The awesome beauty of nature lured ancient people to explain the world with myths, illumined by art. The mathematical beauty of modern science emerged from the mystical beauty of these spiritual stories. Today, Einstein's language of mathematics frames the evolution of the beautiful universe.
Charles Darwin explained the evolution of "forms most beautiful" by variations and the natural selection law in 1859. Nevertheless, the intelligent design community still doubts Darwin. How could a process having randomness lead to life and even beauty? Dr. Carr shows how randomness coupled with law is creative, as evidenced by mathematician Benoit Mandelbrot's recent discovery that fractal geometry permeates nature's beauty, from snowflakes to the branching of plants and lungs. Both fractals and evolution are characterized by the interplay of chance and necessity.
This interplay can be extended to science and spirit. The scientific account of the origin of the universe complements that of spiritual stories. Each can be beautiful in its own way, because spiritual and scientific stories have different purposes. Spiritual stories answer "why" and give guidance and motivation for living now and in eternity. Scientific theories explain "how," give a coherent rational account of measurements, and make predictions. Integration of the "how" with the "why" can lead to a beautiful new story that transcends national and cultural differences. Nature's intrinsic beauty can motivate its conservation.
"Whether a reader is interested in beauty, in nature, in science, in technology, in religion/spirituality/theology, or in all of them, Paul Carr's exquisitely illustrated volume is bound to provide intellectual enrichment and aesthetic enjoyment."
--K. Helmut Reich, Ph. D., Professor, Rutherford University & Senior Research Fellow Emeritus, University of Fribourg, Switzerland
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7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Science and religion are not mutually exclusive;,
By
This review is from: Beauty in Science and Spirit (Paperback)
Nor should they be enemies. That's what you learn from the pages of "Beauty in Science and Spirit." One has often influenced the other, over the course of the centuries. (In fact, for the longest time, "science" and "religion" were not even separate entities.) And beauty, while always in the eye of the beholder, usually goes along for the ride.
I am neither a scientist nor a theologian, so I must admit that some of Paul Carr's discussions are a bit out of my intellectual reach. But I can appreciate his book as an overview of the interweaving of such diverse and huge fields as art, astronomy, environmentalism, mathematics, mythology, physics, technology, and theology. He introduces and briefly examines the concepts of the Divine Proportion, the Sierpinski Triangle, the Pythagorean theorem, Fibonacci numbers, and fractals, to name just a few. He enters the debate of evolution vs. intelligent design. He explores the works of a variety of individuals, including Copernicus, Charles Darwin, Albert Einstein, Galileo, Benoit Mandelbrot, Isaac Newton, Paul Tillich, and Teilhard de Chardin. Even Emerson, Thoreau, and Martin Luther King, Jr. are quoted. Carr also spends a great deal of time with creation stories. (Much information is crammed into this thin book.) At each step, he relates the scientific findings and/or religious interpretations to the human perception of beauty. I recognized most of the names and the major discoveries. But I must admit that I was both intrigued and surprised to learn that the universe is still "whispering" as a result of the explosion of the original Big Bang. That was new information to me. I'm enchanted by Fibonacci numbers and how they show up in patterns in nature (in the swirls of pine cone blades, for example) but the author spends only a short time describing them and doesn't give enough illustrations of them to quench my level of interest. My favorite portion of the book is the beginning of Chapter Eight, "The Courage to Create Beauty," which takes a look at the creative process. All kinds of artists experience the same four steps that were analyzed over time by Archimedes, Rollo May, Murray Gell-Mann, and Meister Eckhart: immersion, incubation, illumination, and verification. It was that way then; it's that way now. It's reassuring to know that some things never change, and that the human and creative experience is universal. The text is enhanced with a variety of b&w and color photos, and the cover itself is a gem: the tracing of a Divine Triangle as it follows exactly the form of a tiger swallowtail butterfly. Too often, we take such stuff for granted. Carr, a retired physicist, teacher and devout Christian, weaves his own experiences into the text. He volunteers details about his trip to Israel in 1997, when he not only followed in Jesus' footsteps, but also met with scientists based in that region. He shares too his personal struggle to come to terms with losing to cancer his first wife, the mother of their five daughters, after 25 years of marriage. We can sense how that experience challenged both sides of his life. "Beauty in Science and Spirit" offers mini-hors d'oeuvres for intellectual thought. It can surely provide jumping off points for readers who want to explore any of the concepts on their own, for Carr includes a detailed bibliography of his sources. Anyone interested in the relationship between science and religion will find this volume to be a conversation starter. You may even look at the world a tad differently, afterward.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Both Beauty and Spirit are in this book.,
This review is from: Beauty in Science and Spirit (Hardcover)
Delightful, stimulating to thought and feeling, full of insights and spiritual depth. This book shows how science and spirituality are mutually enhancing, how science reveals beauty and helps us understand beautiful forms. It takes us on a journey to butterflies, nebulae, cathedrals, fractal geometry, mandalas, Haydn and Michaelangelo, stopping for conversations with Emerson, Thoreau, Teilhard de Chardin, Paul Tillich and Brian Swimme, among others. Paul Carr is a physicist with over eighty published papers in refereed scientific journals, ten patents, prizes for nature photography, active in the Thoreau and Tillich societies, and winner of three Templeton awards for his work in bridging religion and science. There are magnificent color and black and white photos and a helpful bibliography.
---Jerome A. Stone, PhD Madville Lombard Theological School
5.0 out of 5 stars
Delightful & stimulating.,
This review is from: Beauty in Science and Spirit (Paperback)
Delightful, stimulating to thought and feeling, full of insights and spiritual depth. This book shows how science and spirituality are mutually enhancing, how science reveals beauty and helps us understand beautiful forms. It takes us on a journey to butterflies, nebulae, cathedrals, fractal geometry, mandalas, Haydn and Michaelangelo, stopping for conversations with Emerson, Thoreau, Teilhard de Chardin, Paul Tillich and Brian Swimme, among others. Paul Carr is a physicist with over eighty published papers in refereed scientific journals, ten patents, prizes for nature photography, active in the Thoreau and Tillich societies, and winner of three Templeton awards for his work in bridging religion and science. There are magnificent color and black and white photos and a helpful bibliography.
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