Some More About Science and Faith

If you or I could take a trip on the Way-Back Machine 500 years to any part of western civilization and questioned any of the people we met, say Christopher Columbus for example, we would have been assured that the earth is the center of the universe. It's a calumny on their science, by the way, to think they did not recognize that earth is a sphere. They just believed that earth is the focal point of everything, and every heavenly body orbits our planet.

The Bible doesn't quite say that of course, but there is a clear implication in Genesis, considering that God created earth on the first day, without form and void, and didn't make the sun until the fourth day.

Then along came Copernicus and Galileo with the theory that the earth circles the sun. Earth is demoted to being one among six planets going around the center, our own personal star. Copernicus was wary enough to wait until he was safely dead to publish his theory, and Galileo paid a heavy price for speaking out while still distressingly alive.

Little by little, however, the heliocentric universe became the accepted wisdom. The discovery of Uranus and Neptune did nothing to upset the applecart of peoples' perceptions, but recognition that the sun is part of an enormous star system called the Milky Way certainly did. Now there were millions of stars orbiting a galactic center and the sun was merely one among them, no more significant than others, in fact a pretty ordinary specimen.

Then astronomers began to think that certain fuzzy images in their telescopes might not be nebulae within the Milky Way but entirely different galaxies at mind bogglingly huge distances from us, and each of these new galaxies also contained millions of stars. By the 1950's it was generally accepted that there might be billions of stars. Science-fiction enthusiasts imagined beings somewhere out there, little green men, malevolent monsters intent on conquering us, or wise ET's.

But it was only in the last fifteen years or so that inferential evidence began to accumulate that there really are planets outside our solar system. Recent discoveries indicate planets are common, in systems near and far, most wildly different from ours, some probably similar to our own.

Soon the new space telescope will be launched, with the expectation that it will discover smaller rocky planets, not just gas giants.

During this same time, biological research has pointed out that life on earth originated in tidal pools where long strands of amino acids united to form proteins which, with an electric charge from convenient lightning strikes, became organic. (I learned this in biology class at a Catholic high school in a course taught by a religious brother.)

All this goes to the point that we're not nearly so important in the great scheme of things as our ancestors supposed, those folks we met with our Way-Back machine.

There are religious ramifications in all this science. We have been convinced of human exceptionalism for thousands of years. "For God so loved the world that he sent his only beloved son. . . ." How do we continue to believe this if there are hundreds, thousands or millions of other worlds on which there might be sentient life? Does poor Jesus have to make the rounds of all these planets and save them from their sins?

I say this seriously, even reverently. In a way I wish it was different, that we were the only intelligent beings in the universe. (In fact, we're not the only intelligent beings even on this planet.) It would make things easier.

Lets Talk About Science

I'm no scientist, far from it, but I have maintained an interest in scientific topics through an increasingly long life and have a few things to say on the subject.

When I was in college many years ago, I made some spending money working as a film projectionist on campus for professors who wanted to use media in class. One day I was in a geology class showing a movie, and at the end one of the students asked a question concerning continental drift. The teacher answered, dismissing the idea as just something some people believe in. Of course, continental drift is consensus wisdom now.

I bring it up just as a reminder that what is accepted wisdom now might be overturned tomorrow. Three more examples: until fifty years ago dinosaurs were characterized as slow moving cold blooded animals and part of the reptile family. Now it is conventional wisdom that dinos were more like birds, quick and smart (more or less).

Speaking of dinosaurs, scientists used to blame their extinction on climate change. Check Walt Disney's Fantasia for an illustration. The thought that the beasts went extinct because of a catastrophic extra-terrestrial event was derided when it was first suggested. Now it's accepted by nearly everyone that an asteroid collision with earth 65 million years ago caused their demise.

Charles Darwin's theory suggested that evolution was a long incremental process of tiny mutations that accumulate over time to produce new species. Now the theory is modified to the extent that most biologists believe a species can go on for millions of years without any appreciable changes, but when populations are isolated and threatened, change can occur rapidly.

What I'm getting at is the requirement for science, and indeed all aspects of life, to be open minded. Skepticism is necessary in life, but acceptance of new ideas is mandatory when sufficient evidence for them is presented.

One last thought today. Some people deny science because they feel it contradicts their idea of religion. Now, I really don't have any problem with a person who says, "I don't care what science says, I believe God created the world as it is and that's it." What really makes me shake my head in derision is the charlatans who try to convince the gullible that all reputable science is wrong and they can prove scientifically that a literal interpretation of the Bible is good science. If they could, they'd be able to refute continental drift, evolution, and relativity. Really now.

