Science Has Spoken, The Case Is Closed

Two years ago - has it really been that long? - I wrote a quick piece for TNR Online arguing that conservatives who embrace "intelligent design" are playing into their enemies' hands. Here's the nut graf:

In the long run, though, intelligent design will probably prove a political boon to liberals, and a poisoned chalice for conservatives. Like the evolution wars in the early part of the last century, the design debate offers liberals the opportunity to portray every scientific battle--today, stem-cell research, "therapeutic" cloning, and end-of-life issues; tomorrow, perhaps, large-scale genetic engineering--as a face-off between scientific rigor and religious fundamentalism. There's already a public perception, nurtured by the media and by scientists themselves, that conservatives oppose the "scientific" position on most bioethical issues. Once intelligent design runs out of steam, leaving its conservative defenders marooned in a dinner-theater version of Inherit the Wind, this liberal advantage is likely to swell considerably.

I think this argument hold up rather well, and I thought of it while reading Jerry Coyne's attack on Sam Brownback, which contains various unobjectionable points about the nature of science and so forth, but then arrives at this conclusion:

What happens if scientific truth conflicts with a politician's "spiritual truth"? This is not a theoretical problem, but a real one, as we see in debates about stem-cell research, abortion, genetic engineering, and global warming. Ignorance about evolution may be widespread, but it's not nearly as dangerous as dogmatic certainty about the real world based on faith alone.

Uh-huh. I'm very curious to know what the "scientific truth" about abortion, stem-cell research and genetic engineering happens to be. (Somehow I assume it tracks remarkably well with liberal policy prescriptions on those issues.) But here's the thing - whenever conservatives attack a scientific consensus because they don't like its moral and political implications and don't have adequate firepower to carry the day (which the intelligent-design crowd doesn't, to my mind, in its battle against Darwinian theory), they make it that much easier for folks like Coyne to wrap their own moral convictions in the mantel of absolute scientific truth and caricature anyone who disagrees with them as "anti-science" yahoos. And you don't win many debates, in a society as mad for technological progress as ours, if you find yourself cast as an enemy of Science.

Just something for the Sam Brownbacks and Mike Huckabees to consider ...

Comments

well, some of us are still waiting for your explanation of Christianity promised here:

I understand that atheists and agnostics have a vested interest in arguing that all religious beliefs are equally absurd. ... But serious Christians should reject that view (for reasons that I think should be self-evident)

it's not so much a vested interest as an extension of the basic argument that there is no evidence of the existence of any god.

and if there are no gods, why should we as a society restrict the liberties of women over a group of lousy cells, especially when we can make more at any time?

A scientist might look at the data demonstrating that most american women exercise choice over the total number of children that they have in their life, and recognize that anti-abortion laws, in addition to grossly violating women's autonomy, also prevent the birth of the wanted child later in her life.

A scientist might look at all the frozen embryos generated by IVF and wonder why the government won't fund research that could dramatically change the quality of life of an enormous nuber of people now and in the future.

the implicit suggestion in your post that other apparently reasonable conservatives might believe that ID does have the firepower to stand up to Darwinian theory, and, for that matter, your use of the word "Darwinian", are both pretty frightening. ID is religion; modern biology, which has far surpassed Darwin, is science. (when you knock a book to the floor, do you grumble about Newtonian theories of gravity? Intelligent sucking has equal merit to ID.)

yeah, until the theocrats have no more say in the party, the case is pretty much closed.

Posted by Francis | June 8, 2007 2:12 AM

Did Coyne even spend two minutes thinking about this sentence in his essay?

"Alchemy, faith healing, astrology, creationism—none of these perspectives has advanced our understanding of nature by one iota."

This isn't even true in the tautological sense that ideas that turn out not to be part of nature don't advance our understanding of nature. Actually, they often do. Newton was an alchemist, Kepler was an astrologer. I could go on making a long list.

As for creationism, well, atheism got in the way of scientific progress in cosmology in the 20th Century. Many physicists in the mid-20th Century were hostile to Father Lemaitre's Big Bang theory because it reminded them too much of "Let there be light" and Aquinas' "prime mover" proof for the existence of God, thus being biased in favor of Fred Hoyle's "steady state" theory of the universe, which turned out to be wrong.

