As part of the Arts and Humanities Colloquium series, Colgate University Associate Professor of Chinese Jing Wang presented “The Needham Revolution, Part 1: Integrating Science and Religion as Experience” on Jan. 28. Wang has multiple publications, some of which include “When ‘I’ Was Born: Women’s Autobiography in Modern China” and “Jumping through Hoops: Autobiographical Stories by Modern Chinese Women Writers.” Her latest work — the main focus of her lecture — is centered around the life and writings of Joseph Needham, a British biochemist whose work focused on China.
Wang’s lecture focused on religion and science and how they were intertwined. Wang spoke about Needham’s arguments and research, including his many publications promoting mechanistic science in biology, and focused specifically on his book series “Science and Civilization in China.”
Wang began her talk with a quick reference to the struggles of this research.
“To talk about [Needham] is not easy because many of the words of context that we use don’t fit. So, I have to struggle with words all the time,” Wang said.
Wang described science in the early 20th century, which included objections to updating biology from a philosophy to an exact mechanistic science. There are objections to mechanistic biology as well, including how no organ has been studied using only the mechanistic approach, that living things should be studied as a whole rather than in parts, and that mechanistic explanations can be too greatly abstracted and oversimplified.
Wang then explained Needham’s rebuttals to these objections and the reasonings behind his theories.
“It is impossible to view these organs as one by one and […] mechanistic biology is in fact holistic in attitude,” Wang said.
Wang has taught a course at Colgate, “Chinese Medical Culture,” which was heavily inspired by Needham’s research in China, where Needham looked into how medicine was a major part of traditional science but was seen to be more of a culture rather than an actual science. Wang referenced how this is only part one of a potentially three-part series, of which the next section will focus on life and matter and the living versus the dead.
Professor of Art and Film & Media Studies Lynn Schwarzer attended Wang’s talk.
“I was fascinated about what kind of mind [Needham] had [in order] to do [embryology studies in China],” Schwarzer said. “So for me it was very interesting to hear about how [Wang] is thinking about his huge volume of work. It was interesting to hear her boil things down and compartmentalize things, but it was also really interesting to hear her speak about the extreme inquisitiveness and intellectual curiosity and capabilities that he had from a kid on.”
Spencer Kelly, professor of psychological and brain sciences and neuroscience, brought in a connection to his own work.
“I might be the only natural sciences in the audience and I’m here because I already believe that science is not the right tool to answer all questions,” Kelly said. “This made me go a step further in thinking that it’s not; maybe it is the right tool to use in conjunction with our other tools. I haven’t thought about it quite like this, some problems require a scientific solution but maybe others a religious solution.”
Professor of English Constance Harsh also found the talk interesting.
“I think that her larger project is so fascinating, I was really glad to be introduced to it today and learn more about it as she develops the consequences of this early thinking for Needham,” Harsh said.
