This past weekend former-educational-TV-star-turned-science-advocate Bill Nye posted a video about abortion on Big Think. Nye attempts to use science to resolve the debate about abortion and arrives at the following conclusion: “When it comes to women’s rights with respect to their reproduction, I think you should leave it to women.”

The video is a perfect example of Maslow’s Hammer, or the saying, “If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.” In this case, the hammer is science and the nail is anything people disagree about. While science can tell us a lot about the world, it can't answer all of our questions.

For example, science gives us facts about the way the world functions (or what is), but only philosophy and/or religion tell us how we should live (or what we ought to be). This includes telling us whether it is right or wrong to kill unborn humans (or any human for that matter).

Refuting Nye's Main Argument

Unfortunately, not only does Nye’s video contain terrible philosophy, it doesn’t even get the science right. Let’s break it down:

"Many, many, many, many more hundreds of eggs are fertilized than become humans. Eggs get fertilized, and by that I mean sperm get accepted by ova a lot. But that’s not all you need. You have to attach to the uterine wall, the inside of a womb, a woman’s womb."

Yes, human beings in the embryonic stage of life receive nutrients from their mothers' uterus. A human embryo cannot develop into an adult without implanting in the uterus just as a human infant cannot develop into an adult without attaching to his mother's breast or some suitable alternative.

"But if you’re going to hold that as a standard, that is to say if you’re going to say when an egg is fertilized it’s therefore has the same rights as an individual, then whom are you going to sue? Whom are you going to imprison? Every woman who’s had a fertilized egg pass through her? Every guy who’s sperm has fertilized an egg and then it didn’t become a human? Have all these people failed you?"

Does Nye believe that newborns are persons? If so, then does he think we should imprison mothers and fathers whose children die of natural causes like Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS)? If having a high mortality rate means one is not a person, then born children were not persons throughout much of human history. Historically, (as well as in some parts of the world today) the child mortality rate was between 33% and 50%. That means one-third to one-half of all children died before they reached the age of five.

If we accept that born children sometimes die from causes beyond their parent's control, and that this tragic fact does not nullify their right-to-life, then the fact that unborn children also die from causes beyond their parent's control does not nullify their right-to-life either.

Plus, it may not be the case that large numbers of human organisms are miscarried. Instead, what might be happening is defective human tissue that could never develop into a fully mature human being is lost. According to embryologists Keith Moore and T.V. N. Persaud, “The early loss of embryos appears to represent a disposal of abnormal conceptuses that could not have developed normally.”¹

Answering Ad Hominems and Other Bad Arguments

"It’s just a reflection of a deep scientific lack of understanding and you literally or apparently literally don’t know what you’re talking about. And so when it comes to women’s rights with respect to their reproduction, I think you should leave it to women."

Bill, if you want to see someone who doesn’t know what he’s talking about, look in a mirror. If you want to see the scientific evidence that a human organism begins to exist at conception, watch this video.

"I’m not the first guy to observe this: You have a lot of men of European descent passing these extraordinary laws based on ignorance. Sorry you guys. I know it was written or your interpretation of a book written 5,000 years ago, 50 centuries ago, makes you think that when a man and a woman have sexual intercourse they always have a baby. That’s wrong and so to pass laws based on that belief is inconsistent with nature."

What does being a male of European descent have to do with abortion? This seems pretty racist and sexist to me. Imagine if I said in response to another hot-button issue, “You have a lot of people of African descent protesting police conduct and trying to pass laws that are based on ignorance.”

Also, it was seven white men of European descent that struck down all legal protection for the unborn in Roe v Wade. Now that was an extraordinary law based on ignorance, but their positions are okay because apparently men are only allowed to have an opinion on abortion if they’re pro-choice!

Second, both Christians and non-Christians have put forward powerful, secular arguments against abortion that have nothing to do with the Bible. Read Christopher Kaczor, Patrick Lee, Scott Klusendorf, Don Marquis, Stephen Schwarz, Robert George and Christopher Tollefsen, and Frank Beckwith just to name a few.

Third, Christians do not believe that, “when a man and a woman have sexual intercourse they always have a baby.” Sometimes the sperm and egg never meet and so no new life is created. Sometimes they meet but what is created is just randomly generating tissue and not a human organism (e.g. a complete molar pregnancy). But sometimes the sperm and egg recombine to form something that is neither sperm nor egg. It is instead, as the eminent embryologists Fabiola Müller and Ronan O’Rahilly describe, “a new, genetically distinct human organism.”²

Pro-life advocates simply believe that all human organisms (i.e. human beings) ought to be treated equally. They should not be killed just because they are unwanted by older, bigger, more powerful human beings.

On "Telling People What To Do"

"I mean it’s hard not to get frustrated with this everybody. And I know nobody likes abortion, okay. But you can’t tell somebody what to do. I mean she has rights over this, especially if she doesn’t like the guy that got her pregnant. She doesn’t want anything to do with your genes; get over it, especially if she were raped and all this."

Why is it that “nobody” likes abortion? If the unborn are not human beings then abortion would be as innocuous as a wisdom tooth extraction. Instead, society's ambivalence towards abortion is evidence that abortion destroys a living human, organism.

After all, how could two human beings procreate a non-human offspring that only becomes human after birth? The answer is "they can’t.” Therefore, the human organism they procreate (i.e. the baby) should have the same right to life as his born brothers and sisters. All children have the right to loving support from their mother and father even if one of these people "doesn't want anything to do" with the genes of the other. At minimum, children have the right not be killed just because one parent despises the other.

In response to Nye’s assertion that “you can’t tell somebody what to do” I say bullocks. Nye says in another video that fracking, or drilling for natural resources with high pressure water, “can’t be unregulated.” So, it’s okay to tell businesses not to pollute the earth but it's not okay to tell parents not to kill their children. What about "My corporation, my choice!"

Finally, what is the “this” that Nye says women have rights over? I’m sure Nye means “the pregnancy” but that is just a roundabout way of saying the mother has unlimited rights over her unborn child. Civilized people long ago rebuked the idea that children are chattel property of their parents that can be disposed of at a whim. Perhaps Mr. Nye would like to join the rest of us in the 21^st century and stop peddling crude, Stone-Age-like tyranny over helpless human beings.

Are There More Important Issues?

"So it’s very frustrating on the outside, on the other side. We have so many more important things to be dealing with. We have so many more problems to squander resources on than this argument based on bad science, on just lack of understanding."

It’s true abortion isn’t the only issue today any more than slavery was the only issue that affected people in America in the 1850's. But slavery was the most important issue because the lives of human beings matter more than "economic choice" or "state autonomy."

Likewise, if the unborn are human beings then over a million of them are killed in our country ever year and many of their parents suffer physical and emotional trauma related to this killing for decades after the fact. Unless a pro-choice advocate can show the unborn are not human beings (which Nye has failed to do), then he has no grounds to say abortion is not an issue worth pursuing in public debate.

"It’s very frustrating. You wouldn’t know how big a human egg was if it weren’t for microscopes, if it weren’t for scientists, medical researchers looking diligently. You wouldn’t know the process. You wouldn’t have that shot, the famous shot or shots where the sperm are bumping up against the egg. You wouldn’t have that without science. So then to claim that you know the next step when you obviously don’t is trouble."

This argument is akin to saying, “Look, without scientists you wouldn’t even have medicine that treats diseases like syphilis, so don’t tell us it’s wrong to deceive and kill African-Americans in order to study this disease! You don’t even know what you’re talking about!”

Mr. Nye, you are the one who is completely ignorant of the developmental growth of a human being. By defintion a human embryo is a human being in the first seven weeks of life and a human fetus is a human being in age anywhere from eight weeks until birth. Saying an unborn human being is not human because he or she is an embryo or fetus is as ridiculous as saying a fifteen-year-old is not human because he is a teenager.

"Let me do that again. Let me just pull back. At some point we have to respect the facts. Recommending or insisting on abstinence has been completely ineffective. Just being objective here. Closing abortion clinics. Closing, not giving women access to birth control has not been an effective way to lead to healthier societies. I mean I think we all know that."

