No answers for
eternal questions

Modern science has proven superior to ancient and medieval methods of logical speculation in answering certain kinds of questions, but there are certain truths that lie outside the scientific realm.

Nowhere is this more apparent than in the heated and emotional debates over when life begins and when death occurs.

The blame rests on the ever-widening gap between scientific knowledge and the public's understanding of it, but even more so with misunderstanding of the very nature of the scientific process.

Illogical as it seems, science advances by rejecting, not by proving hypotheses. Each step forward in science involves disproof, not proof.

A hypothesis may be verified, and may become a theory, after repeated and multiple verification. Those principles that are elevated to the lofty status of a scientific "law" are those for which multiple and repeated attempts at disproof have failed.

Ideally, science is apolitical, amoral and seeks objective and universal truth, not subjective truth that fits into assumptions that ignore contrary facts. But human nature makes science subject to the same foibles and potential corruptions as any other human activity.

We are quick to jump to conclusions based on limited evidence due to biases, hunches, intuition, and "common sense," all of which are influenced by cultural paradigms we are largely unaware of at a conscious level.

The strength of science is its ability to adapt to new information to correct and fine-tune its theories. In the eyes of some observers this is a weakness, as if it is better to hold on to mistaken beliefs rather than to modify them in the face of contradictory facts.

The typical nonscientist is unaware of the foundations and interconnections that support the body of laws of nature that have been discovered and repeatedly verified in the past four centuries.

On one hand, we live in a world that is dominated by science and its handmaiden, technology. On the other, we fear the unknown physical and cultural threats that scientific knowledge might generate, for example, in the current fervor against genetically engineered crops or the theory of biological evolution.

These fears are not entirely unfounded. The scientific revolution caused much social disruption as new ideas challenged traditions and technology ultimately created weapons and toxic substances beyond the imagination of our ancestors.

Astronomy and physics long ago removed Earth from the center of the physical universe after centuries of logical and speculative opposition based on the egocentric but insupportable assumptions of intuition.

The intellectual and cultural resistance to such a reduction of mankind's physical significance in the cosmology is understandable.

The biological sciences are especially sensitive in this respect as we discover the unity of biology with the physical and chemical processes that govern the evolution of the universe.

It is difficult to understand how the slight genetic differences between us and other species can lead to such a great gap in cognitive abilities, abstract reasoning and language.

It is not surprising that we should wonder. There are few powers on Earth stronger than the human ego, and as such, we assume that we alone are capable of contemplating such arcane matters as our own existence, and we gain solace in envisioning supernatural explanations for things that we cannot understand.

Our philosophical, religious and metaphysical musings are neither improper nor incorrect, but invoking the supernatural is a non-explanation since it can "explain" anything.

Spiritual truth and scientific truth are completely different types of reality. If we are to find both intellectual peace and spiritual satisfaction, we must learn to distinguish them and to understand the efficacies of the two different types of reality.

It is difficult to separate biology from spirituality. The thought that we are biologically similar to other organisms or that we might share a common evolutionary heritage is frightening if not downright repulsive to many people.

The misunderstanding of scientific knowledge among the public is inadvertently fostered by the media, which all too often reports tentative scientific conclusions as fact. Most journalists are not trained scientists and have little more understanding of the process than the reader or viewer. Not only that, but in today's world of sound bites and factoids we expect too much punch from the news, science or otherwise.

A notable area where spirituality and science are in conflict is in our definitions and perceptions of life and death. In the interest of prolonging and sanctifying it, we turn to science to determine when life begins and when it ends. This despite the fact that evolution, the foundation of modern biology, is rejected by a large portion of the population.

Despite its efficacy in divining the molecular details of biological processes, science is incapable of making these determinations. In fact, the more we know about life the more difficult it becomes to define it. The more we know about biology the less we know about what constitutes "life."

We cannot devise a suitable and immutable scientific definition of life because we lack the tools to objectively measure it.

Every scientific definition of life has turned out to be either too broad or too narrow. If too broad, it allows some things that are as non-living to be defined as alive. If too specific, more exotic forms of life when discovered do not fit the definition.

There seems to be no middle ground, and the more we understand about biology it becomes less and less likely that we will ever define life with the precision that physics and chemistry define forces, energy, and atoms. Even there we find a limiting uncertainty in the mathematics of the quantum world and chaos.

People want to know, when does human life begin? Are eggs and sperm alive? Are they "human?" At what point does the dividing clump of cells become a human being?

On the other end, we want to know, when does life end? Does death occur when the heart stops beating, when breathing stops, when eyes fail to respond to light, when measurable electrical activity ceases in the brain, or are there other criteria?

At the most fundamental level, these are not scientific questions.

Biology can do no more than provide guidelines from which debate can formulate policy. We cannot dehumanize the scientist by expecting him or her to keep personal opinions, feelings and beliefs from entering into the equation. But the science must remain neutral with "truth" as its only agenda.

Defining the precise beginning and termination of life are not in the realm of science. We must not blame science for its inability to provide answers, and we must avoid becoming confused, frustrated and angry when answers are not forthcoming from scientific research.

These are ethical and moral questions, and they are not trivial.

I would hope the laws and policies will come from considerations of the quality of life and not from misuse of poorly defined scientific definitions of life and death.