Closer To Truth - Science, Meaning, and The Future (Kuhn, 2007)

Closer to Truth:
Science, Meaning, and the

Future
Robert Lawrence Kuhn
PRAEGER
CLOSER TO TRUTH
CLOSER TO TRUTH
Science, Meaning, and the Future

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Kuhn, Robert Lawrence.
Closer to truth : science, meaning, and the future / Robert Lawrence Kuhn.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-275-99389-2 (alk. paper)
1. ResearchPhilosophy. 2. ScientistsPsychology. 3. Critical thinking. 4. Science
History. I. Title.
Q175.3.K84 2007
500dc22 2006038657
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data is available.

Copyright 2007 by Robert Lawrence Kuhn
All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be
reproduced, by any process or technique, without the
express written consent of the publisher.
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 2006038657
ISBN13: 978-0-275-99389-4
ISBN10: 0-275-99389-2
First published in 2007
Praeger Publishers, 88 Post Road West, Westport, CT 06881
An imprint of Greenwood Publishing Group, Inc.
www.praeger.com
Printed in the United States of America
The paper used in this book complies with the

Permanent Paper Standard issued by the National
Information Standards Organization (Z39.481984).
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Table of Contents
Acknowledgments vii
Foreword: No End for Science Exploration ix
Dr. Song Jian
Introduction: What is Closer To Truth? xvii
Chapter 1: Is Science Fiction Science? 1
Chapter 2: Why is Music So Significant? 21
Chapter 3: Is Consciousness an Illusion? 33
Chapter 4: How Does the Autistic Brain Work? 47
Chapter 5: Does Psychiatry Have a Split Personality? 65
Chapter 6: Who Gets to Validate Alternative Medicine? 77
Chapter 7: Microbes Friend or Foe? 91
Chapter 8: Testing New Drugs Are People Guinea Pigs? 107
Chapter 9: How Does Order Arise in the Universe? 123
Chapter 10: How Weird is the Cosmos? 137
Chapter 11: Is the Universe Full of Life? 155
Chapter 12: Will Computers Take a Quantum Leap? 169
Chapter 13: How Does Basic Science Support National Security? 185
Chapter 14: Can Religion Withstand Technology? 201
Chapter 15: Can We Believe in Both Science and Religion? 217
Why Ultimate Reality Works for Us: Toward a Taxonomy of 235
Possible Explanations
vi Closer To Truth: Science, Meaning, and the Future
Glossary of Key Terms 259

About the Author and Contributors 279
Index 299

Acknowledgments
Closer To Truth, based on the pubic television/PBS television series of the

same name, brings together leading scientists, scholars, artists, and thinkers
to explore fundamental issues of life, sentience, universe, and meaning. We
seek to make state-of-the-art ideas in science, philosophy, and human under-
standing accessible, intriguing, and absorbing to intelligent audiences.
There are many people to thank for supporting my lifelong process of
imagining, creating, planning, producing, writing, editing, thinking about,
talking about, wondering about, and worrying about Closer To Truth
the ideas, the television series, and the book. They are my friends, family,
mentors, and associates. I particularly acknowledge Mel Rogers, president
of KOCE-TV, the PBS station in Huntington Beach (Orange County), Cali-
fornia, for taking a chance on the series and for helping with the name; Jack
Martin, for offering the encouragement and providing the platform to pro-
duce the pilot; and Dr. Shigehisa Okawara, for being my first mentor when
he encouraged a 16-year-old college freshman to work in his neurosurgical
laboratory.
I am pleased to recognize those who worked on the Closer To Truth tele-
vision series on which this book is based: Linda Fefferman, for directing and
producing the specific shows; Bruce Murray, professor emeritus of planetary
science and geology at Caltech, for his ideas and advice; Sharon (Bunny)
Taveras for distributing and marketing the television series; and Pamela
McFadden, for her competence and commitment in all manner of assistance.
I thank my wife Dora and now-grown children Aaron, Adam, and Dan-
iella for their long-standing support, and my parents, Lee and Louis Kuhn,
for appreciating (if not always understanding) my sometimes unorthodox
activities. In an interesting turn of events, this book was published in China
prior to its being published in English, and for this I thank my business part-
ner (and friend) in China, Adam Zhu.
Closer To Truth, its ideas and energy, are the product of a passion to com-
prehend in a lifetime of wonder. I do not deny a continuing search for mean-
ing or purpose while I do affirm that a personal predisposition to challenge
current belief demands high standards of analytical rigor and critical think-
ing. This is the mission of Closer To Truth, which, when it works, may help
explore the human condition and spotlight, if not decipher, ultimate issues.

Foreword
No End for Science Exploration
Since the Renaissance human beings have gradually shaken off the mentally
constricting shackles of irrational ideas and have walked up the rational
road of the experimental sciences. In the subsequent 400 years, humans
drove the advancement of modern science and technology, thus enhancing
their abilities to understand and deal with nature, and penetrated the pro-
found depths of the physical world. Francis Bacons motto Knowledge is
power has become common wisdom. Before the twentieth century, motiva-
tions for scientific study were often personal curiosities, but much has
changed in the past 100 years.
Since science has become the fundamental driving force for the prosperity
of nations, the growth of economies, and the welfare of peoples, each
government sets up scientific research systems, guides the cause of research
endeavors, implements Big Science projects, conducts scientific education,
and encourages applications. All these undertakings have generated rapid
advances in science and technology, and thereby enabled human society to
stride forward into the era of a knowledge-based, high-tech economy in
which everyone can enjoy the fruits.
The emergence of modern human thinking took place no more than
10,000 years ago, a mere instant of time compared with the three billion
years of life on earth. Furthermore, only 400 years have elapsed since
modern science first appeared. Humans are still young in their quest for
knowledge about Mother Nature. It is as if modern science and technology
were born just last night.
However much knowledge we seem to have accumulated, our under-
standing about nature is still limited. Pluto, formerly one of the nine planets
of our solar system, has only made one and half orbits around the Sun since
x Foreword: No End for Scientific Exploration
Copernicus published On the Revolution of the Heavenly Orbs (1543).

The first mammals, the remote ancestors of human beings, appeared less
than 200 million years ago, a duration not even sufficiently long for the
Sun to complete a single rotation around the center of Milky Way.
Some scientific theories, classical or modern, are often recognized to be at
best stunning improvisation. For example, the Big Bang Theory, the stan-
dard model of the origin of the universe as we know it today, a theory that
is consistent with most laws of physics and astronomic observations, is still
unable to explain the origin of the singularity from which the Big Bang
sprung forth. Many scientists are not convinced that such a singular point
could be the origin of the entire mass-energy of the universe. Some physicists
claim there was nothing at all before the origin, and would, in their joking
manner, consign to Hell those who asked such stupid questions.
Commencing in the latter part of the twentieth century, space technology
offered the opportunity for human observation of the universe from outside
the earth. Before then, all we knew about nature was gleaned from the sur-
face of the earth. Manned and unmanned space observations have confirmed
that, as far as we can see, most of the physical laws are as effective elsewhere
in the universe as they are here on earth. But these observations have also
challenged some old science paradigms. To my recollection, 50 years ago
few people believed that life could exist in extrasolar systems. Although
there still is no evidence for extraterrestrial life, mainstream science now rec-
ognizes the value of the new discipline of astrobiology.
The sun is only one among 100 billion stars in our own Milky Way galaxy.
The earth, too, does not seem so special, nothing more than a fortunate planet.
In spite of how magnificent modern science and technology seem, and how
grand our science mansion looks, the underlying foundation of virtually all
we know comes from living on the surface of the earth. We are bound by earth
and solar system, and even reaching the nearest exostar, Proxima Centauri (as
we call it), seems virtually impossible. To realize the long dream of mankind to
travel into extrasolar space we need new ideas, concepts, theories, technolo-
gies, and mechanisms far beyond current frameworks. Nothing short of a rev-
olution similar to what quantum mechanics did to Newtonian mechanics
would be necessary to make such vast journeys possible.
There is much evidence in palaeoanthropology that our human ancestors
diverged from Hylobatidae and Pongidae, the fellow families of Hominoi-
dea, many millions of years ago. As Homo sapiens became the first species
capable of rational thinking, we are appreciative and justifiably proud of this
remarkable increase in mind power. However, we should not be overly arro-
gant, because we can never disconnect ourselves from our humble biological
origins; most of our behaviors and activities have seldom broken free from
the instinctive, competitive rules of the animal kingdom. Even after two cen-
turies of arduous campaigning for democracy around the world, there is lit-
tle change in the Law of the Jungle.
Foreword: No End for Scientific Exploration xi
In the history of science, we often observe the same strictures and rigidities
appearing in diverse forms. For millennia human beings considered them-
selves to be the core and center of all purpose and principle. Before Coperni-
cus even the most enlightened thinkers assumed without question that our
sun and all other stars had to circle around the earth, and that the existence
of all living things were here solely for the benefit of Adams and Eves off-
spring. The masses had to submit to the Son of Heaven, just as monkeys
have to obey their king.
An elegant postulate in science is called the anthropic principle, which
means that all scientific laws and processes of Nature, the entire flow of uni-
versal history, must somehow exist to favor (or at least be compatible with)
the emergence and sustained existence of human beings. Yet human history
itself is rife with the absence of such harmony. We witness daily the gross
violations of ethics and morality. Science itself has a long history of being
resisted or attacked by politics, religion, and common customs. Bruno was
burned; Galileo was persecuted for much of his long life; Martin Luther
was assassinated; and Ma Yinchu was animadverted1. Does all this, too,
come from the anthropic principle?
Fortunately, from the beginning of the twentieth century, general condi-
tions for intellectuals, at least for scientists, began changing for the better.
Physicists who discerned the mechanism of nuclear fusion and predicted
the inevitable death of all stars, including our Sun, went free of punishment
and won Nobel Prizes even though they were, in essence, the ultimate doom-
sayers. Their theoretical calculations proved that all life on earth including
human beings will become unavoidably extinct along with the death of our
Sun some billions of years from now, if we Homo sapiens are not able to find
innovative solutions to change our destined fate.
Such annihilative forecasts, of course, are terribly discordant with man-
kinds long-range, fundamental interest. The fact that such a certain cata-
clysm could be accepted calmly by society would suggest that in some
sense the impact of the anthropic principle is weakening. If human beings
can evolve up into a higher state of being, perhaps we could penetrate deeper
into the still-dark mysteries of scientific truth. However, human beings,
dubbed Naked Apes by some anthropologists, are still biological members
of the animal kingdom. Hence it would take a great period of time to divest
ourselves of inherited habits. Or rather, we can never break away from our
animal natures.
Throughout the entire history of mankind, a traditional culture of hierar-
chies dominated societies: young follow elders; son obeys father; populace
submits to emperor; all yield to Heaven. Notwithstanding the magnificent
social and psychological benefits of such hierarchies for maintaining order
and stability, the rigidity of such structures work to suppress the talent of
those few human beings who, for the sake of breakthrough scientific inquiry,
are able to challenge current belief and change the status quo. Scientific
xii Foreword: No End for Scientific Exploration
development, with its need for creativity, innovation, and for defying the
accepted order, is often disadvantaged if children must always submit to
their parents, if students must always believe what their teachers impart.
When textbooks are sacrosanct, when sermons are as if from God, when
authority is absolute, when it is forbidden to modify existing scientific theo-
ries or to buck authority, reject parts of standard answers, and find new sol-
utions, true science can only be constrained. All these archaic ways of
thinking, though they have their social graces, are incompatible with the
modern scientific spirit.
The one and only correct way to develop frontier and beyond-the-frontier
science and technology is to encourage young people to contribute new ideas
without fear or favor, to experiment over and over and again and again, to
observe from diverse points, to try to discover new phenomena, to put for-
ward hypotheses no matter how strange, and to devise new theories no mat-
ter how different, odd, or unaccustomed.
All of our current scientific knowledge, theories, and laws, whatever we
have believed and believe with good reason, must be deemed to be correct
only relatively and conditionally. We should always be prepared for change.
And we should never forget that our view and observations are largely
gained from the surface of one planet. Such a perspective, no matter how
impressed we are with what our contemporary science has achieved, is far
too narrow, and our scientific experiences, measured in scant thousands of
years, are far too brief. We know little about the deep ocean, the inner earth,
the Kuiper Belt and Oort Cloud, the Milky Way Galaxy, and the multiple
billions of galaxies breathtakingly far away in space and time.
It is not exceedingly rare that there may be different hypotheses to account
for the same phenomena of nature, and it is only by repeated experiments
and continued theoretical substantiation that one hypothesis will come to
be favored over the others. For example, between the end of the nineteenth
century and the first half of the twentieth, there emerged three kinds of
atomic models, each derived from a different perspective (with different
extrapolations), that seemed to account for the atomic nucleus: liquid-drop
model, shell model, and collective model, each one overlapping, interacting
with, and complementing the other two. We continue to use each of these
models today. However, even if our current understanding of scientific theo-
ries, models, or laws seem perfect, they still may not ultimately hold up
intact, because in many areas of human understanding the ultimate truth
remains far, perhaps forever far, in the distance. All we humans should
expect is to move closer to truth, asymptotically closer and closer to our
goal of ultimate knowledge, though never knowing for sure if we will ever
arrive at the final destination of absolute, last Truth.
The age of the earth is proven to be 4.6 billion years, and if we are fortu-
nate enough to escape devastation by impacting asteroids, human beings
and our science could last another few billion years before our sun grows
Foreword: No End for Scientific Exploration xiii
old and begins to expand to swallow the earth in its fiery gases. Yet before
that day of our inevitable obliteration, science and technology should be
able to find ways for human beings to move to other oases in our vast uni-
verse, other habitable planets in our galaxy, so that the torch of human intel-
ligence will continue to shine. Although science is unable to forecast
accurately so far into the future, it is obliged to identify likely roads and sug-
gest reliable directions.
Passion for science has become good fashion in almost all human cultures,
and it is a particular virtue of oriental culture to respect and esteem forefa-
ther scientists. However, science belongs not to any one generation but to
all human history. Individual human lifetimes are short and new generations
will continue to rise and fall. This is the order of nature: as years pass, the
young replace the old. Elder scientists, versed with vast knowledge in their
fields, should not be too strict with younger scientists. It is an admirable vir-
tue that elders care for their progeny; as the old saying goes, life is short,
but caring is long. But such care must include the tolerance and respect
for deeper annotation and interpretation about conventional wisdom,
common understanding, and assumed truth. History has taught us repeat-
edly that what elders believe is not always correct, and what elders deny is
not always wrong. For the long-term interest of human civilization, it is
good for elders to create wider spaces for young scientists to explore, and,
if they can, to also keep their own minds open.
The history of science also indicates that when a major scientific break-
through occurs, people tend to regard it as an Ultimate Truth. During the
twentieth century, quantum mechanics and particle physics made such
remarkable advances so that by the 1980s some declared that science had
ended and that Ultimate Truthwhich could explain anything, a Theory
of Everythingwas within our grasp. However, in less than 20 years, new
mysteries emerged. Evidences of accelerating cosmic expansion, long
believed to be impossible due to the inevitable and dominating power of
gravity, were found by the satellite observations of COBE (Cosmic Back-
ground Explorer, 1989) and WAMP (Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy
Probe, 2001). In 1998, leading cosmologists and astronomers declared that
there was some kind of dark energy existent throughout the universe, a
kind of hidden power source which propels all matter in the universe to
expand against the inward pull of gravitational attraction, and that such
dark energy would have to account for an astounding 73 percent of the total
mass-energy of the universe.
Physicists suddenly had no choice other than to realize that something
heretofore no one knew existed now constitutes most of everything that
exists. Moreover, the observational data indicated that only about four per-
cent of all the energy-matter in the universe is ordinary matter, so that the
remaining 23 percent of matter must be dark. It is a dark matter that
reveals its presence by gravity, such as in the higher rotational speeds of stars
xiv Foreword: No End for Scientific Exploration
in galaxies, but it cannot be seen at all. Up to now, our best science cannot
describe what dark energy and dark matter really are nor explain how they
are generated. No wonder this latest astounding discovery silenced those
advocates who were announcing the end of science.
Modern science in China started in the twentieth century, 200 years later
than it did in Europe, and in recent decades has begun to flourish. It took
China a whole century to make up for its somnolence and end its long hiatus
from the frontiers of contemporary science. Most science and technology
China learned from the West. Yet at the beginning of the twenty-first cen-
tury it has become apparent that Chinas science cannot follow the old para-
digm of simply continuing to be a follower of the West. They must create a
new paradigm so that not only does China come to rely on its indigenous
intellectual strengths but also make original contributions to enrich all
humanity and thereby benefit the entire world.
Scientists commonly accept the proposition that students may and must
be as good as their teachers, standing on their shoulders, as it were, to reach
higher into the knowledge firmament. Young generations must be encour-
aged to be innovative, creative, and imaginative in all sectors of society,
especially in science and technology.
I am pleased that my friend, Dr. Robert Lawrence Kuhn, decided to pub-
lish Closer To Truth: Science, Meaning, and the Future, which brings
together leading scientists, scholars, and artists to debate the fundamental
issues of our times, including brain and mind, creativity and thinking, life
and health, technology and society, and universe and meaning. The book
aims at encouraging young people to create, innovate, and contribute to sci-
entific progress for all humankind.
Dr. Kuhn and I often speak on the importance of science and the scientific
way of thinking as crucial for the peace and prosperity of all countries and of
all humankind. Entrusted by Dr. Kuhn, I am pleased to write this foreword.
These are subjects I am thinking about these days, and it seemed to be a good
opportunity, in the context of his book on the meaning and implications of
frontier science, to communicate with fellow readers with similar interests.
My hope is that such thinking might help catalyze a more flexible and inno-
vative academic environment in China and throughout the world, and thus
inspire greater progress in science and technology during the twenty-first
century. Such is the origin of the above narration.
Dr. Song Jian

Chairman, Beijing Institute for Frontier Science
Past Chairman, State Science and Technology Commission
Past Chairman, Chinese Academy of Engineering
Beijing, Peoples Republic of China
March 2006
Foreword: No End for Scientific Exploration xv
Note
1. Ma Yinchu (1882-1982) , the president of Beijing University (who had earned
a masters degree in economics from Yale and a Ph.D. from Columbia), opposed
the assertions that unchecked population growth was no longer a problem under
socialism.

Introduction
What is Closer To Truth?
Closer To Truth: Science, Meaning, and the Future is a unique series of dis-
cussions about fundamental issues that explores the latest scientific research,
philosophical thinking, and expressions of human creativity. Critical to the
process, Closer To Truth tests conventional wisdom, seeks truth wherever
it may change, sees the humor as well as the import of tradition-breaking
ideas, and discerns what it means to be human in the twenty-first century
with our continuing search for collective purpose and individual meaning.
We confront the mysteries of mind, matter, and meaning, bringing
together prominent thinkers to discuss what is happening at the leading edge
of science and its broad implications for human understanding. Some of the
worlds most esteemed experts, including Nobel laureates, best-selling
authors, and renowned scholars, engage in a series of spontaneous and inti-
mate conversations that combine leading-edge science and informed intu-
ition. Closer To Truth is an inside opportunity to witness how the pioneers
in humanitys quest for knowledge chart their expeditions into the
unknown, journeys that are marked by a rigorous pursuit of truth, a readi-
ness to challenge current belief, a willingness to overturn dogma, an open-
minded exploration of inferences and implications, and a tough-minded reli-
ance on critical thinking.
I seek multi-faceted perspectives on some of the most exciting and contro-
versial big issues of our time. Areas of inquiry are brain and mind, cosmos
and astrobiology, biology and medicine, science and religion, and science
and our world.
What organizing theme brings together such topics? My own personal,
perhaps idiosyncratic take on the human condition. Whenever and wherever
xviii Introduction: What is Closer To Truth?
new knowledge challenges accepted principles, I find topics. I sometimes use

three C words to mark Closer To Truthconsciousness, cosmology, cre-
ativity. My bet is that what I like, you like.
The contributors to this bookparticipants in the Closer To Truth public
television seriesare among the leaders in their fields; these informal, unre-
hearsed discussions, derived from the shows transcripts, give a good sense
of state-of-the-art thinking at our intellectual frontiers. We cant talk about
sciences role in our lives without including its effect on morality, philoso-
phy, religion, and human ingenuity. This is why religious scholars, philoso-
phers, and science fiction authors as well as psychologists, molecular
biologists, and astronomers participate in the dialogues.
Closer To Truth is feel and flavor more than fact and logic, experience and
emotion more than reason and analysis. Its not the Truth, not even Closest
to Truth. Its more process than conclusion; the discussions reflect educated
opinion but no certainty, no smugness. There is a welcome measure of ambi-
guity, complexity, and even occasional confusion.
Topics do not develop linearly; arguments do not flow smoothly. The
books our contributors have written are linear and smooth, but these con-
versations are not. The dialogues in Closer To Truth complement our partic-
ipants more canonical works, which I commend to you for further reading.
In each chapter, we follow two to four experts from diverse fields or per-
spectives as they engage one another in the competitive marketplace of ideas.
The transcripts are presented essentially raw, except for verbal clean-ups, to
preserve the head-to-head spontaneity and the tang of the original discourse.
It is fascinating how the group dynamics move these leading thinkers to
express themselves in ways dissimilar from their carefully polished writings,
revealing strong passions and subtle nuances not commonly heard. What
emerges is personality; its fun to meet the people who are challenging truth,
changing truth, making truthto watch them navigating with less control
than they normally have when they speak in symposia or craft their elegant
books.
My role as host of the Closer To Truth television programs was broad-
brushpicking the topics, selecting the guests, moving the talk along. My
introductions and conclusions to each of the chapters in the Closer To Truth
book are more personal mini-essays than analytical outlines; they position
or summarize the topic and reflect my particular, perhaps peculiar, orienta-
tion. I have fun, and so do the participants, taking the topics seriously but
(we hope) not ourselves.
Closer To Truth is work in progress, with no artificial deadline. Forget
canned surety or cosmetic harmony. Though the book proceeds linearly,
the reader need not. Enter and exit at any point. Select by personal interest,
not numerical order. Each chapter stands more or less on its own, presenting
the take of its diverse contributors. Comments do not fit together neatly as if
pieces in a puzzle. Closer To Truth may mean pieces too few or pieces too
Introduction: What is Closer To Truth? xix
many; chapters are not manicured or neat, but reflect the real-time thinking
of real-world thinkers. Look for greater dimension and deeper grain; see
subjects from various viewpoints; watch for twists and curves.
A primary characteristic of the modern world is science and technology.
Knowledge-related changes have a profound effect on our daily lives and
on how we perceive ourselves as individuals. Understanding state-of-the-
art science can help us to make more informed decisions about the choices
the world presents to us.
The biggest challenge facing scientists, scholars and artists today is to get
the public to come to new knowledge with an open mind, to acknowledge
that many of the advances brought about by scientific research have changed
our lives beyond imagination and ultimately, if we are wise, for the better.
We invite readers to visit our two websiteswww.pbs.org/closertotruth
and www.closertotruth.comwhere we provide further resources for
exploring these topics, including personal information from our guest
experts. We also recommend www.scitechdaily.com, a daily resource for
intelligent, informed science and technology coverage and analysis.
I hope Closer To Truth encourages readers to become more informed and
more passionate about the fundamental issues of human existence. Closer
To Truth seeks to become the resource of record for the meaning and impli-
cations of scientific discovery and for critical thinking about who we are,
why we are here, and where we are going. Closer To Truth will return.1

Pasadena, California
New York, New York
October 27, 2006
Note
1. As we go to press, we have begun production of our new season of Closer To
Truth, which will focus on cosmology and fundamental physics, the philosophy of
cosmology, the philosophy of religion, and philosophical theology.

Chapter 1
Is Science Fiction Science?
Is science fiction scientific? How about diseases from distant galaxies; worm-
holes in space; fractures and travels in time; black holes with bad attitudes;
weird life forms of every variety; telepaths creating superhumans; minds
uploaded into silicon chips; souls downloaded from disposable slaves; car-
bon copies of yourself to expand your experiences in multiple lives; and
baby universes created on desktops? Those are some of the ideas conjured
up by our expert participants and their science fiction colleagues.
But science fiction can be conceived as an artistic look at human history,
society, and even human nature. In this chapter, three distinguished authors
of popular science fiction spar over exactly how science fiction is constrained
by known science and then question the value of science fiction. The authors
describe the way in which science fiction can inspire scientific research and at
the same time serve as a warning against our potential misuse of the awe-
some power of science (citing the novels Soylent Green and On the Beach).
They also good-naturedly point out its limitationse.g., no science fiction
author predicted the personal computerand wonder why its appeal is not
as strong in some countries as in others.
Scenario forecasting has been a military tool for thousands of years but
only in science fiction is the limit the writers imagination. Can science fic-
tion predict the future? Or prevent it? Writer/physicist David Brin argues
that George Orwell prevented the 1984 scenario by making people aware
of it. But best-selling author Michael Crichton questions why the omnipres-
ence of cameras in society in anyones hands is a good thing? MacArthur
Fellow Octavia Butler thinks we have more pressing things to worry about:
Global warming, for one.
2 Closer To Truth: Science, Meaning, and the Future
Although the history of science fiction writing has always reflected the sci-
ence of the times, it is perhaps most telling that although the times and
worlds change, the behavior of peopleand aliensacross each fictional
society has remained constant. This chapter is a virtual salon with celebrated
inventors of alternative futures.
Expert Participants
David Brin
Author, Kiln People, The Postman, Earth; Ph.D. Space Science
Octavia Butler
Author, Survivor, Parable of the Sower, Parable of the Talents (Nebula
Award); MacArthur Fellow
Michael Crichton
Author, Jurassic Park, The Lost World, Sphere, The Andromeda Strain;
creator, ER Television series; medical doctor.

Robert Kuhn: How is science fiction constrained by known science?
Michael Crichton: Its fiction; its not constrained.
Robert Kuhn: Should it be?
Michael Crichton: No, I dont think so. Science fiction should make sense;
it should be internally consistent; it should relate to contemporary reality in
some fashion thats recognizablethese are more important than whether
or not every bit of the physics really works right. Im very troubled if some-
thing really cant possibly occur. I dont mind if theres theoretical running
room, but if its very clear that something really cant happen, can never
happen, and is never going to happen, then thats a problem for me. In gen-
eral, I try and avoid that.
Octavia Butler: If there are no constraints, I think its fantasy, not science
fiction.
Robert Kuhn: How would you differentiate science fiction from fantasy? It
seems that science fiction describes how the world or the universe might look
one day, for better or worse, and technology, real or fanciful, plays an
important part. Fantasy, on the other hand, takes place in an alternative
world, often in an era that has similarities to the Middle Ages where magic
is often an important ingredient and technology is seldom very much
developed.
Is Science Fiction Science? 3
Octavia Butler: I think the only requirement for fantasy is that it be inter-
nally consistent. As for science fiction, if youre going to use science, you
should make some effort to use it intelligently, not necessarily correctly,
but intelligently. This means that if you want to do something odd, you are
at least aware of it and justifying it.
Robert Kuhn: Take mental telepathy, mind reading. Most scientists would
say it doesnt exist, cant exist. How do you deal with that?
Octavia Butler I had a series of books in which people were communicat-
ing telepathically. I didnt care whether it was real or not, possible or not.
What I was looking at was how that kind of communication, how a deeper
form of communication, would affect people and their relationships. They
get involved in war because they understand each other far too well. So, with
me, I wasnt using telepathy as science; I was simply using it as a tool to take
a fresh look at the human condition.
Robert Kuhn: Do you ever feel the compulsion to push science, to prod sci-
ence or to predict science?
David Brin: Sure, all of the above. Maybe I feel a little bit more liberated
because I write hardcore science fiction, about physics and stuff like that
some of the time, so I feel at liberty to press the envelope in any direction I
choose. Even if my science is implausible, even if its impossible. But I feel
a compact with the reader to make it clear which kind of science fiction
Im presenting. If were taking a vacation from reality in this short story, I
try to make it obvious. If in one novel Im going to try to play with scientific
reality, what I write will fit within the plausible range of human science. Of
all science fiction authors, only a small minority was trained scientifically,
but almost all science fiction authors have enjoyed reading history while
growing up. And so, perhaps an alternative name for science fiction should
be speculative history (including future histories) because we deal with
different pasts, alternative presents, and extensions of the human drama into
the future.
Octavia Butler: I have a problem with alternative histories. So many of
them seem to figure out how to lead us to where we are now, in one way
or another, instead of going anyplace else. Maybe different people are in
charge, but the same basic things are happening I have an ambition to write
an alternative history in which things truly do turn out as they havent.
Robert Kuhn: Can science fiction, though, enable us to deal with alterna-
tive futures in a rational way? Jurassic Park in a sense is an alternative
future, something that may happen. Is this a vehicle for dealing with alterna-
tive futures?
Michael Crichton: Theres no question that the kinds of things that were
doing, broadly speaking, are alternative scenarios and that the value of alter-
native scenarios is to explore futures in a way thats safe and to say some-
thing about what they might mean.
Robert Kuhn: When you say safe, you mean in a fictional world.
David Brin: Einstein used the word gedanken experiment, thought experi-
ment, a term he coined. He said that just sitting on a streetcar in Bern, leav-
ing the clock tower and imagining he was riding on a beam of light, was
50% of the creative work that led to his Theory of Relativity. And we all
do these kinds of thought experiments with these little nubs of brain above
our eyes called the prefrontal lobes, which the Bible refers to as lamps on
the brow, to look into the future, to do these kinds of thought experiments.
We imagine, What might happen if. . .? But, our failures are obvious: no
science fiction author predicted the home computer. Murray Leinster and
John Brunner came close, but backed away at the last moment because each
thought, computers in the home, it seems logical, its heading that way, but
people will laugh at me.
Octavia Butler: Or, what possibly could we do with computers in the
home?
Robert Kuhn: Jurassic Park is great entertainment, but is it more?
Youre probably the wrong person to ask, but Ill ask anyway.
Michael Crichton: Ill give you an anecdote. The book came out, and I was
at a resort in Hawai with a lot of physicians from my old alma mater. One of
these guys, who was also a bioengineer, read it, slapped it down and said, It
can be done! And I thought, this is exactly the opposite of what Im trying
to accomplish here.
Robert Kuhn: What was your motivation for writing the book?
Michael Crichton: At that time, I was concerned about two things, which
remain concerns: the first is that, in my lifetime, one of the biggest changes
that has occurred in science is that it has become commercialized. When I
was a student, the majority of scientists worked in academic settings or they
worked in places where research was freely available unless you were in a
classified, military situation. Now, more and more thats not the case, more
and more science is private, more and more of it is secret for financial rea-
sons, and more and more of it is rushed. The problem with biotechnology
in particular is, unlike nuclear technology, you dont need a tremendous
amount of money, you dont need an Oak Ridge Processing Plant, you can
get a little kit and start doing it yourself.
Robert Kuhn: So Jurassic Park is a warning?
Michael Crichton: Yes. A warning about incautious research.

Octavia Butler: Do you think you seduced a lot of young people into think-
ing about paleontology?
Michael Crichton: I think its great if kids become interested in science as a
result.
Robert Kuhn: So science fiction writers are stimulating more scientists who
can work for more of those secret companies to do more of these dangerous
biotechnology things.
David Brin: If you take my sunny attitude, my sunny interpretation is that
the more educated and enthusiastic a public we have, then the harder it is
going to be for a small conspiracy to keep things secret.
Octavia Butler: I dont think that a conspiracy is the real problem. There is
a serious problem with people knowing, for instance, what is science? Crea-
tionism in the science classroom, that kind of thing.
Michael Crichton: Most people dont have any idea about what consti-
tutes scientific information. 15 years ago, many people I know (particularly
from San Francisco) were having experts walk around their house with these
little meters to check the electromagnetic fields because of the health hazard
[of radon]. Today, those people are now buying, at great expense, magnet
devices that they stick in their back and on their arms because they now
think that these provide a health benefit. So, in 15 years weve gone from a
health hazard to a health benefit.
Robert Kuhn: Jurassic Park probably taught more people about DNA than
most colleges. Is that a way science fiction can influence society?
Michael Crichton: There has been much criticism that Jurassic Park is
anti-science. The reason is that it took a critical posture to a new technology.
At one point, a congressman was going to introduce legislation to ban
dinosaur-creating research. I wish it had come to the floor, but someone
apparently whispered in his ear that this was not likely to happen.
Octavia Butler: People tend to believe the movies because they see it. I
remember having an argument with somebody who was insisting that a tor-
nado was the greatest storm the world could ever know, and there was noth-
ing I could say that would convince her otherwise.
David Brin: Lets beware of our anecdotes, because if theres anything that
we need to watch out for as writers, it is clichesand the biggest cliche in
our civilization is that everybody else is stupid. I dont know anybody who
calls himself a member of the masses.
Octavia Butler: Not that everybody else is stupid, but that its terribly easy
to fool people. Weve all been fooled.
Daivd Brin: As authors, there are some very serious issues we have to think
about. Our job is to keep a character, or several characters (with whom the
reader or the viewer identifies closely) in peril or in jeopardy for 90 minutes
of film or 400 pages of a book. The easiest way to do that is to simply posit
that theyre not members of a civilization filled with skilled professionals
who will help them if theyre in trouble. Or to have a really plausible excuse
for why your heroes must remain in jeopardy. This is one of the things I liked
in Jurassic Park in that the characters were very isolated, they had taken pre-
cautions, but somebody had deliberately destroyed the precautions. So you
have the ridiculous situation of people running away from dinosaurs who
should be properly penned up, really having been fairly well explicated
how you can have 90 heart-thumping minutes, even though help should be
on the way; well, it is on the way, but its going to arrive too late.
Robert Kuhn: Do you desire to use future fiction to deal with the lack of
scientific knowledge in society?
Michael Crichton: I dont know in what way we can help people to under-
stand, when they see a number, how that number is arrived at, unless youve
been doing some experiments yourself.
David Brin: My wife is a science teacher and she finds it appalling that so
much of the testing going on focuses on memorization. The latest big fad is
attempting to emulate what foreign kids do to enable them to test well on
standardized exams. So we are stressing memorization, when the font of
our success, the reason why 90 out of the 100 best universities on the planet
are in the United States, is not our memorization of past facts but our crea-
tivity and innovation to pioneer new thinking. But thats not what our kids
are now being taught. This emphasis on memorizing facts from lists, from
worksheets, undermines the entire basis of science. Where my wife enjoys
her best teaching is in conducting experiments and getting her students to
draw conclusions and then criticize each others conclusions and come up
with new experiments to settle the matter between them.
Robert Kuhn: Are there issues in the world that you would like to see
handled in a science fiction kind of model?
David Brin: I think the most powerful science fiction stories are not those
that accurately predict the future, but, rather, those that have prevented
futures, the self-preventing prophecy that came across so chilling, and so
many people read it and were so moved, that the very scenario that might
have plausibly happened didnt happen. The best two examples that really
prevented the terrible futures they described are 1984 by George Orwell
and Das Kapital by Karl Marx, who was probably the greatest science
fiction author who ever lived. Both books utterly and thankfully prevented
the scenario that they described.
Michael Crichton: I actually think that 1984 came to pass. Orwell was
writing about a totalitarian state, but even though that part isnt the case,
the notion that you might live in a society that rather rigorously limits your
available behavior, and that watches you to make sure that you do what is
desired, is the case. I think we are increasingly seeing behavioral control,
but its not Big Brother doing it to us, were doing it to ourselves.
David Brin: But thats a major distinction. We are not falling into Orwells
failure mode of allowing the cameras to just look one way in a pyramidal
social structure, which is what he feared, the ancient elites lording it over
those languishing below. My point is that weve gotten our freedom from
elites. Instead, most of the cameras are now in the hands of private people.
Governments can install cameras but private people will have many more
of them.
Michael Crichton: Why is that a good thing?
David Brin: What were talking about is evading Orwells failure mode of
the elites staring at us and us not staring back.
Michael Crichton: The notion that every single thing we do is recorded,
that every purchase, even every mouse click, can be tracked in every way,
that there is no part of our lives where we can truly be alone and where we
can say that what we are doing is not available for observationexcept
maybe going to the bathroom and thats soon to change (how about intelli-
gent toilets that test your excreted fluids and solids). I think the notion that
were all on camera now is going to cause a subtle shift in our natural behav-
iors. If we were having a conversation before the camera started, we experi-
ence some subtle but genuine difference now that the cameras are rolling.
Im on the air, Im being broadcast, and Im not being my normal self. Im
concerned that there isnt going to be any part of my life where I can be my
normal self.
Robert Kuhn: Isnt science fiction a vehicle for sharpening our perspective
of contemporary problems, the technique being to move those problems to
a radically different environment so that by stripping away the trappings of
normal society, those problems become dissected out and exposed in all
their purity?
David Brin: One hopes that this is so, but the problem is this: Orwell
warned us about the State looking at us without us looking back at the State,
so were working on a society that might prevent such a situation. Where is
science fictions warning about the kind of society Michael was just describ-
ing, a society in which everybody has the camerasall right, so now were
free from spying elites, but we all spy on one another incessantly and nobody
has any privacy.
Michael Crichton: Let me tell you a story. A friend of mines husband
works in the State Department and since he was about to retire they wanted
to have a farewell party for this person. So this friend of mine, she cooks the
dinner herself, she has her son serve it, and she has her sons school friend
also serve it, because she knows that if she brings in an outside person, a
catering person, that no one at the table will talk. And I said to her, This
is a travesty: how is this different from living in the old Soviet Union?
David Brin: In all of history, no government ever knew as much about its
people, as does ours. And in all of history, I contend, no people have ever
been quite as free as ours. And both are still true after 9/11.
Michael Crichton: Im not sure of this at all.
David Brin: We can argue about this, but you find me the historical
counter-examples.
Michael Crichton: Just to start, I can give you an easy one. When Bork was
nominated for the Supreme Court and it appeared that it was going to be dif-
ficult to knock him down on intellectual content alone, one of the mecha-
nisms that was suggested was that they might introduce his videotape
rentals.
David Brin: And theres a law that resulted from that.
Michael Crichton: But, the fact is its recorded!
Octavia Butler: I have a feeling that some of the things that were doing
environmentally, for instance, are going to hurt us a lot worse than the fact
that weve got cameras trained on each other.
Robert Kuhn: Have you dealt with that in your fiction?
Octavia Butler: Yes, particularly global warming. In my books Parable of
the Sower and Parable of the Talents global warming is a character. Its
there doing things while people are trying to live their lives. And its not a
very popular notion. Global warming is something that people can still for-
get about, ignore, and, no matter how many novels come out, its just not
that important to most people right now.
Robert Kuhn: David, in your latest book, Kiln People, do you look beyond
pure entertainment? Do you see an alternative future? Do you seek to push
science?
David Brin: Kiln People is one of my less plausible ideas. Most science fic-
tion has fallen into the cliche of extending human life by extending it seri-
ally, tacking on more years at the end. In contrast, Kiln People is founded
on the notion that instead of extending human life serially, how about doing
it in parallel, having more life, multiple lives, at the same timewhen you
are young, when you could really use it. Every morning you lie down on a
fanciful home copier, which then turns out five or six clay copies of your-
self (Golems) with your memory, your motivation, your personality, so that
you can be in multiple places at once. You then collect the memories at the
end of the day and integrate them together in your psyche. The next day,
another five places at onceyou can work out the enormous permutations.
Its a real science fiction novel in the sense that it works out what such a soci-
ety might be like.
Octavia Butler: Do you really think that five or six parallel lives would be
enough?
David Brin: People will never have enough, but I believe that human sanity
is based, to some degree, on satiability: if you get what you want, assuming
that youre fairly sane, it should at least make you a little bit happier. And
it should shift your ambitions from what they were to something else.
Octavia Butler: I think one of the worst things that could happen to you is
you get what you want. Then youre finished, you might as well cut your
throat now, your life is done.
David Brin: Humans are monkeys; thats not going to happen. People
complain that 30% of Americans watch 40, 50 hours a week of television;
100 years ago, that same 30% of Americans watched the fire burning in their
fireplace for 40 hours a week.
Michael Crichton: They had better programming back then.
Octavia Butler: When I was a kid, I got to live a nineteenth century exist-
ence for a little while. My grandmother had a chicken ranch and there was
no electricity, we used a well for water. We told stories. I think they enjoyed
scaring the heck out of me. Some of them were true, some of them werent.
Robert Kuhn: It enriched your life.
Octavia Butler: It did. For one thing, I developed a real love for stories.
Robert Kuhn: Why has science fiction become more mainstream now?
Whats happened?
Michael Crichton: I think that technology is phenomenally important in
our lives. And its developing at a much more rapid rate. I was born in
1942, so I spent 10 years without television, in the way that Octavia is talk-
ing about, and then the arrival of television made an enormously different
world. And, a few years after that, the arrival of jet aircraft made an enor-
mously different world. And, by the time you get to personal computers
and the internet, life has become very, very different. Talking about an early
book I wrote, The Andromeda Strain, todays kids say to me, Well, why did
you write it that way? meaning that old way with all those old things. They
cant conceive of the world just 35 years ago, its such a totally different
world today.
Robert Kuhn: Some people say that The Andromeda Strain helped prepare
us for bio-terrorism, how we would react to an anthrax attack.
Michael Crichton: I always thought it was a remake of War of the Worlds.
Robert Kuhn: Does science fiction in other cultures have a different
character?
David Brin: Japanese science fiction, Brazilian science fiction are very dif-
ferent than American science fiction. There was very different, and very
interesting, science fiction literature that arose out of the old Soviet Union,
written by enthusiastic socialists. But if you travel around the world as a sci-
ence fiction author, you know the difference between those countries in
which science fiction is popular and those in which it isnt. In Japan, people
pick me up at the airport; in India they dont.
Octavia Butler: I remember a conference in New York for African
Women of the Diaspora, called The Yari Yari Conference, actually, The
Future of the Future. There were a lot of people from third world countries
where it wasnt as much a matter of press freedom so much as finding the
necessities for publishing, such as a printing press, paying for paper, figuring
out how to distribute your book, and often all by yourself.
David Brin: But there is another essential point why science fiction is an
American literature to some degree, and that is because most of the
propaganda coming out of the American experience promote suspicion of
authority and, to some degree, tolerance. As Octavia was saying, there are
a lot of cultures in which authority is a much more revered thing, or much
more of a problematical thing in day-to-day life.
Octavia Butler: Or cultures where there are a lot more needs that arent
being met.
Robert Kuhn: If we had somebody here from China or India or Africa,
how do you think they would react to our discussion about science fiction?
Octavia Butler: I think they probably would want us to focus on topics
that were more important to them. Take the writer Arundhati Roy who
has been arrested in India because she went beyond her writing fiction and
criticized something that her government was doing which was very worthy
of criticism. People in third world countries would want us to pay more
attention to whats really going on in their countries and what shouldnt be.
Robert Kuhn: Theoretically though, all of your fiction is non-culturally

based, if youre in a different era, a different galaxy, a different dimension . . .
Octavia Butler: But, really, its all culturally based, of course.
Robert Kuhn: Though the environment may be different superficially, the
characters think and act as if they are in the current culture of the author.
Because most science fiction is generated in the United States, does the genre
reflect a cultural bias?
Michael Crichton: Or building into our stories a bias that has to do with
the level and nature of technological sophisticationwhich is not world-
widebut its a technology bias as opposed to a social one.
Octavia Butler: I dont think you can have this level of technology without
it affecting the social, and therefore the bias is social as well.
Robert Kuhn: What are some of the issues youd like to see discussed in the
science fiction in the future?
Octavia Butler: We dont have a focus now that was like, for instance, the
Cold War or the space race; we dont have anything that grabs everybody.
And since we dont have such an overriding cause, what we write probably
seems more scattered than we intend it to be. The future of science fiction
is not what we thought it would be years ago.
David Brin: This is especially true since the best science fiction is about the
human response to change. And since change is a salient feature of our civi-
lization, I think that science fiction has, logically speaking, philosophically
speaking, an important role to play. The issue is whether or not its playing
that role well.
Michael Crichton: To do these kinds of scenarios in our science fiction is
valuable, but it is not the same as holding a newborn child, it is not the same
as holding a parent while they die in your arms. How you explain that feel-
ing is orders of magnitude more important than what we do.
Robert Kuhn End Commentary:

It doesnt matter whether science fiction is really scientific; here are three rea-
sons why it can be important.
First, science fiction can break free from the scientific method: if your
imagination doesnt have to worry about verification, just maybe youll dis-
cover something truly original.
Second, science fiction can explore contemporary issues in different envi-
ronments, so that when all normal trappings of society are stripped away,
just maybe real problems will be exposed.
Third, science fiction can examine a vast number of alternative futures,

which just maybe can prepare humanity for all eventualities, like, say,
marauding asteroids or malevolent aliens.
Only theology claims greater reach, and Ill let you decide how science fic-
tion, religion, and science can each explain the world, predict the future, and
bring us Closer To Truth.
Interviews with Expert Participants
Michael Crichton
Why did you become a science fiction writer?
Because when I was a kid I loved the Arthur Conan Doyle stories of Sherlock
Holmes. And one of the things that really impressed me about them was the
sense of how real they were, how true to life they were. People go to London
and look for Holmess famous address, 221B Baker Street. I always aspired
to have that quality of realism in my writings, trying to make people think
it was true.
Whats changed in your field since you were a kid?

Storytelling has enormously changed in my lifetime as a result of two new
kinds of storytelling which have emerged. The first is commercials and the
second is cartoons. And they have produced an enormous change: in com-
mercials in terms of pace and rapid change; and in cartoons in terms of the
kind of exaggeration in storytelling that people have come to expect.
Does the general public appreciate science?

In the last survey that I saw people were asked what scientific instrument or
what technological device they appreciated most in their house, and the
overwhelming majority named the microwave.
Any advice for young people?

Its my strong belief that people who are engaged in any kind of tech-
nology should not fall too much in love with it. Do not lose your human
characteristics.
How would you like to be remembered?

I would like to be remembered by the people that knew me as a good person
who made a difference in their lives.
Has your audience surprised you?

When I wrote the first novel that was successful, The Andromeda Strain, I
was really writing about technology that was already at that time 20 years
old. And it was, Oh wow, this is so hip and slick and up to date. And I
thought, Really? Okay. Well, Ill write something that really is up to date.
And the next book was The Terminal Man, which was about psychosur-
gery and atomic pacemakers and stuff like that. And it was based on real
patients; it was all happening. And people said, This is ridiculous! Who
could possibly believe this? Its very hard to persuade your audience about
whats happening right now. Theyre living in the past, so you have to write
a little bit that way.
What do you think the biggest threat to life is today?

The greatest hazard now comes from biotechnology. Even in the worst years
of the Cold War and the nuclear standoff, a nuclear war never conceived of
totally wiping out the species. I think it is absolutely conceivable that some-
body could do something in biotechnology that could wipe us out.
Is technology irreversible?
Im actually not persuaded that technology cannot be turned back. In most
of my lifetime, what powered adolescence was the desire for the freedom
as exemplified by the mobility of the automobile. That was a peculiarly
American dream, an early 20th Century dream; and now we have the entire
world sitting in traffic jams. Today, the most forward thinking people are
dreaming of a world without cars. And I think well eventually have that. I
think were going to eventually have to begin to crank this one technology,
autos, backwards.
Talk about the technology in fiction.

To me, all fiction of the past seems simplistic, except for James Joyce. Cer-
tainly anything thats technical, you look at it and just think, Oh well,
thats just like childs play. Im sure that 100 years from now people will
look at the problems that we find overwhelming and say, What was the
big deal? That was nothing. This progressive attitude is characteristic of
technology.
You write books about serious science; do you think entertainment can
educate?
Tom Wolfe once said, Movies are great, but cannot explain anything.
And what people need now in terms of science and technology is that they
need explanations. They need to understand what are the risks of this
technology? What are the benefits of that technology? What are the issues
involved? What are the tradeoffs? Because there are always tradeoffs. Most
people dont understand the notion of tradeoffs; nor do they understand
the notion of risk. You can say to them, Do you want arsenic in the drink
you ordered? And they go, No, not me. But if you say, Would you be
willing to spend this amount of money on cleaning up the water, but this
would mean that you couldnt buy a new car, they go, Oh, wait a
minute. Most people cant weigh tradeoffs, especially regarding societal
issues.
David Brin
Why did you become a scientist?
I wanted to become a scientist because it seemed like this was an honest way
to see the world. Every civilization has had artistsart flows from our pores.
All the fine scientists I know have artistic hobbies. Most of my neighbors
have artistic hobbies. The idea that art is rare is a myth foisted on us by
artists. All civilizations have had art, and I was born to be an artist, I was
scribbling from an early age. But scienceonly one civilization has ever
had sciencetraining millions of people to actually be honest in how they
saw things, and to doubt themselves and to try to find out whats true
whether they like it or not. I wanted to be part of that and I struggled. I
wasnt very good at it. I got my union cardmy Ph.D. You know what? Sci-
ence is hard. Lying is easy. This civilization is willing to pay me a lot more
to fib about people who cant sue me because they are all fictitious, and who
am I to argue with civilization?
Ever had any close encounters?

If you go to the Encounters Restaurant at the center of Los Angeles airport
(LAX), you enter this little brushed aluminum elevator and all of sudden as
soon as the door closes Star Trekkie music comes on, Ooh-e-o-ooh. You
have all the waitresses wearing Star Trek miniskirts and there are lava lamps
everywhere.
Will technology outpace civil control?

It seems likely that the biologists and the biochemists will do to their big,
huge, building-size laboratories what the cyberneticists did to the computer.
And not only make them smaller, but cheaper. In biotechnology, this minia-
turization is happening at a curve thats even faster than Moores Law.
Within 10 to 15 years you will see the MolecuMac in which any teenager
in America will be able to fabricateon his desktopany known or
unknown organic compound. There are all sorts of possibilities. Science fic-
tion is supposed to look ahead a little ways and see these possibilities: I see
the MolecuMac. Under circumstances like those, if we remain so stupid, civ-

ilization cannot hold together.
Do you think the impoverished are doomed to exploitation?

I like to use a social diamond as an economic metaphor of society and in
which the well-off, empowered, and comfortable middle class far outnum-
ber the poor. This contrasts with the typical social pyramid on which
those at the top are extremely few. The social diamond shows how huge
and obvious genuine progress has been, at least in the West, under our Mod-
ernist Agenda. No image demonstrates more clearly how this society is dif-
ferent from all predecessors, how much we ALL have benefited from
science and accountability. . .and how much we have to lose if we return to
the traditional human social pyramid.
The chief argument among Republicans and Democrats is how to keep the
diamond rising faster so that the poor live better lives than kings did in the
past. In this respect, the absolute fundamental moral minimum is that no
child born into poverty should automatically remain in povertyRepubli-
cans, Democrats, Libertarians all agree that this would be a bad thing.
Some may respond that the social diamond rests on the back of a social
pyramid and that Americans stand at the top of the pyramid and exploit
those beneath us. I agree, but not in the sense that the American economy
and globalization makes poor people of the Third World poorer. Thats
easily disproved. The more a foreign economy is enmeshed with the Ameri-
can economy, the richer the people are in that foreign economy. Its those
countries whose economies are least attached to the American economy that
are the poorest, so that argument is easily disposed. So what is this pyramid
on which we are on top and those beneath us we exploit? They are called
machines. And here the science fiction writer comes in because in a few years
will the machines be the latest slave population demanding their share of the
diamond? It could happen.
Is mankind exploiting the earth?

Another perspective is that the pyramid is the earth and were extracting
resources from itwere taking away the resources that our children will
need. A science fiction author feels this very deeply because, of course, its
going to take a great deal of surplus for us to be rich enough to colonize
space, to plant colonies on Mars, to venture out to the stars. Only very rich,
human, earth-wide civilizations will have the surplus that it takes to go and
do these bold things. We are in a window of time during which we have
enough surplus that we can spend some of it on trying to help raise up the
poor while at the same time investing in making our children better than
us, while at the same time putting enough aside for research so that the
whole pie gets bigger. The resource-intensive approach to getting wealthier
cannot be sustained, but in the long run, its going to be human creativity
thats going to be the ultimate resource.
Talk about anti-globalizationis it a democratic movement?

Karl Marx was the greatest of all science fiction authors because in the East,
where he was taken seriously and followed as if he were a prophet, his
effects were actually fairly ineffective at changing humanity in positive direc-
tions. It was in the West, where his work was read as a plausible scenario for
a failure mode, that something happened that he never imagined could hap-
pen because he felt contempt for the masses. He never imagined that the
masses would read his work and then say, Ah, interesting, lets reform this
scenario right away. And he never imagined that elites like Franklin Delano
Roosevelt would say the same thing. Thats the point. The young anti-
globalization men and women are assuming that international law will be
controlled by these elites, but their own countries are counterexamples.
They should be out there in the streets demanding a place at the table,
demanding institutions, doing what the Jeffersonians did when Madison
and Monroe were writing The Federalist Papers, acting as the counterbal-
ance, demanding that the people have a say. This is a good role they could be
playing. But they are not doing it.
Whats going to be our failure mode, if we have one?

Failure modes are a fascinating topic. Of course, they attract a lot of science
fiction because if you can expose a failure mode very vividly as in On the
Beach, Fail-Safe, Dr. Strangelove, Soylent Green, 1984, and Das Kapital,
then you can create the greatest of all science fiction stories, the self-
preventing prophecy, the prophecy that does not come true because people
actually paid attention to you because people were smarter than you had
expected. So were all looking for that next danger. Let me put this in per-
spective. Barring UFO fantasies, the obvious fact is that the Earth has never
been visited by aliens for two billion years because if they had flushed their
toilets in our primitive ecosystem, it would have changed the history of life
on Earth. This virtually proves that there is a lot of empty loneliness out
there in the universe. Now I believe that there are aliensthat alien life is
out thereI worked on that both as an astronomer and as a science fiction
author, but alien life seems to be extremely sparse. Why? One possibility is
that some set of failure modes is always encountered by intelligent life forms
before they reach the stars. Carl Sagan came up with this when he discussed
nuclear winter, that this might be how civilizations destroy themselves. If
thats true, weve proved that its at least possible to get past the nuclear
crises. Weve proved that self destruction is not automatic, but what
about resource depletion and environmental degradation? What about
bioengineering of diseases? I dont know. It could be that human beings are

anomalously smart. If thats true, its a scary universe.
How do you think we can insure survival of the species?

I dont think were even going to have colonies on Mars, let alone in the aste-
roids, let alone on other planets and other solar systems unless we do some-
thing that is very rarely portrayed in science fictionactually grow up a bit.
Gene Roddenberry is one of the only creators of science fiction who ever
posited the possibility that our grandchildren might be better than us. And
when you think about it, whats the point in having kids if they wont be?
If we raise a generation of boys who are three times as responsible and girls
who are three times as confident, all the rest is petty details and the next gen-
eration will be smarter than we are. We dont have to preach to them what
ideology they should have. Theyll be smarter than us. Thats our hope.
Has science fiction served us well?

Why have so few science fiction writes portray futures in which people are
better than they are today? Gene Roddenberry, Ray Bradbury, and me are
the few. Why? Because of the need to use idiot plots. Because your main
job in a novel or in a movie is to keep your hero or heroine in jeopardy for
90 minutes of the film or 400 pages of a novel. And its hard to do, hard to
keep your heroes in heart-pounding jeopardy, hard to keep the reader turn-
ing pages or the viewer glued to the screen if what is told is a story of a better
society. So I think the idiot plot requirement has had a deleterious effect
on us, because we tend to absorb through our books and through our movies
the assumption that we live in this horrible civilization filled with idiots. Yes,
its comforting to think, I got my opinions because of rational analysis of
the evidence, but everyone else got their opinions because of flaws in their
character. One hundred percent of us do that. But its time to wake up
and smell the roses. Sorry folks, you actually live in a pretty decent civiliza-
tion thats getting better every day.
Octavia Butler
Why did you become a writer?
I came to be a writer by accident. I discovered I liked it; I was writing when I
was 10 years old. I was writing to get away from my boring life, so fantasy
was a natural. And a couple of years later, I saw a bad movie called Devil
Girl from Mars, and watching it on television, I sat there and said, Jeez, I
could write a better story than that. Anybody can write a better story than
that. And finally it hit me that someone had been paid for writing that
bad story, so I grabbed my notebook and began to write. I didnt see the
end of that movie until many years later, when a Texas fan actually gave me
a copy of it and I watched it, and I kind of admired my good taste as a 12
year-old.
Whom do you admire most, and why?

I began trying to sell stories when I was 13. If I found somebody I liked, I
would read everything I could find that they had written. And thats how I
discovered John Bruner and Marion Zimmer Bradley and Harlan Ellison
and J.T. McIntosh and a number of other old-time writers, people who were
writing a lot when I was a kid. Because it was nice to find somebody depend-
able. I could just go back and find everything that they had written that was
at the library or the Salvation Army bookstore.
What advice do you have for young people

A bit of the Hippocratic Oath: Do no harm, but also a bit of my own phi-
losophy, Do the thing that you love and do it as well as you possibly can
and be persistent about doing it. Its really important to find a way to earn
a living doing what you care about and trying to do as much good as you can
in the world.
Did you major in science in school?

I dont have a science background, but I do know where the library is, and
thats pretty much what Ive leaned on throughout my career.
Do you stress science research?

For the most part, I dont write hard science fiction. My Xenogenesis Trilogy
is as close as Ive gotten to hard science fiction and its biological science fic-
tion. So far, I havent been writing about the scientist busily doing science.
Im more likely to be writing about the people who are affected by the sci-
ence. I always wondered when I watched movies or television what was
going on with the ordinary people because so often you would see the lead-
ers and the scientists and the generals, and I was much more interested in
how all this was affecting Joe Blow and Jane Doe.
Why science fiction and not just fiction?

I began writing because life was incredibly boring, and I began with fantasy.
And when I went to science fiction it was mainly because of Devil Girl. It
was supposedly science fiction, and if I was going to compete with it, which
I was at first, then I should write science fiction. And I went off and got a lit-
tle book on astronomy and read it. I was very disappointed in Mars, but I
wrote anyway and tried to just see what I could do. It was fun. I got to learn
things that I had not known before. I really enjoy having an excuse to stick
my nose into all sorts of things. I think most writers are just natural liars,
but thats not really the word I want. We eavesdrop. We do all sorts of things
that get us into everyone elses business, and were also into a little bit of
everything. If youre talking to a writer about almost anything, you can at
least have a brief conversation that isnt stupid.
Were you surprised when the MacArthur Foundation called and you had been
selected as a Fellow?
When a total stranger with a very nice voice called me and said, Youve
been chosen for the MacArthur Fellowship, my immediate reaction was,
What is this? When is she going to ask me for my credit card number so I
can hang up? I couldnt believe it. And I didnt really know very much
about it. Ive heard of it vaguely. And it took me a while to begin to believe
it. They asked me not to tell anyone for a while, and I thought, That will
be my choice. I want to see whats going to happen here before I run out
and tell people and then later look really bad.
How do you think you will be remembered?

People will say that Im a black science fiction writer, or Im a feminist scien-
tist fiction writer, something like that. People have to affix these labels
because its shorthand and because its an excuse for failing to think. You
dont have to read my stuff if you already know what I am.

I would like to be read and remembered for what Ive written, and really
thats kind of up to the person who reads me. Now, if they read my books
and dont like them and Ive had some people tell me so well, theres
nothing I can do about that. On the other hand, if they read my books and
get something from them, well, thats very good.

Chapter 2
Why is Music So Significant?
Music is a fundamental defining factor of the human mind; from brain devel-
opment to cultural progression, music pervades the human psyche. Virtually
every known human culture has some form of musical expression, and the
neurobiology of musichow the brain appreciates and processes musicis
an exploration of what it means to be human. Although there are specific
parts of the brain dedicated to the sense of sound, vast areas of the brain
(particularly the cerebral cortex) must work together to process the complex
process we call music, including areas of working memory, forethought,
movement, and emotion. Music has a special relationship to various kinds
of brain patternsmelody, harmony, rhythm, timbre, pitch, and style of
sound each have their unique representations.
Musics nonverbal character expresses a different way of thinking than do
other kinds of human cognition and thus may have broader impact on the
body, such as lowering blood pressure and easing pain. Like theories of a
universal grammar hardwired into our brains to enable language, there
may be a universal set of rules that governs how patterns of sounds can
become music and how a limited number of sounds can be combined in an
infinite number of ways.
Two streams of research come together, one anatomical, one psychologi-
cal. First, the plasticity of the brain, active during infancy and early child-
hood and perhaps into adulthood and old age, may be activated by music
in diverse ways, thus stimulating richer, healthier, better functioning brains.
Recent data goes further, contradicting long-standing maxims that no new
brain cellscalled neuronscan form in the adult brain, growth that may
be enhanced by music. Second, there is anecdotal evidence that children
and even adults who are exposed to music, especially complex forms, do
better in other areas of development. This seems true in infants and young
children and may also be true in adults and even the elderly. Can music aid
mental development? Running on treadmills increases brain size and func-
tion in young rats. Can listening to music do the same in young humans?
Three musiciansa neuroscientist, a dean of a fine arts college program,
and an education innovatordiscuss musics universal appeal and its impor-
tance to the development of human society. One panelist asserts that music
could have easily predated human language, and all concur that musics
inherent symmetry and organizational principles tap into a deep human
need to order, or manage, our environment. They investigate how music
may affect brain development, whether or not listening to classical music
can make us smarter, and musics possible role in the development of co-
operative action.
Expert Participants
Jeanne Bamberger
Professor of Music and Urban Education, Massachusetts Institute of Tech-
nology; pianist.
Robert Freeman
Dean, College of Fine Arts, University of Texas at Austin; past director,
Eastman School of Music; past president, New England Conservatory of
Music
Mark Jude Tramo
Director, The Institute for Music and Brain Science, Massachusetts General
Hospital; neurologist and neuroscientist, Harvard Medical School; musi-
cian, songwriter

Robert Freeman: I grew up with music all over my house and I had a music
teacher who shared with everyone the huge excitement that I have always
gotten out of music. What I dont know is whether music is part of my
genetic background or part of the fact that it was the first language I really
learned. I also still dont know how best to teach music to other human
beings.
Mark Tramo: I would argue that music in the form of song predated our
ability to speak. We were communicating emotions and ideas with grunts
and groans and chants and hums well before we were enunciating complex
ideas like the ones we are sharing right now.
Why is Music So Significant? 23
Jeanne Bamberger: Out of the grunts and groans has grown the complexity
of the music that has been created since those early human days, because
music embodies a lot of the organizing principles that we find in almost
every other domain, such as symmetry and periodicity.
Mark Tramo: And that symmetry relates to our natural affinity for music,
the degree to which children, for example, naturally gravitate to music. It
seems that as humans we have a compulsion to order, organize, control the
environment around us. And music relates to our acoustic environment;
were surrounded routinely by a cacophony of sounds coming from all
around us, and we take all of those sounds and organize them with respect
to their frequencies, with respect to when those combinations of frequencies
are occurring in time, and with this beautiful regularity, beautiful structure
and thats how we experience sound.
Jeanne Bamberger: On the basis of my research, it turns out that what
everybody knows how to do by the time they are five or six years old in this
culture, they know how to hear beginnings and endings and they know how
to hear what is usually called functions; for example, they can hear when
musical passages do not have proper resolutions in their endings. Further-
more, Ive seen a little girl, three years old, sitting on the floor, listening to
a performance of The Magic Flute. When she got bored, she stood up and
began walking: she walked one direction and at the ends of the phrases she
turned around and walked in the other direction, and she kept that up for
the whole tune. So what people can hear are beginnings and endings, and
they can hear finished and unfinished, stability and instability, so one of
the problems is that when we traditionally begin music education, we start
with notes. We teach kids how to read music, which captures features that
are very different from what were paying attention to when we listen.
Robert Freeman: Of course, I dont know what you hear when you hear
music and you dont know what I hear.
Jeanne Bamberger: No, I dont; thats right. But I tried to find that out by
asking kids to invent ways of putting down on paper something they had
clapped, for example. And what they capture is different in very specific
ways from whats captured in the standard music notation. But its also very
much inherent in what we do when people see our gestures, or movement
from and to, but they dont measure either time or pitch, which is exactly
what music notation captures. Kids use squiggles on paper, say that show a
whole little figure.
Robert Kuhn: What are some examples?
Jeanne Bamberger: Take mechanical gears. We have kids playing with
great big cardboard gears of different sizes that they had made of different
numbers of teeth, and the question was, when you turned them around,
which one went faster? Well, one little girl said, It depends on what kind of
fastness you mean. Because if youre talking about the number of times
around, then the little one is going faster. But if youre talking about those
things (i.e., gears) that connect to each other, then theyre going the same.
She was nine, and she was failing in school because the way she thought
about things was so much more complex, so much more integrated, and
using so many different sensory modalities and modes of representation that
nobody, not the other kids and not the teacher, could understand her.
Robert Kuhn: How did she relate to the gears?
Jeanne Bamberger: There were eight teeth on the little gear and it went
around four times when the big one went around once, and the question
was, how many teeth does the big one have? And the other kids said, You
better count them. And she said, You dont need to count them, its 32!
Because eight times four is 32. Then I said, Can you clap this relationship?
And we hit the table with one hand four times for every time we hit the table
with the other hand one time. Then we went to the computer and I said,
Can you get the computer synthesizer to play that rhythm using numbers?
And at that point they had to get into ratio and proportion, because the
slower gear had to have a number of teeth that was four times bigger than
the faster one, so they could use something like 12 and three, this could be
a 12-er, as they called it, and this could be a three-er. So at that moment they
had gone across all these different sensory modalities, modes of representa-
tion, including their own body action and different kinds of materials. I
think there are many things that meet in different domains and function
actively in music.
Robert Freeman: Though we dont normally teach music as though that
were the caseand we should.
Robert Kuhn: When all this is happening there are vast areas of the brain
that are involved, its not just the auditory part.
Mark Tramo: The concept that there is a single, solitary music center in
the brain is surely not correct. The auditory system is what allows us to
decode the music, makes sense of the music. To derive the meaning or to
evoke the emotions of music, one has to develop some expectations about
where the music is going. So if Im expecting a pianist to end on a particular
note, I can tell you that the anterior frontal cortex of the brain is what is
most active, trying to discern whats coming nextit is not the auditory cor-
tex in the superior temporal lobe.
Robert Freeman: What are the brain structures measuring?
Mark Tramo: The structures in the brains auditory system are measuring
the frequency, the duration, and the timing of the events as we listen to
them, and their complex combinations.
Robert Freeman: Patterns.

Mark Tramo: Yes, patterns. The anterior frontal cortex is expecting those
patterns to resolve or not resolve in some way. Youre going to associate
them with events that happened in your past life by recalling them in the
medial temporal lobe.
Robert Kuhn: It shows the power and pervasiveness of music.
Mark Tramo: Music taps into so much of what makes us human. On the
one hand it seems so simple: sing Happy Birthday, the simplest thing. But
when you put it altogether, it is so meaningful and it involves so much of
the brain, its astonishing.
Jeanne Bamberger: Music recruits so much of our mental and emotional
lives; why music has this capacity is a mystery.
Mark Tramo: The amazing thing is that we think of music as being sound,
acoustical energy, but it no longer exists as acoustical energy once it gets
past the ear. It exists entirely in the activity of tens of millions of nerve cells
throughout the auditory system.
Robert Kuhn: It starts out mechanical in the ear.
Mark Tramo: It starts out mechanical but theres no sound in the brain; all
we have are minuscule brain cells, called neurons, firing short, fast electrical
impulses (called action potentials) and communicating with one another.
The electrical activity is one neuron splashing a chemical onto another neu-
ron and causing it to fire sparks. How many sparks it fires, when it fires those
sparks, thats the code that the brain uses to say Oh, Professor Bamberger is
playing this particular piece, or she is climaxing the piece in just the right
way to evoke the emotion. The neurons themselves experience no sound
per se; theres no acoustical energy in the brain. The pitches that we hear
that characterize individual notes can only exist within a particular range
of the audible spectrum. We dont have instruments that play tones above
20,000 Hz because we couldnt hear them. So the physiology of our auditory
system has to constrain the pitches that we use. When one plays different
combinations of notes, we can actually see differences in the way that neu-
rons fire. For certain types of sounds, theres more regularity in terms of
the neural firing, something Galileo wrote about when he was under house
arrest for his work on astronomy. He pointed out that the timing of fluctua-
tions and air vibrations, and therefore the fluctuations in the ear drum
(which we know result in fluctuations in the sparking of neurons) is much
more regular for certain musical structures like an octave.
Robert Kuhn: Does music affect brain development? In other words, does
brain development just enable us to hear different tones, or do those tones
in fact impose themselves on the brain and influence brain development?
Mark Tramo: Here is the way I think about it: we come into the world and
we are primed to extract regularities in the acoustic environment and in the
visual environment. For example, were primed to recognize faces. Our nerv-
ous system gives us that capacity.
Robert Kuhn: So are music principles built into the brain, hard wired from
birth? Or are they only out in the external world and we learn to recognize
them?
Mark Tramo: Both, in a way. They are certainly out in the external world,
and we come into that world with a predisposition to apprehend it. Its the
old differentiation between nature and nurture. Theres a continual interac-
tion between what were born with and what exists in the world. It is part
of our nature to change with the environment, but brain and environment
are inextricably linked.
Robert Kuhn: Its the plasticity of the brain.
Mark Tramo: Whats new and exciting is that were not just talking about
plasticity in three year olds, were talking about that the plasticity of the
brain lasting throughout life, though to a lesser degree. Brain plasticity con-
tinues on into adulthood; the brain is changing well into our seventh and
eighth decades of life.
Robert Freeman: For any piece of music to make sensewhatever culture
its in, whether its high art or pop artthere has to be some kind of regular-
ity or repetition. If I play the beginning of Beethovens First Sonata, then two
measures of Beethovens Second Sonata, then two measures of Beethovens
Third Sonata, even though all of which are a part of Opus II, you would
get something which makes no sense.
Jeanne Bamberger: Without repetition, there would be no coherence.
Robert Kuhn: Suppose we go to a different culture, do the same principles
hold?
Jeanne Bamberger: If I listen to Chinese music, because I do not know it, I
have the feeling that it goes on and on and on. If you cant tell where the
stops and starts are, then its like listening to a foreign language that you
dont understand. In learning a foreign language, one must learn where the
stops and starts are. In other words, how to chunk it, what generates
boundaries, what generates edges.
Robert Freeman: I like comparing music to baseball, which is my avoca-
tional passion. You cannot understand a baseball game if you dont know
something about its basic rules or structure. Baseball can seem endless in
much the same way. Thats what I get out of cricketa feeling of endless-
nessbecause I dont know what the rules and objectives are.
Robert Kuhn: Doesnt this mean that music is more culturally based than
genetically determined?
Mark Tramo: There are some data of cross cultural studies that have com-
pared how Stanford undergraduates, and how Balinese villagers who have
never seen a pair of headphones, perform on tasks. So if I were to play a
sequence on the piano and you had to decide how well that last note com-
pletes the sequence, then you would have some opinions about how well
the last note worked. Now, a reasonable proportion of these Balinese villag-
ers will rate how well that final tone completes that sequence very similarly
to the way the Stanford undergraduates rated the tone in the goodness of
the fit.
Robert Kuhn: This would means that although the Balinese villages had no
prior cultural exposure to this kind of music, the similarity of response indi-
cates a universality of how music is perceived. This is turn would suggest
that there are some basic structures of the brain that are innate and common
to all human beings and generate similar cognitive experiences irrespective
of cultural experience.
Jeanne Bamberger: That study has come under a lot of criticism since what
they use as stimuli are not related to the music that people in the culture
know. So while it may demonstrate something, I dont think it demonstrates
how we make sense of real music.
Mark Tramo: But isnt that part of the power of the result, that although
the Balinese villagers didnt know anything about this music, yet they per-
ceived the music in the same way that Stanford undergraduates perceived
the music?
Robert Kuhn: Lets talk about consonance and dissonance.
Jeanne Bamberger: I dont know whether thats cross-cultural or not. I
doubt it because actually in Yugoslavia they sing in a way we might think
it dissonant. We used to sing it that way in the twelfth or thirteenth century.
And thats not considered dissonant at all.
Mark Tramo: Theres a whole semantics around the use of the terms con-
sonance and dissonance.
Robert Kuhn: Is that culturally determined?
Mark Tramo: Although consonance and dissonance is culturally deter-
mined, there are universals. There is context here. Lets say were watching
a movie together and we hear crashing noises, its not a happy point in the
film. The emotion that we associate with that crashing noise is very much
learned, but even four month old children can tell the difference noise and
music.
Robert Kuhn: Lets talk about the impact of music on children, something
that many people know as the Mozart Effect, which supposedly will make
you smarterdo better on testsby listening to certain music.
Robert Freeman: As a music school director, thats something I would love
to see proven.
Mark Tramo: Lets see how that experiment worked, by illustrating an
example with our host that will illustrate the particular studies that came
out of the University of California at Irvine, which are referred to as the
Mozart Effect. Well imagine that there are three Robert Kuhns: one of
them was in Dressing Room 1 listening to 10 minutes of Mozarts Sonata
For Two Pianos in D Major; there was another Robert Kuhn who was iso-
lated in complete silence; and there was a third Robert Kuhn listening to
relaxation music or maybe a modern composer like Phillip Glass. And then
after ten minutes we ask all three Robert Kuhns to come and join us and
what we did was to take several pieces of paper, folded them up, cut them
in various ways, and then ask you to imagine that if we unfold the papers
which papers will match. So, Robert, please choose!
Robert Kuhn: The obvious answer would be this one, but I think youre
trying to fool me, so I will choose that one.
Mark Tramo: You are correct, although you thought the obvious answer
was actually the wrong one. Now thats the particular task that the experi-
ments used in proving the so-called Mozart Effect, and they determined
that people would do better on this task, if just prior to the task, they had
listed to Mozart for 10 or 15 minutes. Now thats promising in the sense of
showing some effect, but its very short lived and it can be explained by
non-cognitive mechanisms that have to do with arousal and positive mood
induction. Explaining the results in terms of the underlying brain mecha-
nisms is difficult to sort out.
Robert Kuhn: This focuses public attention on the fact that music may be
important for the intellectual development of children.
Jeanne Bamberger: But we dont know why! Even the people who did the
experiments cant account for it.
Mark Tramo: We need more data. Whats exciting about the Mozart
Effect was that the experiment was in the right spirit. Music taps into so
many different aspects of cognitive as well as emotional processing that it
would be hard to believe that it wouldnt have some sort of a positive effect.
If were talking about phonological processing and language, and learning
how to read, listening to music forces you to be able to decode very complex
sequences, so that may confer a positive effect. Theres some evidence that
music may be useful in the treatment for dyslexia. If we think of music in
terms of proportions and ratios and symmetry, that would suggest a rela-
tionship with mathematical ability.
Robert Kuhn: The relationship between math and music has long been
suspected.
Jeanne Bamberger: It only goes in one direction: there are very few musi-
cians who are interested in math.
Mark Tramo: If you put first graders into an intensive arts program that
includes music training emphasizing sequencing, by the end of the year, they
go ahead of the rest of the class in math. These kinds of longer term training
programs are more important than what might happen in ten minutes. We
need to know what happens when children begin to study piano at the age
of four to nine years old. We need to collect the data. Perhaps we should
institute a national effort. If one is trying to draw children into an activity
that will exercise the brain, help to develop mental strategies and cognitive
structures, do something thats fun. Dont drill the children on rote questions
and canned answers. Music encompasses so many things that have to do
with cognition, perception and motor function, that if the individual, apri-
ori, likes music, gravitates to music naturallyits not for everybodytake
advantage of it.
Robert Freeman: I have a dream of a musical society in America that, just
as with athletics, all kids are involved when theyre 5 to 7 years old. Its
not about becoming a professional musicianwe dont need more profes-
sional musicians. What we need is a whole army of avocational musicians,
people who take great pleasure in being involved with music from an early
age. Music is truly one of Gods great gifts to humanity.
Mark Tramo: Music is one of the things that help bring us together. As
humans we never would have survived, we would have been eaten up and
killed by animals, if we hadnt bonded together and form civilizations, so
that we could fight our predators. We needed to develop social bonds,
cement the collective identity, and music has been a part of virtually every
collective ritual.
Robert Freeman: A number of female art students at the University of
Texas (Austin) decided when they were freshmen that Mozart and Beet-
hoven were for everybody, and that they would invite non-art students on
this vast campus of 51,000 people to accompany them on dates to go to
artistic events. They started a whole cottage industry.

