But now on to the real topic of this post.

When BraveHumans was started about a year ago, its goal was to provide a space for differing views to be expressed in the hopes that dialogues could be generated between people of differing views. It has met with some limited success, in that views have been expressed and dialogue has been generated. Some of this has been positive, some less so. It has been an interesting year.

In the coming year, BraveHumans could continue along its same course. Anyone who wants a voice can make posts, and anyone who wishes can make comments, as long as it is civil. But BraveHumans could also become something more. Which raises the question, dear readers: what would you like to see BraveHumans become? What type of community would you like to see BraveHumans support? Should BraveHumans try to expand to have greater influence in the blogosphere, or should it fade into the noise?

I have my own ideas, but I’ll add them to the comments. I encourage you to add your ideas as well.

Be Brave. Be Human.

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Just place letters to congress and responses (or links) in the comment section, and I’ll organize them as they come in.

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On one such blog, Paleo-Future, I discovered this link to a wonderful Disney animation about futuristic transportation, “The Road Ahead,” from the idealistic and optimistic eyes of 1958. Despite the flippant tone of the title to my post, I find it sad to see the futuristic visions of that era and realize that not only have we not lived up to those visions, we’ve actually made things worse in our attempts to make them reality. A lot of that, I believe, is due to the naiveté of those dreams. For instance, when you watch the clip you’ll see a section on the cars of the future - and how they will be fueled by petroleum products including jet fuel (yet no mention of the solutions to the problems that pollution will cause), followed by being powered by the atom (with no mention of how to create safe atomic energy vehicles), and finally the “sun-powered electro-suspension car.” What they didn’t know was that by the time we got to the flying solar car, we’d have already begun poisoning the planet with the petrol and atomic energy!

Another thing that strikes me about this futuristic vision is that the prediction for what would happen to our cities has actually come to pass. “Decentraliz[ing] our population centers into vast, urban areas” would be the result of miles and miles of super-highways criss-crossing the U.S. And look what we now have: urban sprawl that in some places has decimated downtown areas, producing isolated cul-de-sacs instead of neighborhoods, and self-enclosed gated communities at least twenty minutes by car from the nearest grocery store. Shopping centers now stand where farmland once existed, surrounded by acres of parking lots, congested access roads, and not a pedestrian in sight. Notice on the graphics for that section in the film that there are no sidewalks present. No one is walking! Everyone’s riding a pod car through tubes or sliding along on enclosed moving sidewalks. It looks damn cool, but, again, the prediction didn’t take into account how obese Americans would become with the lack of necessary everyday exercise (and the exorbitant cost of health care that would result). I can speak from personal experience on this: when I lived near Boston and took the train in every day, I was on my feet walking to and from the T and work and bus or parking lot. Two years later, after moving to Columbus, Ohio, a notorious sprawl-ridden metro area, I had gained 10 pounds because I DROVE EVERYWHERE - there is little option for walking to the store, bank, etc. because many of those suburbs don’t even have sidewalks for pedestrians. It’s all about the car and the super-highway, as “The Road Ahead” had predicted.

Apparently in the world of the future, the gender roles and racism of the 1950s don’t change. The man does the driving and works at the office; the woman is a housewife who goes shopping and cares for the kids. Apparently, in the idyllic world of the future, one-income families can afford all the luxuries described in the film. Oh, if only it were true! Not that I’m advocating the strict gender roles of the ’50s, but it would be nice to have some options for one parent to take care of the home while one goes out to earn the Almighty Dollar and still afford to live in the lap of such luxury. And of course, it goes without saying that all the people in this film (and others like it) are white; apparently the vision of the future didn’t include people of color. So, while maintaining an almost manic level of optimism, this vision was far from realistic. No one could foresee the societal upheavals of the 1960s and 1970s, and how they would change our national consciousness forever.

I suppose I am fascinated (read: obsessed) with this paleo-future stuff because I feel let down that we didn’t do a better job of managing all this optimism and futuristic planning. Although I was born in 1968, the optimism for the future was still alive for me as a child during the 70s, and these kinds of images were still available and somehow seeded into my consciousness. My parents were from the WWII generation, as well, so I suppose that’s another influence. Even the Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote cartoons from the ’50s I watched as a kid helped to cultivate this futuristic vision, albeit from a comical perspective (remember the giant electro-magnet which was supposed to capture Bugs Bunny who had eaten the iron carrot? The Coyote instead got a cave full of tractors, satellites, rockets, radio towers, and ocean liners, with air raid sirens screaming in the background). Somewhere in my little head I was branded with this idealistic vision of what the future would be, combined with a more modern sense of values and mores. Ironic that 1968 was also the year “2001: A Space Odyssey” was released – a film about the dehumanized future we were building up to, entirely dependent upon computers and machines for our survival.

