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Miscellaneous

2009/11/29

Several things have come through my blog reader that I want to comment on, but none require a post of their own. So here you are:

Celebrating Darwin. Still? Again? It doesn’t really matter. Here’s a well-produced video giving the history of life in brief, narrated by David Attenborough. Delightful to watch.

(Thanks to Mike, the Not Quite So Friendly Humanist, for sharing this video.)

Solar System on one page. Also along the lines of enjoying the natural world. Or, in this case, worlds: a webpage where you can see all the planets (plus Pluto). They are to scale for size, but also for mean distance from the Sun. Try it out.

If you’re having difficulty finding the planets in all the black, here’s a little trick: after the “/” at the end of the URL, add “#mars”, or “#neptune”, and it’ll zoom to that planet. But that does kind of defeat the purpose: you’re supposed to become aware of the vast, vast spaces between the planets.

(Thanks to Phil, the Bad Astronomer, for the link.)

Abolish the Canadian monarch? Here’s Canadian humanist and activist Justin Trottier with his take on the fact that the nominal Canadian head of state is not Canadian, and is also the head of one particular religious sect. I tend to agree with him – there is no good reason to retain the monarchy, though perhaps not yet sufficient reason against it to go to the trouble of writing them out of our laws.

Beautiful impermanence. I close this grab-bag with a delightful “sermon” from Daylight Atheism, in which we are encouraged to reflect upon impermanence as autumn surrounds us*. He contrasts the humanist acceptance of our impermanence with the inborn yearning we all have – reflected so frequently in religious beliefs – to deny our own deaths. While I’m not generally interested in contrasting humanism with religious beliefs, I think the contrast here is poignant. Particularly as the humanist position, in following the evidence of the world around us, draws us away from our primitive desires for immortality. It encourages us, in a real sense, to grow up.

Okay, this one could have used its own post. For now, I refer you to this pair of posts (in that order) by Dale McGowan, about discussing mortality with his kids. And this more recent one, about the problem of awesome people being mortal too.

[Edit to add link to the Daylight Atheism post, which I unaccountably forgot to do at first.]

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* Excluding Canada and other northern regions, where winter has already firmly displaced fall, and the whole southern hemisphere, being on the other side of the seasonal see-saw.

Posted in books, Canada, celebration, inspiration, politics | Leave a Comment »

Persuasion without communication?

2009/11/10

Dale McGowan has an excellent series of posts underway at his Meming of Life blog. In particular, these two on “siloing” have caught my attention: “Silos” and “Unsilos“. In them, he discusses our tendency as humans to build communities of like-thinking people around ourselves so much that we cut ourselves off from people who disagree, becoming unable to communicate and empathise with them.

I do it as much as anyone else, and I’m quite conscious of it.

Which is why (among other things) I read several blogs written from well outside my own particular silo.

Which is why I came across this very interesting idea – almost a blog-meme – from Jim at Quodlibeta:

What three books would you recommend to people who disagree with your religious beliefs, whatever they are, and why? 

(Note that Jim got the idea from a political blog – clearly the concept applies to any kind of silo.)

Now, my recent experience of trying out a book recommended by a thoughtful religious friend was somewhat disappointing. (I discuss it in a series of posts starting here.) But the idea of trying to reach across communities of thought appeals to me, so I clicked through from my reader to check out the comments.

The first comment jumped out at me for two reasons.

One, it recommends “John Earman’s Hume’s Abject Failure: The Argument Against Miracles – To finally blast Hume’s argument to oblivion.” Hume’s thoughts on miracles have seemed like pretty basic common sense to me, ever since I first read them (here):

“… no testimony is sufficient to establish a miracle, unless the testimony be of such a kind, that its falsehood would be more miraculous, than the fact, which it endeavours to establish … When anyone tells me, that he saw a dead man restored to life, I immediately consider with myself, whether it be more probable, that this person should either deceive or be deceived, or that the fact, which he relates, should really have happened.” 

I think this is a common element in many skeptics’ rejection of religious claims. So it’s probably worth my time to check out Earman’s book – just in case Hume’s argument does have a fatal hole that only an ‘outsider’ might notice.

And the other thing that jumped out at me from this comment was the following recommendation:

Anything from Nietzsche – To show the only viable alternative. 

