Along the lines of the entry earlier this week, I have been thinking about the spiritual health of non-Christians. They have the same needs as any Christian has. They need community. They need opportunities for service. They need places to express joy and thanksgiving (even if it’s directed to the universe in general). I think it’s clearly biblical to try to bring them to church. Unfortunately, all the talk about Jesus and miracles is terrifying for a staunch materialist.
When we see a man who has been beaten by robbers and left for dead, what ought we to do? Put him on our own donkey. Sure. But what if he refuses our help on the grounds that he is terrified of donkeys? He will not accept the best thing for him: to be carried to a place of rest. So do we throw up our hands and give up? After all, he had his chance and he blew it. Or do we try to pull he and the donkey together, much to the protestation of both man and beast? We know for a fact that his riding the donkey will be for his own good; coercion may be the most merciful thing.
Moreover, when we offer him wine, and he refuses, saying he doesn’t believe in the power of alcohol to dull pain. Do we force the wine upon him?
In my little rip-off of Jesus great parable, the robbers are Humanism and Materialism, the man is the atheist, and we’re in the role of the good Samaritan. Our donkey is church and the wine is prayer. For many of us, we can think of nothing else but the donkey and the wine. And in part it’s right; the church is indeed the best community on Earth and prayer is the best way man can commune with God. But the man has a deathly fear of the donkey and will not ride it; he does not believe in the wine, and will not drink it.
I propose that we consider another approach: give him all he is willing to take. He’s hurting, so let’s let him lean on us and walk towards the inn, albeit it at an excruciatingly slow pace. He won’t take wine; let’s offer him water. There is no question that he’s thirsty, almost to death for any liquid.
What is the leaning and what is the water? I’m not quite sure, because Christians haven’t quite figured out what spiritual practices are tolerable for Atheists. An Atheist would not come to a prayer meeting; would he come to a lesser communion of God by quiet meditation? Or perhaps stargazing? An atheist would not sing about Jesus; would he sing about the beauty of nature?
I am not thinking about this in typical Evangelical terms (though I think those approaches also are valid). What first motivated this was the question: how do I heal the spirits of my atheist patients? Even assuming that total spiritual healing would never come through Christ, did I not still have an obligation to heal as much as I could? So how can an atheist who is starving to death for community and parched for spiritual practice be healed in part?
I am also not talking about watering down the Gospel. The Gospel must be preached with power and authority at Church; the effort to seek and save the lost must continue unabated. But just like international work, long-term solutions are ideal, but people are starving to death today. Evangelicals have done a superb job at the long-term (eternal even) solution for the soul, but what keeps the soul of an Atheist from starving today?
I pose this question particularly to church people. I don’t know the answer. I see terrible spiritual affliction, and though the church is fighting it systemically, there are too many suffering without relief today who feel too uncomfortable to come to church. Should we have 'church' for atheists?
How can we be a Good Samaritan and give relief to the soul of the bruised and beaten Atheist today?
Saturday, January 31, 2009
Friday, January 30, 2009
The Fountain of Youth?
Medicine isn’t a fountain of youth. In America, we spend more and more and more on medicine and it’s not making us any healthier.
Scholars evaluating ‘health outcomes’ have begun to see this and are getting scared. After all, what will they have to do when more medicine amounts to giving people sugar pills. I read a paper by a scholar I respected on the availability of MRIs. The conclusion was we use them more when they’re available (in a direct linear relationship), but there is a considerable question as to whether we are any better because of it. He suggests that we may need to start looking for non-health based outcomes. In other words, we need to ask how it made people feel.
We saw another study that showed that doctors in New York visit a certain population of their hospital patients three times as many times as doctors in San Francisco. They also keep them for thrice as many days in the hospitals. “Good for them!” you may say. But when you compare outcomes, there is no difference. Those who stayed 10 days in San Francisco had the same outcome as those who stayed 30 in New York. Zero difference.
“You get what you pay for,” we say to ourselves. If we pay more for healthcare, we get more life out of it. But we’ve maxed out on medicine. There’s no more life that can be purchased for most of us. There are certainly some people who need new breakthroughs to live as long as everybody else. But for most of us, throwing more money at body scans and vitamins is just like throwing money down a toilet. Staying an extra day in the hospital. Getting that X-ray for a rib you knew was broken. Will that make us healthier? Will that add years to our lives? No.