I’m going to keep this post limited to just the topic of abortion, but notice that Nye is simply making assertions here and not giving any evidence for his position. He just wields the “hammer of science” (a metaphor that some news sites have even adopted) in order to shut down the discussion with one massive appeal to authority. This is ironic since Bill Nye only has a bachelor's degree in engineering. As one writer puts it, “Calling yourself the ‘Science Guy’ does not mean that you are an expert on anything. It means you're the host of a kids show.”

Why Not Debate the Issue?

"And I understand that you have deeply held beliefs and it really is ultimately out of respect for people, in this case your perception of unborn people. I understand that. But I really encourage you to look at the facts. And I know people are now critical of the expression 'fact-based' but what’s wrong with that? So I just really encourage you to not tell women what to do and not pursue these laws that really are in nobody’s best interest. Just really be objective about this. We have other problems to solve everybody. Come on. Come on. Let’s work together."

You want the facts? Okay, would you be willing to debate the facts about abortion with me? You recently debated Ken Ham on the issue of evolution and his only credentials are a long history of advocating for young earth creationism. When it comes to this issue I have the credentials that would justify a debate between us.

I have a graduate level education and have studied abortion for over a decade. I have written a book that has become the most comprehensive popular-level defense of the pro-life position (which is currently the first thing that comes up when you search “pro-life” on Amazon). It's also been endorsed by nationally known pro-life advocates such as Lila Rose and Fr. Frank Pavone. Finally, I have been invited by secular universities to debate other well-known defenders of the pro-choice position such as Dr. Malcom Potts at UC-Berkeley.

And just so it isn’t “two white men arguing over women’s rights” I would be happy to do a team debate where you and a female pro-choice advocate of your choosing debate me and a female pro-life advocate of my choosing, such as my friend Stephanie Gray. As you said, “I really encourage you to look at the facts.” So, let’s look at the facts together in front of an audience and see who’s position they really support.
 
 
(Image credit: New York Times)

Daniel Dennett, one of the “four horsemen” of contemporary atheism, proposed in 2003 that those who espouse a naturalist, atheist worldview should call themselves “the brights,” thereby distinguishing themselves rather clearly from the dim benighted masses who hold on to supernaturalist convictions. In the wake of Dennett’s suggestion, many atheists have brought forward what they take to be ample evidence that the smartest people in our society do indeed subscribe to anti-theist views. By “smartest” they usually mean practitioners of the physical sciences, and thus they point to surveys that indicate only small percentages of scientists subscribe to religious belief.

In a recent article published in the online journal “Salon,” titled "Religion's Smart-People Problem," University of Seattle philosophy professor John Messerly reiterates this case. However, he references, not simply the lack of belief among the scientists, but also the atheism among academic philosophers, or as he puts it, “professional philosophers.” He cites a recent survey that shows only 14% of such professors admitting to theistic convictions, and he states that this unbelief among the learned elite, though not in itself a clinching argument for atheism, should at the very least give religious people pause. Well, I’m sorry Professor Messerly, but please consider me unpaused.

Since I have developed these arguments many times before in other forums, let me say just a few things in regard to the scientists. I have found that, in practically every instance, the scientists who declare their disbelief in God have no idea what serious religious people mean by the word “God.” Almost without exception, they think of God as some supreme worldly nature, an item within the universe for which they have found no “evidence,” a gap within the ordinary nexus of causal relations, etc. I would deny such a reality as vigorously as they do. If that’s what they mean by “God,” then I’m as much an atheist as they—and so was Thomas Aquinas. What reflective religious people mean when they speak of God is not something within the universe, but rather the condition for the possibility of the universe as such, the non-contingent ground of contingency. And about that reality, the sciences, strictly speaking, have nothing to say one way or another, for the consideration of such a state of affairs is beyond the limits of the scientific method. And so when statistics concerning the lack of belief among scientists are trotted out, my response, honestly, is “who cares?”

But what about the philosophers, 86% of whom apparently don’t believe in God? Wouldn’t they be conversant with the most serious and sophisticated accounts of God? Well, you might be surprised. Many academic philosophers, trained in highly specialized corners of the field, actually have little acquaintance with the fine points of philosophy of religion and often prove ham-handed when dealing with the issue of God. We hear, time and again, the breezy claim that the traditional arguments for God’s existence have been “demolished” or “refuted,” but when these supposed refutations are brought forward, they prove, I have found, remarkably weak, often little more than the batting down of a straw-man. A fine example of this is Bertrand Russell’s deeply uninformed dismissal of Thomas Aquinas’s demonstration of the impossibility of an infinite regress of conditioned causes.

But more to it, the percentage of atheists in the professional philosophical caste has at least as much to do with academic politics as it does with the formulation of convincing arguments. If one wants to transform a department of philosophy from largely theist to largely atheist, all one has to do is to make sure that the chairman of the department and even a small coterie of the professoriat are atheist. In rather short order, that critical mass will control hiring, firing, and the granting of tenure within the department. Once atheists have come to dominate the department, only atheist faculty will be hired and students with theistic interests will be sharply discouraged from writing dissertations defending the religious point of view. In time, very few doctorates supporting theism will be produced, and a new generation, shaped by thoroughly atheist assumptions, will come of age. To see how quickly this transformation can happen, take a good look at the philosophy department at many of the leading Catholic universities: what were, in the 1950’s overwhelmingly theistic professoriats are today largely atheist. Does anyone really think that this happened because lots of clever new arguments were discovered?

Another serious problem with trumpeting the current statistics on the beliefs of philosophers is that such a move is based on the assumption that, in regard to philosophy, newer is better. One could make that argument in regard to the sciences, which do seem to progress in a steadily upward direction: no one studies the scientific theories of Ptolemy or Descartes today, except out of historical interest. But philosophy is a horse of a different color, more akin to poetry. Does anyone think that the philosophical views of, say, Michel Foucault are necessarily better than those of Plato, Aristotle, Kant, or Hegel, just because Foucault is more contemporary? It would be like saying the verse of Robert Frost is necessarily superior to that of Dante or Shakespeare, just because Frost wrote in the twentieth century. I for one think that philosophy, so marked today by nihilism and postmodern relativism, is passing through a particularly corrupt period. Why should we think, therefore, that the denizens of philosophy department lounges today are necessarily more correct than Alfred North Whitehead, Edmund Husserl, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Jacques Maritain, Emmanuel Levinas, and Jean-Luc Marion, all of whom were well-acquainted with modern science, rigorously trained in philosophy and affirmed the existence of God?

I despise the arrogance of Dennett and his atheist followers who would blithely wrap themselves in the mantle of “brightness;” but I also despise the use of statistics to prove any point about philosophical or religious matters. I would much prefer that we return to argument.
 
 
(Image credit: Gawker)

Can science find God? If God is defined as a being (or perhaps “the ground of being”) that is neither composed of matter nor confined to a spatial location, then the answer seems to be no. After all, science is limited to explaining the natural, physical world. If God exists beyond that world and is not composed of anything found within it, then he seems to be out of the reach of scientific inquiry.

But even if science can’t “find” God in the same way I can find my car in a parking lot, maybe it can indirectly find him. After all, if God affects the physical world, then couldn’t scientific experiments detect those effects and then infer from them that God exists?

One common interaction between God and the universe that believers and nonbelievers think can be tested is prayer—specifically, intercessory prayer for other people. This testing usually takes the form of “prayer studies” that test whether praying for the sick results in more positive health outcomes.

However, I contend that scientific study of the efficacy of prayer can neither prove nor disprove the existence of God. The reason is summarized in the following three “problems” inherent to any such study.

The Problem of the Control Group

In any experiment, the control group must be observed without the variable that’s being tested for. In this case, that would involve a group of people who are not receiving intercessory healing prayers. Now, it’s easy to create two groups of sick people and then tell a group of volunteers to pray for one of the groups. Meanwhile, researchers observe the other group, of which the volunteers are ignorant, to see how it fares when not prayed for.

