03.02.08

Apx. 99.9% sure I’m right about this…

Posted in Evolution, Religion/Spirituality, Science, Society and Culture at 9:55 pm by Moody

Let’s try to put it as simply as possible and see if everyone can understand it, shall we?

Science has nothing to do with “God”. Science deals solely with the empirical universe as it may be observed, recorded, studied, tested, etc., utilizing whatever tools may be created to do so, as well as our innate human abilities (though educated, certainly, honed and refined). Science does not deal with anything that lies outside its purview, nor does it make statements—let alone judgments—about any such thing. Scientists, whatever their personal feelings or beliefs, whatever they might choose to express as a personal opinion, do not interject religion or philosophy into their actual work because doing so would taint the science.

The theory of evolution says nothing about whether or not “God” exists, and therefore makes no claims regarding the qualities, characteristics, or modi operandi of “God”. Should a scientist express her or his opinion regarding “God”, her or his opinion is still incapable of reflecting on her or his actual scientific research. That is because science does not deal with unfalsifiable matters (matters which cannot be tested for empirical validity), and as the existence of “God” can neither be proved nor disproved then “God” must be considered an unfalsifiable matter. This is not a shortcoming of science or the scientific method; it is a remarkable strength. Whereas endless speculation and typically unresolvable arguments over hypotheticals belong to philosophy and theology, to the realm of science belongs only that which may bear the strictly vetted tools and critically maintained rules of science.

Naturally, the tools and rules of science may be brought to bear on any subject presented as empirical, falsifiable, and subject to tests of its veracity. Even when it is resistant to change, science does not turn away from a valid avenue of discovery because it may realize a fault in some long-standing theory. If one is capable of providing some real-world credentials and a compelling outline, and if one’s presentation includes a thorough grounding in current scientific understanding, then scientists will very likely pay attention to a new idea or theory. With a few sad exceptions, only the ignorant, the crackpots, the cranks and the trolls get short shrift from the community of scientists. And where the scientific community has originally failed to recognize a valid offering, time has—thanks to members of that same community—often vindicated the one who brought that offering. But never has science found something to be a fact or valid theory that at its base was unscientific, unfalsifiable. This is not because of some conspiracy against those who don’t know the secret handshake and password, it is simply and only because science has nothing to do with that which cannot bear the application of science’s tools and rules.

Science simply means “to know”, and knowledge is subject to revision as new, empirical, falsifiable data dictates it. Certainty is measured in percentages reaching ever closer to 100%—with ever-mounting evidence, the successful passing of tests after tests, more and more data, etc.—without ever attaining it. Science ends at 100%, for there is nothing to do after that, nothing more to know. So when someone asks a scientist trained in physics specific questions about this or that facet of, say, the theory of special relativity, she or he may shrug and say, “We just don’t know yet. Isn’t it exciting!”, exhibiting in the response the main trait found in scientists everywhere: undying curiosity yoked to the perpetual drive to discover, hindered only by the frailties of the human organism.

So why is it of late that some scientists are seen to be attacking religion, and why is it that some religious people are calling the theory of evolution inherently atheistic? What’s going on? If science has nothing to say about matters outside its purview (and religion is demonstrably outside its purview), and the theories of science cannot in themselves address religion due to the unfalsifiable nature of x religion’s primary assertions (its metaphysical tropes), then how is it we are in the middle of a culture war with a sampling of scientists on one side and a bunch of very religious people on the other? Who threw the first stone?

I do not have enough time or energy to devote to writing such a history. However, A.D. White, the founder and first president of Cornell, a professor of history, did have the wherewithal to write about the subject in the last decade of the 1800s. His work, A History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom, is relevant today. By simply recounting history, White explodes the idea that somehow it was Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution that initiated the charge for some sort of godless revolution hitherto unimaginable. After discussing the early concepts of evolution “among the Chaldeans, the Hebrews, the Greeks, the Romans”, White notes some of the theological issues that arose in the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries, and concludes the second part of Chapter 1 by saying that