I am disappointed that our society has become dirtier, uglier, and people seem more disconnected than ever. To some degree, we have fulfilled the vision of the future – it’s just that we’ve fulfilled the darker, seedier outcomes of the technology proposed at that time. We just didn’t realize all of the negative consequences of pursuing those dreams. In a word, it was short-sightedness that ultimately destroyed that optimistic dream of the future. We’ve started to catch up with those predictions, technologically speaking, and looking back, we can see how blind we were to the consequences and limitations of the technology. In a way, ignorance was bliss; without concerns for the environment or our own health, there were no limits to the imagination. But in other ways, we were extremely limited, because the future only belonged to a select few.

I don’t mean to be completely bleak and depressing, or to come down on technology as a force of evil in the world. On the contrary, I have hope that we will turn things around, still, through more conscientious applications of science and technology. Who knows, we may yet have our flying solar cars. In the meantime, we have these artifacts from our past of the future that never was. Perhaps they will inspire other generations to achieve a more humane and technologically viable vision, in the spirit of “new hopes, new dreams, and a better way of life for the future.”

Sources:
Paleo-Future
2719 Hyperion

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Have you ever thought about where your hands came from? Naturally, you got your hands from your parents. They gave you the DNA which determined the size and shape of your hands. All the muscles, bones and tendons in your hands were honed by natural selection to the form you have today. Your DNA contains the entire history of life on earth from its early beginnings more than 3.5 billion years ago to the present day. It is a profound concept when you think about it, but that is just part of the story.

Your muscles, tendons and DNA are all made up of oxygen, carbon, iron, and a dozen other chemical elements. Where did they come from? It turns out that oxygen, carbon and iron all trace their origin to nuclear fusion within the hearts of stars. Long before our solar system formed, ancient stars burned brightly, their cores fusing hydrogen and helium into all the useful elements we see around us. But as with all things, their life came to an end. When large stars die, they rip themselves apart in what are called supernovae. All that carbon, oxygen, iron and more are cast out into space, creating large regions of gas and dust called nebula. About 5 billion years ago, a humble star we call the Sun formed within such a nebula. The Earth and all the other planets of the solar system formed from the dust left over from the Sun’s formation. Your hands are made of stardust, formed in the hearts of long-dead stars. All the atoms and molecules from which you are made were created long before the Sun ever shined its first light.

But where did those long-dead stars come from? The earliest stars formed within galaxy-sized clouds of hydrogen and helium. The hydrogen and helium were formed about 14 billion years ago. At that time the universe was much more dense, and much hotter than it is today. We think of space as being cold and empty, but at that time the entire universe was about as hot and dense as the surface of the Sun. We still see the remains of that period as the cosmic background radiation. This radiation has cooled over time as the universe expanded, until now it is a weak echo of its former intensity. It looks like this:

This is a picture of the universe when it was only about 400,000 years old. Everything you see around you, from your hands to the most distant galaxy is in a sense contained within this picture, because everything traces its origin to that ancient fireball.

When you look at your hands, you are looking at atoms which are billions of years old, some of which are among the oldest atoms in the universe. They have been a great many things, from stars to planets. They have been living things and ancient stones. Before they became a part of you, they were most likely wheat, or apples, or chickens. That is, until you ate them, and they became a part of you. These ancient elements will eventually continue on their way, leaving you to continue on yours. But for now, they are your hands.

But where did this early fireball come from? Before this period, it was too hot and dense for atoms to form, and so the universe was a sea of protons, neutrons and electrons. This period lasted for most of the first 400,000 years, leading back to the first moment of the universe. In that earliest moment the universe was so hot and dense that even protons, neutrons and electrons couldn’t exist. What happened before that is complicated and somewhat speculative. Our concepts of matter, energy and even space and time start to break down. What we do know is that in the earliest moment of the universe, it was very very dense, and very very hot.

