A question for Brian Greene

 I was listening to a podcast of Radio Lab yesterday, and heard an interview with the physicist Brian Greene. The topic was the possibility of a theory of everything (a fundamental theory of physics that could in principle explain everything else about the universe). Recently some cosmologists have been thinking about the implications of the multiverse theory on the possibility of a theory of everything. If millions of different universes exist, it is difficult to see how a single theory could explain everything about all those universes. In the course of the discussion, Greene was pushed on the idea of a multiverse, and was asked if the multiverse was really more of an object of faith than of science, since we don’t have any observational evidence that it exists. Greene was adamant that it did not require faith, that the known fundamental mathematical equations that govern our universe indicate that other universes exist. He insisted that we are simply following the equations when we posit the existence of the multiverse. I want to know: is this true? 

My understanding of the multiverse is that it was postulated as an explanation for our universe’s improbable existence. The chances of our universe having the exact set of properties that it does, ones that allow life, are exceedingly slim. To make chance a plausible explanation, we posit that there are perhaps an infinite number of universes. At least one universe of the millions is bound to have the set of properties required for life. Ours happens to be it. An illustration I’ve read is as follows: An arrow is randomly fired into a huge forest. The arrow hits Mr. Brown. This is an exceedingly unlikely event. One hypothesis that could explain this event would be to suggest that the forest was full of people (rendering Mr. Brown one among many possible targets). This hypothesis, like the multiverse hypothesis, therefore possesses explanatory value. But without any independent evidence, it necessarily remains speculative and ad hoc. The hypothesis was invoked specifically to render chance a plausible explanation, not because there was any empirical evidence supporting the hypothesis. Critics charge that the multiverse theory is an artificial inflation of one’s probabilistic resources when the known probabilistic resources are deemed insufficient to explain an improbable event. 

So back to my question: is there mathematical “evidence” that other universes exist? I’m not asking if the mathematics suggest or allow the possibility of other universes. This is obvious and uninteresting. We do not need any equations to know that it is possible that other universes exist. I want to know if there is something in the equations that indicates other universes do actually exist, as Mr. Greene suggested.

The Limits of Science: Debating "Denialism"

Last time we saw one problem with having an exaggerated sense of the objectivity and purity of science. Another has to do with how many scientists and non-scientists (mostly self-proclaimed rationalists) deal with people who disagree with them over one theory or another. This view seems to be epitomized by Michael Specter is his book Denialism.

I haven't read the book, and don't plan to, but I read the introduction and I think that was enough to get a flavor of the book. I'll sum it up for you: if you don't love science as much as I do and disagree with scientists on anything than you are obviously stupid and irrational and should be sterilized. And your children should be kidnapped.

Attitudes like this drive me nuts for several reasons. One, scientists themselves disagree about a great many things in science. There are equally "scientific" papers that argue for either the primacy of astronomical causes (e.g. orbital changes) or terrestrial causes (e.g. greenhouse gases) of past climate change. There is disagreement over the composition and source of the early Earth's atmosphere. Or, think about how many times we've heard things like chocolate is good for you, wait it's bad for you, oops now it's good for you again. There is simply no such thing as "science says this about something and that's the end of it." Within the scientific community there exists a myriad of viewpoints, theories, and interpretations of facts relating to just about any scientific topic. To adopt one particular theory and dismiss everyone else as being part of "denialism" seems to be a bit of a stretch.

Secondly, philosophers of science as well as scientists themselves often write about how science will never truly end, about how there is always more to discover, and that this fact is partly why science is so exciting. Nicholas Rescher lays out rigorous philosophical arguments for this idea in his excellent book Nature and Understanding, and this was also the main topic in a recent editorial in the journal Science. Though frequently acknowledged, many people fail to appreciate what this means for any particular scientific theory: it is subject to revision and/or complete reworking.

A brief look at the history of science reveals the same story over and over again. Proponents of one particular theory demonize, ridicule, or ignore their opponents for daring to question established wisdom. Consider Ptolemy's geocentric universe, Wegener's theory of continental drift, or Newton's theory of gravity. Wegener was ridiculed viciously for his "wild" ideas by the geological community, yet now the fact that continents have moved over time has become the new established wisdom. There isn't any reason to think that we are so special as to be immune to this sort of thing. Our scientific theories are also under constant revision and scrutiny. It is ironic that self-proclaimed rationalists end up speaking of particular scientific theories in the same way others might speak of an unquestionable religious dogma.

Dreaming up some perjorative labels for people who disagree with you is not new. Mike Specter just adds "denialism" to the vocabulary of people who want a way to pat themselves on the back for being right while being comforted by the fact that all those other people who disagree with them are so obviously stupid and irrational. It's not that people can't be irrational. They can be, and many people are. But Specter's particular approach to this problem strikes me as profoundly unhelpful, anti-intellectual, and dare I say it, unscientific.

The Limits of Science: when scientists speak

Rich Lewontin, in his book Biology As Ideology, writes that science is "a social institution completely integrated into and influenced by the structure of all our other social institutions." Lewontin is a leading geneticist and is certainly not anti-science. He simply calls for a "reasonable skepticism" when it comes to evaluating scientific claims and theories because scientists, like everyone else, can be influenced by a variety of other factors.

Having an exaggerated view of science's objectivity and purity can lead us to make some mistakes. First, it can lead to an exaggerated belief in the objectivity and purity of scientists. We need to be careful to distinguish between science (i.e. empirical claims) and what scientists say. It is common for scientists to express personal opinions within the pages of science texts, and it is also common for these pronouncements to be seen as "scientific" by the public. For example, in his influential book Sociobiology: The New Synthesis, E.O.Wilson makes sweeping claims about human nature that go far beyond what any empirical biological studies can tell us. One example, described by Lewontin:

     "He [Wilson] says, 'Human beings are absurdly easy to indoctrinate. They seek it...Man would rather believe than know.' That statement is, we must note, found in what is called a scientific work, used as a textbook in courses all over the world, filled with the mathematics of modern population biology, crammed with observations and facts about the behavior of all kinds of animals, based on what Time magazine has called the "iron laws of nature."

For many readers Wilson's statement will be perceived as having the same scientific authority as other claims in the book. Please do not misunderstand my point; I am not commenting on whether this particular claim is true. Rather, I wish to point out that Wilson's claim, though thrown in with the mathematics and science, is not itself supported by that science. It is actually an expression of Wilson's own social and political views.

Another example comes from zoologist (my favorite and yours) Richard Dawkins, who in his book River Out of Eden: A Darwinian View of Life, writes that, "the universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil and no good, nothing but blind pitiless indifference." Really? Which microscope, telescope, or meter stick did he use to discover this? The content of this statement falls almost completely outside the bounds of science. Science may have something to say about design or purpose in the universe, but good, evil, or "pitiless indifference"? No way. This is his particular view and interpretation of the how things are, and we need to be careful to distinguish between someone's scientific work and the opinions of a scientist in areas outside of their own expertise.   

