Having settled the whole Irish abuse situation to everyone’s satisfaction, Pope Benedict has shifted his focus back to the delicate interplay between science and religion:
There is no opposition between faith and science, says Benedict XVI, who proposed the example of St. Albert the Great to illustrate this truth.
Well, of course! What better way to demonstrate the compatibility of science and religion than with the example of a man who lived 800 years ago, back in the heyday of science!
You might not be familiar with Albert, as for some reason *cough* anti-religious-bias *cough* they tend not to teach much about him in science class, but he was a real scientist’s scientist.
For instance, he was an earlier pioneer of alchemy, and (like Nicolas Flamel in the British versions of Harry Potter) he wrote a treatise on the Philosopher’s Stone. He discovered the depilatory effects of frog ashes. His theory of astrological talismans was centuries ahead of its time. He witnessed the creation of gold by “transmutation,” which even today’s scientists can’t manage. And he was even said to be interested in phrenology, which wasn’t even really popular until 500 years later.
So next time someone tries to tell you faith and science aren’t compatible, you just remind them that the 13th century says different!