Why do we? Because we think it will. Somewhere in our psyche is the thought that we can buy eternal life. Like Simon the Sorcerer who when he “…saw that through laying on of the apostles' hands the Holy Ghost was given, he offered them money, Saying, Give me also this power…” (Acts 8:18-19a). We think life is for sale, and doctors are the vendors. I’ll let you in on a secret that, if everyone knew about it, would save us from financial ruin: Doctors don’t hold the keys of the kingdom of heaven. Giving us money just makes us rich. Save your money. Or better yet, use it to save others. Extension of your life cannot be purchased; but that’s not true for at least a billion people around the world. Buy for them the health you already enjoy.
Scholars evaluating ‘health outcomes’ have begun to see this and are getting scared. After all, what will they have to do when more medicine amounts to giving people sugar pills. I read a paper by a scholar I respected on the availability of MRIs. The conclusion was we use them more when they’re available (in a direct linear relationship), but there is a considerable question as to whether we are any better because of it. He suggests that we may need to start looking for non-health based outcomes. In other words, we need to ask how it made people feel.
We saw another study that showed that doctors in New York visit a certain population of their hospital patients three times as many times as doctors in San Francisco. They also keep them for thrice as many days in the hospitals. “Good for them!” you may say. But when you compare outcomes, there is no difference. Those who stayed 10 days in San Francisco had the same outcome as those who stayed 30 in New York. Zero difference.
“You get what you pay for,” we say to ourselves. If we pay more for healthcare, we get more life out of it. But we’ve maxed out on medicine. There’s no more life that can be purchased for most of us. There are certainly some people who need new breakthroughs to live as long as everybody else. But for most of us, throwing more money at body scans and vitamins is just like throwing money down a toilet. Staying an extra day in the hospital. Getting that X-ray for a rib you knew was broken. Will that make us healthier? Will that add years to our lives? No.
Why do we? Because we think it will. Somewhere in our psyche is the thought that we can buy eternal life. Like Simon the Sorcerer who when he “…saw that through laying on of the apostles' hands the Holy Ghost was given, he offered them money, Saying, Give me also this power…” (Acts 8:18-19a). We think life is for sale, and doctors are the vendors. I’ll let you in on a secret that, if everyone knew about it, would save us from financial ruin: Doctors don’t hold the keys of the kingdom of heaven. Giving us money just makes us rich. Save your money. Or better yet, use it to save others. Extension of your life cannot be purchased; but that’s not true for at least a billion people around the world. Buy for them the health you already enjoy.
Alternative to Universal Healthcare
Explore the possibility of having “universal healthcare” through universal access to government loans instead of limitless insurance. These loans would cover the cost of medical procedures and thus allowing everyone to get care that they needed. They would function like student loans: the payments would be reasonable for all incomes (payments max out at a certain percentage of income), deferrable under extreme economic hardship, and they don’t go away after bankruptcy.
This system would have the advantage of allowing patient-consumers to choose wisely with their own money, and not simply spend without discretion. This would likely need to be aided by mandating transparency in healthcare (Ala Herzlinger’s Healthcare SEC). Whatever a person spends on his health, he is responsible for. For a very sick poor person, they will pay a percentage of his income for the rest of his life, thereby sharing in the cost he is incurring on society.
This would solve the dual problems of medical expenses causing financial ruin and expenses rocketing to the stratosphere because we are not allowed to be consumers. It would cause problems in potential overspending for the very sick. It would also make insurance companies irrelevant, because the burden of risk is upon the government. In many cases, it would be an unequal burden on the rich; they would more often pay off their expensive loans while the poor would die with government medical debt (which would have to be forgiven).
Though I am always hesitant to give the government power, the exchange of a huge government program for a moderate one is palatable. The unequal burden on the rich already exists, and the cost savings by consumers driving the market (as in the RAND experiment) would more than make up for this inequity. Overall, the system would make a person’s health his own responsibility.
This system would have the advantage of allowing patient-consumers to choose wisely with their own money, and not simply spend without discretion. This would likely need to be aided by mandating transparency in healthcare (Ala Herzlinger’s Healthcare SEC). Whatever a person spends on his health, he is responsible for. For a very sick poor person, they will pay a percentage of his income for the rest of his life, thereby sharing in the cost he is incurring on society.