By the middle of the nineteenth century the whole theological theory of creation - though still preached everywhere as a matter of form - was clearly seen by all thinking men to be hopelessly lost: such strong men as Cardinal Wiseman in the Roman Church, Dean Buckland in the Anglican, and Hugh Miller in the Scottish Church, made heroic efforts to save something from it, but all to no purpose. That sturdy Teutonic and Anglo-Saxon honesty, which is the best legacy of the Middle Ages to Christendom, asserted itself in the old strongholds of theological thought, the universities. Neither the powerful logic of Bishop Butler nor the nimble reasoning of Archdeacon Paley availed. Just as the line of astronomical thinkers from Copernicus to Newton had destroyed the old astronomy, in which the earth was the centre, and the Almighty sitting above the firmament the agent in moving the heavenly bodies about it with his own hands, so now a race of biological thinkers had destroyed the old idea of a Creator minutely contriving and fashioning all animals to suit the needs and purposes of man. They had developed a system of a very different sort….

But A.D. White also believed that

In welding together into noble form, whether in the book of Genesis, or in the Psalms, or in the book of Job, or elsewhere, the great conceptions of men acting under earlier inspiration, whether in Egypt, or Chaldea, or India, or Persia, the compilers of our sacred books have given to humanity a possession ever becoming more and more precious; and modern science, in substituting a new heaven and a new earth for the old - the reign of law for the reign of caprice, and the idea of evolution for that of creation - has added and is steadily adding a new revelation divinely inspired.

As an educated and science-minded person, White believed that theology and science could be, and should be, reconciled. But he knew, too, that there could be no turning back from what science was learning of the world, that to turn back would be to turn against the flow of our better nature. To interpret scripture literally could never be more than a failure, both of the mind and—should you be so inclined—the spirit.

Those who would turn back (think of those in Florida and Kansas and elsewhere) are always the ones to throw the first stone. Scientists would rather not have to muck about in the fantasy world of creationists, but creationists won’t leave science alone. Theologians and religious leaders, religious adherents who shudder when fundamentalists cry out in public, have not truly risen to the challenge, doubtless because they fear that to do so would make their own faith look bad or sully it by proximity. This is a shame. Science, having nothing to do with religion by nature, has been made a religious issue that apparently only scientists, atheists, and a very few religious people see fit to deal with. Naturally, the scientists are accused of having an ungodly agenda, the atheists are used as proof of science’s ungodliness, and the religious people who side with science are seen as damnable liberals who are, themselves, lacking in genuine faith.

But it is in fact the creationists (and the promoters of so-called “intelligent design”) who are the problem, who create the problem, who sustain and add fuel to the problem. They do not seem to grasp that to teach someone the facts is not to indoctrinate her or him into godlessness or evil, whereas to indoctrinate someone into a religion that denies the facts is certainly a bad thing. Fundamentalism and other nonsense is not righteously religious, it’s thoroughly foolish. It may seem unfortunate to some religious people, but the onus is in fact on them to adapt to the facts or perish. The world is not the fantasy land that our ancestors often believed it was, it is something much greater and more amazing. You do not have to be godless or satanic in order to accept the facts of the world. (Cherished psalms, for instance, are not made less poetically beautiful or meaningful.) But what you have to do is give up on absurd literal interpretations of so-called sacred texts, you have to give up on certain naïve conceptions of “God”. If there is a “God”, she/he/it (or they) is much further from our oversimplified understanding than we’ve realized, and those who came before us were misled by their (understandable) ignorance. Even a hundred years ago (and, actually, quite a great many more years than that) there were people who understood that much. Science continues, in its non-theistic fashion, to prove the point. So the question is, why are so many people afraid to embrace that fact today? What is really so terrifying about an even greater universe than religions have made?

01.18.08

Evolving, A Mind

Posted in Atheism, Evolution, Personal, Religion/Spirituality, Science at 10:34 pm by Moody

“You can’t be a rational person six days a week … and on one day of the week, go to a building, and think you’re drinking the blood of a two thousand year old space god.”—Bill Maher

