The Space Shuttle: End of an Era

Ever since I was a young child, I have been completely captivated by and utterly fascinated with outer space. My earliest career ambition was to be an astronaut. I actually still possess my journal from kindergarten, which contains a page where my teacher had us write about and draw what we wanted to be when we grew up, and I drew myself (rather poorly, unfortunately, as I lack any artistic skills whatsoever) jumping around on the Moon in a green and silver spacesuit. I absolutely loved watching the Space Shuttle launches on TV.  When I was around 8 or 9, I even attempted to convince my parents to take our summer vacation in Florida so that we could visit Cape Canaveral and attend a shuttle launch . Although I was unsuccessful, probably because I was the lone member of my family truly interested in manned space flights, I continued to dream of eventually being one of the astronauts blasting off on a magnificent Space Shuttle.

Regrettably, it just wasn't meant to be. By the age of 11, I realized that my aspiration to become an astronaut was wholly unrealistic. First, I had moderate asthma which was not well controlled by my medications at the time. Second, I was rapidly approaching legal blindness in my left eye due to severe amblyopia (lazy eye), which has left me with almost no depth perception and an enormous tendency towards clumsiness. I was just not good astronaut material.

Despite being extremely disappointed, I was still mesmerized by the perplexing wonders of the universe. One day in sixth grade, we took a class trip to the school library. I quickly dashed to the non-fiction science section as always because, even at the tender age of 11, I was a hardcore science nerd. Having been at this elementary school for four years, I had already read practically every single book in that section, so I instantly noticed that there were several new books.  Excitedly, I seized one which appeared especially intriguing and deposited myself into one of the comfy, upholstered chairs.

The book was about the Hubble Space Telescope. I cracked open the book and began to flip through the pages, looking at the amazing images the telescope had captured of our universe. However, when I reached the now-famous image of the Pillars of Creation in the Eagle Nebula, my breath was literally taken away. I stared in pure awe at its extraordinary beauty. Before we left that day, I checked out all the library's books on nebulae, as I was fiercely desperate to learn everything I could about these astonishing and majestic phenomena.

Only a couple months later, I was enjoying my final night at a week-long Girl Scout camp in western Oklahoma. One cool tradition was that, weather permitting, we would spend our last night at camp on the tennis courts, instead of in our cabins. Once all the girls were settled in their sleeping bags, the camp counselors showed us constellations, asterisms, planets, star clusters, the Andromeda Galaxy, and the edge-on band of our own galaxy, the Milky Way.  They wielded green laser pointers, in order to indicate and/or trace out the different celestial objects for us, and passed around pairs of night vision binoculars, so that we could better observe the compact objects, like the planets, the star clusters, and the Andromeda galaxy.

The incontrovertible highlight of the night, though, was that a minor meteor shower was taking place. Over the span of 3 hours, I got to see about 20 meteors (although we called them shooting stars at the time). Even better, this was the first time in my life I had ever I had ever witnessed meteors. It was absolutely spectacular.

Those two events are what sparked my interest in astronomy and inspired me to dedicate my life to it, in order that I might unravel some of the countless mysteries of the universe.

However, despite exchanging my dream of being an astronaut for my desire to be an astronomer, I have maintained a profound enthusiasm for the Space Shuttle Program and eagerly followed each mission since I was 12, celebrating triumphs and grieving for loss.

In my opinion, the Space Shuttle's most outstanding accomplishment is the still continuing construction of the International Space Station.  Throughout my Jr. High, High School, and College years, I have watched intently as the astronauts, whom I tremendously admire, have gradually erected the International Space Station, a monument both to human scientific achievement and international cooperation.

Of course, I was immensely devastated by the Columbia disaster in 2003. I distinctly remember watching the news, thinking "how could this have happened?" and softly crying for hours as more and more details trickled into newsrooms across the country. NASA, however, was able to come back from this tragedy and continue to advance the frontier in space and manned space flight.

Last Friday was the very last launch of Atlantis, the very last launch of any of the Space Shuttles. I woke up early in order to watch Atlantis propelled into orbit on a colossal cascade of roaring flames. Knowing I will never see another Space Shuttle launch, I could not stop myself from shedding a few tears.

This coming Thursday Atlantis will return to Earth from its final mission and land, most likely at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, or else at Edwards Air Force Base in southern California, finally bringing about the end of a glorious era, which has not only significantly influenced my own life, but also the lives of millions of American's. I know chances are good that I will cry even more as the Space Shuttle program I have followed for ten years finally reaches its completion.