This would solve the dual problems of medical expenses causing financial ruin and expenses rocketing to the stratosphere because we are not allowed to be consumers. It would cause problems in potential overspending for the very sick. It would also make insurance companies irrelevant, because the burden of risk is upon the government. In many cases, it would be an unequal burden on the rich; they would more often pay off their expensive loans while the poor would die with government medical debt (which would have to be forgiven).
Though I am always hesitant to give the government power, the exchange of a huge government program for a moderate one is palatable. The unequal burden on the rich already exists, and the cost savings by consumers driving the market (as in the RAND experiment) would more than make up for this inequity. Overall, the system would make a person’s health his own responsibility.
Overtopping
When you design a dam, you make it big enough to hold more water than you ever expect to encounter. When you screw up, and water starts flowing over the dam (usually causing the dam to fail), it’s called overtopping.
When you’re in medical school, you expect that you can do enough writing so as to record all ideas that you ever expect to encounter. When you screw up, and ideas start backing up, it’s called overtopping.
I started using Post It’s. A wonderful invention. I stick Yellow notes on the wall by my desk for “To Dos” and magenta for “Cool thought; should work out in writing”. At this present time, I have four yellow notes (three of them have all their items crossed off so that I can feel gratified at seeing that I do do things), and 14 magenta notes (none of them have been scratched off). Needless to say, I can’t write 14 pieces, and I don’t expect the flow of ideas will slow. So my only option is to write short, poorly edited pieces. I just want to get them off my wall and make more room for more ideas. Naturally, this give you my reader the wonderful opportunity to say which (if any) of these ideas you find interesting. I like to talk about what other people are interested in; your interest may reignite my own. So please comment!
And now, without further ado (what is ‘ado’ anyways?)…
When you’re in medical school, you expect that you can do enough writing so as to record all ideas that you ever expect to encounter. When you screw up, and ideas start backing up, it’s called overtopping.
I started using Post It’s. A wonderful invention. I stick Yellow notes on the wall by my desk for “To Dos” and magenta for “Cool thought; should work out in writing”. At this present time, I have four yellow notes (three of them have all their items crossed off so that I can feel gratified at seeing that I do do things), and 14 magenta notes (none of them have been scratched off). Needless to say, I can’t write 14 pieces, and I don’t expect the flow of ideas will slow. So my only option is to write short, poorly edited pieces. I just want to get them off my wall and make more room for more ideas. Naturally, this give you my reader the wonderful opportunity to say which (if any) of these ideas you find interesting. I like to talk about what other people are interested in; your interest may reignite my own. So please comment!
And now, without further ado (what is ‘ado’ anyways?)…
Thursday, January 29, 2009
Living and Life
We confusing living for life. We attempt to keep on living for its own sake, and do not realize that in so doing, we fail to truly live.
It is prudent to preserve one's life, but not for it's own sake. I wear a helmet to prevent death by unworthy causes. It is not to maximize the number of years my heart beats. I have protected my life for 23 years so that I might have a chance to spend it on something worthwhile.
We should not flee from death. We err gravely When we equate senseless death with sacrificial death. If we look at soldiers who die and those who die in car crashes and say about both, "what a waste of life," we nullify the nobility of sacrificial death. The soldier gave his life for others; his death was meaningful (even if the war isn't). The car crash victim made no such sacrifice; his death was meaningless. We may justly oppose war because of justice or cost; we ought not oppose it simply because of death.
We can never make 'less death' the end of society. Living alone is not a virtue. Courage, honor and love are; we ought never to sacrifice these for the sake of living. In our decisions we must consider the bad and good that we are preventing.
There are certainly some policy decisions which are straightforward. No major virtue is lost by mandating seat belts. But we cannot take the argument developed in a realm without virtue and apply it to one with virtue.
There is often strong opposition to an organizations' members going to dangerous places. There is a fear that their 'lives will be lost'. On the contrary. Their lives will be saved. If they die for a noble cause, they will have experienced some life within their living. If they avoid all danger and risk, they may never see life, though they live.
Life is loving our neighbor, and true life sometimes requires that a person not live as long. Life is not a beating heart. It is a thriving soul. Making life all about prolonging the functioning of a pump is foolish.
Let us never exchange life for living.
Mar 8:35 "For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake and the gospel's will save it."
It is prudent to preserve one's life, but not for it's own sake. I wear a helmet to prevent death by unworthy causes. It is not to maximize the number of years my heart beats. I have protected my life for 23 years so that I might have a chance to spend it on something worthwhile.