Similarly, physicist Brandon Carter's revival of the Rev. Paley's "argument from design" in 1974 has proven very fecund in terms of theories (e.g., multiple universes) to explain why our universe seems so well-calibrated for intelligent life to evolve in it.

Posted by Steve Sailer | June 8, 2007 2:50 AM

Francis says:
A scientist might look at the data demonstrating that most american women exercise choice over the total number of children that they have in their life, and recognize that anti-abortion laws, in addition to grossly violating women's autonomy, also prevent the birth of the wanted child later in her life.

So an embryo is "a group of lousy cells," but your scientist is making moral decisions on behalf of a hypothetical "wanted child" who has yet to even be conceived?

A scientist might look at all the frozen embryos generated by IVF and wonder why the government won't fund research that could dramatically change the quality of life of an enormous [number] of people now and in the future.

Another scientist could look at all those frozen embryos and conclude that they should be immediately and forcibly implanted into surrogate mothers. Another might decide they should be grown into tasty, high-protein snacks. Another might even think that they represent inchoate individuals and deserve to be treated as such.

Which of these is the "scientific" conclusion? Which ones are definitively refuted by capital-S Science?

You can pretend that your particular normative decisions flow logically and directly from "the basic argument that there is no evidence of the existence of any god," but that hardly seems very scientific.

Posted by Matt | June 8, 2007 8:10 AM

This seems mostly right, but there might be two things to keep in mind. It seems to me, first, that the evolution/ID controversy (to the degree that there is one) is largely a controversy over the nature of "Science" (I like how you capitalize that in the post) and its social authority. And, second, I'm not sure that you'll ever escape being tarred as an anti-Science "yahoo" simply because it's a nice and powerful rhetorical device that makes one side the force of reason and knowledge and the other, well, a "yahoo."

Posted by Michael Simpson | June 8, 2007 9:45 AM

Francis: why privilege the scientist and the mother over the embryo? From the perspective of the embryo, might they be the true "group of lousy cells?" ...always remembering that they, themselves (and Francis, too) were at one point a "group of lousy cells."

Posted by Tom | June 8, 2007 9:47 AM

Just when it appeared that God may have delayed his response to evolutionists, enter THE QUEST FOR RIGHT, a masterful work on creationism.

The great gulf of ambiguity that once separated Intelligent Design from legitimate scientific discourse has been abolished. It is a fact: The Quest for Right has accomplished that which, heretofore, was deemed impossible: to level the playing field between forces advocating creationism and those promoting evolution.

The Lord has heard the cries of His people and responded with a scientific resource on creationism that will stop these onslaughts against Christianity. The Quest for Right turns the tide by providing an authoritative and enlightening scientific explanation of natural phenomena that will ultimately replace the Darwinian view.

For example, the investigation dismantles the hocus pocus responsible for the various absolute radioisometric dating techniques by which rocks and other materials are supposedly dated. Absolute-"perfect, complete, definite; without a prospect of being incorrect." On these incalculable formulae— and they are incalculable—rest the science council's claim that the earth is of great age, accreting some 4.6 billion years B.C. Upon publication of The Quest for Right, the council's choice of the superlative absolute will be assessed to be a scurrilous invective, an "abusive, offensive, even vulgar, connotation." After all, who would question an absolute? It is a matter of record that these dating systems are the tools by which evolutionists have attempted to rip apart the validity of historical documentations, specifically, that the account of creation as recorded in the Bible is mythology. The Quest for Right has changed all of that: the scientific record of creation has stood undaunted against these attacks and has proven to be an invaluable asset to the in-depth investigation.

The first three volumes of the seven volume set will be published early fall '07. The Quest for Right is all new from the get-go and is destined to make headlines that will reverberate within the halls of academia throughout the world. Coming soon to bookstores and online merchants such as Amazon.com, Barnes and Nobel.com, Walmart.com and questforright.com. Author, C. David Parsons, biblical scholar and scientist extraordinare.

Posted by Linda Parsons | June 8, 2007 10:32 AM

not all scientists are atheists; not all atheists are scientists. but there's a pretty good overlap, which suggests that the more one knows about the world, the less one tends to believe in an interventionist god.

as far as morality goes, I and the atheists I know don't rely on an old, mistranslated and poorly understood book, purportedly dictated by a cruel and bloodthirsty god, for direction. We use reason instead. And a really good way to found a society is to start with the Golden Rule. Hell, it works for other primates.