But the other group still wouldn’t be a true control group, because there is no way to isolate it from receiving any form of intercessory prayer. What if the friends and family of the people in this group are praying for them? What if a holy woman in rural Nepal prays that “everyone be healed” or that those “who have no one to pray for them” be healed?

Why should we expect God to answer only the prayers of the volunteers in a prayer study and not prayers made by anyone else? This brings us to problem number two with prayer studies.

The Problem of the Test Subject

Testing the effects of intercessory prayer isn’t the same as testing an inanimate force like gravity, because God isn’t a force that is automatically activated when enough prayers are uttered. God is much more like a person than he is a force, and so he might choose to honor or not honor certain requests made through prayer. In fact, it’s been said that God always answers our prayers—it’s just that sometimes the answer is “no.”

Now, science is used to testing the reactions of people and not just forces (psychologists and sociologists do this all the time). But those experiments must be blind or even double blind. The person being tested can’t know that scientists are testing him. But if God is omniscient, then he always knows when he’s being tested. Any experiment involving him can’t be blind and so it probably can’t be scientific.

Here’s an example to explain how omniscience messes up any kind of prayer study.

Suppose we wanted to determine how much time the President spends reviewing different kinds of petitions made to whitehouse.gov (I know the President probably doesn’t read these himself, but let’s imagine he did). Our experiment wouldn’t work if we told the President that we were monitoring his review of the petitions. He might purposefully spend an equal amount of time reviewing each petition in order to deflect the accusation that he cares about some causes but not others. Or he might not dignify our study with his participation, because he can care about all Americans even if he doesn’t grant all of our petitions.

Likewise, if God knows that certain prayers are part of a study, he may choose to not participate in such a study by not answering the prayers of the study’s volunteers. He might do this because he does not want to encourage humans to test him. Or he may have other good reasons for not healing certain ailments. I don’t want to digress into issues related to the problem of evil, including the question of whether God has a moral duty to heal people of certain diseases. I would say he does not, but once again, that’s not the subject of this post.

My main point is that it is difficult, if not impossible, to validly study someone if he is aware you are studying him. This gives us another reason to doubt the validity of prayer studies.

Finally, let’s examine the last problem with these kinds of studies.

The Problem of Interpreting Results

Any study on intercessory prayer will yield one of three results: prayer has a negative effect on patients, prayer has no effect, or prayer has a positive effect. Regardless of what outcome we observe, it does not justify us to conclude anything about God’s existence.

For example, suppose a prayer study showed that intercessory prayer results in worse health outcomes for the recipients of prayer. What should we conclude? I’m not talking about people who were told they’d be prayed for and then got worse (that’s probably due to psychosomatic issues caused by the patient thinking, “They need to pray for me? I must be really sick!”).

I’m talking instead about isolated patients whose condition worsens when people pray for them.

Is God purposefully not healing these people (or even making them worse) in order to bring about a greater good? Is the devil trying to ruin our faith in God? Is it that God does not exist but in his place is an all-powerful, evil creator (a.k.a. Stephen Law’s “evil-god”)? Do the mechanical prayers involved in a prayer experiment react negatively to the universe’s “karma field,” while more honest prayers outside of a study would do better?

Science simply can’t determine which of these explanations is the correct one, since science is restricted to observing the natural world.

Even if a prayer study found a positive correlation between intercessory prayer and healing, it wouldn’t show that God exists. I’ll admit, such an outcome would bolster my faith at first, but this outcome would be plagued by problems similar to those that accompanied a study that showed prayer caused negative effects.

Is God the cause of this statistically anomalous healing? Is it a psychic mutant? Aliens? Is it an “evil-creator” who is healing patients in order to bring about a “greater evil?” Is it an impersonal “karma field?”

In these cases, science can show us that intercessory prayer causes a certain kind of physical effect, but any speculations about the relationship between the cause (i.e., prayer) and the effect (i.e., healing) would belong to the realm of philosophy or religion, not science.

No Difference?

What if studies showed that intercessory prayer made no difference in patient health? This seems to be the result of a large, recent study of prayer called the STEP project. Atheists might say that this proves that “nothing fails like prayer,” because if God did not exist we would expect intercessory prayer to not have any measurable effects.

But this is the fallacy of affirming the consequent, or:

1. If A, then B.

2. B. Therefore, A

Why is this a fallacy? See this example:

1. If I’m in New York City, then I am in New York State.

2. I am in New York State. Therefore, I am in New York City.

Of course, I could be in Albany or Buffalo and still be in New York State without being in New York City. In this argument, the consequent proposition cannot be used to support the truth of the antecedent proposition. It could be used to deny the truth of the antecedent proposition (which is also called modus tollens) by saying, “I am not in New York State, therefore I am not in New York City,” but it can’t be used to prove the truth of the antecedent. When we plug in the atheist argument from prayer, we get the same problem:

1. If God does not exist, then prayers made in scientific studies will not be answered.

2. Prayers made in scientific studies are not answered, therefore God does not exist.

God can still exist even if certain requests made in prayer are not answered. After all, God may have good reasons for not granting those requests, and he may be answering other prayers that are not being catalogued by scientists. Since God is a person and not a force that acts in automatic and statistically predictable ways, extremely limited studies using some intercessory prayers cannot be generalized to give us conclusions about the efficacy of prayer in general.
 
 
(Image credit: Evansville Community Church)

Professor David P. Barash recently wrote an opinion column in the New York Times titled “God, Darwin and My College Biology Class.” Professor Barash is in the psychology department at the University of Washington. He teaches courses on sociobiology. He explained in his essay why he gives undergraduate students “The Talk.” No, it’s not about sex. The Talk is about faith and science. He says:

"And that’s where The Talk comes in. It’s irresponsible to teach biology without evolution, and yet many students worry about reconciling their beliefs with evolutionary science. Just as many Americans don’t grasp the fact that evolution is not merely a “theory,” but the underpinning of all biological science, a substantial minority of my students are troubled to discover that their beliefs conflict with the course material.
 
Until recently, I had pretty much ignored such discomfort, assuming that it was their problem, not mine. Teaching biology without evolution would be like teaching chemistry without molecules, or physics without mass and energy. But instead of students’ growing more comfortable with the tension between evolution and religion over time, the opposite seems to have happened. Thus, The Talk."

While professor Barash’s essay may upset some people, it does not ruffle me much. I have no problem with the above statement. To the extent that the “tension between evolution and religion” is interfering with his biology classes, yes, the teacher needs to address that tension and avoid distractions. Long tangents about religion can distract from teaching the science. Besides, there is a vast array of opinions about how to interpret the two in light of each other.

Barash noted with chagrin that Stephen J. Gould’s NOMA (non-overlapping magisteria) is the “received wisdom in the scientific establishment.” NOMA basically holds that science and religion can coexist in their own separate spheres and minimally inform each other in the search for truth. Barash believes that the two cannot stay separate, and he feels that “accommodating” religion imposes some “challenging mental gymnastic routines.”

I agree that the two cannot stay separate, but I take exception to his solution. In “The Talk” he tells students that as evolutionary science has progressed, the “space” for faith has narrowed. He tells them that “no literally supernatural trait has ever been found in Homo sapiens,” and that we are all just animals. He tells them that “living things, including human beings, are produced by a natural, totally amoral process, with no indication of a benevolent, controlling creator.” He concludes by telling them that it is not the duty of science (or science professors) to do the mental gymnastics to reconcile faith and science.

But here’s the thing. Rather than bringing clarity to the classroom, Barash brings more confusion by imposing his own beliefs about religion. It is enough to say, “This is a science class, please do not distract the class with questions about religion.” But what does he do? He imposes his beliefs on the students by making the very statements about faith that he asks the students to avoid. He is the one bringing religion into his science class.

But what about those tensions? Where should they be discussed? They need to be discussed outside of science class and with the guidance of someone competent to instruct in the faith. A lot of believers add to the confusion too, particularly those who think everyone must agree with their scientific interpretations to have real faith. In my opinion, people on all sides of the evolution and religion debate get too worked up and too impatient trying to claim all the answers. By our very human nature, we do not know everything and never will. We advance in knowledge. We are discursive creatures. It’s perfectly acceptable, even laudable, to say, “I don’t know.” By defining what you do not know, you more effectively guide your discovery. The apparent conflicts or tensions between science and faith are not the result of God’s incomplete knowledge or poor planning; they are the result of our partial understanding. We explore into the mysteries to seek more understanding. Scientists know this intimately, though some of them will not admit it.

