A Chilean newspaper, El Espectador, has reported the results of a poll of its readers. When asked about the recent rescue of the thirty-three Copiapo miners, 49% of readers attributed the success to "ciencia" while 51% judged it a "milagro." A miracle? It what universe? What could they be thinking? The rescue was all hard work and ingenuity and high speed percussive drilling. There's nothing the least bit supernatural about such a triumph.
Nor does it do any good to blame those primitive superstitious Chileans. Americans would have divided similarly -- with a higher score for "milagro" in our ultra-benighted South and a somewhat lower score in the only semi-benighted North. Even on my very own Facebook page, a number of friends of "friends" (not my own "friends" I'm glad to say), posted exultantly, "This proves that God is real." No it doesn't -- it proves only that the true believers have no use for evidence or reason. Why does the great signifier in the sky get the credit for the rescue but no blame for the collapse that caused the disaster. And would the god-enthusiasts have abandoned their belief if the men had died. Not a chance. They would fallen back on the old bromide, not for us to question the will of god -- or employed some other kind of trapeze artist illogic.
A miracle! Humbug! If a superman-like hand of god had come down from the heavens and drilled the hole, I would vote milagro also. Otherwise, ciencia.
What is a miracle, anyway? I thought that David Hume finished off miracles a quarter of a millennium ago. Miracles are not "unlikely events," he said. "They are events that are contrary to nature." The mine rescue may have been a long odds situation, but it wasn't unnatural. It was entirely in accord with what we know about the world and human psychology and the ciencia of mining. (Hume capped his argument by saying that there can be no such thing as a miracle, because if it happens, then it's not contrary to nature. It is nature.)
But all of us use the word "miracle" very loosely. I may know, with one part of my brain, all about eggs and sperm and DNA, but I still feel that it's something of a miracle whenever a baby is born. Although it's a common miracle -- billions strong --I'm awed by each and every newborn. As I am by the Chilean miners and their rescuers. I'm awed, I'm relieved, I'm joyous, I'm dazzled, but most of all, I'm proud of the compassion, the resilience, and the intelligence of my fellow human beings --and there you have my understanding of the word "milagro."
Well said. But I think Americans are strange - there has been no mention of God or miracles here, all the coverage is about the technical challenges of the drilling.
I am glad you are well and writing again. Please keep it up.
Posted by: Sarah | October 19, 2010 at 01:09 PM