|
Candle in the Dark
There is a website called Candle in the Dark. A candle in the dark is Carl Sagan’s metaphor for science.
In the introduction of the website there is a candle burning in the dark accompanied by the following discourse:
“The method of science is tried and true. It is not perfect, but it is the best we have. And to abandon
it – with its skeptical protocols – is the path to a dark age.”
I would like to discuss this discourse with its accompanying image. The image of the candle in the dark with the
accompanying discourse, hits a chord with me for a reason. It reminds me of when I lived on a farm in Oregon with my father,
surrounded by rain forest, and under the glowing yellow light of the feather lamp, Venus and the moon out the window poised
above the mountains, my father would explain to me why only reason alone could save humanity. With the wind in the background,
it activates thoughts of man's struggle from the cave to present day dwellings. If not for ancient man, who squalered in the
dirt so I could sleep in a bed, shouldn't we do all we can to guarantee our survival by living in harmony with nature?
And, why is science "the best we have" as said in the opening discourse of this website? I think the answer
can be found in the writings of Jacob Bronowski. In his book "Magic, Science, and Civilization" he concludes: "No
kind of magic will do. We have to establish a unitary sense of the human situation, of the fact that cognitive knowledge is
the one thing that human beings have been endowed with..."
To comment further on this web site's introduction, my father explained to me in a letter that science claims to know
no truths, but rather offers the best explanation for what is known at the time, that, it is self-correcting, always changing
its outlook. Religion, on the other hand has problems in that it is static. For example, given the overwhelming geologic information
that places the Earth's age at five and a half billion years of age, Christianity goes on asserting that the world is a mere
six thousand years old for no other reason than the bible suggests it.
For the past five million years or so primitive man walked the earth, at times with little more than a stone spear
point on a stick and no clothes, and faced many of the same possibilities of extinction we face today -- an asteroid hitting
the earth or an ice age. Except now with knowledge we have no way of staving off such catastrophes, but have doubled the threat
with our technologies. It is amazing that ancient man made it through such vast periods of time with each fleeting instant
increasing the possibility of his demise. Yet we are here today, descended from them through the countless eons with our sophisticated
shelters, transportation vehicles and information processors. That which lay before us now to ensure the continuance of our
species we have found out is a monumental task. It is no less than seek out other worlds. That is, to go the immense distances
to the stars that are separated by an unimaginably cold space.
I can't help but feel as if these thoughts prompt a passage by Carl Sagan. Let me see if I can recite it from memory:
"The surface of the Earth is the Shore of the cosmic ocean. From it we have learned most of what we know. Recently we
have waded out. Enough to wet our ankles. Some part of our being knows that this is from where we came. The ocean calls. We
long to return."
|
