Do you remember being a child, seeing a bug on the ground
and quickly crouching to get a closer look? What about the first time you saw a
rainbow, before you knew that it was just fracturing light, and you tried to
run to the end to see what it really was? In the episode “Space Travel,” Neil deGrasse Tyson remarks, "I don't know if is writ in our
genes, but anytime you see something at a distance that piques
your curiosity, the first thing you want to do is get a closer look.” This
reaction to anything curious seems to be a universal feeling amongst all
humans.
Oftentimes, we don’t consider the future repercussions of potentially
looking closer because we are caught up in the immediate discovery. This aspect
of human nature has greatly influenced where we are today. Without that raw
curiosity and risk taking, we would have never begun to make any developments.
Forget the industrial revolution, we couldn’t have found a way to make a better
fire. It is within us to see something, become curious, and then figure out how
it works. After that, we try to make it better, more effective, and more
efficient. This natural instinct has literally paved our roads and brought us
into scientific, technological, and psychological developments. We naturally
try to make life easier for ourselves, and that comes by looking closer at what
we don’t understand. In many ways, this can be a great way to live and grow.
However, in the past there have been some who say that there are some things
that we are not meant to understand. Religion is one of these things. The
closer we try to look at religion, try to scientifically explain it, or make it
make sense, the more difficult it becomes to believe. Sometimes we just need
something to hold onto, though, and because of that I find that we are not
meant to scrutinize everything. In the future, we could come into more great
developments, especially within the unknown worlds thus far—deep space and deep
sea exploration. We should, however, not try to get ahead of ourselves. Our
human curiosity can either harm us or advance us, and it is up to us to
determine which way the wind will blow.
For some reason religion and science seem to have always been at odds with each other and I do not understand why. Recently, Pope Francis (even if you are not catholic, or christian you can still view the pope as a religious man who is strong in his beliefs) made some huge statements about this conflict. If you didn't know, Pope Francis is a man of both faith and science, and it shows in his statements. He recently stated that he believes in both evolution and the big bang. While this may seem preposterous, it is not as bizarre when he says that these events were the act of god. This is a big step in showing that science and religion can exist together.
ReplyDeleteExcellent post Megan! We are all definitely curious - at least a little bit - and this has had a huge impact on our lives over the years. Without curiosity we would likely never achieve any progress, but I do agree that we need to be careful and not get ahead of ourselves. We can only push our limits so far, and eventually we may find ourselves in trouble if we are not careful. There are definitely some things that we were never meant to understand and we need to try to respect that.
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