I get email: Faith vs. facts

May 13, 2013 • 10:32 am

Visitor “randyloubier”who, using what may be his name, and linked it to a website “HeART for God”, tried to add a comment on a nine-month-old post, “American unbelief on the rise”. I thought it was worth highlighting because it discusses the importance (or lack thereof) of faith (my bold):

I see this is an old thread, but better late than never. I was an anti-Christian for 50 years–I know every argument against Jesus and the Bible. But it turns out, I was wrong. And, John, I wish someone had just stopped me on the street and said, I know some things you don’t. Not some emotion, but some facts. I would have been curious enough to at least listen. Jesus told the unbelievers that they did not and could not know the things of God. He repeatedly pointed out that if we knew the gift of God and who Jesus is, we would want His gift. Not knowing something doesn’t make it unreal. And there are a few facts that unbelievers are missing–facts I wished I had known all those years of unbelief. Faith does not come by facts, but faith may never come if the head is missing facts and stubbornly wont let the heart go where it wants. Our free will–our head that is missing facts, or worse, full of lies–will keep us from being open to the things of God. God will let us continue down a path of ruin, giving us little nudges here and there, but will never force us to love Him. May the peace of God well up in all unbelievers a desire to lay down their emotions of self-righteousness and be open to the humbling facts of Jesus life and free gift to them.

Let us leave aside the clear notion of dualistic free will here, ignore the basic incoherence of the comment, and concentrate on the distinction between “faith” and “facts.” Those of us who argue for the incompatibility between science and religion often concentrate on the observation that science relies on reason and observation, and religion on faith—with “faith” defined as some version as “belief in the absence of evidence.” (For one specimen, see Hebrews 11:1: “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.”)

That notion of faith is dismissed by many Sophisticated Theologians™, who say that faith is more complicated, more nuanced, than that.  But it isn’t.  All the Grounds of Being, the Being Seized by the Universe’s Inexhaustible Depth, the Basic Beliefs—in the end, they all come down to accepting things without any good reason for doing so.

What I think randyloubier expresses above is the tension between religious people wanting good reasons to believe (i.e., facts), but then, when those facts aren’t forthcoming, to believe anyway, extolling that unsupported belief—faith—as a virtue.  When the believers are more sophisticated, they pretend that faith is something more than belief without evidence.  But it isn’t, and don’t let anybody tell you otherwise.  In their hearts people realize the deficiency of a worldview in which terribly important consequences rest on unevidenced beliefs, and so are consciously seeking “other ways of knowing” to fill the lacunae.

I think a lot of the mental gymnastics of theologians and apologists, as well as the anger of believers when their faith is questioned, comes from this internal conflict.  Part of our evolutionary heritage is to look for reasons for what we accept as true (or what we’re taught as true), and when we don’t have them we become uncomfortable. That, I suspect, is behind a lot of the tremendous anger evinced by religious people when New Atheists point out the evidential weakness of their beliefs. How many times have we pressed believers to explain why they believe as they do, and then have the conversation end in anger and a claim that they don’t need reasons?

There is reason and observation, and there is faith. There isn’t anything in between.

Pew poll shows that Israelis more optimistic about peace than Palestinians; world sentiment on side of Palestine

May 13, 2013 • 5:42 am

A new Pew Research Global Attitudes project (pdf of full report here) shows, to my mind, dismal prospects for peace in the Middle East. Roughly a thousand people in each of 12 countries were surveyed (either face-to-face or by phone) about their attitudes towards Israel and Palestine,  the possibility of a peaceful resultion, whether Obama should do more to help forge peace, and so on. I’ll present just a few salient results.

Here’s the first, showing that Muslim countries have a much more pessimistic view of Israeli/Palestinian coexistence then do more “Western” nations:

Picture 1

Palestinians were asked the best way to achieve statehood, and the results are depresssing:

Picture 2

If one wanted to see the glass half full, I suppose you could note the 52% of Palestinians who don’t think peace will come without armed struggle, but that’s barely a majority. And although, when asked, Palestinians see Fatah more favorably than they do Hamas and Islamic Jihad, the latter two (both designated by the US as terrorist organizations) are seen favorably by about half of Palestinians:

Picture 1

As expected, the US sees Israel more favorably than other European countries (in fact, it’s the only country surveyed whose inhabitants mainly see Israel in a favorable light, although, except for Britain, European nations don’t seen Palestine much more favorably:

Picture 1

Picture 2

If there’s any hope in this, it’s the strong Israeli sentiment against the continued building of settlements on the West Bank. Predictably, the more religious Jews don’t see this as problem, but as something that enhances security (they’re wrong):

Picture 2

I’ve stated my own position on this issue many times: for a two-state solution to work, Israel must withdraw from the West Bank and dismantle the settlements. (Jerusalem will, of course, have to be shared.) And Palestine needs to stop firing rockets at Israeli civilians, while Hamas needs to remove from its charter the stuff expunging the state of Israel completely—and while they’re at that, deep-six from the charter the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, a Czarist forgery about the Jewish plan for world domination. It’s an insult to any thinking person that the Hamas charter presents that as a genuine document.  The preconditions for peace require that each entity recognize the other’s right to exist.

