Talking Science and God With the Pope's New Chief Astronomer

sciencehabit writes: On 18 September, Pope Francis appointed Jesuit brother Guy Consolmagno as the new director of the Vatican Observatory, which employs a dozen astronomers to study asteroids, meteorites, extrasolar planets, stellar evolution, and cosmology. The observatory is based at the pope's summer residence south of Rome and operates a 1.8-meter telescope in Arizona, where the skies are clearer. Science Magazine chatted with Consolmagno about a variety of topics, including whether God gets in the way of doing good astronomy. Consolmagno said, "First of all, I want to provide space for other astronomers to do their work. And I also want to show the world that religion supports astronomy. It is often religious people who most need to see that; they need to know that astronomy is wonderful and that they shouldn't be afraid of it. I often quote John Paul II, when he said [of evolution] that "truth cannot contradict truth." If you think you already know everything about the world, you are not a good scientist, and if you think you know all there is to know about God, then your religious faith is at fault."

Comments

Re:"If you think you already know everything...

[ClickOnThis]

No scientist thinks they know everything. But that doesn't mean that scientists aren't extremely confident about certain things.

Re:Oh God

[EthanDemurs]

Sure you can; I hate your wit.

Re:Oh God

[ClickOnThis]

Hate can't exist if an infinite God of love exists.

Well, the Abrahamic God (of Judaism, Christianity and Islam) is a hands-off kind of God, giving the human race free will and all that. So, we're free to hate even though He discourages it.

I'm not trying to be churchy, just informative. You have every right to conceive of God's existence or lack thereof in your own way. I'm just saying that the Abrahamic God (as described in the Old Testament) gives the human race free will.

Brother Guy rocks:

[Hartree]

In addition to now being the director of the Vatican Observatory, he's a scifi fan and a regular speaker at scifi cons on astronomy. Very enjoyable and very informative.

He's a serious scientist who also is a Jesuit Brother. That's not a conflict for him.

Here's more info at Wikipedia: Guy_Consolmagno

The Vatican Observatory also runs the Vatican Advanced Technology Telescope on Mount Graham near Tuscon. Vatican_Advanced_Technology_Telescope

It's optimized for photometry so it's a good fit with Brother Guy's research on asteroids and other small objects in the solar system.

Re:Brother Guy rocks:

[AthanasiusKircher]

Sorry I don't care how cool this guy comes off, being a scientist and believing in fairytales is a conflict of interest for me.

So I suppose you ignore the contributions of all of these Catholic scientists, including all of these Catholic clerics who have made prominent scientific contributions (including the founders of many scientific disciplines)?

I'm no defender of the Catholic Church or of overzealous religious idiots in general. But your attitude is a pretty extreme version of the so-called Conflict Thesis, which is a product of 19th-century historical revisionism by a few ill-informed historians who wanted to claim that religion has stood in the way of science throughout history. This viewpoint has been widely discredited by modern historians of science, as pretty much the opposite was the case. Many religious people throughout history have actually had very strong urges toward scientific investigation, since they seek to understand and appreciate the workings of "God's creation."

On the specific topic of astronomy, the Jesuit order in particular has a very strong record of making significant contributions. Ever wonder why so many features on the moon were named after Jesuit scientists? It's due to one of the most influential treatises on astronomy from the 17th century, written by Jesuit scientist Giovanni Battista Riccioli. His Algamestum novum (1651) is largely forgotten today, but it made significant contributions to physics, putting much of Galileo's work on the laws of motion on a stronger theoretical footing.

Perhaps the most interesting thing about Riccioli's treatise is his exhaustive compilation of arguments for and against the Copernican theory -- 49 for and 77 against. Riccioli's discussion is a model for modern scientific debate: he critiques bad arguments on both sides, though for him he ultimately comes out in favor of the Tychonic theory (proposed by Kepler's mentor, which was a kind of hybrid between geocentrism and heliocentrism). It must be remembered that in 1651 there was no clear empirical evidence in support of heliocentrism -- astronomers had been looking for things like stellar parallax and Coriolis forces in projectiles for decades and hadn't found them. (It wasn't until the mid-1700s, a full century after the Galileo affair, that Bradley's chance observation of stellar aberration finally put Copernicanism on a solid empirical footing. Until then, it was just gradually adopted because the math was easier. And it wasn't until the 1800s that many of Riccioli's arguments against heliocentrism were finally refuted by empirical evidence.)

