Having just read this book I can’t help but feel that the Hobbit Haired Professor is brainier than an extra large slice of brain pie with lashing of Tesco’s finest extra creamy brain sauce. Pinker eloquently demonstrates how the evolution of a language and its syntax are derived from our instinctive human nature. Pinker shows how we have subconsciously created categories for verbs based on various attributes that unbeknownst to us have determined how we construct the syntax of our language. This allow us to instinctively define rules for when we can use certain verbs in certain contexts and when their usage will just not sound right. In subsequent chapters he goes on to explore why we have fashions in names for our children and what determines the rise and fall of those fashions. My favourite chapter however has to be where Pinker delves into our most seedy swear words to uncover how and why each language defines a certain set of taboo words, how the perceived potency of those words can vary over time and how and why we incorporate them into our vocabulary. Throughout the book Pinker peppers his writing with cartoons, quotations and examples, many of which were familiar to me from watching far too much Monty Python. If watching banal TV soaps and talent shows rots your brain (As I suspect it does), this book is the perfect antidote.
Thursday, 23 October 2008
Steven Pinker: The Stuff of Thought:: Language as a Window into Human Nature
Having just read this book I can’t help but feel that the Hobbit Haired Professor is brainier than an extra large slice of brain pie with lashing of Tesco’s finest extra creamy brain sauce. Pinker eloquently demonstrates how the evolution of a language and its syntax are derived from our instinctive human nature. Pinker shows how we have subconsciously created categories for verbs based on various attributes that unbeknownst to us have determined how we construct the syntax of our language. This allow us to instinctively define rules for when we can use certain verbs in certain contexts and when their usage will just not sound right. In subsequent chapters he goes on to explore why we have fashions in names for our children and what determines the rise and fall of those fashions. My favourite chapter however has to be where Pinker delves into our most seedy swear words to uncover how and why each language defines a certain set of taboo words, how the perceived potency of those words can vary over time and how and why we incorporate them into our vocabulary. Throughout the book Pinker peppers his writing with cartoons, quotations and examples, many of which were familiar to me from watching far too much Monty Python. If watching banal TV soaps and talent shows rots your brain (As I suspect it does), this book is the perfect antidote.
Friday, 17 October 2008
The view from Mount Improbable
This blog is not about the 3-4 billion year journey that my genes and their ancestors have taken to get me to, what our species arrogantly consider, the top of Mount Improbable. Professor Dawkins has already eloquently written that book. This blog is about my personal journey to understanding how I reached the summit and a look back down at the path I trod.
My initial attraction to Christianity and my subsequent “decline” into atheism have been gradual journeys. No blinding light was seen either on my road to Damascus or in the pages of Darwin. On my journey to an honest appreciation of the universe through the best endeavours of science’s current comprehension, I have found one thing very easy. The acceptance of evidence based on sound, proven theories like, evolution, the age of the earth, astronomy and fossil records that appear to be at odds with traditional biblical texts. I guess this was because I always felt uneasy about either having to metaphorically reinterpret vast swathes of the bible to fit in with our current knowledge or simply dismiss what we have learnt since the days when the bible was written in favour of clinging to that original definition of the world. As a Christian I always feared that an understanding of science and critical thinking could undermine my faith, so like, I suspect, many others, I tried to just ignore it. When my dissatisfaction with biblical answers and my curiosity for understanding grew too strong, I was forced to stop ignoring it, investigate it, study it and eventually embrace it. The gradually increasing weight of the scientific evidence (as I read more science books) eventually stretched my faith too far, ultimately causing it to snap. I can now look back and wonder why I resisted letting go of my faith. Understanding why I eventually let go may help us to enable others to follow.
The two key reasons I came up with for initially defending my faith have now turned into two of the key reasons why I utterly reject it. The two reasons are “Fear” and “Morality”. In the remainder of this blog I shall attempt to explain why these two elements have changed their polarity from attracting to repelling my faith.
Firstly, Fear. Death can be a frightening thing and the only conceivable way of appeasing that fear that I could see as a child was the hope in an afterlife. A genuine fear of death or burning in hell could send you straight into the open arms your nearest clergyman. Freeing my mind of the attractive fantasy of heaven was therefore something I wasn’t initially keen on doing. So what I have I gained by abandoning this fairytale that has reversed my fear? Well, I can now see threatening children with a non existent hell for the child abuse that is, I can feel honesty with myself for not disingenuously forcing myself to believe in the ridiculous but best of all, I can feel a sense of wonder in the only precious life I will ever have. This new perspective and appreciation of my mortality encourages me to make the most of my opportunity on this earth, to try and understand it, preserve it, to travel it (if that doesn’t contradict the previous wish) and watch my children grow up in it. This life is not just a shallow waiting room for next.
Secondly, Morality. Another reason I was attracted to the Church was because of the fine upstanding pillars of the community it contained and the sense of honourable morality I believed it created and imbued. I’m not now claiming that religion is immoral (although you could argue that fundamentalist religion is), I’ve just come to appreciate that religion is not the source of our morality and it would thrive perfectly well and indeed blossom without religion. I now see how religious morality was founded by piggy backing onto the human morality of the times when it was written down. Our modern morality has (mostly) advanced since the days of the Old Testament when we were advised to stone people and cut off their hands for inconsequential offences. On the whole, we’re more liberal than the Inquisitors who tortured and burned those whose strict dogmas did not align with theirs, we’ve abolished slavery and we are overturning the female subservience mandated by many holy texts. If religion got its morale’s directly from God then surely it would transcend the morale’s of the time by pre-empting our post-biblical morality and even beyond. The human race had evolved enough morality by the time of Moses to have some sound thoughts on murder and theft that have made their way into the Ten Commandments. All very laudable, but if we were writing them today we might leave out the stuff about coveting your neighbours house, or megalomaniacal claims to have no other god in favour of saying something about rape or child abuse. In fact, in addition to not being the source of morality, religion positively lags behind the secular humanist morale zeitgeist led by godless liberals. As religion is still playing morale catch-up on matters such as homosexuality and female equality I can no longer see it as a positive attribute of faith.
