THE BESTSELLER WE KEEP REWRITING
Author: By Chet Raymo
Date: MONDAY, July 27, 1998
Page: C2
Section: Health and Science
``When the pulse of the first day carried it to the rim of night, First
Woman said to First Man, `The people need to know the laws. To help them we
must write the laws for all to see'. . . And so she began, slowly, first one
and then the next, placing her jewels across the dome of night, carefully
designing her pattern so all could read it.''
But Coyote grew bored watching First Woman carefully arranging the stars in
the sky: ``Impatiently he gathered two corners of First Woman's blanket, and
before she could stop him he flung the remaining stars out into the night,
spilling them in wild disarray, shattering First Woman's careful patterns.''
These episodes from the Navajo story of creation are from `How the Stars
Fell Into the Sky,'' a lyrical children's book by Jerrie Oughton.
It is a lovely story, full of ancient wisdom. For centuries, Navajo
children heard the story at an elder's knee. The story was taken literally, or
at least accepted with a willing suspension of disbelief.
I heard a similar creation story in my youth -- of Adam and Eve and the
Garden of Eden, the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, and the Serpent. I
accepted the story with a willing suspension of disbelief.
All cultures, everywhere on Earth, have stories, passed down in scriptures,
traditions or tribal myths, that answer the questions: Where did the world
come from? What is our place in it? What is the source of order and disorder?
What will be the fate of the world? Of ourselves?
No people can live without a community story.
Today, a New Story exists for those who choose to accept it. It is the
product of thousands of years of human curiosity, observation,
experimentation, and creativity. It is an evolving story, not yet finished.
Perhaps it will never be finished.
It is a story that begins with an explosion from a seed of infinite energy.
The seed expands and cools. Particles form, then atoms of hydrogen and helium.
Stars and galaxies coalesce from swirling gas. Stars burn and explode, forging
heavy elements -- carbon, nitrogen, oxygen -- and hurling them into space. New
stars are born, with planets made of heavy elements.
On one planet near a typical star in a typical galaxy life appears in the
form of microscopic self-replicating, carbon-based ensembles of atoms. Life
evolves, over billions of years, resulting in ever more complex organisms.
Continents move. Seas rise and fall. The atmosphere changes. Millions of
species of life appear and become extinct. Others adapt, survive, and spill
out progeny.
At last, consciousness appears. One of the millions of species on the
planet looks into the night sky and wonders what it means. Feels the spark of
love, tenderness, responsibility. Makes up stories -- of First Woman and
Coyote, of Adam, Eve, and the Serpent -- eventually making up the New Story.
The New Story has three important advantages over all the stories that have
gone before.
It works. It works so well that it has become the irreplaceable basis of
technological civilization.
We test the New Story in every way we can devise, in its particulars, and
in its totality. For example, we build giant particle accelerating machines to
see what happened in the first hot moments of the Big Bang. We put telescopes
into space to look for the radiation of the primeval explosion. With
spectroscopes and radiation detectors we analyze the composition of stars and
galaxies and compare them to our theories for the origin of the world.
Always and in every way we try to prove the story wrong. When the story
fails, we change it.
It is a universal story. Although originally a product of Western culture,
it has become the story of all educated peoples throughout the world. There is
no such thing as European science, Chinese science, Navajo science; scientists
of all cultures, religions, and political persuasions exchange ideas freely
and apply the same criteria of verification and falsification.
Like most children, I was taught that my story was the ``true story'' and
that all others were false, or at best (like the Navajo tale of how the stars
fell into the sky) sweet fairy tales. Sometimes our so-called true stories
gave us permission to hurt those who lived by other stories.
In a world of international air travel, instant exchange of information,
and weapons of mass destruction, we can no longer afford to squabble over
which of our many traditional stories is true. The New Story, by its
universality, helps put the old animosities behind us.
It is a story that emphasizes the connectedness of all people and all
things.
Some of the old stories, such as the one I was taught as a child, placed
humankind outside of space and time, gifted us with unworldly spirit, and gave
us dominion over the millions of other creatures of the Earth.
The New Story places us squarely in a cosmic unfolding of space and time,
and teaches our biological affinity to all humanity. We are inextricably
related to all of life, to the planet itself, and even to the lives of stars.
We should treasure the ancient stories for the wisdom and values they teach
us. We should praise the creation in whatever poetic languages and rituals our
traditional cultures have taught us.
But only the New Story has the global authority to help us navigate the
future. Of all the stories, it is certainly the truest. It is the only one
whose feet have been held to the fire of exacting experience.
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