With this in mind, there are many people who see universal vaccination as the only way to bring the pandemic to an end, often invoking the mantra of "follow the science."

As a slogan it would seem to have a certain appeal, but the evidence suggests that the catchphrase has not actually been particularly effective at increasing vaccination rates.

After all, a significant portion of the population has still refused to be vaccinated and indeed is skeptical of the science.

I am the director of the Vatican Observatory.

That means that I am both a scientist and an official within the Catholic Church.

I am well familiar with both scientific and clerical authority. And while I am all in favour of vaccinations, I also find myself troubled by that phrase, "Follow the science."

It implies that the authority of science is infallible.

But, of course, science is not infallible.

Yes, the vaccine prevents the disease for the overwhelming majority of people who receive it, and even for breakthrough cases, it reduces the severity of the disease.

But the vaccines are not perfect.

Fully vaccinated people can, and do, come down with Covid—sometimes with serious effects, even if this happens rarely.

To the vaccine sceptic, the fact that such failures happen at all suggests not only that the vaccine is not perfect, but it also gives credence to their fear that "following the science" blindly can be dangerous.

As much as we hate to admit it, that fear of blind trust in science does have an element of truth to it.

Sometimes "the science" is wrong.

I am a scientist, and I can name any number of papers I have written that have turned out to be embarrassingly incorrect.

But more so, there are times in our history when "the science"—or at least how it is presented to the general public—has turned out to be not merely imperfect but horrifyingly wrong.

The popularizers of science in the late 19th and early 20th centuries—people like H. G. Wells, Alexander Graham Bell and Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes—all promoted the idea of eugenics.

They insisted that we could perfect the human race by eliminating supposedly "inferior" people.

It was an idea so self-evident to these figures that anyone (including the church) who opposed it on moral grounds was seen as dangerously backward.

As a result of the popular acceptance of eugenics, it is estimated that 70,000 women, mostly minorities, were forcibly sterilized in the United States during the 20th century.

Such programs continued well into the 1970s. And, of course, this was also the logic of Nazi death camps.

Because popular science had been so wrong in this case, does it logically follow that science should never be trusted?

Obviously not.

For one thing, science eventually got it right; indeed, eugenics had been long discredited in scientific circles decades before the fad of forced sterilizations was finally halted. (Of course, even if the science had been true, forced sterilization still would have been immoral.)

One could argue that the villains in this tragic situation were the popularizers, who succumbed to the temptation of promoting oversimplified views of the science in question.

But that does not excuse the scientists who got it wrong in the first place.

It goes deeper than that.

The fight over "following the science" is really a fight over the reliability of authority in general.

At the end of the day, both those who promote science and those who disdain it are looking for certainty in an uncertain universe.

It is an almost Calvinistic intolerance of error; the world is black and white, and "failure is not an option."

If only we could be certain, we tell ourselves, if only we could be without doubt.

You only become a scientist when you are able to look at something you thought you understand and they say, "Hmm, that's not right."

The irony is that science itself is actually a process based on doubt and error, and of learning how to analyze that error.

In science, it is essential to know that you don't know all the answers: That is what drives you to work to learn more and to not be satisfied with what you already know.

Sadly, though, that is not how we teach science.

In the introductory courses at least—and how many people ever get past the introductory courses?—"success" in your science class means getting the same answer as you find in the back of the textbook.

True, doing such rote problems in science is probably the fastest way to immerse a student into a sense of what it feels like to practice science successfully.

In the same way, you have to learn to play the scales before you get to play the music. But scales are not music, and getting the "answers" is not science.

You only become a scientist when you are able to look at something you thought you understood and then say, "Hmm, that's not right." Until you can do that, you will not even know to start looking for what went wrong.

In science, failure isn't an option; it is a requirement.

Doubt plays a role parallel to that of faith.

The writer Anne Lamott summarized it perfectly when she said that the "opposite of faith is not doubt; the opposite of faith is certainty."

It is not just that if we did not have doubts we would not need faith.

It also means that doubt is the essential driver that keeps us looking for God and will not let us be satisfied with just accepting, or rejecting, the stuff we learned when we were kids—like in science.

Accepting doubt, accepting the inevitability of error, also means accepting a tolerance for other people even when they have been wrong.

I still enjoy the stories of H. G. Wells, I still admire much that Oliver Wendell Holmes did as a chief justice, and I still use Alexander Graham Bell's telephone, even as I abhor those people's views on eugenics.

I can accept that heroes sometimes are also sinners, even serious sinners.

Science and religion seem to be in conflict only if you think of both of them as closed books of rules and facts, each demanding infallible credulity.

But that's not religion; that's fanaticism. And that's not science; that's scientism.

Science does not give you the perfect truth.

But it can tell you the odds.

Science and religion seem to be in conflict only if you think of both of them as closed books of rules and facts, each demanding infallible credulity.

