I’m not “scientistic” in the reductive sense, if I were I’d not be so drawn to literature (Frank Bascombe would not speak to me) or, indeed, to my own experience (the seemingly-revelatory disclosures of my daily walks and bikerides would not speak to me… or I’d not listen).
But I am science-positive. I have been at least since Neil Armstrong’s small and giant steps on the moon in 1969, and probably well before: born in the year of Sputnik, how could I not have grown up with the expectation that science-based technology would and should transform our lives in wondrous ways (and also keep us free from ideological oppression)? I was a step ahead of Neil, in fact, with Captain Kirk and crew in 1966. We were going to boldly go…
And that was my mindset when I picked up Carl Sagan’s Cosmic Connection (et al) and began to understand there was an exhilarating evolutionary significance to the human scientific endeavor. What an amazing thing, to be starstuff contemplating the stars! Darwin was exactly right, there is “grandeur in this view of life”…
And that’s the light in which I made personal connection to the science-religion-spirit continuum. It’s why I’m so obsessed (aside from those dollars in the ears) with old Winterton Curtis, “my first landlord” whose humanistic 1921 book Science and Human Affairs from the Viewpoint of Biology is so replete with Sagan-sounding observations. Here are a few examples from the concluding chapters:
“If we speak of man’s spiritual yearnings in contrast to his material needs, we may not have a clear concept… [but] that which constitutes the spirit of man, while too elusive for definition is no less a reality. Science emancipates the spirit of man by freeing it from ignorance and superstition.”
“The account of creation in the book of Genesis, when compared with the tale outlined by modern science, is like some nursery story… not to be classed with the great symphony made known by science…”
“the problems of society [are] at bottom evolutionary problems…”
“The open-mindedness that comes with the ability to suspend judgment, where judgment cannot be based upon adequate data, is an ideal of science.”
“…those who doubt will continue to be a minority. But… human progress has not been the product of credulity and the ignorant acceptance of unwarranted conclusions.”
“…religion of whatever sort is a product of organic evolution, just as human intelligence is a product of evolution… We know in part whence we came, if not whither we are going, and it is enough if we may, by our own efforts, somewhat improve, the material and spiritual state of ourselves and our children.”
“In philosophy, the evolutionary theory has necessitated a change from the concept of a static to that of a dynamic universe…”
“…science feeds the spiritual as well as the material man… the progress of science has given the mind of man infinitely more than it has taken away.”
“The mad expenditure of human effort in pursuit of the material luxuries of civilized life cannot continue indefinitely, unless new sources of energy are discoverable… well-balanced lives can be lived only in the scientific spirit.”
“The Cosmos we know today is unbelievably complex and more is being disclosed. Things undreamed of in our philosophy continually appear. Consider, for example, the concept of a super-universe…”
“The future of mankind seems to be a scientific future… Understanding of science is the greatest legacy we can bequeath to posterity.”