[Catalist] Belief in Creationist Pseudoscience in Australia renaissance
Roy Skinner
rsskinner at optusnet.com.au
Thu Apr 5 21:33:39 AEST 2018
Not tongue in cheek at all. This experiment was mentioned at an inaugural lecture by a professor (Michael..?) at Auckland Uni a few years ago.
By the same token theoretically those of Christian beliefs should occupy less of the prison population and commit les crime than atheists n’est pas?
Any research on this? (Don’t mention the Inquisition and Bloody Mary’s reign!)
Roy
From: Catalist [mailto:catalist-bounces at lists.stawa.net] On Behalf Of Graham McMahon
Sent: Wednesday, 4 April 2018 5:19 PM
To: Catalist <catalist at lists.stawa.net>
Subject: Re: [Catalist] Belief in Creationist Pseudoscience in Australia renaissance
Do I detect a tongue in the cheek? A more recent modification could be the third reich marching under their banners bearing the phrase "Gott mit uns". Didn't get them too far.
On Wed, 4 Apr. 2018, 5:00 pm Roy Skinner, <rsskinner at optusnet.com.au <mailto:rsskinner at optusnet.com.au> > wrote:
There was a scientifically designed experiment I heard of run by Darwin’s nephew (?) in the 1800s which purportedly showed that God di not exist.
The logic was that with all the brits praying that the kings and queens of England would have long life (“God save the King”) then they should live longer than the average person.
Statistics however, showed that all the kings since Alfred actually had a lower life expectancy than the average person – QED, God does not exist.
This finding was criticised by the Irish, however, who said the results showed quite the opposite as all the Irish were actually praying to God that the English kings would die early!
Poor experimental design!
Roy
From: Catalist [mailto:catalist-bounces at lists.stawa.net <mailto:catalist-bounces at lists.stawa.net> ] On Behalf Of Leon Harris
Sent: Monday, 2 April 2018 7:03 PM
To: Catalist <catalist at lists.stawa.net <mailto:catalist at lists.stawa.net> >
Subject: Re: [Catalist] Belief in Creationist Pseudoscience in Australia renaissance
Well you see Michael, the opposing arguments don't equate in terms of evidence quality.
Never in any of my long years of biochemical research did any of my experiments produce a result that suggested the existence of a god. My colleagues in physiology and microbiology report the same. Physics and chemistry are the same, though in all of these disciplines there are those who shun the void of no positive results and choose the cultural beliefs of their upbringing. No one has yet conceived of an experiment that can be carried out within a scientific method that has produced evidence of a god. The closest I know of produce evidence that belief in a god can produce a better health outcome in certain disease states (placebo effects and such like). I rate the view that there isn't a god at somewhere between a 2 and a 3, on my scale. Note that my scale is non-parametric - it says nothing about the size of the gap between 1-2, 2-3, 3-4 the numbers are just for counting, the order indicates direction, not size).
To improve the "rating" of the hypothesis that a deity exists from between 5 and 6 (that may not be true, but as yet hasn't been disproven; 6. that is untestable) to something higher would require some kind of evidence from a controlled scientific experiment. If you know of such evidence, both atheistic and religious people would appreciate you writing it up and publishing it, along with a reproducible method, in a respected journal. And I am not being facetious with that - my experience is that atheism is not a religion, and those who hold that view do so because there is no compelling scientific evidence otherwise. If compelling evidence were available, I think you would find many converts from the scientific atheists.
Remember - experimental evidence is required. While the Bible, Torah and Koran are culturally persuasive artefacts, they are not controlled scientific studies, and don't constitute evidence in the formal scientific sense.
Of course, the opportunity to not subject religious beliefs to formal testing is also open. If your theology holds that your deity requires faith, (the John 20:29 angle), it is fine not to go there. This is one of the mechanisms by which reasonable people can hold divergent views on this matter.
Cheers,
Leon.
(Make love, not war. Hey, get married, do both!)
(edit) because the discussion is open, I have reposted to catalist. Sorry if you get it twice Michael.
On 2/04/2018 5:22 PM, Michael Cameron wrote:
I too have enjoyed reading and participating in this discussion over the last week or so. One genuine question ...