This much we know about music: Every known culture has it, vast areas
of the brain are involved, emotions are quickly recruited, and there are
cognitive connections with other aspect of the intellect. There may be a uni-
versal set of rules that governs how patterns of tones and rhythms can
become music. Its nonverbal essence may enable physical, mental and emo-
tional benefits beyond listening enjoyment, because the plasticity of the
brain, active during infancy and early childhood and even into adulthood
and old age, may be stimulated by music, yielding richer, healthier, better-
functioning brains. While the so-called Mozart Effect may have some
minor validitykids seem to do better at a task for 10 minutes after hearing
Mozart,but longer lasting effects are not evidentneurobiologists suspect
that someday well understand how music positively enhances brain proc-
esses, intelligence, and social interaction.
Can music literally mold the plasticity of the brain? When I listen to the
symphonies of Gustav Mahler, or the songs of Judy Collins . . .it doesnt
much matter. There is something special about music that reaches deep into
our psyches and helps define us as human beings.
Mark Tramo
I grew up playing music and at a fairly early age starting writing songs in
the pop rock genre. When I was in college at Yale, I studied drama and music
even while I was a biology major and very interested in understanding brain
mechanisms of behavior. Then, when I learned that there in fact was a sci-
ence trying to understand music perception and cognition, I seized the
opportunity to really pursue this new field and combine them in my career.
Ultimately, I trained in neurology and became a neurologist at New York
Hospital, and now at Massachusetts General Hospital. I find many very
interesting questions in trying to understand the brain mechanisms respon-
sible for something that comes so naturally to all of us as being able to
apprehend the emotion and meaning in music.
Is the appreciation of music innate or learned?

Music appreciation as you and I experience it in everyday life is learned.
What weve been exposed to, the associations that we have with music, what
our personalities are, where were coming fromall these heavily influence
the kind of music that we like to hear. All of us are born with the capacity
to apprehend the emotion and meaning in music. There have been a consid-
erable number of experiments done in infants that show that with a minimal
amount, if any, exposure to music they showed sensitivities to some of the

same musical structures that we experience as adults. We cant forget the
natural affinity for music that we all have at a very early ageeven before
we develop our tastes, and even before we identify with different subcultures
and peer groups that lead us to like one music over another. Theres some-
thing basic about the ability to extract pitch and melody and harmony and
rhythm that we all experience very early in our lives.
Jeanne Bamberger
Why do you think music is a universally shared human experience?
Music encompasses all aspects of our life. Everything from athletic to
pure sensory experience to all kinds of higher level organizing abilities
that we all have. I just keep being more and more impressed that the whole
brain and the whole body is involved in musicits one holistic activity.
Music is certainly an activity in which our whole humanness cooperates
and participates.
Robert Freeman
What are the key developments in your field?
The program that were working on right now is the use of CAT scanning
and positron emission tomography to better understand how music is cre-
ated, how music is performed, and how music is perceived. I want to make
sure that in the work of a brilliant young neurobiologist like Mark Tramo,
the right questions are being asked and that his research is going down a pos-
itive track. Because I believe if we understood better how the human brain
works, it would not only be better for musical instruction throughout the
world, but that contribution would also help us understand how human
function occurs generally. For example, I think that playing the piano or
the organ or the violin at a very high level of technical accomplishment is
about as complex a neurobiological function as the human body has mas-
tered. Hitting fastballs in baseball is something that you do in a batting cage
several times a minute, but once you start the last movement of the Brahms
B-flat major concerto with an orchestra, there is no stopping and you are
playing hundreds of notes every minute.
Should public money be used to support the arts?

There has been some nagging doubt about whether its a good idea to put
any public money behind the arts in the United States. While there is always
a possibility of misusing practically anything, theres so much good that can
be done through the arts. America has a public relations problem in certain
parts of the world in that many people think that America stands for sex and
violence and consumerism and egocentrism. A reinvigorated program pro-
moting all the arts, not only in America but throughout the world, would
help counter this negative image and portray what a wonderful and compas-
sionate and generous country this is.

Chapter 3
Is Consciousness an Illusion?
Is consciousness an illusion? You see; you feel; you act. You think youre
conscious. Some say youre not. Modern neurosciencethe chemistry and
physiology of the brainhas made remarkable progress. But is there some-
thing of the mind that is not in the brain?
Philosophers have debated the mind-body problem and the existence of
free will for thousands of years. What do we mean when we say con-
sciousness? Are our minds just the artificial integration of multiple brain
systems? Are our feelings of self, that unique personal sense of mental
qualiadoes the color red look the same to you as it does to me?any-
thing other an epiphenomenon, seemingly real but in reality an illusion?
Furthermore, are non-human organisms conscious? And, what about
non-biological intelligences like advanced computers?
Consciousness is a fundamental fact of human existence, and the nature or
essence of consciousness is a core issue of human inquiry. It all comes down
to one compound question: is there anything beyond current laws of physics
that is needed to cause consciousness? If something new is needed, do we
extend our notion of the physical? Or is consciousness somehow an indepen-
dent, non-reducible, fundamental factor of existence? And if nothing new is
needed, how do firings of neurons, or ultimately motions of atoms or vibra-
tions of strings, emerge up into human self awareness? There are more
radical theories about consciousness today, from religion and parapsychol-
ogy to philosophy and quantum physics, than ever before.
Four renowned brain scientists tackle the conundrum of how to define and
study consciousness. One problem is that there are too many definitions!
And getting these four guests to agree on what consciousness is and what
causes it is an engaging but hopeless task that is revelatory at the same time.
Their differences are immediately apparent as they attempt to describe con-

sciousness and determine why it should include our sensory inputs, our
experiences and our inner lives. They introduce the concept of zombie
consciousnesswhere a patient is capable of performing certain tasks while
remaining unaware of the surrounding environmentas one pathway to
understanding. They all agree that other productive areas of study focus on
how exactly the brain reacts to anesthesia or how it enables the process of
making choices. The chapter concludes with a lively exchange of ideas about
the meaning and measure of nerve cell activityif it involves quantum
mechanics or simply chemical reactions, or if molecular biology has
advanced to a level that can make this kind of study feasible.
Expert Participants
Joseph Bogen
Clinical Professor of Neurosurgery, University of Southern California;
adjunct professor in Psychology, University of California at Los Angeles;
former consultant in neurosurgery (split brain), California Institute of
Technology
Leslie Brothers
Psychiatrist, neuroscientist; author, Fridays Footprint: How Society Shapes
the Human Mind
Stuart Hameroff
Professor, Departments of Anesthesiology and Psychology; Associate Direc-
tor, Center for Consciousness Studies, University of Arizona
Christof Koch
Professor of Cognitive & Behavioral Biology & Executive Officer for Com-
putation and Neural Systems, California Institute of Technology; author,
The Quest for Consciousness: A Scientific Approach

Robert Kuhn: Why do we call consciousness a hard problem?
Joe Bogen: Consciousness is like the wind: you dont see it; what you see
are the effects of it.
Stuart Hameroff: Proto-consciousness, something from which conscious-
ness is derived, is fundamental and irreducible; its something like spin, or
charge.
Leslie Brothers: I think we have to be careful not to toss this term con-
sciousness around too readily, as though somehow its a given that there
Is Consciousness an Illusion? 35
is such an entity as consciousness just because we have that word and we use
it. It could be that just like we have the word aliveness, we have a concept,
but that doesnt mean that there is a single thing called consciousness. There
may be many processes, many ways that we engage with the world with our
own sensations and with the sensations that we get from the outside world,
but to say that that means theres some overarching entity called conscious-
ness may be a mistake.
Stuart Hameroff: We have a semantics problem hereconsciousness is
used incorrectly to group of all kinds of things. But I have to disagree with
what you said, Leslie, because I think that consciousness, when used prop-
erly, is something very specificits experience, its awareness that biologi-
cal systems have, and as far as we know, only biological systems have.
Joe Bogen: So far.
Stuart Hameroff So far, and its just a matter of figuring out exactly what
consciousness is or means.
Joe Bogen If were going to find a scientific explanation for something, we
have to be a little bit restrictive about what were trying to explain. Because
if we try to explain all of those things that different people mean, in all of the
different ways they use the word consciousness, were not going to be able
to find any explanation. We have to focus on what were really after, which
is closer to the idea of qualia.
Stuart Hameroff: I agree. Sensations are qualia, our internal experience,
the sense of our inner life that distinguishes us from computers, which do
not have sensations, flavors, emotions, feelings, what philosophers call
qualia, which do not have consciousness.
Leslie Brothers: Christof and Francis Crick have said, lets look at visual
awareness as sort of a paradigmatic case. And see if we can find the neural
correlates of consciousness beginning with one aspect of consciousness
vision. My question would still be, are the results going to be able to be gen-
eralized in some way, or is all we are going to find the neural correlates of
visual awareness in a specific experimental setting?
Christof Koch: Its an experimental program. The hope is that you uncover
any one aspect of consciousness: sensual consciousness, visual conscious-
ness, pain, self consciousness, whatever, then the other aspects of conscious-
ness are probably closely related in kind. The same principles held when
scientists tried to study heredity in the origin of life. The belief was that
studying that aspect of heredity and how the genetic information was trans-
mitted in this very simple case probably would illuminate the way humans
pass on genetic information to their children.
Robert Kuhn: One of the theories would be that each of the different
aspects of consciousnessthe visual, the auditory, each separate sensory
and motor system, memoriessomehow gets integrated together and collec-
tively give an illusion of consciousness. We call such an illusion an epiphe-
nomenon, something that seems fundamentally real but it is not.
Joe Bogen: I disagree with that theory: I dont think that integrating all this
stuff together is whats crucial about consciousness.
Robert Kuhn: Whats important in your view?
Joe Bogen: Whats important about consciousness is the experience.
Christof Koch: When you have a toothache, when you have tooth pain, it
might override everything else because it can hurt so bad. But why does it
hurt? Why is it that the release of some ions sloshing around in your brain,
some calcium and potassium ions, gives rise to this really bad feeling?
Leslie Brothers: Thats the hard problem.
Christof Koch: That is a hard problem. In this case there is very little infor-
mation integration going on, its all that one tooth that hurts. Consciousness
does not have to be integration, it can be just the sensation. Heres the criti-
cal question: how can a physical systemhow can any physical system, a
human, a fly, a robothave subjective states?
Robert Kuhn: We do many things that were not conscious of. We use the
term zombies in consciousness. Whats a zombie?
Christof Koch: A zombie is a set of sensory-motor systems that can do
very complicated behaviors in the absence of awareness or consciousness.
Leslie Brothers: A concept like zombie is a creative game that we play
with our everyday notions of people; its the body without the mind.
Christof Koch: For example, when I talk to you and I drink from a glass at
the same timethis is a very complicated move. We have great difficulty get-
ting robots to do this, to judge the distance to my mouth, to tilt it at just the
right angle. This is a really difficult problem for robotics, yet I do it all the
time effortlessly. Now there are some brain-damaged patients who cannot
see the glass, who cant tell how big it is, yet if you ask them just to grab it
and drink it, they can do that. So here you have a beautiful dissociation:
you have part of the visual system that mediates a zombie behavior thats
intact, yet another part of this visual system that mediates the conscious sen-
sation that enables one to actually see this glass of water is destroyed.
Robert Kuhn: If you ask them, Do you see a glass? they say No?
Christof Koch: Correct, they cannot see it, yet they can still do certain
highly trained behaviors, like taking the glass and drinking from it.
Robert Kuhn: Your point is that the zombie part of the brain is not con-
scious but is still able to do sophisticated behaviors.
Christof Koch: Thats correct, and theres a whole range of these uncon-
scious systems that move your eyes, adjust your gait, that come into play
unconsciously when, for example, you shake somebodys hand.
Leslie Brothers: Zombies do all the things that bodies do but without the
subjective locus of experience. For example, when I look at whats on this
table I believe that I am having my experience; I dont think Im having
Christofs experience.
Robert Kuhn Does the concept of zombie help us understand
consciousness?
Christof Koch: Yes, because if you look at the brain basis of zombie behav-
iors, if you can identify what part of the brain or what brain systems are
responsible for mediating unconscious behaviorzombie behaviors, call it
whatever you likeand compare that with those parts of the brain that are
responsible for mediating conscious behaviors, you want to ask, where is
the difference? Is there a special type of neuron involved? Special parts of
the brain? What is the brain difference between conscious and unconscious
behaviors?
Leslie Brothers: It is an assumption that conscious and unconscious behav-
iors are two kinds of separate categories. It may be that visual awareness,
being awake as opposed to asleep, being in a light state of anesthesia as
opposed to being fully awake, feeling toothache pain, these may not be uni-
fied in any overarching way.
Christof Koch: But the history of biology in the last 150 years has shown
that for every specific function that you can identify, theres always one or
more specific systems, specific cells, specific molecules, specific molecular
machineries, that carry out this function. Thats how biology works.
Leslie Brothers: Sure; each function may have its own specific systems. The
question is whether there is some overarching system.
Joe Bogen: You bet you there is!
Stuart Hameroff: You have to be careful about not confusing attention
with consciousness because it could be that our sensory inputs give us
states of mind that are really not conscious until other systems like the chol-
inerrgic system come along and select for attention, for conscious attention.
Robert Kuhn: Stuart, you are an anesthesiologist; youre in the operating
room; you literally have your hands on consciousness; you see it fade and
disappear, and then you bring it back. What can you tell us?
Stuart Hameroff: Consciousness is an amazing thing; even though I do it

daily, I still wonder, well, where my patients go? But then it makes me won-
der why are they conscious in the first place? Its interesting that the anes-
thesia gasses that go into the lungs and into the blood and the brain dont
form any chemical bonds at all; they actually form very weak quantum
mechanical forces. This implies that quantum mechanical interactions are
generators of consciousness.
Robert Kuhn: It wouldnt have to be quantum mechanical; it could still be
chemical. Or put another way, it is quantum mechanical only because every-
thing, ultimately, is quantum mechanical.
Leslie Brothers: If a mechanism is not known, one has to be careful to
claim that it must be quantum mechanical, because they are both black
boxes.
Stuart Hameroff: The confluence of mystery theory. But what Im saying is
that proteins change their shape depending on quantum mechanical forces
inside the proteins. Anesthetics get in there, form their own quantum
mechanic reactions and prevent the protein from working.
Robert Kuhn: Suppose thats true, so what? What follows?
Stuart Hameroff: It implies that theres a quantum coherent state among
these proteins throughout given nerves and given systems.
Robert Kuhn: Lets talk a little bit about the social brain because, as indi-
viduals, we only know what we are ourselves are thinking. I dont know
what youre thinking. So what is it about the social relationship among peo-
ple that helps define who we are?
Leslie Brothers: You can think of it like language. Language is a system
that is outside of us essentially, but we all participate in it, and our brains
seemed to be well adapted to use it. And I think thats the same thing with
the social system that Im talking about. Call it the person system, where
I am a person with a mind, you are a person with a mind, and our brains
are well adapted to perceive both ourselves and other people as persons, that
is, bodies with minds. In a sense what gives us the feeling of unity is that each
of us has a source of perception, feeling, awareness that resides in us. I call it
an illusion. The sense that my experience somehow emanates from me or
belongs to me, I believe that thats an illusion. The reality, I suggest, is that
we participate socially as we do in language.
Joe Bogen: Theres some things that we really need to say here. Number
one is that consciousness is real. Leslie, you some reservations about that,
but youre kind of willing to go along.
Leslie Brothers: Ill play the game.
Joe Bogen: Number two is where does consciousness come from? Most of
us believe that brains produce consciousness. Number three is at what level
in the brain is consciousness produced? We can look at the subcellular level,
at the cytoskeleton, the microtubules. We could look at the cellular level:
some people think that there are some cells that are conscious (or have the
capacity for it) and other cells that are not conscious. You can look at the
level of brain circuits, which is where I happen to look. I believe that con-
sciousness emerges at the circuit level. Or you could postulate that you need
great, massive systems before you have consciousness. And then some peo-
ple think that only whole brains can be conscious.
Robert Kuhn: Yes, and there are other some people who believe that you
need more than the brain to have true human consciousness.
Joe Bogen: Yes, some people (like Leslie) dont want to use the word con-
sciousness unless you have a brain interacting with other brains. Im not very
happy with that opinion because I think that a totally isolated human being,
or a cat or dog that never saw another cat or dog can experience pain and
hunger and thirst.
Robert Kuhn: Dont we find it absolutely fascinating that first-rate brain
scientists differ so substantially even as to the gross level in the brain that is
the primary generator of consciousnessfrom the subcellular, to cellular,
to systems of neurons, to neural circuits, to brain systems, to whole brains,
to beyond. Is that the state of play today?
Stuart Hameroff: You started too high, or too large. To find the real locus
of consciousnesscall it proto-consciousness, something from which
consciousness is derived, something so fundamental and irreducible that it
is a component of the universe that has been there all along, something like
spin or charge or massits probably down there at the quantum mechani-
cal level, at the most fundamental level of space-time geometry, and it has
probably been there since the Big Bang.
Christof Koch: Thats a mystical statement. It is totally untestable.
Stuart Hameroff: Christof, nothing youve said so far about consciousness
is testable.
Christof Koch: No, there are lots of experiments you can do in mice, in
monkeys, you in humans that involve consciousness. Thats what progress
is. Progress is not at fundamental levels of space-time geometry. Experi-
ments that brain scientists are doing today avoid all these philosophical
arguments, because otherwise we would be sitting here 100 years from
now having the same arguments. We progress by focusing on where in the
brain are the correlates for sensations and emotions.
Stuart Hameroff: Correlates! So youre going to give up on consciousness

and just worry about correlates.
Christof Koch: Yes, for the foreseeable future, because we have not made
any progress on pure consciousness; neither philosophers and nor scientists.
Stuart Hameroff: Thats because you have tunnel vision, and youre look-
ing just in one directionyoure looking under the lamp post for the keys
because thats where the light is.
Christof Koch: Thats possible, but the way we will undoubtedly make
progress in studying consciousness is the way scientists have made spectacu-
lar progress in molecular science and neuroscience. So well focus for, say,
the next 10 or 20 years, on the experimental approach, finding the location
of the correlates of specific sensations, perceptions, acts and memories.
And thats where the funding is and thats where the experiments are.
Joe Bogen: If you think that consciousness is produced by a brain, then you
say to yourself, which parts of that brain are more important in producing
consciousness than other parts? How do you decide? You see which parts
of brain you can take away and the cat or whatever animal is still conscious.
And which parts of the brain do you need to remain intact or unimpaired for
the creature to be conscious. (In animals we do surgical experiments to extir-
pate specific brain parts. In humans we see the results of traumatic accidents
that destroy brain parts.)
Robert Kuhn: And in fact an animal or a human can lose large parts of its
brain and remain conscious.
Joe Bogen: In certain parts of the brain you can take out great cupfuls of
tissue without destroying consciousness, and then there are two places
where you can make extremely teeny destructions, the size of a head of a
kitchen match, and the human or animal is going to be totally unresponsive.
Stuart Hameroff: But unresponsiveness doesnt mean theyre not con-
scious, because the problem could be the brains attention mechanism.
Joe Bogen: Now wait a minute: when were trying to decide if somebody is
conscious, we never see consciousnessconsciousness is like the wind, you
dont see itwhat we see are the effects of it. . .
Stuart Hameroff: You cant measure consciousness.
Joe Bogen: No, youre trying to determine the level of consciousness.
Christof Koch: Most biologists would assume that aspects of conscious-
ness are expressed by animals: a rat and a cat have some sensation; they
might not know who they are, they might not know about death, but they
certainly have pain and pleasure and sensationyou can see that. And so if
animals do have these expressions of consciousness, many experiments of

the type that Joe was suggesting can help, where you eliminate certain brain
areaseither with a surgeons knife, or today using molecular techniques,
such as genetic knockout or knock-in techniqueswhere you can manipu-
late the brain.1 The kinds of questions we ask are: Is this mouse still capable
of doing certain things that in humans requires conscious behaviors?
Joe Bogen: You can make, if youre lucky, a zombie mouse.
Leslie Brothers: Zombie mice!
Christof Koch: Zombie mice, thats exactly the point. If we can create mice
that are unable to do certain things then we can learn about those things.
Leslie Brothers: How can I tell a zombie mouse from a non-zombie mouse?
Christof Koch: Because the zombie mouse is not able to do certain types of
planning, it doesnt have access to long-term memory.
Leslie Brothers: Thats just a mouse without a memory and a mouse with-
out planning.
Christof Koch: You do exactly what you do in studying disease. Lets say
youre trying to study a mouse model for autism or a mouse model for
schizophrenia, you start by establishing a few characteristics that can distin-
guish humans who have autism from normal humans who do notand you
try to replicate the same phenomenology in mice. To study consciousness,
you do the same thing.
Leslie Brothers: You have to be careful. You might end up with some
beautiful mice that wont be able to remember or wont be able to plan,
but their existence doesnt mean that you can then generalize from them to
human consciousness.
Christof Koch: I agree, you have to be careful, but 50 years history has
shown that molecular biology works.
Robert Kuhn: What can we learn about brain systems that can help us
make progress?
Christof Koch: One popular technique involves studying visual illusions;
for example, where in the same image you sometimes see a vase or some-
times you see two people looking at each other. Here your consciousness
switches constantly, you either see the vase or the people. Where are the neu-
rons that are involved in this switching? If they are the ones that generate my
consciousness, then they should show the same switching dynamic as my
conscious perception.
Robert Kuhn: At least we would know the neurons involved in
consciousness.
Christof Koch: Exactly.

Robert Kuhn: How does consciousness impact our sense of humanness?
Stuart Hameroff: I think it depends on how you look at consciousness,
if its an epiphenomenon, artificial, it doesnt mean much. But if its causal,
if consciousness is something kind of unique and has a fundamental role
in the universe, then were not merely helpless spectators in the universe
but we actually have something like free will and causal efficacy in this
world.
Christof Koch: Whoa! Wait! Weve now we jumped several levels. Con-
sciousness and volition are separate subjects, and they might or might not
relate. I dont see that they have to relate: consciousness can perfectly well
exist, and free will might perfectly well be an illusion.
Stuart Hameroff: I dont think so.
Joe Bogen: Usually consciousness has two aspects that are usually
together, one is awareness, the sensory side, what we call qualia. The other
is volition, that we do some things consciously rather than automatically.
Robert Kuhn: And both are intrinsic to our humanness.
Joe Bogen: Well, yes, but they are also intrinsic to cats and dogs. What
makes humans special is not being conscious.
Stuart Hameroff: It depends whether or not you believe in free will.
Christof Koch: Cats and dogs can also have free will. . .
Joe Bogen: Cats do things deliberately; dogs make up their minds.
Stuart Hameroff: Let me talk about volition because choice is very impor-
tant, and the best way that I understand it is through a quantum paradigm.
Quantum computing is coming at us like a freight train; I think its going
to revolutionize information technology. Quantum computing utilizes the
property of quantum superposition in which things can be in multiple states
at the same time, so whereas in classical computation we have bits of one or
zero, in quantum computation we have qubits of one and zero which super-
pose and sort of communicate. So lets say were making a choice, were
going to decide what to have for lunch: spaghetti, meat, sushi, whatever.
One possibility is we have a quantum superposition of all these possibilities
that then the quantum waveforms collapse to the specific choiceIll have
sushi.
Christof Koch: This is what Gell-Mann described as quantum mysticism
youre using these words, theres no brain involved.
Joe Bogen: Let me get back to the question of free will. Some things you
take responsibility for; you say, I did that. Other things, like dropping
something on the floor, for example, or stumbling, you dont take respon-
sibility for. And there are certain conditions where human beings have brain
damage and they do some things that they dont feel that they did. So what
were talking about is the conviction of volition, the personal feeling that
you did it. And you can have exactly the same outwardly observable behav-
ior, say, a knee jerk, or turning ones head to look at something, sometimes it
is volitional and sometimes it is not. And what makes it volitional is the per-
son saying, I did that; I am responsible for the knee jerking or for the head
turning. Volition is that feeling on the part of the individual that he or she
did it, and this feeling must have some physiological correlate in the brain,
and thats what you want to go looking for. So when you have a situation
where you can do an act either volitionally or automatically, what you want
to know is whats the difference in nerve cell activity that characterizes that
conviction of volition.
Robert Kuhn: I want to ask a final question, If we are here 100 years from
now discussing the same subject, what would we be saying?
Leslie Brothers: Well have discovered that we had to leave behind the
notion that we could discover anything about the human feeling of being
aware. Well have discovered that the level of the subcellular, the cellular,
the neuronal, were all too low. Ultimately well understand that the highest
and most complex kinds of cognition comes from the interaction of brain
and braini.e., social systems.
Joe Bogen: I think its going to take 100 years for people to accept what I
already believe.

These four leading brain scientists couldnt even agree on at what level a
simple memory was stored, whether as a gross brain circuit, at the syn-
apse between nerve cells, or in the microstructure of the nerve cells as some
sort of quantum effect. But why should it be any different now? Philosophers
have debated the mind-body problem and the existence of free will for
thousands of years. However, never before have we been in a position to
examine the brain with such precision. Even as we begin to understand
the deep science that underlies our cognitive processes, there is no letup in
arguments whether we are anything other than automata, just reacting to
stimulivastly more complex than a bacterium to be surebut fundamen-
tally little different.
Although this spirited and highly qualified group manages to disagree on
just about everything, in the midst, they transmit good information about
the key issues involving the understanding of consciousness today.
Psychiatrist/author Leslie Brothers firmly believes that there is something of

the mind that is not in the brain, but it is not spirit or soul. To her, the seat
of consciousness resides in the social interaction of living things between
brain and brain in society. Says Brothers, without others to reflect ourselves
off of, there would be no consciousness. You see; you feel; you act. You
think that by yourself youre conscious. But are you really?
Leslie Brothers
Talk about your book, Fridays Footprint: How Society Shapes the Human
Mind.
I think we might be at the beginning of a paradigm shift, away from
understanding the mind and the brain as a sort of isolated, unto itself entity,
and understanding that most mental phenomena really arise from social
processes. And so well be looking to see what the social processing func-
tions of the brain are, and then also how that leads to collective social proc-
esses that then circle back and affect the brain.
How does brain physiology fit into this view?

I think our personal experience arises from the material building
blocksthe proteins, the neurons, how they fire together in patterns and
all of thatbut most important are the complex ways that these patterns
are organized, and those have a reality of their own. For example, how it is
that you feel yourself to be a person? It is sort of a subjective locus of expe-
rience, which is built up from these lower level building blocks, but its fun-
damental reality is on a higher level, which is derived from its patterns of
complexity.
Who influenced your ideas about society and the brain?

I most admire the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein because he penetrated
through a lot of the confusions that beset us in our analytical thinking and
said that we have to look at the language that we use. We have to look at
our social forms of life and our linguistic forms, and that if we dont look
at these, were going to be confused. And so Wittgenstein brought us back
to the level of our everyday social practices, which is why he is one of my
big heroes.
Joseph E. Bogen
Are animals conscious?
When we examine the brains of animals, we see a certain organization.
And whether the animal is a monkey or a cat or a dog, the organization is
very similar. Im reasonably confident that mammals are conscious, any
mammal; I think its part of being a mammal because being conscious helps
you learn things faster. Consciousness helps you acquire learning that you
either wouldnt get at all or wouldnt get as quickly or wouldnt get as well.
But this only applies to mammals. I dont believe spiders are conscious, for
example. They dont learn much; they can do crazy, wonderful things, but
not learn much.

The real question is why didnt I? My mother was a doctor. My uncle was
a doctor. My cousins were doctors. So the real question is why is it that I
went all through college as an economics majorand why is it that it wasnt
until several years later that I decided I to go to medical school? The answer
undoubtedly involves deep psychoanalytic problems.
Whom do you most admire, and why?

Historically, Descartes. A good teacher used to say, You could tell how
big somebody was by how long he held up progress. And Descartes has
held up progress on the mind-body problem for about 400 years. Thats
world class blockage!
What is your outlook on human civilization?

There were more baths and more houses with interior heating in England
in the year 50 A.D. than there were in the year 1900. The reason was the Pax
Romana. If you have peace, you can build all kinds of great stuff. And if
youre going to have war all the time, youre not going to be able to build
much at all. Thats our biggest single problem.
What advice do you have for young people?

The first thing you have to do is find out what your natural abilities are.
And then you must determine how best to cultivate them. Young people
have to find out are what theyre good at. Now, the trouble is that society
rewards some talents much more than other talents. Thats a fact. So if
youre anxious to get a shiny sports car, which almost any teenager is, youre
not going to encourage your natural talents. Youre going to do whatever it
takes to get the shiny sports car.
Chrisof Koch
Youre a nuts-and-bolts scientist. You like to knock out a neuron, then see
whats stopped working. But youre also a theoretician. Thats unusual.
Unusual, probably, from a scientific point of view. The person I collabo-
rated with was Francis Crick, one of the few people I know that one might
legitimately call a genius. The thing I admire most is the fact that hes will-
ing to question everything that hes said, everything hes done, everything
weve talked about over the last 15 years. He has this ability to have very lit-
tle emotional investment in his own ideas. To Crick, his own ideas were just
another source of ideas, but they could also be rejected as much as anybody
elses idea could be rejected. In that sense, he was totally fearless. And of
course, Crick had an amazing ability to combine facts and ideas, to have
flashes of insights about things that I could be looking at but not see. He
could bring two elements together that I never thought about, but once he
said it, Id say to myself, well, that was obvious.
What are you finding out about animals and consciousness these days?
An important development is our scientific capacity to record and differ-
entiate, in the laboratory, hundreds of individual neurons in a behaving ani-
mal, like in a monkey. So while the monkey does a particular taskfor
example, looks at a colorful paintingI can now discriminate among the
activity of hundreds of individual neurons. And that, more than anything
else, has helped us and will continue to help us decipher the brain. We really
need to look at the individual elements, the individual neurons.
Note
1. Knockout means suppressing some genes so the animal doesnt express a cer-
tain structure or function, and then observing the losses to behavior.

Chapter 4
How Does the Autistic Brain Work?
How does the brain really work? Its all in your head, but its still a great
mystery. Funny how the brain is often compared to a current technology
first a telephone exchange, then a computer. Now neuroscience has fascinat-
ing new theories of brain function. Youll marvel at whats crammed into
your cranium.
Expert Participants
Eric Courchesne
Professor of Neuroscience, University of California at San Diego.
Portia Iversen
Founder, Cure Autism Now
Soma Mukhopadhyay
Teacher of autistic children; Titos mother
Tito Mukhopadhyay
Autistic adolescent; author, Beyond the Silence
Erin Schuman
Executive Officer for Neurobiology, Associate Professor of Biology, Califor-
nia Institute of Technology
Terrance Sejnowski
Professor, The Salk Institute for Biological Studies; co-author, The Compu-
tational Brain.

Robert Kuhn: Tito, we appreciate having you here. Wed like to talk about
how people study other people. How do you feel when scientists ask you
questions and want to see how your brain works?
Tito writes on pad
Soma Mukhopadhyay (reading what Tito wrote): I get flattered.
Robert Kuhn: What are the primary characteristics of autism?
Eric Courchesne: Poor speech and language, particularly in very young
affected children, two years old; sometimes an absence of speech and lan-
guage altogether. Poor social communication skills; a disinterest in interact-
ing with other people, the willingness to just stand up and walk away when
people are talking with you; ritualistic and repetitive behavior. Autistic
patients may exhibit body mannerisms like flapping the hands or twiddling
the fingers, or rocking and twiddling strings. Or they may have obsessive
interests, interests in maps, for instancejust looking at maps continuously
for no particular reasons.
Portia Iversen: Tito, would you mind telling people why you flap your
hands and rock back and forth, and how you experience your body?
Tito writes
Portia Iversen (reading what Tito wrote): I just need to find my position in
space.
Terry Sejnowski: Interesting, exploring space.
Robert Kuhn: How does rocking help you find your position in space,
Tito?
Tito writes on pad
Soma Mukhopadhyay (reading what Tito wrote): I forget that I have a
body and it reminds me that I have one.
Terry Sejnowski: Our brain is built to actively explore the world, and I
think that what may be happening herethis is speculatingis that if
you dont have that anchor in your body, you have to continually remind
yourself, Im here, Im here, and by moving back and forth, you can do
that.
Robert Kuhn: Our kinesthetic sense tells us where our arms and legs are at
all times; we can close our eyes and we still know where our hands and legs
are. But Tito may not know any of these kinds of things.
How Does the Autistic Brain Work? 49
Eric Courchesne: Its as if each of the senses are coming into the brain sep-
arately and never connect up with one another.
Portia Iversen: Thats what hes describing.
Eric Courchesne: That must mean that he experiences a great deal of sen-
sory noise, a lot of variability, and he has no way of keeping consciously
focused.
Erin Schuman: So he increases his sensory sample rate by moving through
the environment to increase the amount of sampling information that he
gets.
Eric Courchesne: To make at least one stimulus stronger and thus emerge
above the noise.
Robert Kuhn: Tito, everybody at this table is a writer. Each of us has writ-
ten different kinds of things. You write poetry. I do not.
Tito continues writing
Soma Mukhopadhyay (reading what Tito wrote): I write my experience.
Soma Mukhopadhyay: I do not have to wait long to see what Tito says,
because he writes immediately, he doesnt sit and think. It is as if his words
have already been precomposed; he just gets up in the morning and then he
just writes them as speech.
Terry Sejnowski: Thats remarkable, almost as if it was composed while he
was asleep.
Soma Mukhopadhyay: Its just pre-thought.
Terry Sejnowski: His poems seem to occur to him in the morning. Now,
why is that? This is something that I think all of us have experienced: we
are struggling with a problem and we cant get the answer, we go to sleep,
wake up in the morning, and suddenly its a lot clearer. We either have the
answer or we know how to get to the answer. Maybe theres something
going on during the period of sleep; we know a lot of activity is occurring
in the brain during sleep; its quite different from the activity that occurs
when we are awake, but maybe this is the period during which not only
memories are consolidated but new ways of integrating together informa-
tion you have are developed.
Robert Kuhn: Does Tito read?
Soma Mukhopadhyay: Yes; he never used to read, but I found that he can
pinpoint words on a newspaper, but that I did not call reading. I do the read-
ing with him, line by line.
Robert Kuhn: So you read to him.
Soma Mukhopadhyay: I usually read.

Erin Schuman: Do you read poetry to him?
Soma Mukhopadhyay: A lot.
Robert Kuhn: Have you done that since Tito was a small child?
Soma Mukhopadhyay: Every day.
Robert Kuhn: Do you see any correspondence between the poetry youve
read over the years and what he writes, whether thematically or style?
Soma Mukhopadhyay: Some things affect him, like while he was reading
the book called Alchemist. It was after he had heard the whole book that
he wrote his book, The Mind Tree. He gets inspiration like that. The style
has a parallel feel; its just like his poem This And That: . . .there was a
little desire and a little hopelessness; a little looking ahead and a little look-
ing back; a little sunshine and a little shade; a little of this and a little of
that. Everything goes like with a little of this and a little of that. Every
time he may have a new focus; for example, one day he wrote everything
about orange, he got so obsessed with orange. He wrote: On a hidden back
with orange sparks on little dust grains, orange on this and that. Orange on
hidden wild flower behind a hidden rock, gathering time with ages to stay,
green with gathering moss. Orange on a peeping beam, through the canopy
green.
Erin Schuman: So he is able to see orange, along with all these different
things, so he is able to sort of synthesize things in a way in his poetry.
Soma Mukhopadhyay: Orange and blues and blacks.
Portia Iversen: If you read Titos poetry youll actually notice that theres
surprisingly little imagery. Normally in poetry, you often see a lot of visual
descriptions. By the way, Tito has a mentor, Stephen Berke, the poet; Ste-
phen lives in Philadelphia and they correspond by email. Stephen has been
advising Tito to try to incorporate more visual components into his poetry,
which for Tito is very hard.
Robert Kuhn: How does Tito commit word to paper, does he actually
write?
Soma Mukhopadhyay: Yes, he usually writes it and then he types it. He
sometimes edits it.
Robert Kuhn: On the computer?
Soma Mukhopadhyay: Yes.
Terry Sejnowski: How did he start using the computer? Was that some-
thing natural for him?
Soma Mukhopadhyay: No. I gave him a computer a year before last. He is

pretty fast in picking things up: he corrects himself, using backspace and
delete functions; he opens and closes his files.
Portia Iversen: In his book, Tito has some very interesting descriptions
about early sensory experience. He does one description where he says that
hes looking out the window at a cloud, and somebody says a word like,
say, banana, and then forever after cloud and banana go together. Tito
can listen and not look, or look and not listen. It seems like these sensory sys-
tems diverged, kind of came apart, instead of further integrating as they
would for the average developing kid.
Eric Courchesne: Sensory instances, the cloud and the banana collide,
interact, and become formed as a single memory; thats really common in
autism. And a major question is, why does that happen? One possibility is
that in autism there was a proliferation of connectivity in the cerebral cortex
early on in the patients early development where these connections were
abnormally arranged almost randomly, allowing interconnections that ordi-
narily wouldnt be there or meaningful.
Portia Iversen: Dr. Mike Merzenich speculates that autism results from a
kind of early overselectivity coming on too early in a childs development.
Normal people must make sensory selections because you cant make sense
of your universe if everything is going at once; normal people use their selec-
tive attention system to focus on one sense modality in order to just simply
know things like, this is a glass; this isnt banana glass. Perhaps in autism,
brain circuits are laid in very early, too early, and as these circuits become
the underpinnings of other learned behaviors, confusion arises.
Erin Schuman: I think it is interesting that Tito forms immediate associa-
tions, banana and cloud. Not only does this reveal that he can form associa-
tions, but that he does it so quickly is revealing. Normal people would need
many trials to make an association between cloud and banana, so Tito,
as our window on autism, seems to have a hypersensitive ability to make
associations.
Robert Kuhn: Tito, how do you see the door?
Tito writes
Soma Mukhopadhyay (reading what Tito wrote): The shapes come first. . .
Robert Kuhn: The shapes come first, and what next?
Soma Mukhopadhyay (reading what Tito wrote): The color.
Terry Sejnowski: Sensory inputs come in over time, you have to put the
pieces together, and normal people do that without ever knowing that they
are doing it; thats something that we take for granted.
Eric Courchesne: So, Tito, youre saying that the larger an object is, the
more difficult it is for you to perceive it. And you perceive it in parts or frag-
ments, shape and then color.
Tito writes on pad
Soma Mukhopadhyay (reading what Tito wrote): I see the room only after
I see the door.
Terry Sejnowski: Thats almost poetical. It illustrates something that were
beginning to understand about our own perception, which is that normally
you see the whole before you see the parts. For Tito, it looks like its the
opposite. Tito has a problem with putting the world together. Normally
we dont think about the fact that we can see someone and listen to them
and touch things and it all comes together in our brain almost automatically.
But, in some conditions, and apparently this is the case with Tito, those sen-
sory inputs are disconnected and so it is not at all easy to put them together.
To the autistic mind, the world must be a very frightening place when things
are coming at you unexpectedly and things dont connect. When we see mal-
functions or brain breakdowns like autism, I think we can learn a great deal
about how the brain works normally, things that arent apparent to us
because our normal brains work so well. We dont understand how difficult
that is to put together all the different pieces of the world and make it a uni-
fied whole.
Erin Schuman: Titos case is interesting, and rather hopeful, because its
clear that working together with his mother and his team, Tito communi-
cates his experiences. Tito has a great deal of first-person information that
normal people would have noway of knowing or of getting it out. Using
the computer and voice synthesizer its clear that Tito knows a lot more than
would have been recognized if only conventional methods of probing what
an individual knows were used. This suggests the possibility that there may
be other cases like Tito where there is a lot of information locked up and a
lot of synthesis going on internally, but where there is no output.
Soma Mukhopadhyay (reading what Tito wrote): I can see a point. . .It can
become bigger than the door, just a point.
Soma Mukhopadhyay: Tito can just concentrate on that point and the
other things get unnoticed.
Portia Iversen: One day, Tito and I were looking at a door and (as he
described it here) he said, I see the shape, I see the color, I see the position.
I said, What if I close it, and he said, I may have to start all over again.
In our average everyday world were confronted by thousands of kinds of
images in any given second of time, some moving, some stationary, each
with its own complex set of characteristics. When I ask Tito, How do you
see all this? He answers all these things, one by one.
Eric Courchesne: Its almost like autistic people can only focus in like a
spotlight on just one solitary piece of the world around them, and in order
to put it together, to make any sense of their environment, they have to shift
around and around to slowly piece it all together. The separate strands of
sensory input take over his consciousness.
Terry Sejnowski: Maybe that indicates an overactive form of attention.
Normally we can tune out other, irrelevant sights and sounds, and focus
on the one critical object, but usually were continuing to be aware of the
rest of the world. If you can focus on one object extremely well, you can
imagine that theres nothing else out there except that object and it becomes
your whole world.
Eric Courchesne: Not just overactive but almost active in a way thats out
of his control. This would mean that Tito is not able to easily and smoothly
adjust his scope of attention to take in the whole scene, let alone a part of a
scene. He would be reduced to just a single feature of a scene.
Robert Kuhn: What are some of the modern theories on how attention
works and how we bind things together?
Terry Sejnowski: Its really all taking place in the prefrontal cortex of the
brain, the part in the front of the brain that allows your mind to selectively
attend to particular senses and particular features, and in fact switches
between different objects. That is a mental function that we take for granted;
we dont think twice about switching very rapidly between discussions with
different people, but for Tito this is very difficult.
Eric Courchesne: The centers for attention in the brain are located not only
in brain stem structures but also in the frontal and parietal cortex structures,
as well as certain parts of the cerebellum. All these structures are involved in
the dynamic regulation of attention and allow the rapid, smooth, and effec-
tive shifting of attention from one sensory percept, for instance color, to
another, for instance shape. Or the sensory shift can be between sensory
modalities, say between vision and audition. What we and others have
found is that autistic individuals have a great deal of trouble doing this shift-
ing, and they tend to get stuck on one thing as if their attention got locked in
or became frozen, and this situation was out of the persons control. So
apparently systems that allow for the smooth modulation of sensory inputs
are not effective.
Robert Kuhn: Lets talk about memory. How does memory work?
Erin Schuman: How does an organism store information about its envi-
ronment? Thats essentially what a memory is. What we know is that memo-
ries are stored at the interconnection between neurons (nerve cells), called
the synapse, and it is likely that memories are mediated by changes in the
strength of communication between the neurons, which is how one cell can
have impact on other cells.
Robert Kuhn: Thats done through chemicals, called neurotransmitters,
which pass from one neuron to another neuron across the synapse, the pre-
synaptic part of the first neuron influencing the post-synaptic part of the sec-
ond neuron by these chemicals.
Erin Schuman: Right. The first neuron releases a neurotransmitter that the
second neuron detects, and the latter changes that chemical signal into an
electrical signal. So, information can be stored by changing the strength of
that electrical signal. And then, once you get past the synapse you get to
the cell, and the cell has to integrate the information that its receiving from
all of the cells that are talking to it, which could be hundreds or even thou-
sands of other cells.
Robert Kuhn: As for brain structures, the hippocampus is critical in form-
ing memories.
Erin Schuman: The brain has two halves, so each person has two hippo-
campi, one in each hemisphere. In the hippocampus, a huge number of those
synapses come into a single cell. In the 1950s, one patient, called H.M., had
both of his hippocampi removed due to extreme epilepsy, and what was
noticed in H.M. was that he had profound amnesia following the surgery
and was incapable of forming new memories. That was one of the first clues
that the hippocampus is important for memory formation. Since then, ani-
mal studies have basically borne that out: for certain kinds of memories, ani-
mals that lack a hippocampus cannot form those memories.
Robert Kuhn: How about long-term memory?
Terry Sejnowski: We think that semantic memory, memory that is knowl-
edge about the world, resides in the cerebral cortex, but there is an initial
period during which you need to have a dialogue between the hippocampus
and the cerebral cortex, back and forth, for that memory to be consolidated
in the cortex.
Portia Iversen: Tito is telling us that, I have that better, meaning that he
has better memory than average.
Terry Sejnowski: That could well be. If you can really focus your attention
on something, you can really encode that in a way that it will remain there
for a long time. Attention is clearly directed by these neuromodulatory
systems, like those that use choline and serotonin as neurotransmitters.
If you could really focus the way Tito does, you could make a very strong
association.
Portia Iversen: Tito says, I have that better, meaning long term memory,
but he then adds, but I forgot my breakfast menu, and he really means it.
If I were to ask Tito, give me examples of breakfast food, hed probably

give a longer list than we would, but if I said, what did you have for break-
fast, he may absolutely not be able to tell us because of the way the infor-
mation is stored in his brain. He needs a handle on memory or information
to access and use it, he needs to get a hold of a tag, like a computer would.
Titos mind works, I think, something akin to artificial intelligence. You
couldnt ask a computer, what is this, or what did you do an hour
ago; rather, you must give it some commands, and thats similar to how
Titos brain works.
Robert Kuhn: On what level can autism be occurring at? We know that the
brain works on multiple levels, from the neurons, the synapse between those
neurons, to neural networks which are associations of neurons, to brain
structures (like the hippocampus), and whole brain systems.
Terry Sejnowski: Why not all of them?
Erin Schuman: To the extent that autism has an underlying genetic or bio-
logical mechanism, it can be a quite fundamental mutation. One of the
things thats perhaps not intuitive is that the underlying biological mecha-
nisms for these very complicated behavioral disorders can be something very
simple, such as the way a synapse works.
Robert Kuhn: In brain malfunctions, everything can be affected. But with
autism, can we discern a primary cause?
Eric Courchesne: Genetic factors must be very significant in autism
because identical twins have a 60 percent likelihood that if one has it the sec-
ond will also; whereas fraternal twins, in which the siblings are not geneti-
cally identical to each other, the likelihood is only three to six percent. So
this disparity between the concordance of autism in the identical twin pair
versus the discordance for autism in fraternal twin pair speak strongly to
genetics. Most people believe that theres probably two to four or five differ-
ent genes that are involved in this disorder.
Terry Sejnowski: But now heres a challenge: identical twins have a con-
cordance of 60 percent for autism, which means that if one of them has
autism, there is a likelihood of 60 percent that the other one twin will also
have autism. But it also means theres a 40 percent probability that the other
will not have autism; so what is missing here, in other words, is why is it that
with precisely the same genes at birth, one identical twin can develop autism
and the other doesnt? Thats a mystery.
Eric Courchesne: One or two genes do not make a person. We have tens of
thousands of genes that are the blueprint for the biology of our bodies. And
so its probably some complex interaction among other genes that may show
slight variability even in identical twins.
Terry Sejnowski: What about the environment?

Erin Schuman: Genes have a whimsical nature, which we have seen in
knockout studies where a single gene is mutated in a mouse. In some cases
in a litter, youll find 30 percent of the mice lack a kidney, and since they
are all genetically identical, there must be a whimsical or probabilistic
nature to the way genes play out their program in the development of the
organism that isnt as hard wired as we would like to think.
Terry Sejnowski: Some of that whimsy occurs in the womb. It turns out
that the environment in which the fetus develops has a major impact on
how the brain develops.
Robert Kuhn: Lets talk about the search for a cure for autism, not just
alleviating symptoms, but a real cure. How is science progressing?
Eric Courchesne: Science progresses by exploring possible biological
mechanisms that lead to the phenomena of autism, both its behavioral and
its brain phenomena. And some of these clues are going to lead us to possible
biological interventions that can be very effective. The most remarkable
story of this sort is a disorder called PKU, which, if not treated, will cause
the child to become mentally retarded. From birth, the childs chemistry is
no longer protected by mothers body and in those children who have the
PKU disorder, the childs chemistry is not able to control the use of an amino
acidphenylalanine, which is commonly available in foodsand as a
result, toxic levels of this amino acid build up and produce brain damage.
But knowing that allows a very simple and effective treatment: for a child
that has the gene mutation, PAH, that prevents the normal metabolism of
this amino acid, such a child is put on a diet that has low quantities of this
amino acid. And almost magically, normal brain development follows.
Something similar might be occuring with other developmental disorders.
Portia Iversen: Theres a subset of children with PKU who have autistic-
like symptoms. To demonstrate that a simple missing enzyme can cause a
huge spectrum of complicated behavioral symptoms is remarkable.
Terry Sejnowski: The key here is having knowledge that theres a particu-
lar amino acid and a particular gene thats gone wrong. If we knew what
genes were involved, we might be able to catch them really early, before they
even start manifesting themselves.
Eric Courchesne: In autism there are two very interesting facts that may
have something to do with each other and may eventually lead to this kind
of intervention. One is the finding that, at birth, the brain of the autistic indi-
vidual is normal in size, but by two years of age, it will have grown to be far
larger than normal. So the question is, whats causing the abnormal growth?
It turns out that, at birth, there are elevated brain growth factors in children
who later become autistic; apparently in autism these brain growth regula-
tors are in too great abundance. The interesting point is that, for the first
time, molecular factors that may influence brain outcome have been identi-
fied at birth and blood samples from autistic individuals. This gives hope
that the pathways that lead into and out of that point may be investigated
and perhaps modified, producing a far better outcome.
Robert Kuhn: Do you have concerns about brain research in terms of how
information were learning might in the future be misapplied?
Terry Sejnowski: Tough question. There is danger. The knowledge that
were going to have very soon with the techniques that we have developed
for imaging and seeing into peoples brain could be used someday, perhaps
in a society different from ours, to control human beings.
Eric Courchesne: Sadly, just about every human technological develop-
ment at some point or another has been used by someone for ill.
Erin Schuman: Science at its core has a sort of blind, knowledge-is-good
attitude. The conventional scientific ethic says that doing the experiment
shouldnt be questioned because its the sort of blind search for the truth.
Eric Courchesne: There is no doubt that knowledge gleaned from brain
science will be extraordinarily powerful, with much opportunity for malevo-
lence. But at the same time technology has brought tremendous good for
people. So the results of better technology is a balance between the two.
Soma Mukhopadhyay (reading from Tito): I think that it will lead to the
better kinds of treatment.

Call the brain the most complex organization of matter in the cosmos. Just
three-pounds of wet flesh can discern how the universe began while enjoying
the music of Bach.
Although we focused on the abnormal brains of the autistic, we learned a
good deal about what it means to be normal. Normal brain function
feels integrated and unified, but its the complex combination of deep pro-
cess and systems working seamlessly together. Its the architecture of brain
structure, and the timing of brain function. Its the signaling of numerous
nerve cells, exotic fluxes of electrical fields, and flowing streams of countless
chemicals. The microscopic choreography is a multi-level dance of exquisite
intricacies and purposeful outputs.
So what does all this mean? Understanding how the brain works explains
what human beings are. . .and foretells what human beings may become.

Tito Mukhopadhyay
Fourteen-year-old Tito Mukhopadhyay struggles daily with the challenges
of severe autism. Though nearly non-verbal, Tito can communicate inde-
pendently and is a prolific, talented, and published writer. For more infor-
mation and writing samples, visit http://www.cureautismnow.org/tito/.
Terry Sejnowski
What contact have you had with Tito?
My encounter with Tito on Closer To Truth was the first time I had met
him, and it really had an impact on my view of autism. Because although
he had a very difficult time communicating with the world, and in staying
fixed and focused, it was clear that through the work that his mother had
done with him he had found a channel of communication that other autistic
children do not have. And what made me change my mind about autism is
the fact that I saw there may be locked behind this socially impenetrable wall
a mind that is every bit the same as ours except that it just cant get through.
It cant communicate, it has trouble focusing, it has trouble holding onto
things. Ive thought a good deal about what it was that Titos mother did
for him, and how that impacted his brain so that he became as communica-
tive as he is.
Have you spoken with any colleagues about Tito?

Recently, I had a conversation with Dr. Mike Merzenich from the Univer-
sity of California at San Francisco, and Mike has some very interesting ideas
having to do with coherent activity in different parts of the brain and how
plasticityhow changes in the organization of the brainmay be the under-
lying cause of conditions like autism. Hes also working on a way for these
kids to interact with a computer in order for them to react to timing signals.
He thinks it might be possible for these autistic children to create or improve
their communications channels, starting first with the computer and then
broadening that out to people.
How do we represent information in the brain?

Information can be represented in the brain in many different ways. For
example, if a neuron fires several spikes of electrical activity, the information
could be represented by the number of spikes within a period of time, but it
also could be represented by the specific time at which each of the spikes
actually occur. There is evidence that the timing might be important for
things like attention and it may be the ability to pay attention and to focus
on a single sensory stimulus that is really at the heart of autism. And if we
understood more about the temporal coding part of the brain we might be
able to perhaps come up with a cure for autism.
In your opinion, is temporal coding the main way the brain works?
Its very unlikely that temporal encoding is the main way that the brain
works because of the fact that we know that sometimes it is present and
sometimes it isnt. Temporal coding seems to vary with your mood. It
depends on what youre focusing on. So to the extent that temporal coding
is important, its going to be important for the higher level of processing
rather than the basics like recognizing an object or being able to throw a
baseball. Those basic things are probably based on rate coding. But things
that have to do with your ability to think, for example, and be able to focus
your attention, might be related to the time that the spike occursnot just
how many spikes that occur.
Describe further the binding problem.

Theres a controversy having to do with how information that belongs
together stays together. For example, if you have a red cup, how do the red-
ness of the cup and the shape of the cup become bound together? Thats
called the binding problem. And there have been different solutions that
have been suggested for it. In my view, I dont think its a real problem. I
think that the brain is quite capable of representing those properties by dif-
ferent groups of neurons firing at roughly the same time, but they may not
necessarily have to fire their spikes at exactly the same time. Binding the
information together is needed, but equally important may be enhancing or
amplifying the information.
What kind of brain imaging techniques are available?

Functional magnetic resonance imaging has really opened up a whole new
era in the study of human brains. For the first time, it is possible to study
non-invasivelyactivity occurring in different parts of the brain during
unique human mental activities like language that cannot be studied in any
other animal because we are the only animal that has the ability to commu-
nicate with language.
What are the key developments in the field right now?

My field of integrating theoretical ideas and computational models to
study the brain is one of the newest areas of neuroscience.
Portia Iversen
Portia, your son Dov is autistic, and you and your husband, Jon Shestack, first
brought Tito and Soma to the U.S. What have you learned from them?
Many families and autism professionals have written asking about Tito,
his mother Soma, our son Dov, and the new teaching method Soma has pio-
neered. This method is called the Rapid Prompting Method (RPM). We are
working with Soma to produce a teaching manual for parents, teachers
and professionals, which describes step-by-step how to implement this
teaching method. And we very much agree with the basic assumption that
how an autistic person acts on the outside is not necessarily a reflection of
who they are and how they think on the inside. We would rather assume
competence.
The teaching method, which has met with some early success, and
through which we now communicate with our son Dov, is not a cure for
autism. That will require much more medical research, and we are working
hard on that front every day.
How can others learn Somas techniques?

As parents we understand the sense of urgency that many of you feel in
getting this method to your own child. Soma is working hard on getting a
first draft of the RPM manual written, and we hope to have it available soon.
See the Cure Autism Now (CAN) website for the latest informationhttp://
www.cureautismnow.org/index.jsp.
Can this method be taught to teachers and used in classrooms?

Yes.
Do you think this could work for other autistic children?

It is probable that many could learn to communicate better with this
method.
Can Soma work with my child?

Not at this time, but the manual will help you get started.
Are there any workshops available?

Not yet, but there will be in the future.
What kind of letter board does Soma use?

She uses either an ABC or QWERTY (keyboard) configuration, depending
on whether the child knows the alphabet or not. The letters are typed or
written on a piece of paper or cardboard. Eventually, she trains the child to

work on a portable keyboard such as the Alphasmart.
My child can talkcould this method still help him?

There are many people with autism who are verbal, but tend to use lan-
guage more as a stimulant than for communication. Soma is testing the
method with verbal children whose speech is of limited use for communica-
tion. More will be known about this in the next year.
Is there any scientific research on RPM?

The study of this method is part of CANs larger Neuroplasticity Initia-
tive, which is being led by Dr. Michael Merzenich. Dr. Merzenich is an
international authority in the field of neuroplasticity and has pioneered
important technology to help people with dyslexia, including the computer
teaching method Fast ForWord. As we search for effective biological treat-
ments and a cure for autism, CAN is also always looking for ideas that can
make an impact for people with autism today. Our goal is to bring the cut-
ting edge of technology to bear upon the communication problems with
autism. This initiative is actively creating a new hybrid field, bringing
together the wizards of technology and neuroscience along with experts on
autism, therapists and people with autism themselves.
What are the recent key developments in finding a cure for autism?
The most exciting news in neuroscience in the last five years is the idea of
neuroplasticitythe concept that the brain continues to grow and change
throughout life. There have been amazing breakthroughs in the treatment
of stroke and dyslexia through neural retraining. Using specialized educa-
tion techniques, the brain is able to rewire around damaged or undeveloped
areas and re-regulate the way it deals with sensory input. CANs Neuroplas-
ticity Initiative would compile an integrated team of scientific leaders to
focus on bringing these techniques to bear on autism to find ways to retrain
the brains of people with autismfrom the very young to adults and even to
those most affected who in many instances are not able to speak at all.
What type of research does CAN fund?

Cure Autism Now funds genetics, environmental co-factors in autism,
neuroplasticity and a large portfolio of basic biological research in autism.
CAN also works to increase federal funding of autism research and was
responsible for the recent funding of eight centers of excellence in autism
research by the National Institute of Mental Health.
Where are CAN chapters located?

Cure Autism Now has volunteer chapters in Los Angeles and Orange
County, California, Northern California, New Jersey, Baltimore/Washing-
ton D.C., Seattle, Philadelphia, and Chicago. Please check the CAN
websitehttp://www.cureautismnow.org/index.jspfor information on
local activities.
Can Soma and Tito travel and give presentations?

Through the CAN website, we can give Soma your request. It is difficult
for Tito to fly, and therefore, he travels infrequently. We are helping Soma
create a video of Tito and some the children she has taught, so that she
may give presentations herself. She will respond to your request as soon as
possible.
You, Tito, and Mike Merzenich, Ph.D., were on 60 Minutes 2 and Good
Morning America in February, 2003. Any way to see that?
Tapes can be ordered from CBS News. Please visit www.cbsnews.com and
click on 60 Minutes 2.
In the Closer To Truth program, How Does the Autistic Brain Work? Titos
descriptions are disturbing. Have other autistics described the experience?
Titos descriptions of sensory stimulation match those of other people
with autism. Gail Gillingham Wylie, M.Sc., an autism consultant and work-
shop presenter, and her husband Clay Wylie, have made the effort to collect
these descriptions from a variety of sources and used them to create an
autistic perception experience for people to try out. You can contact them
at exgr@telusplanet.net
Eric Courchesne
What causes autism?
Theres a wide range of speculations regarding what causes autism. But
the huge difference between identical twins and fraternal twins in the likeli-
hood that if one has autism so does the other60 percent versus three to six
percent suggests a very strong influence of genetics. It also may well be
that the genes that are involved in autism somehow place that individual at
greater risk or more vulnerable to environmental events, like exposure to
viruses or toxins. Thats a possibility that autism may be caused by a reac-
tion to a virus or toxin.
What developments would help us understand the causes of autism?

Autism is a disorder in which children live a long, natural life. They dont
die, so you cant look at the brain after they die. So how do you study it?
More effective methods for neuroimaging are required, methods that allow
imaging down to describing details of cortical areas and structure. That
would be a key way to study the features in their brains when they are most
flagrantat the time the child is two or three.
Whom do you most admire and why?

Actually, right now the person I most admire is Terry Sejnowski. The rea-
son is that he has a very positive, very proactive and energetic approach to
science, his interests are wide-ranging, and he understands the excitement
of many different areas of neuroscience. And its that emotional and psycho-
logical attitude, as well as that intellectual attitude, which allows him to
integrate ideas across many domains; and thats whats needed when you
study a developmental disorder like autism because developmental disorders
are very complex.
Erin Schuman
As someone who studies the brain in detail, what do you think, does the soul
exist?
I think differently from most of my scientific colleagues in that I save a
place for the soul along with all things spiritual. So for me personally, not
everything has to be explained by a molecule or an atom, and so I put the
soul in the category of those mystical things that touch us in life that I do
not think we have a molecular explanation for.

Chapter 5
Does Psychiatry Have a Split

Personality?
The battle lines in modern psychiatry are drawn: Will biology replace
psychology? Mental health is a significant international issueincreasing
numbers of people have mental problemsyet psychiatry remains suspect
as a science. On one side is the psychological approach: traditional psychia-
trists and psychologists who use psychoanalysis, behavioral and cognitive
therapies. On the other side is the biological approach: high-tech medical
scientists, also called biomedical psychiatrists, who use mood-altering
drugs, brain imaging, genetic testing. Psychiatry is said to have a split
personality.
But who defines mental illness? When and why do such definitions
change? The treatment of mental illness has a long and unpleasant history,
including looking for demons and relying on exorcisms, and the chaining
and torturing of the mentally ill. Note psychiatrys controversial history:
beginning with hypnosis and Freuds study of the unconscious, the develop-
ment of psychoanalysis, and the various behavioral and cognitive therapies
founded on psychological theories and confirmed by statistical data as well
as anecdotal stories. Recently, psychiatry has become more integrated into
the medical sciences, with the design and controlled studies of psycho-
active drugs, CAT and PET imaging of brain diseases and abnormalities,
and genetic studies of mental illness. Do these techniques take psychiatry
out of the realm of philosophy and put it into the realm of science? And
does this mean that traditional psychiatry will become progressively less
important?
Some approaches to psychiatry are clearly scientific, such as brain imaging

and mood-improving drugs, and can be subjected to the scientific method of
verification as are traditional medical procedures. Other approaches, such as
behavioral and cognitive therapies, and even psychoanalysis, though less
verifiable by the scientific method, seem essential in curing or ameliorating
many mental problems. With cases of depression skyrocketing today in
addition to the steady state of the more severe mental illnesses, both
approaches seem critical for effective treatment. Nonetheless, from the
standpoint of the scientific method, psychodynamic methods still require a
higher standard of proof.
In this chapter, a prominent biological psychiatrist and two psychologists
debate the extent to which psychoanalysis, or talk therapy, has been sup-
planted by pharmaceutical solutions in treating most psychiatric problems,
including depression and anxiety. All express concern about ignoring the ben-
efits of talk therapy, especially at a time when depression is on the rise and has a
10 percent suicide rate. They also highlight the causes for this trend, from
HMOs desire to keep treatment costs down to the pharmaceutical industrys
need to generate profits. The outlook is hopeful that new brain imaging tech-
niques will lead to a greater understanding of mental illnesses, thus yielding
more comprehensive, sophisticated, and effective therapies.
Psychology Todays Robert Epstein fears that treatments will descend into
mere pill popping. Neuropsychiatrist/MacArthur fellow Dr. Nancy Andrea-
sen, whose work centers around these new techniques (and whose seminal
work on schizophrenia has redefined the field), is also one of the staunchest
champions of traditional talk psychotherapy. Young psychiatrists dont
learn how to interview and that is a real loss. She recognizes that disorders
of the human mind are not like diseases of the human kidney. Subtle physical
variationsfar below our detection capacitycan combine with intense
psychological experiences to induce debilitating mental illnesses that can
benefit from the insights and interventions of skilled clinicians as well as
from drugs. And Peter Loewenberg, dean of the Southern California Psycho-
analytic Institute, argues that Freudian-type analysis, updated, continues to
provide insights obtainable in no other way.
Expert Participants
Nancy Andreasen
Professor of Psychiatry, University of Iowa College of Medicine; editor-in-
chief, American Journal of Psychiatry; author, The Broken Brain, Brave
New Brain; National Medal of Science
Robert Epstein
Former editor-in-chief, now West Coast editor, Psychology Today maga-
zine; University Research Professor, Alliant International University
Does Psychiatry Have a Split Personality? 67
Peter Loewenberg
Dean, Southern California Psychoanalytic Institute; Professor of History,
University of California at Los Angeles

Nancy Andreasen: If we go back in history, people like Hippocrates con-
ceptualized mental illnesses as physical in origin. The psychodynamic way
of thinking is an add-on that only really began in the late 19th and early
20th century.
Robert Kuhn: Lets use, as a specific example, depression, a mental prob-
lem that affects millions.
Peter Loewenberg: There isnt a split today: the two approaches interact.
Everyone knows what depressions like: there are emotional causes and
physical causes, and that big split, mind from body, originating 2,000 years
ago with Plato, has now been closed.
Robert Epstein: I dont agree. Youre talking theory, but when it comes to
treatment, theres very definitely a split. For a while in America, after Freud,
when psychologists and psychiatrists were the people you went to for
depression, what you got was mainly talk. Now, for the same syndromes,
you go to your HMO (Health Maintenance Organization) and you get a
drugno one talks to you. So, the psychological side of depression is very
often ignored and, in fact, what you could call the biomedical side is all most
professionals seem to care about.
Nancy Andreasen: The picture is not as bad as youre portraying it. For
sure, people received psychological treatments before good drugs were avail-
able (beginning in the 1950s). In my training, I was taught to use psycho-
therapy for the more psychological or reactive depressions, and to use
drugs for those more biologically based.
Robert Kuhn: How could you distinguish a biological-based cause for
depression?
Nancy Andreasen: There are classic signs and symptoms that are more bio-
logically based: loss of appetite, severe insomnia, variations in diurnal
rhythmin other words, fluctuations in mood according to time of day,
which suggests that theres something in the physical apparatus that isnt
working quite right, that is causing the mental problems. These kinds of
depressions are the ones that tend to respond best to medications.
Robert Epstein: I will insist that what people really have now is very lim-
ited benefits through an HMO, which might give them 10 psychotherapy
sessions a year, with each lasting perhaps 15 minutes. With a mental health
professional, theres a bookkeeper somewhere in the background who says,
No, this person needs to be on Prozac. The are about a 135 million Amer-
icans who now get their mental health services through HMOs.
Nancy Andreasen: Youre talking about economicsthats not what psy-
chiatry is and thats not what psychiatrists would like to do to take care of
their patients.
Robert Epstein: Youre not talking about reality; youre talking about the
ideal.
Peter Loewenberg: Youre also right about the training. About 50% of
psychiatry residency programs do not train in psychotherapy anymore.
Nancy Andreasen: I dont think the statistic is that high. You cant get
Board Certified in psychiatry without having demonstrated that youve had
training in psychotherapy.
Peter Loewenberg: Young psychiatrists do not know how to talk to peo-
ple; one cynical psychiatrist calls it cocktail mixingyou put in a little
of something this week and, if it doesnt work, you change the cocktail next
week and put in a little of something else. When you talk depression, and
people have had a lossa bereavement, a martial breakup, or a defeat at
workthey need someone to talk to, they need a human relationship to
work out whats going on, what they contributed to it, and how theyre
going to cope with it and adapt to it and do better next time.
Nancy Andreasen: This is ironic for me because Im a psychiatrist who was
actually involved in the criteria for defining mental illnesses that are now
being used to train people. And when you say that young psychiatrists dont
learn how to interview, Im afraid that I often agree with that. The diagnos-
tic and statistical manual lays out a set of criteria for every mental illness
and, when we put them down, we thought, well, this will help standardize
things, clarify, create reliability, but whats in fact happened is that theyve
become canonized over the course of the last 20 years, so that psychiatrists
think these are absolutes handed down from God. And young psychiatrists,
being tested by the Board Certification systems, are expected to have memo-
rized all these silly criteria. The result is that, increasingly, their interviews
are limited to asking about the signs and symptoms in those criteria, and
they dont ask about the people. Every very time I start interviewing a
patient I always ask them as human beingswhere did you grow up, what
did you study in school, what do you enjoy, and so on, and then I go on
and talk about signs and symptoms. But most of our young psychiatrists
arent trained this way, which is a real loss.
Robert Kuhn: When do mental problems pass from a quirk that all of us
have to one degree or another to something that is a medical condition?
Nancy Andreasen: When it gets to the place where the person has become
extremely dysfunctional or is experiencing pain beyond what you would
expect given the social setting, then it begins to move into a medical condi-
tion. And then we can move on to extreme examples, to severe psychotic
depressions during which mothers, tragically, can kill their own children
one of the most horrible things one can imagine, a heartbreaking situation.
Robert Kuhn: Is depression different when it is biologically based, such as
a deficit in the brains chemical system, and when it is induced by some
event, like the loss of a loved one or a problem at work?
Robert Epstein: There are depressions we tend to call reactive depressions,
which are clearly initiated by some incidents in ones life. There are others
that seem to come from nowhere; the latter are probably caused by some-
thing gone wrong in the brain.
Robert Kuhn: How widespread is depression today?
Robert Epstein: There are probably 20 million Americans who are clini-
cally depressed. But only a small portion of these people are getting appro-
priate treatment; for men the situation is even worse because men tend not
to seek treatment and tend to use destructive means for dealing with their
depression.
Nancy Andreasen: Even more frightening is that depression rates are
increasing. If you track the rates of depression in younger people versus
older people over time, the curves for people in the baby boom generation
are going up so steeply that if you extrapolate them to the end, it looks as
if everyone in that group is going to have a depression at some time in his
or her life. Its also important to realize that people think mental illnesses
are not lethal, but, in fact, depression has a 10 percent suicide rate.
Peter Loewenberg: Adolescents are especially at risk for suicides.
Robert Kuhn: Why do we think that the baby boomer generation and
younger people today have a greater incidence of depression?
Nancy Andreasen: There are multiple explanations. For one, this group is
not going to be able to achieve at the same level as their parents. There were
so many of them that opportunities were limited. You get a Ph.D. and you
wont get a job because there are all those people who went before you
who already filled all the jobs. Things are easing up now because the
parent-level people have retired.
Robert Kuhn: Tell us about the biomedical approach to depression, diag-
nostics, and treatment.
Nancy Andreasen: If youre just a very narrowly trained biomedical psy-

chiatrist, often functioning within the context of an HMO, you wont even
get paid if you dont prescribe a medication, and so the patient will be denied
the right to psychological treatment. After a half-hour interview, the person
is diagnosed with depression and a prescription is written. The patient might
not be seen again for three weeks. Thats the bad parody of the biomedical
model.
Robert Epstein: I dont think we should hide the fact that there are trends
in mental health which are very dangerous. Take New Mexico, which
became the first state in the country to give prescription privileges to psy-
chologists who are not M.D.s. This is a trend thats going to continue: in five
to 10 years, psychologists are going to have prescription privileges, probably
nationwide.
Robert Kuhn: How do the numbers of psychologists in the United States
compare with the number of psychiatrists?
Robert Epstein: There are 150,000 psychologists, more than three times
the number of psychiatrists (about 40,000). Whats happening is that drug
companies are trying to expand their markets and theyre finding big ways
to do it. Were moving farther and farther away from social support and
talking therapies, the people side of mental health, and more toward just giv-
ing someone a pill and hoping it will work.
Robert Kuhn: Should psychologists be allowed to prescribe drugs?
Peter Loewenberg: It depends how well trained they are, and do they know
what theyre doing.
Nancy Andreasen: I dont agree. To prescribe drugs, a doctor must know
much biochemistry, neuroanatomy, physiology, general medicineso that
its very risky for somebody who doesnt have that extensive training to pre-
scribe a drug that could interact with some other drug or that could affect
some other illness that the person has. I train neuropsychologists and they
dont know biochemistry or pharmacology.
Robert Epstein: The reality is that nothing is going to stop this trend. And
thats because of powerful economic forces, namely these multibillion dollar
drug companies.
Nancy Andreasen: Theres another force behind it, which is the pharma-
cists. The reason that bill passed in New Mexico was that the pharmacists
got behind it.
Robert Kuhn: Are we headed to a brave new world where everybody will
be on drugs and perpetually euphoric?
Nancy Andreasen: Thats a huge concern. I see us drifting away from the
kind of world in which I grew up where the most important thing was val-
ues, relationships with other people, seeking some higher purpose.
Robert Epstein: And obligations to the community.
Peter Loewenberg: And responsibility.
Robert Epstein: There is a myth that has been sold to us that a faulty brain
is behind our problems and, therefore, if we can just go in and fix the brain,
well be fine.
Robert Kuhn: They used to blame your mother.
Robert Epstein: Exactly, it used to be your mother; now they blame the
brain. I think its nonsense and I think its wrong.
Nancy Andreasen: I teach a course on, specifically, brain/mind relation-
ships and, well, youre exhibiting dualism. We have a lot of terminology that
assumes the brain and the mind are different things, when, in fact, I dont
think they are. The brain and the mind are the same thing; they are different
words for the same thing. We are our brains, I am my brain, my brain is a
composite of the experience Ive had my entire life. My brain is different
from your brain because Ive had different experiences, as well as a different
genetic endowment.
Robert Kuhn: I dont think you need to believe in dualism to agree with
Dr. Epstein that blaming the brain in terms of physiological or biochemi-
cal rationale for every problem that we have is reductionistic, overly simplis-
tic, and philosophically naive.
Robert Epstein: The public can misinterpret the science and assume that
my problem is actually my brains problem.
Nancy Andreasen: Thats a very simpleminded way to think because
youre the carrier of your brain.
Robert Epstein: I understand; what youre saying is very reasonable, but
its also sophisticated, and the fact is thats not the message the public is get-
ting, thats not the way everyday people are looking at this, and its not the
message thats being sold by certain large industries. The message that is
being sold, if you are depressed or you are anxious, is that there is something
wrong with your brain and we will fix it by selling you some drugs.
Nancy Andreasen: Youre saying that experience affects the brain and I
totally agree. On the other hand, its the brain that experience effects and
the brain interacts with the world. Now, if you want to complain that many
people are either being taught to think in a simple-minded way or are doing
it naturally, I would agree with that, too. We shouldnt be saying that you
have obsessive-compulsive disorder just because of a seratonin imbalance, or

you have depression because of a norephinephrine imbalance.
Robert Epstein: But that is the message thats being sold! And people love
that message because, and now we get to cultural values, in our culture, we
want a quick fix, we want to pop a pill and were fine. I think this is wrong.
I think were moving in the wrong direction when it comes to mental health.
I was at the first-ever White House Conference on Mental Health, and dur-
ing the entire conference only on one occasion did one speaker mention
psychotherapy. The rest of it was all brain and drugs. The fact is that every-
thing that happens to you changes your brain, including if you go through a
year of psychotherapy.
Robert Kuhn: Have there been any long-term studies comparing psycho-
analytical, cognitive, or behavioral treatments to drug treatments?
Robert Epstein: Some of the early studies seemed to indicate that various
kinds of psychotherapy were not that effective, then we started finding some
studies showing that psychotherapy is effective. Were not very good yet at
matching up particular clients or patients with particular therapists. If we
could match better, wed probably do much better in outcomes.
Nancy Andreasen New studies using neuroimaging techniques show that
placebos (inactive treatments that the patient thinks are real) have effects
on the brain similar to those that are produced by real treatments such as
drugs.
Robert Kuhn: Placebos must trigger some kind of reaction that causes the
brain, perhaps the hypothalamus, to secrete chemicals that are similar to
those kinds of drugs.
Nancy Andreasen: Most people would say placebos are inert substances,
and so they will not have an effect on the brain. Placebos are inert substan-
ces, but because people have expectations as to what theyre going to do,
their brains respond the same way as they would if they got an active sub-
stance. The fact that people are already doing those imaging studies of pla-
cebo effects shows that theyre thinking about the interactions between
non-biological and biological interventions. Scientists are fascinated by this
placebo reaction, and perhaps this means there is hope for getting more peo-
ple to think in more sophisticated ways.
Robert Kuhn: Could there come a time when sophisticated neuroimaging
techniques would allow doctors to identify certain kinds of brains that
would be more susceptible to different types of psychotherapeutic
approaches? For example, if you had an obsessive-compulsive anxiety disor-
der, might advanced neuroimaging ever be able to suggest, say, cognitive
therapy or behavioral therapy?
Nancy Andreasen: Its definitely possible, but farther down the road. Its
like working with cancer or heart disease: first these technologies study the
most serious mental illnesses, like Alzheimers disease or schizophrenia,
and then manic-depressive illness, and then they move on down to the less
serious illnesses. And the emphasis is on what are the mechanisms of this ill-
ness so that we can produce better treatments and prevention, so its really a
matter of priorities in the use of these imaging tools. If I wanted to design a
study looking at the effects of psychotherapy on the brain, I could probably
finish it in two or three years and probably show something fairly conclu-
sive. The wonderful thing about imaging research is that it lets you ask all
kinds of questions. I have a friend who is studying what happens in the brain
during forgiveness. We have done neuroimaging studies of the effects of
medication on the brain and how that relates to the change of symptoms.
Neuroimaging isnt a treatment, its a way of understanding how the brain
works that then can help us understand how treatments work. My goal in
life relates to the one disease Ive worked on most of my life, schizophrenia
not just to understand mechanisms for better treatment, but to ultimately
figure out how to prevent it, because schizophrenia is a disease of adoles-
cence, and its the most tragic disease because it strikes young people and
takes away their creativity and thoughtfulness. I want to figure out what
the developmental mechanisms were in the brain that caused that illness
and figure out how to intervene so it doesnt happen.
Peter Loewenberg: The Boston studies on schizophrenia show that when
theres a job, family, home, social support, theres a 44 to 68 percent
improvement.
Nancy Andreasen: I cant say anything except I agree. Good treatment
should not be subdivided into psychological and biological domains, they
should very much be integrated.
Robert Kuhn: What are some of the ideological disruptions between the
two domains?
Nancy Andreasen: On the one side, some neurological biologists are
simple-minded reductionists who dont understand the human spirit, and
on the other side, those psychoanalysts who make up a bunch of theories
that cant be tested and waste an awful lot of time talking to people who
could be treated much more quickly and effectively with drugs.

