Professor Slezin did something unbelievable – he measured the power of prayer. He recorded electroencephalograms of praying monks and fixed an unusual phenomenon – the complete “switch-off” of their cerebral cortex. This state can be observed only with babies aged three months when they are near their mother in complete safety. As a person grows up, the feeling of safety disappears, brain activity increases and the rhythm of cerebral biocurrents become rarer only during deep sleep and during a prayer, as the scientist proved. Valery Slezin called this unknown state slow, or praying, wakefulness and proved that it is vital for any person.
[…]
Prayers may neutralize even radiation. It is known that after the Chernobyl explosion radiation instruments returned an off-scale reading. However, radiation background was normal near The Archistratigus Michael church that is four kilometers away from reactors. St. Petersburg scientists confirmed by experiments that the holy water, the sign of the cross and ringing of church bells may be healing as well. That is why, in Russia the bells were constantly ringing during epidemics.

Indeed, miracles and holy relics are varied and unique. What they have in common is the the fact that they appear to be ‘impossibilities’, according to our human standards. We have whole holy relics and countless testimonies to the sanctity of righteous people, gathered over tens of centuries. We have icons of real people, Christ, His Mother, the Apostles and the saints. Countless people (martyrs) were ready to die for the truth of the Christian faith. Napoleon could not understand how come that his generals betrayed him, while Christ still has, after so many centuries, people ready to die for Him. How we’ll justify our stubborn turning a blind eye to the evidence, to the truth?

We are looking like fools at cartoons and “artist view” depicting mankind evolution, or the origin of the universe. After more than a century of research, generously funded by the secular governments, we are still looking to find a fossil that will serve as the missing link to understanding human evolution. Often, hominid fossil found are little more than small bone fragments. Scientists looking to find out what our ‘ancestors’ looked like and to determine key dates in their evolution from ape-man to man-ape. New findings, a new small bone fragment brings new ‘data’ that could rewrite human evolution, we are told.
We call science statements that can’t ever be proven. Here is an example:

The engulfed bacteria and the host cell then underwent co-evolution, with the bacteria evolving into either mitochondria or hydrogenosomes. An independent second engulfment of cyanobacterial-like organisms led to the formation of chloroplasts in algae and plants. It is unknown when the first eukaryotic cells appeared though they first emerged between 1.6 – 2.7 billion years ago.

Eliot, thanks for this work. Miracles and holy relics are so varied and unique by their nature and history they are said to do variously by so many. Plainly it is their very nature they do not do ‘the same for everyone, every time, no matter who, when or why’.

So the humble scientist would simply say the experiments you describe are outside the permiter about which any science known can offer theories that make reliable prediections for all persons and for all time.

From a spiritual point of view, the opportunities for pride here are vast as a person might think they grasp and command the greater having only glimpsed the sliver.

I consider the lives of the saints to be human activities yielding repeatable ‘experimental’ results. For example miracles and holy relics. It is true that we don’t have defined standard units which would enable us to report numerical values for these results. St. John Maximovitch called the spiritual life the science of sciences.

He was a naturally gifted student but spent more time reading the Lives of Saints than attending academic lectures. “While studying the worldly sciences,” he wrote, “I went all the more deeply into the study of the science of sciences, into the study of the spiritual life.”

I did not mean to admonish you! I am sorry if it sounded like I was admonishing you for something. It was nice discussing this with you. Thank you.

The majesty before our noses is very well described in The Akathist Hymn: “Glory to God for All Things”

The breath of Thine Holy Spirit inspires artists, poets and scientists. The power of Thy supreme knowledge makes them prophets and interpreters of Thy laws, who reveal the depths of Thy creative wisdom. Their works speak unwittingly of Thee. How great art Thou in Thy creation! How great art Thou in man!

[…]
O Lord, how lovely it is to be Thy guest. Breeze full of scents; mountains reaching to the skies; waters like boundless mirrors, reflecting the sun’s golden rays and the scudding clouds. All nature murmurs mysteriously, breathing the depth of tenderness. Birds and beasts of the forest bear the imprint of Thy love. Blessed art thou, mother earth, in thy fleeting loveliness, which wakens our yearning for happiness that will last for ever, in the land where, amid beauty that grows not old, the cry rings out: Alleluia!
[…]
Glory to Thee, showing Thine unsurpassable power in the laws of the universe
Glory to Thee, for all nature is filled with Thy laws
Glory to Thee for what Thou hast revealed to us in Thy mercy
Glory to Thee for what Thou hast hidden from us in Thy wisdom
Glory to Thee for the inventiveness of the human mind
Glory to Thee for the dignity of man’s labour
Glory to Thee for the tongues of fire that bring inspiration
Glory to Thee, O God, from age to age

Eliot: There is no paradox as those who ‘possess knowledge’ as you write have the category of experimental result which people of faith assert owing to the account of ‘the flood’ is reliable and repeatable. People of faith understand there is to be no more ‘changing nature to occasion catastrophe’ so we find theological agreement with the faith of the scientist there.

