This Week in Science and Religion
OK, I kind of let this column drop at the end of summer as I got so busy. I can’t promise I’ll be able to keep up. But I’ll give it a whirl. The aim is to cover the science news of interest to Mormons. Probably the big science readers will have seen many of these links. The aim of this is to give those with perhaps more incidental interest a bit of a note about interesting stories out there. Feel free to make comments or ask questions. A lot of the links aren’t to LDS blogs, so sometimes a question here is a bit more appropriate.
Without further ado, here are the stories for this week.
For those interested in less controversial sources of stem cells for the perhaps overhyped stem cell “potential” treatment technologies, there was an announcement about harvesting them from amniotic fluid. I’m not sure how this would work as a practical source for full blown technology uses. But it’d certainly help with research and development. One should note that they are more limited than embryonic stem cells. So just because embryonic stem cells work in some treatment won’t necessarily entail these will, for example. (This story is in a more tech savvy form at New Scientist)
For those interested in dark matter there were some big developments this month. Scientists mapped the dark matter giving us an excellent picture of how they relate (or don’t relate) to galactic structures. (Also at Cosmic Variance) The relationship to Mormonism? Not a direct one, although given our materialism and claims about there being more “stuff” to the universe than what we normally see, new forms of matter are always interesting. We’d discussed the topic here at BT last year.
On a related topic folks probably know that in addition to dark matter physicists talk about dark energy. Basically this is stuff postulated to make Einstein’s equations from General Relativity line up with our measurements. What we measure and what Einstein predicts don’t match. Thus dark energy – the “missing energy” (although it may be due to Einstein being somewhat wrong instead). In addition there’s now a new “darkness.” Scientific American talked about dark forces.
Folks who have discussed Mormon theology and physics with me before probably have heard me go on about multiple universes. The standard inflationary models predict bubble universes, although most schemes still demand some initial starting point even if it isn’t our big bang. Others, such as M-theory (an expansion of string theory) don’t. One popular view was Lee Smolin’s evolutionary inflationary model. The debate this month was over claims that particular view has been shown to be wrong. Lee Smolin disagreed.
Moving away from theoretical physics to more direct discussion about religion comes this story about climate change uniting science and religion. Of course LDS oriented blogs have discussed climate change a lot, such as today’s post at BCC or the still ongoing discussion at Mormon Mentality. This discussion of the human hand in climate change is probably worth reading as well.
I think the biggest overdone story of the last year or two is Dawkins and his evangelical form of atheism. It’s been overdiscussed even more than Intelligence Design of late. For those interested though a Jewish philosopher of religion has been discussing Dawkin’s The God Delusion chapter by chapter. Regardless of where you come down in the discussion some of his comments are quite interesting. There was a lot of discussion over Steven Weinberg’s review of Dawkin’s book. One of the better discussions was at Stranger Fruit which discussed Dawkin’s knowledge of religion. There were lots of related posts which I’ll not link to. (Although EvolutionBlog has an interesting one)
Many people who have NDEs describe heaven. A lot of Mormons buy into the descriptions. Perhaps a good caveat is a list of cultural descriptions in NDEs. My favorite, “East Indians sometimes see Heaven as a giant bureaucracy, and frequently report being sent back because of clerical errors.”
For those interested in why they are charitable, studies tying altruism to a part of the brain might be interesting. Of course that raises the question of how responsible we really are for how charitable we behave. Especially for Mormons who make a big divide between our brains and the part of our minds associated with our spirits. Since we don’t get to pick our body presumably we don’t get credit or blame for what it does. Which raises the question about judgment day.
There were two interesting stories on religion and crime. OK, sociology is science but perhaps not what you guys were looking for. Still, it’s pretty interesting.
Just in passing, if you heard string theory might be tested, Peter Woit breaks down the hype and misreporting. (In case you didn’t guess, there is no test for string theory yet – it’s arguably as much religion as science)
There was an interesting Psalms 82 and the council in heaven. There’s a discussion over at the old FAIR Forums on LDS responses concerning the ideas. It’s well worth reading for those of you interested in the topic.
