And to every beast of the earth, and to every bird of the air, and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food.’ And it was so. God saw everything that he had made, and indeed, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day. Genesis 1:28-31
Science came to replace myth in explaining reality. The Romans saw storms as battles between the deities; the Greeks understood lightning as spears of the gods against humans. Today we know that storms form when moist warm air rises rapidly into the higher and cooler layers of the atmosphere, forming clouds and rain. Lightning is a form of electricity that develops inside the clouds. Thunder is caused by hot air that expands until it bursts.
Since the beginning of humanity, our species has been avidly pursuing knowledge. We call science the set of techniques and methods used to achieve knowledge. A noun from the Latin ‘scientia’, it refers to the verb ‘scire’, meaning to know. Man was created on the last day of creation, for God rested on the seventh day, and it is science that makes him the king of creation. By it, man dominates, controls, and administers the goods that God has placed in his hands.
Science - Art - Culture - Worldview
The human being expresses his idiosyncrasy, his way of being, of behavior, his thinking, values, religion, beliefs, philosophy, etc., in arts and not in science. Art expresses knowledge, science is an instrument to know, to understand the world around us, exploring its possibilities in order to make, through technology, our lives more enjoyable.
Science has to do with our daily bread; as such, it is pragmatic, objective and is labor. Art has nothing to do with our daily bread, because it is what we do out of love; as such it is subjective. There is always an objective in the one who wants to know, while the one who expresses himself in an art has no precise objective, he simply seeks a form of expression. The object of science is the unknown, and that of art is what we already know.
The cultural human being does not express himself in science and his worldview is not an object of science nor of interest to science. But science has the ability to change our worldview from one moment to the next. Think, for example, of the Copernican revolution, when man discovered that it was not the Sun that revolved around the Earth, but, on the contrary, that the Earth revolved around the Sun. Any scientific discovery can turn our thinking upside down and force us to rethink things and look at reality with new eyes.
Culture evolves, science revolutionizes
There are social revolutions that have nothing to do with science. The so-called French Revolution can be seen rather as a slow evolution of absolute monarchy until it becomes extinct. In this sense, all social revolutions can be seen as evolutions, for those who have eyes to see and predict, like the prophets of all times.
Pure and true revolution is a scientific discovery – it is not foreseen and takes everyone by surprise. It has the potential to pull the rug from under our feet, to leave us dumbfounded, confused, outraged, traumatized and even aggressive. Imagine what it was like for religious people when Darwin discovered that the human being had the ape as his closest relative, in an evolution of species where all sorts of life have a common trunk and relate to each other. Even today there are people who reject this idea.
And it is not only the people who rejects certain discoveries. Einstein himself, who revolutionized the world with his theory of relativity, had difficulty accepting an essential postulate of quantum physics, the so-called Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle, to the point of even saying that God does not throw dice.
The materialistic worldview of which we will speak at length is the one that rules the world of philosophy, science, politics, and mass media today. Today's intellectuals, if they are religious, that is, if they have faith in the existence of God, are ashamed to say so in public, because the current tendency is for intellectuals to be atheists or agnostics.
This materialistic attitude towards life and reality is more in line with Newton's deterministic and mechanistic physics, which sees the world working mechanically with the precision of a clock than with today's quantum physics and mechanics, where even the laws of nature escape determinism. The world of quantum physics is a magical world, where the material and the spiritual overlap, where the tangible and the intangible embrace and miracles occur.
Universities, politics, intellectuals are therefore out of step, lagging, out of fashion, to the extent that they have not yet adapted to the new reality, they still live with a false worldview. To catch up, they must divorce themselves from Newton and marry Heisenberg. The world is not and does work as they think it does.
The Scientific Discoveries That Revolutionized Our Worldview
In the field of energy
The discovery of fire, the application of animal power (horse, donkey, ox), windmills, caravels, water mills, tidal mills, steam machine (coal), explosion engines, automobile, boat, airplane (fuel), hydroelectric power, wind power, solar energy, nuclear power, batteries that power countless of small applications that we use in our daily life – each energy source has changed the world and the way we look at it and relate to it.
In the field of biology and medicine
The English physicist Robert Hooke (1635-1702) published the first drawings of cells observed under a microscope, boosting research into the fundamental units of life.
The Evolution of Species, of Darwin, dethroned the book of Genesis as an historical book, and proved that life on our planet began in the sea and that all sorts of life come from a common trunk, making plants and animals related in their common origin.
Penicillin – the first of the antibiotics, discovered by accident by the Scotsman Alexander Flemming in 1928 (although there were earlier studies on the subject), was a true milestone in the history of medicine, as it went on to save countless lives from various infectious diseases.
Anesthesia – the American physician Crawford Long (1815-1878) used ether for the first time as a general anesthetic during surgery.
X-ray – the German Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen is considered the great inventor of x-ray (although other scientists studied its effects before and after his discovery), a form of electromagnetic radiation that can penetrate solid objects which has allowed medical diagnoses to be more rigorous, not only based on symptoms and surgeries.
Genetics – the Austrian monk Johann Gregor Mendel (1822-1884) created the idea of a gene by breeding and cultivating pea plants, and studying and tracking the results of their dominant and recessive traits.
The double stranded spirals of DNA – the beautiful structure of DNA was credited to scientists Francis Crick and James Watson in 1953. What came out of this: genetic engineering has grown enormously in the past 50 years, reaching the ethical discussion of being able to make a "copy" of living beings like what was done with the sheep called Dolly.