If we start from the premise that every person in a society should be treated with equal dignity, then a big chunk of the Bill of Rights is a natural extension of that premise, especially the Fifth Amendment's statement that no person shall be deprived of life, liberty or property without due process of law.

now, in my view a healthy fetus that is 8 months 3 weeks past conception has sufficient personhood to receive due process protections. why? because it is no longer utterly dependent on its mother; it can survive on its own.

Four cells floating around in a uterus, on the other hand, have about as much personhood as a sample of skin cells. In the absence of a god-based claim, there is no legitimate basis for the state to assert its power over the woman's liberty.

faith or reason? Would anyone fly in a plane designed and built by Liberty University undergrads using only the Bible as their engineering manual? It seems to me that faith gets to supplant reason only in those places where it is useful for the person asserting the supremacy of faith to use it as a bludgeon to keep power.

Posted by Francis | June 8, 2007 11:10 AM

Like the evolution wars in the early part of the last century, the design debate offers liberals the opportunity to portray every scientific battle--today, stem-cell research, "therapeutic" cloning, and end-of-life issues; tomorrow, perhaps, large-scale genetic engineering--as a face-off between scientific rigor and religious fundamentalism.

Hey, Ross, I semi-agree, but more disagree here. I agree that conservatives don't need to align themselves with the specific formulations of those associated with intelligent design per se. Those arguments could be bad, they could change, etc. However, they cannot abandon the design debate, because any coherent moral argument against abortion, embryonic stem cell harvesting, genetic engineering, etc is premised on the idea that life, and humans specifically, are designed.

To be designed simpliciter means to be the product of intentionality - to have been foreplanned and caused to exist by intentional action, to have been intended. This premise is indispensible to any argument based on the objective value of human life. The idea that the human race shouldn't be re-engineered, for instance, rests on the premise that we are supposed to be the way we are, that we have an objective purpose, that we are as intended. The idea that human lives have objective value, and thus shouldn't be destroyed even when they don't have value to other humans, implies by definition that we are objectively valued, which implies that there is someone ultimate and objective who values us - ie, intends or wants us.

Thus, if you drop the design premise, then the value of human life can only be taken as a social construction, and the only policy arguments you can possibly make are pragmatic ones. And once you've accepted that premise, you've already lost the argument and might as well go home. You'll never put up a persausive case against, say, abortion, based on the premise that you find it inconvenient, or that life is subjectively valuable to some people.

Now, design is compatible with evolution simpliciter (meaning, basically, common descent). But what about Darwinism? I've seen a lot of different and mutually exclusive definitions of Darwinism, but one of the most common ideas (and I think this is what Darwin as well as Coyne had/have in mind) is that it is supposed to show that the appearance of design in life is an illusion, which is explained by natural selection and random mutation, where the "random" and "natural" indicate absence of intentionality.

If this is what's meant by "Darwinism", then it's a philosophical and moral argument, not just a scientific one, and it's impossible for a conservative to hold to it while simultaneously making principled, objective sanctity-of-life arguments (This definition of Darwinism is also an incoherent position, and it's inconsistent to hold it while telling other people to stay in their own domain and keep their noses out of science, but that's a topic for another post). Telling a pro-lifer that they should accept this and give up on design because it will make it easier for them to argue their position in the public eye is like telling a Christian they should give up on the resurrection of Christ for the same reason. The problem is, the proposition they are being asked to give up for the sake of their position is essentially their position itself.

Posted by Deuce | June 8, 2007 11:58 AM

For the discerning, scientists do not close doors; God closes doors which no man can open. Even as I write this, The Quest for Right series of seven textbooks is being considered by a state school board; their goal is to add The Quest to science curriculums. This is the book of truth for which intelligent men and women throughout the world have been hoping and praying. It is Darwanism which is passe, not the Creator.

C. David Parsons
Author, The Quest for Right

Posted by C. David Parsons | June 8, 2007 12:07 PM

Steve Sailer wrote:

Newton was an alchemist, Kepler was an astrologer.

These facts are unrelated to the progress the made in science. It's more probable that these things hindered them as scientists, because it took them down dead-end paths. Michael Behe was a decent biochemist before he got side-tracked into intelligent design activism. His pursuit of a creationist fallacy seems to have brought his biochemical research to a standstill. Behe contributed to our understanding of nature...and then he took up the pursuit of creationism, and since then he not "advanced our understanding of nature by one iota."

