Adam Frank is a professor of astrophysics at the University of Rochester who studies star formation and stellar death using supercomputers. His new book, “The Constant Fire, Beyond the Science vs. Religion Debate,” has just been published. He will be joining Reality Base to post an ongoing discussion of science and religion—you can read his previous posts here, and find more of his thoughts on science and the human prospect at the Constant Fire blog.
“Today…new knowledge has led to the recognition of the theory of evolution as more than a hypothesis. It is indeed remarkable that this theory has been progressively accepted by researchers, following a series of discoveries in various fields of knowledge. The convergence, neither sought nor fabricated, of the results of work that was conducted independently is in itself a significant argument in favor of the theory”. —Pope John Paul II
I can’t write a series of posts on science and religion and ignore Darwin’s birthday. Not when the theoretical structure whose foundations he laid remains one of the principle fronts on the war between science and religion. I have written before about the sullen – the scriptural literalists and intelligent design advocates. They have been the principle provocateurs on the religious side of this unfortunate chasm between science and the domains of human spiritual longing. Today it’s worth noting what they miss in their demand that the process and methods of science cleave to their preconceived ideas about the world.
The Pope really hit the nail on the head: “The convergence, neither sought nor fabricated, of the results of work that was conducted independently is in itself a significant argument in favor of the theory.” That’s it! That is the mojo that makes the theory of evolution, the idea of evolution, so extraordinary.
Like Copernicus’s De Revolutionbus and Newton’s Principia, Darwin’s Origin of the Species stands as monument, a turning point, in human thinking. There is a difference between Theories and theories in science. The paper my group just had accepted about stars and winds and turbulence is a theory with a small “t.” It’s a “Colonel Mustard in the Kitchen with a Candlestick” kind of theory. But evolution and relativity and quantum physics, etc.—these are Theories that truly straddle worlds. They draw together lifetimes of experience, experiment, and investigation, and in doing so they allow us to see an infinite web of unseen order, pattern, and—taken in the broadest sense—purpose. It is the grand theories of science that connect it with our most ancient mythological longings to draw closer to and become woven within the palpable powers that animate the world—the longing to draw closer to our experience of the world as sacred. (Yikes, I just used that word again!)
What an absolute bummer that fundamentalists miss this. By literally refusing to allow themselves the sweet vertigo that evolution’s vision of life, order, and change offers, they cut themselves off from the very old roots of their own religious feeling. It’s like sitting in a concert of celestial music with your fingers stuck in your ears because someone told you are only allowed to listen to Abba. As the Pope’s quote demonstrates, there are clearly Christians (big ones) who reconcile their religion with evolution. What is the stinking big deal!
The vision that scientific investigation offers us is grand and sweeping and beautiful and terrifying. Evolutionary theory is vital part of that vision. There is nothing lost to those who respond to the world with spiritual longing to embrace that vision as one aspect of the full range of human experience.
February 12th, 2009 at 7:56 pm
Adam Frank wrote: “…the scriptural literalists and intelligent design advocates…have been the principle provocateurs on the religious side…”
Some of them – such as the Christian Reconstructionists and Theocratic Dominionists – have gone beyond provocation into downright sabotage. Some of them knowingly Lie For Jesus(TM), even under oath: The Federal judge in the 2005 Dover trial noted “It is ironic that several of these individuals, who so staunchly and proudly touted their religious convictions in public, would time and again lie to cover their tracks and disguise the real purpose behind the (Intelligent Design) Policy.” Another witness at the Dover trial admitted that for intelligent design creationism to be defined as “science,” the definition of science would have to be so dumbed down that astrology could also be defined as “science.”
We must not let the believers in Bronze Age creation mythology drag civilization back into the Dark Ages. Read Dr. Barbara Forrest’s paper, “Understanding the Intelligent Design Creationist Movement: Its True Nature and Goals,” to see what these folks really want.
February 13th, 2009 at 5:22 am
Now just wait one minute.
“Not when the theoretical structure whose foundations he laid remains one of the principle fronts on the war between science and religion.”
There’s a war now? Between the science and religion? Do tell. I was under the impression from the last 4 or 5 rather short lived threads that there was a conflict between extremists on both sides. Now it’s a war! Jolly good! Did I miss something? And if there is a war and you are participating, why should anyone trust what you have to say?
Evolution as a principle front?
Is it? Is it really? I think it could be shown that most people in the US (as one example) who would self identify as religious/ or believing in a higher power wouldn’t bat an eye at their kids learning evolution in Biology. Most don’t actually object at all and it happens every school year all over the country, with very little fanfare. If there’s a war, it’s manufactured by the extremist elements to pull in as many of the middle as possible, and that’s a shame.
