A Helpful Scientific Study…A Flawed Conclusion

September 14, 2007 in Hebrews 9, science, sin
Tags: Death, lonliness, Steve Cole

Friends,

I have been ripping on science a lot today. I feel bad about that. So, to make amends, a little, I offer this helpful article from Science: Lonliness is in the Genes:

I think there is actually something to this. If you think about it, this has its roots in the very sin that pervades our existence. Remember, in the beginning, the Lord said, “It is not good for man to be alone.” (I fully realize there is a difference between being ‘alone’ and being ‘lonely.’)

Everyone feels lonely from time to time, but some people have it much worse. These individuals consistently feel lonely for years, often despite having friends and family. Researchers have long known that such chronically lonely people are less healthy. They suspected cortisol, a hormone that regulates the body’s response to stressful or threatening situations, was to blame, because it’s found in higher levels in people who feel isolated. But the mechanism remained a mystery, and one nagging question persisted: If inflammation drives most loneliness-linked diseases, how can cortisol, with its anti-inflammatory properties, be the culprit?

I agree that research should be done into this field, but I disagree with the conclusion that researcher Steve Cole comes to: 

Cole hopes doctors will someday be able to use the genetic markers his team discovered to identify at-risk patients and keep them healthier with anti-inflammatory drugs such as aspirin. “We can’t change them into the happy, laughing life of the party,” he says, “but we can keep them out of the coffin.”

I confess that I don’t really know what he means by this. Is he saying, “Out of the coffin at an early age,’ or ‘Out of the coffin forever’? I hope what he means is the former because the latter is just hubris. 

Remember:

Then Christ would have had to suffer many times since the creation of the world. But now he has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to do away with sin by the sacrifice of himself. 27Just as man is destined to die once, and after that to face judgment, 28so Christ was sacrificed once to take away the sins of many people; and he will appear a second time, not to bear sin, but to bring salvation to those who are waiting for him” (Hebrews 9:26-28, NIV).

I’m not disagreeing with the article. I’m just saying that I think our lonliness is deep seated precisely because of sin. I agree that over the course of time sin has so warped us that it probably has disrupted and corrupted the genetic structure of our lives.

Finally, and I don’t mean this is a sarcastic way, but it has been argued that the environment affects our gentics. I wonder if the research indicates how the environment has affected the genese they are concerned about in this particular study. Finally, I wonder if perhaps there is any evolutionary advantage to these lonliness genes? I’m being serious because for all the joking around I do, I think lonliness is a serious problem in our increasingly solitary world.

If you are interested in the full study, Science has made it available in .pdf form here. If I get time, I’ll read it too. My thoughts above are only on the article reporting the study itself.

jerry