90% True

Or
“The Upside (And Downside) of Up”

.: Who invented up? This seems, to me, a crucial question unfairly ignored by nearly every philosopher who ever committed quill to paper (doubtless it is ignored by a fair share of laymen as well). I’ve searched online databases of texts by Plato, Descartes, and Derrida to see if they had anything to say on the origins of up, but each philosopher I examined appears to take it entirely for granted, as if it didn’t matter who made it for us.

.: Up is one of the more useful tools for survival we possess. We use it when left, right, forward, backward, and down are unsavory options. And while up has been around for a long time, it only really came to use relatively recently when our ancestors started climbing up trees just a few million years ago. Clearly someone out there knew we would need a place to go when we could no longer advance, retreat, turn around, or bury ourselves, but even more miraculously they had the foresight to provide it to us before we even knew we needed it (indeed, before we could be said to know anything at all).

.: But up need not be limited as a tool of mere survival — up has many applications in areas of pleasure. For instance, to better appreciate a rockin’ tune we simply turn the volume up. When we want to show approval, up is where we stick our thumbs. And I need not remind you how best to position the sunny side of an egg.

.: One troublesome aspect of this beautiful gift has been its subversion for nefarious aims. Long-range missiles would not pose the threat they do if not for the existence of up; owls and other terrifying birds of prey would not be able to pounce upon helpless field mice without access to it; indeed, the more unpleasant effects of alcohol would have fewer means of manifesting themselves if there were no place for the contents of our stomachs to be thrown. I am left wondering if our world would be any worse by up’s absence; I am beginning to conclude that it would not.

.: The only thing preventing me from asserting this conclusion with absolutely certainty is our lack of knowledge concerning who designed up. If only we could ask them directly or read the instruction manual they left behind, then we might be able to know whether or not we’ve been going about this up business all wrong. The former possibility depends entirely on whether the designer still exists, the latter on whether we could read their handwriting.

.: The only thing I know for certain is that up clearly could not create itself. You could argue that up is entirely subjective to the observer’s frame of reference and not at all inherent in the structure of the universe, but soon enough you’ll find yourself sliding down that slippery slope to conclude that the universe itself wasn’t invented. To even say as much would be absurdity! You can trust me on this matter – it’s not the kind of thing I would simply make up.

Or
“Cody does not find a suitable apartment”

“I’m a very religious person. I probably should’ve told you that on the phone.”

.: So began a three hour conversation with a potential landlord/roommate. Some background: I start grad school in September, but I want to spend the summer here beforehand to get a feel for the place. I can only withstand so much culture shock, you see, and I’d rather not have it from both grad school and Jersey at the same time.

.: I researched some apartment listings online, but I also wandered around campus looking for fliers with those little tearable phone number slips. I found one that looked decent: $530/month in a shared household; I’d get my own room. I called the number on the slip, and the man answered with a distinct but not oppressive east coast accent. The house was far from campus, and I was without a car as well as ignorant of the bus routes, but he said I should go by foot because I probably needed the exercise. Likable enough.

.: I started in downtown and reached his house in just half a back of sweat later. Not bad time. He answered the door and immediately showed me a copy of the lease. “By the way,” he said, “I’m a very religious person. I probably should’ve told you that on the phone.”

.: I told him I just spent the last five years at Baylor; I was used to being around religious people. “Are you Baptist?” he asked. I must confess, I hadn’t anticipated this natural follow up to my statement, so I fumbled a “No…” and let the matter rest there, hoping he wouldn’t pursue it.

.: He asked me what I was doing, and I told him I was going into plant biology. “I was real big into plants a long time ago,” he said. “So peaceful.”

“Well,” I said, “not always.”

.: In what I thought was a continuation of the topic, he said he wanted to show me something special when I was done reading the leasing information. I figured something was up when I got to the last line in the handwritten section on house rules: “This is a Christian household. If you hate God do not move in!!!”

.: That’s when the crazy started. The “something” he wanted to show me was two statues — one of Mary and one of some saint — that wept. He keeps them in his room, right next to other iconography and, for some reason, this poster of the fundamental particles of the universe.

.: The babble came fast and furious. “Cody” — for I made the mistake of telling him my name — “This right here is proof of God’s majesty. These are actual tears — unexplainable tears. And they came from nowhere. Matter, from nowhere. I didn’t put them there. Nobody put them there. It’s not like somebody came by and sprayed water on them. I’ve heard people say it’s humidity and condensation, but that doesn’t make any sense. God directly broke the second law of thermodynamics. So the big bang theory has another headache. But that’s what they still teach in school.”

.: I may have received only a B⁺ in physical chemistry, but I know damn well that’s not what the second law of thermodynamics says. In fact, I told him as much. I also told him that the big bang theory was first postulated by a catholic priest. He dismissed both facts without much consideration and bemoaned once again the current “gospel” being taught in schools.

.: His attention returned to the statues. He pointed to the places of the miracles — namely, the faces — and mentioned how they are without blemish or dust, unlike the tops of the heads and shoulders. This was strong evidence because, as we all know, miracles of God are kept clean. He then took the opportunity, since I mentioned my Baptist environment, to alleviate my fears by explaining that Catholics don’t worship icons. “These are objects.”

