The Vatican’s Astronomer
Posted on May 13, 2004
Filed Under /dev/null/ | 81 views |
I’m pretty hard on religious fundamentalists on this blog, especially the dumb-asses who demand literal interpretations of the Bible, incite book-burning, and believe that everyone ought to follow their religion even if that conversion must be made at the end of a sword (perhaps buckshot rifle is more appropriate).
That’s mainly because it’s those imbeciles that make the news and get noticed, usually after they’ve done something really stupid and narrow-minded like try to crush someone’s personal freedoms all in the name of saving their souls.
So it was thoroughly refreshing to read Astrobiology Magazine’s Interview with Brother Guy Consolmagno, an astronomer with the Vatican:
Consolmagno is an author, Vatican astronomer and curator of the Vatican’s meteorite collection. His research explores the connections between meteorites and asteroids, and the origin and evolution of small bodies in the solar system. His work in asteroid and meteorite studies prompted the International Astronomical Union to name an asteroid, 4597 Consolmagno, after him in 2000.
…
…to be a scientist you have to have two fundamental assumptions, so fundamental you don’t even think about it. You assume that the universe makes sense, that there really is an objective reality; there really is a logic to this; it’s not just chaos; there really are laws to be found. We’re so used to that assumption, you don’t realize it. A lot of cultures don’t have that.
And the other assumption you have to make is that it’s worth doing. If your idea, if your religion is to meditate and rise above the physical universe, this corrupting physical universe, you might say, you’re not going to be a scientist, you’re not going to be interested in Mars. So it’s a religious statement to say the physical universe is worth devoting my life to. Seeing how the universe works is worth spending a lifetime doing.
…
…for most of its history, the Church has thought that studying science is great. And there’s been a fringe of religious fundamentalists - not Catholics - who have tried to warp science to their particular peculiar theology. In the same time, there have been a bunch of science fundamentalists, who have tried to use science as a substitute religion. And neither of those operations really works very well. And both of them, I think, come out of a lack of confidence.
The religious fundamentalists, basically, are scared that they don’t have faith, which is why they cling so tightly to what little they’ve got. The science fundamentalists, I think some of them just want to be taken seriously as scientists and they think, well I have to show that I’ve rejected anything else.
Absolutely worth reading if for no other reason than to be amazed that the Vatican has it’s own telescope in Arizona (last laugh: Gallileo).
Dear Vatican: you’re doing work like this and the only time you show up in the news in the past year is when the Pope comes out against gay marriage? Your PR machine sucks.