So, I must now say my final goodbye to Discovery, Endeavour, and Atlantis. Thank you for all your incredible contributions to science, as well as all your totally awesome launches (especially the ones at night!)! You will be sorely missed.

Religion vs. Science (Part 3)

The past two centuries of human civilization has brought about a myriad of scientific discoveries and technological inventions. As we embark on the second decade of the 21st century, the pace of progress is only accelerating. However, these advancements have incited some profound and contentious questions. Many of these questions arise from the discrepancy between ancient religious ideologies and recent scientific theories. These disparities have instigated religious, social, and political animosity, particularly in the United States. Why has this conflict developed? What is the most controversial issue? Most importantly, can religion and science coexist?

I will endeavor to answer these questions in a three-part series. Today, I will examine “Can religion and science coexist?” Note: Because I will be concentrating substantially on the United States, the primary religious doctrine scrutinized will be Christianity.

Religion in the United States, and Christianity in particular, is extremely diverse. There are thousands of denominations of varying sizes, each of which has had to confront the questions produced by modern science: Is the Book of Genesis in the Bible a literal guide to the creation of the universe and humanity? If so, how do you explain the contradictory evidence presented by science? If not, how do you understand the Book of Genesis in light of modern science?

In my experience, the conflict between science and religion has been "solved" in three distinct ways, with a majority of Christians advocating for one of these three solutions.

The first solution is a rejection of all scientific theories which contradict a literal reading of the Bible. Christians who advocate this position tend to be the most conservative and incredibly anti-cultural. They believe the Bible is inerrant and the literal word of God. Science which does not disagree with Scripture, such as the theory of gravity or atomic theory, is usually accepted. Obviously, theories such as evolution and the Big Bang are resolutely denied and dismissed. Evidence for such non-Biblical theories is discredited in a multitude of ways. The most prevalent explanation is simply that the scientists are wrong and that the evidence has been misinterpreted. Another, much less common, explanation is that the scientists are being tricked by Satan, who plants the evidence in order to deceive them and lead them away from God.

The second solution also rejects all scientific theories which contradict a literal reading of the Bible. However, these Christians do not just dismiss the scientists. They actually attempt to prove them wrong by concocting their own scientific theories, such as Intelligent Design. These Christians tend to be conservative, but not completely anti-cultural. They believe that the evidence for non-Biblical theories is being misinterpreted, oftentimes on purpose by scientists who (they believe) are striving to disprove God. Reinterpreting the evidence into a theory which does not contradict the Book of Genesis allows these Christians to compromise between keeping their religious tradition of an inerrant Bible and continuing to be relevant in the 21st century.

Unfortunately for them, this method has been largely unsuccessful outside their churches. Only a handful of school boards across the United States have voted to include, in varying degrees, Intelligent Design in the standards for high school biology. Of those, several school boards later had elections which ousted the members who voted to include Intelligent Design, and the new board promptly overturned the modified standards. Even worse was the court case I discussed in the second post of this series, Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District, in which the judge determined that:

"overwhelming evidence at trial established that ID is a religious view, a mere re-labeling of creationism, and not a scientific theory" and "the Board's real purpose, which was to promote religion in the public school classroom, [is] in violation of the Establishment Clause." 

Since the United States Court system relies heavily on precedent, it is unlikely another court case would find in favor of Intelligent Design.

The third solution holds that the Bible does not necessarily have to be interpreted literally and that the Book of Genesis is a metaphorical story about how the universe, Earth, and life was created. This view tends to be held by moderate and liberal Christians. Not being restrained by a literal Genesis allows these Christians to believe in the validity of scientific theories such as evolution. These Christians are often criticized by their more conservative counterparts for believing parts of the Bible are metaphorical. They (rightfully) claim this begs the question "How do you decide which parts of the Bible to take literally and which parts to take metaphorically?" (however, that is a debate for another day). The most common justification I have heard for taking the story of Genesis metaphorically is that God gave the ancient Hebrews a creation story they could comprehend, since the reality was too complicated for humans of that time to understand.

As a scientist myself, I am closest in view to the liberal Christians. I believe religion and science can coexist. For me, they are complementary, not contradictory, because they are answering different questions.

According to the Britannica Online Encyclopedia, science is:

"any system of knowledge that is concerned with the physical world and its phenomena and that entails unbiased observations and systematic experimentation"

Basically, science answers questions like: What is the universe?  How do galaxies form? Why does the Earth have liquid water? How did humans evolve? All of these questions concern the physical world which we live in, and all can be answered through observation and experimentation.

