No essay today; some days several things I read on the several dozen websites I check daily relate, or one special item is worthy of response, and other days that doesn’t happen.
I have however expanded the Links column considerably today, gathering bookmarks from my work computer and my home PC, that I still think are valuable. I may have a few more on my laptop.
Lawrence Krauss, physicist and cosmologist and author of The Physics of Star Trek and A Universe from Nothing, responds in The New Yorker about Matthew McConaughey’s reference to God in his Oscar award acceptance speech.
Apparently there was a Twitter kerfuffle from right-wing commentators to the effect that the Oscar Awards audience didn’t applaud *enough* to McConaughey’s speech, as if to diss his reference to God.
Krauss responds that far from that expression of faith being an exception, it’s more the rule –- Hollywood makes films directed at the faithful (it’s in the business to make money, after all, and the faithful are in the majority), and it’s atheists who are demonized in popular culture, including films.
Jerry Coyne thinks Krauss protests a bit too much, but doesn’t disagree. Hemant Mehta has a more interesting insight into why there are no Hollywood films about atheism — religious stories are better stories. And there are so many of them lately.
Think about this: “Noah” is an interesting story. “Son of God” is an interesting story. “Heaven is for Real” is a *very* interesting story. Ditto with “The Ten Commandments” and “The Passion of the Christ” and, hell, even “Left Behind: The Movie.” I’m not saying the stories are true or that I liked those films or that they were good stories, but those stories are compelling to a huge number of people. They’re not films about Christianity, per se, but films inspired by it. In many cases, they’re about people who happen to be spiritual/religious. In all cases, though, they tell a story.
Whereas,
[T]he problem with movies about atheism: They all tend to be about why religion is wrong and atheists are right. And no one wants to watch that (except for those of you reading this).
This is consistent with McRaney’s notion that human begins have an impulse to try to understand everything in terms of narrative — stories. (The simpler the better. Science is hard!)
And this topic dovetails neatly with the impending premiere of the new Cosmos TV series, which this Washington Post article identifies with a generation of “atheists, agnostics, humanists and other ‘nones.’”
Among this group, many credit Sagan and the original “Cosmos” with instilling in them skepticism of the supernatural and a sense of wonder about the universe. Both, they say, encouraged their rejection of institutional religion.
Sagan was careful never to criticize anyone’s religious beliefs; he let the immensity and wonder of the universe speak for itself.
But a review in Slate of the new show finds this version more explicit and confrontational about the conflict between science and faith, as a “pushback against faith’s encroachments on the intellectual terrain of science” in the last thirty years. The new show’s method though is similar to the original’s:
Cosmos is offering viewers a way to reconcile science and faith: Don’t let your god be too small.
…Cosmos is trying to encourage all remotely reasonable people, god-fearing or otherwise, to look up at the stars.
As I said in a previous post, the original Cosmos wasn’t a game-changer for me the way it seems to have been for others; it confirmed that path I was on, that the story of this immense, ancient universe, is a far better story than the creation parables of Bronze-age tribes. And the story through science is verifiable.
And I try to keep in mind that the notion of being an ‘atheist’, and railing against the silliness of religious beliefs (which is too easy), is a negative position which likely to sound mean and is not likely to evoke much sympathy, even from those on the edge. I need to try to promote the alternative: reason, evidence, reality, and the wonders that science has revealed, and will continue to reveal.
And science fiction can be a curative. Plan to bring the focus of this blog back to that.
I look forward to the new Cosmos series and wonder/hope it might be as influential as the original series was.
Gradually consolidating bookmarks I have on three different computers (one at work, two at home), into the right sidebar here. Added today, some science sites, including Astronomy Photo of the Day, and a couple comics, xkcd and Jesus and Mo.
And this cool site: Information Is Beautiful.
Eventually I’ll also post some static pages (linked at the top, alongside Home), of general principles and resources. Though as a first cut, I endorse Adam Lee’s Statement of Principles.
Slate’s Nathaniel Frank has a long, impassioned article today about The Shamelessness of Professor Mark Regnerus.
