Sleeping with the Other

Advances in the study of ancient DNA have led to the finding that modern non-African humans have 1-2% of our DNA coming from Neanderthals, and the Neanderthals also had human DNA.

This exchange, the scientists conclude, took place about 100,000 years ago. That’s a puzzling date, because a great deal of evidence indicates that the ancestors of today’s non-Africans did not expand out of Africa until 50,000 to 60,000 years ago.

 Neanderthals are either a closely related species, or subspecies of our own Homo sapiens.  They split off from the last common ancestor about 600,000 years ago, and left African for Europe.   Studies suggest they had a distinct culture including the burial of the dead.

And these genes have effects on our health:

Snippets of Neanderthal DNA contribute to the contemporary risk for myriad ills, including heart attack, nicotine addiction and mood disorders as well as incontinence, foot callouses and precancerous skin lesions.

The identification of these sequences is made because they exist in the Neanderthal genome, and not in the genomes of Africans.

So, you have to wonder;  how did it happen?  what sort of communication occurred between these different groups of early humans that they interbred, and did so sufficiently to leave permanent records in the genomes of both?

I mean, we can't even get along with one another.

Correlating faith with science

Blogger Josh Rosenau created this neat graphic, showing a striking correlation between support for environmental regulation (basically, as a proxy for believing in climate change)  and evolution, associated with religious belief.  The size of the circle represents the population associated with that belief group.  Rosenau explains,

I examined two questions. One asked people which of these statements they most agreed with:

Stricter environmental laws and regulations cost too many jobs and hurt the economy; or Stricter environmental laws and regulations are worth the cost

The other question asked people to agree or disagree with the statement:

Evolution is the best explanation for the origins of human life on earth

He goes on,

First, look at all those groups whose members support evolution. There are way more of them than there are of the creationist groups, and those circles are bigger. We need to get more of the pro-evolution religious out of the closet.

Second, look at all those religious groups whose members support climate change action. Catholics fall a bit below the zero line on average, but I have to suspect that the forthcoming papal encyclical on the environment will shake that up.

Chris Mooney in the Washington Post comments,

One possible way of interpreting the figure is that as with political parties themselves, people at least partially self-sort into faiths or denominations that seem more consonant with their own worldviews. And thus, a cluster of issue stances may travel alongside these choices of affiliation. “People are choosing what religion they want to associate with,” suggested Rosenau. “If people feel alienated from a church, they’re switching.”

There may also be a substantive point here that links together the ideas. A view of the world that thinks of human beings as having evolved, as being part of the natural world and having emerged through the same process as other organisms, may also be related to a manner of thinking that puts great overall emphasis on the value of nature and one’s connectedness with it.

In any case, while the pattern above may require more analysis, one clear punchline of the figure is that it really doesn’t make sense to say that religion is at war with science. You can say that for some people, religion is clearly linked to less science acceptance — especially on evolution. But for others, clearly, religion presents no hurdle at all.

On science and faith, again

A profile of physicist-turned priest John Polkinghorne, from a few years ago.

 I love this analogy!!

Science and religion are not mutually exclusive, Polkinghorne argues. In fact, both are necessary to our understanding of the world. “Science asks how things happen. But there are questions of meaning and value and purpose which science does not address. Religion asks why. And it is my belief that we can and should ask both questions about the same event.” 

As a for-instance, Polkinghorne points to the homey phenomenon of a tea kettle boiling merrily on the stove. 

“Science tells us that burning gas heats the water and makes the kettle boil,” he says.
But science doesn’t explain the “why” question. “The kettle is boiling because I want to make a cup of tea; would you like some?

How vs why.  Nicely explained.

I don't know that religion per se is necessary but as a species, we clearly have a desire to explain the "why" of the world in some way. But I've realized I have a real tin ear on philosophy and why-ness.  Some scientists may get all philosophical these days, but all i really care about is which recepter is doing what, so to speak.  I'm too much of a literalist.  The rest is just too woo-woo for me!

As to the question of which has the clearer view of reality—faith or science?— Polkinghorne answers that it’s a false question. “You have to be two-eyed about it. If we had only one eye, then we could say it’s religion, because it relates to the deepest value of being human. Science doesn’t plumb the depths that religion does. Atheists aren’t stupid—they just explain less.” 

Put another way, atheists explain what can be explained by facts and observation, and don't try to explain what cannot.

i like this next bit, too.

Ultimately, people of faith should not be afraid of science because both pursue truth. “Because people of faith worship the God of Truth, they should welcome truth from whatever source it comes,” Polkinghorne says. “Not all truth comes from science, but some does. It grieves me when I see Christian people turning their backs on science in a willful way, not taking seriously the insights it has to offer. All truth interacts with each other, and all truth is helpful.” 

Likewise, people of science do not need to be afraid of faith. “Science doesn’t tell you everything. Those who think it does take a very diminished and arid form or view of life.”
For Polkinghorne, science made his faith stronger, and that faith made him a better scientist. Both approaches fulfill one of his favorite verses in scripture, I Thessalonians 5:21, which the esteemed physicist paraphrases: Test everything. Hold fast to what is true.

My kind of guy.

Shocking and shameful

42% of people in the US are creationists.   with the increase in those who say God has no role,  and the decline of the pro-science believers, we see another polarization coming.  I do not live in the same world as these people-- and yet I do.

