A Few Points of Light

Isn’t it funny how the smallest things can sometimes lead to the biggest changes, events and discoveries? Take for example stars.

For the common human experience stars are little more than twinkling points of light in an otherwise black sky. They are separated from us not only by unimaginably vast distances – distances so great that even the explanation of how far away they are fails to properly acquaint us with the true scale – but also by time. It’s true! Oddly, all of the points of light we see in the night sky represent completely different times of earthly existence. For example, when we look upon stars like Orion, Sirius, Betelgeuse, Vega, Antares and Andromeda we actually see them as they were, not as they are. For example, we see Sirius as it was 8.6 years ago, Orion as it was 243 years ago, and Betelgeuse as it was 427 years ago. Antares shines light upon us that started its journey in 1402! Remarkably, if you can find the Andromeda Galaxy south of Cassiopeia you can look at light that left that galaxy 2 million years ago. More remarkable still, the Hubble telescope has taken photographs of galaxies whose light began its journey 13.5 BILLION years ago! Looking at a night sky that isn’t even representative of “real time” makes it even more amazing that these tiny points of light could have ever had any real, tangible effect on us and on our lives. Yet they say that truth is stranger than fiction and in the case of starlight they are right.

Early humans first perceived the regular east to west motion of the Sun and established the day as the first real measure of time. Each sunrise (or sunset depending on tribal preference) marked the beginning of a new day. The Moon crossed the night sky as a counterpoint to the Sun but it also did something very different as well. It not only moved east to west like the Sun but on each succeeding night it moved a little bit more to the east through the background of the star field. It also had phases , changing from full to waning gibbous and crescent to no moon at all, and then to waxing crescent and waxing gibbous until once again shining in the night sky as a full moon. This complete cycle took about 28 days and that repetitive cycle became the next demarcation of time, a lunar month. Closer examination of the Sun’s motion revealed that it too moved against the backdrop of the star field although at a much slower rate. It turned out that as the Sun moved against the background stars it also rose at a slightly different point on the horizon each day. In the summer the Sun rose well north of east and it slowly moved southward until the dead of winter when it rose well south of east. This north/south cycling repeated over and over and people noticed that the seasons followed suit. This period became a year and it lasted about 365 days. Early observers marked the northernmost and southernmost points of sunrise and these became the solstices. They also noticed that midway through the Sun’s trek from north to south and back again the daytime and the night time were of equal length so these points came to be known as the equinoxes. The four seasons were tied to these four points so we now have Spring commence on the Vernal equinox, Summer begins with the summer solstice, Fall starts at the autumnal equinox and Winter starts when the Sun hits the lowest point on the horizon, the winter solstice. In the early days of the Roman Empire (and in many other cultures as well) the New Year was celebrated at the beginning of spring. Have you ever wondered why September, October, November and December have names that begin with the prefixes for 7, 8, 9and 10 even though the months are the 9th, 10th, 11th and 12th months? The vernal equinox came on the 15th of March on the Julian calendar so our 3rd month was the early Roman 1st month (although when Julius Caesar established his calendar he made January the first month, breaking with old tradition).

Once it was observed that the Sun moved against the star field it was decided to divide the star field along the ecliptic (the path followed by the Sun and Moon) into twelve portions. The constellations in those sections made up the Zodiac. When a person was said to be born under Pisces it meant that he or she was born during the time that the Sun was in the Star field in front of Pisces. Each of the signs of the Zodiac represented the time when the Sun was in that particular portion of the ecliptic. The men who studied this stuff were called astrologers and they held a very important place in society. As most all societies were agrarian it was crucially important to know when to plant and when to harvest. Tomato and melon growers, for example, dared not plant until the last frost of the year had fallen or else they would lose their whole crop. Likewise, harvesting had to be done before it got too cold. Astrologers were the people assigned to read the stars and make those determinations. The very survival of whole societies depended upon their accuracy.

Reading the stars took on a mystical aura and soon people began to ascribe all sorts of things to them. It was believed by many that the stars a person was born under were determinative of the course for that person’s life. So strongly held was this belief that the saying “you can’t change a person’s stars” was born along with the rather fatalistic determinism that followed. Many of us might remember a grandparent who would say “my stars’ as an exclamatory statement. It was also believed that stars controlled health and sickness and as pandemics swept Europe during the Middle Ages it was believed that sick people were under the ‘influence’ of the stars. The Italian word for influence is ‘influenza’ and we still use that word today, or its foreshortened term ‘Flu’.

