Life Is A Miracle By George Berry

In contemporary Western society, there is an impulse to find something to project ones alienation upon. For those who support Berry’s outlook in the essay Life Is a Miracle, this entity is the scientific method. Berry argues that science, in its purest form is good, but that we rely too heavily upon the scientific method and the pursuit of knowledge, which leads to disenchantment and loss of wonderment about the world . Berry appeals to our sadness, emptiness, and anxieties by attributing them to the idolatry of science, and how science takes when in fact it is Berry’s way of thinking that creates a sophist reality, where the most passionate and charismatic reign supreme. Although Berry’s ideas of a more simple and caring society sound ideal,

This has been a process that has continued for many years, since Thomas Malthus raised the alarm in the eighteenth century, that if we did not stop populating the planet we would deplete our agricultural resources, resulting in war and societal breakdown . Berry’s arguments are similar to the modern Malthusian view, which argues that we will run out of natural resources and render our land unusable. However, Malthus’ original plight was overcome by the Green Revolution, which created agricultural advances and higher crop yields . We cannot truly know what the future holds, but if scientific ingenuity has prevented the destruction of the world and civil society before, we cannot say it will not now. Berry wants to attribute the idolatry of science when it is actually the crux of our humanity. It is in our nature to behave in certain ways. As we progress we learn to curb these behaviors. Our struggles are that they are inherent in our qualities; this does not mean we give up, retreat, and start a new society. There is no way to maintain current society and living standard if we turn that way. We can nudge society in that way but we cannot change it entirely. To make the argument that we should not have entered the nuclei is the same as saying we should not have had slavery; but we