During my recent lecture series on science and religion, I tried to make clear that science includes many beliefs in addition to hard facts while religions encompasses hard facts in addition to many beliefs.
So what about the fuzzy approach of intuition or educated guess in a prototypical biological experiment? If this is not just a dose or time variation from a previous experiment, it will always involve an extrapolation from somewhat related facts believing that the next experiment will be better than the last (Show me more…)

Mutation accumulation in the human genome is a largely neglected research field. Most mutations have a very small effect (if any) and may be compensated by environmental improvements. I have already argued in that way in the 2003 Triple T paper and will reiterate it soon in PLOS medicine (just found that James Crow 1997 in PNAS and 2000 in nat gen rev had the same opinion). In principle, the improvement of sanitation and better medical care is leading to a retention of mutations that would be otherwise subject of purifying selection.
Another important factor seems to be the increase of parental age in Western societies. A 20 year old man had about 150 chromosome replications while a 40 year old had about 610 replications. To count the number of your somatic mutations, you need to add all events of your lifetime plus the age of your father at birth minus 9 months … Even with the high fidelity of polymerases, DNA replication remains an error prone process leading eventually to an increase of germline mutations (as may be seen with achondroplasia, Apert syndrome, neurofibromatosis and prostate cancer). With the increasing age of fathers we are now nearly doubling the absolute number of mutations every generation – and we keep them in the pool in contrast to previous centuries. Crow in PNAS 1997 even said

I do regard mutation accumulation as a problem. It is something like the population bomb, but it has a much longer fuse

A decade ago Karen Hunter (at that time Senior Vice President of Elsevier) did a brilliant analysis why scientists publish:

For academic scientists, the research paradigm is the experiment and the publication output is a journal article. Academic science researchers publish to establish their claim at a specific time to a specific result. They publish to gain other forms of recognition (such as promotion and tenure) that require publication. They publish in order to have independent certification of the results and to have those certified (refereed) results archived in perpetuity. Finally, they publish to communicate with those who may be interested in their works today …

She continues with another important aspect

… not the circle of cognoscenti (who do not need publication to be informed) but researchers in related fields, researchers in less well-connected institutions and students working their way into the inner ring.

In my opinion, the “claim at a specific time to a specific result” is probably the most relevant motivation for a scientist. Nevertheless having claims on ideas presented in a printed paper seems to be still a habit of the pre 1995 stone age of scientific publishing. Databases will be certainly as reliable in the future as printed paper. I guess that in 50 years the access to current electronic documents will be even better than to any printed paper. Yea, yea.

I do not want to discuss here the rather polemic view of Daniel Dennetts “Breaking the spell” and other books as the new secularism is “suddenly hip” as the Guardian digital edition writes on 29th Oct 2006

Secularism is suddenly hip, at least in the publishing world. A glut of popular science books making a trenchant case against religion have soared up the bestseller lists both here and in America. The phenomenon represents a backlash against a perceived rise in religious fundamentalism and recent crazes for ‘spirituality’ by way of books such as The Da Vinci Code. Secularists are now eager to show that the empiricism of science can debunk the claims of believers.

More interesting is the question if human morality is an inborn trait or not. Nicholas Wade has a nice essay in the NYT:

Marc D. Hauser, a Harvard biologist, has built on this idea to propose that people are born with a moral grammar wired into their neural circuits by evolution. In a new book, “Moral Minds” (HarperCollins 2006), he argues that the grammar generates instant moral judgments which, in part because of the quick decisions that must be made in life-or-death situations, are inaccessible to the conscious mind. People are generally unaware of this process because the mind is adept at coming up with plausible rationalizations for why it arrived at a decision generated subconsciously. Dr. Hauser presents his argument as a hypothesis to be proved, not as an established fact. But it is an idea that he roots in solid ground, including his own and others’ work with primates and in empirical results derived by moral philosophers.

I renember also an article by Roger Higfield in the Washington Times (24th March 2003) than unfortunately vanished from the internet:

Scientists are hunting for a “God gene” that underpins our ability to believe. The idea of genes linked with beliefs does not look far-fetched, given the influence of genetics on the developeing brain.

Higfield is refering to an empirical twin study:

To investigate the heritability of religiousness and possible age changes in this estimate, both current and retrospective religiousness were assessed by self-report in a sample of adult male twins (169 MZ pairs and 104 DZ pairs, mean age of 33 years). Retrospective reports of religiousness showed little correlation difference between MZ (r=.69) and DZ (r=.59) twins. Reports of current religiousness, however, did show larger MZ (r=.62) than DZ (r=.42) similarity. Biometric analysis of the two religiousness ratings revealed that genetic factors were significantly weaker (12% vs. 44%) and shared environmental factors were significantly stronger (56% vs. 18%) in adolescence compared to adulthood. Analysis of internal and external religiousness subscales of the total score revealed similar results. These findings support the hypothesis that the heritability of religiousness increases from adolescence to adulthood.

Time on Oct 17, 2004 referred to a book of Dean Hamer “The God Gene”

Chief of gene structure at the National Cancer Institute, Hamer not only claims that human spirituality is an adaptive trait, but he also says he has located one of the genes responsible, a gene that just happens to also code for production of the neurotransmitters that regulate our moods. Our most profound feelings of spirituality, according to a literal reading of Hamer’s work, may be due to little more than an occasional shot of intoxicating brain chemicals governed by our DNA. “I’m a believer that every thought we think and every feeling we feel is the result of activity in the brain,” Hamer says.

This looks like a physical view of spiritual affairs – Hamer became famous for his failure of the “gay gene”. So we may better turn to the question if there is any theological background? I renember a famous guest lecture in Marburg 1980(?) about the Epistle to the Romans by Herbert Braun (Ernst Fuchs was also in Marburg; together with Ernst Käsemann and Günther Bornkamm the most famous scholars of Rudolf Bultmann; Käsemann wrote a “Commentary on Romans” as well as Fuchs). I need to go back to my files what Fuchs said, but I still renember Rom 2:14 in King James translation saying:

13 For not the hearers of the law are just before God, but the doers of the law shall be justified.
14 For when the Gentiles, which have not the law, do by nature the things contained in the law, these, having not the law, are a law unto themselves:
15 Which shew the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and their thoughts the mean while accusing or else excusing one another;

Science and theology do not seem so far away here: there seems an inherited deep feeling of religiousness (or being a notorious detractor), yea, yea.