SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
David P. Barash, an evolutionary biologist and professor of psychology at the University of Washington, writes in the NYT that every year he gives his students The Talk, not as you might expect, about sex, but about evolution and religion. According to Barash many students worry about reconciling their beliefs with evolutionary science and just as many Americans don’t grasp the fact that evolution is not merely a “theory,” but the underpinning of all biological science, a substantial minority of his students are troubled to discover that their beliefs conflict with the course material. "There are a couple of ways to talk about evolution and religion," says Barash. "The least controversial is to suggest that they are in fact compatible." Stephen Jay Gould called them "nonoverlapping magisteria," noma for short, with the former concerned with facts and the latter with values." But Barash says magisteria are not nearly as nonoverlapping as some of them might wish. "As evolutionary science has progressed, the available space for religious faith has narrowed: It has demolished two previously potent pillars of religious faith and undermined belief in an omnipotent and omni-benevolent God."
The twofold demolition begins by defeating what modern creationists call the argument from complexity - that just as the existence of a complex structure like a watch demands the existence of a watchmaker, the existence of complex organisms requires a supernatural creator. "Since Darwin, however, we have come to understand that an entirely natural and undirected process, namely random variation plus natural selection, contains all that is needed to generate extraordinary levels of non-randomness. Living things are indeed wonderfully complex, but altogether within the range of a statistically powerful, entirely mechanical phenomenon." Next to go is the illusion of centrality. "The most potent take-home message of evolution is the not-so-simple fact that, even though species are identifiable (just as individuals generally are), there is an underlying linkage among them — literally and phylogenetically, via traceable historical connectedness. Moreover, no literally supernatural trait has ever been found in Homo sapiens; we are perfectly good animals, natural as can be and indistinguishable from the rest of the living world at the level of structure as well as physiological mechanism." Finally there is a third consequence of evolutionary insights: a powerful critique of theodicy, the effort to reconcile belief in an omnipresent, omni-benevolent God with the fact of unmerited suffering. "But just a smidgen of biological insight makes it clear that, although the natural world can be marvelous, it is also filled with ethical horrors: predation, parasitism, fratricide, infanticide, disease, pain, old age and death — and that suffering (like joy) is built into the nature of things. The more we know of evolution, the more unavoidable is the conclusion that living things, including human beings, are produced by a natural, totally amoral process, with no indication of a benevolent, controlling creator."
Barash concludes The Talk by saying that, although they don’t have to discard their religion in order to inform themselves about biology (or even to pass his course), if they insist on retaining and respecting both, they will have to undertake some challenging mental gymnastic routines. "And while I respect their beliefs, the entire point of The Talk is to make clear that, at least for this biologist, it is no longer acceptable for science to be the one doing those routines."
(Score: 5, Insightful) by quixote on Wednesday October 01 2014, @02:44AM
I've taught evolutionary biology at universities for more years than I care to mention. And, with all due respect to Barash, he doesn't get it.
Science is a *method*. It's the study of measurable things. Note that *measurable*. They must be studied following a specific methodology (e.g. use of controls in lab science), and the results must be repeatable by anyone else following the same protocol.
This means science cannot address anything unmeasurable, such as Love, Truth, Beauty, Justice, or, for that matter, God. (Capital letters on purpose, because I'm trying to make the distinction between measuring, say, blood pressure, and what it means to, for instance, suffer injustice. Sure, you can study the physical effects scientifically, but you're never going to capture the feeling or understanding of, say, love, in a paper in Science.) That doesn't mean any of those feelings or values are unimportant or don't exist. It only means that science has nothing to do with them.
Religion, on the other hand, can mean any number of things to different people, but it's never about running scientific experiments on God. That doesn't mean science is unimportant or doesn't exist.
Think about it this way. Science can come up with a cure for cholera. Religion can't. Moral values can tell you how to distribute the cure. Science can't.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 01 2014, @03:01AM
Those aren't unmeasurable any more. Neurology has long since revealed that human perceptions of "love", "beauty" or "justice" are the result of perfectly measurable electro-chemical reactions in the brain. There is no reason to believe that aesthetic or ethical properties have any existence outside of the brain.
