A common narrative of Western intellectual history—one which I have been exposed to for a time—runs as follows: the scientific revolution marked the beginning of a gradual decline in philosophy, theology, and Christian faith. Although inklings of this decline were already present in Roger Bacon (c. 1220-c. 1292), Duns Scotus (c. 1265-1308), and William of Ockham (c. 1287-1347), it rapidly accelerated during the Reformation and Scientific Revolution, leading to further diversion from the Christian worldview through the Enlightenment, Modernism, and Postmodernism.
My intention here is neither to defend nor critique that interpretation of history, but rather to sketch the contours of what I see to be a humanistic strand running through all of science, one which scientists seem much more comfortable embracing than academics engaged full-time in the humanities.
Take the Artemis II mission which recently concluded with the splashdown of the Orion spacecraft into the Pacific Ocean. On day six of the journey, the crew began to discern lunar details as Artemis approached the moon. In a radio transmission to Houston, Mission Specialist Jeremy Hansen was suddenly overcome with emotion, explaining that “a number of years ago, we started this journey in our close-knit astronaut family and we lost a loved one.”
He was referring to Artemis II commander Reid Wiseman’s wife Carroll, who succumbed to cancer six years ago. On behalf of Wiseman and comrades Victor Glover and Christina Koch, Hansen requested that an unnamed crater on the moon’s nearside/farside boundary which had caught the crew’s attention be named in Carroll’s honor. Choking up, Hansen wanted to make sure that Houston got it right: “You spell that C-a-r-r-o-l-l.” The camera then showed the crew in a weightless embrace, after which Hansen distributed tissues, proving to us how challenging it can be to wipe away tears in microgravity.
The episode further persuaded me that scientists are not the cold, calculating lot we make them out to be. Astronauts display superhuman courage, but their emotions are fully human. They cheer as they’re launched into space. They gasp as they gaze down on Earth. They cry as they remember a loved one.
During a teleconference with Prime Minister Mark Carney and other fellow Canadians, Hansen was asked if travelling farther from Earth than anyone before had changed his perspective on humanity and its place on Earth. “It hasn’t changed my perspective at all,” he answered,
because I launched with the perspective that…the purpose of humanity is joy and lifting one another up, creating together versus destroying, and that’s how I launched. I launched with the expectation that I would see the proof of it with my own eyes, and I definitely have.
Having spent half my life in the sciences and half in the humanities, I’m convinced we need awe for both survival and salvation. A few minutes of awe each day just might restore some peace to the world, and a glance at the night sky just might put us on the road back to Christ. Experience has also shown me that the humanities—at least in the professional, academic sense—are increasingly less capable of instilling awe than the sciences.
While scientists devote endless hours to investigating some isolated corner of this vast universe, humanists hold the entire world in the palm of their hands and don’t even know it. On elite campuses across the country, I can often distinguish a humanist from a scientist just from the perpetual smile on the latter. The former is often angry, brooding, cynical, wrapped up in the minutiae of philological analysis or the vagaries of critical theory.
My strongest students have been STEM majors taking literature or philosophy for fun rather than Classics majors whose only goal in life is to get a doctoral degree from some elite university. Many STEM majors begin my class already able to recite Homer from memory, while non-STEM majors are shocked when I tell them that they can actually see the moon during the daytime.
The proof is in the pudding. While serving on the Faculty Senate at an Ivy League university, I was involved in a lengthy discussion of whether the college of arts and sciences should eliminate its foreign language requirement. This was accompanied by a proposal to require undergraduates to take a course titled (wait for it) “Global Citizenship.”
Having previously argued before the august Senate that Latin (and not just modern languages) should be considered a “foreign language” satisfying the requirement, I knew my voice wouldn’t carry much weight. Who came to my rescue? Not colleagues in the literature, history, or philosophy departments but the STEM faculty. They vigorously argued for the need to retain a foreign language requirement and to accept Latin—and indeed ancient Greek—as fulfilling the requirement. Scientists and engineers know the value of foreign languages better than those entrusted with protecting them as critical to a well-rounded undergraduate education.
As Artemis IV looks forward to landing on the moon in 2028, we cannot afford to miss a golden opportunity to enhance the humanities precisely through science. After Galileo pointed his telescope to the sky and saw craters on the moon, satellites around Jupiter, and sunspots on the sun, he complained in a letter to the Grand Duchess of Tuscany that critics “seemed to forget that the increase of known truths stimulates the investigation, establishment, and growth of the arts; not their diminution or destruction.”
Sadly, with few exceptions, college students are less likely to encounter a sense of awe in humanities departments. This is why their curriculum should include math, physics, and astronomy along the way. It could be that they will never find a practical application for such knowledge in their professional lives, but as human beings, they will be forever changed.
Homer and Plato still, of course, have the power to transform, but students should be wary lest they expect such a transformation to occur automatically in a run-of-the-mill introductory class at a state university. At best, teachers in the humanities are exhausted from fighting for their very existence. Budgetary cuts loom larger every year, even when enrollment numbers are up.
Yes, there are mad scientists in the world, but the objectivity expected of them by the scientific community and the very rigor of the scientific method will invariably marginalize them until data supports their hypotheses. The humanities, however, ceased being a place for objective criteria long ago. Obscure and shaky arguments are more likely to make you famous, not less. Your celebrity status is ensured if you can sound so sophisticated that everyone thinks you’re a genius precisely because they have no idea what you’re saying. Contrast that with any NASA public briefing, where they use language so precise and clear it will make a Latin teacher giddy.
No matter how you interpret the place of the Scientific Revolution in Western history, in the 21st century, science may be the last bastion of sanity.