The Limits of Science: is science ever pure?

Philosophers of science have tried for over a century to establish a rigorous, logical foundation for science, one that justifies science as an objective source of knowledge. No obvious solution is forthcoming. Instead, historians and philosophers of science have come to realize that, despite the protests of self-proclaimed rationalists, science is not the ultimate, infallible source of knowledge we might like it to be.

In case some relativists out there are getting too excited, it is equally clear that science is not merely a social construct or a human invention that has no connection to an underlying reality. As mentioned in a previous post, the success of science is indisputable. Someone once said that thanks to modern science, an elementary school student now knows more about the world and the universe than Aristotle did. Science is a not a social construct, but it is a human enterprise that is influenced by everything that affects humans.

Examples of the influence of culture and ideology on science abound. Probably the most famous example is Darwin's particular theory of evolution by natural selection and sexual selection. Darwin's theory of individuals struggling to survive has an undeniable parallel to Victorian ideas about economic competition and societal progress. His ideas about sexual selection also came straight from his cultural view of men and women. Genetecist Rich Lewontin writes, "In reading Darwin's theory, one can see the proper young lady seated on her sofa while the swain on his knees before her begs for her hand, having already told her father how many hundreds a year he has in income."

Another example involves the religious and philosophical views of James Hutton and Charles Lyell. Together they are often regarded as having started the field of geology and are hailed for their "modern" scientific outlook. In fact, their views on the Earth were rooted in beliefs in Deism and an eternal Earth. This led to the formulation of "uniformitarianism," the idea that everything about the Earth (both in the past and now) can be explained by the sorts of slow, everyday processes that we currently see. This idea proved to be helpful in getting scientists to think correctly about many of the formations we see on the Earth (e.g. mountains, river valleys, etc.).

Uniformitarianism, though, being rooted ultimately in ideology also hindered science in some ways and was flat out wrong in others. The obvious problem is that the Earth is not eternal, and in fact has a history. It has not always been the same, and therefore not everything can be explained through the processes we see at work today. The existence of ice ages and the massive glacial erosion they can cause was at first denied by scientists who followed Hutton and Lyell's methodology. They insisted that "catastrophes" had no place in the science of geology. As we now know, unique, catastrophic events have played an important role in the history of the Earth. These include everything from the formation and cooling of the early Earth, to ice ages, to asteroid impacts. These phenomena were initially ruled out because science had been influenced by a preferred ideology.

This is not to say that the influence of ideology is always bad. After all, most scientists consider Darwin to have been right about a great many things and geology no doubt benefited from Hutton's insistence on paying attention to the slow processes happening around us. Acknowledging the influence of culture on science does not mean giving up on science. It simply means that we must pay close attention to be able to distinguish where the empirical claims end and the ideology begins. In other words, to be aware of the limits of science.

The Limits of Science

The success of science is indisputable. One only needs to look at modern medicine and technology for convincing evidence that science works. In the approximately 400 years since the birth of what we might recognize as modern science we have undoubtedly gained considerable knowledge of the natural world and its inner workings. In that time science has become a central part of our culture and, in many ways, has replaced religion as a major source of authority.

Since the Enlightenment there has been a steady trend of secularization in public life. Where once the Church wielded tremendous social and political power to uphold their own dogmas (e.g. the flat earth; just kidding, they actually never said that), some critics allege that the scientific establishment has in some ways taken the Church's place, forming a kind of scientific priesthood.

In fact, one famous proponent of science in the Victorian age and one of the first professional scientists, Thomas Huxley, had exactly that in mind. To Huxley and his supporters, science needed to replace religion as the supreme source of cultural authority. Historian Peter Bowler observes that the great museums of natural history built in Britain and America during the 1800s are rather cathedral-like (see the London museum above), and that this "helped confirm the role that science had usurped as the source of moral authority in the modern world."

Leaving aside the problem of "science" being a source of moral authority, what does this mean for us? One thing it means is that science's dominant position in our culture can cause people to accept pronouncements or conclusions uncritically. No doubt it was common in earlier centuries for people to uncritically accept what religious authorities told them, and we can have the same problem with scientific authorities now. In fact, in some ways it is probably worse today because science has become so specialized that it is sometimes hard for other scientists, nevermind lay people, to make sense of theories and concepts outside of their own fields.

As a former science educator, I am interested in helping people achieve science literacy, part of which includes being able to critically evaluate scientific claims and evidence as well as being aware of the nature and history of science. Over the next few weeks I intend to write further on these topics because while science is clearly an important source of knowledge, science (and especially scientists) are hardly infallible. Let's not accord to scientific theories the same blind faith and adherence to dogma that rationalists are so quick to criticize in our religious forebears.

Science and Culture, or, who needs kingdoms and phyla anyway?

I recently finished reading The Earth Encompassed, a history of the environmental sciences by Peter Bowler. A major theme in the book is to show how all sorts of things can influence the development of scientific knowledge. Commonly viewed as having a lofty epistemic status and often claimed to be the sole source of objective knowledge, science is in fact strongly influenced by culture, political ideologies, religious ideologies, and even geography.

I plan on posting more on these topics later, but I'll start with an interesting discovery made by philosopher Michel Foucault while he was looking through an ancient Chinese encyclopedia. While discussing the history of classification (i.e., the different ways that different cultures have categorized parts of the natural world), Bowler relates the story of how Foucault became interested in questions of language and representation in the first place.

We are probably all reasonably familiar with the Western approach to taxonomy in which we divide plants and animals primarily according to their physical characteristics (kingdoms, phyla, genus, species, etc.). As Foucault discovered, however, the ancient Chinese apparently had a very different approach to classification which resulted in placing animals in the following categories: a) belonging to the Emperor, b) embalmed, c) tame, d) sucking pigs, e) sirens, f) fabulous, g) stray dogs, h) included in the present classification, i) frenzied, j) innumerable, k) drawn with a very fine camel hair brush, l) et cetera, m) having just broken the water pitcher, n) that from a long way off look like flies.

Anyone have a good mnemonic to help memorize that?

Evolution to the rescue: why old men can't dance

Evolutionary psychology is an attempt to explain human behavior in terms of the evolution of our ancestors. While I do not doubt that who our ancestors were and what they did influence us today, I find many of the "findings" of evolutionary psychology to be hilarious. For example, see this explanation of why men go bald or this essay for a hilarious skewering of some of the claims of evolutionary psychology.

The latest example I, truthfully, had a hard time believing. I mentally double-checked that it wasn't April 1st. But, no, it's real. A psychologist now has an answer for one of the larger questions in life: why do old men dance so poorly at weddings? See his answer here.