Let’s make one thing clear from the outset: Whatever I might prefer, I shall have no say in whether our boy chooses of his own free will to be an atheist, a monotheist, a polytheist, a pantheist, an animist or a panpsychist. He shall become what he will. What I care about is that he is well-educated and is able to understand the difference between a scientific theory and an unscientific or non-scientific belief. That said, it follows that I want for him, regardless of his chosen belief system or lack thereof, to understand that life evolved and continues to evolve on this little blue-green planet. I want for him to understand that the theory of evolution—as set forth by Charles Darwin and others, and thence, with the gleaning of ever more data, modified by countless scientists over the next hundred-plus years—represents the ongoing efforts of a great many scientists to explain, elucidate, explicate, clarify and interpret how evolution works, and that the theory is not “just an idea” or “belief” maintained by a few dogmatic scientists as they stew in a fancifully conjured but non-existent hotbed of righteous controversy. Put another way, I do not want our boy’s developing mind to be waylaid by the twaddle, bunkum, poppycock, bullshit and ultimate drivel espoused by some very vocal ignorant twits who believe literally, like half-witted naïfs, in what the Bible (or any other so-called sacred text) says. I want the boy to have uncommon sense, the kind that comes with much education taken to heart.

When a child, not yet 10 years old, attempts to tell an “anti-evolutionist” joke but is confused when you state that the theory of evolution does not say that we “came from monkeys”, one can be fairly positive that some irresponsible adult is behind the effort. When that same child then states that “evolution isn’t real” and claims to know this because he is “a Christian”, there can be no doubt whatsoever that some ignorant and twittish adult is behind it. In the case of our boy, it is his ham-fisted biological father who is attempting, with the guidance of a domineering white trash wife, to warp his mind. It’s the sort of thing that can make you throw up a little in your mouth. I mean, his bio-dad and step-mom are the kind who have a giant “Jesus Freak” sticker (in scratchy ‘agitpop’ lettering) on the rear window of their car.

I stand firmly with Dawkins and others who state simply that the religious indoctrination of a child is child abuse. A child, however precocious, is highly unlikely to understand that there is a significant difference between what is called a scientific theory and what is called “God’s revealed [or ‘living’] truth”. When a parent says that something is true, a child is likely to believe it, especially when the parent attributes that truth to an even greater parental figure in the sky who the parent worships. Children are naturally gullible and credulous. They must rely on the experienced comprehension, the seasoned understanding, of their parents. This is not a bad thing, because trust in what a parent tells you may save your life or will at least make your life easier. But for a parent to selfishly mislead a child in the name of a highly questionable fantasy is… wrong, abusive, sick. I expect, of course, to be told that raising a child as a de facto member of this or that religion is normal, natural and good; that it introduces morality, otherwise presumed absent or somehow immanently inferior without it; that it may very well save the child from eternal damnation at the hands of an all-merciful, all-forgiving, all-loving “God”. Personally, I call that supreme, unadulterated, 100% bullshit. I say that that’s exactly the kind of drivel that makes a person puke even through the angry laughter of disbelief.

You may call the process of brainwashing indoctrination normal, but you should remember that it was once considered quite “normal” to beat children (–which, I know, you “spare the rod and spoil the child” types still think it should be so considered), and to keep slaves, and to treat women like chattel and indigenous peoples like plague (often while violently forcing their religious conversion, no less). “Natural and good” are, taken together or apart, suspect from the get-go. When you define nature in creationist terms, positing a supernatural agent as the author of all nature’s laws (which said agent may break on a whim), then I must look askance at anything you might call “natural”. The same goes for your idea of what’s “good” when, according to your beliefs, “good” is whatever “God” says it is. When you can read about “God” ordering the slaughter of men, women, children, babies (born and unborn), and say that it’s “good”, for whatever reason, then I must hold your concept of “good” in contempt.

As for morality, “God” is neither required nor suggested; the word’s Latin root, mor-, simply means ‘custom’. The morality of the Bible is preserved as an historic religious record of a relatively small number of people who lived over 2000 years ago. As a book it is biased toward promoting the view of certain sects of the time while denigrating others, and has a subtle pro-Roman stance. The historicity of many of its books is dubious (where the book in question is not already utterly beyond such consideration; e.g. Genesis), and the preposterous claims liberally sprinkled throughout the pages of the books it comprises are completely undermining of any respectable assertion of Biblical authority a reasonable person might make. I would dare go so far as to say that this is true of most so-called “Holy Books” the world over.