.: He then asked me if I liked photography. I knew where this was going. He pulled out a well-worn binder of photographs and placed it atop the glass casing of an old record player (the house scored massive retro points, if nothing else). He flipped across page after page of excruciatingly detailed photographs from disposable cameras until he found the one that he, presumably, thought most impressive. It was a picture of a man standing in a parking lot at night. Stripped of the important details (as we shall soon see), it looked pretty much like this:

.: But this was no ordinary picture my ordinary eyes were gazing upon! There was something else to behold, something that (according to the testimony of Mr. Miracle) the eye didn’t see at the time the picture was taken — because the human eye and cameras work exactly the same, so when they don’t record a phenomenon the exact same way, we should get all worked up about it.

.: No, when this picture was developed, there was magic smoke everywhere. What’s more, I had a handy guide right next to me who could interpret the significance of every whirl and twirl of said magic smoke. The billow to the left of the guy, see, was clearly God’s guiding hand giving a thumbs up (I am not making this up; he is):

.: Let me assure you (though you have no reason to trust my artistic ability) that I am accurately representing the contents of the photograph with my renditions. (The fingers, I confess, are an embellishment.)

.: Then, right next to the guy, you can see a seated Jesus Christ with His right hand raised in the air. No outline distinguished God’s hand from Jesus’, obviously — it’s smoke. But he assured me the two were separate:

.: But the next one is truly astounding. To the right of the man you can see, as clear as day, the beak and two wings of the holy spirit (who is, I did not know, a bird):

.: So there’s the Trinity right there. But you know catholics aren’t content with just The Big Three; naturally, they have to bring along Mom, who you can plainly see praying in profile:

.: You can kind of make it all out too, can’t you? Even though it’s just my poor drawing (from memory!) of an equally nebulous apparition caught on film, you can kind of see a godly thumbs up, an angel bird, and a burrito-shaped Virgin Mary. But like I said, I had a handy guide right there telling me what I should see. He had picked out all the important details to highlight and ignored everything else. In reality, the photo looked much more like this:

“Cody, you wouldn’t believe it, but some people once they look at this tell me they don’t see anything.” This anomaly (their negative reaction to the miracle, not the miracle itself) is explained by a lack of grace from God. That’s not what he said, of course. What he really said was God’s grace towards him allowed him to see the otherwise clear as mud miracle in the image; I’m only assuming that the logically consistent converse also applies.

.: I still hadn’t said much by this point to challenge any of his assertions. As gently as possible, I asked him if he had ever shown the picture to other people without first explaining what they should be seeing. He said he hadn’t, and he seemed confused as to why he should.

.: I tried to illustrate by analogy with double-blind tests in medicine: neither the patients nor the doctors know who’s receiving the medicine and who’s receiving the placebo until after the results are recorded. Likewise, a simple test for the anomaly in the photograph would be to give people two photos (the “miracle” and an ordinary photograph) and ask them to point out the one with the miracle in it. Unsurprisingly, he felt no need up until now to perform any such test, but he did happily offer me the task.

.: I didn’t get a chance to tell him that it’s not my burden, because he liked to move from topic to topic. He returned once more to his statues, and I couldn’t resist offering another test concerning the perennial cleanliness of the their faces: the parts that accumulate dust all happen to be horizontal surfaces; the weeping faces are both vertical. A simple test would be to lay the statues on their backs, face up, and see if dusts accumulates.

.: He objected, “That part isn’t really that relevant.”

“Well if it isn’t relevant, why would you tell me in the first place?” Subject change.

.: There were several annoying refrains throughout the conversation. “I used to be a skeptic like you when I was younger” popped up more than once, as did “I’m a scientist by training too.” (Electrical engineering, in case you’re collecting data points for the Salem Hypothesis.) For some reason, maybe because I have a bad habit of nodding my head when somebody talks to me at length, he assumed I was religious, even though the only information I offered on the matter was that I was not a Baptist. Far be it from me to correct him. Maybe, I thought, he’d listen a little more closely to what I said if he weren’t immediately prejudiced by my renunciation of belief in God (a folly strategy, I realize, but whatever).

.: The last miracle he thought worthy to mention had to do with some old lady who allegedly lives on nothing but the wafer used in the Eucharist. I pointed out that there are those who can one-up that claim, and his youthful skepticism returned! I also offered a simple test for the old lady’s claim: ipecac. We would expect the stomach of someone who lives on only a meager wafer to hold nothing more substantial than acid and mucus. A single kernel of corn would give the game away. Unfortunately for him, the test is one-way: nothing but mucus and acid could simply mean she hadn’t eaten anything that day, not that she eats nothing else ever.

.: Mr. Miracle demurred. “What could be more simple than just watching her?” Indeed. What could be more simple than maintaining constant surveillance of an elderly woman for weeks on end, never letting her out of your sights for a moment, recording her presence on camera and having others review the hours and hours of footage? He’s right: one sip of ipecac is too complicated.

.: He wants it both ways: he wants the real-world validity miracles offer, but he immediately rejects the use of any real-world methods of verification. What gets me is that he shouldn’t be afraid of such investigations, because when push comes to shove he always has an ace card up his sleeve: Satan.