From Gallup

Religion, Science, Awe, Wonder

From Bill Tammeus

[Physicist John Mather says] "We are discovering what the universe is really like, and it is totally magnificent, and one can only be inspired and awestruck by what we find. I think my proper response is complete amazement and awe at the universe that we are in, and how it works is just far more complicated than humans will ever properly understand." ...

In fact, that's precisely the attitude that religion -- of whatever tradition -- should be advocating. We humans are quite naturally curious about the world in which we live, and we should encourage one another to explore and draw conclusions about how things seem to work. But to imagine that we are capable of knowing the mind of God in some complete way is to turn the Benedictine virtue of humility on its head. 

My hope is that faith-based educational institutions will encourage open and honest scientific exploration and not agenda-driven science that tries to prove religious teachings. To devote one's scientific energies to proving that Earth is only a few thousand years old is to go about science backward. Good science looks at the evidence for this or that hypothesis and then draws conclusions rather than first drawing a conclusion and then hunting for proof of it. 

What religion can bring to the table is an openness to awe and wonder once scientists describe how they think things work.

Sadly, it isn't working.  From Religion News Service:

[A] new survey by The Associated Press found that religious identity -- particularly evangelical Protestant -- was one of the sharpest indicators of skepticism toward key issues in science. 

The survey presented a series of statements that several prize-winning scientists say are facts. However, the research shows that confidence in their correctness varies sharply among U.S. adults. It found: 

• 51 percent of U.S. adults overall (including 77 percent of people who say they are born-again or evangelical) have little or no confidence that "the universe began 13.8 billion years ago with a big bang."
• 42 percent overall (76 percent of evangelicals) doubt that "life on Earth, including human beings, evolved through a process of natural selection."
• 37 percent overall (58 percent of evangelicals) doubt that the Earth's temperature is rising "mostly because of man-made heat-trapping greenhouse gases."
• 36 percent overall (56 percent of evangelicals) doubt "the Earth is 4.5 billion years old."

 What is it about Evangelicals that make them so anti-intellectual?

How religious are scientists?

Inside Higher Education reports on a paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science showing that scientists are more religious than most people think:

Scientists vs. General Public on Religious Observance

	Scientists	General Public
Attend weekly religious services	18%	20%
Consider themselves religious	15%	19%
Read religious texts weekly	13.5%	17%
Pray several times a day	19%	26%

As far as religious observance, obviously I'm an example....I generally attend weekly services, even though I'm not religious.  I don't pray, and I don't read texts, however.

So who are these scientists? Let's just say the Episcopalians appear well represented.  ;-)

Scientists and the Public by Religious Belief

	Public	Scientists
Evangelical Protestant	22.9%	17.1%
Mainline Protestant	26.9%	24.9%
Roman Catholics	23.8%	19.1%
Jews	1.9%	3.9%
Mormons	1.8%	1.7%
Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, Sikhs, Jains	2.6%	7.2%
Atheists/Agnostics/No Religion	15.5%	24.4%
Other	4.7%	1.7%

Not surprisingly, the biggest gap between scientists is with Evangelical protestants--evolution, obviously, but also

Other findings in the survey point to significant differences between scientists and evangelical Protestants, nearly 60 percent of whom said that scientists "should be open to considering miracles in their theories or explanations.”

You can click here for more of my posts on science, and science-and-faith

Can religion preserve biological diversity?

From Science Daily:

Leaders of the major world religions can play a key role in preserving biological diversity. A new study carried out by ecologists at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU), among others, indicates that if the world's religious leaders wished to bring about a change, they would be ideally positioned to do so. 

"Our study investigates how the various religions are distributed around the world and how they overlap areas that are important for global biological diversity," says Grzegorz Mikusinski, a researcher at SLU who directs the project. Our analysis indicates that the majority of the most important areas lie in countries dominated by Christianity, especially Roman Catholicism.
....
"We believe that members of religious groups, guided by a moral resolution to preserve the world's natural resources for coming generations, can implement a conservation agenda both in their daily lives and in their political activities," says Grzegorz Mikusinski.

Killing science, in pictures

A consortium of professional science societies surveyed over 3700 practicing scientists this summer about the effect of funding declines and the sequester on science and discovery. (I was one of them.)  Their report, Unlimited Potential, Vanishing Opportunity, makes for sobering reading.

First, the loss of funding is certainly exacerbated by the sequester, but has been on-going.  If you look at the graph below, you can see the actual dollars were flatlined until about 2010 and then declined precipitously.  But if you look at "constant 2002" dollars, you can see that the purchasing power has been declining since 2004.  Flat budgets don't keep up with the BRDPI ("BirdPie"), which is the Biomedical Research and Development Price Index. Basically, salaries go up and the cost of research goes up, even if the grant dollars do not. That means fewer people and less science even if the dollars are flat.

Next, let's look at the consequences of that funding loss on actual practicing scientists.  Loss of funding translates to loss of jobs.  Once a project loses staff, it is effectively killed;  you can't pull it out of the freezer and start it up when all the expertise has left.  It's wasteful, it destroys science, it destroys careers.  And it wastes the considerable contribution you, the taxpayer, has made to the previous science.

 Let's be clear, we aren't talking about funding marginal science.   We're talking about work that has passed peer review, and is recommended for funding, but won't get it.

