|
Roger D Kornberg Department of Structural Biology Work address: FAIRCHILD D123 |
|
I will
describe a sphere of human activity that is characterized by faith and
passion. It seeks to understand the human condition. It addresses
our deepest concerns. You may imagine I am referring to religion.
But on the contrary, I am speaking about science. I wish to explain why
it, too, is an expression of the human spirit, suffused with emotion, and
inseparable from our existence. Before
continuing, I must disclaim expertise in any aspect of what I speak about
today except science. I am not a religious man, and I am not a
philosopher; I am not even well read on these
subjects. I will speak of them only in broad terms, and focus on what I
know best, the life of a scientist, and a life scientist in particular.
My contribution is therefore of a personal rather than general academic
nature. I will speak
about five aspects of a life in science: the purposes and aspirations,
the nature of the activity, the feelings that it engenders and our response,
the limitations of our innate abilities, and the implications for the human
condition. Much of what I have to say will be self evident, and indeed,
I make no claim to originality. But the way in which I frame the ideas,
with particular reference to my own experience will, I hope, be of interest. The goal of
science is understanding. This is remarkable
in a number of ways. It is remarkable that we even try, that we feel a
basic urge to explain our existence and our fate. It is no less
remarkable that we succeed, and will clearly continue. And our success
is attributable to our dedication to the undertaking. Of course,
religion includes amongst its purposes a similar goal of explanation and
rationalization. The pursuit
of science is assumed by lay people to be utterly dispassionate, reliant
entirely upon reason and objectivity. But the motive forces in science
are the same as in any other activity: a primal urge to explore, the
desire to succeed, love of the pursuit itself. The practice of science
is driven by intuition, by judgment, and by an inner sense of right and
wrong. The reaction to every major advance is a profound awe of
nature. It is doubtless same sense of awe that inspires religion, or at
least the narratives that form an important basis of religion. The challenge
of science is abstraction. The limitation is the difficulty of
understanding outside of our regular experience. The realms of
geological time, cosmic scale, atomic size, and high energy create conditions
and behavior we can describe but not fully comprehend. The concepts are
utterly unfamiliar and so require leaps of faith. They depend on belief
in the power of reason. It may be
thought the value of science lies in its application to real world
problems. It obviously contributes in practical ways to the betterment
of the human condition. Religion may be regarded as the wellspring of
moral sustenance. But the pursuit of knowledge for its own sake is a
lofty value; it is the source of
progress; and it is the ultimate distinction of humankind. |