Thankfully there seem to be a growing number of people who are properly skeptical of such claims.

Whose animals are more awesome? America's or Europe's?

I'm finally finishing Bill Bryson's A Short History of Nearly Everything (I started it a few years ago and for some reason stopped) and I am enjoying it very much. Intertwined in his popular tour of the history of science are interesting and sometimes hilarious anecdotes about the scientists under discussion.

During a discussion of the awkward rise of paleontology, Bryson writes about a surprising dispute between Europeans and Americans over the impressiveness of each continent's natural fauna. The great French naturalist Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon, writing about America, said that the animals and Native Americans were inferior in every way to those of Europe. According to Leclerc, North America was a country of stagnant water, sunless forests, and rotten swamps where the animals and even the Native Americans "lacked virility." "They have no beard or body hair, and no ardor for the female," and their reproductive organs were "small and feeble." Other Europeans joined in the attack, one writing that Native American males were so feminine that they had "milk in their breasts."

Thomas Jefferson was furious with this description and sent a general and some soldiers into New Hampshire to capture a bull moose to send to Leclerc as, in Bryson's words, "proof of the stature and majesty of American quadrupeds." Unfortunately, the moose they brought back didn't have horns big enough for Jefferson's liking, but the general had also included a large rack of antlers from an elk for Jefferson to attach if he would like. Apparently they figured no one in France would know the difference anyway.

At around the same time, other Americans were unearthing "the great American incognitum," a huge creature that would only later be identified as a mastodon (oddly, a Frenchman named Cuvier would be the first to formally describe and name it; even more oddly, mastodon means "nipple-teeth"). I'll let Bryson tell the story:

"In their keenness to demonstrate the incognitum's bulk and ferocity, the American naturalists appear to have become slightly carried away. They overestimated its size by a factor of six and gave it frightening claws, which in fact came from a Megalonyx, or giant ground sloth, found nearby. Rather remarkably, they persuaded themselves that the animal had enjoyed "the agility and ferocity of the tiger," and portrayed it in illustrations as pouncing with feline grace onto prey from boulders. When tusks were discovered, they were forced into the animal's head in any number of inventive ways. One restorer screwed the tusks in upside down, like the fangs of a saber-toothed cat, which gave it a satisfyingly aggressive aspect. Another arranged the tusks so that they curved backwards on the engaging theory that the creature had been aquatic and had used them to anchor itself to trees while dozing."

Unfortunately, Leclerc was not impressed. He insisted that the most telling feature of this animal is that it was extinct, "proof of its incontestably degenerate nature."

Galileo's Trial: a battle between science and religion?

Post #4

Galileo’s Trial

Seven years later Galileo’s old friend and admirer Cardinal Barberini became Pope Urban VIII. Urban VIII and his leading academic officials thought very highly of Galileo’s books, and promptly invited Galileo to come visit. During the visit Galileo brought up the idea of his being able to continue writing about cosmology and the question of Copernicanism. Urban VIII, having studied astronomy himself, appreciated the mathematical prowess of Copernicus. Urban did not think Copernicus’ theory to be true, but considered it a useful contribution to astronomy nonetheless. He told Galileo he could resume his writing, provided that he treated Copernicus’ theory as an unproven hypothesis (which, we must remember, it was).

Galileo immediately set to work revising parts of old manuscripts to create a new book on the arrangement of the universe. He wrote the book as a dialogue between three men in which they discuss the merits of the Ptolemaic and Copernican systems. Framing the content in this way, Galileo hoped the discussion could stay at the needed theoretical level, avoiding any direct claims of the truth of Copernicus’ theory. Galileo worked on this book for many years, during which Pope Urban VIII decided to grant Galileo a yearly pension from the Church, merely for being such a valued intellect.

When the book was finally finished in 1630, Galileo sought permission to publish the book and submitted it to the relevant church authorities. It passed inspection with only a few minor changes needed, but due to the plague and other complications the book did not end up being published for another two years. When it was finally published, it became an instant success, selling out wherever it was printed. Cardinals, bishops, and Jesuit academics from all over wrote to Galileo of their praise and awe for his masterpiece, The Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems.

Unfortunately for Galileo, the publication of the Dialogue would also result in a trial in front of the Inquisition and being sentenced to house arrest for the rest of his life. Historians suggest that things would have been very different had Galileo or Copernicus lived one hundred years earlier or later. As it happened, several factors came together in precisely the wrong way for Galileo.

First, it was clear to readers of Galileo’s Dialogue who the victor was in the conversations and arguments concerning geo- and heliocentrism. The person arguing for geocentrism was named Simplicio and was clearly on the losing end of the argument. Galileo’s enemies within the church suggested to the Pope that Galileo was mocking the Church and him personally. While it is doubtful that this was the case (plenty of Church academics greatly enjoyed the book), these insinuations came to Pope Urban VIII at exactly the wrong time.

Urban VIII was a different person than he had been at the beginning of his office. He had made many political enemies around Europe, was involved in several wars, and feared attacks from Spanish assassins, among other concerns. Urban VIII also faced harsh criticism from Rome itself, accusing him of not taking a strong enough stance in defending the Catholic faith in the international arena. His paranoia and concern for his image resulted in determined anger and outrage, “especially if one is opposing, threatening, or defying him,” wrote a friend of Galileo’s who was close to the Pope. When Urban VIII heard remarks “insisting Galileo had played him for a fool by allowing Simplicio to espouse Urban’s philosophy,” he ordered an investigation into Galileo’s most recent work. The three person team told Urban VIII that, in their opinion, Galileo’s work was in fact an argument for the truth of Copernicanism. Urban was furious and summoned Galileo to stand trial before the Inquisition.

Galileo, almost 70 years old at this point, dutifully travelled to Rome to stand trial in 1633. Despite the portrayal of Galileo’s trial one sees in paintings, he stood before only two officials and a secretary. A full record of the transcript still exists (one can find them reproduced in Dava Sobel’s excellent Galileo’s Daughter), and the text is largely concerned not with “science” versus “religion” but with whether Galileo violated the earlier command from 1616 to not teach or write about Copernicanism except as a hypothesis.

But there was a problem: the official records of the Church concerning the incident in 1616 used stronger language then what Galileo had understood from Bellarmino. Galileo was under the impression that he was not to teach or write about Copernicanism as if it were literally true; according to the official records, he had been told not to teach or write about it at all. This came as a surprise to Galileo (and to Urban himself), and is still something of a mystery for historians today. It is possible that Galileo misremembered the original event, or that there was a miscommunication between the Inquisition and Bellarmino about the verbal injunction that had been served to Galileo (some have suggested that the Inquisition forged the document, but contemporary historians consider this unlikely). In any event, the Inquisition considered their own official records to take precedence over Galileo’s memory and letter from Bellarmino and found Galileo “vehemently suspected of heresy” and condemned to “formal imprisonment.” His Dialogue was also added to the Index of Prohibited Books, where it remained until 1835.

