Pan Conrad on her final Sunday as rector of St. Albans Episcopal Church in Glen Burnie, Maryland. (Julian Lahdelma)
Science and faith so typically appear to be in battle, with the chasm between them widening on a regular basis.
For a lot of, the grounding of their faith is in religion and perception in powers past our understanding. For folks of science, the grounding is in empirical details and measurements that may be examined to assist clarify our world.
The conflicts between science and faith have been many, maybe most intensely on points together with evolution, how life on Earth started and the way our universe got here to be.
The period of pioneering scientists being punished or hounded by spiritual leaders — consider Galileo, astrobiologist-before-his-time Giordano Bruno, Charles Darwin — is basically prior to now. However so too is the period when essentially the most distinguished pure scientists had been profoundly spiritual folks, akin to Sir Isaac Newton, James Maxwell (who accurately theorized the character of electromagnetism) and one of many nineteenth century physicist and scientific titan, Lord Kelvin.
The sphere of astrobiology presents innumerable points the place a scientific and spiritual focus actually may conflict. Astrobiology is concentrated on the seek for life past Earth which, if detected, may increase important points for some spiritual folks.
The astrobiology effort is grounded in our scientific theories of how the universe started and developed over its 13.6 billion years, so non secular and spiritual views that when dominated fascinated by these questions play little function.
After which there’s the origin-of-life subject, which can be a part of astrobiology and is, in fact, an area the place scientific and spiritual views are sometimes in battle.
With so many divides between a scientific and a spiritual method to astrobiological questions, it may appear that there’s little room for overlap.
Conrad has labored on the characterization of biosignatures and the habitability of Mars, first at JPL and now on the Earth and Planets Laboratory on the Carnegie Establishment of Science. She labored on the science workforce of the Curiosity rover on Mars and now she works with three devices on the Perseverance rover at Jezero Crater, Mars. (NASA)
However then I spoke with the Rev. Pamela Conrad, who I knew from some years in the past after we typically talked about astrobiology and even took a visit to Dying Valley collectively, the place she helped me perceive a number of the science of life surviving in excessive environments and how one can discover it.
She was then an astrobiologist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab. She was a member of the science workforce that may work essentially the most complicated, and possibly most vital instrument on the Curiosity rover that may quickly be headed to Mars — the Sample Analysis on Mars (SAM.) She would transfer east to NASA’s Goddard Spaceflight Middle when SAM’s work on Mars started in earnest.
Properly-liked personally and revered for her science, she has participated in seven Arctic expeditions in addition to two Antarctic expeditions (one as principal investigator,) and explored deep-sea hydrothermal vents as nicely. Conrad appeared to have settled right into a demanding however vital function at NASA and in Mars science typically.
However she really was not settled in any respect. In 2014 she not solely continued together with her NASA job with the Curiosity rover and efficiently co-proposed two devices for the 2020 Mars rover, Perseverance, she additionally added research at a theological seminary with the aim of changing into an Episcopal minister.
She was ordained in 2017 and have become rector (pastor) of the St. Alban’s Episcopal Church Glen Burnie, Md., the place she stayed for six years. She simply left that place to guide St. Bartholomew’s Episcopal Church in Baltimore as interim rector.
Whereas overseeing the spiritual well-being of her flock, she nonetheless retains on together with her Mars science. An affiliation with the Carnegie Institution for Science, the place she had been a postdoctoral fellow years earlier than, allowed her to proceed engaged on the Curiosity science after which, when the Perseverance rover payload was chosen, she joined that science workforce as nicely.
For her, there clearly is not any battle between a really energetic and deeply felt spiritual life and an on-going scientific profession targeted on understanding the make-up, the historical past and the mysteries of Mars — a spotlight for a lot astrobiological work.
“To me, each science and religion examine the surprise of the world and our place on it,” she informed me. “I don’t see any conflict in any respect.”
Conrad taking measurements on the salt flats of Dying Valley. Her intensive subject expertise revolves round characterizing the perimeters of the liveable zones in deserts (each polar and temperate) and testing rock focusing on instruments. (Marc Kaufman)
Given her skilled background, her character and her longtime curiosity in issues non secular, it’s maybe to be anticipated that her second of inspiration got here, fairly actually, on the ends of the Earth. It was 2000 and he or she was on a choose Antarctic Biology expedition quickly after starting her science profession at JPL (which adopted coaching and a brief profession in music.)
She had stepped away from her colleagues for a bit in the direction of an overlook of an unlimited expanse of white. It was the Ross Ice Shelf, as seen from close by Antarctic explorer Robert Scott’s “Discovery Hut.”
“On the primary night time we had been taken as much as Scott’s hut and we regarded out over the ice. I stood aside so I may very well be on my own and went to stare at it. I finished in my tracks; I couldn’t consider the expertise that was taking place.”
As she describes it now, she felt awe for positive, however then additionally a profound connectedness to the grandeur of the planet. She had felt early stirrings when she visited deserts and different excessive environments for her science, however the vastness of the Ross Ice Shelf touched one thing deeper in her.
“The wind was fierce and steady however that didn’t hassle me in any respect. I felt an elemental concord, a non secular dimension to the bodily world earlier than me. I felt woke up.”
It could take one other fourteen years for Conrad to make the choice so as to add three rigorous years in Episcopal Divinity Faculty to her NASA job, however what she calls her Ross Ice Shelf “epiphany” stayed very a lot together with her and drove her on.
Hut Level and Discovery Hut in Antarctica, the place Pam “Pan” Conrad had the “epiphany” that modified her life. (Ryan Dyer)
As Conrad sees it, science and religion (or spirituality) usually are not two totally different worlds in any respect. They’re as a substitute two alternative ways of realizing — one talking in theology and one talking in empirical remark.
