AFF Lecture: From Galileo to Laudato Si’: Why Science Needs Faith

From Galileo to Laudato Si’: Why Science Needs Faith

Science relies on faith in many ways, from the motivation for why we do science to the sorts of answers we expect science to provide. The nature of how we understand this relationship, however, has changed radically from the time of Galileo, when science was still being invented; and that
change continues to this day, as can be seen in the way Pope Francis has blended science and faith in his recent encyclical Laudato Si’.

Brother Guy Consolmagno SJ studies meteorites and asteroids. A native of Detroit, Michigan, he received SB and SM degrees from MIT, and his PhD in Planetary Sciences from the University of Arizona. He was a research fellow at Harvard and MIT and taught university physics before
entering the Jesuits in 1989. At the Vatican Observatory since 1993, he was appointed director of the Vatican Observatory by Pope Francis in 2015.

Br. Guy’s research explores connections between meteorites, asteroids, and the evolution of small solar system bodies. Along with more than 250 scientific publications, he is the author of a dozen popular books including Turn Left at Orion (with Dan Davis), and Would You Baptize an Extraterrestial? (with Paul Mueller). In 2014 he received the Carl Sagan Medal from the American Astronomical Society Division for Planetary Sciences for excellence in public communication in planetary sciences.

Photo credit: Karen Cox.