We don’t know exactly how humans or anything else evolved, just that it all did. Catholics don’t know exactly how God created the first man and woman, just that he did. Catholics don’t know exactly how God might have guided the evolutionary process, instituted physical laws, or granted free will and intellect to the human being. They just know that he did, he does, and he will. Our theories are explanatory; we try to find explanations by forming hypotheses and testing them. The work of science is to discover how the material world works. Regarding faith, Catholics have the divinely revealed deposit of truth, i.e. Scripture and Tradition upon which dogma is founded. The work of theology is to understand those truths and to interpret and communicate them. Science can indeed be guided by faith, and faith can indeed be enriched by science—but only if you have faith. Does it require challenging intellectual effort? Yes. But so what?

A believer needs only to state that he or she sees science as the study of the handiwork of God. Note, that is not an argument but a statement. Nothing about evolutionary theory can ever be a threat to faith because believers interpret scientific discovery in a fuller scope of reality. Where faith is certain, science—never forget this—is provisional. If you are so inclined, study evolutionary theory in confidence. It is fascinating and underpins biological sciences just as Barash says it does. And if your science teacher is not religious? You probably shouldn’t consider him an authority on faith.

Never forget this either. The non-religious worldview is ultimately incoherent because science only gets you so far. Science points to greater realities beyond it. Even the scientific method demands a Christian worldview. To do science, we all have to view the world as ordered, symmetrical, intelligible, and predictable, and we have to fundamentally believe that we are rational beings who can gain knowledge about our world.

If people do not understand what I have just said, then yes, evolutionary theory may seem to threaten the “space” for faith. I really don’t know how to address this problem except to say that it demonstrates precisely why religious education needs to precede science education in priority, consistent with the words of Christ, “For what doth it profit a man, if he gain the whole world, and suffer the loss of his own soul?” The student who is confident in his or her faith should be free to study science and the professor free to teach it without invoking his own mental gymnastics routines to try to avoid mental gymnastics routines. This human endeavor we call science ought to unite us, plain and simple.
 
 
(Image credit: New York Times)

“Reality is everything that exists. That sounds straightforward, doesn’t it? Actually it isn’t.” Thus begins Professor Richard Dawkins’ recent  book, The Magic of Reality. In order to explain reality, Professor Dawkins takes us on a tour of modern science by contrasting its explanations with those we find in myths and fables: “These are the stories we all remember with fondness from our childhood, and many of us still enjoy when served up in a traditional Christmas pantomime—but we all know this kind of magic’s just fiction and does not happen in reality.”

“This kind of magic” he calls “supernatural” magic, and he contrasts it with the “magic of reality,” that is, modern science. “The magic of reality,” he goes on to say, “is neither supernatural nor a trick, but—quite simply—wonderful. Wonderful, and real. Wonderful because real.”

Dawkins’ point is simple: modern science gives true accounts of reality, while mythical stories give false accounts. I think we can all agree with this to a point, but as the saying goes, “the devil is in the details.” In this case, the details lie in what he means by “modern science” and what he means by “mythical story.” His notion of modern science is common enough: data gathered through our senses by means of experiment and organized in models which best represent what we observe. This definition is fairly straightforward and unproblematic; anyone who has been through school is familiar with it. The problem comes in his notion of mythical story.

For Dawkins, anything which is not testable in modern scientific terms is classified as a mythical story—something which is a false account of reality. Now it is certainly true that there are plenty of mythical stories out there, and he gives a number of them in the book, some very colorful and fantastic. My personal favorite is the Australian myth concerning the origin of the Sun’s rising and setting: two lizards use a boomerang to drag the Sun from East to West! This is a mythical story which is clearly not true in any realistic sense. But in his list of mythical stories, Dawkins also includes some which are not so easily categorized: the Virgin Birth and the Miracle of the Sun at Fatima. I can understand why he would not classify these as modern science, but they are certainly in a different category than the boomerang lizards.

Dawkins’ problem seems to be that his vision of reality is too narrow. You cannot expect to know reality accurately if you put everything into just two categories, modern science and mythical story. There are parts of reality which do not fit into either: something can be true and real even though it is not tested in the laboratory. St. Augustine makes this clear in On the Trinity:

“Far be it from us that we should deny that we know what we have learned through the testimony of others. Apart from them, we do not know there is an ocean; we do not know there are the lands and cities that famous reports describe for us; we do not know that the men and their deeds existed that we learn about by reading history; we do not know the things that are reported every day from whatever quarter and are confirmed by indications that are consistent and in agreement [with one another]; finally, we do not know in what places or from what people we arose. For all these things we believe on the testimony of others.”

Professor Dawkins is right that the real is wonderful, and wonderful because it is real. It is just that his notion of the real is a bit too restricted. I applaud him for using the notion of wonder in relation to modern science; too many people see science merely as a useful tool for solving problems and making use of the natural world. Although it is true that, through science, countless lives have been saved and the quality of our lives has been vastly improved as compared to ancient times, Dawkins rightly emphasizes that utility should not eclipse wonder. There is something magical about knowing the workings of the natural world and seeing its rational order unfolding in our world, and Dawkins’ book does a great job of showing children this “magic.” Where I cannot follow him is in denying truth or reality to things that are beyond scientific measurement and verification, like history and revelation. While these forms of knowledge are not science (in the modern sense of the term), at the same time they do not fit neatly into the category of mythical stories.

To borrow a line from Hamlet, “There are more things in heaven and earth,” Professor Dawkins, “than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”
 
 
This article first appeared on DominicanaBlog.com, an online publication of the Dominican Students of the Province of St. Joseph who live and study at the Dominican House of Studies in Washington, DC. It was written by Br. Bonaventure Chapman, O.P., who entered the Order of Preachers in 2010. He received an M.Th. in Applied Theology from Wycliffe Hall, Oxford University, where he studied for the Anglican priesthood.
 
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Herbert Butterfield, the influential twentieth-century historian, identified the Scientific Revolution as “one of the great episodes in human history,” which, along with the rise of the empires of Alexander the Great and ancient Rome, deserves a place “amongst the epic adventures that have helped to make the human race what it is.”¹ Numerous Catholic scientists, both laymen and churchmen alike, made valuable contributions to science before, during, and after the Scientific Revolution.

The scientists and mathematicians of the Jesuit Order hold a special place in this story, and a multi-volume work would be required to catalogue their contributions to a variety of scientific fields. In this article, we examine only one aspect of the Jesuit contribution, namely, their collaboration with the greatest minds of the Scientific Revolution.

Jesuit historian Joseph F. MacDonnell discusses the scientific influence of the Society of Jesus in his book Companions of Jesuits: A Tradition of Collaboration, where he writes that “it is a challenge for historians to find a single significant scientist of the sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth centuries who was not in some way involved with Jesuits and their colleagues: as students, as teachers, as relatives, as collaborators, as adversaries, as rivals or simply as personal friends.”²

The Jesuits had a close and often complex relationship with Galileo Galilei (1564-1642). While the Galileo Affair holds a prominent place in the history of science, the relationship between Galileo and the Church is more nuanced than often presented in standard histories. The same can be said of the relationship between the Jesuits and Galileo.