Imagine if we examined something like Riccioli's complex scientific debates as part of learning about the history of science, rather than our own scientific "fairytale" about Galileo triumphing over ignorant religion. In fact it was Galileo who was trotting out ignorant and weird arguments, while both mischaracterizing the strength of his own arguments and lampooning his opponents for their valid objections.

(His only empirical "proof" for heliocentrism revolved around the tides, which required there to be only one high tide per day, and which would have to occur at noon. Obviously this contradicted empirical evidence... but, well, that was the best he had. He also rejected Kepler's empirically derived elliptical orbits and Kepler's empirically derived theory of tides caused by the moon -- because, well, circles are more cool and lunar tides didn't fit his theory. This certainly doe

Re:"If you think you already know everything...

[bledri]

about the world, you are not a good scientist," except when talking about global warming, because that science is settled.

I'll feed the Troll. Not knowing everything is not the same as not knowing anything.

Re: "If you think you already know everything...

[Anonymous Coward]

Because the liberals agree with global warming. When the issue is something conservatives believe in, like anti-abortion, despite it being scientifically proven that babies can, after about 4 months, move, have a heartbeat and brain, sense pain, and react to stimuli, the science is ignored and remains unsettled (if not directly ignored in favor of whatever the liberals are pushing at the moment).

Re: "If you think you already know everything...

[Anonymous Coward]

So can a chick fetus, just after a few days, even.

But neither case resolves the question of whether the fetus has a right to life. And even if it did, it wouldn't answer the question of whether that right trumps that of the person carrying it. And even of it did, it doesn't answer the question of whether the person carrying the fetus has the power to make a decision to terminate, for example in the case of severe malformations.

But, hey, conservatives live in a world that is much more black & white than the rest of us. So I can't expect you to recognize the legitimacy of those questions. Nor even the legitimacy of whether society has a right to settle those questions instead of deferring to the woman, given how they relate to bodily integrity, how complex the issues are, and how entirely inconsequential (in real terms, not moral) the decision to abort is to society.

Only recentely

[aepervius]

"Well, the Abrahamic God (of Judaism, Christianity and Islam) is a hands-off kind of God,"

Do you mean the same good which people believe flooded the world, killing untold number of human ? Which smote Sodom and Gomorrah under the pretense there was absolutely nobody, not even a child, which was innocent ? Which ordered various Israeli tribe to kill all adult , including children, but keep nubile women for themselves ? Killing children by mauling them with bear ? The one which ordered a father to kill its kids as a test of faith ? Or as a result of a bet ruined the life of another ?

The god of the new testament is somewhat kinder if only by its absence. But the god of the old testament is as far as "hand off" as you can be.

Re:Only recentely

[dotancohen]

The god of the new testament is somewhat kinder if only by its absence. But the god of the old testament is as far as "hand off" as you can be.

As much as knew it to be for the best, it was difficult for me to be a hands-off parent for my first daughter. It was easier for me with my second daughter an now with my third child as well. But for new parents, and presumably new gods, it may be difficult to sit back and to let our children make the mistakes that they need to make.

Re:Oh God

[MrKaos]

Thank you for giving us permission to think. Now that I finally have that freedom I have to ask; is there a hands-on kind of god?

Yes, their names are available in the Fortune list of global banks and corporations. You are free to worship in any of their churches and tithe all of your earnings there. These gods are very interested in every single little detail of your life and will stop at nothing to get involved with you as much as possible. They're happy to influence your destiny, they just don't want you to know that they do.

You're free to "think" you are free whether you believe in God or not.