Regnerus is the guy whose study about gay parents, financed by anti-gay organizations and roundly rejected by sociological organizations as deeply flawed, is still cited by anti-gay-marriage forces as the best they can come up with about the supposed harm to children raised by gay parents. This week, he’s testifying in the state of Michigan’s defense of its ban of same-sex marriage (the latest of many such trials).
There’s one problem: Regnerus’ research doesn’t show what he says it does. Not remotely. No research ever has. Yet Regnerus, unchastened by a chorus of professional criticism correctly pointing out the obvious flaws in his work—including a formal reprimand in an audit assigned by the journal that published his piece—continues to make these groundless claims, knowing full well they are baseless.
As I mentioned in a previous post, the critical flaw in his study is that he attributes the effects on children of having gay parents to the effects on children of having parents who separated from their former spouses and found new partners — which is to say, in a sense, ‘broken homes’. He had virtually no data about kids raised in stable, same-sex households. (No doubt because such households have been rare, but that doesn’t excuse his misrepresentation.)
Why does he persist? Frank points out that
It’s clear that Regnerus, a conservative Catholic who has acknowledged that his research is informed by his faith, conducts his studies in an effort to block gay marriage. It’s equally clear that anti-gay bias shapes his beliefs more than concern for kids and families.
And Frank makes a point that Dan Savage made earlier today in his coverage of this Michigan trial.
If Michigan believes that children have a right to be raised by their married biological moms and dads… why is it legal in Michigan for straight couples with small children to divorce? Why is it legal for single people to adopt children in Michigan? Why is it legal for single women to undergo IVF in Michigan? Men who get women pregnant in Michigan are not legally obligated to marry the mothers of their children and single women in Michigan who get pregnant are not legally obligated to marry the fathers of their children. Michigan wants to see children raised by their biological moms and dads but the state only penalizes same-sex couples—and most same-sex couples do not have children, most have no plans to have children, and same-sex couples never have children by accident.
Somehow Christians are very concerned about gay parents but not so much about single parents or divorced parents. Not legally.
Also a link to one of John Corvino’s great videos.
As in so many issues about Christian animus toward the modern world, I am reminded, as other commentators have noted, of the commandment, one of those ten, about not bearing false witness. Not misrepresenting. Not lying. How do these people reconcile their actions in light of obvious evidence that what they are doing is misrepresenting? Are they dimwits, or are they hypocrites?
Jerry Coyne discusses the Bryan College issue.
Bryan College forces its faculty to swear to historical existence of Adam and Eve
Coyne is not only a *real scientist* but also a guy willing to address the arguments of those with whom he seriously disagrees, to the point of reading the books of creationists and Christian apologists, for example, and responding to them in detail. (I don’t know how he finds the time!) He is not an ‘accommodationist’, as that term is used to imagine that science and religion are in any way compatible; the same reasoning that leads to scientific conclusions leads to the only reasonable conclusion that the existence of any kind of traditional ‘god’ is exceedingly unlikely. (Some reasonable commentators disagree, like Phil Plait, though perhaps only as a ploy to the public to not reject science, as if you can have it both ways; I am on Coyne’s side in this.)
Re: Adam and Eve. As Coyne has discussed before, modern genetic analysis shows that the human race, given its present genetic diversity, cannot have derived from a group anytime in the past few million (let alone thousand) years smaller than some 2250 individuals. Which is not 2. Which is to say, the idea that humanity derived from literally *two people*, Adam and Eve, is a myth; the evidence of the world contradicts it. And this rather undermines the entire basis for Christianity to the extent that Adam and Eve embody original sin and therefore the need for redemption by Jesus.
Naturally, the faithful have various ways of trying to reconcile these conflicts, as Coyne describes in this post. Though as he remarks,
These theological gymnastics don’t convince anybody who isn’t wedded to the Christian mythos at the outset.