In the context of the post, this probably means either the only viable alternative to Christianity or to belief in some god more generally. My immediate reaction was to turn off. Nietzsche as the only alternative to theism? Obviously, this person isn’t interested in understanding me, so why should I try to understand him.

But, remembering Dale’s thoughts about siloing, I realized that someone else’s insensitivity is not an excuse for me to shut down discussion. So I think I will have a look at Nietzsche. I also (gently, I hope) pointed out how that comment sounded from my perspective.

Also, with care (given my rebuke of the Nietzsche idea), I offered my choices of books. I reproduce my comments here for your consideration:

—–

A fascinating challenge. I don’t tend to try to persuade people, but I am very interested in helping people to understand my position.

To that end, I would include a good book on humanism, such as Richard Norman’s On Humanism.

If my interlocutor didn’t accept evolution, I would be tempted to include Dawkins’ The Ancestor’s Tale. (I recommend it even to people who accept evolution, because it’s an awesome pilgrimage through the details of our biological history.) However, I suspect that just the author’s name would be a roadblock to persuasion. So I’d probably try something by Carl Sagan (Demon-Haunted World) instead.

And I’d recommend a practical book on skeptical thinking, which is more important to me in terms of persuading others than religious belief or non-belief, though the two are of course related. Probably Ben Goldacre’s Bad Science.

—–

Okay, now you give it a try. What three books would you recommend to someone in a different silo, and why? Have you read the books I mention? Did they persuade you of anything? Why or why not?

Posted in beliefs, books, inter-stuff, persuasion | Leave a Comment »

Five influential female authors

2009/09/10

Here’s an internet/blogging meme coming via Ken at C. Orthodoxy. It asks us, as the post title says, to name five female authors that have been influential to us.

As the father of a precocious almost-two-year-old girl, I make sure to celebrate female excellence as much as possible in order to counterbalance the undeniable tendency, here and now, for there to be more men than women in prominent positions – politically, socially, economically, and culturally.

So here goes: five awesome writers who happen to be women.*

Ursula K. Le Guin. Every book of hers that I’ve read has moved, delighted, and surprised me. She wrote The Dispossessed, the best argument for an egalitarian, property-free, anarchist society that I’ve come across (it’s a novel). She wrote the Earthsea books, easily equal to Lord of the Rings or the Harry Potter series (both of which I love) for epic awesomeness and tender humanness. She wrote an excellent version of Lao Tzu’s Tao Te Ching. (Here’s one of the verses from it, which I quoted from here.) There are more, but I think I’ll let you discover them for yourself. Le Guin’s influence has been to show me that bold ideas don’t preclude humble values like compassion and human vulnerability. Most of the science fiction I read growing up (and there was a lot – I was that kind of kid) was written by men from a particular era. At the risk of sounding sexist, it shows. Action, adventure, sex, but not much quiet humanity. Le Guin taught me that, even in genres like science fiction and fantasy, even when your characters include hermaphroditic psychics living on a planet of snow and ice or powerful wizards who can command the elements with arcane words, there is space for a fully human narrative. (There are male authors who I would rank close to her in this regard, but none quite as good at it, and anyway this post isn’t about them.)

Gloria Borden and Katherine Harris. I’m listing these two together, because they are co-authors (along with Lawrence Raphael) of the Speech Science Primer**, my first textbook in phonetics – the physical science of speech. I am now at the end of a PhD in phonetics, with a dissertation approved and bound (nice thick tome) that adds a little to the sum of human knowledge. Although the main credit for my education goes to all the in-person teachers I’ve had (several of whom were women), I have to acknowledge that this well-presented and understandable textbook gave me a level of understanding and confidence in the field that helped cement my choice, leading me into an exciting field of scientific discovery.

Marjorie Tew. We humanists pride ourselves on following the evidence. We make a big deal of the fact that modern medicine is generally evidence-based (as opposed to most types of alternative “medicine”, which are either evidence-free or based on very fallible types of evidence, such as anecdote). Tew, a statistician, followed a line of evidence in a surprising direction, and relates the story and the evidence in her book Safer Childbirth? (the question mark is in the title). In it, she presents a compelling empirical case that, in modern industrialised nations, giving birth in a hospital is not safer than giving birth at home. (For anyone interested, I related some key details of her arguments a couple of years ago in this thread at the Bad Science forums.) Her book was a large part of what persuaded Deena and me to plan a homebirth with Kaia. We are planning the same for baby #2 (due in a few short weeks). Again, there were other influences, but Tew’s approach and her arguments were an important factor in our decision.