While the Jesuits often embraced Aristotelian science and the Tychonic model of the solar system, they still influenced Galileo in important ways. The historian William Wallace, for instance, has shown that many of Galileo’s views were inspired by several Jesuits teaching at the Roman College.³

After Galileo described his observations of the Moon and the Medicean Stars in his Starry Messenger of 1610, the Jesuits confirmed his discoveries. Furthermore, Galileo’s interest in the study of falling bodies originated with the Jesuit Niccolo Cabeo (1586-1650).⁴ Another Jesuit, Honore Fabri (1608-1688), was the first to explain Galileo’s experiment demonstrating equal time for falling bodies.⁵

Galileo’s lifelong friendship with the Jesuit astronomer and mathematician Christopher Clavius (1538-1612) began in 1587.⁶ Clavius, who introduced plus (+) and minus (-) signs to Italy,⁷ and is remembered for his work on the Gregorian calendar, was a great influence on the Father of Modern Science. In 1588, Galileo wrote a letter of admiration to Clavius, in which he also inquired about a center-of-gravity demonstration.⁸ A letter from Clavius brought Galileo enough joy to occasion an immediate recovery from a sickness that required Galileo to be bedridden.⁹

Another close collaborator with the Jesuit Order was Johannes Kepler (1571-1630), whose laws of planetary motion hold a special place in the history of scientific discovery. When Kepler found himself in financial difficulty and lacking a telescope of his own, the Jesuit mathematician Paul Guldin (1577-1643) encouraged fellow Jesuit Niccolo Zucchi (1586-1670) to provide Kepler with the needed instrument. Kepler, who was very appreciative of the gift, dedicated his last book to Guldin.¹⁰ The dedication reads:

“To the very reverend Father Paul Guldin, priest of the Society of Jesus, venerable and learned man, beloved patron. There is hardly anyone at this time with whom I would rather discuss matters of astronomy than with you. Even more of a pleasure to me, therefore, was the greeting from your reverence which was delivered to me by members of your order who are here. Fr. Zucchi could not have entrusted this most remarkable gift – I speak of the telescope – to anyone whose effort in his connection pleases me more than yours. Since you are the first to tell me that this jewel is to become my property, I think you should receive from me the first literary fruit of the joy that I gained from trial of this gift.”¹¹

This dedication from Kepler to Guldin came at the end of a long history of friendship with the Order. When Kepler was banished from the University of Graz, after a decree from the Emperor of Austria, the Jesuits Decker, Lang, and Guldin interceded on his behalf. The Jesuits at the college at Ingolstadt assumed responsibility for the publication of Kepler’s Almanac, after the scientist was unable to get it printed.¹²

The influence and encouragement flowed in both directions. For instance, Jesuit missionaries in China sought out his expertise on difficult mathematical problems, and Kepler encouraged the astronomical work of Zucchi.

The Jesuits also influenced Kepler’s fellow countrymen, Gottfried Leibniz (1646-1716) and Otto von Guericke (1602-1686). In a 1703 letter to Bernoulli, Leibniz attributed his original interest in mathematics to the writings of the Jesuits Clavius, St. Vincent, and Guldin.¹³ Indeed, Leibniz credits Gregory St. Vincent (1584-1667) as one of the founders of analytic geometry.¹⁴ After a meeting with Jesuit Chinese missionaries, Leibniz sent a suggestion for explaining the Trinity to their soon-to-be Chinese hosts.¹⁵

Guericke, who invented the air pump, was a friend and correspondent of the Jesuit Gaspar Schott (1608-1666). “It was Schott’s publication of von Guericke’s research,” writes Macdonnell, “that stimulated Huygens and Boyle as well as others to extend the experiments and thus to improve the vacuum pump.”¹⁶ Schott was also the first to make Boyle’s subsequent investigations of the air pump known in Germany.¹⁷

As suggested above, the Jesuits also greatly influenced members of the Huygens family. The Jesuit Francois d’Aguilon (1567-1617) composed a work entitled The Six Books of Optics, which not only influenced Christiaan Huygens (1629-1695), but also the mathematician Girard Desargues (1591-1661), who is credited as one of the founders of projective geometry.

The Six Books of Optics, which was illustrated by Peter Paul Rubens, was praised by Constantijn Huygens, Christiaan’s father. Constantijn, who thought The Six Books of Optics was the best book on geometrical optics he had ever read, compared d’Aguilon to Plato, Eudoxus, and Archimedes.¹⁸

The Jesuit influence was not limited to Continental scientists, but extended to important thinkers in England as well. The Jesuit Francesco Maria Grimaldi (1618-1663) discovered the diffraction of light and published his findings in 1665,¹⁹ and Isaac Newton became interested in optics as a result of Grimaldi’s work.

Newton first learned of the discoveries of Grimaldi through Fabri.²⁰ Robert Hooke (1635-1703) performed experiments with diffraction after reading of Grimaldi’s discoveries in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society.²¹ Hooke also translated the first treatise on lighter-than-air flight, which was written by the Jesuit Francesco Lana de Terzi (1631-1687), and presented Terzi’s plan to the Royal Society.²²

The Englishman Robert Boyle (1627-1691) also appreciated the work of the Jesuits:

“Among the Jesuits you know that Clavius and divers others, have as prosperously addicted themselves to mathematics as divinity. And as to physics, not only Scheiner, Aquilonius, Kircher, Schottus, Zucchius and others, have very laudably cultivated the optical and some other parts of philosophy, and [also did] Ricciolus himself, the learned compiler of that voluminous and judicious work the Almagestum Novum.”²³

Similar histories could be written for Cassini, Fermat, Descartes, Harvey, and Torricelli. The influence of the Jesuits on the illustrious thinkers of the Scientific Revolution is only one chapter in the long story of their incredible contributions to science. These contributions are only now beginning to be fully appreciated by historians of science.
 
 
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NOTE: Today we wrap up our weekly series of essays by Dr. Stacy Trasancos on the "stillbirths" of science. They're based on Fr. Stanley L. Jaki's research into the theological history of science in the ancient cultures of Egypt, China, India, Babylon, Greece, and Arabia. See past articles here.

 
The last culture to be examined is that of the Muslims. Although theirs was a monotheistic view, it was not a Christological or Trinitarian view, which left it vulnerable to a monotheism that approached pantheism. What happened in the Muslim world seems to be the result of a mixture of mindsets. The Arabian philosophers adopted the works of the Greeks, along with the organismic, eternal cosmic treadmill worldview. This meant that the philosophers’ worldview was in conflict with the Muslim religion since the Koran taught that God the Creator created the world and held it in existence. The stillbirth of Muslim science could be credited with a separation of science and religion that ought to have been reconciled, a point that would no doubt surprise many people today.

As Athens and Rome lost cultural significance around the early seventh century A.D., there was less communication between the two. Greek scholars moved toward the East and organized at Jundishapur in Southwest Persia. In 641 A.D., when Persia was conquered by the Muslims, the Middle East and North Africa came under one rule. By 711 A.D., the Arabs took Spain and twenty-one years later they stormed France. One hundred years after Muhammed’s death, a political unification of land that spanned three continents emerged. As the new religion codified in the Koran was imposed, a giant empire formed “steeped in the conviction that everything in life and in the cosmos depended on the sovereign will of a personal God, the Creator and Lord of all.” (Jaki, Science and Creation, p. 193)

The continual study of the Koran inspired intellectual curiosity among faithful Muslims, as did the meticulous scholarship of the Greek philosophical and scientific body of knowledge. So serious was the promotion of knowledge that “Houses of Wisdom” were erected, notably in Baghdad (813–833), Cairo (966), and Cordova (961–976). Cordova amassed over 300,000 volumes for the library and immediately attracted scholars from the Christian West, who were welcomed with hospitality.

A paper mill, learned from the Chinese art of paper-making, was constructed in Baghdad in 794, and extensive translation and reproduction of Greek literature flourished. The works of Galen, who was considered second only to Hippocrates in the medical hagiography of the Western World, were translated, some 130 of them, and dominated medical practice in the medieval East and the West well into the Renaissance. (Plinio, A History of Medicine: Roman Medicine, p. 315) The greatest figure of Arab medicine was produced from this school, al Razi (865–925), the author of A Treatise on the Small-Pox and Measles. His work has been reprinted more than forty times in the last four hundred years. Islamic medicine in general was outstanding, a field in which Islamic science demonstrated its most sustained vitality. The Muslims had a realistic sense for facts of observation.

