discover new worlds. It has generated intense interest and popular excitement. And why not?

Space exploration gives us a sense of awe and wonder. It is also a reminder that we belong to a planet, a galaxy, a cosmos that inspires devotion as much as discovery.7

Carpe Diem,

Alex

editor@spiritualwealth.com

____________________________


Let us take a closer look at both what is said and implied in this essay.

1) Some don't like what microscopes, particle accelerators, spectrometers and space telescopes tell us about the universe we live in. They huff and puff about the "arrogance" of science.

As presented this is a ‘straw man’ argument. There are those who “huff and puff” about the arrogance of science who deny the findings of science, but are we to conclude all scientists are free from arrogance, and all who fear the transgressions scientists make through misguided arrogance are science deniers?

How then are we to explain a world balanced on the technologically achieved precipice of total nuclear annihilation for three generations now? Scientists eagerly allowed their talents to be used for this purpose, and gloried in their achievement. What science tells us about the danger to humanity from the widespread use of nuclear energy has not stopped renewed calls for its use. Where is the scientific community? Looking for a job in the nuclear industry, many of them. We know of the health dangers in consumption of genetically engineered foods and the dangers of unstoppable cross pollination into the environment, yet biotech firms have successfully lobbied for their acceptance without labeling, a move that will eventually force all non-gmo farmers out of business, and our nation into a process of agriculture that destroys soil, ultimately decreasing yields, leaving genetically non-diverse mono-crops more susceptible to catastrophic failure. Where is the scientific community? Employed, to a great degree, for those same bio-tech companies, placing them in a conflict of interest between scientific findings and their paycheck.

2) But the scientific enterprise is not just about discovery. It is also about humility. We strive to understand because we know that we don't know.

Then again, we don’t know what we don’t know. Let me borrow the jargon of a war criminal and put it in Rummy-speak: “There are known knowns, and known unknowns, and there are also unknown unknowns.” To which I’ll add that the history of scientific inquiry is one of taking our previously “known knowns” and shoveling them onto the trash heap when evidence to the contrary reveals either their limitation or complete falsehood; the flat Earth, geocentrism, two examples. Our “known knowns” are useful but can blind us to new possibilities, regardless of where we draw the moral fence. The degree of humility required to allow new knowledge is always a challenge; we don’t always know what, or that, we do not know.

3) Conclusions are based on observation, experimentation and replication. Beliefs that aren't supported by testable evidence aren't necessarily untrue. They just aren't science.
Tell that to the string theorists.

— Maintains a balance of open-mindedness and skepticism by entertaining new ideas and challenging information not supported by good evidence.

“Minds are like parachutes, they function best when open;” a metaphor rather than science, but one that should guide all inquiry. The ability to conceive in abstract terms, or allow one’s mind to open to as yet inconceivable truths entails running ahead of the tools of scientific verification, yet must always precede it.

“They just aren’t science” smacks of a justification to don blinders leading the scientifically trained to cast aside values arising from areas of experience other than “testable evidence,” leading to potentially disastrous consequences. Let us remember the Spanish Inquisition, the Salem witch trials, the imprisonment and torture of the mentally ill, enslavement of Africans, Hitler’s eugenics program, all referred to “scientific” understandings of the day, as well as religious ones, for justification of heinous acts. Einstein conceived of the universe working in ways that allowed others to create the A-bomb, but the wisdom to know not to, or refrain from its use, has eluded us. This means our inquiry should be guided by principles that arise from a source other than our method, if we are to maintain balance.

4) Tolerates complexity and ambiguity.

I accept (in fact take delight in) the use of the tool of scientific verification to expand my base of knowledge, as a practical tool for extending my five senses. I also recognize that this is not the only avenue of exploration available to me that, with practice, I may master to expand my knowledge base. There are other systems of using our consciousness that yield results that are repeatable and therefore verifiable but not readily observable to others, except through monitoring brain wave activity, which gives an idea of the experience of the subject, but nothing akin to the subject’s experience.

5) Albert Einstein said, "All our science, measured against reality, is primitive and childlike - and yet it is the most precious thing we have."