.: Satan, I’ve learned, is the Great Unfalsifier. So the lady took some ipecac and barfed up tuna salad? Satan put it there. He’s capable of miracles too, I was told. And as near as I can tell, his role is to render all religious claims unfalsifiable. Can’t see God’s presence in the picture? Satan’s messing with your grace. You can see God’s presence in the picture? Congratulations, you’ve bested Satan!

.: I’m sure some thoughtful Catholic reading this will correct me and tell me that’s not how Satan really acts, according to church doctrine. Thing is, I’m not the one who needs to be told that. This wackaloon is the one claiming to be an adherent to doctrine. But there are more simple Catholics than there are thoughtful Catholics (his words, not mine, so spare me the griping), and for them miracles and cartoonish visions of Satan are more important than philosophy and reason. Unfortunately, the childish superstitions this man holds are unlikely to be repudiated from behind the pulpit any time soon, and until they are I am free and right to criticize any religion that tolerates them.

.: Damn shame, too, because the house was a pretty nice place. Decent sized room, serviceable kitchen, and nice location, plus the cheapest rent I could find. Of course, overnight visitors were forbidden — he does not abide fornication in his residence. (This kind of moral steadfastness did not preclude him from describing the balcony as “a nice place to look at all the cute girls passing by.”) He described a previous female tenant in more than flattering terms but was quick to point out that he doesn’t take in tenants to date them. “Phew,” I said, placing my hand on my chest, “I sure am relieved.” He squirmed a little and said, in all seriousness, “No, I don’t do that kind of thing.”

.: We said our goodbyes and I left. I never told him what I really thought. In fact, I told him quite a few things that I didn’t think. I’m a little ashamed of that, too. I wish I were more open about my beliefs, if not for integrity’s sake then for pragmatism’s:

“I’m a very religious person. I probably should’ve told you that on the phone.”

“That’s nice. I’m not a religious person.”

“Oh. On your way, then. No need to talk to you for three hours.”

“Very good. See you never.”

[Exit]

.: There is one redeeming aspect to this story: on the way back to my motel room I hailed a taxi cab. Before driving off, the driver had a short conversation with a fellow cabbie. Apparently somebody had committed suicide by throwing themselves on the train tracks, and this had caused several delays and considerable loss of business for the taxis by the station. The friend said something about this being a reason why people should go to church:

“That’s what happens when you don’t believe in God — you commit suicide.”

My cabbie vehemently agreed:

“People who don’t believe in God are fucked up.”

.: I sat the whole ride in silence. When we finally arrived, I reached for my money and said, “You know, concerning that conversation you had with your friend, I just wanted to say that I don’t believe in God and I love my life. Here’s your fare.”

.: He paused for a second, genuinely, I believe, bemused. “You don’t believe in God?” he asked incredulously.

“I don’t,” I said, gently closing the door and walking away.

Or
“Cody Walks Across The Stage”

.: So yesterday, after four five long years of hard work, lazy work, and everything in between, I finally got that fancy piece of paper that says I’m qualified to say a thing or two about biochemistry. I know that this is one of those times in my life where everybody typically says I should be excited about the future and proud of myself, and they are right: right now is awesome.

.: But I’ll be talking about the future in later posts — there’s a whole summer ahead for that sort of stuff; this post is about everything before now, specifically yesterday:

-The person next to me during commencement, one of the few students with a 4.0 GPA in my major, was visibly hungover. She informed me throughout the ceremony about her pressing need to urinate, but in not quite as pretty words.

-Before the ceremony began, we were clustered in the hallways waiting to line up properly. There was the typical bashing of the perceived ‘lesser’ majors wherein we haughty biochemists dismissed the accomplishments of our colleagues in the business school. This point of conversation followed unironically from the admissions of most of those present concerning their abysmal performance in Dr. Trawick’s Topics in Human Biochemistry class. (Yours truly received an A in that course, thank you very much.)

-Short backstory: when people ask me what my middle name is, I like to tell them that up until Eighth Grade it was Michelle, and then I learned how to spell Mitchell. So of course when I walked across the stage to receive my diploma the dean said, “Cody Michelle Cobb.” These kind of events always have a large amount of background noise, but I could still hear my mom’s cackle from across the stadium. As I was walking back to my seat, Dr. Kearney intercepted and assured me, “It’s okay, my middle name’s Michel too!”

-Nobody quite knew when to stand up or sit down.

-At the end, after singing the official school song — or, rather, after listening to the official school song be sung to us — nobody tossed their cap. There was a hesitation, and a few people looked around waiting for others to initiate it, but nobody followed through. That’s not quite true — I threw my damn cap. Three or so other people did too. Mine, unfortunately, smacked some girl square in the face. I was afraid I’d be immediately identified, what with my lack of cap and all, but fortunately one of the other tossers’ cap landed right behind me — after it had smacked another girl in the face, of course. I quickly picked it up, even more quickly put it on, and coolly averted calamity.

-My mom, dad, stepdad, stepmom, grandmother, grandfather, sister, and other sister all came to see me. Of the nine people sitting at the dinner table afterwards, only two had not graduated from Baylor. Where the next generation decides to go to college remains to be determined.

.: That’s all I have right now. I have quite the week not-completely-planned ahead of me. If you see me ambling down the street not doing something, slap me across the face and tell me to do what I need to do, because there’s a lot of it.

Or
“Cody orders a burrito”

.: Confirmation bias aside, why does this always happen?

