Science, the pursuit of truth, and humility

There have been a number of news articles recently that demonstrate, in my view, the relationship between science, humility in the pursuit of truth, and some religious beliefs.

The first is the recent article about fetal pain in the Journal of the American Medical Association which has caused such a commotion. In it, the authors claim that the unborn child cannot feel pain until at least seven months' gestation or so. But some researchers hotly dispute these conclusions. And many are questioning the authors' conclusions - and their biases - by virtue of their connections to abortion-rights organizations. (One of the co-authors actually owns an abortion clinic in San Francisco.)

Have these writers' scholarship methods been compromised by their views? An interesting question. But it's not the one I am addressing here.

What struck me about the position taken in this article was not only that it was counterintuitive, but that it reinforced how wrong SCIENCE has been about the developing infant - both in and out of the womb. And this is where two other recent articles make that point even more effectively.

Just a few days after the JAMA article was released, another study was published in the journal, Archives of Disease in Childhood - Fetal and Neonatal Edition which argues that unborn children actually cry in the womb. Information about the article can be found here. And here is the link to the actual ultrasound footage showing the fetus crying. (As the mother of a six-week-old infant, I was astonished at this footage, which shows a child doing exactly what my baby daughter does when she cries.) This study made headlines, because everyone believed that babies did not cry in the womb.

According to one article, New Zealand pediatrician Ed Mitchell, who contributed to the study, was quoted as saying, "We actually still do things to babies without anaesthesia. Maybe this is a wake-up call to obstetricians and neonatologists."

Duh. If you need further proof that science is often wrong in this area, you need only read the recent article in the August 8th issue of Newsweek magazine entitled, "Your Baby's Brain." In the feature article, the authors describe an experiment in which infants just a few months old exhibit jealous behavior when confronted with their mothers holding dolls. The researchers were shocked to see that infants could feel jealousy; this was not the prevailing medical view. A quote from the article:

"A wealth of new research is leading pediatricians and child psychologists to rethink their long-held beliefs about the emotional and intellectual abilities of even very young babies."

It was not always so. Thus:

"It was a notion that held for nearly a century: infants were simple-minded creatures who merely mimicked those around them and grasped only the most basic emotions—happy, sad, angry. Science is now giving us a much different picture of what goes on inside their hearts and heads. Long before they form their first words or attempt the feat of sitting up, they are already mastering complex emotions—jealousy, empathy, frustration—that were once thought to be learned much later in toddlerhood."

You can read the article to find out more. Jealousy, empathy, object permanence - all things that science now understands babies can feel. But scientists did not always believe this.

And so it was for pain, as well. Until relatively recently, doctors did not believe that newborn infants were sensitive to pain, either. So little boys who were circumcised were not given anaesthesia.

This seems asinine to me, and always has. Anyone who has had any dealings with babies knows that they feel pain. (What was all that screaming about when you cut the foreskin, then? Wounded pride? Please!) And fear, and jealousy, and sympathy. It is only when one is blinded by science that one could hold such obviously untenable views. Scientists who made those early claims remind me of the villagers who all agreed that the naked Emperor had a beautiful new suit of clothing - despite what their own eyes told them - because everyone else said so.

An anecdote. I was a freshman in college when my youngest brother was born. (Late babies are a tradition in our family!) In my sophomore year, I took a Child Psychology course. My little brother was about 9 months old at the time. It was fascinating to me, because I had firsthand knowledge of what the books, the professor, the "experts" were talking about, in terms of child development - and they were all wrong. My baby brother could do things and exhibit skills and feelings and behaviors well before what the "experts" said. And while I know my brother was a bright child, and children advance at difference paces, I remember distinctly that the timetables the scholarly literature presented were so off-base that they were utterly discredited for me.

Now here we are - some 25 years later - and gee whiz, science has finally caught up with what an adolescent older sister (and parents everywhere) could see without an experiment, a study, or a doctorate.

Here's my point: Judeo-Christian religious belief and traditional morality tell us that the unborn child - like human beings at all stages of life - is a human being of inestimable value. Today there are those who would use science to try to demonstrate this this isn't true; that the unborn child, the neonate, the infant, the disabled, the elderly, are all somehow "less" human, because they don't feel, perceive, sense, convey things the way "we" (presumably adult, fully-functioning and sentient human beings) do.

There are any number of things wrong with this approach. One can certainly make the moral argument (too long to go into on this particular post) that it shouldn't matter, from the standpoint of worth and value, what the human being's stage of development or capacity is.

But - because I am interested in the places where religious belief is supported by scientific proof - what's critical to me is the fact that the "scientists" are often wrong. They were wrong about infant pain. They were wrong about infant cognition and development. And - I have no doubt - they are wrong in their assessment that a child in the fetal stage of development feels no pain. In other words, even if one were to accept the premise (which I don't) that sentience is a prerequisite for human worth and value, then it is interesting that more recent scientific proof seems to shore up the belief that the unborn - as well as newborns and older infants - feel and understand a good deal more than conventional scientific wisdom believed.

A little humility, then, in the pursuit of scientific truth, would seem to be a good thing. And although a belief in Something Greater is by no means a guaranty of humility (as many humble atheists can attest), it is often a good place to start.