Speculation

"Imagine there's no religion," John Lennon's Imagine famously invites. What if we went further? What if we imagined there had never been religion at all? That's probably too extreme of a hypothetical. The nature of the human species, mainly our inclination toward pattern recognition, seems to make the development of religion, at least in our infancy as a species, inevitable. But what if we imagine what the world would be like without one specific religion? Say, Christianity?

Friedrich Nietzsche, one of the most gifted stylist of the German language and a fascinating philosopher, believed Christianity to be a profound betrayal of the natural order. Born from Judaism, the originator of slave morality (see The Genealogy of Morals), Christianity inverts the natural moral order, replacing the correct dichotomy of good/bad (strength/weakness) with good/evil, changing the moral focus from results to intention. Christianity, after all, famously advances submission, meekness, nonviolence, caring for the poor, etc., all things that run counter to survival of the fittest. Nietzsche hated the religion so much he devoted the first fourth of his planned magnum opus, The Will To Power, to refuting it. This first part, The Antichrist, was all he ever wrote of the planned four books.

So what if Christianity had never existed? Would the western world be in a better state now? There's no way to know for certain, obviously. Chaos theory makes it clear that any change in starting conditions will dramatically and unpredictably alter the final result.

Perhaps a more useful question is will the human race be better off ten, one hundred, one thousand years from now if Christianity goes away? Plenty of thinkers have believed so--Nietzsche, Hegel, Marx, Mill, Ingersoll, Asimov, Clarke, Sagan, Dawkins, Dennett, etc. Moreover, all those men believed the condition of the human race would be much improved if all religion went away. And I think I'd have to add my name to that list.

An interesting question to mull over, regardless of one's beliefs on the subject.

If You Want To Understand Bullshit, Study Rhetoric

I first found the following video through PZ Myers' excellent blog. In this excerpt from a message by Louie Giglio, Mr. Giglio makes a case for God's greatness by pointing to a protein molecule called Laminin that looks like a cross. He then ties this to Colossians, which says "In Him [Christ] all things hold together." The audience and the commentors on the YouTube video, eat this shit up.



Now, for the truth of the matter. In his post on the video Dr. Myers rightly points out that Laminin is a "floppy" molecule, capable of folding into many different patterns (notice, when Giglio shows the electron microscope picture of laminin, it doesn't look much like a cross anymore), and the cross shape is by no means rare in the natural world. One might argue that since intersections hold the highway system together and are cross-shaped, therefore Jesus holds the highway system together. A fun addition: a reader asked Dr. Myers if any molecules in the cell are swastika-shaped. Potassium Channel fits the bill pretty well.

My point in sharing this is not (only) to give us all a good laugh at silly creationists. I share this because while most people either watch Giglio's video and praise Jesus or laugh, I watched in rapt appall at its manipulative aspirations and achievements.

I've studied enough rhetoric to recognize these tricks. I've studied enough history to know that Giglio, like many religious apologists and speakers, employs the same rhetorical devices as all the best demagogues in history. The piano in the background is an especially nice touch. Evangelicals aren't Hitlerian in their oratory--that's more the cup of tea for black liberation theologians like Jeremiah Wright--but they're still manipulative, still disingenuous, still false. Giglio manages to make utter lunacy--this protein looks like a cross, therefore Jesus holds the world together--look legitimate. Any rational, clear-thinking immediately spots the flaw of this logic. Why Jesus? Why not one of the many, many others who died on Roman crosses? Further still, there are so many cruciform objects in the world. Notice in this Holocaust Memorial several of the bodies are arrange across each other...just like crosses. Jesus was part of the Holocaust! Oh.

Language is a wonderful thing. It's ability to move our spirits, to send our emotions soaring or plummeting, stands unmatched in its efficacy. Used well, this is a boon to our species. Used to promote unashamed idiocy, it tears us apart at the seems. Divorced from truth, rhetoric kills. Just take it from the words of one of the greatest demagogues of all time.

All great movements are popular movements. They are the volcanic eruptions of human passions and emotions, stirred into activity by the ruthless Goddess of Distress or by the torch of the spoken word cast into the midst of the people.

The art of leadership. . . consists in consolidating the attention of the people against a single adversary and taking care that nothing will split up that attention. . . . The leader of genius must have the ability to make different opponents appear as if they belonged to one category.

From millions of men . . . one man must step forward who with apodictic force will form granite principles from the wavering idea-world of the broad masses and take up the struggle for their sole correctness, until from the shifting waves of a fre thought-world there will arise a brazen cliff of solid unity in faith and will.

--Adolph Hitler

Progress--some people just hate it

Today, California took a big step forward on the road to equality. Their supreme court has overturned the state's ban on same-sex marriages. And, of course, the movement to undo this ruling through a constitution ammendment in California has started.

I don't know. To me, this issue seems so clear cut. No matter what I feel or believe, who the hell am I to tell you what to do? If what you're doing is hurting someone, of course I have the right to try to stop you. But a man marrying a man or a woman marrying a woman does absolutely nothing to me. It does not endanger my heterosexuality, and contrary to Robertson and friends, it's not going to cause any natural disasters or terrorist attacks.

