thinktoomuch.net

Thursday saw a small social gathering of four friends, but also an event that I’d like to dub the first official “Think Too Much” gathering. (Yuck, I need a better name for that.) Oh, and no, it wasn’t official at all, it really was just a couple of friends that joined me as I was watching Carl Sagan’s Cosmos, but that’s about as official as I like these things to be.

From Wikipedia:

Cosmos: A Personal Voyage is a thirteen-part television series written by Carl Sagan, Ann Druyan, and Steven Soter, with Sagan as global presenter. [...] It covered a wide range of scientific subjects including the origin of life and a perspective of our place in the universe.

The series was first broadcast by the Public Broadcasting Service in 1980, and was the most widely watched series in the history of American public television until 1990’s The Civil War. It is still the most widely watched PBS series in the world.[1] It won an Emmy and a Peabody Award and has since been broadcast in more than 60 countries and seen by over 600 million people, according to the Science Channel. A book to accompany the series was also published.

For details on the contents of episodes, check the episode guide on Wikipedia. The first episode gave an overview of the universe, from billions of galaxies, to our local group, to billions of stars, to the planets, and on to the Great Library of Alexandria. It contained some speculation and imagination, I think its purpose was to inspire, as well, of course, to serve as an intro to the 13-episode series.

The second episode dealt with biology, explained natural selection and evolution, and animated the evolutionary process from microbes to humans. It covered the Miller-Urey experiment. The science update at the end (ten years later) presented the idea of exogenesis. Some speculation on the potential nature of extra-terrestrial life was included, including gaseous life-forms on Jupiter, an idea I first came across in Arthur C. Clarke’s novel 2010: Odyssey Two, published 1982.

Thoughts on Educational Potential

Mentioned on the Wikipedia page:

Other parts of Cosmos were controversial among the general public, though hardly among scientists, such as Sagan’s straightforward treatment of astrology as a pseudoscience and his equally straightforward description of biological evolution.

The straightforward description of biological evolution in the second episode describes to the layperson what science has found. It is unapologetic, and the evidence these conclusions are based on is not shown. It is not an episode aimed at dealing with skeptics and evolution-denialists. (In this case, the skeptics are those undecided between evolution and creationism, and the denialists are those that are explicitly creationists ).

The basic idea is this: when teaching science, the first aim is to bring people up to speed with what science has learned, and teaching the basic principles of how science works. There is so much knowledge in science these days, that until you’re specialising in a particular field, you cannot spend excessive amounts of time dwelling on the evidence that led to its conclusions. Cutting edge science research takes place in postgraduate research work, not at school or in undergraduate courses.

Now the Cosmos series was targeted at laypeople that wanted to know more about science, not at skeptics and denialists. Getting bogged down in the details of and the evidence for every claim would be counter productive to the primary goal of introducing as much science as possible. Of course the side-effect is that those that do play skeptic and denialist will remain unconvinced, having been encouraged to distrust any authority figures or experts in the field.

Episode Three

Episode Three was great, dealing with the history of science and the work of Johannes Kepler. Kepler was a contemporary of Galileo, and participant in the shift from Geocentrism to Heliocentrism. Between Copernicus, Kepler and Galileo, I suspect Kepler is the least famous, but that he maybe deserves more fame than he gets?)

The episode presented through these examples, good insight into how the scientific method works. Some of Kepler’s cherished ideas had to die at the hands of evidence. I also liked the illustration of the impact human pride and politics can have in holding back scientific progress, but that it is unable to influence eventual scientific conclusions.

This episode should be quite uncontroversial (except maybe to those that think astrology is “true”) and can be a wonderful resource for illustrating how science works.

The Remaining Episodes

If anyone wants to join in when I watch episodes four to thirteen (over at least three sessions), let me know. It will probably only take place after 9 June.