There is no paradox as the people of science know better than anyone else their basket of experimental results can never be full. There will always be more to do.

There is no paradox as the people of science know their basket of theories is a transient set of mathematically decorated stories crafted to agree with and make predictions about the future of what’s in their basket of experimental results.

The actual scientist has no ‘obsession with matter’ any more than you might complain an artist has an obsession with paint and ignores the world of whatever else you might note. The point is that a scientist understands their ‘art’ as it were has as its boundaries that which experiment might be able to confirm or to contradict. That’s the limit of the art and the real scientists know not to exceed or distort the inner consistency and beauty of that with subjects and arenas of human experience not capable of accurate repeatable measurement in experimental result. Science is plenty rich and productive enough and the real scientists feel no lack of work to do within those parameters.

An agenda for theological aspiration and activity as you describe is a human activity and if done properly and well full of merit– but to call it an experiment is a category mistake like talking as if a math formula could measure an experience of the uncreated light.

As always of course thanks very much for the theological advice and admonitions. I heard similar these past many decades, weekly if not oftener. I find no dissonance in them and with the results of getting to know better that which spreads in majesty before our noses every day.

You say that “there is amazing agreement among real scientists about where science ends and all the wonders and tragedies of the human experience begins”. If they agree on it, why don’t they go further? Why this obsession with matter? I propose a new kind of experiment. This experiment was reproducible, it was done many times. It is reproducible today also. Here it is:
Try to the best of your ability to keep the divine commandments, read the word of God, pray, especially night prayer, fast, read the lives of the saints, etc. Do not be very worried about “experimental errors”. Try your best, be honest and disciplined. Very soon you’ll find out who is causing all the misery in our world. You’ll discover that the devil is real, and you can safely infer that God is real too. Continue your ‘experiment’ in order to draw closer to God. Scientists posses some capabilities and they can be very successful. The experiment can be performed for private needs. When results are verified in improved ‘experiments’, knowledge can be shared.

Eliot: Actual scientists all agree that the measure of a theory is the extent to which it matches experiement. The less the match the poorer the theory. My point is that scientist respected by others never turns theories into the idols you fear — all theories are understood to be transient until the next patch, the next total rewrite, the next unexpected result. That the theories are gaining beauty to me indicates some encouragement.

Those that think that there exists an ‘ulitmate theory that accomplishes completely accurate predictions for everything’ have an untestable theory– invalid by its own definition because such would require an infinite number of experiments of unfathomable variety to prove.

There really is amazing agreement among real scientists about where science ends and all the wonders and tragedies of the human experience begins.

Is there beauty in truth? Science must need be silent while scientists agree in appreciation.

Harry: Almost all theories make predictions that agree with some of the available experimental results, and they also have some “shortcomings”. As a result we have to keep adding patches. We can use these theories, patched as they are, to make valid prediction in certain areas. However, when we try to put together all the pieces of the puzzle, we find out that they do not match, they do not show the beautiful picture which is our world.

Many theories are based on some initial assumptions, and often these assumption cannot be checked. Indeed, they do display a dramatic beauty. They are so beautiful that we end up worshiping our minds and we forget to ask ourselves how come that we have such great minds.

Eliot, what you’ve written fits my experience as well. Bad science teachers and those with political agendas will wrongly teach theories as ‘facts’. Many reading here will remember being taught how different parts of the tongue are responsible for the different tastes — there was this map with the tip tasting sweet I think, and the sides salty — and the middle back ‘bitter’ I think and what not. Total bosh from first to last. The various taste receptors in the tongue are found upon examination to be distributed more or less evenly throughout.

The very best scientists are quite humble about whether the latest theory will last forever, no matter how beautiful.

Certainly it takes great work to cook up theories which make predictions that agree with all available experimental results. It has always been a high feature of science that any theory not making testable predictions, predictions that cannot be observed, are not useful theories to science.

We had a shift in some Quantum theories where the mathematics showed statistical conformance with observed events without any ‘why’ or ‘model’ usually associated with theories. Sooner or later we expect that will be replaced with a theory that includes a ‘why’ — leading to predictions that can be tested.

I do take great comfort as I notice that as the theories are built that are in concord with reliable experimental results they have a dramatic inner beauty visible as it were to those able to ‘see’ what all the equations represent. Breathtaking really, if complex.