Some Christians just double down and insist on the literal Bible, and somehow dismiss science and evidence and rationality altogether in favor of dogma, and this is what Bryan College is now trying to enforce. Tellingly, it is many of the students – the younger people – who are objecting to this latest action. Ultimately, Coyne is optimistic (moreso than I am):
Bryan is fighting a losing battle, but it will be a long battle. These vestiges of superstition, and blind adherence to it, will eventually disappear as America becomes more secular. There will always be Biblical literalism, but I’m confident it will slowly wane. But it will wane not with the changing of minds, but over the dead bodies of its adherents, as the older generation dies off and the younger, exposed to secularism and doubt on the internet, begins to ask questions. (It’s telling that it is the students of Bryan who are the biggest protestors.) I am patient, for I know this change won’t happen during my lifetime. But I also know that in one or two centuries, Adam and Eve will be regarded as we now regard Zeus and Wotan.
Looking forward to the new Cosmos TV series, with Neil deGrasse Tyson.
The original series, with Carl Sagan, was not so much an influential event in my life as a realization and visualization and confirmation of what I’d learned to that point; it was broadcast in 1980, by which time I’d been reading Isaac Asimov and Arthur C. Clarke and Fred Hoyle and Sagan himself for 15 years; I’d read Sagan’s The Cosmic Connection in 1974, at age 19. (It was a birthday present from my grandmother, who didn’t quite realize what she’d ordered….remember the back cover of the dust-jacket?)
Today, here is a piece at Smithsonian.com about Why Carl Sagan is Truly Irreplaceable.
We live in Carl Sagan’s universe — awesomely vast, deeply humbling. It’s a universe that, as Sagan reminded us again and again, isn’t about us. We’re a granular element. Our presence may even be ephemeral — a flash of luminescence in a great dark ocean. Or perhaps we are here to stay, somehow finding a way to transcend our worst instincts and ancient hatreds, and eventually become a galactic species. We could even find others out there, the inhabitants of distant, highly advanced civilizations — the Old Ones, as Sagan might put it.
And this worldview is my own. Atheism is not precisely concordant with a realistic understanding of the size and age of the universe, but it is difficult to separate them, though some people apparently manage to do so. So this piece at Salon,
Atheism’s radical new heroes: Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris and an evolving new moral view
seems relevant here. It’s an excerpt from a book by Peter Watson called The Age of Atheists, and this excerpt nicely summarizes how writers like Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris counter the charges that atheism implies a bleak worldview: reality is more awesome, if you bother to understand it.
The Cosmos TV series did expand my sensibilities to this extent: the music of Vangelis, and Hovhaness, and of Shostakovich (the 11th symphony).
Slate: According to a New Study, Nothing Can Change an Anti-Vaxxer’s Mind
Apparently you just can’t change anti-vaxxers’ minds.
This reaction, where people become more assured of their stupid opinions when confronted with factual or scientific evidence proving them wrong, has been demonstrated in similar studies time and time again. (This is why arguing with your Facebook friends who watch Fox News will only bring you migraines.)
What is the definition of a rational mind? It seems to be that this kind of behavior certainly describes an irrational mind. How does this happen? Again, the psychological biases described by McRaney and others reveals some of it: mostly they cannot bear to think that they are wrong about something so fundamental, because that realization would undermine their sense of self-worth and throw into doubt everything else they think they are certain about; and their support of this thinking in a community of like-thinkers bolsters their commitment to in-group thinking vs the thinking of ‘others’. Bubbles.
Friendly Atheist: If Faculty Members Don’t Accept Young Earth Creationism, This Christian College May Fire Them
Bryan College in Tennessee — yes, named after William Jennings Bryan of the Scopes trial fame, or infamy — has a notion to force faculty members to sign pledges to teach nothing but the literal six-day creation story out of Genesis. Hemant Mehta concludes,
I know this won’t reach the potential students who need to see it, but this is precisely why you shouldn’t go to a Christian college. By requiring you to adhere to a Statement of Faith, whatever it says, there’s simply no room for flexibility if you ever have doubts or you want to challenge long-held beliefs. Not all Christian schools require you to preach Creationism like Bryan is about to, but college should be a place where students are made to think critically about their beliefs. Bryan administrators are telling these faculty members not to challenge them at all — the Bible says it so there’s no room to question it. It’s the opposite of preparing them for the real world. Instead, Bryan College is billing itself as the place to go if you want to remain in a Christian Bubble for life.