Psychiatry does have a split personality, but psychiatry is not the problem.
The problem is the human mind. Some mental illnesses are clearly biologi-
cal: genetic testing can mark abnormalities, imaging can reveal brain lesions,
and drugs can rebalance brain chemicals.
But disorders of the human mind are not like diseases of the human kid-
ney. Subtle physical variationsfar below our detection capacitycan com-
bine with intense psychological experiences to induce debilitating mental
illnesses. Psychology and biology are both needed, each targeting its own
kind of mental problems or, for some diseases, working together in synergy.
The deep secret anguish of mental illness can often benefit from insights and
interventions of trained clinicians (even if these therapies are not as verifiable
as traditional medicine), and from the latest technologies such as brain imag-
ing and tailored drugs. Ideally, biomedical and psychodynamic methods can
combine to yield optimum benefits. Psychiatry remains an Art as it becomes
a Science.
Nancy C. Andreasen
What are key developments in your field?
As I look at things right now, there are two levels of knowledge that are
building very rapidly. The first level, in which I primarily work, is the appli-
cation of technology of imaging tools to map the brain and thus observe the
mind in action. How does the human mind focus its attention? How does it
remember? How does it experience emotions and so on? The second is at the
level of the cell or the molecule, advances in our understanding that are com-
ing from genetics, genomics, and proteomics. These two levels are happen-
ing at the same time, usually by people who dont interact with one
another. They are two quite different disciplines with different training
and methods, but its evident that the power of combining these levelsthe
very fine cellular or molecular level with the brain systems levelis going
to break open tremendous knowledge. We have an exciting century ahead
of us.

I began my career as an English professor. I have Ph.D. in English Literature
and became pregnant and developed a disease. I was on intravenous antibi-
otics for a week before returning to teaching, and that pivotal experience
changed my life. Because having the Renaissance as my field in English Liter-
ature, I knew if this had happened to me 100 years earlier, I probably would
have been dead. I spent the next summer contemplating, had my first book
on John Donne accepted for publication, but instead of feeling elated, I felt
discouraged. And I said to myself, if I had taken the same amount of effort
that I put into writing that book, and applied it a field like medicine, I might
actually produce something that could benefit many people. So I decided to
go to medical school and to have a career in research. And when I saw my
first psychiatric patient, somebody with schizophrenia, the questions raised
by what that person was experiencing were so intriguing that I was just
hooked.

Find something that you think is really important, that you care about pas-
sionately, and pursue that vigorously. Its important to recognize that youre
going to have a lot of failures, and if youre a gifted person youre going to
receive a lot of criticism. So you have to be willing to accept rejection over
and over and to pick yourself up and persist even if people doubt you or turn
down your papers. Persist and work hard.
Robert Epstein
What are your feelings about drugs and mental illness?
There is a lot of important research being done on the brain and on drugs,
and thats where a lot of the research money is going. But I am very con-
cerned that what were learning in those areas is being misinterpreted and
misapplied. The mental health field is moving in a very dangerous direction.
How well do psychologists and psychiatrists work together?

I dont think there is unification. I dont think that psychologists and psycho-
therapiststhe non-medical mental health professionalsare working
together well with the more medically-oriented psychiatrists. In fact, what
I see is a slow but inexorable process of domination by the medical doctors
over the more traditional mental health professionals. This is a very danger-
ous trend; its wrong, its hurting people, and its going to get worse.

Chapter 6
Who Gets to Validate Alternative

Medicine?
Health care is a vexing issue of public policy, and a serious matter of per-
sonal concern. Costs are rising; quality of care is falling. Modern medicine
has become a silted sea of specialists, endless tests, government regulations,
and, worst of all, insurance forms. The major killerslike heart disease
and cancerdemand complex medical procedures, which are often painful,
debilitating, humiliating, expensive, and uncertain. Throughout history,
human beings have sought to prevent disease, cure illness, reduce pain, and
relieve suffering. In recent times, science has made medicine more predict-
ableincreasing success rates and identifying side effects, bringing sense
and order to the chaotic practices of the past.
But now some challenge scientific medicine with alternative medicine.
Certainly, alternative medicine makes remarkable claims. Certainly, billions
of dollars are being spent in America alone. Certainly, millions of people are
believers, and utilization of alternative medicine is growing. When we inves-
tigate, what do we find? Visionary horizons of healing? Or continuing
approval of quackery?
Some say that traditional scientific medicine has now become the new
dogma, and the medical establishment has become the new priesthood. Do
medical authorities deny different kinds of treatment to maintain their own
control? Do high-cost, orthodox doctors thwart low-cost, innovative com-
petitors? Are there alternative, non-traditional methods of curing and heal-
ing? On the other hand, is alternative medicine a colossal con game, a
world of weirdos, charlatans, and quacks, out to separate us from our
money, while providing little but false hope?
How to define Alternative Medicine? Therapies, treatments, practices,

and procedures which share three common features: 1) they have not been
demonstrated within the United States that they are safe and effective
against specific diseases and conditions; 2) they are not taught in medical
schools; and 3) they are generally not reimbursable by insurance.
The challenges to scientific medicine have accelerated in the past 30 years,
and in this chapter, the challenged (the traditional medical doctors) give the
challengers (the alternative medicine providers) one tough time. As two
advocates for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM) square off
with two defending traditionally trained medical doctors, their strongly-
felt disagreements center on a question of proof: how do you tell what works
and what does not? All bemoan the disturbing number of bogus therapies
being peddled on the Internet to desperate people, the lack of safe manufac-
turing for many alternative medicines, and the instances where certain natu-
ral approaches cause real harm. Yet the two sides argue fiercely about the
efficacy and dangers of CAM and remain adamantly opposed over whether
or not CAM can ever do any good; even the issue of licensing for CAM prac-
titioners becomes a point of contention as they debate what guidelines
should be used to determine who would qualify. For CAMs critics, most
alternative medicine is at best self-delusion foisted on a gullible public
with misleading advertising and misguided legislation by Congress.
Three of the guests can see both sides of the issue to various degrees. Only
retired physician Wallace Sampson, editor in chief, The Scientific Review of
Alternative Medicine, sees the field in black and whiteWhat were deal-
ing with in most of alternative medicine is self-delusion. His points are
cogent: how can standardization occur when naturopathic remedies are
effected by such things as growing conditions, time of harvest, and length
of storage? Dan Labriola, a naturopathic physician who specializes in cancer
and heart diseases actually concurs: what CAM company has ever publi-
cized the proven fact that certain antioxidants prevent chemotherapy from
killing tumor cells?
For its advocates, CAM holds the key to a better understanding of the
mind-body continuum and more effective treatment for a wide range of
disorders. As alternative practitioner Hyla Cassan M.D. who practices
integrative medicine, which she calls the best of both worldssays, 12
medical schools, including Duke, Columbia, and Harvard, have incorpo-
rated CAM programs, and I want to see more of that.
Expert Participants
Hyla Cass
Psychiatrist; assistant clinical professor of psychiatry, UCLA School of
Medicine; author, Natural Highs, Kava, St. Johns Wort, All About Herbs
Who Gets to Validate Alternative Medicine? 79
William Jarvis
Professor of Public Health and Preventive Medicine, School of Medicine,
Loma Linda University; past president, National Council Against Health
Fraud; leading critic of alternative medicine; author, Readers Guide to
Alternative Health Methods
Dan Labriola
Naturopathic physician and researcher; author,Complementary Cancer
Therapies. Combining Traditional and Alternative Approaches
Wallace Sampson
Clinical professor of medicine (retired), Stanford University School of Medi-
cine; editor in chief, The Scientific Review of Alternative Medicine; Leading
critic of alternative medicine

Robert Kuhn: Lets begin with definition: what is alternative and comple-
mentary medicine?
Dan Labriola: This is a subject of some debate, and there are a number of
definitions. The one that seems to be accepted defines alternative medicine
as everything that is not traditionally taught in conventional medical
schoolswhich is, in my opinion, a very unfair definition because it includes
well-trained, well regulated people like myself, naturopathic physicians in
good regulatory districts like the state of Washington, and it also includes
the people on the Internet who are making outrageous claims and doing a
great deal of harm.
Wallace Sampson: We use a different definition: Alternative medicine are
methods and materials that do not work, methods and materials that are
not likely to work, and methods and materials that already have been inves-
tigated and found to be debatable.
William Jarvis: I go along with the NIH (National Institutes of Health)
definition, which basically says everything outside of standard medicine
treatments, drugs, procedures that have not been shown to be safe and effi-
cacious by modern medical standards.
Hyla Cass: Im rather surprised to hear your definition as everything that is
not taught in medical school and is unproved.
Wallace Sampson: No, I didnt say not taught in medical schools; I said
methods that are unproved or disproved.
Hyla Cass: So are you saying that acupuncture would not be considered a
complementary and alternative medicine?
Wallace Sampson: Acupuncture is unproved, and it probably is already

disproved.
Hyla Cass: You are wrong. There is a very good body of research showing
that acupuncture, homeopathy, and many other mind/body modalities have
been shown to be very successful.
Wallace Sampson: Well, were right into the heart of the argument then.
What physicians do is that we take out appendices, we repair fractures, we
cure some cancers. Naturopathy cannot do that. For instance in many peo-
ple you cant heal strep throat without treatment; what a physician can do
is prescribe penicillin and keep nephritis and rheumatic fever from occur-
ring. Now thats what we do.
Hyla Cass: I went to medical school, got my M.D. degree, and then spent
four years in a psychiatric residency. I did a rotating internship where I deliv-
ered babies, did surgery, and did regular medicine. I was well prepared to
look at the whole mind/body continuum. I practice integrative medicine; I
use the best of both. If I have to write a prescription, Ill write a prescription,
no problem. But Id much rather use something that, first of all, does no
harm, thats as natural as possible, and that it actually addresses the basic
problem at the root of the superficial symptom. If the root of the problem
is low blood sugar, lets treat that; if its a B12 deficiency, lets treat that.
William Jarvis: I quibble with the definition of integrative medicine that
Andrew Weil has put forth. He calls it the best from standard medicine
and the best from alternative medicine. Well, how do you know whats best
until you have tested it, until you have put it through the rigor of science
then and only then do you know if its best or not. As a matter of fact, the,
the product base from which alternative medical products come has poor
manufacturing standards; half the time you dont know what youre even
getting. So you find yourself in a situation, even if it is a product like acu-
puncture that has some real scientific progress, you really dont know what
it isso how can you call it medicine?
Hyla Cass: Its very important to have standards, to have good manufac-
turing practices, and the industry is certainly trying to enforce that. The
Natural Nutritional Food Association is trying to set up good manufacturing
practices such as getting a certificate of analysis from every batch.
William Jarvis: Theyve been working on it for ten years!
Dan Labriola: Its a failure in government to protect the public interest.
Wallace Sampson: In science, such as physics and chemistry, if a particular
method cant be reproduced uniformly, then chances are that any positive
results in experiments are wrong, because once something is shown to work
in one laboratory, one of the hallmarks of science is that any laboratory

should be able to reproduce that.
Dan Labriola: Looking at my profession, naturopathic medicine, espe-
cially in the jurisdictions where we are not licensed, there is literally no gov-
erning body that is responsible for what is being done in alternative and
complementary medicine. Any fool walking along the street can, for 65 dol-
lars, call himself a naturopath and begin practicing on the public. The only
public protection that occurs is when someone like Dr. Jarvis here says, wait
a minute, maybe you shouldnt be doing that, maybe that treatment is going
to hurt you. Weve had patients die in Washington State who were treated
incorrectly with natural medicine. The failure is really in government for
not doing what it should be doing. As Hyla said, the National Nutritional
Food Association has worked very hard to put in some analysis criteria, so
that whats on the label is really in the bottle, and that the claims that are
being made are fair and reasonable claims. We can debate these claims, but
at least theres some rationality going into it.
Robert Kuhn: What is integrative medicine?
Hyla Cass: By integrative medicine, I do good clinical medicine, and I look
for actual physiological or chemical imbalances in people, based on their
diet or lifestyle, for which I found that I could do some very simple interven-
tions by using alternative medical techniques. What is important is the
patient, and I know you can say that our success is anecdotal, but many of
us practicing what I say is good integrative medicine have such success with
our patients.
Robert Kuhn: What kind of patients are we talking about?
Hyla Cass: Some cases of Alzheimers are in fact people who are low in
vitamin B12. I give them a simple blood test and find they have what is called
macrocytic anemia, and I give them a B-12 shot along with folic acid because
they are not absorbing B-12 properly, and their so-called Alzheimers or
degenerative disease suddenly disappears.
Robert Kuhn: Do we really know they really had Alzheimers, or just
symptoms that seemed like Alzheimers?
Hyla Cass: Exactly; this is what Im sayingmistaken diagnosis.
Wallace Sampson: What this comes down to is this: what is the definition
of what you are talking about? In the first place, these people do not have
Alzheimers disease; they have degenerative brain disease, combined with
B12 deficiency. But this was discovered not by alternative medicine but by
hematologists and neurologists doing appropriate research. This was discov-
ered 30 or 40 years ago through scientific medicine; this is not alternative
medicine.
Hyla Cass: Its integrative medicine; thats exactly what Im telling you.
Wallace Sampson: If youre going to call integrative medicine just using
things that work like oil of cloves on your gum, or ear, or Peppermint, or
whatever else that weve used for thousands of years, thats fine.
Hyla Cass: We are not in disagreement.
Wallace Sampson: Oh yes we are! We are surely in disagreement because
you have taken something that is scientific medicine and called it alternative
medicine.
Hyla Cass: Excuse me! I said I am practicing integrative medicine while I
am practicing plain old good scientific medicine.
Wallace Sampson: Integrative medicine implies that youve taken some-
thing from some other place and integrated it with scientific medicine, and
Im telling you that that is not what is going on.
Dan Labriola: I think the problem is that Wallace has a unique definition
of alternative medicine. In his view, if a treatment doesnt work, its alterna-
tive medicine, but as soon as we discover that it does work, its his kind
of medicine. The presumption is that everything that we do in complemen-
tary and alternative medicine doesnt work; thats the presumption of his
definition.
Wallace Sampson: That is the correct definition.
Hyla Cass: If a six-year-old child comes to see me with ADD (Attention
Deficit Disorder) and he is already on Ritalin, Prozac, and other drugs, thats
terrible. I want to see what that child is eating, does he have any food aller-
gies, does he have a high level of mercury or lead in his blood, and I do tests
to make those assessments. Is that scientific? Id say so. Did the regular doc-
tors test for that? No, they didnt. So I check for those heavy metals, and if
present, I will use certain treatments, very safe treatments for getting rid of
those heavy metals. Ill put the child on a diet: instead of eating sugary
sweets and soda pop, he is going to get a good diet that supplies enough pro-
tein and complex carbohydrates with fruits and vegetables and some vita-
mins to help reverse the ADD.
William Jarvis: Thats right. When you get the mother to start preparing
better foods, to start organizing better diets for the child, the mother stops
blaming the child for everything it does and blames the previous bad diet,
then theres a whole release of tension between the mother and the child,
theres a whole new set of behaviors that take place in the home, and all of
these build towards a more positive experience.
Robert Kuhn: That sounds good to me.
William Jarvis: Thats right, it is a good thing. But when scientists want to
tease out what are the factors that produce the positive results, they have to
be careful in making claims since there are so many factors running loose
here.
Hyla Cass: Ive had very good results with such children. Occasionally I
will continue to use a low dose of the drugs along with the dietary changes,
a much lower dose of the medication. So I am grateful to have medication
when I need it. But what I do have a problem with is doctors prescribing
drugs aggressively. This is a problem with medical education, its a problem
with post-medical school education where the doctors are basically being
manipulated by the pharmaceutical industry. The research is paid for by
the pharmaceutical industry; the journals are supported by the pharmaceut-
ical industry. There have been some problems with authors of papers not
fully disclosing their financial connections with the pharmaceutical compa-
nies, that they were being paid a lot of money to write a particular research
paper. A negative paper doesnt get published, so if a researcher wants to
get published, they better get positive results.
Robert Kuhn: Its an industry with economic power thats highly politi-
cized, affecting all aspects of health care.
William Jarvis: But it also has a lot of popular support, and thats ulti-
mately what it comes down. When the 1994 Dietary Supplements Health
& Education Act passed, which was a terrible setback for consumer protec-
tion, every United States senator voted for it; there was not one single dis-
senting vote.
Robert Kuhn: People get very emotional about alternative medicine,
because its your body.
William Jarvis: This is where theres a very powerful sort of self-care factor
among the mass public, and the politicians have a hard time confronting
that. Everyone wants labels to be accurate, advertising to be truthful, prod-
ucts to be safe and effective. All people will answer yes to those issues, but
you can sell a cancer patient anything if they think its going to help. For
example, theres been tremendous promotion in the marketplace for antiox-
idants, and Dan was one of the first guys to point out that all these antioxi-
dant supplements that people are buying may not be the best thing for
certain cancer patients.
Dan Labriola: I published a scientific paper in Oncology, which is a presti-
gious journal, where my co-author, Dr. Robert Livingston from the Univer-
sity of Washington, and I looked carefully at the existing human studies and
determined that there is a very good possibility that if you combine antioxi-
dantsVitamin A, B6, C, E, zinc, seleniumwith certain categories of
chemotherapy, what you can do is actually prevent the chemotherapy from
killing tumor cells. That doesnt mean there isnt a time and place for antiox-
idants. Bill Jarvis is right: there is a whole cottage industry out there saying,
use all these antioxidants during chemotherapy, youll have less side
effects. Its true, you will feel better, because you are actually reducing the
dosage of the drug, you are reducing the effectiveness of the chemotherapy
in stopping the cancer. And so even though you may feel better, you may
have a remarkably worse result and youd never know it.
Robert Kuhn: How much money is estimated to be spent on alternative
medicine?
William Jarvis: Tens of billions of dollars every year.
Robert Kuhn: This is a gigantic industry.
Wallace Sampson: In the United States, 60,000 chiropractors each make
several hundred thousand dollars a year. Do the multiplication!
William Jarvis: Congress has given the alternative medicine pill makers a
license to steal, and now the pharmaceutical companies have joined them;
they have their own supplement subdivisionsthey are all in on the party
making a fortune. We must force alternative medicine to meet the same stan-
dards that every other medication has to meet, get back to truth in advertis-
ing that doesnt allow wild claims.
Wallace Sampson: The problem is that alternative medicines are unpre-
dictable; their quality depends on the time of harvest, the growing condi-
tions, the length of storage, and so forth. These are uncontrollable, and
almost every study thats been done, except on purified materials such as glu-
cosamine, have shown such wide variations of concentrations, you dont
know what youre giving.
William Jarvis: And every marketing survey shows that although there is a
small cadre of people who are very health conscious (almost to the point of
neurosis), 80 percent of the market out is purely pragmaticthey buy alter-
native medicines because they hear about it. Its strictly a trial and error
thing driven by the market claims that are usually exaggerated or outright
wrong.
Dan Labriola: There was a group of homeopaths who promoted the use of
homeopathic immunization as opposed to conventional immunizations for
childhood diseases and other things. Im the principal author of the law in
the State of Washington to bar such practices, because every study thats
ever been done has shown that homeopathic immunization simply dont
work.
Robert Kuhn: But when any kind of vaccines, especially alternative
ones, dont work, we have an affirmative responsibility as a society to pro-
tect those children whose parents may think it works.
Dan Labriola: Precisely.

Robert Kuhn: Dan, what are some other specific treatments that you do?
Dan Labriola: My practice is mainly cancer, heart disease, and neurologi-
cal diseases. For cancer patients I have found that acupuncture is often useful
for the control of nausea and vomiting resulting from chemotherapy. I think
we need to look carefully at the criteria for repeatability that Dr. Sampson
was talking about, but theres a factor that we didnt talk about, namely,
who is doing the test? Oftentimes you have researchers who are investigating
some of these treatments who really dont know anything about them, and
as a result some of the negative studies may be the result of poor investiga-
tional design. Its interesting that Bastyr University just got a $1.1 million
grant from the National Institutes of Health to train scientists in how to
do rational investigations of complementary and alternative medicine
therapies.
William Jarvis: When I read the Chinese medicine literature, every study
seems to come out positive. Could this be because these treatments are the
only modality that they offer? I dont think that acupuncture qualifies as
alternative medicine because it is now found in so many pain control centers
around the country. At Loma Linda, which is a very conservative Christian
medical university, weve had acupuncture in our pain control clinic since
the early 1970s.
Robert Kuhn: Do you agree with that?
William Jarvis: Sure. Even though I am a skeptic about alternative medi-
cine in general, I think that in the control of pain, which is very subjective,
very individualistic, what works should be used. If the pain control is a result
of, say, operant conditioning in that person, or part of their belief system, as
long as it works for them, it is fine. In a pain control setting, your goal as a
physician is to help each individual patient; your goals are not scientific,
your goals are clinical, so you do whatever works.
Hyla Cass: When they do acupuncture on horses, it also works, and, in
horses, I dont think operant conditioning is the reason. If you take a horse
thats lame, put the needle in the right spot, that horse can begin to walk
and run and do what horses do. Placebos dont work in horses.
William Jarvis: I have never seen a horse immediately able to run after such
treatments. What I have seen is that human beings evaluate whether the
horse is feeling better or not. And so the result may be in the observer not
in the horse. There is a great deal of subjectivity going on when it comes to
the evaluations of the outcomes of veterinary acupuncture.
Wallace Sampson: This is a place where really honest disagreement can
occur. Im not two-sided about this because I dont think there is a role for
acupuncture in a medical clinic, although, frankly, at one time I did. I

thought that acupuncture was in sort of a transition zone between scientific
medicine, on the one hand and human subjectivity on the other, and that
acupuncture might have some role. But now I dont think that acupuncture
works because there is so much myth about it, that even physicians, when
they use it, misinform themselves about what theyre doing, and this is
where I think the danger is. I dont mind using placebos in some instances,
but the physician must know that its a placebo and should not fool himself
about what he is doing.
Robert Kuhn: Of course that would make it a better placebo!
Wallace Sampson: You are right, it would make it a better placebo, but the
point Im trying to make here is that there is danger when physicians and
administrators in hospitals are so misinformed that they dont know what
they are doing, because medicine is built on objective results.
Robert Kuhn: This brings up is the whole issue of what is scientific rigor in
medicine? What are the standards by which new products or procedures are
accepted into the medical community? Putting aside all definitions, if some
alternative procedure to treat, say, prostate cancer can be proven to work,
Wallace would be the first to accept that. If other research shows that anti-
oxidants will diminish the effect of chemotherapy and therefore be detri-
mental, Wallace will also applaud that. So, how do we get everyone to
work together in a scientific procedure, so that 20 years from today, we will
have made progress?
Dan Labriola: I think the first and most important thing is to provide
licensing procedures for alternative medicine practitioners who are profes-
sionally trained in the use of these substances, like naturopathic physicians.
William Jarvis: Im concerned about the standards of conduct. Now I
know Dan well and I trust Dan because he was a scientist before he was a
naturopath. But I know a lot of naturopaths who are not scientists and never
will be because they are ideologists: naturopathy is their religion, and Dan is
not representative.
Robert Kuhn: Health can quickly become a religion.
Wallace Sampson: I have a simple answer for you. For the past 20 years,
nothing has happened. And the reason is, as Bill Jarvis says, we are human
beings, were faulty, we make mistakes, we believe in things that arent true,
we fool ourselves, and each generation is going to do the same thing. And all
I hope is that people can apply critical thinking in evaluating alternative
medicine so that we can catch our own mistakes, our own errors, our own
faulty way of thinking.
Dan Labriola: If we want to look at bringing more of these alternative

therapies to the forefront, I think the way to do it is, rather than saying, okay
lets just find medical doctors and well give them a few more months of
training and let them loose on the public, why not concentrate on the prov-
iders who are already trained to prescribe alternative medicine properly? If
theres something you dont like about the way theyre regulated or trained,
deal with it, theres a whole process to deal with it, but do not just outlaw it.
Wallace Sampson: Alternative medicine works only because you are
fooling yourself.
Hyla Cass: So are all of us idiots?
Wallace Sampson: Error is error. Delusion is delusion. And what were
dealing with in alternative medicine is self-delusion, because an observer
on the outside looking at what these people are doing can only conclude that
it is error dominated.
Hyla Cass: I am very proud to say, as a physician, that 12 medical schools,
including Duke, Columbia, and Harvard, have incorporated complementary
and alternative medicine programs, and I want to see more of it.

Whats the verdict on alternative medicine? Is alternative medicine science?
Its easy to ridicule alternative medicine . . .until youre really sick. These
unorthodox methods of treating disease carry astonishing claims of healing
and prevention. But beware: weak science and big business make a treacher-
ous combination.
Many alternative medical practices are ineffective at best, dangerous at
worst. Many, but not all. Some alternative methods may be effective and
safee.g. stress management techniques, some dietary supplements, and
acupuncture for certain problems. How to sift the wheat from the chaff ?
I dont like compromise, but with alternative medicine Im conflicted.
Anecdotal cases are intriguing, but only by conducting rigorous, double-
blind clinical trialsonly by playing by the tough rules of scientific
skepticismcan we discern truth. My advice? Dont be an uncontrolled
experiment. Never test the bizarre on your own body.
The best cure is preventioneat well, exercise, rest, be serene. Whats
your report card? Heres mine: good on the food, excellent on the exercise,
mediocre on the rest. . .but lousy on the serenitytheres lots of stress writ-
ing this book at night while being an investment banker during the day!

Interviews With Expert Participants
William Jarvis
What does a consumer health specialist do?
Health education is my specialty and we basically deal with health behav-
ior: why people do what they do, and particularly, why people believe in
things that science cant verify. I look at consumer health from the viewpoint
of the marketplace because, after all, most of our health behavior can be
expressed by what we buy and what we dont buy.
Would you like to see standard and alternative medicine peacefully co-exist?
Obviously, scientific, evidence-based medicine is the core of our modern
healthcare system. The question is, should we also allow for traditional
medicines like Chinese acupuncture, Ayurvedic cures, maybe American
Indian medicinesomething that has a long tradition of use, which people
do because its part of their culture even though there is no science behind
it. I say, No! but what we really should have, because we can do it, is
the science of the possible. There ought to be a standard for evaluating
new products and services. If something from alternative medicine can be
proven safe and effective for a special purpose, it becomes part of standard
medicine. I dont think we really have room for pluralism in medicine like
we have pluralism in religion and in politics. Religion and politics are arenas
for opinions; medicine and healthcare are not. Claims of alternative medi-
cine must be evaluated by the scientific method. To fail to do this is to fail
to live up to the best human standards.
Wallace Sampson
Whats your definition of alternative medicine?
At Stanford, weve had a definition of alternative medicine for 20 years.
We define alternative medicine as: 1) methods that are not likely to work;
2) methods that do not work; and 3) methods that are yet to be proved to
work (methods that might work but we dont yet know if they ever will).
Whats the future of alternative medicine?

I dont use the term alternative medicine (unless I am answering a ques-
tion) because these are collections of what I call sectarian systems, which
are methods that are not scientific but have ideological or cultural bases. All
so-called alternative medicine has not been proven to work or has already
been proven not to work or is not likely to work. The future for these
sectarian systems and anomalous methods is that most will eventually disap-
pear, which will be a good thing for the public good. Alternative medicine
consists of diverse and anomalous methods that people think up and invent
for themselves and then try to impose on the public. Eventually most of them
will be disproven, but many will still have a following because different
kinds of people like to believe in different kinds of things.
Dan Labriola
We are now giving more attention to the natural and traditional kinds of
treatments that are available and have been known to work for many years,
but they have never been given the opportunity to be tested under rigorous
scientific criteria. That is a big change. And thats how we discovered peni-
cillin. Most of the major drugs that have been successfully developed over
the last century were discovered as a result of anecdotal use that was
repeated by providers who were competent and reliable.
Does the public understand anecdotal methods of care?

No, the public does not understand it at all. The definitions of what is sci-
entific and what is not scientific are often mixed. Information on, and evi-
dence of, treatment effectiveness is terribly variable and not presented
properly to the public. We do not need to have an exhaustive scientific study
to know that something works, but we do need to have accurate information
and reliable evidence.

Chapter 7
MicrobesFriend or Foe?
Will we ever beat the microbes? Many people think we already have. They
couldnt be more wrong. But the dangers of infectious disease may be more
widespread than ever imagined. And the supposed cures may actually
make the problems worse.
Many bacteria become resistant to our antibiotics. Viruses evolve with
blinding speed. Prions may lurk in our meat. Anthrax is put into our mail.
Healthcare today is better today than any time in history. Weve had great
successes; significantly against the smallpox virus, partially against the AIDS
virus. But as diverse diseases (like tuberculosis) evolve resistance to treat-
ment, as new diseases migrate out of the third-world countries and spread
rapidly, and as terrorists begin biowarfare, we have to ask: will our precious
health last? And what about the third world, where the scourge of disease
exacts a terrible human toll? Whats the best way of fighting communicable
disease in the long run? Will genetic engineering play a part? Are there any
technological breakthroughs ahead? And can supposed cures actually
can make the problem worse? Stranger yet, could microbes be causing other
illnesses, like various cancers? We discuss radical ideas about microorgan-
isms and human health.
Disease-causing microbes are a serious issue, surely for human wellbeing
and perhaps for our literal survival. There are dangers of inadvertently
stimulating drug-resistant microbes and there are suspicions that microbes
may cause a broader range of diseases. We should pay increased attention
to microbiology and support an intense program of mapping and analyzing
microbial genomes.
In this chapter, four distinguished biologists examine the multitude of
unseen bacteria and viruses that inhabit every part of the globe, as well as
the distinct and fascinating differences between good and bad

microbes. On one hand, microbes are essential to lifea crucial element of
our digestive systemand in the future may be utilized to treat many dis-
eases. On the other hand, the deadly power of microbes is made all too real
with the frightening threat of biowarfare and, worse, bioterrorism. Our
experts emphasize that the key to understanding microbes is their amazing
evolutionary potential, which is expressed in their capacity to change prop-
erties quickly, particularly their building up immunities to antibiotics. Our
expert biologists also describe how microbes can cause certain kinds of
cancer and may even be the culprits behind a wide range of human afflictions
from Alzheimers Disease to neurological disorders.
Expert Participants
Agnes Day
Professor, Department of Microbiology and Immunology, College of Medi-
cine, Howard University
Paul Ewald
Professor of Evolutionary Biology, University of Louisville; author, Evolu-
tion of Infectious Disease and Plague Time
Alice Huang
Senior Councilor for External Relations, Associate in Biology, California
Institute of Technology; former Dean of Science, New York University
Lucy Shapiro
Professor of Developmental Biology and Genetics; Director, Beckman
Center for Molecular and Genetic Medicine, Stanford University School of
Medicine

Lucy Shapiro: After World War II, when we built up our whole arsenal of
incredible antibiotics, we also built up a sense of security that we were able
to deal with all manner of infectious bacteria that were, heretofore, killing
off lots of people. Suddenly, it seemed, we had a way of dealing with disease,
and it was remarkable. And we didnt pay attention to the fact that, even as
early as the 1950s, antibiotic resistance was building and building and build-
ing, because we didnt have the ability to understand how clever these bugs
are. And now were in full trouble. There isnt a single antibiotic now that
some bug isnt resistant to.
Agnes Day: Weve gotten our wake-up call: indiscriminate use of antibiot-
ics has led to this situation.
MicrobesFriend or Foe? 93
Robert Kuhn: How come these bugs are so smart?

Paul Ewald: They have a great evolutionary potential, they have very short
generation time, they have high mutation rates, but most important is the
vast number of these microbes. So, when you use an antibiotic you can
knock down the microbe population by 99.99%. If you just have one in
10,000 or one in 100,000 microbes thats a bit resistant, that becomes the
microbe of the future.
Agnes Day: Microbes reproduce in about 22 minutes, if youre talking
about E. coli. Microbe resistance is the recapitulation of Darwins theory
of survival of the fittest. If you have the capacity to be resistant, then you
are going to be the population that survives, while all the sensitive ones die
off. If you look at a single-celled microbe and its environment changes, it fig-
uratively knows that it has 22 minutes to change or die. In a sense its a
form of collective intelligence that they can mutate or change to protect the
species and survive by giving rise to a whole new species.
Robert Kuhn It sounds like weve gotten into an arms race that we cannot
possibly get out of.
Alice Huang: We are always discovering new antibiotics. Every time we go
into the soil and isolate new bacteria that we havent seen before, we find
that they make antibiotics against other bacteria.
Lucy Shapiro: Through genetic engineering we can actually take these cells
apart as though we are systems engineers, and we can design double-headed
antibiotics, that not only knock out the target but knock out the mechanism
for drug resistance. The additional knowledge we have now is allowing us to
design things in such a way to keep up with the way these bugs can evolve
and change.
Alice Huang: Newer antibiotics, the peptide antibiotics, can drill through
the membrane of the bacteriathis is a whole new class that offers us some
hope.
Paul Ewald: A more general way of approaching this problem is to change
the environment so that you favor the milder organisms. You can make vac-
cines in ways that favor the mild organisms, by selectively knocking out the
harmful organisms
Robert Kuhn: Youre artificially selecting for the less virulent strain.
Paul Ewald: Well, if you favor milder strains of organisms, lets say,
an organism like the one that causes cholera, this means that instead of hav-
ing half or three-quarters of the people showing severe infection, you may
have only one percent, of the people who are infected showing symptoms
of disease.
Lucy Shapiro: But anyone in the world can get on a plane and be in Chi-
cago in 17 hours. And they can travel asymptomatically. When youre tak-
ing pathogens and putting them in completely different environments than
theyre used to, and then they very rapidly evolve, there is great potential
for deadly trouble.
Paul Ewald: Take a look at what happens when we get these nasty strains,
for example, diarrheal diseases, imported in the United States. The studies
suggest that, when these nasty strains get in the United States where we have
protection against waterborne transmission, they cant make it, they die out.
So, for example, a horrible outbreak of dysentery occurred in the early
1970s in Latin America, killing thousands, but when it got into Los Angeles,
where the water supplies were protected, the number of new infections was
about one-half, which means it just died out on its own, even without any
controlled measures. Even though we live in a global village, if we adjust
the infrastructure so that we disfavor the harmful strains, thats an extra
layer of protection.
Lucy Shapiro: But what happens with antibiotic resistance when we all get
panicked, like what happened with the mailed anthrax attacks after 9/11?
The worst outcome of this particular anthrax attack, which killed a very
few people, was the enormous collateral damage. It disrupted our entire
way of living and thinking; we had 24/7 barrage on TV. But the real villain
was the indiscriminate use of the antibiotic drug Cipro, which caused an
increase in resistance to the drug. Several years ago, there was a big chicken
flu scare, and so much Cipro was used in zillions of chickens, that although it
managed to bring down the chicken infection epidemic, the resistance to
Cipro went from almost nothing to about 15%. Were going to make Cipro
useless, and that was the big danger of this very mild attack with anthrax.
Agnes Day: Cipro is not only active against anthrax, but also about 30 or
40 different bacteria. Once you give Cipro prophylactically to people who
may have been exposed to anthrax, youre also killing off those friendly
microbes and other microbes that are living in your gut that you wanted to
keep. Its called microbial antagonism, where you want to keep the good
guys and the bad guys sort of equal.
Lucy Shapiro: The same things that have to be done to protect our popula-
tions from infectious disease are going to help us understand how to deal
with bioterrorist threats. Its tremendously important that we understand
how bacteria can evolve and change and, at the same time, the knowledge
that we acquire can be applied to how to deal very rapidly with both natural
infectious disease and bioterrorism.
Alice Huang: When we study bacteria in the laboratory, we often look
at them as single-cell animals, whereas in nature they actually exist in
communities, in very complex communities. And there are rules in that com-
munity, so that no one organism takes over. In fact, they need each other;
sometimes some bacteria will provide food for another organism and vice
versa. As we understand these situations, we also begin to realize that there
are many microbes that are very good, microbes that we actually need that
are very useful. In our own gut, we find that theres a nice mixture of
microbes and generally, if we disturb them, if that balance is not correct,
all sorts of terrible things happen. If you live on a farm, you know that cows
are known to pass gas a great deal, and the reason that they do so is because
they have a methane creating bacteria which does this. Now, one third of the
human population has the same bacteria, predominantly in their gut. And so
those are the friends that you sort of want to avoid. But two-thirds of
humans have a different kind of bacteria, so each of our guts are actually
quite different from the other.
Lucy Shapiro: Theres an incredible story about a good bacterium that
lives inside whats called an eyespot on a squid that lives in very shallow
waters off Hawaii, and this bacterium radiates photons, so it causes light
to be generated. It radiates at night, and what it does is to protect this squid
from predators because when theres a full moon shining and youve got
this squid in shallow water, the light turns on and obliterates the shadow,
and so the squid becomes invisible to predators. And then in the morning,
this particular population of light-generating bacteria goes away, and then
it comes back again in the evening, cyclically. There are many examples of
bacteria living symbiotically with other living organisms and providing criti-
cal functions.
Robert Kuhn: How do different microbial strains work together, say ben-
eficial ones versus harmful ones?
Agnes Day: One way that microbial strains work together is by bringing
about drug resistance in the sharing of extrachromosomal material that will
carry the genes encoding for drug resistance. In the past, we thought that
only like species could exchange this DNA (through conjugation where the
cells come in contact with each other). Now scientists have discovered some-
thing called promiscuous plasmids, which will also affect other species.
There are pieces of DNA called integrons that have sometimes up to six
genes that are encoding for enzymes that will destroy six different drugs.
With the rise of these types of resistance mechanisms in the bacteria, drug
discovery is going to have to be more focused and more clever.
Robert Kuhn: Were going to go to our next topicwhether microbes can
cause diseases beyond the traditional categories of infectious diseases. Most
people dont even realize that some cancers can be caused by external, infec-
tious microbes.
Paul Ewald: About 15% to 20% of all human cancers are known to be
caused by infection, which is an astonishing number. If in 1975 you were
to ask scientists what proportion of all human cancer is caused by infection,
they would say perhaps one tenth of one percent. What has happened over
the last 25 to 30 years is that every five years or so weve been discovering
more and more cancers being caused by infection.
Robert Kuhn: Is this a discovery of what always was and never known
before or an increase due to changes in the human condition?
Paul Ewald: A discovery of what always was. 25 years ago virtually 100%
of cancers had causes that we didnt understand well. Now we understand
some of those causes better, enough to know, for example, that cervical
cancer and liver cancers are caused by infectious agents.
Agnes Day: And then there is the Helicobacter pylori bacteria, which has a
strong association with gastric cancer.
Paul Ewald: There is a great deal of interesting data that seems to show
that stomach cancers can be cured with antibiotics that knock out Helico-
bacter. In a study from Japan, in which experimental and control groups
were followed longitudinally in the population, there were 33 cases of stom-
ach cancer in the control group, but in the experimental group, which had
the Helicobacter bacteria knocked out, there were zero.
Lucy Shapiro: To think critically here, the operational word is triggering
something in the host. I do not think this is a simple chain of events that
cancer is caused directly by a bacterial or viral infection. In most instances,
a tissue in a person is attacked by an infection which then elicits a whole
series of biochemical reactions that result in the cancereverything in the
cell is disrupted, especially in tissues that turn over rapidly. So it is not that
the bug itself is causing the cancer; it is that our bodies are over-responding
to the infection (especially in cells that keep recycling), trying to get rid of
the infection, and as an unintended consequence of all the biochemical activ-
ity, you get mutations and when these mutations build up, you get an onco-
genic response resulting in cancer.
Paul Ewald: Sometimes yes; sometimes no. In other words, there are two
ways in which infections can cause cancer: first is a sort of the irritation
mechanism, which is what Lucy just described. But there is a second mecha-
nism in which the pathogen directly causes the cancer by encoding a com-
pound that knocks out one of the cancer-prevention genes or enzymes or
proteins in the cells. So, for example, Human Papilloma viruses produce
E6 protein, which knocks out p53, which is one of our barriers against
cancer. The virus is doing this, evolutionary speaking, because it enables
the virus to reproduce better by causing the host cell in which it is living to
live a little bit more, and that enables the virus to avoid destruction by the
immune system. But in the process of extending its reproduction time, the
virus pushes the cell one step closer to cancer.
Robert Kuhn: What is the percentage of cancers that are caused, in some
way, by infection?
Paul Ewald: Let me answer that question in reverse: In less than 5% of
human cancers can we exclude a role for infection. For about 15 to 20%
of human cancers, we say infections are playing a triggering or primary role.
And in the other approximately 7580% of human cancers we dont know
yet.
Lucy Shapiro: The impact of infectious disease goes beyond cancers. These
infectious agents can come in and cause some effect in the host and then our
immune system overreacts, causing auto-immune diseases. Many of our
modern diseases are auto-immune diseases that are triggered initially by
either a viral or a bacterial infection.
Alice Huang: A great example of this is when the Helicobacter pylori bac-
teria was discovered to be causing ulcers, which, prior to this discovery,
everyone thought was caused by stress. (For discovering that bacteria caused
ulcers, Dr. Barry Marshall and Dr. Robin Warren won the 2005 Nobel Prize
in Physiology or Medicine.) On the other hand, for the inflammatory bowel
diseases, doctors assume it must be caused by a bacteria, but when treatment
with antibiotics didnt work, we realized it was really the inflammatory
response of the host.
Lucy Shapiro: Good point. Antibiotics can be not only useless but also
dangerous. Take E. coli 0157, in which you have the genes for a toxin that
came from another kind of bacterium (called Shigella), and that Shigella is
sitting within a piece of DNA that came from a bacteriophage (a bacterial
virus). And so any treatment that a doctor gives a patient that affects E. coli
0157, which is harboring this latent virus in its chromosome, can cause the
viral genes to turn on the toxin gene and then the toxin makes the patient
very ill or even causes death. In this situation, if antibiotics are administered,
you stimulate the production of the virus that turns on the genes for the
toxin. So you cant give antibiotics in this case.
Robert Kuhn: Now to the good microbes. What is probiotics? Can
microbes be utilized to make us better?
Paul Ewald: One kind of research that has been going on since the 1960s
(and perhaps the late 1950s) studies the possibility that if you have a nasty
infection, lets say staphylococcus, perhaps you could be given a milder
staphylococcus so that the less toxic bacteria could interfere with the more
toxic one.
Agnes Day: The poster child for probiotics would be the lactobacillus or
the active yogurt cultures that you see now in grocery stores, such as the Lac-
taid Milk for people who are lactose intolerant. This bacterium will break
down the milk sugar so that you dont get the stomach cramping.
Paul Ewald: Vaccinations are probiotics in that they introduce into the
human body milder strains of the disease so that the immune system is
stimulated to develop antibodies that can fight the more virulent strains of
the same disease. Thus the vaccines knock out the harmful strains and leaves
the mild strains. The diphtheria vaccination program, which is the second
most successful vaccination program in history (second only to the smallpox
vaccination program), has used just this strategy (without really knowing it).
Alice Huang: There is current researchprobably least familiar to the gen-
eral publicwhich puts anaerobic bacteria into tumors with the objective of
destroying the inside of the tumor. That the bacteria are anaerobic is impor-
tant, since once the bacteria gets into an oxygenated environment, it can no
longer spread and grow uncontrollably. Dealing with bacteria is complex.
Earlier we spoke about the water supply somewhat simplistically: if we seek
to get rid of all the bad microbes just by cleaning up the water supply, we
could cause other problems. Very often, when you treat one population of
microbes and get the desired result, it doesnt mean that other populations
of microbes dont change as well. In fact, the same treatment that eliminates
one kind of bad microbe might cause good microbes to change into bad
ones! So even though we all agree that having clean water is a good thing,
in some instances where we have become more hygienic, we have become
more susceptible as host to certain other agents. For example, the polio
virus, which has been around since Egyptian days, became an epidemic
because we developed much better water supplies.
Paul Ewald: Thats right. We know that the success associated with clean-
ing up water supplies dwarfs most other success stories in medicine, but yet
there can be potential problems in doing so. With polio, we had to come
back with a good vaccine program and knock out this straggler virus that
sort of got in the back door because it had some characteristics that made
it unusual compared to other waterborne pathogens. We must take into
account the whole balance sheet. The same kind of argument has been made
for peptic ulcers. If we knock out Helicobacter pylori, we have this tremen-
dously positive effect in reducing the frequencies of peptic ulcers and the
frequencies of some stomach cancers. However, some people argue that it
looks like this treatment might be associated with an increase in esophageal
cancerthis may or may not be true; we have to look at those data. But even
if true, the positive effect associated with knocking out Helicobacter pylori is
so great that it dwarfs the potential negative effect.
Robert Kuhn: We always have to be on the lookout for unintended

consequences.
Agnes Day: Wouldnt the cleaning up of water supplies with antibiotic
chemicals generate a type of selective pressure so that the one percent of
the bacteria that do survive might be even more detrimental?
Paul Ewald: Lets say the use of chlorine was going to be selecting for
chlorine resistant organisms, which could mean trouble. Luckily, it turns
out that there are only a very few organisms that can generate resistance to
chlorine.
Lucy Shapiro: That we know about.
Paul Ewald: That we know about. But we do have some good evidence on
this because we can observe whether we get infections caused by dangerous
organisms in water supplies that are chlorinated. But the point is well taken:
we have other methods for cleaning up water supplies, such as filtration.
Lucy Shapiro: We have to continually remind ourselves that the water sup-
ply is just one way for epidemics to spread. There is also a great history of
epidemics being spread just through the air. My feeling about bioterrorist
attacks is that it would likely not be through the water, but through the
air, with aerosols.
Paul Ewald: Waterborne pathogens are lousy terrorist weapons.
Lucy Shapiro: The bad news is that we can now genetically manipulate
organisms to change their host range, to make them resistant to drugs, to
make them into an aerosol, to make them more able to be transmitted from
person to person.
Robert Kuhn: Weaponize, as they say.
Lucy Shapiro: Weaponize. On the other hand, the good news is that we
have learned so much about these bugs that now we can design detectors.
We can now design ways of saying we know what that bug is and we know
how to stop it now.
Agnes Day: But there are also some bioweapons that utilize the toxins
from the organism. And if terrorists acquire the gene sequence for these tox-
ins, they can put these genes into bacteria that we would normally identify as
being benign or nonpathogenic, and when that toxin gene is turned on, they
have their warfare agent.
Lucy Shapiro: Genetic engineering has pluses and minuses.
Robert Kuhn: Bad human beings can use genetic engineering to create bio-
weapons and good human beings can use genetic engineering to design
agents to stop them.

Bugs are not all bad, and although weve won some battles against toxic
microbes, vanquishing many diseases, the threats are very real and we are
in danger of losing the war.
We can lose by Evolution: Antibiotic drugs can spawn species of super-
bugs, when natural mutations select for resistance to overused drugs.
We can lose by Surprise: Bacteria and viruses may cause a broad range of
diseases, including some cancers, cardiovascular illnesses, and dementias.
We can lose by Insanity: Biowarfare can deliberately spread lethal micro-
organisms that infect human beings and destroy human life.
We have no choice: Science must continue the microscopic arms race,
mapping microbial genomes, designing highly specific new drugs, and main-
taining a microbial balance of power.
It is not surprising that there is a common fallacy in our society: we must
beat the microbes! Yet maintaining a microbial balance of power is the key
to a sustainable world: without microbes in the soil there would be no agri-
culture; without microbes in our cells processing oxygen, we would not be
able to breathe. And just as microbes naturally evolve to combat others,
we can now engineer beneficial microbes to evolve to combat dangerous
microbes. Furthermore, surprising strategies including the use of probiotics
the opposite of antibioticsmight shift the balance of power in our favor,
plus dramatically improve health in third-world countries.
Paul Ewald
Can infectious agents trigger genetic diseases?
Autism does have indications of being caused by infectious agents. We
should be looking really hard to see what agents might be infecting the grow-
ing fetus during pregnancy.

The final synthesis of evolution with the health sciences is going to affect
daily life in dramatic ways. I think that a lot of the diseases that we have
had difficulty to control are because the microorganisms that cause them
are so evolutionarily versatile. This means that when we try to use antibiot-
ics against them, they evolve resistance to these antibiotics. What we need to
do is recognize that this evolutionary versatility is their characteristic power,
and we have to use this characteristic to our advantage as opposed to theirs.

In other words, if a microorganism has strong evolutionary potential, we
need to use that evolutionary potential to get the organism to evolve to
become more benign.
Alice S. Huang
Is cleanliness overly emphasized in modern society?
Obviously it is important to be clean, but being too clean is not the very
best thing either. Recent studies have shown that certain socioeconomic
groups in which the children are playing on the streets in mud and with ani-
mals seem to be pretty well protected against certain diseases, and that it is
the wealthier children who are cleaner who become infected with these
diseases.
Will we ever outgrow antibiotics?

I dont think so because were so dependent on them. Not many of us rec-
ognize what it was like in the pre-antibiotic days when so many women died
in childbirth. We dont see that very often now because of the widespread
use of antibiotics.

Ever since I was about seven years old, Ive always wanted to be a physi-
cian. I think this is because my father, who was a bishop of the Anglican
Episcopal Church in China, had often mused to himself that he would have
perhaps preferred to have saved bodies rather than to have saved souls.
When I got into medical school, I realized that saving bodies and preventing
people from dying was only one aspect of medicine, and that there was so
much more to it. I discovered that I loved doing research, which was fortu-
nate because it turned out that I wasnt very good at looking at sick bodies.
The first time I saw a very elderly, very sick man in bed with lots of bedsores,
I got pretty ill. After that I decided that perhaps practicing clinical medicine
wasnt the right goal for me. So research became my answer.

As I get older, I realize that the person who has had the most impact on me
professionally and whom I admire tremendously is Polly Bunting. She was a
microbiologist who received her Ph.D. when she had two little children, and
was very soon thereafter widowed. In her time, although times were difficult
for female professionals, she had to go out and work and she became the
president of Radcliffe College. She has given me tremendous advice over
my career. She said to me early on, Keep your eye on your goals. Dont get
sidetracked, dont get on too many committees, and dont get too involved
in all these gender studies. And then she said what was probably most
important: Get to a position where you can really do some good. As a
young assistant professor, youre not going to be able to have much power
to do anything. But as you become a professor, you will be much better able
to help people. But, she continued, Remember that when you get to
that position of power, you are still a woman. And I thought she was very
wise because she realized that in order for me to succeed, it was very likely
that I would have adapted myself to the assumptions and the behavior pat-
terns that the people around me had, which would be mostly men. And that
when I became a professor, I might really have forgotten that I was still a
woman.

Its really been fun to be part of a discovery process that I now can see has
major impact. In the 1970s, we were just beginning to purify viruses and dis-
cover that they contained genetic information of all different kinds. At that
time we had all been taught that DNA contained genetic information in all
of our cells and in living organisms. But with these viruses, we found that
some of them had other kinds of nucleic acids and therefore we worked
out how information was transferred between these different nucleic acids.
Now we find that we can use what we know about the genetic information
of viruses to incorporate other genes into them, and this gives us the techno-
logical capacity to enable these viruses to become carriers for inserting new
information into cells. This remarkable technology is right now at the fore-
front of the development of antivirals, the possibility that we will be able
to insert new genes into cells that would help change a diseased cell or
reverse a cancerous cell.

I think getting into research is one of the most exciting careers that one
can have. It opens up so many doors. You not only have the possibility of
discovering something that would really help mankind, but you also have
the pleasure of interacting with young people, teaching them, and passing
on to them new information.

I dont ever try to really guess how history is going to look to different
individuals. I hope that those who are alive will remember me with love.
Agnes Day
How do disinfectants impact microbes?
Interesting question. Weve talked about antibiotic resistance, but theres
another corollary topic that needs to be discussed: resistance to the antisep-
tics and disinfectants that we use to keep hospitals and operating rooms ster-
ile, and to clean our homes. There are many products on the shelves of
grocery stores that say, Antibacterial Action, Kills 99.9 percent of the
germs. And so I had a little seventh grader who did a science project testing
these compounds. The directions said to dilute two capfuls in a gallon of
water. When she tested these antibacterial cleaning compounds against
bacteria that she had isolated from her own bathroom, she found that in
two out of three cases, the disinfectant had to be used full strength in order
to kill the bacteria, that once you diluted it in water as instructed on the bot-
tle, it had absolutely no efficacy against home microorganisms! (One did
work well when diluted one to ten.)
Should we regulate disinfectants?

I think the truth has to be told. If youre buying an antibacterial solution,
the directions should say, Best when used undiluted. Companies must tell
the truth in advertisement. But of course its not only a health factor, its also
an economic factor. If you think that the antibacterial cleanser is going to
work if you dilute it one to one hundred (1:100), of course youre going to
dilute it to save money.
Give some examples of successful gene therapy.

Theyve made the greatest advances in gene therapy in the dental field.
One example is for people with HIV. Usually their death certificates state
that they died from candidiasis, which is a fungal disease caused by yeast
that babies or women have in their urogenital tracts. But in an immuno-
compromised person (with HIV), this fungal disease will grow from the
mouth all the way through the digestive system so that the people cannot
absorb nutrients. And so what scientists have come up with is taking the cells
that produce saliva, and taking a gene that encodes a peptide that they iso-
lated that can kill these bacteria, and by putting that gene inside those saliva
cells and then putting those cells back into the mouth, when the saliva cells
replicate, you have these cells producing an antifungal agent (peptide) that
the patient swallows along with his saliva, so that the antifungal agent is kill-
ing the organisms that are lining the gastrointestinal tract. This technique is
not yet in wide use because there are some drawbacks of putting foreign
DNA into human cells, but it shows great promise for alleviating some of
the pain and suffering of people with immuno-compromised systems.
Can microbes cause hereditary diseases?

One example is the presence of chlamydial pneumonia, which are small,
intracellular bacteria that cause upper respiratory tract infections. Scientists
have now found this organism in the plaques of arteries. And so theyre
looking at the cause and effect of chlamydial infections leading to arterio-
sclerosis. In the past, one thought that cardiovascular disease of this nature
was not necessarily heritable, but it did run in families. Now they have
shown that in this case there is a direct correlation between the presence of
this organism and the causation of this disease early in life and with the later
development of arteriosclerosis. So I believe that the more we look into this
phenomenon, the more were going to find out that there are more diseases
which are the direct results of bacterial and viral infections than we currently
know about.
What are human pathogens?
Some viruses infect plants, others infect insect cells, and still others are
strictly human pathogens. Many human pathogens have been found to be
associated, with or to actually induce, certain types of cancer. Weve found
instances where viruses have exchanged genetic material with human cells
and left a little surprise package behind a protein that could enhance the
carcinogenic activity of, say, an environmental insult to the body, thereby
leading to cancer. These are called proto-oncogenes, and if these proto-
oncogenes are turned on, they can bring about a cancerous state in the body.
What are promiscuous plasmids?
When we talk about promiscuous plasmids, were talking about the host
range of the plasmid. Some plasmids, like E. coli, have a very restrictive host
rangethey can only infect cells of their own kind. Promiscuous plasmids,
on the other hand, can transfer their resistant genes not only to their own
kind but also to other kinds of organismsthey dont care who they infect,
theyre going to infect whoever happens to be handy. So they can really
cause a lot of trouble.
I would always hang out with my older brother; he was actually was the
youngest of six brothers, but he was older than I was. We would always go
exploring together and catch various insects and animals in the woods; and
I would ask him what were these critters were, and he would take me to
the library and wed figure out what was what. So at an early age I started
asking why questions. And my interests developed to the point where
when I was introduced to the hard sciences in high school and college, they
were right up my alley. They brought back fond memories of walking
through the woods and finding out things on my own.

It is hard to pick one person, but one of the people who served as an excel-
lent mentor was my third grade teacher, the Reverend Mrs. Rosemarie Bry-
ant, who, as she put it, saw something in me that needed to be developed. I
was the youngest of 13 children, and so she asked my mother if I could come
and live with her, and she in turn would give me the opportunities that I
wouldnt normally have growing up in the housing projects of Daytona.
She always pushed me to do the best that I could. She brought me up in a
very Christian atmosphere, so I think Im basically a good person. And she
taught me a love of learning by her being my third grade teacher. So Mrs.
Bryant is the role model that most comes to mind when I think of the one
person who put me on the path of achieving and becoming more than I ever
dreamed I could be.
Does the general public properly appreciate science?

The general public takes science for granted. Once they leave school, most
people cease to think about science at all. But every discovery, every cloning,
every creation of a new chemical or compound is going to in some way affect
their lives. The public really notices when the new discovery is marketed, but
not necessarily when its discovered. The expectations of the public are high.
They expect, Well, if youre a scientist, then you should know this. But
they have to realize that just as when they go to a doctor and say theyre
not feeling well, they need to have some basic understanding of what is
wrong with them in order to work along with the doctor to get better. The
same is true with scientists. You dont see scientists like you see doctors,
but they are behind the scenes making the discoveries that are then trans-
lated into improved health care, improving peoples lives. And so the public
has to make sure that they keep abreast of new developments and actually
ask questions, be aware, know what is going on, and know how new discov-
eries are going to impact them. Most of the research thats being done in the
United States and abroad is being supported with taxpayers money, and so
everyone has a personal investment in scientific discoveries. The general
public should really know how such discoveries are going to benefit you or
hurt you.

Be aware. Be aware of what is going on, not only in your local commu-
nity, but also in the global community. You must keep abreast of current dis-
coveries and where they are going to lead because its your future at stake.
By keeping abreast, you can also determine what career choices you might
have, and you can also have information that could help your parents and
friends, so you have to be aware of what is going on. Its not a me genera-
tion now. Its a global generation.
What advice do you have for young women?

For young women who want to go into science, I say Go for it. Go for it
with all of your heart. You can have a family life, you can have a social life,
and you can still be a leading scientist. What you must get, though, is a role
model, a mentor, who can help younot by getting you a job, but by teach-
ing you both the science of your job and the politics of your job.

I would like to be remembered as a facilitator. I like to help people to get
things done. I was raised with the idea that everyone has a responsibility to
teach someone else. Today, most fields of sciencesuch as microbiology,
my fieldhave become so crowded in that one does not get that one-on-
one interaction and mentoring that we used to get. So now Ive modified
my theory so that each person must teach multiple people. So as a teacher,
Im doing the greatest good by bringing more young people into the disci-
plines of microbiology, molecular biology, and cancer research.

Chapter 8
Testing New DrugsAre People

Guinea Pigs?
When my father was diagnosed with terminal lymphoma, he was declared

not eligible for a new class of drugs that target these life-ending tumors.
How does society balance the need to do good science with the compassion
to help sick people? What are the ethics of clinical trials?
Instituted in the 1960s, clinical trials of new drugs, devices and procedures
have become a vast and expensive enterprise in which drug companies can
spend over $100 million to bring a new molecule to market. FDA procedures
are complex and elaborate, as they should be to do good science and to pro-
tect the public from a drugs potentially dangerous side effects. But how does
the government balance statistical accuracy with the desire of all patients to
get the best treatment as rapidly as possible? There is a natural and proper
tension here.
How is success defined for clinical trials? How are costs and benefits
assessed? What are appropriate levels or toxicity of side effects that can be
tolerated for given levels of cure, remissionn or alleviation of symptoms?
And what about those not allowed to participate in the clinical trials of a
needed drug, device, or procedure? How long must sick people wait to have
a chance to be cured? What can be done about bringing new drugs to market
quickly to help people in need?
Once you delve into it, the entire arena of clinical drug trials is a tangle of
hidden moral, ethical, legal, and philosophical complications. Say you want
to enroll your seven year-old for an experimental HIV drug but the kid
doesnt know he or she has HIV and you dont want to tell him or her
because kids blab. If they talk about it, your family may be ostracized or
thrown out of their neighborhood. What about the altruistic man in Phila-
delphia who had a non-life-threatening genetic disease, volunteered for a
genetic therapy drug trial, was a borderline case for admission, and then
died because of the treatment? Then there are the sensitive, awkward ethical
issues of drug testing in third world countries. Are we exploiting the people
by using them in trials, or are we helping them by bringing medical care they
would never have had access to and then giving them training, organization,
buildings, and equipment?
In this chapter, experts wrestle with the ethics of clinical trials: a doctor
specializing in HIV medicine, a distinguished lawyer and bioethicist, and
an official from the Food & Drug Administration outline the complex issues
surrounding the development and testing of new drugs. They explain the
standards now in place for conducting clinical trials and the exceptionally
difficult task of conducting placebo control trials that are fair to all the par-
ticipants. The guests touch on the role of drug companies, consent issues,
and the need for a rigorous accreditation program for institutions con-
ducting the trials. There is also a spirited call for more scrutiny of drug test-
ing in the less-developed world, and they suggest that drug companies
have an obligation to educate local medical professionals about western
practices and to leave behind a solid infrastructure of medical facilities and
equipment.
Expert Participants
Alexander Capron
University Professor of Law, University of Southern California; Director,
Pacific Center for Health Policy and Ethics; former chairman, Biomedical
Ethics Advisory Committee, U.S. Congress
Andrea Kovacs
Associate Professor of Pediatrics and Pathology; Director, HIV Family
Clinic, Keck School of Medicine, University of Southern California
Robert Temple
Associate Director for Medical Policy; Chair, Center for Drug Evaluation
and Research, Food and Drug Administration (FDA)

Alexander Capron: One thing we have to recognize in this country is that
many people sign up for clinical trials because it is the only way they can
get effective treatment of any kind. Clinical trials are now often run through
private doctors offices on contract to drug companies, and many people
who do not have the money to go into that doctors office and get the highest
Testing New DrugsAre People Guinea Pigs? 109
standard of care may see an ad in the paper saying, If you have xyz disease,
come in, well treat you, and so they go into that doctors office and do not
comprehend that what they are doing is signing up as a guinea pig in a clini-
cal trial.
Robert Temple: We have clinical control trials largely because Congress,
in its wisdom in 1962, said controlled trials are the only basis for proving a
drug. So the drug industry, which are bottom-line oriented, complied.
Within ten years, every new medicine, device, or procedure had become a
clinical trial.
Robert Kuhn: What is compassionate use?
Robert Temple: Compassionate use refers to use of a drug specifically
directed at treatment of an individual person, not to learn something.
Alexander Capron: This would be a drug that isnt yet approved for that
use.
Robert Temple: Usually it involves a drug early in its clinical trials, before
it has been approved for general use. The individuals who are permitted
compassionate use appear to have exhausted available therapy. Used this
way, you often know very little about the drug and you can be surprised by
its toxicity.
Andrea Kovacs: You could have the wrong dose, and with a disease like
HIV, the wrong dose could be disastrous.
Robert Temple: We had an advisory committee meeting on this very mat-
ter relating to cancer drugs, and many members of the patient advocacy
community came to sound a note of caution. They said that it is not always
a favor to people to use an untested drug. I was very impressed by the perspi-
cacity and wisdom they brought to the whole discussion.
Robert Kuhn: Andrea, tell us about your work on AIDS, and the issues
that you have with clinical trials.
Andrea Kovacs: Im the director of the Maternal, Child, and Adolescent
Program at the University of Southern California (USC), and we are follow-
ing at the present time over 600 women, children, and adolescents, including
about 20 or 30 pregnant women. Over the last 10 years, we have seen tre-
mendous progress in terms of actual successes. When I started about one
third of the babies born to HIV-infected women were born infected. Now
the number is zero! We can actually prevent transmission of HIV to a fetus.
This success is a direct result of clinical trials. Our children were dying and
now, through clinical trials, weve been able to determine the optimal thera-
pies so that no child in our clinic has died in three or four years.
Robert Kuhn: What are the issues with which you are now wrestling?
Andrea Kovacs: How to enroll children in HIV clinical trials, children who
are between the age of seven and 13, who basically do not know their own
diagnosis, but whose parents want them in clinical trials because they cannot
get the drugs through compassionate use. How do you enroll such children,
who have to sign a written assent that has the HIV diagnosis stated in the
assent.
Robert Kuhn: The children do not know that they have HIV.
Andrea Kovacs: The children do not know that they have HIV. Weve had
families thrown out of their neighborhoods, kids getting punched in the face,
because their HIV diagnosis was disclosed. Its a complicated moral
dilemma because, given the kind of discrimination that surrounds HIV, dis-
closure is such a huge issue.
Robert Kuhn: What is the difference between consent and assent?
Alexander Capron: The assent was conceived as a recognition that for peo-
ple who have not yet reached the age of consentthey are under 18they
still ought not to be involved in a clinical trial unless they agree, and this
below-age-of-consent agreement has been labeled with the term assent.
Robert Kuhn: Is it realistic to ask a seven-year-old to give an assent to
participate in a clinical trial?
Robert Temple: There are no absolute rules about this; people draw lines
where they think they can, but I think that seven years old is an age where
people believe that the child can make a reasonable decision. Younger than
seven, they probably cannot.
Alexander Capron: If my child says, I dont want to have this or that pro-
cedure, and the doctor and I have concluded that the procedure is the right
thing, I will try to persuade the child, be as comforting as I can, but in the
end, I will say, This is the treatment were going to do. But if I am volun-
teering my child, as opposed to volunteering myself, to participate in
research for the benefit of science, I will not do that without some level of
the child affirming, Im willing to play this role, and I understand that its
a role that goes beyond my own benefit.
Robert Temple: This is the easiest ethical principle for me to understand:
people who volunteer to participate in research trials are supposed to know
and appreciate what they are getting into. Well, its not easy for a physician
to convey to non-medical people the complexities of a study. You have to
tell them what the alternatives are, you have to tell them what the risks
are, you have to take care not to over-promise on the benefits side, and you
not only have to give a written document with all appropriate language,
but you also have to be available for questions. The whole process is very
hard to do, but you have to do your best.
Alexander Capron: There is a real risk that people go into clinical trials
thinking that they are going to benefit from participation, and physicians
need to explain that what they are doing is research. You hear constantly
from physicians in these situations that they explain to prospective partici-
pants that the process is randomizedthey explain randomization, they
explain that this is a trialand then the physician will ask the prospect,
Are you comfortable? and the person will answer, Yes I am; Ill sign,
but then they immediately say to the doctor, But I know youre going to
give me the treatment thats right for me.
Robert Kuhn: The situation is so unnatural: this is the person who is your
doctor and he or she is in essence saying to you, I dont know if Im giving
you an inert substance or this drug that we hope will help make you better.
Alexander Capron: Its cognitive dissonance. Prospects have told their
doctors: But you must be doing it for my good because youre my doctor.
Robert Kuhn: Andrea, how do you handle clinical trials with adolescents,
especially young people who have not the highest education?
Andrea Kovacs: Young adults 13 to 18 years old who get HIV are not your
routine 13- to 18-year-olds. Frequently theyre on the streets; frequently they
come from broken homes. Since they are not legally emancipated, how do
you enroll a 13- to 18-year-old pregnant adolescent? How do you enroll
someone who is in and out of juvenile courts? These are complicated issues
and a major challenge.
Alexander Capron: I assume that in this group there is no question that
they would all know that they have the HIV condition.
Andrea Kovacs: Yes, of course; they all know their diagnosis, but I still
cannot enroll the adolescent without a parents consent.
Robert Kuhn: What is the governing rule here? Can you enroll these young
people who desperately need to be in these trials without parental consent?
It would seem that in some cases you would have difficulty in getting paren-
tal consent.
Robert Temple: A legal guardian can give consent.
Andrea Kovacs: But you have to go to court.
Robert Temple: I agree, and you have to find a legal guardian.
Andrea Kovacs: Right. So once we start doing these huge studies, which
are going to be Phase III at some point, how do we do this?
Robert Kuhn: Lets describe the key characteristics of clinical trials.
Robert Temple: The simplest kind of clinical trial is to give the treatment
being tested, say, the drug you are interested in, to one randomized group,
and a placebo (an inert substance that looks the same) to a similarly random-
ized group.
Alexander Capron: The usual design of research involves what we call
blinded tests, which means that the subjects and the investigators do not
know which participants are getting the active treatment and which are get-
ting the placebo. The identity of the treatment is sufficiently disguised so that
no one knows what they are really getting.
Robert Kuhn: It is called single blind if only the patients do not know
but the investigators do know whether they are getting the active treatment
or the placebo, and double blind if neither the participants nor the inves-
tigators know. The gold standard for clinical trials is to conduct them dou-
ble blind.
Robert Kuhn: What are the phases of clinical trials?
Robert Temple: Phase I trials are the first introduction of a drug into
humans; these drugs have been studied in animals and shown to have some
efficacy. Now you give it to a small number of people, sometimes normal
people, sometimes people with the disease; you generally push the dose up
until someone develops a side effect, gets nauseated or dizzy or something
like thatthis provides some idea of what doses will be tolerated. Phase II
trials are the first control trials of the drug, which are usually conducted in
a fairly narrow, well-described population. Here the investigators are look-
ing to determine whether the drug really does what they hope it to do; for
example, in an HIV trial the investigators might compare one regimen of
drugs with another (different drug combinations, dosages, and/or time-
frames) to compare the effects on the HIV virus by monitoring the number
of viral particles per unit of blood. Phase III trials are more extensive control
trials to better define the dose, look at the drug in various severities of the
disease, look at different subsets of the population (e.g., men and women,
black and white, old and young) and to generally get much more exposure
so you can uncover the rarer side effects. After all, in a Phase II trial of say
200 people, you wont find an occurrence that happens once in 500, but
when you get into Phase III where you might have several thousand people
enrolled, you have at least a chance of finding side effects that occur at the
rate of one in 1000.
Alexander Capron: This is where you get into the sticky issue of using a
placebo (inert) control versus what they call the active control, which is the
current standard of care. For example, if youre developing an acne medicine
or a hair-loss medicine or something cosmetic, you would of course include
a placebo control (in addition to the active control) because by using a
placebo control as part of the experimental design you are going to get
results that are both more reliable and more rapid, and the fact that someone
is going without any treatment for acne or hair loss for a brief period of time
is not going to raise major problems.
Robert Kuhn: However, in situations where the participants have serious
medical conditions, which might be life threatening, how can you ethically
allocate any of them to a placebo (no active treatment) group?
Robert Temple: The basic rule is you cannot deny people a therapy that is
available to them if harm might come to them by not having the therapy.
Harm is usually defined to mean something that is irreversible: death is
irreversible, a stroke is irreversible; everyone agrees that in these cases you
cannot conduct a placebo control trial anymore. However, it is often not
so clear cut. Consider depression: there are many new drugs for depression;
they have already made a big difference in therapy and scientists are excited
about their therapeutic potential. But it is a fact that only about half of the
clinical trials of Prozac for depression can distinguish the drug from the pla-
cebo. Now, if you know this experimental fact, and you now do a clinical
trial comparing a new drug with Prozac and the trial does not show any dif-
ference between them, well, what have you learned? Maybe this trial was
one of those trials that couldnt distinguish Prozac from placebo! And if
you dont have a placebo group running in parallel, there is no way to tell.
So, in these cases, we ask for a placebo control trials. Now, some people
are nervous about this kind of experimental design. After all, depression is
not a benign illness, a few people commit suicide. Fortunately, in this case,
there are several large assemblages of data, called meta-analyses, which have
looked to see whether people in the placebo group are more likely to commit
suicide, and since the clinical trials that have been conducted for depression
were short term studies, four to six weeks, the placebo group was not more
likely to commit suicide. So, as a result, we can comfortably say it is ethically
permitted to conduct placebo control trials with properly informed patients,
and it is essential to have the placebo group or we would be approving drugs
that did not work and not approving drugs that did.
Robert Kuhn: Do you agree with that, Alex?
Alexander Capron: I dont agree or disagree, because I think that there are
certain things left out of that description. What is the type of depression?
What are the circumstances of the subjects? We need to understand the par-
ticipants personal capacity to consent so that we could build in appropriate
safeguards. For example, if you are dealing with a relatively mild depression,
where the likelihood of suicide or other harm is very small, its one thing; in
more severe cases, the patients would have to be in circumstances both
where their consent was very reliable and where they were going to be given
protection of medical care. Only then would the investigators be ethically
protected if the situation arose where a treatment that would be available to

a certain group was not offered to them, whereas other people were getting
it and it proved to be effective. Even so, I have to say that I would be both-
ered by the quality of the consent here.
Robert Temple: We dont disagree at all. Those are important issues. But
the reality is that if we dont have a placebo control trial for a new anti-
depressant, we are not going to be able to know whether it works, and if
we dont, we cant approve it. Now, there are alternatives. If the new anti-
depressant is shown to be better than the available antidepressants in a direct
comparison (without the placebo controls), then you can approve the new
drug. That works when the new drug has clear superiority, but it will not
discern drugs that work at lower levels of efficacy.
Alexander Capron: The direct comparison to available treatment is called
a superiority trial, as opposed to an equivalency trial, which has this
ambiguity that Dr. Temple points out.
Robert Kuhn: Because theres no placebo to provide a standardized
baseline.
Robert Temple: The trouble is that in the hundreds of trials that have been
conducted comparing one antidepressant with another, one has never been
shown to be clearly superior. They are all more or less equally effective. This
means that without a placebo control as part of the methodology of the tri-
als, our capacity to judge effectiveness is substantially weakened.
Robert Kuhn: Lets look at the stakeholders in clinical trials. Who has
interests here? Obviously, the patients who have the syndrome or the disease
that is being investigated. Obviously, the government which is responsible
for safety and efficacy. But the big elephants in this room are the drug com-
panies; they invest an enormous amount of money in creating these new
drugs. Whats the attitude and impact of the drug companies in the ethics
of clinical trials?
Robert Temple: Obviously, the drug companies have their own views on
everything, but they come to us and they come to experts in the medical
community for advice about how to do their trials. There are numerous
important questions, of which the control group is only one. Another is
defining what the endpoint of the study should be. We approve drugs
because they lower cholesterol, but what we really want to know is whether
they save lives. Finally, after many years, we now have several cholesterol-
lowering drugs that save lives.
Alexander Capron: A bigger issue is the so-called me-too drugs, where
there are effective treatments already. And the next treatment coming along
is not being offered because it is cheaper or even because it has fewer side
effects, but simply because one drug company wants to have a drug on the
market to compete with its rivals. There is no great benefit to the consumer.
Robert Temple: However, the desire to find the place for your own propri-
etary product has been beneficial on some occasions. The most striking case
was with what are called statins, the lipid-lowering drugs, where multiple
drug companies competed to show the special effectiveness or comparative
advantage of their own drug. One company did a large trial in Scandinavia
showing that the drugs are good for people who had a heart attack and
whose cholesterol is over 260. Then another company did a trial in Scotland
showing that even if people didnt have a heart attack and their cholesterol
was over 260, the drug helped. To some extent, competition in this case
did what its supposed to do.
Alexander Capron: Competition developed more information than we
would have had if we only had the first study.
Robert Temple: In this case, we acquired unbelievably valuable informa-
tion. Now many lipid-lowering drugs are known to save lives and there is
general agreement that they are used too infrequently. So the multiple drugs
doing the same thing encourages more people to take these drugs, which in
general seems to be a good thing for the community.
Robert Kuhn: Why is there so much criticism in the press about clinical tri-
als and the government role in regulating them?
Alexander Capron: There have been some trials which went very badly.
One example was the death of an 18-year-old young man in a gene therapy
trial at the University of Pennsylvania in 1999. The young man had a very
rare liver disease (which mostly strikes very young children) and the pro-
cedureplacing healthy genes in his liverwas deemed to have minimal
risk, so that even though the young man did not actually meet the enrollment
criteria, he was enrolled. Within four days, he became very sick and died.
His father said that the young man had volunteered for the study to help
other sufferers.
Robert Kuhn: Making the case more troublesome was the fact that the
young mans condition was mild, well under control, and certainly not life
threatening.
Alexander Capron: Correct; he had the version that was not as severe.
Now, here is the underlying debate: would it have been better to conduct
this research in people who were critically ill, namely the little babies who
couldnt, obviously, give their assent to participate, but where ethical ten-
sion would be balanced by the notion that they are already very sick, and if
this worked, it would be a great benefit to them personally? Whereas the
young man who volunteered for the procedure really wasnt very sick and
wasnt going to benefit from it; he was doing it altruistically. The other issue
in this case is the extent to which the researchers and, indeed, the entire
research enterprise, was tied into an entrepreneurial interest in which
the researcher and the university had invested in the development of that
technique.
Robert Kuhn: So the university and the researcher had a financial interest
in the procedure? That could turn an unhappy situation into an ugly one.
Alexander Capron: The investigator was a principal owner of the com-
pany that was sponsoring the research and the university had a financial
interest in the procedure. If the research had been successful, both would
have been in a position to benefit financially.
Robert Temple: Who supports most clinical trials? Drug companies, obvi-
ously; they are interested parties. Yet its not always clear what their interest
is. I think they really do want to find out whether a drug hurts people,
because they wouldnt want to market a drug with terrible side effects,
which would be a disaster for them, so it is not in their interest to suppress
bad news. Still, drug company motivation is complicated. The ordinary
way trials are done is that a drug company, obviously an interested party,
pays an independent investigator to conduct the trial. The axiomatic
assumption is that investigator is really independent, which means that he
or she has no stake in the outcome of the trial and that he or she will conduct
it with high quality, monitoring the trials rigorously to make sure everything
is done appropriately to the highest standards. Thats the usual model.
Alexander Capron: I think that if we looked in detail at research done any-
where, we could find problems. We are coming to the point in this country
where we recognize that we need a better system than we have now for
knowing, on an ongoing basis, how well institutions that carry out clinical
research are doing. I think the government is preparing to assert that clinical
trial programs should be accredited. (This was a recommendation of the
National Bioethics Advisory Commission, on which I serve.) Such an
accreditation procedure would start off as a voluntary activity, but it would
mean that not just when a problem arises, but on a periodic basis, people
familiar with the way research should be conducted would be coming in
and taking an in-depth look at the procedures, at the consent process, at
the reviews, and particularly at how good a job the universities were doing
in monitoring the trials after they start.
Robert Kuhn: Another area of ethical concern is clinical trials conducted
by first-world drug companies in third-world countries. Cross-cultural sensi-
tivities become especially acute when the specific clinical trial would not, at
that point, have been allowed in the United States.
Alexander Capron: At one extreme would be a drug or medical device

company wanting to develop a product for the U.S. market but it doesnt
think it can do the trial here because there is an existing treatment that is
already effective and established. And so they think, well, we could go to a
country where no one gets any treatment for the particular problem and
we could compare our new treatment to a placebo. And the incentive for
people in the third-world country could be either that they are confused
about what they are getting themselves into, or that the officials in the coun-
try have been offered something or paid something under the table.
Robert Kuhn: However, the third-world people with the medical condition
may well be better off than they would have been without the clinical trials,
certainly those getting the active treatment.
Alexander Capron: Yes, of course. But the people may think that they will
be better off because of this treatment, yet the reality is that the research
intervention is likely to be very limited in numbers and in time, and the prod-
uct being developed is not for them and even if it were they couldnt afford
it. One feels compelled to argue that drug companies should not be allowed
to conduct such research, that it is ethically wrong, and that the FDA
shouldnt even accept such data. At the other extreme is a country faced with
a serious disease requiring first-world treatment that is much too expensive,
and their response is to empower their own scientists to work with scientists
from elsewhere to develop an alternative, costing, say, a tenth or a hun-
dredth as much. The third-world officials know from the beginning that
the cheaper treatment will not be as effective as the much more expensive
treatment, but since they have nothing else to offer, the cheaper treatment
would be extremely valuable and extremely appreciated.
Andrea Kovacs: A classic case was the clinical trials of a drug regimen to
prevent the perinatal transmission of HIV in South Africa and Thailand
where there was a huge uproar over the fact that we have a standard in the
United StatesAZT to the mother during pregnancy and to the newborn
for six weeksthat due to its cost cannot be applied anywhere in sub-
Sahara Africa and in many parts of the world. A trial was done testing
a low dose of AZT given to the mother and to the baby versus a placebo
control.
Robert Kuhn: Here is the ethical dilemma. For this condition you know
that there is a proven drug that can reduce the HIV transmission rate by
two-thirds, and yet you are testing, in another part of the world, a modified
version of that proven drug that you know from the start is going to be
inferior.
Andrea Kovacs: But they cannot afford the first-world treatment and they
do not have the infrastructure and the systems to implement it.
Robert Kuhn: Here is the ethical conundrum: Do you knowingly adminis-

ter a lower standard of care because it is the only one that can be afforded
and implemented? And do you use a placebo control study which by its
nature will deny to needy, infected babies the medicine they need to survive?
Andrea Kovacs: Absolutely.
Robert Temple: The basic rule is you cannot deny people a therapy that is
available to them. In this specific case, you could not do a placebo control
trial anymore. The critics said that the only acceptable trial here would be
to compare the low-dose AZT experimental regimen with the sophisticated
U.S. standard of care regimen.
Robert Kuhn: Which is expensive and complicated and could not be imple-
mented in those third-world countries.
Robert Temple: The question these countries needed answered was not
whether the low-dose, short-course AZT treatment was as effective as the
larger-dose, long course U.S. standard of care, but whether the low-dose,
short course AZT treatment was effective at all. It didnt have to be as good
as the U.S. standard, it could be half as good, but if it worked at all, those
countries needed to know it rapidly because such a treatment was doable
and could make a huge difference.
Alexander Capron: The presumption here is that the first-world drug is not
going to become available, that the drug you are testing could be available,
and that there is some commitment to making it available. I think that the
drug company conducting the trials would have an affirmative obligation
to contribute to building the scientific and ethical review capability of the
country, so that they leave something positive behind to the third-world
country, beyond just having used their population as subjects in the experi-
ment. If you dont have some kind of ethical presumptions and prescriptions
in these cases, with substantial and concrete requirements, then you open to
the door to ethical misbehaviors that really would be very bad.
Robert Kuhn: Such as?
Alexander Capron: Poor people who would sign up to do anything; moti-
vated by either the therapeutic misconception or the desire for a little money
or both, they would literally become guinea pigs. I dont think this is some-
thing that most American companies would want to do, but the temptation
is there. Substantial scientific and ethical reviews should be required both
in the first-world country where the drug company is domiciled and in the
third-world host country where the clinical trial is being conducted.
Robert Temple: Many drug companies are now carrying out trials of anti-
depressants, antihistamines, and the like just like the trials they carried out
in the U.S. These trials are being conducted in Eastern Europe and in South
America. The companies may want to market their drugs sometime in those
countries, but they will probably not be doing it any time soon because the
countries would use a generic version of the same drug; they wouldnt spend
money on the original.
Robert Kuhn: Poorer people as guinea pigs?
Robert Temple: We use U.S. citizens in the same way, as guinea pigs. The
antidepressant trials are conducted in America and Western Europe as well
as in Eastern Europe and in Latin America.
Robert Kuhn: Here is the difference, though. If a clinical trial is conducted
in the United States, if the treatment works, at least the same population that
participated in the clinical trials will benefit from its general usage. That is
decidedly not the case when the clinical trial is carried out, say, in Africa.
Robert Temple: Perhaps true. It is worth knowing, however, that as a con-
sequence of doing trials in these poorer parts of the world, the drug compa-
nies leave behind an infrastructure that is capable of doing trials and they
may also leave behind buildings suited for healthcare. The host counties
get access to diagnostic and other methods, tools, and facilities that they
would not have gotten otherwise.
Robert Kuhn: So here is the summary question: are the first-world drug
companies taking advantage of these third-world countries or are they pro-
viding something beneficial that these poor people would never have
received in any other way?
Alexander Capron: You can argue it in both directions, but does receiving
something valuable for allowing clinical trials in their country constitute
inappropriate inducement, or is it a just tradeoff that recognizes the cold
imbalances in the world?
Andrea Kovacs: I think it very important for the foreign, first-world phar-
maceutical and healthcare companies to participate (by any means) in the
healthcare systems of third-world countries, thus elevating the society
locally.
Robert Temple: The drug companies have the appropriate skills and
resources.
Andrea Kovacs: As long as the doctors dont just go in, exploit the people,
and then leave.
Alexander Capron: That is certainly the worst thing.
Andrea Kovacs: You educate the people; you train the local groups; you
bring in resources; and then you teach them how to do the studies.
Alexander Capron: But sometimes the people whom you are training and
are benefiting are already the elite in the country; they are the scientists and
the physicians and the people who are going to have access to the fancy
equipment and buildings that you leave behind. And, yes, you may be indi-
rectly helping the population by making them better off, but their agreement
to participate personally in the clinical trial itself, with all the attendant
risks, is not necessarily recompensed by donations to the countrys elite.
On the other hand, there are things that a drug company can do beneficially
for the entire community.
Andrea Kovacs: I think we are making a real contribution to the treatment
of HIV in the third world. Now we are going to start studying other diseases
such as tuberculosis and malariawere going to study the environment, the
water, everythingand were going to have an incredible, positive impact
on these societies ravaged by these terrible diseases.
Robert Temple: Critics have complained with justification that commer-
cial interests havent been as eager to study those diseases in the developing
world as they should have been.
Alexander Capron: Because they werent diseases of our country.
Robert Temple: Right, and because there werent large amounts of money
to be made from it. So I believe that when major drug companies get into
those developing countries to do clinical trials the overall effect is usually
beneficial.
Robert Kuhn End Commentary

The ethics of clinical trials reflect the humanness of human beings. We seek
the good of the group, but we respect the rights of the individual. We do take
risks to discover new cures, but we do not dehumanize subjects to accelerate
them.
The ethical ideal, the parallel prescription, combines informed consent of
patients and active monitoring of the data by investigators. When human
lives are at stake, we can make compromises of compassionclinical trials
need not run their course, optimum statistics need not be achieved.
How can we humanely accelerate the process of bringing valuable drugs
to market? Most promising is dry testing of drugs by supercomputer sim-
ulations, a new field called computational biology. There are no ethical
problems when messing around with silicon.

