Science is still pretty cool.

I’m afraid, with all this talk about atheist scientists, I might be giving the impression that I dislike science. I actually love science, and especially the cosmic stuff. I’m a child of the space age and I remember, way back in grade four, 1957, Mr. Lawler announcing to our class that the Russians had put Sputnik into orbit. – He wasn’t our science teacher so I don’t know why it was he who told us. Perhaps he was the only one on staff who understood what had happened well enough to explain it to a child. – At any rate, I came away knowing that, for the first time ever, a little man-made ball was hurtling around the earth the way the moon does. And I distinctly recall his prediction that, probably not I, but maybe my children, and certainly my grandchildren, would live to see a man land on the moon. Well, I actually managed to live see it myself as it happened in 1969, a mere twelve years later. And, ironically, since the manned missions ended in 1972, a year before our first child was born, none of my children or grandchildren have yet lived long enough to see it for themselves. Prediction’s are tricky things.

Science was inspiring in those days and, despite a few setbacks like talking greeting cards, DDT, instant text messaging and Chernobyl, it remains so. The Hubble telescope and unmanned space probes have revealed a universe beyond our wildest dreams, and every month new discoveries come to light. There are a few ongoing concerns, of course, like genetic engineering and Frankenfood (genetically modified food), electromagnetic radiation, dietary supplements, countless new potential carcinogens, horrifying weapons of mass destruction (chemical, nuclear, biological and whatever etceteras they can think up), new drugs with unknown and perhaps unknowable side effects... Well, you get the idea.

Anyway, science is not necessarily prosaic nor scientists unimaginative. In fact, like all human beings and human endeavours, they tend toward the poetic and profound, which is probably why they inevitably come into conflict with other poetic and profound ways of seeing the world. For an example of what I mean click on Sagan Series and Feynman Series. These are produced by Reid Gower, a 25 year old undergrad from Victoria, BC. Not hard to see how Science could become a new religion.

Pictures : 1- The Hubble Space Telescope in orbit; 2- Saturn, as seen by Hubble; 3- The rings of Saturn, as seen by the Cassini space craft in 2004