Broca's Brain: The Romance of Science

by Carl Sagan

  With these enormous liabilities, how is it that Worlds in Collision has been so popular? Here I can only guess. For one thing, it is an attempted validation of religion. The old Biblical stories are literally true, Velikovsky tells us, if only we interpret them in the right way. The Jewish people, for example, saved from Egyptian Pharaohs, Assyrian kings and innumerable other disasters by obliging cometary intervention, had every right, he seems to be saying, to believe themselves chosen. Velikovsky attempts to rescue not only religion but also astrology: the outcomes of wars, the fates of whole peoples, are determined by the positions of the planets. In some sense, his work holds out a promise of the cosmic connectedness of mankind-a sentiment with which I sympathize, but in a somewhat different context (The Cosmic Connection)-and the reassurance that ancient peoples and other cultures were not so very dumb, after all.

  The outrage that seems to have seized many otherwise placid scientists upon colliding with Worlds in Collision has produced a chain of consequences. Some people are quite properly put off by the occasional pomposity of scientists, or are concerned by what they apprehend as the dangers of science and technology, or perhaps merely have difficulty understanding science. They may take some comfort in seeing scientists get their lumps.

  In the entire Velikovsky affair, the only aspect worse than the shoddy, ignorant and doctrinaire approach of Velikovsky and many of his supporters was the disgraceful attempt by some who called themselves scientists to suppress his writings. For this, the entire scientific enterprise has suffered. Velikovsky makes no serious claim of objectivity or falsiflability. There is at least nothing hypocritical in his rigid rejection of the immense body of data that contradicts his arguments. But scientists are supposed to know better, to realize that ideas will be judged on their merits if we permit free inquiry and vigorous debate.

  To the extent that scientists have not given Velikovsky the reasoned response his work calls for, we have ourselves been responsible for the propagation of Velikovskian confusion. But scientists cannot deal with all areas of borderline science. The thinking, calculations and preparation of this chapter, for example, took badly needed time away from my own research. But it was certainly not boring, and at the very least I had a brush with many an enjoyable legend.

  The attempt to rescue old-time religion, in an age which seems desperately to be seeking some religious roots, some cosmic significance for mankind, may or may not be creditable. I think there is much good and much evil in the old-time religions. But I do not understand the need for half-measures. If we are forced to choose between them-and we decidedly are not-is the evidence not better for the God of Moses, Jesus and Muhammed than for the comet of Velikovsky?

  CHAPTER 8

  NORMAN BLOOM, MESSENGER OF GOD

  [The French encyclopedist] Diderot paid a visit to the Russian Court at the invitation of the Empress. He conversed very freely, and gave the younger members of the Court circle a good deal of lively atheism. The Empress was much amused, but some of her councillors suggested that it might be desirable to check these expositions of doctrine. The Empress did not like to put a direct muzzle on her guest’s tongue, so the following plot was contrived. Diderot was informed that a learned mathematician was in possession of an algebraical demonstration of the existence of God, and would give it him before all the Court, if he desired to hear it. Diderot gladly consented: though the name of the mathematician is not given, it was Euler. He advanced towards Diderot, and said gravely, and in a tone of perfect conviction: Monsieur, (a + b n)/n = x, donc Dieu existe; répondez! [Sir, (a + bn)/n = x. Therefore God exists; reply!] Diderot, to whom algebra was Hebrew, was embarrassed and disconcerted; while peals of laughter arose on all sides. He asked permission to return to France at once, which was granted.

  AUGUSTUS DE MORGAN,

  A Budget of Paradoxes (1872)

  THROUGHOUT human history there have been attempts to contrive rational arguments to convince skeptics of the existence of a God or gods. But most theologians have held that the ultimate reality of divine beings is a matter for faith alone and is inaccessible to rational endeavor. St. Anselm argued that since we can imagine a perfect being, he must exist-because he would not be perfect without the added perfection of existence. This so-called ontological argument was more or less promptly attacked on two grounds: (1) Can we imagine a completely perfect being? (2) Is it obvious that perfection is augmented by existence? To the modern ear such pious arguments seem to be about words and definitions rather than about external reality.

  More familiar is the argument from design, an approach that penetrates deeply into issues of fundamental scientific concern. This argument was admirably summarized by David Hume: “Look round the world: contemplate the whole and every part of it; you will find it to be nothing but one great machine, subdivided into an infinite number of lesser machines… All these various machines, even their most minute parts, are adjusted to each other with an accuracy which ravishes into admiration all men who have ever contemplated them. The curious adapting of means to ends, throughout all nature, resembles exactly, though it much exceeds, the production of human contrivance; of human design, thought, wisdom, and intelligence. Since therefore the effects resemble each other, we are led to infer, by all the rules of analogy, that the causes also resemble; and that the Author of Nature is somewhat similar to the mind of man; though possessed of much larger faculties proportioned to the grandure of the work which he has executed.”