What does this have to do with science and religion you may ask? Well, everything, as a matter of fact. You see, the early astrologers were often the theologians as well, or at least in the employ of the head cleric. This was appropriate as who better than men of God to study the heavens? However, things began to happen in the third and fourth centuries that would change the course of humankind forever, just not right away.

 The emperor Constantine, the last Caesar of the Roman Empire fought tirelessly to quell the rising interest in Christianity until he finally concluded that it would be easier to adopt it as the official religion and transform the ‘Roman Empire’ into the ‘Holy Roman Empire’. In 325 A.D. he called all the clerics from around the Mediterranean to a conclave in Nicaea, a city in Turkey. There they were instructed to hash out their doctrinal differences and come out of the council with one unified, universal (or ‘Catholic’) doctrine. They were to make determinations and set doctrine on almost everything they could think of, including the heavens and the Sun, Moon and stars. They made decisions on whether there was empty space and just exactly what the Sun was. They decided that the stars were fixed in a shell that rotated around the earth. The Sun had its own shell as did the moon. They decided that the earth was the center of a geocentric universe and all things in the heavens revolved around our little planet. Now, this would have been OK if the council had issued a proclamation saying something to the effect that these new doctrines represented the best of their understanding to that point and that as further light and knowledge appeared doctrines would be reviewed and amended as appropriate. Instead, they declared the doctrines of the Nicaean Council to be ‘infallible’. Furthermore, they declared that anyone who disagreed with the doctrines would be guilty of ‘Heresy’, a sin punishable by death! Well, this worked OK for a little while but even from the beginning there were problems that unsettled the hearts of people of learning. Among the biggest of those problems were the stars the Greeks called the wandering stars or “Planetas”.

No one was really quite sure what the planets were. What was sure however was that the planets didn’t seem to follow any of the rules that all the other heavenly bodies followed. For example, the rest of the stars all moved in unison across the sky. Likewise the Sun and the Moon had their own predictable patterns. But the planets were a different story altogether. An individual planet like Mars, for instance, would move west to east for a while against the backdrop of the stars. It might then suddenly stop. Once it started moving again it might resume its eastward trek or it might just as easily begin moving east to west! It would follow this path for a time and then suddenly resume eastward movement. It might then disappear completely only to reappear some months later on the other side of the night sky! Jupiter and Saturn would likewise ‘wander’ around the sky although much more slowly while Venus verily zipped back and forth across the face of the Sun. All this was most confusing and no acceptable model could be made to explain it according to Catholic doctrine. It remained for many centuries a mystery.

Now let’s jump ahead 1100 years to Firenze, Toscana, or as we know it, Florence, in the Provence of Tuscany in Italy. It is the 1400s and a very powerful Florentine family known as the Medicis rule Tuscany. The Medicis are a banking family who, through intrigue and hard work, have become the bankers to the Vatican. This yields them wealth and power beyond imagination. But the Medicis are an amazing family as well for they determine to spend some of their wealth serving as patrons for many of the brightest minds they can find. They patronize artists and architects, philosophers and poets. Among their more famous and productive patronages were people like Michelangelo, Botticelli, and Leonardo Da Vinci. Another of their men was a brilliant mathematician whom they hired to tutor (ultimately) multiple generations of Medici children. His name was Galileo Galilei.

Galileo was a man of wide a varied interest with an intellect sufficient to accommodate them all. His discoveries and inventions are numerous and his work lives on today. On the British two pound coin is inscribed around the edge “standing upon the shoulders of giants”. It is Sir Isaac Newton’s homage to Galileo and refers to his answer to the question “How have you managed to see so much farther than other men?” to which Newton replied “If I have seen farther than others it is only because I have stood upon the shoulders of giants!” referring particularly to Galileo.

Galileo is perhaps best known for two things, dropping two rocks is dissimilar size from the Leaning Tower of Pisa (his birthplace) and the invention of the telescope. It is this last item which brings us back to our tiny points of light that changed the world.