And of course, there's this:

Which reflects the next chart.  yes, the US is alone in major countries in not just flat-lining its investment in science, but reducing it.  While China, Brazil, etc are increasing their investment, and increasing their output.  So we are at risk not only for losing a generation of scientists, but giving up global leadership to other countries.  And once it's gone, it won't come back.

Some conclusions from the report and its press release: 

• Private investment in academic research has been feeble. Only 2 percent of survey respondents have been able to find private funds to make up for those lost from federal grants.

• More than two thirds of survey respondents do not have the funds to expand their research operations, postponing important scientific advances in all fields.

• Research jobs have been lost. Nearly half of survey respondents have laid off researchers and 55 percent have a colleague who has lost his/her job.

• An overwhelming majority of scientists in all fields believes the U.S. has lost its position as the global leader in scientific research.

Good coverage of the report from the Huffington Post, which has been following this story in detail.

Do science and religion teach the same lessons?

From the HuffPo, writer Elad Nehorai reflects,

The more I learn about science, and the more I learn about religion, the more I feel like the two so beautifully complement each other. The more people debate and argue, the more I see the commonality between the two...

He goes on to enumerate some of the lessons he thinks they teach in common.

1. I'm Not In Control
Learning about science taught me just how little control I have over the universe....

Believing in G-d is so similar, on an emotional level, that it's almost like we've used different words to describe a similar idea. Accepting that G-d is completely in control of every moment immediately implies that we aren't in control of anything....

2. I'm Insanely Small
The more science learns, the more it seems to realize just how small we really are. ....within a universe more vast than we can imagine. 

If that's not a spiritual realization, I don't know what is.... 

.... To remember that our smallness is simply a reminder to live our lives in a state of giving is the greatest lesson both science and religion can teach us. 

3. I'm A Miracle 

...[N]o matter what you believe, there's no question whatsoever that our just existing is the most special thing we could ever imagine. 

Let's take science. If you believe that we originated in some sludge, and then that sludge turned into a single celled organism and that turned into something and that something turned into something and eventually, after billions of years, out came you... um, how insanely amazing is that? ... 

And if you're an insane religious nutball like me and you believe that G-d made the world in six days (however you interpret that, whether it be six days that were really billions of years or six days that were actually six days), you simply can't help but be blown away. I mean, that something as immense as G-d, something so beyond reality and so real, the only thing that's real, could take a moment out of his busy day and make me, and care about me..... 

4. Nothing Makes Sense 

This is one I think that both the fanatics of science and the fanatics of religion hate accepting. In fact, you could say they twist the reality of both science and religion to make themselves believe they have some measure of true understanding of the way the world works. 

What's funny is that it seems the more you study about science, the more you realize how little you know. ... 

The same is true, I've found, of religion. ... 

a true believer of religion knows that he knows, essentially, nothing. And anyone that accepts that the reality of science is a constant growth in knowledge that changes, evolves, over time, realizes how little they really know.

What do you think of these lessons?  Which ones would YOU add?

Scientific skepticism

From Salon, how science does it backwards:

People learned that science, as a tool, as a lens to create an upside-down way of looking at the world, made life better. Your natural tendency is to start from a conclusion and work backward to confirm your assumptions, but the scientific method drives down the wrong side of the road and tries to disconfirm your assumptions. ...

 Sure, scientists are just people, prone to the same delusions as anyone else, but the enterprise, the process, slowly but surely grinds away human weakness. It is a self-correcting system that is always closer to the truth today than it was yesterday...

[Y]our natural way of understanding and explaining what you experience is terrible. When you believe in something, you rarely seek out evidence to the contrary to see how it matches up with your assumptions. ...

When you have zero evidence, every assumption is basically equal. You prefer to see causes rather than effects, signals in the noise, patterns in the randomness. You prefer easy-to-understand stories, and thus turn everything in life into a narrative so that complicated problems become easy. Scientists work to remove the narrative, to boil it away, leaving behind only the raw facts. Those data sit there naked and exposed so they can be reflected upon and rearranged by each new visitor. 

Scientists will speculate, and they will argue, but the data they extract from observation will not budge. They may not even make sense for a hundred years or more, but thanks to the scientific method, the stories, full of biases and fallacies, will crash against the facts and recede into history.

So no, the earth is not carried on the back of a giant turtle, the moon is not made of cheese, and diseases do not strike us because of our moral failings.  Facts, as David Boies told us, Facts are troublesome things.  You can't deny them.  What you do with them, well, that's something else. And so, with all this knowledge of facts, we still have children starving, people dying from unclean water, and effluent polluting our air and oceans.

And that is both an achievement of science, and a definition of its limits.

Scientists and faith

Over the years, we've talked about science and faith, and whether there's a conflict (my answer is "no".  I commend to you some of my previous essays on this topic:  Science, Faith, Mythos, Logos  and also, Scientists in the Pews.  More are linked here.)

Along those lines, here is a great article in the HuffPo, that derives from the Templeton Foundation's Scientists in Congregations grant project.

The author writes of a dialogue with the scientists in his congregation, and what he has learned.

