The Intersection of Religion and Science: Healing the Whole Person

On Friday, May 13, Vox Veritatis presented a panel in Collis Commonground titled “Healing the Whole Person: Exploring Medicine Beyond Science.” Cornell Professor of Physiological Genomics Dr. Preveen Sethupathy and surgeon Dr. Lori Alvord ’79  were the two main speakers on the panel, and The New York Times columnist Ross Douthat moderated. The panel’s intention was to reconcile the conflict between science and religion in modern medicine, with the three speakers of the panel all advocating a more holistic and spiritually aware approach to medicine.

In addition to Vox Veritatis, the panel was co-sponsored by various groups around campus including Apologia, Department of Native American and Indigenous Studies, Mourning Glory, Tucker Center, and The Wheelock Society. The Veritas Forum, a national group, also helped sponsor the event. This event was the first campus-wide event for Vox Veritatis, a recently founded club that hopes to bring interesting and challenging Christian speakers to the Dartmouth campus. 

Dr. Preveen Sethupathy is a Professor of Physiological Genomics at Cornell University where he leads the Center for Vertebrate Genomics as Director. He has a B.A. from Cornell and a Ph.D. in Genomics from the University of Pennsylvania. The Cornell man noted that while he had been to all the other Ivies, this event was his first trip to Hanover. Jokingly, he commented that he “saved the best Ivy for last.”

Dr. Lori Alvord ’79 is a graduate of Dartmouth and of Stanford Medical School. She was the first Navajo woman to be board-certified in general surgery, and today, she serves the Yakama tribe in Washington state. Previously, she served as an Associate Dean of Student Affairs and Multicultural Affairs at the College and as associate professor of surgery at the Geisel School of Medicine. She has authored a memoir of her life titled The Scalpel and The Silver Bear.

Ross Douthat is an Op-ed columnist for The New York Times. He has garnered acclaim for religious commentary with his book Bad Religion: How We Became a Nation of Heretics, for commentary on the contemporary Catholic Church with To Change the Church: Pope Francis and the Future of Catholicism, and for societal commentary with The Decadent Society: How We Became the Victims of Our Own Success. Most recently, he has authored The Deep Places: A Memoir of Illness and Discovery on his struggle with chronic Lyme disease, an illness about which he feels the medical establishment is misleading many. 

The event began with an introduction by Tony Perez ’23, President and co-Founder of Vox Veritatis. After he gave a brief introduction to the event and advertised for the club, he told some strange, light-hearted jokes to lighten the mood (“Why do sharks swim in saltwater? Because if they swam in pepper water, they would sneeze all the time.”) We at The Review hope that Vox Veritatis sticks to discussing religious matters as the club’s first venture into comedy was not met with great success. (Upon further reflection, the awkward, unsure reaction by the audience was very similar to that received by the various improv and comedy groups around campus, so perhaps this might be a successful route of evangelicalism to the hedonistic campus.) Perez ’23 then introduced Reverend Nancy Vogele ’85, the Chaplain and Director of the Tucker Center. Vogele voiced her and the Tucker Center’s full support for panels and discussions like this to happen around campus before introducing the panel and giving the reins of discussion over to the speakers. 

Douthat began by asking the panelists how they became concerned about the intersection of spirituality and science. Dr. Sethupathy went over how he had grown up Hindu, but due to a “comparative religion course” he put together for himself in college, he converted to Christianity. After his conversion, however, he began to encounter an ever-growing chasm between a faith-based worldview and a scientific one. As both a scientist and a Christian, he felt great concern about this divide, which has led him to have a great passion in his career for providing spaces where students and community members can struggle through these difficult questions together. Dr. Alvord ’79 noted how after leaving medical school, she discovered that she had not been properly prepared to treat Native patients. Specifically, her training did not prepare her to properly respect the culture and beliefs of Natives, and this improper training became an obstacle in treating the many serious illnesses they faced. The Native patients were not quick to trust her and would only come seeking medical assistance when their problems were last-minute and severe. Based on these experiences, she realized that she needed to change her medical practices to make them more accommodating and welcoming, and she began to introduce Native customs into her medical practices, such as bringing sacred objects into the operating room. Additionally, she found that adopting Navajo ways of being improved her own approaches to medicine. For example, practicing Native-guided imagery improved her own operating ability. She felt that the regular medical training did not prepare her for working with patients of different backgrounds and maintaining harmony with her patients.

