Beauty and Our Privileged Planet
This past July 13 several Discovery Institute fellows (Jay Richards, Melissa Cain Travis, and I) participated in the “Encountering Beauty in the Sciences” conference at the Museum of the Bible. I spoke on the topic “Beauty and Scientific Knowledge,” which was a first for me.
My basic thesis is that there is a connection between beauty in nature and the acquisition of important knowledge about nature. I made a cumulative case argument based on multiple relatable examples. As a corollary, I also argued that Earth’s residents enjoy more beautiful phenomena that lead to scientific advancement than would hypothetical extraterrestrial beings in other places in the cosmos, if there are any.
I was inspired to make this argument from the evidence for design I collected in the pages of The Privileged Planet, whose new and expanded 20th anniversary edition is out today. As Jay Richards and I argue in our book, nature seems designed in such a way that the most habitable places are the best places to do science. In addition, Earth is particularly gifted with life and the tools to do science. I am now convinced that beauty is in the mix as well.
The Starry Heavens
The beauty of the starry heavens attracts us. We can say the same about rainbows, total solar eclipses, certain minerals, comets, aurorae, meteors, and electrical storms. These phenomena are not only beautiful; they have also revealed important scientific truths about nature. I would rank their importance to science roughly in the order I just listed them.
That these aspects of nature are beautiful is hardly controversial. People spend big bucks to go see a total solar eclipse, or spend vacation time camping away from cities, at least in part, to enjoy the views of the dark night skies. They will vacation in Fairbanks, Alaska, to see the aurorae. People will even pause their busy lives, if only briefly, to gaze at a rainbow.
It’s obvious how dark nights have given us important knowledge about the nature of reality. And, we cover the scientific value of total solar eclipses in Chapter 1 of The Privileged Planet. But, rainbows?
A Clue Across the Sky
I like to think of rainbows as a clue writ large across the sky. They are not only beautiful, but they seem completely out of place and out of the ordinary. When I see one, I feel like exclaiming, “Who ordered that?!” or “How does that form?” Rainbows invite us to ask questions.
Over the centuries scholars proposed theories to explain rainbows. The first breakthrough came in the early 14th century when the Dominican theologian and physicist Theodoric of Freiberg proposed an essentially correct explanation. He arrived at his theory through the application of geometry and experimentation with glass spheres filled with water, simulating what happens within raindrops when sunlight passes through them. Theodoric and others after him not only advanced our understanding of the rainbow phenomenon, but they also advanced the entire field of optics.
The next breakthrough came when Isaac Newton began experimenting with glass prisms in the 17th century to make artificial rainbows. These were the first rudimentary “rainbow makers” or spectroscopes. Later, chemists heated elements in a flame and discovered that each has a unique spectrum. The spectroscope revealed the “fingerprints” of the elements. At the same time, astronomers captured the spectra of distant stars with spectroscopes attached to telescopes. They talked with the chemists and soon astronomers learned how to determine the chemical composition of stars and nebulae.
Spectra of the Galaxies
Cosmology was born just over a century ago when astronomers began getting spectra of galaxies. They discovered that nearly all the galaxies they observed had red-shifted spectra. That discovery led to the realization that the universe had a beginning. The spectroscope, even today, is the most important tool of the astronomer. It is no exaggeration to say that rainbows provided clues that unlocked the most profound truths about the nature of nature.
What’s more, rainbows are connected to our existence. You need an atmosphere. You need a water cycle. A dune world won’t do. A completely cloud covered sky won’t do. Of all the places in the Solar System, Earth’s surface is the best one for seeing rainbows.
I’ll leave the other examples I listed as an exercise for the reader.
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