Alexander Capron
From the point of view of a bioethicist, where are we heading in this century?
I havent seen many indications of major developments in ethics. There
are obviously enormous developments in science. Right now were debating
what to do about stem cells, adult stem cells and embryonic stem cells; I
think they hold enormous promise. There are complex issues about the use
of the somatic nuclear transfer techniquescloningboth to produce stem
cells and, more radically, to produce people or parts of people. This technol-
ogy, which is coming, will have a totally transformative effectprobably
not for the good, potentially remaking the relationship of generations in
ways for which we really have no analogies.
Do you think humans need to be the subjects for drug tests?

Anything that can reduce the use of living human beings as subjects, any-
thing that offers the prospect of learning more about drugs with less human
risk, will of course be advantageous. (For example, more sophisticated
experiments that use animals which have been genetically engineered with
functioning human genes that express the diseased condition being
assessed.) However, for quite a while, maybe forever, scientists are going
to conclude that the only experimental animal on which human beings can
ultimately rely is human beings. We will still be required, in the end, to test
drugs or the biologics with human subjects. But with computational biology,
the use of embryonic stem cells, and other tissue-culture methodsas we
learn more about these, they will offer great prospects for doing drug assess-
ments with less risk to human beings.
Robert Temple
How did you come to work at the FDA?
I came to the agency in 1972. I had been at the National Institutes of
Health (NIH) for a few years, and having actually thought of myself as a
consumer advocate, I wanted to go to where the decisions about medicines
are made. In those days, no one went to the FDA knowing what working
there was going to be like, but it turned out to be just fascinating. I have been
pleased with our work and have stayed ever since. My particular specialty
has been how to design trials that give you the answers you want. There
are many issues involved and these constitute most of my writings. Recently,
I have become involved in some ethical issues that have arisen relating to the
use of placebos in clinical trials, which is intimately connected with what
kind of experimental design of clinical trials gives the optimum answers we

need to introduce new, save, effective drugs.
Andrea Kovacs
Your specialty is pediatric AIDS. Talk about your successes.
The most significant development in the last five years in HIV, the human
immunodeficiency virus, is the prevention of perinatel transmission of HIV
meaning the passing of HIV from mother to baby during pregnancy or at
time of birth. When I started in this field, about 28 percent of babies were
infected. And through large-scale clinical trials we were able to demonstrate
that we could prevent transmission from mother to baby almost completely.
We are moving to transfer these techniques internationally, so that we can,
hopefully, effect similar success around the world in eliminating HIV trans-
mission to babies.
Do you think the general public understands whats going on in HIV these
days?
The general public is now beginning to understand the impact of research.
Going back 10 years, up-to-date, unemotional information was that not
accessible in the media. But we have made significant progress in presenting
accurate information about current research, how it is conducted, and how
it has really benefited the public.

I have two kids and a husband. I would like to be remembered both as a
good mother and a good wife, and as a good doctor and a good scientist. I
would especially like to be remembered as someone who helped patients
locally in our community.

Chapter 9
How Does Order Arise in the Universe?
Galaxies, stars, planets, molecules, living things, intelligencehow did all

this develop from the simple soup of primordial particles swimming in the
early universe? The answer may be Complexity and Emergencejust watch
what these two powerful principles can do.
The Second Law of Thermodynamics states that all closed systems tend
towards disorder. Nonetheless, highly ordered pockets of matter and energy
arisejust look at human beings and all that we encompass. How can order
and structure develop spontaneously? By what mechanisms can seemingly
random events lead to highly developed entities? How can simple rules gov-
erning the interaction between particles give rise to life and awareness?
Theories of Complexity and Emergence are two of the most powerful
principles that purport to explain just how billions of years of random his-
tory have produced ever more order and structure in the universe and in life.
What is Complexity, and how has it generated the world around us? What is
Emergence, and how does it explain the unpredictable properties of things
from molecules to brains?
This episode explores one of the greatest challenges facing science at the
beginning of the twenty-first century: how do we account for the evolution
of the universe, an evolution that includes the appearance of life on earth,
even though we know that the universe relentlessly moves towards a state
of disorder? Both guests, each a Nobel laureate, contend that with so much
knowledge being uncovered today, we should be prepared to develop a
new way to explore this crucial question. They suggest we unify the sciences
through the creation of a new set of trans-disciplinary skills. A potential pos-
itive outcome of this integration could lead, they posit, to more practical
problem solving, such as the search for a cure for AIDS.
The second half of the twentieth century saw the explanatory explosion of
molecular biology, the technique of studying the component parts of cells
and biologically active molecules in order to discern their mechanisms. Yet
the study of Complexity recognizes that only by studying the interactions
between these elements and their environment can the true behavior of the
system be seen, understood, and predicted.
David Baltimore takes his prodigious knowledge of biology and details
how the DNA molecules complexity is integral to producing and maintain-
ing an ordered living organism. Murray Gell-Mann, whose distinguished
career includes the theory of elementary particles and the discovery of the
quark (both of which form the bedrock of fundamental physics), discusses
Emergence with all the joy of a scientist making his first original discovery.
The wonderful thing about emergence, Gell-Mann says with sparkle, is
you dont need something new to get something new! Get enough things
interacting with each other and something new naturally emerges.
Expert Participants
David Baltimore
Nobel Laureate in Physiology/Medicine; President, Professor of Biology,
California Institute of Technology; Chairman, AIDS Vaccine Research
Committee, NIH; founding director, Whitehead Institute for Biological
Research, MIT.
Murray Gell-Mann
Nobel Laureate in Physics; Distinguished Fellow and Co-Chairman of the
Science Board, Santa Fe Institute; Emeritus Professor of Physics, California
Institute of Technology; Author, The Quark and the Jaguar: Adventures in
the Simple and the Complex.

Robert Kuhn: The normal direction of explanation is to explain biology in
terms of physics, but can we go in reverse? Can we discern principles of how
the universe is structured by examining the principles of biology and then
applying them to physics?
David Baltimore: Scientists had hoped that there would be things in biol-
ogy that were so surprising, so different than we had ever seen before that
it would inform us about new laws. But the evidence does not support this.
Murray Gell-Mann: There is a sense though in which something like that is
happening: people sometimes say that the twentieth century was the century
of physical science and the twenty-first century will be the century of life
How Does Order Arise in the Universe? 125
sciences. The progress in the life sciences is fantastically impressive and very
important, both intellectually and practically. I think the next few decades
would better be characterized as the decades of the unity of the sciences.
Restoration of the unity of the sciences, thats whats really happening. At
the Santa Fe Institute (in New Mexico), the research is now transdiciplinary,
with mathematicians and physicists and computer scientists together with
neurobiologists, evolutionary biologists, ecologists, and paleontologists, all
working together without any regard at all for disciplinary boundaries.
David Baltimore: When I characterize the human genome it is not a
result; it is just a series of questionswhat does this do? What does that
do? What does that other piece do? But, instead of having what we had
before, which was 20 questions, we now have 30 or 40 thousand questions
[the number of genes]. In fact, in a sense, we have three billion questions,
which is the number of all the nucleotides in the genome. And to deal with
this level of complication requires new techniques, new ways of handling
data, new ways of gathering data, new ways of analyzing data, and biolo-
gists are not good at any of that. Weve never had to deal with problems like
that. But, astrophysicists have had to deal with these amounts of data, and
computer scientists have, and so were bringing them in. The intellectual
strength of all of these other areas of the physical and mathematical now
becomes absolutely central to the progress of biology.
Murray Gell-Mann: Until a few years ago, Harold Varmus was the Direc-
tor of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), operating out of Washington,
and of course thats the part of the scientific establishment for which it is
easiest to get money from Congress because every person in the House or
the Senate either has an illness or has a relative or a friend who has an illness.
But Harold went around making speeches saying, dont give me all the
money allocated for science; sciences are a unity, they are all interdependent,
and they all need support. I thought that was wonderful.
David Baltimore: For biology to progress it is important that chemistry
and physics and all of the other sciences also progress, particularly engineer-
ing, because they provide the new tools, the new ways of doing things. And
thats whats happening; thats where the unity extends from the hard sci-
ences of physics and chemistry to the biological and social sciences.
Murray Gell-Mann: Most real issues that we encounter in life involve all of
these areas of knowledge. In any real situation, all come together, and yet
the tendency is to divide things up between the humanities, say, and the
sciences.
David Baltimore: Of course, most science, historically, has not dealt with
real issues and hasnt even wanted to. Traditionally, science has concerned
itself with artificial issues because theyre complicated enough, theyre hard
enough to solve, never mind solving a real problem. Ive been involved with
the HIV virus now for some long time, and one is faced with a real problem
like this, theres no hiding from itthere is a virus and this virus is killing
people, its spreading across the world, and you must deal with this real-
world problem. I have gained tremendous respect for the difficulty of solving
a practical problem. Whereas, historically, I was brought up in science to say
the tough problems are the theoretical problems or the conceptual problems
in science. And I still think they are tough but Ive learned to have a lot of
respect for practical problems.
Robert Kuhn: The early universe swarmed with simple, chaotic particles,
yet today we have complicated, orderly things like DNA molecules. How
did that all happen?
Murray Gell-Mann: There are several things that you have to talk about to
illuminate that issue. One is the initial condition of the universe, and another
is the way that complexity has arisen thereafter. Order in the early universe
is the governing circumstance. And its that order that has been responsible
for the gradually increasing average disorder.
Robert Kuhn: That sounds like a paradox.
Murray Gell-Mann: I think we can throw some light on it. The key princi-
ple is called the Second Law of Thermodynamics, which has been under-
stood now for more than a century and states that in a closed system, such
as the universe, the average disorder keeps increasing.
David Baltimore: Life is a little bit of aggregated order in the midst of a
continuing tendency to disorder. Our perception is of increasing order,
because you look back not too long ago and there was no intelligent life on
Earth. And so weve seen this highly ordered thing, the brain, evolve over a
relatively short period of time to do remarkable things, and so our percep-
tion is of increasing order and yet, underlying it, there has to be, by the Sec-
ond Law of Thermodynamics, decreasing order.
Murray Gell-Mann: But even though the average disorder in the universe
has been increasing ever since its beginning, this increasing disorder is not
occurring at every particular place in the universe. You can have local order
created in certain locations at the expense of greater disorder somewhere
else. Take your refrigerator as an example. You have ice cubes in the freezer
that are certainly a manifestation of a great deal of order, but if you go
around to the back of the refrigerator theres a lot of hot air coming out indi-
cating that the cost of the order of ice cubes is paid by a greater amount of
disorder somewhere else. So thats the way the creation of local order is per-
fectly compatible with the Second Law of Thermodynamics, but theres
another process at work as wellwe have to distinguish complexity from
order, theyre not exactly the same thing.
Robert Kuhn: Lets define complexity, which is an important concept.

Murray Gell-Mann: Right. I work with something that I call effective
complexity, which I think best captures what we mean by complexity when
we talk about it in ordinary conversation or even in most scientific discourse.
In popular terms, the idea is that effective complexity is the length of a
very compressed, very concise description of the regularities of something,
not the random aspects that are treated as random or incidental. In most cir-
cumstances, to determine effective complexity requires judgment of whats
important and whats not important, but there has to be some test that dis-
criminates the important from the not important. To take a practical exam-
ple, the U.S. Tax Code is complex, it has lots and lots and lots and lots of
rules, of regularities and its very complex. And every rule is a regularity.
Even the exceptions are rules, too. Everything in there is a regularity, and
its very complex. The classic case is signal and noise. In the 1930s scientists
at Bell Laboratories in New Jersey, were asked to study where static came
from, and they found that it came from particular places in the sky, and that
gave rise to radio astronomy. The static contained elements of regularity,
but they also had to recognize that the static had this regularity. So you
have to attribute anything that you see to a combination of regularity and
randomness.
Robert Kuhn: We all have the impression that in so many domains of expe-
rience, were seeing things of increasing complexity arisingits true of liv-
ing things, its true of our daily lives, its true of computers, its true of all
kinds of things. Whats the reason for that?
Murray Gell-Mann: One cant say, of course, that each individual thing
has a tendency to get more complex. This isnt true: people die, civilizations
die, they become less complex. But what does seem to be true in a lot of pla-
ces is that more and more complex things come into existence. And to seek
the deep reason for why more complex things come into existence is to get
into another very important property of the world, namely, the fundamental
laws, which we believe to be very simple. The most important source of
order is in the two fundamental laws of physics: the first is the Law of the
Elementary Particles that describes how matter behaves, and the second is
the initial condition of the universe, some 14 billion years ago. But these
two fundamental laws, both of which we think may be simple, dont deter-
mine the history of the universe. The fundamental laws are probabilistic.
All they do is define probabilities for alternative possible histories of the uni-
verse, and then everything else that follows depends on an inconceivably
long sequence of accidents, or chance events, that could go in any one of
various ways, with the alternative histories of the universe forming a branch-
ing tree, with probabilities growing at all the branchings. The actual history
of the universe, then, is codetermined by the fundamental law of the
elementary particles and the initial condition of the universe as developed by

this fantastically long sequence of probabilities. And this long sequence of
probabilities of chance events means that the result is hugely dependent on
those accidents. Most of the information content of the universe lies in those
accidents.
Robert Kuhn: Youve called them frozen accidents.
Murray Gell-Mann: They give rise to very significant regularities. For
example, our galaxy was probably formed by some tiny, little random fluc-
tuation in the early universe, not of great cosmic importance, but to any-
thing in this galaxy, like us, its pretty important that our galaxy came into
existence. And that little fluctuation in the early universe is a very important
regularity for all of us that are in this galaxy.
Robert Kuhn: With very long term consequences.
Murray Gell-Mann: With very long term consequences, right.
Robert Kuhn: Then we go from complexity to complex adaptive sys-
tems. How do we make that transition?
Murray Gell-Mann: They are two slightly different definitions of complex
adaptive systemmine and my friend John Hollands.
Robert Kuhn: Well take yours.
Murray Gell-Mann: The fact that we have different definitions just illus-
trates the famous principle that a scientist would rather use someone elses
toothbrush than someone elses nomenclature.
Robert Kuhn: Define complex adaptive systems.
Murray Gell-Mann: For me, its a system that takes in certain kinds of
information and finds certain kinds of regularities in that information, and
then condenses or compresses the description of those regularities into what
I call a schema, and in that schema, then, you have the possibility for the
system to describe certain aspects of reality, including itself, and to predict
certain things that will happen in the real world and to prescribe behavior
for the system in the real world. And then the circumstances in the real world
exert selection pressures back on that schema, to which the schema reacts
and changes or adapts. This means that an individual organism is a complex
adaptive system, and biological evolution as a whole is also a complex adap-
tive system.
Robert Kuhn: Is the brain an example of a complex adaptive system?
Murray Gell-Mann: Yes.
David Baltimore: The immune system is a complex adaptive system.
Murray Gell-Mann: The Santa Fe Institute, together with Los Alamos, is

responsible for big advances in theoretical immunology. Youve heard of
the wonderful work of Dr. David Ho, for example; the theory was done in
Santa Fe and Los Alamos
David Baltimore: These principles are at work in virology. In HIV what
happens in a single infected person is a whole evolutionary process that
can be described using exactly the same principles that we use to describe
the evolution of species.
Robert Kuhn: Thus we need to integrates multiple disciplines, from funda-
mental to evolutionary levels in order to understand one disease, here HIV.
David Baltimore: Right. HIV has actually spawned a tremendous amount
of very interesting science. Unfortunately, we havent yet gotten what we
need to gain control over the disease.
Murray Gell-Mann: In the sciences of complexity, and in the study of
chaos and related phenomena in nonlinear systems dynamics, were often
looking at all sorts of actual situations intermediate in scale between the cos-
mology of the universe and the subatomic world of elementary particles: for
example, the growth of real cities or the spread of real pediatric AIDS, the
things with which we come into contact as human beings. Here, again, we
find interesting regularities that transcend the disciplines.
Robert Kuhn: Is the DNA molecule a complex adaptive system?
Murray Gell-Mann: The DNA molecule is an examples of the schema type
that Im talking about. It reflects a huge amount of experience condensed
into a very, very compressed description.
David Baltimore: The DNA molecule is able to direct the development of a
living organism: theres information about where to make the proteins, how
to make the proteins, how to modify the protein, the timing of events, the
whole timing of development so that you start with a fertilized egg and end
up with a human being or a frog or a plant. So the DNA molecule is enor-
mously more complex in its representation of information than is usually
appreciated. Basically, the universe evolved just like organisms evolved.
Murray Gell-Mann: I dont think so, because the whole point about bio-
logical evolution is that it is a complex adaptive system, and theres a
schema, and the schema compresses a lot of information about the outside
world and about the system itself. And then that schema, together with a
lot of other information, is used to predict or to prescribe behavior in the
real world, and the outside world exerts selection pressures that favor cer-
tain schemas over othersand this is the way you get biological evolution.
The same process is at work in cultural evolution. But in the physical uni-
verse, we dont know that there is such a thing.
David Baltimore: At the heart of selection is variation, because you cant

select unless you have variation. The variation, to a first approximation, is
random. So, you have exactly the same sort of development of history within
living organisms that you have in the universe. There could be any kind of
organisms in the world. There is nothing about the laws of biology or phys-
ics, and nothing in the laws of biology, that require of necessity for us to be
here today. We could be very different than we are.
David Baltimore: This means that the outcome is the same sort of ques-
tion. How many different outcomes of life could there have been? If we
could observe the evolution of life on another planet, we would see an
entirely different outcome of this process of variation and selection. Evolu-
tion would generate something that looks so different that you probably
couldnt recognize it as life.
Murray Gell-Mann: You are absolutely right, but my point is a slightly dif-
ferent one: not all types of evolution can be described in terms of a schema
that evolves by variation and selection. For life, yes, of course, but for galac-
tic evolution or for the evolution of a star or a planet, we dont have any evi-
dence that these same kind of things happens. We have no evidence that they
occur as a complex adaptive system.
Robert Kuhn: Lets talk about the concept of emergence. Is the living cell
an example of emergence?
David Baltimore: As a living, independent entity, the cell depends on all

sorts of complex interactions within itself so that the cell can build up and
form many cells and ultimately form an organism and differentiate itself to
form something as complex as human beings. And we call this process
emergence, because it is something so new that it is entirely different than
the sum of all of its little constituent parts.
Murray Gell-Mann: The whole point of emergence is you dont need

something new to get something new. It is so much nicer to study each sci-
ence at its own level and find the regularities that jump to your eye at that
level. Thats what emergence is all about.
Robert Kuhn: What will twenty-first century science be about? How do

you see the next two decades?
David Baltimore: I think it might not be a bad idea to develop secret anti-
biotics that we have in our arsenal which nobody except a select group
knows how they work. In this way, terrorists cant design resistance to them.
Unfortunately we have to be thinking this way.
Murray Gell-Mann: I think its not impossible that progress in fundamen-

tal physics will discern the basic laws and discover the unified theory of all
the particles and all the interactions, including the initial condition of the
universe.
Robert Kuhn: What about the ultimate stability of matter?
Murray Gell-Mann: Thats very exciting. Most of us theorists believe that
the proton will eventually be found to decay, and at a level not very far from
the existing limit.
Robert Kuhn: Is that bad news for us?
Murray Gell-Mann: It is bad news because it means that all the regularities
regarding the existence of atoms and molecules, including our existence, will
disappear. In addition, well before this ultimate disintegration, it may well
be that the envelope of complexity will start shrinking instead of expanding.
David Baltimore: Which will destroy us first, the second law of thermody-
namics or proton decay?
Murray Gell-Mann: In any case, the good news is that it will take some-
thing like 1035 years. So its not our most urgent problem.
Robert Kuhn: But its fundamentally, theoretically, important.
Robert Kuhn: Lets go back to the brain, which I call the most complex
organization of matter in the universe.
David Baltimore: The brain offers us a great many problems that we dont
know how to approach today but for which theory plays an important role.
Murray Gell-Mann: The binding problem is an example of that. Take vis-
ual sensations: color, the direction of motion, the shape and so forth are all
processed differently by different parts of the brain, and yet, somehow, we
get the sensory impression that there is a unified thing there that has a certain
color, is moving in a certain direction at a certain speed, has a certain shape
and so forth. So that all these separate kinds of information, which are proc-
essed differently, are brought together and bound together. How is that
done?
David Baltimore: To make the problem even more complicated, and more
fascinating, the different sensory modalities take different amounts of time
to produce their images. I hit something and you hear the sound and you
see it at exactly the same time, but they were processed over different periods
of time in your brain and then bound together. So the binding problem is not
just about different modalities, its actually taking different perceptions from
different times and fitting them together so that they make cognitive unity.
Robert Kuhn: What questions do you think about at night?

David Baltimore: As a scientist, you are often thinking about very dull and
mundane questions that come together to form something which you hope is
larger than you expect. When I was an experimentalist in the laboratory, Id
go to sleep thinking about why the experiment that I did today didnt work.
Did I use the wrong reagent, perhaps even the wrong glassware? Was I using
the wrong analytic method, or was I thinking about the problem in the
wrong way? You never know at what level a problem exists, and so youre
thinking about all possible explanations at once, trying to figure out which
one you can vary in the lab the next day to determine what is really happen-
ing in your experiment. You are always trying to find out whether you on are
to something trivial or important.
Murray Gell-Mann: Its the same with theory. You worry about why your
theory doesnt seem to be working, doesnt seem to be agreeing with the real
world; you worry about which aspect of the theory you have to change.
Sometimes, the critical breakthrough comes by finding some accepted princi-
ple that simply isnt so, to go outside the box of traditional thinking, to go
outside of regularly approved ideas in order to find that variant that will
work. But you better make sure that there isnt some very good reason for
that box of traditional thinking. Mostly when youre outside the traditional
box of science, youre doing crank science, but every once in a while you
find that there is an accepted limitation that is not a real limitation. Einstein,
for example, found that absolute space and absolute time were a nuisance
and there was no reason to have them. When I thought of quarks,1 they
had fractional chargewell, scientists didnt like fractional charge very
much, but I figured that these fractionally charged quarks would be stuck
permanently inside of the neutron and proton. At first it was not a popular
idea, but I realized that there was no real reason for the accepted dogma.
David Baltimore: I had to accept the reversal of the flow of information in
biological systems in order to explain how viruses were able to integrate into
cells. The central dogma of the time was that biological information flows
from DNA to RNA to proteins, and what we showed was that it could go
in reverse direction, back from RNA to DNA. That was revolutionary. But
when you think about it, it was sort of trivial chemistry to imagine that that
could occur. There was nothing particularly revolutionary about what I dis-
covered except for the fact that nobody was thinking that way. They were
not even thinking about whether or not it was possible.
Murray Gell-Mann: It was like a superstition.
Robert Kuhn: But such reversals of common wisdom is very rare in
science.
Murray Gell-Mann: You have to be careful: most of the time there are very
good reasons why scientists dont assume or consider certain things. But
every once in a while, you come across an accepted idea that you mustnt
think about in a conventional way. It is just wrong, and when you look
closely, you realize theres no reason for itand this is that rare kind of
event that can be an opportunity to explain something that nobody could
explain before.

It seems like getting something for nothing, a free lunch. How can random
movements, operating over time, yield highly developed things, like, say,
planets and peanuts? We have looked at physics and biology together, and
found two powerful principles that explain a good deal about how our
world works.
One is Complexity, which says that certain systems, as seemingly different
as animal brains and stock markets, can never be understood by studying
their individual elements in isolationin this case, brain cells and stock
traders. Only interactions can describe the entire system.
The other is Emergence, which signifies an abrupt, unexpected change in
the characteristics of systems, again like brains and markets, which are so
startlingly different from the workings of their constituent elements, the
innumerable brain cells and stock traders.
Complexity and Emergence are overarching principles of how the world
works, and although they cant be classified in traditional areas of science,
they engender what we call progress, whether in biological organisms or
human culture.
Why is there order in the universe? Complexity and Emergence, which 20
years ago sat on the periphery of scientific explanations, may now be the
only way to explain the universe and all that is in it. Who knows whats
next: a new ice age? new mental capacities? a new stock market boom? As
we understand more, maybe we can predict better.
David Baltimore
Whats going on in your field today?
There is so much going on in biology today that is going to impact our
future that I hardly know where to start. The development of drugs, the
development of prosthetic devices, the development of new forms of imag-

ing, the ability to diagnose disease at very early stagesall these are going
to have a huge impact on health care. Over the next few decades, a combina-
tion of new diagnostic methods and new treatment methods will revolution-
ize our approach to cancer. We will not recognize the lives of peoplesay,
30 years from nowin terms of how they worry about diseases, because
there will be therapies for diseases that are today scourges.
What do you think will be the next big discovery?

The big discovery that I see coming down the track is the unraveling of the
brain and its mechanismsthe ability to understand what kinds of informa-
tion are coursing around in the brain, how they are encoded, and how to tap
into them. I believe that we will figure out how to listen to the brain. This, I
think, will be transformational.
Can the brain imprint information into DNA?

The brain consists of neurons. Neurons are cells. Every cell in the body, no
matter what kind of cell it is, has a nucleus and the nucleus has chromo-
somes. And the chromosomes encode all of the information that enables
the organism and the cell to grow, divide and specialize. So the brain, like
every other part of the body, is determined by DNA. And the issue that we
still dont have closure on is whether any of what we call the information
in the brainour knowledge of our past, our capacity to solve problems,
our awareness of selfis encoded in DNA. Now when I started working in
this business, I assumed that the knowledge in the brain was at least partly,
maybe very largely, encoded in DNA. And the model that I worked on,
and I wasnt alone in this, was the immune system. This was because the
knowledge that the immune system has of the outside world is encoded in
DNA. So we had one system, a Darwinian system in fact, in which DNA
encoded the answer. Our thinking was that if DNA information encoding
can work in immunology, why couldnt it also work in the brain? Yet, every-
thing that has happened in modern brain research has denied that solution.
All the evidence point to the synapse as the locus of memory. Now do I
believe that that is going to be the last word on the subject? No, I dont. I
think that the synapse does hold memory and were going to have to under-
stand how that happens. Were just beginning to understand that today. But
I still believe that sooner or later the DNA in the neuron is going to play a
role. I do not believe that memory will ever be as simple as one level of
organization of synapse. It will be many levels of organization that work
together.
Will humans evolve into an unrecognizable species?

If you read human history, to the extent that we have knowledge that goes
back a few millennia, you understand exactly what people were saying in
ancient Greece. In fact, the myths of ancient Greece are the myths of today.
The plays of ancient Greece are performed today. People havent changed
that much, even though we have seen many transformational technologies
develop since the days of ancient Greece that have been truly monumental.
None of this, as far as Im concerned, has transformed human beings at all.
We work faster now, we work more efficiently now, we move around more,
we do all sorts of things better. But we are essentially still the same people
we always were, flaws and all.
Will we ever understand the basic laws of biology?

The basic laws and rules of biology are, I think, relatively simple. First of
all, they are the laws of chemistry. One can make the argument that they
are almost entirely the laws of chemistry. And so to the extent that we can
understand how molecules interact with each other, how chemical reactions
occur, we understand most of how life works. But there are other levels, par-
ticularly of interaction of different systems in living organisms, that require a
different kind of analysisthey are not just one by one analysis, they are
analysis of the activity of multiple inputs. So we need to layer on top of
our chemistry an understanding of how systems work together, a kind of
systems organizations. But I dont think there is anything terribly profound
in any of that. The remarkable thing about the structure of DNA is that it
is simple chemistry. When Watson and Crick discovered the structure of
DNA, what they discovered was the structure of a chemical. And it was in
a sense no different than the structure of any other chemical. It became vital
only because it was the one molecule which evolution honed to play the cen-
tral role in heredity. So what we learn when we go into biological systems is
how powerful evolution is, how the inevitable generation of small variations
and the natural selection of certain of those variations can lead to great tai-
loring of molecular behavior, to a particular end. But when you get down
to analyzing how it works, it is never all that complex.
Talk about heredity vs. environment.

We know that no organism is born as a clean slate. All organisms have
predispositions. But we also know that we learn a lot over our lifetimes,
and that learning modifies the behavior of systems that we inherently have.
In fact, the more we learn about how we visually process information, the
more we realize that we are not simply looking at an image out in the world.
We are taking all sorts of pieces, reconstructing the image, very much using
our prior knowledge as a way of constructing the image that we are looking
at. This means that prior knowledge, which we get from experience in our
environment, is actually feeding into structure the way we deal with some-
thing as simple vision (its not simple, of course). We are learning more
and more about these cognitive interactions, between the way the system is
wired and built, and what it knows intrinsically, and what it learns. And
there will be debate for a long time about what percentage is intrinsic
(nature) and what percentage is acquired (nurture). A debate about
simple numbers is probably not a meaningful one, because the nature of
the issue doesnt lend itself to simple numbers. But theres no question that
we have enormous capabilities built into us. They come, hardwired, out of
our genes.

I became a scientist because I discovered when I was a young kid that I did
science well. And I was smart enough to figure out that the way to enjoy at
least some success in life is take the easiest route, that is, to do what you
do well and take advantage of whatever endowments you have.
Murray Gell-Mann
I became a scientist out of curiosity about regularities in the world.

I think the most important developments in science today, both for the
future of applications to specific questions in science and for the future of
science itself, have to do with the reunification of the sciences. Many centu-
ries ago, science or natural philosophy was in a sense a unified enterprise. It
hadnt yet become so specialized that you needed very different people to
work on its very different aspects. Today, of course, specialization has gone
a very long way and overall thats a good thing. There is so much informa-
tion, so much knowledge, so much understanding available that it has to
be parceled out into fields and subfields, but along with that specialization
there has to be some scientific activity that is integrative. And such efforts
at unification, of cross and trans-disciplinary thinking, is occurring more
and more. Scientists are recognizing the interdependence of all the sciences
and the need for some scientific activity, especially theoretical activity,
which is integrative. We try to meet that need at the Santa Fe Institute, and
I think that this partial reunification of the sciences is perhaps the most
important phenomenon in science today.
Note
1. Fundamental components of atomic particles for which discovery Murray Gell-
Mann won the Nobel Prize.

Chapter 10
How Weird is the Cosmos?
Why is the cosmos shocking? Dark matter fills the universe, controlling
gravitation forces. Dark energy confounds gravity, causing the expansion
of the universe to accelerate. And the laws of physics may not be forever.
In recent years, waves of astonishing new discoveries have inundated cos-
mologists: a universe whose expansion is speeding up, not slowing down,
contradicting all accepted theory; gravitational lenses revealing distant gal-
axies forming near the beginning of time; galactic jets shooting out thou-
sands of light years; black holes with the mass of a billion suns lurking at
the center of galaxies, swallowing entire stars in a single gravitational bite;
a universe made more of dark matter than visible matter; dark matter candi-
dates, strange and even stranger; dark energy, emerging from nothingness,
controlling the destiny of the universe. And finally, even fundamental con-
stants of nature, long thought stable, could possibly be changing. Cosmolo-
gists have been surprised by recent data. What does it all mean?
Cosmologys remarkable discoveries are revealing the deepest, most aston-
ishing secrets of a luminous universe.
The cosmos is indeed weirder that we think, even astronomers can hardly
believe it! Its so weird that four experts can only sit around and laugh as
they outdo each other in trading stories about amazing findings and discov-
eries. Our group of distinguished physicists and astrophysicists outline the
latest discoveries of how our universe began and continues to function, and
marvel at how quickly the exotic and unusual can become commonplace.
Not so long ago black holes were fantasy; now they are a given. They debate
what could be behind the accelerating expansion of the universe: is there a
new kind of energy, dubbed dark energy, that permeates empty space?
They also explain current methods for measuring that expansion. The guests
finish their discussion by contemplating how a new generation of powerful

telescopes and a digitized mapping of the universe could potentially alter
our theories about the universes fundamental laws and transform the future
of cosmic exploration in surprising ways.
Expert Participants
Roger Blandford
Professor of Theoretical Astrophysics, Stanford University (formerly at the
California Institute of Technology); interests: black holes, gravitation,
high-energy bursts.
David Goodstein
Vice Provost, Professor of Physics and Applied Physics, and Distinguished
Teaching and Service Professor, California Institute of Technology.
Alan Guth
Professor of Physics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology; discoverer,
inflation theory in cosmology; author, The Inflationary Universe.
Neil deGrasse Tyson
Director, Hayden Planetarium; member, Department of Astrophysics,
American Museum of Natural History; visiting research scientist, Depart-
ment of Astrophysics, Princeton University.

Robert Kuhn: Every few months, it seems, some new discovery or
revelation in astrophysics and cosmology shocks me. Are you guys, the top
professionals, shocked?
David Goodstein: Its the most amazing thing that, just a few years ago,
black holes were considered a mathematical fantasy; there was no proof that
any such thing existed. Now it is generally accepted every galaxy is con-
densed on a black hole the way every rain drop is condensed on a particle
of dust. This has become so ordinary that we dont even mention or discuss
it in any way.
Neil deGrasse Tyson: I agree 100 percent. The new discoveries came on
quickly; scientists were rightly skeptical, but as the observations kept rolling
in, there was no doubt about it.
Roger Blandford: Another big surprise that weve discovered is very high
energy cosmic rays, which are subatomic particles that have the energy of a
well hit baseball!
How Weird is the Cosmos? 139
Alan Guth: I was genuinely surprised with the results that came out a few
years ago that the expansion of the universe appears to be accelerating.
Robert Kuhn: The universe is not just expanding but accelerating in its
expansion.
Alan Guth: The expansion of the universe is speeding up, and the best can-
didate for driving itreally the only sensible explanation that is currently on
the tableis an energy that permeates empty space. This is exactly the kind
of energy that causes acceleration, and the amount of acceleration that it
would cause is exactly whats seen in supernova observationsand when I
use this word exact, I mean to an accuracy of about 10 percent.
David Goodstein: An accuracy of 10 percent is a big improvement in astro-
physics. I can remember when they used to tell us that the most important
equation in astrophysics is one is approximately equal to 10.
Neil deGrasse Tyson: One of our biggest challenges in astrophysics is that,
since we cant take a tape measure and measure distances to stars and we
cant travel there and read our odometers, we need to be much more clever
about measuring distances in the universe. One of the most successful ways
that astronomers have developed is to look around the galaxy and find a stel-
lar event, which every time it happens, every time you see it, its the same,
whether it occurs in our galaxy or in another galaxy. Since you know the
one up close very well, then you can judge how far away the other one is
by how much dimmer it appears to be (compared with the one you know).
Robert Kuhn: If their absolute level is the same, the event, a gigantic super-
nova explosion, would be what is called a standard candle.
Neil deGrasse Tyson: Exactly. Assume that we know that the supernova in
our galaxy gives off the light of a 100-watt light bulb; then if I were to find a
similar 100-watt light bulb in another galaxy and I see how much dimmer it
is, I know how far away it has to be to be that dim.
Robert Kuhn: Supernovas are rather brighter than 100-watt light bulbs; in
fact they are brighter, for a few moments, than the entire galaxy in which
they explode.
Neil deGrasse Tyson: This enables supernovas to become our best known
standard candles, which can enable us to calculate accurate distances to the
most distant galaxies. And by doing this, we can measure the expansion of
the universe, and based on that model, my standard candle equations tell
me how bright each supernova ought to be.
Robert Kuhn: In recent years, some of the most distant supernovas were
turning out to be dimmer than predicted by the standard models of universal
expansion.
Neil deGrasse Tyson: The only way you can fit your curve through these
dimmer standard candles is to be forced to the conclusion that we live in a
universe whose expansion rate is accelerating.
Alan Guth: This data is incredibly shocking, because from the point of
view of fundamental physics, we just have no explanation of what this dark
energy, the stuff that is causing the acceleration, might actually be.
Robert Kuhn: Recent evidence suggests that dark energy makes up
approximately 70 percent of the universe and dark matter makes up approx-
imately 25 percent. This means that only about 45 percent of the universe is
made of ordinary matter and energy, which includes all the atoms and radi-
ations that comprise everything we see and know.
Alan Guth: Dark energy is clearly the primary dominant component of the
universe and we have no idea what it is. We dont even understand dark
matter, which is the second most dominant component. All we know
things about is the third and smallest category of universal stuffordinary
matter and energy. So there is a tremendous amount of mystery here.
Roger Blandford: In cosmology, theres a thrill a minute: were getting new
discoveries all the time. Were fortunate to be living at a time when these dis-
coveries are being made at such a tremendous rate. This is a golden age of
discovery in astronomy, driven largely driven by new technology being
applied to observation.
Neil deGrasse Tyson: The cosmos comes to us through telescopes and
through particle accelerators, opening up vast new vistas of the universe
that, prior to these instruments, our senses had no access to. For example,
we discovered neutron stars and pulsars, which have the density equivalent
of a herd of 50 million elephants crammed into a thimble. 50 million
elephants are a thimbles worth of neutron star. These are the kinds of ideas
we have to contend with all the time. We have come to expect wild and crazy
ideas emanating out of the cosmos; the threshold for what is ridiculous has
to be quite high in the community of astrophysicists. Just look at how often
we have been baffled and had to sort of grow out of our bafflement in order
to get ready for the next set of discoveries.
Robert Kuhn: All of the things were discussing regarding the expansion of
the universe are building on a theory that Alan Guth came up with in the
early 1980s and which revolutionized everyones understanding about how
the universe began. Alan, please give us a brief summary of the inflationary
universe.
Alan Guth: The inflationary universe theory addresses the question that
the conventional form of the Big Bang theory really just left out, which is
the question of what caused the Bang, what started this enormous
expansion. Inflation proposes that there would be a form of matter which

would actually turn gravity on its head and make it repulsive, which is
exactly what you need to start the universe expanding.
Robert Kuhn: When did inflation start and when did it end?
Alan Guth: Inflation lasted probably about 10-30 seconds, a number were
not very certain about. 10-30, of course, is an almost infinitesimally small
number, a decimal point and 29 zeros before you get to a one.
Neil deGrasse Tyson: If you cant imagine it, dont worry, theres nothing
wrong with you; youre still an okay person.
Robert Kuhn: During that fleetingly brief moment, space expanded faster
than the speed of light.
Alan Guth: Thats right. The speed of light is an absolute barrier for a race.
If any object has a race with a light beam, the light beam always wins, which
means that nothing can travel faster than light. Nonetheless, if you imagine
space as a plastic medium thats stretching, general relativity places no limit
whatever to how fast space can stretch, so this stretching does occur far
faster than light. During this brief time of inflation the region of the entire
vast universe that we now observe, everything that we can see with our most
powerful telescopes, expands from a size smaller than that of a single proton
at the start of that time to about the size of a marble at the end of that time.
After this period of inflation (10-30 seconds in duration) ends, the universe
continues to expand in its normal, currently observed manner until the
present day.
Robert Kuhn: What is it about human beings that we can look back 13, 14
billion years and describe events that are a billionth the size of a proton and
10-30 the duration of a second?
David Goodstein: We have a deep faith in physics.
Roger Blandford: Its a long, historical pattern of people asking these ques-
tions. In ancient Greece, there were analogous questions being asked and in
some sense analogous tools being employed, albeit in an extremely primitive
manner, to try and discern the answers to these questions. Its something
perhaps deep in the human spirit to make these enquiries. Neil is right in that
were forever being shocked by the universe and what it throws in our faces,
but we shouldnt forget that when were thinking about theoretical specula-
tion, were still doing science. And the hard test of these theories is always
observational predictions that become confirmed with observational data.
Robert Kuhn: Lets look at dark matter. Of all the matter in the universe,
90 percent is now said to be dark. Tell me what that means.
Neil deGrasse Tyson: Id rather word that slightly differently. To even

assert that it is matter assumes that you know something about what it really
is, and we dont.
Robert Kuhn: To be more precise, 90 percent of the gravity that we see at
work in the universefor example, in the rotational speed of stars around
the centers of galaxies or the clustering of galaxies themselvescannot be
explained by aggregating all the normal matter that we can locate.
Neil deGrasse Tyson: It is the case of The Missing Matterhow do you
know whats missing if its not there? Its a simple analysis, actually: there
are two classic measurements that give rise to the missing matter. First, you
measure how fast these galaxies are moving and that tells you how much
mass is holding them together, because if theres not enough mass, those
speeds would have caused the galaxies to fly apart long ago. This means that
you can calculate how much mass there must be from the speeds. Second,
you just count up all the mass in the galaxies, stars and gasses, everything.
Then you compare the two numbers: (i) the amount of mass that you calcu-
lated had to be there in order to keep the galaxies from flying apart, and (ii)
the amount of mass that you can see. And what you find when you compare
these two numbers is that the former, the amount of mass that is needed, is
about a hundred times the size of the latter, the amount of mass that we
can see. The only conclusion is that there is extra matter there that we cant
account for. This dark matter is not protons, neutrons, electronsnone of
these classic particles you learn about in chemistry class.
Alan Guth: Another important piece of evidence is from measurements of
the non-uniformities in the cosmic background radiation, which we believe
to be the afterglow of the heat of the original big bang by which the universe
began. We can measure these non-uniformities at the level of one part in a
hundred thousand, and because these have evolved as the universe has
evolved, they have embedded in them many clues about the evolution and
history of the universe.
Neil deGrasse Tyson: The satellite Microwave Anisotropy Probe will map
this cosmic microwave background with such precision that itll enable you
to compare the pattern in one part of the sky with the pattern in another
part. There is so much that we dont know. For example, whether space is
sort of ordinary, just continuing on, or whether it has multiple connections
and folds to it, because if it is the latter, then the pattern over here will be
exactly the pattern over there, which will tells us that the universe curves
back in some loop, some donut or some sort of three dimensional Mobius
strip. This is the fanciful side of what that analysis might bring
Alan Guth: How about a pretzel universe.
Neil deGrasse Tyson: Its just strange. And we like strange things.
David Goodstein: Not stranger than any of the other things weve been
discovering in the past decade.
Neil deGrasse Tyson: I keep trying to think what discovery could ever be
as astounding to us as the Hubble telescopes discovery that we live in a uni-
verse whose expansion is accelerating. That was extraordinary, astonishing.
David Goodstein: Just think of what happened. In 1916 Albert Einstein
works a theory and equations, all by himself, which have a natural predic-
tion that the universe is expanding. But he doesnt believe it, because none
of the observational data in astronomy suggested such a wild idea. So Ein-
stein adds to his theory and equations an artificial term, something he called
the cosmological constant, which was supposed to prevent the universe from
expanding. Then the great astronomer Edwin Hubble discovered from his
photographic plates, taken by his giant new telescope, that the universe
was, in fact, expanding. So Einstein calls his cosmological constant the big-
gest mistake of his scientific career. And now weve got it back again to
explain this acceleration of the expansion of the universe.
Neil deGrasse Tyson: So Einsteins biggest blunder was saying that it was
his biggest blunder.
Robert Kuhn: Clearly everything were talking about requires the set of
fundamental laws of physics. Recent data seems to suggest that some of
these fundamental laws, some of these constants of nature, may be changing
over time?
Roger Blandford: There have been reports that one of the famous con-
stants of nature, which is called the fine structure constant, may be changing
slightly over time.
Robert Kuhn: What is the fine structure constant?
Roger Blandford: Its a combination of the speed of light and the charge on
the electron; its a famous constant that every physicist knows.
David Goodstein: If the fine structure constant is changing, it means that
the charge on the electron is not constant, and then that means that chemis-
try is changing all the time. We tend to think that the laws of physics are
eternal, and such stunning news would indicate that not even the laws of
chemistry are eternal. What a shock that would be!
Robert Kuhn: What would be the implications?
David Goodstein: There has to be a fine balance among the constants of
nature for lots of things, including for planets and people to even exist. If
the fine structure constant were to change by very much, we would probably
become impossible. And, of course, we would prefer that not to be the case.
Neil deGrasse Tyson: Theres an important point here. Were talking

about a difference in the fine structure constant from long ago. Whatever it
is today, were here, so, were okay with its current value. If it had a different
value back then, that would fly in the face of our expectations, but theres
nothing in principle that would prevent us from modeling the way in which
it has changed over time and then reinterpret the statements weve made
about the early universe. Just to put that in historical perspective, its impor-
tant to realize science advances not by throwing a successful theory out the
window, it advances by recognizing that successful theories are a subset of
a larger, deeper understanding. People often erroneously refer to Einstein
as he who threw Newton out the window so that now we have a new way
of thinking about the universe. That imagery doesnt quite capture the real-
ity. If you look at Einsteins equations of motion and of gravity, in low grav-
ity and at low speeds, all of his equations look exactly like those of Newton.
It is only under conditions of very high gravity and very high speeds that the
differences surface.
David Goodstein: Thats a very good point regarding both relativity and
quantum mechanicsboth are more fundamental descriptions of the uni-
verse that cover wider ranges of conditions. Its not true that Einstein
showed that Newton was wrong, instead it showed why he was right: Ein-
stein showed that Newtons laws arise out of even more fundamental laws
that cover a wider range of experience.
Robert Kuhn: Lets look forward. Weve been looking back to the begin-
ning of the universe, some 13 or 14 billion years ago. How far can we look
ahead? What are the kinds of predictions we can say about the future of
the universe and, indeed, the end of the universe?
Neil deGrasse Tyson: First on our horizon is the colossal merger of our
Milky Way galaxy with the Andromeda Galaxy; that will happen in five or
six billion years. Watching that happen will be fun for our far-future ances-
tors (if they will exist), seeing the galaxies get closer and closer. What a colli-
sional ballet that will be. After that the acceleration of the universe will
increase to the point where all nearby galaxies that are currently undergoing
the accelerating expansion will have disappeared beyond our visual horizon.
At that point we will be sitting in a small collection of stars, or whatever they
are at that time, and well see nothing else in the universe, because every-
thing else would have been accelerated beyond our horizon. And I wonder
if that time were this time, how would those simple observational facts have
influenced our theories of the universe. There would be no other galaxies;
there would be nothing else to see other than our local system.
Robert Kuhn: How do we know that in some sense such a circumstance
hasnt already happened? Perhaps many things that exist in vastness of all
reality have already passed beyond our capacity to see or discern them
Neil deGrasse Tyson: This is the scary part; this is the scary part. Perhaps
the state we are in now is the consequence of some other catastrophic phe-
nomenon that occurred long before we were around to see it.
Alan Guth: Let me answer that wild question by also taking a jump of
maybe 10 billion light years off to the side. One of the curious things about
inflation is that once this inflationary process starts, it never really stops.
There is this peculiar material or force or field thats driving the universes
exponential expansion, as a result of the repulsive gravity that it creates.
What happens is the material thats driving the expansion is unstable so in
some places it decays and forms normal matter, and these regions become
normal universes. But it decays like a radioactive substance with a half-life,
so if you wait the half-life of this material, half of it will have decayed, in a
sense it will become normal matter. But unlike normal radioactive material,
this strange material is exponentially expanding at the same time, so in the
same half-life, the half that remains (that did not decay into ordinary matter)
grows to be much larger than what was there in the first place. The expand-
ing material goes on literally producing new universes forever. So although
our universe will very likely have the fate of ultimate emptiness, this empti-
ness will be only for our region of the universe, because meanwhile, else-
where, in virtually an infinite number of places, new, young universes are
sprouting up and developing.
Robert Kuhn: You made a jump and I missed how you did it. We had infla-
tion goingI followed thatthen we had a myriad of new universes coming
out of that. I was listening carefully but I missed how that happened.
Alan Guth: During inflation, the universe is undergoing exponential
expansion, which every so often is doubling. It just so happens that the dou-
bling time is about 10-37 seconds or some ridiculously minuscule time like
that. So, every 10-37 seconds, the universe doubles in size. Then, in a slightly
longer time scale, 10-34, a piece of the universe breaks off and becomes a new
universe while the rest of the old universe goes on exponentially expanding,
and then another piece breaks off and becomes a new universe, and on and
on. And because the universe continues to double and redouble, even though
pieces of it are constantly breaking off, it continues to get bigger and bigger.
This would be the very history of our universe during the inflationary period.
Robert Kuhn: Is that happening now or only during the early inflationary
moment?
Alan Guth: Our universe is one of these pieces that split off; when it split
off it was probably a large region, but, within that, there was something
the size of a marble that became everything that we observe today. Once it
splits off, its been expanding ever since, even if slowed after that by ordi-
nary gravity.
Robert Kuhn: Were the original stuff that had this inflation; were the
marble came out of it.
Alan Guth: Exactly right.
Neil deGrasse Tyson: This multiplicity of universes allows us to reempha-
size the Copernican principle for our own existence. If youre spawning uni-
verses like they are rabbits, most universes would be inhospitable to life,
because carbon life as we know it could not exist; under different laws and
conditions, chemistry would be completely different. So you can have a
multitude of cosmoses, of universes, perhaps only one of which is suitable
for life, which is the one we happen to be in.
Robert Kuhn: This is not as surprising as it first may seem, since only in a
universe where we do exist are we around to analyze the universe. (This is
one formulation of what is called the Anthropic Principle.)
David Goodstein: There may be life in many kinds of universes, based on
different chemistries. There is no reason why life couldnt be based, say, on
silicon rather than on carbon.
Alan Guth: It is likely that only a very small fraction of the universes
would become suitable for life, but since there are an infinite number of uni-
verses, whatever that fraction is yields a very large number.
Neil deGrasse Tyson: Every time we play around with the fundamental
constants, we get something that we know wouldnt reproduce life as we
know it.
Alan Guth: It always bothers me tacking on that phrase As We Know It.
Neil deGrasse Tyson: Why does that bother you?
Alan Guth: Because if were trying to ask why is the universe the way it is,
some people say it has to be the way it is or else life, as we know it, would
not exist. But if life of a different form existedlife as we dont know it
that can still be part of a perfectly plausible universe.
Roger Blandford: Weve already demonstrated that, as far as inanimate
things are concerned, our imagination has been rather limited, so theres
no reason why we shouldnt be equally limited as far as animate things are
concerned.
Alan Guth: We have a strong tendency to define the word universe to
mean anything that looks like everything else that we see. But the theory of
cosmological inflation strongly suggests that everything we see and know is
just a minuscule, fleetingly tiny fraction of everything that really exists.
Robert Kuhn: How do you see the next 10 years in this time of dramatic
new observations and new data in astronomy?
Roger Blandford: There is still a tremendous amount of discovery to be

made in astronomy and cosmology. One of the opportunities is in gravita-
tional radiation. These are, if you like, waves, rather like light or radio
waves, but theyre waves of gravity that have ripples in space and time.
Gravity waves interact very weakly with matter but they can be detected
by extremely delicate lasers and mirrors. At this moment, there are tele-
scopes under construction on the ground and plans for putting similar tele-
scopes in space, which we hope will soon measure this gravitational
radiation. After that, perhaps a second or third generation gravitational tele-
scope will be able to see gravitational radiation produced from the very ear-
liest times of the big bang, perhaps even going back to the time of inflation.
Neil deGrasse Tyson: 50 years, 100 years?
Roger Blandford: I wouldnt dare put a date on it. It could be a lot sooner
than that if we can find innovative new ways to look at these microwave
background fluctuations from when the universe was about half a million
years old, perhaps looking at them in a way that you might look at the sun
through Polaroid sunglasses. This microwave radiation cold turn out to be
a messenger from the very early universe, too. And if the right sort of pat-
terns are seen in that polarization, that could also be confirmatory evidence
for the stories that are told about the very early universe.
Alan Guth: In terms of observations, there are two other exciting things
going on now. One is the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, which is a much more
massive survey of galaxies and their positions than ever before available; this
data will allow us to do a lot of statistical tests in terms of the distribution of
matter in the universe. This distribution data is also a tool for finding exotic
objects, which can be a lot of fun. For example, one type of exotic occur-
rence that theyre looking for is the presence of two quasars very nearby each
other. If we find them, then what they allow you to do is to observe the light
coming along the line of sight from these quasars and you can measure the
absorption of light by atoms in between. And these observations give you
not only the description of the matter everywhere along each line of sight,
but they also allow you to see left to right; for example, if theres a cloud
of a certain type that youre seeing in one beam, is it also seen in the other
beam? And, statistically, then you can learn, in this example, how big these
clouds are, which in turn allows you to discern a lot about where the clouds
are. Furthermore, the apparent size of the clouds can give clues about the
geometry of the universe as a whole. This is really very exciting stuff!
Neil deGrasse Tyson: I liken the Sloan Digital Sky Survey to the old days
of the classical explorers, when the Renaissance explorers were mapping
the Earths surface, coming to some understanding of the nature of our home
and backyard. I see this enterprise, the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, and those
that came before it that were smaller in scope, as the inevitable extension
of this mapping efforts. First we were mapping our own Earth; now we are
mapping the cosmos.
David Goodstein: With all of the astonishing things that weve talked
about today, this is not the biggest revolution in the history of cosmology.
There was a time when we believed that we were the center of the universe,
that the universe existed entirely for us. And we had a set of laws of physics
that made sense, but it only made sense so long as that our centrality in the
universe was true. And then Copernicus came along and ripped us out of
the center of the universe, destroying everything we understood. Suddenly,
there was no basis for any physics of any kind. And in a very short period
of time, about 150 years, which is only five or six generations of scientists,
we had put it all back together again. But we were no longer the center of
the universe; we were living on a speck of dust in an undistinguished galaxy
somewhere in some corner of one of the inestimable and unfathomable num-
ber of universes.
Neil deGrasse Tyson: There might be some theory yet to emerge that will
give us an understanding of dark matter, dark energy, Alan Guths rabbit
universes, some theory that might come forth that connects all of this
together. We will then be looking back on these times, laughing at how
quaint our ignorance was.
Robert Kuhn: Dont we yet feel grand by being able to exalt in our under-
standing? Even though were not in the center, we are part of such enormity.
Neil deGrasse Tyson: I feel grand. I do because I dont feel smaller, I
feel bigger, because its the collective minds of all of us, the human species,
that figured this stuff out, and thats extraordinary. For me, the unheralded
discovery of the twentieth century, which I carry with me every wak-
ing moment, is the recognition that the very chemistry of our bodies were
forged in the centers of supernovae, stars that exploded, that gave their lives
to the enrichment of the galaxy, out of which formed new stars and planets
and people. So, its not so much that were in the universe, the universe is
in us.

Dark matter, dark energy, black holes, an expanding universe thats accel-
eratingthese are astounding discoveries of a radically new reality. But Im
intrigued by something more: Human beings, though limited by a modest
home planet and barely 500 years of serious science, have crafted an elegant
timeline of the cosmos, exploring back billions of years with startling detail
and forecasting ahead trillions of years with breath-taking perspective.
Einstein said, The eternal mystery about the world is its comprehensibil-
ity. As the prescient biologist J.B.S. Haldane remarked, The universe is
not only queerer than we imagine, it is queerer than we can imagine. As a

species, human beings have achieved scientific critical mass, and who knows
where this knowledge explosion will take us?
Alan Guth
Talk about the advances in your field.
Cosmology has made tremendous progress in the past 15 years. People
dont have the opportunity to appreciate the level of detail that cosmologists
think they have in understanding the universe and the ways we have of test-
ing our theories. For example, we have the Big Bang theory, which says the
universe started as a hot, expanding ball. That means much more to theoreti-
cal physicists who can actually calculate how fast the universe was expand-
ing at any time, what the temperature would have been at any given time,
what the density of matter would have been at any time. Its a really quanti-
tative theory. And we physicists know enough about nuclear physics to
actually calculate what the rates of the different reactions would have been
under the conditions weve calculated for the early universe. With all those
independent strands of knowledge put together, we can accurately predict
the abundances of about four or five of the lightest chemical elements
around today, and our prediction agrees with what the astronomers predict,
even though the calculations we do are based on nuclear physics experi-
ments and theirs are based on astronomical measurements. But the theory
and the measurements nonetheless agree! I find that astounding and I think
it really means that we two groups are on to something here.
Neil deGrasse Tyson

Will we ever look back to the Big Bang?
Were getting closer and closer to understanding what was going on right
at the Big Bang. We have laws of physics that get us pretty close to the begin-
ning, but not all the way to the beginning, and certainly not before the begin-
ning. There are frontiers right now that offer tantalizing clues that perhaps
we live in just one cosmic bubble of an infinite number of bubbles. Were
coming close to being able to ask and answer those questions theoretically
and observationally, and I look forward to defining conclusions the next
20 to 50 years, as the string theorists come forth with more clever statements
about what went on right at the first singularity, right at that first moment of
the big bang.
When we find gravity waves, what will they tell us?

The Big Bang is currently our most verified and supported theory for
the origin of the cosmos, but there are several barriers to looking all the
way back to the start of the clock. One of them is an optical barrier, and
thats seen in the famous cosmic microwave background. Right now, there
is a wall of microwaves that emanates from everywhere in the cosmos thats
a leftover light signal from the original explosion. But that light hails from
about 300,000 years after the moment of the initial explosion, so using
ordinary telescopes we have no hope of seeing any earlier than that. There
is no way we can penetrate that wall anymore than you have any hope
of looking through a smoked, opaque glass and describing details happen-
ing on the other side. The optical boundary is impassable, but all hope is
not lost.
There are other kinds of telescopes; for example, one that detects neutri-
nos. Neutrinos dont have that wall problem. They emanate from an early
time in the cosmos, so if we perfect neutrino detectors, we in principle will
be able to see much farther back in time than this optical wall created so
soon after the Big Bang (a mere 300,000 years after).
There is also something else that comes from the early universe and these
are gravity waves, ripples in the fabric of space and time predicted by Ein-
stein but still not observed. Weve got good people working on the problem;
theyre in the process of building sensitive enough telescopes to detect them.
I have no doubt that well detect them, and when we do, then well be able to
see even farther backback to the earliest moments where the actual fabric
of space and time sprung from what might have been this cosmic meta-soup,
which we think gave birth to universes left and right!
Now a lot of that is fantasy at this point, but its not complete fantasy, its
consistent with modern thinking of what the behavior of quantum mechan-
ics would be under those circumstances. Quantum mechanics is the study of
matter on its smallest scale, whereas Einsteins general relativity is the
behavior of matter on its largest scale. Once you have the Big Bang and
you have all that matter compressed down into a tiny volume, these two the-
ories, Relativity and Quantum Mechanics, have to come together somehow .
But they dont, or we dont yet see how they marry each other. We think we
need a third thing to harmonize them, something more fundamental, some-
thing that gives rise to both. Herein is the limit of our theoretical under-
standing of the cosmos. Once thats formulated, then we may be able to
describe what kind of gravitational signature we think was made from the
actual Big Bang explosion itself, and tune our gravity wave telescopes to
see that.

This sounds like a cliche, but it is true: the people I most admire are my
parents. Right now, theyre celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary. I
admire them for many reasons, but foremost is for the way in which they
guided me through my interests. They didnt lead me, because if youre led
by someone you might think that youre being taken somewhere that is not
genuine expression of whats within your own heart. How many people do
we all know who became doctors because their parents were doctors? Nei-
ther of my parents were scientists, but they saw my interest in the universe
from very early, and saw that it was something to be nurtured, and it was
through their initiative that I took as many trips to the Hayden Planetarium
as I did as a child. By the way, I didnt only go to places of science. We also
went to art museums and the like. I believe that if my interests were in art, Id
be making this same testimonial in their honor as people who have nurtured
my interest in art. So my parents are the people whom I admire the most, and
that hasnt changed since my earliest memories.

The public has a love/hate relationship with the progress of science. Not a
week goes by where you dont find people complaining that theres some
genetically engineered food that they might be eating, or that technology
has made their lives harder instead of easier, or they have less free time then
they once did. What we have to consider is the very people who are making
those statements, if they had lived 100 years ago, might have died in child
birth because medicine wasnt advanced enough to have kept them alive.
They might have died of tuberculosis or polio or smallpox, so what a luxury
it is to sit here in modern times and say you dont want to eat the bell pepper
because it might have been genetically engineered. So, yes, I dont mind if
people take technology for granted, but at the end of the day, sit back and
ask yourself, how has technology enhanced your life, in fact, made you
healthier, made you dream about what the next wave of technology might
bring your way.

In order to make informed decisions, decisions that can affect your life,
your health, your wealth, your well-being, its important to be scientifically
literate. That being said, beyond that it doesnt matter what you major in
in college. Go follow your heart, just dont do so without knowing how this
world works. Science literacy is empowering. However challenging it is to
do well or to read through some of the material, the fact is technology drives
our modern society, and its possible to move backwards just by standing
still. Its important to stay current, to stay up-to-date on things. So my advice
is Id love it if everybody majored in science, but that would be a boring
world because I want artists out there as well. But whatever you do, keep an
eye on the science pages of the newspaper.

If Im remembered for anything, I want to be remembered for having
brought down to earth the cosmos for all people to enjoy in the way others
had brought the cosmos down to earth for me.
Roger Blandford
Whats the current thinking about gamma ray bursts?
The story about gamma ray bursts is that they were thought to be very
powerful explosions that created lots of intense gamma rays from distant
sources. What now seems to be the case is that theyre not quite as powerful
as we once thought. Were not absolutely sure, but it looks like theyre only
as powerful as a typical supernova explosionnot as powerful as a 100 or
1,000 supernova explosions, as we were thinking. The way that we have
come to this conclusion is that there is now fairly good evidence that the
bursts themselves are not spherical explosions, radiating energy in all direc-
tions, but in fact almost one-dimensional explosions, like jets. And if thats
true, we only see the gamma ray bursts when the jets are pointed directly
in our direction. And so if the energy is only focused in this beam, then we
can say that its only about one percent or so of what we originally thought
it might be. In addition, there is pretty good evidence now that although we
arent sure what the cause of the gamma ray burst is, it does appear to be
associated with young and massive stars, which is evidence that points the
finger at supernovae. Were not absolutely sure, but its looking like a
stronger and stronger possibility.
Whats the cosmological constant?

The cosmological constant is essentially a mathematical term that Albert
Einstein introduced into his general theory of relativity. Its the possibility
that there was something in addition to regular gravity that holds the sys-
tems of galaxies and stars and planets together. Dark energy in some sense
is a more modern version of the cosmological constant. Its basically the
same idea, and there is now observational evidencewhich of course there
wasnt for Einsteinthat it really is present in the universe.

I was very fortunate to go to a challenging high school, and had very good
teachers. And I found science the most interesting subject, which kept my
interesting going.

One of the ways of improving everybodys life is for people to have an
understanding not just of how to work your VCR, but to actually under-
stand more of the principles that led to that VCR being designed and con-
structed in the first place, and to understand the connection that has to the
fundamental ideas of condensed matter theory, electromagnetic theory,
and so on. More people should appreciate without necessarily understand-
ing the details that there is a very large world of science and technology that
is very strongly interconnectedthis is one of the lessons that we should be
trying to give to the next generation.

Id like to be remembered as someone who was interested and fortunate to
participate at some minor level in a lot of exciting scientific discovery. And I
would like to be remembered through my students.