So here I am, atop Mount Improbable surveying the world in its splendour, and I can’t help but feeling a little evangelical about sharing my vantage point. I mentioned earlier that the small crack of doubt in my faith was filled by a tiny droplet of science that eventually expanded and cracked my faith to its foundation. The best way I see of sharing our vantage point is by ensuring enough drops of science are out there to seep into the multitude of cracks that must surely exist. I see this being achieved by the promotion of science education in schools and on TV. When I was a kid, the public perception of science got men to the moon and built supersonic passenger planes, now it puts nasty chemicals in our food and experiments with nice fluffy animals. Lets reignite the public enthusiasm for science and all it can for us. The abolition of faith schools promoting myths and superstitions would help too.
My initial attraction to Christianity and my subsequent “decline” into atheism have been gradual journeys. No blinding light was seen either on my road to Damascus or in the pages of Darwin. On my journey to an honest appreciation of the universe through the best endeavours of science’s current comprehension, I have found one thing very easy. The acceptance of evidence based on sound, proven theories like, evolution, the age of the earth, astronomy and fossil records that appear to be at odds with traditional biblical texts. I guess this was because I always felt uneasy about either having to metaphorically reinterpret vast swathes of the bible to fit in with our current knowledge or simply dismiss what we have learnt since the days when the bible was written in favour of clinging to that original definition of the world. As a Christian I always feared that an understanding of science and critical thinking could undermine my faith, so like, I suspect, many others, I tried to just ignore it. When my dissatisfaction with biblical answers and my curiosity for understanding grew too strong, I was forced to stop ignoring it, investigate it, study it and eventually embrace it. The gradually increasing weight of the scientific evidence (as I read more science books) eventually stretched my faith too far, ultimately causing it to snap. I can now look back and wonder why I resisted letting go of my faith. Understanding why I eventually let go may help us to enable others to follow.
The two key reasons I came up with for initially defending my faith have now turned into two of the key reasons why I utterly reject it. The two reasons are “Fear” and “Morality”. In the remainder of this blog I shall attempt to explain why these two elements have changed their polarity from attracting to repelling my faith.
Firstly, Fear. Death can be a frightening thing and the only conceivable way of appeasing that fear that I could see as a child was the hope in an afterlife. A genuine fear of death or burning in hell could send you straight into the open arms your nearest clergyman. Freeing my mind of the attractive fantasy of heaven was therefore something I wasn’t initially keen on doing. So what I have I gained by abandoning this fairytale that has reversed my fear? Well, I can now see threatening children with a non existent hell for the child abuse that is, I can feel honesty with myself for not disingenuously forcing myself to believe in the ridiculous but best of all, I can feel a sense of wonder in the only precious life I will ever have. This new perspective and appreciation of my mortality encourages me to make the most of my opportunity on this earth, to try and understand it, preserve it, to travel it (if that doesn’t contradict the previous wish) and watch my children grow up in it. This life is not just a shallow waiting room for next.
Secondly, Morality. Another reason I was attracted to the Church was because of the fine upstanding pillars of the community it contained and the sense of honourable morality I believed it created and imbued. I’m not now claiming that religion is immoral (although you could argue that fundamentalist religion is), I’ve just come to appreciate that religion is not the source of our morality and it would thrive perfectly well and indeed blossom without religion. I now see how religious morality was founded by piggy backing onto the human morality of the times when it was written down. Our modern morality has (mostly) advanced since the days of the Old Testament when we were advised to stone people and cut off their hands for inconsequential offences. On the whole, we’re more liberal than the Inquisitors who tortured and burned those whose strict dogmas did not align with theirs, we’ve abolished slavery and we are overturning the female subservience mandated by many holy texts. If religion got its morale’s directly from God then surely it would transcend the morale’s of the time by pre-empting our post-biblical morality and even beyond. The human race had evolved enough morality by the time of Moses to have some sound thoughts on murder and theft that have made their way into the Ten Commandments. All very laudable, but if we were writing them today we might leave out the stuff about coveting your neighbours house, or megalomaniacal claims to have no other god in favour of saying something about rape or child abuse. In fact, in addition to not being the source of morality, religion positively lags behind the secular humanist morale zeitgeist led by godless liberals. As religion is still playing morale catch-up on matters such as homosexuality and female equality I can no longer see it as a positive attribute of faith.
So here I am, atop Mount Improbable surveying the world in its splendour, and I can’t help but feeling a little evangelical about sharing my vantage point. I mentioned earlier that the small crack of doubt in my faith was filled by a tiny droplet of science that eventually expanded and cracked my faith to its foundation. The best way I see of sharing our vantage point is by ensuring enough drops of science are out there to seep into the multitude of cracks that must surely exist. I see this being achieved by the promotion of science education in schools and on TV. When I was a kid, the public perception of science got men to the moon and built supersonic passenger planes, now it puts nasty chemicals in our food and experiments with nice fluffy animals. Lets reignite the public enthusiasm for science and all it can for us. The abolition of faith schools promoting myths and superstitions would help too.
Tuesday, 14 October 2008
A Day in the Life: Monday 13th October 2008
06:00
Woken up by the dulcet tones of Evan Davis on the “Today” programme as the radio alarm clock clicks over to 6am. The wife always has to comment on how bizarre looking he is whenever we se him on “Dragon’s Den”. Anyway you don’t have to look at the ugly old bugger on Radio 4. I lay in bed for 20 minutes to see how the economy is likely to fair this morning after the governments latest attempts to bolster the failing and ever more timid banks. Sounds quite positive, perhaps the shares might fair a little better today.