Oh, I missed two LDS posts.
Over at Mormons and Evolution there was a post on a new variant of Creationism.
Perhaps only tangentially related to science was LDS Science Review’s discussion of LDS urban legends and the war on terror.
They also had a post on BYU professor William Chamberlain who was dismissed over the evolution issue early in the 20th century.
Comment by Clark Goble — January 30, 2007 @ 4:41 pm
Clark, with this font, I misread for a second “dark forces” as “clark forces”. Let’s hear it for clark matter, clark energy, and clark forces.
Comment by John Mansfield — January 30, 2007 @ 5:13 pm
Where to start?
Harvesting amniotic fluid for “stem cells’ will always be a less than optimal method than using stem cells. If we go that route to satisfy the religiously biased and it sets us back a few years, well that will only sacrifice the life of a few thousand ill people. What do we care about them, as long as we save a few pre-zygotes from destruction…oops, I forgot that they would be destroyed anyway.
Next: No matter how you massage Lee Smolin and Inflationary theory, or Dark Matter, you are not going to get a Mormon theory of the Universe !
You can talk about “worlds without number” all you want, but nothing in current cosmology is going to buttress Mormon theology. There is always hope for the future, but nothing in science is pointing to a “mormon view of the universe” at this point. I fail to see how a “bubble universe” lends itself to a redemption of Mormon ideology, at least at this point. Although, I must say, “worlds without number’ was a particularly lucky phrase chosen by Joseph Smith. Not to be confused with civilizations without number in meso-america.
You may want to consider Weinberg’s comments about Dawkin’s book, The God Delusion, as critical, but I can assure you, Weinberg does not disagree with the basic premise of Dawkin’s book. He may disagree with the degree of “in your face”, but he certainly doesn’t disagree with the premise that there is absolutely no evidence that there is a God and that the claim of the religious that the scriptures are a source of any kind of evidence for a God is ridiculous. You will have to find a better source to criticize Dawkins than the writings of Steven Weinberg. He would laugh in your face at such an imposition.
Lastly (if there is such a word), it is a little premature to question string theory. There are tests in the works for some of the predictions of string theory when the new high energy accelerator at CERN goes online. At this stage, string theory is a bit “religious” in nature (since it makes assumptions based strictly on theory rather than facts), but as opposed to religion, science is always testable and even String Theory will be testable. Religion has never, ever, suggested a test to perform to prove its reliability as a measurable generator of ideas. Science lends itself to be tested daily and in every possible field of endeavor. That is the great difference between science and religion. As has been said before, science has facts without certainty, religion has certainty without any facts.
I’m still waiting for someone to tell us what great advances God, the omnipotent, omniscient one, who communicates with his chosen prophets, has given us in of our knowledge of how things work. Any knowledge or information, whatsoever.
Furthermore, “Clark Energy” is a theory not yet tested and I submit, will never be able to yield any “scientific” prooooofs. Although, I am willing to accept the possibility, the Mr. Goble is nearly omniscient.
Comment by Katonah — January 30, 2007 @ 9:31 pm
I wonder how the coalescence of tribes into civilizations would have happened without religion? Of course no one could test such a thing, so it really isn’t a point for any scientific discussion. As I start looking more into my qualitative methods course, I also wonder how some of the philosophies underpinning their emmergence have been inlfuenced by the class of questions that emerge in deep religious thinking? Without religion in my life, I also personally doubt my thinking would be nearly as nuanced as, limited though may be, it is now. Not to say it wouldn’t have been so otherwise, but I suspect the probabilities would be different.
I suspect in the next few decades some of the strategies of religious thought should star to emerge as useful tools for dynamic areas of human interaction. For instance I think the fuzzy group goals and understandings that occur in the field of education could be interpreted quite nicely with some quasi-religious frames. Atran’s book certainly has more promising looking tools for analyzing what happens there than most of the quantitative studies that I can think of. But on what level can one get the arguements without being or having been part of a reflective religious group?