It is, frankly, horrifically despicable to inflict upon a child the notion of damnation, to fill his or her head with images of an all-powerful “God” condemning unbelievers and failed persons to eternal torment. When you consider that one of the people threatened with this endless wailing and gnashing of teeth is one of the child’s parents…. Well, it’s sickening. How could that not be damaging to a child’s developing mind? What a din of cognitive dissonance! How could that not create an unbearable helplessness and thus necessitate a split from the parent ostracized by “God”? How could that not succeed at being isolating in terms of the child’s sense of place in the greater world? A scarring shame should be visited upon any adult so selfishly motivated (by delusion or stratagem) as to poison the healthy development of a mind. And yet it is that a great many people around this country would consider me to be in the wrong.

Some would suggest that they would only teach “God’s love”, charity and kindness, honesty and good will. They would say that those other people are simply misled. But I say bollocks to that! It’s a cop out. Unless you’ve revised your own Bible (or Koran or whatever) or otherwise bowdlerized it–which, so far as I am aware, would make you a heretic or blasphemer–then you are copping out when it comes to a) the truth of what’s in your so-called “Holy Book” and b) dealing with what it is your fellow adherents believe that book to mean. If those other people are wrong, then isn’t it up to you to prove it to them, to enlighten them, to shun them if they will not see reason? If you allow fanatics to scream their misunderstanding as if it represented your religion, as if it were the “gospel truth”, then are you not tacitly allowing that they are merely more vociferous members of your congregation who say what you will not? Are you afraid of schism? Are you afraid of drawing attention? Are you afraid… or just indolent or cowardly? If your “Holy Book” says some rotten things, shouldn’t you deal with that? If the banner of your religion stretches over twisted trolls whose sickness you deplore, shouldn’t you expel them rather than accept the degradation of your fine beliefs? Shouldn’t you be most vocal about it?

As for me, I see no saving grace in religion. I don’t care what goodness it supposedly inspires, because goodness does not come from it; from what I’ve seen, real goodness comes despite it. Real goodness may sometimes ride on the back of religion, as one might ride a mule, but it is more honorable when it walks on its own two feet, under its own power. In the case of our boy’s bio-dad and step-mom, they’d let the mule of religion trample him while they waved to “God” and whispered surreptitiously to each other about how pleasing it would be to watch their enemies burn forever. Sick delusions often have real consequences.

In the boy’s name I will fight their influence, and I will do so with my love for him.

Listening to: Leonard Bernstein & London Symphony Orchestra - The Rite of Spring: V. Games of the Rival Tribes via FoxyTunes

01.12.06

With time on my hands, I read. (Pt. 2)

Posted in Evolution, Literature, Magazines, Novels, Science at 5:27 pm by Moody

Current and imminent reading:

[image]The Ancestor’s Tale: A Pilgrimage to the Dawn of Evolution, by Richard Dawkins

Thanks to 3 Quarks Daily for pointing me in the direction of this work. I sincerely hope you’ll take a look at Dawkins’s 2004 “Notable Book of the Year” (and, yes, I know it’s 2006, now, thank you - but I was freakin’ busy, okay?), because right about now - with all the stupid things going on out there with regard to the ludicrous attacks on the theory of evolution by ignorant/backward people - it’s a very good time to bone up on your scientific knowledge and understanding.

[image]The Moon of Hoa Binh, by Cong Huyen Ton Nu Nha Trang and William L. Pensinger

This is what I am currently attempting to read, and, let me tell you, it is no small undertaking, this one. It is a 1704 page challenge, called “the Vietnam War’s War & Peace” by one reviewer. Here is the official synopsis-in-a-nutshell:

Set in the intelligence underworld of Saigon in 1968 and at a scientific conference in Kyoto nine years later, the novel involves a murder mystery, a scientific exegesis, a metaphysical treatise, a psychological diatribe, through which aspects of the Vietnamese and Japanese cultures and their contemporary histories are explored.

Yeah; it’s so like that. I recommend, if you are so inclined, that you visit the site dedicated to this obscure, fascinating work. The site offers a longer synopsis, information about the authors (who are married), bonus materials and “Genealogical Mosaics of [the main character’s] Identity Transparency”.

[image]Scientific American (Special Edition)

“The Frontiers of Physics” is the title, and the issue covers everything from surpassing the standard model and the future of string theory to violations of relativity and the mysteries of mass. None of which I am especially knowledgeable about, but all of which I am interested in.