Douthat then questioned the panelists on how they think of the phrase “beyond science” when it comes to introducing specific spiritual practices into medicine. He asked them whether they believed that medical science and spiritual practices were distinct, non-overlapping fields of study, or if they lie on a continuum and the discussion thus does not necessarily address what lies beyond science, but how spiritual practices can extend science beyond its current boundaries. Dr. Sethupathy presented his view that these fields are not distinct, since both are auspices under God. He went on to say that healing is, in actual fact, double faceted and a person can only be healed fully if both his physical and spiritual needs are addressed. Douthat refined his original question, asking Dr. Alvord ’79 specifically about how Navajo traditions fit into the general scientific role. In her answer, she focussed mainly on mindfulness and meditation—practices that are deeply important in Native culture. Native people believe that they are part of a larger cosmos and aspire to live in harmony with their surroundings. Allowing anxiety and depression to creep in indicates a strong sense of self, and to return to harmony, those feelings need to be cast out. She advises that this can be done through meditation and mindfulness, practices that have been proven to increase cortical thickness and alter the prefrontal cortex.

Perhaps the most intriguing part of the discussion was when Douthat inverted the direction of the discussion and asked how science can be used to inform the supernatural. Dr. Alvord ’79 started off referencing studies being conducted on small children who remember past lives, as well as people who have had near-death experiences. These people reportedly claim to have been welcomed to “the other side” by the embrace of relatives. She then lamented the stigma in the scientific community towards people who speak out about studying such supernatural experiences and explained how many scientists do not speak out about such things as they are afraid it will taint their reputation within the community. Both panelists then shared personal experiences with supernatural happenings. Dr Sethupathy spoke of  his experience of visiting India as a child shortly before his mother died. The family went to a Hindu temple to be blessed, and when the priest saw his mother, he ran inside. A while after his mother had died, he found out that the priest had run inside and told people that he cannot bless someone who is going to die. Dr. Alvord ’79 went on to describe her nephew’s conversion to Chritianity after being involved in a serious car accident. In this moment, he felt a strong spiritual presence and felt compelled to convert to Christianity.

Appropriately following on from the talk of science-defying medical miracles, the Q&A included a number of questions on the topic. Steven Hadley ’21 asked the panel members their thoughts on CRISPR, a gene-editing technology. Dr. Sethupathy gave an ambivalent response on the matter, noting that while CRISPR has great potential to treat illnesses such as Sickle Cell Anemia, the recent cases of the Chinese design babies is a cause of concern and this technology must be watched closely and intently in its uses. Another gentleman shared a deeply personal testimony of how he one day felt a deep conviction to pray for someone; no one in particular. A while later, he received news that a close friend’s daughter had been involved in a serious car accident, and it was nothing less than a miracle that she had survived. He asked the panelists if there is room for miracles within science. Between the panelists, they came to an answer that due to the fact that science is, by definition, agnostic, it does not subsume the miraculous and may not necessarily be able to provide an explanation for such medical miracles.
The event was well attended with Collis Commonground reasonably full, and speaking with both the event planners and event-goers, everyone was very pleased with the panel itself and the reception of it by the audience. Though Vox Veritatis is a recently established club, it has great potential to expand a Christian and religious-focused speaking series for the campus. Its next event is titled “The Middle Ages: Dark Ages of Superstitious Backwardness, Golden Age of Catholic Harmony or Neither?” and will be held next Thursday, May 26 at 6:30 in Rocky 002. Notre Dame History Professor Brad Gregory will be discussing the history and reception of the Middle Ages.