A strong humility governs the professional lives of scientists. They have the academic degrees, the university positions, the experimental successes, the professional accolades, and the grants that are reasons for pride, but they also have a deep and abiding sense of how little they know, of how much remains to be discovered, and of the mystery that surrounds us and in which we live. They have a sense of wonder that is basic to both science and faith. They look at this world that they investigate with amazement and awe.
Because of this, they are able embrace both a scientific outlook and a faith perspective in their lives.... 

And yet they readily admit that doubt and skepticism are important to their work.... 

Scientists doubt. They are uncertain about what the results of their work might be. And this uncertainty leads to the unexpected as often as it leads to the expected....

The opposite of faith is not doubt but certainty. Scientists do their work with a kind of faith as well: faith in the scientific method, faith in the orderliness of the universe, faith even in their colleagues. Science, as every enterprise, requires a measure of trust, a "conviction of things not seen," as the author of the Letter to the Hebrews described faith. Faith in the scientific enterprise is different from religious belief, but for many it is also a practice that does not exclude participation in a religious tradition. ...

... I have been in conversations in which scientists in my congregation have shown as much skepticism about Christian doctrine and "proofs" of God as any of the new atheists. But -- and here is the other surprise -- they keep their faith.

Once again, evidence that the so-called "war"  between science and faith isn't being waged by scientists as such....

When Biology is Destiny

In an age of genomics, people misunderstand what some of the genetic information they carry really means.  Just because you have a higher risk for, say, breast cancer based on genetics, it does not mean you absolutely will get it.  And, just because you don't carry the BRCA1 mutation, doesn't mean you are safe, because inheritance accounts for only a small fraction of breast cancer.  Moreover, as I've lectured you elsewhere on my primer in genetics, genes are subject to modifications (epigenetics) that change their expression, both by chance and in response to the environment.  The answer isn't nature vs nurture, it's both.  We are more than the sum of our genes, yet those genes define the palette of who we are.

But a certain mind-set views biology as absolutely determinist of what we are, or can be.  To these, we can never be anything more than our animal nature.  In its extreme form, it seems no role for women outside of men:  Kinder, Kirche, Küche.  It seeks a hierarchy of people in which the ultimate is the straight white male Christian-of-a-certain-sort.   In the WaPo, Susan Brooks Thistlewaite writes:

A rigid biological determinism undergirds conservative ideology and politics. From this extraordinarily revealing remark by [Jeb] Bush that immigration reform should be about the (presumed) fertility of certain groups over others, to women’s rights, to reproductive freedom, and, of course, to marriage equality for LGBT people, biology for conservatives is, in fact, destiny.... 

Conservative ideology... based as it is in biological determinism, is designed that way to consolidate and perpetuate the political, social and religious power of small group of elites defined by their biology in terms of gender, sexual orientation and, in the U.S., by race. It uses presumed biological differences to advance and maintain political and economic power, and it has for a very long time. 

This interpretation of biology as destiny is designed to preserve the status quo and prevent reform.

To conservatives of this ilk, women can't think as well as men, therefore don't belong in "men's professions".  It's why women in science are few in number and underpaid relative to men, facing glass ceilings in careers, awards, and compensation even today.

It's also why the incoherent argument against marriage equality centers on procreation, which on the face of it is ludicrous.  Fecundity is not a requirement for heterosexual unions, and moreover, marriage equality is not related to adoption by LGBT couples which is on-going.  Not to mention that many LGBT couples are raising their own biological children.  

Thistlewaite goes on,

Democracy, by contrast, is based on the idea that human beings are not determined by biology, but “endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights.” This is both a political and a religious argument for a profound and transcendent equality governed by rights. As human beings, we have rights that cannot be reduced or eliminated regardless of our individual physical characteristics. Every advance in human rights in this country, from ending slavery, to extending voting rights, to the Civil Rights struggles, to reproductive freedom, and now to the struggle for full equality for LGBT people, equal justice, not biology, has been the crucial argument.... 

Biology is not our human destiny, freedom is.

Dangerous milestone

From the NY Times:

The level of the most important heat-trapping gas in the atmosphere, carbon dioxide, has passed a long-feared milestone, scientists reported on Friday, reaching a concentration not seen on the earth for millions of years.

Scientific monitors reported that the gas had reached an average daily level that surpassed 400 parts per million — just an odometer moment in one sense, but also a sobering reminder that decades of efforts to bring human-produced emissions under control are faltering. 

The best available evidence suggests the amount of the gas in the air has not been this high for at least three million years, before humans evolved, and scientists believe the rise portends large changes in the climate and the level of the sea.... 

“If you’re looking to stave off climate perturbations that I don’t believe our culture is ready to adapt to, then significant reductions in CO2 emissions have to occur right away,” said Mark Pagani, a Yale geochemist who studies climates of the past. “I feel like the time to do something was yesterday.” 

But hey, as long as the Republicans fall over each other to deny science, evolution, or facts, we can expect nothing to happen to battle carbon.

Sequester: it gets personal

The bite from the sequester (also known as the Total Fail by Congress to do its job) is starting to hit.  The Huffington Post has a random sample of sequester stories, tales of loss of funding for programs, and layoffs.  Many of these affect education and care for the poor.  There are also military effects (like cancelled naval deployments), and loss of air traffic control.  And, of course, my own personal bailiwick, basic research.

