The First "Earth-like" Planet Discovered!

                                           Image:  Caltech/NASA -- Artist's Impression of new
                                           planet Kepler 22b

    I have often wondered what the reaction would be in the religious community if life were ever discovered outside of earth.  Throughout all of human history, most major faiths, Christianity included, have seen the earth and its inhabitants as being quite special and unique.  Up until the last 500 years, earth was still considered to be the center of the universe, surrounded by planets, the moon, and the sun in orbit around it and the stars making up some distant firmament likened to pin holes in a black sheet draped over all of the above.  What a picture!  It makes sense though, when you think about it.  Explanations provided by religion aside, this pretty well described the observable universe based upon the tools and knowledge that were available to our ancestors.

    Changing these ideas took what was, at the time, a great deal of indirect international collaboration.  The Polish astronomer Copernicus helped us correct Ptolemy's crazy geocentric system of epicycles and deferents by placing the sun at the center of it all instead.  Unfortunately, his still very Aristotelian views kept the orbits too circular for that model to be widely accepted or, more importantly, useful for prediction.  Not long after this, the German mathematician Johannes Kepler gave us three laws that govern how planetary orbits work.  These laws made the Copernican heliocentric theory not only more palatable but much superior to the Ptolmaic model.  Galileo, an Italian, popularized the idea further, which brought a great deal of attention to it...and also to him.  He is thought to have been a very vain man, but the experience that he had as a result of his 1633 inquisition trial certainly forced a fair amount of humility out of him.  He was a religious man and though not the most faithful Catholic in some ways, he was certainly deferential to the opinion and orders given to him by the inquisition.  Explanations about why he was summoned before the inquisition are often simplistically reduced to his belief and acceptance of the heliocentric hypothesis, even though he was really summoned for disobeying an order not to teach the idea.  Regardless, this is one of the noteworthy events that eventually led us into the modern scientific revolution and officially began the separation of science and faith.

    I recount this story because it illustrates a major event in the confluence of science and faith.  Galileo et al., challenged the deeply held convictions and beliefs of the church.  This was not the first time this ever happened and it will not be the last...which brings me back to my original pondering...

  As Christians, what beliefs about the uniqueness of earth will we strive to cling to should NASA or some other researcher finally discover the existence of life outside of earth?  The probabilities, however lacking in empirical evidence for support, are against earth's uniqueness.  The discovery of Kepler 22b recently, even with no evidence of life at the moment, has shattered any notion that earth could be the only place where life as we know it is possible.  If life is found, would we make a distinction between microbial life and intelligent life?  How does the story of the garden of eden figure into the theology of those who take that story to be literally historically correct?  Will some christians refuse to even believe the plain evidence of life when presented?

    I would like to think that we are past the age of witch hunts and inquisitions, at least here in the west.  Galileo was finally pardoned in 1992, removing an unspoken barrier between science and faith that had existed since his conviction in 1633.  While this branch of the church had already long since made its own strides in coming to an understanding with science, many (certainly not all) protestant christians still cling to a version of science that does not fit the same philosophical model as that claimed by mainstream scientists (that of the skeptical research interested in falsifiability, reproducibility, and testability).  Their view starts with a model provided by their interpretation of a  literal english translation of scripture, and attempts to fit evidence to that model, thereby creating a completely different interpretation of the same evidence.  In traditional science, evidence leads to a model/theory which is used for prediction and explanation (Theory is  a loaded word in these discussions...and might merit a forthcoming post by itself).  Consequently, it is very likely that large swaths of christians would simply ignore or re-interpret the evidence in order to fit it to their preferred model, no matter how incontrovertible the mainstream explanation of that same evidence might be.

    I hope that this will not be the case.  An avid fan of Star Trek, I have also hoped that one day we could meet other intelligent species from beyond our solar system.  I have never seen a conflict between what the Bible tells us -- as it talks entirely about us here on earth -- and the possibility of life outside of earth's creation.  It never alludes to, nor disavows, the presence of life beyond this planet.  I do not think it was much on the minds of the early Jewish writers, though I could be wrong on that one!

A Grand Unification?

Recently I had the pleasure of reviewing some video clips for potential inclusion in my astronomy lesson plans.  I knew that I wanted something short but exciting to catch their interest.  We had been discussing black holes, which are interesting to high school students anyway, but are also not easy to understand.  My own understanding of the math behind them is severely lacking and my ability to answer some of the really good but unexpected questions that I invariably get from students is limited.  However, we have fun with it.  They enjoy the thought experiments that easily emanate from such subject matter.  Such as,

"Katie and Zach are going to be the first scientists to study a black hole.  Zach has volunteered to potentially trade his life for the eternal fame that will come with being the first human to enter a black hole.  What would Katie see as Zach approaches the event horizon and what would Zach experience?"