First Burrito Assembler applies rice, beans, and meat to tortilla and passes unfinished burrito to Second Burrito Assembler.

Second Burrito Assembler: What else?

Me: Pico de gallo and corn please.

Second Burrito Assembler applies pico de gallo and stares at me, confused.

Me: …and corn please.

Second Burrito Assembler applies corn and burrito continues towards completion as usual.

.: At least they offer corn, unlike these bastards.

Or
“Are There Demons Haunting Science?”

.: The following is a response to a note by Scotty Ellis, which is mirrored here (with permission) for posterity’s sake. This was originally supposed to be a comment on Facebook, but it has clearly grown too long. Forgive me if the subject matter bores you — you are not bound by any law to read it.

Science, most properly understood, is a virtue of the intellect, a perfection of knowing. At least under the Aristotelean conception, science is knowledge of necessary, eternal truths, truths which are unchanging and cannot be other than they are. In pursuing and attaining this scientific knowledge, the mind is perfected according to its object, Truth. The mind is conformed to the world, and becomes more perfectly a kind of mirror reflecting all reality.

.: In other words, science — as understood by a non-scientist — is something very different from what practicing scientists would recognize. I shall let them know at the next meeting.

.: Alternatively, we can define words as they’re actually used and state that science is a method of accumulating knowledge based on observation and logical inference — always provisional and open to anyone with a curious mind. Not quite the grandeur of “necessary, eternal truths,” but modern science has been somewhat wary of philosophy as of late.

Today, science more commonly refers to a very specific and limited sphere and method of knowing. The physical elements of the natural world are subject to clever experimentation in order to reveal its inner workings. We are willing to break open the world to see how it works.

.: Now we’re getting closer, but you’re glossing over a large part of what science is. Experimentation isn’t just clever tricks and manipulations — it’s the core of science. Experimentation is the admission that we might have gone wrong somewhere in our thinking so we’d better check. It’s the admission that sitting in our armchairs and thinking is insufficient to actually get things done.

It is important to note that such experimentation rarely is performed on subjects near and dear to the experimenter’s heart. A Nazi will freeze a Jew or the disabled; he will not immerse his own son in the freezing tub. A boy who will dissect a frog will not dissect his pet cat Whiskers.

.: Now this is actually an important point that I wanted to reiterate. Science, noble endeavor that it is, must still be performed by humans, and humans always have been and forever will be first-class jerks. Whether you ascribe to original sin or simply recognize the animal origins of our species, the outcome is the same: humans, by nature, come with a lot of baggage that’s difficult to correct for. We like the people who are in our arbitrarily designated group and hate those who are not. But this is not a sin of science. I can do no better here than to quote Jacob Bronowski:

It is said that science will dehumanize people and turn them into numbers. That is false, tragically false. Look for yourself. This is the concentration camp and crematorium at Auschwitz, this is where people were turned into numbers. Into this pond were flushed the ashes of four million people. And that was not done by gas. It was done by arrogance. It was done by dogma. It was done by ignorance. When people believe that they have absolute knowledge, with no test in reality, this is how they behave. This is what men do when they aspire to the knowledge of gods.

Science is a very human form of knowledge. We are always at the brink of the known, we always feel forward for what is to be hoped. Every judgment in science stands on the edge or error, and is personal. Science is a tribute to what we can know although we are fallible. In the end the words were said by Oliver Cromwell: “I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, think it possible you may be mistaken.”

… We have to cure ourselves of the itch for absolute knowledge and power. We have to close the distance between the push-button order and the human act. We have to touch people.

.: Back to your post:

A study of the human person reveals that a virtue, when isolated from the others, is hardly virtue at all.

.: I do not think this is proper conclusion you can draw from the examples given. A better conclusion would be something like, “Virtue, when combined with vice, is virtue in service of vice,” but that’s patently obvious and not very helpful. Science as practiced by the Nazis was not an isolated virtue run amok; it was a virtue compounded by an evil (the notion that Jews were not people and therefore their consent and well-being need not be considered). Again, we are broaching rather obvious territory here: science in the service of evil ideas results in evil actions!

.: The question “How much cold can the human body withsand?” is not in itself an evil question unworthy of pursuit. Ethical considerations — a field separate from science — prohibits a great many experiments from being performed. The problem with Nazis was not their rigorous adherence to scientific procedure (though they failed miserably there, too) but rather their poorly developed sense of ethics.

One of the chief causes for the excesses of modern science is the myth of perpetual scientific progress. Like any mythology, this particular story has been retold in various times and places with a number of variations, but the essential core of the narrative is the eventual triumph of science over ignorance. Mysteries once accepted through tradition are put to the rigorous test of empirical methodology, in the belief that knowledge is an end which is justified in itself and without reference to further ends or contexts.

.: Again, the driving force behind science is not this naive notion that knowledge is an end which is justified in itself — the driving force is that observation and experimentation is a more reliable guide to the world we find ourselves in than hearsay and magic. Yes, those mysteries once accepted through tradition are put to test, and, yes, they fail miserably. This is as it should be, at least among people who agree that it’s not a good idea to keep fooling one’s self. Or would you rather the rich intellectual tradition of astrology — Kepler! Brahe! Ptolemy! — perpetuate in the halls of academia to this day?