I’ve discovered how hard it would be to obtain a neutral atmosphere where seekers, undecided between evolution and creationism, could feel comfortable asking questions and discussing theories and the supposed “debate”. The first Christian to arrive simply assumed everyone there would be “evolutionists” like him, demonstrating an incredulous attitude towards creationism. We won’t even need any scientists or atheists at such an event to make them feel inhospitable to creationists…

I’m not sure what we’d have to do to make the atmosphere more conducive to such discussions. Creationist-leaning people typically reject the authority of scientists on science, preferring the authority of their religious leaders (who have not studied science and have typically avoided a university theology degree), or more specifically, the authority of famous creationist websites. For this reason, they may experience the series as a “brainwashing attempt”. (Of course, if they consider that brainwashing, they cannot complain if creationism seminars are also considered brainwashing.) Evolutionists typically “know they’re right”, and may find it very difficult to avoid coming across as condescending. Unless I hand-pick the audience… ideally picking primarily people that have wondered about “creationism versus evolution” in the past, thereby more able to understand what the creationist-leaning folk are going through, or else science educators that have grappled with creationism long enough to understand the nature of the problem, but not too long to have given up on patience.

Most people might say “let them figure it out for themselves or live in ignorance”, but I’m weird. I’m still interested in doing what I can to facilitate dialogue and scientific learning. Maybe it is because humans fascinate me. Should I become a psychologist or an anthropologist, maybe?

Either way, I might have to give up on such discussions on Cosmos-nights, but discussion on this blog afterwards might be possible. There were a number of questions that came up during the night, shall we discuss them here? (Mostly unrelated to creationism, rather just curiosity about certain things in astrophysics and biology.)

A recent email exchange with a creationist brought up this sentiment again:

He has to believe in evolution because that is the career he chose. He sucked up what they told him.

This creationist tactic is disingenuous. They are taught that the reason scientists accept evolution, is because they would not otherwise get a job, and thereby find an excuse to distrust the opinion of any expert or professional in the field. Yikes.

Why is this so effective? Because it is true… albeit with a nasty spin. In order to get a job as a scientist, you need to accept the scientific method. The scientific method leads to the acceptance of evolution. Thus, indirectly, you do have to accept evolution to get a job as a scientist. Rejecting evolution requires either rejecting the evidence, or rejecting the scientific method.

I suppose if you’re in a field of science where you can remain wilfully ignorant of the evidence, you can get by while ignoring evolution. Maybe that explains why some students refuse to study the section of the work devoted to the “E” word, too “satanic” to even say the word… They choose ignorance, maybe suspecting that the evidence will be too convincing to ignore. Rather refuse knowledge of the evidence than having to find another excuse, like rejecting the scientific method.

Did he “suck up what they told him”? Sure, yes, he did, because it was backed by evidence and peer reviewed studies in reputable journals. That’s the reason he “sucks it up”. Evolution had as hard a time as any paradigm shift in science, when it was first introduced, and it was only eventually accepted due to the body evidence piling on, and being much more accurate than any other alternative theory.

Now we can turn the tables on the creationists: creationists also suck up what they’re told. I suggest it is not because of a body of evidence, because no creationist has presented evidence for creationism or provided an alternative scientific theory that stands up to scrutiny yet. That’s why they go for attacks like this disingenuous one. They have to believe in creationism because that is the interpretation of the Bible they choose, a literal one.

For creationists, I would suggest one of the following two courses of action:

1. accept and admit that you are rejecting the scientific method in favour of a literal interpretation of a Judeo-Christian version of the ancient Sumerian creation myths (using the academic definition of myth: I’m not implying they are true or false — in fact, I believe they do contain profound truths despite being non-factual), or
2. find yourself a church where the preacher/pastor has a degree in theology from a reputable seminary, and is able to recognise the human imprint and prophetic imagination in the book of Genesis. Among Stellenbosch churches, that includes Stellenbosch Gemeente and the Moederkerk. In authors, that includes CS Lewis, though I could recommend going with contemporary authors like Brian McLaren, Rob Bell, or Ron Martoia.

The unfortunate thing is that that short list likely ended up on a number of “authors and churches to avoid” lists, which can contribute to the impression that creationists and Shofarians are “anti-intellectual”.

Other alternatives include staying at Shofar while realising the leadership is incorrect about Genesis and evolution, or else choosing to remain ignorant on science. I just wish people choosing the last option could realise that they are choosing ignorance.

UPDATE: Sorry, “choosing to remain ignorant” is somewhat loaded. Rather, “choosing to get on with your life, not paying any more attention to the creationism/evolution thingy, and just leaving it with oh, I don’t know.” It is not possible for everyone to know everything, and knowledge of science is not necessary for everyone. Just please leave it at “I don’t know” then, and stop spreading disinformation. Thanks!