Julia Sweeney (and here). Okay, so this may be stretching the definition of “author” a bit. I know Julie Sweeney through the audio version of two of her monologues: In the Family Way, and Letting Go of God. They are basically books, just in a different medium. Sort of. Anyway, it’s my blog, so I can choose whoever I want. Julia Sweeney’s main influence on me is through the religious monologue, Letting Go of God. In it, she recounts her journey from being a contented Catholic, through reading the Bible, encountering doubt, wrestling with it, trying out different ideas, and eventually coming out a contented atheist. It’s a fun listen. It’s also valuable because whenever she elicits laughs, they are primarily directed at her – or at ideas she entertained, or thoughts she had. Not at other people, not in a sneering “I’m better than you” way.

It is, I think, the gentlest way I have ever encountered for someone to outline why she doesn’t believe in God. Let someone laugh with you, at you, and you cease to be a threatening figure, an enemy. You become simply human, and it’s much easier to try to sympathise with someone who’s simply human than someone who is speaking as a scientist, or as a philosopher (or, perhaps, as a blogger). Goodness knows I have nothing like Julia Sweeney’s talent for humour, but whenever I think about engaging a religious believer in discussion about topics we differ on, I think of Julia Sweeney and her approach. I think she has helped me become a more friendly humanist.

So there you have it. Five women whose writing (or similar creative output) has influenced me. One author of fiction, three scientists, and a performer/autobiographer.

The five women I’ve talked about above have influenced me, but their influence pales next to that of the women I know and have known in person – family, friends, colleagues, teachers.

Also, though I celebrate these women and their influence on me, I do it because of what they have done, not just because they are women. I hope that, as she grows up, Kaia will find inspiration and perhaps role-models in women like these, but also in men who write influential, inspiring, interesting, or great things. Or even humble things that nevertheless make our world better.

* I couldn’t find photos for all five, so I’ve decided to leave this post image-free. You can see some of them by following the links provided.

** I’m linking to Amazon’s listing of the 3rd edition of the Speech Science Primer, which is the one I used. There are more recent editions that you should look at if you are considering buying the book: speech science is a dynamic field, and some of what they had to say in 1994 is out of date now.

Posted in books, education, entertainment, inspiration, Julia Sweeney, science, science fiction, skepticism, Ursula Le Guin | 1 Comment »

What does Blanchard teach us? (5 of 5)

2009/08/24

This is the fifth and final part in a series discussing John Blanchard’s book, Does God Believe in Atheists? In this post, I wrap up the discussion and try to derive a positive lesson from it all. The previous posts can be found here, here, here, and here.

Blanchard’s complete disregard for the other side of the story has completely turned me off. He doesn’t really try to understand evolution before attacking it. He doesn’t really try to understand humanism before attacking it. He gives only a cursory pass at each of the religions he dismisses as deeply flawed.

And so I have no interest in reading on to see why he thinks his own beliefs are so much better.

Blanchard uses his impressively extensive reading as a way to gather quotes around which to build straw men. I suspect that he generally doesn’t realize he’s doing this. He probably believes that folks like me really do hold the mickey-mouse philosophy he labels “humanism”. But that’s no excuse: it’s his job, as an author aiming to engage me, to actually know where I’m coming from. He doesn’t have to agree with me; I enjoy a couple of blogs by committed Christians who I often disagree with. But he does have to show some effort to understand where I’m coming from.

I (along with most atheists) am not certain there is no god. I have come across credible humanist approaches to the idea of “truth” in a largely material model of consciousness. I invite Blanchard to try reading any of the accessible introductions to Humanism that have appeared recently. Try On Humanism by Richard Norman (my own first exposure to the philosophy of Humanism). Try What’s it all about? by Julian Baggini. Heck, even try reading (really reading) The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins – even that has a more plausible and nuanced atheist perspective than the one Blanchard conjures up to attack.

What Blanchard teaches me is not that Christians, or religious people, are lazy thinkers. It’s not that humanists are superior to folks like him. We’re not.

