All We Think We Know, Just A Portion of God's Science?

A week or so ago there was an article about a man who was in a coma for 23 years, misdiagnosed. He had been in a car accident, and in the following years he silently screamed out to doctors hoping they would recognize that he maintained a level of consciousness.

Rom Houben, 46, was left paralyzed after a 1983 accident, but told the U.K. 's Daily Mail that he ``dreamed himself away.''

Houben, with the aid of a computer he can communicate through, told the newspaper that he screamed, ``but there was nothing to hear.''

Doctors had said he was in a vegetative state based on testing through the Glasgow Coma Scale, the paper reported, but was repeatedly received incorrect grading through that system. New tests from the University of Liege in Belgium - which has a dedicated team of coma experts - determined he was fully paralyzed, but completely aware of his surroundings, the paper said.

His story became public after a study was published by the University of Liege outlining his ordeal.

(Canwest News Service, via Canada.com)

Between the time of his accident, and apparently now, the technology changed a great deal, allowing for more understanding of his state:

An expert using a specialized type of brain scan that was not available in the 1980s says he finally realized Houben was suffering from a form of "locked-in syndrome," in which people are unable to speak or move but can think and reason, and provided him with the equipment to communicate.

(Associated Press)

There remains some skepticism that this man is truly communicating on his own, and only time and additional observation will tell. What we find most interesting is how scientific knowledge can reveal itself over time, forcing reality to reveal new layers. Here we have a conscious mind discovered, and what we were sure of yesterday (the patient's mental status, the accuracy of our own assessments of his status) proved wrong under the light of new information and greater scientific discovery. How many people were also misdiagnosed and sit waiting to be heard--thinking, yet unable to speak?

Yet, we remain certain of so many things. We are certain that todays knowledge, obtained through science discoveries over time, pretty much tells us all that can be known.  But many of those things we hold as self evident truths are not quite that. Even the theoretical God that we cannot see, might yet be revealed when our science catches up with our dreams.