06:35
Drove to the car park next to the station in order to catch the 6:52 train. The car park is virtually empty at this time of the morning apart from 4 or 5 cars, so it’s always a tadge frustrating when someone has already nabbed my preferred space. I like the end space as it gives me a little extra room with my particularly wide car. So why does some silly git in a little Corsa insist on parking there? He could park in one of the normal annoyingly small spaces and still get his doors open. Fortunately, I get there first today and claim the end spot. I suspect however, if I drove a small car, I would feel equal contempt for those annoying people in their unnecessarily large gas guzzlers.
06:52
Train leaves Basingstoke dead on time. I remember making constant jokes at the expense of British Rail’s inability to have a train on time, but I have to admit they regularly seem to be on time these days. It was rather cosy on the train this morning as the heating seems to be on full blast, but presumably they are unable to turn in down and someone complains so the ticket inspect decides to open the window and cause a howling gale to blow in my face for the remainder of the journey, thus foiling my plans for a little morning doze. I decide to make use of the time by listening to my favourite weekly Podcast from the “Skeptics Guide to the Universe”. They were interviewing PZ Myers today (he of the famous Pharyangula blogs on Scienceblogs.com)
07:40
Arrive at Waterloo on time today, the train can sometimes wait outside the station for 3-4 minutes, presumably waiting for the platform to clear. Anyway this means I get into Waterloo in time to catch the overland train from Waterloo East to London Bridge.
07:55
Arrived at the office, checked my email and BBC news website before settling down to my mornings work. I’ve just set up a new test tool to manage the test cases, scripts and results for the CAD2010 project, so I spent the morning putting a backup procedure in place to automatically run a small script I wrote to backup my data. Punctuated my mornings work with a quick walk down the road to Prêt-a-Manger for my morning Latte and a check on the share prices. Documented the new backup procedure and then went to the gym.
12:30
Hopped on to my preferred cross trainer and plugged myself into the TV. Ran for 50 minutes and burnt 620 calories, whilst rather embarrassing watching “Bargain Hunt” and the 1 o’clock news to hear Robert Peston’s analysis of the markets so far today. A quick trip to Prêt again for some lunch as the wife didn’t make me any sandwiches this morning.
13:30
Spent the afternoon importing, reviewing and approving test scripts into the new tool for the CTAK Enhancements project.
16:30
Train from London Bridge back to Waterloo in time to catch the 16:50 train from Waterloo and get my preferred seat. Facing backwards, as the evening sun can blind you facing forwards, in the aisle seat, so I can get out easily at Basingstoke without being hemmed in and in the table seats as they have more leg room. As usual there’s some people who obviously don’t normally take the train, trying to claim two seats by sprawling their coats and bags across the seat next to them. The train is always full to standing room only, so they’ll have to move them sooner or later. As I get older and grumpier I’m taking more delight in asking them if the seat next to them is free and getting them to move their stuff. I Managed to read a chapter of my book before my eyes get too heavy. My train book is currently “Darwin’s Dangerous Idea” by Daniel Dennett, an American Philosopher and professor of Cognitive Studies at Tufts University.
17:35
Miraculously come out of my slumber just as we pull into Basingstoke Station. I’m not sure how I always manage to do that. So far I haven’t managed to fall asleep and wake up at Yeovil Junction. I was considering moving to the opposite seat as the lady who normally has the window seat opposite also gets out at Basingstoke. Perhaps if I sat next to her, and I fell asleep, she would have to wake me up to get out herself. Then again, I would have the problem of the sun in my eyes. I might adopt this tactic if my ability to wake up in time starts to fail me.
17:50
Arrived home. Need to feed the dog first as he greets me with a few acrobatic leaps to indicate the fact that he wants his dinner
18:00
Have to have dinner early on Monday night, as Peter has to be at cubs by 18:30 and we need to eat before he goes. I have to pick him up tonight which is rather annoying because tonight is the London Skeptics in the pub meeting (2nd Monday of the Month) and I have to miss it. Bit of shame as they have a mad creationist speaking this evening and I wanted to ensure he was asked some suitably probing questions. Never mind, Peter only has a few weeks of cubs left which should free up my Monday nights.
18:30
Peter’s off to cubs and Victoria and India are preparing for Guides, which gives me a chance to check my email, unwrap and latest parcel from Amazon and ensure my iTunes library and Record Database are nicely up to date.
20:00
Pick the boy up from cubs. He’s in a rather excellent mood as he was presented with a trophy for winning the circuit orienteering competition at the weekend. He’s got an hour before bedtime, so we spend some father/son time together watching TV. I give him the choice of two programmes I recorded earlier, James May’s Bright Ideas or Mythbusters. He chooses Mythbusters which fits in well because Victoria gets really annoyed with it so watching it while she’s at Guides seems like a cunning plan.
21:00
Victoria and India get back from Guides, so after putting the kids to bed we get a couple of hours to ourselves, which I shan’t elaborate on in this blog.
23:30
Just time to read a few chapters of my bedtime book. I’m currently reading “Your Inner Fish” by Neil Shubin, a palaeontologist famous for his discovery of the Tiktalik fossil which nicely fills the previous fossil gap between fish and amphibians/reptiles.
Woken up by the dulcet tones of Evan Davis on the “Today” programme as the radio alarm clock clicks over to 6am. The wife always has to comment on how bizarre looking he is whenever we se him on “Dragon’s Den”. Anyway you don’t have to look at the ugly old bugger on Radio 4. I lay in bed for 20 minutes to see how the economy is likely to fair this morning after the governments latest attempts to bolster the failing and ever more timid banks. Sounds quite positive, perhaps the shares might fair a little better today.
06:35
Drove to the car park next to the station in order to catch the 6:52 train. The car park is virtually empty at this time of the morning apart from 4 or 5 cars, so it’s always a tadge frustrating when someone has already nabbed my preferred space. I like the end space as it gives me a little extra room with my particularly wide car. So why does some silly git in a little Corsa insist on parking there? He could park in one of the normal annoyingly small spaces and still get his doors open. Fortunately, I get there first today and claim the end spot. I suspect however, if I drove a small car, I would feel equal contempt for those annoying people in their unnecessarily large gas guzzlers.
