Wonder and the Sieve of Science

This article is about scientism, an all-encompassing ideology that stifles the mind.

I read the other day that the speed of light is ~300,000,000 meters per second. Did you know that? With the predominance of STEM education today, perhaps everybody is in on this little factoid but me, even first graders.

Now think about this. The Golden Gate Bridge is roughly 2.74 kilometers (2,740 meters) long. Thus, provided that the speed of light is constant, this means that light travels at the astonishing equivalent of roughly 109,489 Golden Gate Bridges in one second. Let that sink in.

The physical properties of light boggle the mind. We can’t see ultraviolet light, but it affects us, nevertheless. We can, if we want, shoot light through people to see their insides. Swallowed a pin? No problem. We can shoot light through you to see that pin. We can do lots and lots of cool things with light once we’ve understood the properties of it.

We can take a picture of an ant’s eyeball or watch a microbe wiggle around. We can encode messages into radio frequencies and zap them to people orbiting the earth on the International Space Station. LIGHT BOGGLES THE MIND.

Science, properly understood, is truly remarkable. And that is because creation is splendid, amazing, and wonderful.

Dwelling on the nature of light for just a few moments can lead to awe.  

It’s not science, of course, that invites us to contemplate the majesty of existence. Sometimes, you just need to stop and stare for a bit. A friend of mine recently related to me how he would gaze in wonder at an orange while eating during his lunch break, admiring its complexity and beauty. Sure, he probably looked a little strange, but he got lost in the world before him. He passed from a recognition of the physical characteristics of the thing (the orange) to a higher intuition of the mystery penetrating and reverberating through all things.

If you’re not careful, perceiving the transcendent through the mundane could make you religious (and you need to be very careful to not be religious because we know that religion and science don’t mix). Here’s Josef Pieper from Happiness and Contemplation:

“How splendid is water, a rose, a tree, an apple, a human face—such exclamations can scarcely be spoken without also giving tongue to an assent and affirmation which extends beyond the object praised and touches upon the origin of the universe. Who among us has not suddenly looked into his child’s face, in the midst of the toils and troubles of everyday life, and at that moment ‘seen’ that everything which is good, is loved and lovable, loved by God!”

There are patterns everywhere in creation, and science (properly understood) can help us to discern them. Indeed, these patterns can lead us higher to contemplation of God if we let them.

There’s a plethora of things I could say in favor of true science and the discovery of properties in nature. Furthermore, science deserves merit insofar as it improves the condition of mankind by virtue of its application in medicine, engineering, and so on.

When we apply science (our knowledge) to this, that, or the other thing to improve our condition, it is technically an art, which is somewhat strange to say because we think of “art” and “science” as separate enterprises. But St. Bonaventura didn’t think so. Art concerns making things (medicines, Golden Gate bridges, paintings, and so on). And when we use our knowledge to make things, we apply science to art. In his Reduction of the Arts to Theology, St. Bonaventura explains how the arts have as their purpose the consolation of man:

“Every mechanical art is intended for man’s consolation or for his comfort; its purpose, therefore, is to banish either sorrow or want; it either benefits or delights….”

Antibiotics destroy an infection, my foot goes from gangrenous to healthy again, and boom—I’m not sad anymore. A mechanical art banishes sorrow. 

Thus, having acknowledged the harmony of creation and the beauty of true science, I hope to acquit myself of any charges that I’m being “unscientific” or some sort of fanatic when I say that taken as the exclusive means of explaining and relating to reality, science is an idol.

The Specter of Scientism

Science as idolatry has a name. It is called scientism. I wanted to introduce this term to you today because perhaps you’ve never heard of it. But, I can assure you, today we live in a world where scientism is omnipresent.

For the ideologue suffering under the specter of scientism, there’s nothing that science cannot explain. Thus, the real presence of mystery in the cosmos cannot co-exist with scientism. Furthermore, those under the spell of scientism have a hard time admitting how science, properly understood, involves debate. In fact, as Richard Thames has pointed out, “science” is an abstraction (technically, it is a reification or hypostatization).

