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The universe is lawful, orderly, and rational — which should maybe strike us as rather odd.

The universe is lawful, orderly, and rational — which should maybe strike us as rather odd.

Last updated on: October 23, 2018 at 10:06 pm by Dan Peterson

The universe is lawful, orderly, and rational — which should maybe strike us as rather odd. 2018-10-23T22:06:35-06:00 Dan Peterson

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

The Rosette Nebula (Wikimedia Commons public domain image)

“Scientific progress is the discovery of a more and more comprehensive simplicity. . . . The previous successes give us confidence in the future of science: we become more and more conscious of the fact that the universe is cognizable.” (Father Georges Lemaître [1894-1966], Belgian astronomer, physicist, and priest, and, arguably, originator of the theory of the “Big Bang”)

“The most incomprehensible thing about the universe is that it is comprehensible.” (Albert Einstein, German-American physicist [1879-1955])

“The idea of a universal mind or Logos would be, I think, a fairly plausible inference from the present state of scientific theory.” (Sir Arthur Eddington, British astronomer, physicist, and mathematician [1882-1944])

***

Are you worried about your future career? Your retirement? Your legacy?

Maybe you shouldn’t be. It probably won’t matter much.

“How the Universe Ends”

Of course, if the atheists are right the end of your personal universe will arrive much sooner than any of the above. So your future career, your retirement, and your legacy aren’t really going to matter much, anyway!

***

This is a marvelous find. It’s also an illustration of the random and spotty distribution of archaeologial discoveries:

“World’s oldest intact shipwreck discovered in Black Sea: Archaeologists say the 23-metre vessel has lain undisturbed for more than 2,400 years”

Archaeology and history, like every other academic and scientific discipline, are done by humans — a simple point that I’ve made here and elsewhere many times, and that, weirdly, some insist on taking as an attack on science. Here’s another example:

“What Does Archaeology Have to do with Nationalism? Many nations have adopted origin stories in order to link themselves more closely to heroic, historical figures.”

***

Here’s a further example of how human factors can lead to some curious distortions:

“Down With the “Spanish Flu”: The 1918 pandemic didn’t start with Spain nor was it particularly bad there.”

***

For what it’s worth, I agree with this plea from Beth S. Linas, PhD, MHS. She is an infectious disease and digital health epidemiologist who currently resides in Washington, D.C.:

“Please Call Me Doctor: I have a PhD, which stands for Doctor of Philosophy”

I don’t care all that much, really, about whether or not people holding Ph.D.s in Elizabethan literature, rural sociology, economics, early American history, or Near Eastern studies are referred to as “Dr. So-and-So” — though I do believe that people ought generally to recognize that not all opinions are created equal, and that some folks actually do know more than others do about specific issues. My views on, say, the causes of autism or the reasons for the decline of the Hapsburgs simply don’t have the same authority as those of somebody with the requisite training, background, and research history. Our democratic beliefs sometimes lead us to a rather silly egalitarianism. Yes, everybody is entitled to his or her opinion. But not all opinions carry equal weight.

I think that it’s especially arbitrary to deny the title of doctor to people in scientific fields, and most obviously so when those fields are actually quite closely related to medicine. Dr. Linas completed both her PhD and her postdoctoral training in epidemiology at the Bloomberg School of Public Health of Johns Hopkins University.

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