The Islamic ophthalmologist, Ibn-Rushd (1126–1198), otherwise known as Averroes, provides a “priceless insight” into the ultimate failure of Islamic science. (Jaki, Science and Creation, p. 195) He was a resolute advocate and student of Aristotle’s philosophy and science, and as such broke new grounds with ophthalmology. The practice of medicine could flourish under Aristotelian teaching because it did not require any questioning of Aristotle’s view of the physics.

Likewise Ibn-Sina (980–1037), also known as Avicenna, the famed philosopher provides the same insight. His textbook served as the standard in Arab medical teaching, a fine collection of observation and systematic pathology. Muslim science made notable contributions in areas that had nothing to do with physical laws. When it came to a study of physical laws of the world, there was a certain inertia owed to the unwillingness to question the Aristotelian animistic worldview, which is why the study of biology advanced but without an underlying increase in the understanding of the physical world.

This lack of understanding of physics is evidenced by Arab alchemy, which came to stand for the study of materials and compounds. This field of investigation was a combination of mystical and astrological proclivities, fundamentally the result of mixing the organismic, eternal cycles of pantheism with the belief that a Creator created the universe. It was an attempt to reconcile the conflicting views of Aristotelian philosophy and Muslim theology.

The same paradox occurred in astrology. The astrologers, working with assumptions in conflict with their religion, gave credence to the pagan doctrine of the Great Year, even to the point of believing it could predict the succession of rulers, religions, reigns, and physical catastrophes. Yet devout Muslims could not accept these ideas that were in conflict with Muslim orthodoxy, which revealed that the universe had an absolute beginning with creation. As attempts were made to reconcile these beliefs, something ambiguous resulted, as evidenced in the writing of al-Biruni, a Muslim who refuted the contradictions among scholars and religious men in his famous work The Chronology of Ancient Nations:

"It is quite possible that the (celestial) bodies were scattered, not united at the time when the Creator designed and created them, they having these motions, by which–as calculation shows–they must meet each other in one point in such a time. It would be the same, as if we, e.g. supposed a circle, in different separate places of which we put living beings, of whom some move fast, others slowly, each of them, however, being carried on in equal motions–of its peculiar sort of motion–in equal times; further, suppose that we knew their distances and places at a certain time, and the measure of the distance over which each of them travels in one Nychthemoreon." (Athar-ul-Bakiya of Albiruni, The Chronology of Ancient Nations, p. 30)

He goes on in the work to give credit to the mathematical computations of the cycles to explain the appearances, an incongruity between mathematics and reality and a failure to go beyond the Aristotelian and Neoplatonian positions regarding the physical world. As far as the Muslim scholars advanced, they still did not provide the psychology that could give birth to modern science because they did not effectively refute the pantheism of the Greek scientific corpus (body).

That reconciliation would come from Christian scholars who, in adherence to the Christian Creed, rejected the teachings of the Greek scientific corpus which contradicted Christian dogma, particularly pantheism and the eternal cosmic cycle. Indeed, the birth of science can be credited as a successful reconciliation of the Christian religion and science.

"There had to come a birth, the birth of the only begotten Son of the Father as a man, to allow science to have its first viable birth." (Jaki, A Late Awakening, p.60)

This series of essays is adapted from the book Science Was Born of Christianity: The Teaching of Fr. Stanley L. Jaki (available on Amazon). In the book, this series is in the chapter "Was Born," which is preceded by an introduction to Fr. Jaki and a discussion about how he defined "science." This series is followed by a series of essays about "The Biblical Womb" and the attitudes towards Greek and Roman science in "Early Christianity." The birth of science in "The Christian West" is covered by a brief review of the following Christian scholars' contributions, in chronological order: Adelard of Bath, Thierry of Chartres, Robert Grosseteste, William of Auvergne, St. Albertus Magnus, St. Thomas Aquinas , Roger Bacon , Siger of Brabant , Étienne Tempier, and Jean Buridan.

Sources:

• Stanley L. Jaki, Science and Creation: From Eternal Cycles to an Oscillating Universe (Edinburgh: Scottish Academic Press, Ltd, 1986), 192-200.
• Stanley L. Jaki, A Late Awakening and Other Essays (Port Huron, MI: Real View Books, 2004), 22-25.
• Prioresch Plinio, A History of Medicine: Roman Medicine (Omaha, NE: Horatius Press, 1998), 315.
• Athar-ul-Bakiya of Albiruni, The Chronology of Ancient Nations: An English Version of the Arabic Text “Vestiges of the Past,” translated by D. Edward Sachau (London: W. H. Allen & Co., 1879), 30.

 
 
(Image credit: Wikimedia)

NOTE: Today we're continuing our weekly series of essays by Dr. Stacy Trasancos on the "stillbirths" of science. They're based on Fr. Stanley L. Jaki's research into the theological history of science in the ancient cultures of Egypt, China, India, Babylon, Greece, and Arabia. See past articles here.

 
There is so much written about China’s rich and illustrious past that no case could ever be made—from the Shang Dynasty (1523–1028 B.C.) to the Ch’ing Dynasty (A.D. 1644–1912)—that there was no progress in civilization, art, or literature. Likewise, volumes have been written on the question of the history of science and Chinese civilization. In Science and Creation: From Eternal Cycles to an Oscillating Universe and The Savior of Science (pages 46 and 35 respectively), Jaki referred to the extensive research of British biochemist Joseph Needham. In seven volumes comprised of twenty-seven books, Needham and his team of international collaborators reviewed the history of science and technology in China. The massive work was eventually published by the Cambridge University Press under the title Science and Civilisation in China; and the project, which began in 1954, continues to the present day.

A brief overview of the content of these volumes will demonstrate the extent of cultural development in China and the futility of ignoring such a rich history. Needham’s first volume (1954) is an introduction to the rest of the work. Volume Two (1956) covers the history of scientific thought in China, including the organic naturalism of the great Taoist school, the scientific philosophy of the Mohists and Logicians, and the quantitative materialism of the Legalists. Volume Three and the three-part Volume Four (1959–1971) addresses mathematics and the sciences of the heavens and earth, physics, mechanical engineering, civil engineering, and nautics. Volume Five (1985–1999) has thirteen parts: the first on paper and printing; the second through the fifth on spagyrical discovery and inventions including gold and immortality, cinnabar elixirs, synthetic insulin, apparatus, and physiological alchemy; the sixth and seventh on military technology from missiles and sieges to the “gunpowder epic;” the ninth on the textile industry while the eighth and tenth are still works in progress; the eleventh on ferrous metallurgy; the twelfth on ceramic technology; and the thirteenth on mining. Volume Six (1986–2000) deals with botany, agriculture, agroindustry, and forestry in the first three parts and fermentations, food science, and medicine in the fifth and sixth parts, while the fourth part of Volume Six is still in progress. Finally, Volume Seven (1998–2004) covers language and logic, and then gives the general conclusions and reflections. (See full list here.) The purpose of listing these volumes published over a span of six decades is to demonstrate that intensive work has been devoted to the history of science in China, and Jaki was aware of this. He acknowledged it in the development of the “stillbirths” argument.

In Science and Creation (pages 30-32) Jaki discussed how around 350 B.C., the astronomer Shih Shen drew up a catalogue of around 800 stars and how the manuscripts were stored in the Imperial Library. The ability to catalogue and store documents displayed great sophistication. Technological improvements were made in water works and the extension of the Great Wall, a massive achievement. During the three and a half centuries known as the age of the Warring States (480–220 B.C.), cultural growth continued. The Chinese invented the waterwheel, the wheelbarrow, and other devices that demonstrated continued technological development. Around the middle of the fourth century, Hu Hsi made observations that led him to discover the precession of equinoxes, although the Greek scholar Hipparchus is credited with discovering it centuries earlier.

The peak periods of Chinese culture spanned the Han, Sung, Thang, Yuan, and Ming periods (collectively 202 B.C.– A.D. 1644) and represented a length of time when scientific endeavor could have “received a decisive spark.” There were technological feats in which the Chinese were the “sole inventors” for a number of centuries. They invented the effective use of horses, the foot-stirrup and breast-strap harness. They discovered magnetic ore. They invented the revolutionary skill of paper-making, which led to the production of printed books. They invented the process of making gunpowder, the production of porcelain, and the development of water-driven mechanical clocks. They used magnets for travel and moveable clay types for printing.

