What makes something a miracleSomething amazing or wonderful. It is a very unusual event.? When Jesus turned a few loaves and fishes into a meal for thousands, cured diseases and raised people from the dead, people were impressed not just because these actions were kind, but because they seemed to defy the laws of nature. He was doing things that should not be scientifically possible.

These days, it is scientists pushing the boundaries of what we think can be done. Over the last twelve months they have climbed to new heights of discovery.

One group of scientists created a new AI model capable of detecting alien life, or traces of it from the past.¹ They hope to use it to find out if there was once life on Mars.

Another big AI breakthrough is a thought-decoder that can translate brain activity into text using the technology from ChatGPTAn Artificial Intelligence chatbot released in November 2022. without any surgical implants.²

Medical science brought new hope for victims of Alzheimer'sA disease which affects the brain and causes confusion and memory loss., with a new drug that can slow its onset by around one-third.³

And some researchers finally delivered some good news about the climate crisis. A study showed it is possible to capture carbon dioxideCarbon dioxide is a colourless gas formed during the combustion of any material containing carbon and is a significant greenhouse gas.  from the atmosphere and convert it into baking soda, which can then be safely stored in the ocean.⁴

More pessimistically, scientists also proved that we are definitely in a human-driven mass extinctionCompletely dying out. event. A team found animal species are going extinct 35 times faster than normal.⁵

With scientists performing what some think are like modern miracles, it is no wonder some say science has taken the place of religion.

Many scientists reject this idea. They say there is a strict distinction between religion, whose ideas are based only on faith, and science, which applies a critical method to find out what is true and what is false.

They point out this method has proved more powerful than any other way of knowing in history for making new discoveries and breakthroughs.

But others say there are different kinds of science. Some scientists have become advocates of scientism: the claim that only scientific knowledge has any real worth.

Its proponentsSomeone who proposes something, or at least supports it by speaking and writing in favour of it. suggest that not only religion, but also most philosophy, cannot tell us anything. In this form, science appears more like a religion.

Yes: Scientists use special knowledge that we cannot access in order to perform miracles that keep us in awe. They are the high priests of the new religion known as science.

No: Science is based on critical inquiry, scepticism, and humility about what we can and cannot know. It could not be further from religion, which believes it can explain everything but need not justify how.

Or... Religion was once the framework through which we organised all of our knowledge. Now, science fulfils the same function. But this does not mean they are the same thing.