Cosmology Bus

Science and Religion Frameworks

Time flies. Since receiving news from the Newberry Library that my seminar is on, I've put in hours collecting and organizing images for each weekly session, obtaining permissions from copyright holders (so far so good), and building PowerPoint slides outlining topics. The slides are an aid and won't be a focus in the classroom (I don't do ppt bells and whistles), but through them people will see some interesting things: for example, what forensic anthropologists believe Copernicus (1473-1543) actually looked like (think American actor James Cromwell), the wholly believable creatures living on Earth's moon as reported by the New York Sun in 1835 and, of course, the Martian canals of astronomer Giovanni Schiaparelli (1835-1910). In addition to Copernicus and Schiaparelli, images of most key figures in the extraterrestrial life debate will make an appearance, as will some great cartoons I found on cartoonstock.com (permissions pending), plus a few other surprises. I like having fun when teaching.

 

Lithograph of the "Ruby Ampitheatre" on Earth's moon published in the New York Sun on August 28, 1835.

Preparing for the seminar will keep me busy between now and June, but other projects will, too. One of them is writing about material I've collected over several years on the subject of science and religion, not so much from the academic side, but more from the perspectives of world religions, trade books written by scientists criticizing or supporting religion, survey research, film (did you see Religulous?), news media, and even a handful of blogs I've stumbled across. Taken together, these sources reveal frames of reference (frameworks) of attitudes and insights about the subject that help me better understand what's going on out there, or perhaps more accurately, provide some handles I can hang from while being dragged along for the ride.

That's definitely what it feels like on some days. The sheer volume of information available is overwhelming. The pace of discovery varies and the flow of information never stops. Fortunately or not, we're all pretty much in the same boat as far as this goes, which reminds me of something I read in John Lilly's The Mind of the Dolphin when I was in high school about a million years ago. To paraphrase:

Specialists know more and more about less and less until they know everything about nothing.

Generalists knows less and less about more and more until they know nothing about everything.

I've always liked that description and it's case for finding the middle-ground.

One of my recent discoveries is the American Religious Identification Survey (ARIS), an annual study from the Institute for the Study of Secularlism in Society and Culture at Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut. The ARIS 2008 results made news when they were released earlier this month. Among the findings: Americans are slowly becoming less Christian; historic mainstream churches and denominations continue to show steep membership declines; "non-denominational Christian identity" continues to tick upward; the largest "challenge" to Christianity in the U.S. is not from other religions, but from the public's increasing rejection of organized religions as a group. According to the 2008 survey, one out of every five Americans no longer claims a religious identity.

These trendlines have been developing since the 1990s.

Another recent find is Black Sun Journal, a take-no-prisoners website covering atheism and social responsibility by Sean Prophet, a media company owner, writer, and New Age critic who was raised in a religious commune and now journeys "away from religion, spirituality, dualism, and personal repression." BSJ is well-written, includes guest contributors, and, according to the site, averages about 15,000 unique visitors a month. Prophet's article, "Atheist Metaphysics and Religious Equivocation," was my entry point. More recent posts on Eckhart Tolle's The Power of Now and Elizabeth Gilbert's Eat, Pray, Love present alternate views of two New York Times bestsellers (fans, be forewarned). I'm going to check-in from time-to-time because taking into account atheist perspectives is important in my journey, too, though for very different reasons. I'm not likely to become a "deconverting theist" anytime soon. 

Nearly 100 years ago, 'Abdu'l-Baha (1844-1921), the eldest son of Baha'u'llah (1817-1892), the founder of the Baha'i Faith, traveled to Europe from Palestine to share with an incipient Baha'i community and others what the Revelation of Baha'u'llah had to say on a wide range of subjects, including the inextricable relationship between science and religion. In Paris Talks, one of the published records of these presentations, he said:

"There is no contradiction between true religion and science. When a religion is opposed to science it becomes mere superstition: that which is contrary to knowledge is ignorance.

