On Decoding the Genome – A Response to Doron Lancet (Haaretz – 1998)
More Catholic than the Pope
In last week’s issue (9.1) of the Haaretz weekend supplement, Noam Berkowitz brought us an interview with Prof. Doron Lancet about the genome project. The article is filled with assertions that have nothing whatever to do with science, and cloaking them in scientific garb to cover their nakedness is simply insulting. This is a canonical example of the logical fallacy known as ‘ad hominem.’ When an interviewee does not speak intelligently and treats the readership with contempt, I would expect the journalist at least to steer him toward fields about which he has the faintest clue.
The Church persecuted scientists throughout history, as a result of the (mistaken) sense that science and religion are in competition. Every scientific discovery was perceived as threatening God’s status, because there was a fear that once scientific knowledge was complete, we would “no longer need that hypothesis” (in Laplace’s phrase). Prof. Lancet, like his fellow priests of the church of science, apparently has still not freed himself from the flip side of this paranoia. Someone needs to update this group of priests about the developments of modern history: the sixteenth century ended long ago. Today it is clear to anyone with even a minimal grasp of the philosophy of science that a person can shape his metaphysical-religious worldview regarding the ‘world to come,’ the ‘soul,’ ‘paradise,’ or any other metaphysical concept, with no dependence whatsoever on scientific results. As of today, a person can be a believer or an unbeliever with no dependence at all on the research findings of the genome project, and vice versa.
A detailed discussion of the speculations in the above article would be an insult to intelligence, so I shall content myself with quoting a selected sampling. For all the following assertions, and others like them, there is no confirmation or refutation within empirical science—and in all likelihood there will be none in the foreseeable future (I am, admittedly, a physicist, but as far as I know this is the criterion for classifying propositions as belonging to the scientific domain in genetics as well):
1. “Soul? Paradise? Hell? This is truly ridiculous.” (This key sentence was chosen as the caption under the photograph.) 2. “The difference between you and me in every respect in which we differ—the shape of the nose, eye color, intelligence, temperamental tendencies, inclinations to like certain foods or certain smells—stems from the fact that we have different versions of a certain number of genes.” 3. “We will discover (!!!) exactly what the molecular basis of intelligence is, but we will find that in phenomena like intelligence there is a great deal of ‘noise.’” (For Prof. Lancet, apparently, the esoteric principle that research is conducted before its results are determined has become outdated.) 4. “There is absolutely no doubt that matter produces the ‘soul’; the only place where any question remains (the debate over the essence of the human being) is in the minds of people who ignore science altogether.” 5. “Every machine displays phenomena that can be called ‘free will,’ if it is sufficiently complex.” 6. “The human body is a machine, but that is no reason to disparage it. There is absolutely no justification (!) for making light of the value of life or detracting in any way from the sanctity of life.” And later: “This should not change the relationship between the natural sciences and the humanities.”
The ethical conclusion that emerges from the article is that the life of Lancet’s Macintosh computer is also sacred, since it too suffers from ‘noise.’ I also suggest giving it the right to vote in Knesset elections. In Lancet’s dictionary, which does not distinguish between ‘free will’ and a ‘random process,’ ‘noise’ is a synonym for ‘free will.’ Using this amusing terminology, I can state with certainty the following scientific proposition: the entire article is full of ‘free will.’
Dr. Michael Abraham