Quakerism and science fit together very well

“I find that Quakerism and research science fit together very, very well. In Quakerism you’re expected to develop your own understanding of God from your experience in the world… [and] you keep redeveloping your understanding as you get more experience. It seems to me that’s very like what goes on in the scientific method. You have a model of a star – it’s an understanding – and you develop that model in the light of experiments and observations. And so in both you’re expected to evolve your thinking. Nothing is static, nothing is final, everything is held provisionally.”

— Jocelyn Bell Burnell, 2010
Quaker physicist

Today’s Invitation

Keep redeveloping your understanding as you get more experience.

This Week’s Query

When have you had a spiritual experience that was made possible by technology?

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  • Susan Jocelyn Bell Burnell is a Quaker Northern Irish physicist who, while conducting research for her doctorate, discovered the first radio pulsars in 1967. This discovery later earned the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1974, but she was not among the awardees.

    She is active in the Religious Society of Friends, having served as Clerk to the sessions of Britain Yearly Meeting, Clerk of the Central Executive Committee of Friends World Committee for Consultation, and delivered a Swarthmore Lecture and James Backhouse Lecture.

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