The Chinese also, Jaki noted, developed algebra at a level compatible with the best in Europe around A.D. 1250. According to Francis Bacon, printing, gunpowder, and magnets were the factors that ushered in the age of science more than anything, but Jaki challenged Bacon’s assertion by noting that even with these developments the Chinese “remained hopelessly removed from the stage of sustained, systematic scientific research.”

The Chinese had rockets for centuries but did not investigate trajectories or free fall. Their ability to print books did not lead to a “major intellectual ferment.” Magnets were installed on their ships and they were the best navy in the world for the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, but they never circumnavigated the globe.

Historians have also noted that the “Industrial Revolution” did not originate in China, and that is of great significance for Jaki’s argument that science was “stillborn” in Chinese culture. Jaki cited a 1922 article in The International Journal of Ethics entitled “Why China Has No Science: An Interpretation of the History and Consequences of Chinese Philosophy." The author, Yu-Lan Fung, who contributed to Needham’s volumes, noted that the history of Europe and the history of China before the Renaissance are “on the same level,” by which he meant that they both progressed at about the same pace, albeit in different ways. After that time the pace differed: “China is still old while the Western countries are already new.” Fung asked, “What keeps China back?” He answered that it is because “she has no science . . . because according to her own standard of value she does not need any . . . China has not discovered the scientific method, because Chinese thought started from mind, and from one’s own mind.” If truth and knowledge are in the mind, separated from the external world, there is no need for scientific investigation beyond practical skill.

Fung contrasted the three major powers which competed to conquer the entire empire of China from 570 B.C. to about 275 B.C–Taoism, Moism, and Confucianism. Taoism taught a “return to nature” with nature being the natural state of all things, including the natural tendency of man toward vice. According to Taoism, “every kind of human virtue and social regulation is to them against nature.” Knowledge was considered to be of no use because the Tao is inside man, as the god of the pantheistic philosophy. Taoism did not require any questioning of a beginning and an end, about final purposes and goals, or about the controlling of the forces and patterns in the workings of the Yin and Yang. The cosmological passage from the Chuang Tzu demonstrated this mindset:

"Men who study the Tao do not follow on when these operations [properties belonging to things] end, nor try to search out how they began: - with this all discussion of them stops." Texts of Taoism, translated by J. Legge (New York: Julian Press, 1959), Book XXV, par. 11, 568-69; quoted in Jaki, Science and Creation, 30.

The key to success in Taoism was to merge into the rhythm of cosmic cycles.

The fundamental idea of Moism was “utility,” and virtue was seen as useful. Universal love was taught as a doctrine for the benefit of the country and people, and progress was the ideal of mutual help; anything that was incompatible with the increase of wealth and population was to be fought against. Confucius stood between the two, emphasizing discrimination in different situations. He taught that human nature is essentially good although men are not born perfect. To become perfect, the innate reason must be developed and lower desires “wholly taken away.” His concerns were ethical, not metaphysical. Therefore, Confucius taught that the individual should seek what is in himself and leave external things to their natural destiny.

In these competing theories of existence, the power that governs the universe is the omnipotent Tao for Taoism, the personified self-god in Moism, and Heavenly Reason according to Confucianism. Moism did have a notion of Heaven as personal and caring for humans, a monotheism of sorts, but its ethics were severed from this idea. As these powers competed over time, to put it far too concisely to do the history enough justice, they actually merged and philosophical investigation of “things” gave rise to two forms of Neo-Confucianism, one school that sought “things” externally and another that sought “things” as phenomena in the mind. In Medieval Europe the same ideas about “things” more or less existed too, but from there on, China and Europe diverged:

"In other words, Medieval Europe under Christianity tried to know God and prayed for His help; Greece tried, and Modern Europe is trying to know nature and to conquer, to control it; but China tried to know what is within ourselves, and to find there perpetual peace." (Fung, "Why China Has No Science")

So China did not have use for the scientific method because the religions sought what is in the mind separate from the external world. Fung concluded his paper with a call for mankind to become wiser and to find peace and happiness by turning attention to Chinese wisdom so that the “mind energy of the Chinese people of four thousand years will yet not have been spent in vain.” Even if modern science was not born in China, there were other aspects of the culture that were worthy of admiration.

In concluding this consideration of China’s history, it needs to be noted that other scholars concurred with Fung. In 1995, Justin Yifu Lin of Peking University published an essay titled “The Needham Puzzle: Why the Industrial Revolution Did Not Originate in China.” Lin noted from evidence documented in Needham’s work that “except for the past two or three centuries, China had a considerable lead over the Western world in most of the major areas of science and technology.” From an economic and social perspective, he considers why, despite early advances in science, technology, and institutions, China did not take the next step in the seventeenth century as Western Europe did.

Ultimately that answer depends on how the Chinese viewed the external world and whether it was created by God or was God itself. In believing that the world was God and was eternal, there was no need to question a beginning and an end or how everything came to be. Needham also acknowledged that it is a theological orientation of Chinese thought that can be singled out as the decisive factor that blocked the attitude conducive to developing a systematic, scientific investigation. (Science and Civilisation in China, 580-582) “There, according to Needham’s admission, all the early cultivators of science drew courage for their pioneering efforts from a belief in a personal and rational Creator.” (Jaki, Science and Creation, 40.)

For the purposes of Jaki’s argument, the similarity of the Egyptian and Chinese cultures bears emphasizing. Both were pantheistic, with some degree of monotheism but still a monotheism that held that the world was God, which is basically pantheism. Neither had a loving Creator who “ordered all things in measure, and number, and weight,” who made man in His image with intellect and free will, or who became Incarnate to redeem mankind. “In a universe without the voice of God there remains no persistent and compelling reason for man to search within nature for distinct voices of law and truth.” (Jaki, Science and Creation, 41.)

Sources:

• Stanley L. Jaki, Science and Creation: From Eternal Cycles to an Oscillating Universe (Edinburgh: Scottish Academic Press, Ltd, 1986).
• Stanley L. Jaki, The Savior of Science (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2000).
• Joseph Needham, Science and Civilisation in China: Volume 2, History of Scientific Thought (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1956).
• Yu-Lan Fung, “Why China Has No Science: An Interpretation of the History and Consequences of Chinese Philosophy,” The International Journal of Ethics, 32 (1922), 237-263.
• Texts of Taoism, translated by J. Legge (New York: Julian Press, 1959).
• Justin Yifu Lin, “The Needham Puzzle: Why the Industrial Revolution Did Not Originate in China,” Economic Development and Cultural Change (University of Chicago Press, 1995), 269-292.

 
 
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In late December 1668, in a contest held at the Chinese Bureau of Astronomy, the Jesuit Ferdinand Verbiest (1623-1688) correctly predicted the length of a shadow cast by a vertical rod. The Kangxi Emperor was impressed. But he challenged Verbiest to two additional tests: the prediction of the exact position of the sun and planets on a given day and the timing of an approaching lunar eclipse. Verbiest successfully completed the final two tests, and, in the process, showed that the Chinese had much to learn from their Jesuit visitors.

With his scientific prowess firmly established, Verbiest became close with the Emperor, often accompanying him on excursions throughout the empire. Verbiest would make the most of this opportunity. Before he had passed on from this life, he had designed a self-propelled vehicle, cast cannons for the imperial army, written a 32-volume handbook on astronomy, composed a 2000-year table of future eclipses, and rebuilt the imperial observatory, enriching it with several bronze astronomical instruments. His funeral serves as an indication of his achievements: it featured musicians, standard bearers, and fifty horsemen.¹

Verbiest is one of many illustrious Jesuits to make valuable contributions to Chinese science. By 1800, more than 900 Jesuit missionaries had reached China.² It was science that served their primary purpose of sharing the Catholic faith and allowed the Jesuits to wield significant influence in China. Verbiest clearly understood the importance of science to evangelization efforts: “As a star of old brought the magi to the adoration of the true God, so the princes of the Far East through knowledge of the stars would be brought to recognize and adore the Lord of the stars.”³

The Jesuit Chinese missions represent one of the great untold stories of modern history. Jesuit missionaries would introduce the telescope and the discoveries of Galileo, determine the Russo-Chinese border,⁴ discover a land route between India and China,⁵ introduce European astronomy and mathematics, revise the Chinese calendar, map out the empire using modern methods, introduce stereographic projection of maps, participate in the division of China into time zones, and discover that Korea was a peninsula rather than an island.