Einstein is also known to have said, seemingly contradictory, “Imagination is more important than knowledge.” The common thread to these two statements is the recognition that reality is more vast than our abilities to perceive it. Without this understanding, the recognition of new truths would be impossible. Imagination, as Einstein here uses the term, I believe, is the doorway through which all truths make their entry into our consciousness. Sometimes we are led by the evidence, but even then we must allow our minds to open to recognize what the evidence is telling us. Other times it can come as a flash, a revelation of understanding, the deepest coming to us when our mind is most still. Regardless of the limitations of our ability to perceive it, we exist in reality, we are a piece of reality, and are ever the recipient and participant in this complete experience. There are many ways which reality impresses itself on us that are not repeatable for observation, not the least of which is our life itself unfolding, which proceeds moment to moment, each new one different than the last. For proper analysis, in the laboratory one attempts to exclude all possibilities except the one under consideration; yet reality is one and multidimensional, universal and constant, transcending space and time, in each instant of our life. Losing sight of this can lead us not closer to understanding the reality of our existence, but farther from it. We lose sight of the forest for the trees, our sense that the whole of which we are an inseparable part is greater than the sum of its parts.

6) Four hundred years ago, Galileo's observations through his telescope proved that the earth moved. In his Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems, he claimed that the sun and the planets did not circle the earth, as was commonly believed. Rather the Earth and the planets revolve around the sun.

This finding did not sit well with the Church. Galileo's pronouncements contradicted official Christian doctrine, specifically Chronicles 16:30, Psalm 93:1, Psalm 96:10, Psalm 104:5 and Ecclesiastes 1:5.

Galileo was hauled before the Inquisition, forced to recant and found "vehemently guilty of heresy." His offending Dialogue was banned and he was sentenced to formal imprisonment (later commuted to house arrest, which he remained under for the rest of his life).

More pertinent and instructive for our historical moment than the findings of Galileo are those of Rachel Carson. When she published her findings in the mid-sixties, she was ridiculed by many scientists and the chemical industry as an “hysterical female.” This was merely the opening salvo in a battle whose outcome is yet to be determined. 



Denying the findings of science fits the definition of ignorance, but this foible is to be found in equal measure among the scientifically trained. There is no arrogance in science, which is merely a tool for verification of proposed knowledge, but there is arrogance in some scientists who identify with their method, resist comprehension of reality from other more or less obvious sources, and resist acknowledging each others’ findings when applying them to their own lives and lifestyles proves inconvenient.

How is this possible, that those committed to the investigative tool of science might themselves be resistant to its application? Because let’s face it, scientists are human. Science for them is not merely the pure pursuit of knowledge, but also provides their sense of self-importance and self aggrandizement. Pride in accomplishment can combine with fears that, if the well is deeper it will mean humiliation, job loss and work to catch up. It is understandable that one might have to confront an institutional bias amounting to resistance to accepting the findings that call for a greater revision to one's personal lifestyle, than did the findings of Galileo centuries ago.

In our moment, most scientists, including those in academia, rely for employment on defense dollars or corporate funds. We find that the fruits of technology that support our vast numbers are at the same time eating away at our planet’s ability to support complex life. This has been allowed to go largely unchallenged by those in the best position to do so. Rare is the brave soul willing to risk their job in order to call attention to:
— petroleum based fertilizers and pesticides polluting the environment with xenoestrogens leading to infertility— loss of two hundred species a day
— a floating island of plastic garbage the size of Texas collected by ocean currents in the South Indian Ocean, choking off marine life
— massive dead zones in the ocean growing at the estuaries, formerly the most abundant areas of life, of every river draining civilization, due primarily to agricultural runoff from industrialized agriculture practices
— global fish populations near collapse from over-fishing— loss of arable land to increasing desertification
— climate change: Most scientists believe we have, at best, less than a generation to move away from carbon based energy production, before the changes to our climate system become unstoppably irreversible, changing the planet in ways that will lead to a massive die-off of most major life forms, with the possibility of human extinction definitely on the table.

If scientists are to be the educators of the public at large on these issues, where is the unanimous outcry?

7) Shows curiosity and pursues answers to questions about the world.

