Gary Schwartz was raised without faith and steeped in science, but emerged a spiritual man.
“I was raised to be an orthodox agnostic,” he said. He described what it means to be an “orthodox, or devout, agnostic”: “Whether the question is, ‘Is there gravity?’ or ‘Is there God?’... philosophically, my response is, ‘I don’t know. Could be yes, could be no. Show me the data.’”
He said one of the benefits of this philosophy is that it made him a creative scientist. He wasn’t attached to any particular theory; he was more open than many of his colleagues to exploring novel ideas. But it was also a frustrating philosophy in some ways.
“When do you have enough data to make a decision?” he asked. Schwartz said he was “covered in data” before he decided there is a spiritual dimension to life.
