On June 16, 2006, the sixteen scientists who contributed essays to Intelligent Thought: Science versus the Intelligent Design Movement, wrote a letter to Congress, sending a copy of the book along with the letter. The scientists asked members of congress to consider the message of the book, which focuses on…
For many months, I knew that something horrible was haunting Sophie. Finally, one quiet night, she broke down and told me all of the details about that awful dilemma she faced several years before, while she was a prisoner in a concentration camp. Sophie had arrived at the camp with…
Pope John Paul II, now deceased, was conflicted regarding the proper scope of science. He saw science as “a pathway in which many have traveled away from faith.” According to Monsignor Albacete, the pope urged us “to look beyond our intellectual ideas because reason, which limits man to the visible world, will kill faith.”
The extent of that ambivalence was revealed by an article released today by the Associated Press:
Famed physicist Stephen Hawking said Thursday that Pope John Paul II tried to discourage him and other scientists attending a cosmology conference at the Vatican from trying to figure out how the universe began.
The British scientist joked he was lucky the pope didn’t realize he had already presented a paper at the gathering suggesting how the universe was created.“I didn’t fancy the thought of being handed over to the Inquisition like Galileo,” Hawking said in a lecture to a sold-out audience at Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. John Paul died in 2005; Hawking did not say when the Vatican meeting was held.
Yes, our sense of curiosity might ultimately destroy us, but do we know enough to know that to any degree of certainty? What is the true “conservative” position, unlimited science or limited science? If the scope of science should be limited, how should it be limited and by whom? By non-scientists such as the pope? If limited completely, what could serve as an alternative to science? We are naturally curious animals, you see.…
Today, the Boston Globe reported that NASA is "canceling or delaying a number of satellites designed to give scientists critical information on the earth's changing climate and environment." The paper further reports that The space agency has shelved a $200 million satellite mission headed by a Massachusetts Institute of Technology…
The Onion does it again. All of you old-fashioned scientists should take a look and learn a thing or two.