Some scientists certainly trusts that we can understand everything. Physicists are trying to come up with a theory of everything (TOE) that explains all known physical phenomena.
The term TOE was initially used with an ironic connotation to refer to various overgeneralized theories. Today, many scientists are engaged in an ongoing effort toward the building of a TOE and the best candidate for it seems to be String theory. Such a theory has to provide microscopic models which can explain the observables of all macroscopic systems.

Science books and science teachers should properly distinguish between well crafted and documented experiments, which yield same results when repeated, and theories. Very often theories are presented to students as facts . Different theories yielded meaningless numbers, never to be checked experimentally. In many cases only circumstantial evidence is available in support of a theory, which is the most likely explanation for what we observe. Of course, science is a process of refinement of our understanding and various theories present our current understanding.

Anyway, the main point of my comment was that science is a activity which requires funding and human resources. It can’t be done privately unless one is a billionaire. As a result, the areas of interest in science are steered by the money flow and by the interest of those providing the money. Also, findings attributed to science, checked or not checked experimentally, had a great influence on people’s mentality in today’s world.

Eliot, I have to point out that your assertion ‘science trusts that the material world is understandable by us’ really has to be checked.

More properly, scientists only actual point of trust is not more than this: any group of people who repeat a properly crafted and documented experiment will get the same result. No matter what the people involved happen to believe on any theological or indeed any subject and no matter where in the world they were born or their sex or age.

Personally I find it remarkable that the world is crafted in such a way that kind of careful work that transcends human accidents of birth is possible at all.

Scientists don’t even trust ‘theories’– they are forever crafting experiments which test implications of theories to see if the theory of the day can be discarded or adjusted in favor of a new one– one crafted to fit the new body of experimental results.

Indeed as you mention there are people who call themsevles ‘scientists’ who are willing to adopt a theory with untested implications as true in all respects full-stop and advocate for it much as politically active people advocate for the manner of government or policy they prefer.

Only the worst sort of fool would argue that the results of a repeatable experiment are other than what various groups who have repeated it found it to be– the only way to ‘refute’ experimental results is to prove a flaw in the experimental procedure, and if possible conduct an improved experiment and be prepared to observe better how our marvellous world operates.

There have been horrific fools of the sort that deny the results of repeated experiments– some with political power, the majority that live under such generally suffer greatly. They generally ascribe to their leaders such phrases as ‘god-appointed’ or similar to bolster their political positions. Leaves me scratching my head about any group willing to identify a human being they happen to vote for as being ‘Christ’s Vicar on Earth’. The sort of thing ‘heirarchical church without national borders’ leads to as we see.

Furthermore, like it or not, there are times when science is co-opted simply for political reasons. Would it be fair to claim that science was the motivator?

Science trusts that the material world is understandable by us, human beings, in profound ways. In its early stages, science makes use of our senses in its collection of data. Later on, complex scientific instruments were developed to aid in the process of our search for knowledge.

Today, scientists claim that 90% of matter in the universe is an unknown form of matter. Dark matter is as of yet an undiscovered form of matter, and it outweighs other matter by a factor of ten. It follows that nearly all the large scale gravitational interactions in the universe are dominated by the dark matter. Science claims that dark matter influenced everything, including the formation of the universe, but we are unable to see it because it does not emit detectable radiation at any wavelength. Then how in the world do we know that it is there? It has to be there because otherwise we would have to admit that some theories developed so far are wrong.

In the Nicene Creed, widely accepted as a brief statements of the Christian Faith, the holy Fathers, guided by the Holy Spirit stated that there are seen, as well as unseen things:

I believe in one God,
the Father Almighty,
maker of heaven and earth,
and of all things visible and invisible.

Some people are still hoping that future researchers may solve the riddle of life and create life itself in a test tube. The experiment failed, since it was discovered the a fetus in the womb, through its entire development, continuously receives vital “information” from the mother’s organism. In a tube this exchange obviously does not take place and the development of a fully human being is questionable.

Likewise, the promise that most diseases may be brought under control seems highly unlikely. We see rather new incurable diseases appearing (AIDS) while the fight against cancer is far from being a won battle. Science promises to work towards control over the environment, and even goes as far as to attempt manipulation of alien environments, in the hopes of making life possible on the moon or other planets, should we destroy our own planet.

Is it science that make promises or certain scientists who are activists? Science was co-opted by politics a very long time ago. It was used to bring hope to people that it will solve all the problems of mankind. It was deviated from its initial purpose:to present objective facts that can be proved. The findings of science were used to make promises. Lately , science started to lose its credibility because, based on fraudulent data, it has adopted an authoritarian tone. Some scientists are telling us what we must do to save our perishing earth. Science has become the governments’ ultimate appeal to authority. Science is a human activity, therefore it is affected by all that affects human beings in any way, politics included.