And while I’m on the soapbox, let me express my disgust at academics’ boycotting of Israel, highlighted recently by Stephen Hawking’s announcement that he’s not attending the Israeli Presidential Conference in deference to British academics’ boycott of Israel. (This is especially ironic in view of Hawking’s reliance on Israeli technology, which developed the microprocessors in his artificial-speech system).  I’m not in favor of academic boycotts (or sports boycotts) in general, because science, like sports, is an international endeavor that, to my mind, should be free from politics.

h/t: Malgorzata

Farewell, Commander Hadfield!

May 12, 2013 • 4:44 pm

Chris Hadfield, the commander of the International Space Station (and, if you didn’t know, a Canadian), is going home in a Soyuz spacecraft in two days.

Since December 21 of last year, Hadfield has entertained all of us with his fantastic pictures of Earth (posted on his Twitter account), his repartée.  And now he tops it all: he’s recorded a lovely music video as a farewell. It’s based on David Bowie’s “Space Oddity” and has some backing from Ground Control.

From ars technica:

Canadian Astronaut Chris Hadfield would be notable solely for his work on the International Space Station. But… he may have the greatest YouTube account on Earth (and beyond) despite uploading only 17 videos. He’s demonstrated how to open a soda on the ocean floor, explained the process ofusing the toilet in space, and modeled interstellar wristwear among other videos.

. . . Hadfield thanked a number of collaborators including video editor Andrew Tidby, music producer Joe Corcoran, musician Emm Gryner, Evan Hadfield and all of the Canadian Space Agency. Fans of Hadfield’s YouTube page will note this isn’t his first musical foray, just likely the most popular. Previously, Hadfield paid tribute to Sally Ride with “Ride On” and he recorded an original called “Jewel in the Night” from the ISS.

There’s one cool Canadian. Thanks for the awe and the LOLz, Commander Hadfield!

480px-Chris_Hadfield_2011

Creationist neurosurgeon speaks at yet another commencement

May 12, 2013 • 1:23 pm

Dr. Benjamin Carson, a Seventh-Day Adventist neurosurgeon at Johns Hopkins, and also an outspoken young-earth creationist, was invited to give the commencement address at Midwestern State University in Wichita Falls, Texas. (I’ve posted before about his giving a similar address at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia.) Carson is apparently a brilliant surgeon, but how does that square with these views, expressed in an interview at The Adventist Review?:

How does this happen? What are the consequences of accepting evolutionary views of human origins? How does this affect society and the way we see ourselves?
By believing we are the product of random acts, we eliminate morality and the basis of ethical behavior. For if there is no such thing as moral authority, you can do anything you want. You make everything relative, and there’s no reason for any of our higher values.

If we are all the product of chance, the random assortment of atoms, living in a deterministic universe that is simply the consequence of physical interactions, doesn’t it all seem so futile?
Yes, in my education I had to learn evolutionary theories, and as a God-fearing Christian I wondered how to make God and evolution mesh. The truth is that you can’t make them mesh–you have to choose one or the other.

Too many Christians have given up too much to “science,” conceding not just the observed data but the anti-God interpretations. Are you often questioned about being both a logical scientist and a Christian?
Yes, my answer is that the more you understand science, the less you can believe all this is an accident! Just look at the brain, with its billions and billions of neurons, and 100 billions of connections, and how it remembers everything it has ever seen and heard . . .

. . . A few closing thoughts?
Ultimately, if you accept the evolutionary theory, you dismiss ethics, you don’t have to abide by a set of moral codes, you determine your own conscience based on your own desires. You have no reason for things such as selfless love, when a father dives in to save his son from drowning. You can trash the Bible as irrelevant, just silly fables, since you believe that it does not conform to scientific thought. You can be like Lucifer, who said, “I will make myself like the Most High.”

Can you prove evolution? No. Can you prove creation? No. Can you use the intellect God has given you to decide whether something is logical or illogical? Yes, absolutely. It all comes down to “faith”–and I don’t have enough to believe in evolution. I’m too logical!

Carson’s also opposed to gay marriage, which why some students and faculty walked out of his presentation.  Fine: he has the right to express his views, and academics have the right to walk out silently.  But what is wrong here is that a respectable university chose as its commencement speaker someone committed to a profoundly misguided view of biology. He is antiscientific, except, perhaps, in the operating room.

