Well, this is the coolest thing I’ve seen all day. Stephen Meyer was in England, and a friend videoed him outside the legendary Cavendish Laboratory at Cambridge University. He describes how the great Scottish Presbyterian physicist James Clerk Maxwell had inscribed on the door, in Latin, the verse from Psalms, “The works of the LORD are great, Sought out of all them that have pleasure therein” (111:2). Meyer calls much of the history of science a “theological project,” with scientists taking just such pleasure seeking to understand the wisdom inscribed in nature.
It was at the same laboratory where, in 1952-1953, Francis Crick and James Watson would use models to unfold the hidden structure of the DNA molecule, with Crick remarking that “It’s so beautiful, it’s got to be right.” Even these atheist scientists recognized that beauty was a marker that pointed to truth in their field, in which they too could take pleasure. A remarkable little vignette with Dr. Meyer: