Neuroscience and spirituality – responsible science?

Reigh's Brain rlwat1 by Reigh LeBlanc

Copyright © Michael Clark. All rights reserved.

Dr. Andrew Newberg is a prominent neuroscientist who appeared in the ‘new physics’ film What the Bleep Do We Know!? and, more recenty, in Bill Maher’s provocative but somewhat sketchy Religulous.

Dr. Newberg says we have a need to believe and when it comes to spirituality, religion and natural aesthetics it apparently doesn’t matter what we believe because the positive inner experiences are all the same.

The brain is a believing machine because it has to be…Spirituality and belief don’t have to equate to religious faith…The feelings of enlightenment and well-being some derive from religion can come to others through from artistic expression, nonreligious meditation, watching a beautiful sunset or listening to stirring music. » http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16842848/

From this it would seem that a beautiful sunset, Tibetan meditation and Catholic contemplation all generate the same kind of feelings because subjects’ observable brain activity are similar.

But studies like these must always look from the outside. Newberg has no reliable way of knowing exactly what different subjects experience–even if they exhibit similar brain activity and choose the same kind of words to describe that experience.

This uncertainly is addressed head on by religion scholars and philosophers, especially in the areas of comparative mysticism, phenomenology and poststructuralism. But neuroscientists like Newberg appear to ignore this rich body of human inquiry and blindly extrapolate their results far beyond any reasonable limits of science.

Having said that, the Wikipedia entry on Newberg claims he is aware of such criticisms and hopes to see further studies exploring “the more complex elements of religious and spiritual phenomena.”

It’s unclear who wrote that entry and we’ll just have to wait and see what the future holds. But something tells me that providence and grace will never be reduced to mere neurological footprints.

Further reading:

• Religion And The Brain Sharon Begley, NEWSWEEK » http://www.newsweek.com/id/79341/output/print
• Science vs. Spirit, The Nassau Guardian » http://www.thenassauguardian.com/religion/297943801640628.php
• Mail Online: Scientists ‘discover’ source of wisdom in the human brain – Commentary on another brain imaging study that confuses the basic tenets of causality and correlation.