This brief but powerful book is a work of confession. It exposes the gifts and challenges of a life of faith, medical practice, and scientific discovery woven together. The author, Robert Pollack, has combined medicine and science with great success in his professional career, but he is critical of the currently reigning modes of practice in both professions. His critiques are shaped by his deep Jewish faith and his commitment to his patients and to the communities in which he works. His 2000 book is poignant and is substantially sharpened by the preface added to the 2013 paperback edition here reviewed.

Pollack writes from his position as a highly regarded leader in several areas of cell biology. From his central vantage point he learned, in 1971, of a plan to splice the DNA of the tumor virus SV40 into a bacterial virus Lambda, which is easy to replicate and whose natural residence is the human gut bacterium Escherichia coli. “[T]his experimental protocol seemed to me capable of generating a recombinant DNA molecule from a tumor virus that would live in the genome of a bacterium that lived in the gut, and therefore create a new agent with a novel, unpredictable, and possibly malignant infectivity.” The head of the laboratory which proposed this work, Paul Berg, was not concerned about this possibility “nor was he able to answer my concerns, so he did the honorable thing and helped the National Institutes of Health set up experiments” which showed the recombinant was safe. However, raising this red flag led to the Asilomar Conferences, which created structures of bioethical caution in recombinant DNA research work. But, writes Pollack, “I called Paul Berg in 1971, more than four decades ago, and since then there have been no reports [that] I've seen of any scientist, in any field, precipitating an internal moratorium on any line of active basic research, ever.” “Why not?” Pollack asks. With Sherlock Holmes, he wonders why this dog has never barked. Then Pollack responds to his own question with deepest honesty from his own life story, “I was aware that fears—my own fears and the fears of others around me—were expected to be kept from the daily discourse of the lab, and even then I knew that was wrong.”

Pollack wants his readers to ponder the realization, beginning at least with Einstein if not earlier, that the moments of insight in science and events of revelation in religion are fundamentally the same phenomenon. This theme is revisited with profound effect throughout the book. That insights come unbidden and reveal an understanding of the previously unknown or unthought is a topic, which has fascinated many authors. They peer into the moment of creative realization, which may be very simple (for instances, the joy at “discovering” how to tie one's shoelaces) or earthshaking. These “aha moments” are the thoughts that change lives, medicine, science, and religion. The most diligent application of the scientific method or the most ardent study of ancient texts do not in themselves create these moments of contact, though they may prepare the student for them. When the moment of insight or revelation comes, some will choose to bask in the insight and explore it, while others may simply ignore or mistrust it, writing it off as a mere dream. Pollack quotes Einstein: “Science can only be created by those who are thoroughly imbued with the aspiration towards truth and understanding. This source of feeling, however, springs from the sphere of religion.”

Alertness to the unbidden voice is essential—for Pollack and for all of us—to the diagnoses of the deepest problems of our world and for progress toward healing and real solutions. Pollack worries that modern science and modern medicine are so committed to the minute results produced by adherence to scientific method, or are so hedged about with management protocols, that we miss both insights and cures, that we stumble across the landscapes of our lives with mental eyes and ears closed to anything that cannot be counted or parsed.

The Faith of Biology and the Biology of Faith is a testament to a life of attentive faith and service. Accounts of bringing the faiths of religion and science into dialogue are rare, and Pollack's book is a landmark. Its honesty reveals the deep personal struggles of an individual who is both a brilliant scientist and a committed person of faith. Pollack's confessions are a gift to all.