Later accounts would say that Galileo was jailed and even tortured, but in fact, after being forced to renounce his belief in Copernicanism, he was “imprisoned” in a sympathetic Cardinal’s palace for 5 months, and then allowed to return home to his villa near Florence. He lived out the rest of his life there, under what we would now call house arrest, with limited visitors and even more limited mobility for Galileo himself. He was crushed by the verdict and sentence, but, in a testament to his resilience, still produced and published (outside of Rome) what is probably his most important book, Discourses and Mathematical Demonstrations Relating to Two New Sciences. This book is considered foundational to modern physics and set the stage for the great scientists of the Enlightenment. Galileo died in 1642 at home, one of the most important intellectuals in history and a figure that still dominates discussion of science and religion today.

Conclusion

While this episode is unquestionably and unequivocally an embarrassment for the Catholic Church, it is also just as clearly not a simple case of science and religion coming into conflict. As we have seen, geocentrism was entrenched in the academy as well as within the Church and there was no clear evidence at the time to support heliocentrism over geocentrism. The main issues seemed to be Church politics (e.g. the Counter-Reformation) and scriptural interpretation rather than scientific progress. The Church was essentially acting as a political body, concerned with its own authority and power. We also must remember that Church is hardly alone historically in initially resisting new ideas. In addition, Galileo did have plenty of supporters within the church, including high ranking Cardinals, priests, and Church academics who clearly saw no conflict between religious faith and scientific discovery. Galileo himself was a devout Catholic who, along with almost every other major scientist in history, including Newton, Copernicus, Kepler, Pascal, Boyle, and Linnaeus, to name a few, saw the universe as being the handiwork of God and saw no conflict between their faith and scientific discovery (indeed, scientists like Kepler saw their scientific work as part of their worship and praise for God and his creation).

It is simply not the case that “religion” has any in-principal conflict with “science.” Have religious claims and scientific claims at times clashed? Absolutely. Have political/religious institutions hampered the publication of scientific work? Yes, they have. Is this the whole story? Not even close. The interactions of science and religion are many and complex, but one thing is for sure: the simplistic “warfare thesis” we have inherited from Huxley, Draper, and White must be discarded. Using their writings and revisionist history, one could argue that science and history are in conflict…


Previous Posts in the Series: Post #1, Post #2, Post #3

For further reading:

Science & Religion, edited by Gary B. Ferngren, John Hopkins University Press, 2002

Galileo’s Daughter, by Dava Sobel, Penguin Books, 2000

Making Modern Science: a historical survey, Bowler & Morus, University of Chicago Press, 2005

Galileo's Trial: a battle between science and religion?

Post #3

So we have seen in posts one and two some corrections to a few common myths surrounding the Copernican Revolution. Geocentrism, for example, was not a Christian idea but a Greek one adopted by the church. Also, the contrast between geocentrism and heliocentrism, which was proposed by Copernicus, a devout Catholic, cannot be seen as a contrast between science and religion because Copernicus did not have any scientific evidence for his views.

Now we come to the main event: the trial of Galileo. This episode has come to symbolize the conflict between science and religion, specifically between the Christian church and Western science. My intent in this post is not to defend the medieval Christian church or its behavior. There are dark spots in the church’s history, and I have no interest in pretending otherwise. Rather, I intend to show what contemporary historians have discovered upon a closer look at the trial of Galileo: that it was a complicated affair that cannot be reduced to a battle between science and religion.

Galileo

Galileo Galilei was an Italian philosopher and mathematician who was born in 1564 and passed away in 1642 at the age of 78. A full history of his life and interactions with the church is impossible in a blog post, but I wish to focus on a few important points.

First, Galileo was a brilliant philosopher and scientist, as well as a devout Catholic. He is rightly regarded as the father of experimental science, being among the first to insist on empirical work in scientific investigation rather than reasoning from first principles as was standard in universities at the time. Galileo’s brilliance and willingness to question accepted wisdom brought him both international acclaim and some enemies in the academic and religious establishments.

Galileo first garnered international acclaim through the publication, in 1610, of his book The Starry Messenger, which contained the newfound astronomical knowledge he gained through use of telescopes he designed himself. This new knowledge included the discovery of the four moons around Jupiter, new stars, and the fact that our Moon had craters and valleys. This last bit was interesting because within Aristotelian natural philosophy, then dominant, everything in the heavens was perfectly spherical and smooth. Galileo did not hesitate to proclaim these new discoveries, but some devoted Aristotelian academics refused to acknowledge his work (some even claimed that the images seen in Galileo’s telescopes were illusions or tricks).

Contrary to the impression one might get from the standard story, Galileo gathered many friends and admirers within the church. He was befriended by Father Clavius, a leading Jesuit astronomer and the chief mathematician of the Collego Romano, a church institution which endorsed Galileo’s work and joined him in studying the heavens. Even Pope Paul V and Cardinal Barberini (the future pope Urban VIII) became fans, and Barberini a personal friend, saying to Galileo, “I pray the Lord God to preserve you, because men of great value like you deserve to live a long time to the benefit of the public.”

It is worth noting here that there were many university academics who objected to Galileo’s work and many within the church who embraced it. There is more to the story here, but in short Galileo’s disregard for academic tradition (i.e. Aristotelianism) earned him some enemies within the academy and, eventually, in the church as well.

Science and Scripture

Copernicus’ book which proposed the heliocentric (sun-centered) theory, De Revolutionibus, had been published in 1543, some 60 years before Galileo’s Starry Messenger. The heliocentric theory had never caused an uproar; many academics and theologians thought it interesting, a few embraced it as literally true, and others ignored it. Part of the reason for this was that at the time mathematics and astronomy were considered to be concerned with “appearances.” For example, as long as an astronomical theory could, say, accurately predict the motions of stars and be useful to navigators, it did not matter whether the theory was physically true. Part of Galileo’s legacy would be to elevate mathematics and astronomy out of the realm of “appearances” and into natural philosophy proper. This change, however, was difficult for his contemporaries to accept.

Galileo had embraced the heliocentric theory by at least 1597, but it was after he became famous in 1610 that his views on the matter became more widely known. In both public dialogue and a few published letters, Galileo made clear his preference for Copernicus’ heliocentric theory over Ptolemy’s geocentric one. This became one point among many for sharp disagreement between Galileo and other prominent university academics. Galileo appears to have had a gift for making enemies, for he applied his brilliance not only to academic topics but also to decimating and humiliating those who publicly disagreed with him. Within the church, also, there began to emerge some people who thought Galileo to be a problem, a mathematician encroaching too far into the domain of the philosophers. A priest friend alerted Galileo that a “certain crowd…put their heads together in a mad quest for any means by which they could damage you.” For those within the church who disliked Galileo, his heliocentric leanings provided a good target for them to attack.

