How Science Rediscovered the Mystery of Ourselves, by James le Fanu, Harper Press, London, 2009 The author, James le Fanu is a medical doctor and rationalist, who has written several books, and published research articles in leading medical publications, magazines and newspapers. In this tome he sets out to explore the power and limits of science in comprehending the deep mysteries of life on earth.
Le Fanu wonders at the pervasive beauty and integrity of the natural world, and draws attention to the work of Isaac Newton: the discoverer of the law of gravity; and Robert Boyle: the father of modern physics. They set out on ‘a holy calling’ to discover and understand natural laws, which they believed would bring them closer to the Creator of this wondrous universe. The writer emphasizes the fact that such a vital and fundamental force as gravity is non-material, and is entirely mysterious in its operation throughout the universe. He claims that the human mind in essence is non-material, and holds mysteries that are unreachable by scientific research. Plato and others recognized the non-material reality of ‘the self’ and developed the concept of the soul. In the seventeenth century, the philosopher Descartes distinguished between the physically ‘material’ brain, and the ‘spiritual’ mind which is qualitatively different. However, over the last one hundred and fifty years, the ascendancy of materialist evolutionary theories has challenged ‘the dualism of physical brain and non-material mind’, by propounding the view ‘that the human mind is “nothing but” the consequence of the electrical activity of the brain’, or advocating similar explanations.
The author confronts head-on the dogmatism and certainty associated with Darwin’s Origin of Species. What accounts for the attributes that distinguish us from our primate cousins? The obvious differences cannot be explained by genetic information alone. He uses familiar arguments to refute the idea of gradual evolution. For example the human eye is far too complex and interconnected as an item to have evolved gradually. Gaps in the fossil record present serious questions such as ‘why did some species appear fully formed, out of nowhere?’ and ‘how did man come to walk upright in the first place?’ ‘Where did language come from, since all the major intellectual traits of modern man are associated in one way or another with language?’ He claims that Darwinism and the general scientific world view, with its rebuff of the non-material aspects of life, denies freewill, wonder and mystery. Man is an object whose brain can be described objectively, but he can also be portrayed as a subject whose understanding of the world derives from his own experience. The discernible brain is comprised of physical material, but the invisible mind transcends that materiality.
The major progress of the neurosciences, with the development of technology that enabled scientists to peer into the brain, raised expectations regarding the solving of the mystery of human consciousness. However, the phenomenon of life turned out to be far more complex than matter. The new technological apparatus revealed that the functions of the brain are extremely complex and interrelated. Individuals who have been born with half a brain or have lost portions of their brain through accident or disease can be more or less fully functioning. The phenomenal power of ‘neuro-plasticity’ means that parts of the brain intended to serve one purpose can be developed for a different function.
Le Fanu points to the development of the ‘New Genetics’, based on the discovery by Crick and Watson in 1953 of the double helix, the DNA molecule that carries genetic information from one generation to the other. They described their discovery in this way: “This structure has novel features which are of considerable biological interest” — an understatement! It was indeed an advance in the study of how genetic material passes from generation to generation. DNA was in fact the carrier of the genetic code and thus was seen as the key molecule of heredity, developmental biology, and evolution. The completion of the Human Genome Project in 2001 transformed immeasurably our understanding of ourselves. It revealed that the so-called unique human genome is more or less interchangeable with that of a mouse, with a similarity of 98 per cent. But the findings of these genome projects proved perplexing, in failing to reveal the mysterious secrets of genetic inheritance.
This book demonstrates that there are obvious and profound issues and questions which are missing from the general scientific account of the universe. The recent scientific developments, which le Fanu has surveyed, raise serious questions about these omissions. In particular, throughout most of human history it has been recognized that mankind is in essence non-material, and that the real self is an autonomous being born with free will. This work is infused with a sense of the miraculous; the universe is full of the unknown; and concludes that ‘life’ is immeasurably more complex than ‘matter’, and is finally inexplicable. This book studiously avoids a theistic perspective; nonetheless it provides a remarkable and refreshing reading exercise.
The Origin of the Organic World – Part One