Author: Ophelia Benson

Here’s a funny one. Hilarious, in fact.

Even within the Church of England, the idea of possession raises eyebrows. “The number of metaphysical assumptions it makes is quite incredible. It means there are such things as non-human evil spirits that can take possession of a human being and require to be told to go somewhere else by a greater power,” says Canon Michael Perry, who holds a doctorate in deliverance and edits the Christian Parapsychologist.

“Some Christians believe it happens frequently – they see demons under every rug and will perform exorcisms at the drop of a hat. My view is possession is very rare.”

You have to admit. That’s not bad. ‘The number of metaphysical assumptions it makes is quite incredible.’ Well, yeah. That’s fair to say. The idea of possession does make quite a few metaphysical assumptions. Well done for pointing that out – er, Canon. Wait. Who? ‘Canon Michael Perry, who holds a doctorate in deliverance and edits the Christian Parapsychologist.’ Canon? Well but if you’re a canon don’t you make some metaphysical assumptions yourself? Is it just that you don’t hold quite as many? Is that why your eyebrows are up because other people make more? So what’s the right number then? And another question – what’s a doctorate in deliverance when it’s at home? And an even more penetrating question – what the hell is Christian parapsychology? Let me rephrase that. What is parapsychology? Now – what is Christian parapsychology? Don’t the, um, sets of ideas indicated by both of those words imply a good few metaphysical assumptions? Correct me if I’m wrong.

‘It means there are such things as non-human evil spirits that can take possession of a human being and require to be told to go somewhere else by a greater power.’ Ooooh – yes, it does. A pretty outlandish thing to believe, isn’t it! And if you see such things under every rug – well, that’s more outlandish still. Or is it. Is it really a question of quantity? Is it soft-headed to think there are 14,286 in the room but quite sane and rational to think there is 1? Is that how it works? On one side of the stage, rugs and hats and loonies who think non-human evil spirits are as common as dust mites. On the other side of the stage, dignified scholarly chaps with advanced degrees who think they are scarcer than that – much scarcer than that – really, very scarce – as scarce as, oh, say, a parking space in Chelsea. You hardly ever ever ever encounter them. But then one day…

Well that was a coincidence. Maybe there is an Intelligent Designer after all, plotting all our every moves.

I had just read, coded, and posted Julian’s latest Bad Moves, which is about getting your facts wrong, and not noticing or considering that you may be getting your facts wrong, and not pausing to consider that other people may be getting their facts wrong. So the next thing I did was go to Normblog to see what was new there. And what’s the first item on the page? A post about the BBC’s apologising for a story told on ‘Thought for the Day’ that turned out to lack evidence. That turned out to be a case of the speaker’s perhaps having his facts wrong. Made me come over all giddy for a moment, that did. Was the Oh So Smartyboots Designer guiding my mouse-hand? Hell – that means I don’t have free will then. But perhaps I do have an immortal soul. Hmm – which would I rather – free will, or an immortal soul. Hmm, that’s a tough one. Tell you what, I’ll trade you both if I get to keep mind and qualia. Okay? Fair deal?

The promised more on Janet Browne’s Darwin biography. A couple of sentences down on the same page (page 141, to be exact):

And when Sedgwick arrived he tried to entertain him in an appropriately geological fashion by telling him of the gravel pits near Shrewsbury. But Darwin’s story of the labourer who found a tropical shell in the gravel brought only a peal of laughter and the remark that this could not be true. If the shell were genuinely embedded there, said Sedgwick, it would overthrow everything that was known about the superficial deposits of the Midland counties…Recounting the story later, Darwin remembered being astonished that Sedgwick was not more delighted by his strange fact. ‘Nothing before had ever made me thoroughly realise, though I had read various scientific books, that science consists in grouping facts so that general laws or conclusions may be drawn from them.’ What Sedgwick went on to explain to him was that there must be a great deal of mutually supportive material for scientific theories of all denominations. Once such theories were established, it took more than an isolated shell to change them.

A simple point, but interesting, I think. Interesting partly that he hadn’t realized it before, and that one incident made it so clear to him. ‘And from the way Darwin continued to hold this salutory episode in mind,’ Browne goes on to say, ‘it evidently had a marked effect on his scientific practice.’ One shell, one story, one peal of laughter. So learning takes place.

And 142-143. They are on the field trip. According to Greenough’s map, there should be Old Red Sandstone underlying an escarpment where Sedgwick saw no sign of it. He sent Darwin to search for signs on one side while he searched on the other.

On his own for the first time since leaving Shrewsbury, Darwin could not find any trace of the desired rock. He was more than a little anxious by the time he returned to Sedgwick, because it was easy to miss details in the field and hard to contradict an acknowledged authority like Greenough. He had scoured the countryside for elusive corroborative signs. Yet Sedgwick was very pleased with him…explaining how his researches would require the revision of a major portion of the national map. Sedgwick too had not seen ‘a particle’ of Old Red…[F]ew professors would have accepted a major negative claim like Darwin’s without backtracking to check on the data.

I like that because it’s the black swan thing, and because it made Darwin anxious. The black swan makes for instance UN weapons inspectors anxious, too, because however hard they look they can’t know, and they know they can’t know, that they have searched everywhere. In fact in that case they know perfectly well they haven’t.

His chagrin at Sedgwick’s brusque response to the tropical shell in the gravel pit was transformed into a fleeting but thoroughly practical awareness of the philosophical structure of science. He went on his way to Barmouth with his wits sharpened and with a good deal more intellectual purpose…

Interesting, don’t you think?