Yes, Carson worked his way up from a horrible background (raised in Detroit by a single mom) to a position of prestige and accomplishment, and yes, he’s been a role model to black students.  But none of that, to my mind, outweighs his profoundly creationist views.  He certainly shouldn’t be barred from speaking because of his faith, but the officials who pick commencement speakers should have excluded him because his view of science, based on lies, is hardly exemplary of an institution devoted to learning.  Truth outweighs inspiration.

h/t: Dan

Speaking of the Sun. . .

May 12, 2013 • 8:42 am

Astronomy buffs will know that two days ago there was an annular solar eclipse visible from Australia and much of the South Pacific (this eclipse occurs when the Moon blocks most of the Sun’s image, leaving a ring of fire, or annulus, around the edge of the Moon). Reader John Scanlon was in Oz to take pictures, and sent us two:

I took a series of pics just as the sun showed, but only got the internal reflection in the last few when it was clear of the horizon. Like much of the Pilbara, the area we were working is mostly banded ironstone and spiny Triodia hummock grass (as seen just before the sunrise in the other shot) and it’s at the far western end of the eclipse track, but close to its centreline. I only heard about the eclipse the night before, and simply walked up the nearest hill from camp before even coffee, so the alignment with ‘Mount Delphine’ was fortuitous.

Eclipse

And the site in normal view:

Oz

Templeton, Sean Carroll and the ethics of mixing science and faith

May 12, 2013 • 5:45 am

About a dozen readers have sent me this item, I suppose because they wanted my response. I’ve sat on my hands about this, as it involves the physicist Sean Carroll, whom I consider a friend, a really nice guy, and someone who has always provided prompt and thorough replies when I’ve plied him with many questions about physics. So consider this post a disagreement among friends.

The issue? The Templeton Foundation, of course. As I’ve noted before, Templeton has just funded a glossy science magazine, Nautilus, that has an online version.  As far as I can see, the John Templeton Foundation (JTF) is the only provider of start-up funds for the magazine. To be sure, Nautilus hasn’t yet shown signs of mixing science and religion (wait a while!), but Templeton is nothing if not canny, and they love to draw projects like this into their stable, giving the Foundation the scientific respectability it needs to push its science-and-religion-are-friends agenda. Indeed, they’ve already advertised Natutilus widely on the JTF website; Templeton’s director of “cultural engagement” sees the magazine as an extension of the Foundation’s mission of engaging the “Big Questions” (i.e., God’s role in the universe); and the magazine’s “digital editor” admitted that Templeton worked with the fundees to help shape the magazine’s editorial content.

Templeton doesn’t do anything like this without calculating the benefits to their operation, and Sean knows that well. Indeed, while blurbing the magazine on his website, Carroll noted that he’s on the magazine’s board of advisors.  Sean (who has always highlighted the dangers of the Templeton Foundation) didn’t mention that Nautilus was funded by Templeton—I’ll chalk this up to an oversight—but several of us, including me, noted that omission in our comments.

In response, Sean then wrote a long and eloquent defense of his views about this, “On Templeton,” a piece reprinted at Slate as “Science and religion can’t be reconciled: Why I won’t take money from the Templeton Foundation.” (The Slate piece has garnered over 3300 comments!)

The good news is that Carroll’s statement about Templeton’s mixed message, and his explanation about why he won’t take money from the JTF, is really, really good.  An excerpt (my emphasis):

And that’s the real reason why I don’t want to be involved directly with Templeton. It’s not a matter of ethical compromise; it’s simply a matter of sending the wrong message. Any time respectable scientists take money from Templeton, they lend their respectability — even if only implicitly — to the idea that science and religion are just different paths to the same ultimate truth. That’s not something I want to do. If other people feel differently, that’s for them and their consciences, not something that is going to cause me to shun them.

But I will try to explain to them why it’s important. Think of it this way. The kinds of questions I think about — origin of the universe, fundamental laws of physics, that kind of thing — for the most part have no direct impact on how ordinary people live their lives. No jet packs are forthcoming, as the saying goes. But there is one exception to this, so obvious that it goes unnoticed: belief in God. Due to the efforts of many smart people over the course of many years, scholars who are experts in the fundamental nature of reality have by a wide majority concluded that God does not exist. We have better explanations for how things work. The shift in perspective from theism to atheism is arguably the single most important bit of progress in fundamental ontology over the last five hundred years. And it matters to people … a lot.

