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Physicists describe dark matter as a substance that appears to make up about 85% of the universe’s mass, shaping the cosmos through gravity even though no one knows what it is. The AP report describes how the struggle to understand that invisible component—and the closely related mystery of dark energy, which is linked to the universe’s accelerated expansion—has prompted some researchers to lean on religion or spirituality for inspiration, comfort and perspective, even as others warn against grounding faith in results that can shift.
Astrophysicist Vera Rubin, whose galaxy-rotation observations in the 1970s provided early robust evidence for dark matter, embraced her Jewish faith as a guide for understanding her role in the universe, the report says. In 2009, when Chanda Prescod-Weinstein met Rubin while she was a doctoral student, Rubin asked an unexpected question about how to solve the dark matter problem: “So how do you think we solve the dark matter problem?” Prescod-Weinstein said the exchange helped influence her decision to study a theoretical particle called the axion, and she said she draws on Reconstructionist Jewish teaching and the Torah for scientific inspiration.
Prescod-Weinstein described how the Torah frames people as living in close relationship with land and sky, saying, “The stories in the Torah are about people who lived in a very intimate relationship with the land and with the night sky, and with a sense of all of that as a part of creation and the creation story.” The report presents her view as part of a broader pattern in which scientists say spiritual texts and practices can coexist with scientific inquiry rather than replace it.
The story also highlights Brittany Kamai, who became drawn to astrophysics through her fascination with dark matter and dark energy and is described as the second Native Hawaiian to earn a doctorate in the field. After spending years developing the Fermilab Holometer, an instrument designed to explore what space and time are made of, Kamai returned to spiritual roots in Hawaii as an apprentice navigator and crew member of a voyaging canoe. In her account, celestial navigation and an emphasis on being “spiritually tuned” are part of how she seeks clues from ancestors as she works through cosmic questions.
Kamai said she is learning the importance of being “spiritually tuned,” and the report quotes her wondering whether dark energy’s missing link could be approached through the ocean’s depths: “When you boil down physics, it’s all a bunch of waves — particles, sound waves,” she said. “Why wouldn’t we need to be in the deepest part of our ocean to have the deepest connection to the entire universe?” The AP report portrays her approach as a way of connecting scientific concepts to a practice grounded in lived experience and belief.
Doug Watson’s account in the AP report centers on doubt and burnout. As a postdoctoral fellow researching dark matter, Watson said he felt burned out and that his wife introduced him to the International Society for Krishna Consciousness, or ISKCON, known as the Hare Krishna movement. Watson, who the report says had been nonreligious, described a tradition that encourages doubt, curiosity and scientific inquiry, and he said he studied holy texts like the Srimad Bhagavatam. In the report, Watson connects those stories to a quantum concept, describing them as “eerily similar” to the observer effect, in which measuring or observing a quantum system changes its state.
Watson said he used religious stories as inspiration to overcome barriers that contributed to burnout, while also cautioning against treating faith and science as a direct one-to-one mapping. “I definitely don’t think drawing direct lines between religious texts and scientific facts is the right approach,” he said. “Rather, I see how these stories could inform and inspire new ways of thinking about the origins of the universe.”
The report also includes scientists who are more skeptical about making dark-matter research a source of religious certainty. Astrobiologist Adam Frank, described as a Zen Buddhist, warned that tying faith or spirituality to something like dark matter could lead to disappointment, since scientific explanations develop over time. “You don’t want to base your faith or spirituality on a graph in a scientific paper that goes up or down,” he said. Frank said for him the true connection between science and spiritual endeavor is the awe both can instill, saying, “Whether it’s the poetry of your scripture that you love or the beauty of the equations you are deriving, they’re both calls toward that feeling.”
The AP report further says Islamic scholar Caner Dagli, a religious-studies professor at the College of the Holy Cross, frames limits on what equation-based understanding can accomplish. Dagli said “Transhumanists and other philosophers might think that if we just had enough computing power, we might be able to get the equations to really understand the universe completely,” but he added that Muslims do not see that as the goal, saying, “But that’s off the table for Muslims because we believe God intervenes in history, he answers prayer.” Another scientist in the report, Chris Impey, a professor of astronomy at the University of Arizona, said awe at a mystifying universe can feel like a spiritual experience, and the story quotes him describing what Buddhist traditions can accommodate alongside cosmology.
Impey, who is described as agnostic, said, “They can accommodate in their tradition an ancient universe, billions of years old,” and “They can accommodate many worlds, life in other worlds, life more advanced than us.” The AP report also profiles Adam Hincks, a Jesuit priest who teaches at the University of Toronto and serves as an adjunct scholar at the Vatican Observatory, who said contemplation of dark matter and dark energy can act as a path toward God. Hincks said, “There are also other things in the universe that for some, would be a similar conduit, such as a beautiful waterfall,” adding, “As the creator, God is present in all of creation, and contemplating creation is a portal to contemplating the divine.”
Ken Freeman, an astrophysicist described as a “dark matter pioneer” for 1970 research that provided early evidence of invisible mass in spiral galaxies, is presented as Christian and as someone who wonders about the role of intuition in discovery. Freeman told the report: “You wake up in the middle of the night with a thought and you have no idea where that came from,” and he said, “People of faith might look at it as the action of the Holy Spirit.” The report also quotes him responding to whether he thinks his urge to study dark matter could be part of that divine prompting, saying, “I would not paint it that way, but it’s a nagging possibility.”
Jennifer Wiseman, a Christian astrophysicist described in the report as drawing on her faith for wisdom while investigating the universe’s big questions, said studying the deep universe can produce feelings of insignificance but also a sense of unity. The report quotes her saying, “Studying the deep universe may make us feel insignificant,” while adding that it “also gives us a sense of unity that we’re all on the same planet,” and that “The hope is we get a sense of joy, humility and love from these contemplations.”