The telescope was a remarkable invention. It had the previously undreamt of ability to bring distant objects into full view. It could even reveal things unable to be made out with the naked eye. Galileo probably first used the new device to check out the sights of the surrounding Florentine environs. After scoping out the hot Italian ladies in the neighboring buildings (come on, you know he did!) he then turned his sights on even more heavenly bodies – the moon and the stars. The brightest star in the night sky was Jupiter, the largest planet in our solar system. (Though Jupiter is today referred to as a planet, in Galileo’s day planets were considered mysterious ‘oddly acting stars’). As he trained his telescope on Jupiter Galileo made a surprise discovery that forever changed the relationship between scientists and theologians and, more generally, between science and religion. He saw four tiny specks of light next to the giant planet. That’s all, just four tiny points of light. After a few weeks of observation and careful note taking it became obvious that the four little lights were in fact moons of Jupiter! And that, my friends, was earth shaking! That four previously unviewed sparkling points of light could change the world seems oddly disproportionate to their apparent significance but, like it or not, the world would never again be the same.

The Galilean moons, as the newly discovered objects came to be known, weren’t supposed to be there. They weren’t supposed to exist at all. The doctrine established by the Nicaean council had declared that all objects in the sky revolved around the earth and nothing else, yet here were four objects clearly and indisputably revolving – orbiting – another object in the sky! The implications were enormous and the entire geocentric (earth centered) theory of stellar mechanics – already hanging by a thread – was brought to the brink. Copernicus had already advocated an Heliocentric ‘Solar system’ in which the planets, including Earth, orbited the Sun. Galileo subscribed to this thinking and the discovery of the Galilean moons only reinforced that belief. In 1615 he was denounced for his beliefs before the Roman Inquisition. Though he was cleared of offenses at this time his ideas, published in 1632 in a supposedly fictional conversation called “Concerning the Two Chief World Systems” brought him back before the inquisition where he was found “vehemently suspect of heresy”. He could have been sentenced to death but by recanting his support for the heliocentric theory and through the intercession of the Medicis he was merely sentenced to house arrest for the remainder of his life.

The damage to the already uneasy relationship between the thinkers and the Church had been done and the rift was only to grow wider from this point on. Galileo’s moons were obviously real and easily seen by anyone who cared to gaze through the telescope. That the church would doggedly maintain a doctrinal disagreement with readily observable fact only heightened the suspicion held by some that the church was not, in fact, the sole and absolute repository for truth. This, coupled with the persecution of the Inquisition against any who dared think along lines other than those expressed by the church, created a cabal of intellectuals who began to rely on their own cleverness and discovery rather than the proclamations of the church. More damaging still to the church was the growing willingness of others to question other aspects of theological edict and doctrine. The coming forth of Guttenberg’s printing press and the accompanying availability of the written word to the huddled masses empowered people to begin their own self directed searches for truths and answers. Ultimately, growing discontent with the official church doctrines led to the Protestant Reformation.

The die had been cast and the grip of the Holy Roman Empire was quickly losing purchase. There was change in the air and a sense of empowerment that the people had never before known. People began to explore and question all aspects of their lives and the western world began to emerge from the long intellectual sleep we call the ‘Dark Ages’. The Renaissance had begun and the rate of discovery and progress it spawned are unrivaled in the annals of history.

To say that Galileo single handedly started the Renaissance would be incorrect. There had been a restless undercurrent of discontent which inspired men like Galileo to challenge the conventions common to the time. However, Galileo’s invention of the telescope and the ensuing discoveries of moons around another planet were the first tangible, ‘hard’ evidence that, as Shakespeare wrote, ‘There are more things under heaven, Horatio, than are dreamt of in man’s imagination.”

It’s hard to imagine that a few points of light could change the world – but it’s true.

The Politics of Science

Science is a wonderful pursuit, or so it would seem. In theory, science is the discipline of observation and measurement, of inquiry and hypothesis, of experimentation and interpretation. It is the vehicle that propels human understanding and awareness beyond the confines of everyday experience. Our eyes let us see things as they appear. We gain an exoteric knowledge of the things of the world. For instance, we all know that birds fly. We did not need to be told that they fly. We observed it from a very early age. As children we would pretend that we were birds and that we could escape the backyard with outstretched arms that flapped wildly as we ran. We also saw and understood that the sun goes round and around the earth each day. We saw the phases of the moon every 28 days and we know that if we miss seeing a full moon this month there will be another next month, and the month after that, and so on and so on. Our brains are filled with all sorts of exoteric knowledge – that is, knowledge that defines the ‘what’ of the world. The ‘how’ and the ‘why’ are different matters altogether. To learn how a bird flies or why the moon has phases requires inquiry and study. We are tasked with seeking understanding of the things we see. We see a rainbow. We must study light and refraction and geometry to understand how the rainbow appears so effortlessly after a rain storm. Luckily, we have people who do the inquiring for us. They are called scientists. They study such things most diligently and write books about the things they study. Our only task is to pick up the books and read what they have written and then we are as smart as they.

