Author: Xiao
Reviewer: Dongda
Night of February 23, 2020

Opening remarks

  This book was jointly edited by the cell biologist Wang Yahui and Chinese Academy of Sciences researcher Wu Zhichun. In the early 1990s, they used questionnaires and expert panels to gather the views of more than 400 specialists in biology-related fields on how the discipline would develop over the next thirty years. The experts considered the broad direction of biology, its likely peaks of development, its major disciplinary questions, and its relationship with other fields. Revisiting the book in 2020 is particularly meaningful. It also explains why biology matters: scientific progress has raised material civilization to great heights, yet cast a deep shadow over spiritual life, even causing spiritual deprivation and collapse. The fundamental way forward, the book argues, is to learn from life itself.

  As everyone knows, “the twenty-first century is the century of biology,” to quote Chen Zhangliang. Biology graduates today face widespread criticism over their job prospects and salaries, but there is no denying that the life sciences, once simply called biology, and biotechnology affect every part of our lives. Consider the recent outbreak: nucleic-acid testing and treatment methods alike depend on advances in biotechnology, while high-throughput testing and drug targeting are themselves subjects of life-science research. This indirectly confirms the value of the forecasts made by senior scholars thirty years ago. Later developments bore out their emphasis on the future importance of molecular biology, brain science and neuroscience, the need to develop behavioral science—mainland China’s first course in the subject had opened at Peking University only in 1988—and the direction of macroecology. The book also proposed a “biopsychosocial medical model,” a concept that seemed ahead of its time to conventional Western medicine but self-evident to traditional Chinese medicine. Two developments, however, went beyond its predictions.

  First, molecular-biology technology advanced far beyond expectations. Reports from the research frontier still focused on determining protein tertiary structures from crystal structures and anticipated further progress along that path, a sound prediction at the time. Those scholars could not have imagined that, more than twenty years later, mature cryo-electron microscopy would make three-dimensional structures more accurate and obtainable for a much wider range of targets. Under Shi Yigong’s leadership, China has also become a world leader in the field. One interesting detail appears in the Chinese Academy of Sciences’ 2013 biological forecast of future scientific development. The volume was divided into sections. Every other article listed several lead authors and collaborating institutions, but the section on the future of structural biology named “Boss Shi” as its sole author, perhaps reflecting the extraordinary caliber of his work. P.S. After attending one of Boss Shi’s classes, a certain Peking University student decided to pursue the life sciences. That says a great deal about Professor Shi’s personal appeal. Sadly, I never had the chance to hear him in person. (A weakling howls from the corner.)

  All right, back to the subject.