  Hume then goes on to subject this argument, as did Immanuel Kant after him, to a devastating and compelling attack, notwithstanding which the argument from design continued to be immensely popular-as, for example, in the works of William Paley-through the early nineteenth century. A typical passage by Paley goes: “There cannot be a design without a designer; contrivance without a contrivor; order without choice; arrangement without anything capable of arranging; subserviency and relation to a purpose, without that which could intend a purpose; means suitable to an end, and executing their office and accomplishing that end, without the end ever having been contemplated, or the means accommodated to it. Arrangement, disposition of parts, subserviency of means to an end, relation of instruments to a use, imply the presence of intelligence and mind.”

  It was not until the development of modern science, but most particularly the brilliant formulation of the theory of evolution by natural selection, put forth by Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace in 1859, that these apparently plausible arguments were fatally undermined.

  There can, of course, be no disproof of the existence of God-particularly a sufficiently subtle God. But it is a kindness neither to science nor religion to leave unchallenged inadequate arguments for the existence of God. Moreover, debates on such questions are good fun, and at the very least, hone the mind for useful work. Not much of this sort of disputation is in evidence today, perhaps because new arguments for the existence of God which can be understood at all are exceedingly rare. One recent and modern version of the argument from design was kindly sent to me by its author, perhaps to secure constructive criticism.

  NORMAN BLOOM is a contemporary American who incidentally believes himself to be the Second Coming of Jesus Christ. Bloom observes in Scripture and everyday life numerical coincidences which anyone else would consider meaningless. But there are so many such coincidences that, Bloom believes, they can be due only to an unseen intelligence, and the fact that no one else seems to be able to find or appreciate such coincidences convinces Bloom that he has been chosen to reveal God’s presence. Bloom has been a fixture at some scientific meetings where he harangues the hurrying, preoccupied crowds moving from session to session. Typical Bloom rhetoric is “And though you reject me, and scorn me, and deny me, YET ALL WILL BE BROUGHT ONLY BY ME. My will will be, because I have formed you out of the nothingness. You are the Creation of My Hands. And I will complete My Creation and Complete My Purpose that I have Purposed from of old. I AM THAT I AM. I AM THE LORD THY GOD IN TRUTH.” He is nothing
if not modest, and the capitalization conventions are entirely his.

  Bloom has issued a fascinating pamphlet, which states: “The complete faculty of Princeton University (including its officers and its deans and the chairmen of the departments listed here) has agreed that it cannot refute, nor show in basic error the proof brought to it, in the book, The New World dated Sept. 1974. This faculty acknowledges as of June 1, 1975 that it accepts as a proven truth THE IRREFUTABLE PROOF THAT AN ETERNAL MIND AND HAND HAS SHAPED AND CONTROLLED THE HISTORY OF THE WORLD THROUGH THOUSANDS OF YEARS.” A closer reading shows that despite Bloom’s distributing his proofs to over a thousand faculty members of Princeton University, and despite his offer of a $1,000 prize for the first individual to refute his proof, there was no response whatever. After six months he concluded that since Princeton did not answer, Princeton believed. Considering the ways of university faculty members, an alternative explanation has occurred to me. In any case, I do not think that the absence of a reply constitutes irrefutable support for Bloom’s arguments.

  Princeton has apparently not been alone in treating Bloom inhospitably: “Yes, times almost without number, I have been chased by police for bringing you the gift of my writing… Is it not so that professors at a university are supposed to have the maturity and judgment and wisdom to be able to read a writing and determine for themselves the value of its contents? Is it that they require THOUGHT CONTROL POLICE to tell them what they should or should not read or think about? But, even at the astronomy department of Harvard University, I have been chased by police for the crime of distributing that New World Lecture, an irrefutable proof that the earth-moon-sun system is shaped by a controlling mind and hand. Yes, and THREATENED WITH IMPRISONMENT, IF I DARE BESMIRCH THE HARVARD CAMPUS WITH MY PRESENCE ONCE MORE… AND THIS IS THE UNIVERSITY THAT HAS UPON ITS SHIELD THE WORD VERITAS: VERITAS: VERITAS:-Truth, Truth, Truth. Ah, what hypocrites and mockers you are!”

  The supposed proofs are many and diverse, all involving numerical coincidences which Bloom believes could not be due to chance. Both in style and content, the arguments are reminiscent of Talmudic textual commentary and cabalistic lore of the Jewish Middle Ages: for example, the angular size of the Moon or the Sun as seen from the Earth is half a degree. This is just 1/720 of the circle (360°) of the sky. But 720 = 6! = 6 × 5 × 4 × 3 × 2 × 1. Therefore, God exists. It is an improvement on Euler’s proof to Diderot, but the approach is familiar and infiltrates the entire history of religion. In 1658 Gaspar Schott, a Jesuit priest, announced in his Magia Universalis Naturae et Artis that the number of degrees of grace of the Virgin Mary is 2256 = 228 1.2 × 1077 (which, by and by, is very roughly the number of elementary particles in the universe).