Or at least, it would matter, if we made it more widely known. It’s the one piece of scientific/philosophical knowledge that could really change people’s lives. So in my view, we have a responsibility to get the word out — to not be wishy-washy on the question of religion as a way of knowing, but to be clear and direct and loud about how reality really works. And when we blur the lines between science and religion, or seem to contribute to their blurring or even just not minding very much when other people blur them, we do the world a grave disservice. Religious belief exerts a significant influence over how the world is currently run — not just through extremists, but through the well-meaning liberal believers who very naturally think of religion as a source of wisdom and moral guidance, and who define the middle ground for sociopolitical discourse in our society. Understanding the fundamental nature of reality is a necessary starting point for productive conversations about morality, justice, and meaning. If we think we know something about that fundamental nature — something that disagrees profoundly with the conventional wisdom — we need to share it as widely and unambiguously as possible. And collaborating with organizations like Templeton inevitably dilutes that message.

There’s no question that Templeton has been actively preventing the above message from getting across. By funding projects like the AAAS Dialogue on Science, Ethics, and Religion, the JTF has done its best to spread the impression that science and religion get along just fine. This impression is false. And it has consequences.

How deliciously strident! And on this Sean and I agree completely.  Faith is virtue in religion but a vice in science, and Templeton conflates that distinction. By constantly intimating that there’s More to Reality than Science, the JTF tries to give epistemic credibility to faith by donning the mantle of science—underneath which is a carefully concealed clerical collar. The JTF does this by co-opting scientists to either spread Templeton’s message or, as Carroll notes in the bold section above, to buttress that message by occupying a stall in their stable of thoroughbred researchers.

Where Sean and I disagree is whether scientists should, while refusing direct funding from Templeton, nevertheless participate in the Foundation’s projects, as Sean does as an advisor to Nautilus. His rationale is this:

You will never see me thanking them for support in the acknowledgments of one of my papers. But there are plenty of good organizations and causes that feel differently and take the money without qualms, from the World Science Festival to the Foundational Questions Institute. As long as I think that those organizations are worthwhile in their own right, I am willing to work with them. But I will try my best to persuade them they should get money from somewhere else. . . So I won’t directly work with or take money from the JTF, although I will work with people who do take money from them—money that is appropriately laundered, if you will—if I think those people themselves are worth supporting or collaborating with in their own right.

I’ve pondered this at length, both now and earlier, and I’m not sure I understand his distinction. Why is it inappropriate to take money from the JTF but nevertheless appropriate to help organizations that do? Granted, those organizations do engage in valuable science education, but they’re also pushing Templeton’s agenda on the side.

The World Science Festival, for instance, is a good thing, but almost always includes a panel on “science and faith”—no doubt to placate the JTF, which partially funds the affair. (I once refused to participate in that panel because of the Templeton connection.) If you think it’s not okay to take money from the JTF, is it okay to lend your name to other organizations that do? The name-lending, after all, is what Templeton really wants.

Look at it this way.  Suppose that, as a good liberal, you’re opposed to organizations that promote racism, like the Council of Conservative Citizens (CCC), and won’t take any money from them, even if they were to support pure scientific research on genetic differences between ethnic groups.  Would it then be okay, if the CCC sponsored a World Ethnic Festival that included a panel on “How different are human ‘races’?”, to participate on such a panel? Granted Templeton isn’t obviously as invidious as the CCC (though the JTF does support a number of pretty right-wing groups), but my point is that there’s no clear criterion for what is “appropriate laundering” of money from a pernicious organization.  Either you’re lending your credibility that that organization’s efforts or you’re not.

Sean recognizes that this is a judgment call:

So I won’t directly work with or take money from the JTF, although I will work with people who do take money from them—money that is appropriately laundered, if you will—if I think those people themselves are worth supporting or collaborating with in their own right. This means that approximately nobody agrees with me; the Templeton-friendly folks think I’m too uptight and priggish, while the anti-Templeton faction finds me sadly lacking in conviction. So be it. These are issues without easy answers, and I don’t mind taking a judicious middle ground. It’s even possible that I’ll change my mind one way or another down the road in response to new arguments or actions on the part of the parties involved.

If I were less charitable, I wouldn’t call this “taking a judicious middle ground,” but—to paraphrase P. Z. Myers—”occupying a spot halfway to Woo Town.” But let us hope that Sean does change his mind. I have enormous respect for him as a scientist, a science communicator, and a good human being; and I would love nothing more than for him to say, “I’m not taking any money from Templeton, no matter how it’s laundered.”

But there is one thing I absolutely think he must say. In his Templeton piece, Carroll notes:

And if anyone is tempted to award me the Templeton Prize, I will totally accept it! And use the funds to loudly evangelize for naturalism and atheism. (After I pay off the mortgage.)

Now that does not compute!  After all, Templeton Prize money—currently £1.1 million, or $1.7 million—comes directly from the Templeton Foundation. It is not laundered. Granted, the chance that Sean will win the Templeton Prize is, in view of his history of anti-accommodationism, only marginally higher than that of Richard Dawkins winning that award, but the issue is an ethical rather than a practical one.  Say it ain’t so, Sean!