How nice of scientists to do this for us. As long as scientists keep being curious about things we are interested in, or as long as scientists can interest us in the things they are interested in we will get smarter and smarter until we all know everything there is to know about the world we live in and the universe that it floats in.

We put a lot of faith in scientists. We trust their instinct and their pronouncements as fact primarily because we, ourselves, were never motivated enough in school to study what they had to study to become scientists. We did not do the work, learn the math, or memorize the laws and theorems that they did. We played basketball and football instead. So, in the end we put ourselves in the only slightly uncomfortable position of having to trust the scientific community to tell us the ‘how’ and the ‘why’ of the ‘whats’ we already knew. This is OK as long as the scientists are right and smart enough to have figured it all out correctly. But, what’s to worry? Right? I mean, after all, they’re scientists, and science is a pure art; not like philosophy or any other social science where anyone with an opinion and a loud enough voice can make himself or herself heard. No, science is pure – see it, weigh it, measure it, explain it. What could go wrong?

Well, the answer is plenty. The history of science is full of missteps and erroneous assumptions. Take the Flu for instance; the word flu comes from the Italian word ‘influenza’. In the 15^th and 16^th centuries scientists were certain that the pandemics caused by the flu were really caused by the particular alignment of the stars. Stars and their alignment were blamed or credited with controlling almost everything in those days and expressions of that idea still linger with us today in the form of expressions like “you can’t change your stars’ or ‘it is written in the stars’. We commonly use the word ‘lunacy to describe the crazy behavior of certain individuals. The word ’lunacy comes from ‘luna’ or ‘the moon’. It was believed for many many years that a full moon caused aberrant behavior in certain people. Back to the flu – the word ‘influenza’ is Italian and means ‘influence’ and refers to being under the ‘influence of the stars.

When a young and very timid Isaac Newton went before the Royal Academy in London with his theories on motion and gravity – theories which were correct, mind you, – his was run off and threatened with severe personal and professional harm for daring to take on the venerated and revered Aristotelian Physics that had prevailed for over 2,000 years. Robert Hook, a respected and accomplished scientist in his own right swore that he would destroy Newton for daring to be so bold. But Hook was wrong. So were all of his colleagues. Newton was right. His mistake was in not recognizing the entrenchment of any established concept, idea or cabal of ideas upon which other men and women base their own credibility. His clear and lucid exposition of the basic laws of physics, right  though they were, were viewed as threats and destabilizing forces against the accepted and well acclimated rule of the day. In other words, he was upsetting the apple cart.

Newton was not the only one to be so bold. In fact, almost every ground breaking scientist had to refute the existing theory to gain exposure for his own. Einstein had to modify Newton, although he did it most gently. Neils Bohr had to take on Einstein, much to Einstein’s chagrin, to put forth Quantum Mechanics, a theory just as provable and verifiable as Relativity but completely at odds with it. Irony let us observe that although Einstein had significant issues with many of the provisions of Quantum theory, it was his own work that helped prove its validity.

And so it goes that almost all progress has to first tear down the walls of convention and accepted theory to gain its own foothold in the public mind. You see, science isn’t so pure after all. It is as much a political animal as is almost any other philosophy. Oh, at the root of it is the sincere desire to find the truth, but the acceptance of that truth comes at the expense of reputations and positions of prestige and esteem. Almost invariably, each time a career is made, another is diminished. Egos are hurt and livelihoods are damaged.

Science has another strange quirk to it. It needs to be funded. You and I aren’t usually willing to go to the store and pay for science. Oh, we love the inventions and devices that come from great science. We all have computers and IPods and Xboxes and such. Many of us use GPS technology to help us find uncle Bill’s new house or the nearest Wendy’s, but to go out and buy the latest research into Quantum Transfer or spin preservation, we’re just not interested. So, how do scientists make money? Well, in the old days they received patronage from wealthy families like the Medici’s of Florence, or they were members of aristocracy in their own right. De Broglie was a French prince (sadly he lost his head in the French Revolution). Many of the great English scientists were lords of titled peerage. Today however, there aren’t so many Lords or patronized researchers as in days past so a new structure had to be created. Enter the National Science Foundation or NSF and its equivalent in other parts of the world. Private institutions like the National Geographic Society or the Royal Geographic Society in London also fund major research projects.