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Wednesday October 01 2014, @07:28AM
Err, no. They have revealed that human perceptions of "love", "beauty" or "justice" are correlated with perfectly measurable electro-chemical reactions in the brain.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 01 2014, @07:47AM
Of course they "are correlated with perfectly measurable electro-chemical reactions in the brain." That is the only place these concepts actually exist. Since they only exist inside the human brain what is wrong with measuring them in the brain?
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Wednesday October 01 2014, @08:09AM
That's a believe.
And yes, I do believe that, too, but I'm able to distinguish between hard facts (there are strong correlations between certain processes in the brain and the mental states, the quantum mechanical wave function is an appropriate tool to predict outcomes of experiments) and personal believes (the mental states are those brain processes, the quantum mechanical wave function is real).
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Wednesday October 01 2014, @08:06PM
Is it a belief or a definition? I think it's probably a definition. One can describe all the characteristics of some particular sorts of beauty, symmetry, use of shading, etc. and I don't find that any of them or even all of them taken together mean beauty of that particular sort. Beauty is the emotional reaction that I experience on perceiving it.
OTOH, I'm also aware that some people appear to have a definition of beauty the exists externally, and is independent of their emotional reaction. (I'm not sure I believe that they actually do this in practice, but they use the term in that way, so that's their definition.)
So I think that this is probably a matter of definition rather than of belief.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 2) by q.kontinuum on Wednesday October 01 2014, @09:12AM
The difference is that equalling e.g. love with these reactions asserts that consciousness is only based on these reactions, which appears to be a likely assumption, but is not yet proven. Imagine you could emulate the behaviour of the brain with a circuit. Would this be conscious live? If so, what if you replace a part of this artificial brain with a computer simulation, just adding some connections to behave externally like the artificial chips did. Would this still be conscious live? If so, where is the limit? Where do the calculations become live?
I don't think science has any answer to this question (yet), and therefore it is a bit premature to assert that these electro-chemical reactions are all and everything there is to emotions, even though I understand the assumtion.
Registered IRC nick on chat.soylentnews.org: qkontinuum
(Score: 2) by monster on Wednesday October 01 2014, @04:03PM
Wasn't it that those who argue that there is something more than the physical part are those who must prove it?
Turing test? Also, take the opposite option: The Matrix. Is it a conscious live if the physical substrate is an human being, but the world is feeded to him by a computer simulation?
Anyway, that's already stepping in phylosophy's territory, not science.
(Score: 2) by q.kontinuum on Wednesday October 01 2014, @06:15PM
And why would that be? Whoever claims to have specific knpwlesge and expects othera to beleive it needs to prove it, no matter if it is a positive or a negative assertion. I'm only assertinh that it is not yet known if there is more or not, and people should reapect each others believes.
Philosophy is roughly translated love for analytical thinking. It is not comparable to physics as it is often based on hypothesis or axioms, but I would consider it a science similar to mathematics.
Registered IRC nick on chat.soylentnews.org: qkontinuum
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Wednesday October 01 2014, @08:13PM
Philosophy that was precise enough that arguments could be tested for following the rules of inference and absence of contradiction would have grounds for being considered an aspect of Mathematics (which I do not consider to be a science...though it's a borderline case, and I understand those who do). A science I consider to be something that depends for verification not on logical argument, but rather on observational confirmation of its predictions.
Note that math is a lot more precise than science will ever be. It's proofs are more guaranteed, and its disproofs more certain. But it has no physical interpretation. Once you mix in a physical interpretation you enter the area of science. But science has existed without math (except informal logic), and math still exists without any physical interpretation.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 01 2014, @11:28AM
Those electro-chemical reactions also happen in cultured neurons. And they can be mimicked in culture or in sea slugs by applying exogenous stimulation. Does this mean I can make my petri dish of neurons love me?
Or maybe a different question: studies like this [nih.gov] suggest that "love" is a highly localized phenomenon, presumably related to the specific connectivity of those neurons. How far up and down the network do you need to go to distinguish "love of spouse" from "love of chocolate"? Or are they the same thing, biologically speaking?