How can a man believe to be a fact that which science has proved to be impossible? If he believes in spite of his reason, it is rather ignorant superstition than faith. The true principles of all religions are in conformity with the teachings of science."

Then he added:

". . . forms and rituals differ in the various churches and amongst the different sects, and even contradict one another; giving rise to discord, hatred, and disunion. The outcome of all this dissension is the belief of many cultured men that religion and science are contradictory terms, that religion needs no powers of reflection, and should in no wise be regulated by science, but must of necessity be opposed, the one to the other. The unfortunate effect of this is that science has drifted apart from religion, and religion has become a mere blind and more or less apathetic following of the precepts of certain religious teachers, who insist on their own favorite dogmas being accepted even when they are contrary to science. This is foolishness, for it is quite evident that science is the light, and, being so, religion truly so-called does not oppose knowledge.

We are familiar with the phrases 'Light and Darkness', 'Religion and Science'. But the religion which does not walk hand in hand with science is itself in the darkness of superstition and ignorance.

Much of the discord and disunion of the world is created by these man-made oppositions and contradictions."

Science is light. Religion opposed to science is superstition. Superstition and ignorance are darkness. I like that. The frameworks of science and religion, as varied as they are today, still contain their share of "man-made oppositions" and, like any other important human construct -- Baha'u'llah called science and religion "the two most potent forces in human life" -- they usually come into a clearer focus when we step back a bit and seriously apply our sometimes forgotten "powers of reflection."

Once again, the importance of seeking that middle-ground.

Next stop: tbd

Banner bus photo credit: Dorothy Delina Porter.

Mars, Methane, and Divine Revelation

This stop was to be about When Stars Came Down To Earth, but I'll get to that next time. The latest news concerning the Red Planet takes precedent this week.

Last Thursday, NASA held a press conference announcing that a project team had confirmed the presence of a large volume of methane in the atmosphere above the northern hemisphere of Mars. What's significant about the discovery is that methane, a greenhouse gas on Earth, is either biological or geological in origin. Researchers aren't sure which source is responsible for the methane above Mars -- it could be both -- but the fact there are such large quantities of it suggests that Mars isn't a "dead" planet after all; apparently there are natural processes at work below the Martian surface on a scale previously unknown.

Additionally, the prospect of a biological origin is exciting because it brings planetary scientists (and the rest of us) perhaps one step closer to answering the question if life exists beyond Earth.

The news conference followed a mulit-year investigation by scientists working with NASA's Infrared Telescope Facility and the W.M. Keck telescope, both on Mauna Kea, Hawaii. Analyzing spectrographic data collected over several Martian years, the team found three absorption lines (spectral features) that, taken together, are definitive signatures of methane. Moreover, the gas was detected in plumes above the surface in different northern regions, each of which shows evidence suggestive of ancient surface ice or flowing water. One plume contained an estimated 19,000 metric tons of methane, which is significant in part because, ordinarily, the gas is rapidly destroyed in the Martian atmosphere.

The volume is also significant because, according to team member Michael J. Mumma of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, the rate at which methane is released into the atmosphere during the Martian mid-summer is "comparable to that of the massive hydrocarbon seep at Coal Oil Point in Santa Barbara, California."

Coal Oil Point refers to the Coal Oil Point Seep Field in the Santa Barbara Channel, just offshore along the southern California coast. A seep field is a place where liquid or gaseous hydrocarbons -- for example, oil and natural gas -- bubble-up to the surface from cracks in the Earth's crust. Coal Oil Point is one of the largest seep fields on Earth.

