Why and How

At the National Storytelling Conference in July, one of the keynote speakers talked about how religion and science used to be bound together and now the two lines are split apart. He talked about this in a troubled way, as if it would bring about the end of this world.

Another speaker gave the example of telling a story about how the stars came to be, and then having a young boy from the audience explain to her what the stars "really" are.

Our folktales, religious tales, all our stories, are important. But why? Not because they are "true" in the scientific sense, but for some other reason.

Another essay from Salmon of Doubt that really stuck out to me, was a somewhat impromptu speech Adams gave to a room full of scientists. Adams was an outspoken atheist, but he talked about the importance of religion.

He started out with feng shui. He admitted that it sounds silly to arrange a room so that a dragon can comfortably walk through it, but the room arrangement usually works. It is usually pleasant, has good flow. Things that often can not be said of rooms and buildings that have been carefully designed by professionals. (His assertion. I do not claim knowledge in architecture or interior design.)

Then he talks about an isolated village that planted and harvested rice based on their religious calendar. The outside world came in and told them how to do it "better." This worked. For one season. After that the crop declined until they went back to their religious calendar.

There are things that people know how to do without knowing why that how works. Science is good at why. We want to know why. But we don't know the why for everything. And not knowing the why shouldn't make us lose faith in the how that our stories preserve for us.

Science, up to a point, tells us why things are the way they are. Why the stars are in the sky. Why apples fall to the ground. But religion and stories tell us how to live in this world.

In my search for connections between what is said, how it is said, and what it means, I think it is interesting that stories and science convey different kinds of truths. Stories are often about things that are "not true" according to science, but on another level they are more true.

My parents are both scientists. I have a close relationship with science. I wanted to be an astronaut for a long time, and I somewhat resented Whitman's poem "When I Heard the Learn'd Astronomer." Knowing that we, too, are stardust is poetic! I can exist in both the worlds of story and science. Perhaps if I tug on both strings I can help wind them back together. But I'll need your help.