Lifelong Learning
Inquiring Minds, Scientific Revolutions
Adventures in Ideas seminar looks at science across the ages
Human Values. The setting, the Morehead planets, as the location of the
Planetarium and Science Center, was observer changes), retrograde
appropriate. Wayne Christiansen, professor motion (when a planet appears
of physics and astronomy and director of to move in the opposite direc-the Morehead Observatory, opened the tion it normally does) and the
program by posing a question that troubled phases of Venus (with changes
the Greeks as they looked at the sky: in face similar to those
How has science shaped our world view, Copernicus and Galileo,
and how does our world view shape the Christiansen noted, were able
path of science? Which comes first, the way to push forward a revolution in
we think about science or the way that sci- science. By using new, more
ence makes us think? powerful telescopes, they were
PHOTOS BY SUSAN SIMONE
More than 100 people assembled to spend able to demonstrate that cera January day examining these questions in tain phenomenon — such as
a seminar, titled “Scientific Revolutions from parallax (the apparent motion
Galileo and Copernicus to Einstein and of a relatively close object
Bohr,” sponsored by the GAA and the with respect to a more distant
UNC Program in the Humanities and background, in this case the
“Where are we?” observed in the moon) — before deists such as Thomas
In seeking an answer, the Greeks, as have were better explained if the Jefferson would come up with a
the scientific generations that followed, faced universe was heliocentric. plan for a secular society that deter-
a dilemma. On one hand were answers Science reached a tipping point, and “truth” mined its laws independent of the church.
based on observations of the senses. On the turned in a new direction. If the question “Where are we?” drove
other hand were theories based on probable Chris Clemens, assistant professor of the field of physics, the question of “Who
behaviors that could not yet be observed. physics and astronomy and director of the are we?” drove the field of biology. This
Thinking like Greeks, Christiansen asked, Goodman Laboratory for Astronomical question, Joel Kingsolver, Kenan
which seems more sensible — a geocentric Instrumentation at UNC, picked up Distinguished Professor of biology,
universe with Earth at the center, or a helio- Christiansen’s argument, moving it forward explained, was at the heart of Darwin’s
centric universe with the sun at the center? to the time of Newton when, again, a revo- quest for a way to do historical science, a
The geocentric theory aligns with com- lution in science required a shift in the cul- means of observing the world that could
mon sense. Here we are looking up from a tural frame of a society. Newton’s mechan- predict not just what would happen in the
fixed point on Earth, and the sky is revolv- ics required as much philosophical stretch- future but also explain what had happened
ing from one horizon to the other. In a ing as it did cold, hard science as he posed before. Kingsolver addressed the unspoken
heliocentric universe, we would have to be mathematical, secular laws that could tension between Darwin’s theories and
moving rapidly on an orbiting object, as fast explain the forces that cause and perpetuate what is called creationism or intelligent
as 1,000 mph at the equator, even though motion in matter. design by sticking to the topic at hand.
we feel no motion. The sky would be filled Clemens then demonstrated how science How do scientists think? How do they use
with similarly orbiting objects. The Greeks, shifted thought from the theological per- evidence to confirm a theory? What evidence
Christiansen pointed out, had come up with spective, dominant in the medieval tradition, supports Darwin’s theory of evolution?
a heliocentric theory, but they embraced a to a world in which mathematical laws held The strength of Darwin’s work began
geocentric universe because it made more primacy. The genius of Newton in his with three new ways of thinking: popula-
sense — it matched what they could observe. Principia is the mathematical prowess that he tion thinking — that variation, not type, is
This example led Christiansen to the uses to demonstrate Kepler’s laws of planetary essential; selection thinking — that survival
issue of the day: How do scientists and their motion and to extrapolate from them. and reproduction are not random; and tree
societies respond to ideas that contradict Newton’s use of mathematics led to the thinking — that from a simple beginning,
common sense and human nature? What accumulation of evidence that tipped the come endless branching and diversity. In
pushes us to accept new truths? Why do we scales. If the motion of the planets were addition to Darwin’s extensive observations,
believe in a science based on abstract theo- subject to mathematical laws, they would gaps in evidence have been filled by fossils
ries and mathematics? The answer, he move as they do because of these laws, on — many discovered as recently as the 1990s
explained, is in the slow, scientific process of their own, without divine intervention. From — that show intermediary stages of evolu-accumulating evidence. here, Clemens noted, it would not be long tion. Biological researchers continue to find
In January, about 100 people attended a
science seminar sponsored by the GAA and the
UNC Program in the Humanities and Human
Values. Kenan Professor Emeritus Eugene
Merzbacher, left, shared memories of Einstein
and Bohr.
