Your piece today reminded me of a number of things, but I would not want to get too lost in the weeds...err...leaves.
One such thing was an essay written by Wendell Berry some time back entitled "Is Life A Miracle?", wherein he finished up the essay with these few paragraphs:
"I could say, I suppose, that a part of my purpose in Life Is a Miracle was to
try to put science in its place. It offends and frightens me that some people
now evidently believe that the long human conversation about life will
sooner or later be conducted exclusively by scientists. This offends me
because I believe it rests upon a falsehood. It frightens me because I believe
that such falsehoods—the falsehoods of radical oversimplification—damage
life and threaten to destroy it.
I think, of course, that science has a place, but I don’t think it has a superior
place. To start with, I don’t think science is superior to any of its subjects—
not to the merest laboratory mouse. I don’t think any art or scholarly
discipline is superior to its subject. The human conversation has had
moments of light—light, always, is potential in it—and yet it is a conversation
conducted mostly in the dark. It is a conversation limited by human limits, a
conversation that is or ought to be humble, because it is humbling,
full of bewilderment and trouble. It is not going to be ended by anybody’s
discovery of some ultimate fact.
Science is not superior to its subjects, nor is it inherently superior to the
other disciplines. It becomes markedly inferior when it becomes grandiose
in its own estimate of itself. In my opinion, science falsifies itself by seeing
itself either as a system for the production of marketable ideas or as a
romantic quest for some definitive “truth of the universe.” It would do far
better to understand itself as a part of a highly diverse effort of human
thought, never to be completed, that might actually have the power to make
us kinder to one another and to our world.
And so I think that science has its proper and necessary place in a conversation
with all the other disciplines, all being equal members, with equal
time to talk, and no discipline talking ever except to all the others, whatever
the market in “jobs” or “intellectual property,” so that our whole humanity,
in all its parts and concerns, might speak and be spoken for in the one meeting—
which we could call, maybe, if we had it, a university."
(2002)
But of course where we actually are in 2022 is here:
Your piece today reminded me of a number of things, but I would not want to get too lost in the weeds...err...leaves.
One such thing was an essay written by Wendell Berry some time back entitled "Is Life A Miracle?", wherein he finished up the essay with these few paragraphs:
"I could say, I suppose, that a part of my purpose in Life Is a Miracle was to
try to put science in its place. It offends and frightens me that some people
now evidently believe that the long human conversation about life will
sooner or later be conducted exclusively by scientists. This offends me
because I believe it rests upon a falsehood. It frightens me because I believe
that such falsehoods—the falsehoods of radical oversimplification—damage
life and threaten to destroy it.
I think, of course, that science has a place, but I don’t think it has a superior
place. To start with, I don’t think science is superior to any of its subjects—
not to the merest laboratory mouse. I don’t think any art or scholarly
discipline is superior to its subject. The human conversation has had
moments of light—light, always, is potential in it—and yet it is a conversation
conducted mostly in the dark. It is a conversation limited by human limits, a
conversation that is or ought to be humble, because it is humbling,
full of bewilderment and trouble. It is not going to be ended by anybody’s
discovery of some ultimate fact.
Science is not superior to its subjects, nor is it inherently superior to the
other disciplines. It becomes markedly inferior when it becomes grandiose
in its own estimate of itself. In my opinion, science falsifies itself by seeing
itself either as a system for the production of marketable ideas or as a
romantic quest for some definitive “truth of the universe.” It would do far
better to understand itself as a part of a highly diverse effort of human
thought, never to be completed, that might actually have the power to make
us kinder to one another and to our world.
And so I think that science has its proper and necessary place in a conversation
with all the other disciplines, all being equal members, with equal
time to talk, and no discipline talking ever except to all the others, whatever
the market in “jobs” or “intellectual property,” so that our whole humanity,
in all its parts and concerns, might speak and be spoken for in the one meeting—
which we could call, maybe, if we had it, a university."
(2002)
But of course where we actually are in 2022 is here:
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/presidential-actions/2022/09/12/executive-order-on-advancing-biotechnology-and-biomanufacturing-innovation-for-a-sustainable-safe-and-secure-american-bioeconomy/
God bless you, Prof Farrow. I continue to buy and give away Ascension Theology and Thessalonians. To priests.
The man you gently characterise – or rather, locate for us in the scheme of Providence – is Jorge, not José.
Thankyou for the timely reminder of your Thessalonians x2 commentary.
Corrected—not sure what I was thinking of when I produced that misnomer. But your characterization of my characterization is spot on.
Happy Thanksgiving! And thank you for all you have shared here and elsewhere.