Chapter 11
Is the Universe Full of Life?
Will we find life elsewhere in the universe? As a child, I was scared that aliens
might invade my nighttime bedroom. As an adult, I almost wish they would.
Humans have long wondered whether life exists beyond our home planet.
There have been endless speculations, including a good deal of science fic-
tion writing. Finally, the search gets scientific. In recent years, a host of
new technologies are turning speculation into science. We now have the abil-
ity to discern increasing numbers of earth-like planets circling faraway suns
and even investigate the composition of their atmospheres; and we have dis-
covered life in environments on Earth so extreme its not unreasonable to
imagine that microbesor moremay flourish elsewhere in the universe.
Over the last decade, biologists have discovered microbial life in a daz-
zling array of hostile environmentsmineral-rich hydrothermal vents at
the bottom of oceans, buried thousands of meters beneath the Earths sur-
face in solid bedrock, encased deep within the Antarctic ice sheet, and even
in the cooling water of nuclear reactors! These organisms are called
extremeophileslovers of extreme environments. Given the ingenuity of
life here on Earth, is it so unreasonable to imagine that microbes might flour-
ish elsewhere in the universe? Or perhaps even elsewhere in our own solar
system? Might they be able to survive an accidental journey through space
on an asteroid, and thus even colonize new worlds on which they did not
originally arise? A new hybrid field is now emerging; it is called astrobiol-
ogy, a combination of astronomy and biology, and we will explore it. We
will also ponder its potential meaning: what will be the philosophical and
theological implications of astrobiology?
Two planetary scientists and an astrophysicist make the case that the
search for life in other parts of our universe has been made all the more valid
by two recent discoveries, one taking place at the bottom of our oceans and
the other in the stars surrounding our galaxy. As it turns out, life thrives
without benefit of any sunlight along mid-ocean ridges, one of earths most
inhospitable places. And, improvements in telescope technology have
revealed the presence of innumerable new planets circling stars similar to
our own sun. The discussion then turns to the feasibility and value of finding
proof that extraterrestrial life exists. All predict our inherent inquisitiveness
and daring will lead to such expeditions into space.
Batter up in the new game of astrobiology. Mars, then Europa. Astronomer/
planetary geologist Bruce Murray has worked on missions to Mars even before
his tenure as head of Caltechs Jet Propulsion Laboratory. If anyone wants to
get our instruments to Mars, its Murray. But as for drilling for life on Mars,
he knows the difficulty. Astrophysicist and director of New Yorks Hayden
Planetarium Neil deGrasse Tyson says he doesnt care how big our shovel will
have to be to find it, if thats what we need technology to do, well invent it. Shri
Kulkarni, who observed and correctly assessed what turned out to be the first
known pulsar, has what may be the key piece of data: we now know that star
formation is accompanied by planet formation.
Are the stars out tonight? Now we know that not only are they there, so
are their planets. Multiply the stars times the planets they have all formed
and your number is unimaginably gigantic. Astronomy is divided into those
who say, just on statistics alone, there has to be life beyond Earth, and those
who refute it by saying that those statistics dont include a myriad of factors
inhibiting the development of life, and that life on Earth and human-like
intelligence in particular are chance accidents of the most remote kind.
Expert Participants
Shri Kulkarni
Professor of Astronomy and Planetary Science, California Institute of Tech-
nology; leader in the search for extra-solar planets
Bruce Murray
Professor Emeritus, Planetary Science and Geology, California Institute of
Technology; former director, NASA/Caltech Jet Propulsion Laboratory;
co-founder (with Carl Sagan) and chairman, The Planetary Society
Neil deGrasse Tyson
Director, Hayden Planetarium; member, Department of Astrophysics,
American Museum of Natural History; visiting research scientist, Depart-
ment of Astrophysics, Princeton University

Is the Universe Full of Life? 157
Robert Kuhn: The universe is a pretty unfriendly place for life. What about
all the catastrophes, the giant stellar explosions emitting jets of severe radia-
tion, comets and asteroids flying all around all the time? Talk about a hostile
environment!
Neil deGrasse Tyson: Before we wax poetic about how bad the universe is,
consider that the last major extinction, the one that took out the dinosaurs,
enabled the tree shrew to evolve to something more ambitious than a rodent
so that we were enabled to become what we are today. So these impacts are
givers as well as takers away to the diversity of life.
Robert Kuhn: Much of the radiation is intensely destructive.
Shri Kulkarni: Some stars die benignly like our own sun, so in another 5
billion years. . .
Robert Kuhn: Not benign to us.
Shri Kulkarni: Thats true, which goes to show my orientation as an
astronomer. The sun will just expand very gently.
Neil deGrasse Tyson: Well be a cinder orbiting deep within the suns
surface.
Shri Kulkarni: But that will be over 5 billion years from now so we
shouldnt be too worried. But other stars, the more massive stars, do die
catastrophically as supernovae, which is not uncommon. At some point,
they run out of fuel and, no longer able to counterbalance the inexorable
force of gravity, undergo sudden and violent collapse because gravity is the
ultimate winner in this game. The collapse process itself releases what we
call gravitational binding energy, some of which now comes off in a flash
and in gas hurtling out at very high speeds. And these supernovae are not
uncommonthere is one superova in our own galaxy every hundred years
or so. So if youre close to one when it erupts, that could be pretty bad.
Robert Kuhn: What do you call close?
Shri Kulkarni: Certainly a thousand light years would close by anyones
theory of what a supernova would do. Even more exotic, more catastrophic
things are lurking out in the universe, such as gamma ray bursts. Gamma ray
bursts are rare, but their sphere of influence is tremendous
Robert Kuhn: Gamma ray bursts are the most powerful explosive energy
in the universe.
Shri Kulkarni: Yes, they are the most powerful directed explosive energy in
the universe. They are shot forth as basically beams of light and radiation,
and although we dont understand them very well, we do know that their
sphere of death reaches out many, many thousands of light years.
Robert Kuhn: Why is now such an exciting time in the search for life else-
where in the universe?
Bruce Murray: One reason is discoveries here on earth, in mid ocean
ridges, in groundwater very deep, of living systems, organisms, microorgan-
isms, that survive in environments we never believed possible.
Neil deGrasse Tyson: Why didnt we know about these extremeophiles
before? They are just on the bottom of the ocean, why not 50 years ago?
Bruce Murray: The bottom of the ocean is not easily accessible. Such
organisms werent on the radar screen, so no one thought about the possibil-
ity or looked for them.
Robert Kuhn: To have life at the bottom of the ocean means that you have
life without need of sunlight as a direct source of its energy.
Bruce Murray: Incredibly, these extremeophiles use chemical processes for
energy, they dont need photosynthesis, they dont need sunlight to live. This
is why I am optimistic, or at least less pessimistic, about finding life on Mars
or finding it in another planet around another star.
Neil deGrasse Tyson: Once you remove the sun as a requirement, it allows
you to think of other ways you might generate energy to sustain life. When
you teach Introductory Astronomy you talk about a habitable zone
around a star. Lets take our own sun. Life as we know it requires liquid
water. If there is a planet a little too close to the host star, the water would
evaporate, like on Venus; a little too far away, its frozen (like on Mars
and beyond), so there is this sort of Goldilocks interval, a relatively small
band where you can have liquid water (like on Earth). For quite a long time
this concept dominated our thinking about how and where we might look
for life in another star system.
Robert Kuhn: What are some of the conditions for life beyond Earth?
Shri Kulkarni: You need energy, thats the ultimate requirement to get life
going; it can be tidal, it can be solar, and so on.
Robert Kuhn: What about extreme cold?
Bruce Murray: Thats interesting because the satellite of Jupiter called
Europa has an icy crust, probably not terribly thin, but below that is prob-
ably saltwater, perhaps like the Arctic or Antarctic Oceans. We can now
detected organisms that really do seem to be able to live in the ice. Its -20
degrees Centigrade, way below the freezing point of water, but the organ-
isms not only survive, but they prosper.
Neil deGrasse Tyson: But the fluid within these organisms is still liquid, so
theyre not in a frozen state, not like a brick of ice.
Bruce Murray: Its tougher than that because its hard to determine if
something is alive or not. The usual test is to assess its metabolism and
reproductive capabilities. But in extreme environments, how do you culture
those organisms? Its not that simple; for example, how do you know the
organisms werent a contaminant from the collection or storage equipment
from the lab, or hadnt floated in from the air?
Neil deGrasse Tyson: So now because of these extremophiles, when we
think about life elsewhere in the galaxy, we no longer restrict ourselves to
this Goldilocks habitable zonethey have broadened our thinking.
Robert Kuhn: Why is now such an exciting time in the search for life else-
where in the universe?
Shri Kulkarni: There are two reasons: one is the new technologies that for
the first time enable us to address meaningfully the question of planets else-
where, and perhaps even say something about the existence of large-scale
life, by which I mean organisms and trees and so on. The second reason is
just as important and a bit more subtle: astronomers can now say, more or
less with confidence, that every time a star has formed, then planet forma-
tion is a necessary byproduct. So we know through observations that star
formation is accompanied by planet formation, and we know that we have
the technology to actually go look for them. So this is pretty much the start
of a golden era in the search for life in the universe.
Neil deGrasse Tyson: I agree, especially in the last 10 years, ever since the
first discovery of a planet around a star other than the sun. I remember dis-
tinctly the day that that planetary count outside our solar system exceeded
the number of planets in our solar system. So todays children will only
know a time when we have in our log books far more planets outside of
our solar system than within.
Bruce Murray: Ask somebody who is 30 or older, how many planets there
are and they all say, nine. Say, no, Im sorry, its now more than 200 (and
growing, it seems, almost every week).
Robert Kuhn: How can we confirm the existence of extra-solar planets?
Shri Kulkarni: There are basically three techniques, each in various phases
of sophistication. The simplest one is where the light from the host or central
star communicates information
Robert Kuhn: As the planet revolves around the star, the gravitational field
of the planet causes a small but perceptible wobble in the star.
Shri Kulkarni: The gentle tugging of the planet on the star is small but
nonetheless measurable. So what astronomers see is that the star undergoes
a sort of a motion, which astronomers detect in two different ways. One is
something called radial velocity, which is how fast the star moves toward us
and away from us as influenced by the gravitational field of the planet. Cur-
rently, this technique is producing this abundance of planets.
Robert Kuhn: How large is that radial velocity?
Shri Kulkarni: We are talking of tens of meters per second.
Robert Kuhn: That is an incredibly small number considering the vast
distances.
Neil deGrasse Tyson: Thats part of the technologically enabling factors of
the past 10 years.
Shri Kulkarni: We can discern one part in 100 million! Astronomers can
do this quite reliably; it took awhile to develop the technologies but we are
there now.
Neil deGrasse Tyson: Logically, since gravitation is key, the first planets
we are seeing are large, they are Jupiter-sized planets. Furthermore, they
are all close to their host stars, because close stars execute one period of rev-
olution around the star quickly, which means that astronomers can get that
signature in your data quickly. Therefore, all of the first waves of extra-solar
planets are large planets close to their host stars. We need a much longer
baseline of time to find a planet far away.
Robert Kuhn: For example, an extra-solar planet in an orbit similar to our
Earthsin the habitable zonewould take about a year, since data needs
to be collected from all positions to give a conclusive reading.
Neil deGrasse Tyson: An extra-solar planet with an earth-like orbit would
take a year; an extra-solar planet with a Jupiter-like orbit would take almost
12 years. Weve barely been taking this kind of data for 12 years, and so we
would not have even seen a full orbit of Jupiter by now. When people hear
we are discovering extra-solar planets by the gravitational affect that planet
has on its host star, they say, you mean you dont actually see the planet?
And I say, no, we measure the effects of its gravity. And people get worried,
and say, Well, if you cant see it, how do you know its there? And I sim-
ply say that gravity is as much a signature of somethings existence as a
direct photograph of it; we have many ways we can measure something is
there. Just as you do if you live in a cabin in the woods, you come to learn
what a bear footprint looks like very quickly, and if you see such a footprint
outside one morning, youll start looking for the bear that was once there.
Youre not going to say, Oh, I didnt see the bear, therefore it couldnt have
existed. These are the kinds of inferences we make in astronomy, which
have been very powerful methods throughout the history of astronomy. Its
how we first even predicted the existence of the planet Neptune; it was from
its gravitational effect on the planet Uranus, which astronomers measured
but did not know what was causing it. Gravity tells us there is an object out
there.
Shri Kulkarni: The other technique for finding extra-solar planets thats
been in development for some time and is now coming of age (particularly
with the huge ground-based Keck Telescopes in Hawaii) is called interfer-
ometry. Interferometry works when you have more than one telescope and
you can combine the light coming in from both or all them, and by combin-
ing the light electronically you get synergism.
Robert Kuhn: Its as if the telescope has just grown enormously in size.
Shri Kulkarni: Absolutely. With this techniquewhich will also be the
next mission that NASA has already fundedcalled the Space Interferom-
etry Mission, astronomers will be able to go looking for smaller, more dis-
tant planets around more normal stars.
Robert Kuhn: A second technique for discovering extra-solar planets is by
measuring the changes in the host stars light as the planet passes across the
face of the star as seen by our Earth-based telescopes.
Shri Kulkarni: Right. This is when the planet occults the star, eclipsing it.
Most of the time, when there is no planet eclipsing the star, you get one read-
ing for the luminosity of the star. But when the planet does pass in front of
the star, you get a little less light. Weve proven that the occulting signature
of a planet works by confirming it through the more standard radial velocity
technique that assured the presence of the planet.
Robert Kuhn: Lets talk about Europa and Mars, because they are close
and we are sending our probes there.
Neil deGrasse Tyson: They are in our backyard. Mars we know had run-
ning water; there are dried river beds that meandered, floodplains, river del-
tas, all this tantalizing evidence that it was once an oasis and, at least on
earth, wherever we find an oasis, we find life. So if life ever existed on Mars,
its in our backyard and we should seek it.
Bruce Murray: Theres a problem, which neither astronomers nor biolo-
gists appreciatethe surface of Mars is self-sterilizing; the ultraviolet radia-
tion reaching the surface would kill all life. Maybe down a meter, shielded
from the radiation, we can find life, maybe 10 meters, we dont know.
Neil deGrasse Tyson: But the sterilization is on todays Mars; past eras
could have been different.
Bruce Murray: Today, youre right. But the likely location of life on Mars
is underground: whatever life might have formed on Mars was probably
subterranean life, like in the groundwater of the earth.
Neil deGrasse Tyson: So you go out digging, and if you find it, it becomes
one of the greatest discoveries of all time!
Bruce Murray: Youre glossing over the engineering problem: how deep do
we have to dig? Its a much more difficult task than commonly thought; it
could require the equivalent of a human expedition with huge, mining-like
drills.
Neil deGrasse Tyson: Im not worried about how big our shovel must be
when we get there; if its got life, its got life.
Bruce Murray: Europa has a different kind of problem. Europa is not self
sterilizing, but it is in the field of Jupiters radiation belts, so it is lethal for
our normal instruments. To investigate Europa, we have to build the same
kind of technologies used in nuclear weapons or reactorshardened elec-
tronics. So again, its not easy. If these alien extremophiles exist on Europa,
they are in an environment that not just humans cant take, but not even nor-
mal robots can survive. Its a challenge; but well do it. Both Mars and
Europa are good targets.
Robert Kuhn: Let me ask an earth-centered, solar-centered question,
which is philosophical, almost religious in its nature. Are we something spe-
cial here on this earth in this solar system? Or is life really rather common
throughout the galaxy?
Bruce Murray: Thats about as important a question as we know how to
ask, which could be answered with science. Is an Earth the norm or the freak
in the universe? As I observe the results coming in, my hunch is that when
you find Jupiter-like planets orbiting at the distance of Mercury, which is
what we are finding, if thats the typical alignment, then we on Earth are
the exception, which has profound negative implications about the abun-
dance of life in the universe, especially the abundance of human-like or intel-
ligent life.
Neil deGrasse Tyson: Im quite confident that life is not only hardy, given
how many environments we find it on Earth, its also easier to form than
we realize. First, even if Earth, at our distance from the sun, is rare, a
Jupiter-like planet close to the sun might have 40 moons or 50 moons, some
of which could possibly harbor life. So it doesnt scare me that perhaps Earth
at the Goldilocks distance is somehow rare.
Robert Kuhn: What about the time it takes for life to form?
Neil deGrasse Tyson: Typically when people ask how soon did life appear
on earth, they take the age of the earth and subtract the age of the oldest fos-
sil4.6 billion years minus 3.8 billion years, which brings you to 800 mil-
lion years. Knowing what evolution requires that seems pretty quick, but
its even faster than that because earth spent about 600 million years in a
period of heavy bombardment with asteroids and meteors, as Earth vac-

uumed up the remains of the developing solar system. This meant that the
earths surface, because of the deposited energy and the heat, was basically
molten and sterilized for about 600 million years. Its not fair to start your
life-forming stopwatch at the beginning of that period because complex mol-
ecules cant survive in that inhospitable environment. We must wait until the
Earth cooled down, then start your stopwatch. So, 200 million years? Thats
nothing, almost immediately, on a cosmic time scale. It seems to me that if
life were something hard to form, it would have taken earth longer than
200 million years to do it, maybe several billion years. Furthermore, the ele-
ments of life are hydrogen and oxygen (which compose water), carbon, and
nitrogen, thats what were made of, the chemistry of life. And look out in
the universe, all those same elements are present, even in the same order
(helium in the universe is inert). If life were made of some rare isotope of,
say, plutonium, you could argue that we were rare. So I have high confidence
that life is abundant in the universe.
Shri Kulkarni: Empirically, planet formation is just very common in the
universe, and we only know our own planetary system. We know nothing
about the virtually limitless number of other planetary systems, which is
why we need these new missions and new technologies.
Robert Kuhn: How many years will it take to get sufficient information to
make an informed opinion about life in the universe?
Neil deGrasse Tyson: Its just money at this point: we are now smart
enough to ask the right questions and we have the right techniques to find
the answers. Just as a caveat here, but the answers well be finding may be
as a result of looking for our car keys under the lamppost because thats
where the light is shining. There may be planetary systems that are unlike
earth but that are just perfectly happy making a different kind of life that
we have yet to think of. Science is full of cases like this. But its just a matter
of funding, funding the Kepler mission, the Space Interferometry Mission.
As for putting a time to it, Id guess 10 to 20 years.
Shri Kulkarni: The main technology, the third technique for discovering
and assessing extra-solar planets, the one that will really fill this gap between
the radial velocity and the occultation techniques (which have similar sort of
biases), is the Space Interferometry Mission (SIM) and interferometry in gen-
eral. So I would target around 2015, because SIM will get launched in 2009,
and by 2015 well have a fairly good inventory of planetary systems.
Neil deGrasse Tyson: What will you be looking for in those systems? Oxy-
gen, for one.
Shri Kulkarni: The next step is how to do more detailed analysis. Occulta-
tion is a relatively inexpensive, but it requires very favorable orientations.
Lets say Alpha Centauri (our closest star) has planets; you cant expect them
to be all nicely lined up for you. Furthermore, we are not sure how to orient
our detection equipment; for example, whether in the infrared or optical.
Robert Kuhn: What about putting telescopes at opposite ends of the solar
system? Now that would really be an interferometer!
Neil deGrasse Tyson: People dream that.
Shri Kulkarni: The first generation of space interferometers will be tens of
meters to perhaps hundreds of meters apart, depending on final design and
particularly which wavelengths well operate. This sort of a mission, which
is called Terrestrial Planet Finder (TPF), will be expensive. In my guess, well
be operating about 2015.
Bruce Murray: Let me give you a different point of view. We are in a very
early process of discovery in exploration, and it sounds very organized,
almost like laboratory science. It is not. We are exploring new territory.
You look and you find and the trick is to look properly and broadly. We
could find something next year where one of these occultations shows evi-
dence of carbon dioxide gas, which is strongly represented in our atmos-
phere, and also methane gas, which is strongly apparent in Jupiters
atmosphere. What would be significant is that these two gases are incompat-
ible together: one is an oxidized gas, carbon dioxide; one is a reduced gas,
methane. They are made of very common elements, so if we got lucky and
if we find both gases at the same time, the overpowering conclusion is that
there must be some kind of a disequilibrium going on, and the most likely
candidate creating the disequilibrium would be life, because thats why we
have exactly this situation on Earth.
Neil deGrasse Tyson: Cow flatulence gives us methane in the atmosphere.
Bruce Murray: And plants give us carbon dioxide. Lets face reality: We
could get lucky but the likelihood is that its going to be very hard to prove
life, or even have a high suspicion of lifes presence. Considering the cumula-
tive probabilities of all our approaches and technologies, I think it could
take up to 30 years.
Robert Kuhn: Thats still within the lifetime of, hopefully, all of us.
Bruce Murray: I will be disappointed personally if, within my lifetime, we
dont have a strong indication that there is life elsewhere in the universe.
And if, during this time, we do not find evidence, then my tentative conclu-
sion would be that maybe it isnt there, maybe in fact theres something spe-
cial about our planet.
Neil deGrasse Tyson: That would be in violation of the Copernican Princi-
ple, which suggests that nothing weve ever measured about our circumstan-
ces has ever been special.
Robert Kuhn: Either answer to the question, whether life exists or does not
exist beyond earth, is overwhelming. A new term has developed, astrobiol-
ogyare you comfortable with it?
Neil deGrasse Tyson: Astronomers cannot do it alone. Certain questions
we know how to ask, but others only biologists would ask. The same is true
of geologists. Better yet, especially for a mission to Mars, a paleontologist: if
there is some history of life buried within the soils, you need somebody who
has experience rummaging through cross sections of a planet. So there has
been a realignment of effort by multiple disciplines all asking the same ques-
tionthe chemists, the biologists, the astronomerswe all want to know
about life elsewhere in the cosmos. And astrobiology is a nice umbrella term,
although keep in mind that its an entirely new field with no data right now.
We have not one example of life beyond earth. We are all anxiously awaiting
the first sample for the lab.
Shri Kulkarni: What about the extremeophiles?
Bruce Murray: Thats not astrobiology, thats geobiology, which is a won-
derful field.
Neil deGrasse Tyson: Extremeophiles are starter data. Practice data.
Shri Kulkarni: What really missing here is a theoretical basis for astrobiol-
ogy. Astronomy has a theoretical basis, certainly physics doesits the
granddaddy of scientific theory. It took a long time for the chemists to get
a theoretical basis of their chemical bonds. The problem is that biology has
no overarching theory to guide us.
Robert Kuhn: You cant develop a theoretical basis for astrobiology unless
you have more than one data point, and so far, we only have one data point:
life on Earth.
Shri Kulkarni: Historically, this has always been the case. Chemistry
wasnt a discipline until you could see patterns. You must see patterns; you
have to classify data; you must do all the butterfly collecting (taxonomies)
first. Unfortunately, astrobiology is a difficult subject because you cant do
this collection in the field, because the field is a bit far away.
Robert Kuhn: I am moved because astrobiology is a unifying human quest.
All peoples, all societies, all groups have a common interest in learning
deeply about the universe in which we all live. Astrobiology carries the same
meaning for all peoples at all times.
Bruce Murray: Call it a quest, not a field, because its not a field yet. You
cant have a field without a single example, life elsewhere, so its a quest,
but a noble one.
Neil deGrasse Tyson: As alchemy was a quest. People ridicule alchemy,

but turning lead into gold was at least an experimental subject and it was
conducted in laboratories. There were important foundations from alchemy
that led to chemistry. And so you have to begin somewhere: alchemy had no
theoretical foundation, but it enabled the development of chemistry.

Such breathtaking elegance! To discern the atmosphere of an extra-solar
planet so distant we cant even see it. To describe the conditions for life, even
in extreme environments. To send our silicon-based offspring to Mars and
beyond, as if seeking long-lost organic relatives. The search alone enriches
our species and nourishes our spirits. What could be more important than
knowing that we are not alone. . .or very alone?
Bruce Murray
Mars is your passion. What one question would you like answered?
Ive spent 40 years pursuing the mystery of what Marss surface is like,
and most importantly, what is the history that is represented by it. And
Ive been defeated again and again by Mars, even though there are much
more powerful tools, much better spacecraft, more data, better instruments.
All this technology provides new insights, but they end up breaking the uni-
fying idea we had before, which is called a paradigmlike continental drift
was when it was first proposed about 1960 for the earth and revolutionized
the fields of geology and geophysics (and continues to do so). We lack that
kind of organizing framework, that kind of paradigm, for Mars. To find that
paradigm is, for me, the most exciting thing.
How should we define life?

The best example I know was for the Viking mission to Mars, which
arrived there in 1976, whose main purpose was to search for microbial life
in the soil of Marseven though we knew nothing about such possible life,
whether its there, what it would be like. And so we had to decide, well, how
do we search for it? And the idea that won favor among the biologists then
I think its still the most powerful oneis that a characteristic of life is that it
metabolizes. It interacts with its environment. It grows. So for life, you have
to see growth. So I think thats one definition, sort of a laboratory definition,
which still makes sense to me. If we cant culture it, if we cant grow it, its
going to be very hard to prove its alive.
Will we ever discover intelligent life?

I think that eventually humans are going to discover intelligent life, but
we or our distant descendants will find it remotely through radio signals
or laser beams or other techniques of communication. I find it very difficult
to imagine Star Trek-type aliens coming to different stars; interstellar dis-
tances are just too large, way beyond any non-science-fiction method of
navigation. I think there are aliens; Id be astounded if there were not.
But the idea of them zooming around the galaxy or the universe in ships, I
think, is unlikely. So unless theres some new physics, and there might be, I
dont see interstellar travel ever happening. They will, however, be able to
communicate with us and we with them, simply with what we already have,
with radio telescopes and radar, as well as more powerful kinds of remote
communication.
Shri Kulkarni
Do you believe in life elsewhere?
Absolutely, and I hope well find life elsewhere. I hope well get dethroned
as the only life in the universe. And I fear for those guys who will see their
cozy, special world disappear. Thats one of the reasons why I like being in
this field because this is the ultimate argument against parochial ideas like
religion.
How will it affect us when we find it?

Oh, I think itll affect us in the most profound way because a large part of
our energy right now, and perhaps historically, goes into one group of
human beings differentiating ourselves from other groupswhether by
nationality or religion or race or what have you. You open the newspaper,
and you look at how much energy is going into various conflicts and military
expenditures. And the energy there and the money that society puts into
either immediate or perceived conflicts is enormous. Part of that comes
from a very parochial view that if I dominate locally, then Im the big
boss. But you take this assumption away, and suddenly, the earth is very
different. I think this will be the ultimate completion of what people are
calling the Copernican revolution. Finding life elsewhere in the universe will
dethrone our parochial sense of importance. And whether you like it or not,
I think that is whats going to happen when we find evidence of other life
elsewhere.
Why havent we been visited before?

The simplest answer is that its very difficult to travel between stars; thats
why we havent seen anyone and they havent seen us. Even if an alien civi-
lization is a billion years older than we are, the speed of light is the law that
everyone must obey. The other reason we havent been visited is that maybe
civilizations dont have long lives, which basically means they never get to
the point where they can muster whatever sophisticated technology they
need to make this happen. Our own history, too, is so young. Who knows
whether we will make it, or even survive.
Has the Hubble telescope been useful in finding planets?

In order to search for extra-solar planets, the Hubble Space Telescope has
reinstalled an instrument called NICMOS, Near Infrared Camera Multiple
Object Spectrograph. While much of the Hubbles instruments have
the same range as our own eyethat is, they can see what we call visible
raysthe NICMOS can actually see the heat rays from the infrared rays,
which is an excellent vehicle for studying how stars are born and for looking
for very young planets.

Chapter 12
Will Computers Take a Quantum Leap?
Will quantum physics revolutionize computing, spawning radical computers

with vast new powers? As quantum engineer Seth Lloyd blithely states, a
quantum computer is to a computer what a laser is to a light bulb. How
quantum computers work is akin to a famous cat that, no joke, may be dead
and alive at the same time.
A radical breakthrough is occurring in computing power. The term
quantum computer has been in the lingo of science for some years now,
but it is just making its way into the public consciousness. Quantum com-
puters will not make regular computers obsolete, just as lasers have not
replaced light bulbs. The excitement about quantum computers pertains to
what tasks they will do which have previously only been imagined.
What was seemingly impossible a few years ago now seems tantalizingly
achievable. Take a complex numerical problem, such as breaking a very
large number, say one with 400 digits, into its component parts (without a
remainder); called factoring,1 it is one of the hardest problems for a tradi-
tional computer to solve and a critical problem for the encryption of com-
munication data. Currently, it would take our fastest supercomputer
billions of years to factor a number of this size, more time in fact than the
age of the Universe. Yet quantum physicists believe that a quantum com-
puter could do the same computation in only minutes. How would this
work? Is this for real? If so, how will it change computing?
What, actually, is quantum computing? It is the ability to store, retrieve,
and manipulate data on atoms and sub-atomic particles instead of on sili-
con, plus the ability to have a bit of information be in more than one posi-
tion at the same time (superposition; not off or on, but off and on), a state
achievable due to the quantum mechanical nature of our universe. We
discuss the mysteries of the quantum worldsuperposition, entanglement,

and the many-worlds (or multiverse) theory of quantum mechanics.
How might quantum computing affect our daily lives? In this chapter,
three accomplished scientists who research the peculiar and tantalizing
world of quantum computing speculate about how the fundamentals of
quantum mechanics will revolutionize computing and thereby transform
our lives. Take areas like the design of sophisticated new drugs, the breaking
of codes to eavesdrop on private communications, creating new global posi-
tioning systems with a degree of precision once unthinkable, incredibly pre-
cise atomic clocks, the scheduling, planning, and recognition of orderly
patterns in highly complex data like making the electronic transference of
money super-secure, and an opportunity to understand more fully the phys-
ics or chemistry of complex systems.
While quantum computing may revolutionize computing, giving vastly
new powers, it also exemplifies how highly theoretical physics can suddenly
and shockingly have immense practical use. Angels on the head of a pin?
Now they dance inside an atomand were making them work for us.
Expert Participants
David DiVincenzo
Senior Scientist, Thomas J. Watson Research Center, IBM Corporation; vis-
iting staff, Physics Department, California Institute of Technology
Seth Lloyd
Professor, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Massachusetts Institute
of Technology; leader in quantum information, computing, and control
Birgitta Whaley
Professor, Department of Chemistry, University of California (Berkeley);
leader in nanoscience and quantum information and computation

Seth Lloyd: The world is in the midst of an information revolution. As
computers become progressively more important, people see the world in
terms of information. At a larger level, we are trying to construct a way of
seeing the world in terms of quantum information because the world, at its
core, is quantum mechanical, and all of these quantum systems can process
information. A great example of a quantum technology thats in common
use is the laser. The laser works by taking ordinary light, which ordinarily
just comes in bursts of photons all wiggling up and down randomly at differ-
ent wavelengths, and putting the light into the same quantum mechanical
state so that all the photons are wiggling at the same wavelength.
Will Computers Take a Quantum Leap? 171
Robert Kuhn: The laser is coherent light.

Seth Lloyd: Coherent, yes; this is a very good way to understand quantum
computation. The light from an ordinary light bulb is incoherent; all the
photons are coming out wiggling at all different wavelengths with no coher-
ence among them. In contrast, the light from a laser is coherent; all the pho-
tons are all wiggling at the same wavelength in a coherent manner, so that
the laser is organizing light waves in nice orderly ways. Quantum computa-
tion exploits this coherent nature of quantum mechanics, the wave nature of
quantum mechanics, so that a quantum computer is to a regular computer
what a laser is to a light bulb.
Robert Kuhn: What is quantum computing and why is it important?
David DiVincenzo: Quantum computing is a natural outgrowth of our
progress in ordinary computers.
Birgitta Whaley: People started to think about quantum computers in the
early 1980s. Then, in the mid 1990s, some important theoretical results
demonstrated that one can solve some important problems with quantum
computers. And ever since, there has been increasing activity in trying to
build and implement these devices.
David DiVincenzo: Weve been representing computer information
(bits) with smaller and smaller circuitry over the years. At some point
soon that ends, because we hit the atomic world, we hit the quantum world,
and so something has to give.
Seth Lloyd: The first problem was just conceiving of the notion of storing a
bit of information on a single atom. A quantum of light is a little chunk of
light, and a bit is a little chunk of informationthe original meaning of
quantum is how much. Quantum computing works essentially by map-
ping little chunks of information or bits onto little chunks of elementary par-
ticles or quanta. Quantum computers are not merely computers whose
components are very, very small. Quantum computers can do things that
classical computers cant. In the quantum world, it is totally fine for an elec-
tron to be both here and there at the same time; an electron behaves almost
like a wave of light so that it can be in two places at once. So if I map a quan-
tum bit of informationor qubitonto electron, then I could have an elec-
tron over here representing a zero, and the same electron over there
representing a one, because in quantum mechanics it is entirely permis-
sible, it is okay, to have an electron thats here and there at the same time.
Robert Kuhn: So, theoretically, the electron can hold both pieces of infor-
mation at the same time.
Seth Lloyd: Yes, in some funny, quantum sensewhich nobody really
understands very wellthe particle can read zero and one at the same time.
David DiVincenzo: We have a special word for thatsuperposition.

Robert Kuhn: How does such superposition, the particle reading zero
and one simultaneously, generate the astounding capabilities of quantum
computing?
Seth Lloyd: A normal computer bit can only store one bits worth of infor-
mation and a quantum bit can only store one qubits worth of information.
Quantum computation works because a bit can be used, not merely to store
information, but also as an instruction for a computer. This means that
zero could mean telling the computer do this operation, and one can
mean telling the computer do that operation. And so, if you have a quantum
computer and you put in a qubitremember, a qubit holds zero and
one at the same timeit is instructing the computer to both do this oper-
ation and that operation and to do them at the same time. Quantum compu-
tation acquires its astonishing advantage over classical computation by its
capacity, in some funny quantum sense, to do two things at once.
Robert Kuhn: What are some of the problems that have been intractable to
solution, virtually unsolvable by ordinary computers, problems that can
only be solved, at least theoretically, by quantum computers?
Seth Lloyd: There are a variety of such problems, such as the searching of
vast databases, the factoring of extraordinarily large numbers, and the simu-
lating of quantum systems in scientific analysis. In these areas, it is not just
that quantum computers would have a very considerable advantage over
classical computers, it is that these kinds of problems cannot be solved at
all other than with quantum computers.
David DiVincenzo: When it was discovered that quantum computers are
very good at factoring, IBM became very interested. The reason is that in
the world of computing, in the digital world, factoring is a key element in
our current mechanisms for making data secure during electronic transmis-
sion over the internet. For example, making the codes on credit cards or
other internet transmissions secure. So when it was shown by Peter Shor at
MIT that quantum computers could, in a relatively small number of steps,
compute factors much more rapidly than any known methods, far faster
than ordinary computers, this suddenly jeopardized much of what we do
currently in electronic commerce.
Robert Kuhn: Do quantum computers open the door for hackers?
David DiVincenzo: Potentially, but far in the future. Nobody is worried
today or next year or probably not even in 10 years. But, eventually, quan-
tum computers will give hackers opportunity.
Birgitta Whaley: You would need to be able to build a large-scale quantum
computer to engage in such activities.
Robert Kuhn: What is a large scale? How many qubits would you need to
be able to factor the kind of large numbers used in electronic transmission of
data?
Birgitta Whaley: A few thousand.
Robert Kuhn: Compare a quantum computer with a few thousand
qubits to an Intel Core 2 Duo chip with about 291 million transistors. For
problems like factoring numbers, the quantum computer would vastly out-
perform the traditional chip or, for that matter, any classical computer of
virtually any conceivable size.
David DiVincenzo: Right; not even the largest supercomputers can
compete with small quantum computers to solve these specific kinds of
problems.
Birgitta Whaley: Even given the current rapid rate of increase in classical
computing technology, not even in 50 years.
Seth Lloyd: Another fun problem that can be solved only with quantum
computers is trying to understand whats going on in the universe. If you
have a system that has, say, one atom, it will take a few bits of information
to describe that atom, and if you have a second atom, it will take another
few bits to describe that second atom; this means that if you have, say, a
hundred atoms all interacting with one another, a classical computer would
require 10100 bits of information to completely describe the system. To put
this number, 10100 bits, into perspective, there are only about 1090 elemen-
tary particles in the entire universe! You could solve that same problem on
a quantum computer with just a few hundred bits.
Birgitta Whaley: Quantum computing would be a wonderful tool for
studying the physics and chemistry of complex systems; down the road, it
could become useful for studying biological systems.
Robert Kuhn: How would quantum computing solve biological problems?
Birgitta Whaley: In the same way it solves complex chemical problems: in
order to be able to investigate the one particular property that youre inter-
ested in, you have to simulate a huge number of interactions together. Its
true of chemical reactions and its equally true of a small group of molecules
acting in a cell.
Robert Kuhn: In describing the strange world of quantum physics, one
must understand the nature of entanglement?
David DiVincenzo: Entanglement is both a real manifestation of what
makes quantum mechanics weird, and lies at the heart of what makes quan-
tum computing powerful. Edwin Schrodinger was the one who introduced
this notion of entanglement at the very same time that he introduced the
notion of his dead-and-alive cat because in that famous scenario what is

going on is that whether the radioactive atom decays or not is getting
entangled with the life-or-death state of the cat.2 Two quantum bits get into
a state where they are powerfully correlated; whether two photons or an
atom and a cat, they are strongly correlated in ways that are far tighter than
they can be in any classical physics situation. Entanglement is one of the
strangest things about quantum physics, even to professionals. Its a place
where the mathematical laws are very strange. But this entanglement has tre-
mendous implications, not only for solving the kind of computing problems
that weve been discussing, but it also has implications for privacy, because
if I have an atom as a qubit and its completely entangled with your atom
as a qubit, then we know that there are such strong correlations between
them that cannot be shared with anyone else in the world. This means that
if we have managed to have two objects that are completely entangled, then
we have a secret key with which we can share any information and keep it
absolutely secret, protected, from all others.
Robert Kuhn: No one can break in, not even theoretically?
David DiVincenzo: No; according the laws of quantum physics, no one
else can enter our entangled system, not even in principle.
Robert Kuhn: Thats certainly good if you and I have a secret to keep, but
suppose you and I are terrorists, then what?
David DiVincenzo: Then we may win also; quantum physics does not
guarantee a stable world. What quantum mechanics and particularly entan-
glement does do is to change the rules of the game of secrecy and privacy.
And it gives us new tools for doing cryptography, us and for the terrorists
too.
Birgitta Whaley: This sharing of secret keys through applying the laws of
quantum mechanics has been implemented over distances of kilometers
and has been proven to achieve sufficiently high accuracy or fidelity to be
commercially viable. Scientists are now exploring how to communicate with
satellites in this completely secure quantum fashion. Institutions, like the
Bank of England, are interested in using such a quantum scheme with com-
plete security guaranteed to verify bank transactions. And this particular
example is all done with exchange of photons.
Robert Kuhn: And although it might be easy for anyone to physically inter-
rupt this stream of photons, they would not be able to decipher it. Hackers
couldnt read the signal; they would only get a so-called denial of service.
Birgitta Whaley: There is a second aspect of quantum mechanics that is
beneficial to security. If someone does try to interrupt a quantum transmis-
sion, say by attempting to absorb and read and then retransmit a stream of
photons, the person at the other end could detect what had happened and
would know that he had been eavesdropped upon. So quantum mechanics
is a very powerful approach to cryptography.
Robert Kuhn: Are there other potential practical applications of quantum
mechanics?
David DiVincenzo: One area that looks promising is making higher preci-
sion clocks. The very same laboratory devices that are being explored as
quantum computers are also being explored as next generation atomic
clock. They would be fabulously accurate; 1,000 times more accurate.
Seth Lloyd: An application that Ive been involved in creates entangled
lightthis is not merely laser lightwhere all the photons are in this funky
entangled state. When I send this entangled light from me to you and you
measure when it arrives, then you can tell when it arrives to a much higher
degree of accuracy than you can with ordinary light. This means that if
you combine this timing precision with super accurate atomic clocks, you
can imagine, for instance, quantum global positioning system (GPS) satel-
lites orbiting the Earth providing extraordinarily accurate positioning to
below a centimeter! One application would be to construct a telescope with
a virtual aperture the size of the whole Earth. That would be quite an instru-
ment to look up at the heavens.
Robert Kuhn: How would such a telescope work?
Seth Lloyd: If I take two telescopic mirrors, like the twin Keck telescopes
on top of the volcano in Mona Kea, Hawaii, and if I know how far apart
they are within the accuracy of the wavelength of light that Im going to
use, then I can use the distance between both telescopes as if it was a single
aperture, a single mirror. Now imagine that your mirrors are up on satellites
and they are separated by the distance of the Earth. Here the accuracy is
determined by the size of the aperture (the size of the mirror) and the wave-
length of light that youre using. And the only way you can do this is if you
can position these mirrors within the accuracy of the wavelength of light.
Robert Kuhn: Let me summarize this remarkable flow of applications of
quantum mechanics: (i) quantum technologies enable us to conceive how
to build quantum computers; (ii) by thinking about quantum computers
we develop quantum information theory through which we develop new
applications like quantum clocks; (iii) we then apply quantum clocks to cre-
ate new systems of GPS with degrees of precision previously unimaginable;
and (iv) we use these super-accurate GPS systems to build telescopes of
astonishing effective size.
Seth Lloyd: Having said all this, the reality is that building quantum com-
puters is going to be extremely difficult to do. Atoms are very sensitive things
and quantum information easily evaporates. Remember, if something in the

environment looks at your quantum information, it tends to go away. The
same characteristics that give quantum information its unprecedented power
also gives it unprecedented delicacy. Who would have thought that by using
Schro dingers thought experiment about torturing cats that you could
actually make clocks run more accurately.
Robert Kuhn: Or build a telescope the size of the Earth.
Seth Lloyd: Or build a quantum computer faster than a mythical classical
computer that employs all the elementary particles in the universe. Who
could have thought all this? And the reason that we are able to think about
such things now is that weve developed a common language about quantum
information that allows solid state physicists, mechanical engineers, theo-
retical chemists, mathematicians and computer scientists to talk to each
other and leverage their complementary knowledge.
Robert Kuhn: Birgitta, might the use of quantum computers in chemistry
reveal problems that you never would have thought of before?
Birgitta Whaley: In the past, chemistry used to be done by mixing things in
test tubes. Nowadays much of our work is done with lasers (coherent light
pulses), which bring forth a good deal of information. To make a quantum
operation on, say, 10 coupled qubits would have an immediate impact
of chemistry; for example, one molecule can be transformed into another
molecule.
Robert Kuhn: Quantum computing, in a kind of self reflective way, can lit-
erally help us understand the quantum world.
Birgitta Whaley: Right.
Robert Kuhn: But can we actually build quantum computers?
David DiVincenzo: Im an optimistic because it seems like there are many
possible routes for building a quantum computer, including ones that
emerge directly from our current silicon technology. Of course it may be that
some very different kind of system will emerge as the right way to do quan-
tum computing. In fact, there already are functioning quantum computers,
but they are still quite rudimentary.
Robert Kuhn: The reason why most scientists are not so optimistic about
building quantum computers whose operations consist of more than a hand-
ful of qubits is that the complexity of isolating the system (e.g., from exter-
nal heat or motion) and preventing the disintegration of the super-fragile
quantum states (decoherence) increases geometrically with the number of
qubits.
David DiVincenzo: Its seems easy to assume that if we have 10 qubits

functioning, why not 20, why not 100? In building real-world quantum
computers, adding qubits is not a linear process. If we could get a quantum
computing manipulating 1,000 qubits, then we would have opened up a
huge space of possible problems to solve. But the physical systems that have
been looked at so far for actually building quantum computers are not so
scalable. Adding components has made ordinary computing so powerful;
we have to find techniques to do the same with quantum computers.
Seth Lloyd: We dont even know what our quantum computers are going
to look like. Classical computer bits are ubiquitous; we can store a bit in
any number of wayssaying yes or no, thumbs up or thumbs down, capaci-
tor charged or uncharged, or writing a zero or one on a piece of paper. In the
same way, quantum bits (qubits) are also ubiquitous; we can map a bit onto,
essentially, any quantum system.
David DiVincenzo: We actually know of special kinds of systems where
you can have a collection of 1,000 atoms or 10,000 atoms in a superconduc-
tor (special kinds of material, usually at low temperatures, in which all elec-
trical resistance disappears) that can exhibit quantum effects. As such, it
may be possible to make a qubit in a structure that looks exactly like what
you would see if you looked in a microscope at an ordinary integrated cir-
cuit. The metallic metal lines, about one micrometer wide and all connected
together in various ways, could possibly embody a qubit.
Seth Lloyd: I was actually lucky enough to participate an experiment that
was run by Hans Mooij at the Technical University of Delft in which they
built a superconducting qubit. Hans made a little superconducting loop
actually its quite macroscopic by the standards of our world, 1/100 of a
millimeter, much closer to us in size than it is to an individual atom.
Robert Kuhn: And it acted as if it were a single qubit?
Seth Lloyd: By managing them carefully, we were able to create a state in
which we called a current going around in the loop in one direction (counter-
clockwise) a zero, and a current going around in the other direction
(clockwise) a one, and we were able to create this funny state of zero
and one at the same time.
Robert Kuhn: How did you know that was occurring?
Seth Lloyd: We were able to measure the current when it was going around
one way and going around the other way.
Robert Kuhn: Doesnt measuring the system destroy the system?
Seth Lloyd: Absolutely. So youve been studying quantum mechanics,
havent you? Quantum computers and quantum bitsquantum systems in
generalare very sensitive systems. What really messes up a quantum sys-

tem is being looked at, and the destruction doesnt have to be caused by a
deliberate measurement that you make, it can be caused by any observation,
even an accidental one like some little electron thats floating by the environ-
ment and happens to take a peek at your quantum bit and, poof, your quan-
tum bit is history. If you actually want to make a measurement and get
information, then you have to be willing to destroy the state of our quantum
bit in order to get that information. We have statistics that show that we
have a state where a billion electrons are going both this way and that way
at the same time.
Robert Kuhn: The statistics are probabilistic.
Seth Lloyd: Right, the investigation is probabilistic.
Robert Kuhn: How about the input and output? Since in a quantum com-
puter a qubit is coded on an individual atom, which is extraordinarily
minuscule, how do you embed the information and then how do you read it?
Seth Lloyd: It depends on the system, of course. I can make an easy differ-
ence with any atom just by knocking it around. Anybody can talk to an
atom, right? The key is to get it to talk back to you. There are a variety of
ways to do this; one of the most straightforward is to take advantage of
how light interacts with matter. If I think of my qubit as a spin, and if spin-
ning up is zero and spinning down is one, and I shine a laser on that
spin, since light is a wave it kind of tickles the spin as it comes through,
and if the light has just the right frequency, the spin likes the light and will
flip for the light. The field in which this flipping occurs is called electromag-
netic resonance, or in this case, nuclear magnetic resonance, and thus the
flipping of the spin can be read by the appropriate instruments. It is as if
the spin is listening to a particular radio station, and because it likes the sta-
tion it will flip for the station. So scientists can actually flip the spin from up
to down, or down to up, just by shining light of the right frequency on the
targeted spin. As small as the spin may be, the reason it can absorb this light
is the same reason why a radio tuned to 89.7 will pick up only that station.
Robert Kuhn: You encode and read information in the same way?
Seth Lloyd: An antenna can both absorb and radiate electronic waves; just
consider your cell phone. So, if I take a single spin, and I flip it, then it will
emit a photon, a single particle of light.
Robert Kuhn: And you can measure that?
Seth Lloyd: A single photon emitted by a nuclear spin is very hard to mea-
sure; no one has actually ever done that except in certain optical contexts.
But if you get a bunch of photons together, then they can make a signal that
is strong enough to see.
Robert Kuhn: So we have an intractable problem, whether in analyzing

chemical structures or factoring numbers in electronic commerce; then that
problem needs to be encoded within a quantum mechanical computer,
which we still have to build, and if that process works, then the quantum
computer can be used to analyze that problem.
Seth Lloyd: You got it. Simple quantum computers have been built, the
first optical quantum logic gates were built back in the mid-1990s, and that
was followed by nuclear magnetic resonance quantum computers, the kind
of work that Birgitta has brought to a high pitch.
Robert Kuhn: Where will all this take us in 100 years?
David DiVincenzo: Ill stick my neck out. Within 100 years, quantum
computing will have become rather ordinary; we will have many kinds of
quantum computers and they will be engaged in diverse applications. For
one, the world of cryptography and privacy will have been revolutionized.
There will still be other applications, perhaps like synchronizing satellites
circling the solar system, that will still be just a dream, but we will under-
stand that they are possible. Quantum computers will be real, but they will
not be complete because technology is never finished.
Birgitta Whaley: Do you think theyll be on your desk and in your home?
David DiVincenzo: Yes. Quantum bits will be flowing in and out of your
house permitting you to do things securely on whatever the internet is at that
time. Theres my speculation; its safe because its 100 years from now.
Birgitta Whaley: None of us will be around.
David DiVincenzo: My grandchildren will have to answer for me.
Birgitta Whaley: I agree that there will be quantum computers, though its
difficult to say just what they will be doing. In cryptography, they will prob-
ably change things a great deal and they will probably be used in communi-
cation relatively soon. But whether theyll replace the general purpose PC in
your home, Im not sure.
Seth Lloyd: It is probably neither necessary nor desirable to have a quan-
tum computer as your personal computer. Remember, a quantum computer
is to a regular computer what a laser is to a light bulb. But we havent taken
all our light bulbs and replaced them by lasers. Even so, lasers are ubiquitous
now, whereas 40 years ago when they were first invented, they were very
rare and used only for very special purposes. I think that we are likely to
have, as David says, quantum computers that are performing special pur-
pose tasks like quantum communication systemsI hope not breaking inter-
net security codes on a regular basis. I suspect we will be sending quantum
bits from place to place and share their entanglements in secure ways to
solve problems that we couldnt otherwise solve.
Seth Lloyd: The other thing to remember about the laser metaphor is that,
if you look at the mathematics of the laser as compared with the light bulb,
many lasers are still much less powerful in terms of their actual wattage than
light bulbs are. You dont see many 100-watt lasers sitting around. Simi-
larly, to compare quantum computers with classical computers in terms of
their absolute computing power is to make an improper comparison. The
real question is what can quantum computers do for you, and here were
only just beginning to discover the possibilities (even with the relatively sim-
ple quantum computers weve constructed so far).
Robert Kuhn: How do you guys communicate?
Seth Lloyd: By e-mail.
David DiVincenzo: Web sites
Birgitta Whaley: At meetings; our meetings are so wonderful because
theyre so interdisciplinary.
Robert Kuhn: What do you learn from each other?
David DiVincenzo: That quantum computing is going to take awhile.

Quantum physics is a very weird world where intuition deceives and
common sense fails. Its rather fun watching the wild idea of quantum com-
puting progress rapidly from ridiculous to theoretical to possible to protect-
ing your credit cards from hackers.
What about the far future? Could quantum computers become the brains
of intergalactic space probes sent forth from planet Earth to explore the cos-
mos? We can only be sure of this: our descendents, like us, will continue
humanitys irresistible quest to delve deeper into the shadowy depths of
reality.
Birgitta Whaley
At whichever stage mankind has been, the ability to solve large, complex
problems always has an impact on our future. In a sense, that ability involves
us in the happenings in the world around us. It is like peeking into the future
because with an understanding of the world, we can learn how to control it,
for better or for worse. The development of quantum computers, in particu-
lar, opens up new vistas to control our physical world because we know
that we will be able to use the computational capacity for simulating very
large, complex physical systems, and exceedingly complex biological sys-
tems, which we cannot now simulate. And if we cant simulate them, we
cant understand them. Quantum computing may eventually lead to deep
understanding of the most complex object we know, the human brain,
which would really revolutionize our appreciation of ourselves as human
beings.
How soon will we have nanomachines?

There is much work being done in nanofabrication towards building
nanoscale molecular machines, which is unrelated to trying to control quan-
tum behavior of systems at the nanoscale. There is much work being done in
building molecular computers, which are the direct analog of the computers
we use today, just scaled down to atoms and moleculesthese molecular
computers, which would become general purpose computers, are likely be
built before quantum computers are. There is always a desire to make every-
thing smaller and smaller, partly to save space and partly, I think, because
its cute. There will be a gradual increase in devices that operate at the nano-
scale, both classical and quantum.
David DiVincenzo
dingers cat?
What is Schro
The concept of Schrodingers cat, as introduced by Edwin Schrodinger in
the 1930s, was an attempt to illustrate how, if not why, quantum mechanics
actually gives alternative views of history. We humans like to play little
what if games. We say, What if Hitler had been killed in World War
I? And then we imagine in our fantasies the things that might have hap-
pened as a result of that what if. Quantum mechanics plays a different
kind of what if game. It says that these vast numbers of alternative histor-
ies or branchings in history that may have happened are actually almost
objective. They are in a funny sense actually real, and to illustrate this
counterintuitive notion, Schrodinger introduced a little thought experi-
ment. In his imaginary experiment, Schrodinger used an atom, which quan-
tum mechanically can be in a superposition of two different states and
thereby gets entangled. He specifically used a radioactive atom, which can
be in a superposition of either having decayed or having not decayed. He
invented a game in which the decay or not decay of the radioactive atom
resulted in a cat being killed or not killed. By this progression of events, the
cat itself came to be in this odd special state of being alive and not alive,
not being alive or dead with human uncertainty of which one was the actual-
ity, but being literally in the superposition state of both alive and dead at the
same time. In this manner, real historical events can be placed into this funny
superposition state because quantum mechanics asserts that, in some sense,
all versions of history get played out all at once.
Talk about factoring.

We in the quantum community are still working on the question of what
kinds of problems are solvable, with high efficiency, on quantum computers.
The famous one is that of factoring, extracting prime factors in large num-
bers. For a simple integer like 15, finding its prime factors of three and five
is a simple computation. But to find the prime factors of a 100-digit number
is an extremely protracted computation. On quantum computers, there are
procedures that are vastly more efficient than on any conventional computer
for solving that problem. We are also finding that there are a whole host of
other problems in number theory for which quantum computing provides
elegant and efficient theoretical solutions. Many of these problems, which
are rather abstract, are in some way related to factoring. I suspect that new
discoveries of problems that seem tailored to solution by quantum comput-
ing will continue to be made.
In conducting science, what are differences between industry and academia?

They are very different of course and it is valuable for each society to pur-
sue its own methodology. Im in a unique position because even though Ive
been at Caltech for the last half year, I actually work for IBM research (Im
on sabbatical leave). In the corporate world, the constraints are different;
typically you must be much more aware of potential applications or poten-
tial implications of the work that you do. The corporation is constantly ask-
ing you, politely but consistently and at times insistently, What is this good
for? Why is this good for us? Fortunately a company like IBM is willing
for that answer to be couched in a setting of 20 years or so into the future.
So when they want to know why my work in quantum computing will be
good for them in 20 years, I have plenty of answers to give them. Unfortu-
nately in many other companies the question is: why is this good for us in
three months? If a question of that timeframe were put to me about quantum
computing, I would not have a satisfactory answer. Sensitivity to yearly or
quarterly profits skews much of the research that goes on in industry. Being
at a university, there is a greater sense of freedom (it may be a bit illusory but
it is certainly my feeling).
Seth Lloyd
How do we know that quantum mechanics is real?
Einstein and other famous physicists have objected to it. At a gut level,
they feel that it is aesthetically wrong for the world to be founded on proba-
bilities; it just doesnt fit with their intuition of beauty. They dont want it to
be the case. And yet quantum mechanics is without a doubt the most heavily,
frequently, and completely confirmed physical theory that has ever been cre-
ated in terms of being verified by experimentverified time and time and
time again. This is strong evidence in its favor because if there were some
way that quantum mechanics could be shown to be wrong, people would
have loved to have falsified it. Quantum mechanics is both so counterintui-
tive and so successful; to me, this combination is one of the strongest recom-
mendations for confirming a theory.
What do you think will be the greatest advancement quantum mechanics will
allow us to make?
Quantum mechanics and quantum information theory will enable us to
construct a new way of thinking about the nature of reality, how the world
works, a quantum digital way of thinking about how the world works
because at its most fundamental level the world is quantum mechanical
and operates by representing and processing quantum information. The
quantum revolution in perception and thought and more recently in infor-
mation will continue to exert major influence.
Notes
1. Factoring: The process in which you take any given whole number and find
other whole numbers that when multiplied together yield that original whole num-
ber. For example, if 12 is the given number, then its factors are 1 and 12, 2 and 6,
and 3 and 4. When the given number gets very large, factoring becomes extraordi-
narily difficult.
2. See the question on Schrodingers Cat later in this chapter.

Chapter 13
How Does Basic Science Support

National Security?
Lasers that destroy missiles, computers that break terrorist codes, genetic
identification of anthrax strainswhen enemies pursue destructive technol-
ogies, we have no choice but to keep ahead. What does it take?
We hear much about technologies that support national security, but
what about the basic sciences that underlie them? For lasers that defend or
attack, its solid-state physics; for biowarfare identification and antidotes,
molecular biology; for cryptology, number theory; for computers and com-
munication, information theory.
Science has always been divided between basic science, which may or may
not have application to the world, and applied science, which directly feeds
us useful products and services. But with the scientific spirit of discovery
tempered by recent practicalities, weve increasingly had to justify expendi-
tures on basic science, whether by the need for national defense or other
useful scientific endeavors.
The great pure mathematician G.H. Hardy said proudly, I have never
done anything useful. No discovery of mine has made, or is likely to make,
directly or indirectly, for good or ill, the least difference to the amenity of the
world. . .Judged by all practical standards, the value of my mathematical life
is nil. As it turns out, Hardy was wrong: pure math has come to have many
real-world applications, cryptology and electronic security among them.
Yet notwithstanding the frequent contributions of basic science, it has
become increasingly difficult to find funding. Should basic science funding
be cut just because it doesnt lead to anything practical? The issue must
be joined: can we afford to fund research only if it has value? While
supporting basic science is indeed essential for protecting national security,

can military pragmatism be our sole primary motivation for pursuing
knowledge of the natural world?
In this chapter, three experts from different areas in the national defense
establishmenta physicist, a defense contractor, and an air force general
link laboratories and battlefields, taking turns offering perspectives on the
importance of basic science for safeguarding our nation, especially in the
absence of a large standing army. People need to be trained, especially for
operating complex systems, and the technology has to be practical in war-
fare. They worry that an anti-science culture in the form of religious
fundamentalism and a growing misunderstanding about science threatens
the goodwill that has existed between the American public and the scientific
community since World War II. They enthusiastically endorse greater fund-
ing for scientific research and proclaim Americas open, democratic society
as our greatest defense of all.
Expert Participants
Llewellyn Doc Dougherty
Director of Technology, Raytheon Electronic Systems
David Herrelko
Brigadier General (retired); former vice commander, Aeronautical Systems
Center, Wright-Patterson Air Force Base; former commander, Joint Logis-
tics Systems Center
Steven Koonin
Former Provost and Professor of Theoretical Physics, California Institute of
Technology; adviser to the federal government on civilian biodefense (Cur-
rently on leave as Chief Scientist, British Petroleum)

Robert Kuhn: Must we justify basic science with its support for national
security?
Steve Koonin: No. Science is about ones curiosity of the world. People
observe the world and they tell a story about it, and thats what science is.
It is a basic human drive. It turns out that we are able to use a good deal of
the discoveries of science to do technology, whether for economic benefit
or for national security or for both. But the science itself is something that
is so beautiful and is such an intrinsic part of being a human being that you
want to support it.
Robert Kuhn: Basic science is a central part of the human quest.
How Does Basic Science Support National Security? 187
Steve Koonin: Look at the spectacular pictures from other planets that we
now have; thats the meaning of science.
Doc Dougherty: Only a very small fraction of all basic science research
impacts national defense in any specific sense; the vastly larger fraction
makes its broad impact on society. Take the biomedical sciences.
Steve Koonin: But even biomedical research brings benefits to national
security.
Robert Kuhn: What are some examples of weapons systems that have been
based on basic technologies?
David Herrelko: All of them. Go back to the 1920s and 1930s and the
purest of pure basic science, quantum theory, led to the first transistor,
integrated circuits, lasers, everything in electronic warfare that followed.
To oversimplify a bit, the basic military research in the 1960s lead to devel-
opment and testing of new weapon systems in the 1970s, to the production
of these systems in the 1980s, to their first real applications in the 1990s
that made the precision guided weapons possible in Desert Storm (the first
Iraq war). Military scientists had waited 30 years for the maturing of these
technologies.
Steve Koonin: So the pipeline can be 30 years.
David Herrelko: Sometimes even longer.
Steve Koonin: Sometimes very short.
Doc Dougherty: It is a question of what we define as the beginning of the
pipeline. If its basic science, if its the R and D phase, if its a directly related
discoveryeach defines its own period. In military systems, I would define
the beginning as when someone has demonstrated technology that has the
potential to be applied to a defense problem; in this case we have pretty con-
crete evidence that the pipeline is probably in the 30-year category.
Steve Koonin: There are outstanding examples contrary to that. Nuclear
fission is probably the most outstanding example: it was discovered in
1939 and first applied in warfare in 1945.
David Herrelko: And I know generals who will say, Now, do that every
time. I want deterministic predictability; I want to see the result on time, so
schedule it!
Steve Koonin: Obviously you cant make science work that like that, not
basic science, not applied science.
David Herrelko: If you cant, Ill find somebody who will. Ill give him
the money. Thats what these generals say.
Steve Koonin: As long as the technology is not a disruptive one, you

know the path and its more or less a simple extrapolation from where you
are now.
David Herrelko: Our war fighters dont welcome disruptive technologies.
Steve Koonin: I understand.
Robert Kuhn: Why?
David Herrelko: Military people, by definition, have to be conservative
within their given framework. We have to train our people to use the weap-
ons they have, and if we give them a Mark IV this week and a Mark V next
week, we dont have a good, trained unit that can use any of them. No one
wants to send our soldiers into battle with a disruptive technology that were
not ready for. A simple example was when the Brits were fighting the Afri-
cans in the late nineteenth century and they used a new technology to fasten
their boxes that held their bullets. It was screws, which certainly seemed
stronger and better until a problem arose when the Brits were retreating
and had to open their boxesit took too long to unscrew the boxes. The
military is rightly very cautious about new stuff.
Steve Koonin: There are also social reasons for the militarys reticence to
introduce new technologies. Unmanned aerial vehicles, such as the Predator
and Global Hawk, are a good current example because no one gets medals
for flying unmanned aerial vehicles. Air Force tradition really wants some-
body in the plane. As another example, why do we still have four people in
a tank? We dont need four people in a motorized combat system. If
you ask the tankers themselves, there is an extra man there because when
the tank breaks down you need someone to help pull the others out. These
are social issues, vested interests, a thats-the-way-weve-always-done-it
mentality.
Robert Kuhn: Who are the principle players in the basic science/national
defense nexus?
Doc Daughterty: The national defense laboratories are a major
stakeholder.
Robert Kuhn: Lawrence Livermore, Los Alamos, Sandia.
Steve Koonin: The major research universities are an important element,
but some parts of this pipeline are not well done in academic settings. Once
it gets to the point of designing systems, the national laboratories are better.
Only the really basic science and the very beginning of technology develop-
ment belong in the universities.
Robert Kuhn: How does the academic community interact with the U.S.
Defense Department (DOD)?
Steve Koonin: There are two ways: first is through grants from the Defense
Advance Research Projects Agency (DARPA), the Office of Naval Research,
and other parts of the DOD that fund basic research; these grants fund
graduate students, post docs, professors, equipment, and so on. Second is
through universities that manage laboratories: Lincoln Laboratories
at MIT is a good example of a defense-oriented laboratory embedded in a
university.
Doc Daughterty: There are other stakeholders as well. Industry, obviously,
lives off DOD contracts, both in the development phase and in the competi-
tion to manufacture the selected weapon system. In the production phase,
management, costs, schedule, and control become the issuesdelivering
weapon systems reliably, on time, in proper quantities, yet always under
the pressure of changing threats and varying budgets.
David Herrelko: Industry as stakeholder, yes; but we cant ask them to do
the basic researchwe really cant.
Steve Koonin: I agree. Nor can you ask the universities to do this kind of
mission-driven, on time, on schedule, on budget sorts of activitiesthats
just not what universities do well.
Robert Kuhn: Can basic science be held to a specific time line?
Steve Koonin: Basic science, no, not at all. Basic science is a hit-and-miss
endeavor; striking out 60, 70, 80 percent of the time is normal. Hitting the
ball 30 percent of the time makes it all worth it.
Robert Kuhn: And you cant predict how or when.
Steve Koonin: You cant. You cant legislate creativity. Basic science is a
creative enterprise, like composing a great symphony.
Robert Kuhn: Brahms took a long time to write his first symphony.
David Herrelko: Science does something wonderful that very few other
organizations do: blind, peer reviews of papers, projects, and proposals.
Researchers undergo really rigorous reviewsbrutal intellectual beatings
before they can get initial funding or later publish their works. Men and
women of science care enough to perform this great public service.
Steve Koonin: Parts of the defense establishment would do well with a sim-
ilar kind of peer review; in government it does not take place as often as you
would like.
Robert Kuhn: General Herrelko, do you agree with that?
David Herrelko: I think so, but its very difficult in a military hierarchy to
communicate honestly when every third word of a subordinate is sir.
Steve Koonin: Classification (secrecy) is also a problem: its hard to have a

peer review process when papers and projects are classified at various levels.
I will say unabashedly that I am one of those people who has the academic
credentials and experience and credentials but who has also invested time
and effort to get to know the national security system and problems. It is
useful to have people at that gray area.
Robert Kuhn: How do you target specific basic sciences to be part of a
weapons system program that industry might develop over 20 years?
Doc Dougherty: It takes on average over 15 years from the time a program
is conceived until the time that program puts its first operational system in
the field. If you are considering a new system, you can look at what you have
in the laboratory and you can sort of predict whats going to be available 15
years into the future. The real question is: what will the customer, in this
case the military, buy? There is a natural evolutionary tension between the
technology and engineering community which is predicting what you could
make, and the operational military commanders who are asking, what do I
need, and what would I do with it. We are actually shifting today from a
period where the military describes specific requirements and then systems
are built to those specific requirements to a period where the systems are
conceptualized as capabilities to be able to do a spectrum of things.
David Herrelko: We dont need war fighters telling us what angle that a
particular thing underneath an aircraft must have. Nor should they be telling
us what metals should be used to mount a bracket on a plane.
Steve Koonin: Right. Their directive should be to deliver ordnance on tar-
get with specified precision.
David Herrelko: Even better, Id like their directives to be more function
oriented or effect based, saying something like: I want that target to be dis-
abled for at least a day.
Steve Koonin: Even better, right.
David Herrelko: Because if the directive is function oriented, the mecha-
nism to achieve results may not be ordinance at all; it may be directed
energy. Military leaders may not like our answers but if we are given broad
guidelines, we can generate an incredible wealth of technology. Theres basic
science again; it creates many options, so when they say, I need this effect-
based capability, we can say, Well, you can do it with boron or titanium.
Robert Kuhn: We have the military, the national laboratories, the defense
industries, the academic communitieswho is defining needs?
Steve Koonin: That sort of brainstorming probably takes place more often
in the national laboratories. The B2 bomber, which is a wonderful system, is
a great example of how the basic science gets built up to provide a truly
revolutionary capability. To give the B2 its stealthy capabilities you had to
understand electromagnetic scattering as well as aerodynamics. You also
had to understand propulsion: how the engines could work with a reduced
radar signature as well as provide sufficient power to fly the airplane to
design specifications.
Doc Dougherty: One of the major differences between the B2 and first
Stealth aircraft, the F-117, was driven by the basic science of computational
electromagnetics to reduce the radar signature. We had difficulty in comput-
ing a closed form solution, or even a good numerical solution, to curved
body refraction, reflection, and conductivity. We were able to compute the
solution to the faceted designthe F-117 is built of flat plates.
David Herrelko: The F-117 looks like a gemstone.
Doc Dougherty: Its got flat plates and edges everywhere; this design solu-
tion was achieved from a computational perspective. People at that time
understood that curved surfaces were probably better to disperse radar, but
they could not predict the performance accurately enough to have confi-
dence for the aircraft to be able to fly to specifications.
Steve Koonin: Those equations that you were solving, Maxwells equa-
tions, were discovered 120 years ago; at the time it was basic science.
Robert Kuhn: Very basic science with seemingly no practical application.
David Herrelko: You cant vector basic research scientists to a goal 30
years in the future. If you told the inventors of the laser that the chief reason
that they should go into the lab was so that their grandchildren could listen
to music on CDs, it would never have happened (and they would have
thought you crazy).
Robert Kuhn: Is national security synonymous with weapons systems, or is
it broader?
David Herrelko: Broader for sure.
Steve Koonin: With terrorism an ever-present threat, national security
embeds defensive measures like detecting explosives, the biometrics of per-
sonal identification (knowing who is who), monitoring ports of entry, scan-
ning cargo containers. These have nothing to do with weapons systems, but
are extremely important elements of a more broadly conceived national
defense posture. America does not mount a very large standing army, and
consequently we rely on technology, particularly standoff technologies that
can mount attacks from distant locations as we go into combat situations.
Robert Kuhn: All of which makes national defense, broadly conceived,
increasingly dependent on science and technology.
Doc Dougherty: Theres a whole spectrum of conflict to which science and

technology applies. At the one end you have global nuclear war, at the other
end petty theft, and in the middle there are religious and ethnic wars, which
are often internal. Where does the American public focus in terms of their
concerns, and what are the relative consequences of damages compared to
risks of occurrence? Our investments as a nation should stress applications
of science and technology to the places that have both high damages and
high risks. Perhaps detection of explosives is our highest priority and if so
we should direct basic research there. We need multiple technologieswe
have five or six major methodolgies that come out of science and are being
applied to explosives detection. Nuclear Quadrapole Resonance, for exam-
ple, is a bulk explosive detector that doesnt work for explosives enclosed
in steel.
Steve Koonin: You cant see the radio waves inside.
Doc Dougherty: But using neutron excitation, you can characterize it rea-
sonably well. Were using x-rays in many different forms for imaging, and
using mathematics as the underlying basic technology.
David Herrelko: Which came from where?
Doc Dougherty: Which came out of basic research.
David Herrelko: Absolutely, whether it was to take the twinkle out of the
stars with adaptive optics so that we could figure out the difference between
a real cosmic body and space dust, or whether it was to penetrate a fogged
jungle and see a tank, there is a great deal of spin-off to basic science. Fur-
thermore, we can then export the products and strengthen our economy. I
think were always going to be an open society where our basic research is
almost always available to everyone.
Robert Kuhn: People criticize American freedoms, but by having an open
society, we attract more of the worlds most promising young scientists,
which (if we solve our problem with visas!) gives us the critical mass of sci-
entists to lead the world.
Steve Koonin: And you make the science go faster because theres this
great exchange among the disciplines. You know, one thing that people
dont appreciate is the fact that these very transformative systems that we
havefor example, the global positioning system that is now used by every-
oneare a direct product of basic research. This was the result of a 30- or
40-year poll starting from basic science, and then going through to this very
tangible system. So these things dont happen by accident, they start with the
basic science.
Robert Kuhn: Lets talk about the internet and cybersecurity, which is cen-
tral to our new sense of national security.
David Herrelko: I had my first email address while I was an undergraduate

at MIT. In those ancient days very few people had email and there was very
limited communicationnobody had the slightest idea that the killer app of
all killer apps would be email for pedestrians.
Steve Koonin: The web browser, which enabled the internet to become a
global communication medium, came out of basic science. Timothy
Berners-Lee was trying to orchestrate data among high-energy physicists at
multiple sites around the world and he built the browser.
David Herrelko: What is wonderful is that the worldwide web was built by
loyally disobedient people. If a typical old-school military thinker had
planned this, and poured ten times the money into it, we would now be stuck
with a structured, unscalable system, where each person, when they signed
in, would be required to identify by name every person with whom they
might want to communicate. But instead we have this wonderful chaotic sys-
tem that has changed the world.
Steve Koonin: But that makes security very difficult to manage.
David Herrelko: Im glad to have that problem.
Steve Koonin: Another interesting mode of interaction between science
and national security is the stimulation of discovery about our planetary
environment. For example, when submarines began to have broad reach
through the oceans, in the late 1940s and 1950s, we began to get much more
interested in the science of oceanography, and we discovered currents, ther-
moclines, and the likethe deep characteristics of oceans. Similarly, when
military aircraft could reach the jet stream, scientists discovered the jet
stream. Understanding the natural world because of military operational
capabilities is another way in which national security has fed back into
science.
Robert Kuhn: Not deliberately, but as spin-off.
Steve Koonin: True. We also have a great deal of environmental data from
classified military satellite systems that have been doing surveillance of the
earth since the early 1960s
Robert Kuhn: The environment data was picked up accidentally, serendip-
itously, along with the military data, and now provides scientists with longi-
tudinal data so they can trace environmental change over time.
Doc Dougherty: Naval acoustic data from offshore sonar is now being
used by marine scientists to investigate ocean characteristics.
Robert Kuhn: Some say that Naval sonar is contaminating the ocean envi-
ronment and harming whales.
Steve Koonin: There is little objective evidence. Rather, sonar data pro-
vides wonderful insights into how the oceans are changing.
David Herrelko: Anecdotal stories of beneficial spin-offs of defense and
aerospace technologies are loved by the military and NASA. Everyone wants
to claim that their algorithm is the one generating higher resolution in mam-
mograms. Success has a thousand fathers.
Doc Dougherty: Scientists are very narrow, and appropriately so.
Steve Koonin: Matt Kabrisky said that you really have only one great
choice in life: you can either be narrow or you can be shallow.
Robert Kuhn: Shallow in the sense of breadth, with sufficient knowl-
edge and understanding of diverse areas so that one can facilitate communi-
cations between these areas and envision new connections.
Doc Dougherty: We need breadth as well as depth. We need some people
to be a little less narrow and a little more shallow. (Some in the military
joke that rank times IQ equals a constant.)
David Herrelko: Im shallow and proud of it.
Steve Koonin: Shallow is okay. My choice was to be shallow, but also to be
able to grab onto a source of narrownessa scientific specialtythat has the
depth of substance to discern deep structural relationships that could be inte-
grated into new concepts. The management of science and technology is
about making connections between the right kinds of narrow people in
order to create new and interesting things.
Doc Dougherty: Thats the vital middle level; there really arent very
many people who do that well.
David Herrelko: Im worried about a cargo cult behavior that I see
among some of our scientists. Let me explain. When I ask how can we cham-
pion better science and win the funding thats needed, the answer that comes
back is always anecdotal and rarely replicable. Why do I call this behavior
cargo cult? After World War II on an island just south of Fiji, the people
took straw and bamboo to recreate air fields and recreate little airplanes
with propellers and at night they would light up their mock airport. Why
did they do this? They were hoping that the great metal birds would come
back with the ice cream and the Hershey bars, thinking that if they set the
right stage, the magic would happen. If the airport were built, perhaps the
airplanes would come. They had made a cult out of the cargo.
Robert Kuhn: So your cargo cult analogy suggests that some scientists
look to ancillary activities that were temporally associated with successful
past projects, but in fact were not causally related to them, as prescriptive
mechanisms to develop future projects. And just like those great metal birds
would not be returning with ice cream, such ways of thinking are doomed to
failure.
David Herrelko: Right. Another concern is that the contract between the
American public and basic science is fundamentally changing. From the
end of World War II, when we were infatuated with technology, and then
got a kick in the butt with Sputnik (the first Russian satellite), we knew that
science was good for the country, that an investment in science would pay
off. Our national belief was that scientists were wise and made great contri-
butions. I dont think that same contract is true any more.
Robert Kuhn: To what do you attribute this shift away from science?
Cynicism? Academic deconstruction? Religious fundamentalism?
David Herrelko: Not cynicism. The academics have little impact. Its
fundamentalism, take your pick of any religious stripe you like. Many peo-
ple are worse than not scientific; they are anti-scientific.
Steve Koonin: The irony is that this negative anti-scientific bias is increas-
ing at a time when the positive impact that science and technology has on
everyday life is also increasing. What the cargo cult needs, to pick up your
metaphor, is a priest who understands what is really going on and so he is in
the back room on the radio calling the guys with the airplanes, even while
allowing his flock to continue building those mock airfields.
David Herrelko: In fact the stakes are higher. The pace of technology and
innovation continues to quicken. If we have citizens who are sufficiently
sophisticated to engage these issues, if we dont raise our children to excel
in math and science, we are going to lose out.
Steve Koonin: Often the political structure doesnt want to hear about the
science at all. There are many examples currently, such as stem cells, global
climate change, and levels of toxicity. People just dont want to hear about
these science-based issues, never mind the facts.
David Herrelko: I praise industry, which is trying hard to help improve
schools in their local areas. Many companies are allocating a good deal of
money to these programs, plus management time, but Im afraid its like
sticking fingers in the dyke.
Steve Koonin: Its not that everyone has to grow up to be a scientist; its
just that people should have some appreciation for these issues of national
importance.
Robert Kuhn: In todays world, one cannot be an informed citizen without
significant understanding of science.
Steve Koonin: Thats because many of the issues that impact contemporary
society are based on science.
David Herrelko: And the more fourth graders whom we carry through
eighth grade enhancing their interest in science, the more effective our basic
science will become in the future.
Doc Dougherty: Anti-science sentiment in America has done so much to
damage the educational environment, poisoning the capacity of young
people who might otherwise be interested in science.
Robert Kuhn: Thus diminishing the pool of potential scientists.
Steve Koonin: Anti-science attitudes pervading society are, sadly, a
uniquely U.S. phenomenon. There is nothing of the sort in Western or
Eastern Europe or anywhere in Asia.
David Herrelko: Student enrollment in science is down at all levels, espe-
cially at the graduate level where it really counts.
Doc Dougherty: In addition, the good economy in recent years has been
sucking graduate students out into industry, which is also diminishing the
new generation of scientific professionals.
Steve Koonin: Whats most important is to have a vital scientific base that
continues to discover new phenomena, and maybe even more importantly to
train those new generations of scientists on whom we can generate future
technologies that will be needed in the future. If were going to continue to
have a secure nation, given our social, economic and political situation, we
must have that technology base.
Robert Kuhn: The world situation changes as does our domestic environ-
ment. The nations military-industrial-academic complex, which started
seriously in World War II, probably reached its peak during the Cold War.
But now we are in a different era. Do these institutions have to change,
structurally and/or functionally?
Steve Koonin: Of course they do; circumstances are changing. Homeland
defense is now a major issue on everyones agenda. Defense technologies
are not only about the militarythe military never operates within the U.S.
but now also about law enforcement. For example, intelligence agencies
whose main charter is overseas operations now must be concerned about
domestic intelligence and operations. And these new challenges mean that
we must have new organizations, in both government and business. The
way business operates has changed. It used to be that the only players in
the defense establishment were the multinational giantsGeneral Electric,
Boeing, General Motors, IBM, and so on. Now we have a whole host of
smaller companies developing new technologies.
David Herrelko: Lets go beyond military contributions. To me basic sci-
ence has made possible all kinds of wonderful things, like inexpensive digital
photography and satellite dishes. So when there is a trouble spot in the

world, if atrocities are alleged, why dont we just airdrop in cameras and
small dishes and let the people there show the world?
Robert Kuhn: What about Americas investment in basic science?
David Herrelko: We invest a tremendous amount in basic science, and we
must with confidence keep investing in basic science. This is true even if
other nations harvest from our investments because we are all agile and
adaptive and tremendously aggressive in commercializing basic science and
taking it to market. And only in an open society where the basic science is
freely available can we continue to live and work that way.
Robert Kuhn: The American ideal is to maintain a critical mass of talented
scientists and engineers from all over the world, substantial capital and intel-
lectual resources, and a host of world-class institutions in business and
academia.
Steve Koonin: Thats why its so important to have students coming from
abroad to study in America. The population of the United States is only
300 million people on a globe that holds six billion. If we can attract the
smartest half of one percent of people from around the world, educate them
here, and enable them to understand American values and society, that
would be such a great thing.
Doc Dougherty: There is much work to be done; happily the future is
long.