06:52
Train leaves Basingstoke dead on time. I remember making constant jokes at the expense of British Rail’s inability to have a train on time, but I have to admit they regularly seem to be on time these days. It was rather cosy on the train this morning as the heating seems to be on full blast, but presumably they are unable to turn in down and someone complains so the ticket inspect decides to open the window and cause a howling gale to blow in my face for the remainder of the journey, thus foiling my plans for a little morning doze. I decide to make use of the time by listening to my favourite weekly Podcast from the “Skeptics Guide to the Universe”. They were interviewing PZ Myers today (he of the famous Pharyangula blogs on Scienceblogs.com)
07:40
Arrive at Waterloo on time today, the train can sometimes wait outside the station for 3-4 minutes, presumably waiting for the platform to clear. Anyway this means I get into Waterloo in time to catch the overland train from Waterloo East to London Bridge.
07:55
Arrived at the office, checked my email and BBC news website before settling down to my mornings work. I’ve just set up a new test tool to manage the test cases, scripts and results for the CAD2010 project, so I spent the morning putting a backup procedure in place to automatically run a small script I wrote to backup my data. Punctuated my mornings work with a quick walk down the road to Prêt-a-Manger for my morning Latte and a check on the share prices. Documented the new backup procedure and then went to the gym.
12:30
Hopped on to my preferred cross trainer and plugged myself into the TV. Ran for 50 minutes and burnt 620 calories, whilst rather embarrassing watching “Bargain Hunt” and the 1 o’clock news to hear Robert Peston’s analysis of the markets so far today. A quick trip to Prêt again for some lunch as the wife didn’t make me any sandwiches this morning.
13:30
Spent the afternoon importing, reviewing and approving test scripts into the new tool for the CTAK Enhancements project.
16:30
Train from London Bridge back to Waterloo in time to catch the 16:50 train from Waterloo and get my preferred seat. Facing backwards, as the evening sun can blind you facing forwards, in the aisle seat, so I can get out easily at Basingstoke without being hemmed in and in the table seats as they have more leg room. As usual there’s some people who obviously don’t normally take the train, trying to claim two seats by sprawling their coats and bags across the seat next to them. The train is always full to standing room only, so they’ll have to move them sooner or later. As I get older and grumpier I’m taking more delight in asking them if the seat next to them is free and getting them to move their stuff. I Managed to read a chapter of my book before my eyes get too heavy. My train book is currently “Darwin’s Dangerous Idea” by Daniel Dennett, an American Philosopher and professor of Cognitive Studies at Tufts University.
17:35
Miraculously come out of my slumber just as we pull into Basingstoke Station. I’m not sure how I always manage to do that. So far I haven’t managed to fall asleep and wake up at Yeovil Junction. I was considering moving to the opposite seat as the lady who normally has the window seat opposite also gets out at Basingstoke. Perhaps if I sat next to her, and I fell asleep, she would have to wake me up to get out herself. Then again, I would have the problem of the sun in my eyes. I might adopt this tactic if my ability to wake up in time starts to fail me.
17:50
Arrived home. Need to feed the dog first as he greets me with a few acrobatic leaps to indicate the fact that he wants his dinner
18:00
Have to have dinner early on Monday night, as Peter has to be at cubs by 18:30 and we need to eat before he goes. I have to pick him up tonight which is rather annoying because tonight is the London Skeptics in the pub meeting (2nd Monday of the Month) and I have to miss it. Bit of shame as they have a mad creationist speaking this evening and I wanted to ensure he was asked some suitably probing questions. Never mind, Peter only has a few weeks of cubs left which should free up my Monday nights.
18:30
Peter’s off to cubs and Victoria and India are preparing for Guides, which gives me a chance to check my email, unwrap and latest parcel from Amazon and ensure my iTunes library and Record Database are nicely up to date.
20:00
Pick the boy up from cubs. He’s in a rather excellent mood as he was presented with a trophy for winning the circuit orienteering competition at the weekend. He’s got an hour before bedtime, so we spend some father/son time together watching TV. I give him the choice of two programmes I recorded earlier, James May’s Bright Ideas or Mythbusters. He chooses Mythbusters which fits in well because Victoria gets really annoyed with it so watching it while she’s at Guides seems like a cunning plan.
21:00
Victoria and India get back from Guides, so after putting the kids to bed we get a couple of hours to ourselves, which I shan’t elaborate on in this blog.
23:30
Just time to read a few chapters of my bedtime book. I’m currently reading “Your Inner Fish” by Neil Shubin, a palaeontologist famous for his discovery of the Tiktalik fossil which nicely fills the previous fossil gap between fish and amphibians/reptiles.
Tuesday, 23 September 2008
I Skeptic
As much as I enjoyed the “God Delusion” and found its arguments incontrovertible, it’s not my favourite of Dawkins’ books. I’m not a scientist, (well I’m a computer scientist, but that doesn’t count as I don’t get to wear a white coat). I do however have an interest in championing logic, critical thinking and reason over superstition , pseudo science and general woo woo which I suspect stems from my emergent curiosity in real science. Hence my preference for Dawkins books like “The Selfish Gene” and the “Blind Watchmaker” that provide a logical and scientific explanation for the world around us. In addition to giving me a logical perspective on the ludicrousness of religion, reading science books has additionally promoted my interest in the absurdity of other popular beliefs that fly in the face of science and reason.
I suspect that these beliefs and myths are promoted by media keen to serve a public who view science as boring and elitist. However in a year when the Phoenix Lander has successfully touched down on the surface of an alien planet and we have built a gigantic Hadron Collider that will be capable of simulating the conditions moments after the big bang, incredulously most people still find Victoria Beckham's new hair do more news worthy. Anyway my thirst for the latest scientific news as opposed to celebrity hair fashions led me into the world of Skepticism were are a number of jolly useful resources like the SGU, Skepticality, Point of Enquiry, Skeptoid and JREF podcasts have helped to keep me informed. Not to mention the monthly speakers at the Skeptics in the Pub (London is my nearest).
