Wild Comfort: The Solace Of Nature Essay

Science and Mystery

Kathleen Dean Moore’s novel Wild Comfort: The Solace of Nature discusses how she takes solace in the natural world following the deaths of several loved ones. In the novel, she tackles numerous philosophical concepts such as the meaning of life and the key to happiness. One particular idea she ponders is whether “science is the enemy of the sacred” (Moore 153). Moore defines sacred as “worthy of reverence and awe” (Moore 151), and she explains that many people believe that the more people explore and ponder the world and its existence, the more the world loses its sacredness. She rebuts this argument by saying that “mystery is infinite” and it would be impossible to diminish it. While several people believe that

Some questions involve death, nature, each individual’s purpose, happiness, and sorrow. One specific concept she tackles concerns the sacredness of our world and its relationship to mystery and science. She argues that mystery is infinite, and counter to what many believe, she says that it is implausible for the Earth to lose its sacredness because of humanity’s obsession with uncovering mysteries about the world. In other words, science is not “the enemy of the sacred” (Moore 153). While the world confirmed Pluto’s existence, several unconfirmed mysteries about the universe arose. Eighty years later, scientists challenged Pluto’s status as a planet, expanding upon the initial discovery and thereby creating even more mystery about each celestial body. Furthermore, for numerous years scientists could only hypothesize about the existence of water on Mars. Now that they have finally discovered it, an infinite amount of possibilities and questions have appeared, further contributing to the sacredness of the universe. People who argue that “science is the enemy of the sacred” are not seeing the big picture. With every mystery solved, they see a depletion in the sacredness of the universe. However, they are oblivious to the infinite number of mysteries that have spawned as a result of the discovery. Science is not the enemy of the sacred; in fact, the two are extremely intimate