Posted by Ian | June 8, 2007 12:27 PM

Deuce: there is no such thing as "Darwinism". It's a made-up word used by the anti-evolutionists that has no meaning.

There are astronomers, not Copernicists; physicists, not Einsteinians; and biologists, not Darwinists.

If one reads Pharyngula on a regular basis, and other blogs over at Seed, one discovers that there are tremendous disputes among biologists about all sorts of interesting questions.

Notably, not one of those disputes has anything to do with design, because there is not a single shred of evidence of design. And despite years of promising, the ID movement has yet to promulgate any non-laughable test for design.

Having an accurate test for affirmative evidence of design actually generate positive results would be absolutely revolutionary. It would shake our understanding of every branch of science down to its core. And yet, it hasn't happened.

reason wins; faith loses. personally, I'd think that worshipping a pantheon, whether Norse or Greek, would be far more satisfying than a single god. but that's just me.

Posted by Francis | June 8, 2007 12:51 PM

"If we start from the premise that every person in a society should be treated with equal dignity"

And why on earth should we start there? Where does the premise come from? What is its authority?

Posted by carol | June 8, 2007 12:52 PM

"Would anyone fly in a plane designed and built by Liberty University undergrads using only the Bible as their engineering manual?"

That sounds about as much fun as living under a moral order determined by biologists convinced they can inflate scientific facts into moral truths.

Posted by Matt | June 8, 2007 1:16 PM

>>"If we start from the premise that every person in >>a society should be treated with equal dignity"

>And why on earth should we start there? Where does >the premise come from? What is its authority?

Primates, apparently.

Posted by Matt | June 8, 2007 1:19 PM

Francis: why privilege the scientist and the mother over the embryo?

Embryos are not people, and even if they were they wouldn't have the right to an invasive physical connection to another person to sustain their life. We don't force people to donate blood or tissue or organs to save the lives of others.

Posted by Mixner | June 8, 2007 1:31 PM

Ross,

I'm very curious to know what the "scientific truth" about abortion, stem-cell research and genetic engineering happens to be.

The question is too vague for a short answer. Coyne's point seems to be that the ethical objections some people have to these activities, objections usually arising from religious or "spiritual" beliefs, often leads them to believe dubious or nonsensical scientific claims, like the claim of widespread psychological harm to women from abortions, or the claim that embryonic stem cell research holds no serious prospects for advances in medicine, or exaggerated claims of the risks of genetic engineering ("Frankenfoods," etc.), and so on.

Posted by Mixner | June 8, 2007 1:43 PM

The questions will not go because intelligent design is censored. We are a tech-savvy nation.

Where does the complexifying info. come from? DNA is language. Rocks don't write. Materialism is insufficient cause for the effect observed. Evolism is bad science (BS.)

There is a big gray elephant in Mr. Darwin's parlor. Real scientists are daring to ask about him. Yarn spinning and great artwork only fool some of the people all of the time.

Posted by Q Patch | June 8, 2007 2:08 PM

Re: If we start from the premise that every person in a society should be treated with equal dignity, then a big chunk of the Bill of Rights is a natural extension of that premise,

How do you justify that premise though? I am NOT saying that morality requires a law-giving god, but I think that it does require some sort of non-scientific metaphysical foundation. This has been true of non-theistic ethical systems like Stoicism and Buddhism, and I don't see how a modern system of ethics can survive either without some sort of foundation outside its own premises.

Posted by JonF | June 8, 2007 2:14 PM

There are astronomers, not Copernicists; physicists, not Einsteinians; and biologists, not Darwinists.
Posh. There exists, or existed, every single one of those categories - astronomers who agree with the main arguments of Copernicus, physicists who agree with the main arguments of Einstein, and biologists who agree with the main arguments of Darwin. There are also non-scientists who agree/disagree, or have agreed/disagreed in the past, with every single one of them. It's just an absurd denial of reality to pretend that these guys didn't have ideas that were assented to or dissented from by others. Your statement is reminiscent of that "our belief is not a belief" nonsense.

reason wins; faith loses.
How so? According to your view, "reason" is merely shorthand for the neural mechanisms that produce brain states that result in behavior that is conducive to survival, right? So "truth" is merely those brain states that result in survival and reproduction, right? The alternative would be to say that truth is something absolute and immaterial that exists independently of us, and that reason is something which has been bestowed on us to allows our minds to access and traverse that absolute and immaterial standard.Of course, you're a level-headed guy, so I'm sure you don't buy into that sort of mystical nonsense.