In light of recent comments are we agreed in rejecting Creation Science but admitting that atheism is not necessarily a natural conclusion of scientific reasoning. From a reasoning perspective we score a religious and atheistic worldview equally somewhere between a 3 to 6 on the "Leon Harris quality factor scale"? Scientists have the freedom to choose whatever over-aching world view ethic they want, ie Christian or atheistic? For example McGarry’s promotion of plainreasoning.org <http://plainreasoning.org> has just as much credence here on Catalyst as Christian referring us to the Centre for Public Christianity (https://www.publicchristianity.org) in so much it relates to the scientific topic under discussion?
Regards,
Mick C
On 2 Apr 2018, at 1:32 pm, Paul Walker <3210here at gmail.com <mailto:3210here at gmail.com> > wrote:
Love these last two posts! Thank you for sharing Gentlemen...
We are defined by our beliefs a nd perhaps our belief in the ideals of science unite us more than our spiritual beliefs or otherwise
Sent from my iPhone
On 2 Apr 2018, at 10:36 am, Igor Bray <igor.bray at curtin.edu.au <mailto:igor.bray at curtin.edu.au> > wrote:
Leon, may I assure you, with an exceedingly high degree of confidence, that Science will never be a religion. It is a human activity, but its culture is to critically analyse every message irrespective of the messenger. Consensus plays no role in determining what is true and what is not. Science is not a democracy, and most progress has come from individuals who dared to question the status quo.
The issue of climate change science is very complicated as it is attempting to be predictive with only computational models in its arsenal. This is a relatively new development made possible only due to the immense growth in computational technology. There are senior scientists who do not subscribe to “anthropogenic climate change”. For example, despite immense social/political pressure the Australian Academy of Science does not have a position on the subject. I’m told that there are sufficiently many Fellows who are not convinced. I have been to several talks by proponents who have made a strong case, but none expressed absolute certainty, or referred to consensus as a part of the process. Instead, the reference is to risk-management. I have also been to talks at highly regarded institutions such as Princeton, by the emeritus professor William Happer who has given me very readable literature that argues against the consensus view. He was going to be used by Trump as a science advisor, but I think this has fallen through. This literature, while arguing against anthropogenic climate change, is also supportive of renewable energy and expresses concern due to overpopulation and the associated environmental degradation. CNN interview https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bf3I_7-Nbpo gives a hint of the emotion and complexity of the problem. Freeman Dyson, of Quantum Electro Dynamics fame, is another contrarian who is a colleague of Happer at Princeton. No simple answers here.
Lastly, like others on this thread before me, I’d like to say that I have no concerns about science being taught at WA schools, be they public, religious or independent. Physics is going through a delightful growth at both UWA and Curtin. I recently spoke to Jingbo Wang, new Head of Physics at UWA, and she told me that they have seen substantial growth in their enrolments. At Curtin we had a 50% increase for this year on 2017, and we now have 50 first-year students with a median ATAR of 95. Many of them come to us because of recommendations of teachers from schools with a religious affiliation, and they are delightfully bright with a strong scientific culture, and will do their part to make the world a better place in due course. Let’s us never forget that what unites us is far greater than what divides us.
With best wishes to all,
Igor
P.S. May I also respectfully suggest that you do not believe everything you read in Nature. The pressure to publish in such journals is so immense that “overreach” is rather common.
On 1/4/18, 22:19, "Catalist on behalf of Leon Harris" <catalist-bounces at lists.stawa.net <mailto:catalist-bounces at lists.stawa.net> on behalf of leon at quoll.com <mailto:leon at quoll.com> > wrote:
My concern in all this is that science doesn't become a religion. Or
more correctly, that by labelling something as science, we cease to keep
our critical senses active, and we facilitate the emergence of a new
priesthood. This priesthood would hold the consensus view, and would
silence alternate attempts to explain the world around us, including
those arrived at through the processes of the scientific method, but
which challenged orthodoxy and which had not yet had time to accumulate
as much supporting evidence as the current view.
We are vulnerable to this situation due to the limitations of our minds,
and the heuristics that all of us must apply to get through life.
Our physical limitations make it near impossible to apply a fully
rigorous scientific approach to all the things that we believe to be
true. This means that we work in a kind of collective and social space,
where belief in reputation stands as a proxy for scientific method. Most
of the scientific views that I hold, I have arrived at through limited
personal thinking together with a belief in the quality of the source it
came from. If I read it in Nature, I am more likely to believe it than
if I read it in The West Australian (or Catalist, for that matter!).
