The scope of science

I've received a question about the PowerPoint presentation I put up. I've responded to the questioner, but I think this point may be of more general interest, so I'll put it up here as well.

But you mentioned how science can't measure what's not measureable. Is there any way you can expound on this point? I understand what you mean, but I'm more curious about any additional stories or anecdotes you may have shared about this point. I'm also curious WHY you brought this up? Is there some research you're doing that fits under this category? Does this fall into the qualitative type of research?

I myself am not doing any research on this point at the moment, but I find that it is something that is very important to a lot of people and that, if they think it is an obstacle to doing science, they will not make the attempt. So I want to go out of my way to reassure them that science does not need to take away from spirituality--the head does not come at the expense of the heart and soul, if you will.

I want *more* people to investigate doing science--and it will not be for everyone, but I want them to decide that for themselves on the basis of looking at it, and consciously deciding--not on the basis of the belief that they will be forced to let something very important go if they want to pick up science as another approach to life.

Here is a personal example; I hope that it illustrates what I am getting at.

For years, I worked at the Refugee Clinic at Harborview Medical Center in Seattle, where I performed massage for people from Southeast Asia, East Africa, Afghanistan, and other places. The people I treated had not only severe injuries from trauma, torture, and accidents, but often were severely depressed, or anxious, or had other psychological aftereffects of the trauma.

At first, I was quite afraid to take the job, because I thought that working around so many people with such difficult experiences would take its toll on me. I expected that, hearing their stories, I myself would grow more and more despairing at how cruel life can be in some places in the world, and to some people. But I had a friend who worked there, and he kept urging me to, and I agreed to try it and see how it worked out.

Strangely, I found that working with the refugees in the clinic provided strength and solace for me--I found a certain level of reassurance and meaning in the fact that, despite all the obstacles they had faced, they had survived and made their way here. I think that it is not enough to be strong--many strong people died along the way. They had to be lucky as well. And seeing them, even knowing that in their present state, there was a solid core of survival in them, made me more optimistic for humans than I had previously been. It was encouraging to me to see their desire to live, even though their present difficulties often put a heavy mask over it.

So what does that have to do with science? Well, science can measure how many people I treated, and it can describe their symptoms and measure any improvement. It can even explain the difference between depression and exhilaration in terms of brain chemicals. What it cannot do is explain how I was able to take meaning out of a situation where other people take desperation and depression--and indeed, where I expected that from myself before I started.

That I could extract personal meaning out of this situation--and that every other individual involved extracts their own, which may or may not overlap mine to some degree--that is something that science has nothing to say about. It is the domain of ethics, of spirituality, of that part of psychology which is not science--but it is not a measureable part of the natural world, and so it transcends science.

That is what I was getting at. At the same time, learning and doing science has taken nothing away from my ability to derive meaning and see beauty in the power of the human spirit to survive such hardships--and so I want to make that point very clear to people, who may unintentionally take themselves out of trying to learn anything about science because they fear--as some people say--that they will be forced to choose between head and heart.

My take-home message is that you do not have to choose--you can have both. What you do have to decide is where and how you want to dedicate your time for the maximal benefit of yourself and others--and once you have done that, to the degree that you want to learn about science, I want to provide the tools to help you do that.

I hope that made sense! Please let me know if it did; if not, I will try to express the point in another way.