For me to tell you how you must live your life is just plain arrogant. And it's wrong. It says I do not respect you and your right to live your life. It's intervention by paternalistic justification. It says I know better than you how you should live your life.

I have to wonder where this country is going. The evangelical movement continues to grow, and the voice of reason is getting swallowed up. Freedom, fairness, and facts are being made to yield to a book. Words on paper have trumped reality.

The Large Hadron Collider and the meaning of life

One of the most inspiring videos I have ever seen. Also one of the most lucid descriptions of Quantum Theory.

On Epigraphs and Angel Wings

I am a fan of epigraphs. I have seen them used to great affect in novels I admire (American Psycho, for example.) And for my own novel--We, The Dreamers--I may have found a perfect choice.

We are each of us angels with only one wing, and we can only fly by embracing one another.
--- Lucretius.

Considering one of the central themes of the novel, and the larger work of which it is a part, is human solidarity (without need of anything to succeed but H. sapiens), and since there is an angel-wing motif in there (designed to evoke the idea of the angelic figure in Italian sonnets, not anything religious), the quote might fit very well.

The quote might also come off as too cheesy. The point of the inclusion would not be a sappy, romantic notion of "finding the one who completes you." The point is human solidarity, divorced of all other prerequisites.

Just for shits and giggles, I considered:

We may now summarize our characterization of authentic Being-towards-death as we have projected it existentially: anticipation reveals to Dasein its lostness in the they-self, and brings it face to face with the possibility of being itself, primarily unsupported by concernful solitude, but of being itself, rather, in an impassioned freedom towards death--a freedom which has been released from the Illusions of the "They", and which is factical, certain of itself, and anxious.
--- Heidegger

I don't think it would work very well, but for the record I think that sentence of Being and Time is absolutely incredible. I can honestly say it changed my life.

The Fight of Words

In the battle against Creationists and Intelligent Design advocates, who together are part of the larger American traditional of anti-intellectualism, and the cult of ignorance that, as Isaac Asimov said, misunderstands democracy to mean "my ignorance is as good as your knowledge", we who stand with evidence and with reason must realize that we are not fighting enemies who will agree to our terms. We ask for evidence and they respond with ad hominem attacks. They create false dichotomies, and defend themselves by endlessly moving goal posts and asserting that there is no true scotsman. Their weapons are not facts--they have none--but words.

Reality is on our side. Pragmatism favors us overwhelmingly (ID does not enhance science's ability to do anything). But I for one desire a stronger, swifter victory. To quote Isaac Asimov again

Humanity has the stars in its future, and that future is too important to be lost under the burden of juvenile folly and ignorant superstition.

To accomplish this, we must recognize the linguistic nature of this battle, and we must equip ourselves accordingly.

Some language we cannot help. The false dichotomy drawn between "Fact" and "Theory" is simply a misunderstanding (or deliberate muddling) of otherwise clearly distinguishable scientific nomenclature. Fact is not a higher order of truth than theory. Fact is simply a piece of data. A Theory is an idea, generated and supported through repeated demonstration and testing, and forever buffeted by the storm of peer review. A Law, just to clarify, also does not trump a theory. It is not any truer. Rather, a law is a simple concept (relatively speaking) that can be expressed in a formula. Newton's law of motion (F=MA), the ideal gas law (PV=nRT). Theories have a larger scope and cannot be quantified into an equation. Aside from Evolution, notable theories (which are not laws) include: the Theory of Gravity, the Theory of Planetary Motion, the Theory of Electromagnetism, and so on. These facts should be common knowledge. That they are not testifies to the present inadequacies of our education system.

In other areas of language, we can make clear gains over our opponents. We need simply wake up. For example, we must cease using the word Worldview immediately. We must forever strike that hideous construction from our thoughts and name it anathema. We will do this because we understand the way the human mind works.

Some of my friends swear by IPods. Others by Zunes. If I call them both MP3 Players, I bestow some measure of equality on them. I place them on equal footing. And in response to this, both sides of the debate would protest and declare their side superior.

To call both modern science and Pastafarianism worldviews places them on equal standing to those not familiar with their intricacies. This particular case is obviously and intentionally absurd. But it is directly analogous to what happens when well-meaning scientists talk about the scientific worldview while the Discovery Institute speaks of the Intelligent Design worldview, and postmodern thinkers start to classify everything from Christianity to Astrology to Nihilism as worldviews. Equality is created where it does not belong. Irredemably foolish notions like "In the lab, my Christian worldview is as good as your science" start to make sense.

Let the IDiots and the Fundies talk about worldview all they wish. Let the postmoderns put more and more under its arms. But for us, who call ourselves rational and who place our trust in evidence, in reality, let us take a stand against nonsense and irrationality and refuse the label.

Science is not a worldview.

Evolution Observed in the Wild

A common demand made of evolutionists is for evolution observed in the wild.

Here is a National Geographic Article that documents just that. Drastic change in a species within about 30 generations.

And here's PZ Myers' on the same research.

And here's Science Daily too.

Really cool stuff.