鈥淵OU cannot overestimate,鈥� thundered psychiatrist , 鈥渉ow threatened the scientific establishment is by the fact that it now looks like the materialist paradigm is genuinely breaking down. You鈥檙e gonna hear a lot in the next calendar year about鈥� how Darwin鈥檚 explanation of how human intelligence arose is the only scientific way of doing it鈥� I鈥檓 asking us as a world community to go out there and tell the scientific establishment, enough is enough! Materialism needs to start fading away and non-materialist causation needs to be understood as part of natural reality.鈥�
His enthusiasm was met with much applause from the audience gathered at the UN鈥檚 east Manhattan conference hall on 11 September for an international symposium called . Earlier , a researcher in neuroscience at the University of Montreal, Canada, and co-author of The Spiritual Brain: A neuroscientist鈥檚 case for the existence of the soul, told the audience that the 鈥渂attle鈥� between 鈥渕averick鈥� scientists like himself and those who 鈥渂elieve the mind is what the brain does鈥� is a 鈥渃ultural war鈥�.
Schwartz and Beauregard are part of a growing 鈥渘on-material neuroscience鈥� movement. They are attempting to resurrect Cartesian dualism 鈥� the idea that brain and mind are two fundamentally different kinds of things, material and immaterial 鈥� in the hope that it will make room in science both for supernatural forces and for a soul. The two have signed the , spearheaded by the Seattle-based , headquarters of the intelligent design movement. ID argues that biological life is too complex to have arisen through evolution.
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In August, the Discovery Institute ran its 2008 , at which Schwartz and , a neurosurgeon at Stony Brook University in New York, were invited to speak. When two of the five main speakers at an ID meeting are neuroscientists, something is up. Could the next battleground in the ID movement鈥檚 war on science be the brain?
Well, the movement certainly seems to hope that the study of consciousness will turn out to be , as Denyse O鈥橪eary, co-author with Beauregard of The Spiritual Brain, put it. According to proponents of ID, the 鈥渉ard problem鈥� of consciousness 鈥� how our subjective experiences arise from the objective world of neurons 鈥� is the Achilles heel not just of Darwinism but of scientific materialism. This fits with the Discovery Institute鈥檚 mission as outlined in its , which seeks 鈥渘othing less than the overthrow of materialism and its cultural legacies鈥�, to replace the scientific world view with a Christian one.
Now the institute is funding research into 鈥渘on-material neuroscience鈥�. One recipient of its cash is , a philosophy professor at Concordia University, Wisconsin, a Christian college, who testified in favour of teaching ID in state-funded high-schools at the 2005 鈥渆volution hearings鈥� in Kansas. Using a Discovery Institute grant, Menuge wrote Agents Under Fire, in which he argued that human cognitive capacities 鈥渞equire some non-natural explanation鈥�.
In June, James Porter Moreland, a professor at the Talbot School of Theology near Los Angeles and a Discovery Institute fellow, fanned the flames with 鈥淚鈥檝e been doing a lot of thinking about consciousness,鈥� he writes, 鈥渁nd how it might contribute to evidence for the existence of God in light of metaphysical naturalism鈥檚 failure to provide a helpful explanation.鈥� Non-materialist neuroscience provided him with this helpful explanation: since God 鈥渋s鈥� consciousness, 鈥渢he theist has no need to explain how consciousness can come from materials bereft of it. Consciousness is there from the beginning.鈥�
To properly support dualism, however, non-materialist neuroscientists must show the mind is something other than just a material brain. To do so, they look to some of their favourite experiments, such as on people suffering from obsessive-compulsive disorder. Schwartz used scanning technology to look at the neural patterns thought to be responsible for OCD. Then he had patients use 鈥渕indful attention鈥� to actively change their thought processes, and this showed up in the brain scans: patients could alter their patterns of neural firing at will.
From such experiments, Schwartz and others argue that since the mind can change the brain, the mind must be something other than the brain, something non-material. In fact, these experiments are entirely consistent with mainstream neurology 鈥� the material brain is changing the material brain.
But William Dembski, one of ID鈥檚 founding fathers and a senior fellow at the Discovery Institute, praised Schwartz鈥檚 work as providing 鈥渢heoretical support for the irreducibility of mind to brain鈥�. shows that he is currently co-editing The End of Materialism with Schwartz and Beauregard.
Meanwhile, Schwartz has been working with Henry Stapp, a physicist at the US Department of Energy鈥檚 Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, who also spoke at the symposium. They have been developing non-standard interpretations of quantum mechanics to explain how the 鈥渘on-material mind鈥� affects the physical brain.
Clearly, while there is a genuine attempt to appropriate neuroscience, it will not influence US laws or education in the way that anti-evolution campaigns can because neuroscience is not taught as part of the core curriculum in state-funded schools. But as Andy Clark, professor of logic and metaphysics at the University of Edinburgh, UK, emphasises: 鈥淭his is real and dangerous and coming our way.鈥�
He and others worry because scientists have yet to crack the great mystery of how consciousness could emerge from firing neurons. 鈥淧rogress in science is slow on many fronts,鈥� says John Searle, a philosopher at the University of California, Berkeley. 鈥淲e don鈥檛 yet have a cure for cancer, but that doesn鈥檛 mean cancer has spiritual causes.鈥�
And for Patricia Churchland, a philosopher of neuroscience at the University of California, San Diego, 鈥渋t is an argument from ignorance. The fact something isn鈥檛 currently explained doesn鈥檛 mean it will never be explained or that we need to completely change not only our neuroscience but our physics.鈥�
The attack on materialism proposes to do just that, but it all turns on definitions. 鈥淎t one time it looked like all physical causation was push/pull Newtonianism,鈥� says Owen Flanagan, professor of philosophy and neurobiology at Duke University, North Carolina. 鈥淣ow we have a new understanding of physics. What counts as material has changed. Some respectable philosophers think that we might have to posit sentience as a fundamental force of nature or use quantum gravity to understand consciousness. These stretch beyond the bounds of what we today call 鈥榤aterial鈥�, and we haven鈥檛 discovered everything about nature yet. But what we do discover will be natural, not supernatural.鈥�
And as Clark observes: 鈥淭his is an especially nasty mind-virus because it piggybacks on some otherwise reasonable thoughts and worries. Proponents make such potentially reasonable points as 鈥極h look, we can change our brains just by changing our minds,鈥� but then leap to the claim that mind must be distinct and not materially based. That doesn鈥檛 follow at all. There鈥檚 nothing odd about minds changing brains if mental states are brain states: that鈥檚 just brains changing brains.鈥�
鈥淭his nasty mind-virus piggybacks on reasonable worries鈥�
That is the voice of mainstream academia. Public perception, however, is a different story. If people can be swayed by ID, despite the vast amount of solid evidence for evolution, how hard will it be when the science appears fuzzier?
What can scientists do? They have been criticised for not doing enough to teach the public about evolution. Maybe now they need a big pre-emptive push to engage people with the science of the brain 鈥� and help the public appreciate that the brain is no place to invoke the 鈥溾��.
