Pope Francis and Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia (his nickname is Nino) both made headlines this month for their perspectives on science: one used science to support his argument and the other disregarded science to espouse his religious beliefs (HINT: justice appears to be blind to science). While the Pope’s scientifically supported and informed encyclical on climate change made a bigger media splash than Nino’s graduation speech that included a discussion about the start-date of humanity (which disregarded all scientific evidence), the juxtaposition of both comments in the media gave me hope that we (American society) have started to turn the proverbial corner towards a constructive rather than polarizing dialogue about science and religion.
The Pope used science to explain why and how we are where we are in terms of humanity’s effect on Earth. Pope Francis states on pages 18–20 of his encyclical Laudato Si’ (Praise Be):
“A very solid scientific consensus indicates that we are presently witnessing a disturbing warming of the climatic system. In recent decades this warming has been accompanied by a constant rise in the sea level
and, it would appear, by an increase of extreme weather events…It is true that there are other factors (such as volcanic activity, variations in the earth’s orbit and axis, the solar cycle), yet a number of scientific studies indicate that most global warming in recent decades is due to the great concentration of greenhouse gases (carbon dioxide, methane, nitrogen oxides and others) released mainly as a result of human activity…Climate change is a global problem with grave implications: environmental, social, economic, political and for the distribution of goods. It represents one of the principal challenges facing humanity in our day.”
Pope Francis, similar to the Dalai Lama, sees science and religion as complementary to each other; a complement that can inform society.
The Nino sees religious ideology and doctrine as overriding scientific evidence. In contrast to the Pope, Nino excluded science in his graduation remarks to make a religious argument for when and where we, human beings, came from. In his speech, according to The Washington Post, at an all-girls Catholic high school in Maryland, Scalia said:
“Class of 2015, you should not leave Stone Ridge High School thinking that you face challenges that are at all, in any important sense, unprecedented,” he said. “Humanity has been around for at least some 5,000 years or so, and I doubt that the basic challenges as confronted are any worse now, or alas even much different, from what they ever were.”
Nino’s start-date for humanity of 5,000 years is very close to what creationists believe was the beginning of all life on Earth. Creationism, which isn’t a part of Catholicism, denies all scientific evidence from evolutionary biology, archaeology, chemistry, physics, etc. … to make the claim that Senator Ted Cruz and some other important leaders do that the world is only 6,000 years old. The first sprig of the human family tree sprouted, according to evolutionary biology, approximately 6–7 million years ago with homo sapiens evolving about 200,000 years ago. I was under the impression that justices were in the habit of weighing all evidence when making decisions.
The Pope uses science to explain the world as it is and Nino excludes science to explain the world as he sees it. While Pope Francis and Justice Scalia share the same religion (Catholicism), they significantly diverge in opinion when it comes to the role of science in public discourse. Both men are Catholics with a capital C; okay maybe one is a ‘bit’ of a bigger C since, after all, he is the leader of the Holy See. Both are leaders; while one is the head of the Catholic Church, the other is a Supreme Court Justice. Both men may have started their religious lives on one Catholic path of understanding, but that path has significantly diverged in the forest of science.
The Pope’s respect for science will be useful for handling and possibly overcoming the effects of both El Niño and the Nino. The Pope’s ideas about how to ‘take-on’ climate issues such as El Niño have the byproduct of ‘taking-on’ Nino’s ideas about diminishing science’s informative role in society. A person does not have to choose between a religious life and scientific thinking. Society becomes stronger when we combine science with the humanities and weaker when we exclude one for the other.
Chris is Professor of Political Science at Western Connecticut State University, a Fulbright Scholar, Director of the Kathwari Honors Program, and founding Director of the Center for Compassion, Creativity & Innovation. He is also the author of "The Compassionate Achiever: How Helping Others Fuels Success" (HarperOne, 2017).
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