For example, I am told that spacetime is being created between galaxies.
I am also told that the frog spawn in the sky is actually collections of
stars. Someone else has analysed the colours of the light from this
stuff that appears to me like distant frog spawn, and they tell me that
if they look at it through an instrument that I can't afford, that there
are bands of darkness similar to that which appear in light for the sun.
When they don't match perfectly, I am told it is because those dots of
light are moving away from me. I am a simple kind of guy, I have never
touched a spacetime, and my senses only show me 3 dimensional space. I
rely on something in my head that gives a sense of the passing of time,
although I don't know what time is - never having seen, touched, smelt
or tasted it.
To help me out of this situation, I have a body of lore collected by
western society. Guys like Igor Bray tell me about how if you represent
the 3 dimensions of space and one of time as one entity, they behave
consistently, and this explains a number of paradoxes about light and
things happening at the same time. It all seems perfectly reasonable to
me, and to the extent that I can fact check it, it is internally
consistent. However I recognise that I can't fact check it very far, and
I rely upon Igor's reputation (and another bloke who married a serbian
mathematician and worked in a patent office - what was his name?)
In science it is mostly the uncertainties that cause us a hassle. Such
as determining which is more right, some of these 11 dimensional string
theories, or the 4 dimensional theory of spacetime? How will I know when
one of the former supplants the latter? For me, other than skim the
arguments, I am left relying on the reputation of the source of the
information.
This is the wiggle room that science leaves us floundering. An idea or
theory may be brought to being, based on limited data. When do you
believe it? This is why scientific conferences sometimes have the most
intense fights between people often looking at the same data, but
interpreting it differently.
As a consequence, the best scientific ideas at one time are frequently
wrong, sometimes with profound consequences
Remember Paul Kammerer, the scientist who committed suicide because he
was hounded over his toad experiments that seemed to show Lamarkian
inheritance, and compare to the current discipline of epigenetics. Here
is an example of high consequences that arise from scientific consensus.
There are a whole bunch of spayed Appalachians from West Virginia, as
well I dare say some aboriginal Australians in the same situation (as
late as the 1970s, I am anecdotally told), due to misunderstanding of
the science of genetics. In each of these cases, the label "scientific"
has allowed travesties to occur.
So we need to come back to belief. I don't think it is useful to deny
that we all operate with it. I think it is a human heuristic, a
limitation (or a feature) of the hardware our minds run on. I think that
it is critical to acknowledge beliefs ("State your assumptions") and to
try to separate them from anything that you are trying to analyse.
Maybe it is best if I don't believe you, if you don't believe me. If we
had a better philosophy of knowledge, maybe a more formal tiered system,
that allowed us to assign quality factors (1. that is true, proven
mathematically; 2. that is true in its current form but may be part of a
larger truth (Evolution by Natural Selection is in this category); 3.
that is true within the narrow domain tested; 4. that is a likely truth
as shown by extrapolation from a known truth; 5. that may not be true,
but as yet hasn't been disproven; 6. that is untestable; 7. that is false).
In writing this, I am largely unconcerned for the views of the
Christians among our profession. I see this submission as fighting for
the "souls" , or more correctly the integrity of those who wish to use
science as a belief system. The collected knowledge derived from the
application of the scientific method(s) can certainly be used as such -
I personally rely on it extensively to form my world view. However
without acknowledging our limits, and the extent to which we can know
everything, we risk creating a new god, and entrenching falsehood and myth.
The question of how to reconcile the honestly acknowledged limitations
of science, and compete against those of a closed mind who dogmatically
state that they "know" is something I haven't fully figured out yet. We
also live in a realpolitick. What we are hitting up against here is
much like the age old conundrum of "to what extent do we tolerate
intolerance", or more generally, how do we engage in a dialogue for
which each side has different rules. I have no final answer, but I don't
want to be part of a contest where to win I must take on the attributes
of the side I am opposing. I don't want science to become a god. Too
much evil (tm) becomes possible.
Finally, I agree with the points you have just posted Mike. Don't you
think that the complaints from the students, and your presence as a HOLA
form part of a corrective loop that successfully prevented the teaching
of Creationism in your school?
Cheers,
Leon
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