Similarly I don’t think large scale group dynamics can be approached without an equivalent to some of the deep thinking that religion can encourage or facilitate. I would suspect the problem is people tend to focus on the direct objectives that religion produces rather than the secondary ones facilitated. Not all tools are able to probe all situations, and not all knowledge produced is workable on a communally acceptable basis. I don’t, however think that negates their value, just the use we are able to make of it.
Comment by chris g — January 31, 2007 @ 12:07 am
Wow. What a rant. LOL
I thought I did caution about amniotic fluids for stem cells. In any case regardless of what Americans think Europeans, Canadians and especially Asians don’t hold to the same standards. So the research will happen. However clearly some people find extensive embryonic stem cells to be problematic. (Depending upon how they are harvested, I personally don’t – so I don’t tend to see this as a Mormon issue although it is clearly related to religion for many)
Regarding Smolin’s evolutionary inflation, M-theory and Linde expansion theory. It hardly “redeems” Mormon theology but I think Mormons ought find it interesting.
As for the relevance, if LDS theology requires an infinite past then if the big bang is all there is that is a problem theologically. The fact most theoretical physics doesn’t say the big bang is all there is tends to be interesting theologically. Yet the empirical grounds aren’t there. Further, as I noted, many inflationary theories tend to demand a start somewhere. The fact some don’t is, I think, interesting. It’s not apologetics, although it does answer some Evangelical critics who point to the big bang. Not everything has to be apologetics though. Some things are simply interesting.
I know Weinberg doesn’t disagree with the basic view of Dawkins. I don’t think I ever indicated otherwise. However the discussion that was engendered by Weinberg’s article is of interest. Personally I find many of the issues Dawkins and others raise quite interesting even if, as Weinberg notes, Dawkins is a tad naive theologically. As many noted that ultimately doesn’t matter in terms of the position he espouses.
Actually, unlike many (including some atheists) I’m probably fairly sympathetic to Dawkins. I don’t think he establishes what he attempts to in the manner he desires. (He’s largely preaching to the choir in his rhetoric) But it’s undeniable that in terms of public evidence and reasons there’s none to point to God in an objective fashion. I don’t think that necessitates that we can’t know God. Since of course not all reasoning or evidence is public. But absent that kind of experience Dawkins is of course on the right track. And I agree with Dawkins, despite some of his excesses, that most of the arguments given for belief in God are rubbish. I also agree that where he is naive and ignorant on theological or philosophical matters it is ultimately beside the point. (Well, except to wonder why he put it in his book)
Regarding string theory, I’m not aware of any tests including those at CERN that could falsify or test string theory in any unambiguous way. It’d be nice if there were since, unlike many, I actually like string theory – especially M-theory which I think of all the basic cosmologies is most accomodating to LDS theology. I’ll admit that, from what little I’ve studied, I prefer LQG, but that’s just because I like the mathematical approach it takes. Plus I was always a sucker for the general methodology of inquiry that Mach, Leibniz and Einstein took. But Smolin and company are in no better position than the string theorists at this stage.
Even if string theory proves wrong I suspect it’d be like the Kaluza-Klein theories. Helpful even if wrong. And there’s nothing wrong in that (contra some string critics)
Comment by Clark Goble — January 31, 2007 @ 12:18 am
Chris, Atran’s book is indeed pretty interesting. I think that our tendency to try and separate out religious thinking from human development or thinking in general is mistaken. (As I think Atran brings out quite well)
While I’m pretty dubious about a lot of evolutionary psychology I suspect that a lot of thinking that is religious thinking has a lot of benefit evolutionarily. Further, while not really evolution, I think that sophistication of religious rationalization went hand in hand with the development of culture and especially the development of governmental organization. At what point is something a religious rite, a governmental rite, a personal rite or so forth? It’s all pretty blurry.
