Deepak Chopra, the voice of "emerging spirituality, and UCal physicist Leonard Mlodinow brought their War of the Worldviews book tour into town this week, debating “Science v. Spirituality” at the First Parish Church.
Harvard Square may seem like scientific stronghold, but Chopra’s comment -“Any science that is devoid of spirituality can become a diabolical science.” – got big applause.
To which Mlodinow responded: “Science can be used one way or another. .. Science has a good side and bad side..” We don’t need a higher power, he said “We just need more humanity.”
The two authors agreed that science is key to modern existence, but they said that there are certain questions that only spirituality can address. “Science doesn’t need to evolve and it doesn’t need to answer these questions,” Mlodinow said. “I don’t think future science has to change its methodologies in order to be able to answer those questions.”
But Mlodinow drew a line between the questions that science cannot answer and those that simply have not yet been answered.
Chopra also emphasized the importance of distinguishing scientific findings from spiritual answers. “Most people in their minds confuse evolution as an origin of life, not an origin of species,” he said. “Evolution doesn’t tell us anything about the evolution of life.”