So now days the major task of a scientist is to first get funding. This is no easy task  but it is doable. It requires getting noticed and that requires getting published. Today, the mantra is “Publish or Perish”. It’s just that simple! Scientists look for issues of general or public interest and they write papers on them. If a scientists can raise a question or propose a path of research that might answer that question he has a chance at getting funding to study it. If they are creative enough or good enough writers, they get published and the issues get noticed. Notice also means funding and publishing is the fastest path to public funding. It is no wonder then that very public awareness of scientific arguments means great amounts of funding for research. One very good example of this is the hole in the Ozone Layer.

The Ozone Layer is vitally crucial to our very survival. It is also remarkably self-preserving and self-regulating. One of the unique characteristics of the Ozone Layer is that, for a variety of factors, a hole forms over the South Pole (not the North Pole) each Antarctic winter. The existence of this hole was known for over a hundred years before it became an issue of serious scientific concern. But, it wasn’t until we developed the ability to accurately and precisely measure its characteristics each year that alarmists were able to raise public fears over its eminent demise. Yearly fluctuations in its size were seen as trends and portended eventual disappearance.We were told and convinced that man induced excesses of chlorine gas in the upper atmosphere were the cause of the hole and , if left unchecked, would lead inexorably to the total destruction of the Ozone Layer and our death by terminal sunburn. Such foolishness and bad scientific reasoning found purchase in the public mind because reporters and opinion makers smelled a good story. Anything to scare the public was good for ratings and what better scary threat than death by sunburn. Never mind that the physics of the argument didn’t hold up or that knowledgeable scientists in that field already knew the truth, the fact was that if the public wanted research into this matter the scientific community was all too happy to provide that research. After all, it would certainly be good for 5 – 10 years of funding. In fact, the funding machine was able to run a little bit longer and many scientists found good steady work for a good number of years studying something that secretly they already knew wasn’t an issue.

Today, in 2009, we seldom hear anything about the Ozone layer except for the well meaning but radical activists who need a good cause more than they need the truth. The Ozone layer is still here and it isn’t going anywhere any time soon.  (if you strongly disagree with my position please comment and I will be happy to provide a more technical exposition of the facts –for now though, I’m just trying to make the bigger point). None of this is as cynical or conspiratorial as it may sound. We are a people who expect due diligence and if enough people express a concern about any subject then due diligence requires that the matter be looked into. The people wanted answers so the scientific community gave them answers.

Today, the new religion is “Global Warming”. We know it is a serious matter because Al Gore, an ex-Vice President for heaven’s sake, scared us all with his silly and inaccurate “An Inconvenient Truth”. We know his warning is real because movie stars said it was important and he won an Academy award for the movie. He even won a Nobel Prize for his work (not a physics prize or any other scientifically rooted Nobel Prize – no he won a Peace Prize). There were many inconvenient truths associated with the whole global warming alarm but the media and the movie stars didn’t want to address them so they got little airtime – truths about the increased solar flux and the fact that the Martian ice caps were also melting. No, we needed to know that once again evil human beings were destroying the earth by driving cars and flying jets – of course if you buy carbon credits like Al Gore you can fly around in a private Boeing 757 to talk about the deleterious effects of our carbon footprint on the earth’s atmosphere. It’s OK. You have carbon credits – no hypocracy there!

Well, things are already settling down atmospherically so now the proper term is ‘climate change’ rather than the less supportable ‘global warming’. But it is still a funding machine and millions and millions of dollars are still being doled out to scientists to show us the error of our ways. We even have a new president who is going to make us all buy hybrid cars and impose other environmental restraints in order to save the earth for future generations. And we’re buying it! Serious discussion is even being given to the idea of covering glaciers with aluminum blankets to slow their melting. And why are we doing this? Because there is lots and lots of money out there for doing it! And, it’s politically expedient. We as a people love causes. We all need to feel like we belong to something larger than ourselves and what better endeavor than to save the world? And the scientific community? Well, many of them will gladly continue to accept our research dollars as long as they can milk this non issue. More and more scientists, however, just cannot keep up the ruse. In droves they are leaving the global warming religion behind, including 11 of the 13 scientists featured in “An Inconvenient Truth”. This year’s U.N convention of global warming was met with much louder dissent from an ever growing number of scientists. The tide is turning and like the Ozone Layer, this too will pass as we finally admit that the earth will be just fine.

Too bad we don’t have time to discuss the regrowth of new rain forests that is far outpacing the cutting down of older rain forest. That would be a fun discussion. Maybe next week. In the mean time please consider for a moment that science is just as vulnerable to politics and opinion as is any other religion or philosophy.