  The most intriguing part of the forecast is a section on human functions, including latent functions. It says that the human body possesses extraordinarily refined, flexible, and effective capacities for converting matter and energy, processing information, and regulating itself, capacities many times more sophisticated, flexible, and effective than the artificial functions of machines created by existing science and technology. This, the book argues, shows the importance of studying human functions. What did that phrase mean here? It referred to the meridians and qigong of traditional Chinese medicine, along with the disputed effects of externally emitted qi and paranormal abilities. The book argued that rigorously verifying and scientifically investigating these phenomena and questions would support the healthy development of traditional Chinese medicine. At the time, the field was also called human-body science or human life science. The volume included “A Complementary Understanding of Human Life” by the biomechanics specialist Tao Zulai, who described it as follows: “In human-body science, it is difficult to reconcile its epistemological and methodological foundations with the standards of modern science. It might be called ‘Research into Human Potential and the Functional States of the Movement of Life.’ One may hold that there is a path for understanding the laws governing our own living activity whose epistemological and methodological foundations differ from those of modern science. It is different from, yet complementary to, the cognitive path of the modern life sciences. Chinese medicine represents one system through which humanity understands the movement of its own life. It regards human life as a unity of form (essence), qi, and spirit. Their relationship is: ‘Form is the dwelling place of life; qi is what fills life; spirit is what governs life.’ The meridians are the system through which qi is transported and transformed. The practice of hundreds of millions of people over several thousand years proves that the understanding of human life embodied in Chinese medicine possesses objective, relative truth. Clinical experience tells us that it is impossible to explain the principles of Chinese medicine through modern biomedicine and then regulate Chinese medicine according to modern medicine. This reveals the opposition between the theoretical systems and methodological foundations of Chinese and modern medicine. Only by beginning with their fundamental differences in understanding human life can we establish an internal connection between them and achieve a higher unity. The key is how we understand qi.” Such theories clearly enjoyed considerable acceptance at the time: they appeared in a national outlook on scientific development and occupied substantial space within it. The author also predicted that “qigong medicine will make great strides over the next 10–30 years, establish its own distinctive standards, and achieve relatively wide application.” This truly was the height of the “qigong fever.” Qigong and related theories found their way into many fields. Even Qian Xuesen and other prominent experts published articles on them, and studies appeared claiming that qigong could significantly increase yields in chemical experiments. (I have read several; with my limited knowledge, I could only slap the desk and exclaim, “What extraordinary papers!” Interested readers can search CNKI.) Thirty years later, however, recently published literature shows that academic interest in qigong has clearly waned, while attitudes have reversed completely. It has become closer to entertainment than science. What happened during those thirty years to change the standing of qigong, and of traditional Chinese medicine more broadly, so dramatically? Events in the late 1990s may have dealt qigong a severe blow. But even setting those aside, as students of Chinese medicine, or simply as people with some scientific literacy, we should ask whether the problem lay in the subject itself or in how it developed. How were the experiments in those papers designed? Where were the flaws? If the subject itself was not the problem, how might it continue to develop and flourish? These questions deserve thought and investigation. Attacking Chinese medicine and supporting it uncritically usually arise from the same problem: a single, incomplete perspective. Neither is worth endorsing—or even arguing against.

  Time is the best witness, and no phrase better suits this book. Over thirty years, some disciplines advanced rapidly, while others stood still or gradually declined. What went wrong? Were they unsound from the moment they appeared, or were they simply products of their time? If we believe neither explanation, where does their future lie? Amid the current outbreak, Chinese-medicine treatments have achieved major results and broad recognition from many quarters, proving that our methods are genuinely effective. What, then, can first-year students of Chinese medicine do? The answer is four characters in Chinese: “study hard,” because the best way to repay others is to join the fight ourselves in the future! (I seem to have wandered off topic.) I sincerely hope that Chinese medicine will gain wider recognition and use. At the start of a new decade, may we look back ten years from now and find that it has benefited more people, restored its good name, and opened the way to a better future. It will. The book is certainly old, but it lets us see where biology stood thirty years ago. I have discussed only two examples; much more remains to be discovered in its pages, and many questions still deserve reflection. Let it serve as a reference as we understand the present and look toward the future.

  The book is available in the west-campus library at Beijing University of Chinese Medicine’s Liangxiang campus, so you can borrow it. Alongside our professional studies, we also need to read widely, broaden our horizons, and think carefully. I wonder how everyone has spent the holiday during the outbreak. Online classes have already begun! Pack your little medical-school bags and join me in the ocean of diagnostics, Chinese materia medica, anatomy, histology and embryology, modern Chinese history, ideological and moral cultivation, and English. When studying wears you out, sit down with a book, listen to a song, watch a film, play a game, or jot down the small moments of the day. Each is a fine way to relax. If you have time to spare, why not show off your skills in the kitchen? They say people who can cook are more attractive! Share any of these things, and you might even meet someone whose soul matches your own.

  Finally, finally: enjoy the start of online classes (smile…). I look forward to seeing everyone again at BUCM when spring is warm and the flowers are in bloom, or perhaps in early summer. Washington’s army at Valley Forge will eventually reach Yorktown (that is another story), and we will meet in the place where there is no darkness (the next book!).