{"id":71482,"date":"2019-03-13T01:15:55","date_gmt":"2019-03-13T07:15:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/?p=71482"},"modified":"2019-03-13T01:15:55","modified_gmt":"2019-03-13T07:15:55","slug":"some-thoughts-on-science-progress-and-religion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/2019\/03\/some-thoughts-on-science-progress-and-religion.html","title":{"rendered":"Some thoughts on science, progress, and religion"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

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\"Interstellar\"<\/a>
A Hubble Space Telescope image from NASA\/ESA
(Wikimedia Commons public domain)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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I published the article below in the Deseret News<\/em> on 15 June 2017:<\/p>\n

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Critics of religious faith often like to compare it, unfavorably, to science. Science, they say, has cured polio and malaria, sent humans to the moon, created powerful computers and plumbed the secrets of distant stars and galaxies. Religion has done none of these things.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

However, this is a profoundly misguided argument. For one thing, it suggests that only such accomplishments as these have value. Most thinking people, though, would disagree. No sonnet has ever built a bridge. No symphony has ever cured a cancer. Acts of charitable self-sacrifice or selfless caring don\u2019t solve problems in quantum physics. Are such things therefore useless? Very few people would say so: Sonnets and symphonies and kind deeds \u2014 and sculptures, paintings, walks in the woods and moments spent watching sunsets over the ocean \u2014 have unique and irreplaceable values of their own.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

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Moreover, the skeptics\u2019 argument seemingly recognizes only fields where tangible progress can be demonstrated. But many important areas of human effort don\u2019t move forward in obvious ways. In literature, for instance, it would be absurd to argue that Henry Morton Robinson\u2019s \u201cThe Cardinal,\u201d the best-selling American novel of 1950, is a greater book than Dante\u2019s \u201cDivine Comedy\u201d simply because, at its publication, more than six centuries of literary \u201cprogress\u201d had occurred since Dante\u2019s death. Nineteenth-century chemistry textbooks are obsolete, of course, but the music of Bach, Mozart and Beethoven certainly isn\u2019t. Twenty-first-century literature hasn\u2019t rendered Shakespeare, Goethe, Tolstoy and Dostoevsky irrelevant. John Tavener and Arvo P\u00e4rt haven\u2019t relegated Haydn, Brahms and Vivaldi to the musical dumpster.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

I borrow an illustration from Vatican astronomer Guy Consolmagno\u2019s excellent keynote address to the Interpreter Foundation\u2019s\u00a02016 Science and Mormonism<\/a> Symposium<\/a>: Specialists in astronomy today seldom, if ever, read the works of Ptolemy, Copernicus and Kepler because, in their technical areas, those pivotal works of Western science have been superseded, replaced. But Plato, Aristotle, Aquinas, Kant and Kierkegaard haven\u2019t been replaced or superseded. Their writings are still alive, still richly challenging, and deeply relevant for contemporary reflection on philosophy and ethics. Charles Darwin, Isaac Newton, Rene Descartes and David Hume are all enormously important figures in Western intellectual history. But Descartes and Hume continue to be active presences in ongoing debates, whereas \u2014 historically significant as they are \u2014 Darwin and Newton play little if any role in current programs of scientific research.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

Furthermore, the skeptics\u2019 argument neglects obvious and fundamental differences between the objects of religious faith and those of scientific inquiry. For instance, science focuses on things that can, at least in principle, be counted and measured; religious faith, like philosophy, historiography and ethical reflection, does not.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

Ah, the critics will respond, but that\u2019s because the objects of science are real while those of faith are imaginary. And perhaps those critics are willing to say that philosophy, history and ethics focus on illusions, as well \u2014 though most people, when pressed, would hesitate to say that the distinction between good and evil is mere subjective fantasy.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

But it could just as easily be the case that the tools of science simply aren\u2019t suited to the treatment of philosophical, ethical and religious matters. A screwdriver isn\u2019t well-adapted for pounding nails, either, but that fact scarcely means that pounding nails is worthless. A net with a 6-inch mesh is well-fitted for catching tuna, but smaller fish, plankton and krill will elude it. An odometer will measure quite accurately how far you\u2019ve traveled, but an odometer is utterly worthless for identifying your location or telling you which direction you\u2019re headed.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

In a 1615 letter to the Grand Duchess Christina of Tuscany, the great Italian Renaissance scientist Galileo Galilei cited a quip that he said he had heard \u201cfrom an ecclesiastic of the most eminent degree\u201d (but who remains unidentified): \u201cThe intention of the Holy Spirit is to teach us how one goes to heaven, not how the heavens go.\u201d<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

Ideally, science can tell you how to achieve a goal. But it can\u2019t begin to tell you which goals you should pursue. Ethical decisions can\u2019t be determined by weight or by counting electrons. Worldviews aren\u2019t found, as such, in geological strata or quasars. And science produces bombs and surgical equipment, astronomical telescopes and missile submarine periscopes, pharmaceuticals and poisons, with equal efficiency.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

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Science is an enormously powerful instrument that has made impressive advances, but part of its effectiveness stems from its deliberately narrow focus. Many of life\u2019s most important issues are flatly beyond its range.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

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