The lesson is that humans are lazy thinkers. I have fallen prey to the same types of errors that I have criticized in Blanchard’s book, and I am bound to do so again. (See here for a recent example on this very blog.)

We (humans) like to give the benefit of the doubt to arguments whose conclusions we already agree with, and we like to see the worst in arguments that lead where we don’t want to follow. I’m more likely to double-check sources when I disagree with someone than when I agree with them. Hopefully, the knowledge that our critics are watching, combined with the conviction that we are fallible, will teach us all to be more careful in avoiding these errors.

Another reason for these posts is that, sometimes, I simply need to vent. Although I want to present as positive a face to the world as possible – to exhibit “exemplary behaviour”, as my parents always exhorted me growing up – I also want to present an honest face. I want you, my faithful reader, to know that I sometimes get pissed off. I get angry when someone trashes my beliefs.

But please also note that, when I get angry, I try to respond with reason and compassion. I have tried to give Blanchard the benefit of the doubt – though sometimes that means assuming he’s lazy rather than malicious. I have tried to produce coherent, logical arguments for my position, with pointers to good-quality references where relevant.

For some non-partisan discussion of some of the issues raised here – such as the nature of humanism, the religious implications of the evidence for our biological history (evolution), and details on other religions, I heartily recommend www.religioustolerance.org. It is run by the Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance, a team of individuals with different religious beliefs, who seek to promote tolerance through understanding. Have a poke around there for more details.

And, as always, the comments are open. If I’m wrong in what I say above, tell me.

Posted in books, creationists, evolution, John Blanchard, philosophy | 1 Comment »

Does Blanchard understand other religions? (4 of 5)

2009/08/17

This is the fourth part in a series discussing John Blanchard’s book, Does God Believe in Atheists? In this post, I discuss his presentation of religious beliefs which differ from his own. The previous posts are here, here, and here.

This entry in the series is very short. There are two reasons for this. One is that Blanchard himself doesn’t spend much time on the topic. The other is that not much needs to be said in response (from the humanist perspective at least – I imagine the Mormons or the Muslims might have more to say).

Blanchard spends very little time outlining the beliefs and practices of a number of non-Christian religions, as well as some Christian sects that he considers “atheistic” (remember his “everyone else” definition of atheism).

On the one hand, I tend to agree with him that there is very little reason to accept any of these religious beliefs as true. On the other hand, from what little I know of Mormonism and Islam (two of the groups on his list that I’ve had some contact with), he’s not terribly careful about presenting the beliefs as the believers understand them. (Sound familiar?)

It is illuminating to see other religions through Blanchard’s eyes. To him, their faults can be summed up as “not like what I believe”.

Which may illuminate why he defined atheists as “everyone else” to begin with. He’s not interested in how I, or my Mormon neighbours, or my Muslim neighbours, see the world. He’s interested in reinforcing his us-versus-them idea of Christianity.

Next up: What does Blanchard teach us?

Posted in books, John Blanchard, religion | 2 Comments »

Does Blanchard understand humanism? (3 of 5)

2009/08/10

This is the third part in a series discussing John Blanchard’s book, Does God Believe in Atheists? In this post, I discuss his presentation of humanist thought. The previous posts are here and here.

I hoped that Blanchard’s knowledge of philosophy would be better than his understanding of biology. And why not? Many people who are experts in one are completely uninterested in the other.

But then, many people can’t be bothered with either good science or good philosophy – both of which require them to be open to the possibility that their preconceptions are wrong.

As early as the introduction, we get strong indications that Blanchard might not be speaking to atheists after all. In a bid to pin down terminology right from the start, he decides to define atheism in a way that would be unrecognizable to most people who call themselves atheists. First, he defines theism with a list of fourteen characteristics that add up to Christianity (p21). Fair enough.

Then he defines atheism as everything else.

What???

I challenge Blanchard to produce a Muslim, a Hindu, or a Mormon who is willing to self-identify as an atheist. I challenge him to produce a self-identified atheist who group their beliefs in common with Muslims, Hindus, and Mormons, but not with Christians.

If we define God in the way I have suggested, our second proposition, which says that most people in the world are atheists, comes into play. (p23) 

So Blanchard is consciously setting up a Christians-against-the-world picture of religion and atheism.

Let’s set aside this staggering redefinition of terms, and look at what he says about humanism in particular.