Projects such as eugenics, nuclear and biological testing, even pharmaceutical tests are artifacts of this myth.

.: Eugenics was a policy to better the human race which was based on erroneous science and which was advocated and criticized by representatives of every group, from Christians to scientists (and, indeed, those who were both). But enacting policies is a very different thing from pursuing knowledge. Once you begin speaking about what we should and should not do, you’ve stepped from the realm of science and into the realm of ethics. That’s not to say science can’t inform ethical debate (just what exactly is a human, anyway?), just that science can neither take credit nor blame for the application of the knowledge it has uncovered.

Additionally, modern politics has embraced this myth, seeing it as a subset of its own myth of perpetual progress. Some of the empty rhetoric of the Obama administration makes use of this connection. When a spokesperson of the administration claims that we must allow science to proceed unfettered by ideology, he affirms a belief in science as justifiable in itself.

.: This interpretation of their statements can only be made by someone who hasn’t paid much attention to the actions of the previous administration for the past eight years. Ideology has infiltrated science to science’s detriment. By this I do not mean that the previous administration has made edicts on what scientific research can and cannot be conducted (though it certainly has); I mean that it was not enough for them to simply dislike certain areas of research — that had to lie about what was known.

-Global climate change isn’t occurring because humans can’t possibly change the Earth that way (and anyway, if they could, God will just fix it).
-Research on embryonic stem cells is unnecessary because adult stem cells can do it all and do it better.
-Intelligent design should be taught in schools because there are serious weaknesses in evolutionary theory.

.: These notions are not the result of ideology directing scientific research; they are the result of ideology replacing scientific research, and they all happen to be lies. Obama isn’t calling for science to have unfettered access to experiment on whatever the hell it wants; he’s calling for the results of experiments that are allowed to be respected and accurately represented, regardless of ideology or prejudice.

.: To give an example: you obviously are against abortion, and no doubt you wish you could convince every woman not to have one. Some people think an easy way to do this is invoke a link between having an abortion and developing breast cancer. It’s an interesting idea from a scientific standpoint, but the studies have been performed and it’s been conclusively demonstrated that having an abortion in no way increases one’s chance for developing breast cancer. The honest, responsible thing to do is respect the science and abandon the tactic as a means for curtailing abortion. But this is ideology we’re talking about here — of course they’re not going to give up such a useful device! What Obama would ask for in this case is for those who oppose abortion to recognize that subverting or ignoring the results of science is a dishonorable thing to do.

Not to see and hear in the changing airs
The propagation of light waves and sound,
But to see my wife and to hear her voice
Bent down at the table by me at her work:
Making a garment and mending my soul.

.: Believe it or not, some of us scientists have no trouble doing both. Indeed, I’m of the opinion that understanding the former experience enriches the latter.

Knowledge of the particular requires the contact of our own inscapes with that of another creature. In such a moment, we are united with another particular in a unique way. Over time, we can develop a familiarity (in fact, such familiarity can only develop over time). This patient understanding leads gradually to an ability to treat other creatures with a true respect and act according to a true wisdom.

.: And what better path to this sort of wisdom than science, which has revealed that even the smallest of fish is related to us by a relatively short millions of years? That every particle of our being once occupied the space of another creature, indeed the center of a star? That the boundaries between self and non-self are not as clear as originally thought? I think you and I appreciate a lot of the same things from very different perspectives.

However, the unreflective practice of science can itself crystallize into something sentimental. The quest for universal knowledge can itself become an idol; iconoclasm can (and, perhaps necessarily, does) become an icon. This is how the myth of perpetual progress was born in the first place.

.: I was under the impression that the idea of perpetual progress in science was brought about by continually knowing more today than was known yesterday. It’s an arbitrary metric, to be sure, but a rather obvious one to use.

When this has happened, it is necessary to return the mind to the particular, to recognize the unique inscape of the concrete. Navigating between these two tendencies, the false sentimentality of the particular and the idolatry of science, is the duty of wisdom. It requires keen vision.

.: I’m tempted to dismiss this as nonsense, but I know better than to dismiss something that I don’t immediately understand. Could you please expand this line of thought into something a lowly scientist untrained in philosophy and poetry might understand?

It is possibly the primal sin of modern science that its chief aim is to conform reality to the desires of the mind. The most monstrous examples of this has been in the areas of genetic manipulation, but it is found wherever knowledge has been used as a tool for power and mastery over nature.

.: Really? The most monstrous example you can give is genetic manipulation? Pray tell why is it monstrous for me to introduce genetic material from one organism into another, when a creature as lowly as an agrobacterium does it routinely and a thousand times better? I honestly do not understand the often concomitant phobia and exaltation of nucleic acids, by which I mean I find it curious that people so often equate the DNA sequence of an organism with that organism’s intrinsic identity (exaltation) while at the same time tremble at the prospects of manipulating said material (phobia). It’s not magic, people, it’s chemistry.

.: And besides — everything we do alters reality to conform to our desires. Whenever we find ourselves hungry (an event triggered by simultaneous expression of several proteins and neurotransmitters — all processed squarely in reality), we search about for solutions to our problem: we pluck a pear from a tree (alters reality), we stick a sharp thing through a small animal (alters reality), we shove a greasy TV dinner in a microwave and zap it with electromagnetic waves at just the right frequency to vibrate water molecules (alters reality). We’ve been altering reality to conform our desires long before science ever came along — it’s not that hard.

