Dennis Overbeye made one of the most interesting comments on President Obama’s inauguration speech (see the New York Times essay Elevating Science, Elevating Democracy). Together with many other commentators Overbye welcomed Obama’s promise to “restore science to its proper place” – and then went on to discuss what that “rightful place” is. That’s where the essay gets really interesting.
A public screening of Ben Stein’s film Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed – followed by a discussion. It’s sponsored by the Departments of Biological Sciences and Philosophy & Religion.
At first sight this might appear to provide a platform for the anti-science, creationist brigade. Bit think about it. What would be the effect of showing this dishonest propaganda film to a mainstream audience (especially a university based one) and then subjecting it to informed analysis by mainstream scientific and religious experts? Surely this would expose the lies presented in the film and clarify the motives of the films makers and sponsors.
Mainstream university and scientific people probably are not often confronted with the reality of this sort of dishonest propaganda. Perhaps they should be – and doing this in a context where the danger of this propaganda can be exposed can only be a good thing.
Currently “Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed in this Film” has a relatively narrow distribution – showing to mainly fundamentalist Christian audiences. In New Zealand this seems to be the only audience even contemplated by the films promoters.
So, perhaps the supporters of science could actually treat this dishonest film as a resource and put it to good use.
Phillip Plait, in his new book, Death from the Skies! makes a very succinct comment about life, evolution and fine-tuning:
“Earth seems marvellously tuned to support life, but that’s an illusion: we are the ones who are in fact tuned by evolution, as are all the other forms of life on, below, and above the Earth’s surface. As the Earth has changed over the eons, so has life. It seems almost inevitable that, once life first got its start on Earth, it would flourish.”
This is surely a much better attitude than the one usually pushed at us by those who cling to magical answers and ancient myths. Surely its the ultimate in narcissism to believe that the whole entire universe is “fine-tuned” just to ensure the existence on our species.
Much simpler to see us as being “fine-tuned,” by our very evolution and development, to fit into an existing universe.
This year has been declared as the International Year of Astronomy. It marks the 400th anniversary of Galileo’s first astronomical observations using a telescope and the publication of Johannes Kepler’s Astronomia Nova (which described the fundamental laws of planetary motion). The year will be marked by events in many countries – including New Zealand.
As a science astronomy is part of a truly global culture. Much of astronomical research occurs within the context of cooperative international ventures. It also interests and inspires people from all countries. We can all be enthralled with the success of recent interplanetary probes to Mars and Saturn. And with the photographs of astronomical objects taken by the Hubble Telescope.
Modern cosmological theories on the origin and evolution of the universe also attract wide interest.
I think it is fitting that 2009 also sees the 200th anniversary of Charles Darwin’s birth and the 150th anniversary oif the first publication of his great work The origin of Species. Heightened interest in the ideas of biological evolution and natural selection fits well with current interest in the possibilities of extra-terrestrial life. Recent findings from Mars and the ongoing discovery of extra-solar planets (now over 300) are highly relevant.
The International Year of Astronomy also fits well with current interest in particle physics and the Large Hadron Collider, which will (hopefully) become operational this year. Our understanding of cosmology and the origin of the universe is intimately connected to theoretical physics and the nature of matter. The LHC experiments should improve our knowledge in these areas.
Videos of the third and final episode of the BBC series Science and Islam have now been posted (see Science & Islam for discussion of episodes 1 and 2).
Episode 3 is entitled The Power of Doubt. It covers mainly the advances in astronomy made by medieval Islamic scientists. This includes accurate measurements of the length of the year, the size of the earth and the tilt of the earth’s axis. The presenter, Professor Jim Al-Khalili, describes how the work of these astronomers was vital for the revolution Copernicus brought to astronomy. In fact, he describes Copernicus as the last of the last astronomer of the Islamic tradition, rather than the first in the new European tradition.
A theme of this episode is that doubt is the engine that drives science forward. And doubts was a theme applied by the Islamic thinkers during their translation of Greek classical astronomy.
Jim Al-Khalili finishes the series by speculating on the reasons for the fact that science in the Islamic world fell behind that in Europe during the 1500s. He attributes this partly to the rejection of printing, because of the difficulty in handling Arabic, and hence the unavailability of the creative surge this generated in Europe. He also considers the influence of colonialism – both in encouraging the European scientific revolution and in underestimating the progress made during the medieval Islamic period.
I feel that this underestimation of the scientific progress made during that period is still widespread today in the West. It must be a source of irritation to people from those old Islamic cultures.
