In Defense of Science

There is an ideological misstep that most religious, religiously inclined or religiously 'open minded' people tend to make when presenting arguements for a divine creator that loves and cares for all his creatures. They misconstrue the terms "miracle" and "miraculous". In real life, miracles do not occur. But miraculous things do. Quite often, in fact. So often as to negate the merit of the term 'miraculous' and make it something that is nearly a commonplace occurance. And every time one of these miraculous things occurs, there's a dumbstruck scientist or physicist or engineer sitting in his lab somewhere thinking "Where's my thank you?".

I was really hoping that one of the Chilean miners would exit their collapsed man-made mineshaft and proclaim "Thank Science!". I was really hoping that they wouldn't rush to a church, but to a laboratory to fall on their knees and praise. I was hoping that they would look at the man-made, man tested machine that rescued them from a prison of their own doing, and say 'Man, when faced with adversity, must look to science and reason to overcome.' But, alas, while they're comfortable with their means of rescue being from the 21st Cenutry, their ideological compass is still set to the 19th.

I am in no way calling the Chilean miners unintelligent and I am in no way inferring that they are not forever grateful to the scientists and engineers that allowed them to see their families again. What I am saying is that the focus of the story, in the media of both America and Canada, can be summed up in two words.

Thank God.

33 men spent three months trapped miles beneath the surface of the earth, and were returned, safe and sound if not a little worse for wear, to their families and loved ones by other men and women who were faced with a problem and devised a solution through their own ingenuity and intelligence.

To hell with God. Thank Science. And reason.

-M