Blanchard relates the tale of Galileo being forced by the Roman Catholic church to recant on the Copernican heliocentric model of the solar system. He correctly notes that it’s commonly repeated in atheist circles. Why do we rehearse this story so often?

This story is worth telling because it is sometimes used by humanists to argue that science gets rid of God. (p157) 

No. Its most common (and entirely appropriate) use in humanist contexts is to demonstrate how belief in God has been used as an excuse to impede science and to deny or ignore the physical evidence. Another point of the Galilean drama is that science offers natural explanations for things that had previously been attributed to God. That is, it makes unbelief more plausible. It does not make unbelief necessary.

On to modern secular humanism …

In John Gerstner’s words, ‘secularism in simpler language is merely worldliness; or “this-worldliness” in contrast to “other-worldliness”. This one-world-at-a-time philosophy sees the future as an irrelevance, if not an impertinence. (p161) 

Yes, secularism focuses on the world we experience rather than the world some imagine might come later. How does that bit about the future come in? I can only imagine that he’s referring to the afterlife. Well, the afterlife may be the most important part of the future to a theist, but to atheists there is still plenty of future that we are concerned about in this world, in this life.

It gets worse.

He goes through some of the articles from the 1973 Humanist Manifesto II. Now, as a humanist, I don’t necessarily agree with all of its statements (though I support the main themes). Blanchard seems to neglect the fact that, as a non-dogmatic worldview, humanism fosters a great variety among its adherents. The Manifesto is not a statement of faith – it is entirely unlike the 1910 statement of Five Fundamentals of Christian doctrine after which fundamentalists were originally named.

But setting that aside, what does Blanchard have to say about the content of the Manifesto?

He quotes the first article of the Manifesto:

We find insufficient evidence for the existence of a supernatural; it is either meaningless or irrelevant to the question of the survival and fulfilment of the human race. 

Okay, I agree with that, though a negative statement is not what I would put first. I am not, as a humanist, primarily concerned with any of the myriad things I don’t believe; I’m more interested in testing and applying those things that I do believe and value. But god-belief is relevant in that many people do believe in the supernatural, so communicating our position invariably includes pointing out how and why we differ.

Note, also, that the first article of the Manifesto is four paragraphs long. His quote is picked from the middle of the second paragraph. How does this article begin, you might wonder?

In the best sense, religion may inspire dedication to the highest ethical ideals. The cultivation of moral devotion and creative imagination is an expression of genuine “spiritual” experience and aspiration. 

Such an olive branch contradicts Blanchard’s general theme of selfish and anti-religious humanists. Why might he ignore this important bit of text in one of his chosen sources on humanist attitudes?

Instead, he mentions Ludovic Kennedy, a humanist who, in 1997, was working on a book to “definitively disprove the existence of God”, and then declares, “The non-existence of God is not being floated as a possibility, or as a theory which is open to discussion or examination; it is being asserted as an article of faith.”

There are probably some humanists who, like Kennedy, are sure that there is no God. Not so many as Blanchard seems to assume, I think. Certainly, the Manifesto implies nothing of the sort. Even arch-atheist Richard Dawkins, in his most polemic book, The God Delusion, declares himself only about a 6 on a scale from 1 (strong theist) to 7 (strong atheist): “I’d be surprised to meet many people in category 7, but I include it for symmetry with category 1, which is well populated.” (p51) Note also that, in that book, Dawkins does discuss and examine the hypothesis of a god’s existence, as have many writers before him. Contra Blanchard, it is a theory being subjected, by humanists, to empirical enquiry, and not an article of faith.

(Blanchard’s book came out several years before The God Delusion, so it would be unfair of me to criticize him for not noticing this particular comment of Dawkins. However, Dawkins’ declaration makes one wonder to what extent even the most vocal atheists fit Blanchard’s caricature of dogmatic unbelief. I mention Dawkins because he is a high-profile atheist, and thus the sort of person that even a haphazard researcher like Blanchard might come across when forming his opinions. Blanchard is clearly not talking about him. He is clearly not talking about me – I’m a 5 or 6 on Dawkins’ scale, for what it’s worth. I wonder what atheists he thinks he is talking about?)