  Another Bloomian argument is described as “irrefutable proof that the God of Scripture is he who has shaped and controlled the history of the world through thousands of years.” The argument is this: according to Chapters 5 and 11 of Genesis, Abraham was born 1,948 years after Adam, at a time when Abraham’s father, Terah, was seventy years old. But the Second Temple was destroyed by the Romans in A.D. 70, and the State of Israel was created in A.D. 1948 Q.E.D. It is hard to escape the impression that there may be a flaw in the argument somewhere. “Irrefutable” is, after all, a fairly strong word. But the argument is a refreshing diversion from St. Anselm.

  Bloom’s central argument, however, and the one that much of the rest is based upon, is the claimed astronomical coincidence that 235 new moons is, with spectacular accuracy, just as long as nineteen years. Whence: “Look, mankind, I say to you all, in essence you are living in a clock. The clock keeps perfect time, to an accuracy of one second/day!… How could such a clock in the heavens come to be without there being some being, who with perception and understanding, who, with a plan and with the power, could form that clock?”

  A fair question. To pursue it we must realize that there are several different kinds of years and several different kinds of months in use in astronomy. The sidereal year is the period that the Earth takes to go once around the Sun with respect to the distant stars. It equals 365.2564 days. (The days we will use, as Norman Bloom does, are what astronomers call “mean solar days.”) Then there is the tropical year. It is the period for the Earth to make one circuit about the Sun with respect to the seasons, and equals 365.242199 days. The tropical year is different from the sidereal year because of the precession of the equinoxes, the slow toplike movement of the Earth produced by the gravitational forces of the Sun and the Moon on its oblate shape. Finally, there is the so-called anomalistic year of 365.2596 days. It is the interval between two successive closest approaches of the Earth to the Sun, and is different from the sidereal year because of the slow movement of the Earth’s elliptical orbit in its own plane, produced by gravitational tugs by the nearby planets.

  Likewise, there are several different kinds of months. The word “month,” of course, comes from “moon.” The sidereal month is the time for the Moon to go once around the earth with respect to the distant stars and equals 27.32166 days. The synodic month, also called a lunation, is the time from new moon to new moon or full moon to full moon. It is 29.530588 days. The synodic month is different from the sidereal month because, in the course of one sidereal revolution of the Moon about the Earth, the Earth-Moon system has together revolved a little bit (about one-thirteenth) of the way around the Sun. Therefore the angle by which the Sun illuminates the Moon has changed from our terrestrial vantage point. Now, the plane of the Moon’s orbit around the Earth intersects the plane of the Earth’s orbit around the Sun at two places-opposite to each other-called the nodes of the Moon’s orbit. A nodical or draconic month is the time for the Moon to move from one node back around again to the same node and equals 27.21220 days. These nodes move, completing one apparent circuit, in 18.6 years because of gravitational tugs, chiefly by the Sun. Finally, there is the anomalistic month of 27.55455 days, which is the time for the Moon to complete one circuit of the Earth with respect to the nearest point in its orbit. A little table on these various definitions of the year and the month is shown below.

  KINDS OF YEARS AND MONTHS, EARTH-MOON SYSTEM

  Now, Bloom’s main proof of the existence of God depends upon choosing one of the sorts of years, multiplying it by 19 and then dividing by one of the sorts of months. Since the sidereal, tropical and anomalistic years are so close together in length, we get sensibly the same answer whichever one we choose. But the same is not true for the months. There are four different kinds of months, and each gives a different answer. If we ask how many synodic months there are in nineteen sidereal years, we find the answer to be 253.00621, as advertised; and it is the closeness of this result to a whole number that is the fundamental coincidence of Bloom’s thesis. Bloom, of course, believes it to be no coincidence.

  But if we were to ask instead how many sidereal months there are in nineteen sidereal years we would find the answer to be 254.00622; for nodical months, 255.02795; and for anomalistic months, 251.85937. It is certainly true that the synodic month is the one most strikingly apparent to a naked-eye observer, but I nevertheless have the impression that one could construct equally elaborate theological speculations on 252, 254, or 255 as on 235.

  We must now ask where the number 19 comes from in this argument. Its only justification is David’s lovely Nineteenth Psalm, which begins: “The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament sheweth his handiwork. Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night sheweth knowledge.” This seems quite an appropriate quotation from which to find a hint of an astronomical proof for the existence of God. But the argument assumes what it intends to prove. The argument is also not unique. Consider, for example, the Eleventh Psalm, also written by David. In it we find the following words, which may equally well bear on this question: “The Lord is in his holy temple, the Lord’s throne is in heaven: his eyes behold, his eyelids try, the children of men,” which is followed in the following Psalm with “the children of men… speak vanity.” Now, i
f we ask how many synodic months there are in eleven sidereal years (or 4017.8204 mean solar days), we find the answer to be 136.05623. Thus, just as there seems to be a connection between nineteen years and 235 new moons, there is a connection between eleven years and 136 new moons. Moreover, the famous British astronomer Sir Arthur Stanley Eddington believed that all of physics could be derived from the number 136. (I once suggested to Bloom that with the foregoing information and just a little intellectual fortitude it should be possible as well to reconstruct all of Bosnian history.)