As we have seen, geocentrism was the dominant cosmology and had been for centuries. While there were exceptions, most people at this time thought that both natural philosophy (science) and scripture supported an earth-centered universe. Scriptural passages such as Psalm 19:4-6 and Joshua 10:12, where Joshua commands the Sun to hold still, were seen to support a stationary Earth. This idea, that Holy Scripture supports the Ptolemaic geocentric universe, would prove to be central in the trial of Galileo.

The Catholic Church at this time was recovering from the sudden loss of power and authority caused by the Protestant Reformation, which began in 1517. In 1545 the Council of Trent had declared, among other things, that only popes and bishops were allowed to interpret Scripture. Galileo’s enemies, then, could cast his espousing the heliocentric theory as being against Holy Scripture. They did exactly that, and attracted the attention of the Pope, who ordered Cardinal Bellarmino, an important Jesuit intellectual, to look into whether Copernicanism might be heretical. Bellarmino was an admirer of Galileo’s work, but was skeptical of heliocentrism and believed that it did contradict scripture. The Catholic Church had a long history of distinguishing between literal and figurative language in the Bible, but, due to the Reformation and the Council of Trent, Bellarmino was obliged to defend the current interpretation of the church fathers. The Catholic Church was in an extraordinarily defensive frame of mind, and in the words of historian Richard Blackwell, “[I]t was in no mood to adopt a new and revolutionary model of the heavens.”

This was especially true since neither Copernicus nor Galileo had offered clear evidence for their views. Galileo went to Rome to argue his case, but his main piece of evidence was an erroneous theory of his about the cause of the tides. His other astronomical observations cast doubt on some of Aristotle’s claims about the heavens (e.g. their immutability) but failed to comment on the truth of the heliocentric versus geocentric theories. Since both natural philosophy and scripture appeared to support geocentrism, Bellarmino sided with tradition, seeing no good reason to do otherwise. In March of 1616 a formal proclamation was issued, declaring the Copernican position to be “false and contrary to Holy Scripture” and De Revolutionibus was ordered to have a few passages “corrected.” Bellarmino had a private meeting with Galileo to give him a warning to only treat Copernicanism as a hypothesis, but did not put any restrictions on his published works.

Gossip and rumors spread by Galileo’s enemies suggested that Galileo had been denounced and forced to repent, but Cardinal Bellarmino wrote a public letter declaring otherwise, and the Pope even met with Galileo to assure him that he had their full support against his slanderers. Even so, Galileo took the warning seriously (as the Church had meant it seriously) and was quiet for many years in his public affairs concerning the arrangement of the universe.

Next Post: Galileo's Trial

Galileo's Trial: a battle between science and religion?

Post #2

The Copernican Revolution

In the first post in this series, we covered the standard story of the Galileo Affair and discussed one of its flaws. In this second post we will look at a few more.

In 1543 a specialist in Catholic law who dabbled in astronomy on the side published a book called De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium (On the Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres). Nicolas Copernicus had been working on his book for several decades, and in it he laid out a new cosmology. The standard cosmology, as we have seen, was geocentric or earth-centered. Copernicus departed from this and instead proposed a sun-centered (or heliocentric) universe where the planets revolved around the sun. Though it was slow to start, the publication of De Revolutionibus would lead to a paradigm shift in cosmology known as the Copernican Revolution.

In the standard story, it is common for the Copernican Revolution to be cast as a battle between science and the Church or between reason and dogma. Copernicus was the brave rational soul who dared to defy those stuffy Christians and their religious dogma.

In fact, as we have already noted, Copernicus himself was a Catholic who specialized in canon law. The very source of the Copernican Revolution was a Christian who believed the universe was the handiwork of God. Copernicus also appears to have had some strong Neo-Platonic sensibilities. He had an almost mystical reverence for the Sun, and his motivation for proposing the heliocentric theory appears to have largely been due to his philosophical preference for simplicity and mathematical harmony. Ptolemy’s geocentric theory, while elegant, was extremely complicated. A common myth is that as time had elapsed since Ptolemy’s day astronomers had needed to add more and more epicycles (a feature of his model) in order to make sure Ptolemy’s model matched up with astronomical observations. The myth continues that Copernicus, realizing the evidentiary problems with the Ptolemaic model, took the needed theoretical leap to a new model. In fact, no new epicycles had been added, as Ptolemy’s theory was not easily modified. Indeed, Copernicus actually did not have any evidence, astronomical or otherwise, to support his model over Ptolemy’s. The heliocentric model, as proposed by Copernicus, was not any more accurate than Ptolemy’s (a testament to Ptolemy’s genius). Instead, it satisfied Copernicus’ devotion to mathematical harmony.

Copernicus’ theory did not stem from scientific observations but from his philosophical (and even mystical) preferences. We have already seen that geocentrism was not a product of religious dogma, but of Greek philosophy. Therefore the idea that the Copernican Revolution was a story of reason versus dogma or science versus religion is false.

But did Copernicus have to battle the Christian Church? Let us look at how the Church responded to these ideas.

First, we need to realize that there was no monolithic Christian response. It was certainly not the case that Christians in general rejected Copernicus’ ideas. In fact, several bishops of the Catholic church had written to Copernicus to encourage him to publish his work (this is before De Revolutionibus was published), thinking he would make a valuable contribution to astronomy. On the Protestant side, Lutheran scholars were responsible for finally convincing Copernicus to publish his book, helping him to do so. Afterward, Lutheran universities became the central institutions teaching heliocentrism.

Copernicus himself died within a few weeks of his book being published, and contrary to what one sometimes reads, was never persecuted by anyone. The initial response overall was rather muted, with many scholars, both Catholic and Protestant, thinking that the heliocentric theory was interesting but not clearly superior to Ptolemy’s model. A few key thinkers, Kepler and Galileo among them, did embrace the heliocentric theory wholeheartedly, eventually leading the latter into conflict with the Catholic Church.

It would be almost one hundred years, though, from the publication of Copernicus’ book in 1543 before the Catholic Church would add De Revolutionibus to its index of prohibited books. At first, some thinkers within the Church embraced the book’s ideas and others ignored it, but some within the Church began to build a resistance to the heliocentric theory that would culminate with the trial of Galileo. This is a complicated episode in the history of science which we will attend to in later posts. To close this post, though, let us compare how new theories have usually been received throughout the history of science. A major component of the standard story is the suggestion that religious belief is an especially potent force against new scientific theories. No doubt religious belief did play some role in the Church’s official rejection of heliocentrism (more on this later), but just how well do new theories usually do?