That’s not a justification of religion since of course it would entail that a lot of religion is simply useful but not necessarily true in the sense most religious people believe. But it also means that attempts to discount religion can be problematic. (Heavens even Voltaire, hardly a religious man, thought religion useful)
Comment by Clark Goble — January 31, 2007 @ 12:27 am
Yes I figure the minimal position people should use when looking at religion is the useful myth one. I don’t subscribe to that myslef, but if one can’t do that, then I don’t think there is any level of charitable interpretation going on. After all unless one wants to tyranically enforce a common “language” there has to be some overlap of real communication.
I am also getting the hint that in the softer sciences there is starting to come a stonger push for depth in the way things need to be approached and conceived. I wonder if the qualitative endeavors now have enough legs to start to pinpoint what works as good methodology and what doesn’t. Of course to many that sounds rather hokey, but I have a feeling the tricks to understanding how to present and encourage depth of interpretation will draw on quite a few religious tools. I just don’t think prescription will prove to be overly useful any time soon with the questions researchers in some of those soft areas find interesting. Of course that is just my speculation.
Comment by chris g — January 31, 2007 @ 2:25 am
When will the scientific community and its adherents ever feel free enough that they can conduct and arrive at cutting edge conclusions that alter our reality without the groundswell of religious opposition?
Religion has its place in society but it has gone too far as a negative counter weight to the scientific communities ever emerging role as influencer and shaper our physical universe. Christian and religious America may have influence here but their voices are mute when it comes to opposing and stopping other countries from surpassing us and taking the lead in these ever advancing areas of science (i.e. stem cell and evolutionary research).
Its time we stand up and oppose the bullying and tactics used by the Religious Right to curb and hold sway over our scientific institutions and thinkers.
We can do better…
Comment by David L. — January 31, 2007 @ 2:41 am
If we create an environment where the probability of fully ignoring someone’s deeply held views is very small, I don’t think we should be surprised when that environment manifests itself in ways some may not like. It jsut seems like natural consequences we need to be prepared to accept to maintain something supposedly better.
Comment by chris g — January 31, 2007 @ 3:14 am
David I certainly agree most of the religious opposition from scientists is in large measure due to the opposition from religious people to science and to a lot of rational behaviors. Of course not all religion does this. But more conservative or fundamentalist religions do. I think in particular creationism and ID really bother scientists because it’s the attempt by religion to tell science what is going on without really having any rational basis to do so. ID isn’t as bad as creationism, but the way ID supporters behave is sometimes more like creationists – of course I personally think the way some scientists and atheists act towards ID isn’t much better.
I don’t think religion really impedes evolutionary research. While I think a case could be made for stem cell research being limited in the US, I think it’s a bit overstated and probably will end this year anyway.
So while I’m sympathetic to some anti-religious claims by some scientists, I tend to think they go overboard. Further in a democracy where most people are religious I’m not sure their tactics are the wisest. For instance I’m convinced Dawkins is his own worst enemy overall.
Comment by Clark Goble — January 31, 2007 @ 12:42 pm
The Opposition to Stem-Cell research isn’t really directly related to religion, it seems to me. It seems more that the opposition to abortion is related to religion, and the opposition to stem-cell research is related to the opposition to abortion.
Comment by Matt W. — January 31, 2007 @ 1:31 pm
Matt, doesn’t that by extension make it related to the opposition from religion? That’s like saying abortion isn’t really related to religion, opposition to murder is.
Comment by Clark Goble — January 31, 2007 @ 1:38 pm
Does stem-cell research require abortion? I don’t think so…
Comment by Matt W. — January 31, 2007 @ 1:57 pm
For embryonic stem cells the main source is aborted fetuses or left overs from IVF which many would see as the same thing. Embryonic stem cells simply work, much, much better than other sources of stem cells. All other sources have significant limitations or don’t work out in trials the way ESC do.
Comment by Clark Goble — January 31, 2007 @ 2:08 pm
Limiting research due to religious concerns isn’t so different a matter from limits due to ethical or social concerns. It’s a slightly better tactic to position one’s cause as atheistic, though, rather than as an amoral, antisocial self-guided force unto itself. In other words, I don’t see how a debate over something like stem cells vanishes just by taking religion out of it.
