Books, Arts & Manners: Worlds Fragmented

The Way the World Is, by John Polkinghorne (Eerdmans, 144 pp., $4.95)

There was a time, not yet entirely over, when high rank in the Church assured built-in credibility for one’s utterances well outside Church matters. For some time now scientists have been enjoying the same dubious status. It is not rare to see a Nobel Prizewinning physicist or biologist act like an oracle of universal wisdom. By pontificating in the name of their scientific excellence, recipients of Nobel Prizes in science may bring down upon them GBS’s indictment of the Nobel Peace Prize: “Only a fiend in human form would have invented it.”

SJ

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Stanley L. Jaki

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The Way the World Is, by John Polkinghorne (Eerdmans, 144 pp., $4.95)

There was a time, not yet entirely over, when high rank in the Church assured built-in credibility for one’s utterances well outside Church matters. For some time now scientists have been enjoying the same dubious status. It is not rare to see a Nobel Prizewinning physicist or biologist act like an oracle of universal wisdom. By pontificating in the name of their scientific excellence, recipients of Nobel Prizes in science may bring down upon them GBS’s indictment of the Nobel Peace Prize: “Only a fiend in human form would have invented it.”