New studies downsize potential job losses because of the federal budget cuts. Agencies have figured ways to ensure that the more alarming effects (no food inspectors!) are avoided. Government organizations are coming up with methods to delay severe disruptions. Congress isn't debating a replacement. The media have lost interest or have reduced it to a political argument. The economy was supposed to be brought to its knees by the $85 billion in cuts. Instead, we trudge along in a new normal. 

This is a dramatic misunderstanding of what's actually happening. The grips of sequestration are just now beginning to be felt and the effects are already quite dramatic. 

....On the national level, sequestration may be defined by canceled White House tours and long lines at airports that never materialized. But on the local level, it is beginning to sting.

Boy is it ever.  In case you don't know, in real life, I'm a professor of science at a large research university.  I do basic cancer research, in addition to all the university roles associated with teaching and administration.  And I like to think that I'm a pretty good scientist.

 But my ability to continue to do science is being dramatically affected first by the steady decline in funding of the National Institues of Health.  The NIH budget is flat lined, which means doesn't even keep up with research inflation:  that is, there is a steady decline in what that same dollar will buy.

We are already in a funding crisis in biomedical research in this country, with record breaking lows in numbers of grants funded.  At a time when Singapore, China, and India are increasing their research investment by as much as 20%,  the US is reducing ours, which will have long term consequences on innovation, economic impact, and health outcomes.

As if that wasn't challenging enough,now there's the additional bite of the sequester. The LA Times reports that California alone may lose $180million in research funds.  Studies suggest that each dollar spent on basic research ferments at least $2.21 of economic activity.  After all, even a modest sized lab like mine hires staff, buys supplies, needs services from machinists to janitors. So that $180million in cuts is nearly $400million in reduced  economic activity in CA.  People are already being laid off.  And that's apart from the knowledge gained or the long-term health benefits.

Over all, the National Institutes of Health is being cut by $1.5billion under sequester.    NIH by far the major funding source for medical and basic biomedical research.

That amount is more than the FY12 funding of $1.491 billion for three major research programs at the National Cancer Institute that study the mechanisms, diagnosis and prevention of cancer. and more than the $1.48 billion budget for the National Institute of Mental Health.

It's ironic.  Right now, I'm doing the best science of my career.  But the chances are better than even that I will not be able to do research much longer. And as well as cutting my pay (part of which depends on grants)  that means students, postdocs, and technicians will be out of a job.

Apparently Grover Norquist and the tea party think that's just peachy.

So, what are you going to do about the mess that is the sequester? Call your Congress person and give them an earful. 

On science and religion, and angry fundamentalists

After a Christian student was relieved to hear that his faith was okay with evolution, physicist Max Tegmark wondered whether religion really is unfriendly to science.

This gave me the idea to start the MIT Survey on Science, Religion and Origins,.... We found that only 11 percent of Americans belong to religions openly rejecting evolution or our Big Bang. So if someone you know has the same stressful predicament as my student, chances are that they can relax as well....

So is there a conflict between science and religion? The religious organizations representing most Americans clearly don't think so. Interestingly, the science organizations representing most American scientists don't think so either: For example, the American Association for the Advancement of Science states that science and religion "live together quite comfortably, including in the minds of many scientists." This shows that the main divide in the U.S. origins debate isn't between science and religion, but between a small fundamentalist minority and mainstream religious communities who embrace science.

In a followup, Max describes how he was prepared for an angry response to his news that most faith groups are actually pretty okay with evolution.

The vitriolic responses poured in as predicted. But to my amazement, most of them didn't come from religious people, but from angry atheists!...I have three criticisms of these angry atheists:

1) They help religious fundamentalists:
A key point I wanted to make with our survey is that there are two interesting science-religion controversies: a) Between religion & atheism b) Between religious groups who do & don't attack science.

Some forces pushing for creationism in US schools try to conflate the two so that they can pretend to represent the majority, and taunting religious groups that don't attack science can play into their hands. In contrast, I think that drawing attention to b) is the most effective way to weaken the anti-scientific fringe and improve the prospects for future generations.… 

2) They could use more modesty: 
If I've learned anything as a physicist, it's how little we know with certainty. ... 

3) They should practice what they preach: 
Most atheists advocate for replacing fundamentalism, superstition and intolerance by careful and thoughtful scientific discourse. Yet after we posted our survey report, ad hominem attacks abounded, and most of the caustic comments I got (including one from a fellow physics professor) revealed that their authors hadn't even bothered reading the report they were criticizing.

Just as it would be unfair to blame all religious people for what some fundamentalists do, I'm obviously not implying that all anti-religious people are mean-spirited or intolerant. However, I can't help being struck by how some people on both the religious and anti-religious extremes of the spectrum share disturbing similarities in debating style. 

You think? I'm not surprised, there is considerable anti-religion antipathy in some of more-rabid atheists. But frankly most of us are happy to live and let live, and don't really care what you believe as long as you don't inflict your beliefs upon us.

And then there's the angry Christian fundamentalists. When erstwhile religious dating site e-Harmony were sued and so put together a same-sex site, says their founder,Neil Clark Warren

we literally had to hire guards to protect our lives because the people were so hurt and angry with us, were Christian people, who feel that it's a violation to scripture. 

 Yup, nothing says Jesus-follower like death threats.

