What is Life? Another Great Debate

The Arizona State University Origins Project in partnership with the Science Network, J. Epstein Foundation and the NASA Astrobiology Institute has sponsored another interesting debate – The Great Debate – What is Life? This follows on from their recent debate on morality -  The Great Debate – Can Science tell us Right from Wrong? (see Telling right from wrong).

I have yet to watch “What is Life?” (videos and audio downloads are available) but it certainly looks interesting. From the Science Network description:

Richard Dawkins, J. Craig Venter, Nobel laureates Sidney Altman and Leland Hartwell, Chris McKay, Paul Davies, Lawrence Krauss, and The Science Network’s Roger Bingham discuss the origins of life, the possibility of finding life elsewhere, and the latest development in synthetic biology. More than 2500 people filled ASU Gammage Auditorium on Saturday, February 12 to listen to this remarkable collection of scientists whose particular perspectives range from the cosmic to the microscopic.

The Galileo myths

Dr Marc Crislip

For a while there I had wondered if I was the only one who noticed the current attempts of theistically motivated historians and philosophers to rewrite the history of the Galileo affair. But no, greater minds have come to a similar conclusions. I picked up this quote from Marc Crislip on the most recent podcast of The Skeptics Guide to the Universe:

“Galileo was a man of science oppressed by the irrational and superstitious. Today, he is used by the irrational and the superstitious who say they are being oppressed by science. So 1984.”

So true.

Last year was the International Year of Astronomy, celebrating in part Galileo’s original use of a telescope to observe heavenly bodies. An important celebration for science.

But it was also taken up by Christian apologists, historians and philosophers. A number of books were published rewriting the history in a way more sympathetic to the church. Opinion pieces were written and the apologist blogs eagerly leaped on the bandwagon. An all too common atmosphere of martyrdom was spread. George Sim Johnston, wrote recently on the Catholic Education Resource Centre blog that “the Galileo case is one of the historical bludgeons that are used to beat on the Church.”

Beauty, mystery and science

Here’s a cartoon aimed at demolishing the claim that science destroys the wonder and mystery of things.

via xkcd: Beauty. Thanks to Prof. Abel Méndez (@ProfAbelMendez).

How many times have I found the person in the street is more often turned off by what the scientists finds beautiful. Think small organisms, waste, bugs, soils, clay minerals, etc.

Richard Dawkins wrote about the fallacy of science destroying beauty in his book Unweaving the Rainbow: Science, Delusion and the Appetite for Wonder.

Brian Green demonstrates this scientific enthusiasm in the recent interview on the Guardian Science Weekly podcast (Science Weekly podcast: Just how many universes are there?). he basically discusses ideas in his new book  The Hidden Reality: Parallel Universes and the Deep Laws of the Cosmos.

I have a copy and am looking forward to reading it.

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Christianity gave birth to science – a myth?

Ibn al-Haytham - a pioneer of the scientific method

This theological myth seems to surface in any debate about the relationship between religion and science. It is the claim that Christianity gave birth to science. That modern science was not possible anywhere but in the European Christian culture.

The myth is actively promoted by some Christian scholars – theologians and philosophers of religion. And sometimes it even appears that less critical non-religious philosophers who are largely ignorant of the history of science accept the myth.

Perhaps we should expect a bit of Christian chauvinism. After all, nationalists claim all sorts of things originated in their own country (People of my generation may remember when the Russians were claiming all sorts of technologies were invented by their countrymen – I fondly remember their claim for lampposts!). And Christian chauvinism is alive and well in areas like human rights and morality.

The implausibility of reality

Seems to describe my state of mind at the moment. I am trying to deal with a computer trashed by a virus. So something short and sweet to go on with.

I am currently reading Antonio Damasio‘s Self Comes to Mind: Constructing the Conscious Brain. Chapter two starts with this:

“Mark Twain thought the big difference between fiction and reality was that fiction had to be believable. Reality could afford to be implausible, but fiction could not.”

I like it.

While we often say facts are strange than fiction I think this quote also encompasses the idea that reality is counter-intuitive. Discovering the truth about reality doesn’t come easily because we have evolved to make subjective decisions which are often not correct, although they may have been adaptive.