Some Tidbits

And now for something completely different. After thinking about it for some time, I am now ready to reveal my alter ego: I am Captain Obvious. My special power is the ability to point out what everyone else already knows.

"Don't touch that stove, it's hot!" I exclaim. The burner is red and heat waves are wafting from it.

"You'll catch cold going out like that!" I told my children. It was sleeting and they were lightly dressed.

"If you don't return rental movies you can turn a small fee into a huge bill."

You may say this isn't much of a power, nothing like x-ray vision, but in fact being able to point out the obvious isn't all that common a trait. Else, why would people continue to make such obvious mistakes?

My younger sister Marilyn and I went to a parochial elementary school in Tallahassee Florida for two years when we were much much younger. All the girls wore beanies with the school's initials on them. After our first year there I think someone must have clued the nuns because the initials were removed from the beanies. The school was called Blessed Sacrament.

One of the first car stops I ever made as a newly minted park ranger was of a motorist who was speeding along the Colonial Parkway near Yorktown Virginia. When you make a car stop, you must do a lot of things quickly and do them right. You have to call in the license number, keep an eye on the motorist so as not to be surprised sitting in your car, get your seatbelt off (not easy if you're right handed and wearing a gun), check your rear view mirror so you don't open your door into oncoming traffic, and check the rest of the area in case of ambush.

But I managed to do all that, verified that the car was not stolen, and made my approach. The approach must be done carefully too. Tap the trunk to make sure it's latched and any possible assailant concealed there cannot get out; look in the back seat; stand just so behind the driver so he'd have a difficult time shooting you.

I asked for the driver's license and registration and explained that my radar had clocked him above the speed limit. I asked if he had any reason for speeding. Then I told him I would be back shortly and ever so carefully turned towards my car.

Only it wasn't where I had left it. In the midst of doing everything else I had neglected to take the car out of gear. Luckily we were on a slight upward slope so my patrol car was coming along very slowly.

It hit the motorist's car of course. He got out of his car and said, "Do you mind backing up so I can see if there's any damage to my car?" It wasn't really a question at all, and there was only one thing I could do. I backed up and he took at look at his bumper. After a minute he generously said there was not.

And then I realized I was still holding his license and registration. Well, what would you do?

He didn't get a ticket.

Another early car stop was of an elderly woman who gave her license to me and when I looked at it I noticed she was born in 1899. She wasn't terribly old, it was 1978 after all, but something inside me said, "If you give this woman a ticket she'll die right in front of you." It was, I think, the last time I ever interacted with someone who was born in the 19th century.

It's a fact of life that many people think their parents were humorless stern individuals who really made them toe the line. Often they call attention to this presumed severity when they witness other parents who fall short as disciplinarians, in their view.

My mother was an easygoing loving woman who bore her children's frequent poor behavior with restraint. Rarely she would burst out at one of us. "Peter, because of you my supper is going down in lumps!" I heard her say on occasion. (She kept her Boston accent almost all her life, so my name always sounded like "Petah.")

My father also had a good sense of humor, but possessed the gravitas Mom lacked. You didn't disappoint him lightly. I can remember being over his knee and getting paddled hard but I can never recall what trivial little thing I might have done to disturb him.

My brother Larry and I were fans of a 1950's television show called Andy's Gang, hosted by Andy Devine. Andy would do little comedy bits and introduce old movies, often featuring Gunga Din the Elephant Boy. Dad, annoyed, would trumpet "Elephants trumpeting through the living room on Saturday mornings!" What I wouldn't have given for a real elephant in our living room.

Actually, I was a considerate kid, in my own way. I'd get up early on Saturday mornings as a small boy and turn on the tv to the inevitable Saturday morning western. I'd turn the sound down very low so the talking scenes would not wake my parents, but when the shooting started I just had to hear it and cranked up the volume.

They never seemed to appreciate my thoughtfulness.

WWJD

I'm often astounded that the question "What would Jesus do?" is derided by many of my friends on the political left. It could be that they feel Jesus has been co-opted by the fundamentalists, or that Jesus didn't have anything to say that is relevant to our modern world, but I think both of these are bogus objections.

Jesus was the great ethicist of our western world, and what he said remains (to me) as important as it was when he said it. Perhaps what is needed is a renewed appreciation of what that was.

Who does Jesus really condemn in the gospels? He has a couple of things to say about sex, it's true. The stories of the woman at the well and the woman taken in adultery come to mind, but Jesus seems to be lenient with them. "Don't do it anymore," is about as critical as he gets. By the way, where was the man taken in adultery? Did he slip out a back door when the mob showed up? Why doesn't he have the guts to defend her?

