When you call Darwinism a religion, you kill a few brain cells

Every time I hear or read someone squawk that science has become a religion, two things come to mind. First, that said squawker’s language processing ability must be severely retarded, since they cannot grasp the diametrically opposed definitions of ‘science’ and ‘religion’. Second, that they have, perhaps unwittingly, disparaged religion by tacitly admitting that blind belief in a sky fairy isn’t very sensible, but hey, science is just as silly, so gotcha! By the way, qualifying the term ‘religion’ with ‘secular’, as a certain accommodationist philosopher has done, only shows just how warped the definition of ‘religion’ has to become in order for one to take cheap shots at science.

Thankfully biologist Jerry Coyne has a healthy language processing ability. Here he corrects our somewhat confused philosopher’s understanding of the term ‘religion’:

The stuff about treating Darwinism as a secular religion is offal. It’s based purely on the fact that many of us see Darwin as a kind of scientific hero. Many physicists hold Einstein in similar regard. Does that make physics a secular religion? At least we know that Einstein and Darwin existed, unlike the father-figure of conventional faith. Nor do we see Darwin or Einstein as having supernatural powers or a postmortem ability to personally (as opposed to scientifically) influence the world. Indeed, all of us know that their science was sometimes flawed. Darwin’s genetics was wonky; Einstein couldn’t accept pure indeterminism. Try finding a religious person who sees any flaws in God.

Awesome dude? Yes. Omnipotent, infallible deity? No.

Mr Philosopher seems to think that secular, science-loving folks suffer from ‘religion envy’, so much so that we even have a special day celebrating a revolutionary scientist because we want our own holy days, goddamnit! But Coyne pops that delusional bubble:

And what do we do on Darwin Day? We don’t shout hosannas to Darwin, or beg for his mercy, pray to him, or spend all of our time propitiating him. We give talks on evolution — in other words, we spread science and tell people the truth. All of this is the exact opposite of religion.

C’mon science-bashers, this trite “science is just another religion” inanity you keep spouting only embarrasses yourselves. Unless of course your language processing ability is indeed retarded, in which case you are excused.

16.6.12

Ex-pastor tells it like it is

Mike Aus used to be a liberal Christian pastor, but had a reverse road-to-Damascus moment when he studied Darwin’s theory of evolution via natural selection and realised its implications for Christian beliefs. Aus has written a splendid essay on the Richard Dawkins Foundation website describing these implications that demolish key tenets of the Christian faith, including the concept of ‘original sin’, the doctrine of mankind’s fall and its subsequent redemption through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, and the idea of an immortal soul. The entire essay is a clearly laid out exposé of Christianity’s vacuity in light of evolutionary science, but in the following paragraph Aus states the obvious reason (which sadly cannot be stated enough) why Christianity, or any other religion, is incompatible with science:

When I was working as a pastor I would often gloss over the clash between the scientific world view and the perspective of religion. I would say that the insights of science were no threat to faith because science and religion are “different ways of knowing” and are not in conflict because they are trying to answer different questions. Science focuses on “how” the world came to be, and religion addresses the question of “why” we are here. I was dead wrong. There are not different ways of knowing. There is knowing and not knowing, and those are the only two options in this world. Religion, even “enlightened” liberal religion, is generally not interested in the facts on the ground. Religion is really not about “knowing” anything; it is about speculation not based on reality.

Liberal, progressive Christians may congratulate themselves on their acceptance of evolution, but as long as they fail to fully grasp the implications of science for their beliefs – that there’s only one reality to be known, and only one way to know anything about that reality – their self-satisfaction remains a (less severe) form of self-delusion.

HT: Jerry Coyne

10.5.12

Not cool, Turkey. Not. Cool.

Oh Turkey, what’s happened to you? From a staunchly secular republic (ok, perhaps too staunch at times) that also has a mostly Muslim citizenry, you’ve gradually degenerated into an Islamist state that seeks to impose religious ideology in place of secular values and science.

So I hear you want to ban any mention of Charles Darwin and the theory of evolution. That you want to protect children’s innocent minds from ideas supposedly comparable to images of naked humans slapping their genitals together. So now you’re playing the ‘think of the children’ card too?

I know you don’t much like those obnoxious, trigger happy Americans. So why do you insist on copying one of their least admirable traits? In the eyes of scientifically literate people everywhere, you Turks and Americans are like bosom buddies in God-infused ignorance. Your bromance is obvious from the flattering way Turkish creationists like Adnan Oktar adopt wholesale the Christian concept of Intelligent Design popular with American fundamentalists.

Children of Ataturk, you were supposed to be a secular exemplar of the Muslim world. You were supposed to persuade us faithless heathens that Islam was compatible with liberty, democracy, progress and science. You were supposed to be a political, social and economic example for other Muslim countries to emulate for the better. Now they’re going to emulate you for the worse.

