What's So Great About Science?
Photo by NASA on Unsplash
Science is awesome. Good scientific work has made life much better for mankind, and its effects continue to grow. Over the last few generations, we’ve seen incredible advances that no one could have predicted. We are exploring our solar system with unmanned spacecraft, and space beyond with incredibly high-powered telescopes. We are beginning to understand the unfathomably small world that lives in, on, and around us through the field of microbiology. We have travelled to every corner of the globe studying ecology, and now we're starting to go to the deepest darkest depths of the sea. It’s exciting to live in this heyday of scientific discovery. Here are a few reasons why science is so cool.
Science Satisfies Our Curiosity
As the intellectual apex of the biological world, we humans want to know everything about everything. A monkey might be curious enough to look under a rock for food, but only humans are curious enough to blast that monkey out into space to see what happens to it, or to blast other humans out there to see what happens to them. We are full of questions, and we want to know answers, to the point that some of us are willing to risk life and limb to get those answers. Why?
One reason is that what we learn about the world teaches us about ourselves. We want to understand where we fit in the grand scheme of things. What is our place? What is our role? Could we win a fight against a Tyrannosaurus Rex (and what kinds of guns would we need)? Can we win the fight against cancer (and what kinds of weapons do we need)? Are we smarter than dolphins? Are we smarter than dogs? (Perhaps not, since we clean up their turds.) Are we alone as thinking, rational, moral beings, or are there others like us, in this world or on another? What are our strengths and vulnerabilities as a species? Science gives us tools to begin to answer these questions. By methodically studying our universe we can get an idea of what we are.
Secondly, science satisfies our curiosity about the other. We want to know what makes things tick, from cells to black holes. Humans have these incredible processing machines in our heads (brains), and not all of us are content to use them to ponder celebrity gossip or send cat memes. We want to see inside a living human body, or to the edges of known space. We want to hear the sounds of a volcano or the heartbeat of a fetus. We want to know why things are they way they are, and how the Earth came to be the planet it is today. Humans are born with a sense of wonder about this incredible (though not always friendly) world, and if we don't feed that sense of wonder, it can wither. Asking questions is something we were born to do, and, if we apply ourselves, we are equipped to do it well.
“The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not “Eureka!” but “That’s funny…””
-Isaac Asimov
Science Makes Life Easier and Longer
Science has drastically changed the human experience, at a pace that has accelerated in the past couple of centuries. Consider the medical field. Diseases that used to be fatal are now often a minor inconvenience. Emergency care has improved dramatically in developed countries. Going to a hospital is now more likely to help you get better than give you new germs to fight. We have machines that can scan our bones, our organs, and our brains to take some of the guesswork out of diagnoses. More pregnancies end with a happy, healthy baby and mother. People are living longer today than they did even a generation or two ago, all thanks to medicine.
Or consider technology. We are only a couple of generations removed from a time when news travelled by paper or wire, and there were many places in the world where it was literally impossible to get a message to another person faster than weeks. Mine is the first generation of people who have grown up with computers in our homes, and now we carry more computing power in our pockets than used to be contained in entire building complexes. Our cars and planes are safer than ever before, with all kinds of warning and crash protection systems.
Science is changing how we do all kinds of things, from public life (voting and travel), to our most personal decisions (pregnancy and weight loss). Every single day, from the moment our phones wake us up, to the time we turn off our televisions and go to sleep, technology is making our jobs easier, our lives longer, our kids safer, and our fun more extreme. I'm typing this on a slick little laptop computer, which, though eight years old and almost obsolete, is still light years ahead of the typewriter my father would have used. I can write while the kids are asleep (have you ever heard a typewriter?), and I can edit as I go, without a bucket of white-out at my side (I am not a skilled typist). Thank God for the progress of science.
“Equipped with his five senses, man explores the universe around him and calls the adventure science.”
-Edwin Powell Hubble
Science Captures the Imagination
Do you remember the first time you heard that human beings have walked on the moon? How do you feel when you consider that there are people at the edge of space, right now, zooming over us in the International Space Station 250 miles above the Earth? Do you feel tiny when you realize that those 250 miles are just over one thousandth of the way to the moon? Or that other planets are millions of miles away, and other stars billions of miles away?
Do you feel enormous when you consider that there are more atoms in a glass of water than there are glasses of water in every ocean in the world? Or that physicists are studying particles smaller than even atoms? We are insignificant specks or towering giants, depending on one’s perspective.
Without science, our sense of wonder would not be so often challenged with the incredible. Even setting aside distant galaxies or invisible atoms, consider the beauty and grandeur of the world we experience firsthand.
