Science and Wonder

I appreciate the comments and thoughts that left at the last post. Thanks! The dilemma of homemaker versus career-woman is a hard one that I struggle with. Jeff and Mickey - I like the point you both made about how easy it is to develop a narrow-minded minded view of what education is. On that note,

I've discovered what promises to be a very interesting magazine, The New Atlantis. There was an article that I particularly liked, "The Moral Education of Doctors," which addresses issues broader in scope than just medicine:

"The original defense of natural science, by men like Descartes and Spinoza, was not so much a refutation as a quiet beheading of preceding philosophies. That is, modern science refutes metaphysical questions not by addressing them but by ignoring them. Its view of nature is purely material, devoid of purpose or meaning. Natural science tells us how things work, but not what they are or why they do what they do. It is fair to say that modern science does not even have a definition of nature, including human nature. The project of the modern natural scientist is the material inquiry into objects that are subject to inquiry through material manipulation.
The tool for mechanical manipulation is technology. The original technology of modern science was geometry, because geometry is the science of space. That is, it provides an account of nature as extension in space. The difference between the ancient and modern view of geometry is instructive, since it reveals a great deal about the modern use of technology. For ancients, like Euclid, geometric truths were investigated and demonstrated in “theorems,” or human efforts to give an account of reality. In contrast, modern geometry is concerned with “problems,” or difficulties to be solved. Problems are technical issues, not theoretical ones. Indeed, one can solve problems without any knowledge of the theory that underlies a question. Nature can be mathematized, and technologies can be developed to manipulate nature, unencumbered by theoretical questions. And most problems have a material component that is potentially (if only partially) amenable to a material solution.

A related distinction is the difference between wonder and curiosity. For Aristotle, wisdom
begins in wonder. For modern man, knowledge begins with curiosity. Wonder is an activity of beholding an object, allowing it to disclose itself. Its fruits might be described as the respectful disclosure of the beheld to the beholder. The implication is that the beheld has something to teach us. We must select our subjects carefully and as things worthy of wonder they must be treated with humility and gratitude. Curiosity describes a very different disposition. Curiosity is indiscriminate. Any object is a potential object for curiosity. Moreover, curiosity is famously not an exclusively human act. It knows no limits, and enforces no limits on the curious. One can be curious about the moon or about pornography. The same cannot be said for wonder. Souls can wonder. Cats are curious.

Interestingly, as scientific methods of investigation become increasingly sophisticated and our perspective on nature increasingly minute, it is not only metaphysical understanding that is set aside. Everyday experience itself becomes less and less a part of the scientific account of things. Descartes introduced radical skepticism, the idea that the senses can be deceived and therefore cannot be relied upon. Today, the plane of experience of the scientist is the molecular plane for biology, the atomic and even subatomic for physics. Common experience itself is regarded skeptically, and we instead look to the molecular realm to provide an account. The chain of causality continues to be pushed backward in search of more fundamental, more common mechanisms. The current bedrock in biology seems to be DNA, through which modern science hopes to provide an account of the downstream events that begin with genetically initiated events. There we hope to find what is really going on. As a consequence, the natural scientist spends the working day away from human action. He is in no better a position to be a citizen—or to diagnose and heal souls—than when he woke up.

The proof of the claim that nature is best known through its material manipulation lies in the success of modern technology: By simply attempting to understand and manipulate the world as material, and by ignoring questions of purpose and meaning, the application of modern science has transformed the world. Indeed, the success of the scientific project in terms of change is its very justification, and this was always intended to be the case. Things are getting better all the time. The proper response to our condition is thus a material response, one which eases the burden of man’s estate. Instead of providing an account of the whole, philosophy was beheaded in favor of more practical purposes. Rather than argue about the nature of the good life, man put nature to work in service of our human, all too human, ends." - Philip Overby, Fellow in Pediatric Neurology at Johns Hopkins.

Yes! Overby elegantly articulates my vague dissatisfaction with college-level biology classes, and my disease with studying medicine. I'm not sure how firm Overby stands on his philosophy, not being that strong a philosopher myself (I particularly have questions about his statement about Descartes - is he right?), but I share the same admiration he had for scientists of old, the philosopher/scientist/artist/theologist/political theorist. I've wished before to be a Renaissance woman - perhaps though, the Renaissance was too late.

Modern science seems so near-sighted with its fixation on sub-atomic particles and genetics and molecular reactions, that I have to fight to retain the sense of wonder which drew me at first to science. That wonder that grew with watching the distant stars. And the many camping trips we went to as kids, where we would stick our noses in tree trunks when the naturalist pointed out the vanilla-scented bark of cedar, proudly heft boulders of mica, and look for sticks etched with the trails of engraving beetles, and catch fat velvety comma tadpoles in the shallow water. I loved those camping trips.

Evolution itself, though it gives biology a nice mechanism through which to explain all life, reduces the intricacy and variety and beauty of nature to the product of a mechanical process powered by death. The study of science ought to result in greater awe and worship of God, but I have found no space for wonder of any sort in even in my developmental biology class (which is one of the most mysterious and wonderful of all processes!). God's creation has become not a marvellous sign pointing to God, but a tool for man's own ends. Is this really what God intended when he gave man dominion over the world?