Christian René De Duve

From Philosopedia

de Duve, Christian René (2 October 1917— )

A Belgian chemist, biologist, and educator, de Duve has been a member of the editorial board of Subcellular Biochemistry (1971—1987), Preparatory Biochemistry (1971—1980), and Molecular Cellular Biochemistry (1973—1980).

A holder of numerous international honors, in 1974 he was awarded the 1974 Nobel Prize for his investigation of the structure of cells. In his textbook, A Guided Tour of the Living Cell, de Duve wrote:

• If you equate the probability of the birth of a bacterial cell to that of the chance assembly of its component atoms, even eternity will not suffice to produce one for you. So you might as well accept, as do most scientists, that the process was completed in no more than one billion years and that it took place entirely on the surface of our planet.

What was difficult, he added, was getting the simplest chemicals to the first specialized cells, after which “it took no more than 150,000 generations for an ape to develop into the inventor of calculus.” According to science writer Malcolm W. Browne, when de Duve was asked whether “some guiding hand” was needed for the process, he responded,

• The answer of modern molecular biology to this much-debated question is categorical: chance, and chance alone, did it all, from primeval soup to man, with only natural selection to sift its effects. This affirmation now rests on overwhelming factual evidence.

But the succession of chances that created life did not operate in a vacuum, he said. “It operated in a universe governed by orderly laws and made of matter endowed with specific properties. These laws and properties are the constraints that shape evolutionary roulette and restrict the numbers that can turn up. Among these numbers are life and all its wonders, including the conscious mind.” In a follow-up of that New York Times article (4 July 1995), De Duve wrote Warren Allen Smith as follows:

• I subscribe without reservation to the principle of free inquiry, untrammeled by any dogma, preconceived idea, or ideological bias. My recent efforts have focused on the origin of life, which I try to explain entirely in terms of the laws of physics and chemistry. I see the emergency of life as a highly deterministic process that was bound to occur under the conditions that prevailed on Earth four billion years ago and would likewise occur anywhere and any time similar conditions prevailed, a cosmic imperative. However, I believe it is wrong to identify free inquiry with atheism, which rests on faith no less than does religious belief. This point has been lucidly made by the Hungarian-Swedish virologist and cancer specialist George Klein, who, protesting not to be an agnostic but an atheist, writes (p. 203) in The Atheist and the Holy City (MIT Press 1990): I am, indeed, an atheist. My attitude is based on faith. . . . The absence of a creator, the nonexistence of God is my childhood faith, my adult belief, unshakable and holy.” I do not share my friend’s faith but rather keep an open mind, faced with - and awed by - the mystery that surrounds the origin of the universe of which we are a part. My own reading of the scientific facts presently available on the nature, origin, and evolution of life has led me to reject the concept of a meaningless universe, advocated by Jacques Monod, Steven Weinberg, and other scientists: If the universe is not meaningless, what is its meaning? For me, this meaning is to be found in the structure of the universe, which happens to be such as to produce thought by way of life and mind. Thought, in turn, is a faculty whereby the universe can reflect upon itself, discover its own structure, and apprehend such immanent entities as truth, beauty, goodness, and love. Such is the meaning of the universe, as I see it. Not all scientists may agree with my reading of the facts. But this does not entitle them to claim scientific legitimacy for their own reading, often misleadingly presented to the lay public as ineluctably enforced by scientific knowledge. I have tremendous faith in modern science and have devoted my life to it. But I feel that science should not be arrogant.

de Duve added that his Guided Tour of the Living Cell, published more than ten years ago, does not deal with the origin of life, that [m]ore to the point would have been his Blueprint for a Cell (1991) and, especially, his latest book, Vital Dust, Life as a Cosmic Imperative (1995), out of which are excerpted the passages quoted in [the above] letter.

Correspondence

{H. James Birx, Free Inquiry, Winter 1996-1997; WAS, 12 July 1995}