What does Blanchard make of the second article in the Manifesto? Here is the bit he quotes:

As far as we know, the total personality is a function of the biological organism transacting in a social and cultural context. 

Blanchard manages to reduce this statement to “humans are just machines”, which is a good metaphor when used responsibly, but is a gross distortion of what the Manifesto is saying here. Then he raises the observation that we have not created a machine that is very much like a human, as if that refutes the idea presented in the Manifesto (or his distortion of it). If the irrelevance of his observation is not crashingly obvious to you, please let me know in the comments and we can address it.

I could go on, but I think the whole line of irksome misunderstandings Blanchard commits can be summed up in one line. In this passage, he has just asserted that the idea of “truth” becomes meaningless if the mind contemplating it is “just a machine”.

No humanist has yet been able to produce a credible response to that.” (p168) 

He seems to feel roughly the same about every major tenet of humanism that he comes across.

Here’s the problem: Blanchard hasn’t been trying to find humanists’ credible responses. Or at least, he’s not reporting them. Throughout this section (and the one on evolution), what we see is Blanchard reading a text with an eye always on finding the flaw in the humanist’s or the biologist’s perspective, but always failing to see what people – the evolutionary biologists or the humanists – actually believe (or even say).

Next up: Does Blanchard understand other religions?

Posted in books, John Blanchard, philosophy, Richard Dawkins | 5 Comments »

Does Blanchard understand evolution? (2 of 5)

2009/08/03

This is the second part in a series discussing John Blanchard’s book, Does God Believe in Atheists? In this post, I discuss his presentation of the theory of evolution. If you missed it, you may want to read the introductory post first.

In order to keep this post as short as possible, I provide links from this post to two of the most accessible and useful online sources of information on evolution: Wikipedia and the Talk Origins Archive. Links to the Talk Origins pages use a small (TO). All other links in this section are to Wikipedia articles. Please follow them for substantiation of my claims.

The scientific consensus on the basics of evolution is sound. It is based on mountains of empirical evidence, including molecular (genetic) evidence, comparative physiology and geographical distributions, and fossil evidence.

Even so, some people – particularly members of certain religious groups – remain unpersuaded. Blanchard is one of those people.

At one level, the existence of a god is a completely separate question from the manner in which life has developed over Earth’s history. So for someone to raise the topic of evolution in an argument against atheism means one of two things: either they believe in a conception of a god that conflicts with the physical evidence on which evolutionary theory is based, or they have an impression of the theory of evolution as something other than what it actually is. Or both.

It’s clear early on that Blanchard is guilty of at least the second error:

No longer limited to biology, evolution has become a total philosophy which claims to explain the origin and development of everything within a closed universe, and thereby to rule out the existence of God. (p83) 

No, no, and no.

No, the theory of biological evolution that got its start with Darwin and Wallace has not become a philosophy, nor come to encompass other disciplines. It remains a theory about how species change over time. Other uses of the term evolution in science include chemical evolution (abiogenesis) (TO), stellar evolution, and galaxy formation and evolution. These are separate topics; the evidence supporting them is largely separate from the evidence supporting (biological) evolution.

No, none of these theories, either individually or taken together, explains the origin and development of everything. That is one of the goals of science, but no credible scientist claims to have achieved it yet.

And no, sciences do not rule out the existence of God (TO). They may, in their progress, disprove (or cast reasonable doubt on) certain claims made by humans on behalf of God – such as a geocentric universe, a young Earth, separate creation of similar species, and so forth. And of course, people can extrapolate beyond the science. Dawkins points out that “Darwin made it possible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist,” because it revealed an alternative to the argument from design.

Blanchard goes on to present misleading arguments that are tiresomely familiar to those who care to learn about evolution.

For example, he describes Piltdown Man (TO) and Nebraska Man (TO) – famous hoax fossils. He plays down the fact that it was scientists, judging the evidence in light of evolutionary theory, who established them as hoaxes. With these and other examples, Blanchard declares that the fossil evidence is not enough to establish common descent.

I suspect he’s wrong, but whether he is or not, there’s a far more obvious flaw in his reasoning.

He’s implying that fossils are the crucial evidence for evolution. They aren’t. They never have been. In the The Origin of Species, Darwin focused on morphological patterns of relatedness and geographical distribution in modern species and genera (see here and here) – patterns which remain unexplained except in the light of common descent. Modern biologists spend much of their time with molecules: the genetic code confirms patterns of descent predicted by Darwin’s earlier methods.

