I do not think that neurobiologists are the messiahs of a new age of truth. I don't think there are many
neurobiologists (if any) who could give a careful historical account of human affairs that touches on
human nature as you do. Human knowledge is created by a collective of workers in all sorts of fields.
Neurobiology is one of the newer fields of inquiry. When we add that data to the wealth of data from
psychology, evolutionary biology, molecular biology, medicine, etc., we are one step closer to answering
the mystery of human life.
What many people fail to appreciate, particularly those not trained in science (although as a historian I
know you will appreciate this), is the similarity between an artist's masterwork and the edifice of
scientific knowledge. Knowledge accumulates over the generations and it slowly erodes mystery and
uncertainty. Often it leads to other mysteries and uncertainties, but not always. The fundamental mysteries
of viral and bacterial sepsis, for example, are a thing of the past; smallpox was completely eradicated
from the planet, no mystery there. We understand the mechanisms involved in viral and bacterial evolution
and infection.
A master painter (or master songwriter) creates a work of art based on collective knowledge from
human experiences, past practices, properties of materials and so on. When the work is completed, a
source of mystery has been demolished (the complex compulsion that inspired the work), and yet another
mystery, or another puzzle, materializes. The artist thinks to himself, "On the next piece I create I shall use
a slightly different technique," thereby addressing a different mystery, probably fueled by human curiosity
to experiment.
The reason science has been so successful is its precision in solving very useful and life-critical
puzzles that stand at the root of human survival. It is far less compromising than art due to its dependence
on verifiable knowledge. Science, of course, depends on verification of facts. Art, although it serves to
dispel mystery to some degree (an artist's achievements prove that this or that can be accomplished),
doesn't stand on a foundation of verifiability. But, curiously, it does depend on accumulated knowledge
just like science. Art simply addresses more leisurely mysteries, not those of life and death.
The biological sciences I listed above are concerned with life and death, and they do a better job of
explaining most mysteries of humankind better than religion does. That was not always the case of course,
but times change and so does humankind's ability to understand life-and-death mysteries.
God is one of the mysteries that has been with us forever, as you point out. Even if neurobiology adds
the missing ingredient to psychology and evolutionary biology and behavioral science and allows us to
successfully explain God, I am confident there will be other mysteries of human life that will require
explanationmore work for the future masters. God is not the end, but a great beginning, a challenge for
science to adequately explain. Explaining God is a hurdle for science and, if you ask me, an equal hurdle
for theologians.
Which magisterium will be more successful in explaining God to the biologically and psychologically
literate? I believe it will be science. Of course, my hope for an educated world is probably a pipe dream.
But if ever I was committed to a cause, it is education.
Human beings would not even begin to search for something of which they knew nothing or for
something which they thought was wholly beyond them. Only the sense that they can arrive at an
answer leads them to take the first step. When scientists, following their intuition, set out in search of
logical and verifiable explanation of a phenomenon, they are confident ... that they will find an