—Space exploration gives us a sense of awe and wonder. It is also a reminder that we belong to a planet, a galaxy, a cosmos that inspires devotion as much as discovery.

If I had a nickel for every time I’ve heard scientists wax rhapsodic about space exploration and toll its benefits, followed a short time later by “I don’t envy kids today,” I could probably fund my own think-tank. Current science suggests with little doubt, unless we redirect our energies full bore from the course our global civilization is presently on, our species will join the millions in the dust long before we master the technology to visit, let alone colonize, any of those tantalizing, newly discovered planets.

There may yet be time if we turn our attention to understanding the limitations posed in living on our current one. The cosmos may seem nearly limitless, but we are fast approaching the limits of our support system, have already surpassed it in ways that are destroying its ability to sustain us. Our curiosity may be unlimited, but our time is not. I find it particularly aggravating when I attempt to turn the discussion to solving current crises, and find I am confronted by a suddenly very incurious person. As long as we are alive, we have the potential to learn the lessons life has to teach us. If we explore space without reverence for our own planet, and perish leaving our own internal lives unexplored, this will be the greatest failure of our species.

8) In a letter to Kepler, Galileo complained that many of those who opposed his doctrines refused to look through his telescope, "even though I have freely and deliberately offered them the opportunity a thousand times.”

Years ago, with napalm bombs falling on the villages of Vietnam, I left studying chemical engineering to study meditation in India. In the years since, when occasion warranted, I have attempted to share with scientifically trained friends and relations my experiences. “Poppycock!” could suffice to summarize their responses, or at best, some reference to misplaced priorities.

Let us engage in a bit of the abstract conceptualizing that can open the door to new understanding.

Let us suppose for the moment that the greatest instrument for universal exploration is not one created by the human mind, but the human being, itself. That in using our minds to explore the external cosmos we are missing that part of it most open to our exploration, namely our own being. That in examining external nature but not our own internal nature, our efforts are akin to using a microscope as a club to crack walnuts— yielding tangible results, but not the highest use for which the instrument is capable.


Further let us suppose that this is not untrammeled ground. Others going before have left traces, maps— but the map is never the territory because the territory is ours alone, within us, and we are unique to our time, and uniquely, us. Further let us suppose that, in concentrating to reach beyond— a) the shame of what others might think about us spending time and energy in so seemingly a selfish, unproductive, unverifiable, way, or b) particular life pressures and distractions of survival, social advancement, or entertainment— we arrive (because our being is capable of this) at a direct conscious perception of the energy process that gives rise to our being, and not just our being, but all life, and all matter.

How might such experience change our outlook? Our understanding and appreciation of our world, our fellow humans, our selves?

If this experience were, though difficult to master, in fact repeatable, though never in exactly the same way, as no day is exactly like the one before, would we have any reason to deny its credibility or benefits? How might it serve to realign our priorities? How might such an experience change what we view as unchangeable? As worthy of reverence?

Science has made it possible for us to free ourselves of many of our superstitions, but by no means all. Many are yet to be discovered, as fundamental or more fundamental than accepting that the Earth revolves around the sun, rather than the other way around. For example, that that there is more to our lives than our senses reveal. Or, that it has yet to penetrate to humanity in any significant way as regards our behavior, that our life on Earth is a delicately balanced closed system of which humanity is one small part. The Earth does not belong to us. We belong to the Earth. Our demands of the planet, be they economic, social, political, industrial, must be self-limiting within the parameters allowed within the system, or we shall change the system in ways that will lead to our demise, and that shortly. We must learn to be self-limiting, or we will be self-eliminating.

9) Conceding what you don't know, admitting when you're wrong; these are strengths, not weaknesses.

Carpe Diem indeed. Our challenge becomes the greater when through arrogance we separate ourselves from those who reject the scientific view, because they don't see in it their experience. Yet if we are honest about what our current science is telling us, we know we have precious little time to find a solution that will be acceptable to all. 

By all means let us seize our day, the demands of which are calling on us to actualize a greater understanding of both what is within and outside us.

Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find
all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.
— Rumi

Charles Fredricks

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