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The Saintly Scientist for Young Readers

February 3, 2025

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Haley Stewart, author and the Managing Editor of Word on Fire Votive, joined Thomas Salerno to discuss his new book for young readers, The Riddle of the Tongue-Stones. The two discuss the fascinating life of Blessed Nicolas Steno, the relationship between faith and science, details about the book’s inception, and more.


Haley Stewart: Why do you think it’s valuable for young readers to engage with stories of faith and science?

Thomas Salerno: As a child, my dream was to study dinosaur fossils, so I read every book I could find about paleontology. But when I was about twelve years old or so, I began to encounter creationist books that were aimed directly at kids. A lot of these materials were written from a fundamentalist Protestant perspective, and they made some startling claims: Evolution was a lie, the earth was only six thousand years old, dinosaurs and humans lived together in Eden. Stuff like that. Because of my deep reading, I knew all about the abundant evidence from the fossil record that so-called “young-earth creationists” couldn’t account for. I began to wonder if maybe the atheists were right: Maybe I had to leave Christianity behind to be a scientist.

Thanks be to God, I never abandoned my faith. When I was in college, I found authentic Catholic resources like Word on Fire and Catholic Answers that put my doubts to rest. The Catholic Church is not—and has never been—“anti-science.” Nor has it ever condemned evolutionary theory. Perhaps more than ever, the Church needs accessible, story-driven resources about devout Catholic scientists. Some teachers, online influencers, and popular science gurus continue to push the notion that faith and science are incompatible—that you can’t be both a faithful Christian and a serious scientist. Narratives like this can cause a lot of confusion and emotional pain in an intellectually curious child. 

The message of The Riddle of the Tongue-Stones is this: You don’t have to choose between science and religion! Nicolas Steno was a first-class scientist who made groundbreaking discoveries. He was also a faithful Christian to the end of his days. Steno’s saintly life embodied that famous quote from Pope John Paul II: “Faith and reason are like two wings on which the human spirit rises to the contemplation of truth.” 

Thomas, how did you become interested in Blessed Nicolas Steno? Where did you encounter his story?

My first encounter with Nicolas Steno was in the pages of a book I read when I was a teenager: How the Catholic Church Built Western Civilization by Thomas E. Woods. As an aspiring fossil hunter, I was thrilled to learn that a Catholic priest—and a candidate for sainthood, no less—was essentially the world’s first paleontologist! The endnotes of Woods’ book led me to an excellent biography of Steno called The Seashell on the Mountaintop by Alan Cutler.

Steno was the first scholar to make a systematic study of fossils. Assembling an impressive weight of anatomical and geological evidence, he built a persuasive case that the mysterious “tongue stones” were in fact fossilized shark teeth. This discovery led him to an even more radical theory. By investigating the rock formations where fossils were found, Steno came to the conclusion that the earth had a deep history marked by constant change and upheaval. Steno learned to read rock layers like the pages of a vast and ancient book. It was a revolutionary idea that laid the foundations of the geosciences as we know them today.

Perhaps more than ever, the Church needs accessible, story-driven resources about devout Catholic scientists.

Years later, I was delighted to find Steno’s portrait in the pages of my college geology textbooks. But I was frustrated that Steno’s faith was often glossed over. His vocation as a Catholic priest went virtually unacknowledged. This common omission only reinforces the falsehood that faithful Christians—let alone Catholic priests—never make any significant contributions to science. Steno remains an incredibly underappreciated figure, even in Catholic circles. I wrote The Riddle of the Tongue-Stones to introduce Nicolas Steno’s remarkable life of saintly science to a wider audience, especially to younger readers.

This is your first published book! How did your background and interest in science, history, and geology in particular help you craft this book?

The Riddle of the Tongue-Stones is the fruit of my abiding, lifelong enthusiasm for the natural sciences. I truly believe that my experiences working in the fossil laboratories at Stony Brook University and the American Museum of Natural History were preparing me for my current vocation as a writer. God did not intend for me to keep all my knowledge about paleontology and the history of science to myself—I was meant to share this passion with the world! 

I’ve always loved writing. But, truth be told, it took a long time for me to convince myself that I was even talented enough to write a children’s book! That was uncharted territory for me. My mom relentlessly encouraged me. (Readers will notice that I dedicated the book to her!) The more I thought about writing a biography of Nicolas Steno for children, the more it made sense. As a kid, I loved illustrated books about scientists and explorers. These real-life adventure stories nourished my young imagination like nothing else. So, when I began writing The Riddle of the Tongue-Stones, I basically set out to write the kind of book I would have loved to read when I was ten years old. 

What reader do you hope this book reaches?

My hope is that this book can help young people who are faced with tough questions about how science relates to their faith. The culture at large says that religion is implacably opposed to the scientific method. But The Riddle of the Tongue-Stones challenges this pervasive false dichotomy that kids may have imbibed in school or online or even from the pulpit! 

“Faith and reason are like two wings on which the human spirit rises to the contemplation of truth.” 

Also, many neurodivergent children worry that their roving minds and eclectic interests will hamper them later in life. High school and college curriculums put an unhealthy stress on specialization, to the point that academic success appears to mean focusing one’s time and energy exclusively on a single, narrow subject. There doesn’t seem to be any room for academic generalists or for polymaths these days. 

But Nicolas Steno’s remarkable life can teach kids that their curiosity and creativity are not handicaps—they are gifts from God! Steno’s manifold interests and hobbies turned out to be the secrets of his success: He became the best anatomist in Europe, the founder of geology, and a priest of the Catholic Church. What a rich and exciting life he led! And it wouldn’t have been possible without the brilliantly fertile mind that God gave him.

How can the lives of the saints evangelize? Why are their stories so powerful?

The lives of the saints are the stuff of great stories because they often involve ordinary people who, through faith and trust in God, accomplish extraordinary things. A saint is someone who recognizes that his own life story becomes meaningful insomuch as it participates in God’s divine narrative of salvation. 

The saints have the power to evangelize precisely because their stories speak to the unrelenting restlessness of the human heart. Nicolas Steno’s restless, roving spirit was finally at peace when he discovered the beautiful and sublime truth of the Catholic faith. 

Recently I rewatched Bishop Barron’s documentary series Catholicism: The Pivotal Players, and I said to myself, “I want the joy that these people had! I want to be a saint.” The saints never lose that abiding peace and joy that they discovered in Jesus Christ, even in the midst of suffering, in the shadow of the cross. That’s what makes them so compelling to me.

Thanks so much for taking the time to have this wonderful discussion with me, Thomas!

The Riddle of the Tongue-Stones is available now in the Word on Fire Bookstore.