Supporting basic science is essential for protecting national security. Core
competencies in the physical, biological, and mathematical sciences provide
critical mass of resources, capabilities, and experiencesbut our primary
motivation should be that understanding our world, irrespective of practical
application, is a hallmark of our species and a beacon of our society.
Robert Wilson, the founding director of Fermilab (the expensive atomic
accelerator), captured the matter in his 1969 testimony before Congress on
the appropriation of the considerable sums that made Fermilab possible.
When asked whether the laboratory would contribute to the national
defense, Wilson replied that its contribution would be not to the defense
of the nation but rather to what made the nation worth defending.
Sure, basic science shields our national body; more important, it enriches
our national soul.

Steve Koonin
What big discoveries might we see in this century?
Id start the list with information. Weve seen in the last two decades an
exponentially expanding capacity to store information, to process it, to
transmit it, to visualize it. These capabilities are going to accelerate even fur-
ther in the next several decades. Well transform the way that we deal with
the world around us, with the way that we deal with ourselves. Id put also
on the list a growing appreciation to design and fabricate materialsmateri-
als that will be stronger, lighter, more durable, more flexible, whatever prop-
erties one wants. We will even be mimicking the way living things fabricate
materials. New materials will have a big impact on the world.
I think that another transforming discovery will be that we will very likely
find evidence for life beyond our own planet, whether it will be life in exist-
ence now or life that was once in existence on Mars or under the ice on
Europa, perhaps a planet around some other star. I think it will happen.
Those environments are too rich, too active, not to have something like life
arise. And I think when that happens, when we find life, the discovery will
fundamentally transform the way we think about life and the way we think
about ourselves.
As provost at Caltech, it is part of my responsibility to understand how all
the fields of science fit together and play against and enhance one another.
As we look forward over the next several decades, a major focal point of dis-
covery is certainly biology, appreciating how living things work. One funda-
mental area is the brain, understanding how three pounds of cells and
chemicals can generate thought, memories, reasoning, and emotions. In the
physical sciences, I think the practical manipulation and application of
quantum phenomena are going to have a profound effect on the way we live.
I also think a better understanding of the earth, its climate and its geology, is
going to bring practical benefits to peoples lives over the next 20 years or so.
Are universities destined to become more commercial?

One of the things that has become more interesting and exciting in the last
20 or 30 years is the way in which universities have had an influence on com-
mercial activities. It has been a good thing to get the ideas that we produce in
the laboratories out into the commercial sector, and there have been some
important changes in society that have come about from technology that
universities have produced. Also the people that universities produce with
an entrepreneurial spirit have gone out and founded important commercial
organizations. But one can go too far. If we go to the limit, if we allow
universities to become for-profit entities, then we will have lost something

very special. Much of the beauty of scientific research is being able to follow
your nose, to allow free reign to your instincts and intuition, independent of
what the short-term profitability or non-profitability might be. On occasion,
scientists instincts and intuitions can lead to very beautiful discoveries, very
surprising discoveries, and even very profitable discoveries. The short-term
work we need to leave to commercial entities; but the long-term work needs
to be done in an environment of unfettered inquiry, and thats what the uni-
versities have to retain.
What about quantum teleportation?

Among those technologies that are going to transform human society in
the next several decades, one will surely be the practical manipulation of
quantum systems, using them to store, process, and transmit information.
Quantum teleportation is a phenomena that is, in fact, much discussed at
the present time. Actually, the term is something of a misnomer. We all think
about the teleportation machines that we remember watching (or see) on
Star Trek. Quantum teleportation is not like that at all. It is the ability
to take the state of a simple quantum system and move it from one place to
another without physically moving the system. So in some sense youre
transporting the information in the state and not physically transporting
the state itself.
Do we fully understand the laws of nature?

The answer is yes and no. Yes, in the sense that we understand laws within
each domain of applicability. For example, we know that Newtons laws of
motion work when the velocities do not get too close to the speed of light,
and within that domain, we can certainly and fully understand the laws
themselves. We do have a problem sometimes understanding their implica-
tions in very complicated situations. So you often need a computer to try
to assess the workings of those laws, but we understand the laws themselves.
If the particles get to be too fast or they get to be too small, then either rela-
tivity or quantum mechanics supercedes Newton. But again, within each
domain of applicability, we understand those laws very well. The excitement
comes when one ventures forth into new domains. We more or less under-
stand quantum mechanics, but then we start to mix in gravity. The interrela-
tion between quantum mechanics and gravity seems to be our most
fundamental missing piece of knowledge. Some scientists, but certainly not
all, believe that sometime in the next several decades, we will likely see the
theoretical unity between quantum mechanics on submicroscopic levels
and relativity and gravity on planetary and cosmic scales. But such under-
standing is for the future.
David Herrelko
What technologies has basic science spawned that have trickled down to the
public?
Key developments probably were the fax machine and the xerox. More
than any other commercialized technology, they may have contributed most
to bringing down the Soviet Union. In this country, we cherish loyal dis-
obedience, and as long as we have an open and free society, the future looks
good to me.
Talk about other speculative areas in which youve been involved.
It is as tough speculating on developments in basic science as it is raising
childrenall ones careful plans can be overthrown instantaneously.
How do we improve the general appreciation of science?
The numbers are devastating: how many potentially brilliant kids fall
away from math and science so that by the eighth grade theyre out of the
game entirely. Females compose half of the geniuses in this country, but they
are underrepresented in math and scienceand if you cant play, youre dis-
enfranchised and youre angry. We need to build up a solid base of people
who can use the power tools of the next generation, math and science, or
America is going to be left in the dust.
Doc Dougherty
I think the public sees different implications of science in their life. They
definitely see it in their consumer electronics; they definitely see it in their
national defense. However, much of science they do not understand, and
because the press for the most part doesnt pay attention, the people do not
get an opportunity to appreciate science well enough to make the connection
to everyday life.
Will our basic security improve quickly enough?
I have to differentiate between two types of security: technologies for the
electronic entertainment industry and direct national security. The security
associated with the electronic entertainment industrysuch as the economic
aspect of the entertainment industry, including encryption, copy protection,
patents, copyright rights, payment for services, payment for useis in a cat-
egory by itself. Current law and current technology are mismatched. The
other type of basic security is for the direct support of national security.
The data glut is not a data glut per se: it is a mismatch between the ability
to collect and the ability to analyze. With smarter computers, even if not
with smarter people, this mismatch will evolve and improve over time.

Chapter 14
Can Religion Withstand Technology?
What fosters fundamentalism? It is an intriguing paradox: as the world

becomes more scientific, it is also becoming more religious. Along with sci-
ence, religious fundamentalism of all varieties is also gaining momentum.
Worship comes in many flavorsChristian, Muslim, Jewish, Hindu, and
new religions, too. In an age of ever-increasing scientific knowledge more
people than ever before are devout, as measured by attendance at a house
of worship. In the U.S. alone, three times more people attend a church, syna-
gogue, temple, or mosque than did when the nation was founded (on a per-
centage basis). Something serious is going on here.
Is it a coincidence, or has science and technologys ideological ascendancy
finally started to work against it? What is it about human nature that rebels
against the dominance of material progress? Also, as technology prolifer-
ates, and solitary individuals have new capacities to wield power, the oppor-
tunities for fundamentalist agents to perpetrate technological catastrophes
multiply. Also, spinning the question in reverse, how do religious groups
use the technology they claim to despise for the purpose of proselytizing
their parochial (even megalomaniacal) beliefs and fostering their own poten-
tially dangerous ambitions?
What is it about technological progress that fundamentalists do not like?
What is it about technological progress that intensifies religious responses?
What is the mindset of fundamentalists, the deep structural characteristics
that are common to all fundamentalists and almost unify them irrespective
of specific religion?
In this chapter, a social scientist (an expert in the sociology of religion),
a devout Muslim scientist (an expert on science and Islam), and a card-
carrying skeptic discuss how the clash between technology and religion
reshapes our search for meaning. They discuss how technology, versus sci-
ence, may drive this trend. From the alarm clock to 24-hour news, technol-
ogy constantly disrupts us and, as a result, makes the inner contemplation
necessary for a full spiritual life difficult if not impossible. The guests delve
into the rise of fundamentalisma reaction to modernity in general but also
perhaps to Western rationalismand agree that religion answers a deep
human need for ritual, connection, and inspiration.
Islamic scientist Muzaffar Iqbal laments the intrusion of the cell phone in
the mosque, while skeptic Michael Shermer retorts that you can just turn it
off. But Iqbal is talking about something bigger here, a natural result of 8
or 10 hours of work-a-day routine with all these gadgets leads to a total dis-
integration of the inner concentration of our personality. Christian sociolo-
gist Don Miller dots the i in this argument as he talks about technology,
efficiency, and its ultimate lack of capacity to give our deeper selves mean-
ing, a quest that unfailingly appears to be a universal need for all human
beings.
The conversation moves to the difference between fundamentalism and
extremism. Fundamentalists in all religions have received a tremendous
amount of media time in recent years. Iqbal stresses that extremism is differ-
ent from fundamentalism, a term that means returning to the basics or fun-
damentals of a belief. Is this just a semantic argument or does he make a
meaningful distinction? Says Iqbal, Extremists are people who have gone
out. They have left the path. You cannot blame religion for that.
Religion answers a deep human need for ritual, connection, and inspira-
tion. The Skeptics Society holds their meetings at the California Institute of
Technology (Caltech). Shermer: If ever there was a Mecca of science, its
Caltech, right? As Shermer points out, Stephen Hawking deals with the
deepest questions in the universe: why is there a universe at all, what was
there before time began? These are really traditional theological-type
questions.
Expert Participants
Muzaffar Iqbal
Founder and President, Center for Islam and Science; Regional Director for
the Muslim World, Center for Theology and Natural Science; editor Kalam
newsletter on Islam and Science
Donald Miller
Professor of Religion and Executive Director, Center for Religion and Civic
Culture, University of Southern California
Can Religion Withstand Technology? 203
Michael Shermer
President, Skeptics Society; Publisher, Skeptics magazine; author, How We
Believe and Why People Believe Weird Things; Columnist, Scientific Ameri-
can magazine

Robert Kuhn: In an age of increasing knowledge in science and technol-
ogy, it seems paradoxical that traditional religious views are also on the
ascendancy. Is this true?
Michael Schermer: It has nothing to do with God or religion; its just a
sense of humility in the face of the size and scope of the cosmos.
Don Miller: There are even more people going to church, temple, or syna-
gogue now than in the early years of the American republic. We tend to
romanticize the past and think that back then people were so much more
religious. But as a matter of fact, as measured by church attendance, we
are three times more religious now than we were 200 years ago, with about
40 percent of the population in a typical weak attending a church, temple, or
synagogue.
Robert Kuhn: I find it fascinating that in an age of science we have this
increase in traditional or fundamentalist views.
Michael Schermer: Lets not let this point go; this is very interesting.
Conservative pundits argue that America is going to hell in a hand-
basket and that we are less moral than weve ever been and that we have
to get America back to the Christian nation it used to be. They have it all
backwards: as a nation America has never been as religious as it is now,
and if this is the casewhich it ismaybe there is some correlation between
us being so religious and America going to hell in a hand-basket.
Muzaffar Iqbal: We need to distinguish between science and technology.
Science itself does not have significant impact on everyday life, certainly
not directly on church or mosque attendance. But technology does. Technol-
ogy is the application of science that defines the way human beings live, and
because modern technology is threatening the traditional way of life, people,
as a reaction, feel the need to express their religious convictions by going to
churches or mosques. Each new device that comes into existence intrudes
into our lives in a way. Take cell phones. What have cell phones done to
us? The least we can say is that they have become an additional element of
intrusion. I am thinking of the annual pilgrimage (hajj) to Mecca that has
been happening for 1,400 years or more; this pilgrimage is when you leave
the world behind for at least three days and you are totally devoted to a set
of rituals, you are totally there physically, mentally, intellectually, spiritu-

ally, and you are not supposed to be involved and tangled with the life of
the worldand then suddenly this machine starts ringing.
Michael Schermer: Well, you turn it off.
Muzaffar Iqbal: The point is that I dont have this machine, you have this
machine. Suddenly your cell phone rings; I cant turn off your cell phone
it breaks into my privacy, breaks into my connection with God, breaks into
my rituals. This thing is there, it was not there before, and it wont be going
away.
Don Miller: The cell phone, while it may make us more efficient, doesnt
necessarily make our lives more meaningful. There is a deep inner need that
all of us have to pursue. It is profoundly meaningful and goes beyond the
superficiality of technology.
Muzaffar Iqbal: I was using the cell phone as but one example to illustrate
technologys intrusion; there are hundreds of other things of a similar nature
that technology has produced over the last hundred years. These inventions
or gadgets have totally rearranged our social and personal life, restructured
our social and personal space, so that this deep inner need, our relationship
with God, becomes frustrated. There is surely something inside us, in the
very nature of our beings, that yearns to connect with something higher
and larger than ourselves.
Robert Kuhn: Is part of that yearning a reaction against the technology?
Muzaffar Iqbal: I think its an accumulation, perhaps at a subconscious
level, of numerous intrusions. There are so many technological devices, these
little things, right from the moment you wake up with an alarm clock, the
radio, the news on all the time. With everything that is coming into our lives,
there are so many things to which we react. Modern technology is having a
cumulative effect on our mental and spiritual lives.
Michael Schermer: Wait! Don, youre a social scientist. This is a hypothe-
sis, a testable hypothesis: Does the increase in technology cause an increase
in religiosity? We are assuming a just-so story. No one has ever tested this.
How would you test this?
Don Miller: I am intrigued; Im not sure that there is a contradiction
between technology and religion. Many individuals are using technology in
their worship. For example, some of the Pentecostal groups Ive been study-
ingyou cant find a better sound system than in a Pentecostal church. One
of the liabilities of being a researcher in these studies is sitting too close to
those booming speakers. Pentecostals are not fleeing from technology;
theyre actually appropriating technology and utilizing it for their own pur-
poses. Another phenomenon is whats happening with the so-called
millennial generation of kids. Their parents, the baby boomer generation, in

general rejected religion, at least in terms of traditional forms of worship;
they started worshipping in mega churches that were bland, rather ware-
house oriented. But their sons and daughters are now using technology to
bring the visual dimension back into their worshipping experience.
Robert Kuhn: If its not a reaction to technology, if its not a response to
science, how do you explain the increase in religious belief ?
Michael Schermer: Churches are like corporations competing for custom-
ers, and like good corporations they just have to offer better products and
services.
Robert Kuhn: How do you explain the religious energy in the Islamic
world?
Muzaffar Iqbal: Im glad you brought up that point because your theory
only holds for the United States of America.
Michael Schermer: Its just social momentum, historical traditions
whether its animism, polytheism, monotheism, or whatever. Human beings
are pattern-seeking, storytelling animals who construct narratives and myths
about their world, trying to make sense of it. Whether the narratives or
myths are true or not is irrelevant.
Robert Kuhn: Michael, how do you see technological trends affecting peo-
ples belief systems over time?
Michael Schermer: We will eventually implant a cell phone in your ear and
a keypad on your palm. More and better technology is the future.
Robert Kuhn: What will that do to our belief systems?
Michael Schermer: It will just enhance them; it wont hurt them. I want to
see more scientismscience as a worldview, as a complete worldview. Peo-
ple really do not need religion. I think religion should and can be replaced.
Muzaffar Iqbal: Consider what would happen if people have cell phones
implanted in their ears. Not only cell phones: there could be many more
gadgets implanted within the human body, so that while you are, say, driv-
ing you could be doing 10 different things at the same time. The natural
result of 8 or 10 hours of work-a-day routine with all these gadgets would
be a total disintegration of the inner concentration of being; your personality
would disintegrate into smaller and smaller pieces.
Michael Schermer: Weve gone down this anti-technology road a long time
ago. You flew here from Canada; you drove your car from the airport;
youre already using all this technology. You cant just draw the line and
say, okay, were going to stop now.
Muzaffar Iqbal: No, I am not saying stop now. I am saying that the
impact of all these new inventions and technological devices will be a further
disintegration of the inner center of being, so that we will require a re-
concentration of our inner life at the end of the day, or during the day. That
is precisely the purpose of religious rituals.
Robert Kuhn: This sounds serious: increasing and continuous technologi-
cal intrusions are going to have a significantly greater degrading effect on
human sense and sensitivities.
Muzaffar Iqbal: I am talking to you with my full concentration and you
are holding your attention towards me. Assume a metaphor that the energy
exchange between us is like 10 volts of electricity. What happens when sud-
denly a phone call comes in, or if Im doing 10 different things at the same
time? I have the same 10 volts of electricity but now they are divided into
smaller parts, maybe a dozen parts, and my being is shattered and you are
not listening to me any more.
Michael Schermer: I can turn my cell phone off. You can pick and choose.
We already do this.
Muzaffar Iqbal: No, you are wrong; you cannot. Once you have created
technology you cannot control it. Its the airplane and the car that brought
me here: I cannot control them anymore; I cannot travel on a camel to go
to the hajj as my grandfathers used to do.
Michael Schermer: It would take longer.
Muzaffar Iqbal: No, you cannot choose anymore. I would love to go back;
my grandfather and all previous generations took six months to go to Mecca
and every step of the way they were thinking about their pilgrimage, every
step was bringing them closer to God. But I cannot do this. I cannot go back.
Humanity cannot go back.
Robert Kuhn: Muzaffar is saying that not being able to go back, not being
able to control the intrusion of technology, has its consequences.
Michael Schermer: Of course. 50,000 years ago, we were living in caves.
So we cant have that experience anymore. So what!
Muzaffar Iqbal: The news of somebody dying in Jerusalem would not have
traveled around the world without the technology we have now. The impact
of that news would not have reached millions of people. So dont say that
you can just turn off technology; you cannot turn it off.
Don Miller: One of my fears about technology is that it may lead us to
think that we can be self-sufficient, that we can control our universe, and
that we need not be dependent or humble. One of the most fundamental
things about people who are religious is they do not see themselves as being
their own master; they have a sense that they are dependent upon something
other than themselves. And while there are many abuses to religion, one of
the qualities of religion that I really appreciate is this feeling of humility, that
Im not so independent, that I belong to a higher power, whatever that
higher power may be. I fear that technology may tempt us to think that we
can be independent and self-sufficient, to our detriment.
Michael Schermer: But we have technological failures, like the Titanic dis-
aster or the space shuttle disaster, which slap us back downand thats
good; thats how we learn and get better. Why not have a sense of humble-
ness and mutual dependency in the face of just the cosmos itself ? The uni-
verse alone is so huge, so grand, so vacuous that we should feel small and
unimportant; we shouldnt feel self-empowered.
Don Miller: I would affirm that grand vision.
Muzaffar Iqbal: The point Don is making is very important: technology
breeds a false sense of empowerment, as if we can do everything. We cannot
do everything. One need look no further than death. No amount of technol-
ogy is going to eliminate death from human existence. Death is such an over-
whelming, humbling experience. We all experience death: we see people
dying. Death is the ultimately frontier where technology must remain totally
humble; no amount of technology is going to keep the human body working
forever and ever.
Michael Schermer: It might. Give us another 10,000 years at the current
pace of Moores Law (computing power doubling every 18 months or so).
We might live 200 years, 500 years, 1000 years, 10,000 years. Then down-
load our neurons into silicon chips, or the information from our neurons
into software on chips. Silicon lasts a lot longer than protein meatits just
meat in your brainso exchange brain meat for brain metal; this is possible.
Muzaffar Iqbal: No, Michael, you are wrong. As you know yourself as a
self-aware human person, this person cannot live forever, is not designed
to live forever; thats when Im talking about.
Michael Schermer: Wait a minute! You people believe in God, you think
that we are going to live forever, just in some other stateyoure contra-
dicting yourself.
Robert Kuhn: Muzzffar, lets go back to the. . .
Michael Schermer: Dont let him off the hook here. We got him!
Robert Kuhn: The eternal life of the religious vision is imagined to be a
totally different plane of existence, involving some nonphysical existence,
which is fundamentally distinct from an enhanced physical existence. This
means, at least from a test of internal consistency, that the same self-aware
human person would be easier to reconstruct or sustain in this putative non-

physical existence than in some kind of a futuristic superchip-supersoftware
Matrix.
Muzaffar Iqbal: The point I was making was that, in reference to what
Don said, technology does breed a sense of empowerment.
Michael Schermer: I say that empowerment is a good thing. You say its a
bad thing.
Muzaffar Iqbal: Again you are wrong. Im not saying that empowerment
by technology is a bad thing; I am saying that ultimately that sense of
empowerment fails at the critical point of death, death of a human person,
which no amount of technology can stop.
Robert Kuhn: Is there anything about modern society that causes people to
have need for religious experiences? Muzaffar called our attention to the
intrusions or disruptions or technologies. How does it affect the psychol-
ogy of the individual or the sociology of the group?
Don Miller: Harvey Cox at Harvard Divinity School says religious revival
is in response to an ecstasy deficit in Western, rational, enlightenment cul-
ture. So if you ask me from where does this increase in religious interest
come, I would say that there is a kind of switch in worldviews that is starting
to occur, and the new worldview is bringing back the whole experience of
religion. In a sense, the widespread increase in religion signals a kind of
crack in Western rationalism.
Robert Kuhn: This is a pivotal point in understanding both individual psy-
chology and world sociology.
Don Miller: This is why I actually think Pentecostalism is fascinating, even
though many people say that its nothing but some kind of primitivism. Ana-
lyze the trends on a generational level: younger people tend to be more open
to the supernatural today than their parents and grandparents were decades
ago.
Robert Kuhn: And they are more educated; how do you explain that?
Don Miller: Because people are tired with pure, analytic, rational, enlight-
enment Western thought.
Muzaffar Iqbal: I agree with you. This is the same kind of education that is
being spread all over the world, because even in the Muslim world, certainly
in China and India, the kind of education which is being given is basically
Westerm, modern, secular education. Its the same there as it is here.
Although there is a parallel system within the Islamic worldthe Madrasa
system which provides religious educationthe divergences are causing a
cultural divide. These two systems have created two parallel generations in
the Muslim world: one class of people who go to the Madrasa system and do
not have any knowledge of modern, Westerm, secular science, which also
comes with its own worldview; and another class of people who do not go
with the Madrasa system and who have no sense of Islamic tradition and
no participation in its routines. This dichotomy is resulting in cultural
schizophrenia in the Muslim world.
Robert Kuhn: What has been the impact on the Madrasas?
Muzaffar Iqbal: The impact on the Madrasas has been to retreat further
into their religious core, because they feel there is great need to protect their
belief and tradition in the face of this assault of Westerm thinking, which
they view as an outright attack.
Robert Kuhn: Thats the whole point here, thats what technology does: it
forces a religious group to move more deeply into their own traditions and
become more isolated from other groups. These are significant trends. What
are the implications? In the Jewish community, for example, there are large
groups who are returning to the tradition with more ritualism even while the
majority is becoming more secular. The trend seems to be increasing frag-
mentation, not only between different religions but within same religions.
Don Miller: Precisely. While there may be this sort of movement toward
more fundamentalist absolutism, at the same time there are many people
who feel free to make independent choices about their life philosophies, peo-
ple who in previous generations did not have this same availability of choice,
people who could only inherit what was passed down to them. And these
new choices are being accepted guiltlessly, thats the difference from the
past. In previous generations, if you left your father or mothers inherited
religion, you felt guilt about your desertion. Now, at least in the U.S.,
there is an almost moral obligation to make up your own mind, to construct
your own recipe for your own belief system.
Michael Schermer: Don, do you therefore think that this impulse, the reli-
gious impulse, or the impulse to adhere to customs and perform rituals, is
part of human nature? If humanity started all over again, say on Mars,
would religion evolve again?
Don Miller: Absolutely. I think there is some deep human need to have
meaning and to pursue ultimate significance.
Muzaffar Iqbal: I agree with you.
Don Miller: And every religious tradition is going to have some embodi-
ment of their belief system, including the skeptics.
Michael Schermer: This is why we hold our Skeptic meetings on Sundays
at Caltech (joke!), which is sort of the church of science; I mean if ever there
was a Mecca of science, its Cal Tech, right? In my view, religion is a social
institution that reinforces the rules of cooperation and punishes excessive
deviance or greed and thereby helps hold our social primate species together.
Its a way of living with large numbers without killing each other all the
time.
Muzaffar Iqbal: Yes, but I think that the biggest danger comes from the
new religion that you just namedscientism. Your new religion basically
denies the fundamental aspects of humanity that are unique, deeper aspects
of our psyche that are not measurable by scientific instruments. Anything
that is not quantifiable is beyond the limits of that new religion called scien-
tism; therefore no matter how powerful scientism becomes, it will forever
leave humanity in need of something higher. Therefore, even people who
believe in this new religion of scientism would always be craving to see
beyond it.
Robert Kuhn: Because of scientism, people will crave what they feel
theyve lost even more, so scientism will create even greater tensions and fis-
sions in world societies. Michael, are these stresses what you want to cause?
Michael Schermer: No, we Skeptics are just building a home for people
whose spiritual needs are not being met by religion and who find a kind of
intellectual and emotional salvation in the modern scientific worldview. I
just wrote a column for Scientific American called The Scientific Shaman;
its about Stephen Hawking, who just turned 60. And my question is, why is
he so popular? Part of Hawkings popularity is because of his nerve disease;
its incredible that he has survived at all and his courage of handling life in
his extremely debilitating condition is amazing. But another part of his wide
popular recognition is that he is dealing with the biggest, deepest, most ulti-
mate questions of existence. Hawking is daring to ask, and trying to answer,
Why does the universe bother to exist at all? Why should there be some-
thing instead of nothing? What existed before the Big Bang? What was
there before time began? These are really theological-type questions, or at
least traditionally they were theological-type questions. So there is a hunger
for ultimate answers to ultimate questions, and millions of people have
bought his books. There is a very large group of people, larger than most
people realize, who have a hunger to ask the big questions but who do not
believe in a traditional religious way of answering them. They are looking
for answers, and in my opinion there is only one answer, and that is science.
Robert Kuhn: Lets discuss religious fundamentalism. What does it mean
in America and in other cultures?
Don Miller: Fundamentalism has many different definitions. The classical
sociological view is that fundamentalism is some kind of reaction against
modernity, a kind of modernity that is perceived as something that is not
moral or is amoral. In this sense, fundamentalism is an attempt to get back

to a time when there were absolutes.
Robert Kuhn: Religious absolutes, moral absolutes.
Don Miller: Yes, a mindset which has less ambiguity. In addition, typically
there is also something rather mythological about fundamentalism because
its adherents are trying to recapture a time when that was more pure than
the present.
Michael Schermer: Back to the fundamentals of that belief system.
Don Miller: I use the word mythological intentionally because many of
these visions of the past are, in fact, extremely inaccurate. Now, I do not
want to think of fundamentalism as necessarily negative, because Ive stud-
ied a good number of fundamentalist groups, particularly Pentecostal and
evangelical groups, which are often times very warm, nurturing environ-
ments. They are wholesome environments in which to raise children. Person-
ally I do not see many of the so-called fundamentalist religions they way
many critics doas cults in which peoples minds have been removed.
Actually I grew up in a fundamentalist home, and right now Im a very
liberal Episcopalian; I look back at my early years with a great deal of fond-
ness and wonder whether my children are missing something by growing up
in this my modern, pluralistic, open-minded household.
Robert Kuhn: Is there a tradition of fundamentalism in Islam?
Muzaffar Iqbal: The whole concept of fundamentalism, as we are using the
term here, is totally foreign to Islam, because the definition that Don just
gave has so many elements that simply do not exist in Islam. Islam calls itself
the middle way. And even in terms of worship, in terms of rituals, there
are specific instructions to be moderate. For example, even for fasting, which
is a virtue, Islam instructs us not to be extreme, because you will get tired by
being extremein your fasting, in your worship, in your prayers. The
Prophet of Islam says that believers should do a little bit of good things,
but do them consistently over a long period of time, rather than doing some-
thing big and intensely but for a short period of time.
Michael Schermer: There are extremists in Islam.
Muzaffar Iqbal: There are people who call themselves Muslims but who
are extremists. We have to distinguish between true Islam and the Muslims
who say that they are practicing Islam in this extreme way. Extremism in
Islam is a foreign element. We dont call them fundamentalists, we call them
by a special Arabic term that came into the Islamic court centuries ago. The
term means somebody who has left the root and has gone out. So in Islam,
as soon as you become extreme, you have automatically gone out from the
middle way, which is Islam.
Michael Schermer: But the question on the table is not the middle way
people, its the people who fly planes into buildings, where do they come
from? And why is religion particularly good at driving people to do things
like that?
Robert Kuhn: Any religion.
Michael Schermer: Any religion. And even non-religions, too. Marxist
ideologies can get people to commit horrendous acts which they see as cou-
rageous acts of violence.
Muzaffar Iqbal: You have already decided that a particular act is a direct
result of religious teachings; we havent established that yet.
Michael Schermer: Not the teachings; its the commitment to a philoso-
phy, an ideology or religious belief. I just think that religion is particularly
good at driving people to do violent, terrible things because its good at get-
ting people to believe fanatical, extreme things. Most of the acts of these
kinds of destructive acts in todays world are committed in the name of
God; not all of them, granted, but most of them.
Don Miller: Thats such a gross generalization. I have to break in here
because we are devolving into very simplistic thinking if we say religion is
particularly good at inciting violence. They are so many non-religious
ideologies that have been good at purges and violence.
Muzaffar Iqbal: Nationalism is one of them. Look at the Second World
War. Were the killings motivated by religious extremism or by nationalism?
Michael Schermer: More nationalism, sure.
Muzaffar Iqbal: So nationalism can be bad. Any belief can be bad. Perhaps
skepticism can be bad?
Michael Schermer: I agree. Its the point you brought up initially: the prob-
lem is extremism, not fundamentalism per se. When fundamentalism
expresses itself in some extreme way, then it can cause a problem.

Im fascinated by the rise of religion in an age of science. As globalization
continues to feed on knowledge, increasing technology will accelerate per-
sonal intrusions and religious reactions so that the sociological consequences
will produce an inevitable counterforce, when some people feel alienated or
empty and others feel left behind or oppressed. This inevitable counterforce
will often be expressed in the language of religion. (I find it ironic how fun-
damentalists use modern, Western technology, such as websites, to further
their anti-modern, anti-Western agendas.)
This may displease some, but I do not see much difference among funda-
mentalists of all beliefsa common mindset unites them all. And of this I
am sure: group exclusivity breeds antagonisms.
Id be surprised if any of todays religions turns out to be uniquely true
and in the remote chance that one is, Id also be mighty disappointed.
But religion will not go away. There is something sitting at the center
of human nature that yearns to soar far beyond our feeble bodies and
extend far beyond our passing lives, something that demands our continuing
attention. Thats real religion. We cant ignore religion to get Closer To
Truth.
Muzaffar Iqbal
Does public opinion confuse religious extremism with political extremism?
Were not talking about a purely religious war in the sense of having no
connection with politics, with social oppression. The people who are fight-
ingfor example, in the Middle Eastthey are not fighting on the basis of
what Islam tells them. They are fighting on the basis of other things. If I
am a 13-year-old boy living in Jerusalem, and my father and mother have
been killed by a bomb, and I see no other future and no hope, and I only have
my own body and a few little nails and some explosives, and I have no other
means of doing anything, then thats what I have and thats what I will use.
We are dealing with a broad social and political problem, we are not just
dealing with a religious phenomenon.
Talk about ritual in modern society

It is part of human construction that we require ritual. When we perform
religious rituals, they are a helpful orientation or means to find and feel
something deeper. For example, prayer by itself is a ritual that involves
stating certain sentences, making certain movements. But thats only the
outward, painted aspect of prayer. The inner aspect of prayer is that it makes
us ready for something deeper than itself, something deeper than we can
ever sense in our normal lives. In a certain sense, everything is ritual. When
you turn on your computer, the computer goes through some rituals, it
tests the memory, it tests the RAM, it goes through the kinds of the video
cards, it displays all that. This is a ritual of technology. Little in our lives is
not ritual.

My biggest desire is to see a revival of the Islamic tradition of learning.
And the way I see the Islamic tradition of learning is that it was deeply
rooted in the two primary sources of Islamworship and inquiryand it
produced a holistic approach to everything. So thats my desire; thats how
I would like to be rememberedas someone who pursued the process of
revival of their Islamic tradition of learning, which is holistic.
Donald Miller
Do you think the general public properly appreciates science?
There is certainly awareness that technological breakthroughs are creating
strong challenges to traditional notions of religion. And so technology in
some ways is polarizing the religious audience into people who want to keep
it the way it used to be or return it to the way it was before technology, and
people who are saying we definitely need to reconceptualize our religious
beliefs in order to account for and accommodate these technological
changes.

In terms of my own field of study, I go back to the classic theorists, schol-
ars who were writing around the turn of the last century, such as Max
Weber, Sigmund Freud, and Emil Durkheim, a French sociologist. Going
back further, Ive been influenced by Karl Marx. Interestingly enough, all
of these pioneering scholars were strong critics of religion, and they actually
influenced me in seeing the potentially negative and even the pathological
side of religion. I think the reason I admire them is that they had a certain
intellectual honesty to the way that they approached religion. At the same
time, my personal criticism of them is that in many ways they always saw a
limited slice of religion, and with the exception of people like William
James, another one of my heroes, they had it wrong about religion. But just
because I disagree with their conclusions about religion doesnt mean that I
dont read them, and it doesnt mean that I dont appreciate the brilliance
of their insight. Even today, were still looking at religion through their intel-
lectual lenses.

The major development in the sociology of religion is that the classical
theorists who were almost unanimously convinced that religion was going
to decline and disappear were proven wrong. Sometime about 15 years
ago, when religion was supposed to have already been dead or dying, it
became obvious that the classical theorists were wrong, that religion is in
fact in an ascendancy in many cultures, so that contemporary scholars were

going to have to reevaluate their assessment of those classical theories. The
major switch that has happened in the last decade or two is really from an
abundance of theories about the secularization of religion to new theories
about the reemergence of religion and the desecularization of society. Some
of these trends related to religion were predicted, such as increasing privati-
zation of beliefs (and other things), a primary trend in which people, particu-
larly young people, are now making choices about their religion or belief
system rather than simply adopting an inherited religious tradition. Its par-
ticularly true of Generation Xers, who differ from their grandparents, who
were much more likely, if they were born a Catholic, to remain a Catholic,
or if born a Methodist to be remain a Methodist. Right now, a large percent-
age of people, irrespective of what they were born, decide to make their own
choices and switch religions.
Are there good and bad religions?

We cant just dichotomize religion in two categories. On the one hand,
imagining religion as something, as Freud would say, that is infantile, or
something, as Marx would say, that is an opiate of the people. And then,
on the other hand, asserting that can also be good religion, which is reli-
gion that is challenging us rather than comforting us. I disagree with such
radical dichotomies, because I think it is often possible that religion can be
comforting, can be a compensation for the stresses and strains of life, and
yet at the same time, actually empower people to try to go beyond their
own individual self-interests and try to pursue higher goals. My own sense
is while we like to dichotomize and label things, Im not convinced that such
characterizations are true to most peoples experience.
What is your concept of God?

I think that the moment we name who God is were involved in some act
of idolatry. I definitely do not see God as someone who is out there riding
the clouds. I dont see God literally up there somewhere. I tend to have more
of a notion of God as someone who is deep within us. I also have something
of a pantheistic view that God is somehow everywhere, the source of energy,
the source of life. I also think, however, that God is a concept that we invent.
This does not necessarily suggest a negative, because we need to acknowl-
edge that we have dependencies and that we are not self-sufficient.
Why do you think people are religious?

It probably doesnt have that much to do with abstract notions of truth. It
probably has a lot more to do with the fact that religious communities are
places where people can gather, where they can socialize with each other,
where they can feel affirmed, where they can share their needs and burdens.
Im not trying to downplay the issue of truth, but I dont think most people
come to religion out of some kind of abstract speculation about whether
God is real. I think that religious belief and associations are typically more
often born out of peoples personal experiences. Considering my own
beliefs, I tend to take a more experiential approach to religion and my analy-
sis of religion.
Michael Shermer
Will technology become increasingly disruptive?
I dont think technology is fundamentally destructive. All virtually em-
brace technology; even the technophobes who lambast it in op-ed pieces in
the New York Times are themselves writing and speaking under the very
blanket of freedom that technology providesI think they are terribly hypo-
critical. Medical technologies have allowed these anti-technology critics to
live long enough to write op-ed pieces against technology. Everybody uses
technology. The problem is simply that anything that is new and novel is for-
eign and scary to peoplethis will always be the casebut its just a ques-
tion of getting used to it. Take human cloning, for example. It is going to
happen. It doesnt matter whether Congress bans it or not, it is going to hap-
pen. Its going to happen somewhere outside of America first and it will hap-
pen in America in stealth. It is going to happenand then everyone will get
used to it, then itll be no big deal. But then there will be some other new
technology to rail against.
Would you welcome cybernetic implants?

Of course I would. Who wouldnt? Its just what you get used to. Some
people say, I wouldnt want to live past my natural age, it just wouldnt
be right. Oh really? Well, lets say youre 70 now; okay, tomorrow your
time is up. Oh, no, wait a minute, they will say, Ill go another year.
Then at the end of the additional year, someone will say, Tomorrow we
pull the plug, and they again say, Oh no, no, no, give me yet another
year. And of course there is no point, as long as you are reasonably healthy,
that anyone wants to die. (However, if you are in an absolutely miserable
physical state, in constant pain and suffering, and if you want to die, thats
understandable.) I just cant imagine anyone who is healthy not agreeing to
do whatever is necessary to continue to live, and to live with maximum
facilities, even if this means using whatever technologies are available,
implants or explants or drugs or whatever.

Chapter 15
Can We Believe in Both Science

and Religion?
They are age-old antagonists, science and religion. But if we seek ultimate
meaning in our fleeting and ephemeral lives, and ultimate purpose in our
persisting and ineffable universe, there is an irrepressible yearning to harmo-
nize science and religion.
But is harmonizing science and religion wishful thinking? Long considered
adversaries on the battlefield of grand worldviews because at their most fun-
damental level both claim to do much the same thing, science and religion
each claim privilege to access ultimate truth, to provide deep insight into
the nature of the world around us, and to give a profound sense of our place
or purpose in the Universe.
Science is founded on empiricism and analysis; religion on revelation and
faith. Given their different foundations, can they ever be harmonized?
Should they? Or do science and religion simply inhabit divergent, non-
overlapping spheres of influenceMagesteria in Stephen J. Goulds term
with no real meaning ever able to pass between the two?
In recent years, there has been an explosion of interest in the relationship
between science and religion. Why is this happening, and why now?
This is a topic with strong views. On the one hand, some claim that reli-
gion is nonsense and that a dialogue between science and religion is a waste
of time because at best it would give false hope to religion and at worst sus-
tain mental oppression. On the other hand, other people believe that true
science must be guided by religious understanding, that wherever science is
shown to conflict with religion that science should be re-evaluated.
Approached rationally, here are some questions to ask. How does scien-
tific knowledge alter our perception of religion? In fact, is there any such a
thing as religious knowledge or is it only religious belief ? And is it pos-
sible for science to bring deeper meaning to religion, instead of undermining
and eroding its basic tenets? But if so, should science have such a supporting
role, sustaining the vision of religion? Or should science offer a new and
more honest moral and ethical structure, replacing in the future what reli-
gion has dominated in the past?
In this chapter, a skeptic takes on a Christian theologian and a scientist
who is a devout Muslim. The issues are nothing but the biggestwhether
or not belief in an all-powerful, eternal deity is truly compatible with scien-
tific principles and discoveries. For the theologian and the Islamic scientist,
the antipathy between science and religion has been overplayed. They make
the case that science and religion can coexist peacefully, even productively.
The skeptic counters that conflict is inevitable in the face of our growing
knowledge base and the total absence of any kind of rational proof of a
deitys existence. They all agree that recent discoveries in cosmology and
neuroscience have cast doubt on beliefs central to most of the worlds major
religions, such as a deity creating the universe and the belief that humans
possess an immortal soul.
Expert Participants
Muzaffar Iqbal
Founder and President, Center for Islam and Science; Regional Director
for the Muslim World, Center for Theology and Natural Science; editor,
Kalam newsletter on Islam and Science
Nancey Murphy
Professor of Christian Philosophy, Fuller Theological Seminary; Director,
Center for Theology and the Natural Sciences; author, Theology in the Age
of Scientific Reasoning
Michael Shermer
President, Skeptics Society; Publisher, Skeptics magazine; author, How
We Believe, Why People Believe Weird Things, and Why Darwin Matters;
Columnist, Scientific American magazine

Muzaffar Iqbal: I did science for most of my life, and for me, science and
religion are just one thing. One single thing. It is not that one has a scientific
worldview and a religious worldview, that you have God and you have sci-
ence. No, its just one single thing. The Islamic religious tradition doesnt
Can We Believe in Both Science and Religion? 219
deal with how things work; it just states why. It was left to the scientists and
the philosophers to deal with the question of how. These are two very, very
clearly distinguishable questions, why and how?
Michael Schermer: But arent you curious? If you say that God started the
universe, arent you curious how he did it?
Muzaffar Iqbal: Exactly.
Michael Schermer: Dont you want to know what forces God used? Did
He use all four forces combined, and how did He do that? Well, thats just
science.
Muzaffar Iqbal: Exactly; that is the domain of the intellectual tradition,
and thats what the philosophers and the scientists have been working on.
But the why question is outside the domain of science. Why did God create
it as He did? The faith tradition tells you that God created it and at the same
time it also tells you that God says to go out and find out how He created it.
Go and study oceans, look at mountains, investigate camelsall these cre-
ated things are signs for humanity. The Koran gives the example of the
honey bee and says at the end of the refrain, at the end of many verses, that
this is a sign for people who think, for people who ponder, for people who
reflect. This is a constant refrain in the Koran and this is the guiding princi-
pal for the Islamic scientific traditionto go out and find.
Robert Kuhn: The same is true in the Old and New Testament as well.
Michael Schermer: I disagree with your distinction between how and why
questions, that only the former can be answered by science. Evolutionary
biologists ask ultimate why questions; for example, why do we like sweet
fatty foods? We havent answered that.
Nancey Murphy: Thats the ultimate why question in your life?
Michael Schermer: At the moment it is because Im trying to lose some
weight.
Muzaffar Iqbal: Well if thats your ultimate question. . .
Michael Schermer: Im a basic kind of guy, you know, I like my food.
Robert Kuhn: The point is a serious one. Can science answer ultimate why
questions?
Michael Schermer: Science can answer why as well as how questions. On
sweet fatty foods, the how is the physiology of taste. But when we want to
know why, we must explore our evolutionary history. Here is one kind of
why answer from evolution: foods that are high in energy value (calories)
and therefore vital for sustaining life are at once sweet tasting and high in
fat content. Assume that these foods are somewhat rare and hard to get, so
that in an evolutionary environment where there are long periods of

drought, our ancestors would have had trouble getting these kinds of highly
nutritious foods, and since one would want to store them up as much as pos-
sible, one would eat as much as one can of them. There is almost no satiation
point on these kinds of foods. Hence, those of our ancestors who had devel-
oped an affinity for sweet fatty foods would have had an advantage in sur-
viving the droughts, which would mean that over many generations, a taste
affinity for sweet fatty foods would be selected for. This becomes obvious
since those with the affinity for these foods would survive better than those
who did notand therefore those who like sweet fatty foods would be more
likely to procreate than those who did not. So thats kind of a why answer
from science.
Nancey Murphy: You are correct to say that you cant make a neat distinc-
tion and say that science deals with the how and theology deals with the
why, because science does deal with some of the whys as well as all of the
hows. But these still leaves open the kinds of why questions that Muzaffar
and I believe exist.
Michael Schermer: Moral questions; science isnt so good at answering
moral questions.
Nancey Murphy: Morality is one area, but the most important question is,
why is there anything rather than nothing?
Robert Kuhn: This is the singularly most fundamental question that
human minds can ask, and it is a why question not only unanswerable by sci-
ence, but not even addressable by science.
Michael Schermer: I have the answer right here (joke!)
Muzaffar Iqbal: I would like to distinguish between two kinds of why
questions. First is the why question of science: why is there hydrogen bond-
ing, why this 104.5 degree angle between hydrogen atoms; why do all honey
bees all over the world have always made hexagonal honey cells?
Michael Schermer: Because they tried lots of different shapes and sizes and
the best one that evolved.
Muzaffar Iqbal: These why questions are in the domain of science; these
are one kind of why question. The other kind of why question reaches up
and out to ultimate things: Why does the universe exist? This is another kind
of why question. So there are two kinds of why questions.
Nancey Murphy: Michael is right that current scientific work in cosmol-
ogy and cosmic origins have really muddied the theological water a bit.
The distinction between science and theology is not as clear as it would have
been 100 years ago where it seemed absolutely certain that science could
never begin to touch the question of where did the universe come from, why
is it here, why is it the way it is?
Muzaffar Iqbal: But that is the same kind of why as why is there hydrogen
bonding, just a more sophisticated version.
Michael Schermer: How about, why should there be something instead of
nothing? As weve said, you cannot get any bigger than that. Thats about
as deep as it goes.
Muzaffar Iqbal: Even in cosmology, were still dealing withafter the
beginning of the universethe existence of physical laws.
Michael Schermer: What would be before that?
Nancey Murphy: Boundaries have become so much messier because
although we used to be inclined to say that there could not have been any-
thing prior to the beginning of the universe, now we are not so sure
Robert Kuhn: We have universe models of expansion and collapse, per-
haps in endless cycles. We have multi-universe models, built on inflation
theory, where baby universes keep splitting off and forming new universes,
also perhaps endlessly. And we have multiverse models where different uni-
verses exist in different dimensions or on different branes (in different
dimensions).
Nancey Murphy: So now it is meaningful to ask what was there before the
Big Bang in our universe.
Robert Kuhn: But you always need the laws of physics.
Michael Schermer: They may not be ours though; the laws of physics may
be different in these different universes.
Nancey Murphy: But it is legitimate to ask the question, why are the laws
of physics just right for us to be here? One might say that that this is the ulti-
mate design question and only a religious answer can be provided. But you
can also hypothesize that this universe, the one in which we live, is just one
of innumerable other universes, so that no special answer is needed.
Robert Kuhn: This is part of a line of reasoning called the Anthropic Prin-
ciple and it has fascinated and infuriated many scientists and theologians. In
simple terms, the anthropic principle states that the reason that we human
beings just happen to be in a universe where all the laws are just perfect for
our existence, however improbable such an extraordinary coincidence at
first may seem, is that if this were not so, if our universe did not meet all
these stringent requirements, we would not be here to make the observation.
In other words, only in a perfect universe can we be wondering why our uni-
verse is so perfect. (As stated, this is the Weak anthropic principle. The
Strong anthropic principle dips further into the murky depths of universal
uniqueness by claiming that our universe must have those properties which
allow sentient life to develop within it.)
Nancey Murphy: So theologys unique claim to answer ultimate why ques-
tions is muddied up.
Michael Schermer: Nancey, you know everything I know about all this
stuff. So why do you believe and why dont I?
Nancey Murphy: It really comes down to my own personal experience:
growing up in a Christian home, praying and finding that there really seemed
to be somebody at the other end listening and responding and talking. Basi-
cally it comes down to a matter of religious experience. But as you are point-
ing out, if you hold to a belief position and you set out to make it rational
that is, you set out to find logical, analytically defensible reasons for your
beliefyou will have difficulty. So the reason why my basic motivation is
looking for reasons why God exists rather for reasons why God does not
exist really comes down to my personal history.
Muzaffar Iqbal: Within Islamic intellectual religion the word nufs is
associated with soul. Now nufs is physical, or a combination of physical
and nonphysical elements. When I say nonphysical I mean the ideas and
thoughts that run through your mind, not the neurons that are in your mind,
but the thoughts that neurons supposedly are carrying (as neuroscience
would tell us). Some element of physicality is also involved; so nufs is one
thing and ruah is another thingruah is also in Hebrew.
Robert Kuhn: Ruah in Hebrew can mean spirit or soul, whose ambiguous
essence can be either physical or nonphysical, or it can mean unambiguously
physical things like wind or breath.
Muzaffar Iqbal: So in Islam nufs and ruah are clearly distinguished. And
the Koran talks about these two as totally separate and distinct entities. I
think what neuroscience is doing is talking about nufs.
Michael Schermer: But neuroscience knows how thoughts are generated:
we have the little synapses between two neurons across which chemical
transmitters pass signals. If there are no synapses, there are no thoughts. So
how can thoughts get carried on into eternity?
Muzaffar Iqbal: I have a very clear picture of this. Neurons are carriers of
thought; they are not thought themselves. Neurons are one thing and
thought is another thing.
Michael Schermer: No.
Muzaffar Iqbal: To me they are.
Michael Schermer: To you they are because thats what you want to
believe. Youre not making any sense.
Muzaffar Iqbal: What neuroscientists are measuring through their instru-
ments are neurons; they are not measuring thought.
Robert Kuhn: Nancey, when you say you believe in a physicalist explana-
tion of the soul, you also say that this explanation is non-reductive, which
means you do not believe we can ever reduce this physical description of
the soul to the basic laws of physics and chemistry alone. Isnt Muzaffar also
arguing for a non-reductive explanation for the soul?
Nancey Murphy: What he was saying about neurons and thoughts being
different is a good example of a non-reductive approach. The firing of a neu-
ron is that which enables there to be a thoughtthere would be no thoughts
without the firing of neuronsbut we still have to make a conceptual dis-
tinction between a neuron firing and thinking.
Muzaffar Iqbal: Are we talking on the same wavelength? Im talking about
nufs and ruah and that there are two separate entities.
Nancey Murphy: No. I am committed to saying that everything mental, all
we speak about when we say mind, is physically constructed without need
of a nonphysical addition of any kind.
Robert Kuhn: Yet you do also believe that God designed, in one way or
another, the physical human brain and human mind to have spiritual as well
as mental capacities.
Nancey Murphy: Yes. I dont talk about spirit or soul as an entity or sub-
stance, but I do believe spiritual capacities emerge from our complex neural
equipment in a social/cultural context.
Robert Kuhn: Back to Michaels question about the resurrection, in which,
Nancey, you do believe. How would that occur?
Nancey Murphy: The resurrection is the part of Christian theology that we
can say least about. One underlying motivation why we believe it is going to
happen is a moral argument that there seems to need to be some life after
death if there is going to be justice in the universe. That argument has led
to the invention both of the concept of resurrection of the body and also
the concept of an immortal soul that lives on after death. But the only reason
Christians have for believing that the resurrection is literally going to happen
is the model of Jesus being raised from the dead, and the only clue that we
have about what that is supposed to be like is a set of strangely conflicting
stories about what the resurrected person of Jesus was like.
Michael Schermer: What if Jesus was in sort of a comatose state for three
days due to an epileptic seizure or some such thing?
Nancey Murphy: That would be comparable to the resuscitation of an ap-

parent corpse, who appears to be dead but is in fact alivethat is obviously
not what is meant. The resurrection body is not material in the same way at
all; the resurrection body is not composed of the same kind of material that
we know.
Robert Kuhn: Nancey, you certainly believe that all people who have died
are totally dead and completely devoid of consciousness or awareness of any
kind. Even those people who died as committed Christians are at this point
just as deadunconscious, non-consciousthey literally do not exist. The
hope of the dead, in your belief, lies entirely in a resurrection, a re-creation
of their lives in a different substance, sometime in the indefinite future.
Nancey Murphy: Right; there is no part of us that continues to exist after
death.
Robert Kuhn: And to regain consciousness God would have to resurrect
the body and recreate your thought patterns.
Nancey Murphy: Basically, yes; re-create us in a different form, composed
of a wholly different substance, because otherwise we would be equally sub-
ject to corruption and decay as we are in this life.
Muzaffar Iqbal: There are so many interesting points that you made. I
focus on your first point that the subject of the resurrection is the one area
of the Christian tradition about which we are least sure. So it is with the
Islamic tradition: this is an area about which we can hardly say anything
except in metaphors, which wont make any sense to you.
Michael Schermer: I like metaphors, but they have to be backed by
something.
Muzaffar Iqbal: But here are also the areas in which Islamic and contem-
porary Christianity are worlds apart. In the very fundamentals in the con-
cept of Jesus, for example, the Islamic belief is that he didnt die, he was
raised.
Nancey Murphy: So you and Michael, our friendly skeptic, agree on the
idea that Jesus didnt die?
Muzaffar Iqbal: Not quite. Michael doesnt believe in Jesus being raised by
God. The Islamic belief is that Jesus was not crucified and he was raised by
God, and he will come back towards the end of history to restore things.
Robert Kuhn: You differ there, Im sure.
Muzaffar Iqbal: That is a statement that comes right from the Koran and
that is a statement of faith.
Robert Kuhn: How do you see the relationship between science and theol-
ogy, say 100 years from now?
Michael Schermer: We would be having the same general discussion, but
we would be using different examples. Instead of talking about Gods provi-
dence in this area or that area dealing with some conundrums of science to-
day that we cant explain, we will have explained all these and God wont be
involved in them anymore.
Muzaffar Iqbal: I disagree with you. As a scientist I know that our means
of investigation has been sharpening as we progress; science will surely bring
us closer to reality, closer to understanding the nature of God than we are
now, closer to truth. 100 years from well be still closer to truth. Just con-
sider the one domain of neuroscience, which is so fascinating and opening
up so many new ways of thinking. If we had been sitting here having this
debate 100 years ago, we would have had a very different discussion. We
would have focused on the clockwork universe founded on the Newto-
nian physical concept of nature; we wouldnt have had any concept of quan-
tum physics.
Nancey Murphy: When you look at the history of Christianity you can see
that it has taken centuries for the Christian faith to be re-embodied, almost
reincarnated, in the different cultures through which it has passed. Chris-
tianity is still, in many circles, struggling to come to terms with the scientific
worldview, despite the fact that the scientific worldview is now 300 years
old. For example, many people I know still envision history in terms of an
imagined initial golden age, a catastrophic fall, and then basically no
progress until the end. Whereas the evolutionary worldview (especially
when you anchor it with Big Bang cosmology) gives us history that is pretty
much an amorphous nothing in the beginning, and then a slow ascent of
more and more complex forms, that ultimately results, whether by accident
or by design, in human beings. So Christianity is yet fully to take on board
that different, evolutionary sense of the timeline of universal history. It
may take another 100 years or more for Christianity in general to absorb
and internalize the very scientific issues that we are talking about today.
Robert Kuhn: To take a specific example, do you think that in 100 years
most Christians would not believe in the immortality of the soul?
Nancey Murphy: I think that it might take 100 years for that change to
take place.
Michael Schermer: To retreat a tiny bit from my own position, I sometimes
wonder if my preference for a scientific worldview, or even for a scientism
worldview is just a personality preference. Maybe I am just the kind of per-
son who doesnt need the religious answers: I dont get anything out of the-
ology, in fact I find it kind of unfulfilling. But I like science, I am a science
fanatic. I just like the scientific approach, its openendedness, the uncertainty
of the process, the challenge of participation. But all this personal prefer-
ence, of course, makes me wonder: well, maybe my reactions are the same
as yours. You just have a personality preference for the religious worldview
in the same way that I have a personality preference for the science world-
view. I wonder whether each of us comes to our own conclusions because
of our backgrounds.
Robert Kuhn: Im not sure where, in Michaels opinion, that would leave
objective reality, but I suspect that he would come down quickly on the side
of science.
Muzaffar Iqbal: Michael, I was intrigued by the way you phrased it. I
appreciate your love for science, but you seemed to say that to have a scien-
tific worldview means that one cannot also have a religious worldview.
Nancey Murphy: I dont think that psychological or sociological explana-
tions of our personal preferences are incompatible with epistemological
explanations of the nature of reality. I too love the scientific worldview; I
see its appeals equally, at least I think I do. So, for me, its a matter of. . .
Michael Schermer: . . ..making that one little step.
Nancey Murphy: Thats right.
Robert Kuhn: That step is not so little. Admitting even the possibility of
the viability of a theological worldview is a massive leap.
Muzaffar Iqbal: Granted that ones worldview, ones belief system,
is socially construed, but I submit there is more to it than just that. Social
existence is not the only determinant of what we believe; there is some-
thing more. True belief supersedes, or should supersede, ones personal life
experiences.
Michael Schermer: Maybe; maybe not.
Muzaffar Iqbal: It also depends on how much you know yourself, how
much intimate contact you have with your own being?
Michael Schermer: What does that mean?
Muzaffar Iqbal: When Dikhr sat in his room and said Im going to disbe-
lieve every single thing that has been given to me, and he went step-by-step
through his beliefs, he could not dismiss his own being as part of the process
because he knew that he was there.
Michael Schermer: Lets cut all the verbiage: why do you believe in God?
Muzaffar Iqbal: Because I know He exists. As Nancey said, He answers
prayers; when you talk to Him, He answers.
ROBERT KUHN END COMMENTARY

Science and religion claim to do much the same thing: provide deep insight
into the nature of the cosmos and our place or purpose in it. Science is
founded on fact and analysis; religion on faith and revelation. This episte-
mological gap, this methodological chasm between empiricism and scripture
for accessing truth, has meant that science, by requiring fact and rejecting
faith, has been considered an adversary or even a mortal enemy of religion.
Yet scholarly and popular interest in the relationship between science and
religion is accelerating, a trend that reflects an irrepressible human yearning
to discern the essence of reality and the meaning of human awareness. As the
evidence of history shows, it is a trend that will likely continue.
The relationship between science and religion, however complex, is not
symmetrical. Good religion cannot avoid science, since religion must deal
with physical things. But good science should not involve religion, since sci-
ence has no business with spiritual things.
Can they be harmonized, these two worldviews? It is polite to say Yes,
more honest, perhaps, to say No or at best Not yet. Should we seek
the unseekable, plumb the unfathomable? As human beings, we cannot do
otherwise.

Muzaffar Iqbal
My answer is yes. The general public sees the conveniences of modern life
that science produced, such as the enormous improvement in health care sys-
tems. The general public also appreciates advances in communications,
travel, agriculture, and in so many other areas.
In Islam, is there a difference between science and religion?

In Islam, the scientific tradition came into existence before the sixteenth
century from the same worldview and from the same sources from which
the religious tradition had come into existence earlier. Therefore, there was
no such thing as Islam and science. And we find no one in the Islamic
intellectual traditions before the sixteenth century writing about Islam and
science. The idea that segregates these two entities, science and religion, as
two separate entities did not exist in Islam. Both science and religion grew
out of the same thing; they came from the same root. Islam does not construe
the study of the natural world as a separate entity apart from religion.

I remember very clearly the beginning of my intellectually conscious life. I
had this huge restlessness inside myself to ask both the how and the why
questions. Why are we here? What are we doing? How does the universe
function? And most of all, how does my own body function? These were
fundamental questions, and I remember walking for hours and thinking all
these things. And I caught an answer; at one point I felt directed towards
chemistry; to understand chemistry would be a key to both the physical
and biological worlds. Everything in the body is construed chemically. The
deeper I went into chemistry, the more intriguing it became.
What other subjects besides science have contributed to your development?

Along with my interest in science came my interest in literature. I was fas-
cinated by a construction of reality that exists through literature outside the
real world, through fiction. I read all the classics. I was fascinated by Tol-
stoy, Dostoyevsky, Herman Melville, who still remains my favoritepeople
who have struggled with the turmoil in the human spirit, people who have
written about the inner struggle that takes place in the soul. Faulkner is
one of my favorites, too. So science and literature went hand in hand in my
life for several years. And so as I studied chemistry I also wrote novels.
Why did you become disillusioned with science?

By the time I finished my Ph.D., it was very clear to me that the answers
that Im seeking do not lie in science. My Ph.D. work was in the synthesis
of new chemicals, which turned out to be a disenchanting experience,
because at the end of the day, I was standing in front of a machine counting
the number of drops coming down. I was looking into these NMRnuclear
magnetic resonancespectras coming out and trying to make sense of the
behavior of these molecules. In science, I found none of those idealistic
things that you do in order to understand how nature works. Contemporary
science is controlled and construed by the market economy. At least 90
percent of the scientific research we do is to solve certain problems,
problems that are connected with doing our daily businessthe market
and what we want to sell. So we are not really seeking scientific truth at
a fundamental level. Sure, some scientists are discovering hidden secrets
of nature, but only a small fraction of real-world science is doing that. The
science I did wasnt part of that exploration. Most large-scale science
requires huge amounts of funding, and that funding comes from government
agencies or large commercial organizations (like pharmaceutical compa-
nies), which carry political baggage. So I got disenchanted with practical
science.

Because of the power of science and all the derivative technologies that are
dominating our lives, I think its very important to be aware of the fact that
there are numerous things in human existence that are beyond the realm of
science. Science, to a great extent, has an effect on the way we think, the
way we talk, the way we behave, the way we live. We need to be consciously
clear that science is not the totality of reality.
Michael Shermer
How did you become a card-carrying skeptic?
I got into skepticism after I had completed my doctorate in the history of
science. I also have a masters degree in experimental psychology, and I
was always interested in the paranormal, pseudoscience, and all kinds of
fringe groupsESP, UFOs, aliens, all that stuff. You have to be made of
wood not to be interested. Its fascinating. But what I discovered in science
is there is actually a method for discerning truth, a way of getting answers
to these questions, where you can find out if they are really true or not. So,
while I was teaching, I founded a public science lecture series at Caltech,
and I started to publish a magazine. But then Skeptic magazine, the lecture
series, Skeptic Society, and so forth, became so big that I quit teaching to
do all this full time. I then took this same genre of material and wrote some
books, which have done well. Its become something of a living.

My first two booksWhy People Believe Weird Things and How We
Believewere each dedicated, the first to Carl Sagan and the second to
Stephen J. Gould. These are my two intellectual mentors and heroes, as it
were, mainly because of their passionate love of science and their embracing
of science as a comprehensive worldview. I admire their ability to communi-
cate science to the general public in a way that is both stimulating and fulfill-
ing. I think they make science almost spiritual.
What do you think are recent key scientific advancements?

In terms of the biggest questions of alldealing with who we are, where
we came from, where were going, how the universe started and where its
goingthe biggest areas in contemporary science are cosmology and evolu-
tionary biology. These fields deal with the large, almost theological-type
questions that science is now daring to ask and trying to answer. In terms
of understanding how we know these thingshow our thoughts are formed,
where we get belief systems like religious belief systems or even scientific
belief systemsI think the action is in psychology, particularly the cognitive

sciences.
What is the general publics opinion about science these days?

We used to talk about the two cultures, the science culture of the physi-
cal and biological sciences and the non-science culture including the arts
and humanitieswith a large chasm in between. That gap has largely been
filled in recent years with popular science books that are read by the general
population. If you want to feel like part of the literati, you must have
some knowledge beyond pop culture and you really need to read Stephen
Hawking, Stephen J. Gould, Carl Sagan, and so forth. These scientists are
now a core of the body of general literature, and as a result science is trick-
ling down to the general public. Most educated people, non-scientists, now
know things like the Big Bang, black holes, wormholes, and punctuated
equilibrium. You see these things on The Simpsons. When youre on The
Simpsons, youve made it into popular culture.
Can science inform morality?

In terms of what is moral or immoral, that is a much more difficult ques-
tion for science to answer. I think that at the moment the best science can
do is to provide data to inform moral choices. This is not dispositive, but it
is important. Whether you can get scientific consensus on, say, whether
abortion is moral or amoral, is problematic. But you can certainly inform
your own personal choice by studying when the neural template is complete
and when thought can actually happen. If a being cant generate thought at
all, then we should be able to agree that the being is hardly human. Not
everyone would agree with that conclusion, of course, but at least everyone
should inform his or her personal choice with scientific data. Beyond that,
Im not sure.
What are the origins of morality?

The naturalistic fallacy that you cant go from what is to what ought to be
is largely true. But the old barriers are breaking down in the sense that sci-
ence is attempting to shed light on issues related to morality and ethics, at
least in terms of their origins. Why are we moral? This is the topic of my
forthcoming book, Why We Are Moral. What are the origins of morality?
Why are we the moral species? Are chimpanzees moral or immoral? What
about orangutans, gorillas, dogs? Arguably animals exhibit a modicum of
a moral sense: elephants seem to grieve when they lose one of their loved
ones. You see emotional components there. But in no species, other than
ours, do you see moral content. Why is that? Well, science is starting to
answer these kinds of questions.
Nancey Murphy
I started out as a psychology major, and when I was in college I was dis-
mayed by the form that psychology tookbehaviorism. That realization
launched me into philosophy. I studied the philosophy of science, but
toward the end of my doctoral program, I realized that I had two reasons
for wanting to change. One was that to do philosophy of science really well,
you needed to know physics, and I dont. But also I was exposed to an athe-
istic environment for the first time in my life. And the questions about the
rationality of religious belief were much more pressing for me personally
and also a whole lot harder to answerthan the questions about the ration-
ality of science. So I decided to switch to the philosophy of religion, and
whereas I was unwilling to try to go back and learn physics, I was willing
to take another degree and learn theology in order that I would know some-
thing about the content about which I was philosophizing.

The key contemporary excitement is in the philosophy of mind. This is the
field that traditionally examines the nature of the human person. For deca-
des, or even centuries, it was the sort of field that would just drive you crazy
with frustration because the arguments for dualism and against dualism, for
materialism and against materialism, were just cyclical if not repetitive. But
in recent years, with developments in the neural sciences, there have been
tremendous advances in the philosophy of mind. The primary result is that
very few philosophers now are body-soul or body-mind dualists [editors
note: literally believing in two radically different kinds of substances].
Instead, philosophers now understand our higher human capacities as a
product of our hyper-complex nervous systems and our culture. This means
that most philosophers now are physicalists or materialists [editors note:
meaning that only the physical or material is real and that the physical brain
is all the material one needs to construct the human mind]. But, at the same
time, most of the people in our culture are still dualistsor even tricoto-
mists, who believe that humans essence is comprised of three parts: a body,
a soul, and a spirit. So as the word leaks out, this switch to physicalism or
materialism is going to have a major cultural impact.
What is the philosophical method?

Philosophy is pretty much pure thinking. However, styles of thought have
changed quite a good deal from one era to another. I teach a course for doc-
toral students in which I look at the history of the development of the idea of
what is the philosophical method? And 10 weeks is not enough to cover it
all! There have also been major changes in theology. Some theologians
would say that the purpose of theology is merely to interpret the content of
the scriptures, others would say that theology is a discipline that reflects on
human religious awareness, and still others would assert that you should
be doing both all the time. My own entree into theology was taken from
my perspective in the philosophy of science, and I was asking, What are
the parallels in theology? And of course the data for theology differs from
the data for philosophy, just as the data for biology differs from the data
for physics. But what I was able to argue is that the structure of reasoning
is the same between theology and philosophy, or at least could be the same
in those two radically different kinds of disciplines. Your goal in both cases
is to form hypotheses that attempt to explain the data in the most coherent
and parsimonious way.
Are philosophy and science converging?

Anglo-American philosophy went through a period in the twentieth cen-
tury where it called itself analytic philosophy and it made a very sharp dis-
tinction between what philosophers do, which is to study conceptual issues,
and what scientists do, which is study to empirical issues. But in the last gen-
eration or so, it has become clear that it is not really possible to make that
sharp of a distinction. Our concepts evolve in light of new knowledge. And
so the most exciting work that is being done in philosophy right now is by
philosophers who are conscientiously taking on more scientific advancement
and asking: should not these new discoveries, new ways of thinking, make a
difference to the way that we philosophers have traditionally been talking
about things? For example, in considering the nature of the human person,
the old mind-body problem, philosophers are embracing the latest discov-
eries and theories of neuroscience. In our cultural heritage we have a strong
tradition that human beings are comprised of a body and a soul, but science
shows us that we dont need a soul to explain all of the things that human
beings do. And so all of us, including in my opinion theologians, simply have
to change our traditional conceptual resources for talking about human
nature.
What is the basic assumption of theology as it relates to science?

The basic organizing assumption is the notion that the universe is regular
enough and predictable enough so that science becomes worthwhile. Sup-
posedly, this idea came from the Judeo-Christian view of God. From this
perspective, God was not constrained by the laws of logic, so you wouldnt
be able to know what God had done in His creation simply by sitting in your
study and indulging in pure thinking. But if God is faithful and regular, as
we believe Him to be, the universe should therefore be regular enough and
predictable enough to make it worth studying. This is an important place
where the scientific traditions and Western theological traditions come
together. Of course, the major underlying assumption for the monotheistic

religionsChristian, Jewish, and Muslimis that God exists, that God is
in some sense personal, and God has personal interest in communicating
with us.
Can science replace religion?

Science could never replace religion because it has no capacity to do so.
Science simply describes what happens in naturalistic terms. What causes
what? Science seeks theoretical generalizations that can unify specific obser-
vations. This means that by nature science can never involve itself with any-
thing beyond the physical and can never approach ultimate reality, unless of
course the atheists are right and the universe itself is ultimate reality. Then
science is talking about ultimate reality. But science can never prove that
the universe itself is ultimate reality. So we will always need to answer the
question, what is ultimate reality? And while religions cannot answer this
question definitively, science by nature is blind to the issue of ultimate reality
[editors note: as long as the issue of ultimate reality is defined as admitting
the possibility of there being a nonphysical component or aspect of ultimate
reality].
Does God act through the laws of natural science?

By definition, all of the natural processes that we see appear to us as natu-
ral processes, so that as religious believers we have to infer that God is acting
through them. So even if we could be sent back in time, even if we could
watch the Big Bang happen at the most microscopic level, we still wouldnt
see the hand of God. We would simply see the Big Bang happening. If God
is involved in the affairs of the worldand I believe that He isHe must
operate on a different plane.

