THE ARTS AND SCIENCES are often seen as different activities, with different kinds of people engaged in them. The arty-farty type has floppy hair, a cool, detached look, and in the good old days before science ruined it, smoked French cigarettes. The science nerd has buckteeth and glasses and is great at hard sums. They often run in different cliques and hold mutual disregard.
And yet, if we look more closely, both artists and scientists are actually at the same game. Why would someone pick up a paintbrush and daub colours onto paper? Equally, why would someone try to understand the inner workings of our brains or immune systems? Well, first off, it might be fun! But more important, these are all attempts to answer the very question that unites the arts and the sciences: What does it mean to be human?
Erwin Schrödinger was someone who spanned the divide. He won the Nobel Prize for physics in 1933 for his work on quantum mechanics, but he also wrote poetry. On a cold February night in 1943 in Dublin, as World War II raged, he gave a public lecture in Trinity College Dublin entitled ‘What is Life?’ – and changed the world for the better. What was he doing there and why was he asking that particular question? He was obliged to give this public lecture in his capacity as Professor in the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies. The then Taoiseach, Éamon de Valera, had coaxed him to come to Dublin in what was effectively Ireland’s first attempt since independence to engage in scientific research. Schrödinger was curious about the basis for life and what it is to be human (being all too human himself), and brought a physicist’s mind to bear on the topic. When he gave his lecture, our knowledge of what life is was very limited. For example, his lectures predated the discovery of DNA as the material that genes are made of. And we humans, like all life on Earth (that we know of – scientists must always be open-minded), have DNA as the key ingredient. A recipe and ingredient in one. The book that resulted from Schrödinger’s lectures was hugely influential and directly inspired many scientists to embrace the big scientific questions in life, not least Watson and Crick, the co-discoverers of the structure of DNA. This is widely felt to be the biggest scientific advancement of the 20th century, since it helped explain the basis of life itself – the passing of information to the next generation in the form of the double helix. This was mind-blowing when it was discovered and still mind-blowing today.
If we fast forward 75 years to today, our understanding of what life is has advanced hugely, and, given our narcissism as a species, we can also better comprehend what humans are. Schrödinger lit the touch-paper to launch a rocket that continues to soar. That understanding is a testament to the commitment of scientists, whose restless curiosity has driven all this fabulous knowledge forward.
In this book I will tell you all about these advances, starting with the origin of life (we’re coming close to understanding this event that occurred at least 4.2 billion years ago); how we as a species evolved on the plains of Africa some 200,000 years ago, and how we populated the planet; how we find a mate, and how sperm and egg get it on; what makes us straight or gay; what and why we believe; what makes us interesting as a species (our love of humour and music); why we sleep and have a roughly 24-hour rhythm; our unending efforts to find new ways to stop disease; whether we will create superhumans and the huge machines we’ve already built; how and why we age; how we die and possibly can escape death; and our eventual extinction as a species (which, cheerily enough, is inevitable). I will also discuss how the process of discovery is now being enhanced and accelerated by our own inventions – computing, robotics and artificial intelligence, which are bringing many benefits but also concerns.
My goal is to introduce you to how great science can be as a way of understanding life and what it is to be human. This pursuit is the pinnacle of evolution, involving individual and collective analysis and action by humans working for the greater good. Whether you’re arty-farty, nerdy or a mixture of both, embrace your inner scientist and join me on this exciting journey into the origin of life to us and beyond, the biggest mystery of all – humanology.