We should not flee from death. We err gravely When we equate senseless death with sacrificial death. If we look at soldiers who die and those who die in car crashes and say about both, "what a waste of life," we nullify the nobility of sacrificial death. The soldier gave his life for others; his death was meaningful (even if the war isn't). The car crash victim made no such sacrifice; his death was meaningless. We may justly oppose war because of justice or cost; we ought not oppose it simply because of death.
We can never make 'less death' the end of society. Living alone is not a virtue. Courage, honor and love are; we ought never to sacrifice these for the sake of living. In our decisions we must consider the bad and good that we are preventing.
There are certainly some policy decisions which are straightforward. No major virtue is lost by mandating seat belts. But we cannot take the argument developed in a realm without virtue and apply it to one with virtue.
There is often strong opposition to an organizations' members going to dangerous places. There is a fear that their 'lives will be lost'. On the contrary. Their lives will be saved. If they die for a noble cause, they will have experienced some life within their living. If they avoid all danger and risk, they may never see life, though they live.
Life is loving our neighbor, and true life sometimes requires that a person not live as long. Life is not a beating heart. It is a thriving soul. Making life all about prolonging the functioning of a pump is foolish.
Let us never exchange life for living.
Mar 8:35 "For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake and the gospel's will save it."
Monday, January 26, 2009
Spiritual Health
What is spiritual health? I have long thought about this question, especially since my profession’s concern is with ‘health’. Spiritual health is certainly important for physical health. Many scientific articles have shown that things like church attendance and belief have measurable positive effects on physical health (one study showed that church attendance lowered mortality so significantly that a lifelong churchgoer would live seven additional years compared to the non-attendee). My first thought was, “Great! Everybody should go to church!” but this suggestion was vehemently opposed by those who are deathly allergic to religion (most of my classmates and professors). Even I, upon reflection, concluded that an Atheist who took my advice and went to church hating every last Sunday morning would likely not live seven years longer.
What then can I do? My job is to share whatever of God’s love and healing as I can with my patients, even those who are unwilling to go to church. Are there benefits of spiritual practice which are sharable with non-Christians? Or is it Divine intervention that gives churchgoers their extended lives? Though I can’t completely rule out God’s favor (I am, after all, a rational person who does not come to conclusions without evidence), it seems likely to me that if there were such an effect, it would at least be coupled with a natural one. That is, there is probably some positive psycho-socio-physical effect that could indeed be transferred to the heathen (גוי – literally “non-Jews”; figuratively “not God’s people”... no offense to the heathen).
And so I must return to my original question: what is spiritual health? For a long time, my thoughts on this question were informed (and limited) by the traditional Christian answer: fellowship, prayer, service/evangelism and Bible study. These have certainly laid the foundations for my own spiritual health. But can these be generalized? Is there some part of the benefit of prayer which a Hindu could get by meditation (or conversely, what of spiritual health are Christians missing by ignoring God’s command to “be still and know that I am God”)?
In considering my own spiritual life, I identified seven areas which I believe are important for spiritual health (and I didn’t make it be seven on purpose… that’s something I’m liable to do but I didn’t). They are 1. Relationship with family 2. Relationship with friends 3. Sleep and rest 4. Spiritual exercise 5. Private spiritual expression 6. Confidential spiritual expression 7. Public spiritual expression. I’ll describe how I have seen the church engage these seven points, and then how it may be generalized.
1. Relationship with Family
A Christian is encouraged to have a good relationship with her literal family. Many places command respect for parents, love of wife/husband, and care for kids. My church in Temecula places a strong emphasis on this point.
Family and family responsibility is a large part of being human. From a crude biological sense, reproduction and child-rearing is our only important role. And the sensibilities of most people today and those throughout history have placed a special significance on having a good relationship with our families. Indeed marriage has been shown to extend lifespan (and my guess is that a good marriage does so more than a bad one).
2. Relationship with Friends
A Christian is encouraged to have friends to whom she can go. These are developed in ‘Small Groups’ or via Discipling (mentoring) relationships. There are many emphatic commands to love one another, and many incredible examples of such relationships in the New Testament.
Friendship and community is one of the most universally accepted human goods. It is certainly not the exclusive domain of the church (though the Church has often been the friend to the friendless historically). Psychological studies have started mapping this as a variable that is linked to mental health.