 

Exoteric and Esoteric Knowledge

Knowledge comes in several flavors. The most basic and common knowledge is ‘exoteric’ knowledge; that is, the basic facts of the matter. Exoteric knowledge was made famous with Jack Webb’s famous tag line “Just the facts Ma’am” from the 60s TV show “Dragnet”.

We often operate with ‘just the facts’. We know the ‘what’ of the matter without necessarily knowing the ‘how’ or the ‘why’. This is the basis of how the military works, where people receive orders and execute them without knowing the bigger picture or the reason for the execution of the orders. But the same thing happens in business as well. In fact, in much of our daily lives we receive and react to information without ever knowing why or how it was generated or to what purpose it aspires. We simply follow orders. Societies and civilizations enjoy stability and longevity, without progress or growth, just fine when the populace is happy to follow orders without questioning or challenging the purpose or motivation behind them.

Esoteric knowledge, on the other hand, leads to revolution, growth, progress and expansion. Esoteric knowledge is the ‘how’ and the ‘why’ behind the ‘what’. It was and is this quest for understanding why something is so or how something works that has driven curious people and forward thinkers to seek answers beyond the simple facts of any matter. Esoteric thinkers are not happy to just acknowledge that birds can fly; they want to know HOW birds fly. They want to understand the forces that allow wings to develop lift and permit heavier that air objects to soar aloft as lightly as a feather.

For millennia people observed and acknowledged that lightening was a frightening and lethal force to be respected and feared. It took someone like Benjamin Franklin to ask what lightening was and how it did its horrible magic. “Why does lightening kill?” he wondered. “How does it form and how does it make such awful noise?” Because of his curiosity, and with the help of others like JJ Thompson and Michael Rutherford, the world slowly gained an understanding of electricity, what it is, how it works, and why it kills. Because of the work of men and women like these, the world became electrified; it came out of the darkness – literally – and was changed forever.

It is the quest for understanding the esoteric nature of things that moves the world forward. It is the gaining of knowledge that provides us with an ever growing array of devices and machines and services that have enabled us to do incredible and marvelous things – to be sure, we have gained some terrible powers as well – and which has allowed the world to grow and provide sustenance and support for an ever increasing population that would be unsustainable without such technology.

In ancient days the world was awash in exoteric knowledge. People saw the changing phases of the moon. They watched the sun go daily around the earth. They observed the changing seasons, all without understanding the forces at work to bring about such phenomena. People watched with awe as birds soared, seemingly effortlessly, on wind currents. They puzzled as to how fishes could breath underwater. Weather phenomena such as tornadoes, hurricanes, hail and thunderstorms brought fear and amazement and generated countless myths and legends.

Without an esoteric understanding of the things they observed and knew to be fact, people turned to superstition in a futile attempt to give reason for things they could not understand. This led to the establishment of traditions and behaviors that were not always in the best interest of the portion of the population that fell victim to the execution of those superstitions. People were sacrificed to any number of false gods. Others were burned or otherwise killed for being witches or demonically possessed. Wars were waged and battles fought over the preservation of ideas supported by superstition and tradition and much progress was lost that otherwise would have brought the light of understanding to people.

Science, which was originally labeled ‘natural philosophy’ or ‘the love of nature,’ arose when curious men and women were able to set aside some of their superstitions and traditions and listen to the earth and to nature around them. They started with the simplest of matters and studied them, seeking a deeper understanding, seeking the ‘how’ and ‘why’ of the object being studied. Slowly people began to see the truth of the things around them. Superstition was replaced with understanding and understanding led to harnessing the truths learned for the eventual benefit of all. As the knowledge of electrons came to light researchers were able to induce current and electric motors were invented. These motors were employed to do the work otherwise done by hand or by horse and harness. This same electric current was captured in a filament and coaxed to produce incandescent light which illuminated the world and opened up the nighttime hours to more productive uses and enjoyment.

The laws of physics were expanded and the study of aerodynamics finally unlocked the secret that the birds had known for so many thousands of years. At last man was able to soar on the winds and travel across vast distances just as the birds had done for so long.

It is important to understand the relationship between exoteric and esoteric knowledge to understand the relationship between good science and good religion. I say ‘good’ because there is an abundance of both good and bad religion and good and bad science.

