Monday, 1 June 2009

Angels and Detonations

Cinema is no stranger to controversy and condemnation from the Catholic church, in recent years it's been up against such movies as Harry Potter, The Golden Compass, and loudest of all - The Da Vinci Code (and Tom Hanks' hair).

So it was no surprise when I heard that the church had banned director Ron Howard from filming in parts of the Vatican for the new Angels and Demons movie.

Having seen said movie this week it is then ironic that the church has less to fear from this movie (about the divide between religion and science) than the previous one about Mrs Of Nazareth; and actually comes out fairly unscathed, showing off the beautiful St Peter's Basilica and a number of antiquities to good effect (or at least studio reproductions of them).

Add a bit of momentum and this movie is considerably better than the first (which was terrible); though that doesn't necessarily mean it's good, but I found it enjoyable.

BUT,
the movie does require a large amount of suspension of disbelief (ie turn your brain off at the door); and this time the disbelief doesn't come from a two-thousand year old wedding conspiracy.

It's not the religion at all, this time it's the science; and it bugged me throughout the movie.

Movies have long used "artistic licence" with science, whether it be hacking computers, rerouting spy satellites, or curving bullet trajectories; but when the A&D story revolves around a canister of antimatter being used as a bomb, things are stretched to the extreme.

There are two real issues:

  1. Creating antimatter. It's not that easy. Actually it's really really really hard, and impossible for in any sort of "visible" quantity.
  2. Storing antimatter. Magnetic fields are the way to go, since as soon as antimatter touches anything (ie matter) it's explosion time. But in a clear glass container the size of a thermos? They don't even use that for regular explosives!


And underlying the story there is another subtler issue:

Religion v science - Enemies? Or two sides to the same coin?

I have heard and read opinion that science is mutually exclusive with religion. That isn't my belief (I am a relatively well informed individual) - nothing I know leads to a conclusion that they aren't just describing the same thing.

Faith (from dictionary.com):
  1. belief that is not based on proof: He had faith that the hypothesis would be substantiated by fact.
  2. belief in God or in the doctrines or teachings of religion: the firm faith of the Pilgrims.
Seems kinda the same.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I certainly don't think that science and religion are mutually exclusive. Science is bound by methodological naturalism and therefore cannot comment on the supernatural. Attempting to use science to bolster either an atheistic or theistic view is a misuse of science.

(I'm tempted to talk about Stephen J Gould's "Non-overlapping magesteria" or point you toward some of John Polkinghorne's work. However, I'd rather not flood your blog with links and Youtube videos.)