Fossils are wonderful. They invariably support an evolutionary explanation of species development. And, in showing what animals (and occasionally plants) actually looked like, they satisfy human desires for a physical manifestation of the past. But organisms only fossilize under particular, rare conditions (TO). So we expect “gaps”. Even Darwin was aware of them, and (correctly) didn’t feel they undermined his argument. Fossils neither make nor break evolutionary theory; they simply support it.

In summary, Blanchard colossally fails to demonstrate a basic knowledge of why evolution is accepted by biologists. Without that knowledge, he has no hope of persuading a moderately-informed audience that there are deep flaws in evolutionary theory.

So far, he’s failing to engage this atheist; he’s just making me seriously doubt the rigour of his research.

Next up: Does Blanchard understand humanism?

Posted in anti-science, books, creationists, evolution, John Blanchard | 5 Comments »

Does God Believe in Atheists? (1 of 5)

2009/07/27

As a humanist, I am vividly aware that none of my knowledge is infallible. None of it. I must always be open to the possibility that any of my beliefs – from the most mundane to the most fundamental – could be wrong.

So, when a friend offered to lend me the book Does God Believe in Atheists? by Christian apologist John Blanchard, I was delighted to accept. The cover claims that the book “exposes the errors of secular humanism, materialism, relativism, determinism and existentialism”, “traces the rise of Darwinian evolutionism and uncovers the weaknesses in claims made by its contemporary exponents”, and “highlights the fundamental flaws in nine world religions and fourteen major cults.”

What’s more, a promotional blurb from Today proclaims that “John Blanchard masterfully engages both Christian and unbeliever alike.” So I had every reason to expect a robust challenge to my ideas.

Well, not every reason.

Shouldn’t a book that masterfully engages nonbelievers be able to muster at least one endorsement from an actual atheist for the cover? A quick web search throws up plenty of Christians’ reviews of the book, but none by atheists (except some unimpressed reviews on Amazon).

And there’s that quip about “Darwinian evolutionism”. Something about people using non-standard terms for biology’s grand unifying theory puts me on alert for misrepresentations of its substance.

Also, why bother talking about cults and other world religions when the thrust of the book is clearly to weigh the relative merits of atheism and Christianity?

Okay, simple solution. Before embarking on a cover-to-cover voyage through this good-sized tome (it’s about the size of my hardcover copy of The God Delusion), I checked the three areas that I was worried about – areas where I would be able to judge from my own knowledge whether Blanchard was putting an honest effort into engaging my worldview.

In a series of weekly posts, I will address each of these areas.

I’ll look at what Blanchard says about evolution; I’ll look at how he characterizes humanism; and I’ll look at why he’s spending time on other religions.

I hope that, along the way, I can help my non-humanist readers understand humanism (and evolution) a little better. I also hope that we can get a better idea about how to actually engage people of opposing beliefs (or at least, how not to engage people).

First up: Does Blanchard understand evolution?

For readers who enjoy this sort of thing, I also recommend Ebonmuse’s extensive and (currently) ongoing discussion of Lee Strobel’s book The Case for a Creator, over at Daylight Atheism. 

Posted in books, John Blanchard | 5 Comments »

Ook ook!

2009/04/14

Sometimes, I decide to share something which contains no intellectual contribution, no illustration of the value or comfort or truth of the humanist life.

Sometimes, in short, I just want to hoot and holler and make sure my fellow apes notice me.

The latest addition to our home humanist library arrived yesterday. It’s Dale’s new book, Raising Freethinkers.

I haven’t read any of it yet – I’ll make sure to get some sort of review up when I do.

In the meantime, let me give you the two items that are sure to be highlights.

One is where he mentions the HSS Thought for the World campaign (which I’ve discussed a couple of times on this blog). And who do you think got into the list of “British humanist thinkers” that have been featured in “this brilliant podcast”, alongside people like Stephen Law, Nigel Warburton, and (he says with a slight gasp of awe) A. C. Grayling? Me, myself, and I! (see page 244, last paragraph).

