Author: Ophelia Benson

  • Ours is not to reason why

    To expand on the point about the difference between checking the world and not checking the world – to repeat –

    Science has to check itself against the way the world is, and religion doesn’t. Science is about what is there whether humans can figure it out or not, and religion isn’t. (It claims to be, but it isn’t.)

    What you get with an institution that doesn’t require itself to check against the world, is authority. You get the fiat, the Bull, the decree, the encyclical, the Index, the excommunication, the anathema, the charge of blasphemy or apostasy. You get the arbitrary.

    Science has to show its work, and religion doesn’t.

    This difference certainly doesn’t cash out as the first always making everyone happier and the second never doing so. On the contrary. But it does cash out as accountability in the first case and no accountability in the second. It is the difference between reasons on the one hand and arbitrary authority on the other.

  • Fistula

    One frequent outcome of very early marriage for girls.

  • Jesus suits up for the war on Christmas

    “We must arm ourselves against the secularists, the nihilists, the humanists, and the liberals.”

  • My review of Karen Armstrong’s new book

    In the New Humanist.

  • Table 1

    Returning to this question of the political nature of the conflict (or non-conflict) between religion and science, in Thomas Dixon’s reply to Eric –

    I stand by my emphasis on the political aspects of all of this. Claims about the nature of reality and who has the authority to discover and describe it, and by what methods, are questions about power, and thus political. I don’t say that the Scopes or Galileo cases were nothing but politics, but I do say they were political.

    They were, but speaking broadly (as we are, because the subject is religion and science as such, not just particular incidents touching on religion and science), science is not inherently political in the way that religion is.

    Science is of course contingently political, and the politics in question can be very interesting and significant and worth researching. Science as an institution and as a career is often very political. But science itself, science as such – the methodology, the epistemology, the actual work – isn’t and can’t be.

    That’s not true of religion. Religion is inherently political in a way that science isn’t.

    That’s because science has to check itself against the way the world is, and religion doesn’t. Science is about what is there whether humans can figure it out or not, and religion isn’t. (It claims to be, but it isn’t.)

    Remember Carl Zimmer’s collection of scientists commenting on the NASA research? And Jerry Coyne’s post and the comments?

    Now imagine that happening with a religious…assertion.

    Nothing, right? The mind goes blank. There couldn’t be such a thing. There could be controversy and fuss, but it would all be just people disagreeing. It would be political. It wouldn’t be

    1) Figure S2 shows that the -As/+P cells have an As/C ratio of about 1.5 x 10-5, while +As/-P cells have an As/C ratio of about 3 x10-5. -As/+P cells have a P/C ratio of about 0.005, while +As/-P cells have a P/C ratio of about 0.002. These are not very big differences. Furthermore, these data suggest that the cells actually contain more P than As under both growth conditions. However, Table 1 shows that -As/+P cells contain 0.19% As and 0.02% P by dry weight. These data are not consistent with the data shown in Figure S2. (By the way, since the atomic weight of As is 2.4x that of P, the molar ratio is actually 4 rather than 10. But the data are still not consistent with Figure S2.)

    See? “Table 1 shows that -As/+P cells contain 0.19% As and 0.02% P by dry weight” isn’t political. Religious disagreements don’t have any “Table 1 shows that -As/+P cells contain 0.19% As and 0.02% P by dry weight.” Religion has a lot of time for politics because it spends no time on what Table 1 shows.

    So both are political in some sense, but science isn’t ultimately political. With so many scientists watching each other’s every move, sooner or later the politics is going to be shoved aside by what Table 1 shows.

  • Richard Holloway reviews Karen Armstrong

    “Is she correct in suggesting that, au fond, the essence of the main religions boils down to compassion?” No.

  • Five years ago today

    It’s the fifth anniversary of the Kitzmiller decision, so perhaps you would like to celebrate the day by re-reading the contemporaneous comments of Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Paul Kurtz, Steve Jones, Matt Ridley, Barbara Forrest (an expert witness at the trial itself, of course), and Susan Haack.

    Enjoy.

  • Barbara Forrest offers a Kitzmas present

    It’s the anniversary of the Dover decision, so here is this year’s testimony from 15 citizens of Louisiana who spoke up for science, and won.

  • Bangladesh: woman dies after caning

    She was taken to a hospital with severe injuries a week after the beating, and died a month later.