That, I must admit is what troubles me about my fundamentalist friends. They seem to equate all morality with sexual morality. If you're not diddling somebody you're not married to then you must be a moral person.

No, it seems to me that Jesus reserves his great critique for the scribes and Pharisees. "Woe unto you, hypocrites, it would be better for you if you had never been born." And why is he so hostile to these people? The answer lies in their efforts to appear righteous while at the same time carrying on sinful lives.

And what sins were they committing? Greed, pride, envy, a basic failure to consider the other, to treat others decently. Three gospel passages come to mind: the nice young man who will not renounce his wealth, the Pharisee who prays in the temple thanking God he is not like common folk including a publican, and the prodigal son whose brother is jealous of the kind way their father has greeted the profligate young man.

"It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven." When I was in high school religion class many years ago, Brother Robert explained that the eye of the needle referred to the gate of a city and the camel just had to get on its knees to enter. This of course showed humility, and meant that it was not an insurmountable obstacle for the wealthy camel driver.

I didn't quite buy it. Neither, I think, could any fundamentalist.

So where does that leave us? In another gospel episode a Pharisee approaches Jesus and asks him to summarize the Judaic law. Jesus answers, "Love God with your whole heart and your whole mind, and your whole strength, and your neighbor as yourself." The impressed Pharisee says, "That's the best summary I ever heard."

It seems to me that we are obligated ethically to provide for anyone less well off than ourselves, regardless of whether the person is deserving of help, and to provide hospitality - shelter - to strangers. To me, that's what Jesus was getting at.

Now we come to the end. Does all this have any ramifications for our public lives? In the 1990's conservative politicians persuaded most Americans that public welfare promoted dependence and became a way of life for some people, and that public relief was ineffectual and a crippling expense for the rest of us. Lifetime limits were put on public assistance eligibility and many programs and agencies were ended. Private voluntary assistance to needy people would be substituted. People would be glad to volunteer their money and skills if they felt they were not being taxed into doing so. And people would have a moral obligation to help. Even as conservative a politician as Newt Gingrich said, "If you don't want the government doing this, be prepared to roll up your sleeves and pitch in yourselves." (Not an exact quote. I wonder what Newt's been doing lately in this regard.)

Now lets just ask ourselves: are there more homeless people now than there were twenty years ago? Are there more disturbed people without recourse, more alcoholics roaming the streets and alleyways, more tent communities near our metropolitan areas? Do more people die because they lack decent medical or psychiatric care?

I'm not doctrinaire about this. If private charity is really more effective than government aid to destitute or desperate people than government help, lets go that way. Government programs always have waste, there's no doubt about it, but did they do more to help people than is being done now? I think so.

WWJD?

A Thought or Two About Secondary Education

I taught high school history and government for four years. My students were often poorly motivated and many considered high school a sour joke. I've pondered why and I'd like to offer a couple of suggestions.

First of all, I'm not sure anyone has actually determined what high schools are trying to accomplish. Is secondary school a job training place, a location for teaching our kids to think, or a means of encouraging young people to enter technical professions such as medicine or engineering?

These are lofty goals and worthy of the teacher's and students' time, but are any of them being addressed in the "one size fits all" modern high school? One hears often of the lack of science and math in our high schools with the warning that we will fall behind other nations that do emphasize these subjects, but has anyone honestly ever heard an adult say, "I wanted to be a doctor or scientist but I just couldn't get enough science and math in high school?" A young person who wants to get this kind of course work will find a way to get it, and must be encouraged to do so. Why feed the disinterested or inept through levels of math and science they will never use again? It's good for them, I grant you, but so are art and music, subjects the modern school curriculum gives short shrift to and which would undoubtedly interest more of our young people.

This emphasis on "hard curriculum" is often accompanied with the statement that the schools need to "get back to basics." In truth, if we wanted to get back to basics we would use the Greek and Roman educational curriculum. Think if we taught young people how to speak and argue persuasively. For one thing the incidence of violent crime would be reduced if people were articulate enough to settle their differences with words, not bullets.

A question I liked to ask students at the beginning of the school term is, "Why are we here? Why does the state and why do your parents think it's important for you to know something about history?" Answers, when any kids were confident enough to say anything, usually claimed that history makes us better citizens, helps us detect glib promises politicians and salesmen make, keeps us from repeating old errors, and grounds us in the present. After a time I dismissed all these ideas and gave the students the only reason for studying history that ever made any sense to me: it's fun. Of course, if a student doesn't agree, why burden her or him with a year of drudgery?

