The Faith of Biology and the Biology of Faith
"Our species is not the creation of design but the result of accumulated errors." Robert Pollack is a molecular geneticist and a Jew, who realizes that his two belief systems have a certain conflict: "Evolution through natural selection explains certain facts of life that touch on matters of meaning and purpose," but he finds that "the vision of the natural world these explanations produce is simply too terrifying and depressing to me to be borne without the emotional buffer of my own religion."Pollack is not exactly trying to reconcile religion and science, but he's trying to show how each can illuminate the other, protecting them from their greatest weakness, dogma--thinking you have all the answers. He argues that "current practices of my religion of Judaism would contribute to an improvement in medical care." In particular, doctors should make room for patients to feel and express free will, to make their own choices and not bow to an illusionary inevitable. He also feels we should forsake the idea of a mind-body split, and give the placebo effect the respect it deserves--not as a way to "fool" the patient's body into getting well, but as an acknowledgement that treating the mind is part of treating the body.Pollack's hope is that science and religion can pull together, so that medicine is practiced "when the doctor keeps all tools of science at her fingertips, when the meaning of those tools is given by the mysterious capacity for free will, and the choice to use them to preserve another person's life and health, and when the person who uses these tools for that purpose knows herself to be no different in any important way from her patient."--Mary Ellen Curtin