What we mean by “science” is really a host of activities, technologies, taken-for-granted assumptions, institutions, and especially people working in concert to better understand the natural world. Sometimes these people disagree with one another, and sometimes their disagreement is well-intentioned and incredibly honest.

Insofar as these people disagree about the natural world, its characteristics and laws, they are being rhetorical. Again, the word “science” is an abstraction. At its best, “science” is the give-and-take of scientists to better explain the cosmos for man’s consolation and wonder. At its worst, “science” devolves into fundamentalist ideology that rests content in whatever “They” (the experts) count as the truth.

What are some other forms of knowing that scientism does not like? Here’s one: faith. As St. Paul states, “faith comes from hearing.” Pretend you’re in a crowded room full of people. Imagine I burst through the door, and I say, “There’s a fire outside. Get out now.” My demeanor is sober. Perhaps you know I make jokes every now and then, but my tone suggests I’m not kidding. You don’t smell smoke. You don’t see fire. All you have is my word.

Do you believe me?

You see, you have to take it on faith whether or not there’s a fire. Empirically, there’s no immediate evidence for the presence of fire. But you have a witness: Me. And you either trust me, or you don’t.

What art would involve generating such belief in your audience?

That’s it. You guessed it. Rhetoric. Rhetoric aims at pistis, the Greek term for “faith.” Were we there when the defendant allegedly stole the diamond? No. But we call in witnesses. We evaluate the evidence. And then we make a judgment as to the relative probability of the truth in this hypothetical case, which is neither indisputable nor absolutely certain. Faith, belief, and trust all play an absolutely critical part in the courtroom. We cannot go back into the past to empirically verify what happened. We must debate and then believe, one way or another.

Why does all this matter? Because scientism tends to crowd out and delegitimize other forms of knowledge, which includes not only faith but also what Michael Polanyi calls tacit knowledge. For Polanyi, sometimes we know things without being able to say how we know them. The example Polanyi gives in The Tacit Dimension is another person’s face. I can’t describe for you all the details that go into making this face this face. And yet, I know it when I see it. I perceive another’s face as a gestalt, as a whole.

Scientism insists that we can’t know something until it has passed through the sieve of the scientific method. But what resists such purification via science? As William Lane Craig argues in his debate with Peter Atkinson, we cannot know, prove, nor empirically verify the following with the scientific method:

• logical and mathematical truths (science must presuppose these)

• metaphysical truths (like the reality of other minds and the reality of an external world)

• ethical beliefs about the good

• aesthetic judgments about the beautiful

• the scientific method itself

In essence, science in and of itself cannot tell us how to make decisions. And yet, we must make decisions all the time. Science can tell you how to launch a mortar 2 kilometers to the north. But the scientific method cannot tell you why that might be a bad idea. 

If I’ve done anything here, hopefully it has been to encourage you not only to contemplate the speed of light or the mystery of an orange. Hopefully I’ve also produced just the slightest bit of doubt as to the limitless potential of science. The genius of true science is that it recognizes real limits in nature. Those limits exist regardless of whether or not you believe in them. And the same can be said of God; He’s there regardless of whether or not you think He is.

Following Kierkegaard, Walker Percy once said something along the lines of this: Science can teach you everything under sun except what it means to be born and to live and to die. In other words, science can teach you everything except what it means to be human. To learn how to live, we need theology, philosophy, literature, rhetoric, and art. We especially need the presence of others, who are living mysteries in our midst.

Thank you for reading and for your attention. As Simone Weil put it, “Attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity.” If you’ve appreciated this post, please like and subscribe. For more on tacit knowledge, check out Michael Polanyi’s The Tacit Dimension. Polanyi allegedly influenced the notable philosophers of science Thomas Kuhn and Sir Karl Popper. The Wikipedia page for tacit knowledge gives some great examples of tacit knowledge, including how tacit knowledge informs a surgeon’s decision to move an intern on in his/her studies. Anthony Wachs has written an article on Platonic rhetoric, pistis, and Christianity.