SCIENCE IS THE INVESTIGATION of the physical universe and its ways, and consists largely of weighing, measuring, and putting things in test tubes. To assume that this kind of investigation can unearth solutions to all our problems is a form of religious faith whose bankruptcy has only in recent years started to become apparent.
There is a tendency in many people to suspect that anything that can't be weighed, measured, or put in a test tube is either not real or not worth talking about. That is like a blind person's suspecting that anything that can't be smelled, tasted, touched, or heard is probably a figment of the imagination.
A scientist's views on such subjects as God, morality, and life after death are apt to be about as enlightening as a theologian's views on the structure of the atom or the cause and cure of the common cold.
The conflict between science and religion, which reached its peak toward the end of the nineteenth century, is like the conflict between a podiatrist and a poet. One says that Susie Smith has fallen arches. The other says she walks in beauty like the night. In his own way each is speaking the truth. What is at issue is the kind of truth you're after.
-Originally published in Wishful Thinking and later in Beyond Words