In 1915 Alfred Wegener proposed his new theory of continental drift. Did the scientific community welcome him and his new knowledge? Wegener was ridiculed (viciously) by the geological community, despite having some notable evidence for his views. As we have seen, Copernicus didn’t have any new evidence. Wegener’s theory was only accepted some 20 years after he died. This was in the 20th century and did not involve the church.

Einstein’s work on special relativity was largely ignored for several years. It was only when Max Planck, a giant in the field, started paying attention to Einstein’s papers that his theory got any traction. The theory was revolutionary, and therefore a tough sell for most scientists.

The big bang theory, now the standard model, was rejected or ignored for decades by the scientific community (in fact, some of the more zealous secular astronomers rejected it as being religiously motivated, but that is a story for another post).

Alexander Fleming made advances in proper medical treatment of deep wounds having to do with a correct understanding of the role of bacteria. The scientific medical community rejected his work, and many World War I soldiers died needlessly.

Thomas Kuhn’s work on paradigm shifts within science is well known. A dominant paradigm in science is difficult to overturn. A prominent scientist (I cannot recall who) was once asked how it is that new theories become accepted. The answer was something along the lines of: the old scientists die out and the new ones grow up to be more accepting of it.

Rejecting or resisting new theories is clearly not unique to the church.

Next post: Galileo’s Trial

Galileo's Trial: a battle between science and religion?

Post #1

The Standard Story

One of the most famous episodes in the history of science and religion is the Copernican Revolution, which began with the publication of Copernicus’s book in 1543 and culminated with the trial and conviction of Galileo in 1633. It did not end there, but that is as far as we will go in this series.

The standard story goes something like this: medieval Church doctrine held that the Earth was at the center of the universe, as it should be, since this is the most privileged location in the universe and Earth, being the home to mankind, is the most important planet. Copernicus and other scientists like Bruno and Galileo challenged this doctrine with scientific evidence showing that in fact the Sun was in the center. The Church, furious that scientific progress was being made (progress which challenged its own doctrines), persecuted these brave souls who dared give voice to reason and evidence. In short, this episode is an archetypal example of the conflict between science and religion.

I cannot recall how many PBS or Nova TV specials have been aired on the trial of Galileo, pitting Galileo the brave scientist against the oppressive anti-science Church. This version of the story is simply assumed by a great many people. For example, in an article for Slate magazine, Nathan Myhrvold wrote:

“Ptolemy (second century) was the first and boldest in a long succession of spin doctors for the primacy of human beings. The whole universe, he postulated, rotated around us, with the Earth sitting at the center of heaven itself. Any marketing consultant will tell you that positioning is everything, and center-of-the-universe is hard to beat. A Polish astronomer named Copernicus (1473-1543) rudely pointed out: Sorry earthlings, we spin around the sun, not vice versa…Bruno's crime, like Galileo's, was to undermine the uniqueness of our planet, and by doing so, to threaten the intellectual security of the religious dictatorships of his time. People get cranky when you burst their bubble. Over time, advances in astronomy have relentlessly reinforced the utter insignificance of Earth on a celestial scale. Fortunately, political and religious leaders stopped barbecuing astronomers for saying so…”

Slate magazine, a well-respected publication, is part of the Washington Post and has associations with National Public Radio. The standard story, however, as well as Mr. Myhrvold’s particular version of it, contains serious historical errors. Historian Richard J. Blackwell writes, “An oversimplified and false view is that Galileo became a martyr of science because of the Roman Catholic Church’s opposition to science, but it is now commonly agreed that the facts are quite otherwise.”

This will be the first in a series of posts intended to correct this common, but false, view of the Copernican Revolution.

Geocentrism and Greek Philosophy

The first myth we will tackle is the idea that geocentrism (the belief that Earth was at the center of the universe and everything revolved around it) was a Christian doctrine that entailed believing the Earth was special. In fact, geocentrism was an idea from Greek philosophy, not the Church. The Greeks devoted a lot of time to pondering the nature and structure of the universe, or cosmology. The geocentric theory was developed according to reason, evidence, and philosophical principles, not religious dogma or a special view of humanity. The geocentric model of the universe inherited by the medieval Church was the culmination of careful Greek thought, with Aristotle supplying the metaphysics and Ptolemy the mathematics. Ptolemy’s geocentric model was a masterpiece that matched up very well with astronomical observations. This model was adopted by Church scholars as well as by practically all the natural philosophers (i.e. scientists) of the time.

The geocentric view did not entail thinking the Earth was special. When Mr. Myhrvold, quoted above, asserted that the Earth was thought to be “at the center of heaven itself,” he could not have been more wrong (though at least he acknowledged the Greek origins of geocentrism). Within Aristotelian cosmology, Earth was thought of as corrupt and base, while the heavens were perfect and, well, heavenly. A more accurate description of Earth’s status at the time is that it was seen as the garbage dump at the bottom of the universe. Things were thought to fall to Earth because they were “heavy” and corrupt, and the Earth was the designated place for such unworthy things to fall. Indeed, Galileo saw his own work as elevating the status of Earth, not demoting it, writing:

“For I will prove that the earth does have motion, that it surpasses the moon in brightness, and that it is not the sump where the universe’s filth and ephemera collect.”

Next post: The Copernican Revolution

Climate Change News: everyone has an agenda

A recent admission by the IPCC that part of their 2007 report on climate change was false has been getting, rightly, a lot of attention. The International Panel on Climate Change said in their report that the mountain glaciers in Himayalas could melt by 2035, an exaggerated claim without a scientific basis. Actual scientific estimates (e.g. Ren et al. (2007) in the Journal of Applied Meteorology) are that around 67% of the glaciers are shrinking and have the potential to disappear by 2100. Other glaciers are actually growing. The IPCC statement on these glaciers was apparently politically motivated.

Perhaps some people are shocked that the IPCC would include a false report to support an agenda. But why should we be shocked? It perhaps seems more clear that conservatives that reject climate science do so because of a particular political agenda, but, frankly, it's a bit silly to assume that other political groups do not also have a political agenda to pursue. As I read dozens of peer-reviewed climate change articles last spring, it became clear to me that Al Gore's pop-science presentation of global warming had quite a few flaws, perhaps born out of his desire to motivate people to change, or perhaps for more self-serving purposes. Either way, we should not be surprised when political parties end up distorting an issue in order to further their own ends.