In generations past, when people believed what the scriptures said, they took the ‘truths found therein and viewed them as exoteric knowledge. The Bible simply said ‘what’ was true and ‘what’ was real. A careful reading of the Bible, however, will show us that the scriptures seldom, if ever, explain how or why something was so. It seems the purpose of scripture was and is merely to tell us what is what and leave it to our faith to accept or reject it. In earlier days this was acceptable because, having been told what was real, we then let our scholars and scientists explain for us how those things could be. In other words, the Bible was a legitimate source of exoteric knowledge.

For example, Moses said that in the beginning the earth was featureless and covered with water. He did not offer any explanation for how this was so or why this was so, he merely said that is was thus. He also said that after a time, the waters were gathered together and the dry land appeared. Again, he did not explain the mechanism that made this true. He simply stated it as fact – observed fact that he had seen in a vision. Moses’ history would indicate little to suggest that he had the technical or scientific training to understand the processes at work. But, as a simple and humble man, he claimed that he was given a vision of the creation of the world and this is what he saw. Imagine for a moment that you sit down in a movie theater and watch a short film by Steven Spielberg on the creation of the world. With his extraordinary vision and special effects teams he makes a movie of wonderful detail showing us exactly how it looked as it was happening. When the movie is over you leave the theater, filled with wonder and amazement at the things you have just seen. You know the creation of the world. The things you have seen are fantastic and astounding. However, you do not know how those things came about or what mechanism drove them to be. You simply know what happened. You are now tasked to relate what you have seen to your grandmother who could not go with you to the theater. You tell her all the wonderful things you have just seen and she stops you with questions like ‘how did that happen?’ You say, Mom, I don’t know but it did! Congratulations, you have just experienced what Moses experienced when he had his vision. He was a goat herder not a scientist. He did not know about Plate Tectonics. No one knew about Plate Tectonics and no one would know until 1965. However, Plate Tectonics is the scientific explanation for the formation of the Earth’s surface features. It in no way contradicts the scriptures and it provides the ‘how and why’ to Moses’ ‘what’ as he related it in Genesis.

 In many other examples science and religion worked hand in hand to decipher the world and our surroundings. This partnership propelled the Phoenicians, the Egyptians, the Persians and the Babylonians to seek answers to their greatest mysteries, almost all of which were related to their relationship to their Gods and to their world around them. The advances they gave to the world form the foundation of much of the knowledge we enjoy to this day.

The great rift between science and religion began during the dark ages, that period of time in the Western world that started in the fourth century A.D. and ended with the renaissance, beginning in the late fourteenth century. For the Middle East it began around the seventh century A.D. and continued well past the Western renaissance. In each case it was powerful and almost totalitarian religious dominance that brought a screeching halt to progress and understanding.

In the West it began innocently enough and with good intentions. Constantine, last Emperor of the Roman Empire, decided that this emerging Christian movement, which he was unable to stop, would be a good unifying force to hold his increasingly restless empire together. Wisely, he decided that he should convene a council of all the Christian bishops and leader from throughout the empire so that they could come up with a single, unified – Catholic – doctrine under which all would live and be judged. A council was convened in 325 A.D. in Nicaea, now Turkey. At this council doctrines were hammered out for just about everything the leaders could think of. Items included the nature of God and the Trinity, the proper date and observance of Easter, as well as more worldly things such as whether or the not Sun or the Earth was the center of the universe, and just what, exactly, was the sun? What were the planets and the stars and how did the planets move in the night sly against the curtain of immovable stars? Much great work was done and in the process a few errors were made. This would have been OK had there been a provision for revisions to be made as knowledge was gained, however, the council made one fatal error. They included a point of order that stated that the doctrine of the Nicene council was infallible. In other words, it was perfect and could not be wrong in any point. That meant that anyone disagreeing with any point of doctrine in the Nicene doctrine was a heretic, a sin punishable by death.

Well, this worked for a few years though it had a chilling effect on inquiry and research. After all, with the answers so clearly and unbendingly stated in the Nicene doctrines, there was no need to look for any other or contrary answer. Thus, progress was stopped.

In the Middle East it was the establishment of Islam that cooled the scientific enthusiasm of their greatest thinkers, thinkers who had given us astronomy, mathematics (Al Gebra for example) and medicine. Indeed, Islam declared that all of the progress and all of the knowledge brought forth by their forefathers was contained in a period for ever after known as the ‘time before enlightenment’. This is not to say that Islam repudiated the acquired knowledge of their progenitors but rather that the emphasis was taken from academic pursuits and turned towards Allah. By implying that the early thinkers were unenlightened the new law stifled further thought and progress.