There’s a longish article in the Chattanooga Times Free Press, which indicates not all the faculty or student body is on board with this.
The board of trustees is requiring professors and staff to sign a statement saying that they believe Adam and Eve were created in an instant by God and that humans shared no ancestry with other life forms. If they don’t sign, they fear that jobs could be on the line.
Pledges to ideology or dogma are never a good idea. You’d think they might have learned from history.
We went to see Frozen today, the Disney animated movie, because Miyazaki’s The Wind Rises wasn’t playing anywhere quite near or convenient enough for today’s schedule, and because Frozen is apparently the favorite for the Oscar this evening… and, thirdly, because there’s been a blogosphere kerfuffle about the film’s supposed ‘gay agenda’, and I was curious to see what this was all about.
I’m afraid I didn’t see the gay agenda. Yes, there’s a stirring anthem, “Let It Go”, about accepting oneself — but in the film, it’s about accepting one’s curse and exiling oneself from family and society. Hardly the kind of situation a gay propagandist would arrange. I liked the film’s brilliant execution of standard fantasy/family drama themes — the plot and songs all play very broadly — and for its occasional stirring of cliches — how Anna is mocked repeatedly for falling in love and intending to marry a guy she just met that day, a common fairy tale/Disney film cliche. And asides for the adults in the theater; “It’s got a cupholder!”. As for the supposed gay agenda, yes there’s a campy character, the snowman Olaf, but C3PO was campy too, and no one accused Stars Wars of promoting a gay agenda.
So what then? I heard about this via a post by Rob Watson on evoL, a gay dads’ site, responding to the post by one Mormon grandmother Kathryn Scaggs. Just now I am reading the original post by this Mormon woman who took her grandchildren to see the film several months ago, in which she now expresses her grave concerns. Well, actually, skimming it — it’s very long, and she seems intent on interpreting every plot point as an analog to the position of gays in society.
I think she, as the many right-wing and evangelical critics of gays, doth protest too much. One cannot help but wonder why they are quite so obsessed with this topic. Hmm…
I will quote only Rob Watson:
Yes, Ms. Skaggs. The movie had a hidden message. It had a message of love, and hope. It had the desire to melt the closed heart and inspire it to let go, and love other people. It wants the target of its message to warm from within and to accept others as they are, and give them the freedom to live their best and fullest lives. What you got wrong is this: that message was not targeted at your grand kids.
It was meant for you.
In a thematic echo of yesterday’s post, CJ Werleman of Alternet (using language more blunt that I try to use) sees the right-to-discriminate-against-gays bills in Arizona and numerous other states as the desperate moves of a dwindling Christian right.
Dwindling Christian Right Turns Into Cornered Animal, Lashes Out at Civil Rights and Democracy
The Christian Right’s dirty little secret is they are acutely aware that changing demographics are running against them. While they may believe the earth is a mere few thousand years old, they’re not complete idiots. They can read polls, and the data tells them this: millennials are abandoning religious belief. According to a recent Pew survey, one in four Americans born after 1981 hold no religious belief, which is nearly double the national rate of atheism. Other studies confirm this trend, including a recent study by the Public Religion Research Institute showing more than half of non-religious Millennials have abandoned their childhood faith.
With this in mind, the nation’s radical religious fundamentalists see an ever-shrinking window to impose their Bronze Age worldview on the gay, atheist, liberal, immigrant, heathen, and science book-reading masses.
Despite their increasingly minority status, they manage to raise lots of money to win elections for Republicans. Werleman concludes,
While the Christian Right is becoming the dwindling minority, it remains an existential threat to civil rights, secularism and our democratic values. It’s a threat fueled by a seemingly unlimited supply of campaign finance, and a rabid base that believes it’s fighting for its place in a 21st-century world it can’t reconcile against an ancient book that says gays are an abomination. You know, like shellfish.
Meanwhile, all the usual suspects are issuing press releases (Joe.My.God is the best place to follow these) complaining that denying Christians the right to discriminate and marginalize homosexuals is oppressive *to Christians*. They’re the victims here. Of course.