The point is that "Love" (etc) is meaningful only as the subjective experience of biochemical states throughout the body, including your own perception of tachycardia and oxytocin, and including memory states derived from training or history. Your subjective experience integrates connectivity and chemistry that is completely unique to you. It may bear some similarities to subjective experiences of other humans, apes, and dogs (but not cats), but you vastly underestimate the integrative nature of the brain if you think that "love" is a little red spot on an fMRI.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Wednesday October 01 2014, @08:26PM
No. Those reactions only exist in functioning intact brains. There *are* reactions analogous to portions of the complete reaction existing in cultured neurons, but that's hardly the same statement.
Your link requires JavaScript, so I'm can but guess what you were pointing at. My guess it that the particular experiment drew arbitrary boundaries WRT what they were looking at. Understandable as a brain is too complex to understand, so you start by analysing particular chains that seem to you to be highly connected.
FWIW, when you identify particular chemical agents of stimulation you are tying yourself to one particular implementation. It's true that we currently only have the mammalian brain that we can try to identify emotional state in (I'm even considering avian brains to different to allow much reasoning by analogy), there's no reason to believe that the particular implementation framework is determinate. It's the logical (programmatic) structure that's significant. But this doesn't imply that beauty is either internal or external. While the GP was too certain about his point of view, you equally appear to be too certain about yours. (Well, and so do I, for that matter.) These are matters of belief and definition at the moment, with available evidence only providing a sketchy set of constraints that must be adhered to.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday October 01 2014, @01:20PM
There are several things to note here. First, they aren't perfectly observable because they aren't perfectly observed. For example, there might be entangled quantum phenomena involved (even if it isn't normally involved, one can always surgically add the hardware) which interferes with our ability to make "perfect" observations.
Second, you ignore the higher order structure of these concepts and their independence from how the human brain stores them. After all, I can write a book about my perceptions of "love", "beauty" and "justice". A reader can in turn read the book and suddenly share to a large degree my perceptions of these concepts. In that case, are these concepts electro-chemical reactions in my or the reader's brains, or words on a page? The answer is none of the above. They are concepts that happen to have representations of varying fidelity which are inscribed in these various media.
In conclusion, you can speak of a representation of these concepts as perceived by me as electro-chemical reactions in my brain (well, plus some additional more permanent structures such as neuron connections) or words on a page, etc. But the concept itself is not a given representation, if only because representations do not have to be compatible with each other.
(Score: 2) by PinkyGigglebrain on Wednesday October 01 2014, @03:31AM
bad example.
Science can tell you exactly how to distribute a cure for cholera, starting with those infected, then moving outwards to those most at risk and then the general population. Simple.
"Moral values" are subjective and get abused to the Nth degree. According to some religions it is morally acceptable to treat people who look or believe differently, or even just females as inferior and not deserving even basic respect. So first the male followers of whatever version of God would get the cure, whether they needed it or not, then the women/children, then it would get used to convince people to convert. "Oh your sick? We can cure you, just accept $DIETY as your Lord and Master", "No? oh so sorry, you can just die like the rest of the unbelievers, but remember; God loves you"
The KKK justifies their "moral" position that blacks should be slaves by pointing at passages in the Bible. Most religions relegate women to the status of a lower second class, or more often just property.
Is it "moral" to prevent financial aid to a country unless that country wont use it to teach about contraception?
Is it "moral" to push your unfounded, often contradicted by facts, dogma on anyone else under penalty of death if they don't agree?
Teachers should, above all else, teach students how to think for themselves. If the student then wants to figure out how to fit facts about evolution into some story from 2000+ years ago about how Man was created from dust, fine, but it has no place in a science classroom.
Religion is more responsible for holding back human advancement than any other cause.
/rant
"Beware those who would deny you Knowledge, For in their hearts they dream themselves your Master."