We trust the vaccine because it vastly improves your odds of not getting sick. (The trouble is, of course, that most of us are lousy at understanding how odds work, which is why casinos and lotteries are so successful.)

There is a further irony, of course, seen in some of the vaccine-skeptic crowd.

Just after they announce that they are too clever to be fooled by the experts, they then start self-dosing with some utterly inappropriate and dangerous drug that they heard about on the internet.

The same folks who urge us not to be sheep are the next minute trying to cure Covid by taking drugs meant for sheep.

Why would anyone trust their lives to some random site they found on the internet?

Why would we reject religion in favour of a philosophy we can read on a T-shirt or a bumper sticker?

We should recognize the temptation.

It is the allure of gnosticism, a desire to embrace "secret knowledge."

This is an urge that has been around since the Church Fathers in the second and third century, and indeed since the ancient Greeks performed esoteric rites.

But rather than heaping scorn on those who fall prey to this urge, perhaps we might want to look at where we have gone wrong in the way we teach our science and our religion.

If we promote "follow the science" with the implication that the scientists deserve to be followed because they are smarter than you, aren't we just feeding a dangerous fallacy?

If your sense of self-worth comes from thinking that you are smarter than the average person, that you are the smartest guy in the room, then a great temptation arises to never agree with the consensus of the majority—never to be a "sheep."

If you are smarter than everyone else, then presumably you must know something that no one else knows.

And if your beliefs come at a high cost—for example, because of the scorn you endure for holding them—then you become so invested in your peculiar stance that you can't ever admit you were wrong.

And so I think this comes to the root issue: the identification of intelligence or cleverness as a criterion of superiority.

Certainly, the history of the church should tell us otherwise, if only we were paying attention.

There were many learned theologians in the 19th century, most of them at each other's throats; nearly every one of them is long forgotten in the history of the church.

Instead, the saints of that era were people like Bernadette; Francis de Sales; and Thérèse of Lisieux, the "Little Flower."

The simple people who were not concerned so much with scoring theological points as experiencing God.

Trying to understand the universe, from astronomy to medicine, is only possible when it is a response to love.

It depends on loving the unlovable; trusting even when trust is uncertain; willing to forgive and learn even from those who have gone wrong in the past; living with uncertainty, even as we learn to trust.

After all, the only certain thing in life is God's love and mercy—and our need for both.

• Guy Consolmagno, S.J., is the director of the Vatican Observatory.
• First published in America Magazine. Reproduced with permission of the author.

The Catholic church has famously struggled to accommodate scientific research in its past, but recently there has been evidence of a healthier relationship developing.

In many ways, Pope Francis has embraced science as a way of learning about the world. Notably, his encyclical has urged people to care more for the environment and climate change.

His message moves away from the concept of having dominion over the earth, and instead encourages stewardship of it. This stance has resonated with Catholics and other religious people world over.

By aligning the papal agenda more closely with what science tells us, what impact does Pope Francis have on how people of faith engage with and appreciate science?

Catholics accepting science

There are a few potential motivators behind Pope Francis and the modern church's dedication to the discussion of scientific issues.

First, it becomes harder all the time to refute basic scientific findings. Thus, it makes sense to accommodate new findings rather than isolate yourself from them.

Apart from the pardoning of Galileo for the heresy of believing in the heliocentric solar system, an interesting example of this comes in the form of Vatican Observatory director Guy Consolmagno saying he would happily baptise an alien.

Another factor is that some scientific findings and advances are so significant that they present urgent moral issues. It is here, in the ethical implications of developing science, that the church finds traction.

In 1936, Pope Pius XI started the Pontifical Academy for Life to advise the church on scientific matters.

Today, the academy explores solutions to ethical issues in topics such as artificial intelligence, bioethics, human genome editing, and robo-ethics.

Furthermore, it's possible the church has a genuine interest in promoting and contributing to science through its own research initiatives, of which the most famous is the Vatican observatory.

The observatory was originally created because of the need to precisely moderate the religious calendar. For centuries it has contributed significantly to modern astronomical research.

Faith and facts are not always at war

Catholics as a group seem quite amenable to the idea that science is compatible with the theory that God created the Universe.

In 2017, the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate found that Catholics, compared with other religious groups, were more accepting of scientific world views.

As an example of this relative ease with science, the Church has allowed serious discussion around evolution since at least 1950, when Pope Pius XII said evolution could coexist with Catholic doctrine (even though the following paragraph of his statement mentions the Biblical Adam as a real person).

This engagement with evolution was strengthened by John Paul II, who said evolution was much more than a hypothesis. He also won a lot of scientists over by formally acquitting Galileo of heresy.

Today, Pope Francis is quite open about his belief in evolution, albeit as a means by which God created humankind.

