The Day the Universe Changed - James Burke [57]
Infinitely Reasonable
When we hear today of the discovery of a new sub-atomic particle, or see pictures from yet another newly revealed galaxy further out in the universe, or read of a cure for disease, the event may please or anger us, but it seldom surprises. We accept with equanimity the immensity and complexity of the universe, because we also accept man’s ability to investigate it and to understand what he discovers. We are the children of science, self-reliant, confident, masters of our destiny. We are capable of tremendous feats, and we take them for granted.
The same is true of our acceptance of novelty. We live with such a high rate of change that we have come to expect obsolescence. We build it into our economy, and we adopt the same attitude to all other aspects of living. Transience is the mode. The only constant is change.
This temporary quality is an integral part of scientific progress. While working with immense accuracy and precision, scientists seek above all to find flaws in their theories. As they discover cracks in the edifice of knowledge they find different edifices to construct. The act of investigation creates new disciplines which in turn become new sciences. Scientific research is now intimately concerned with every aspect of life, from the outer reaches of the cosmos to the depths of the ocean.
Because of the nature of science itself we view with relative equanimity the prospect of thousands of minds in thousands of laboratories preparing to change our lives. It seems to be the only human activity that is truly democratic, truthful, apolitical, rational and self-regulating. Each discipline in its complexity is cut off from the other as surely as they are all cut off from the layman.
This intensity of development has recently been enhanced by the computer. With the new electronic data bases we can create the future from materials and ideas at present available. We can take all force and matter, turn what we know about their behaviour into numbers, and let the computer put them together in every conceivable way to reproduce any event, past or future. We hold the universe in a chip and we can use its own laws to control it.
This ability to regard all phenomena as obeying universal laws, as much applicable on earth as they are in the centre of a star, is at the root of science. The ability was developed four hundred years ago for reasons that had nothing to do with scientific research.
The Council of Trent in session in the cathedral, painted by Titian. Note the secretaries at the feet of the cardinals in the centre beneath the cross. The assembly is listening to the speaker standing in the pulpit to the right of the cardinals.
On 13 December 1545, in the northern Italian town of Trento, a group of eminent churchmen assembled in the cathedral beneath a stained-glass window depicting the Wheel of Fortune. They were representatives of the Catholic Church, summoned by Pope Paul III to a council. It was the fourth time they had attempted to meet, argument and war having forced postponement and two changes of venue. The Council of Trent opened with many less in attendance than had been hoped for. Only thirty-one abbots, Generals of Orders and bishops were present, presided over by three papal legates, Giovanni del Monte (later to be Pope Julius III), Marcello Cervini (later Pope Marcellus II) and the Englishman Reginald Pole.
The prelates had come to Trento to deal with the greatest crisis ever to face the Church. The results of their deliberations would change the face of Europe.
The crisis had erupted thirty years before when Martin Luther had nailed up in his church in Wittenberg a piece of paper on which were written ninety-five demands for Church reform. One of these called the organisation of the Church ‘superfluous’ and appealed to Germans to reform the liturgy.
Luther had been