UPDATE: This post was written in a rush. I’m not sure about the choice of the word “theology” here. Maybe “religion” might have been a better choice, or I could have talked about something like “mythos” or “mythology” instead. Whichever. Hopefully the thoughts I’m sharing are understood irrespective of the imperfect word choice. Words are never perfect…

Science is concerned with facts, with understanding how things work. This focus is what requires the removal of personal bias, logical fallacies, and thorough empirical testing of theories.

Theology, on the other hand, the way I see it, is mostly concerned with results. Borrowing words from the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew, 5-7) slightly out of context, theology is measured by the fruit it bears. An “argument from adverse consequences” might be a logical fallacy if you’re looking for the facts, but seems to be fair game in the world of theology. One regular on this blog suggested theology and religion will be replaced by philosophy. I do disagree. I think there’s a large piece of psychology involved. Seeing the psychology books on “my” pastor’s shelf is inspiring. Theology is, in my opinion, an example of memetic engineering: interpreting stories in ways that bring value to humanity.

Of course, if there’s one thing that is more frightening than scientific illiteracy amongst certain Christians, it must be theological illiteracy. Rampant theological illiteracy is the reason why Dawkins has a point, despite not writing a very good book.

My mind is still milling on the topic of hell, I’m trying to find the best way to approach the topic. The purpose of the Childhood Indoctrination post was to serve as an intro to a short “blog arc”. Ditto for the tribalism posts, something to refer back to in some of the planned posts. The next post should have been written and published already, but my time is somewhat limited right now. (You know, holiday commitments and all, I have to go and see stuff… go play tourist.) I might get the post written on Monday or Tuesday, I hope. In the mean time, I’ve found a couple of interesting sources for more info, and am writing this post, in part, to share one of them.

Brian McLaren has written a book titled The Last Word and the Word After That, investigating the matter of hell in a dialogue. There is an interesting article on this matter on open source theology, which I will probably be drawing from numerous times, like I draw from Eagleton’s review. Now how does one get the typical Christian to read an article like that? Or books like that? Merely linking to it or recommending it is not enough. *sigh* (That *sigh* hides an explicit request that people with a “belief in the doctrine of hell” will go read that article.)

One snippet relevant to the topic of this post:

As the intersexual poet Pat says of hell: ‘Its purpose, not its substance, is the point’ (26).

Purpose. Myths works like that: mythological stories communicate ideas, they communicate “truths” rather than facts. This is their purpose, and this purpose is far more important than how close the story lines up with historical fact or with empirical reality.

This is a continuation on yesterday’s post, What is God?: The Tribal God. Please read that first. This part is separate, in order to keep that one shorter, and to not ruin it with the silliness below. (I don’t like this post very much, it seems rather frivolous, does it not?)

Your Tribes?

So what tribes do you belong to? In our culture, we no longer live in tribes in the traditional sense. Our tribal instincts can be expressed in other ways, or other communities can serve as (imperfect) replacements for our tribal needs. Often tribes are not that long lived, or your membership or participation in a tribe is relatively short.

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A previous post on “What is God?”: What is God?: The Personal God.

A long long time ago, but not in a far away galaxy, tribalism was the order of the day, and it was good. Some insist that tribalism is the natural state for humanity. Borrowing a paragraph from Wikipedia’s article on Tribalism:

According to a study by Robin Dunbar at the University of Liverpool, primate brain size is determined by social group size. Dunbar’s conclusion was that the human brain can only really understand a maximum of 150 individuals as fully developed, complex people (see Dunbar’s number). Malcolm Gladwell expanded on this conclusion sociologically in his book, The Tipping Point. According to these studies, then, “tribalism” is in some sense an inescapable fact of human neurology, simply because the human brain is not adapted to working with large populations. Beyond 150, the human brain must resort to some combination of hierarchical schemes, stereotypes, and other simplified models in order to understand so many people.

This combination of “hierarchical schemes, stereotypes and other simplified models” is the root of much evil. Such unavoidably impersonal societies bring many challenges, and necessitates that other big evil, politics. But I digress.