Perhaps because of this series of developments, American Catholics are ahead of their evangelical counterparts in accepting that life has evolved, rather than being created in its current form.

Of science, faith, or both?

There's an old adage that science is about discovering empirical facts about the world and religion is about the meanings we find in it, but this is a shallow conception of both.

Religious teachings are often grounded in simple and immediate acts of living, and science gives us powerful narratives that help us understand our place in the Universe.

Many great scientists were Catholics, including Nicolaus Copernicus, Isaac Newton, Francis Bacon, Gregor Mendel, and Louis Pasteur. One could argue this was the result of cultural and philosophical norms at the time.

Of course, many modern scientists are people of faith, but the percentage of scientists who profess no faith is much higher than among the general public.

Even so, The Pontifical Academy for Life includes some of the world's leading academics and scientists. While they may not be Catholics themselves, their willingness to engage with the church and advise them on critical issues is noteworthy.

This would not happen if the church and Pope Francis himself were not seen to value scientific expertise.

Leading the way ahead

The Catholic church is not a scientific institution, and it would be foolish to suggest it is.

Its religious purpose may be compatible with many aspects of science but, unlike science, its core tenants are not open to revision, even though these core tenants have seemed somewhat malleable over the centuries.

Despite this, the relationship between science and the church looks better now than ever before. The development of this relationship will have a significant impact on the public's understanding of and engagement with science.

Considering the crucial role science and technology play in our prosperity as a species, we can only hope future popes continue to respect and act on the best scientific advice possible.

I would be happy to take that imperative as an article of faith.

• Peter Ellerton is a Fellow of the Rationalist Society of Australia. Lecturer in Critical Thinking; Curriculum Director, UQ Critical Thinking Project, The University of Queensland.
• Image Tedx Brisbane.
• First published in The Conversation. Republished with permission.

"My science tells me how he did it."

Theologian and scientist Jesuit Br Guy Consolmagno is a graduate of Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

He also studied philosophy as part of his Jesuit formation.

Speaking to University of Detroit Mercy students and staff in a lecture entitled "Where Faith and Science Meet," he said the more he discovers in science, the more he feels himself connecting with God.

"Most students going to college in engineering or science enter those fields looking for the truth.

"They're frustrated because religion is very full of fallible people, so they've given up on religion but they're still looking for God.

"The thing about philosophy, mathematics and science, is that it's logical," Cosolmagno explained.

He pointed to three logical axioms he believes underpin science: Reality exists; The universe operates by repeatable laws; Science is worth doing because looking at and understanding the universe is good within itself.

Given that we all assume that reality exists, Cosolmagno explained that, as humans, scientists cannot prove reality to be otherwise.

This ties philosophical thought into science.

"Science is trying to come up with an explanation for the things we see in nature."

This is why scientific laws about the universe's operation being governed by repeatable laws exist, he said.

"If you don't believe in God, then you have to come up with another way to explain nature.

"But to be an atheist, you must have a very clear idea of the God you don't believe in. Otherwise, how do you know you don't believe in him?"

He went on to say the Genesis explanation of creation shows the universe was made "in a logically ordered fashion."

He explained that this logic "forgoes the religious attributes of Genesis" and connected it to God's creation process and the intent behind it.

In relation to science being worth doing because looking at and understanding the universe is good within itself, Cosolmagno said: "There is a lot of evil in the world and we don't know why, and this evil can lead us to mistakenly believe that the universe is evil."

In essence, "Religion gives you the basis that allows science to occur [and] it "acts as a basis for scientific discovery."

Source

• Fox5
• The Varsity News
• Image: Science

Jesuit Brother Guy Consolmagno, who is the new president of the Vatican Observatory Foundation, said news of such a discovery won't come as a big surprise.

Br Consolmagno said he hopes the questions about life on other planets will focus more on how humanity sees itself.

"When we say human, human as compared to what?" he asked.

While the discovery of life elsewhere will neither prove nor disprove the existence of God, Br Consolmagno expects it will open the door to ponder what form salvation history may take in other intelligent societies.

He addresses such questions in a new book, "Would You Baptize an Extraterrestrial? . . . and Other Strange Questions From the Inbox at the Vatican Observatory", set to be published in October.

He said there is no conflict between science and religion.

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Br Guy Consolmagno was given the award by The American Astronomical Society's (AAS) Division for Planetary Sciences.

The AAS praised Br Consolmagno for becoming "the voice of the juxtaposition of planetary science and astronomy with Christian belief".

It also praised him as a "rational spokesperson who can convey exceptionally well how religion and science can co-exist for believers".

Br Consolmagno is known for his media work, including his BBC radio show "A Brief History of the End of Everything".

He believes that Catholic scientists should not hesitate to share their love of science with their communities.

"Show them that our religion does not tell us what 'facts' we can believe, but rather our religion gives us the reason why we go looking to try to understand those facts," he said.

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