The other is in a list of “Twelve Blogs for Us” (start of chapter 9, pages 233-235). On it – on this printed list of blogs that are personally recommended by Dale McGowan, the indisputable leader of online secular parenting inspiration (just read some of his blog entries and you’ll agree) – on this list is this very (occasionally) humble site. And, because I’m letting my inner ape shine through, I’m going to share Dale’s description of this blog:

The blog of a smart and (yes) friendly Canadian humanist in Scotland. One of my favorites for quiet intelligence. 

Sigh. Thankyou Dale, for feeding my inner ape.

Now, back to some more quietly intelligent content…

Posted in books, Dale McGowan, me | 4 Comments »

Spirituality of the Rainbow

2009/04/06

A rainbow is a beautiful sight.

Rainbows have inspired people for ages, spawning many myths and poems.

There are those who think that knowledge of how a rainbow works somehow destroys that beauty. Here are some lines from Keats’ poem, “Lamia”, lamenting Newton’s insights into optics that let us see inside the workings of the rainbow:

Do not all charms fly
At the mere touch of cold philosophy?
There was an awful rainbow once in heaven:
We know her woof, her texture; she is given
In the dull catalogue of common things.
Philosophy will clip an Angel’s wings,
Conquer all mysteries by rule and line,
Empty the haunted air, and gnomed mine—-
Unweave a rainbow, as it erewhile made
The tender-person’d Lamia melt into a shade.

I can almost understand his sorrow – mystery is beautiful, and when knowledge expands, mystery seems to retreat.

But what a narrow view of the world, to think that more knowledge, more understanding, somehow robs the world of its mystery and its beauty. Let me relate a personal account.

It begins with a book, whose name is taken from the passage above. In Unweaving the Rainbow, Richard Dawkins shows not only the glory and delight of discovery that lies at the root of scientific pursuits. He gives us a glimpse of the deeper beauty revealed by those pursuits.

He reminds us (for example) that Newton’s work on optics has been carried on. We now know that visible light – spanning the colours of the rainbow – is but a tiny slice of a great continuum. The electromagnetic spectrum extends off the red end of the rainbow into infrared and radio waves. Off the other end, we get ultraviolet, x-ray, and gamma waves.

The rainbow we see is only a fragment – the tiny slice of that greater spectrum, visible to our pragmatically-evolved eyes.

I was on a train, some weeks after reading Dawkins’ thoughts. Looking out the window, I saw a rainbow, gliding along the nearby hills, keeping pace with us. It was soft and faint, as beautiful as the first rainbow I ever saw as a child.

But this time there was something more. As I stared at it, I thought of it not simply as a strip of colours, but as something greater and deeper – the full spectrum of light. Of course, I still didn’t see those other colours. Knowledge had not altered my eyes at all. But it was as if I could almost feel them.

Like when you hear a loved one walk up behind you. All that you physically sense is the sound. But you know what they look like, how they walk, how they stand. How tall they are. How likely they are to tickle you if they get close enough. With the sound of their steps and their breathing, your mind calls up all of this knowledge, filling in the experience for you so that you can almost see the person behind you, almost feel their movements and expressions.

In just that way, I felt the invisible rainbow filling the sky outside my train – down to the centre of the arc and out as far as the sky went. It was magnificent. Such glory; such encompassing beauty.

Beauty that I would never have known if the rainbow had not been “unwoven”.

Thankyou, Richard Dawkins, for helping me to see this. Thankyou to every scientist who gives us the chance to see the unseen, hear the unheard, touch the untouchable.

We are, and forever will be, surrounded by a sea of mystery. What delight to be able to reach into it, to see the wondrous glory that is only accessible by the tools of science – Keats’ “cold philosophy”. Cold? The thought of all the knowledge, all the enrichment of subjective experience that science can give us, warms my very being.

I wish I could show Keats the rainbow I now see, thanks to scientists like Newton. But I’ll have to content myself by sharing it with you. May you feel the same exhilaration I feel at the sight of every rainbow!


Photo credits:

The rainbow images are from the Wikipedia article on rainbows. The first is public domain; the second is licenced under an Attribution ShareAlike Creative Commons licence by its creator, Eric Rolph.

The spectrum illustration is from the Wikipedia article on the electromagnetic spectrum. It is licenced under an Attribution ShareAlike Creative Commons licence by its creator, Tatoute.

Posted in books, inspiration, Richard Dawkins | 4 Comments »

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