What was God thinking?

I find the most interesting page in every TIME magazine to be the very last: the Essay section is indeed a treasure trove of wit and wisdom. Recent issues of TIME have featured articles by Bono on global health, Wynton Marsalis on rebuilding New Orleans and, in the latest issue, Eric Cornell on the age-old God vs. mere nature battle.

Cornell won the Nobel Prize for Physics in 2001, and the article he wrote, What Was God Thinking? Science Can't Tell, was adapted from a speech that he gave for his induction into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. It's really worth reading, especially if you're interested in religion and/or science. Click here.

The following is an excerpt from the article:


Let me pose you a question, not about God but about the heavens: "Why is the sky blue?" I offer two answers: 1) The sky is blue because of the wavelength dependence of Rayleigh scattering; 2) The sky is blue because blue is the colour God wants it to be.

My scientific research has been in areas connected to optical phenomena, and I can tell you a lot about the Rayleigh-scattering answer. Neither I nor any other scientist, however, has anything scientific to say about answer No. 2, the God answer. Not to say that the God answer is unscientific, just that the methods of science don't speak to that answer.

...As a theological idea, intelligent design is exciting. Listen: If nature is the way it is because God wants it to be that way, then, by looking at nature, one can learn what it is that God wants! The microscope and the telescope are no longer merely scientific instruments; they are windows into the mind of God.

...My call to action for scientists is, Work to ensure that the intelligent-design hypothesis is taught where it can contribute to the vitality of a field (as it could perhaps in a theology class) and not taught in science class, where it would suck the excitement out of one of humankind's great ongoing adventures.

...[D]on't say science disproves intelligent design. Stick with the plainest truth: science says nothing about intelligent design, and intelligent design brings nothing to science, and should be taught in theology, not science classes.


I believe Dr Cornell's perspective is a wise one. All this while, the 'God--no God' dilemma has been fought out mostly in the average school classroom. After all, how can two seemingly contradictory theories be taught simultaneously, without the bias falling upon one more than the other?

But here he takes as his basic assumption an oft-overlooked truth about science: it simply does not speak to the God answer. A microscope cannot detect sound waves; does that mean that sound does not exist, or that the microscope is faulty? No, it just wasn't designed for that purpose. Likewise, science was not designed to interpret God; it was designed to study the world. God cannot be 'detected' by science alone.

I say his suggestion is wise, because in any given class, there are only three kinds of student: the wise, the simple and the indifferent. It is clear that nothing matters to the indifferent except the lunch bell. So that leaves the wise and the simple.

The risk of teaching intelligent design in general classrooms is that the simple may fall into two equally erroneous pits; either to assume that everything happens by the 'will of God' and so to consider scientific research pointless, or else to find hard science more 'readily comprehensible' and so make no room for the invisible God.

It is fairly safe to say that the wise are not likely to be affected by any decision made within and for the classroom, for their education will naturally encompass a far greater breadth, in multiple disciplines and in various places. They are not restrained by systemic constraints.

And so, perhaps it is only best to teach what is at most a system of learning about the world, in the classroom. And then, the more discerning will always realise that science does not answer the God question; they will then seek the Creator wherever he is to be found, but they will not assume that he can be 'done in' by mere mortal methods. Nothing can change the myopia of the less discerning, and so it does not matter.

Perhaps it is for the more holistic good, that natural science and supernatural design are kept apart within the confines of formal education, for then they will not seem like enemies. Discovered in separate contexts, they may in fact become complementary areas of exploration for scientists and laypersons alike. Thus Cornell ends his article:

My argument here is offered in the spirit of trying to preserve science from its foes--but also from its friends.