Comment by John Mansfield — January 31, 2007 @ 2:53 pm
It’s a good point. Our ability to ground ethical decisions is, in most ways, as problematic as religious belief. Certainly if our guide is scientism (as I think many religious critics end up espousing) then ethics is out. So why are some of the scientific experiments from the 20′s through the 60′s we all condemn bad whereas modern condemnations of scientific experiments aren’t? There definitely is a double standard.
Don’t get me wrong, I think there is room to debate and even adjudicate concerns. But it can’t be done the way some seem to suggest.
Comment by Clark Goble — January 31, 2007 @ 3:17 pm
Note, that link to Stranger Fruit was bad. Here’s the right one.
Comment by Clark Goble — January 31, 2007 @ 5:01 pm
It definitely seems as if we need to find a way to balance religiously emergent ethics with socially emergent ethics and, scientifically emergent ethics. Dismissing one or the other because it arises from someplace we don’t like seems to throw the baby out with the bath water.
Though with the way things get practiced by masses at large some fonts may be more reliable than others, once it gets down to the level of individual use I suspect the importance of the background diminshes greatly. The way beliefs tangle together seems to make origin rather useless for anything other than polemics. Of course, like anything there are extemes, but hey when won’t there be?
Comment by chris g — January 31, 2007 @ 5:55 pm
What is a scientifically emergent ethic? Do you mean ethics tied to cognitive structures or evolutionarily developed instincts? I don’t think most would say science has much to say about ethics, which was my point.
Comment by Clark Goble — February 1, 2007 @ 2:22 am
When editing, I actually lost the parenthetical I thought I included “if there are any”. However, I think science does create some ethics based on the types of things with which it engages. For example could one see tendencies to minimize explicit bias, to not interpret things through value laden lenses, to produce things upon which scafolding can occur, etc as emerging from a fuzzy sort of grounding ethics? Certainly one could say they are prescriptive techniques that are required for things to work, but that just seems too superficial.
I wonder if it is more reasonable to say the background from which things emerge do more to color the language of representation than change actual entaglements that are used on a practical level? So dismissing a religionist’s critique of stem cells because it is assumed to emerge from a faith based position seems an attempt to deny validity to any of the religionist’s interactions with the topic. Basically a poisoned well approach. While this might be true for some extremes, I suspect the sheer complexity of interaction means such approaches are more bigoted than accurate.
I would suspect many see things (value susceptible) coming from a science background as being from a safe well when, at a practical level, they are just as befudled by complex entaglements.
Comment by chris g — February 1, 2007 @ 3:01 pm
But Chris we have to distinguish between ethics (what is good to do) from epistemology (arguably what is good or necessary to know). Now many (although not all) would argue that our ways of knowing are wrapped up with ethical commitments.
But I think we have to distinguish between what science is committed to either philosophically or methodologically from what it can discover.
I also think we have to distinguish between what is useful and what is good.
Now if we say that science makes all sorts of commitments that are not themselves scientific I’d agree. Indeed scientists are often hopelessly naive on these issues sadly. Which makes those who espouse a commitment to scientism all the more tragic…
Comment by Clark Goble — February 1, 2007 @ 5:31 pm
Clark,
You missed one very important piece of news this week in the world of science that probably has the greatest impact in all our lives: Global Warming is real. Oh and the American Enterprise Institute, funded by Exxon, and having President Bush’s ear, apparently tried to buy off scientists into declaring that global warming was not a problem caused by man. Those are huge stories.
Comment by Dan — February 2, 2007 @ 9:53 am
Both those stories are pretty old though. Arguably global warming has been as close to scientific fact as most theories for more than six years now. Likewise corporate interests who don’t like global warming actions have been acting against it for years.
What’s more interesting is that this was the year that so many businesses started seeing global warming as a threat. Obviously the insurance companies have – especially vis a vis hurricane effects and flooding. But other businesses are starting to take it seriously, which I think will change the nature of the beast a great deal.