Religion, on the other hand, asks questions like: Does God exist? Is there something beyond the physical world? Do we have an immaterial and immortal soul?  What is the meaning of life? Science cannot answer these questions and others like them because they do not concern the physical world. You cannot observe and measure such things in a laboratory. These questions are completely meaningless to science.

However, they are not meaningless to us. These questions, and others like them, reveal the deepest hopes, dreams, doubts, and fears of humanity. We have endeavored to answer them in nearly countless ways through religion. At times, this has led to violence and death. At other times, it has led to peace and progress. Obviously, the very nature of these kinds of questions means we can never have incontrovertible answers. Yet, these questions are one of the few universals of human life. We have contemplated them before and we will contemplate them time and time again, no matter how far scientific progress takes us.

Religion vs. Science (Part 2)

The past two centuries of human civilization has brought about a myriad of scientific discoveries and technological inventions. As we embark on the second decade of the 21st century, the pace of progress is only accelerating. However, these advancements have incited some profound and contentious questions. Many of these questions arise from the discrepancy between ancient religious ideologies and recent scientific theories. These disparities have instigated religious, social, and political animosity, particularly in the United States. Why has this conflict developed? What is the most controversial issue? Most importantly, can religion and science coexist?

I will endeavor to answer these questions in a three-part series. Today, I will examine “What is the most controversial issue?” Note: Because I will be concentrating substantially on the United States, the primary religious doctrine scrutinized will be Christianity.

In my first post of this series, I touched on the scientific theories which have caused the most friction with religious belief, namely heliocentrism (historically), evolution and the Big Bang. I mentioned that the two latter theories are routinely dismissed by those who hold a conservative religious philosophy because they can provoke intense fear and an agonizing identity crisis. Of all the controversial scientific theories, evolution is currently the most contentious, since most high-schoolers in the US take a biology course which includes evolution. In today's post, I will examine the specifics of evolution which incite the fear and the identity crisis and attempt to determine why they do so. I will also detail the countermeasures conservative Christians have taken in the United States in an effort to combat the influence of evolution.

Evolution is the gradual change of organisms over extended periods of time due to natural selection, which initially leads to variation within a species and then eventually leads to an entirely new species. Because of this, it is logical to assume that all organisms currently alive share a common ancestry. Charles Darwin proposed the theory of evolution in his book On the Origin of Species, published after his now-famous journey on the HMS Beagle. It was immediately controversial, both in the scientific world and the religious establishment.

In the century and a half since the publication, evolution has grown to be the accepted theory on the origin of the diversity of life within the scientific community, especially with the discovery of genetics as the mechanism of natural selection. However, the religious debate still rages on. This debate is centered on the origin of humans. Evolution proposes that humans evolved from ape-like ancestors about 200,000 years ago. Conservative Christianity, however, believes that God created humans about 6,000 years ago. This belief is based on Genesis 1-2, the absolute beginning of the Bible, which describes God's creation of the heavens, the Earth, plants, animals, and finally, Adam and Eve, the first humans. A large majority of conservative Christianity believes this story is a literal and true description of events, a belief called creationism, for they believe in the unconditional inerrancy of the Bible.

Conservative Christians seem to be threatened by evolution because, in their mind, it takes away the "specialness" of humanity. The Bible specifically says God created the first humans from the dust with His own hands. It also alleges that God granted humans superiority over all the plants and animals of the Earth. However, by claiming that humans are just descendants of "lower" animals, conservative Christians evolution makes us equal to all other life forms on the planet. They also believe that evolutionary theory removes the possibility of God, which they find offensive. As I stated in my last post in this series, denying God or their beliefs about God is threatening not just to their faith, but to their very identity. It is why their negative reactions towards evolution and other controversial theories are so intensely fierce.

The debate between evolution and creationism comes to a climax with the issue of which theory should be taught in public schools. In the early 1900's, many Southern states in the US passed laws prohibiting the teaching of evolution in public schools. In Tennessee, it was the Butler Act, enacted in 1925. This law was infamously challenged the same year in the Scopes Monkey Trial, where John Scopes was convicted of teaching evolution and fined $100. For several decades, the controversy died down. By the 1960's and 70's, many public schools were teaching evolution as scientific fact. However, in the late 1980's, Louisiana passed a law requiring that creationism be taught alongside evolution. The controversy was reignited and a lawsuit progressed all the way to the United States Supreme Court. In Edwards v. Aguillard, the Supreme Court ruled that creationism cannot be taught in a US public school. They determined that the teaching of creationism violated the First Amendment of the US Constitution because it attempted to advance a particular religion.