And what of the “principle provocateurs” on the side of science? Do they share any responsibility for this “war?” Since they appear to be on your side, or you on theirs, I don’t see you approaching their culpability with anywhere near the detail that you spare for the “sullen.” Seriously, anyone who is going to truly find a way past the skirmishers would probably have to not be a skirmisher themselves. Gould said live and let live already. So there’s no new ground there, what are you really offering?
In your previous posts, you said that in order to move beyond the old debate of science vs. religion we have to separate religion from the divine. Since religion and the divine aren’t one the same that would kick this whole series as “religion vs. science” right in the tuchas.
The best-selling Scientists who are currently out being provocative exponentially deny the existence of the divine there’s no sweet vertigo for them either. Although Mr. Dawkins does like his Christmas carols.
Evolutionary theory doesn’t offer any visions. It is a theory. A very good one. Vastly improved upon by those who did the work afterwards of course, but still very good. We should thank Darwin’s grandfather for coming up with it, and Mendel for figuring out how it is expressed. But tacking a possessive ’s on to the end of it and near deifying it borders on the ridiculous. It’s a theory, not a replacement for a deity.
February 13th, 2009 at 7:38 am
Robert you say “Evolutionary theory doesn’t offer any visions. It is a theory.” This is certainly true for you but equally untrue for others. Many who gaze into science (and evolutionary theory is but one part of that science) are amazed by the depth and intensity of the beauty and mystery they see there. Some will see visions of God or the sacred or the mysterious or, name it what you will. What I am trying to say is that there are many ways of experiencing the numinous and that science is one of those ways.
When I go into a cathedral I am enveloped in feelings of wonder struck awe at the beauty and majesty of God while my companion notices the unswept aisles, the grubby pews and wonders about the bacterial content of the holy water. So we react differently and I respect that because I am also somewhat tone deaf to the way she experiences the numinous.
February 13th, 2009 at 12:59 pm
Adam, this post has been my favorite: Vertigo of Vision- nicely put. This conversation is important to me. Though I began my adult life as a minister, life circumstances derailed this work. Instead, I ended up doing work that compelled me to understand natural forces, not just personal ones. In hindsight this was a brilliant thing to occur. I’ve always experienced this Vertigo, and it has taken both religious and scientific seeing to further understand my experience of it. In my experience so far at 48, I’ve found that neither “side” alone makes complete sense of our human realities, and that both sides readily mistake a doctrine or a theory for reality. Both Kierkegaard and Kuhn speak to this.
The brilliance of Darwin lies in more than developing an apt theory. New theories that stand to displace or even as much as modify theories and doctrines we’ve come to love, will often be met with hostility- as if one’s life is at stake. I would add to our appreciation of him, that the brilliance of Darwin must include his courage to talk about something that he noticed in reality, but was at the time, foreign to the notions collectively held in his culture- therefor, threatening. For Darwin, reality was more important than convention.
I feel sorry, no- sad- for anyone who doesn’t experience “vertigo”; what a loss. It’s always felt to me that science wouldn’t recognize such an insight because it couldn’t be expressed mathematically. On the other hand, I don’t know that the sullen experience vertigo either; I think I would say that instead, they experience security. Security is no small thing but it pales in comparison to vertigo.
I wonder if one way we could see this conversation, is to see ourselves mulling the relationship between revelation and discovery. How can anyone experience “vertigo” apart from revelation- the aha! with heat and meaning. But, isn’t heat that doesn’t produce work considered waste? We live in a reality that is contingent on our understanding it. I see discovery and revelation existing in polar relationship; no longer does the circle, based on a single point, represent perfection. The circle has been replaced by the ellipse, a shape based on two points. In a way, we restore Ptolemy and Aristotle; they were just mistaken in the shape.
Finally, what better explains the effort Darwin put into his work, an imagined fame or his own experience of “vertigo”?
February 13th, 2009 at 2:47 pm
What is most interesting to me is that those that are literalist as far as the bible find no problem with sections that seem to be at odds with each other. When chapter on says let us create man in our own image indicating more than one or when Cain was cursed, and placed a mark upon him to warn others that killing Cain would provoke the vengeance of God. Where did the others that would kill him come from? There are others as well but the point is they will accept those things but not accept that in the creation of plants, animals or man their creator could have chosen they way that Darwin and the evidence seems to demonstrate it was done.
Then when push comes to shove they are glad to bend the truth if not break it to say that the data that is presented by science as just a theory and yet the Bible is just writing by man fraught with more error’s of the past two-thousand years that have not been corrected as science does continually.
You can believe in both without the need to condemn one or the other that is called reason. But for those on both extremes you cannot reason with unreasonable people and they both feel it is their way or the highway. The only good thing is that most people are in neither extreme.