This leads to discussions on time dilation, the speed of light, the ability for the two explorers to communicate (or not!), tidal forces, and -- the favorite -- "spaghettification".  It's always a good discussion and one that I look forward to every year.

The problem is, when discussing black holes and the physics involved, like those theoretical physicists who are actually on the cutting edge of studying them, I run out of explanations when it comes to what happens when one reaches the center of the black hole, a point of zero volume but infinite mass and density.  All known laws break down in there and we really have no good explanation for it!

This isn't the only subject with which I struggle in this manner.  Later in the year, we will talk about string theory.  The goal for string theorists is to prove that string theory can be used as a "Grand Unified Theory" that will unite our understanding of the forces that govern how large and fast things work, such as gravity (General Relativity), and the forces that govern how tiny particles work, such as the strong and weak nuclear forces and electromagnetism (Quantum Mechanics).

While science does not yet have such a theory, and even if it did, it will likely not provide an answer to everything for which we have questions, it does an excellent job of providing a way for us to explore the empirical world in order to figure out how it works and to better our lives here on earth.  Science has proven itself time and again as the most powerful tool humanity has in unlocking the secrets of the known physical universe.  However, it does have its limitations...

Enter faith/religion/theology.  There are some questions that science cannot adequately answer.  Psychologists and those who study the human mind have their ideas about how we form our understanding of morality and also why we have a need to seek out spiritual things.  But, these explanations always fall short.  What is clear is that there is a continuous absolute moral thread that binds all of humanity.  It could be called a foundational morality, perhaps, but it is there and some of that can be seen in all of the world's religions.  Even atheists adhere to it.  Other spiritual convictions, such as a belief in an afterlife, our unique and pervasive self-awareness, our need to live outside of ourselves, our desire to overcome our faults -- these are things that can, perhaps, be supported with phsychological research, but not explained.

Unfortunately, there are many scientists who do not fully understand religion and we have many Christians who do not really understand science.  Organizations like Answers in Genesis are a prime example of the latter.  Their understanding of the nature of scientific investigation, reporting, peer review, reproducibility, etc. is vastly lacking, while they claim to be the real scientists in the room.  In fact, their conduct and writings are so antagonistic to science and scientists alike that there work only serves to further alienate a public from science which also tends to be relatively scientific illiterate.  This is not to insult the public, but only to point out that science is not an easy area to understand and it is something, like theology, that takes years of study to fully grasp.

Likewise, people like Richard Dawkins and organizations like American Atheists are just as bad.  Though, I sometimes think that if Christians in the U.S. were more Christian, these individuals and groups would not be so prominent!  Regardless, they do not work to elevate the conversation, but only serve to continue to cause it to sink into the abyss.

None of these folks, as vocal as they are, work to make any progress in our understanding of the world around us or our need for God.

There are others out here who do.  Biologos is one such organization.  The Roman Catholic Church, ironically, is another.  While I am not Catholic myself, I have always admired the attempts, and strides, that this church (Catholics would say THE church) has made to find some common ground between faith and science.  Their record on this historically, to be sure, is not a pristine one -- poor Galileo -- but their work since has been more than redemptive on this front.

In my own life, and my search for a church home these last few years, this issue has followed me around.  Being a geology and astronomy teacher who has no problem with an old earth and evolutionary ideas, I have not been able to stay in churches, however life-giving they are, who are antagonistic to science.  I am surely not the only person who has desired to attend in these places, but found that they cannot because sometimes Christians who are more "fundamentalist" in their thinking tend to elevate issues of origins and creation to the level of dogma rather than allowing for doctrinal freedom.  This conflict has made my search, and my family's search, for a church home more problematic than necessary.

I contend that this conflict should not exist.  I intend to contribute to a positive discussion of the boundaries, and commonalities, between science and faith in this space in the hopes that I can find some personal peace on the issue.  In the process, I hope that these posts on this blog will help others who feel similarly also.  Perhaps, in the future, we will yet see hope for a grand unification of science and faith!

I call this blog "General Revelations" because its goal is to explore what theologians call general revelation, which is in part defined by the beauty that we see around us in the natural world.  Perhaps this "General Revelation" is the perfect place to start looking for the common ground that we seek.