In my previous post I argued in favour of boldly and publicly declaring myself as an Atheist. In this post I wanted to explore the pros and cons associated with declaring myself as a Skeptic. (NB I have deliberately used the American spelling as I believe it is more representative of the Skeptic movement than the English word sceptic.) Logically I should apply the same arguments to the word “Skeptic” as I did to the word “Atheist” and therefore reach the same logical conclusion that I should wear my Skeptic badge with pride. But I have two issues with the identifier “Skeptic”.
Firstly, although the term is widely understood within the Skeptical community, I fear that the word is more ambiguous in the community at large due to the literal definition of the word. As an example, a visitor recently spotted a copy of Michael Shermer’s Skeptic magazine in my lounge and asked if I had made a ‘U’ turn on my Darwinist views. On further questioning, it turns out that she equated the word Skeptic with the things she was personally sceptical of, which in her case, sadly, included the theory of evolution. I found this rather worrying, because to me the whole point of Skeptisim from my perspective is to support and promote those theories with overwhelming scientific evidence and investigate logical and reasonable explanations for phenomenon that are attributed to the supernatural. Therefore, do other people confuse the meaning of the Skeptic movement based on their personal beliefs, for example do they consider themselves as Skeptics of modern medicine and prefer to entrust their health to mumbo jumbo or treatments with the magical word “natural” in the title. If so this is a complete reversal to the Skeptical movement’s viewpoint on this topic.
Secondly, I’ve also received comments that as a Skeptic I must be very “closed minded”. Again this is in my opinion a complete reversal of the truth. Although I don’t believe that little green men are buzzing the planet and sticking their shiny probe up the unsuspecting hairy arse of a farmer in Ohio, if sound scientific evidence where produced to confirm the existence of extra terrestrial life, that would be the most exciting news story I’ve every heard, and most welcomed. Compare this with the stance of the blind faith believers when asked how they would respond to irrefutable evidence that disproved their faith, and in every example I’ve heard they would not be prepared to concede their previous stance and cling on to their delusions regardless of evidence to the contrary. And apparently I'm the closed minded one!
I’m not proposing a name change, just voicing some issues I have encountered with the term Skeptic, and was wondering if others have experienced the same problem. I’ll continue to take advantage of the great Skeptic resources available, but I may have to be careful to qualify my stance when using the label outside of the Skeptic Village. Perhaps the growth of the Skeptical community will help it grow into a synonym for critical thinking,, reason and scientific advancement rather than just a bunch of miserable doubters and debunkers.
I suspect that these beliefs and myths are promoted by media keen to serve a public who view science as boring and elitist. However in a year when the Phoenix Lander has successfully touched down on the surface of an alien planet and we have built a gigantic Hadron Collider that will be capable of simulating the conditions moments after the big bang, incredulously most people still find Victoria Beckham's new hair do more news worthy. Anyway my thirst for the latest scientific news as opposed to celebrity hair fashions led me into the world of Skepticism were are a number of jolly useful resources like the SGU, Skepticality, Point of Enquiry, Skeptoid and JREF podcasts have helped to keep me informed. Not to mention the monthly speakers at the Skeptics in the Pub (London is my nearest).
In my previous post I argued in favour of boldly and publicly declaring myself as an Atheist. In this post I wanted to explore the pros and cons associated with declaring myself as a Skeptic. (NB I have deliberately used the American spelling as I believe it is more representative of the Skeptic movement than the English word sceptic.) Logically I should apply the same arguments to the word “Skeptic” as I did to the word “Atheist” and therefore reach the same logical conclusion that I should wear my Skeptic badge with pride. But I have two issues with the identifier “Skeptic”.
Firstly, although the term is widely understood within the Skeptical community, I fear that the word is more ambiguous in the community at large due to the literal definition of the word. As an example, a visitor recently spotted a copy of Michael Shermer’s Skeptic magazine in my lounge and asked if I had made a ‘U’ turn on my Darwinist views. On further questioning, it turns out that she equated the word Skeptic with the things she was personally sceptical of, which in her case, sadly, included the theory of evolution. I found this rather worrying, because to me the whole point of Skeptisim from my perspective is to support and promote those theories with overwhelming scientific evidence and investigate logical and reasonable explanations for phenomenon that are attributed to the supernatural. Therefore, do other people confuse the meaning of the Skeptic movement based on their personal beliefs, for example do they consider themselves as Skeptics of modern medicine and prefer to entrust their health to mumbo jumbo or treatments with the magical word “natural” in the title. If so this is a complete reversal to the Skeptical movement’s viewpoint on this topic.
Secondly, I’ve also received comments that as a Skeptic I must be very “closed minded”. Again this is in my opinion a complete reversal of the truth. Although I don’t believe that little green men are buzzing the planet and sticking their shiny probe up the unsuspecting hairy arse of a farmer in Ohio, if sound scientific evidence where produced to confirm the existence of extra terrestrial life, that would be the most exciting news story I’ve every heard, and most welcomed. Compare this with the stance of the blind faith believers when asked how they would respond to irrefutable evidence that disproved their faith, and in every example I’ve heard they would not be prepared to concede their previous stance and cling on to their delusions regardless of evidence to the contrary. And apparently I'm the closed minded one!
I’m not proposing a name change, just voicing some issues I have encountered with the term Skeptic, and was wondering if others have experienced the same problem. I’ll continue to take advantage of the great Skeptic resources available, but I may have to be careful to qualify my stance when using the label outside of the Skeptic Village. Perhaps the growth of the Skeptical community will help it grow into a synonym for critical thinking,, reason and scientific advancement rather than just a bunch of miserable doubters and debunkers.
Thursday, 18 September 2008
Should I call myself an Atheist?