Why Ultimate Reality Works for Us:
Toward a Taxonomy of Possible Explanations
When I was 12, in the summer between seventh and eighth grade, a sudden
realization struck such fright that I strove desperately to blot it out, to eradi-
cate the disruptive idea as if it were a lethal mental virus. My body shud-
dered with dread; an abyss had yawned open. Five decades later I feel its
frigid blast still.
Why not Nothing?1 What if everything had always been Nothing? Not
just emptiness, not just blankness, and not just emptiness and blankness for-
ever, but not even the existence of emptiness, not even the meaning of blank-
ness, and no forever. Wouldnt it have been easier, simpler, more logical, to
have Nothing rather than something?2
The question would become my life partner, and even as I learned the rich
philosophical legacy of Nothing,3 I do not pass a day without its disquieting
presence. I am haunted. Here we are, human beings, conscious and abruptly
self-aware, with lives fleetingly short, engulfed by a vast, seemingly oblivious
cosmos of unimaginable enormity.4 While Why Not Nothing? may seem
impenetrable, Why This Universe? revivified by remarkable advances in
cosmology, may be accessible. While they are not at all the same question,
perhaps if we can begin to decipher the latter, we can begin to decrypt the
former. Why This Universe? assumes there is Something, and seeks the
root reason why it works for us.
I am the creator and host of the PBS television series Closer To Truth, and
for the past several years I have been bringing together scientists and schol-
ars to examine the meaning and implications of state-of-the-art science.
The next Closer To Truth series, now in production, focuses on cosmology
and fundamental physics, the philosophy of cosmology, and the philosophy
of religion, and thus I have been interviewing cosmologists, physicists, phi-
losophers, and theologians, asking them, among other questions, Why This
Universe? From their many answers, and from my own night musings, I
have constructed a taxonomy5 that I present here as a heuristic to help get

our minds around this ultimate and perennial question.
The Problem to be Solved

In recent years, the search for scientific explanations of reality has been
energized by increasing recognition that the laws of physics and the con-
stants that are embedded in these laws all seem exquisitely fine tuned to
allow, or to enable, the existence of stars and planets and the emergence of
life and mind. If the laws of physics had much differed, if the values of their
constants had much changed, or if the initial conditions of the universe had
much varied, what we know to exist would not exist, since all things of size
and substance would not have formed. Stephen Hawking presented the
problem this way:
Why is the universe so close to the dividing line between collapsing again and
expanding indefinitely? In order to be as close as we are now, the rate of expan-
sion early on had to be chosen fantastically accurately. If the rate of expansion
one second after the big bang had been less by one part in 1010, the universe
would have collapsed after a few million years. If it had been greater by one part
in 1010, the universe would have been essentially empty after a few million
years. In neither case would it have lasted long enough for life to develop. Thus
one either has to appeal to the anthropic principle or find some physical explan-
ation of why the universe is the way it is.6
To Roger Penrose, the extraordinary degree of precision (or fine tuning)

that seems to be required for the Big Bang of the nature that we appear to
123
observe. . .in phase-space-volume terms, is one part in 1010 at least. Pen-
rose sees two possible routes to addressing this question. . .We might take
the position that the initial condition was an act of God. . .or we might seek
some scientific/mathematical theory. His strong inclination, he says, is
certainly to try to see how far we can get with the second possibility.7
To Steven Weinberg, it is peculiar that the calculated value of the vac-
uum energy of empty space (due to quantum fluctuations in known fields
at well-understood energies) is larger than observationally allowed by
1056, and if this were to be cancelled by simply including a suitable cos-
mological constant in the Einstein field equations [General Relativity], the
cancellation would have to be exact to 56 decimal places. Weinberg states
that No symmetry argument or adjustment mechanism could be found that
would explain such a cancellation.8
To Leonard Susskind, the best efforts of the best physicists, using our
best theories, predict Einsteins cosmological constant incorrectly by 120
orders of magnitude! Thats so bad, he says, its funny. He adds that
for a bunch of numbers, none of them particularly small, to cancel one
another to such precision would be a numerical coincidence so incredibly
absurd that there must be some other answer.9
Ultimate Reality: Toward a Taxonomy of Possible Explanations 237
The problem to be solved is even broader than this. Sir Martin Rees, Brit-
ains Astronomer Royal, presents just six numbers that he argues are nec-
essary for our emergence from the Big Bang. A minuscule change in any one
of these numbers would have made the universe and life, as we know them,
impossible.10
What to make of our astonishingly good fortune? In 1938, Paul Dirac saw
coincidences in cosmic and atomic physics;11 in 1961, Robert Dicke noted
that the age of the universe now is conditioned by biological factors;12
and in 1973, Brandon Carter used the phrase Anthropic Principle, which
in his original formulation simply draws attention to such uncontroversial
truths as that the universe must be such as to admit, at some stage, the
appearance of observers within it.13 Others then took up this oddly evoca-
tive idea, calling what seems to be a tautological statement the Weak
Anthropic Principle, as distinguished from what they defined as the
Strong Anthropic Principle, which makes the teleological claim that the
universe must have those properties that allow or require intelligent life to
develop.14 Steven Weinberg used anthropic reasoning more rigorously to
provide an upper bound on the vacuum energy (cosmological constant)
and to give some idea of its expected value. He argued that it is natural
for scientists to find themselves in a subuniverse in which the vacuum energy
takes a value suitable for the appearance of scientists.15
Although the Anthropic Principle (Weak) appears perfectly obvious
some say that a logical tautology cannot be an informative statement about
the universeinverting its orientation may elicit explanatory surprise: What
we can expect to observe must be restricted by the conditions necessary for
our presence as observers. Such expectations then suggest, perhaps inevi-
tably, the startling insight that there could be infinite numbers of separate
regions, domains, or universes, each immense in its own right, each with
different laws and valuesand because the overwhelming majority of these
regions, domains, or universes would be non-life-permitting, it would be
hardly remarkable that we are not in them and do not observe them. One
could conclude, therefore, that while our universe seems to be so incredibly
fine-tuned for the purpose of producing human beings, and therefore so spe-
cially designed for us, it is in fact neither.
Since the 1970s, theists have come to use the fine-tuning argument as
empirical evidence of a creator, assuming that there are only two explana-
tions: God and chance. But posing such a stark choice between God and
chance is to construct a false and misleading dichotomy. Since the Anthropic
Principle leads to multiple universes, a multiverse, other possible explana-
tions are made manifest. I have documented 27 such explanations, a constel-
lation of what Ill call ultimate reality generators, in a kind of typology of
cosmological conjecture. Im sure there are more, or some could be subdi-
vided, but generally the taxonomy can be structured with four overarching
categories: One Universe Models, Multiple Universe Models, Nonphysical
Causes, and Illusions. My claim is that the set of these four categories is uni-
versally exhaustive, meaning that whatever the true explanation of Why
This Universe?, it would have to be classified into one (or more) of these
categories (irrespective of whether we ever discover or discern that true
explanation).16
Yet the set of the 27 possible explanations which compose the categories
is not universally exhaustive, nor is there practical hope of making it so:
always, unless we can ever answer the Why This Universe? question with
certainty and finality (a dubious prospect), there will be other explanations
out there that cannot be logically excluded. Furthermore, while it might
seem tidy for these explanations to be mutually exclusivemeaning that
no two can both be rightthis simplicity cannot be achieved. The explana-
tions, and their categories, can be combined in any number of waysin
series, in parallel, and/or nested.
The 27 possible explanations that follow, these ultimate reality genera-
tors, are based on criteria that are logically permissible, a logic that for some
may seem lenient. I do not, however, confuse speculation with science. Log-
ical possibilities should not be mistaken for scientific theories or even scien-
tific possibilities. 17 A physicists speculations do not morph, as if by
cosmological alchemy or professional courtesy, from metaphysics into
established physics. That said, some of the more intriguing metaphysical
possibilities are being proffered by physicists.18
I provide no critique of the explanations; all are subject to withering
attacks from experts, as well they should be. And to the objection that the
lines of the taxonomy are drawn too sharply, or that the explanations over-
lap, I can only empathize and encourage the objector to offer a more refined
version.
1. One Universe Models

We begin with traditional nontheist explanations (traditionally, one
recalls, there was only one universe), which also include a radically nontra-
ditional explanation, and the philosophical positions that the question
makes no sense, and that even if it did, it still has no answer.
1.1 Meaningless Question. Big Why questions like Why This Uni-
verse? are words without meaning and sounds without sense; this content
emptiness is epitomized by the ultimate Why question, Why Not Noth-
ing?19 As a matter of language, to ask for the ultimate explanation of exist-
ence is to ask a question that has no meaning. Human semantics and syntax,
and perhaps the human mind itself, are utterly incapable of attaching intelli-
gibility to this concept. Words transcend boundaries of ordinary usage so as
to lose their grounding.20 The deep incoherence here is confirmed by the fact
that only two kinds of possible answers are permissiblean infinite regress
of causation or something that is inherently self-existingneither of which

is confirmable or even cogent. Any apparent answers, when unpacked prop-
erly, are but tautological restatements of the original question.
1.2 Brute Fact. The question makes sense but no answer is possible, even
in principle. There has been and is only one universe and its laws seem
fine-tuned to human existence just because this is the way it is; the universe
and all its workings stand as a brute fact21 of existence, a terminus of a
series of explanations that can brook no further explanation.22 All things
just happen to be, and there is no hint of necessity to reduce this arbitrari-
ness.23
1.3 Necessary/Only Way. There has been and is only one universe and its
laws seem fine-tuned to human existence because, due to the deep essence of
these laws, they must take the form that they do, and the values of their con-
stants must be the only quantities they could have. It could never be the case
that these laws or values could have any other form or quantity. Finding this
deep essence is the hope of Grand Unification Theory or Theory of Every-
thing; in technical terms, there would be no free parameters in the math-
ematical equations, all would be determined, derived, or deduced from
fundamental principles.24 As for the existence of life and mind in this only-
way explanation, the laws of biology must be embedded within the laws of
physics, either inextricably or by happenstance (and we are fortunate, wildly
fortunate, I guess).
1.4 Almost Necessary/Limited Ways. Physical laws have only a small
range in which they can vary, such that the number of possible universes is
highly constrained. This means that what would appear on the surface to
be most improbable, i.e., a universe that just happens to be hospitable for life
and mind, is in its deep structure most probable. (As with 1.3, of which this
is a variant, the presence of life and mind cries out for explanation.)
1.5 Temporal Selection. Even though physical laws or the values of their
constants may change, regularly or arbitrarily, we have been living during
(or at the end of) an extended period of time when these laws and values
happen to have been, for some reason or for no reason, within a range con-
sistent with the existence of stars and planets and the emergence of life and
mind. This temporal selection can operate during periods of time following
one Big Bang in a single universe, or during vastly more periods of time fol-
lowing sequential Big Bangs in an oscillating single universe of endless
expansions and contractions.
1.6 Self-Explaining. The universe is self-creating and self-directing, and
therefore self-explaining. In Paul Davies formulation, the emergence of con-
sciousness (human and perhaps other) somehow animates a kind of back-
ward causation to select from among the untold laws and countless values
that seem possible at the beginning of the universe to actualize those that
would prove consistent with the later evolution of life and mind. In this tele-
ological schema, the universe and mind would eventually meld and become
One, so that it could be the case that the purpose of the universe is for the
universe to engineer its own self-awareness.25
Note: Quentin Smith theorizes that the universe caused itself to begin to
exist, by which he means that the universe is a succession of states, each
state caused by earlier states, and that the Big Bang singularity prevents there
from being a first instant, such that in the earliest hour, there are infinitely
many zero-duration instantaneous states of the universe, each caused by ear-
lier states, but with no earliest state.26 This model, like other atheistic mech-
anisms that obviate the need for a First Cause or preclude the possibility that
God exists, could empower any of these One Universe Models. Similarly, if
information is somehow fundamental to reality (as opposed to it being a
human construct to represent reality), an idea defended by Seth Lloyd (It
from Bit), information per se would undergird or endow these One Uni-
verse models (and, for that matter, Multiverse Models as well).27 Independ-
ently, should limitless domains of our possibly infinite universe exist beyond
our visible horizon,28 these domains would still be included in One Universe
Modelswe would have an inestimably larger universe to be sure, but we
would still have only one universe to explain.
2. Multiple Universe Models (Multiverse Models)

There are innumerable universes (and/or, depending on ones definition of
universe, causally disconnected domains within one spatiotemporal set-
ting), each bringing forth new universes ceaselessly, boundlessly, in a multi-
verse.29 Whats more, there are perhaps immeasurable extra dimensions,
with all universes and dimensions possessing different sets of laws and val-
ues in capricious combinations and yet all somehow coexisting in the unend-
ing, unrolling fabric of the totality of reality. Our reality is the only reality,
but there is a whole lot more of it than ever imagined. This means that, in
the context of this multi-universe, multi-dimensional amalgam, the mean-
ingful fine-tuning of our universe is a mirage. The fine-tuning itself is real,
but it is not the product of purpose. It is instead a statistical surety that is
predicted by force, since only in a universe in which observers exist could
observers observe (the Weak Anthropic Principle).30 Thus, the laws and val-
ues engendering sentient life in our universe are not a fortuitous coinci-
dence, but rather a guaranteed certainty that are entirely explained by
physical principles and natural law.
2.1 Multiverse by Disconnected Regions (Spatial). Generated by funda-
mental properties of spacetime that induce mechanisms to spawn multiple
universesfor example, eternal chaotic inflation (i.e., unceasing phase tran-
sitions and bubble nucleations of spacetime) which causes spatial domains
to erupt, squeeze off in some way, expand (perhaps), and separate them-
selves forever without possibility of causal contact (Alan Guth,31 Andre
Linde,32 Alex Vilenkin).33
2.2 Multiverse by Cycles (Temporal). Generated by an endless sequence

of cosmic epochs, each of which begins with a bang and ends with a
crunch. In the Steinhardt-Turok model, it involves cycles of slow acceler-
ated expansions followed by contractions that produce the homogeneity,
flatness, and energy needed to begin the next cycle (with each cycle lasting
perhaps a trillion years).34 Roger Penrose postulates a conformal cyclic
cosmology, where an initial space-time singularity can be represented as a
smooth past boundary to the conformal geometry of space-time. With con-
formal invariance both in the remote future and at the Big-Bang origin, he
argues, the two situations are physically identical, so that the remote future
of one phase of the universe becomes the Big Bang of the next. He calls his
suggestion outrageous.35
2.3 Multiverse by Sequential Selection (Temporal). Generated by fertile
black holes out of which new universes are created continuously by bounc-
ing into new Big Bangs (instead of collapsing into stagnant singularities).
Applying principles of biological evolution to universal development, and
assuming that the constants of physics could change in each new universe,
Lee Smolin hypothesized a cosmic natural selection that would favor black
holes in sequential (offspring) universes, thus increasing over time the
number of black holes in sequential universes, because the more black holes
there are, the more universes they generate.36 A multiverse generating sys-
tem that favors black holes might also favor galaxies and stars (rather than
amorphous hydrogen gas), but jumping all the way to favor life and mind
is a leap of larger magnitude.
2.4 Multiverse by String Theory (with Minuscule Extra Dimensions).
String theory postulates a vast landscape of different false vacua, with
each such ground state harboring different values of the constants of
physics (such that, on occasion, some are consistent with the emergence of
life). Structured with six, seven, or more extra dimensions of subatomic size,
string theory thus generates its own kind of multiple universes.37
2.5 Multiverse by Large Extra Dimensions. Generated by large, macro-
scopic extra dimensions which exist in reality (not just in mathematics), per-
haps in infinite numbers, forms, and structures, yet which cannot be seen or
apprehended (except perhaps by the leakage of gravity).38 Multiple uni-
verses generated by extra dimensions may also be cyclical.39
2.6 Multiverse by Quantum Branching or Selection. Generated by the
many-worlds interpretation of quantum theory as formulated by Hugh
Everett and John Wheeler, in which the world forks at every instant so that
different and parallel histories are forming continuously and exponen-
tially, with all of them existing in some meta-reality.40 This means that
whenever any quantum object is in any quantum state, a new universe will
form so that in this perpetual process an incalculable number of parallel uni-
verses come to be, with each universe representing each unique possible state
of every possible object. Stephen Hawking has conceptualized this
staggering cascade of branching universes as a kind of retro-selection, in

which current decisions or observations in some sense select from immense
numbers of possible universal histories, which exist simultaneously, re-
present every state of every object, and which the universe has somehow
already lived.41
2.7 Multiverse by Mathematics. Generated by Max Tegmarks hypothesis
that every conceivable mathematical form or structure corresponds to a
physical parallel universe which actually exists.42
2.8 Multiverse by All Possibilities. Generated by the hypothesis that every
logically possible mode of existence is a real thing and really exists, that pos-
sible worlds are as real as the actual world, and that being merely possible
rather than actual just means existing somewhere else (David Lewiss
modal realism;43 Robert Nozicks principle of fecundity).44
Note: To Paul Davies, The multiverse does not provide a complete
account of existence, because it still requires a lot of unexplained and very
convenient physics to make it work. There has to be, he says, a
universe-generating mechanism, and some sort of ingenious selection
still has to be made, and that unless all possible worlds really exist (2.7
and 2.8), a multiverse which contains less than everything implies a rule
that separates what exists from what is possible but does not exist, a rule
that remains unexplained. And regarding all possible worlds really
existing, Davies states, A theory which can explain anything at all really
explains nothing.45 To Quentin Smith, it cannot yet be determined if a mul-
tiverse, which he says is speculation not science, is even logically possible.46
3. Nonphysical Causes
This universe, however unfathomable, is fine-tuned to human existence
because a nonphysical Cause made it this way. The Cause may be a Person,
Being, Mind, Force, Power, Entity, Unity, Presence, Principle, Law, Proto-
Law, Stuff, or Feature. It is likely transcendent and surely irreducible; it
exists beyond the boundaries and constraints of physical law, matter,
energy, space, and time; and while it is the Cause, it does not itself have or
need a Cause. There is blur and overlap among these explanations, yet each
is sufficiently different in how it claims to generate ultimate reality, and suf-
ficiently opposed to the claims of its competitors, as to warrant distinction.
3.1 Theistic Person. A Supreme Being who in Christian philosophy is por-
trayed as incorporeal, omnipotent, omniscient, perfectly free, perfectly
good, necessarily existent, and the creator of all things, and who is also a
person with person-like characteristics such as beliefs, intents, and pur-
poses; a divine being (as defined by Richard Swinburne)47, a theistic
God (as defended by Alvin Plantinga) 48 with a nature. 49 In Judeo-
Christian tradition, the existence-as-essence Name offered to MosesI
am that I am.50 In Islamic philosophy, the concepts of Unity, the Absolute,
and Beyond-Being.51 In modern thought, God as underlying fundamental

reality, entailing the meaning of universe and life;52 God as working through
special divine action, interventionist or noninterventionist.53 The affirmative
creative act of this theistic God may bring the universe into being by a crea-
tion from nothing (creatio ex nihilo),54 or may be a continuing creative sus-
tenance of the universe (creatio continua), or both. A theistic explanation of
ultimate reality is logically compatible with both One Universe and Multi-
verse Models.55
3.2 Ultimate Mind. A Supreme Consciousness that hovers between a per-
sonal theistic God and an impersonal deistic first cause; a nonpareil artist
who contemplates limitless possibilities; a quasi Being with real thoughts
who determines to actualize certain worlds.56 Understanding this kind of
God does not begin with an all-powerful person, but rather with an unfa-
thomable reservoir of potentialities as expressed in all possible universes, for
which Ultimate Mind is the only and necessary basis.
3.3. Deistic First Cause. An impersonal Primal Force, Power, or Law that
set the universe in motion but is neither aware of its existence nor involved
with its activity. The idea requires initializing powers but rejects beliefs,
intents and purposes, active consciousness, self-awareness, or even passive
awareness. There is no interaction with creatures (humans).57
3.4 Pantheistic Substance. Pantheism equates God with nature in that God
is all and all is God.58 The universe (all matter, energy, forces, and laws) is
identical with a ubiquitous metaphysical entity or stuff, which to Baruch
Spinoza possessed unlimited attributes and was the uncaused substance
of all that exists. The pantheistic God, nonthesitic and impersonal, is the
paragon of immanence in that it is neither external to the world nor tran-
scendent of it. In diverse forms, pantheism appears in Western philosophy
(Plotinuss One, Hegels Absolute), process theology, and some Eastern
religions (Taoism; later Buddhism; and Hinduism, where Brahman is all of
existence).59 Pantheism finds a unity in everything that exists, and in this
unity, a sense of the divine.60
3.5 Spirit Realms. Planes, orbs, levels, domains, and dimensions of spirit
existence as the true, most basic form of reality. Described by mystics, medi-
ums, and occult practitioners, and exemplified by mystic, polytheistic, and
animistic religions, these spirit realms are populated by the presence of sun-
dry spirit beings, and laced with complex spiritual rituals and schemas (some
good, some evil).61
3.6 Consciousness as Cause. Pure Consciousness as the fundamental stuff
of reality, out of which the physical world is generated or expressed.62 It is
the explanation claimed or typified by certain philosophical and quasi-
theological systems, Eastern religions, mystic religions, and cosmic con-
sciousness devotees, and by some who accept the actuality of paranormal
phenomena.63 For example, Buddhism64 and Rigpa in Tibetan Buddhism
(omniscience or enlightenment without limit).65 Even some physicists pon-

der the pre-existence of mind.66
3.7 Being and Non-Being as Cause. Being and Non-Being as ineffable
dyadic states that have such maximal inherent potency that they (either
one) can somehow bring all things into existence. In Taoism, the invisible
Tao (Way) gives rise to the universe; all is the product of Being and Being
is the product of Not-being.67 In Hinduism, the Brahman (unchanging,
infinite, immanent, transcendent).68 The Ground of All Being; Great Chain
of Being; Great Nest of Spirit.69
3.8 Abstract Objects/Platonic Forms as Cause. Although philosophers
deny that abstract objects can have causal effects on concrete objects
(abstract objects are often defined as causally inert), their potential, say as
a collective, to be an explanatory source of ultimate reality cannot be logi-
cally excluded. (This assumes that abstract objects, like mathematics, uni-
versals, and logic, manifest real existence on some plane of existence not in
spacetime.) Platonic Forms, abstract entities that are perfect and immutable
and exist independently of the world of perceptions, are occasionally sus-
pected of possessing some kind of causal or quasi-casual powers.70
3.9 Principle or Feature of Sufficient Power. An all-embracing cosmic
principle beyond being and existence, such as Platos the Good, John Les-
lies ethical requiredness, 71 Nicholas Reschers cosmic values,72 or
some defining characteristic so central to ultimate reality and so supremely
profound that it has both creative imperative and causative potency to bring
about being and existence. Derek Parfit says it would be no coincidence if,
Of the countless cosmic possibilities, one both has a very special feature,
and is the possibility that obtains. He calls this special feature the Selec-
tor, and two candidates he considers are being law-governed and having
simple laws.73
Note: Cyclical universes of Eastern religious traditions can be consistent
with all of these nonphysical ultimate reality generators,74 although the
Western Theistic Person (3.1) would normally be excluded.
4. Illusions
This universe, everything we think we know, is not real. Facts are fiction;
nothing is fundamental; all is veneer, through and through.
4.1 Idealism. As argued by generations of idealistic philosophers, all
material things are manifestations of consciousness or assemblies of mind,
so that while the physical world appears to be composed of non-mental
stuff, it is not.75
4.2 Simulation in Actual Reality. We exist merely or marginally in some-
ones or somethings simulation, in an artificial world that actually exists in
terms of having physical particles and forces and galaxies and stars, but
whose entirety is not what it seems because it is derivative, not original.
Andre Linde analyzes baby universe formation and then asks, Does this
mean that our universe was created not by a divine design but by a physicist
hacker?76 Paul Davies speaks of fake universes, and of those beings who
created them as false gods; he ponders that if multiple universes really
exist, the great majority of them may be fakes because some of them (there
are so many) would have spawned, at some time or another, unthinkably
superior beings who would have had the capacity to create these fake uni-
versesand once they could have done so they would have done so, creating
immensely many fake universes and thereby swamping the real ones.77
4.3 Simulation in Virtual Reality. We exist merely or marginally in some-
ones or somethings simulation, in an artificial sensory construction that is
an imitation of what reality might be but is not; for example, a Matrix-like
world in which all perceptions are fed directly into the human nervous sys-
tem (brains in vats) or into our disembodied consciousness. Alternatively,
we exist as processes generated by pure software running inside cosmic
quantum supercomputers.78
4.4 Solipsism. The universe is wholly the creation of ones own mind and
thereby exists entirely in and for that mind.79
A Work in Process
If it seems improbable that human thought can make distinguishing
progress among these categories and explanations, consider the formulating
progress already made. Two centuries ago, the available options were
largely Nonphysical Causes (category 3), structured simplistically. A century
ago, scientists assumed that our own galaxy, the Milky Way, was the entire
universe. Today we grasp the monumental immensity of the cosmos.
Why Not Nothing? A taxonomy of ultimate reality generators for Why
This Universe? starts explorations.80 Nonetheless, there remains a great
gulf between the two questions: even if we eventually nail the actual explan-
ation of this universe, we may still have made no progress on why there is
something rather than nothing.81
Cosmological visions are overwhelming, but I am oddly preoccupied with
something else. How is it that we humans have such farsighted understand-
ing after only a few thousand years of historical consciousness, only a few
hundred years of effective science, and only a few decades of cosmological
observations? Maybe its still too early in the game. Maybe answers have
been with us all along. This is a work in process, and diverse contributions
are needed.82
The author thanks John Leslie, Michael Shermer, Quentin Smith, and
Keith Ward for their comments and suggestions, and Skeptic Magazine in
which this essay appears.
Notes
1. Quentin Smith would reformulate my awestruck Why not Nothing? so as to
satisfy an analytical philosopher. He points out (in a personal communication) that it
is a logical fallacy to talk about nothing, to treat nothing as if it were some-
thing (with properties). To say there might have been nothing implies it is pos-
sible that there is nothing. There is means something is. So there is nothing
means something is nothing, which is a logical contradiction. His suggestion is to
remove nothing and replace it by not something or not anything, since one
can talk about what we mean by nothing by referring to something or anything,
of which there are no instances (i.e., the concept of something has the property
of not being instantiated). The commonsense way to talk about nothing is to talk
about something and negate it, to deny that there is something. Smith would rewrite
my lines like this: There is something. But why? There might not ever have been
anything at all. Why are there existents rather than no existents? As for Nothing
being easier, Smith says that the word connotes that it would have been easier
for God, and God he does not like at all. So my passage becomes, Wouldnt it
have been easier if there were not even one thing, in the sense that there is no causal
activity, whereas things require causes to bring them into existence? Wouldnt it have
been simpler in the sense that there are zero things if there are no things, and that as a
number zero is simpler than one, two, three, or any other number? Wouldnt it
have been more logical in the sense that the laws of logic do not imply there are
things, and if there are things, that fact is inexplicable in terms of the laws of logic?
(For euphony, as well as simplicity, I will continue to use NothingQuentin, my
apologies.)
2. No argument, only the fact of the matter, dissuades me from continuing to
sense, following Leibniz, that Nothing, no universe, is simpler and easier, the least
arbitrary and most logical descriptor of ultimate reality (Gottfried Leibniz, The Prin-
ciples of Nature and Grace, 1714). An empty world, Nothing, would then be fol-
lowed by, in order of increasing complexity, illogic, and oddity: infinite numbers of
universes (for parsimony, all is second only to none), one universe (its all we
know but inconceivable to explain), few-but-not-many universes (maybe theres
some simple generating principle at work), innumerable-but-finite numbers of uni-
verses, and many-but-not-innumerable universes. Peter van Inwagen argues that
since there can be infinitely many non-empty worlds (populated by things, any things
at all), but only one empty world (Nothing), the likelihood that any given world is
non-empty (not Nothing) is maximally probable (i.e., the probability of Nothing is
zero). Peter van Inwagen, Why Is There Anything at All? Proceedings of the Aris-
totelian Society (1996): 95110. The argument is fascinating and hinges on two
assumptions: (i) all possible populated worlds have the same probability and (ii) the
probability of the empty world (Nothing) is no different than that of any of the infin-
ite number of possible populated worlds. While recognizing that the empty world is
vastly, even infinitely, easier to describe, van Inwagen reasons that this should not
increase its relative probability unless one is covertly thinking that there is some-
thing that is outside the Reality. . .[like] a pre-cosmic selection machine, not a part
of Reality (for Leibniz this was God). . .or something that determines that there
being nothing is the default setting on the control-board of Reality. But there
could be no such thing, van Inwagen argues, for nothing is outside Reality, and
he concludes, tentatively, that the simplicity of the empty world provides us with no
reason to regard it as more probable than any other possible world. Yet I find it hard
to get out of my head the sense that the a priori probability of an empty world (Noth-
ing) is equal to that of any possible populated world (Something), in that to have
Something seems to require a second step (and likely many more), a process or rule
or capricious happening that generates whatever is populating whatever world. If
so, any given possible world (Something) would be less parsimonious than the empty
world (Nothing), which would mean that the probability of the empty world (Noth-
ing) would be greater than zero.
3. Martin Heidegger famously called Why is there something rather than noth-
ing? the fundamental question of metaphysics. Martin Heidegger, Martin, Intro-
duction to Metaphysics (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1959); Leibniz, 1714;
Derek Parfit, Why Anything? Why This? London Review of Books. January 22,
1998, 247 and February 5, 225; van Inwagen, 1996 (van Inwagen says we can
make some progress. . .if we do not panic); John Leslie, Modern Cosmology and
Philosophy (Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 1998); Bede Rundle, Why is there
Something Rather than Nothing (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2004) (Rundle seeks
what might be possible in areas where it is so easy to think that we have come to a
dead end); John Leslie, Review of Why is there Something Rather than Nothing
by Bede Rundle, MIND, January 2005; Thomas Nagel, Review of Why is there
Something Rather than Nothing by Bede Rundle, Times Literary Supplement, May
7, 2005; Nothing, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, http://plato.stanford.
edu/entries/nothingness/; Erik Carlson and Erik J. Olsson, The Presumption of
Nothingness, Ratio (XIV, 2001): 203221; Robert Nozick, 1981. Why is there
Something Rather than Nothing, Ch. 2 in Philosophical Explanations (Cambridge,
MA: Harvard University Press, 1981); Nozicks aim is to loosen our feeling of
being trapped by a question with no possible answer. He says that the question
cuts so deep, however, that any approach that stands a chance of yielding an answer
will look extremely weird. Someone who proposes a non-strange answer shows
he didnt understand the question. Only one thing, he says, could leave noth-
ing at all unexplained: a fact that explains itself. He calls this explanatory
self-subsumption.
4. To Quentin Smith, grasping the universe as a world-whole and asking Why?
engenders global awe, feeling-sensations that tower and swell over us in response to
the stunning immensity of it all. The more we consider this ultimate question of exist-
ence, he believes, the more our socio-culture would improve. (Personal communica-
tion and Quentin Smith, The Felt Meanings of the World: A Metaphysics of
Feeling. (West Lafayette, Indiana: Purdue University Press, 1986).) Arthur Witherall
argues that a feeling of awe [wonder, astonishment, and various other affective
states] at the existence of something rather than nothing is appropriate and desir-
able, perhaps because there is a fact-transcendent meaning to the existence of the
world. (Arthur Witherall, Forthcoming, Journal of Philosophical Researchhttp://
www.hedweb.com/witherall/existence.htm, 2006). Santayana describes existence as
logically inane and morally comic and a truly monstrous excrescence and super-
fluity. (George Santayana, Scepticism and Animal Faith (New York: Dover Publica-
tions, 1955), 48).
5. This is new territory, and the first step in methodical exploration is often to
construct a taxonomy. How could we (i) discern and describe all possible
explanations of ultimate reality (devised by human intelligence or imagined by

human speculation), and then (ii) classify and array these possible explanations into
categories so that we might assess and compare their essence, efficacy, explanatory
potency, and interrelationships?
6. Stephen Hawking, Quantum Cosmology, in The Nature of Space and Time,
ed Stephen Hawking and Roger Penrose (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press,
1996), 8990.
7. Roger Penrose, The Road to Reality: A Complete Guide to the Laws of the
Universe (New York: Knopf, 2005), 72632, 76265. Penroses analysis of the
extraordinary specialness of the Big Bang is based on the Second Law of thermo-
dynamics and the absurdly low entropy (i.e. highly organized) state of the very
early universe.
8. Steven Weinberg, Living in the Multiverse, in Universe or Multiverse, ed.
Bernard Carr (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2007).
9. Leonard Susskind, The Cosmic Landscape: String Theory and the Illusion of
Intelligent Design (Boston MA: Little, Brown, 2005), 66, 7882.
10. Martin Rees, Just Six Numbers: The Deep Forces That Shape the Universe
(New York: Basic Books, 2000). Following are Reess six numbers.
N = 1036, the ratio of the strength of electric forces that hold atoms together to the
force of gravity between them, such that if N had just a few less zeros, only a short-
lived and miniature universe could exist, which would have been too young and too
small for life to evolve.
E (epsilon) = .007, a definition of how firmly atomic nuclei bind together, such that
if E were .006 or .008, matter could not exist as it does.
(omega) ~ 1, the amount of matter in the universe, such that if were too high
the universe would have collapsed long ago, and if were too low no galaxies would
have formed.
(lambda) ~ 0.7, the cosmological constant, the positive energy of empty space,
an antigravity force that is causing the universe to expand at an accelerating rate,
such that if were much larger the universe would have expanded too rapidly for
stars and galaxies to have formed.
Q, = 1/100,000, a description of how the fabric of the universe depends on the
ratio of two fundamental energies, such that if Q were smaller the universe would
be inert and featureless, and if Q were much larger the universe would be violent
and dominated by giant black holes.
D = 3, the number of dimensions in which we live, such that if D were 2 or 4 life
could not exist.
11. P.A.M. Dirac, Proceedings of the Royal Society A165, 1938, 199208. Dirac
noted that for some unexplained reason, the ratio of the electrostatic force to the
gravitational force between an electron and a proton is roughly equal to the age of
the universe divided by an elementary time constant, which suggested to him that
the expansion rate of the macroscopic universe was somehow linked to the micro-
scopic sub-atomic world (and that gravity varied with time). Although his inference
was in error, Diracs observation enabled a novel way of thinking about the universe.
12. Robert H. Dicke, Diracs cosmology and Machs principle, Nature 192
(1961): 440. In order for the universe to host biological observers, it has to be suffi-
ciently old so that carbon would already have been synthesized in stars, and suffi-
ciently young so that main sequence stars and stable planetary systems would still
continue to exist (golden age). Robert H. Dicke, Gravitation and the Universe
(Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, 1970).
13. Brandon Carter, Large Number Coincidences and the Anthropic Principle in
Cosmology, reprinted in Modern Philosophy and Cosmology, John Leslie
(Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 1999).
14. John D. Barrow and Frank Tipler, The Anthropic Cosmological Principle
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1986).
15. Weinberg, Living in the Multiverse; Steven Weinberg, Anthropic Bound
on the Cosmological Constant, Physical Review Letters 59, 22 (1987): 260710.
16. Methodologically, I first try to expand the possible explanations and their cat-
egories, striving to be universally exhaustivemy objective hereand only later try,
in some way, to cull them by data, analysis, or reasoning. (Falsification for most of
these is unrealistic.) After Paul Davies presents the pros and cons of the various main
positions he examines to answer the ultimate questions of existence, he asks a droll
but deeply profound question, Did I leave any out? Paul Davies, The Goldilocks
Enigma: Why is the Universe Just Right for Life (London: Allen Lane/Penguin Books,
2006), 302.
17. Modal logic allows an infinite number of logical possibilities that are (or
seem) scientifically impossible. Quentin Smith, personal communication.
18. That the explanation for the universe may be hard to understand is no surprise
to Derek Parfit. If there is some explanation of the whole of reality, we should not
expect this explanation to fit neatly into some familiar category. This extra-
ordinary question may have an extra-ordinary answer. Parfit, January 22, 1998.
19. Those who contend that Why Not Nothing? is a Meaningless Question
(1.1) often rely on what they believe to be logical contradictions in the concepts
Nothing and Something. For example, they argue that the statement There is
Nothing has no referent and makes no legitimate claim; something more, such as
a location of the Nothing, must be specified to complete it and make it meaningful,
but any such addition contradicts itself in that by specifying Something it destroys
Nothing (as it were). Rundle, 2004; Erik J. Olsson, Notre Dame Philosophical
Reviews. March 3, 2005, http://ndpr.nd.edu/review.cfm?id=2081. See endnote 1
above. In like manner, the question Why is there Something? makes a simple logi-
cal mistake in that it presupposes an antecedent condition that can explain that
Something, but there can be no such antecedent condition because it too must be sub-
sumed in the Something which must be explained. Paul Edwards, Why, in The
Encyclopedia of Philosophy, vol. 8, ed. Paul Edwards (New York: Macmillan,
1967), 3001. Witherall, 2006.
20. Nagel, 1981. As John Leslie puts this view, Metaphysical efforts to explain
the cosmos offend against grammar in Wittgensteins sense. Leslie, 1995.
21. To be a brute fact, a universe does not depend on any particular universe-
generating mechanismBig Bang, steady state, complex cyclicals can all fit the brute
fact framework. Even a multiverse or a God can be a brute fact. The point is that
there is a terminus of explanations: a brute fact is as far as you can ever get, even in
principle.
22. Bertrand Russell said . . .The universe is just there, and thats all. Bertrand
Russell and F.C. Copleston, The Existence of God, in Problems of Philosophy
Series, ed. John Hick (New York: Macmillan & Co., 1964), 175. Parfit states, If it
is random what reality is like, the Universe not only has no cause. It has no
explanation of any kind. Of the explanatory possibilities, he later notes that brute
fact seems to describe the simplest, since its claim is only that reality has no explan-
ation. Parfit, February 5, 1998; Quentin Smith, Simplicity and Why the Universe
Exists, Philosophy71 (1997): 12532.
23. Nozick, 1981.
24. Steven Weinberg, Dreams of a Final Theory: The Scientists Search for the
Ultimate Laws of Nature (New York: Vintage Books, 1983); Edward Witten, Uni-
verse on a String, Astronomy magazine, June 2002; Murray Gell-Mann, The Quark
and the Jaguar (New York: W.H. Freeman, 1994); Brian Greene, The Elegant Uni-
verse: Superstrings, Hidden Dimensions, and the Quest for the Ultimate Theory, reis-
sue edition (New York: W.W. Norton, 2003).
25. Davies, 2006; Davies, The Mind of God (London: Penguin, 1993); personal
communication; Davies, in Spiritual Information: 100 Perspectives on Science and
Religion., ed. Charles L. Harper, Jr. (West Conshohocken, PA: Templeton Founda-
tion Press, 2005).
26. Quentin Smith, Kalam Cosmological Arguments for Atheism, in The Cam-
bridge Companion for Atheism, ed. Michael Martin; Quentin Smith, The Reason
the Universe Exists is that it Caused Itself to Exist, Philosophy, Volume 74 (1999):
13646; personal communication.
27. Seth Lloyd, Programming the Universe: A Quantum Computer Scientist
Takes On the Cosmos (New York: Knopf, 2006).
28. To any observers, the visible horizon of the universe that they see, the farthest
they can ever see, is bounded by the speed of light multiplied by the age of the uni-
verse, such that light could have traveled only so far in so long. (In special relativity,
a light cone is the geometric pattern describing the temporal evolution of a flash of
light in Minkowski spacetime. Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light_cone.)
29. Martin J. Rees, Before the Beginning: Our Universe and Others (New York:
Perseus Books, 1998); Martin J. Rees, Our Cosmic Habitat (Princeton, NJ: Princeton
University Press, 2004); Martin J. Rees, ;Exploring Our Universe and Others, Sci-
entific American, December 1999; John Leslie, Universes (London: Routledge,
1989); Davies, 2006, p. 299; personal communication.
30. Weinberg, 1987; Weinberg, 2007; personal communication. There is hardly
unanimity about the Anthropic Principle among physicists, some of whom character-
ize it as betraying the quest to find fundamental first principles that can explain the
universe and predict its constituents. David Gross hates it, comparing it to a
virusOnce you get the bug, you cant get rid of it. Dennis Overbye, Zillions
of Universes? Or Did Ours Get Lucky, New York Times, October 28, 2003; per-
sonal communication.
31. Alan Guth, The Inflationary Universe: A Possible Solution to the Horizon
and Flatness Problems, Phys. Rev. D 23, 347 (1981); Alan Guth, The Inflationary
Universe: The Quest for a New Theory of Cosmic Origins (Boston: Addison-
Wesley, 1997).
32. Andrei Linde, 1982. A New Inflationary Universe Scenario: A Possible Solu-
tion of the Horizon, Flatness, Homogeneity, Isotropy and Primordial Monopole
Problems, Phys. Lett. B 108, 389 (1982); Andrei Linde, Particle Physics and Infla-
tionary Cosmology (Chur, Switzerland: Harwood, 1990); Andrei Linde, Inflation
and String Cosmology, J. Phys. Conf. Ser. 24 ( 2005): 15160; Andrei Linde,
The Self-Reproducing Inflationary Universe, Scientific American, November
1991, 4855; Andrei Linde, Current understanding of inflation, New Astron.Rev.

49 (2005): 3541; Linde, Choose Your Own Universe, in Harper, 2005.
33. Alex Vilenkin, Many Worlds in One: The Search for Other Universes (New
York: Hill and Wang, 2006).
34. Paul J. Steinhardt and Neil Turok, A Cyclic Model of the Universe, Science,
May 2002: Vol. 296, no. 5572, 14369. The authors claim that a cyclical model may
solve the cosmological constant problemwhy it is so vanishingly small and yet not
zeroby relaxing it naturally over vast numbers of cycles and periods of time
exponentially older than the Big Bang estimate. Paul J. Steinhardt and Neil Turok,
Why the Cosmological Constant is Small and Positive, Science 26 May 2006:
Vol. 312. no. 5777, 11803. The oscillating universe hypothesis was earlier sug-
gested by John Wheeler, who in the 1960s posited this scenario in connection with
standard recontracting Friedman cosmological models (I thank Paul Davies for the
reference).
35. Roger Penrose, Before the Big Bang: An Outrageous New Perspective and
Its Implications for Particle Physics, Proceedings of the EPAC 2006, Edinburgh,
Scotland.
36. Lee Smolin, Did the universe evolve? Classical and Quantum Gravity 9
(1992): 173191; Smolin, The Life of the Cosmos (New York: Oxford University
Press, 1997). Since a black hole is said to have at its center a singularity, a point
at which infinitely strong gravity causes matter to have infinite density and zero vol-
ume, and at which the curvature of spacetime is infinite and ceases to exist as we
know it, and since the Big Bang is said to begin under similar conditions, the idea that
the latter is engendered by the former seems less farfetched. In 1990, Quentin Smith
proposed that our Big Bang is a black hole in another universe, but said that it could
not be a genuine scientific theory unless a new solution to Einsteins 10 field equa-
tions of general relativity could be developed. Smith, A Natural Explanation of
the Existence and Laws of Our Universe, Australasian Journal of Philosophy 68
(1990): 2243. It is a theory that Smith has since given up (personal communication).
Smolin called his theory a fantasy.
37. Leonard Susskind, The anthropic landscape of string theory, http://arXiv.
org/abs/hep-th/0302219; Susskind, 2005. The string theory landscape is said to
have ~10500 expressions.
38. Lisa Randall, Warped Passage: Unraveling the Mysteries of the Universes
Hidden Dimensions (New York: Harper Perennial, 2006); Lawrence Krauss, Hidden
in the Mirror: The Mysterious Allure of Extra Dimensions, from Plato to String
Theory and Beyond (New York: Viking, 2005).
39. An ekpyrotic mechanism for generating universes postulates immeasurable
three-dimensional branes (within one of which our universe exists) moving
through higher-dimensional space, such that when one brane in some way collides
with another, a contracting, empty universe is energized to expand and form matter
in a hot Big Bang. Justin Khoury, Burt A. Ovrut, Paul J. Steinhardt, and Neil Turok,
Density Perturbations in the Ekpyrotic Scenario. Phys. Rev. D66 046005, 2002;
Jeremiah P. Ostriker and Paul Steinhardt, The Quintessential Universe, Scientific
American, January 2001, 4653.
40. Hugh Everett, Relative State Formulation of Quantum Mechanics, in The
Many-Worlds Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics., eds. B.S. De Witt and N. Gra-
ham (1957; repr., Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1973), 1419; John
Archibald Wheeler, Geons, Black Holes & Quantum Foam (New York: W.W. Nor-
ton, 1998), 26870; David Deustch, The Fabric of Reality (London: Penguin Books,
1997).
41. Amanda Getler, Exploring Stephen Hawkings Flexiverse, New Scientist,
April 2006.
42. Max Tegmark, Parallel Universes, Scientific American, May 2003, 4151.
43. David Lewis, On the Plurality of Worlds (Oxford, UK: Blackwell Publishing,
1986), 2. Lewis writes, I advocate a thesis of plurality of worlds, or modal realism,
which holds that our world is but one world among many. There are countless other
worlds. . .so many other worlds, in fact, that absolutely every way that a world could
possibly be is a way that some world is.
44. Nozick, 1981. Nozick seeks to dissolve the inegalitarian class distinction
between nothing and something, treating them on a par. . .not treating nonexisting
or nonobtaining as more natural or privileged. . . One way to do this, he proposes,
is to say that all possibilities are realized. He thus defines the principle of fecun-
dity as, All possible worlds obtain. (1278, 131).
45. Davies, 2006, 2989.
46. Personal communication.
47. Richard Swinburne, The Existence of God, second edition (Oxford: Claren-
don/Oxford University Press, 2004); Swinburne, The Coherence of Theism, revised
edition (Oxford: Clarendon/Oxford University Press, 1993); Swinburne, The Chris-
tian God (Oxford: Clarendon/Oxford University Press, 1994); Swinburne, Is There
a God (Oxford: Clarendon/Oxford University Press, 1996). In his influential book,
The Existence of God, Swinburne builds a cumulative case of inductive arguments
to assert (not prove) the claim that the proposition God exists is more probable
than not. He begins with a description of what he means by God: In understanding
God as a person, while being fair to the Judaic and Islamic view of God, I am over-
simplifying the Christian view. Swinburne states: I take the proposition God
exists (and the equivalent proposition There is a God) to be logically equivalent
to there exists necessarily a person without a body (i.e. a spirit) who necessarily is
eternal, perfectly free, omnipotent, omniscient, perfectly good, and the creator of
all things. I use God as the name of the person picked out by this description.
Swinburne then defines each of his terms. By God being a person, Swinburne means
an individual with basic powers (to act internationally), purposes, and beliefs. By
Gods being eternal, he understands that he always has existed and always will
exist. By Gods being perfectly free, he understands that no object of event or state
(including past states of himself) in any way causally influences him to do the action
that he doeshis own choice at the moment of action alone determines what he
does. By Gods being omnipotent, he understands that he is able to do whatever
it is logically possible (i.e., coherent to suppose) that he can do. By Gods being
omniscient, he understands that he knows whatever it is logically possible that he
know. By Gods being perfectly good, he understands that he always does a
morally best action (when there is one), and does no morally bad action. By his
being the creator of all things, he understands that everything that exists at each
moment of time (apart from himself) exists because, at that moment of time, he
makes it exist, or permits it to exists. The claim that there is a God, Swinburne
states, is called theism.
48. Alvin Plantinga, Reason and Belief in God, in Faith and Rationality: Rea-
son and Belief in God, eds. Alvin Plantinga and Nicholas Wolterstorff (Notre Dame,
IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1983). Plantinga argues famously that theistic
belief does not, in general, need argument or evidence to be rational and justified;
belief in God, in Plantingas well-known terminology, is properly basic. This
means that belief in God is such that one may properly accept it without evidence,
that is, without the evidential support of other beliefs. Perhaps the theist, Plantinga
asserts, is entirely within his epistemic rights in starting from belief in God [even if
he has no argument or evidence at all], taking that proposition to be one of the ones
probability with respect to which determines the rational propriety of other beliefs he
holds. Notwithstanding this position, Plantinga presents his own arguments
for Gods existence: Alvin Plantinga, Two Dozen (or so) Theistic Arguments,
lecture notes, http://www.calvin.edu/academic/philosophy/virtual_library/articles/
plantinga_alvin/two_dozen_or_so_theistic_arguments.pdf.
49. Philosophical discussions of Gods Nature, which much occupied medieval
theologians (Scholastics), seem arcane and irrelevant today, but may probe the struc-
ture and meaning of a theistic God, and as such may help advise whether such a Being
really exists. Take the traditional doctrine of Divine Simplicity (which is anything
but simple): God is utterly devoid of complexity; no distinctions can be made in God;
God has no parts. Plantinga describes the doctrine: We cannot distinguish him
from his nature, or his nature from his existence, or his existence from his other prop-
erties; he is the very same thing as his nature, existence, goodness, wisdom, power,
and the like. And this is a dark saying indeed. Alvin Plantinga, Does God Have a
Nature?(Milwaukee: Marquette University Press, 1980).
50. In the Bible, names are often declarations of the essence of things. Adam
means earth, soil, or reddish-brownish stuff, from which, as the story goes, God
made AdamAdam the stuff was what Adam the man literally was. The Hebrew
underlying I am that I amfirst person singular imperfect form of the verb To
Beis perhaps more accurately but less euphonically translated I continue to be
which I continue to be. Hence, since name is essence, and here the Name means
existence, Gods existence is his essence. A God of this Name can claim to be without
need of further explanation, not in the sense that a further explanation cannot be
known, but in the sense that it cannot exist.
51. Seyyed Hossein Nasr, Islamic Pholosophy from Its Origin to the Present: Pho-
losophy in the Land of Prophecy, Suny Series in Islam (Albany, NY: State University
of New York Press, 2006); Seyyed Hossein Nasr, Randall E. Auxier, and Luican W.
Stone, eds., The Philosophy of Seyyed Hossein Nasr, Library of Living Philosophers
Series (Chicago and La Salle, IL: Open Court Publishing Company, 2000).
52. George F.R. Ellis, Natures of Existence (Temporal and Eternal), in The
Far-Future Universe: Eschatology from a Cosmic Perspective, ed. George F.R. Ellis
(Philadelphia , PA: Templeton Foundation Press, 2002).
53. Robert John Russell, Eschatology and Physical CosmologyA Preliminary
Reflection, in The Far-Future Universe, 2002; Robert John Russell, Nancey Mur-
phy, and Arthur Peacocke, eds., Chaos and Complexity: Scientific Perspectives on
Divine Action (Vatican City State: Vatican Observatory Publications, 1997).
54. William Lane Craig, The Existence of God and the Beginning of the Uni-
verse, Truth: A Journal of Modern Thought 3 (1991): 8596; Paul Copan and Wil-
liam Lane Craig, Creation out of Nothing: A Biblical, Philosophical and Scientific
Exploration (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2004). William Lane Craig and
Quentin Smith, Theism, Atheism, and Big Bang Cosmology (Oxford: Clarendon
Press, 1993).
55. Theists debate among themselves whether the Judeo-Christian God is theo-
logically compatible with a multiverse. While many theists denounce multiple uni-
verses as a naturalistic substitute for Godthey argue that accepting a God is far
simpler than postulating a multiversesome theists now break tradition by claiming
that a multiverse reveals an even grander grandeur of the Creator. Robin Collins, A
Theistic Perspective on the Multiverse Hypothesis, in Carr, 2007; Robin Collins,
Design and the Designer: New Concepts, New Challenges, in Harper, 2005.
56. Keith Ward, Pascals Fire: Scientific Faith and Religious Understanding
(Oxford: Oneworld Publications, 2006). Personal communication. Wards blurring
of personal/impersonal models of God, he says, is influenced by the Brahman/Isvara
distinction in Indian philosophy, with resonances in Eastern Orthodox theology
(the distinction between ousia and economia).
57. Deism, Dictionary of the History of Ideas,http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/
cgi-local/DHI/dhi.cgi?id=dv1-77. Deist website: http://www.deism.com/.
58. Michael Levine, Pantheism, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
(Spring 2006 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/
spr2006/entries/pantheism/. H.P. Owen proposes a more formal definition: Pan-
theism. . .signifies the belief that every existing entity is only one Being; and that all
other forms of reality are either modes (or appearances) of it or identical with it.
H. P. Owen, Concepts of Deity (London: Macmillan, 1971). Pantheism is distin-
guished from Deism in that, while both sport nontheistic, impersonal Gods, the for-
mer allows no separation between God and the world, while the later revels in it.
Pantheisms many variations take contrasting positions on metaphysical issues: its
fundamental substance can be real or unreal, changing or changeless, etc.
59. Panentheism, a word that is a manufactured cognate of pantheism, is the doc-
trine that the universe is in God but God is more than the universei.e., it combines
the robust immanence of pantheism (God is truly in the world) with the ultimate
transcendence of theism (God exceeds the world in His ontological otherness).
More formally, panentheism is The belief that the Being of God includes and pene-
trates the whole universe, so that every part of it exists in Him, but (against panthe-
ism) that His Being is more than, and is not exhausted by, the universe. F.L. Cross
and E. A. Livingstone, eds., Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 2nd ed.
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1985), 1027. Panentheism, a recent formulation,
is the guiding philosophy of Charles Hartshorne, process theologians, and some
who seek harmony between science and religion. Philip Clayton and Arthur Pea-
cocke, eds., In Whom We live and Move and Have Our Being: Panentheistic Reflec-
tions on Gods Presence in a Scientific World (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2004).
Acosmic pantheism considers the world merely an appearance and fundamentally
unreal (it is more characteristic of some Hindu and Buddhist traditions). Panpsy-
chism, the belief that every entity in the universe is to some extent sentient, amalga-
mates Pantheism (3.4) with Consciousness as Cause (3.6).
60. Alasdair MacIntyre, Pantheism, in Encyclopedia of Philosophy, ed. Paul
Edwards, (New York: Macmillan and Free Press, 1967). John Leslie derives panthe-
ism from his thesis that ethical requiredness (see below) is the ultimate reality
generator. John Leslie, 2002, Infinite Minds: A Philosophical Cosmology. (Oxford:

Oxford University Press, 2002) 3941, 12630, 21516.
61. A wide range of conflating examples include Spiritualism, Spiritism, Animism,
Occultism, New Age religions of all kinds, Edgar Cayce and those like him,
Theosophy and its sort, forms of Gnosticismthe list is as tedious as it is endless.
62. According to Amit Goswami, a quantum physicist inspired by Hindu philoso-
phy, everything starts with consciousness. That is, consciousness is the ground of all
being which imposes downward causation on everything else. Amit Goswami,
The Self-Aware Universe: How Consciousness Creates the Material World (New
York: Tarcher, 1995).
63. There are copious, fanciful schemes that attempt to make consciousness fun-
damental; many disparate philosophies and world systems take cosmic mind as
the source of all reality (e.g., http://primordality.com/).
64. To the Dalai Lama, consciousness (in its subtle form), which has no begin-
ning, explains the world. Although he rejects any commencement of creation (Cre-
ation is therefore not possible), he asserts that the creator of the world in
Buddhism is the mind and collective karmic impressions, accumulated individu-
ally, are at the origin of the creation of a world. Dalai Lama XIV, Marianne
Dresser, and Alison Anderson, Beyond Dogma: Dialogues & Discourses (Berkeley,
CA: North Atlantic Books, 1996).
65. Rigpa is considered to be a truth so universal, so primordial, that it goes
beyond all limits, and beyond even religion itself (http://www.rigpa.org/).
66. Vilenkin, 2006, 205.
67. Taoism, an indigenous religion of China, is centered on The Way, the path
to understanding of the foundations and true nature of heaven and earth. Its scrip-
tures are the relatively short (81 chapters, 5000 Chinese characters) Dao De Jing
(Tao Te Ching), its essence signaled by its famous first verse: The Tao that can be
told is not the eternal Tao (chapter 1; translation, Gia-Fu Feng & Jane English,
1972). For though all creatures under heaven are the products of Being, Being itself
is the product of Not-being (chapter 40; translation, Arthur Waley).
68. Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brahman. Robert Nozick, in his
exploration of Why is there Something Rather Than Nothing, quotes the begin-
ning of the Hindu Vedas Hymn of Creation, Nonbeing then existed not nor being,
and then shows how Being and Nonbeing do not exhaust all possibilitiesoutside a
certain domain, he says, a thing may be neither. Nozick thus suggests that It is plau-
sible that whatever every existent thing comes from, their source, falls outside the
categories of existence and nonexistence (1981, 150, 152).
69. Ken Wilber, Sex, Ecology, Spirituality: The Spirit of Evolution (Boston:
Shambhala Publications, 1995). William Irwin Thompson, Coming into Being: Arti-
facts and Texts in the Evolution of Consciousness (New York: St. Martins Press,
1996).
70. Roger Penrose, The Big Questions: What is Reality? New Scientist, Novem-
ber 18, 2006.
71. John Leslie, 2002; John Leslie, Value and Existence (Oxford: Blackwell,
1979); personal communication. Leslie states, A force of creative ethical require-
ment or. . .a principle that consistent groups of ethical requirements, ethical demands
for the actual presence of this or that situation, can sometimes bring about their own
fulfillment. The cosmos might exist because its existence was ethically necessary,
without the aid of an omnipotent being who chose to do something about this.
Although Leslie surmises, a divine person might well head the list of the things that
the creative force would have created, his preferred position is a cosmos of infi-
nitely many unified realms of consciousness, each of them infinitely rich. . .a picture
of infinitely many minds, each one worth calling divine and each one expected
to include knowledge of absolutely everything worth knowing (2002, vvi).
72. Nicholas Rescher, The Riddle of Existence: An Essay in Idealistic Metaphys-
ics (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1984). Reschers cosmic values
are simplicity, economy, elegance, harmony, and the like, which are maximized by
what he calls proto-laws as they bring about the existence of the spatiotemporal
laws and concrete objects of the actual universe. Witherall, 2006.
73. Parfit, January 22, 1998, and February 5, 1998. Parfit suggests that if reality
were as full as it could be (All Worlds Hypothesis), that would not be a coinci-
dence. We can reasonably assume that, if this possibility obtains, that is because it
is maximal, or at this extreme. On this Maximalist View, it is a fundamental truth
that being possible, and part of the fullest way that reality could be, is sufficient for
being actual. That is the highest law governing reality. It does not stop there. Parfit
conceptualizes the Selector as some special feature that actualizes a real world
from among countless cosmic possibilities. It would determine, not that reality be
a certain way, but that it be determined in a certain way how reality is to be. Then,
to the extent that there are competing credible Selectors, rules would be needed to
select among them, which may be followed by higher level Selectors and rules. Can
it ever stop? Parfit concludes by stating that just as the simplest cosmic possibility
is that nothing ever exists, the simplest explanatory possibility is that there is no
Selector. So we should not expect simplicity at both the factual and explanatory lev-
els. If there is no Selector, we should not expect that there would also be no Uni-
verse. It seems that we arrive back at Brute Fact, which radiates a bit more color
now, and we are enlightened by the journey.
74. In Tao, the only motion is returning. Dao De Jing, chapter 6; translation,
Arthur Waley
75. Idealism Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idealism; Goswami,
1995.
76. Andrei Linde, Hard Art of the Universe Creation, Nucl. Phys. B372 (1992):
42142. Using a stochastic approach to quantum tunneling, Linde develops a method
to create the universe in a laboratory. He concludes by observing that this would
be a very difficult job, but if it is true, Hopefully, he [the other-worldly physicist
hacker] did not make too many mistakes. . .
77. Davies, 2006.
78. Nick Bostrom, Are You Living in a Computer Simulation? Philosophical
Quarterly, Vol. 53, No. 211, 2003: 24355; Nick Bostrom, Why Make a Matrix?
And Why You Might Be In One, in More Matrix and Philosophy: Revolutions
and Reloaded Decoded., ed. William Irwin (Chicago: IL: Open Court Publishing
Company, 2005); Lifes a Sim and Then Youre Deleted, New Scientist, 27 July
2002. Another kind of Simulation in Virtual Reality (4.3) is Frank Tiplers notion
of a general resurrection just before a Big Crunch at what he calls the Omega
Point, which would be brought about by an almost infinite amount of computa-
tional power generated by a universe whose inward gravitational rush is accelerating
exponentially. Frank Tipler, The Physics of Immortality: Modern Cosmology, God

and the Resurrection of the Dead (New York: Anchor Books, 1997).
79. Solipsism Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solipsism.
80. If the problem is turned from explaining the fine-tuning of this universe to the
more profound problem of explaining the fundamental essence or existence of ulti-
mate reality (defined physically)Why Not Nothing?the categories and explana-
tions shift. The new taxonomy would ask two overarching questions: (i) Of What
does Ultimate Reality Consist? and (ii) By What (If Anything) is Ultimate Reality
Caused? or For What Reason (If Any) Does Ultimate Reality Exist? Under the
Consist question, we have categories of One Universe and Multiple Universes
(exhaustively cataloguing every kind of possible multiple universe). Under the
Cause or Reason question, we take all the explanations listed under One Uni-
verse Models in the text, but here label the category Natural Explanations, to dis-
tinguish it from the Nonphysical Causes and Illusions categories (the
subcategory explanations of these remaining largely the same).
81. Peter van Inwagen, Metaphysics, second edition (Boulder, CO: Westview
Press, 2002), 132. See also endnotes 2 and 73 above. Derek Parfit states: Reality
might be some way because that way is the best, or the simplest, or the least arbitrary,
or because its obtaining makes reality as full and varied as it could be, or because its
fundamental laws are, in some way, as elegant as they could be (February 5, 1998).
82. That the universe may have popped into existence via some sort of cosmic
spontaneous combustion, emerging from the nothing of empty space (i.e., vacuum
energy generated by quantum fluctuations in the quantum foam, unstable high
energy false vacua) or from quantum tunneling (Vilenkin, 2006) may be the
proximal cause of why we have a universe in the first place, but cannot itself be the
reason why the universe we have works so well for us. Universe-generating mecha-
nisms of themselves, such as unprompted eternal chaotic inflation or uncaused nucle-
ations in spacetime, do not address, much less solve, the fine-tuning problem. Nor
can vacuum energy, quantum tunneling, or anything of the like be the ultimate cause
of the universe, because, however hackneyed, the still-standing, still-unanswered
question remains from where did those laws come?

Glossary of Key Terms
Chapter 1: Is Science Fiction Science?
SCENARIO FORECASTING
Alternative ways for future events to unfold, which enhance readiness for
any eventuality.
XENOGENESIS
Octavia Butler: Xenogenesis is a generation that is wholly and perma-
nently unlike the parent generation. We can create such a generation now
with genetic engineering, and in my books, my characters actually do it.
Chapter 2: Why is Music So Significant?
MIDI
Jeanne Bamberger: MIDI instruments can play any instrument you want
and make it sound any way that you want, and with this synthesizing tech-
nique, everybody can make music. But Im not sure that thats so wonderful
because Im looking for ways of getting people to inquire and reflect and
question what theyre doing when theyre making music.
NEUROBIOLOGY
A branch of the life sciences that deals with the anatomy, physiology, and
pathology of the nervous system.
260 Glossary of Key Terms
Chapter 3: Is Consciousness an Illusion?
CONSCIOUSNESS
Christof Koch: Its a bit difficult to rigorously define consciousness. Right
now Im conscious. Youre conscious. Youre looking at me. You can attend
to my voice. I assume youre conscious. But to really define consciousness in
very formal ways is always impossible. There are always exceptions involv-
ing, for example, sleep walking and dreaming and near-death experiences
and all those things. Right now its not terribly fruitful to try to define con-
sciousness in a more rigorous way. When you take an awake subject and
the subject behaves appropriately, unless theres some reason to suspect that
the patient is in some special state, its reasonable to assume that the patient,
or the subject, is conscious.
Stuart Hameroff: I think consciousness is a specific, physical process, a

particular type of collapse of the quantum wave function that gives rise to
experience, perception, and choiceour inner life of experience. So I think
consciousness is a real process. Its impossible to observe. I cant really tell
that youre conscious, that youre not a zombie, just like I cant absolutely
tell that my patients are unconscious during anesthesia. I assume they are,
and everything tells me that they are, but theres no real way to tell because
I couldnt tell that they were conscious in the first place. Consciousness is
unobservable, and its very much like a quantum system, which is unobserv-
able, because if you interact with it, it changes it. So I think consciousness is
an isolated set of quantum state collapses going on in the brain.
Leslie Brothers: How can you tell the difference between believing that
youre conscious and really being conscious? Now, if I believe Im playing
the game of Monopoly, and Im playing it, Im playing it. Theres no differ-
ence between believing that you are and being it. And I say if theres no
way to tell the difference between believing that youre conscious and really
being conscious, then what is being conscious? It might just be believing that
youre conscious. Its an illusion that creates its own reality.
Joe Bogen: When we say we want to try to explain consciousness, we mean

in terms of the kind of stuff that you can see, wires and juices and stuff like
that. If you want to explain consciousness the way a lot of people talk about
it, which involves all kinds of cognitive stuff and how you generate abstract
ideas, youre just creating a much bigger problem. What we want to explain
is that little crucial core of what almost everybody is talking about. No mat-
ter how complicated their concept of consciousness is, they almost always
include aspects of an inner life, the essence of subjectivity.
PERCEPTION
Joe Bogen: A percept is a neuronal representation in the brain of some out-
side information gathered by a sensory organ, like your eye or your ear. So
what happens when theres a scene out there, youre going to have in your
head a whole bunch of nerve cell activity that corresponds to that scene.
Much of this is not conscious. I make myself deliberately conscious of this
lampshade at the edge of my vision, which I was not conscious of until I
started to talk about it. I think that I have perceptions of which I am not
conscious.
QUALIA
Sensations, flavors, emotions, feelings as perceived privately in ones con-
sciousness. A property (like redness) as it is experienced as distinct from any
source it might have in the physical world.
DREAMING
Joe Bogen: Dreaming is a kind of consciousness during sleep that is a
stream of qualia, thoughts, perceptions and so on, which are not accompa-
nied by movement. Activity has been somehow cut off. The nerve impulses
to do the action are probably coming down out of your head, but theres
something in the brainstem that inhibits them. Occasionally, the inhibition
fails, which can result in walking around. In dreaming you have a stream
of consciousness that doesnt depend on whats going on around you,
although we know that what people dream about seems to depend some
on external inputs, such as whether they are cold or theres water dripping.
But the main thing about dreaming is that it is consciousness without the
usual output or input.
FUNCTIONAL BRAIN IMAGING

Christof Koch: Using functional brain imaging, I can now take any subject,
put them in a normal scanner, ask her or him to do something and note the
activity in different parts of the brain. For example, I can show the subject
the same picture, first in color and then in black and white, and I can observe
the differences in the brain states when a human sees in color versus when he
sees in black and white. In this way, I can discern which parts of the brain
are active when the person perceives color.
Chapter 4: How Does the Autistic Brain Work?

AUTISM
Eric Courchesne: A neurobiological disorder manifesting itself in profound
sensory disregulation that affects the development of a variety of brain
behaviors. It affects brain development in the cerebral cortex and cerebella

cortex, and the limbic system. Typically, parents come to physicians when
the child is about 16, 18 months of age and theyre worried that their child
isnt progressing normally. Theyre first concerned about the development
of speech, about social communication, and that their child isnt showing
normal interest in interacting with other people. Finally, they become wor-
ried because their child seems to be lost in a world of doing things repeti-
tively. In summary, areas of concern suggesting autism: speech and
language development, social communication, and ritualistic and repetitive
behaviors.
THE BINDING PROBLEM

Terry Sejnowski: Theres a controversy having to do with how informa-
tion that belongs together stays together. For example, if you have a red
cup, how do the redness of the cup and the shape of the cup become bound
together as a unified mental whole? Thats called the binding problem. And
there have been different solutions that have been suggested for it. In my
view, I dont think its a real problem. I think that the brain is quite capable
of representing those properties by different groups of neurons firing at
roughly the same time, but they may not necessarily have to fire their spikes
at exactly the same time.
CURE AUTISM NOW (CAN)

Cure Autism Now (CAN) is an organization of parents, physicians, and
researchers dedicated to promoting and funding research with direct clinical
implications for treatment and a cure for autism. The largest private funder
of autism research since its founding in 1995, CAN has directed over $5 mil-
lion to support research projects and a crucial scientific resourcethe
Autism Genetic Resource Exchange (AGRE). AGRE is the worlds first col-
laborative gene bank that contains information on families with more than
one child with autism.
RAPID PROMPTING METHOD (RPM)

A teaching method for autistic children invented by Soma Mukhopadhyay
for her son Tito, which both flies in the face of common lore for how to
work with autistics, and is profoundly successful in liberating autistics to
be able to communicate clearly and directly. See CAN website for more
information.
TEMPORAL CODING
Terry Sejnowski: When we look at the brain we look at the final frontier of
human understanding, since the brain is the most complex device in the
universe. Space travel is not the final frontier, its time. How does the brain
represent time and how do signals in different parts of the brain that occur
at different moments in time come together and integrate all that informa-
tion together? Were beginning to appreciate that internal time in the brain
can be used for mental functions like attentionsuch as your expectation
of where a signal is coming from in space, or what form its going to take.
This type of attention and expectation may actually happen through tempo-
ral synchrony, the firing of neurons together at the same time. And if these
theoretical ideas are true, and were in the process right now of making pre-
dictions and trying to test them, then it means that some diseases like autism
may be diseases of timing of signals in the brain.
Also: A way of representing information in the brain that depends on the
exact time when a spike occurs.
Chapter 5: Does Psychiatry Have a Split Personality?
BIOMEDICINE
Medicine based on the application of the principles of the natural sciences,
especially biology and biochemistry.
DEPRESSION
Robert Epstein: Depression is an abnormal mood state that has many ele-
ments to it. One of the obvious ones is that you feel kind of down and you
feel sad, but there are other possible elements. For example, you could have
a problem with your appetite, either eating very little or maybe overeating.
You might have a problem sleeping. There are many different possible ele-
ments to depression, but fundamentally, its a lower mood state; its a state
of real sadness.
PSYCHIATRIST/PSYCHOLOGIST
Robert Epstein: Psychiatrists are medical doctors (MDs) who then go on
and specialize in psychology. Psychologists are professionals who have
extensive training in psychology and have virtually no training in medicine.
Chapter 6: Who Gets to Validate Alternative Medicine?
ALTERNATIVE MEDICINE
Therapies, treatments, practices, and procedures which share three
common features: 1) they have not been demonstrated within the United
States that they are safe and effective against specific diseases and
conditions; 2) they are not taught in medical schools; and 3) they are gener-
ally not reimbursable by insurance.
Hyla Cass: Alternative medicine has been defined as those modalities that
are outside of the purview of conventional medicine. So acupuncture,
homeopathy, guided imagery, mind-body medicinethese are all consid-
ered alternative. In my opinion, I think its just part of medicine; what we re-
ally need to practice is everything. And that doesnt mean that everybody
should do everything. I dont do acupuncture. I dont do homeopathy, but
I want to have access to those practitioners who do, so I can refer my
patients and feel comfortable sending them to people whom I know are
practicing a high standard in those areas.
Wallace Sampson: Alternative medicine are methods and materials that do
not work, methods and materials that are not likely to work, and methods
and materials that already have been investigated and found to be debatable.
William Jarvis: I go along with the NIH definition, which basically says
everything outside of standard medicinetreatments, drugs, procedures
that have not been shown to be safe and efficacious by modern medical
standards.
CAM PROCEDURES
Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM). The official term used
by the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) to describe everything thats
outside of standard medicine.
INTEGRATIVE MEDICINE
Popular term denoting the kind of medicine practiced by a physician who
uses the best from standard medicine and the best from alternative medicine.
The controversial aspect of this nomenclature is that how does the practi-
tioner know whats best if not all treatments have been scientifically
tested?
NATUROPATHIC MEDICINE
Dan Labriola: Naturopathic medicine is a primary healthcare provider
profession whose motto is Vis Medicatrix Naturae, which is helping nature
heal. Our underlying fundamental approach to healthcare is to support and
provide for the bodys natural healing power rather than trying to simply do
interventions.
ANECDOTAL EVIDENCE
William Jarvis: Anecdotal evidence is anything based on personal experi-
ence, regardless of how convincing it is. Scientific evidence is something that
has an objective basis that can be repeated again and again under the same
circumstances, versus the subjective experience that felt good at the time,
seemed to be okay, but for some reason, it just doesnt seem to happen again.
Chapter 7: MicrobesFriend or Foe?

AMINO ACIDS
Alice Huang: Amino acids are the constituent building blocks of proteins,
and proteins are the machinery that does all the work in our cells. There
are eight essential amino acids, those which cannot be synthesized by the
body.
ANTIVIRALS
Alice Huang: Antivirals are anything that would inhibit the growth of
virus or prevent the disease that a virus causes.
MICROBIAL ANTAGONISM
Agnes Day: Microbial antagonism is similar to the Crips and the Bloods
two gangs that used to operate in Los Angeles. What theyre doing is theyre
trying to make sure that nobody gets the upper hand. For instance, in the
lower gastrointestinal tract, in the large intestine and the colon, you have
at least 30 different types of enteric bacteria or bacteria that grow in the
gut. So, if you have all of these bacteria in you, some of which are known
to cause disease, why is it that you are not always ill? It is because certain
bacteria will produce agents, sort of like peptide antibiotics that will keep
the numbers of other bacteria low. For example, E. coli produces a peptide
called a colicin that makes other bacteria sick so they dont grow as well.
So theres this balance that is maintained between these various organisms
living in the same environment.
HELICOBACTER PYLORI
Agnes Day: Helicobacter pylori is a bacterium that lives in the stomach
and it produces, through its metabolism, clouds of carbon dioxide. The
organism attaches to the gastric lining and has been associated with ulcers
in the stomach as well as gastric cancer. People who have this organism will,
in most cases, progress to the point of gastric cancer. It is one of the few bac-
teria that science has shown to have a strong association with cancer.
PATHOGEN
A pathogen is an agent that causes disease.
PEPTIDE
A peptide is a group of amino acids.
PLASMIDS
Agnes Day: Plasmids are small circular DNA molecules that dont belong
in the bacterial cell. They arise from other small pieces of DNA that join
together and say, Look. We can cause more damage if we work together
than if we try to go in individually. These plasmids are notorious for carry-
ing genes that encode for the destruction of antibiotics.
SYMBIOSIS
Alice Huang: Symbiosis is the ability of organisms to live together. In gen-
eral, one does something to the other or provides something to the other and
vice versa so that they live happily together.
Chapter 8: Testing New Drugs: Are People Guinea Pigs?
INFORMED CONSENT
Alexander Capron: The original way informed consent arose was as an
obligation of disclosure on physicians. In a second view, informed consent
doesnt refer to the obligation of the researcher but rather sort of a more sub-
jective state of mind of the subject or the patient, that they have an under-
standing that they have become informed before they consent. The
emphasis is on the obligation, the duty, of the researcher or physician, to
make a disclosure which is understandable by the patient. The latter may
be realized or may not be, and it would obviously vary person to person.
The emphasis should not be on a signed piece of paper, a form that says
Informed Consent at the top with a signature at the bottom. That is not
informed consent by itself; informed consent is a serious process of real
understanding, of which this piece of paper is only one part.
BIOETHICS
A discipline dealing with the ethical implications of biological research
and applications, especially in medicine.
COMPUTATIONAL BIOLOGY
The use or operation of a computer in simulating theoretical or existing
conditions. For example, dry testing of drugs by supercomputer simula-
tions, or simulating the human brain to run experiments that cant be tried
on a human being.
PERINATEL
Refers to the time period after the 28th week of gestation and ending the
first week after birth. Some sources extend the perinatal period until the
fourth week after birth.
MORBIDITY
Robert Temple: Morbidity is an illness or disease of some kind. The term
we use in our ethical discussion is irreversible morbidity. You go blind,
you have a stroke, you have an amputationthese are morbidities that do
not away. They do not kill youmortality would kill you. There are other
kinds of morbidities as well; being depressed is a morbidity, but one that
hopefully goes away.
Chapter 9: How Does Order Arise in the Universe?
SIMPLICITY AND COMPLEXITY

Murray Gell-mann: I like to use neckties as an example of simplicity and
complexity. A regimental stripe, for example, would be simple. You just
have to describe the colors and the widths and then this pattern is repeated
its a rather simple kind of pattern for a tie. If you look at a hand painted
tie or a tie that was designed by Jerry Garcia, you will find in many cases that
it takes a very long time to describe the regularities of the patternthats a
complex tie, but notice were still talking only about pattern. Were not talk-
ing about soup stains or wine stains or baby stains, which we consider as
incidental or random. But suppose you are a dry cleaner, then the soup-
wine-baby stains may be the important regularities and the stripes maybe
irrelevant, so you can treat the stripes as incidental. So the evaluation of
regularities must be viewed from the perspective of human beings and differ-
ent kinds of human beings will have different evaluations. One person (a
television anchor) is concerned with the pattern of the tie, another (the dry
cleaner) is one concerned with the stains on the tie. One can be more
abstract as well: there are rules of some kinds that describe whats important
and whats unimportant and these rules do not have to pertain to a human
judge.
COMPLEX ADAPTIVE SYSTEM

Murray Gell-Mann: The complex adaptive system takes in certain kinds of
information about the world around it and about itself and compresses those
kinds of information into very brief, very compact messages, which I call
schema. The schema, along with a lot of other information, is then used to
predict the behavior of things in the real world, including the system itself,
and also to prescribe behavior for the system in the real world. Those predic-
tions and those prescriptions have real world consequences and the real
world consequences feed back to exert selection pressure on the competition
among the different possible schemata. In this way the schemata evolve. All
of the complex adaptive systems with which we are familiar on Earth are
related in one way or another to life, including biological evolution itself,
which in my sense is a complex adaptive system. All the various organisms
are complex adaptive systems. The immune system and the brain are also
complex adaptive systems. When something is described as a complex adap-
tive system that doesnt describe all its properties, it only describes its infor-
mational aspects. Living things also process energy, for example, and other
things besides information. The term complex adaptive system refers just
to their informational properties.
CHROMOSOME
A rod-shaped structure, usually found in pairs in a cell nucleus, that car-
ries the genes that determine sex and the characteristics an organism inherits
from its parents; a human body cell usually contains 46 chromosomes
arranged in 23 pairs.
David Baltimore: A gene is a little region on a chromosome, and a chromo-
some is a collection of genes. A chromosome is more, too, because it has to
be able to duplicate itself, so it needs signals for duplication. It has to be able
to segregate itself and send signals for segregation. Fundamentally, a
chromosome is a way of carrying genes in bite-sized pieces. Is there any sig-
nificance to chromosomes? Probably not in the sense that we could have 22
chromosomes or we could have 46 chromosomes or we could have 85 chro-
mosomes and it probably wouldnt make us any different than we are now.
Different organisms have different numbers of chromosomes and there does
not seem to be any rhyme or reason for the differences.
DNA
The large molecule that carries an organisms genetic information: a
nucleic acid molecule in the form of a twisted double strand, or double helix,
that is the major component of chromosomes and carries genetic informa-
tion. DNA, which is found in all living organisms except some viruses,
reproduces itself and is the means by which hereditary characteristics pass
from one generation to the next.
David Baltimore: DNA is the chemical molecule that carries the genetic
information of the organism. Its the backbone of chromosomes. But funda-
mentally its just a chemical that carries information in a code. The code
happens to be a four-letter code, which means that if you look down DNA,
at position one, two, three, four, five, going out to three billionwhich is
the number of letters in the human genetic codeat every one of those posi-
tions there is either an A, G, C, or T, which are the notations for specific
nucleic acids in those positions and which constitute the genetic code. So
DNA is a marvelously and almost infinitely variable polymer of individual
units. But the important thing about it is it carries information.
GENE
The basic unit of heredity: the basic unit capable of transmitting charac-
teristics from one generation to the next. It consists of a specific sequence
of DNA or RNA that occupies a fixed position locus on a chromosome.
David Baltimore: Genes are circumscribed regions of DNA sitting on chro-
mosomes which have a particular function. Im not going to define it any
better than that because in fact when you try to define a gene, the notion of
a gene dissolves in front of you. It turns out that different people use the term
gene in different ways, but the field goes on perfectly happily anyway.
GENOME
A set of chromosomes for any particular living thing: the full complement
of genetic information that an organism inherits from its parents, especially
the set of chromosomes and the genes they carry.
David Baltimore: The genome is the aggregate of all of the genes, all those
little places on chromosomes where there is useful information that goes into
constructing the organism. Its a word you could almost do without, but its
convenient for describing what scientists do when they sequence all the
DNA that an organism hasthe description is sequencing the genome.
In fact, that is not what is being done; what is being done is sequencing just
all the chromosomes. But thats the usage of the term genome.
SEQUENCING
David Baltimore: Sequencing DNA is merely determining its detailed
chemical structure, particularly the sequence of nucleic acids (represented
by letters) that constitute the genetic code. So when we say sequencing, what
we mean is putting all of these As, Gs, Cs and Ts in sequence as they
appear in the DNA of a newt or a person or a plant or whatever organism.
The DNA of each species is different. The DNA of each type of organism is
different. The DNA of each individual within the species is different. Theres
a whole hierarchy of differences which are fundamentally the remnants of
evolution. And so we can use sequencing as a way of figuring out what evo-
lution did.
Chapter 10: How Weird is the Cosmos?
DARK MATTER
Roger Blandford: Dark matter is a form of matter whose identity we dont
yet know. We see evidence for it in our galaxy, in other galaxies, and in the
clusters of galaxies, and indeed in the universe at large because we see gravi-
tational effects that cannot be explained by the total amount of ordinary
matter. We call it dark matter because it doesnt have light associated with
it; it doesnt have stars that create starlight. It doesnt appear to be like the
matter that everything we know is made up of. It appears to be some other
sort of matter. We suspect that dark matter may be a fundamental particle
of a sort that has not yet been described.
BLACK HOLES
Roger Blandford: Supermassive space objects that gobble up matter and
light. A black hole is a body where the gravity is by definition sufficiently
strong that no material particle and not even light can escape. What this
essentially means is a black hole defines a surface, which is known as the
event horizon, and after anything has crossed that event horizon then there
is no way of going back. It could be photon, it could be a material particle,
but once theyve crossed that horizon then they can no longer escape.
DARK ENERGY
Roger Blandford: When we try to describe the way in which the expansion
of the universe is accelerating, we cannot do this with all the matter in the
universe, including all the ordinary matter and all the dark matter. We need
some extra force in the Newtonian sense, an extra substance present that has
properties that are different from regular matter, either ordinary or dark.
And we call this mysterious force dark energy. Some are looking for an
explanation of dark energy by investigating the energy resident in the vac-
uum of space, derived from quantum mechanics.
EXPANSION OF THE UNIVERSE

See inflation, which holds that during the first fraction of a millisecond
after the Big Bang, fundamental forces drove the newborn universe to
expand at an unimaginable speed, faster, even, than the speed of light. To-
day one of the weird and unexpected findings is that the expansion of the
universe seems to be speeding up, or as physicists call it, accelerating. The
best candidate for that is what is currently called dark energy.
GAMMA RAY BURSTS

Roger Blandford: High-energy waves from space. A gamma ray burst is an
intense pulse of gamma rays that is seen mostly from the distant universe. It
lasts for time scales from about a tenth of a second to 100 seconds typically.
There are different types of them. We believe gamma ray bursts are associ-
ated with either the birth or the augmentation of a black hole.
Shri Kulkarni: Gamma ray bursts are the most powerful energy streams
known in the universe; these events that roughly take place a few times a
day. They are extremely high energy bursts in the gamma ray part of the
spectrum and we now believe they come from great distances. You wont
see them on Earth at sea level but if you go up in space, and you have any
instrument which can sense gamma rays, theyre very, very bright events. It
doesnt take much to see a gamma ray burst.
GRAVITATIONAL LENSING
Refers to the way light travels in curved paths around stars and galaxies,
and was predicted by Einsteins theory of relativity
INFLATIONARY THEORY (INFLATION)

MIT Physicist Alan Guth worked out this still-reigning theory which
holds that during the first fraction of a millisecond after the Big Bang, funda-
mental forces drove the newborn universe to expand at unimaginable speed
vastly faster, even, than the speed of light. This did not violate Einsteins
Special Theory of Relativity, which states that nothing in space can go faster
than the speed of light, since during inflation space itself was expanding (like
dots on a balloons surface while it is being pumped with air).
Chapter 11: Is the Universe Full of Life?
ASTROBIOLOGY
Astrobiology is the study of life in the universe. It provides a biological
perspective to diverse areas and links such endeavors as the search for habit-
able planets, exploration missions to Mars and Europa, and efforts to under-
stand the origin of the universe.
INTERFEROMETER
A device for determining wave properties: a device that uses an interfer-
ence pattern to determine wave frequency, length, or velocity, used here
for increasing the power of astronomical telescopes.
Neil de Grasse Tyson: We know from basic optics that the bigger your
telescope the more the resolution you have when observing some object in
the cosmosits resolution being simply your ability to determine detail.

