My book club just finished reading Ken Wilber's "A Brief History of Everything", a philosophical tome that attempts to examine and incorporate into a single system "important truths from as many disciplines as possible--East, West, modern, postmodern, ...from physics to spirituality." It is a 523 page book, but there is a passage I couldn't get past on page 31:
The standard neo-Darwinian explanation of chance mutation and natural selection-very few theorists believe this anymore.
Here's a similar one from page 38: "the increasingly obvious truth that the traditional scientific explanation does not work very well".
The other members of my book club, much more well-read and roundly educated than I, took such sentiments as encouraging signs that people are beginning to realize there is something more than what we can see, something spiritual. I spent way too much time and energy at the book club meeting attempting to defend Darwinian evolution, a subject I really know little about.
Later that night, I had a realization about why I felt so compelled to defend evolutionary theory, and scientific inquiry in general. Perhaps also why I brought up the Ed Radtke film "Bottomland" (it was filmed in my home town) and the general unenlightenment of Midwestern small towns. I think in much of this country, the alternative to evolutionary theory (which is itself evolving) is not spirituality, enlightenment, or transcendence. It is narrow-mindedness, and biblical fundamentalism substituted for cognition. Rather than the recognition that there is "something more" that scientific inquiry cannot teach us, there is a belief that whatever is in your head right now, probably put there by the church, fox news, reality TV, and your parents, is sufficient. Further investigation, including a questioning or inquisitive attitude, is looked upon with disdain.
Clearly there's nothing wrong with scientific inquiry, or we would still believe that the sun was moving through the sky overhead. Why does it matter if we say the sun moves through the sky? Because it's not true, and even if we in all honesty believe it does, it's not true. In order to speak the truth we must first know what is true, and it is not always what it seems to be, as in the case of the sun. I would love to think we have a human impulse to learn about and appreciate this amazing universe we are entangled in. (There's a woodpecker outside my window right now. How the heck do they do that without damaging their little brains?)
I suppose pure scientific inquiry would be facts without faith. The pure science researchers I admired approached their discipline with humility and a recognition that many things of value, perhaps the things that can save humanity and our planet, are not quantifiable.
Biblical fundamentalism and "intelligent design" are faith without facts, as is climate change denial. I think Wilber and the other Integral theorists (is that a category?) would tell me that thinking of facts and faith, of scientific and spiritual inquiry, dualistically has been my shortfall.
If anyone happens to read this diary, here is the question: Is spirituality the last best hope of our planet, or will it be our downfall? Are spirituality and science antagonistic, or synergistic?