Modern science refuses to ask metaphysical questions. And this is no surprise, given that modern science has defined itself as limited to the scope of the physical. Anything that goes beyond the scope of the physical (metaphysical) can be brushed aside without a second thought. This is dogma, by the way; science will not admit that any knowledge can be gained outside of empirical experiment. Thus, concepts that were up to modernity considered realities are now not even considered. And so we can explain fear merely as an increase in adrenaline, because the adrenaline can be measured but the fear cannot. We can define love merely as an increase in testosterone because we can bottle testosterone but not love, despite the efforts of the greatest poets. After all, the poet is a metaphysicist because he thinks love is real, which is absurd to the scientist, who thinks the poet is loony. But aren't both the poet and the scientist trying to explain the same thing, namely, love? The scientist seems to say something like this, "I will explain love by demonstrating that it is really just chemical reactions occurring in the body, and that love does not really exist." But the poet says something like this: "I will tell you of love. It is like a calm, evening twilight, when the earth is still, and the day yields to night, and the air is full of memories of someone long ago." The scientist's explanation I understand, but the poet's I experience. I am not against science, I am against dogmatic science.
But even in modernity scientists have trouble escaping the metaphysical. In a recent article in TIME magazine, entitled Scientist Creates Life - Almost, by Alice Park, there are the details of the very impressive work of J. Craig Venter, a scientist who has, apparently, mapped his own entire genome. The article's title is preemptive, in that Venter's goal is to create an entirely new genetic code, insert it into a cell, and see if the thing comes to life. This he has not yet done. But the undertone to the title also mimics (always purposefully from TIME editors) the idea of God creating life, such as found in the Bible, or in the doctrines of Christianity. In dogmatic science, where there is no room for knowledge about God, the idea that God created life is absurd. God cannot exist in dogmatic science, because he cannot be proven with a lab test. Therefore, as in trying to solve the problem of love, we have to solve the problem of life. Just who created life? Well, of course, the scientist did...well, not yet. But he will. And then all the religious people of the world can slowly transfer their very abnormal belief in God to the very reasonable belief in the Scientist.
The article describes the human genome as "the entire 25,000-gene cookbook that makes us people in the first place and not chimps or birds or banana trees". Really? Is this all that makes us persons rather than banana trees? Our genes? Some scientists claim that roughly 98.5% of our genes are identical to chimps. But the number can vary anywhere from 95% to 99%, depending on who you talk to. Anyone can accept the fact that chimps and humans have a very high level of physical similarities; it doesn't really take genetics to realize this. But the closer you put that number to 100% the less it seems to be an explanation for anything. If our genes were 50% identical, then we can all rest easy that half of a human is ape-like, which is obvious when we look at our hands, and half of a human is human-like, which is obvious when we look at the Parthenon. But if we put it at, say, 80%, we start to feel a bit more ape-like than we'd like to admit. When we put it at 99%, we start to wonder why we don't live in trees, or why chimps aren't building Parthenons. The closer we get to this 100% match, the less it explains why we are so different than chimps. What will happen when scientists discover that 100% of our genes are identical to chimps? Where will we turn then to understand the difference between humans and chimps, which really doesn't have anything to do with genes at all? Will we then have to start asking metaphysical questions?
Scientist Creates Life just for a moment peeks into the metaphysical window, but I am not sure if Park, the author, realized it. Referring to Venter's plans to inject a man-made genome into a cell, she writes, "Creating such small, single-purpose organisms is nowhere near as complex as creating larger, multicelled creatures — things with mobility, behavior, a purpose, a face." Oh, if the author could only hear herself! Things with behavior, or a face? Things with purpose? Are we finally getting somewhere? Do the things on this planet have purpose? Is there room for teleology here? Is there a reason for my existence? Is there a point to the banana tree? The author, obviously a closet metaphysicist, even goes so far as to call these complexities, such as "behavior" and "purpose", "fanciful and frightful things." You better believe they are fanciful and frightful things. There has never been a more frightful thing than a multi-celled creature with a purpose.
And, according to Park, "even Venter recognizes that there may be some aspects of life that simply can't be understood without a nod to what he calls the 'mystery and majesty' of the cell." Do the words "mystery" and "majesty" really belong to science? If Venter means what he says, then he cannot escape it either. The cell truly is a mystery. But even if Venter or any other scientist was able to explain and diagram every element and complexity of the cell so that no scientific knowledge was left to be discovered, it would still be a mystery that it is at all. Scientists will never be able to create life; "create" and even "creature" are metaphysical words. Science will manipulate the stuff of creation in new ways, to form new things, even possible a new form of life. But they cannot create life, that is, being. They cannot create existence. That discussion begins and ends with what we call the mystery and majesty of God. And it is fitting that we see in created things a purpose, for the God of Christianity is not a haphazard creator. He seems to create on purpose.
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