***<\/strong><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
John Charlton Polkinghorne,\u00a0KBE (Knight of the British Empire),\u00a0FRS\u00a0(Fellow of the Royal Society), is an English\u00a0theoretical physicist,\u00a0theologian, writer, and\u00a0Anglican\u00a0priest. \u00a0He was a\u00a0professor\u00a0of\u00a0mathematical physics\u00a0at the\u00a0University of Cambridge\u00a0until\u00a0he resigned his professorial chair to study for the priesthood, becoming an ordained\u00a0Anglican\u00a0priest in 1982. \u00a0He served as the president of\u00a0Queens\u2019 College, Cambridge,\u00a0from 1988 until 1996.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
Here\u2019s a comment from him that I found noteworthy:<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cScience has purchased its very great success by the modesty of its ambition. \u00a0Science does not seek to ask and answer every sort of question. \u00a0It restricts itself essentially to asking questions of process, which are \u2018how questions\u2019 of how things come to be. \u00a0It also restricts the kind of experience that it takes into account in framing and finding its answers to those questions.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n(Sir John Polkinghorne, \u201cBelief in God in an Age of Science,\u201d in Eric Metaxas, ed., Life, God, and Other Small Topics<\/em> [New York: Plume\/Penguin, 2011, 9])<\/span><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
Sir John\u2019s point is an extremely important one. \u00a0It expresses one of the reasons why I\u2019m quite unimpressed with people who like to contrast the successes of science with what they see as the lack of such successes in the world of religion.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
Tape measures have a very successful record in measuring table tops, bedsteads, driveways, growing children, and women being fitted for dresses.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
Literary criticism and philosophical discussions come nowhere near the record of objective success and clarity achieved by tape measures.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
Does that demonstrate, though, that tape measures\u00a0are more valuable and important than performances of Shakespeare, readings of Moli\u00e8re and Goethe and Dante, or discussions of the good, the true, and the beautiful?<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
No, it simply means that tape measures have been developed (very well) to deal with a severely\u00a0restricted and well defined sector of the world. \u00a0Applying a tape measure to a performance of Hamlet, though, or using it to evaluate Goethe\u2019s Faust<\/em> or Dante\u2019s Paradiso<\/em>, or to resolve an ethical dilemma, or the judge between Mozart\u2019s \u201cJupiter Symphony\u201d and \u201cJupiter, the Bringer of Jollity\u201d from Gustav Holst\u2019s orchestral suite The Planets<\/em> would be . . . \u00a0Well, it would be more than slightly mad<\/em>.<\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
David Aberg\u2019s painting Mother Earth<\/em>, located in Angelholm, Sweden, measures 86,000 square feet. \u00a0By contrast, Leonardo da Vinci\u2019s Mona Lisa<\/em> measures only about thirty inches by twenty-one inches. \u00a0However, only a loon would pronounce\u00a0Mother Earth<\/em> a greater painting than the Mona Lisa<\/em> on the grounds that it\u2019s demonstrably much, much larger, or because it\u2019s composed of quantifiably more daubs of paint.<\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u00a0 \u00a0 I\u2019d never actually looked for it but, still, I was pleasantly surprised to discover that a personal, autobiographical essay that I published all the way back in 1996, in Susan Easton Black, ed., Expressions of Faith:\u00a0Testimonies of Latter-day Saint Scholars, is available online: \u201cShall We Not Go On in So Great a Cause?\u201d […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1019,"featured_media":43575,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-44165","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n
On the Useful Self-Limitation of Science<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\" I'd never actually looked for it but, still, I was pleasantly surprised to discover that a personal, autobiographical essay that I published\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/2017\/09\/useful-self-limitation-science.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"On the Useful Self-Limitation of Science\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\" I'd never actually looked for it but, still, I was pleasantly surprised to discover that a personal, autobiographical essay that I published\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/2017\/09\/useful-self-limitation-science.html\" 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<\/a>