The unconscious – the Austrian neurologist Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) published his book, Studies on Hysteria, demonstrating that man does not completely master the mind and proposing the idea that the unconscious is responsible for desires and dreams, and for so many reactive behaviours in our daily life.
In the field of war
Since the discovery of iron, and the invention of gunpowder, human beings seem to be more creative and motivated by hatred than by love. Many discoveries were born in the field of war and only later were peaceful applications found for them. The atomic bomb turned into nuclear energy; the system used in guided missiles turned into GPS to guide us.
The radar – a team of researchers led by Scottish physicist Robert Watson-Watt (1892-1973) created the first radar. Although it was originally an instrument of war, radar is now fundamental to navigation.
The laser beam – Theodore Maiman (1927-) built the first laser. Among other uses, these beams serve today as scalpels in medicine, and rulers in science and in military weapons.
In the field of communications
Gutenberg's printing press, photography, cinema, sound recording, radio and television, the computer that emerged as a typewriter with memory are today transversal to all human activity and integrate most of the machines that man has created, from the automobile to the airplane to the washing machine.
The telegraph, the telephone, the fax machine, the internet, and the mobile phone have revolutionized the way humans communicate with each other and have transformed the already globalized world into a common home.
The transistor – the Americans John Bardeen (1908-1991) and Walter Houser Brattain (1902-1987) invented the transistor. Imagine the world without transistors: there would be no personal computers or cell phones.
The artificial satellite – the former Soviet Union launched Sputnik 1 – a sphere 58 centimeters in diameter weighing 84 kilos. Satellites have revolutionized the world of communications.
In the field of quantum physics and mechanics
The Big Bang Theory, of Father Georges Lemaître, postulates that the universe originated from an explosion of a small point, in which all existing matter was condensed. With this theory, it is no longer only the Bible that speaks of the beginning and the end of the world, for these are also the object of science. Consequently, many now say that the Bible was correct all along.
The discovery of the telescope by Galileo to observe macro reality and the discovery of the microscope to observe micro reality are at the basis of the advances in modern physics, starting with the theory of relativity which revolutionized the way human beings understand the universe, space and time, which told us that matter is a form of energy and energy is a form of matter. The discovery of subatomic particles, and the magical and unpredictable world they form, has not yet changed our way of thinking, our worldview, but it will soon do so.
Science and "applied culture", i.e., common sense
Common sense is a form of knowledge based on everyday experience and public opinion of a given social group or culture, which is passed down from generation to generation. It is composed of values and traditions, and operates based on a logic of probabilities that guarantees the confidence of the individual to be able to live and relate in the most appropriate way with his world, that is, that guarantees his way of being and living.
Much of this common sense comes from our own experience, whenever we learn from our own mistakes. However, life is short, there is no time to try out every experience; furthermore, it would be dangerous to do so, therefore we can also learn from the mistakes of others. For example, I don't need to take drugs to know that they are harmful to health.
In this sense, common sense is positive. On the other hand, uncritically assimilating postulates from the past without verifying them opens the door to cultural clichés and prejudices that pass from generation to generation, without anyone questioning or confronting them. When confronted with scientific knowledge, with the reality of the present, some of these postulates may prove to be completely irrational and yet people continue to cling to them because they give them a sense of security. There is a proverb that explains this attitude: "Better the devil you know than the devil you don’t".
The scientist is the one who researches to obtain knowledge, to clarify a doubt, to solve a problem, to explain a reaction or a phenomenon of nature. Unlike common sense, which often consists of a belief that, even without empirical verification, no one doubts, science begins by doubting everything and everyone, since appearances deceive.
Science is born as a reaction to common sense. However, common sense integrates the scientific discovery that becomes part of public opinion and is synonymous with common sense. Yesterday’s science vulgarized, that is, assimilated by the people, becomes common sense, in the same way that a scientific discovery finds its practical application in technology.
Science has changed the way we look at the world. This realization gave rise to positivism as a philosophical school, which understands that science is the way to progress and order in society. It is precisely at this point that it clashes with common sense which does not want to lose its place in people's minds.
Science has long ceased to be the expression of the innate curiosity of the human being who wants to know for the mere pleasure of knowing. Cutting-edge research requires money and generates a lot of profit in technological patents. Scientific research is now paramount in our capitalistic world; it is a gold mine. Therefore, people attack it with a thousand and one conspiracy theories, some true, some false, disseminated by social media.
In the case of medicine, doctors prescribe chemicals for everything and for nothing. Instead of advising people to exercise, to change their diet, they give them a pill to reduce cholesterol that will destabilize the body's natural balance, because the profits of the pharmaceutical companies are enormous. One of the reasons for my mother's death, confirmed by a doctor, was that she was overmedicated. It is ironic, because if she was overmedicated, it is because the doctors overmedicated her.
We said that science starts from doubt and that common sense is based on a belief. In relation to science itself, scientists have a blind belief in its ability to build a better world, while common sense, now at the forefront of culture, doubts science and its unclear goals more than ever.
Science generates profit, common sense is free and is oriented to the defense of human life; science is not always in favor of human life, it seeks to solve the immediate without considering the repercussions or side effects. For example, wheat and corn genetically modified to fight pests, end up killing monarch butterflies and unbalancing nature. Science often solves one problem by creating two or three more. As the people rightly say, he did not die of the disease, he died from the cure.
Conclusion: A scientific discovery modifies first our way of seeing reality, that is, our worldview; subsequently, the technological application of this discovery will, eventually, change the culture.
Fr. Jorge Amaro, IMC
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