Fundamentalism is by its nature intolerant.  We see this lack of tolerance and respect throughout society, ranging from anti-gay to anti-Islam....to anti religion.  But the step beyond that into threats of violence, is deeply, deeply disturbing.  And it boggles the mind that followers of the "prince of peace" ever resort to  violent rhetoric  (previous examples here here and here ), when confronted by anyone different.

Making peace between science and religion

It's that time of year for the annual "Top Ten" lists. An article in Religion Dispatches (H/T, the Lead) points at the top ten peacemakers between Science and Religion.

This year has marked, I believe, the beginning of the end of the war between science and religion. Creationism cannot last. The New Atheists are now getting old. And between these camps the middle ground continues to expand.

Indeed, many folks have been hard at it, doing a new kind of peace work. Some have done it intentionally, some have not. Outliers, both atheist and religious hardliners, continue to wage battle but they look increasingly irrelevant.

You can click over to see who they are.

While I can't claim to a place in the top ten, or even the top 100, I'm rather pleased with some of my writings on this subject this year, so forgive me if I use this opportunity to point at them all together:

• The unexpected face of the faithful (I) points out that many scientists DO consider themselves people of faith. (I'm not one of them, but I'm friendly!)
•   Do the Faithful need atheists? considers how the outsider's view may actually be constructive
•  My Living with Church series described why and how I, as a non-believer, function in a religious community. 
• Part I discusses how I manage to accommodate, as a cultural rather than spiritual identity
• Part II considers the science of faith, and 
• Part III describes engaging politically, as a non-believing defender of faith. 
•   Science, Faith, Mythos, Logos, examines roots of the peculiar conflict between religion (particularly evangelical) and science.
• and from last year, Faith through a Prism

I hope you've enjoyed what I've written.  It looks like we'll keep going into 2012, though I hope that my fellow bloggers on this group blog will participate a little more often!

Science, faith, mythos, logos

 It is a fact that most scientists retain a sense of wonder along with the intense curiosity that drives us to explore the world around us,regardless of our faith or lack thereof.  Evangelical  Fred Clark  makes the case that Christians should be the most passionate scientists.

To all the many practical and pleasurable reasons anyone has to explore the sciences and to be excited and enthralled by science, evangelical Christians can add one more: It’s God’s world, God’s cosmos. God made it. God is redeeming it. God loves it. Anyone who loves God ought to love the world as well — and to love learning about the world.

We Christians ought to be famous for our love and devotion to the best, deepest, broadest and most ambitious science. We ought to be known for the same half-goofy, starry-eyed wonderment that the late Carl Sagan showed toward science.

But alas, Houston, we have a problem. He goes on

Perversely, the opposite is true. …And for American evangelical Christians the track record is even worse. American evangelicals tend to treat science as the enemy and to regard scientists as guilty until proven innocent. This is due to a host of reasons, foremost among them being the perception that evolution poses a threat to the Bible. 

And so, as we move into election season, we are treated once again to the spectacle of Republican candidates for president denying evolution, climate change, and science. Think about it. People who want to be President of the US are setting themselves as deniers of rational, fact-driven evaluations. They will be making choices by treating science as just another interest group.

Physicist Karl Giberson blames the Discovery Institute

The rhetorical strategy employed by the Discovery Institute does a great disservice to American evangelicals who, understandably, are drawn to faith-friendly discussions of science. In their eagerness to dismantle scientific objections to intelligent design the Discovery Institute drives yet another wedge between evangelicals and the scientific community, making it harder for religious believers to distinguish science from pseudoscience, in particular, and real knowledge claims from fake ones in general.

The relentless assaults on the integrity of science by groups like the Discovery Institute have made it impossible for many people to understand the significance of a "scientific consensus." If the members of the National Academy of Sciences are just another political group with their own agenda -- left-wing Tea Partiers with Ph.Ds -- we are under no obligation to take them seriously. We can even compare ourselves to Galileo for opposing them, as Rick Perry did in explaining why he rejected the scientific consensus on climate change.

He goes on to explains how the attacks on evolution have led to rejection of science overall, with profound consequences for our political debate

In our new book, "The Anointed: Evangelical Truth in a Secular Age," historian Randall Stephens and I look at the widespread and disturbing inability of American evangelicals to distinguish between real knowledge claims, rooted in serious research and endorsed by credible knowledge communities, and pseudo-claims made by unqualified groups and leaders that offer "faith-friendly" alternatives. Across the board we find evangelical Christians attracted to indefensible views in many areas: American history (the Founding Fathers intended America to be a Christian nation), sexual orientation (you can "pray away the gay"), climate change (not happening), evolution (never happened), cosmology (Big Bang is a big joke) and even biblical studies (the bible tells us what is about to happen in the Middle East).

The tragedy is that nothing within the faith commitments of evangelicals requires the adoption of these various knowledge-denying views.

How did we get to this point? Alex Knapp steps back, after reading Karen Armstrong:

The problem is that with the success of the Enlightenment, science, and our modern culture, we seem to have discarded the idea of mythos as part of our mainstream culture. As a consequence, there are those of faith who confuse mythos with logos - that is, they read a story or sacred text and interpret what is intended to be a symbolic aspect of spiritual life and treat it literally, as though the story happened historically or happened exactly as described. And in rejecting religious belief, a lot of atheists make the same mistake.