When I taught in Virginia, even the contention that history's fun was undermined by the mandated Standards of Learning tests that bled whatever fun there might have been right out of the curriculum. The standards were so poorly drawn they completely ignored the western movement in the 19th century! When I pointed this out to the department chair and exclaimed, "No cowboys! No Sioux or Cheyenne people! No sourdough miners, no labor disputes, no Wyatt Earp for crying out loud!" she said,"It's not in the standards, so ignore it."

I've ranted long enough. We need to return to the Deweyan model of drawing out from the students what they want to study. The process of cramming knowledge into unwilling minds certainly hasn't worked, so why not make our schools places where students can learn what they want to learn?

BTW I haven't even talked about government class yet!

The Number One Foreign Policy Dilemma

What to do about Israel? What makes us think it's up to us to do anything about Israel? Perhaps a short historical review is in order.

The Zionist movement began many years ago, but was given new impetus in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Jews began buying land in Palestine on a willing seller, willing buyer basis. Nobody forced any Palestinian to sell land, but I doubt any Palestinian seriously thought his country slowly was being bought out from under him.

When the Jews of Europe became the arch whipping boys of the monstrous Nazi regime, all the world was horrified, and in the aftermath many of the survivors vowed such a thing would never happen again, and could never happen again if they had their own homeland. Palestine was the obvious location.

Now let us consider American involvement. President Roosevelt never contemplated the consequences of this very understandable desire of the Holocaust survivors. In 1945, fresh from the Yalta Conference, he met with the leaders of the countries in that area and told them the US would not recognize any Jewish homeland without their approval.

Two months later he was dead, and President Truman soon subtly changed the promise so that the US would not recognize a Jewish homeland without consulting the neighboring nations. Then in 1948 when the nation of Israel was proclaimed, the United States recognized it within a few hours. Domestic politics almost certainly played a role in the decision.

Not surprisingly, the rulers of Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, Egypt and other affected states felt used and betrayed. We had effectively bought their enmity.

So in a sense, we entangled ourselves in the affairs of that part of the world and have never extricated ourselves from them. We have called Israel our ally for the last 62 years, often with rhetoric that makes the neighboring nations our adversaries.

There are many Palestinians who have spent their whole lives in refugee camps, dreaming of the day when the land of their grandparents will be theirs again. They will be satisfied with nothing less than the destruction of Israel and the expulsion of any surviving Jews from the area. There are Isrealies who will be satisfied with nothing less than the kingdom ruled by David three thousand years ago. Between these two positions, there is no chance of reconciliation. Only a peace between victor and vanquished could be made.

There are, however, people on both sides of this terrible divide who would reach a compromise in the name of peace. It is to them that efforts at a settlement must be directed.

And we've tried everything from the active diplomacy of President Carter to the brief dis-engagement of the George W. Bush administration. And still the instability and violence persist. We are embroiled in conflicts to which there is no end in sight for purposes that are, sad to say, probably unobtainable. It is ours and the world's most intractable problem.

(I hope no one was looking for a solution on this blog.)

Make Sure She Can Spell "Potato"

Will Sarah Palin run for president in 2012? Some say yes, as judged from bumper stickers seen around town, and many hope not. Some Democrats are undoubtedly licking their chops, thinking Ms. Palin would be a spectacularly weak candidate who would be defeated easily by President Obama.

I would caution my friends not to underestimate Sarah Palin. She evokes visceral feelings among the electorate in a way no other Republican does. She would certainly turn out her partisans on election day. The question is, could she expand her following from the right-wing into the mainstream.

History suggests she cannot. I can think of two obstacles she would have a very difficult time overcoming. First, she is from a small state, electorally speaking. Alaska has only three votes in the Electoral College, and I cannot think of a single president who ever was elected from a state with so few votes. Think back, and you'll find most presidents come from much more populous states. Bill Clinton was elected from Arkansas, it's true, but Arkansas has twice as many electoral votes as Alaska, and Mr. Clinton fell in with my second political maxim.

That is, presidents tend to come from the center of the country. Candidates from the periphery of the country historically do not do well. Again, think of a president who came from a seacoast state that was not among the largest in the country. President Carter might come to mind, though Georgia should be classified as a medium sized state electorally. Even at that, Carter can be thought of as the exception that proves the rule. He was, after all, defeated for re-election by a candidate from a much more populous state.

So Sarah Palin would, in my opinion, have a very difficult time winning a national election. Still, what alternative do the Republicans have? Mitt Romney? Tim Pawlenty? Yawn!

Unless someone else emerges very soon, I think President Obama will be returned to the White House very handily in 2012.