Another sin of modern science has been the refusal to suffer the long and difficult road, as lab after lab has turned its attention to a variety of shortcuts. Instead of the generation-spanning, even century-spanning task of perfecting crops through traditional farming methods, scientists seek in short years to develop super crops. I have nothing against labor-saving devices and technology in principle; such technology can be extremely helpful. When it is used to render virtue unnecessary, however, a line has been crossed.

.: No, of course you have nothing against labor-saving devices in principle; all you did was just describe it a mere two sentences back as a sin of modern science. And just what exactly are traditional farming methods? The dwarf strains of wheat and rice developed in the sixties are often given as examples of traditional breeding methods in contrast to modern genetic manipulation, but those strains were made possible by the innovation of shuttle breeding — hardly a traditional method (and indeed impossible before the 20th century) yet for some reason more embraced by the DNA phobics.

.: And here I must protest. You cannot seriously be suggesting that current research methods are circumventing generation-spanning hard work and labor. Every method I employ in the lab today is the end result of the cumulative hard work and dedication from hundreds of thousands of scientists previous to myself. Each one has twisted their mind around a problem and struggled to find an answer with their (comparatively) limited arsenal of techniques and rudimentary knowledge of the way the world works. I have stayed up throughout the night struggling to find a solution to a problem only to discover there isn’t one, rendering months of research useless. I’ve spent countless hours trying to comprehend impenetrable texts in the hope that something in them might be of use, often to no avail. And yet to you this equals the easy life, a life of virtue obsolete, passé. Why? Because I don’t have to feel the sweat of my back or develop calluses on my hands from working the field? Suffering is inescapable, but that doesn’t mean it has to take the same shape and form as the suffering that afflicted our ancestors.

.: Keep in mind that the century-spanning task of perfecting crops through traditional farming methods had failed humanity. People were starving. I know you believe in the afterlife and that those who suffer in this world will reap the benefits and glory of Christ in the next world if they believe, but I do not share this view. To me a world with starving children is a terrible thing, made even more terrible because nobody benefits from this suffering; the child who dies at four years of age from malnutrition is not made a better person from their suffering — they are dead. To think otherwise trivializes their pain. That’s my opinion, anyway, and it is what has motivated me in part to choose my field of study, knowing that my efforts will not merely satisfy a curiosity of mind but also benefit the world with their proper application.

Farmers are discovering that their seed has become a liability, as species after species of plant seed and strain after strain are patented by large corporations eager and willing to prosecute anyone growing unlicensed seed. Local strains are becoming infected by strains of genetically manipulated varieties, with unexpected and sometimes catastrophic results for the small farmer whose livelihood is becoming increasingly threatened by the easy promises of new biotechnology.

.: One minor correction: corporations cannot “patent species.” Nor can they patent genes. What they can do is patent the novel use of genes (say, expressing the gene for the Bt toxin directly in corn instead of spraying the fields with bacteria that produce it naturally), much the same way someone can patent the novel use of wood (a fully natural product) to build a new kind of mousetrap. Also, farmers can (and have) bill the companies responsible for variants of crops that have infiltrated their fields for cleaning up any contamination.

.: To be sure, the business ethic of companies like Monsanto can be charitably described as questionable at best, but then our beef is now with the lawyers and not the scientists, isn’t it?

Such a catalog of carnage might include the embryos destroyed in stem cell research, the workers fired because of technological efficiency, the privacy shattered because of increasingly sophisticated methods of surveillance, the metaphysical quandaries introduced by the monomaniacal obsessions of materialistic accounts of the human person and causality, the loss of a meaningful and unified account of reality, and the ease with which a globalization made possible by technology has gradually destroyed a sense of responsibility to place and persons.

.: Here again is a perfect example of science informing but not dictating ethical debate. One of the interesting developments in science is the obviation and radical redressing of previously-thought-to-be fundamental questions. The ethical question “When should we recognize the beginning of personhood?” is often linked with the scientific question “When does life begin?” But then science is not as helpful here as some might wish, for it demands a restating of the second question to read “When did life begin?” before it can properly answer it. (The answer is 3.8 billion years ago, by the way.) Okay, you might ask, but surely science can tell us when human life began? Again the answer is not much help to the current debate (100,000 to 200,000 years ago).

.: Science has a way of thumbing its nose at our desire for a reality with neatly defined boundaries and categories. The fuzzy borders of biology have infuriated many students and confused several many more. In fact, the picture of reality as painted by science (and it is, despire our enthusiastic bloviations to the contrary, just a picture) does precisely the opposite of what you claimed earlier: it conforms the mind to reality, even if we don’t want it to.

It is a crime against nature, for instance, to trod our way straight into the innermost depths and marrow of another creature and set about reworking it for our own imagined convenience.

.: Says who? That’s not an endorsement of the activities you decry, but a genuine inquiry into the nature of the authority behind this queer edict.

For one thing, we do not even know fully what we are doing when we muck about in the long and immeasurably complex sequences of DNA that form the secret depths of other creatures.