This is not to say that I want to reject reason or science – quite the contrary! My point here is that understanding distinction between these truths of mythos and logos points the way towards realizing the compatibility of scientific and religious thought. We need them both. They don’t have to be enemies, as they represent different aspects of the human search for truth.

Philosopher John Gray agrees:

If you go back to St. Augustine or before, to the Jewish scholars who talk about these issues, they never regard the Genesis story as a theory. Augustine says explicitly that it should not be interpreted explicitly, that it's a way of accessing truths which can't really be formulated by the human mind in any rational way. It's a way of accessing mysterious features which will remain mysterious. So it was always seen right up to the rise of modern science—as a myth, not a theory."

I wonder if it is significant that the science-denying Biblical literalists tend to be from a very different practice of Christianity. It seems to me that mainline Protestants and Catholics are more comfortable in balancing "the mysteries of faith" and the concrete facts of the real world. Think about trans-substantiation: that's simply wild as a concept. To believe in that is to believe in a sort of suspension of "real" world laws, that is so extreme, that of course it's in a different realm. Christian faith traditions that are full of paradox and mystery are by this argument, far more able to keep faith and science apart, rather than attempting to impose black-white conformity. Because if there has to be conformity, as in the more literalist views, then religion and science really are the same thing.

John Gray agrees

What these creationists are doing is retreating, they're accepting the view of religion promoted by scientific enemies of religion, and saying, no, we have got science and it's better than your science.

And of course, black and white conformity is what the anti-thesists offer as well--those are the ones I would call "scientific enemies of religion". (As we have discussed before at some length, most scientists are simply not interested in religion or faith issues, so this is not a science v. religion, much as Dawkins and his ilk might like to make it so.)

Whether these experiences are simply all in our heads (as in the patterns of neuronal behavior) or not is, in the end, utterly irrelevant. Can we experience mystery, ambiguity, and transcendence, yet still recognize the facts of the "real world"? I believe that we can, and must. After all, a man's reach should exceed his grasp, or what's a heaven for?"

The unexpected face of the faithful (I)

Recently a number of  studies have  described addressing who, exactly,is going to church.  And the results may surprise you.

One study shows that more educated white Americans are actually MORE likely to attend church regularly.

….with each additional year of education:

• •The likelihood of attending religious services increased 15%.
• •The likelihood of reading the Bible at least occasionally increased by 9%.
• •The likelihood of switching to a mainline Protestant denomination - Episcopal, Lutheran, Presbyterian USA or United Methodist - increased by 13%.

...

“The more educated a person is in their faith, the more cosmopolitan they are in their religious outlook,” [D. Michael Lindsay] said. “They’re worldly in the very best sense of the term. They rub shoulders with people of different kinds of faiths every day and as a result they have different visions of what it means to express your faith in the public square.”

“They’re more open-minded, but here’s the thing: They’re no less faithful.”

Of course, fundamentalists would probably rail at these more educated believers, who are able to grasp allegory, paradox, and mystery without wanting it all laid out in black and white.  One might say, a more mature faith.

And while we're at it, let's address the stereotype that people in my profession (science) are all Godless atheists.  In fact, studies show a surprising number of my colleagues are amongst those in the pews.  Elaine Ecklund of Rice University has examined religion in the science profession, looking specifically at faculty at major research universities--that means doctoral level scientists. Of 1700 surveys, she interviewed 275 closely. From a review of her recent book, Science v. Religion:

Fully half of these top scientists are religious. Only five of the 275 interviewees actively oppose religion. Even among the third who are atheists, many consider themselves "spiritual." One describes this spiritual atheism as being rooted in "wonder about the complexity and the majesty of existence," a sentiment many nonscientists -- religious or not -- would recognize. By not engaging with religion more fully and publicly, "the academy is really doing itself a big disservice," worries one scientist. ….

I'm not interested in the "spiritual but not religious" identification which has been contentious on other blogs . Rather, I'd like you to focus on the fully half of the top scientists who consider themselves religious--including Francis Collins, the head of the NIH.

In an article in the WaPo, Ecklund expands on her findings:

It turns out that nearly 50 percent of scientists identify with a religious label, and nearly one in five is actively involved in a house of worship, attending services more than once a month.....

Unfortunately...most religious scientists do not feel comfortable talking about their scientific lives within their faith communities. They think discussing science within their house of worship might offend fellow parishioners who are not scientists. So they do not bring it up. Instead, they practice what I call "secret science."...[A]nother poll shows that 25 percent of Americans think scientists are hostile to religion...

Ya think? THose stereotypes will bite you every time.

In any case, it is clear that the stereotype that religion is the pablum for the uneducated masses is not correct. THese studies show that highly educated people, including scientists, are active in their faith communities. I'm going to guess that those tend towards particular TYPES of faith communities, such as those represented here on this blog, not those of rigid fundamentalist bent.

(Incidentally, I don't consider myself spiritual in the least. Nor do I consider myself religious. On the other hand, I do go to church with my wife every week, though at times I admit to finding it rather tedious--particularly when the music program is on summer hiatus.  But it's such an important part of BP's life that it's important to me to be with her and share what I can.)

So much for the educated.  What's happening to those with less education?  Why are they NOT attending church?  My next post will look at that issue.