It took humanity thousands of years to develop procedures which give us a reliable picture of reality. These methods are most obviously embodied in modern science. And these methods include requirements of evidence and checking against reality.

So, fiction has to be believable because there is no way of checking the story. But scientific knowledge can be intuitively implausible – because we can check against reality. Its what confirms our ideas for us – and keeps us honest.

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Is atheism bad for science?

Since publication of books like Richard Dawkins’ The God Delusion in the mid 2000′s some reviewers and commentators have argued that the “new atheists” and  vocal “atheist scientists” are “bad for science.” That they are turning people, especially students, away from science. Even that a hostile public will endanger future funding science funding.

Some of these naysayers have an obvious motive. The militant religionists who just wish the people like Richard Dawkins and PZ Myers would STFU.  Their concept of a pluralist society does not extend to allowing a public voice to people who disagree with god beliefs. They are “offended” by such voices.

But there have also been the non-religious who disagree with what is being said. Or, agree but don’t think the way it is said is polite or quiet enough. Possibly these people are more honest in their concern that scientists who are up-front about their atheism could be endangering public acceptance of science and its future funding. I don’t think that is a principled position -  surely in a democratic society atheists have as much freedom to being “vocal” as believers have. But should they be concerned about public opinion?

Another myth

I suggested in my last post, Myths within a myth, that perhaps this impression of public attitudes is mistaken. Perhaps it is just another myth. Well, I have been continuing to check out data indicating public attitudes towards scientists. The US Science and Engineering Indicators: 2010 has some relevant data taken from Harris Polls (Harris Interactive 2008b). These have asked questions about public attitude to professions in the USA. The relevant question was: “tell me if you feel it is an occupation of:

• very great prestige,
• considerable prestige,
• some prestige, or
• hardly any prestige at all?”

The data in the figure below show responses of “very great prestige.” As the complaint about “atheist scientists” and “new atheists” causing a decline in support for science have come from religiously motivated people I thought I would also include the data for religious professions.

%age of US public considering professions of "very great prestige."

It seem to me that since the 70′s, attitudes to scientists has been fairly constant in the range 50 – 60%, with a mean of 55%, of the US public considering the science profession has “very great prestige.”

Contrast this with the public’s opinion of the religious professions. The mean numbers supporting “very great prestige” have been about 40% – with a minimum of 32% in 2004.

Now, I wouldn’t make too much of these sort of statistics. But they certainly don’t support the thesis that “atheist scientists” or “new atheists” are responsible for turning the US public off science. Remember – the “new atheist” phenomena that theological commenters complain about started in the early to mid 2000s. Books like “The God Delusion” and the new willingness of scientists to be open about their atheism, especially after September 2001, do not seem to have led to the feared loss in  prestige for the profession among the US public.

“New Christians” too strident?

Maybe the “new atheists,” “atheist scientists” and their books have turned the public off the religious professions? Or more likely, the decline in the mid 2000′s could have resulted from the attack on the US by religious terrorists in September 2001.

But what about the religious attacks on evolutionary science and promotion of creationism and “intelligent design” alternatives? Perhaps publicity around the Dover trial and the legislation being promoted by creationists in various State legislatures have influenced public opinion. Even the proliferation of books attacking “new atheism” – after all there have been many more of these than “new atheist’ books themselves.

Perhaps these religious militants should be told by their more liberal brethren to STFU. Perhaps the more thoughtful believers in our society should turn their attention and concern away from “atheist scientists” and “new atheists.” Maybe they should be warning their own militants to stop being so “strident” and militant”. That their brash behaviour is endangering the public’s acceptance of religion in our societies. Maybe even threatening future funding for religion.

Just imagine of the public got so pissed off they agreed to do away with the privileged position religions have with tax exemption?

 

Myths within a myth

Yes – this is going to be about religion – a common source of myths. Specifically the “conflict paradigm,” “conflict hypothesis” or “conflict myth.” Really the myth that there is such a “paradigm”, “hypothesis” or “myth” claiming  “religion is and always has been at odds with science.” If you see what I mean. Think of Russian Matryoshka wooden dolls.

This is a story put about by Christian apologists (“militant Christians”) who would have us believe that there is no conflict between science and religion. That actually Christianity is the mother of science. And any conflicts that do occur are really the work of atheists, or “atheist scientists.” These atheists are the ones putting about a false myth.