All of this, to me, highlights a basic need when it comes to presenting climate change science to the public: nuance. This is something I try to achieve in my own treatment of climate change in the classroom. Response to news like this is predictable from both sides of the political spectrum: conservatives see it as reason to believe that all climate change science is fake while others wave it away as an error that somehow sneaked through. Is anyone else as tired of this as I am? We seem to have an unreasonable aversion to nuance. Climate change education should simply an honest look at what we know (and what we don't know). The evidence for anthropogenic global warming is strong; carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas and will undoubtedly warm the planet. However, the "alarmist" spin on climate change is also scientifically inaccurate; the Earth has been much warmer and has experienced more dramatic climate change in the past than it is now. By ignoring genuine uncertainties in the science and by exaggerating the immediacy of the threat, we open ourselves up to corrections by total skeptics, who then gain ammunition for their dismissal of anthropogenic warming. If we could just stick to being accurate in the first place, if we were the ones who openly admitted where the largest uncertainties are, if we could discuss the negative impacts of climate change without pretending that the Earth may not survive, it seems to me that there would be less room for disagreement in the first place.

Perhaps then we could stop pretending that only our political opponents have an agenda, partisan rhetoric could be replaced by (gasp) science, and we could reach a consensus about steps to take to curb our influence on our planet's climate.

Augustine and Astrology

As we’ve covered earlier, Christianity often gets a bad rap for its supposed detrimental effects on scientific work, particularly during the medieval period. Many contemporary thinkers similarly dismiss astrology and alchemy as worthless nonsense despite the fact that historians of science, such as David Lindberg, have shown that modern astronomy and chemistry would likely not exist (or would be very different) without these medieval precursors.

Astrology throughout the Middle Ages was not simply the horoscope and zodiac obsessed practice that we know today. It was a branch of natural philosophy dealing with the physical influence of the cosmos on the earth. Casting horoscopes, etc., was a part of astrology, but a contentious one. Many medieval thinkers criticized this part of astrology while accepting the idea that celestial events have an influence on earthly ones. And they had good reasons for doing so. For example, it was clear that the sun had a profound influence on the earth, bringing heat and light and causing the seasons. The moon also had a clear influence by causing the tides. Several Greek intellectual traditions considered the investigation of the connections between the heavens and the earth as a legitimate and rational enterprise. Interest in astrology was also in many cases the primary motivation for the expansion of astronomical knowledge. Astrology played an important role in the development of modern astronomy and was not entirely wrong in its descriptions of the causal influence of the heavens on the earth.

Also, it turns out that long before modern secularists dismissed astrology as a pseudoscience, the Christian church was its major critic. Some of the common tenets of astrology included the idea that celestial bodies were divine and could influence or determine the fate of human beings on earth. The church objected to both of these doctrines, asserting that humans have free-will and that celestial bodies were not gods that could determine events on earth. St. Augustine was the most influential of these critics, writing against “vulgar astrology” and condemning its practitioners as frauds and imposters. He did not deny that celestial bodies had some influence, but rejected the determinism inherent in astrological predictions concerning fate. Augustine's influence freed later church writers to be similarly critical of the claims of astrologers; it was common for the church to denounce them as charlatans. In short, we find the early and late medieval Christian church cutting astrology down to pretty much the same size a modern scientist would: acknowledging that celestial events have a physical influence on the earth while denying the divinity of stars and planets and their ability to determine the fate of human beings.

The Big Bang Theory and Christianity

In my astronomy class we will be discussing the origin of the universe soon; this of course includes discussion of the currently accepted theory of cosmological origins, the big bang theory. Just in mentioning some upcoming topics, I've already had one student (a Christian) raise her hand and protest. I cringe when this sort of thing happens, for two reasons. One, I don't believe Christians should be in the business of not allowing the current theories to be taught, and Two, Christians are often very misinformed about the big bang theory.

Christians often associate the big bang theory with an atheistic explanation of the universe (atheistic in the sense that the explanation does not require invoking a creator; the universe, in other words, has a naturalistic explanation). In fact, one of the big bang theory's original formulators and proponents was a Belgian priest by the name of George Lemaitre. While he based his theory on science, not his religious beliefs, there was a clear consistency between the traditional Christian view of the origin of the universe and the big bang theory. The establishment view of the time was a static, eternal universe; this preference can be traced back to the Greeks and was often considered the more appropriate, secular way of viewing the universe. Several decades after Lemaitre's initial proposal, some other astronomers had gathered some observational and mathematical support for the big bang theory. While the evidence was not conclusive, it certainly was worth paying attention to. However, this scientific work was largely ignored and ridiculed by the scientific establishment. Some scientists ridiculed the big bang as being a thinly disguised attempt to bring religion into the fold by characterizing God's initial creation event in scientific terms. The Pope also noticed the congruence between Christianity's creation event and the big bang, formally declaring that science had vindicated Christianity's long standing belief that the universe had a beginning. This of course further enraged the more zealous of the secular astronomers and probably further delayed acceptance of the theory.

So, in contrast to what people often seem to believe, the big bang theory actually can quite easily be seen to support (or at least be compatible with) the initial creation event of Christianity. In fact, there is more tension between an atheistic worldview and the big bang than there is between Christianity and the big bang (a side note: I do not consider it wise for Christianity to ally itself too closely with any specific theory). After all, an eternal universe does not require a starting point, and therefore, no creator. The big bang theory posits that the universe itself (including space, time, and all known laws of physics) originated during this singular event. The implication is that something outside of space, time, and the known laws of physics must be responsible for the initiation of this event. This has not gone unnoticed by secular astronomers, hence the efforts by scientists such as Stephen Hawking to escape the conclusions of their own work by mathematically wriggling their way out of a universe with a beginning (Hawking uses imaginary time to circumvent an actual beginning, preferring instead a self-contained universe with no possibility of a creator).

To sum up, Christians need not fear the big bang theory (or embrace it too closely). Rather, we can observe the shared characteristics that it has with Christian beliefs and watch where the science leads.

Ideology and Science

President Obama today announced his lifting of the ban on stem cell research imposed by the Bush administration. During the announcement he said that ideology had been allowed to win out over science and that he was fixing that by letting the science guide decisions instead of ideology. This is nonsense. Now, I am not here arguing one way or the other about whether or not the ban should be in place. Rather, I want to point something out: namely, that science cannot say anything. People say things. When Obama says he doesn't think that ideology should guide policy, what he means to say is that the wrong ideology should not guide policy. For example, it would undoubtedly help further scientific research to begin experiments on human beings. Perhaps we could use prisoners, or the homeless. We could make great advances by inflicting them with certain ailments and diseases and then carefully monitoring and studying them (indeed, this happened not too long ago, with doctors inflicting STD's on African-Americans). "Science" cannot tell us not to do this. Only ideology (in the form of moral principles) can tell us not to do this. Therefore Obama's claim to be liberating science from ideology is nonsense; what he really means is that his ideology is the better one.

Global Warming #4: More problems

While researching climate change I have discovered a host of new facts and observations. I have yet to synthesize it into something coherent, so most of it will have to wait. I will note a few interesting things though and then close with comments on science and policy.

Those of you who have seen Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth (or turned on the TV or surfed the web) will likely have heard about two of global warming effects: increased hurricane activity and the drowning of polar bears. It turns out that while there is some truth in these claims, the reality is quite complicated.