Whilst listening to an old interview with Neil De Grasse Tyson on the “Point of Enquiry” Podcast the other day I felt myself pondering Neil’s comments on the pro’s and cons of identifying ones self as an Atheist. Neil made a very good point that it’s far better to advertise yourself by what you are, as opposed to what you are not. The example he gave, is that as a non golfer he doesn’t feel the need to identify himself as an agolfer, so as a non theist why bother identifying yourself as an atheist. My immediate thoughts were that this sounds like a reasonable and convincing stance, so why does it sit slightly uneasily with me. Having pondered it for a while I think it’s due to am imperfect analogy. This is because the majority of the worlds population are not golfer’s, and it’s not considered a key attribute that governs many aspects of peoples lives that must be treated with respect. Hence there’s no need to disassociate oneself from it if it just doesn’t happen to fluff your pigeon. If golf was treated in the same way by society as religion then when you check in at the casualty department for some treatment you may well be asked if you prefer a sand wedge to a 9 iron when completing your admission form (I’m not a golfer either so I apologise if my metaphor is not quite logical). If I where asked such a silly question by the triage nurse I would feel the need to qualify the fact that I was not in fact a golfer and that I find the question pointless and irrelevant. If the majority of the worlds population were atheists and religion were not afforded its sacred untouchability, then I think Neil’s metaphor would stand and I would agree with him and see no reason to declare my atheism as it would be the default point of view. We could then leave the onus on the deluded to come out of the closet instead.So why do I think it’s important to stand up and be counted as an Atheist? I suspect that, in Britain at least, despite opinion polls, I am not actually in the minority. I suspect that non believers frequently allow themselves to be counted among the faithful due to reasons of religious disinterest and maintenance of their culture heritage. For example, if religion pays no part in your daily life and the triage nurse asked you for your religion on the admission form, how many non believers just say “Christian”, as the quick and easy answer. They were christened as a Christian and they live in a “Christian Country” they may not be practising, but they enjoy the Christmas holidays and certainly don’t want to be identified as a Muslim or a Jew, ergo Christian is the simple harmless answer. Perhaps similar views are received in response to opinion polls as the percentage of Christian’s in this country does not equate with Church attendance statistics.But why use the word “Atheist” when it has such negative connotations, in fact some might even mistakenly associate the word with amorality or less pleasant human characteristics. I suspect this might be the primary incentive for Dan Dennnet to champion the term “Brights”. I quite like the term “Bright” but it does sound a little condescending, perhaps I secretly like that, it almost says “Science too difficult? Never mind, try religion”. So how about “Secularist”, “Humanist” or even “Agnostic”? I don’t object to any of those terms (although I find Agnostic a little too non comitial). However, I think words can be perceived differently over a period of time (Not only does the word “Gay” have a primarily different meaning these days, its starting to loose any stigma associated with it). Might it not also be a good idea to clean up the word “Atheist” by more popular usage of the word, by not being afraid of the term and by allowing it to be associated with genuine, caring and morale people like us.So assuming atheists are more numerous than polls suggest and we can rightly feel proud of such a label, what’s the value in promoting it? One (of many possible) answers could be that it seems as though religious pressure groups are trying (and achieving) to change our secular government (For example the spread of faith schools with the ability to teach their preferred creation myths as science and other such lobbying that prevents the spread of science and progress that leads to a better quality of life for us all). Perhaps by making it clearer that the majority of the population are intelligent caring and rational human beings that have no truck with an outdated dogmatic view of the world, then religious lobbying may be less successful.In short, support the out campaign, wear you atheists T Shirts with pride and raise the profile.
Saturday, 16 February 2008
Richard Dawkins: The Blind Watchmaker
One of the hardest things to accept about evolution is the element of random chance that seems so improbably unlikely to have ended up in us. Fred Hoyle describes it as akin to a hurricane blowing through a junk yard and forming a Boeing 747 by pure chance. Although there is no chance or luck whatsover in the proces of natural selection, there is an element of randomness in the mutation of genes. Dawkins takes this chance and breaks it down by explaining the probabilities and the essential element of building on successive small steps rather then just single impossibly unlikely chance events. I saw a programme on TV last week that reminded me of how this seemingly impossible chance works. It was a show called “The System” by Derren Brown in which he provided a full proof guaranteed way for one lucky punter to always win on the horses. The programme followed her fortunes through 5 successive incredible wins until she had enough confidence and belief in his system to gamble several thousand pounds (which she didn’t have) on the final race. The system worked by initially selecting hundreds of possible punters, dividing them into groups without any knowledge of the other people and giving each group a different horse in the race. The people in the group given the horse that actually won the race were then further split and each new group given a different horse in the next race and so on. Eventually you end up with one person who had to win all of the races. From the perspective of this lucky person in the group it must have indeed looked like pure chance could not have got her into this situation and that “The System” must indeed work. Without the knowledge of all the other failures it provided her with the faith she needed to believe in the system. Dawkins explains evolution by natural selection in much the same way. We are all the lucky lady who made it through and won all those successive races, not because of some divine guidance, not because of complete random chance, but through cumulative successive small pieces of chance over evolutionary time at the expense of those countless millions who took the alternative paths and disappeared from our knowledge.
Sam Harris: The End of Faith
A no holes barred examination of the consequences of blind unquestioning faith. Harris shows how the fundamentalist is happy to kill himself, you and me, not because he is mad, insane or uneducated, but purely because he truly believes in the literal interpretation of his holy text. Harris provides a wake up call to how religious tolerance and the taboo in challenging the validity of a persons faith leads to moderate religious communities that are the breeding grounds for terror and atrocities. The more people that read this book the better.
Lewis Wolpert: Six Impossible Things Before Breakfast
The White Queen told Alice that when she was younger she managed to believe in six impossible things before breakfast. Alice replies that one can’t possibly believe in impossible things which seems perfectly reasonable. So what is the psychological reason why the human mind can believe in angels, astrology, touching wood, not walking under ladders and alien abductions when there is no credible evidence to support such ideas. I find it much more interesting reading about why would be believe in such nonsense rather than delving in to minds of the delusional people who do believe it.