.: This kind of sentiment is fear-mongering humbuggery familiar to every age of science. Today it’s DNA, yesterday it was the atom, tomorrow it’ll be the brain. It’s a common refrain: let’s not venture any risky prospects until we are absolutely sure what we’re dealing with, which of course we cannot be until we actually start doing it, and which creates an impassable Catch-22. The best part, though, is that, consistently applied to all aspects of human behavior, the advice inevitably leads to stagnation:

We do not even know fully what we are doing when we consume an apple and send it through our long and immeasurably complex digestive tract. Let’s recognize our humility and refrain from eating apples.

Consider the fact that we have found that bloodflow and neural activity in particular regions of the brain correlate with certain mental states and even choices. The hubris of materialism, which sees only one causal chain, is to declare determinism. The humility of wisdom refrains from this reductionist account; it knows the boundaries of science and is free to choose what Wendell Berry calls “the way of ignorance.”

.: “The way of ignorance” — I like that. Of course, materialism sees only one causal chain because, as far as we can tell, it’s the only causal change that can be seen! It’s folly to speak of things unseen and things unheard, especially when they are unseen and unheard in principle, and especially when other people are the sources.

What are, practically speaking, the boundaries of science? One most immediately presenting itself from what I have already said is that science had ought to be practiced by those who have developed an intimate love and knowledge of the particulars who their discoveries and accompanying applications may effect. Science must be tempered by love.

.: No argument from me on this one — everything is made better by more love.

The second is that science must be bounded by a spirit of service and passivity.

.: I don’t think this is necessary, but it certainly helps and definitely doesn’t hurt.

The third is that scientists must be aware of the limits of human knowledge.

.: Have you ever talked to a scientist?

The fourth is that science must constantly submit to the dignity of its subject.

.: Excuse me for crudity, but I find it a little difficult to submit to the dignity of E. coli when I shit them out by the billions.

The fifth is that scientists may not justify their method because of its fruits. Let us imagine that we could kill a man to save ten million from a disease. It is still murder. It would not matter to those who do not love that man. It would matter only to those who love him, and, of course, to the man. Science must side with those who love the particular.

.: This is a rather easy example for you to make your preferred conclusions, but how about a less obvious one? Take the smallpox vaccine: it is actually a harmless live virus relative of the variola virus called vaccinia. Anyone exposed to vaccinia will have, at the cost of a short-lived itchy bump, a lifetime immunity to smallpox. But the live virus in the vaccine is still capable of infection, and indeed a small number of immunocompromised individuals (an inherited trait) who were inoculated died from complications. The doctors had no way of knowing at the time of inoculation that the patients were immunocompromised, but they also knew that exposure to smallpox was a real and deadly possibility. Furthermore, immunocompromised patients are eventually going to have complications no matter what they do. So the question becomes, “Was it right for doctors to inoculate everyone (including infants) against smallpox when they knew there was a non-zero possibility for an adverse fatal reaction?” This is different from your scenario because some degree of consent is involved, but does that really absolve science of the deaths on its hands? If you do wish to argue that the elimination of smallpox was a bad idea because of a few deaths, um . . . I guess we’ll just have to see what you say?

The sixth is that science must heed tradition. There is a reason tradition has endured as long as it has; the novelties of a new theory, however seemingly grand or revolutionary, cannot replace the knowledge of tradition. Local communities ought not be destroyed for the sake of progress.

No, this is just wrong.

The seventh is that scientists ought to remember that the life of the particular is directed towards an end which is beyond their control and to which they, like all other creatures, ought to submit.

So far I’ve resisted asking this question throughout this entire response, but nowhere else is it more pertinent: how do you know that?

The eighth is that they had ought to perform no experiment upon a subject that they would not perform if the subject was near and dear to them. Perhaps they should be required to write a love sonnet about their subject before any experimentation began, and keep that sonnet close by them during the whole course of the experiment.

How about a haiku?

Arabidopsis
Gibberellin-deficient
Ha ha, sucky seeds.

“How foolish!” one might object. “Everything worthwhile involves a degree of danger and risk.” I agree. Farming implies a risk; building a home implies a risk; science implies risk. I am not by any means advocating the cessation of any activity that might in some way endanger life or health. In fact, if my rules are followed, it may just be the case that, in some respect, there will be more dangers, just as there are more dangers if one abandons the soft promises of birth control. I am advocating a careful weighing of the costs that cannot be accomplished in any other way than by investing one’s life wholly in what might be lost.

.: While your advice of investing one’s life wholly in what might be lost sounds simple in presentation and profound in meaning, I have to call hogwash. The fact is you are calling for the cessation of important activities that you see as improper (indeed, monstrous!) when you know nothing about them. You may balk at the accusation, but you’re effectively advocating Luddite principles under some bizarre and scientifically naive understanding of what it is scientists actually do.

.: Which is fine! You are absolutely, one hundred percent, perfectly free to abstain from knowledge uncovered by scientific research. If you think it is wrong to tamper with what you perceive to be the core, inviolable nature of an organism, that’s your business; nobody is forcing you or your diabetic friends to purchase human insulin grown from recombinant bacteria. If you think genetically modified organisms are an affront to nature, you don’t have to buy them; sure, it’s difficult to avoid them at this point in civilization, but what was all that stuff you were saying before about struggle and suffering?