  • This novel paradigm

    John C McLachlan, professor of medical education at Durham, points out that it’s a common ploy to make nasty things more attractive by dressing them up with new names, like for instance changing the name of “complementary and alternative medicine” to “integrative medicine.” (That seems like a tricky one – you gain the flattering implications of “integrative” but you lose the at least as flattering implications of “alternative.” Decisions decisions.)

    When there is tricksy wordplay going on, it may be time for another Sokal hoax. McLachlan sent a proposal to an International Conference on Integrative Medicine to be held in Jerusalem last October. It included this exciting observation:

    Recently, as a result of my developmental studies on human embryos, I have discovered a new version of reflexology, which identifies a homunculus represented in the human body, over the area of the buttocks. The homunculus is inverted, such that the head is represented in the inferior position, the left buttock corresponds to the right hand side of the body, and the lateral aspect is represented medially. As with reflexology, the “map” responds to needling, as in acupuncture, and to gentle suction, such as cupping.

    The organizers said ooh sounds exciting, send abstract; MacLachlan sent abstract; organizers said ooh lovely, you’re invited.

    In short, they bit. They took seriously a claim that there is a homunculus in each human buttock and that this is of therapeutic and diagnostic significance.

    It is good to know these things.

  • Ireland: two bishops have questions to answer

    Was it really an accident that documents concerning allegations of abuse against 10 priests were not passed to the Ferns inquiry?

  • Abortion worse than al-Qaeda, says dim Royal

    Nicholas Windsor calls abortion “the single most grievous moral deficit in contemporary life.”

  • Theism is mandatory in Indonesia

    Its constitution says that “the state shall be based upon belief in the one, supreme God.”

  • George Packer reviews George Bush’s memoir

    For Bush, making decisions is an identity question: Who am I?

  • Chuck is a spoilt baby

    I pretty much never link to the Daily Mail – but just this once…

    ‘We spend our lives here educating a new ­generation to understand that rational behaviour requires us to reach conclusions and make ­decisions by examining evidence.

    ‘Yet now we have the heir to the throne demanding — not in a ­throwaway remark, but in an entire book to which he has just put his name — that we should reject science and evidence in favour of following our instincts. This is surely disturbing.’

    Then a bit from that book shows how and why it’s disturbing:

    ‘Having considered these questions long and hard, my view is that our outlook in the Westernised world has become far too firmly framed by a mechanistic approach to science.’

    He continues: ‘This approach is entirely based upon the gathering of the results that come from subjecting physical phenomena to scientific experiment.’

    As opposed to just looking into one’s heart; yes, so it is, and so it should be.

    Some of his phrases are ­messianic: ‘I would be failing in my duty to future generations and to the Earth itself if I did not attempt to point this out and indicate possible ways we can heal the world.’

    Obsessively convinced of his own rightness, he views his ­critics with the weary ­resignation of an early Christian martyr: ‘It is probably ­inevitable that if you challenge the ­traditions of conventional thinking you will find yourself accused of naivety.’

    As if he knows “possible ways we can heal the world.”

    Charles insists upon addressing a range of issues wider and deeper than any ­mortal man — unless he has a mind of genius, as the Prince certainly does not — can sensibly encompass. Some of his book reads like the ravings of a Buddhist mystic.

    I once incurred princely wrath by suggesting to him that he would be judged by what he is rather than by what he does — that being heir to the throne is not a government office.

    …

    Rural grandees such as ­himself may have enjoyed times past, but peasants certainly did not.

    The industrial growth which he hates has brought huge benefits to mankind. He seems oblivious to the ­tension between his grand vision about how others should live and his personal financial profligacy; his enthusiasm for using helicopters and keeping every light blazing in Clarence House at all hours.

    He thinks he’s genuinely Special, as opposed to being just notionally Special by an accident of birth. It’s very silly of him to think that.

  • Michael Bérubé on the science wars redux

    Some scientific questions now seem to be a matter of tribal identity.

  • Charles is too dangerous to be king

    Immovably convinced of his own rightness, he views his ­critics with the weary resignation of an early Christian martyr.

  • A new Sokal hoax in “integrative medicine”

    John McLachlan sent an absurd proposal to an International Conference on Integrative Medicine. It was accepted…

  • Jesus and Mo on neurology and religion

    Or what Mo and Paul have in common.

  • Ricky Gervais on “Why don’t you believe in God?”

    “I get that question all the time. I always try to give a sensitive, reasoned answer. This is usually awkward, time consuming and pointless.”