3. Sleep and Rest
God is quite concerned about rest. He talks about the Sabbath a whole lot more than Christians are comfortable with and themes of Rest are throughout the Bible. Christian generally rest at least 1½ hours on Sunday morning.
Rest is really important. We all know this. And even the idea of intentionally not working is important. I’ve heard an apocryphal story of the USSR switching to a 6 day work week because of productivity declines after they tried a 7 day work week. We need rest and we need sleep, be we Christian or Atheist.
4. Spiritual Exercise
There are lots of exercises we’re supposed to do: bible reading, fasting and service are a few, and the Bible is full of expositions on these. Widows and orphans, justice, and evangelism are things that God would like for us to care about (and the Church generally does care).
Many of these expressions are directly translatable (service), some of them are not (Evangelism), and I think the traditional Christian picture omits some important things. My most recent thinking on the spiritual aspect of a thing is: “that part of an experience which remains after subtracting its rational and emotional aspects.” Serving others, going to church, getting married, going to a funeral all have large spiritual components. But so do hiking and stargazing, art museums and drama performances. These experiences have something about them which is sublime. And I’m inclined to call it spiritual. Even if an Atheist doesn’t go to church, I bet he’d be a spiritually healthier person by stargazing. I don’t know of any studies that link these practices to health, but I think that’s because nobody’s ever looked. This category deserves more thinking, but for the moment is broad enough to be accommodating to everyone.
5-7. Private, confidential and public spiritual expression
A Christian ought to expresses her love for Christ, her hopes and fears, her praise and thankfulness, her sorrow and joy, she confesses her guilt and asks for forgiveness. And she has opportunity to do it through prayer (privately), in small group or accountability (confidential), and at the church building (publicly).
These expression of the human heart, mind and soul cannot only be the turf of the Church. I think the Church has worked out a very convenient way to regularly express them, but the need (and opportunity) is universal. A person may quietly reflect on his guilt without asking forgiveness from God; part of the benefit of prayerful confession will be maintained. Mentees can express their hope for the future just as well as disciple-ees. Joy can be expressed at a Dave Matthews Band concert as well as at one by Switchfoot.
What is spiritual health? I’m not sure entirely. But I think the traditional Christian framework, refined by two thousand years of spiritually health people and generalized, is an excellent way to think about spiritual health. I am very interested in further refinements and improvement, but I think even in its early stage, if a person made efforts to improve in these seven areas, he’d be better off. And that goes for Christians and non-Christians alike.
In a first step to help people improve their spiritual health, I have designed a Spiritual Health Self Assessment. It takes about 20-30 minutes and encourages participants to reflect on their spiritual health and includes a section for planning for self-improvement. The next step is to recruit and train Spiritual Healthcare Providers (SPHs). But more about that later.
I would love for you, my reader, to participate and improve your own spiritual health (and give me feedback, so I can better heal the spirit):
http://spreadsheets.google.com/viewform?key=pf7AfX9bzlgKiSUawghjrKA&hl=en
Take it once a week for better health, (future) Doctor’s orders.
What then can I do? My job is to share whatever of God’s love and healing as I can with my patients, even those who are unwilling to go to church. Are there benefits of spiritual practice which are sharable with non-Christians? Or is it Divine intervention that gives churchgoers their extended lives? Though I can’t completely rule out God’s favor (I am, after all, a rational person who does not come to conclusions without evidence), it seems likely to me that if there were such an effect, it would at least be coupled with a natural one. That is, there is probably some positive psycho-socio-physical effect that could indeed be transferred to the heathen (גוי – literally “non-Jews”; figuratively “not God’s people”... no offense to the heathen).
And so I must return to my original question: what is spiritual health? For a long time, my thoughts on this question were informed (and limited) by the traditional Christian answer: fellowship, prayer, service/evangelism and Bible study. These have certainly laid the foundations for my own spiritual health. But can these be generalized? Is there some part of the benefit of prayer which a Hindu could get by meditation (or conversely, what of spiritual health are Christians missing by ignoring God’s command to “be still and know that I am God”)?
In considering my own spiritual life, I identified seven areas which I believe are important for spiritual health (and I didn’t make it be seven on purpose… that’s something I’m liable to do but I didn’t). They are 1. Relationship with family 2. Relationship with friends 3. Sleep and rest 4. Spiritual exercise 5. Private spiritual expression 6. Confidential spiritual expression 7. Public spiritual expression. I’ll describe how I have seen the church engage these seven points, and then how it may be generalized.