.: With all that said, a post filled with as much snark and condescension as this one is a waste of both our time, so let me try to redeem myself by searching for some common ground:

-One of the beautiful aspects of science is its openness to everyone. There is no such thing as “Jewish science” or “Christian science” or “Muslim science” or “Atheist science” — just “science.”

-Science is not in the business of answering questions of “should,” only of “how.” It is the task of every human who practices science to also practice ethical considerations and to never deliberately bring lasting harm to another human being.

-Science is a social activity exposed to the same pitfalls of any other activity involving humans; practitioners should always strive to be aware of their own limits and biases.

-A rose by any other name: learning what something is in no way diminishes its beauty.

Or
“Only One Man Can Make The Difference”

.: Every semester Baylor sponsors a program of concerted community service called Steppin’ Out. Participating student groups, sororities, and fraternities are assigned special projects (e.g., painting a community center, cleaning up a playground, organizing items at a donation center) which they all do on the same day. This semester’s Steppin’ Out was yesterday, and my group was assigned lawn care at a home for mentally disabled people.

.: I arrived at the same time as Oscar, the only other person to show at the designated start time. He spent a few minutes calling other members of the group to remind them, but they had other plans for their Saturday morning (”I’m grading papers,” “I’m asleep and won’t answer my phone,” or “I’m going to New York”). I looked at the papers Oscar handed me and learned the details of our assignment. Supposedly, fifteen people had volunteered. I didn’t even know we had that many people in our group.

.: While Oscar raked the leaves, I decided to eradicate every weed I could find, plus every non-weed that had the bad sense to get in my way. I wasn’t entirely convinced that the weeds were on the whole more unpleasant than the gaping holes left behind by their extirpation. In fact, ever since I was forced into lawn care labor as a child, I never understood the animosity humans harbored towards weeds. Part of the problem is the word “weed” itself which basically means “any undesirable plant.” It makes sense that humans would want to rid their lawns of undesirable plants, but what made the plants undesirable in the first place? I happen to like dandelions; their resilience is nothing short of amazing, and their iconic fruits are just too much fun on a windy day. Nevertheless, these wonderful little organisms are considered a nuisance by most gardeners, so I spent the better part of the morning mercilessly slaughtering them with my bare hands. By afternoon, I was slaughtering them with blistered hands.

.: Shortly after we started, Ryatt arrived and increased our workforce 50%. He was followed by Melissa whose assistance, while appreciated, could have been easily replaced by a $15 wire. At some point, a few unknown students showed up and asked us if we needed anything. I interpreted their question as an offer to help, so I pointed out some sticks that needed gathering and some hedges that needed clipping. They explained that they weren’t there to help with specific tasks; rather, they were assigned by the Steppin’ Out organizers to patrol the various projects underway by our group and others and assist us in ways that let them use the word “assist” without regard to its actual meaning.

.: The rake to person ratio had fallen to 40% with the arrival of Morgan, so Oscar moved to hedge duties. However, the two large hedge clippers provided by the Steppin’ Out organizers suffered from the same affliction: someone had bent one of the blades so that, instead of cutting what was place between them, the shears would cut themselves, creating a small cavity in the metal that would snag the blades every time. The problem was such that, unlike all other problems, applying more force actually made it worse. My solution was an ingenious adaptation of the fight fire with fire approach: I used the blade of one clipper to file down the sides of the cavity on the blade of the other clipper. If the problem resulted from the arrangement of two blades in the first place, then clearly the solution required the use of even more blades.

.: To make the experience of lawn care more enjoyable I turned on my $19,000 stereo system. The fun was short-lived, however, as a neighbor across the street emerged from his garage with an industrial-sized riding lawn mower, overpowering my music with its awesome excess of rotating blades and torque. He finished his lawn in a matter of minutes and, drunk with lawn mowing power, turned his attention to his neighbor’s lawn. One by one he powered through the succession of lawns on his side of the street, eventually escaping from the cul de sac and leaving our sights. With the Road Warrior gone, we could finally listen to my music again.

.: Towards the end of the event several unexpectedly large piles of leaves had been accumulated in the lawn. The two trash bags given by the Steppin’ Out organizers were clearly inadequate for the job, so we called the roving crew of assistants for more. In the meantime I asked one of the neighbors if he could spare us a bag or two. I figured he owed us since, moments before, his dog marked one of the leaf piles as its own.

.: Still waiting for the crew to arrive, Ryatt and I made a snack run on a local gas station. The local in line ahead of us giddily announced his intentions to buy a $50 lotto ticket and nonchalantly mentioned his stint in jail just six months ago, further cementing my opinion that anyone who willingly buys lotto tickets deserves to.

.: We returned bearing bottled water and Gatorade to our comrades. A few minutes later the crew arrived with additional trash bags and a cooler of water, though they neglected to bring cups with which we may drink the water. Right before they left the Road Warrior returned, this time on our side of the street. He motioned for us to step out of the way, and we watched as our leaf piles — painstakingly assembled over the course of hours — were devoured in a matter of minutes by his mower.

.: We made a token effort to finish the job, but seeing a whole afternoon’s worth of work undermined by an overeager neighbor with a (most likely unsolicited) sense of duty towards his community kind of takes the wind out of one’s sails. At least we didn’t have to touch the pile with dog pee in it.