Discoveries of Beauty in the Study of Science
Cheryl Bourgeois
Discuss this article
Science at its core is a careful, logical study of the world. Conclusions are based on the results of exhaustive experimentation. Out of this a theoretical science has developed, resulting in physical laws and often involving mathematical equations. However, the utility of modern science depends on a rational and orderly world in which experimentation is reproducible and physical laws explain observed phenomena.
In time, many scientists applied the principles of science to every discipline in their world, including psychology, sociology and law, constructing a philosophy of an all-encompassing cosmic machine. A philosophical worldview termed “scientific materialism” developed with the axioms that the only reality is the physical world and the scientific method the only reliable means to understand this world. The overarching claim states that everything in the world can—and, in fact, must—be explained by cause and effect, physics and blind chance.1 While “science” and the philosophy of scientific materialism are absolutely distinct, science is often assumed to adopt the scientific materialist worldview (as it frequently does). However, as a philosophy, it is founded on axioms that cannot be tested or “validated” by science. It assumes, for instance, that the mind and universe are knowable, that reason and logic and their laws are true and it also assumes certain constants of the universe. Thus, the claims of scientific materialism cannot be tested by the methods it requires of everything else.2
Without question, the scientific method has fostered an explosion in scientific knowledge both experimental and theoretical. We now have extensive information on the intricacies of the universe. These details are abundantly described in the scientific literature, but the statements made alongside the reporting of raw data are intriguing nevertheless.
“…the complex and beautiful organization of the eukaryotic cell.” 3
“…bisorbicillinol, bisorbibutenolide, and trichodimerol, three beautiful molecules with intriguing and, therefore, inviting architectures…The appeal of their structures was surpassed only by the beautiful cascade-type reactions employed for their total synthesis…” 4
“…the beautiful but bewildering landscape of Woronowicz’s theory [of quantum theory].” 5
These statements were written by people who have committed their lives to the study of science and the world. What have they found? Mind-boggling complexity, but within it simplicity and order, and in many cases utter beauty. This idea of beauty is pervasive throughout scientific literature. It is rare that a scientist does not express humble awe at what he is studying.
However, looking at the world from a scientific materialist point of view, does it strike us as unusual that the beauty of the universe is so often and readily praised? Science prides itself on its objectivity. The scientific method and reproducibility should not depend on the observer or anything beyond the physical laws governing the phenomenon. But beauty is a subjective thing, relying on and triggering feelings and emotions. Why is the scientific community so willing to praise the beauty of the universe? And why is this beauty left unexplained?
From the standpoint of scientific materialism this raises many questions. Why is the world beautiful? Why does the order and symmetry of the universe strike us as such? Furthermore, is there a deeper question? What is the source of this beauty? In contrast to those who espouse scientific materialism, I do not feel science can answer this question. Science has self-imposed limits based on its foundation upon physical laws and experimentation. To respond to this question we must reach beyond the confines of closed-system science for a bigger explanation. Perhaps that is why it is said and left unexplained; it is what we see and feel, but cannot explain, by the ways and means that science allows.
One explanation for the organization and beauty we see in the world is that the world is a reflection of a beautiful, rational, ordered God who designed the world in His image. As described in the Book of Genesis, the universe was designed with order. Regardless of the precise method of creation or the time frame involved, the world was formed in an ordered way. 6 The God of Genesis is a God of order, which is omnipresent around us. There is an orchestrated order to the life cycle of animals. Watching salmon struggle upstream or birds migrate south when the weather turns cold are just a few illustrations of this innate sense of order; for who has not been caught fascinated by the V-shaped patterns of migrating birds?
Furthermore, engineers who design boats, airplanes, windmills and all else, must do so such that these objects comply with the observed order of the universe.7 What airplane would fly had the designer not carefully considered Bernoulli’s principle? While imperative for engineers, the order and beauty of nature has also served as an inspiration for synthetic scientists. In chemistry, recent research has centered on the idea of developing biomimetic molecules. These would, with slight modifications, mimic the shape and activity of biological molecules observed in nature. The known structure and utility of these compounds provided the impetus for scientists. “Symmetry, chirality and their combination are to be found in many creations of Nature, and in some of the greatest achievements of mankind. From a beautiful flower to da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man, expression of these concepts provides continuing inspiration and example to artists and scientists alike.” 8
According to Judeo-Christian thought, God repeatedly proclaimed His creation as “good.” 9 This God of order designed the universe not only that it could be studied, but also so its beauty could be recognized by the human mind. In this way, any study of the universe, from sub-atomic particles to the stars in the galaxy, instills in the observer a sense of beauty and wonder. Would we expect anything less from a Designer? Would we not expect His fingerprints throughout the universe? Would Ultimate Beauty be able to create anything other than beauty?