1. Relationship with Family
A Christian is encouraged to have a good relationship with her literal family. Many places command respect for parents, love of wife/husband, and care for kids. My church in Temecula places a strong emphasis on this point.
Family and family responsibility is a large part of being human. From a crude biological sense, reproduction and child-rearing is our only important role. And the sensibilities of most people today and those throughout history have placed a special significance on having a good relationship with our families. Indeed marriage has been shown to extend lifespan (and my guess is that a good marriage does so more than a bad one).
2. Relationship with Friends
A Christian is encouraged to have friends to whom she can go. These are developed in ‘Small Groups’ or via Discipling (mentoring) relationships. There are many emphatic commands to love one another, and many incredible examples of such relationships in the New Testament.
Friendship and community is one of the most universally accepted human goods. It is certainly not the exclusive domain of the church (though the Church has often been the friend to the friendless historically). Psychological studies have started mapping this as a variable that is linked to mental health.
3. Sleep and Rest
God is quite concerned about rest. He talks about the Sabbath a whole lot more than Christians are comfortable with and themes of Rest are throughout the Bible. Christian generally rest at least 1½ hours on Sunday morning.
Rest is really important. We all know this. And even the idea of intentionally not working is important. I’ve heard an apocryphal story of the USSR switching to a 6 day work week because of productivity declines after they tried a 7 day work week. We need rest and we need sleep, be we Christian or Atheist.
4. Spiritual Exercise
There are lots of exercises we’re supposed to do: bible reading, fasting and service are a few, and the Bible is full of expositions on these. Widows and orphans, justice, and evangelism are things that God would like for us to care about (and the Church generally does care).
Many of these expressions are directly translatable (service), some of them are not (Evangelism), and I think the traditional Christian picture omits some important things. My most recent thinking on the spiritual aspect of a thing is: “that part of an experience which remains after subtracting its rational and emotional aspects.” Serving others, going to church, getting married, going to a funeral all have large spiritual components. But so do hiking and stargazing, art museums and drama performances. These experiences have something about them which is sublime. And I’m inclined to call it spiritual. Even if an Atheist doesn’t go to church, I bet he’d be a spiritually healthier person by stargazing. I don’t know of any studies that link these practices to health, but I think that’s because nobody’s ever looked. This category deserves more thinking, but for the moment is broad enough to be accommodating to everyone.
5-7. Private, confidential and public spiritual expression
A Christian ought to expresses her love for Christ, her hopes and fears, her praise and thankfulness, her sorrow and joy, she confesses her guilt and asks for forgiveness. And she has opportunity to do it through prayer (privately), in small group or accountability (confidential), and at the church building (publicly).
These expression of the human heart, mind and soul cannot only be the turf of the Church. I think the Church has worked out a very convenient way to regularly express them, but the need (and opportunity) is universal. A person may quietly reflect on his guilt without asking forgiveness from God; part of the benefit of prayerful confession will be maintained. Mentees can express their hope for the future just as well as disciple-ees. Joy can be expressed at a Dave Matthews Band concert as well as at one by Switchfoot.
What is spiritual health? I’m not sure entirely. But I think the traditional Christian framework, refined by two thousand years of spiritually health people and generalized, is an excellent way to think about spiritual health. I am very interested in further refinements and improvement, but I think even in its early stage, if a person made efforts to improve in these seven areas, he’d be better off. And that goes for Christians and non-Christians alike.
In a first step to help people improve their spiritual health, I have designed a Spiritual Health Self Assessment. It takes about 20-30 minutes and encourages participants to reflect on their spiritual health and includes a section for planning for self-improvement. The next step is to recruit and train Spiritual Healthcare Providers (SPHs). But more about that later.
I would love for you, my reader, to participate and improve your own spiritual health (and give me feedback, so I can better heal the spirit):
http://spreadsheets.google.com/viewform?key=pf7AfX9bzlgKiSUawghjrKA&hl=en
Take it once a week for better health, (future) Doctor’s orders.
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
On the Origin of Life
I recently had a discussion on an article published in Science on the Origin of Life. While it is a little unfortunate, some of you, my readers, won't be able to read the original article unless you're signing on from a university campus. Here is the link if you can use it.
