If the experience of science teaches anything, it's that the world is very strange and surprising. The many revolutions in science have certainly shown that.
Interpretation
Science reveals the strange and unexpected nature of the world through its discoveries.
This quote by John Polkinghorne emphasizes the idea that scientific inquiry uncovers the peculiar and often surprising characteristics of our world. Throughout history, numerous scientific revolutions have transformed our understanding, challenging preconceived notions and highlighting the complexity and wonder of the universe.
In practice
During a science class, to encourage students to embrace curiosity about the oddities of nature.
The remarkable insights that science affords us into the intelligible workings of the world cry out for an explanation more profound than that which itself can provide. Religion, if it is to take seriously its claim that the world is the creation of god, must be humble enough to learn from science what that world is actually like. The dialogue between them can only be mutually enriching.
Quantum theory also tells us that the world is not _x000D_ simply objective; somehow it's something more subtle than that. In some _x000D_ sense it is veiled from us, but it has a structure that we can _x000D_ understand.
However, as the Eastern churches have always maintained, through Christ creation is intended eventually to share in the life of God, the life of divine nature.
Chance doesn't mean meaningless randomness, but historical contingency. This happens rather than that, and that's the way that novelty, new things, come about.
Science cannot tell theology how to construct a doctrine of creation, but you can't construct a doctrine of creation without taking account of the age of the universe and the evolutionary character of cosmic history.
Evolution, of course, is not something that simply applies to life here on earth; it applies to the whole universe.
Even those who do not, or cannot, avail themselves of a scientific education, choose to benefit from the technology that is made possible by the scientific education of others.
We need senators who have studied physics and representatives who understand ecology.
Space exploration is a force of nature unto itself that no other force in society can rival.
Thanks to the discoveries of astronomers in the twentieth century, we now know that the heat death is a myth. The heat death can never happen, and there is no paradox.
Einstein's theory of gravitation replaced Newton's, but apples did not suspend themselves in mid-air, pending the outcome. And humans evolved from apelike ancestors whether they did so by Darwin's proposed mechanism or by some other yet to be discovered.
If a sect does officially insist that its structure of belief demands that evolution be false, then no compromise is possible. An honest and competent biology teacher can only conclude that the sect's beliefs are wrong and that its religion is a false one.
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