Comment by Clark Goble — February 2, 2007 @ 1:03 pm
An antidote for the incipient leftsim of Bloggernacle Times
Comment by al_miller — February 2, 2007 @ 10:54 pm
More G.K. Chesterton …
“Men are ruled, at this minute by the clock, by liars who refuse them news, and by fools who cannot govern.” – The New Name, Utopia of Usurers and Other Essays, 1917
“The whole modern world has divided itself into Conservatives and Progressives. The business of Progressives is to go on making mistakes. The business of the Conservatives is to prevent the mistakes from being corrected.” – ILN, 4/19/24
“It is not bigotry to be certain we are right; but it is bigotry to be unable to imagine how we might possibly have gone wrong.” – The Catholic Church and Conversion
Comment by CB — February 3, 2007 @ 1:37 am
Al, I can honestly say that’s the first time in my life I’ve been called a “leftist.”
Those who try to make science into politics misunderstand science.
Comment by Clark Goble — February 3, 2007 @ 2:12 pm
Perhaps not you Clark but most of the commenters are leftists. I would like to say liberal but I can’t.
Comment by al_miller — February 3, 2007 @ 10:20 pm
Drudge Report today (2/5/07) has a lot of stories on a huge cold snap in the northeast and a story about unseasonably cold weather in Hawaii. I am sure that everyone will just say “statistical variation”. But when Katrina hit NO it was evidence that global warming was causing more hurricanes.
Climatologist calls global warming a massive deception
You may have to refresh the link after you navigate to it.
Comment by al_miller — February 5, 2007 @ 8:18 pm
Al, the media traditionally does a horrible job on all science stories. Part of the problem is a desire to focus on the sensational rather than conveying the meaning to the public. (The so-called entertainmentization of the media) The other problem is that many reporting on science don’t really have science backgrounds and thus lack the skills to understand what they are reporting on. The final, and perhaps worst, problem is that the news wants a focus on the particular. That is anything abstract, they are taught, one has to illustrate with anecdotes. But in science anecdotes are horrible. They establish nothing.
Thus the frankly horrible reports (most of the time – there have been some good ones) by the media on global warming. The problem is that not only do they tend to confuse people, making individual disasters seem like they are do to global warming, but they tend to lead people to do the opposite. If hot weather is “evidence” (for journalists) of global warming then obviously cold weather is evidence against it for skeptics.
This is really misleading.
BTW – I’d be very skeptical of Timothy Ball. I’d suggest checking out Real Climate for answers to most of Ball’s claims.
Comment by Clark Goble — February 7, 2007 @ 3:42 pm
From Robert W. Godwin (a bit of a threadjack to be sure but interesting anyway):
“There is a reason why leftism is an ideology that appeals to losers, misfits, the envious, the unhappy, and the addle-brained young. It is not that leftism creates the demand. Rather, these people demand an ideology to cater to their various pathologies and deficits. In other words, it is a demand-side politics that arises from certain unfortunate but ubiquitous trends in human nature. However, once the ideology is created, then its central task will be the creation of more lost souls who demand the ideology of leftism. Here again, this is one of the keys to understanding most any leftist policy, which fosters dependency, envy, narcissistic entitlement, and victimization. “
Comment by al_miller — February 8, 2007 @ 4:05 pm
Yes, that is too much of a threadjack. (Although not as bad as some from someone else I had to delete) I’d note that the comments probably describe a lot of right-wing ideology, libertarian ideology and the attraction for many of any kind of ideology. The focus really isn’t on ethical principles nor pragmatic utility but on something that caters to the needs of people. I think it sad that far too often politics bears more resemblance to the commitment to a sports team than anything else. I suspect that many pick their religion for similar reasons.
Comment by Clark Goble — February 8, 2007 @ 4:38 pm
I’d like to acknowledge and apologize for my “demand-side” commenting. Clark had every right to scrub my comments. My sense of entitlement is still alive and well, but I’ll avoid addle-brained threadjacks in future. fwiw, did enjoy reading the thread up to #23.
One assumes that the East Indians excluded from Heaven because of a clerical error could always bribe the gatekeeper.
Comment by Chino — February 8, 2007 @ 9:21 pm