Hurricanes are powered by warm ocean surface waters evaporating and then condensing, releasing latent heat. The warmer the water, the more evaporation, and therefore the more heat released to power the storm. As sea surface temperatures rise then, so should the number and intensity of hurricanes. Al Gore quite bluntly lays the blame for hurricane Katrina at the feet of global warming. Climatologists, however, point out that it is impossible to pin a local, specific event like Katrina as being caused by global warming. While it is true that some theoretical studies have linked rising water temperatures will increased hurricane activity, the observations are that the number of hurricanes have in fact not increased at all. What has increased is the relative number of intense (category 4 or 5) hurricanes. There has been some controversy over this claim, however, as our reliable records only go back around 30 years. In other words, how can we be confident that the number of intense storms has gone up when we don't have a reliable long term record to compare it to? In addition, several studies have shown that as the planet warms, wind shear over the Atlantic and East Pacific will increase. This atmospheric phenomenon prevents hurricanes from forming at all. Yet other studies have shown that this increased wind shear will result in less hurricanes making landfall in the U.S. So, the jury is certainly still out on exactly how global warming will affect hurricane activity.

As for polar bears, I have discovered that populations are indeed on the decline (down 20% or so in the last 30 years). While this is probably influenced by climate change and the decline of arctic sea ice, it is not yet true that we have found drowning polar bears because of a lack of sea ice. The study that seems to have sparked all the media interest (and led Al Gore in his movie to show a CGI clip of a polar swimming in an endless ocean searching for ice) is one where four polar bears drowned due to a fierce storm off the coast of Alaska. Not global warming; an intense storm. While it is hypothesized that the bears may have been swimming longer than usual due to less ice, Al Gore's portrayal hardly seems appropriate. This seems to be another example of misleading information around what will likely be a real issue. If global warming continues, polar bears will have to adapt or perish. It is disappointing though that the facts were twisted to support an agenda.

OK, so in this and the last three posts it will hopefully have become clear that much of the science surrounding past and current climate change is both complicated and tentative. So what should we do? There are those who advocate doing nothing in the interest of preserving our economy, and those who advocate radical change. For myself, the uncertainty of the science can be separated from policy decisions. Why? Consider our current source of energy, fossil fuels. These fuels formed during the Carboniferous period 300 million years ago. The processes that formed all of the coal and oil is slow, somewhat mysterious, and only seems to occur under certain conditions. This is why coal and oil are considered non-renewable resources. World population will likely hit 9 billion in the near future. Developing economies, like China's, are increasing consumption of fossil fuels at tremendous rates. Besides the fact that fossil fuel emissions are probably contributing to climate change, there is another perfectly good reason to develop alternative sources of energy: we are going to run out of fossil fuels (in as little as 30 years by some estimates).

You may have heard of Pascal's wager, a philosophical oddity that suggests that it is a better logical bet to believe in God than not to believe in God. After all, if you believe in God and you're wrong, nothing really happens to you when you die. But, if you don't believe in God and you're wrong, you may be sentenced to eternal damnation. Therefore, it is a safer bet to believe in God. Putting aside the merits of this theological wager for a second, consider the current crisis. If we act to stop global warming, and it turns out to be a complete hoax, what do we get? Some time and money will be spent, but we will also find ourselves with reduced pollution (fossil fuel combustion results in environmental damage besides global warming), zero dependence on oil of any sort (plus it will run out anyway), and the development of new, clean, efficient energy sources. Now, consider the flip side: if we do not act, and the less nice predictions about future warming are true, we could find ourselves with a host of problems, including: sea level rise, habitat devastation, increased floods and droughts, changing atmospheric and ocean currents, and others.

When it comes to modifying the Earth's climate with greenhouse gas emissions, an experiment in which the outcome cannot be predicted, it just seems to be to be a safer bet to start phasing out fossil fuels now and perhaps keeping reserves for emergency situations. I have called this "Gore's Wager" in the past, but as I find out more about climate change, the less enthusiastic I am about using his name. I'll have to think of something else...

Kepler Is My Hero

Johannes Kepler, the German mathematician who formulated the three laws of planetary motion (a foundation for Newton's ideas later on), is my hero. I am in the middle of a biography on him, and though I don't think it is particularly well-written, I am enjoying it nonetheless because Kepler is an interesting character. What impresses me the most is not his genius but the way in which he approached thinking. Whether it was a theological, scientific, or philosophical issue, he approached it with an open mind and a keen sense of truth.

He was a devout Lutheran, and attended seminary to become a preacher and theologian. But he never just towed the party line. He was critical of both Catholics and Protestants on various issues, pointing out where each had gotten something wrong. Most of his close friends and colleagues would reject any view or opinion from a Catholic, but Kepler would aggravate them to no end by highlighting parts of the Catholic position that he thought were true. This kind of talk, as well as criticism of certain doctrines of Lutherans, resulted in Kepler being excommunicated from his own religious group. Later, in the midst of the counter-reformation, despite intense pressure (and danger) Kepler refused to abandon his core Lutheran beliefs to appease the angry Catholic authorities. His nuanced view of truth and theology was a rarity in the 16th century. Kepler was a non-partisan voice in the midst of the crazy religious wars of his time.

Kepler's Lutheran approach to science may have also helped him break from long-held assumptions about the universe. Theologically, Luther suggested stripping away centuries old dogma and established interpretation to allow the individual to read the Bible for themselves and form their own interpretation. In science, Aristotelianism had long dominated how the world worked and how the heavens were arranged. Kepler, though, didn't just accept this dogma and work within its framework; he approached the heavens too with an open mind. He was a Copernican (Copernicus was the canon law priest in the Catholic church who suggested the planets revolved around the Sun rather than the Earth) when few were, and went on to formulate cosmological laws which went against the received Greek wisdom. Kepler's willingness to seek truth whether or not it went "against the grain" led to scientific work that became a huge stepping stone to modern cosmology.

Kepler was also a neo-platonist, obsessed with mathematical beauty and harmony (so was Copernicus). Kepler thought that he could discover God's laws and the underlying harmony of the universe; this, and his exceptional mathematical gifts, are part of the reason why he ultimately pursued science instead of theology. Kepler saw his science as a branch of theology; the study of the order God had put in his creation. Kepler's story runs straight against our own received wisdom that science and theology are opposed and that religious belief is incompatible with science or scientific discovery. On the contrary, religious convictions were a primary motivation for men like Kepler (and Newton) to study the universe. Both saw themselves as uncovering the mathematical secrets God had used to make the universe run.

Kepler's intellectual approach to difficult or contentious issues is one I hope to emulate. Rarely is one person or one person's viewpoint entirely correct (including our own); we would be better off if we could admit this and, like Kepler, keep an open mind while searching for truth.