For instance, while one doesn’t have to be a scientist to appreciate the beauty of a waterfall, with science we find many different angles of discovery. We can consider the water - its chemical properties, and its necessity for life. We can ponder the nature of gravity that causes the water to fall as it does, or the atmospheric conditions that produce the steam or ice. We can study the fascinating plants and animals that take advantage of the unique environment of a waterfall, the ecosystem of falling water. Science doesn’t replace wonder at the universe; it deepens and enriches it with layers of complexity, revealing interwoven systems. Science feeds our wonder.
Science Enables Us to Be Better Stewards of the Earth
As creatures made in the image of God, we humans are responsible for using our powers of creation and destruction wisely and for practicing good stewardship of the planet. People constantly debate how to balance the needs of civilization and nature, and even how to define “needs.” (Is a heated foot massager for my dog a want or a need?) But information makes better decisions possible – as long as it doesn’t overwhelm us.
Only by gathering a lot of data can we begin to make decisions that affect the natural and human worlds with anything better than gut feelings or emotions. But even when we have collected libraries of data, we must remain humble enough to admit that there are always variables we simply don’t know. Progress is possible, if we are curious and self-critical.
Look, for instance, at agriculture. In The Population Bomb (1968), Paul R. Ehrlich argued that overpopulation would soon lead to starvation on a massive scale, and that farmers would not be able to produce enough food for the exploding human population. But Ehrlich underestimated the power of agriculture to increase production, and most of the starvation that we’ve seen over the past fifty years has been due to local environmental conditions (such as droughts), or governments that keep populations from benefitting from the resources of their land or accepting the aid of other countries.
But, while the “Green Revolution” produced incredible quantities of food and staved off starvation for much of the world’s population, it also produced negative side effects, such as forest destruction, soil degradation, and pesticides and fertilizers contaminating water bodies. Fortunately, science is once again producing solutions, and modern agriculture is becoming more efficient and responsible. We have some catching up to do, but agricultural scientists are motivated to solve these problems, and producers are gradually making the change to more long-term thinking.
Or consider other pollution problems. While the Industrial Revolution brought manufacturing power to developed countries, it also enabled us to destroy and degrade the land, water, and skies with incredible speed. Thankfully, science has led to many success stories. For instance, look at Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (home, incidentally, of the Pittsburgh Steelers, who have won many Super Bowl championships).
In an article in The Atlantic (“Aghast Over Beijing’s Air Pollution? This Was Pittsburgh Not That Long Ago”, January 6, 2013), Alexis C. Madrigal writes about the air pollution in Pittsburgh that kept the city in perpetual darkness until halfway through the 20th century. Huge profits from the steel industry motivated the city to ignore its pollution problem until it was ridiculous. Tourists would come from around the world to see “hell with the lid off.” Now, it wasn’t necessarily science that told people that being constantly covered in soot is not an ideal way to live. But scientific methods have helped clean up the air in Pittsburgh and in cities around the world ever since. Because of methods of curbing air pollution (in addition to steel production moving to other places), Pittsburgh's air is an environmental success story.
The knowledge we gain from science is helping us deal with the crisis of energy in our high-technology, high-travel, high-consumption society. Scientists are inventing ways to conserve energy, such as light-emitting diode (LED) bulbs and more efficient cars, and better ways to produce energy, from wind farms to safer nuclear plants. Some have called the energy crisis the major issue of our generation, because of greenhouse gases and destructive means of obtaining energy. Science provides answers as bright people put it to use.
Science is also enabling us to be better stewards of animals, plants, and ecosystems. Poaching and overharvesting are still rampant in parts of the world, but scientists are working hard to understand just how many species we’re losing, and to get citizens and governments to take action. There are efforts underway to breed endangered species, establish protected areas around sensitive habitats like coral reefs, and limit the harvesting of overfished and overhunted animals. Science is playing an important role in all these efforts.
Creation and Creator
Another benefit of science is that it teaches us about the creator God. For those of us who believe that God created everything that exists, science is a way to see how He operates, and scientific observations tell us many amazing things about God, such as:
• He loves variety and made the creation teeming with different materials and creatures;
• He creates detailed and intricate systems, from atoms to galaxies;
• He likes order and repetition, like the genetic code and the laws of physics;
• and His creation is intelligible and knowable (to a certain degree) to the human mind – He likes to share what He can do.
Science is Good
Science, the study of the physical universe, is a good and noble pursuit, and Christians should not be afraid to love science or to be scientists. Scientific knowledge has changed the course of history, often for the better. Science, like every other human endeavor, has been corrupted by sin. But, like everything else, science can be redeemed, and we can participate in that redemption by doing science with passion and excellence.