The Library of Alexandria was one of the original Wonders of the World. It was the repository of all of the world’s accumulated knowledge and we can only imagine the truths and histories that were contained therein. Its destruction was one of the greatest tragedies of all time. It is a matter of much controversy, with many scholars claiming several different destructive events, including an accidental fire by Caesar’s men in 48B.C. However, one account attributes some of its destruction to the Arab army led by Amr Ibn al’Aus in 642 A.D. Though this is a matter of much dispute, one of the statements attributing the event to him is revealing of the attitude of the times. It is claimed that he said, speaking of the scrolls in the library, “They will either contradict the Koran, in which case they are heresy, or they will agree with it, so they are superfluous.” Here we see the same attitude as that held by the Roman church with regard to contradictions with the Nicene Creed. It is claimed that they (al Aus’ army) used the scrolls to fuel the fires that heated their bath water and that there were enough scrolls to fuel the fires for six months.

Whatever the truth, the fact is that serious scientific inquiry was dramatically curtailed during the first millennium after the meridian of time. Suddenly, scientists and the scientific method were viewed warily and esteemed as ungodly. The prevailing attitude was that there was no need for science, and only the worship of God, as ordained by the state, was a worthy venture.

Then, along came Galileo Galilee, son of a musician, and an accomplished lute player in his own right. He lived and worked in Firenze, Tuscany, (You know it as Florence Italy). He was a brilliant and insightful thinker and just the kind of person that the Medici’s, rulers of Tuscany, were looking to patronize. With their support, Galileo was able to pursue his quest for understanding and knowledge.

It was the invention of the telescope that really got things riled up in Galileo’s world. His first endeavor was to turn his new invention to the heavens. He set his sights on the brightest star in the night sky, Jupiter. What he saw changed the world. Besides the spectacle of a clearer view of our largest neighbor in the solar system, Galileo saw four small distinct points of light. He observed them nightly for a month, carefully noting their position in a note book. After a month it became clear that the objects were orbiting the great giant planet. They were moons. To this day Io, Europa, Ganymede and Callisto are still referred to as the Galilean Moons. The problem was that the Nicene doctrine did not allow for anything to orbit any other thing except the Earth. The doctrine had clearly defined the nature of the cosmos, and moons orbiting other planets were not part of the equation. Galileo was a heretic. Nevertheless, he had seen what he had seen and no written doctrine could change that. Through his telescope Galileo saw other wonders equally contradictory and equally damning. The age of conflict between science and religion had finally been fully established and the rift would only grow over the years.

The assumption that the Nicene doctrines accurately reflected the writings of the Bible and the thoughts and intent of God meant that one must either choose to follow religious leaders (And by extension, God) or scientific reason and evidence, but not both. For the first time the scriptures were not viewed as a source of exoteric knowledge. In fact, everything said and claimed in the scriptures was suspect and began to be viewed as fantasy and superstition. People of reason and understanding were suddenly forced to choose between their faith and their understanding. It was an awful choice and many great scientists struggled mightily with the issue.

The sad truth is that one simple change to the great work done by the participants of the Nicene council would have changed the world. Had they simply allowed for a provision to modify and adjust the doctrine as knowledge was gained, they would have formed a partnership with the scientific community that would have allowed for an ever more refined and accurate world view. Obviously, there are many matters that rely on faith alone, but a greater understanding of the true nature of measurable things would have led to the elimination of false and silly superstitions and notions that kept many good people of faith from seeing as far as they might otherwise have.

If God is real – if God is true – then truth in all things will only lead closer to Him and to the truths of the universe that He, through means not fully understood just yet, created. To understand how someone does something does not diminish the accomplishment. So too, to understand just a little bit more of God does not diminish His Godliness. To know that Plate Tectonics may be the method that God used to form the landmasses of the earth does not diminish the accomplishment of that fact. After all, don’t the scriptures tell us that “ye shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free” and, “this is life eternal, to know thee the one true God…”?

To know what God does gives us faith. To know how God does it should only build on that faith. If we could get science and Religion back together again just think of the possibilities. Of course it would take great humility and cooperation on both sides. If we could accept the general nature of things said on the scriptures, with faith, and then turn our own considerable powers of investigation and inquiry to those subjects for understanding, just think what we might learn.

If you think this would destroy faith then I remind you of the promise contained in the scriptures which says, “Ask and ye shall receive, Seek and ye shall find, knock and it shall be opened unto you”.

As Agent Mulder says, “The truth is out there.”