Dear Friends,
It seems to me, there are things that science just cannot understand, nor can it ever, and the more it tries, the more understanding escapes it. Take a bug for example. An entomologist can explain everything there is to know about the form, color and substance. He or she can wax poetic on their life styles, three part bodies, except for arachnids, and how they enhance the habitat. Perhaps she can even decode a bug’s DNA. Nevertheless, the more in depth his or her knowledge of insects and arachnids, the less they understand bugs. Because… a bug, horse or salamander, can only be really understood intuitively. Science does reduction well and intuition poorly. Because really creative scientists are scattered in a Pareto distribution while most are conscientious and closed minded.
A two year old understands what a bug is. How is that possible, without a careful study of the genus, species and it’s role in the environment? Intuitively, that’s how. No one needs to explain to a child that an ant is a bug as is a spider. They know it without having all the possible connotations of what a bug is, or is not, explained to them. Ask them what makes a bug… a bug? They will probably answer, “It is icky.” Intuiting the feeling that certain life forms give them, as the wharp and whoof of that life form… or in other words, the essence of bugness. Ask a child what a horse is, and the tot will reply, “A big animal!” They quickly understand the difference between a horse and cow though. Moreover, no child will mistake a snake for a bug, nor can they be convinced a white horse is not a horse.
Science is immensely important but when you put something in a realm it is not supposed to be in, no matter how virtuous, useful and effective it is in its rightful realm, it cannot help but be the bull in a china shop outside it. Smashing instead of fixing because it is out of place. Science can answer such amazing questions as what is the fundamental building blocks of reality? Science seems at this point, (until it plumbs the next lower level of reality) that reality is made up of quarks, muons, gluons and a host of other exotic quantum “particles.” It has failed at answering why the universe is here, what came before the “big bang.” and how can unconscious matter be conscious? Why? Because these are questions that science cannot answer. They cannot be resolved by simplification… only by vision.
Intuition is the basis for every scientific advance that has ever happened. Someone intuited an idea, used the scientific method to determine if it had merit, then published it so others could recreate the phenomenon and verify the conclusion. Great paradigm changing leaps are made this way. Otherwise, most science is grinding down an idea to its constituents in reductionist fashion. The goal is to prove the theory rather than to test it. When some data comes in that is a conundrum, it is incorporated into the present paradigm without a thought. Dark matter and dark energy are two examples everyone has heard about. Dozens of other problems with the present theories exist as well though, proving the present scientific paradigm is less than an ideal representation of what is real.
Such deep questions can be aided by scientific inquiry, but in the end, can only be answered by intuition. Not just untested intuition but unselfish intuition guided by human experience. There are questions that we must answer that science can only mislead us on. Which is why we still need religion, it is a wealth of understanding into the nature of humanity and the good life, that science cannot ever hope to understand, let alone teach us. Not just religion but art, poetry and literature all elevate, teach and open us in ways that science is unable to. Therefore, granting to science that which rightfully belongs to religion, art and literature… perverts them all. Science has its place, is valuable and has helped us immeasurably, but it cannot understand even the simple intuitive truth of the Golden Rule.
Sincerely,
John Pepin
