THE SCIENCE MYTH

Subtitled 'God, society, the self and what we will never know', this lucid and highly intelligent book is a sophisticated take on the culture war between science and religion. The author is a lecturer in computer science whose research focuses on computational models of living systems and biocomplexity. He is also exceptionally well-informed about physics, biology, neuroscience and philosophy of science and religion. The book is a valuable contribution to the debate about science and religion, contending that the real cause of the culture war is not that science is slowly supplanting the need for religion, but rather that science, especially in its ultra- rationalist form, becomes more like a religion and religion more like science. Chu is critical of the belief in eternal scientific progress, especially of what he calls the WFY argument maintaining that within five years, outstanding problems will be resolved and science will continue its inexorable onward march. This is similar to what Eccles and Popper called promissory materialism.

The first part of the book is a detailed exposition about the foundations of science with specific examples from physics, biology and complexity theory including discussions on the measurement of time, the knowledge revolution brought about by Jacques Monod in molecular biology and the gaps in biological knowledge revealed by complexity theory. The second part will be of greater interest to many readers in discussing the nature of science, the exaggerations of scientific rationalism and the status of neuroscientific research in the quest for a full understanding of consciousness.

Chu begins with some lectures on Newton's laws of motion by Walter Lewin from MIT, asking whether they can be proven. His answer is no, but we have every reason to believe that they are correct. It is just that, surprisingly, there is no direct evidence that proves this correctness beyond any doubt. He moves onto a discussion of falsification in Popper in relation to the status of scientific knowledge of various kinds. At one level, science is what scientists do. If one looks at clinical trials, then the assumption that the physical and biochemical effect of the treatment is separable from the therapist patient relationship is questionable, as is the assumption that the placebo effect is in fact a non-effect. In complementary medicine especially, the relationship between practitioner and patient is critical. Chu cites some interesting research showing how important ritual is in all medical situations, whether scientific or not. Another area is climate modelling, where modellers have to choose what to take into account and what to leave out. Climate models that prove to be wrong do not necessarily falsify any theory, they just show that the model was wrong. Chu also exposes the myth that science is value free and disinterested; it is in itself a social activity, 'a competitive economy of ideas and arguments.' He concludes that there are many examples of science that produce reliable and reproducible predictions, yet none of these features is universal across science, hence there is no clear criterion setting science apart from non-science, as most scientists implicitly believe. He argues that it is impossible to give a noncircular definition of science.

There follows an excellent chapter on the excesses of scientific rationalism, or the omnicompetence of science as Peter Atkins but says. Chu defines scientific rationalism: the idea that all there is can be described by science, if not by present science, then by future science. He points out that there are many reasonable and rational types of knowledge that are not scientific and that there are occasions where non-scientific reasoning should be applied because of the inherent limitations of science itself. As we know, the rise of SR is related to the new atheism, which is often an evangelical belief in the non-existence of God. It is pictured as the battle between the force of rationalism and science against the superstitious armies of religion. The zealous advocates of SR are every bit as dogmatic as their religious counterparts; indeed dogmatism and intolerance are actually built into SR. An insistence on the exclusivity of science is the reverse side of intolerance of the validity of any other approach. It is easy to see how this is related to the WFY argument explained above. In addition, the basic contention of SR cannot itself be scientifically justified - it is a philosophical assumption. The social authority of science is invoked as part of the argument. Chu examines the debate about the existence of God, observing that not every atheist is a proponent of SR, but nearly every proponent of SR is an atheist. All this is fully and subtly explained, and he concludes that science ultimately has nothing to say about the existence or non-existence of God or gods.

The last main chapter addresses consciousness, postulating a distinction between consciousness as such and the fundamental essence of a person (FUDESS) represented in our individual experience of subjectivity. He takes the view that FUDESS is entirely dependent on working brain processes, so that when we die, we ceased to exist. Needless to say, he does not cite any evidence against this hypothesis, and may indeed never have read any. Having said that, he is highly critical of philosophers who explain the problem away, even to the extent of contradicting themselves by writing about the ways in which they themselves do not exist. For him, science can never explain the mystery of first-person experience, although it can discover a great deal about the neural correlates. However, 'the neural correlates of X is only a partial explanation of X and not the phenomenon itself.' At best, it can only be a description. He goes on to discuss the brain as a computer and Turing machines, pointing out some limitations of these ways of thinking.

The epilogue revisits the turf war between science and religion. Each provides a narrative about the world and meaning, and science can add the prospect of control, although I myself am suspicious of this metaphor. The tension is between two metaphysical superstructures and corresponding types of salvation. However, fundamentalism of any kind is not the answer, and we need a more nuanced symbolic interpretation of Scripture as well as realising the inherent limitations of science. Chu does not think that religion in any form can be eradicated, observing wryly that evangelical atheists who religiously fight religion only serve to prove his hypothesis. Readers of this second part of the book will find their understanding of these complex issues considerably enhanced by the penetrating discussions of all the key issues in this continuing debate.