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Letter: Amen to understanding through science

(NASA | JPL | Space Science Institute | The Associated Press) This July 23, 2008 image made available by NASA shows the planet Saturn, as seen from the Cassini spacecraft. On Thursday, Jan. 17, 2019, an Italian-led team reported in the journal Science that the planet's primary rings appear to be 10 million to 100 million years old. Saturn, on the other hand, is 4.5 billion years old, like all our solar system’s planets.

(NASA | JPL | Space Science Institute | The Associated Press) This July 23, 2008 image made available by NASA shows the planet Saturn, as seen from the Cassini spacecraft. On Thursday, Jan. 17, 2019, an Italian-led team reported in the journal Science that the planet's primary rings appear to be 10 million to 100 million years old. Saturn, on the other hand, is 4.5 billion years old, like all our solar system’s planets.

Amen to Prof. Gregory A. Clark’s Jan. 20 commentary on the nature of science.

Amen to an approach to knowledge and the world that takes it on its own terms. Amen to teaching that respects the accumulated knowledge of centuries based on evidence, which is open to being confirmed or disputed, even disproven. Amen to the continuing human enterprise of exploring our amazing world.

Evolution? How amazing that you and I are related to every other living (and dead) thing on this planet.

As for religion and religious enterprises, let them (I include myself) adhere to Anselm when he wrote centuries ago “fides quarens intellectum,” faith seeking understanding. I say it again, “Amen to that process.”

The Rev. Jeffrey D. Louden, Park City

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By The Rev. Jeffrey D. Louden | The Public Forum