Prof. Mario Livio believes that just as humanity managed to escape from the clutches of religion in Galileo's time, so will it succeed today in the face of creationists. The question is how long it will take
26.6.2006
By: Avi Blizovsky, special for the science site
"As scientists, we really have to deal almost every day with the effects of the infiltration of creationist concepts, which today take the form of intelligent design," says Prof. Mario Livio in an interview he gave me about two months ago, and most of which dealt with his latest book "The Language of Symmetry: The Equation for Which We Have Not Found a Solution" (the interview published in the journal Galileo). Unfortunately, mainly due to space limitations, I decided to forgo a segment of the interview that dealt with the question of how a scientist who is also engaged in popular writing sees himself, combining the two roles in order to protect science from one of the biggest threats it faces, which some define as existential.
Livio admits that the situation is difficult: "This is a wave that we thought we had already passed during Galileo's time about 400 years ago. So we escaped with real force, and this rescue served as the basis for the period of scientific discoveries in the following centuries. In my opinion, science does not mean that there is no place for religion or vice versa. The problems occur when religion tries to dictate the results to science. One of the greatest of Galileo himself was that he said in the most explicit way that the interpretation of the Holy Scriptures should be based on the facts known to us thanks to science. The Holy Scriptures were never intended to be a scientific book and therefore should not be taken literally but interpreted according to the latest scientific knowledge. In no way should the process be carried out in the opposite direction, that is, to impose religious belief on science."
And do you feel now that we have returned to that time?
"Now we will make an organized attempt to return us to that time. Instead of people saying both science and religion are both wonderful things but they operate on completely different levels, that is, a person who believes in God and feels that he needs God does not want a God who created the universe no matter when it happened and moreover does not interfere. A person who believes and needs God, wants God involved every day, every hour and every second in his own life. Science has nothing to say about this kind of thing. It is related to the ethical life of each and every one. Science should operate on its own level and religion on its own. The problem arises when someone tries to take the religious issues and deduce from them and dictate to science what the truths are. Unfortunately, it is true that there is a problem in the US and if we will get out of it or not, it is not clear. We had a small victory with the council in Pennsylvania where a judge wrote a long and reasoned ruling stating that the members of the council who wanted to make the study of intelligent design mandatory, even fraudulently try to introduce religious studies into science classes."
Here and there there is some understanding of the side, but will this thing always succeed?
"I believe that in the end, just as we somehow got out of Galileo's time, we will also get out of this attack, but it could take a long time.
"In every debate there is a lot of misunderstanding and ignorance. People have treated Darwinian evolution as if to say that it is not certain that it is true. They forget, for example, that the evidence for the age of the universe does not come from Darwin's evolution. We determined the age of the universe to an accuracy of 10 percent from observations of the microwave radiation of the moment. 13.7 billion years to the extent of 10% and this was determined without regard at all to the theory of evolution. The people who manage these debates from the religious side do not know the facts at all. They are trying to say that evolution is wrong and therefore cannot accept the age of the universe. The age of the earth is determined from geology and not from the theory of evolution.
It is very unfortunate that we even have to have this debate in the 21st century. If we recall an anecdote - recently a nature museum was established, managed by a religious Christian. He had a problem, after all it is a nature museum, all these museums usually have a lot of dinosaurs. How do they arrange the matter after all, they determined that there were two dinosaurs in Noah's box. "
Are they trying to screw up astrophysics?
It's more difficult for them because the topic of evolution is a complex process that has many stages, but due to the fact that it talks about things we know in everyday life, it's easier to talk about it in front of people who are not well versed in science than about the background radiation in microwaves, so they focus the debate on these questions, however There are some of them who raise the question of intelligent planning in all fields of science."
Is this also reflected in the reduction of funding for scientific research in general?
The financing is still going through, financing matters are complicated matters. They go through many authorities. I don't think people who support intelligent design have any significant control even if they work in government. President Bush also wants to go to Mars, he cannot ignore science. There is no doubt that the current administration was not the most supportive of scientific issues, but this is not necessarily related to Democrats and Republicans. There have been Republican administrations that have been very supportive of science.
"One thing I like to say to the opponents of the theory of evolution is that it is a very wonderful theory, it was very easy to destroy this theory by scientific means. All you have to do is find the skeleton of a two billion year old rabbit. But they didn't find it. There are scientific ways to check and people do it all the time. The reason scientists love the theory of evolution is because it works. The scientific tests that are done are all appropriate. It is possible that these or other details will change, but it would have been very easy to destroy this theory by scientific means, but it did not happen."
Does the rush after religion all over the world play a role?
There is no doubt that there is a movement towards religion in many places and the problem is that this in itself should not have been a problem because there does not have to be a conflict between religion and science, it is certainly possible to live with these two things working on different levels. I know scientists, both Israeli and others. Simon Conway Morris - he is one of the world experts in the theory of evolution and he is a very religious person. Jacob Beckenstein, a great physicist who deals with cosmology, is a religious Jew. There doesn't have to be a contradiction. Those who introduce the contradiction usually do so out of a lack of understanding of the fact that these things work on different levels and they should not be pitted against each other. The great importance is to see the beauty in both things and not to contrast them, because there is no reason to contrast them.
