For science to progress it must first ask questions. Many times the answer can be found, albeit sometimes after years, perhaps decades or even centuries, of searching.
Gravity is a good example. The Greek philosophers
pondered why it was that things fall naturally. Aristotle, for example,
postulated that the reason for this was that the Earth was the centre of the
Universe and that therefore all objects fell towards it. Plutarch, on the other
hand, claimed that gravity was not unique to the Earth.
In the 7th century CE, an Indian
mathematician and astronomer suggested that gravity was a force. One thousand
years later, in 1687 Newton published his Philosophiæ
Naturalis Principia Mathematica (Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy) in which he
described what we now know as the Laws of Gravity. It took more than 2,000
years to answer the question. Even so, science did manage to answer it.
But, what of those
questions that science cannot answer? How do we answer them? Indeed, do we even
want answers to them?
These are the sort of
questions that occur to us when we smell a flower, look up at the night sky, or
kiss another human being. Why is this flower so beautiful? How big is the
Universe? What is this feeling inside?
We answer these
questions with words and expressions of awe, magnificence, wonder, love, and
mystery.
And, as Antoine de
Saint-Exupéry answered in The Little Prince1 what is
important and what is of consequence is invisible.
It is not knowing, not
having an answer, which speaks to our heart, soul, and humanity most
exquisitely.
Science cannot answer
such questions. Nor should we expect science to do so.
We should not expect
religion to do so either. That science cannot answer some questions does not
mean that God (or some other deity) must be enlisted to fill the gap.
Gaps in knowledge do
not need to be filled. Indeed, it is in the gaps that we find ourselves
face-to-face with our insignificance and our magnificence at the same time.
Gaps allow us to notice
the beauty of a flower. Gaps allow us to contemplate, yet never fully
appreciate, the sheer immensity of the cosmos.
Gaps allow us to feel
the love in a kiss.
Addendum: Nothing in
the above should be read as a refutation of either science or religion. Simply,
that we need not look for answers where we do not need answers – we simply need to seek the wonder in the mystery.
Note:
1. Antoine de Saint-Exupéry,
The Little Prince, Pan Books Ltd., London, 1974. First published 1945
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