Carl Sagan’s last interview

I’m too young to be part of the generation that watched the TV series Cosmos when it first aired, but the legacy of its presenter Carl Sagan is so potent that you can’t avoid reading quotes attributed to him on various science blogs, websites, forums, Facebook pages and Twitter feeds. The American astronomer, astrophysicist, Pulitzer Prize-winning writer and science populariser died in 1996, but he would have turned 78 years old earlier this month, on the 9^th, if he hadn’t succumbed to pneumonia caused by a rare blood disorder.

Jerry Coyne wrote a post commemorating the great scientist who played a huge role in educating and inspiring people through his many books (30 in all) and popular 1980 television show Cosmos: A Personal Voyage. Coyne’s post includes three videos of Carl Sagan’s last interview with Charlie Rose, conducted just seven months before Sagan’s death. In the interview Sagan addressed the pernicious effects of pseudoscience, superstition, mysticism and religious extremism while giving a passionate defense of science, arguing for the importance of scientific literacy among the general public. Below are a few quotes from the first part of the interview that capture the gist of Sagan’s views.

Science is more than a body of knowledge. It’s a way of thinking, a way of skeptically interrogating the universe with a fine understanding of human fallibility. If we are not able to ask skeptical questions, to interrogate those who tell us that something is true, to be skeptical of those in authority, then we’re up for grabs for the next charlatan, political or religious, who comes ambling along.

The thing about science is, first of all, it’s after the way the universe really is, and not what makes us feel good, and a lot of the competing doctrines are after what feels good, and not what’s true.

And here is Sagan’s response to the common charge from religionists that scientists are arrogant and overconfident about their knowledge and abilities.

Who is more humble, the scientist who looks at the universe with an open mind and accepts whatever the universe has to teach us, or somebody who says everything in this [holy] book must be considered the literal truth and nevermind the fallibility of all the human beings involved in the writing of this book?

The first video of the 3-part interview (part 2 here, and part 3 here):

Sagan’s widow Ann Druyan gave a very moving description of her relationship with her late husband, and how he faced his impending death with “unflagging courage and never sought refuge in illusions.”

Carl Sagan was a torchbearer for science, for its beauty, wonder and power of discovery. He made our “pale blue dot” world a more enlightened place.

28.11.12

Questions for anti-abortionists

Over at Daylight Atheism, Adam Lee has listed 11 questions for those who oppose abortion. Lee had previously responded to Christian writer Trevin Wax’s 10 questions for pro-choicers, so it was only fair that anti-abortionists* like Wax were asked some tough questions too.

I think Lee gave thoughtful, well articulated answers to Wax’s questions. His answers correct a few misconceptions about the pro-choice position, while exposing some of the underlying presumptions of anti-abortionists (newsflash: pro-choicers don’t think sex-selective abortion is ok). Lee’s questions in turn should make any reasonable anti-abortionist think deeply about their views in attempting to defend them. Many of these questions are intended to draw attention to the inherent contradictions, ignorance, absurdity and hypocrisy in anti-abortion arguments. Let’s see what rhetorical contortions the anti-abortionists will perform to square the circles of their religiously influenced views.


* I refuse to call anti-abortionists ‘pro-lifers’ or to even use the term ‘pro-life’ in reference to anti-abortion views. It’s an insult to both common sense and the English language to call such views ‘pro-life’ when they hold lumps of unconscious cells in higher regard than the lives of conscious, feeling, female human beings with hopes, fears and aspirations.




22.11.12

Shame on the Irish government, on the Catholic Church, and on their apologists

I would rather not write a third consecutive post on the pernicious Catholic Church, but I write this to show solidarity with those who mourn the death of Savita Halappanavar. I don’t have much more to say that hasn’t already been said with righteous anger by PZ Myers. I can’t add anything substantial to what has been expressed by Grania Spingies. And I certainly can’t improve on Dr. Jen Gunter’s professional assessment of this tragedy.

But I will say this: if you think that the Catholic Church is innocent of Savita’s death, that the manslaughter of a young woman is a crime to be pinned on the Irish government alone, or the hospital, you are a shameful apologist for the Church. If you even dare to glibly mention how the Church doesn’t forbid abortion when the mother’s life is in danger, as if this oh-so-generous accommodation reflects the Church’s magnanimity, you only show how warped your moral reasoning is.

Let me spell it out for you: Savita’s death, and the deaths and suffering of other women like her under similar circumstances (having an abortion denied on religious grounds), would not have happened if the idea that fetuses had souls and that aborting them was a mortal sin DID. NOT. EXIST. We can thank the Holy See for such baseless, superstitious ideas, ideas that reach out far from Rome to blight the lives of people living in distant places. Like Savita, they don’t even have to be Catholic to be victims of the Church.