I guess many people now download podcasts for easy listening while relaxing or exercising. I have listed my favourite and regular audio and video podcasts below.
These seem to fill my time (and mp3 player) but I am always interesting in hearing about, and trying, new science-related podcasts. Continue reading →
The free will “question” is sometimes raised in comments on this blog. I am not someone who denies “free will” but recognise that people often define the concept differently – and this can be a cause of the debate.
“This book challenges the widespread fear that neuroscience is revealing an explanation of the human mind that concludes that moral responsibility and free will are illusions created by our brains. Instead the authors argue that the problem is the assumption that a physicalist/materialistic model of the mind must also be reductionist (a viewpoint that all causes are bottom-up). In this podcast I discuss their arguments against causal reductionism and for a dynamic systems model. We also discuss why we need to avoid brain-body dualism and recognize that our mind is more than just what our brain does. The key to preserving our intuitive sense of our selves as free agents capable of reason, moral responsibility, and free will is that the dynamic systems approach allows top-down causation, without resorting to any supernatural causes or breaking any of the know laws of the physical universe. This is a complex topic, but I present a concise overview of the book’s key ideas.”
I found the discussion fascinating and will try to get my local library to purchase the book. Unfortunately, it’s quite expensive so they may balk at this.
The Brain Science Podcasts are always interesting and intellectually stimulating. This is no exception and I recommend it to anyone interested in the questions of brain science, free will and moral responsibility.
I have never accepted the proposition that science started with Galileo and Newton. Or that it grew out of Christianity. This just seems to be a Eurocentric and Christian chauvinist distortion of history.
The BBC documentary series Science and Islam will help to break down these misunderstandings. Jim Al-Khalili fronts the documentary. He is a physicist from the University of Surrey and author of the book Quantum: A Guide for the Perplexed. Science and Islam is a 3-part series and in episode 1, “The Language of Science,” Jim Al-Khalili describes the “translation movement’ – the translation of Egyptian, Greek, Persian, Indian and Chinese scientific sources into Arabic. This helped preserve the ideas for later exploitation. But it is important to stress that this wasn’t passive. Islamic medieval societies also contributed to science – especially in areas of mathematics, medicine and map making.
In Episode 2 “The Empire of Reason” Al Khalili discusses the origins of chemistry, measurement of the circumference of the earth and the immense contribution of al-Hassan Ibn al-Haytham – who he describes as the inventor of the scientific method. Fascinating!
Can we now look forward to a similar treatment of the history of science in Greek, Egyptian, Indian and Chinese societies?
This is a word I had never heard before – but instantly understood its meaning, and usefulness, when I did come across it. It leapt off the page while reading Steven Pinker’s book How the Mind Works. Talking about religious food taboos Pinker describes the ingenious justifications rabbis offer for Jewish dietary laws. He refers to elders cloaking them “in talmudic sophistry and bafflegab.”
I had been looking for a word to describe the gobbledegook that aggressive religious apologists often come out with to justify their claims. Some of these religious spokespersons seem to have training in philosophy, logic, debating and presentation and put these all to use in justifying the unjustifiable. Plenty of form but horrible content.
Anyone following the religion vs science debates will be familiar with the justifications of Alister McGrath (usually preceded by “I would argue that ..”) and John Lennox (especially in ustifying his belief in miracles). I don’t know whether their fellow religious thinkers can understand and agree with these justifications but they certainly cause my eyes to glaze over.
I watched a lecture the other night where the speaker had a Charles Darwin doll sitting on his lectern. I guess this is another thing we will see during the Darwin Year – Darwin merchandise.
It seemed quite cute and I wonder if they are available in New Zealand? This one is part of the “Little Thinkers” Set of dolls.
I quick search shows they aren’t the only such dolls available – there is also an Einstein doll! This raises the prospects of a new collection – dolls of great scientists.
What about others? As a chemist I would like a Mendeleev doll – I am sure he had the face for it.
This year has been declared as the 
The free will “question” is sometimes raised in comments on this blog. I am not someone who denies “free will” but recognise that people often define the concept differently – and this can be a cause of the debate.
I have never accepted the proposition that science started with Galileo and Newton. Or that it grew out of Christianity. This just seems to be a Eurocentric and Christian chauvinist distortion of history.
I watched a lecture the other night where the speaker had a Charles Darwin doll sitting on his lectern. I guess this is another thing we will see during the Darwin Year – Darwin merchandise.
I quick search shows they aren’t the only such dolls available – there is also an Einstein doll! This raises the prospects of a new collection – dolls of great scientists.
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