The outrage from conservative Christians was enormous. In response, they formed a new theory: Intelligent Design. Basically, it is a pseudo-science claiming "certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, not an undirected process such as natural selection". Throughout the late 90's and early 00's, local school boards in conservative areas of the US began to advocate a policy called "teaching the controversy". This would often entail Intelligent Design being added to the high school biology ciriculum, despite that there are extremely few scientists researching and advocating Intelligent Design.

Once again, the controversy came to a head during a court trial, this time in Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District, in Dover, Pennsylvania. In 2004, the Dover Area School Board passed a resolution requiring that all high school biology classes be read a short statement claiming that "[g]aps in the Theory of Evolution exist for which there is no evidence". It also informed the students that a textbook advocating Intelligent Design, called Of Pandas and People, was available to any student interested in learning more. Understandably, quite a few parents in the school district were upset, and a group of them sued the Dover School Board. The verdict of the lawsuit was in favor of the plaintiffs. The judge ruled that Intelligent Design was just creationism repackaged and, therefore, it violated the separation of church and state guaranteed by the First Amendment to the US Constitution.

This debate personally effected me as well. Several months before the ruling in Kitzmiller, the school board of my hometown passed a similar resolution. I was in 11th grade and taking AP Biology. My biology teacher was extraordinarily irritated and refused to read the statement. This caused a minor scandal in the school district. Parents on both sides of the debate were complaining. There were several deeply religious students in my class, including one I considered a friend, who were upset when our teacher blatantly insulted creationism and Intelligent Design. She and the students who defended her, including myself, were threatened with hell and violence. The true passions involved in these conflicts are difficult to capture in a news story or a documentary.

Although Intelligent Design has faded somewhat from the national consciousness, the movement is still strong. In 2007, Answers in Genesis opened the Creation Museum in Kentucky, which presents an account of the origins of life consistent with creationism. Homeschooling is becoming more popular with religious families, especially now that textbooks advocating either creationism or Intelligent Design are easily available. The movement has shifted focus from legislating its beliefs into public schools to withdrawing their children from society and educating them with a narrow worldview which does not include information that contradicts their beliefs. Honestly, I feel that is a testament to the strength of the scientific theories. The evidence is so compelling that these people refuse to allow their children to study science for fear they will reject their religious upbringing. Unfortunatly, this leaves their children woefully ignorant in areas such as science and history, and places them at a remarkable disadvantage if they decide to attend a non-religious college. It is also contributing to the decline in the scientific and technological relevance of the United States and the so called "dumbing down" of America.

The conflict between science and religion bothers me for a multitude of reasons. Growing up in the Bible Belt, I had quite a few friends who were fundamentalist Christians. As an astronomer who studies theories rejected by conservative Christianity, there are times when I have visited back home and been condemned just for discussing my work, including by friends and family. I am automatically assumed to be an atheist and my research is taken as a personal attack. Although it pains me to admit it, this is quite painful, especially because I do believe in God. However, I am also encouraged by the increasing numbers of religious believers who are able to reconcile their faith with the facts of science. It gives me hope that science will win the day.

Religion vs. Science (Part 1)

The past two centuries of human civilization has brought about a myriad of scientific discoveries and technological inventions. As we embark on the second decade of the 21st century, the pace of progress is only accelerating. However, these advancements have incited some profound and contentious questions. Many of these questions arise from the discrepancy between ancient religious ideologies and recent scientific theories. These disparities have instigated religious, social, and political animosity, particularly in the United States. Why has this conflict developed? What is the most controversial issue? Most importantly, can religion and science coexist?

I will endeavor to answer these questions in a three-part series. Today, I will examine “Why has this conflict developed?” Note: Because I will be concentrating substantially on the United States, the primary religious doctrine scrutinized will be Christianity.

The antagonism separating religion and science is not a contemporary phenomenon. It originated during the Renaissance. Western civilization exited the Middle Ages and underwent a resurgence of scientific curiosity and exploration. This exploration included the new science of astronomy. Discoveries in this young field would thoroughly subvert humanity’s perspective of the universe and our status within it. The revelation most significant to this change in perspective was the heliocentric theory of Nicolaus Copernicus, which postulated that the Sun, not the Earth, was the center of the universe. This theory was enhanced by Johannes Kepler, but it was popularized by Galileo Galilei. In 1609, Galileo learned about the device we now call the telescope, and constructed one for himself. That he originally invented the telescope is a prominent misconception. The observations Galileo made with his advanced contraption, including the phases of Venus and the four largest moons of Jupiter, supported heliocentrism.