So where is all the methane coming from? If the source is biological, the leading contender would be  bacteria or other extremophile microorganisms living far below the surface, where it is presumably warmer and liquid water exists. Team members point out that more than 90% of the atmospheric methane on Earth comes from living systems. At the press conference Mumma said,

"On Earth, microorganisms thrive about 1.2 to 1.9 miles beneath the Witwatersrand basin of South Africa, where natural radioactivity splits water molecules into molecular hydrogen and oxygen. The organisms use the hydrogen for energy. It might be possible for similar organisms to survive for billions of years below the permafrost layer on Mars, where water is liquid, radiation supplies energy, and carbon dioxide provides carbon. Gases, like methane, accumulated in such underground zones might be released into the atmosphere if pores or fissures open during the warm seasons, connecting the deep zones to the atmosphere at crater walls or canyons."

Geological processes on Mars that could produce methane include the conversion of iron oxide into sepentine minerals and volcanism. Mars isn't volcanically active today, but large volumes of methane created by volcanic activity earlier in the planet's history could be trapped below ground.

As I've mentioned before, one source of my own research interests in the confluence of science, religion, and the prospect of extraterrestrial life is writings and statements on these subjects in world religions, few as they are. When I heard the announcement on Thursday, it again brought to mind an excerpt from the Revelation of Baha'u'llah (1817-1892), the prophet and founder of the Baha'i Faith, who wrote:

"Thou hast, moreover, asked Me concerning the nature of the celestial spheres. To comprehend their nature, it would be necessary to inquire into the meaning of the allusions that have been made in the Books of old to the celestial spheres and the heavens, and to discover the character of their relationship to this physical world, and the influence which they exert upon it. Every heart is filled with wonder at so bewildering a theme, and every mind is perplexed by its mystery. God, alone, can fathom its import . . . Know thou that every fixed star hath its own planets, and every planet its own creatures, whose number no man can compute."

Because these words are directly from the prophet himself -- they were not written down by others years or decades after the fact -- members of the Baha'i Faith consider them to be sacred scripture. They appear in a volume titled Gleanings from the Writings of Baha'u'llah, which first appeared in English translation in 1935. Gleanings is just one of many published volumes of Baha'u'llah's writings available today.

When I first quoted this passage (12/3), I suggested that its impact on readers depends on who is reading and where they are on their own journey, spiritual or otherwise. Today, in light of the spectrographic analyses confirming the presence of methane on Mars and its possible organic origin in whole or in part, I would add that, for myself, anyway, Steven J. Dick's notion of the biological universe broadly complements what Baha'u'llah states in the last sentence.

Readers interested in learning more about the historical figure of Baha'u'llah and the process by which his Revelation was recorded for humanity can consult the Baha'i International Community website and "The Life of Baha'ullah: A Photographic Narrative."

The peer reviewed paper describing the NASA team's findings, titled "Strong Release of Methane on Mars in Northern 2003," will be published soon in the journal Science. Until then, a pre-publication version is available online at Science Express.

Next stop: When Stars Came Down to Earth

Conceptual animation depicting how biological organisms (shown as oval-shaped translucent structures) living beneath the surface of Mars may have produced methane (shown as blue spheres). Credit: Susan Twardy/NASA.

Banner bus photo credit: Dorothy Delina Porter.

Saturn's Venting Moon

Back in 2005, the Cassini spacecraft -- the first to study Saturn's rings and moons from orbit -- detected a plume of water vapor and ice shooting into space from fissures near the south pole of Saturn's sixth largest moon, Enceladus (pronounced en-SELL-ah-dus). About two years later, using its ultraviolet imaging spectrograph, Cassini observed four high-density water vapor jets against the background of the plume. One of the interesting things about the jets is that they were in the same positions as dust jets seen earlier. Another is that additional analyses revealed the presence of organic compounds in the plume.

But perhaps the most interesting development so far is that the density and temperature of the jets are consistent with a model that identifies the source of the plume as liquid water, venting from within Enceladus into space at supersonic speed through narrow channels on its surface.

It isn't known yet if the geysers on Enceladus are really produced by a subsurface aquifer, or via some other source. Cassin's next passby won't occur until August 2009. Meanwhile, planetary scientists working with the data in hand are keeping plenty busy.

And occasionally publishing.