Besides Verbiest, several other missionaries stand out for their valuable contributions. Matteo Ricci (1552-1610), a student of Jesuit mathematician and astronomer Christopher Clavius, inaugurated the Jesuit missions in China when he reached Macau in 1582. Eventually adopting the dress of Chinese scholars and acting as an adviser to the Imperial court, Ricci introduced Christianity and recent European scientific discoveries to his Chinese hosts. In mathematics, he was the first to introduce trigonometry⁶ and the works of Euclid⁷ to China.

Ricci’s most important scientific contribution, however, was his Impossible Black Tulip map, a cartographical wonder that greatly expanded Chinese geographical knowledge and was considered more accurate than contemporary maps of Europe.⁸ While previous Chinese world maps showed only the fifteen provinces of China surrounded by water and a few islands,⁹ the Impossible Black Tulip is the oldest surviving Chinese map to show the Americas. A 1602 edition of the map recently sold for $1 million and was displayed at the Library of Congress.

Ricci not only introduced European science to China, he was the first to provide Europe with an account of Chinese geography, culture, and literature. Ricci was more than a herald of scientific discoveries: he may one day be a saint. The Church has named Ricci a Servant of God, which denotes that his cause for beatification and canonization has been set in motion.

Another important Jesuit missionary is Adam Schall von Bell (1592-1666), an accomplished astronomer who entered Macau in 1619. By the time Schall von Bell reached China, the Chinese calendar, which had been used for 40 centuries, was in desperate need of revision. After arriving in Beijing in 1630, Schall von Bell began working tirelessly on calendar reform. Indeed, during his life, he would write no less than 150 treatises on this subject.¹⁰ In 1644, Schall von Bell was able to earn the respect of the Chinese government by correctly predicting an eclipse (The Chinese astronomers had erred by an hour in their prediction). After Schall von Bell’s astronomical feat, he was appointed director of the Board of Astronomy, the first Jesuit to fill this post.¹¹

With his newly earned position of authority, he reduced the number of Chinese calendars from five to two. Because of his astronomical and calendrical work, Schall von Bell was given the title Mandarin of the First Class, an honor normally reserved for Chinese dignitaries, and a sign of Schall von Bell’s influence. “It can be said,” writes a Jesuit historian, “that no westerner in the whole history of China ever enjoyed as much influence as Schall did.”¹²

Remarkable Jesuit contributions were not confined to the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Several Jesuits connected with the Zikawei Observatory would make important contributions into the twentieth century. Marc Dechevrens (1845-1923) became director of Zikawei in 1876. With fellow Jesuits Francisco Faura and Jose Maria Algue, Dechevrens was one of “the first to study the nature and characteristics of typhoons.”¹³ An instrument he designed to measure wind velocity was installed on the Eiffel Tower for the 1889 World’s Fair.

In 1888, Stanislas Chevalier (1852-1930) succeeded Dechevrens as director of the observatory, continuing his predecessor’s work with typhoons. Chevalier also carried out a cartographic study of the Yangtze, made no less than 1200 astronomical observations, and determined the geographical coordinates of 50 Chinese towns. His research eventually led to the creation of 64 maps, earning him a medal from the Geographical Society of Paris.¹⁴ Finally, in 1920, Ernesto Gherzi (1886-1976) was appointed to Zikawei, where he studied typhoons and Chinese climatology. Gherzi was “one of the first to investigate the relationship between microseismic noise and oscillations in the atmospheric pressure.”¹⁵ He later became a member of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences.

Taken collectively, the Jesuit Chinese missions form an important chapter in the long and often complex relationship between religion and science. Joseph Needham, in his important multi-volume Science and Civilisation in China, highlights the significance of the Jesuit Chinese missions: “In the history of intercourse between civilisations there seems no parallel to the arrival in China in the 17th century of a group of Europeans so inspired by religious fervour as were the Jesuits, and, at the same time, so expert in most of those sciences which had developed with the Renaissance and the rise of capitalism.”¹⁶ When history offers us ‘no parallel,’ we should take notice.
 
 
(Image credit: Wikimedia)

Materialism has always had a difficult time dealing with death, because it has to claim that death is not a big deal. If there is nothing more to life than the matter of the body, once the body dies there is nothing left to “experience” death.

The ancient atomists were explicit in this claim, with Epicurus stating:

"Death, therefore, the most awful of evils, is nothing to us, seeing that, when we are, death is not come, and, when death is come, we are not."

While it is debatable how palatable this line of argument can really be when facing one’s own death, it is particularly impotent for comforting those who mourn a deceased loved one. If death truly is the end, then the loss that is felt is not imagined, but complete and final.

For those who espouse a strictly materialist worldview, any attempt to comfort the mourning must be scientific; this is exactly what Aaron Freeman proposes in a segment for NPR’s “All Things Considered.” He argues that the First Law of Thermodynamics, the law of conservation of energy, provides a context to give grieving family members the knowledge that their loved one is not completely gone but that his energy is a permanent part of the cosmos, or that her impact on them is not over but that the energy of those interactions carries on in our lives. Most importantly, this is something that those grieving need not simply have faith in. The conservation of energy can be and has been experimentally tested across all ranges of physics, so mourners can examine the evidence for themselves and find how sound it is.

Originally aired almost ten years ago, this little reflection bubbles up every once in a while on blogs or on Facebook. Freeman is right to point out the beauty and interconnectedness of the material world and how we can have an impact on it. It can be astounding to realize that the atoms that make up our bodies were originally formed in the heart of stars that have long since died, or that the breath you just took probably shared some air molecules with the dying breath of Socrates, Julius Ceasar, or even Jesus Christ. Physics can give us an amazing picture of the universe and of our place in it. But to claim that this is all we need for true comfort in the face of death is simply unreasonable.

What Freeman presents about the conservation of energy and about the fact that the energy that animated us in our lifetimes will never fully be lost is true. Nevertheless, just as we do not mourn the loss of nail clippings or hair trimmings, it is not the body or energy as such that we miss, but a human person. We long for the whole person, both the body and that intangible principle that made that body the unique person we so loved, their soul. In death there is a stark change, a true loss, for the body that was once given a unity and a purpose by the soul is now simply a collection of parts that are each going their own way. Freeman admits this but tries to put a positive spin on it in his closing line:

"According to the law of the conservation of energy, not a bit of you is gone; you’re just less orderly. Amen."

But no one can honestly deny that something real truly is gone, namely the very order that makes you a person. The energy that suffused our loved one in life and that they used to make us laugh and cry and love, though not completely gone, has lost that unity and purpose, that order, that we so prized in their life.

The image that we somehow “merge” with the universe in death as the energy that we expended in life and the molecules that made up our bodies carry on an independent existence can only be comforting if we convince ourselves that all we are when alive is a particular collection of molecules with a particular pattern of energy. It is only by cheapening our understanding of and value for human life that this image can hope to comfort.

True comfort in mourning cannot rely simply on the material, on talk of the persistence of energy and physical parts. It must include reference to the soul, that principle of life that, by its very nature, orders us to something beyond the physical.

Catholics look to the promise that death is not a loss of the soul, that they can still be united to their loved ones in the Body of Christ and that they will one day be restored to the fullness of their personhood, body and soul, in the new creation.
 
 
This article first appeared on DominicanaBlog.com, an online publication of the Dominican Students of the Province of St. Joseph who live and study at the Dominican House of Studies in Washington, DC. It was written by Br. Thomas Davenport, O.P., who entered the Order of Preachers in 2010. He graduated from Stanford University with a PhD in Physics.
 
(Image credit: Turner)