When faith and science collide: denying Galileo

We are used to people using Bible verses to deny the equality of gay people.   Indeed, many claim that being gay is a choice, not a variant of human biology.

But I was quite surprised to realize that there is a faction of Roman Catholics who believe that the sun revolves around the Earth. 

A few conservative Roman Catholics are pointing to a dozen Bible verses and the church's original teachings as proof that Earth is the center of the universe, the view that was at the heart of the church's clash with Galileo Galilei four centuries ago. The relatively obscure movement has gained a following among those who find comfort in knowing there are still staunch defenders of early church doctrine.

And of course, it's all a plot by the Godless.

Those promoting geocentrism argue that heliocentrism, or the centuries-old consensus among scientists that Earth revolves around the sun, is a conspiracy to squelch the church's influence.

"Heliocentrism becomes dangerous if it is being propped up as the true system when, in fact, it is a false system," said Robert Sungenis, leader of a budding movement to get scientists to reconsider. "False information leads to false ideas, and false ideas lead to illicit and immoral actions — thus the state of the world today.… Prior to Galileo, the church was in full command of the world, and governments and academia were subservient to her."

What I find particularly amusing is that rampant creationists are not on board. Seems using the Bible to literally interpret one bit of science is okay, but not others.

Ken Ham, founder of the Creation Museum in Petersburg, Ky., said the Bible is silent on geocentrism.

"There's a big difference between looking at the origin of the planets, the solar system and the universe and looking at presently how they move and how they are interrelated," Ham said.

Of course, what is sad is that any of this happens at all.

Living with Church, part 2: science

Our friend Counterlight recently had an excellent essay on atheism and in the comments we discussed the idea that losing faith, or feeling driven from it, is very different from never really having it. I think that accounts for one form of "angry atheist": those who rail against the loss. Another form, the Dawkins style of anti-theism, is a reaction to the interference of some forms of religion in science, where they really do not belong. The problem with Dawkins and the so called "new atheists" is that they really set science up as an alternative religion, fundamentalist at that. But perhaps that reflects our need to believe in something.

Neuroscientists think that our brains are wired to have a sense of belief, and this sense crosses cultures and continents to be something deeply human. I have no problem with that. As creatures of intellect, everything is perceived through our brain. Consider for example that the emotion of love is a pattern of neuronal impulses in my brain. But that I can explain it this way, doesn't in any way change the transcendent feeling I have, in loving and being loved, The biological explanation really doesn't matter to me, compared to my own experience. Thus, whether you believe God is literally all in our heads, or whether you believe God put your awareness of Him there, doesn't really matter: your brain is parsing your experience and interpreting it as belief. And I have no business telling YOU what you perceive; no more than you have any business telling ME how I experience love.

So if we are actually evolved towards belief, if it's another complex behavioral trait, perhaps it isn't surprising that some people are missing that sense-- just as some people are left handed when most are not, or some are gay where most are straight.

Therefore I suggest that the non-angry atheist, the subtype that includes accommodating non-believers like me, are simply missing The God Gene. So to speak. (Aside: THis is only a term of speech; complex behaviors are far too complicated to ascribe to A Single Gene, as I have discussed at length elsewhere.)

But back to this conflict in making science religion, and religion, science. The philosopher John Gray said in an interview,

"I'm very opposed to investing science with the needs and requirements of religion. I'm equally opposed to the tendency within religion, which exists in things like creationism and intelligent design, to turn religion into a kind of pseudo-science. If you go back to St. Augustine or before, to the Jewish scholars who talk about these issues, they never regard the Genesis story as a theory. Augustine says explicitly that it should not be interpreted explicitly, that it's a way of accessing truths which can't really be formulated by the human mind in any rational way. It's a way of accessing mysterious features which will remain mysterious. So it was always seen right up to the rise of modern science—as a myth, not a theory. What these creationists are doing is retreating, they're accepting the view of religion promoted by scientific enemies of religion, and saying, no, we have got science and it's better than your science. Complete error."

I agree.

Interestingly, it's largely (though not exclusively) the conservative fundamentalists who attack science and see it as a threat, not the more intellectually grounded mainline. And it's these fundamentalists against whom the Dawkins school is reacting, by themselves going fundamentalist.

Believe it or not, most non-believers really don't care if you believe. We aren't making a religion out of our faithlessness, because we just don't get it. When people ask me if I "worship" Darwin, I am really puzzled. They are projecting their need to believe in Something, and assuming that someone who doesn't believe in God has replaced Him. But this concept is completely alien to me. Darwin was just a scientist, who like all of us got some things right, and some things wrong. I don't "worship" him or anyone else. I really don't have that wiring.

Stephen Hawking, the theoretical physicist, made news this week by saying he doesn't believe in an afterlife and called such a belief a "fairy tale." While this was rude, what got lost in the fallout was what else he said:

In the interview, Hawking rejected the notion of life beyond death and emphasised the need to fulfill our potential on Earth by making good use of our lives. In answer to a question on how we should live, he said, simply: "We should seek the greatest value of our action."

Gray went in the same direction:

"Without spurning any of the advances of science, we could be friendlier to our mortality. The transience of our lives is one of the things that makes it valuable."

We pass this way but once. Those of faith may see it as a step on a journey, those without may see it as all there is. But surely what we have in common is that we are all here. Life is transient. We need to be conscious in giving it value.