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Wrestling at the intersection of science and creation

First published in Sight Magazine, 17 December 2025

You asked, ‘Who is this that obscures my plans without knowledge?’
Surely I spoke of things I did not understand,
things too wonderful for me to know. – Job 42:3 (NIV)

I am vicariously travelling with my sister on a historic scientific expedition to Antarctica. Her videos of waddling penguins and colossal icebergs juxtaposed against a dramatic blue-white wonderland fill me with thrills and chills.

She is part of the ‘Securing Antarctica’s Environmental Future’ expedition. These scientists will map changes to this undisturbed ecosystem since the last scan over 20 years ago.

The treacherous 4000 kilometre voyage on the Southern Ocean from Tasmania to Heard Island (land of fire and ice) is often described as an encounter with ‘Mother Nature’. The personified and popular concept of Mother Nature stems from the Greek primordial goddess Gaia, around 1200 BC.

So why does it remain so unpopular to personify Father God (Yahweh) the Creator? Moreover, if science can decipher how the Laws of Nature operate, who wrote them and why?

These burning questions have recently re-ignited my curiosity about that intersection between science and creation.

Who stands at that vexed crossroads between these two ‘altars’, like a majestic Emperor penguin proudly perched on an Antarctic ice shelf? The soon-to-be centenarian – Sir David Attenborough, of course!

My respect for this living legend grew when he declared “I don’t think an understanding and an acceptance of the four billion-year-long history of life is in any way inconsistent with a belief in a supreme being.”

I love his honesty about what science cannot explain: “There are still things we don’t know about and don’t understand.” In his litany of documentaries, he often concedes “for reasons unknown”, such as why beluga whales congregate annually in the Canadian Arctic. Scientists know how a whale can launch itself out of the water with a spectacular splashdown, but “don’t really know” why whales breach.

On the opposite end of the planet, my sister’s Antarctic videos evoke paradoxical questions underlying the science – about the ‘unseen’ underwater realm of each iceberg: why is there so much heart-melting beauty in this ice-melting wilderness? Why is it teaming with marine life yet so life-threatening? Why would God create this alien land that is not human-friendly?

As I re-watched some Attenborough documentaries on Antarctica and the laws of Mother Nature, one childlike question remained unrelenting and unanswered: “But why?”

Why do animal skins and tree barks appear to be painted by the same brush, using the same colour palette and texture? The beech tree is nicknamed ‘elephant tree’ because their wrinkled trunks resemble elephants’ trunks and their stumps resemble elephants’ feet. Similarly, the sycamore tree is nicknamed ‘alligator wood’ because its furrowed bark resembles the scaly texture of alligator skin.

If flora and fauna merely mimic each other’s appearance through natural selection and convergent evolution, who designed these enduring patterns, and why are they so enduring?

Ironically, I missed another ‘resemblance’: my tirade of why questions evoked Job 38 when God unleashed a whirlwind of rhetorical questions about His creation. Many are so apt for Antarctica.

“Have you entered the storehouses of the snow … From whose womb comes the ice? … Who gives birth to the frost from the heavens, when the waters become hard as stone, when the surface of the deep is frozen? Do you know the laws of the heavens?”

Perhaps only the ‘laws of the heavens’ can explain why, but the laws of Mother Nature can only explain how.

If I were physically on the science expedition to Antarctica, I would be armed with the Book of Life to ignite my icy bones. I would read God’s whirlwind questions as a reminder that answers to my why questions are “things too wonderful for me to know” (Job 42:3).

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How the dandelion inspired an epiphany

Jesus told them another parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field. But while everyone was sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat, and went away. When the wheat sprouted and formed heads, then the weeds also appeared.

“The owner’s servants came to him and said, ‘Sir, didn’t you sow good seed in your field? Where then did the weeds come from?’

“‘An enemy did this,’ he replied.

“The servants asked him, ‘Do you want us to go and pull them up?’

“‘No,’ he answered, ‘because while you are pulling the weeds, you may uproot the wheat with them.” – Matthew 13:24-29 (NIV)

I used to banter with my neighbours when I caught them “wasting time” on weekends: head down on bended knees, weeding their garden. “What a sight! Get a life!”

I recently heard those words boomerang back to me when I was caught red-handed uprooting dandelions from my garden after a downpour.

For those obsessed with a lush green lawn, dandelions are an invasive and uninvited weed. During winter, their rosette bases camouflage as grass, anchored by a deep taproot. In spring, their yellow daisy-like flowers morph into a white ‘puffball’ of wind-blown seeds to expand their invasion of my hallowed lawn.

The uprooting of weeds from moist soil may have looked like laborious repetition, but it felt like spring cleaning. There was something simple yet miraculous about working hand-in-hand with the seasonal rhythms and cycles of Creation.

The dandelion’s jagged leaves ostensibly resemble a lion’s teeth, hence its name stems from the French dent-de-lion. Their ‘teeth’ looked more like defence battlements of a fortress. Indeed, extracting these foot-long tap roots from my ‘fortress’ was like extracting a lion’s tooth – a very exacting art!

One passing neighbour tried to correct my (mis)classification: “At least I was weeding! Dandelions aren’t weeds! They’re good for the lawn!” He proceeded to enlighten me on their pollen that feeds bees, their leaves that boil into herbal medicine, and their tap roots that brew into ‘coffee.’ I did some fact-checking and he was right! These weeds contain antioxidants and are highly nutritious.

Children love to blow the seed heads to make wishes: another insidious ploy that these self-germinating opportunists deploy to tempt my grandchildren in my ‘Eden’!

As I toiled in the soil, it evoked the etymological ‘roots’ of humility, from the Latin word humus meaning (down to) earth. Digging even deeper, a Rabbi recently told me that the name Adam derives from the Hebrew word Adamah, which also means earth. This makes perfect sense as the “Lord God formed a man from the dust of the ground’” (Genesis 2:7).

As I uprooted the ubiquitous invaders from deep in the dirt, I bundled them for removal. If ‘they’re good for the lawn’, perhaps they’re even better for my compost heap. In time, these rejects would decompose into the rich dark organic matter (humus) that improves soil fertility and plant fruitfulness.

Right under our noses, the garden is rich with echoes of Eden and Gospel parables. For example, my compost heap consists of rejects and broken parts: peels, leaves, clippings, eggshells, packaging and scraps. Yet the Creator miraculously enables this dead debris to breathe new life into old soil. Perhaps in God’s time, and in subsequent chapters of our lives, none of our brokenness goes to waste either.

When I returned to the lawn wearing my ‘Gospel’ lens, I had a dandelion-inspired epiphany about the parable of the weeds. When the weeds sprouted with the wheat, the servants asked the owner “Do you want us to go and pull them up?” In his wisdom, the owner declined because “you may uproot the wheat with them. Let both grow together until the harvest.”

Indeed, my weeds disguised themselves as green grass until their yellow flowers shot up. Only then could I distinguish them from the good seed that I had sown. Only after the rain could I uproot them from softer soil. Only in that ripe moment could I avoid damaging the lawn.

Next time my neighbours catch me ‘wasting time’ and tell me to “get a life!”, I will respond with: “This keeps me grounded and reminds me to stay humble.”