Daniel C. Dennett: Breaking The Spell
As a philosopher Dennett provides a valuable insight in to how and why we have ended up with the religious beliefs we have and why we cling on to them against what I suspect most of us know is our better judgement. “Breaking the Spell” is more sympathetic to the religious believers than Dawkins is in “The God Delusion”, but he draws the same negative conclusion on the value of faith based beliefs.
Richard Dawkins: The Selfish Gene
This book explains the driving force behind evolution by providing a gene centric view of the process. To me, the whole theory of evolution works perfectly when driven by the unconscious goals of individual genes to replicate and form vessels in which to exploit their environment
Simon Singh - Big Bang
What I like about this book is that it explains how we know what we know. It starts from the first ancient discoveries about the diameter of the earth and the distance to the sun and how we calculated it and proceeds through the history of scientific discoveries clearly explaining how we built upon this initial understanding and arrived at the complex view we have of the universe and its origins today.
Thursday, 7 February 2008
Life, The Universe and Everything
As a child I was always intrigued by the ultimate question, the one phrased by the late Douglas Adams as “Life, the Universe and Everything”. I tried to make sense of why I was who I was and why and how the world and the universe is here in the first place. I think many adults get this curiosity in the universe beaten out of them and learn to just accept things for what they are, but I remain fascinated on the subject. For a number of years I happily relied on religion to answer these questions. However by delving deeper into the answers presented by religion and attending Alpha courses I found that the whole fabric and credibility of this answer just fell apart under scrutiny and I was left with the underlying need to make a leap of faith that I was unable to convince myself to make. Since then I have been reading a lot of science books and actively trying to expand my knowledge and understanding of the world we live in. I’m sure many of my fine Christian friends, whom I love dearly, will mourn what they will no doubt see as the loss of my faith, but I see it more as waking up to the wonder and natural beauty of the world around me previously hidden by my religious blinkers.
As a software engineer learning my trade in the early eighties, I learnt how to program computers and spent ages composing complex code and algorithms to do the seemingly simple task of just moving a basic object across the screen. My son now plays High Definition computer games with 3D graphics and multiple interactive characters and he thinks nothing of it. Having an understanding of programming allows me to understand the incredible feat of software engineering required to achieve what he just takes for granted. I think that this provides a good analogy to how many people view the world in which they live, they become blasé to the wonders of it and devote their attentions to other more mundane pursuits. Religion does little to unearth the complex programming of the world as it provides the simple premise of creation as an answer to all that we see and hear around us. When religion says that the world and its inhabitants were just created by God it seems rather like ignoring the incredible complexity and truth behind how things really work. Apart from begging the obvious question of where did God from in the first place, religion encourages us to place are heads in the sand and ignore this natural beauty, wonder and complexity of the universe for fear of dislodging the incredulous beliefs lodged into our brains as susceptible children.
Not only does science provides more logical answers backed up by evidence, but it supplies more fascinating answers that ultimately make me more appreciative of the series of seemingly impossibly unlikely events that culminated in me writing these thoughts down. A very basic understanding of evolutionary theory, plate tectonics, quantum mechanics and the expanding universe to name but a few completely blows ancient myths out of the water.
I can appreciate the origin of these myths. If I lived 3 or 4 thousand years ago with no modern knowledge, I’m sure that like the 18th Century theologian and Christian apologists, William Paley, I would draw the obvious conclusion that a complex object like myself must surely have been designed by some sort of sentient powerful deity. I suspect that I would also have assumed that the earth was flat (How could it be otherwise when I’d surely fall of the bottom if it were round). I think I’d also believe that the earth was at the centre of the universe and the sun, moon and stars revolved around the recently created earth as you can clearly see them moving around us and feel that the earth is standing perfectly still. Fortunately I live in a more enlightened time when these obvious assumptions can be proved to be utterly wrong.
So where does all this knowledge and the countless other tomes of incredible human understanding leave God. It seems to me like there are 3 alternatives.
Firstly you could take a fundamentalist viewpoint and completely deny this knowledge and stick to the literal truth of your preferred holy text (Most probably dependant upon the particular flavour of religion chance inflicted upon your parents) in the face of the overwhelming evidence. This must be a very safe place to be, deep behind your high wall of blind faith insulated from the real world and encouraged and spurred on by the community around you that fuels the delusion and provides solace and hope in an after world where you will be proved right. Unfortunately we are all well too aware of the consequences of religious fundamentalism in the 21st century and Islam should not be singled out as the problem religion. Imagine a leader of the free world, who believes in creationism and the literal truth of the book of revelations and that we are close to the glorious day when the sins of the world will all be destroyed and the faithful few will take their rightful place in heaven. Now imagine this guy has the power to press the big red button to bring all these things to pass. I find that much scarier than anything we have seen so far.
The second alternative, I see has been described as “God in the Gaps”. In other words we can use God for a simple catch all situation for all the things science has yet to explain. The problem is that as our scientific understanding expands the gaps are squeezed out. Although most religious communities eventually concede to scientific fact they do tend to lag behind, hanging on to their literal truths until they become completely at odds with modern culture and need to interpret them instead as metaphors. For example I think most Christians, thankfully, would not now recommend the death penalty for adultery as mandated in both Leviticus 20:10 and Deuteronomy 22:22, and have more recently started to accept women’s equal place in society (others still need to catch up on this one), but the Christian Church still have a bit of catching up to do with its views on homosexuality. This perpetual updating of the interpretations of the holy texts smacks to be of a set of man made rules reflecting the local culture of its day rather than a divine revelation that remains completely relevant across time and space. I suspect that the attractive feature of this moderate form of religion lies in the fact that science hasn’t yet answered everything, we still do not know what happened before the big bang, why the rules of physics are like goldilocks porridge (not to hot, not too cold, but just right for life on this remarkable planet). Surely this must be the realm of God, a benign God who set up the rules of the universe, who wound it up and set us on our merry way. But why do we need to fill the gaps in our expanding knowledge with supernatural phenomenon when we can see that the gaps are slowly being understood by supplying completely natural answers. Surely these gaps will eventually disappear and those hiding in them will be forced to return to the religious fundamentalist view or abandon their faith completely.
