Some Thoughts on the March for Science

The oceans are warmer – the thermal expansion of the water (and corresponding ocean rise) is a direct confirmation of that. As you correctly point out, they account for most of the surface, and do have higher specific heat (not to mention much greater volume available for convective heat exchange as compared with the top few meters of land); so with the vast majority of heat capacity of our hydrosphere residing in our oceans, their increased warmth will be pretty much equivalent to our entire surface also being warmer on average. I’m pretty sure that these basic facts would not be lost on the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

@bill_wald,

As interesting as your comment may be, it really doesn’t have any bearing on the matter of climate change.

In 8 out of 8 glaciation periods, the waters got warmer, which led to higher levels of CO2, which led inevitably to warmer land masses, the melting of virtually all glaciers, and high ocean levels… until the Milankovitch Cycle reversed the trend by slowly reducing CO2 levels in the atmosphere as the cooling oceans re-absorbed the CO2.

At 400 ppm, the cycle which moves from 180 ppm to 280 ppm and then back down to 180 ppm, will not be able to get back down to 280, let alone to 180 ppm.

And you have managed to duck the original question that went with that graph: where is the much vaunted pause? it is artificial… based on cherry picking which year you want to compare against.

“The mainstream practice of science is still our best shot at understanding God’s Creation.” - President Haarsma

What about music, art, language? When physical science is framed in such an exclusionary way as above, almost 100% of time by physical scientists themselves (isn’t Haasma also physical scientist?), whether Christian, Jewish or Muslim, somehow it also usually values-under other fields, even without realising it.

If BioLogos president thinks praise and worship through music, art or poesy does not help us ‘understand God’s Creation,’ perhaps even much more than dry technical information and knowledge, please explain what you mean.

Science is one way of understanding among others. We should value it in proportion, not exaggerate it. And I think you have a very hard time convincing Christians that theology field is not a better way than physical science to understand our Creator’s creation. But perhaps you didn’t mean to exaggerate against theology science, even if you didn’t write: “Theology is our best shot at understanding God’s creation.”

@Al-Khalil,

If you were a pastor at a church, if someone asked you if music, art and language can help you understand God’s Creation - - wouldn’t you say, Of Course, they certainly Help in understanding creation.

And if someone else asked “But what about the science of what God Created?” you would no doubt agree there too.

But if you were forced to say One or the Other, do you think a song about God’s love and sovereignty would teach people better about God’s creation than a science class about how God’s creation worked?

I’m sure President Haarsma does not dismiss art, music, language and even more.

But if one believes there are two books of God… one the Bible, and the other the Book of Nature … it should not be construed that a Music Book is of no value.

I can personally assure you (as a BioLogos staff member) that president Haarsma holds music and art in very high regard, and feels that we should indeed bring the arts into the effort to understand God’s Creation and celebrate it. She was using the phrase “understanding God’s Creation” in a more limited sense, i.e. exploring the physical world through the tools of science. I’m a musician myself, but I’m pretty sure music cannot help us understand photosynthesis (although it can help us celebrate it meaningfully!). She would also dispute the idea that technical knowledge is “dry.” She sees a lot of poetry in the stars :stars:.

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O.k, then word ‘best’ should be avoided such way in the future. Do you not agree?

Repeat: “Theology is our best shot at understanding God’s creation.” BioLogos staff might actually agree with most Christians, Jews and Muslims about this statement, even when science is involved too.

Deborah’s good, better, best talk sounds more like scientism than responsible science. And scientism was widely on display at the March for Science. Did you not see it?

Sorry, for us Abrahamic monotheists, science cannot be called best compared with theology when topic is God’s Creation. Hope you can agree in humility. Science is not opponent of theology, and also is simply not ‘better’ for that topic than theology as implied in what BioLogos president said.

@Al-Khalil,

So you don’t agree with the Vatican’s view that theology and the natural world will be found to be in agreement?

You think Theology will differ from the natural world and that Theology trumps nature?

5 posts were split to a new topic: Evolution is secularism, not science

To me it seems not so much that BioLogos is participating in political activism as it is that their stated mission happens to overlap with an area that’s been politically hijacked.

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Don’t you think the term ‘best’ should be removed in the statement above, if only for the sake of balance, Alli? I’m new here also and that language strikes me rather as polarizing in itself.

Don’t you think BioLogos president Haarsma should retract her ‘best’ claim for what looks very much like scientism, which in some sense is simply the privileging of natural science over other knowledge realms regarding God’s Creation?

