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One of my pettest peeves is the ostensible dichotomy between science and religion; but this is nonsense cubed, seems to me. Both science and religion, at their best (and O dear, are they bloody, greedy, cruel,grasping, arrogant corporations at their worst), are in pursuit of wonder and mystery and awe; in both cases the work is to try to perceive and dimly understand the extraordinary intricacy, glory, and song of the worlds into which we have been born; and both pursuits depend wholly on words and stories and narratives to explain their work and mission and existence.
So it is, to me, that both demand fine writers; and the more imaginative the writer the better. I do not think that scientists ever thank science fiction and fantasy writers enough, for poking so many readers into deeper curiosity about science, and for poking so many readers into perhaps becoming writers themselves. The fine science writer, the Loren Eiseley, the Lewis Thomas, the John McPhee, the Diane Ackerman, the Sy Montgomery, the Chet Raymo, is wonderfully able to maneuver discovery into a narrative of wonder. Similarly, the best spiritual writers—Peter Matthiessen in The Snow Leopard, Annie Dillard in For the Time Being, Chet Raymo in A One-Mile Walk Through the Universe—are able to get under the shallow layers of religion into the deeper strata of wonder and awe and reverence.
What makes science writing a literary art, when done well, is the sleight of hand that turns report into story, a pile of facts into a narrative; and this is a crucial task now more than ever before. What have we learned as a species about the crime and crisis of vast pollution and our minimal activity toward actually grappling with a world burning ever hotter? That we can lecture each other all day long about moral responsibility, to no effect; we can snarl at each other all day long about disparate readings (or blind ignorance of) of facts, to no effect but ill; we can mumblingly trust that entrepreneurs alert to the vast monies to be made from energy capture and water-cleansing will save the world, and hope for the best; or we can increasingly turn to storytellers to imagine and craft stories that startle, stun, provoke, spark action and more imagination. Yet another of my petter peeves is that we do not very often say bluntly that storycatchers and storysharers are crucial in our cultures and societies; yet this has been the case for perhaps a million years. We have been sitting around the fire telling stories for a very long time.
Comments from other contributors to the Poetics of Science online discussion:
Jamie Zvirzdin: Brian, I appreciate your response, particularly since I was first introduced to your essays by Patrick Madden, my first creative writing teacher (who, like me, also started school in physics but finished with English degrees), and to this day I remember how I felt reading your essay “Two Hearts,” which took me from a doctor’s explanation of how a heart beats to some of the deepest emotions one can feel vicariously. I agree with you that some of the most esteemed preachers of both science and religion are storytellers, and that these are they who can startle, stun, and provoke us to action in impressive ways.
Having just attempted last week to ride a horse in the mountains of Matagalpa with my six-year-old son sitting in front of me, though, I am wary of action born of spurring or startling. I do think that both science and religious narratives—might as well include political ones too, given the current pre-election chaos—should, like Faraday’s speculations, “ever be held as doubtful, and liable to error and to change.” A narrative, no matter how sincerely I want to write it, is artifice, a “sleight of hand,” as you said, which has the capacity to cause misdirections of energy, time, and resources. If I were to out myself as post-Mormon, I’d say that the difference between my science and my childhood religion was that I didn’t allow myself to hold my religious beliefs liable to error and to change. (A common quip I heard often enough in Utah was that Catholics say they believe in papal infallibility, but none of them act like it; Mormons say they reject prophetic infallibility but act like they believe it.)
Fiery, self-assured apocalyptic narratives in both science and religion may actually generate more apathy than action in the long run; perhaps an increase in intersectoral communication about science and religion among citizens, universities, policymakers, educators, religious leaders, media outlets, and science writers of all kinds would be a more effective vehicle for understanding and change. Or maybe we need both approaches. I might be a Spock and you might be a Kirk, and we can still seek truth and be good friends. Yes, I just alluded to Star Trek, please forgive me. It’s not Milton or Montaigne, but it’s useful.
L. Shapley Bassen: It is sentences like these that build the bridge between not only the two cultures but also between hope and despair: “What have we learned as a species about the crime and crisis of vast pollution and our minimal activity toward actually grappling with a world burning ever hotter?” and “ . . . we do not very often say bluntly that storycatchers and storysharers are crucial in our cultures and societies; yet this has been the case for perhaps a million years. We have been sitting around the fire telling stories for a very long time.”