Turkey, I am disappoint.




CORRECTION: I have just learned that the Turkish creationist Adnan Oktar aka Harun Yahya explicitly rejects Intelligent Design (Win!). This is because he thinks that ID proponents are either contemptible Westerners or treacherous Western sympathisers who haven't got the balls to declare that "Allah created the entire universe and everything in it, living and non-living" (Epic fail!).




3.1.12

Against immaterialism: A rebuttal of esoteric metaphysics

In his article ‘It’s Immaterial’ (New Humanist magazine, May/June 2010), Hindu Council UK director and trained scientist Jay Lakhani becomes the umpteenth person to attempt the impossible: reconciling unprovable, faith-based religion with testable, evidence-based science. More specifically, it is the ideas of non-theistic esoteric Hinduism that Lakhani puts forward as a replacement for what he scoldingly calls the ‘materialist paradigm’. “It has long seemed to me,” Lakhani writes, “that the paradigm which now needs to be challenged is that of materialism, that worldview that everything and everyone is essentially just a product of little bits of matter.” With this line, Lakhani takes his place amongst the ranks of discontents revolting against the reductionist, secular, Western (and thus automatically disreputable) idea of a purely physical universe governed by discoverable laws.

Is cognitive science the final word?

Who are we? The answer to this question is not only one of the tasks but the task of science.

- Erwin Schrodinger, Science and Humanism, 1951

Would an ever expanding knowledge of how the brain and the mind work culminate in the undisputed victory of natural science in the Science Wars? Although cognitive science covers various disciplines, including a few from the social sciences, its methodology is mainly that of the natural sciences; objective empirical study with the aim of developing predictive, falsifiable theories. Given the speed at which new understanding is acquired on how the physical brain produces non-physical phenomena like thoughts and emotions, cognitive science is becoming ever more indispensable in our ancient quest to know ourselves, as individuals and as a species. Meanwhile, social science is playing catch-up as it finds its ideas continually overturned by some latest discovery in neuroscience or evolutionary psychology. It seems that the more social science tries to emulate the methods of natural science, the more open it leaves itself to criticism or refutation.

The three cultures

During the mid-twentieth century, the British physicist and novelist Charles Percy Snow wrote and spoke of the gulf between the ‘two cultures’; the humanities on one side and the sciences on the other. Snow observed that a breakdown in communication between intellectuals from both camps of knowledge was obstructing efforts to solve the world’s problems. In the nineties, American science writer John Brockman updated the concept of the two cultures by positing the emergence of a ‘third culture’. This third culture consisted of scientists and other intellectuals who were communicating their (mainly scientific) ideas directly to the public and in the process challenging the traditional cultural authority of writers and thinkers from the humanities.

When Darwin meets Smith

The Great Recession has discredited the once-irreproachable efficient-markets hypothesis (EMH). It turns out after all that markets do not present all available information, that investors and consumers are not always rational agents, and that prices fluctuate with alarming frequency and wide variation. In the ‘Issues 2010’ special edition of Newsweek, Barrett Sheridan ('Markets are like people') reports on a proposed alternative to the EMH; the adaptive-markets hypothesis (AMH). This idea’s foremost proponent is MIT economist Andrew Lo, who has set out to repair the now-obvious flaws of the EMH using the findings of behavioural economics. More specifically, Lo wants to introduce Adam Smith to Charles Darwin.

Life is meaningless (but that's OK)

In her article ‘Purpose, Meaning and Darwinism’ published in the January/February 2009 issue of Philosophy Now magazine, Dr Mary Midgley insists that, contrary to certain interpretations of Darwin’s theory of natural selection that paint biological history as a purposeless, random process, there is indeed meaning and purpose to life. And Midgley isn’t just saying that life has meaning from a human perspective. No, she believes that all of existence has an intrinsic purpose, and that “purposiveness is not a peculiarly human trait… it is one we share with many other animals.” Purposiveness – as defined by Midgley – is “persistent, systematic striving till a particular end is achieved.” Therefore, a person, animal or even a plant demonstrates purposiveness when striving to reach a specific goal, whether gaining a job promotion, escaping from a trap or (as Midgley provides as an example) in the case of seeds, growing around and through paving stones, “lift[ing] them out of place, if necessary.”

The evolution of the mob

My dear G,

I worry that you may have misinterpreted my comment on my misanthropic tendencies. Unfortunately, as you and I are well aware of, written communication has its limitations. Words can be read in the wrong spirit, and without body language to escort them, misunderstanding can happen. Not to mention the time lapse that prevents instant clarification or modification of a statement. Still, we try our best.