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Response to Athens Dialogues: Science and Ethics
Dear audience
In today’s inspiring talks, topics fundamental to human existence have been debated. Big issues were discussed, indeed: What is life? Or more precisely - what is life in the 21st century?
Will advances in Metagenomics lead us to a completely new understanding of the foundations of ecology and the principles underlying homeostasis of biological systems?
Can stem cell biology indeed enable Experimental Neurology to alter disease course and even to repair injured brain tissue?
How do genes relate to mental traits and can there be a true neuroscience of free will?
Does continous overstimulation of the maturing teenage brain by means of computer games, Internet, New Media, and - still to come - virtual reality technologies give rise to a whole generation of pseudo-autistic , emotionally blunted adults?
(If this is indeed the case, we shall know quite soon - the first generation of digital natives is about to come of age in these years)
In the Athens Dialogues , truly big issues are tackled. To my surprise - mostly with critical distance to the actual explanatory power of the underlying scientific findings and the true technological feasibilities.
To my surprise, because nowadays, many topics fundamental to the condition humaine are typically not discussed in a realistic, rational tone, but within a framework of utopias or dystopias.
And - interestingly enough - they are mostly discussed in neuroscientific terms.
We are living in the age of neuroscience , as it seems. As if the hype - and the hopes - we saw in the fields of genetics and biotechnology some years ago, is now being replaced by an all encompassing neuro-enthusiasm .
Let me explain my perception of neuro-inflation a bit more:
Zack Lynch, Californian Neuro-Lobbyist and author of the book The Neuro Revolution (in 2009) speaks of a “gargantuan historic inevitability”:
“Vast changes are gathering from this new technology (meaning neuro technology), propelling humanity toward a radical reshaping of our lives, families, societies, cultures, governments, economies, art, leisure, religion - absolutely everything that’s pivotal to humankind’s existence. The neuro revolution will create a metamorphosis as complete as the changing of a larval worm into a butterfly”
“Life in the now-emerging neuro-society will be as advanced from current existence as the Renaissance was from Stone Age”
Indeed it seems as if about any aspect of human existence nowadays is explained by use of neurobiological concepts. Since George Bush Senior’s proclamation of the Decade of the Brain in 1990, the neurosciences worked a triumphant success without precedent. Far beyond the boundaries of the natural sciences, explanatory models arising from brain research are currently invading the fields of social sciences and the humanities.
Society is about to be comprehensively “ neuroculturalized ”. A whole new neuro-industry developed over the last decade or so.
There is scarcely a science discipline resistant to the attempts of being modernized by the “neuro“- prefix, leading to the epidemic emergence of novel neuro-disciplines such as neurospirituality, neurotheology, neuroethics, neuroeconomics, neuromarketing, neurofinance, neurolaw, neuropsychoanalysis, neuroeducation, neuroesthetics, neuroanthropology, to name but a few.
Are we not currently about to transform Foucault’s Surveiller et punir into a forensic-psychiatric Screen and Intervene , aiming at finding biological markers predicting criminal behavior and to ultimately provide neuroscientific methods to govern risky brains?
Moreover, contemporary neuroscience tends to treat human beings as isolated cerebral subjects in a social vacuum. This neurosolipsistic approach perceiving the brain as the sole causative factor for human behavior can - and should - be critizised.
This is done so by the now emerging field of Critical Neuroscience . One fundamental issue tackled by Critical Neuroscience is the considerable gap between actual findings in brain research and the representation of these findings - both in scholarly and popular discourses. Critical Neuroscience could serve as a corrective within the neuroscience disciplines empowered to take corrective action against the current outgrowth of neuro-reductionism and the widespread „brain overclaim syndrome“.
According to my role as a respondent, let me stimulate the discussion by bringing up a few theses:
- Inspite of seemingly sophisticated neuroimaging techniques such as fMRI and although repeatedly told otherwise, we are almost as far as we ever were from understanding complex mental phenomena such as conscious experience, empathy, moral decisions or proneness to criminal behavior.
There is no reason to believe that the fundamental explanatory gap between the description of neural correlates of consciousness and the emergence of conscious experience can be overcome in the near future.
(Even to look for specific localizations of higher cognitive functions in the brain seems questionable. The conception of highly complex fluctuating neural networks underlying mental phenomena seems a much more appropriate approach).
- The ongoing biologization and even molecularization of mental diseases primarily helps the pharmaceutical industry, not the patients. It is a categorical misconception and a dangerous reductionism to view mental conditions exclusively as diseases of the brain. Certain types of psychotropic medication (many antidepressants, mood stabilizers, sedatives) do more harm than good to patients and may lead - if administered chronically - to a lasting disablement of patients.
- Over the recent years, promises have been made over and over, that decoding the human genome, “reading the book of life”, would lead to revolutionary new therapies for a broad range of diseases, from cancer to schizophrenia. To date, these promises are not even remotely fulfilled. One may wonder, if now, in times of synthetic biology and the dawning age of postgenomics , we are any closer to fulfill these therapeutic promises.
Everywhere from neuroscience to biology it seems, that things are not getting simpler and more comprehensible, but increasingly, and eventually infinitely complex, the closer we look at them.
- Therefore, wouldn’t it be about time - according to the philosopher and historian of science, Sandra Mitchell - that science leaves the paradigm of descriptive fundamentalism behind? The common idea in science, that there is one privileged, complete description of the world in terms of their fundamental components.
- Biological systems are highly complex systems. And as highly complex systems they should be treated in modern science, too. Life is not simple, and therefore also our explanations of life cannot be simple and reductionist.
I therefore strongly advocate Mitchell’s epistemological approach for a new science, a science that takes complexity into account.
What we need is:
- Pluralism. Not an anything goes pluralism, but a scientific attitude that recognizes pluralist ontologies and methodologies, as well as a multiplicity of models, theoretical approaches and explanations.
and we also need:
- Pragmatism , not absolutism . We need an awareness, that there may be several, equally valuable, ways to achieve an appropriate - although possibly incomplete - description of nature. We will have to deal with different levels of abstractions and different degrees of generalization.
If we really want to go for a pluralistic - and hence realistic - approach in the life sciences, I can only iterate Simon Critchley’s main message from his opening talk: Also among scientists from different disciplines we need a dialogue that goes beyond just listening to each other and - at best - tolerate the other’s view. We must be willing to revise own positions in order to establish a fruitful and truly interdisciplinary research.