I want to unpack the myth advanced by these militants.

Of course there are conflicts between religion and science – inevitable when the epistemology is so different. Whereas religious knowledge is based on revelation and authority, science is based on evidence, reason and testing against reality. But this is a principled difference – it’s not the same as claiming “religion is and always has been at odds with science.”

Religious and non-religious scientists work alongside each other with no ideological conflict. And “atheist scientists” are hardly to blame for the very public attacks on science by creationists and intelligent design proponents.

Thank goodness for eBook Readers

I have a  reputation (well-deserved) for untidiness. Piles of books and papers seem to accumulate wherever I work, – or even sit for any length of time.

The “paperless office” has been no help. Like most people I find reading from a monitor screen uncomfortable. So I will usually print off material for later reading. But I have difficulty throwing things away – even knowing that I have instantly lost them by placing them in one of my piles.

This has been a drawback for me of the Readability add-on I recently discussed (see A nice little tool for printing blog posts). It’s been great – but if anything I am even more untidy. I am now hoping that I can overcome this problem with the help of my eBook Reader (see The joys of eBook readers – the Sony PRS-650 Touch).

And the little add-on dotEPUB which makes it  possible to download any web page as an e-Book.

This works a bit like Readability. You install a bookmark in the toolbar (available for Firefox and Chrome but not yet for Internet explorer).

The video  below describes installation of dotEPUB.

Clicking on the bookmark will convert the current web page or blog to an eBook. Really a short ePub file. This will be opened in whatever ePub programme you have installed (I am using epubreader - a Firefox add-on).  Then it’s just one click to save the file  on to my PC.

At the end of the day I copy all the save ePub files (together with any eBooks I have downloaded)  on to my eBoook Reader. DotEPUB.com uses the Readability script (© by arc90) in the cleanup process so the saved material is a joy to read.

When I have read the material I can easily delete it, or save it in a collection for later reference. (Yes I know, I will probably lose it but being only electrons who else is to know?).

So give it a few months and I be interested to hear what my family says about my tidiness.

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What about Kindle?

You can choose to include links or not when installing the bookmark. Currently the ePub file will not contain images or videos (but will present links to them). In the few cases where I wished to include images I did this by editing the file in Sigil*. With some difficult web pages the output is messy. You can easily check this before saving. And I have found that I can clean up at least some of the files like this by putting through the Calibre* programme.

Apparently there are plans to include image capture and production of Kindle eBooks in future versions of  dotEPUB.

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* Sigil and Calibre if you are serious

At least for anyone serious about eBooks.

Caibre will convert different formats. (This solves my problem of finding a particular eBook at Amazon, but only in the Kindle format. Now easily converted). It will also produce an eBook file from text documents and pdfs and functions as a library

Sigil is an ePub editing programme. I use to clean up converted files, correcting image placement, adjusting tables of content, etc.

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Theistic science? No such thing

I came across this interesting observation in Elaine  Howard Eckland’s book  Science vs. Religion: What Scientists Really Think:

“believers did not consider their traditions and beliefs influential on how they conducted their research. None of the religious scientists I talked to supported the theory of intelligent design”

This conclusion is based on her extensive survey of academic scientists in the USA.

It’s interesting because it confirms that those theologians and “philosophers of religion” who advocate abandonment of “materialism” or “naturalism” by scientists are barking up the wrong tree. Even scientists who have strong god beliefs don’t allow these to interfere with the way they do their science. In fact, if they did they would no longer be doing science.

Mind you, the conclusion is not at all surprising to anyone working in a scientific environment. We know from experience that religious scientists don’t change their methodology because of their ideological beliefs or world view.

The ethics of exploitation

A cartoon in the current issue of the NZ Listener magazine says it all. It portrays New Zealand politicians lining up to pass through the cordon around the earthquake damaged city of Christchurch. The policeman on duty is saying “No politics past this point.”

New Zealanders don’t think well of people who seek to exploit a tragedy for their own political, ideological or monetary purposes.

The web site that attempted to explain the earthquake as divine punishment for homosexuals and prostitutes in Christchurch offended us. (Whether genuine or a very bad joke that site seems to have now been taken down).

Respectful and secular