When I first looked at the moon through binoculars, I had more resolution
through the binoculars than I had with my unaided eye because I was able
to see more detail. The bigger the telescope, the sharper the resolution, and
resolution is key to see, for example, structure on the surface of a planet
thats otherwise too small to observe. Astronomers want as big a telescope
as they can possibly have. Heres the problem, though: big telescope mirrors
or lenses are unrealistically expensive, but you can cheat by making smaller
telescopes, planting them in strategic locations relative to one another and
linking them electronically to work together and thereby simulate the diam-
eter of a larger telescope. Combining the light from different telescopes in
such a way that your image thinks it came through a single telescope mirror
thats the size of the entire much larger area is called interferometry.
SPECTRUM
The continuous distribution of colored light produced when a beam of
white light is dispersed into its components, e.g. by a prism. The spectral
analysis of light from stars is used by astronomers to determine the stars
chemical constituents.
Shri Kulkarni: The best definition of a spectrum is in one from Newtons
work. He has light rays coming on to a prism and you get a nice rainbow.
So a spectrum is basically splitting the light into its constituent fluxes and
that tells you some detailed information about what that light is made up of.
Chapter 12: Will Computers Take a Quantum Leap?
QUANTUM THEORY
Quantum theory is the remarkable way for describing the world at the
smallest scales where the act of observation of the system is inseparable from
the objective state of the system. Quantum theory is the theoretical basis of
modern physics that explains the nature and behavior of matter and energy
on the atomic and subatomic level. At the beginning of the twentieth cen-
tury, physicist Max Planck sought to discover the reason that radiation from
a glowing body changes in color from red, to orange, and, finally, to blue as
its temperature rises. He found that by making the assumption that energy
existed in individual units, or separate packets, in the same way that matter
does (atoms), rather than just as a constant electromagnetic waveas had
been the conventional wisdomand was therefore quantifiable, he could
find the answer to his question. The existence of these individual units,
called quanta, became the core concept of quantum theory, and their
descriptions came to be framed in terms of probabilities and probability
functions, not deterministic statements and fixed equations. Several decades
later, two major interpretations of quantum theorys implications for the

nature of reality were developed: the Copenhagen interpretation and the
many-worlds theory. Niels Bohr proposed the Copenhagen interpretation
of quantum theory, which asserts that a particle is whatever it is measured
to be (i.e., a wave or a particle), but that it cannot be assumed to have spe-
cific properties, or even to exist, until it is measured. In short, Bohr was say-
ing that objective reality does not exist. This translates to a principle called
superposition that claims that while we do not know what the state of any
object is, it is actually in all possible states simultaneously, as long as we
dont look to check. The second interpretation of quantum theory is the
many-worlds (or multiverse) theory. It holds that as soon as a potential
exists for any object to be in any state, the universe of that object transmutes
into a series of parallel universes equal to the number of possible states in
which that the object can exist, with each universe containing a unique sin-
gle possible state of that object. Furthermore, there is a mechanism for inter-
action between these universes that somehow permits all states to be
accessible in some way and for all possible states to be affected in some man-
ner. Stephen Hawking and Richard Feynman are among the scientists who
have expressed a preference for the many-worlds theory.
QUANTUM PHYSICS
David DiVincenzo: Quantum physics is the application of quantum theory
to physical problems, to use quantum theory as we have come to understand
it to solve problems in physics and to come to an understanding of the physi-
cal world.
SUPERPOSITION
Superposition is a principle of quantum theory that describes a challeng-
ing concept about the nature and behavior of matter and forces at the atomic
level. The principle of superposition claims that while we do not know what
the state of any object is, it is actually in all possible states simultaneously, as
long as we dont look to check. It is the measurement itself that causes the
object to be limited to a single possibility.
K. Birgitta Whaley: An object can appear to exist in two different states at
the same time. Imagine that you have a cup of coffee and a glass of whiskey
in front of you, and as a person living in a classical world, you would drink
either the cup of coffee or the glass of whiskey. The quantum superposition
is putting that person in the situation where they would be essentially drink-
ing the cup of coffee and the glass of whiskey simultaneously.
ENTANGLEMENT
Entanglement is a term used in quantum theory to describe the way that
particles of energy/matter can become correlated to predictably interact with
each other regardless of how far apart they are. This means that the quan-
tum states of two or more objects (e.g., particles) must be described in refer-
ence to each other or one another, irrespective of their spatial distance.
David DiVincenzo: Entanglement is correlation between quantum infor-
mation, or its a correlation between quantum states of two parts or more
parts. We have learned that those kinds of correlations, or the correlations
that those systems have, are stronger than the correlations that exist between
ordinary, classical data. Another aspect of entanglement is that typically it is
created by a physical interaction or by a physical force between the two
quantum systems, which may have, however, taken place long in the past.
So you can have two systems which are not presently interacting, which
are far apart from one another, but which have a kind of memory of their
previous interaction, and this memory is embodied in those correlations.
TUNNELING
K. Birgitta Whaley: Tunneling is the name that we give to the phenomenon
where elementary particles pass through barriers by apparently disappearing
and reappearing on the other side, as through a tunnel. As an analogy, imag-
ine a person is a particle who wants to go from town A to town B and theres
a big mountain in between and no way over the mountain, and you certainly
dont know any way through the mountain. If youre a normal person (or
classical particle), then you would have to trek up to the top of the moun-
tain and then down again over the other side. And during that process, your
energy would increase considerably. If you are a quantum particle, however,
there exists a finite probability that you can go from town A to town B with-
out ever going over the mountainyou would essentially move through a
process of quantum mechanical superposition of your state in both town A
and town B. You would basically appear in town B after a certain very short
amount of time.
QUANTUM COMPUTER
A computer that uses quantum mechanical processes to do computations
which regular computers could never perform.
FACTORING
Breaking a number into its prime components; that is, given an integer like
15, doing a computation to find that its prime factors are three and five. Fac-
toring is a simple computation for a number like 15 but an extremely hard
computation for a 100-digit number. Only a quantum computer could, in
theory, factor large numbers.
Chapter 13: How Does Basic Science Support

National Security?
PURE SCIENCE
Scientific research to explore an interesting fact of nature often done
solely for the exploration, the elegance, or the beauty of the discovery.
Research not directed toward the exposition of reality or solution of practi-
cal problems.
BASIC SCIENCE
Scientific research that deals with general principles, often fundamental
principles, rather than practical application. Basic science seeks discovery
of essential structure, function, or facts.
APPLIED SCIENCE
Scientific research put to practical use, such as the technology of lasers
being applied to the making of CDs, fax and copying machines.
Chapter 14: Can Religion Withstand Technology?
FUNDAMENTALISM
Fundamentalism is term applied to many religions as signifying a kind of
religious thought and practice that claims to adhere faithfully to original
tenets and precepts, including literal interpretation of sacred texts such as
the Bible or the Koran, and often includes anti-modernist movements or
theories.
Donald Miller: Fundamentalism is often a flight from modernity; it often
refers to a group of people who are being left out of the march of progress.
Such people often idealize a golden age of fidelity and strictness that they
want to return to. Typically this golden age is something where they fanta-
size there were religious absolutes, where people were more moral, more
pure, less given to moral looseness, and so forth. I think we have to be very
careful about this sort of mythical use of religion.
ISLAMIC FUNDAMENTALISM
Muzaffar Iqbal: In every religious tradition, there is what we call the
normative tradition, which is the mainstream way of thinking. In the case
of Islam, we fortunately have had throughout the centuries, the two primary
sources which are living sources, the Koran and the practice of the prophet
Mohammed. These resources have never gone into oblivion. They have
always been living sources. And there is a huge amount of literature on what
constitutes the normative practice of Islam. So those people who are extrem-
ist and who claim to be following the norm of Islam, the onus is on them to
explain how they justify their position in the face of 1,400 years of scholar-
ship that has very clearly defined ways of revolutionfor example, when
the foreign enemy has attacked, the ways of behavior in every single situa-
tion. So it is not just my position that defines the norm, it is the living sources
of Islam themselves.
CHRISTIAN FUNDAMENTALISM
Donald Miller: The term fundamentalism was born in the early part of the
twentieth century; I think it was actually coined about 1920. Psychologically
it comes out of a response of some Christians to a modernizing influence of
theologians who wanted to look at scripture in more critical and historical
ways. These Christians wanted to secure their faith in clear and absolute
terms, which usually includes the literal belief in the Bible. I do think were
getting more polarization among peoples, whether it be among Jews, Chris-
tians, Muslims, Hindus, or even Buddhists, and we are having more back-
lash effects. Unfortunately it seems that this is the trend. There are
probably greater similarities between liberal Protestants, liberal Catholics,
liberal Jews, and liberal Muslims, then there are between Christians who
are fundamentalists and Christians who are liberal or between Jews who
are liberal or Jews who are orthodox.
EXTREMISM
Nancey Murphy: I suppose you could apply it to any religious movement
where rather than attempting to confront the new intellectual problems
that arise, the groups leaders attempt to maintain their belief system by
means of authority, which often includes severe attitudes toward nonbe-
lievers. And because this is such a difficult strategy, it usually goes along
with an attempt to separate oneself from the host culture. So theres a sort
of us-against-them mentality and a fear of confronting intellectual problems
facing the tradition.
SOCIAL SCIENCE & RELIGION

Don Miller: Im a sociologist of religion and have conducted a number of
different projects that look at the social science side of religion, much more
than the theological side. I dont really examine the issue of truth, but
instead peoples perception of truth or what is true for them.
Chapter 15: Can We Believe in Both Science and Religion?
DUALIST
One who views human beings as constituted of two distinct substances or
elements , matter (body) and spirit (soul).
MATERIALIST
One who believes that physical matter is the only reality and that all being
and processes and phenomena can be explained as manifestations or results
of matter.
PHYSICALISM
Nancey Murphy: Physicalism is a position thats best understood in con-
trast to the opposing or competing position, which is in contrast to a dualist
view of the person that says that in addition to our bodies we have some
nonmaterial part, a soul or a mind or something nonphysical of that sort.
And physicalists hold that all those higher human capacities are really the
result of our complicated brains (see materialist).
SCIENTISM
Michael Shermer: Scientism is a world view that takes the empirical meth-
ods of science seriously, that attempts natural explanations for all phenom-
ena, does not turn to supernatural or superstitious explanations, and most
importantly, is open minded and flexible to changing answers to questions
because science is always changing.
SKEPTIC
Michael Shermer: A skeptic is somebody who is a scientist. Its somebody
from Missouri who says, Show me, who says, Thats nice. Show me
the evidence. How do you know this is true? Skeptics basically ask ques-
tions about quality of the evidence, and they seek the source of the claim.
They want to know how your belief system came about. Really, this is just
science. Skepticism is literally thoughtful inquiry; thats the original mean-
ing. And the kind of thoughtful inquiry thats most effective today is the sci-
entific method.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR AND CONTRIBUTORS
Dr. Robert Lawrence Kuhn is an international investment banker and cor-

porate strategist with extensive relationships and activities in China. With
a doctorate in brain research, he is a public intellectual who speaks and
writes frequently, the author or editor of over 25 books, a philanthropist
and foundation chairman, and the creator and host of the Closer To Truth
television series.
For ten years Dr. Kuhn was president and co-owner of The Geneva Com-
panies, the leading merger and acquisition (M&A) firm representing middle-
market companies, prior to Genevas 2001 sale to Citigroup, the worlds
largest financial services company, where Dr. Kuhn is Senior Advisor to Cit-
igroup Investment Banking (focusing on China). He is Senior Partner of
IMG, the worlds premier sports, entertainment, and media company, where
he is responsible for its business in China.
Dr. Kuhn is the author of The Man Who Changed China: The Life and
Legacy of Jiang Zemin, a precedent-setting biography of the former Chinese
president that was Chinas best-selling book in 2005 with substantial nation-
wide publicity. Dr. Kuhn has been featured in lead and cover stories in
numerous Chinese newspapers, magazines, and websites. His book is recog-
nized as the first time that a biography of a living Chinese leader has been
published on the Chinese mainland and stories of its unusual success have
run in the international press. Five of Dr. Kuhns books have been published
in Chinese, including the first investment banking book published in China.
Since 1989, when he was invited by Dr. Song Jian, Chairman of the State
Science and Technology Commission and State Councilor in the
administration of former General Secretary Zhao Ziyang, Dr. Kuhn has
been advising the Chinese government at highest levels in economic policy,
media and entertainment policy, mergers and acquisitions, science and tech-
nology, cultural exchanges, and international communications. He is advi-
sor to senior officials restructuring Chinas media industries, in
understanding and improving Chinas international image, and in bringing
Chinese culture to the world. He is interviewed often in Chinas business
and national press (e.g., Peoples Daily and CCTV).
280 About the Author and Contributors
Dr. Kuhn is a frequent commentator on Chinas economic, political,

social, and foreign policies, explaining, among other topics, the political phi-
losophy and diplomatic policies of Chinese President Hu Jintao and Chinas
senior leadership; in China, Dr. Kuhn was among the first foreigners to lec-
ture on President Hus political theory. As part of his continuing efforts to
tell the real story of China to the world and to support his policy advisory
work with Chinas senior leaders in Beijing, Dr. Kuhn has toured 36 Chinese
cities in 22 provinces, meeting business executives and senior officials of pro-
vincial and municipal governments, and lecturing at universities, public
forums, and leadership schools.
Dr. Kuhn is chairman of The Kuhn Foundation, which he founded and
funded to disseminate new knowledge in science, support cultural endeav-
ors, and promote good relations between America and China. The Kuhn
Foundations primary project is the continuing public television (PBS) series
Closer To Truth, which Dr. Kuhn created, produces, and hosts to present
leading scientists and scholars exploring the meaning of leading-edge knowl-
edge (brain and mind, biology and medicine, cosmology and astronomy, sci-
ence and philosophy, philosophy & religion). The next season of Closer To
Truth focuses on cosmology and fundamental physics, the philosophy of
cosmology, the philosophy of religion, and philosophical theology. Closer
To Truth websites are hosted at PBS (www.PBS.org/closertotruth) and at
Caltech (www.closertotruth.com). A sister website, www.scitechdaily.com,
is a leading source of science news. The Kuhn Foundation produced the criti-
cally acclaimed film Khachaturian (on the life of the Armenian-Soviet com-
poser), which won the Best Documentary award at the 2003 Hollywood
Film Festival. Dora Serviarian Kuhn (Dr. Kuhns wife), a concert pianist
known for her critically acclaimed performances of the Khactuaturian Piano
Concerto, is executive producer.
Dr. Kuhn holds a Ph.D. in anatomy/brain research from the University of
California at Los Angeles (UCLA), a M.S. in management from the Massa-
chusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) (Sloan School), and an A.B. in
human biology from Johns Hopkins University. He was creator and execu-
tive producer of In Search of China, a primetime special on PBS (2000), in
co-production with China Central Television. He is a trustee of Claremont
Graduate University, serves on the Committee on Scientific Freedom and
Responsibility of the American Association for the Advancement of Science
(AAAS), and is co-founder and vice chairman of the Beijing Institute for
Frontier Science.
Dr. Nancy C. Andreasen

Neuropsychiatrist
Nancy Andreasen, M.D., Ph.D., is a professor of psychiatry at the University
of Iowa College of Medicine, an adjunct professor of psychiatry at the Uni-
versity of New Mexico, director of The MIND Institute, and editor-in-chief
of The American Journal of Psychiatry. She has authored or edited nine

books, including the best-selling The Broken Brain: The Biological Revolu-
tion in Psychiatry.
She is a leading researcher on schizophrenia, a group of brain disorders
that involve hallucinations, delusions, disrupted sense of self, emotional
problems, and bizarre behavior. In her early work, Dr. Andreasen developed
a now-standard set of techniques for assessing the symptoms and severity of
schizophrenia. Currently she is at the forefront of attempts to come up with
a specific neurological explanation for it, as well as ways to mitigate or cure
it. Her laboratory uses numerous techniques to study schizophrenia (as well
as other major psychoses), including computer science, cognitive neurosci-
ence, neuroimaging, the study of twins, and psychiatry.
On the Web: http://www.uiowa.edu/~neuro/Faculty/andreasenn.htm
Dr. David Baltimore

Virologist, Nobel laureate
David Baltimore, Ph.D., is the Robert Andrews Millikan Professor of Biol-
ogy at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), where he was
president from 1997 to 2006. Early in his career, as a Massachusetts Insti-
tute of Technology (MIT) professor, his investigations of viral infection
earned him and two colleagues the Nobel Prize in medicine and physiology
in 1975. That work identified the enzyme reverse transcriptase, which
was key to understanding retroviruses like HIV.
More than a brilliant scientist, Dr. Baltimore has also proved to be a tal-
ented administrator and policy shaper. In the 1970s he helped fashion
national science policy on recombinant DNA research, and in the 1980s he
served as founding director of the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical
Research at MIT. Dr. Baltimore was also an early advocate of federal AIDS
research, and was appointed in 1996 to head the National Institutes of
Health AIDS Vaccine Research Committee. He is married to Alice S. Huang,
a molecular biologist, who is also a panelist on Closer To Truth.
Jeanne Bamberger
Musicologist
Jeanne Bamberger is Professor of Music at the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology (MIT) where she teaches music theory and music cognition.
Her interests include learning and the development of music cognition in
both children and adults. She was a student of Artur Schnabel and Roger
Sessions (prominent pianists and composers) and performed extensively in
the U.S. and Europe as piano soloist and in chamber music ensembles. Her
most recent books include The Mind Behind the Musical Ear and Develop-
ing Musical Intuitions: A Project-Based Introduction to Making and Under-
standing Music.
On the Web: http://web.mit.edu/jbamb/www/
Dr. Roger Blandford

Astrophysicist
Roger Blandford, Ph.D., is Pehong and Adele Chen Professor of Physics at
Stanford University. He was Richard Chace Tolman Professor of Theoreti-
cal Astrophysics at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech). His
research interests include: black holes, those famous supermassive space
objects that gobble up matter and light; gravitational lensing, which refers
to the way light travels in curved paths around stars and galaxies; high-
energy waves from space known as gamma ray bursts; the dim class of stars
known as white dwarfs; and the structure and evolution of the universe.
On the Web: http://www.its.caltech.edu/~rblandfo/
Dr. Joseph E. Bogen

Neuroscientist/Surgeon
Joseph Bogen, M.D., is a clinical professor of neurological surgery at the
University of Southern California (USC), a visiting professor of biology at
the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), and an adjunct professor
of psychology at the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA). In
1962, Dr. Bogen was part of the first team of neurosurgeons ever to perform
a human commissurotomysevering the connection between the brains
left and right hemispheres. The procedure was effective in treating the
patients severe epilepsy, as hoped, but had some other fascinating unin-
tended consequences. The hemispheres were able to think and behave inde-
pendently in ways that surprised everybody.
It proved that each hemisphere has a different set of talents: for example,
in the average brain, language and logical thought dwell in the left half while
spatial and whole-situation awareness are the specialty of the right. Even
more astonishing, the different halves often held different personalities,
desires and ambitions. The implications for neuropsychology and the phi-
losophy of mind were great, and Dr. Bogen has continued to study the les-
sons from these split brain patients for a long time. His research focus is
the investigation of consciousness from a neuroscientific point of view.
On the Web: http://www.its.caltech.edu/~jbogen/
Dr. David Brin

Scientist, Author
David Brin, Ph.D., left his career as an academic physicist when his science
fiction novels became successful. His fiction books include Startide Rising,
The Uplift War, Earth, and Kiln People. His post apocalyptic novel The
Postman was turned into a movie. Dr. Brin also wrote an esteemed nonfic-
tion book, The Transparent Society, in which he weighs the various possible
tradeoffs in privacy, surveillance and freedom in the electronic century
ahead. He frequently travels around the country giving public lectures on
these topics, and writes essays on other topics including ecology, the course
of modern culture, and space and the search for extraterrestrial intelligence
(SETI).
On the Web: http://www.davidbrin.com
Dr. Leslie Brothers

Psychiatrist
Leslie Brothers, M.D., is an associate clinical professor in the Department of
Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the UCLA School of Medicine. Based
on her research into the neural basis of emotion and social cognition in pri-
mates, as well as work with psychiatric patients, she has proposed a new
conception of what consciousness is. While the Western philosophic tradi-
tion views the conscious mind as an isolated object, something that can be
viewed as a thing-in-itself, a thing-apart from its community, Dr. Brothers
argues that the mind is actually inseparable in all ways that matter from
the social context that shapes it. On this view, our emotional life and our
sense of self are far more deeply embedded in the social fabric than we are
aware. Brothers argues this case and draws out its implications for neurosci-
ence, psychiatry and sociology in her books, Mistaken Identity: The Mind-
Brain Problem Reconsidered and Fridays Footprint: How Society Shapes
the Human Mind.
Octavia E. Butler
Author
Octavia E. Butler, a science fiction writer, explores issues of gender, race and
society in her books. She is the author of several novels, including Parable of
the Talents, Parable of the Sower, and Kindred, as well as short stories and
essays, and an anthology called Bloodchild: And Other Stories. Ms. Butler,
of the few female African-American voices in science fiction, has won both
of the genres most prestigious awards, the Hugo and Nebula. She is was
also awarded the MacArthur genius grant in 1995.
Dr. Alexander Capron

Bioethicist
Alexander Capron, Ph.D, is a professor of law and medicine and Co-
Director of the Pacific Center for Health Policy an Ethics at the University
of Southern California (USC). He is a member of the national Bioethics
Advisory Commission and has held many appointments, including executive
director of two major national bioethical commissions and chair of the Bio-
medical Ethics Advisory Committee of the U.S. Congress. In 2002 he began
a two-year leave of absence from USC to serve as Director of Ethics and
Health at the World Health Organization in Geneva.
Dr. Capron has written numerous books, articles, and reviews, and has
testified before Congress many times on bioethical issues. He has weighed
in on all the important bioethical issues of our day, including the proper cri-
teria for death, genetic engineering, the patenting of genes and organisms,
stem cell research, and medical and genetic privacy.
On the Web: http://lawweb.usc.edu/faculty/acapron.htm
Dr. Hyla Cass

Psychiatrist
Hyla Cass, M.D., is an assistant clinical professor of psychiatry at the UCLA
School of Medicine. Dr. Cass, also in private practice, integrates nutritional
and natural health techniques with mainstream clinical psychiatry. She is the
author of several best-selling books, including All About St. Johns Wort and
Kava: Natures Answer To Stress, Anxiety And Insomnia. Her latest book is
Natural Highs: Supplements, Nutrition, and Mind/Body Techniques to Help
You Feel Good All the Time. Her areas of focus include anti-aging, womens
health, natural hormone therapy, stress reduction, and natural treatments
for addiction, anxiety disorders, and depression. Cass has also written book
chapters and magazine pieces, is a frequent lecturer and consultant, and has
appeared many times on television and radio.
On the Web: http://www.cassmd.com/
Dr. Eric Courchesne

Neuroscientist/Neurologist
Eric Courchesne, Ph.D., is a professor of neuroscience at the University of
California at San Diego and director of the Center for Autism Research at
the San Diego Childrens Hospital. He is a leading researcher in the study
of the neural basis of autism. Autism is a developmental brain disorder that
affects the ability to communicate, form relationships, and respond appro-
priately to the environment. Autism can vary greatly in its severity, from
mild social impairments to extreme retardation, bizarre behavior, and total
withdrawal from the world. Some autistics develop savant abilities such
as prodigious talents for mental arithmetic. Dr. Courchesne studies the brain
wiring and genetic basis of autism, hoping to discover the causes of this mys-
terious disorder that afflicts one in 500 people.
Michael Crichton
Author, Filmmaker
Michael Crichton began his career in medicine in the early 1970s but
soon switched tracks to become a highly regarded writer and filmmaker.
Most of Dr. Crichtons books are set in the present or near future, and
some of his most successful stories are cautionary tales about the potential
pitfalls of science and technology. Known as the father of the techno-
thriller, his fiction novels include The Andromeda Strain, Congo, Jurassic
Park, Timeline, and Prey. He has also penned four non-fiction books,
including Five Patients, Travels, and Jasper Johns. His books have been
global bestsellers, translated into 30 languages. 12 have been made into
films. Dr. Crichton is also creator of the hit television drama ER. In
2000, a newly discovered species of ankylosaur, Bienosaurus crichtoni, was
named after him.
On the Web: http://www.randomhouse.com/features/crichton/
Dr. Agnes A. Day

Microbiologist
Agnes Day, Ph.D., is an associate professor at the Howard University Col-
lege of Medicine and Associate Director for Basic Research at the Howard
University Cancer Center. She studies and teaches immunology, medical
microbiology, and infectious diseases.
Dr. David DiVincenzo

Research Scientist
David DiVincenzo, Ph.D., is a research staff member at IBMs Watson
Research Center. He is a leading researcher in the emerging field of quantum
computation. Quantum computers take advantage of the bizarre fact that
atoms and electrons are able to exist in multiple, mutually exclusive states
simultaneously. Though the concept has been proven to be sound in theory,
there are still significant technical hurdles to building large and practical
quantum computers. Such computers, which Dr. DiVincenzo strives to con-
struct, will one day whip through certain kinds of calculation with vastly
more efficiency than our present-day digital computers.
Doc Dougherty
Aerospace Engineer
Doc Dougherty is director of technology at Raytheon Electronic Systems.
Raytheon is a large aerospace company that works on national defense, mis-
sile technology and missile defense, government and commercial electronics,
and aircraft.
Dr. Robert Epstein

Psychologist
Robert Epstein, Ph.D., is University Research Professor at the California
School of Professional Psychology and west coast editor of Psychology To-
day, where he was formerly editor-in-chief. His research focus is creativity
and problem solving. He developed a formal scientific theory of creativity,
called Generativity Theory, which captures some of the key mechanisms
people use when coming up with new ideas. Dr. Epsteins books include
Cognition, Creativity, and Behavior: Selected Essays and Creativity Games.
He is also an avid motorcyclist and the father of three sons.
On the Web: http://www-rohan.sdsu.edu/faculty/repstein/
Dr. Paul Ewald

Biologist
Paul W. Ewald, Ph.D., is a professor of biology at The University of Ken-
tucky. Dr. Ewald, the author of the groundbreaking book Evolution of
Infectious Disease and a follow-up, Plague Time, is widely credited as the
father of a new discipline called evolutionary medicine. He has demon-
strated that a great range of medical ailments cannot be well understood
and in many cases have been tragically misunderstoodwithout a Darwin-
ian evolutionary perspective.
For example, he has shown that there is a direct relationship between how
easy it is for a bacterium, virus, or parasite to spread among its victims and
how virulent it can afford to be. This new understanding has opened serious
new avenues for designing treatment programs and improving public health
around the globe. By influencing, for instance, how a particular disease gets
spread through the human population, we can encourage it to evolve into a
more benign form.
Dr. Ewald also argues that there are a lot more deadly pathogens at work
against us than just the blatantly obvious infectious diseases people have
known about for a long time, like chicken pox, the plague, syphilis, and
the flu. Dr. Ewald has shown, to the surprise of the medical community, that
many common afflictions such as heart disease and cancerdiseases which
doctors have long thought were rooted purely in genetics, environment, or
lifestyleare in fact caused by infections.
On the Web: http://www.kli.ac.at/theorylab/AuthPage/E/EwaldPW.html
Dr. Robert Freeman

Musicologist
Robert Freeman, Ph.D., is dean of the College of Fine Arts at the University
of Texas at Austin. An accomplished pianist and musicologist, he has also
proved a strong leader and administrator. Dr. Freeman taught at MIT,
Princeton, and Harvard, then went on to serve as head of two leading Ameri-
can music schoolsthe Eastman School of Music and the New England
Conservatorybefore taking his current office. He has spent his career look-
ing for ways to connect music to other disciplines, working to shape arts
education, and considering the future of the arts in America.
Dr. Murray Gell-Mann

Physicist, Nobel Laureate
Professor Murray Gell-Mann, Ph.D., is co-chairman of the Science Board of
the Santa Fe Institute. Dr. Gell-Mann received the Nobel Prize in physics in
1969 for his work on the theory of elementary particles. The most well
known part of Dr. Gell-Manns work was his theory of quarks, the funda-
mental particles that make up the protons and neutrons of ordinary matter.
Dr. Gell-Mann and others further developed his ideas to build the powerful
standard model of particle physics, which to this day reigns as our best
theory of the nature of matter.
Since then he has taken up broader interests that include natural history,
historical linguistics, archaeology, history, depth psychology, creative think-
ing, and biological and cultural evolution. He taps all these fields in his study
of complex adaptive systems, which is the subject of his popular science
book, The Quark and the Jaguar: Adventures in the Simple and the Com-
plex. Dr. Gell-Mann is also concerned with global policy matters such as
population growth, conservation and biodiversity, sustainable economic
development, and geopolitical stability.
On the Web: http://www.santafe.edu/sfi/People/mgm/
Dr. David L. Goodstein

Physicist
David Goodstein is vice provost and a professor of physics and applied phys-
ics at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech). He has served on
numerous scientific and academic panels and is a founding member of the
Board of Directors of the California Council on Science and Technology.
His research focus has been condensed matter physicsroadly speaking,
the study of solids and liquids under a variety of conditions of pressure, tem-
perature, and radiation. In the 1980s Dr. Goodstein was director and host of
The Mechanical Universe, an innovative and highly acclaimed television
series that has taught high school-level physics to millions of students
around the world. His books include States of Matter and Feynmans Lost
Lecture.
On the Web: http://www.its.caltech.edu/~dg/
Dr. Alan Guth

Physicist
Alan Guth, Ph.D., is a professor of physics at the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology (MIT). His research focuses on what the theory of elementary
particles can tell us about the birth and fate of the universe. He is best known
for working out the inflationary theory of the universe, which holds that
during the first fraction of a millisecond after the Big Bang, fundamental
forces drove the newborn universe to expand at unimaginable speedvastly
faster, even, than the speed of light. Dr. Guths inflationary model accounted
for some curious features of the modern universe which the older, more
naively straightforward Big Bang theory could not. He is the author of a
popular book, The Inflationary Universe: The Quest for a New Theory of
Cosmic Origins, about the state of modern cosmology and his own experien-
ces as a scientist.
On the Web: http://web.mit.edu/physics/people/alan_guth.htm
Dr. Stuart Hameroff

Anesthesiologist, Consciousness Researcher
Stuart Hameroff, M.D., is a professor of anesthesiology and psychology at
the University of Arizona, where he is associate director and co-founder of
the Center for Consciousness Studies. He is also a clinical anesthesiologist.
He has written or edited five books including Ultimate Computing: Biomo-
lecular Consciousness and Nanotechnology. Dr. Hameroff co-developed,
with physicist Sir Roger Penrose, the Orch OR theory of consciousness.
The mainstream view of consciousness holds that it arises from the complex
interactions between neurons in the brain. Orch OR proposes instead that
consciousness happens through quantum computations (interactions that
take place according to the bizarre, counterintuitive logic of quantum
mechanics) occurring inside the networks of tiny tubes (microtubules) inside
of neurons.
On the Web: http://www.consciousness.arizona.edu/hameroff/
Dr. David Herrelko

Military Technologist
David A. Herrelko, Ph.D., was a brigadier general in the U.S. Air Force. He
is now the New Engineer Leadership Professor at the University of Dayton,
where he helps engineering students prepare for their careers. He is also site
leader at the MITRE Corporation, a not-for-profit organization that does
research and development in engineering and information technology for
the U.S. government. Dr. Herrelko began his military career in 1970 and
served for three decades in numerous posts supervising the research and
development of military technology, including aerospace electronics,
precision-guided weapons, and radar, reconnaissance, communications,
and air traffic control systems.
On the Web: http://www.af.mil/news/biographies/herrelko_da.html
Dr. Alice S. Huang

Microbiologist
Alice Huang, Ph.D., is senior councilor for external relations and a faculty
associate in biology at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech). She
began her career as a microbiologist and eventually became a professor of
microbiology and molecular genetics at Harvard Medical School, where
she made important discoveries in virology. She has since moved on to a
far-ranging career dealing variously with medicine, science and technology
policy, science writing, and higher education. She holds several chairs and
sits on several boards of major organizations, including the Foundation for
Microbiology and the Food and Drug Administration Advisory Committee
on Vaccines and Related Biological Products. Prior to coming to Caltech,
Dr. Huang was Dean for Science at New York University. Her husband,
Nobel laureate David Baltimore, is also a panelist on Closer To Truth.
Dr. Muzaffar Iqbal

Islamic Scholar, Chemist
Muzaffar Iqbal, Ph.D., is the founder-president of the Center for Islam and
Science in Canada. Dr. Iqbal began his career as a biochemist and held aca-
demic and research positions at universities in the United States and Canada.
Later he moved to Pakistan where he worked with the Organization of
Islamic Conference and the Pakistan Academy of Sciences, helping to
develop scientific institutions in the Muslim world. Dr. Iqbals areas of
active interest include the intellectual history of Islam, the Islamic philoso-
phy of science, Islam and the West, and Islam and the contemporary world.
He has written and edited several books. Apart from the ones that deal with
Islam and the modern world, they include two novels, many short stories,
compilations of ancient poetry, and a biography of Herman Melville. His
most recent books are Islam and Science and God, Life & the Cosmos:
Christian and Islamic Perspectives. Dr. Iqbal is also the editor of Kalam
(www.kalam.org), a moderated listserv and news service dedicated to the
promotion of a constructive discourse on Islam and science.
On the Web: http://www.cis-ca.org/muzaffar.htm
Portia Iversen
Autism Activist
Portia Iversen and her husband Jon Shestack co-founded the Cure Autism
Now (CAN) foundation in 1995 after learning that their two year-old son
Dov was autistic. Autism is a developmental brain disorder that affects the
ability to communicate, form relationships, and respond appropriately to
the environment. Affecting around one in 500 people, autism has several
varieties and spans a wide range of severity.
CAN has been very effective at increasing public awareness of autism and
expanding government support for autism research. Recently, the founda-
tion brought an autistic teenager named Tito and his mother Soma to the
United States so that North American scientists could meet and study him.
Before founding CAN, Iversen was a screenwriter and an Emmy Award-
winning art director.
On the Web: http://www.canfoundation.org/
Dr. William T. Jarvis

Public Health Expert, Consumer Health Advocate
William Jarvis, Ph.D., is a retired professor of public health and preventive
medicine at the Loma Linda University School of Medicine. His specialties
include consumer health education and public health issues such as fluorida-
tion of the water supply, immunization, pasteurization, and food technol-
ogy. He is also an expert on the claims of alternative, pseudoscientific,
deviant, and paranormal medical practices, as well as health fraud,
quackery, and food faddism. Dr. Jarvis is founder and president of the
National Council Against Health Care Fraud and is co-author of a textbook,
Consumer Health: A Guide to Intelligent Decisions, 7th Edition.
On the Web: http://www.chirobase.org/10Bio/wjvitae.html
Dr. Christof Koch

Consciousness Researcher
Christof Koch, Ph.D., is a professor of computation and neural systems at
the California Institute of Technology (Caltech). Koch studies the neuronal
basis of consciousness, and especially visual consciousness, since vision is
the best understood of all the human senses. Not satisfied with the limits
and vagueness of philosophy, Dr. Koch and other scientists are hunting for
the neural correlates of consciousness. In other words they are gathering
hard data about which cells and circuits in the brain are active during spe-
cific conscious experiences. They hope such data will lead to new theories
on consciousness, which many people see as lifes central mystery. Dr. Koch
is the author a popular science book, The Quest for Consciousness: A Scien-
tific Approach, and a textbook, Biophysics of Computation. He is also an
avid rock climber and adventurer.
On the Web: http://www.klab.caltech.edu/~koch/
Dr. Steven E. Koonin

Physicist
Dr. Steven Koonin was educated at the California Institute of Technology
(Caltech), receiving a B.S. in physics in 1972, and at MIT, where he received
his Ph.D. in theoretical physics in 1975. He then joined the Caltech faculty
in 1975, became full professor in 1981, serving as Chairman of the Faculty
from 1989-1991. Professor Koonin held the position of Provost of Caltech
from 1995 to 2004. Early in his career, he was a research fellow at the Niels
Bohr Institute from 1976-77 and an Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Fellow from
1977-79. In 1975-76 he received the Caltech Associated Students Teaching
Award, and the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation Senior Scientist
Award in 1985. In 1999 he received the prestigious E.O. Lawrence Award
in Physics from the Department of Energy. Dr. Koonin is a member of the
Council for Foreign Relations and has served on a number of advisory com-
mittees for the National Science Foundation, the Department of Energy, and
the Department of Defense and its various national laboratories. He is a fel-
low of the American Physical Society, the American Association for the
Advancement of Science, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
His research interests include theoretical nuclear, many-body, and computa-
tional physics, nuclear astrophysics, and global environmental science.
Dr. Koonin is currently on a leave of absence from his faculty position as
professor of theoretical physics at Caltech to serve as Chief Scientist of Brit-
ish Petroleum in London.
Dr. Andrea Kovacs

Pediatrician
Andrea Kovacs, M.D., is an associate professor of pediatrics and pathology
at USCs Keck School of Medicine. She heads the Department of Pediatrics
and is director of the Comprehensive Maternal/Child HIV Management
and Research Center at the L.A. County-USC Medical Center. Since
Dr. Kovacs took the reins there, HIV clinical trials for transmission rate
from mother to infant have been brought to zero. Her expertise includes
clinical virology, maternal/child AIDS treatment, and antiviral AIDS drugs
in children.
Dr. Shri Kulkarni

Astrophysicist
Shrinivas Shri Kulkarni, Ph.D., is a professor of astronomy and planetary
sciences at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech). His research
interests include: the super-dense remnants of exploded stars (pulsars, neu-
tron stars and black holes); the gasses and dust clouds that fill the space
between stars; and the development of new methods and instruments for
observing the cosmos. In 2001 he was elected to the British Royal Society,
one of the oldest and most prestigious international scientific societies.
On the Web: http://www.astro.caltech.edu/~srk/
http://www.astro.caltech.edu/department/bluebook/kulkarni.html
Dan Labriola
Naturopathic Physician
Dan Labriola, N.D., is a naturopathic physician with the Northwest Natural
Health Specialty Care Clinic. Dr. Labriola works with cancer patients who
wish to pursue both conventional treatment, such as chemotherapy and sur-
gery, and alternative medical approaches, such as dietary, botanical, and
psychological therapies. His book, Complementary Cancer Therapies, has
received praise from both the mainstream and alternative cancer commun-
ities for its balanced approach, making Dr. Labriola one of the few physi-
cians in the United States to successfully bridge the two. He works as a
consultant to hospitals, bone marrow transplantation centers, and cancer
treatment facilities worldwide.
On the Web: http://www.cancure.org/dr_labriola.htm
Dr. Seth Lloyd

Information Theorist
Seth Lloyd, Ph.D., is a professor of mechanical engineering at the Massachu-
setts Institute of Technology (MIT), a principal investigator at the Research
Laboratory of Electronics, and also holds an appointment at the Santa Fe
Institute. Dr. Lloyd is interested in how systems of all kindscomputers,
atoms, brains, cells, societies, and the universe as a wholeprocess
information. He has done important work on the tricky but essential prob-
lem of scientifically defining complexity, which is relevant to understand-
ing all those systems. Dr. Lloyd is also a leading pioneer in the field of
quantum computing, which involves harnessing the bizarre, counterintuitive
properties of matter at the atomic scale to create, someday, a dazzling new
class of computer.
On the Web: http://www.rle.mit.edu/rlestaff/p-lloyd.htm
Dr. Peter Loewenberg

Psychoanalyst
Peter Loewenberg, Ph.D., is a professor of history and political psychology
at the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA). He is also dean of
the Southern California Psychoanalytic Institute. Combining his expertise
in psychoanalysis, political science, and history, Dr. Loewenberg studies
and teaches European history, political psychology, and psychohistory
using the tools of psychology to explain historical trends and events, as well
as their application to understanding the present-day world. He visits these
themes in his writings, which include two books: Decoding the Past: The
Psychohistorical Approach and Fantasy and Reality in History. He has lec-
tured and taught widely in many countries. As a psychoanalyst, he also
maintains a clinical practice.
On the Web: http://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/history/loewenberg/
Dr. Donald E. Miller

Religious Scholar
Donald E. Miller, Ph.D, is a professor of religion and a social scientist. He
directs the Center for Religion and Civic Culture at the University of
Southern California (USC), which studies the civic role of religion in
Southern California and collaborates with congregations, academics, fun-
ders, and faith-based organizations in creative ways.
Dr. Miller is co-editor of the book Gen X Religion and the author of
several other books including: Writing and Research in Religious Studies;
Homeless Families: The Struggle for Dignity; Survivors: An Oral History
of the Armenian Genocide; and Reinventing American Protestantism:
Christianity in the New Millennium. Dr. Miller has also written widely
in other media, and has issued reports and testimony to the Los
Angeles County Commission on Human Relations and the U.S. House of
Representatives.
On the Web: http://www.usc.edu/dept/LAS/religion_online/
Rajarshi Tito Mukhopadhyay

Autistic Youth
Tito Mukhopadhyay is an autistic teenager from India who is teaching scien-
tists a great deal about autism. Autism is a developmental brain disorder that
affects the ability to communicate, form relationships, and respond appro-

priately to the environment. Most children with severe autism, like Tito,
need so much care and are so difficult to reach that they are allowed to sink
into lives of deep inner isolation; in fact, this was long thought to be inevi-
table. But Titos mother, Soma Mukhopadhyay, reared and educated Tito
so intensively that he was able to develop his keen mind to an unheard-of
level of engagement with the physical and social world.
Though his speech is difficult to understand, he writes with eloquence
(including poetry), has read widely, and can describe his condition as
no one before him could. He says, for example, that he can only keep
his attention on one sense at a timeso he can see or he can feel, but
not both, and switching from one to the other is a great effort. He also
describes why he periodically needs to shake his limbs, spin and rock: other-
wise Tito loses track of his own body and cannot stay grounded in his
surroundings. Explanations like these are helping neuropsychologists
to understand better than ever before how the brainwhether autistic or
normalworks.
Soma Mukhopadhyay
Mother, Teacher
Soma Mukhopadhyay is the mother of the autistic child Tito. When he was
11, Soma brought him from their native India to the UK and then to
America. Titos unprecedented ability to describe what it is like to be autistic
is giving scientists new insights into this mysterious neurological malady.
Autism is a developmental brain disorder that affects the ability to commu-
nicate, form relationships, and respond appropriately to the environment.
People with severe autism are all but unreachable and live deeply inward
lives the rest of us cannot fathom.
But Soma, a professional teacher and loving mother, was fiercely deter-
mined that Tito reach his full potential. She educated him intensively with
what she now calls the rapid prompting mechanism, forcing Tito to keep
focused while she taught him to learn to read and write, to listen, and to
engage with the physical and social world around him. Somas labors with
Tito not only saved him from a lifetime of psychic inner imprisonment,
but offer the same chance to other autistics and their families to form rich
relationships.
Dr. Bruce Murray

Planetologist
Bruce Murray, Ph.D., is a professor emeritus of planetary science and geol-
ogy at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech). Dr. Murray has been
a mainstay of unmanned space exploration for over three decades. He was
involved with the Mariner missions to Mercury, Venus, and Mars in the
1960s and early 1970s, and was director of the NASA/Caltech Jet
Propulsion Laboratory during the time of the Viking landings on Mars and
the Voyager flybys of Saturn and Jupiter. Dr. Murray is cofounder (along
with the late Carl Sagan) and president of The Planetary Society, a large
international public participation organization dedicated to exploring the
solar system and the search for extra-terrestrial intelligence (SETI). Dr. Mur-
ray is also co-producer of the Closer To Truth television series on which this
book is based and a senior member of the Closer To Truth web site team.
On the Web: http://www.gps.caltech.edu/~bcm/HomePage/
http://www.planetary.org/html/society/advisors/society-bio-murray.html
Dr. Nancey Murphy

Theologian
Nancey Murphy, Ph.D., Th.D., is a professor of Christian philosophy at the
Fuller Theological Seminary, a corresponding editor for Christianity Today,
and an ordained minister in the Church of the Brethren. She also serves on
the board of the Center for Theology and the Natural Sciences at Berkeley,
and is a member of the Planning Committee for conferences on science and
theology, sponsored by the Vatican Observatory.
Dr. Murphy is a leading scholar and a highly sought speaker at nation-
wide conferences on the relationship between theology and science. She is
also a prolific writer. Her books include On the Moral Nature of the Uni-
verse, Beyond Liberalism and Fundamentalism, and the award-winning
Theology in the Age of Scientific Reasoning. Most recently, she co-
authored the award-winning Whatever Happened to the Soul?
On the Web: http://www.counterbalance.org/bio/murph-frame.html
Dr. Wallace Sampson

Physician, Consumer Health Advocate
Wallace Sampson, M.D., is a clinical professor emeritus of medicine at Stan-
ford University and editor-in-chief at the Scientific Review of Alternative
Medicine. Sampson studies and teaches about unscientific medical systems
and aberrant medical claims. He sits on the board of directors of the
National Council Against Health Fraud, and is affiliated with several other
professional organizations that protect consumers from bogus healthcare
claims and products.
Dr. Sampson is a highly-respected and well-known authority in numerous
medical fields, including oncology, hematology, and pathology. He has
held, and currently holds, responsibility positions in a wide variety of medi-
cal institutions and activities. He was formerly the Associate Chief of Hem-
atology and Medical Oncology at the Santa Clara Valley Medical Center,
and a Clinical Professor of Medicine at Stanford University School of Medi-
cine. Dr. Sampson is also a prominent and active member of numerous pro-
fessional organizations devoted to the protection of consumers from
fraudulent healthcare products and claims. He has the ability to address a

variety of audiences, and has written for publications as diverse as the Jour-
nal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) and the Saturday Evening
Post.
On the Web: http://www.hcrc.org/contrib/sampson/sampson.html
Dr. Erin M. Schuman

Biologist
Erin M. Schuman, Ph.D., is an associate professor of biology at the Califor-
nia Institute of Technology (Caltech) and an assistant investigator with the
Howard Hughes Medical Institute. She studies the low-level mechanisms
of nerve cells: how they signal each other using a variety of molecules, how
they alter their own functioning in response to those signals, how they grow
and form new connections, and how they organize themselves into networks
to process information. In short, she studies the nuts and bolts of neuro-
plasticity, or learning.
On the Web: http://www.its.caltech.edu/~biology/ brochure/faculty/
schuman.html
Dr. Terrence Sejnowski

Computational Neuroscientist
Terrence Sejnowski, Ph.D., is professor of biology and an adjunct professor
of physics, neuroscience, psychology, cognitive science, electrical and com-
puter engineering, and computer science and engineering at the University
of California at San Diego. He is also an investigator at the Howard Hughes
Medical Institute and director of the Computational Neurobiology Labora-
tory at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies.
Dr. Sejnowski is a leading pioneer of computational neuroscience, and his
lab studies the principles that link brain mechanisms, mind, and behavior.
They use a variety of techniques to study the brain at both low and high lev-
els of description. On one end they study the low-level biophysical proper-
ties of individual neurons. On the other, they build large-scale neural
network models to help them understand how the brain processes vision,
stores memory, coordinates sensation and action, and how it all evolved.
On the Web: http://www.salk.edu/faculty/sejnowski.html
http://www.hhmi.org/research/investigators/sejnowski.html
Dr. Lucy Shapiro

Cell Biologist
Lucy Shapiro, Ph.D, is director of the Beckman Center for Molecular and
Genetic Medicine at Stanford University and a professor of genetics. Dr.
Shapiro has made innovative use of microorganisms to shed light on how
higher organisms, including humans, develop all their complex organs,
tissues, and parts starting from a single cell. By studying an unusual bacte-
rium that splits into two different cell types at a certain stage in its life, she
made major advances in understanding the genetic and molecular mecha-
nisms behind embryonic development. Her work has also led to better
understanding of how proteins move around and perform their work inside
cells.
Dr. Shapiro also works actively to promote public understanding of sci-
ence and to reduce scientific illiteracy. She is a board member of the Scien-
tists Institute for Public Information, and gives frequent talks to lay
audiences and policy makers. She was invited to the White House to advise
President Clinton and his Cabinet about the risks biologically altered patho-
gens pose to national security and the food supply. Among other issues, Dr.
Shapiro educates people about breast cancer policies and science, and has
also spoken out about the alarming levels of resistance which bacteria are
developing to antibiotics.
Dr. Shapiro is co-founder of Anacor, a pharmaceutical company that is
working to develop new treatments for microbial infection to compensate
for the waning effectiveness of present-day antibiotics. She also sits on the
board of directors of GlaxoSmithKline, a research-based pharmaceutical
company.
On the Web: http://devbio1.stanford.edu/usr/ls/
Dr. Michael Shermer

Skeptic
Michael Shermer, Ph.D., is the founding publisher of Skeptic magazine and
the director of the Skeptics Societyboth large, international venues for
defending the scientific method and refuting the claims of pseudoscience,
religion, and mysticism. Dr. Shermer is the author of five books, including
Why Darwin Matters, The Science of Good and Evil, Why People Believe
Weird Things, How We Believe: The Search for God in an Age of Science,
and The Borderlands of Science: Where Sense Meets Nonsense. He has also
co-authored a number of books, including Denying History: Who Says the
Holocaust Never Happened and Why Do They Say It?, and is a monthly col-
umnist for Scientific American. Dr. Shermer also used to be a competitive
transcontinental cyclist, and is the author of several books on cycling.
On the Web: http://www.skeptic.com/director.html
Dr. Robert J. Temple

FDA Official
Robert J. Temple, M.D., is associate director for medical policy at the
Center for Drug Evaluation and Research, which is part of the U.S. Food
and Drug Administration (FDA). The Center is responsible for regulating
the claims of drug makers and for assessing the quality of clinical trials with
new medical treatments. Dr. Temple has held many important positions at
the FDA over the years and is an expert in pharmaceutical regulation and
research.
Dr. Mark Jude Tramo

Neuroscientist/Neurologist
Mark Tramo, M.D., Ph.D., is an assistant professor of neurology and direc-
tor of The Institute for Music & Brain Science at Harvard Medical School.
He is also an assistant attending neurologist at Massachusetts General Hos-
pital, as well as a composer. Dr. Tramo studies the neural basis of music per-
ception and cognition in infants and adults. He looks for the brain areas and
patterns of neural activity associated with melody, harmony, rhythm, the
emotions they evoke, and the universal elements that are found in the music
of all cultures.
On the Web: http://www.researchmatters.harvard.edu/people.php?
people_id=210
Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson

Astrophysicist
Neil deGrasse Tyson, Ph.D., is director of the Hayden Planetarium in New
York City. He is also a visiting research scientist in astrophysics at Princeton
University. Dr. Tysons professional research interests include star forma-
tion, exploding stars, dwarf galaxies, and the structure of our Milky Way.
He works to educate the public about cosmology through his writings and
lectures. Dr. Tyson has written many professional publications and is a
monthly essayist for Natural History magazine. He has authored and co-
authored several books, including The Sky is Not the Limit, One Universe:
At Home in the Cosmos, Merlins Tour of the Universewhich has been
translated into several languagesExploring the Invisible: Art, Science,
and the Spiritual, and a playful Q&A book on the universe for all ages titled
Just Visiting This Planet. Dr. Tysons contributions to the public apprecia-
tion of the cosmos have recently been recognized by the International Astro-
nomical Union in their official naming of asteroid 13123 Tyson. In 2000,
People magazine declared Tyson the sexiest astrophysicist alive.
On the Web: http://research.amnh.org/users/tyson/
Dr. K. Birgitta Whaley

Chemist
Birgitta Whaley, Ph.D., is a professor of chemistry at UC Berkeley. She stud-
ies the properties of quantum clustersultra-tiny assemblages of atoms
or molecules that are too large to be studied with ordinary chemistry tech-
niques, but too small to be studied with traditional bulk-manipulation meth-
ods. Quantum clusters have unique energetic, structural, and dynamical
properties, and understanding them will be crucial to the development of

quantum computers. Quantum computers take advantage of the bizarre
fact that atoms and electrons are able to exist in multiple, mutually exclusive
states simultaneously. They have not yet been built on any useful scale,
but they will one day far outpace the digital computer in certain kinds of
computation.
On the Web: http://chem.berkeley.edu/people/faculty/whaley/whaley.
html

Index
abstract objects and cause of existence, attention:

244 autism and, 53, 55;
academic community and national consciousness vs., 37
defense, 18889 auditory system. See brain activity
acoustical energy, 25 autism, 4763, 26162
acupuncture, 7980, 8586 auto-immune diseases, 97, 129. See
aerosol-based epidemics, 99 also HIV
AIDS. See HIV awareness. See consciousness
alchemy, 166
aliens. See life in the universe B2 bomber, 19091
all possibilities, multiverse of, 242 bacteria. See microbes
almost necessity of current reality, 239 Baltimore, David, 13336, 281. See
alternative futures, 34 also order in the universe
alternative histories, 3 Bamberger, Jeanne, 31, 281. See also
alternative medicine, 7789, 26364 music, significance of
amino acids, defined, 265 basic science:
anaerobic bacteria, 98 defined, 275;
Andreasen, Nancy C., 7475, 280. See in national security, 185200
also psychiatry Being and Non-Being 24344
The Andromeda Strain (novel), 10, 13 belief systems. See religion and
anecdotal evidence, defined, 26465 fundamentalism
anesthesia, 3738 Big Bang, 14041, 14950, 23637;
anthrax, 94. See also microbes what preceded, 221
anthropic principle, 146, 22122, 237 binding problem, 262
anti-science sentiment, 19596 bioethics, defined, 266
antibiotic resistance, 9293, 103 biology. See life sciences
antidepressants. See drugs biomedical psychiatry. See psychiatry
(medications); psychiatry biomedicine, defined, 263
antioxidants, 8384 bioterrorism, 94, 99, 130
antivirals, defined, 265 black holes, 138, 270
applied science, defined, 275 Blandford, Roger, 15253, 282. See
assent vs. consent, 110 also cosmos
assumptions in science, 13233 blinded clinical trials, 112
astrobiology, 156, 165, 271. See also Bogen, Joseph E., 45, 282. See also
life in the universe consciousness
astrophysics, 139. See also cosmos bottom of ocean, life at. See
atomic clocks, 175 extremeophiles
300 Index
brain activity, 39; commercialization of universities,

autism, 4763, 23738; 19899
binding problem, 131; communicable disease. See microbes
consciousness, 3346, 236, 260; communication and music, 2223
depression and, 69; compassionate use, 109
information representation, 59; complementary medicine, 7789, 239
music and, 2426, 28; 40
thoughts vs. neurons, 22223. See complex adaptive systems, 12830,
also memory. 26768
brain imaging techniques, 5960, 72 complexity, 123, 12630, 133, 267
73, 261 computational biology, defined, 266
brain vs. mind, 71 computing. See quantum computing
Brin, David, 1417, 282. See also consciousness, 3346, 243;
science, in science fiction as cause of existence, 260
Brothers, Leslie, 44, 283. See also consent vs. assent, 110
consciousness consonance in music, 2728
Brunner, John, 4 Copenhagen interpretation (quantum
brute fact of existence, 239 theory), 273
Butler, Octavia, 1719, 283. See also cosmological constant, 143, 152, 236
science, in science fiction cosmos, 13753;
inflation of, 14041, 145, 146, 247;
CAM (complementary and alternative microwave background, 142, 147;
medicine), 7789, 23940 science and theology of, 22021;
cameras, proliferation of, 7 visions of, See ultimate reality
CAN (Cure Autism Now), 6162, Courchesne, Eric, 6263, 284. See also
262 autism
cancer, caused by infection, 9597 Crichton, Michael, 1214, 259. See
Capron, Alexander, 121, 283. See also also science, in science fiction
testing new drugs cryptography. See factoring; secrecy,
cargo cult behavior, 19495 quantum mechanics and
Carter, Brandon, 237 culture:
Cass, Hyla, 284. See also alternative clinical trials and, 11619;
medicine music and, 27;
Cause of universe, theories of, 24244 science fiction and, 1011
cell phones, 2034 Cure Autism Now (CAN), 6162,
chemotherapy, 8384 238
children: cybernetic implants, 216
HIV clinical trials, 110, 111; cybersecurity, 19293
impact of music on, 28 cyclic multiverse, 24041
chlamydial pneumonia, 104
Christianity, 22325, 276 dark matter and dark energy, 137,
chromosomes, defined, 268. See also 14042, 270
genetics and genetic engineering Davies, Paul, 239, 242, 24445
Cipro, 94 Day, Agnes A., 1036, 285. See also
cleanliness, 101 microbes
clinical trials. See testing new drugs death, 207
clock precision, quantum mechanics defense, national. See national security
and, 175 Deistic First Cause, 243
Index 301
depression, defined, 263. See also ethics of clinical trials. See testing new
psychiatry drugs
Dicke, Robert, 237 Europa, life on, 162
Dietary Supplements Health & evolution of universe. See order in the
Education Act (1994), 83 universe
dimensions: Ewald, Paul, 100101, 286. See also
multiverse in extra dimensions, 241 microbes
Dirac, Paul, 237 existence, explanation for. See ultimate
disease. See microbes reality
disconnected regions, multiverse in, exotic objects (cosmology), 147
240 expansion of universe, 13940, 145,
disinfectants, 103 270
disorder. See order in the universe explosives detection, 19192
disruptive technologies, 188 extra-solar planets, 15961, 168
dissonance in music, 2728 extremeophiles, 156, 15859, 165
DiVincenzo, David, 18182, 285. See extremism, 21112, 213, 276
also quantum computing
DNA, defined, 26869. See also F-117 Stealth aircraft, 191
genetics and genetic engineering factoring, 169, 172, 182, 183, 274
DOD (Department of Defense), 188 failure modes, 1617
89 faith. See religion and fundamentalism
Dougherty, Llewellyn Doc, 200, fake universes, 245
285. See also science, in national false gods, 244245
security fantasy vs. science fiction, 23
dreaming, defined, 261 fine tuning required for Big Bang,
drugs (medications): 23637
aggressive prescriptions, 8283; fine structure constant, 14344
for mental health, See psychiatry; food preferences, 21920
naturopathy, See alternative formation of life. See life in the
medicine; universe
placebo reaction, 72, 8586; free will, 4243
testing, 10722 Freeman, Robert, 3132, 286. See also
dualist, defined, 277 music, significance of
functional brain imaging, defined,
E. coli, 93, 97 261
education, rational, 2089 fundamental laws, 12728
effective complexity, 127 fundamentalism. See religion and
Einstein, Albert, 4, 143 fundamentalism
emergence, 123, 130, 133 future of the universe, 144145
empowerment from technology,
2078 gamma ray bursts, 152, 157, 271
entanglement, 17375, 27374 gedanken experiments. See thought
environment, 1517; experiments
global warming, 8; Gell-Mann, Murray, 136, 286. See also
heredity vs., 13536; order in the universe
planetary, 193 gene therapy, 103
Epstein, Robert, 75, 285. See also genes, defined, 269
psychiatry genetics and genetic engineering, 125;
302 Index
antibiotic engineering, 93; inflationary universe theory, 14041,

autism and, 5556; 145, 146, 271
bioweapons, 99; information representation in brain,
DNA as complex adaptive system, 59
129; informed consent, defined, 266
DNA of brain cells, 133; integrative medicine, 80, 81, 264
heredity vs. environment, 13536 interferometry, 161, 16263, 27172
genome, defined, 269 internet, 19293
global warming, 8 interstellar travel, 167, 168
globalization, 16 Iqbal, Muzaffar, 21314, 22729, 289.
God. See Supreme Being See also science, harmonized with
Goodstein, David L., 287 religion; technology, as threat to
gravitational lensing, defined, 271 religion
gravitational radiation (gravity waves), Islam, 211, 222, 224, 227;
147, 150 fundamentalism of, 27576
gravity, planetary discover and, 159 Iversen, Portia, 6062, 289. See also
60 autism
Guth, Alan, 149, 287. See also
cosmos Jarvis, William, 8889, 289. See also
alternative medicine
Hameroff, Stuart, 288. See also Jurassic Park, 46. See also Crichton,
consciousness Michael
Hawking, Stephen, 210,236
hearing. See music, significance of Kiln People, 89
Helicobacter pylori, 96, 97, 98, 265 kinesthesia, 4849
heredity vs. environment, 13536 knowledge, narrow vs. shallow, 194
Herrelko, David, 200, 288. See also Koch, Chrisof, 46, 290. See also
science, in national security consciousness
hippocampus, 54 Koonin, Steven E., 19899, 290. See
HIV (human immunodeficiency virus), also science, in national security
10910, 122, 129; Kovacs, Andrea, 122, 291. See also
clinical trials, 110, 111, 117; testing new drugs
gene therapy, 103 Kulkarni, Shri, 16768, 291. See also
homeland defense (national security), life in the universe
185200
homeopathic immunization, 84 Labriola, Dan, 89, 291. See also
how questions, 21820 alternative medicine
Huang, Alice, 1012, 288. See also language, 38
microbes Leinster, Murray, 4
Hubble Space Telescope, 168 life in the universe, 15568;
human genome. See genetics and defining life, 16667
genetic engineering life sciences, 12425;
humanness, consciousness and, 42 astrobiology, 156, 165
lipid-lowering drugs, 115
idealism, 244 Lloyd, Seth, 183, 291. See also
idiot plot requirement, 17 quantum computing
illusion, reality as, 24445 Loewenberg, Peter, 292
infectious disease. See microbes long-term memory, 54
Index 303
Madrasa system, 209 Murray, Bruce, 16667, 293. See also

many-worlds theory, 273. See also life in the universe
multiple-universe models of reality music, significance of, 2232
Mars (planet), life on, 16162, 166 Muslims, 211
Marx, Karl, 6, 16
materialist, defined, 277 nanomachines, 181
mathematics, multiverse by, 242 narrow vs. shallow knowledge, 194
mathematics and music, 29 national security, 185200. See also
matter, ultimate stability of, 131 bioterrorism
me-too drugs, 11415 nationalism, 212, 213
medication and drugs: Natural Nutritional Food Association,
aggressive prescriptions, 8283; 8081
for mental health, See psychiatry; naturopathy, 264. See also alternative
naturopathy, See alternative medicine
medicine; necessity of current reality, 239
placebo reaction, 72, 8586; neurobiology, 259
testing, 10722 neuroimaging, 5960, 7273, 237
memory, 59, 133; neuroscience. See brain activity
autism and, 5455; neurotransmitters, 54
cultural emphasis on memorization, NICMOS (Near Infrared Camera
6, 29 Multiple Object Spectograph), 168
mental health. See psychiatry 1984 (novel), 67
Merzenich, Michael, 61 nonphysical accounts of reality, 242
microbes, 91106; 44
in hostile environments, 156 nothing, 24546
microbial antagonism, defined, 265 nuclear fission, 187
microwave background (cosmic), 142, nufs, 222
147 numbers that define the universe, 237
MIDI, 259
Miller, Donald E., 21416, 292. See occulting signature of planets, 161
also technology, as threat to religion ocean environment data, 19394
mind vs. brain, 71 ocean organisms. See extremeophiles
mobile phones, 2034 one-universe models of reality, 23840
molecular computers, 181 order in the universe, 12336
Mooij, Hans, 177 Orwell, George, 67
morality, 230. See also religion and
fundamentalism pain control, 85
morbidity, defined, 267 pantheistic substance, 243
Mozart effect, 28 pathogen, defined, 265
Mukhopadhyay, Rajarshi Tito, 58, peer review process, 18990
292. See also autism Penrose, Roger, 236
Mukhopadhyay, Soma, 293. See also peptide, defined, 266
autism perception, defined, 261. See also
multiple-universe models of real- sensory experience
ity,146, 24042 perinatel, defined, 267
Murphy, Nancey, 23133, 294. See pharmacy. See drugs (medications)
also science, harmonized with phases of clinical trials, 112
religion philosophical method, 23132
304 Index
physicalism, defined, 277 defining fundamentalism, 210

PKU (phenylketonuria), 56 11, 275;
placebo reaction, 72, 8586 harmonized with science, 21833;
placebos in clinical trials, 11214, scientism, 205, 210, 233, 253;
118 threatened by technology, 20116
planet formation, 16263 research universities and national
planets, extra-solar, 15961, 168 defense, 18889
plasmids, defined, 266 resistance to antibiotics, 9293, 103
plasticity of brain, 26 resurrection of Jesus, 22325
platonic forms as cause of existence, ritual, 213
244 Roy, Arundhati, 10
poetry, autism and, 4951 RPM (Rapid Prompting Method), 60
political extremism, 212, 213 61, 262
possibilities, multiverse of, 242 ruah, 222
practical vs. artificial problems, 125
26 Sagan, Carl, 16
predicting science in science fiction, Sampson, Wallace, 8889, 294. See
1, 3 also alternative medicine
prescription drugs. See drugs scenario forecasting, 235
(medications) schemas. See complex adaptive systems
principle of sufficient power, 244 schizophrenia, 73
privacy, 78; Schrodinger, Edwin, 17374, 18182
quantum mechanics and, 17375, Schrodingers cat, 18182
179 Schuman, Erin M., 63, 295. See also
probabilities vs. regularities, 12728 autism
probiotics, 9798 science:
promiscuous plasmids, 95, 104 definition of, 5;
proto-consciousness, 34, 39 harmonized with religion, 21833;
proton decay, 131 in national security, 185200;
psychiatry, 6575; as religion (scientism), 205, 210,
depression, defined, 263; 233, 253;
drug trials, 11819 in science fiction, 219;
pure science, defined, 251 technology vs., 2034
scientism, 205, 210, 233, 277
qualia, 35, 42, 261 Second Law of Thermodynamics, 126,
quantum branching or selection, 241 131
quantum computing, 16983, 274 secrecy, quantum mechanics and, 173
quantum mysticism, 4243 75, 179
quantum physics, defined, 27273 security and privacy, 78;
quantum teleportation, 199 national, 185200;
quantum theory, defined, 27273 quantum mechanics and, 17375,
179
Rapid Prompting Method (RPM), 60 Sejnowski, Terry, 5860, 295. See also
61, 238 autism
rationalism, 2089 self-destruction, 1617
Rees, Sir Martin, 237 self-explaining, universe as, 239
regularities. See order in the universe semantic memory, 54
religion and fundamentalism, 195; sensory experience:
Index 305
autism and, See autism; superposition, 172, 273. See also

binding problem, 131; quantum computing
kinesthesia, 4849; Supreme Being, 215, 233, 242243.
perception, defined, 261; See also religion and
visual awareness, 3537, 41 fundamentalism; science,
sequencing (genetics), defined, 269 harmonized with religion
sequential selection of multiverse, 241 Susskind, Leonard, 236
shallow vs. narrow knowledge, 194 symbiosis, defined, 266
Shapiro, Lucy, 295. See also microbes
Shermer, Michael, 216, 22930, 296. technology, as threat to religion, 201
See also science, harmonized with 16
religion; technology, as threat to technology, science vs., 2034
religion telephones, mobile, 2034
simplicity, defined, 267. See also telescopes, 161, 164, 175
complexity Temple, Robert, 12122, 296. See also
simulation in appearance, 245 testing new drugs
simulation in fact, 24445 temporal coding (brain), 59, 26263
simulation in virtual reality, 245 temporal selection of reality, 239
six numbers that define the universe, The Terminal Man (novel), 13
237 Terrestrial Planet Finder (TPF), 164
skepticism, defined, 277. See also terrorism. See bioterrorism; national
scientism; technology, as threat to security
religion testing new drugs, 10722
sleep, brain activity during, 49 theistic person. See Supreme Being
Sloan Digital Sky Survey, 147 theology. See religion and
Smith, Quentin, 240, 242, 24547 fundamentalism
social brain, 3839 third-world countries. See culture
social science, defined, 276 thought experiments, 4
solipsism, 245 three dimensions, multiverse in, 240
sonar data, 19394 Tramo, Mark Jude, 3031, 297. See
soul, 22223 also music, significance of
Space Interferometry Mission (SIM), tunneling, defined, 274
161, 16364 turning off technology, 2057
spectrum, defined, 272 Tyson, Neil deGrasse, 14952,
speculative history, 3 297. See also cosmos; life in the
spirit (soul), 22223 universe
spirit realms, 243
squid, eyespot of, 95 Ultimate Mind, 243
stability of matter, 131 ultimate reality, 23545;
standard candles (astrophysics), 139 why vs. how, 21820
40 ultimate stability of matter, 131
stomach cancer, 96 unconscious systems, 3637, 41. See
string theory, multiverse by, 241 also consciousness
strong anthropic principle, 237, 222. universe:
See also anthropic principle expansion of, 139;
superconductors for quantum life in, 15568, 16667;
computing, 177 order in, 12336;
supernovas, 139, 157 reality of, 21820, 23545
306 Index
universities, commercialization of, web (internet), 19293

19899 Weinberg, Steven, 236
Whaley, K. Birgitta, 18081, 297. See
vaccinations, 98 also quantum computing
Varmus, Harold, 125 why questions, 21820, 238. See also
virtual reality, universe as, 245 religion and fundamentalism;
viruses. See microbes ultimate reality
visual awareness, 3537, 41 worship technologies, 2045. See
volition (free will), 4243 also technology, as threat to
religion
water supply, quality of, 94, 9899
weak anthropic principle, 221, 237. xenogenesis, 235
See also anthropic principle
weapons systems, 187, 190 zombie consciousness, 3637, 41

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Closer to Truth:

Science, Meaning, and the

Robert Lawrence Kuhn

Robert Lawrence Kuhn

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data is available.

The paper used in this book complies with the

Glossary of Key Terms 259

Closer To Truth, based on the pubic television/PBS television series of the

No End for Science Exploration

Copernicus published On the Revolution of the Heavenly Orbs (1543).

Dr. Song Jian

What is Closer To Truth?

new knowledge challenges accepted principles, I find topics. I sometimes use

Robert Lawrence Kuhn

Is Science Fiction Science?

Michael Crichton: Yes. A warning about incautious research.

Robert Kuhn: Theoretically though, all of your fiction is non-culturally

Robert Kuhn End Commentary:

Third, science fiction can examine a vast number of alternative futures,

Interviews with Expert Participants

Whats changed in your field since you were a kid?

Does the general public appreciate science?

Any advice for young people?

How would you like to be remembered?

Has your audience surprised you?

What do you think the biggest threat to life is today?

Talk about the technology in fiction.

Ever had any close encounters?

Will technology outpace civil control?

the MolecuMac. Under circumstances like those, if we remain so stupid, civ-

Do you think the impoverished are doomed to exploitation?

Is mankind exploiting the earth?

Talk about anti-globalizationis it a democratic movement?

Whats going to be our failure mode, if we have one?

bioengineering of diseases? I dont know. It could be that human beings are

How do you think we can insure survival of the species?

Has science fiction served us well?

Whom do you admire most, and why?

What advice do you have for young people

Did you major in science in school?

Do you stress science research?

Why science fiction and not just fiction?

How do you think you will be remembered?

How would you like to be remembered?

Why is Music So Significant?

Robert Freeman: Patterns.

Robert Kuhn End Commentary:

Interviews with Expert Participants

Is the appreciation of music innate or learned?

amount, if any, exposure to music they showed sensitivities to some of the

Should public money be used to support the arts?

Their differences are immediately apparent as they attempt to describe con-

Stuart Hameroff: Consciousness is an amazing thing; even though I do it

Stuart Hameroff: Correlates! So youre going to give up on consciousness

animals do have these expressions of consciousness, many experiments of

Christof Koch: Exactly.

Robert Kuhn End Commentary:

Psychiatrist/author Leslie Brothers firmly believes that there is something of

Interviews with Expert Participants

How does brain physiology fit into this view?

Who influenced your ideas about society and the brain?

Why did you become a scientist?

Whom do you most admire, and why?