The article is very well written and very persuasive. It describes steps that are being taken in artificially creating life. Its tone is positive and hopeful, believing the breakthrough is just around the corner. The argument goes something like this: "Life as we know it is way to hard to have come about on its own. It must have worked its way up from RNA based life. And RNA is really hard to make, so it must have worked its way up from something else (lets call it 'PNA'). So, therefore, we think we're close to being able to assemble RNA. And we know that RNA can replicate itself spontaneously. And once it can do that, badaboom, we've got life." [Author's note: this is heavily satirized; please read the original article if you can].
All satire aside, I think the case for artificial life is drastically overstated.
Since there's no other acceptable theory (i.e. Theogenesis, Panspermia aren't allowed), we can pretty much speculate wildly and no one can say that it's unreasonable. We just have to be more reasonable than your totally unreasonable competition. RNA life seems likely when you compare it to existing life. And since even RNA can't be easily formed, we can entertain theories of PNA. We invent a new life form (RNA-based life), which we have never observed or have any evidence exists and then because they're so implausible, we invent a new biological molecule (PNA) which we've never observed or have any evidence exists. We've come to inventing two orders of new, unobservable things we just need to have faith in. It strikes me as ironic that this is mostly done out of a motivation to eliminate faith.
There is a computer image of what looks like a double helix assembling inside a membrane. On first glance, it's not artsy; I thought it was some sort of model. I read the caption. "Researchers at Harvard are trying to make simple life forms, shown here in a computer image." "Shown here"? You don't show molecular biology in anything but an artist's conception. But the caption and the art style makes it seem like they're showing the actual work.
There's too much bruhaa and not enough science (I'd like to read the papers they refer to). The author makes it seem like a simple 1,2,3 process, but my guess is that each step requires entirely different conditions, materials and special tinkering to make work. If it were simple, it's have been done by somebody (or discovered) sometime in the last two centuries.
That being said, I don't discourage the research in principle (though I think that curing TB might aid humanity more). I'd like to see people try to make life. And I don't doubt we will be successful at creating an artificial cell, and that in the near future. I am very skeptical of our being able to create an artificial cell under anything like natural circumstances.
The article is very well written and very persuasive. It describes steps that are being taken in artificially creating life. Its tone is positive and hopeful, believing the breakthrough is just around the corner. The argument goes something like this: "Life as we know it is way to hard to have come about on its own. It must have worked its way up from RNA based life. And RNA is really hard to make, so it must have worked its way up from something else (lets call it 'PNA'). So, therefore, we think we're close to being able to assemble RNA. And we know that RNA can replicate itself spontaneously. And once it can do that, badaboom, we've got life." [Author's note: this is heavily satirized; please read the original article if you can].
All satire aside, I think the case for artificial life is drastically overstated.
Since there's no other acceptable theory (i.e. Theogenesis, Panspermia aren't allowed), we can pretty much speculate wildly and no one can say that it's unreasonable. We just have to be more reasonable than your totally unreasonable competition. RNA life seems likely when you compare it to existing life. And since even RNA can't be easily formed, we can entertain theories of PNA. We invent a new life form (RNA-based life), which we have never observed or have any evidence exists and then because they're so implausible, we invent a new biological molecule (PNA) which we've never observed or have any evidence exists. We've come to inventing two orders of new, unobservable things we just need to have faith in. It strikes me as ironic that this is mostly done out of a motivation to eliminate faith.
There is a computer image of what looks like a double helix assembling inside a membrane. On first glance, it's not artsy; I thought it was some sort of model. I read the caption. "Researchers at Harvard are trying to make simple life forms, shown here in a computer image." "Shown here"? You don't show molecular biology in anything but an artist's conception. But the caption and the art style makes it seem like they're showing the actual work.
There's too much bruhaa and not enough science (I'd like to read the papers they refer to). The author makes it seem like a simple 1,2,3 process, but my guess is that each step requires entirely different conditions, materials and special tinkering to make work. If it were simple, it's have been done by somebody (or discovered) sometime in the last two centuries.
That being said, I don't discourage the research in principle (though I think that curing TB might aid humanity more). I'd like to see people try to make life. And I don't doubt we will be successful at creating an artificial cell, and that in the near future. I am very skeptical of our being able to create an artificial cell under anything like natural circumstances.
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