Q: What motivated you to write SECOND GENESIS?

A: This is a unique book for me, one that has grown directly out of my research of the brain. I have found that the science of the brain has turned a corner in the last 10 years, one that the general public doesn't fully appreciate. For the first time in thousands of years of philosophy, we're starting to ask, and answer, some of the ultimate questions. In a research paper, I can only explore very specific, focused questions. A novel was a much better medium to explore much deeper and more important questions that are coming up in the hallways at the big neuroscience meetings. The question SECOND GENESIS asks above all else is "What would be the ultimate experiment using modern technology to test the existence of God and the soul?"

Q: How can you test the existence of the soul?

A: I've been fascinated by faith and spirituality since I was a child. It's what led me to a career studying the mind. Most people believe that questions of faith are out of reach of scientific inquiry. There have been a few instances in history where widely accepted articles of faith have bumped into science, such as with Galileo's astronomy or Darwin's theory of evolution. These ideas had a huge influence on society because they were disruptive to core elements of faith for many people. This debate continues in certain circles even today over concepts like Intelligent Design. What I find interesting is that there is a movement among modern neuroscientists that is all but taking place behind closed doors to the general public. There are ideas, dangerous and exciting ideas, coming to light in neuroscience today that are an order of magnitude more disturbing and provocative than the theory of evolution and modern astronomy ever were. They speak to the very existence of a human soul.

Q: What kind of ideas?

A: If there's any core idea in neuroscience, it has to be that the mind is the same thing as the brain. What's happened in the last 50 years in brain science is we've been slowly accumulating mechanisms for how the brain works using purely natural principles. For example, at first it was figuring out how the brain cells talk to each other, how they form networks, how specific networks process individual tasks. We learned how optical illusions were artifacts of how our brain cells were wired together. Over time, we've created some convincing models for how simple electrical connections in the brain can process memory, emotion, attention, judgment, personality, a sense of consciousness. This all makes up the sum total of what we think of as our identity, our soul, of what and who we are. And if we have natural explanations for all of these traits, many ask what point does it serve to invoke a more mystical concept of a soul. Evolution had such an impact on religion because it provided an alternate explanation for creation, which before had been taken as prima facie evidence for a creator. Now neuroscience provides a natural explanation for the soul, a much more fundamental and disturbing concept. 100 years from now, neuroscience will dwarf evolution as the core conflict between science and religion.

Q: How does that relate to the existence of God?

A: On a fundamental level. If everything we are and believe and feel is explained by what's happening in our brains, without a need for a second, intangible spirit or soul performing the same functions, many think it strongly argues against a part of our identity that persists intact after death. Western religion, and to a large extent all major religions, require that some part of who we are lives on after death to meet our Maker. Many of the motivations and yearnings of a better life in heaven that so shape religion today are cast in a very different light without the idea that "I," myself, will stand again to see God.

Q: How do you address this in your book?

A: What I propose is a simple experiment. Much of what we've learned about the brain is compelling and troubling, but it's circumstantial evidence. One can and should ask, even if I can explain many properties of the soul by biology, how does that say that an inner essence or spirit isn't present as well? Of course it doesn't. So I propose a different experiment, one that is not just explanatory, but actually makes predictions. And making predictions is the ultimate test of any science.

Q: What is this experiment?

A: The experiment is this: What if you could show that biology alone could create an intelligent, feeling soul? What if you took an animal that most people don't consider to have a human soul, say a chimpanzee, made some small change in its biology, and out comes a fully sentient being that has every attribute of the soul. And all of these attributes were created solely by that small change in DNA, in the biology.

Q: Is this even plausible with today's technology?

A: Most neuroscientists believe it is. It's not something that gets talked about in the whole debate over stem cell research. It's actually in some ways amusing to neuroscientists how completely the mainstream coverage of stem cell research has missed the point. Ask the guy and the street, and they seem to think the trouble over stem cell research and human cloning relates to abortion rights or the awkwardness of seeing your clone at a cocktail party. But the really scary thing about stem cell research, the one nobody talks about is germline manipulation.

Q: What is germline manipulation?

A: Altering in fundamental ways the genetic code for a human being. Altering the code in ways that can be passed on from generation to generation, alterations that can create new subspecies of humans, alterations that change what it means to be human. That's not science fiction. It's well established technology in clinical gene therapy trials right now all around the country. It's used in assisted reproduction technologies that allow individuals to test for genetic diseases before implanting an embryo, and changing those bad genes before implantation.

Q: Why is this bad?

A: It depends on your point of view. Changing disease genes is one thing that few feel is a bad thing. But there's no difference in basic technology changing genes that make our children smarter. Or taller. Or male. There's no reason why we don't have the capability to take evolution into our own hands for the first time in history. And instead of having large changes in species happen over eons, they could happen within a single lifetime. That's something evolutionary biology has never confronted before. What impact would it have on human culture, or stability, or reproduction to have within a few generations the possibility of fundamentally changing what a human being is: how they look; what abilities they have? These are provocative questions, ones that I don't hear a lot of public debate about. That scares me. These are the things that keep me up at night, and it's one of the main reasons I wrote this book.

Q: What conclusions do you draw?

A: Very few, if any. My object is to raise important questions, explore them from all sides. I encourage readers to think about stunning new ideas and points of view, and draw their own conclusions about what it all means. I only hope to get people thinking about the new technologies we have, how they can be abused, what doors they can open.

Q: What is the setting for the book?

A: It's set in present day Brazil, in a research laboratory outside of Manaus. The setting was actually a blast to research because it's such a mysterious, exotic, compelling location for something primal. The rainforest has got to be the most motherly of all climates, the most fecund and ripe for a story about new beginnings. It's also a beautiful platform to develop some of the symbolism in the book.

Q: What kind of symbolism?

A: The whole book is an extended allegory of the story of creation. From out of the depths of a primeval forest comes a new creation, full of uncertainty about where it came from, searching for answers about its creator. The story traces out the origins of religious feeling, of desire for power, and development of community among the newly created chimpanzees. Ultimately it asks what we would expect if creation were to happen again, and what form it might take this time.

Q: What are you working on next?

A: I'm working hard getting my research lab off the ground, but have a new thriller in mind. As soon as I have more information, I'll post it here.