On Logic, Science, God, and Life

"We are going to die, and that makes us the lucky ones. Most people are never going to die because they are never going to be born. The potential people who could have been here in my place but who will in fact never see the light of day outnumber the sand grains of Arabia. Certainly those unborn ghosts include greater poets than Keats, scientists greater than Newton. We know this because the set of possible people allowed by our DNA so massively exceeds the set of actual people. In the teeth of these stupefying odds it is you and I, in our ordinariness, that are here." -Richard Dawkins

I am lucky. Tonight I was reminded exactly why I do what I do, and why I may never leave academia. It's been up and down in the lab all week. Unanswered questions and ambiguous (or downright puzzling) results have kept me staring longingly at the pictures of various adventures that adorn my desk and walls at work. During the rough times, I forget why I am doing what I do, and I long to find a way to get out... out of the lab, out of the city, outdoors somewhere making a living off of adrenaline. But, then, there are days like today when I am reminded that if I were living a different life, I would long for academia just as much.

Tonight, I attended a lecture by the controversial British evolutionary biologist, Richard Dawkins. The lecture, and his books, do more than simply try to make a point based on his ideologies as many religious and even some scientific speakers do... Dawkins is a very logical thinker and bases his ideas on real facts and well thought-out conclusions. He is controversial because he is an atheist and he is not afraid to make people think. The lecture was entitled, "The God Delusion," and discussed the shortcomings in truth in religion and societal impacts of religion among other things. I won't delve into the lecture topic, as I could spend hours discussing the matter (and did when Ryan and I got home), and I'm not even going to pretend that I could do justice to Dawkin's incredible speaking. As a Christian, a scientist, and a naturalist, it was a very interesting lecture that left me contemplating the validity of my own beliefs on all three subjects. If you don't mind hearing a viewpoint that very well could be different than your own, I recommend you pick up one of his many books. No matter what your stand is on the issues that he brings up, I almost guarantee that they will leave you thinking in new ways.

At the end of the talk, Dawkins was asked (in more words than I care to write verbatim), "Is happiness more important than truth?" His answer was a firm NO. It was refreshing to hear. Again, I am a logical thinker, and understand that I am not so inclined to think emotionally, but the argument is a strong one. Again, it's the logical scientist in me, but it seems to me that only cowards ask for less than the truth, in that they can't accept the truth, or they are too comforted by their own perceived view of the world to want to know it. I much rather know the truth, and be able to react to it knowing that I am not acting on false evidence, than to remain either in the dark or with an incorrect understanding of the situation. I think that if we were to get into the habit of making truth more common, then we might get used to the idea of being happy with it, in which case, the question would be null anyways.

One of the main reasons that I love academia (particularly in the sciences) is because of the open minds that populate the field. So many of us get caught up in our own lives, our own ideas, our own cultures, and the safety blanket of our own religions that we never take the time to try to put ourselves in other's shoes or see things from a different perspective. Scientists, at least the good ones, don't have that luxury of staying safe in the world that we already know. Our very job descriptions are designed so that we delve deeper into the unknown, looking at our familiar world with fresh eyes, trying to discover how viruses evolve or why an antibody reaches its target antigen site on a protein. In keeping an open mind about our work, we tend to keep an open mind about other ideas, and we are not afraid to entertain ideas that are completely opposite to our own in hopes that either we'll find a stronger position on our own ideas, or that we will be given an even better one. Lectures like Dawkin's help us to keep our minds open, continually learning and adapting to our ever spinning planet.

I could go on all night and day about the lecture and what I learned, but I do have to get back to my work. I will leave you with another of Dawkin's quotes:

"What is the use of bringing a baby into the world if the only thing it does with its life is just work to go on living? If everything is judged by how 'useful' it is - useful for staying alive, that is - we are left facing a futile circularity. There must be some added value. At least a part of life should be devoted to living that life, not just working to stop it ending. This is how we rightly justify spending taxpayers' money on the arts. It is one of the justifications properly offered for conserving rare species and beautiful buildings. It is how we answer those barbarians who think that wild elephants and historic houses should be preserved only if they 'pay their way'. And science is the same. Of course science pays its way; of course it is useful. But that is not all it is. After sleeping through a hundred million centuries we have finally opened our eyes on a sumptuous planet, sparkling with colour, bountiful with life. Within decades we must close our eyes again. Isn't it a noble, an enlightened way of spending our brief time in the sun, to work at understanding the universe and how we have come to wake up in it? This is how I answer when I am asked - as I am surprisingly often - why I bother to get up in the mornings. To put it the other way round, isn't it sad to go to your grave without ever wondering why you were born? Who, with such a thought, would not spring from bed, eager to resume discovering the world and rejoicing to be a part of it?"