Is it possible that this order and beauty was intended from the beginning of the universe? As set forth by Keith Ward:
The natural world is a world of great beauty, and it proves to be conducive to the emergence of forms of consciousness that can react to and appreciate that beauty, which can rejoice in life, in its times of struggle as well as in its times of peaceful relaxation. 10
Another question to consider is that, if we are merely machines—the product of random evolutionary processes—as scientific materialism may suggest, why should we appreciate and be drawn toward this beauty? Perhaps it is because we were created in the image of a beautiful, ordered, Designer God, who has instilled in us a longing for this beauty. Biochemist and Christian theologian Alister McGrath states:
There seems to be something about human nature, which prompts it to ask questions about the world, just as there seems to be something about the world which allows answers to those questions to be given. 11
Why do we sit and watch concentric circles ripple out from a stone dropped in the water? Why are we mesmerized by a bright, starry night? Why are we taken aback by the structure of a snowflake that falls on a glove? Why are scientists in the lab awed by the structure of an organic molecule or the simplicity and elegance of a quantum mechanical equation?
Yes, we can understand the existence of ripples in a lake by the physics of waves; snowflakes by intermolecular forces and crystal lattice energy; the stars by burning gases; the structure of a molecule by electric and geometric forces. Scientists do view the world in this way, for that is their job, but they do not stop at the materialist level. They also deem it necessary to proclaim the beauty of what they see. Why is this the case?
Perhaps there is something within us that sees, appreciates, acknowledges and is drawn to a phenomenon that cannot be explained by science. That is, we long for something bigger than the physical world. May it be that “faith in the comprehensibility of the universe is in fact faith in the ultimate truth, beauty and goodness of reality, in the virtue of pursuing them and in the certain hope of eventually finding them”? 12
Even more than observing and proclaiming this beauty, we are at rest and peace in the beauty we find. We are at home in this beauty and for some reason, it makes perfect sense that the world is beautiful. While awe-struck at the study of the world, scientists do not feel that the existence of beauty needs to be expounded upon and accept its existence as something that should be. Perhaps this is a remnant of something science has not lost, something that has not been censored by scientific materialism and determinism. Perhaps we know there is something beyond the physical world.
If scientific materialism is all it claims to be, should beauty not be an uncomfortable idea? A dedicated materialist, Nobel Prize-winning physicist Steven Weinberg has this to say as he describes his hopes for a unifying theory or equation of physics that links the known physical laws:
It is when we study truly fundamental problems that we expect to find beautiful answers. We believe that, if we ask why the world is the way it is and then ask why that answer is the way it is, at the end of this chain of explanations we shall find a few simple principles of compelling beauty. We think this in part because our historical experience teaches us that as we look beneath the surface of things, we find more and more beauty. Plato and the neo-Platonists taught that the beauty we see in nature is a reflection of the beauty of the ultimate, the nous. For us, too, the beauty of present theories is an anticipation, a premonition, of the beauty of the final theory. And in any case, we would not accept any theory as final unless it were beautiful…There is a beauty in these laws that mirrors something that is built into the structure of the universe at a very deep level. 13
There may be a unifying theory of physics to be found, and it may indeed be “beautiful,” but what is it that we are really looking for? What is beyond the beauty of the universe? In his essay, “The Weight of Glory,” the writer C. S. Lewis says the following about beauty: “The books or the music in which we thought the beauty was located will betray us if we trust to them…For they are not the thing itself; they are only the scent of a flower we have not found…” 14 Scientists do not deny the beauty of the universe, but if they do not want to go any farther than admitting the beauty, they cover up the burning next question and settle for only the beauty. Lewis continues, “We do not want merely to see beauty, though, God knows, even that is bounty enough. We want something else which can hardly be put into words…” 15
What is this that we cannot put into words? Perhaps a longing for the source of this beauty we see around us. Perhaps a desire to see with humble awe the bigger picture, or to know the reason behind our being lost “in wonders as amazing in their littleness as the others in their vastness.16
2. Moreland, J. P. 1987. Scaling the Secular City: A Defense of Christianity. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books.
3. Sabatini, David D. 2005. In Awe of Subcellular Complexity: 50 Years of Trespassing Boundaries Within the Cell. Annual Reviews of Cell and Developmental Biology 21: 1-33.
4. Nicolaou, K. C. 2005. Joys of Molecules. 1. Campaigns in Total Synthesis. Journal of Organic Chemistry 70 (18): 7007-27.
5. Mesref, L. 2005. Quantum Field Theories. International Journal of Modern Physics A 20(23): 5317-51.
6. Genesis 1 and 2.
7. Schaeffer, Francis A. 1976. How Should We Then Live? The Rise and Decline of Western Thought and Culture. Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books.
8. Gibson, Susan E., and M. Paola Castaldi. 2006. Applications of chiral C3-symmetric molecules. Chemical Communications 3045-62.
9. Genesis 1.
10. Ward, Keith. 1996. God, Chance and Necessity. Oxford: Oneworld.
11. McGrath, Alister E. 1999. Science and Religion: An Introduction. Oxford: Blackwell.
12. Ward.
13. Weinberg, Steven. 1992. Dreams of a Final Theory. New York: Pantheon Books. 165, 194.
14. Lewis, Clive S. 1980. The Weight of Glory. New York: Harper Collins.
15. Ibid.
16. Pascal, Blaise. 1952. Pensees Great Books of the Western World. In Encyclopedia Britannica Vol 33. Chicago: Encyclopedia Britannica, Inc.
Wendy on Thu Jun 05 21:30:03 +0000 2008
A compelling article. The fingerprints of a Master Designer is found wherever we look, in the beauty & complexity of a single cell or in the vastness of an infinite universe.