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday October 01 2014, @05:13AM
I'm not sure morality is entirely subjective. It is a meta-stable social system that evolved for a reason. We don't have a mathematical formula with predictive power that can, say, state that A+B^2+logC = ISLAM!, but solid research has been done to try to gain some explanatory power. Take game theory for example. Researchers have run exhaustive computer simulations of the Prisoner's Dilemma with many variations of strategies to win, and also that have applied those strategies to many variations to the basic premise of the Prisoner's Dilemma, and the most successful strategy that emerged was Tit-for-Tat. And tit-for-tat is a fundamental component of a great many successful systems of morality (eg., "Do unto others as you would have done unto you"). So it's as blinkered to pooh-pooh morality as a vanity or affectation as it is for medical researchers and doctors to pooh-pooh the placebo effect, because what we ought to be doing as observers of nature is to study why and how morality and placebos work when their effects are real and measurable. Note, none of that requires any of us to buy in to any morality, but we should study it.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by Kell on Wednesday October 01 2014, @06:34AM
I do agree that game theory does give rise to morality, as you say but I must point out that tit for tat is not the "do unto others" golden rule strategy at all. In fact, tit-for-tat is the very Old Testament strategy: cooperate with those who treat you fairly, hurt those who hurt you. Perhaps better known as "an-eye-for-an-eye". The golden rule stratagem would be to always cooperate.
Scientists ask questions. Engineers solve problems.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Wednesday October 01 2014, @08:33PM
I think you need to reread the Old Testament. The basic rule was "Those who aren't believers should be taken all possible advantage of". Sometimes this meant killing an entire city because the ruler got overly friendly with your sister before marrying her.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 2) by Kell on Thursday October 02 2014, @03:09AM
I have read the Old Testament plenty of times, and I would wager I know it better than a great many Christians. Specifically I refer to Leviticus 24:17-20:
24:17 And he that killeth any man shall surely be put to death.
24:18 And he that killeth a beast shall make it good; beast for beast.
24:19 And if a man cause a blemish in his neighbour; as he hath done, so shall it be done to him;
24:20 Breach for breach, eye for eye, tooth for tooth: as he hath caused a blemish in a man, so shall it be done to him again.
Last I checked, the pentateuch is generally considered part of the Old Testament.
Scientists ask questions. Engineers solve problems.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Thursday October 02 2014, @06:10PM
Yes. There are sections where various things, given a modern interpretation, are said that are reasonably moral. (IIUC, originally that was only applied within the tribes of the Jews.) But there are lots of other sections. I pointed directly at one of them.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 2) by Kell on Friday October 03 2014, @06:53AM
Since there seems to be some confusion, I will clarify.
My aim was to correct the misconception that tit-for-tat is the same as the golden rule (which is more correctly 'always cooperate'). Tit-for-tat is the political strategy equivalent to an-eye-for-an-eye, which I agree is considered to be part of prototypical moral codes (and brutal ones to be sure). I am not arguing that eye-for-eye is 'good' or 'ethical' (or that 'moral' is synonymous for either of those). Rather I am arguing that political norms for social behaviour arise from iterated game theory.
Morality may be thought of as behaving in such a way that the rest of your tribe doesn't get angry and kill you. Game theoretic self-maximising behaviour can be seen to explain the prevalence and benefit of moral behaviour, without recourse to transcendental reasoning; it is pragmatic "enlightened self-interest".
Scientists ask questions. Engineers solve problems.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by PinkyGigglebrain on Wednesday October 01 2014, @07:38AM
You make several excellent points. I was not trying to totally dis morality, but point out that it really doesn't belong in the same science class with evolution. Morality would be better discussed in a philosophy or psychology class.
At the moment I can't remember ever hearing about any other creature that display morals. The whole concept of "morality" seems to be a trait associated with human intelligence. And it really does need more study to understand how the human brain develops a sense of "morality" and evaluates situations using that framework.
Goddess knows there are people who seem to have moral frameworks that are totally disconnected from anything even remotely like what the general population would consider "Moral". And how what is considered "Moral" can vary based on the culture, ethnic group or even family that a person is from.
"Beware those who would deny you Knowledge, For in their hearts they dream themselves your Master."