February 13th, 2009 at 2:54 pm
Robert, I’ve appreciated your voice as well; it’s one that supports solid dialogue. My last name is German and I understand it to first mean God’s servant and later to mean something like God’s jester. My name suits me; in my bones I feel compelled to serve this something that causes such Vertigo of Vision, while at the same time, when I see “courts” of convention missing a mark, I want to point out a different understanding- hopefully without losing my head.
This is no easy task; before we judge something for truthfulness, we judge it for relevance. Considering trueness is a deliberative process. As a “jester” just reaching a point of deliberation with another is success. Judgement of relevance though, all too often is a grooved reflex: a reaction to a word that fast tracks to a rehearsed response. I often have to “juggle” with words just to get past one’s relevance gate. One slip and I get labeled ” Oprah” and the dialogue is aborted.
I love dialogue. For me, dialogue is not a debate to win or lose, but a means of discovery that can be as powerful as scientific method. In good dialogue we argue hard (not violently) in order to push on an idea and observe its ensuing shapes. Your pushing Robert, has been strenuous without being violent. Well done.
This dialogue that Adam Frank has begun here is important to me because I’m in the midst of trying to start a “church of sorts” here in Minneapolis Mn, that encompasses the very ideas that we’ve been engaged in. As I see it, the forms that displace real dialogue and real scientific knowing no longer fit any one who has experienced the Constant Fire or the Vertigo of Vision. Institutions from both sides all too often snuff and blind.
With newness of seeing comes new language and new uses of established language which have to get past our relevance reflex. My comments through out this blog have been my experiment with such language and concepts. Some of them speak to the religious side, others to the science side. In either case, I’m not out to prove, but to open- to get past a grooved reflex in hopes of engendering a dialogue; one that leads to us better understanding this thing that causes us such “sweet vertigo”.
What ever the Fire is, it cannot be contained or managed. Without it though, we suffer- not a wrath of any sort- but certainly a hell. My own experience of this Fire fuels my willingness to to play the fool in this dialogue toward something new; something for now we’ve termed sacred.
February 13th, 2009 at 10:22 pm
[...] Darwin and the Vertigo of Vision: Beyond the Science v. Religion Debate [...]
February 14th, 2009 at 12:33 pm
For all Scientists,
If I wax poetically and say, ” Woman is the one who stands between the telescope and the microscope,”
And thus name her, “Technio Sapien”- have I named her sufficiently?
February 15th, 2009 at 10:57 am
Rewrite:
If I wax poetic and say, Humankind is the one who stands between the telescope and the microscope, and thus name them, “Technio Sapien”, have I named them sufficiently?
February 17th, 2009 at 1:33 am
It does fit well. The ones who are in both camps and can fit in both camps, the ones who can see the scientific and spiritual aspect of life, they get the best of both worlds. There is the opportunity of seeing both the “what” and the “how” of science and also the “why” as guided by our spiritual forces.
That’s the best of all worlds, where the two “separate” worlds actually complement each other and reach a higher synergy of seeing how everything in this world fits together.
February 18th, 2009 at 7:01 pm
I don’t consider that there are “extremists” in modern science. I think Mr. Johnson is setting up a straw man. Maybe if you were talking about eugenicists or Social Darwinists you could show a profound antisocial “extremism”, or some in the atheist movement who use the same psychological tricks that huckster evangelists use. However, in mainstream science that dogmatic extremism doesn’t really exist, because science follows the rules of inquiry that ALWAYS allow amendment and re-formation of scientific doctrine in the light of new evidence.
February 18th, 2009 at 7:49 pm
@Steen. I agree whole heartedly with your recognition of the synergy possible in a complementary relation ship. (synergy- another word in need of rescue). I watched a Nova program the another night telling the whole, “neutrino count not matching the accepted math model depicting the sun’s nuclear processes” story”. I’d hate to be the one looking for 10 neutrinos; I love being the guy who gets excited by their discovery that neutrinos change and therefore have mass and therefore are affected by time. I think it points to time’s role in the dimension of quality. It’s only a hunch at this time, but it’s something I’m thinking about.
I’ve noticed that we share a use of the word “subjective”; can you talk a bit about your use?
February 21st, 2009 at 9:50 pm
I look at “subjective” as not verifiable, it is a personal experience. “Objective” as something evidenced- it can be independently verified.
February 22nd, 2009 at 5:37 pm
@Steen: Steen I would further your thought and say that the ’subjective’ is one with the ability to verify. I’m using subjective in terms of a dimension maybe; that part of us that carries our agency and experience that lies beyond the determined and automatic aspects of our existence. That we need to eat is determined and objective for us. That we create a dinner party is a subjective feat. In this sense it just occurred to me that science is itself an amazing subjective feat. This irony exists beyond language- I don’t see anything inherent in non-subjective levels of order that points to the creation of science. Huh, I gotta think about this… I think I just got an insight- Thanks! I’m gonna go work on it.
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