The Faith of Biology & the Biology of Faith: Order, Meaning, and Free Will in Modern Medical Science

Award-winning biologist Robert Pollack argues that religious faith and science can inform each other’s visions of the world. He begins by reflecting on questions of meaning and purpose--and the difficulty of finding either in the orderly world described by the data of science. He then focuses on matters of free will: from the choice of a scientist to accept evidence, to the choice of a religious person to accept a revelation, to a patient’s loss of free will in medical treatment. Pollack concludes with the promise of genetic medicine in enabling us to glimpse our future and also offers a reconsideration of the utility of the so-called placebo effect in curing illness.