Creationism: another casualty of Innumeracy

Some of us who sincerely treasure the scientific fact and scientific theory of evolution have brought on some of our own problems with our choice of nomenclature. For instance, sometimes “random mutations” gets uncoupled from natural selection, leading some to believe that it is the randomness of the process that is the be-all and end-all of evolution. Consider also Francis Crick’s description of the associations of amino acids with their three base codons as a "frozen accident." Creationists, ignoring these (legitimate) scientific and scientific/poetic usages, have jumped all over the terms such as "random" and "accident" to characterize scientific evolutionary theory in the following warped way: "All life forms just suddenly spring into existence as accidents." Though I am aware that sophisticated creationists would embellish this attack, this characterization is certainly the straw man put forth by most of the people out there who tremble at the thought that human beings are (gad!) animals. It recently occurred to me that, perhaps, creationists’ willingness to assume that evolutionists are claiming that complex life forms "just happen" might be another symptom of "innumeracy." It might be that they don't understand how incredibly rare it is that biological "accidents" survive and reproduce. In his bestseller, Innumeracy: Mathematical Illiteracy and Its Consequences (1988), John Paulos introduced the term “innumeracy” to refer to "an inability to deal comfortably with the fundamental notions of number and chance." Paulos bemoaned that innumeracy "plagues far too many otherwise knowledgeable citizens."

Continue ReadingCreationism: another casualty of Innumeracy

Post Biblical Morality

There are simple reasons to reject Biblical authority. Very simple. One above all others–the Bible assigns people to roles from which, by virtue of divine mandate, they cannot abandon. It accords thinking beings no grant to be other than what the Bible says they should be.

Now, a lot of people treat this in one of two ways. The benign way is to simply ignore these restrictions until such a point where the deviations cannot be ignored. For instance, in the case of gay marriage. There has been a sliding metric of tolerance leading up to the point past which those professing a christian character simply cannot go. They sort of make these restrictions cases of, well, in an ideal, christian world these laws would hold, but we don’t live in that world, and since we all have to get along, well, we’ll just pretend they aren’t there for the most point. Because, you see, if they took them seriously, there would be a lot of public executions.

Which leads to me to the malign way of dealing with them–extremist posturing. These rules are god’s rules and we ignore them at out peril. Such people condemn people who are different, rail against the establishment, and actually work toward putting these rules into practice, either through mainstream legal institutions or by joining cults who leave mainstream society and set up little compounds here and there. The leaders of such groups become right vicious little tyrants and a peak inside their precincts …

Share

Continue ReadingPost Biblical Morality

Schiavo Rule keeps Democrat majority solid in Senate

Recent reports are that South Dakota Senator Tim Johnson is recovering from a life-threatening episode of bleeding in the brain.  That is good news, indeed.  It remains to be seen, however, how well he will function cognitively in the coming months.  Johnson suffered a brain hemorrhage last Wednesday caused by…

Continue ReadingSchiavo Rule keeps Democrat majority solid in Senate

Ingroup v outgroup – a primer

In my quest to better understand basic principles of group behavior, I reviewed Intergroup Relations, by Maryland B. Brewer and Norman Miller (1996) [this work appears to be out of print].  The stated focus this book is to better understand “the causes and consequences of the distinctions between ingroups (those groups to which an individual belongs) and outgroups (social groups that do not include the individual as a member).  At the outset, the authors note “the apparently universal propensity to differentiate the social world into ‘us’ and ‘them.’”  (Page xiii).

It was my suspicion that basic principles of social psychology would give me a deeper context for understanding many modern conflicts.   I was not disappointed.  By the way, these same principles appear in all basic social psychology books.  Nothing I mention here is tentative or controversial among social scientists.

According to Sherif (1966) “whenever individuals belonging to one group interact, collectively or individually, with another group or its members in terms of their group identification, we have an instance of Intergroup behavior.”  (Page 2)   Such social categories “tend to be less rational than other categorizations in that the beliefs we hold about social groupings often do not rest on firm evidence of actual Intergroup differences.”  (Page 6)  Once we establish categories, “we are biased toward information that enhances the differences between categories and less attentive to information about similarities between members of different categories.”  (Page 7).

We live in a pluralistic society.  Therefore, individuals are simultaneously members in multiple …

Share

Continue ReadingIngroup v outgroup – a primer

Religion-Lite as a gateway religion to fundamentalism

I just can’t help periodically visiting the site of Focus on the Family, at least once in a while.  They address many good topics over there—I often disagree with their conclusions, though not always (I almost always disagree with their attempted intrusions into government).  They offer some solid good advice on parenting, marriage and career, some of it without much religion.  Sometimes it reads like almost entirely like pop psychology.  

For instance, in the current article on Mary Cheney, there is no condemnation, no fire and brim stone, only concern.  Actually, lots of concern.  Most of it about the absence of a father-figure in a child’s life.  This is a legitimate concern, though it seems a bit hollow coming from an organization which is quintessentially homophobic.  But they keep their deeper concerns about gays and inerrant bible passages in check in this particular article.  Certainly, there is no discussion about hell. 

Another current FOTF article features “Worldviews.”    The ostensible concern is that “The Lion King” does not teach biblical Christianity, “despite a handful of good moral lessons.  Again, no rampant condemnation.  Instead, the article warns that

the notion of the “circle of life,” that history is circular and the present is heavily influenced by the spirits of one’s ancestors, is closer to Eastern pantheism or native spiritualism than the linear view of history presented in the Bible.

On a lark, I read a FOTF article on “Marijuana — inhaled intellectual impairment.”  The gist of the article is that marijuana …

Share

Continue ReadingReligion-Lite as a gateway religion to fundamentalism