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Oh the things we (collectively) do to our children…

I remember a particular evening, sitting in the back seat of the car, in tears. I was of single digit age. I’m not sure when exactly, and I’m not sure where, but I suspect it may have been during our first year(s) in The Netherlands. I was terrified.

I cannot remember what triggered the terrifying thought that afternoon or evening, or pinpoint why or where I picked it up on the idea, but you pick up the craziest ideas when you’re young and impressionable. And I was terrified. Because I was going to go to hell when I die.

No, I wasn’t a bad person, I was very well behaved. I wasn’t planning on doing anything wrong, I wasn’t remembering having done anything wrong, I was merely aware of the fact that I would never believe remarkable claims without questioning them. And somehow, the fundamentalists got it into my mind that that means I’m going to hell. As a quote in a South African fundamentalists/pentecostal/baptist magazine named “Joy” puts it: “Good people don’t go to heaven. Believers go to heaven.” I was good, but my single deadly “fault” was that I had a curious, “scientific” mind. At single digit age, I already realised that I would never be able to accomplish blind belief, or sustain it for any significant amount of time. I would never be able to suppress my inquisitiveness.

I was doomed. To Hell. For all eternity. To gnash and weep… To have my meat burned off by searing flames… ad infinitum. And I was but a child…

How did I escape that predicament? My mother helped me out. She reassured me that “if that’s the way I feel about it, if I feel that strongly, I won’t go to hell”. Well, what was she supposed to say? It didn’t quite gel with what I had learned elsewhere, but she was my mother. I placed my faith in her words. And what other choice did I have? Live in terror? Accepted her soothing words, I sent religion back to its dark corner of my mind, that it may haunt me again some other time.

Another three letters from Die Matie, reproduced here with their authors’ consent.

The first, published in Die Matie on 9 April, in response to Kenneth Oberlander and Maud Bonato’s letter in the 19 March issue:

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Who shall I bother first? Let’s start with the theists…

God most definitely does not “exist”

Quite simply, in terms of empirical, material existence, I think most modern theists would agree that God does not have a material form, a material existence. God is not a physical being residing within this universe. Right?

To borrow from Terry Eagleton’s critical review of Dawkins’ The God Delusion, titled Lunging, Flailing, Mispunching:

. For Judeo-Christianity, God is not a person in the sense that Al Gore arguably is. Nor is he a principle, an entity, or ‘existent’: in one sense of that word it would be perfectly coherent for religious types to claim that God does not in fact exist. He is, rather, the condition of possibility of any entity whatsoever, including ourselves. He is the answer to why there is something rather than nothing. God and the universe do not add up to two, any more than my envy and my left foot constitute a pair of objects.

Right, now for the other side:

God most definitely does exist

Another statement that should be hard to argue with: some people believe God created the universe, other people believe humans created God, and a third group of people have not decided between these two perspectives but would agree that one of the two (or both?) is true. Did I miss anyone? Because all three groups, described this way, implicitly believes that God “exists”.

In terms of deducing the existence of something based on the empirically testable effects that that thing has, God most definitely does have an effect, therefore does exist. Even if you don’t believe in the supernatural or in divine “intervention”, having a belief in God has a very real impact on the believer and their approach to life.

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A quick note: Akismet, the WordPress spam filter, seems to have some trouble with false positives lately. I.e. a number of valid comments were flagged as spam.

I try to eventually de-spam these comments in order to train the filter. This causes some duplicates when people have written a new comment to replace the one that didn’t appear. If your comments don’t appear, drop me a short note (a short comment) to let me know there’s a missing comment, and I’ll de-spam it ASAP.

“Education”, I respond, after only a brief pause. “Critical thinking, science literacy, and compassion.”

I would like to thank everyone that sent words of encouragement following my previous post. Let me give my current conclusion on the matter as an answer to bluegray’s comment on Do Any Shofarians Care About Science? He asked:

Sorry if I seem blunt, but I don’t read your blog regularly, so a few questions before I reply:
Why the need to rescue Shofar from the clutches of Creationism? Are you a member?
If you don’t agree with certain aspects of the Shofar faith, why do you feel the need to change it, and not discard it entirely, maybe look for something more in line with your beliefs.

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