Unfortunately, when Galileo published his conclusion, he was summoned by the Inquisition on suspicion of heresy. He was found to be a heretic and sentenced to house imprisonment for the remainder of his life. Why? Because, the Catholic Church asserted that the Bible proclaimed the immovability of the Earth: it could not revolve around the Sun (Psalms 93:1, 96:10, 1 Chronicles 16:30).

The situation with Galileo demonstrates the authentic foundation for the contention between religion and science- the inerrancy of scripture or dogma. Within Christianity, each discrete denomination has its own doctrines, either from the Bible or from their distinctive analysis and interpretation of the Bible.

So, if the inerrancy is stimulating the hostility, what is the rationale for the inerrancy?

During the first centuries of Christianity, there was a dilemma over what books should constitute the Bible. However, by the time the Roman Empire finally disintegrated in 476 AD, the Catholic Church was instituted as the prevailing political force in Europe, the canon of the Bible had been settled, and the Middle Ages had commenced. This period in Western history is frequently designated as the Dark Ages. This is due to the relative deterioration in education and literacy. The citizens of Europe were split into two categories: the few of the aristocracy (which included a majority of the clergymen) and the many peasants. Only the aristocracy was literate and educated. Since Europe was devoutly religious during this period, almost everyone attended church. For the illiterate peasants, this was their only source of religious knowledge. At that time, the Catholic Church taught the Bible as if every passage was a literal description of reality. Of course, with science as we understand it not actually existing, and general knowledge about the world making relatively inconsiderable development, there were no challenges to that perspective. They had no reason to question their assumptions.

Once the Middle Ages concluded and the Renaissance arouse, there was a reason to start rethinking the literal interpretation. Multitudes did. But many more multitudes did not. Why? One word: tradition.

Tradition dies hard. Religion is transmitted through families from the older generation to the younger generation; parent to child. Customarily, religious beliefs are instilled in children at a young age, usually before the child is able to comprehend the intricacies of or rationally analyze those doctrines. Even once their mind has matured enough to examine their beliefs and make a logical decision whether or not to affirm and comply with them, the beliefs have been instilled so deeply that the concept of investigating them is too terrifying to contemplate.

Because of this, anything that contradicts their religious faith is usually instantaneously disregarded. There are two dominant justifications for this, one conspicuous, the other, often unconscious. The obvious reason is fear. Believers, especially within more conservative traditions, are frequently persuaded that doubting, questioning, or investigating their faith could be punished by God with tragedies on Earth or eternal condemnation to hell, and that "true" or "sincere" believers never entertain questions or exhibit doubts. The obscure reason is identity. A majority of believers regard their faith to be intimately intertwined with their identity. To doubt their faith is to doubt themselves.

Currently, the theories causing most of the dispute among religion and science are evolution and the Big Bang, both of which are more complicated than heliocentrism. This complication can amplify the problem, since these theories are often misunderstood. Misconceptions about what the theories actually assert have become quite widespread. Take, for example, the prevailing conviction that evolution indicates that humans evolved from monkeys. Of course, anyone who has seriously studied evolution understands that humans did not evolve from monkeys, but instead that humans and monkeys share a particularly recent common ancestor.

Despite evolution and the Big Bang being more elaborate than heliocentrism, they offend identical religious precepts. In the first book of the Old Testament, Genesis, God creates the Earth and the whole universe for a sole purpose: man. The Big Bang threatens this notion by revealing billions of stars and planets not only exist in the universe, but were indeed spawned before our Earth and Sun. Evolution endangers it by postulating that God did not create us ex nihilo (out of nothing), but that we gradually emerged from the "lower" animals. Yes, these theories also invalidate other Biblical tenets, such as the age of the Earth. Utilizing the Bible, dozens of theologians have dated the Earth at roughly 6,000 years. On the other hand, evolution requires billions of years to fabricate humans, and the geological record establishes the precise age at approximately 4.5 billion years. But, threatening the centrality of mankind is much more offensive than threatening the age of the Earth.

The modern world has inevitably generated an environment hostile to tradition in two notable fashions. First: the quickening pace of scientific development. Second: the expansion of education, both basic and supplemental. Basically, as science invalidates more Biblical principles, and more individuals obtain an elementary science education, tradition will not only increasingly be assaulted, it will be assaulted in regions of the Earth where it has endured, unchanged and unfazed, for thousands of years. Without a transformation by a majority of religious believers to a more metaphorical method of interpreting their sacred scriptures, I anticipate the repercussions of this will be a dramatic expansion of conflict between science and religion. Regrettably, I do not envision this transpiring unless religious followers realize their beliefs do not have to exemplify their entire identity and existence, and that it is acceptable to make modifications without being tormented by threat of eternal consequences.