In a recent interview (August 11, 2008) with editor Carol Iannone of Academic Questions, Tom Wolfe, the famous New Journalist, who coined terms like "radical chic," backed away from the materialism chronicled in his Sorry, but Your Soul Just Died:
Iannone: About neuroscience, though, I thought I was getting from I Am Charlotte Simmons the idea that we’re resisting that, resisting that we are just impulses and synapses and so on?
Wolfe: There’s neuroscience the science and there’s genetic theory. They are two entirely different things. José Delgado, the Spanish neuroscientist, son of the Copernicus, the Galileo of neuroscience, José M.R. Delgado, puts it very clearly: “The human brain is enormously complicated. We have made only a few small steps in finding out how it works. All the rest is literature.” Delgado mentions no names, but if he has noticed them at all, “all the rest” probably includes some of the best known genetic theorists, such as Richard Dawkins and Daniel Dennett, a zoologist and a philosopher. They are not neurologists. They know precious little about the human brain. They seem to have captivated a big following, especially Dawkins, but not with anything that could be called neuroscience. They’re writing speculative literature. Their theory is that the human brain is nothing but a machine, after all, a form of computer, and therefore it has no free will. In any situation we find ourselves we can only do what our evolutionary software—they love computer talk like “software,” meaning genetic makeup—has programmed us to do. So at a recent conference on the implications of genetic theory for the legal system—five distinguished genetic theorists are up on stage—I stood up in the audience and asked, “If there is no free will, why should we believe anything you’ve said so far? You only say it because you’re programmed to say it.” You’ve never heard such stuttering and blathering in response to anything in your life. But I have to confess that I made the mistake of conflating science and genetic theory in the first piece I wrote about neuroscience, “Sorry, but Your Soul Just Died”…
Trust me, Tom old boy, I have heard the stuttering and blathering too
Also just up at The Mindful Hack, the blog on neuroscience and spirituality that supports The Spiritual Brain:
US cognitive psychologist Steven Pinker defends freedom of expression in Canada (Is materialist Pinker also among the prophets?)
Political science - The messy room proves that liberals are smart and the neat room proves that conservatives are dumb (junk science alert)
Adopting a dog can be as good for your health as pills?
Arch-atheist Dawkins now thinks serious case can be made for deistic God?
I am a huge fan of Tom Wolfe, and his article, which I read in the Forbes ASAP special edited by George Gilder when it first came out, did a great job of chronicling the attitude of scientists, and Wolfe showed even then the logical end to such thinking. He is not refuting his entire article, and there is a lot to be learned by reading his original piece as well as his other commentary. There are few writers with as much insight into human nature as Tom Wolfe, and he has always pointed out the follies and excesses of various popular opinions and habits. From The Electric KoolAid Acid Test to The Pump House Gang essays about subcultures in America, to The Right Stuff to Bonfire of The Vanities (talk about a non-politically correct skewering of the vanity of just about every ethnic and social group in the country!) to A Man in Full to I Am Charlotte Simmons and Hooking Up, Wolfe can teach us a lot. When WORLD Magazine asked Christian leaders to name their favorite and most influential books of recent decades, Wolfe's books were named as much as anybody's, and some suggested they were required reading for Christians who want to engage the culture.
Posted by: Jeff Swan | October 30, 2008 at 08:43 PM