I’m all for celebrating science among other spheres of knowledge, but not the exaggeration that I read in her language.

It should be really easy to accept “Theology is our best shot at understanding God’s creation.” If BioLogos can’t even acknowledge that (!), then something is likely very wrong underneath, could be politics or smth else.

I’m not BioLogos, but I don’t think theology is our best shot at understanding God’s creation. Given the wide range of theologies out there, it seems pretty clear to me that theology as an enterprise doesn’t converge to any particular understanding of much of anything.

So is theology our best shot at figuring out how to forecast rain?

So is theology our best shot at figuring out how to cure disease?

So is theology our best shot at figuring out how to fly to the moon?

If it isn’t then please explain the difference.

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Hi, Al-Khalil! I’m flattered you directed your question to me. The best I can give you is my take, but I hope you find it useful.

I would concede perhaps better phrasing could be employed, but I think by far the impetus should be placed on what is meant by the statement. When I take the statement in context, being that it’s conversation starter on a blog post about the science march in Washington, I believe it is targeting a specific cultural ideology unique to the current social climate in the United States. And in fairness, without assuming where you are located, it’s a nuance that would be readily apparent to most Americans, but it probably does seem a bit cavalier outside of that particular context.

The March for Science is a response to vocal fundamentalist conservatives that believe science is man-made, dangerous, and that only scripture can tell us about nature. It’s this line of thinking that wants to ignore climate science, evolutionary science, environmental science (not to mention the metric system and Celsius scale) because God is in control of everything and science is an attempt to improperly empower mankind. In that sense, Ms. Haarsma is entirely correct as it relates to “Creation” as the material nature and its physical properties.

Outside of that context, there is a lot of truth to the point you’re making. If you were to shine Creation through a prism, you would discover many different facets to it. Music, art, and poetry are essential to our spiritual experience. I myself am a poet. I’ve written poetry ever since I could hold a pencil. I even host poetry readings with a colleague of mine so I don’t take the beauty of poetry lightly.

But I don’t hear people claiming they don’t believe in God because they believe in poetry. And I don’t see celebrity musicians telling the world that music proves God doesn’t exist. And I don’t see snarky blogs about how no one with half a brain could believe in a deity after looking at this painting. From what I can tell, BioLogos really is the voice of one calling out in the wilderness in this particular niche. I appreciate that as an organization it’s focused on science and faith even though I would bet that its membership enjoy art in their own private lives. That’s what I need from this organization. I can find music, art, poetry, and theology in a thousand other places.

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I recall one line from the movie ‘Contact’ where the scientist (played by Jodi Foster) is looking in amazement out her portal at some indescribable sight and declaring that it should be a poet taking in the experience rather than a scientist.

I think that is entirely possible and desirable that a person could be both!

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Clearly you’ve never typed “Photosynthesis song” into the search box on YouTube :laughing:

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“I don’t think theology is our best shot at understanding God’s creation.” - glipsnort Steve Schaffner

Wow, that’s a bold claim, assuming it comes from a Christian theist! What is theology’s role in understanding God’s Creation then, in your view Steve? Does theology help us understand God’s Creation at all?

No one has suggested theology must converge to have value for human understanding.

@Al-Khalil

I’m not sure you are making the best kind of categorization. Theology is about the nature of God and about morality.

Science is about the nature of God’s creation.

It may be a subtle distinction… but I can’t imagine hiring a Theologian to build a spaceship or even a telescope to investigate the Heavens!

Peace be with you, Alli. Glad to see your thoughts here. And welcome a poetic voice.

With you I agree on importance of BioLogos Foundation in city, jungle or wilderness to solve a specific society problem. Evangelical Protestants in America need to get their house in order regarding natural science, evolution and climate science, etc. No argument about that at all. BioLogos tries to raise awareness and educate reluctant, scared and ignorant people of alternatives to science/faith warfare model, “evolution is from the devil” and young earth nonsense alike. Bravo!

Also glad you notice “targeting a specific cultural ideology”. This is about “vocal fundamentalist conservatives” as you say. If they didn’t exist then neither would BioLogos.

Deborah’s ‘best’ claim about natural science, however, is far from normal among Christians and I would suggest it is biased by her profession. Her choice of language echoes pompous scientism by others, not the way Christians communicate about God’s Creation, but the way scientists inflate their claims to knowledge. Probably she didn’t mean it, maybe pressed Enter too quickly or maybe scientists sometimes aren’t the best communicators of what they actually mean?