So in what sense does reason "win" over faith? You mean that brain states produced by reason survive better than brain states produced by faith? That's obviously not the case. Muslims, to take one example, seem to be surviving and reproducing a smidge better than materialist atheists. Or perhaps you mean that reason "wins" because it is better at finding truth than faith is. However, "truth", remember, is just those brain states that correlate with survival and reproduction, and as I just pointed out, Muslims are doing a better job on that score than your fellow scientismists. Are you trying to tell us that Muslims are more reasonable than secularists, and that Islam is synonymous with truth? You theocrat! Or are you trying to say that while Islam may be "true" for Muslims, atheism is "true" for you, and that "reason" led you to your "truth"? In which case, spare me the post-modernist ditzyness.

Posted by Deuce | June 8, 2007 2:21 PM

Deuce,

Be sure and let us know when you're ready to fly in a plane that was constructed according to the principles of faith-based aeronautics, or take a new drug that was approved after it passed faith-based safety testing.

If you don't even believe all your mumbo-jumbo about the "absolute and immaterial" or about faith being a way of "finding truth" I'm not sure why you'd expect anyone else to.

Posted by Mixner | June 8, 2007 3:51 PM

If you don't even believe all your mumbo-jumbo about the "absolute and immaterial"...
You don't believe that truth is absolute? Do you believe it to be relative then? Do you think that, for instance, the proposition that the Earth is round can be true for me since I believe it but false for someone who doesn't believe it?

Or is it that you think truth is material? In which case, how much does a truth weigh? How many truths are in a liter?

Posted by Deuce | June 8, 2007 4:15 PM

why base society on the Golden Rule?

a. Empirical -- It works. Compare the standard of living here to that in Somalia.

b. Self-interest. I'm much likely to be better off in a society founded on Golden Rule principles than I am in one where Might Makes Right.

You group enough people who think like that together, add a dash of ceremonial deism for the benefit of those who believe that societies must have an underpinning of faith and TADA you get the American Revolution.

Deuce -- the apple still falls to the ground. And the scientific principles underlying evolution are actually better understood than those involving gravity.

Or, put another way, the computer you're typing on was not built on faith-based engineering.

Posted by Francis | June 8, 2007 4:18 PM

Deuce -- the apple still falls to the ground. And the scientific principles underlying evolution are actually better understood than those involving gravity.

Err... what does any of that have to do with anything I just said? And where did I suggest anything about "faith-based engineering"? Do you (and Mixner) have a reading comprehension problem?

I just pointed out that your (not my) own definitions of reason and truth, followed to their logical conclusion, imply that Muslims are more rational than atheists, that Islam is true (or at least "true" for more people than atheism is), and that truth is relative.

Are you now disagreeing with those conclusions, meaning that you don't think that reason is simply shorthand for brain mechanisms that produce brain states that result in behavior condusive to survival, and that you do think that truth is absolute, immaterial, and independent of us?

Posted by Deuce | June 8, 2007 4:50 PM

Deuce,

Do you think that, for instance, the proposition that the Earth is round can be true for me since I believe it but false for someone who doesn't believe it?

No. It's either true or false.

And this is related to your claim that faith is a way of "finding truth" how?

Posted by Mixner | June 8, 2007 4:57 PM

Deuce,

And where did I suggest anything about "faith-based engineering"?

Where you suggested that you think faith is a way of "finding truth," a way that works just as well as reason.

Posted by Mixner | June 8, 2007 5:01 PM

No. It's either true or false.

How about the other part? Is truth material? If so, what's its molecular mass?

And this is related to your claim that faith is a way of "finding truth" how?

I didn't claim it. I pointed out that a consistent materialist account of reason leads to that conclusion, since religious beliefs (particularly Islam these days) correlate with higher differential survival and reproduction than atheistic materialism.

Posted by Deuce | June 8, 2007 5:07 PM

Deuce.

I didn't claim it.

So you don't claim that faith is a way of finding truth? Good, then we agree about that.