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday October 01 2014, @12:06PM
That is true, but it is important to remember that morality systems are always evolving, too. To me as someone who trained in the social sciences morality and culture are part of the continuum of strategies lifeforms employ to survive and seek advantage. While acknowledging that cultural tropes and moral structures are "believed in" and deeply held, it is possible to examine them clinically for their utilitarian value. It is possible that idiosyncracies of certain cultures confer practical advantages to the viability of the system entire, even if only as a pressure valve or continual counterexample to adherents as what not to do. Think the ladyboys of Thailand or the burakumin (the untouchables) of Japan.
Anyway it's a fascinating area of study that is certainly scientific but lacks the experimental rigor of the "hard" sciences precisely because it is so devilishly difficult to design experiments that are reproducible. Human subjects are always wanting to think for themselves and fuck with the experiment. So it actually makes the "soft" sciences much, much harder than the "hard" scientists. Physicists and chemists have it easy. And it's why Milgram was so famous, because he was about the only guy who was able to design experiments with profound impact (he's the Six Degrees of Separation and the Human Beings Will Torture Each Other When Commanded to Do So guy).
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Wednesday October 01 2014, @06:38AM
It's only simple if there is enough for everyone and it has equal odds of working on everyone. It becomes less so if there is significant uncertainty.
(Score: 1) by deimios on Wednesday October 01 2014, @03:32AM
Oh yes it can, and it can assure the maximum effectiveness of the cure. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chemical_warfare#Delivery/ [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Wednesday October 01 2014, @08:35PM
You are presuming that maximum effectiveness is the goal. This is not guaranteed, and whether it is true or not depends on your moral values.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Wednesday October 01 2014, @03:45AM
<pedantic mode="on">
Quite strong conditions you raise here:
.
So... professor, is an epistemology refresher [wikipedia.org] right for you?
(wouldn't be falsifiability [wikipedia.org] the only mandatory requirement against science?)
</pedantic>
Note: all the above doesn't make less valid the discourse that follows the "science=repeatable empiricism+measurements" statement.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Wednesday October 01 2014, @08:43PM
Even falsifiability is questionable. Many accepted scientific theories have predictions that can not be tested even in principle. My favourite, quantum theory, has several contradictory interpretations. It's just that the interpretations agree at every place where they can be tested. AFAIK, there is not even theoretically a way to test whether the Everett-Graham-Wheeler multi-world interpretation of quantum theory is correct. Yet few people would say that it's not a scientific theory. And this is but one spectacular edge case, there are many.
OTOH, is string theory a scientific theory? (This question by be based on obsolete data.) There are theoretical ways to test it, but they require things like an accelerator light years in length. The math is there, precise, accurate, and formidable, but the experimental tests that have been proposed are totally unreasonable. Does that count as falsifiable?
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 2) by q.kontinuum on Wednesday October 01 2014, @04:25AM
I agree with your main points, but not entirely with your reasons. Emotions and their underlying mechanisms are already partially understood, and their evolutionary use is obvious. The same goes for moral. Nevertheless, until now science is - at least to my knowledge - not capable to explain consciousness. What is the difference between a mechanism acting on physical/biological rules and the consciousness of being "me"? This difference does leave some space for belief.
However, believe is widely irrelevant for daily live: All religion could teach you in the ways of behavioural rules and values is delivered to you by humans, not god, and therefore should be checked against common sense. So, believe what you want, but in the end you will have to use your own judgement and question your own believes, unless you want to make yourself the tool of other humans.
Registered IRC nick on chat.soylentnews.org: qkontinuum
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 01 2014, @07:57AM
>Moral values can tell you how to distribute the cure.
Moral values =/= religion! I'm as atheist as can be (3 generations now) but I don't think my moral values are any less developed than those of a religious person.
> Science can't.
Sure it can. You can reason very scientifically about the most efficient way to distribute them. And then let capitalism (which ahs nothing ot do with neither science nor religion) decide.
It's true science can say nothing about 'belief', I'll give you that.
(Score: 2) by opinionated_science on Wednesday October 01 2014, @10:04PM
a nice comment! Basically science is the method that matches observations to proposed mechanisms.
Religion is, by definition, human contrived dogma.
There may be a deity, but no proof has yet been found.
I am not sure we have the language to define a being that would be, by definition, beyond science.
Of course, anything that is beyond science, is certainly not going to be found on stone tablets or in dusty old books...