“I would concede perhaps better phrasing could be employed”

Good, that’s all I’m asking from her. Thank you. A person who cannot correct themselves is unlikely to admit they are a sinner either. So I’m puzzled by BioLogos’ president ‘best’ language privilege of science over theology here.

It seems we agree, both/and rather than either/or regarding science and theology. And that means not saying ‘best’ vs. ‘less than best.’ She needs to change her language just as much as she is asking others to change theirs and this is one clear example of that. It’s that simple but important point and hopefully Deborah will concede the same too.

p.s. isn’t science man-made? :sweat_smile:

@Al-Khalil,

I think you are over-stating your case. God-fearing “natural philosophers” (the old phrase for Scientists) have been talking about discovering the ways of nature to better understand God Himself… and in this thread, not even this claim is made: we seek to understand the creations of God.

Here are some texts from the Wiki discussion (link at bottom):

Early theologians believed the Book of Nature was a source of God’s revelation to mankind: when read alongside sacred scripture, the “book” of nature and the study of God’s creations would lead to a knowledge of God himself. The concept corresponds to the early Greek philosophical belief that man, as part of a coherent universe, is capable of understanding the design of the natural world through reason. The concept is frequently deployed by philosophers, theologians, and scholars.

“The first use of the phrase is unknown. However, Galileo used the phrase, quoting Tertullian, when he wrote of how " “We conclude that God is known first through Nature, and then again, more particularly, by doctrine; by Nature in His works, and by doctrine in His revealed word.” (5) (5) Adversus Marcionem, I, 18…”
[FN 2: Galileo, Letter to the Grand Duchess Christina of Tuscany, 1615, Verses 272-279 ]

“The belief in causality in nature implied an endless, interconnected chain of causation acting upon the natural world. It is presumed, however, that Greek thought denied the existence of a natural world where causality was infinite, which gave rise to Aristotle’s doctrine of “efficient cause,” or “first cause,” upon which the order of other causes must rely."

“The pathway to heaven became clear: “the First Cause is also the Prime Mover of the world; and, since motion is a fact revealed by the senses, the Prime Mover must exist by necessity, a being unable to be otherwise than it is.”

". . . .And, since nature operates for a purpose, the Prime Mover must also be intelligent. Being eternal it is divine…” and we now know of it as “God.”[7] The ultimate cause, or source, of all natural phenomena occurring in the natural world had been discovered. There was but one God, and He has created all that resides in the Book of Nature.[8]

Footnotes
[7]. Pedersen, Olaf. The Book of Nature. Notre Dame, IN: The University of Notre Dame Press, 1992, pp. 14–15.
[8]. Pedersen, Olaf. The Book of Nature. Notre Dame, IN: The University of Notre Dame Press, 1992, p. 15.

“Origen then demonstrated how the natural world could be made intelligible to man through a process that exposed the spiritual realities which the material world signified. Thus, if the natural world was created to minister to the physical and spiritual needs of mankind, reading the Book of Nature ensured both needs could be fulfilled, in part through what the visible world signifies. The importance of reading the Book of Nature alongside sacred Scripture became evident because references to the natural world in sacred text were unintelligible unless the reader was knowledgeable about the Book of Nature in order to understand these references and interpret their meaning.”

" However, whereas the Book of Nature served Scripture well, it lacked internal order and discernible relationships between the objects it represented thereby reducing nature to an inchoate and unintelligible language. The Book of Nature required substantial editing and revision, which would not occur for another nine hundred years."

BioLogos is the achievement of an eon of work to close the unceasing human anxieties about the two books: the Bible and Nature. And instead of ushering in another phase of divorcing science from faith, BioLogos is leading the Union of the two worlds, the two books, the two great realities of the Universe - - the Creation of Man in God’s image, done so to a significant degree with natural laws now intelligible to God’s greatest creation: humankind!

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Telling you what I think about something is hardly a bold claim. It’s not even clear to me that we mean we mean the same thing by “theology” or “understanding”, or “creation” for that matter.

Since you were the one who actually made a claim about theology, why don’t you explain what you meant? That way I’ll know whether we’re talking about the same thing or not. What understanding of God’s creation do you think theology provides?[quote=“Al-Khalil, post:44, topic:35644”]
No one has suggested theology must converge to have value for human understanding.
[/quote]
Sure somebody did – me. Or rather, I suggest that the inability of theology to converge on conclusions makes it a poor candidate to be our best shot for understanding God’s creation.

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