Posted by Mixner | June 8, 2007 5:18 PM

... whenever conservatives attack a scientific consensus because they don't like its moral and political implications and don't have adequate firepower to carry the day (which the intelligent-design crowd doesn't, to my mind, in its battle against Darwinian theory) ...

A nasty catch-22. Everyone you'd want to warn off of arguing for intelligent design because it will make their other policy positions look anti-science isn't going to recognize the above. After all, they believe in intelligent design.

Posted by Trevor | June 9, 2007 3:15 AM

Francis,

Propositios that scientists tend to believe at a higher frequency than the rest of the population are not thereby scientific. There are any number of sociological ways in which scientists differ from other people, leading to beliefs that have little to do with their work or the scientific method.

In general, you seem to think that it is possible to derive an "ought" from an "is." That isn't what most metaethicists think. Even if it is possible, it isn't science and shouldn't claim science's authority. Deriving moral or political beliefs from "science" is scientism, and it has undoubtedly caused more harm than religion in the last hundred years.

Posted by Pithlord | June 9, 2007 10:11 AM

Deuce asked: "Do you think that, for instance, the proposition that the Earth is round can be true for me since I believe it but false for someone who doesn't believe it?"

That the Earth is a sphere (more or less) is what science would call a fact. "Truth" has to do with honesty. If someone is mistaken, they may be telling the "truth", but they are not reporting facts because they are in error. Facts are independent of Truth. They are objective.

And they are subject to change based on new information. That's how science works.

Posted by GalapagosPete | June 9, 2007 2:17 PM

No, a fact is a sentence that is true. If someone is honestly mistaken, then what they say is false.

Posted by Pithlord | June 9, 2007 5:28 PM

Trevor makes the key point. I think Ross is right about the political effects, but I've spent a lot of time discussing ID with some of its supporters, and there is a very deep-seated resistance to evolution that isn't going to be overcome based on pragmatic political concerns. The design vs. chance argument has been going on for ages, and the debates about the boundaries of science have been going on for centuries. People like Coyne contribute just as much as the problem as ID enthusiasts, by conflating their philosophical/moral/policy/theological views as supported by "science".

Posted by Mike S. | June 10, 2007 9:17 PM

Four cells floating around in a uterus, on the other hand, have about as much personhood as a sample of skin cells. In the absence of a god-based claim, there is no legitimate basis for the state to assert its power over the woman's liberty.

That depends upon how one defines "personhood". Or more specifically, a being with an inherent right not to be killed. An embryo is undeniably human, and undeniably a unique organism. Either there is such a thing as human beings without such a right, or there is not. If such an entity exists, how do we distinguish between human beings with inherent rights, and those without such rights? It must be a result of some characteristics that a given human being has. The most common characteristic postulated is some sort of mental or brain function. But, as people like Peter Singer acknowledge, this usually means that newborn infants fall into the category of non-rights bearing human beings, which means that one can kill them with moral impunity.

The problem with any notion of human rights that is founded in particular characteristics obtained by an individual is that all such characteristics develop along a continuum. Thus, any demarcation dividing right-bearing from non-rights bearing must necessarily be arbitrary. Which means that the right not to be killed is dependent upon the existing political regime - one is left without any recourse if it was decided that, as Singer & others argue, it is morally licit to kill infants, or the terminally ill, or whomever is deemed too much of a burden.

Posted by Mike S. | June 10, 2007 9:29 PM

@Mike S.
You said "An embryo is undeniably human, and undeniably a unique organism. Either there is such a thing as human beings without such a right, or there is not."

It is not undeniable. I deny it. 4 cells in a petri dish, or in a uterus are not human. They may have the potential to be human, but they do not constitute a human being. If they did then every IVF technician who flushes spare embryos would be a serial killer. Heck - taking that argument(anything with potential to survive as a human deserves full human rights) to it's logical extreme would make male masturbation equivalent to genocide, and female failure to become pregnant murder!

Equally certainly (and here I disagree with Singer) I believe a foetus aged 8 months and 3 weeks (as referred to above) is undeniably human.

I agree with you about the continuum. The ethical problem is to determine at what point along it the collection of cells acquired 'personhood' - and its associated rights. That is a question to which we have no generally accepted answer, and probably never will. I believe we'll settle on something that refers to it's ability to survive (with or without assistance) and it's ability to be aware of it's surroundings to feel pain/pleasure, etc - pretty much the middle ground/common sense answer.

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