Sandra Gandarez
Neurobiology and Behavior
Book Commentary
The Astonishing Hypothesis: The Scientific Search for the Soul by Francis Crick
 

Imagine: a large garbage bag, clearly full of unwanted items such as used clothes, books, and maybe the occasional string of Christmas lights.  Just a big pile of junk.  Peeping through the top of the bag, a pair of melancholy eyes follow your gaze.  It’s a stuffed bear.  The stitched mouth seems to form a sad smile, as if to say, “Please take me...  I can be your friend.”  What is it about the oddly shaped pieces of fabric, stitched together and stuffed with cotton, with two button “eyes” and a sewed on mouth that make us feel sorry for the abandoned toy?

Why do people believe that there is a god? Some experts, such as anthropologist Scott Atran, believe that our propensity for religious belief is a byproduct of evolution (Brooks). New scientific evidence is suggesting that the neuronal pathways of our brain both reinforce religious belief and are altered by it.

In her memoir, Girl Interrupted, Susanna Kaysen describes her two-year experience in a mental health facility for young women in the 60s, where she was diagnosed with borderline personality disorder. Interwoven in her narrative of life on a psychiatric ward is a subtle message: being insane isn’t really all that different from being sane.   

I say to mankind, Be not curious about God.

For I, who am curious about each, am not curious about God

… I hear and behold God in every object, yet understand God not in the least. ­

– Walt Whitman (“Song of Myself”)

Charles Darwin begins his famous On the Origin of Species with a confession. After relating some details of his early journey on the H.M.S. Beagle, he explains that questions he asked during his trip accumulated into “a sketch of the conclusions” that he now presents in this volume (95). He writes, “I hope that I may be excused for entering on these personal details, as I give them to show that I have not been hasty in coming to a decision” (95).