My third alternative is that we accept what we have learnt so far, we stand on the shoulders of the giants who have given us this remarkable understanding and we strive to fill the remaining gaps without resorting to demons, ghosts and fairies. We’ve put Zeus, Thor, Pan, Horus, Odin, Neptune, Mercury, Athena and countless other Gods to bed, let’s free the minds of our children to be able to graciously retire the last of our iron age myths rather than infecting the next generation with a powerful meme that like other viruses has evolved an effective way of surviving and replicating itself.
Amway, I seem to have veered off somewhat from my intended topic on the marvels of scientific discoveries. So I’ve added a few links on the right hand side to some fine books that I feel have contributing to my increased understanding, appreciation and wonder in life, the universe and everything.
As a software engineer learning my trade in the early eighties, I learnt how to program computers and spent ages composing complex code and algorithms to do the seemingly simple task of just moving a basic object across the screen. My son now plays High Definition computer games with 3D graphics and multiple interactive characters and he thinks nothing of it. Having an understanding of programming allows me to understand the incredible feat of software engineering required to achieve what he just takes for granted. I think that this provides a good analogy to how many people view the world in which they live, they become blasé to the wonders of it and devote their attentions to other more mundane pursuits. Religion does little to unearth the complex programming of the world as it provides the simple premise of creation as an answer to all that we see and hear around us. When religion says that the world and its inhabitants were just created by God it seems rather like ignoring the incredible complexity and truth behind how things really work. Apart from begging the obvious question of where did God from in the first place, religion encourages us to place are heads in the sand and ignore this natural beauty, wonder and complexity of the universe for fear of dislodging the incredulous beliefs lodged into our brains as susceptible children.
Not only does science provides more logical answers backed up by evidence, but it supplies more fascinating answers that ultimately make me more appreciative of the series of seemingly impossibly unlikely events that culminated in me writing these thoughts down. A very basic understanding of evolutionary theory, plate tectonics, quantum mechanics and the expanding universe to name but a few completely blows ancient myths out of the water.
I can appreciate the origin of these myths. If I lived 3 or 4 thousand years ago with no modern knowledge, I’m sure that like the 18th Century theologian and Christian apologists, William Paley, I would draw the obvious conclusion that a complex object like myself must surely have been designed by some sort of sentient powerful deity. I suspect that I would also have assumed that the earth was flat (How could it be otherwise when I’d surely fall of the bottom if it were round). I think I’d also believe that the earth was at the centre of the universe and the sun, moon and stars revolved around the recently created earth as you can clearly see them moving around us and feel that the earth is standing perfectly still. Fortunately I live in a more enlightened time when these obvious assumptions can be proved to be utterly wrong.
So where does all this knowledge and the countless other tomes of incredible human understanding leave God. It seems to me like there are 3 alternatives.
Firstly you could take a fundamentalist viewpoint and completely deny this knowledge and stick to the literal truth of your preferred holy text (Most probably dependant upon the particular flavour of religion chance inflicted upon your parents) in the face of the overwhelming evidence. This must be a very safe place to be, deep behind your high wall of blind faith insulated from the real world and encouraged and spurred on by the community around you that fuels the delusion and provides solace and hope in an after world where you will be proved right. Unfortunately we are all well too aware of the consequences of religious fundamentalism in the 21st century and Islam should not be singled out as the problem religion. Imagine a leader of the free world, who believes in creationism and the literal truth of the book of revelations and that we are close to the glorious day when the sins of the world will all be destroyed and the faithful few will take their rightful place in heaven. Now imagine this guy has the power to press the big red button to bring all these things to pass. I find that much scarier than anything we have seen so far.
The second alternative, I see has been described as “God in the Gaps”. In other words we can use God for a simple catch all situation for all the things science has yet to explain. The problem is that as our scientific understanding expands the gaps are squeezed out. Although most religious communities eventually concede to scientific fact they do tend to lag behind, hanging on to their literal truths until they become completely at odds with modern culture and need to interpret them instead as metaphors. For example I think most Christians, thankfully, would not now recommend the death penalty for adultery as mandated in both Leviticus 20:10 and Deuteronomy 22:22, and have more recently started to accept women’s equal place in society (others still need to catch up on this one), but the Christian Church still have a bit of catching up to do with its views on homosexuality. This perpetual updating of the interpretations of the holy texts smacks to be of a set of man made rules reflecting the local culture of its day rather than a divine revelation that remains completely relevant across time and space. I suspect that the attractive feature of this moderate form of religion lies in the fact that science hasn’t yet answered everything, we still do not know what happened before the big bang, why the rules of physics are like goldilocks porridge (not to hot, not too cold, but just right for life on this remarkable planet). Surely this must be the realm of God, a benign God who set up the rules of the universe, who wound it up and set us on our merry way. But why do we need to fill the gaps in our expanding knowledge with supernatural phenomenon when we can see that the gaps are slowly being understood by supplying completely natural answers. Surely these gaps will eventually disappear and those hiding in them will be forced to return to the religious fundamentalist view or abandon their faith completely.
My third alternative is that we accept what we have learnt so far, we stand on the shoulders of the giants who have given us this remarkable understanding and we strive to fill the remaining gaps without resorting to demons, ghosts and fairies. We’ve put Zeus, Thor, Pan, Horus, Odin, Neptune, Mercury, Athena and countless other Gods to bed, let’s free the minds of our children to be able to graciously retire the last of our iron age myths rather than infecting the next generation with a powerful meme that like other viruses has evolved an effective way of surviving and replicating itself.
Amway, I seem to have veered off somewhat from my intended topic on the marvels of scientific discoveries. So I’ve added a few links on the right hand side to some fine books that I feel have contributing to my increased understanding, appreciation and wonder in life, the universe and everything.
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