Take, for example, the “Massive Bang.”
“For folks of my religion custom, God created heaven and Earth,” she mentioned. “I don’t see how totally different that’s from what the science group sees because the Massive Bang beginnings of the universe. The universe exists due to an vitality subject of first causes….Each religion and science are approaches to seek for and discover first causes.”
“So, a set a supplies was fashioned by these first causes and, in fast succession, just a few chemical parts appeared…Then later there are an entire set of different chemical substances that developed.”
As a scientist, she has labored to know the processes by which the chemical substances are fashioned and change into helpful to dwelling issues, however that understanding doesn’t rule out perception in a divine hand,
“I have a look at our constructing blocks of chemical parts and I feel, ‘God , how intelligent are you to make these chemical parts that permit for all times.’” On this method, she says, there isn’t any actual battle between scientific and spiritual or non secular information. They co-exist.
This manner of seeing the world is a part of what Conrad says she all the time brings to her sermons, partially as a result of she sees the divide between science and faith really rising within the nation.
“I routinely put physics into the sermons, routinely discuss of sciencey issues.” For example, she sees a “miracle” — talking someplace between the literal and the figurative — in the best way that daylight, carbon dioxide and water vapor make a plant.
Certain, photosynthesis will be defined within the language of science. However step again for a minute and there’s additionally one thing miraculous about it.
The Perseverance rover imaged by WATSON at Jezero Crater on Mars. That is the second Mars rover that Conrad has labored on, now as a co-investigator on the SHERLOC instrument on the tip or the robotic arm. The Ingenuity mini-helicopter is between the tracks of the rover. (NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS)
Conrad nonetheless works for NASA often on the characterization of biosignatures and the habitability of Mars.
She left her full-time job on the company when she was nearly completed with divinity faculty and has had a part-time place on the Earth and Planets Laboratory of the Carnegie Establishment for Science ever since. Her funding comes through grant cash she receives as a co-investigator on the Mars 2020 Perseverance mission
The work is with two payload investigations. One characterizes Martian supplies, each geological and natural, in addition to taking detailed photos (the SHERLOC Autofocus and Context Imager, and WATSON.) The opposite is the Mars Environmental Dynamics Analyzer, which helps us to know how quickly environmental components akin to temperature, humidity, and air strain can range in a day, a season, or over the course of a yr.
She says all of the measurements may give clues to each the potential for all times and the evolution of supplies on the Martian floor.
So in changing into an ordained minister and taking over the function as chief of a church, she actually didn’t go away science behind. Certainly, she sees herself a greater advocate for science now.
That is from her NASA profile:
“I believed I may do extra good in society if I may very well be an advocate for science throughout the context of communities of religion, that are generally cautious of science and exploration. As a pacesetter, I’ve the belief of such communities, and specifically kids and teenagers, so can encourage them that STEM coaching and exploration is totally appropriate with their spiritual upbringing.
Conrad reciting liturgy at St. Alban’s Church, with the church organist to the left. Along with her musical coaching, she is drawn to church buildings the place music is a part of the ceremonies. (St. Alban’s Church)
Conrad remembers that when rising up the non secular world was vital to her and he or she attended church in highschool and school –though her dad and mom had been avowed atheists. Whereas she by no means misplaced her feeling of spirituality, she did lose her curiosity in organized faith as a result of, she mentioned, of a “deep disillusionment with spiritual establishments.” And remained that method, to 1 diploma or one other, for 34 years.
Following her Ross Ice Shelf epiphany, she felt drawn anew to a non secular life and particularly to the sensation of a common connectedness that she had skilled in Antarctica. As she put it “In science, we consider that on a quantum stage, the whole lot has connections to the whole lot else.”
Her personal — and far of the nation’s — concentrate on the person reasonably than the bigger group appeared more and more short-sighted and at odds with the bodily realities round us.
Astrobiology can be laser-focused on seeing the world each close to and distant as a set of methods to be understood; the trail ahead entails teasing out the ways in which one system organizes itself after which interacts with others.
So her spirituality and her science had been pushing her in the identical psychological course, the identical embrace of the centrality of connection.
When she moved again east to affix NASA’s Goddard Spaceflight Middle workers she returned to the church she had attended as a younger lady in school. The general public she had recognized in these early church days weren’t longer round however the church nonetheless had the nourishing “ethos” that she remembered and located so engaging.
Pam Conrad typically does right here NASA make money working from home. She is a member of the tactical operations workforce for the Mars Perseverance rover mission, she is a co-investigator for 2 scientific instrument suites, buying and analyzing knowledge, and collaborates in workforce planning. She says, nonetheless, that her first and first job is as minister to her church. (CNN)
Over the subsequent a number of years the pull of the spiritual life grew stronger and developed right into a need to take her non secular emotions of connection additional and to share them with others by changing into a minister. She additionally needed to work for racial justice and social change.
“I used to be hungry to go to seminary as a result of I needed to know extra theology, biblical interpretation and ethics. It was time to do the work of deep studying,” she mentioned.
“I are inclined to do issues ‘all in,’ and I wanted to know the place it could lead me: nearer to a spiritual life or extra distant from it. I felt excited and energized and I nonetheless do.”
And why not? Conrad’s relationship to her spiritual calling is, to her, not that totally different than her scientific work. And as for the inevitable pressures of delivering sermons, she already had many years of apply standing in entrance of an viewers and explaining her scientific work.
“For me, my spiritual texts result in non secular perception — reasonably than to literal interpretation — and are an infinite supply of theological and self reflection. I can learn these tales to show myself.
“That’s what I do once I have a look at knowledge from Mars. The query is: What are the teachings right here?”
“I’ve all these instruments to go be taught issues. Why not use all of them? And , there’s a protracted custom of this, of scientists with energetic spiritual lives.”