I will concede that the phrase “religion poisons everything” is an exaggeration. But only marginally so.




15.11.12

When a medieval law protects child abusers

In the wake of PM Julia Gillard’s announcement of a royal commission to investigate allegations of institutional child sex abuse, Cardinal George Pell bleated about how the Church was the victim of a smear campaign by the media. He also went on to defend the Seal of Confession, a Catholic sacrament whereby priests are forbidden to divulge the confessions of penitents, calling it “inviolable”. Here is Pell’s suggestion for how priests can avoid being caught between a rock and a hard place:

If the priest knows beforehand about such a situation [of sexual abuse], the priest should refuse to hear the confession. […] That would be my advice, and I would never hear the confession of a priest who is suspected of such a thing.

What an odious, and utterly impotent, piece of advice. Pell is basically telling his underlings that they’re better off turning a deaf ear to possible cases of sexual abuse rather than ‘violating’ a Catholic injunction against snitching. How does refusing to hear the confession of a child abuser help to bring him to justice? To protect innocent children?

Cardinal George Pell

 

Independent senator Nick Xenophon has called the Seal of Confession “a medieval law that needs to change in the 21st century”, and stated that “Church law, canon law, should not be above the law of the land.” Others agree, as the ABC reports:

New South Wales Premier Barry O’Farrell, who is a Catholic, says he cannot fathom why priests should not be required to pass on evidence of child abuse to police.

“I think the law of the land when it comes to particularly mandatory reporting around issues to do with children should apply to everyone equally,” Mr O’Farrell told AM.

“How can you possibly, by the continuation of this practice, potentially continue to give... a free pass to people who've engaged in the most heinous of acts?”

Federal Liberal frontbencher Christopher Pyne, who is also a Catholic, believes criminal law should take priority over church rules when it comes to child abuse.

“If a priest hears in a confessional a crime, especially a crime against a minor, the priest has the responsibility in my view to report that to the appropriate authorities,” Mr Pyne told ABC News.

“In this case the police, because the church nor the priests should be above the law.”

If Australia is to remain true to its secular principles, the laws of any religious body must not take precedence over civil laws. The Catholic Church in particular is notorious for its primary allegiance to the dictates of the Holy See in Rome, and will often give those dictates priority over the laws of the country in which the Church operates. Whether it concerns abortion, contraception or gay marriage, the Church holds its laws to be above those enacted by civil, secular society. Such insolence must not go unchallenged.

Of course, the elephant in the room is that the very idea of the Seal of Confession depends on the belief in ‘sin’, a ludicrous concept that underpins almost every Christian doctrine. Without it, there would be no need for a formal rite of ‘confession’, no need for priests to wrestle with both the demands of morality and the demands of the Church, no need for Pellian loopholes where terrible crimes are ignored to avoid ‘sinning’ by breaking the Seal of Confession. It is the idea of ‘sin’ itself, among other religious dogma, that is the cause of much harm inflicted by the Church.

14.11.12

The Catholic Church deserves to be targeted

PM Julia Gillard has announced that there will be a royal commission set up to investigate allegations of institutional child sex abuse in Australia. This has been a long time coming, and it’s certainly welcome news. Even though pedophile Catholic priests immediately come to mind, the Australian reports that “[t]he inquiry will not be confined to the Catholic Church, but extend to all religious organisations and to children in state care, and into other institutions including schools.”

Now, don’t get me wrong. The commission should indeed investigate allegations of child sex abuse wherever they may have occurred. But when Opposition leader Tony Abbott and Cardinal George Pell whine about how the Catholic Church is being “targeted” and that the commission should be “wide-ranging” and not “focus solely on the Catholic Church”, they are being obscenely disingenuous. Abbott, who is Catholic, and Cardinal Pell are high-status members of a global organisation that has aided and abetted child molesters and sexual predators within its ranks for decades, an organisation that often shows outright contempt for civil laws because it considers itself subject only to the laws of its own theocracy.

As Labor backbencher Senator Doug Cameron observed, if the “extremely powerful and politically influential church was confident abuse was no longer occurring, it had nothing to fear from a royal commission,” and also that the church should rightly be the focus of any commission because “that’s where the major problem seems to be.”

Julia Gillard’s assurance that the commission will not discriminate is simply political correctness. Many of us are not fooled by the false equivalence being made. The Catholic Church’s role in child sex abuse and its subsequent cover-up is proportionately large enough to warrant a commission of its own. That the government has decided on a more extensive investigation should be considered an undeserved courtesy by petulant Catholics like Tony Abbott and Cardinal Pell.

13.11.12