Last week a letter in the journal Nature reported what you just read here in brief summary, which made the news wires and produced stories pointing out that if the presence of liquid water is confimed, then Enceladus would be the third body in our solar system known to have it. Earth and Jupiter's moon, Europa, are the other two.

The possibilities are exciting. Joshua Colwell, a Cassini team member and one of the authors of the letter (as well as "comet advisor" to the film Deep Impact), puts it this way:

"Water is a basic ingredient for life, and there are certainly implications there. If we find that the tidal heating that we believe causes these geysers is a common planetary phenomenon, then it gets really interesting."

Yes it does.

But if tidal heating is confirmed on Enceladus, there's a long way to go (literally) before anyone can determine if the process is replicated, let alone common, on other planets and moons. And then there is the matter of the "ingredients" whose presence, along with tidal heating or something close to it, astrobiologists believe are likely necessary to support life. Another planetary scientist, David Grinspoon (see Lonely Planets in last post), reminds us there are important questions to ask along the way as we think about habitable zones on worlds beyond our own:

"Life may be something that frequently, or even ubiquitously, happens inside planets. Perhaps biology can be a purely internal planetary phenomenon. If life begins underground, it makes the origin of life anywhere else in the universe less dependent on surface conditions. If all you need is some internal energy and some liquid water, then most planets have the right combo at some point in their history, since planets are born hot and wet . . . Can a planetary biosphere that loses its surface water retreat inward and persist, subterranean and homesick, but still alive? In some cases an 'inhospitable' surface may be only the thick, protective skin covering a thriving underground world.

Astrobiologists agree that there are three essential ingredients for habitability: (1) organic molecules (the building blocks), (2) liquid water (the medium), and (3) a source of energy (the spark of life). Based on our studies of comparative paleontology, how rare might such a combination be? . . .The belief that water is necessary and sufficient rests on the assumption that suitable energy sources will be common. How reasonable is this? . . . is tidal energy sufficient to drive a biosphere, or does life need a sun?"

These are good questions waiting for answers.

Meanwhile, I'm reminded that a large part of my interest in the intersection of science, religion, and extraterrestrial life came from questions of my own that waited -- and in some cases, are still waiting -- for answers. My journey, which has been and will continue to be a combination of curiosity, background, experience, and personal relationships, eventually brought me into contact with statements and writings on these subjects from several world religions. One in particular caught my attention years ago. It's from Gleanings from the Writings of Baha'u'llah, a volume of tablets (letters) written by Baha'u'llah (1817-1892), the founder of the Baha'i Faith:   

"Thou hast, moreover, asked Me concerning the nature of the celestial spheres. To comprehend their nature, it would be necessary to inquire into the meaning of the allusions that have been made in the Books of old to the celestial spheres and the heavens, and to discover the character of their relationship to this physical world, and the influence which they exert upon it. Every heart is filled with wonder at so bewildering a theme, and every mind is perplexed by its mystery. God, alone, can fathom its import . . . Know thou that every fixed star hath its own planets, and every planet its own creatures, whose number no man can compute." [Gleanings, pp. 162-163, italics mine] 

The impact of this passage, an English translation from the original Arabic (or perhaps Farsi), depends on who is reading it and where they are on their own journey, spiritual or otherwise. But the fact that the principal figure of the youngest recognized independent world religion, a prophet whom Baha'is believe is the most recent Messenger of God sent to raise the spirit and potential of humanity, wrote this in the 19th Century, fascinates me as a matter of scripture unique in religious history. It also frequently inspires me to investigate the subjects I write about.

As I look at the artist's conception of the geysers on Enceladus venting into space, I'm gratified by the fact that at least some human beings on planet Earth now know they exist. 

The knowledge we as a species acquire is always incremental.

Like steps on a journey.

Next stop: tbd

Artist's conception of Enceladus jets and Cassini orbiting craft copywrited by Karl Kofoed. For editorial use only.

Banner bus photo created by Dorothy Delina Porter