We call this period of time the big bang. Most people think of the big bang as some grand explosion, but that is the cartoon view of things. In actuality, the big bang describes this early moment of the cosmos. Matter, energy, space and time all wrapped up in this cosmic origin. But if everything in the cosmos began with the big bang, where did THAT come from?

That’s an excellent question.

Last time I discussed now neuroscience shows us that that we are not soul puppets, nor are we computer brains. We are instead sentient forms through which matter flows. I referred to our forms as souls, and not everyone approved. Fair enough. What I didn’t discuss was the whole philosophical rabbit hole of what “we” or our “soul” may or may not be. The main reason I didn’t go into it was that concepts of the soul are almost always supernatural. For something to be supernatural, it must lay beyond scientific study. There are several interpretations for what that means, and they strike at the heart of the conflict between science and faith.

The most even-handed interpretation would be to say that science defines the boundary of what can be objectively said about reality. Anything which can’t be objectively quantified may or may not exist. In this view, the soul may or may not exist, but also the Flying Spaghetti Monster may or may not exist. Within reason, this is the scientific position. I say within reason because there comes a point where an unverified claim becomes so ridiculous that scientists don’t give it serious credence. Young-earth creationism, faked moon-landings, and Santa Claus all fall into this category. So does God for many scientists. Where that line of absurdity is drawn varies among scientists, but your average scientist places the bar much higher than the general population. This is why scientists are often seen as closed-minded or overly skeptical, particularly by those of certain religious persuasions.

I mention all this because we have reached the point where that line of absurdity is front and center. And that is, where DID the big bang come from? I’m sorry to say I don’t have a solid answer for you. I’m also sure that many of you reading this do have a solid answer: God.

Genesis 1:1 is very clear: In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. Surely the origin of everything must be God. To say otherwise is to cross the line of absurdity.

But that line isn’t the same for everyone. One could just as easily ask, if God created the universe, where did God come from? If God didn’t need a creator, then maybe the universe doesn’t need one either. It all depends on where you draw that line of absurdity.

What science has to say about the beginning is this: In its earliest moments, the universe was an intense concentration of, for lack of a better word, light. From that light came everything we see around us, from smallest particle to furthest galaxy. Everything is made from that first light. We are the light of the universe. We are the universe made manifest.

Pretty awesome when you think about it.

So what does it all mean?

That’s an excellent question.

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Last time, I discussed how our understanding of the brain is incompatible with the idea that we are souls in machines. I also hinted that things are not quite as clear as they seem. This lack of clarity has to do with parts and wholes. Like the fish mentioned above, when we reduce the brain to parts, something seems to go missing. We call it consciousness.

The biggest difficulty with consciousness is that it is an internal experience. We know when we are conscious ourselves, and we can reasonably assume others experience consciousness in the same way, and yet consciousness cannot be objectively seen, measured or quantified in any precise way. When we observe brain function as a whole, we are reduced to watching people’s behavior in the hopes of inferring the inner workings of the mind. With MRIs we can watch regions of the brain light up when we engage in certain behaviors. As a result, we understand how different regions of the brain generate various functions and behaviors.

When we reduce the brain to parts, we understand things extremely well. The brain consists of neurons, which connect to each other via synapses. We have about a hundred million neurons, and more than a quadrillion (10¹⁵) synapses in our brains. We understand how neurons and synapses work. We understand how neurons communicate with each other. What we’ve found is that thoughts are sparks of electricity traversing a vast neural network. Ideas flow from one region of the brain to another. What we think, what we feel, and who we are is a lightning storm of sparks.

How then do we go from simple neurons to a conscious being? The short answer is we don’t know. This is not to say we know nothing. We actually know a great deal about how the conscious brain works. For example, we can watch the brain shift from rational problem solving to unconscious. fear-driven survival mode. We have learned that consciousness is not an on or off state, but rather comes in varying degrees.

But when we go from whole to parts, whatever it is that “we” are seems to go missing.

There are some who look at this mystery and declare that there lies the human soul. But to take such a position is to declare that the human soul is trapped by ignorance. It is slowly killed off as science discovers new pieces to the puzzles of the mind. A “soul of the gaps” isn’t very satisfying. Neuroscientists are convinced that mind and brain are one of the same. Our thoughts, feelings and personality are all emergent properties of neurons and synapses. There is mystery to the brain, but no magic. There is no ghost in the machine.

But of course, evolution tells us that we are not machines. We are organisms connected to the world around us. In the same way, neuroscience tells us our brains are not computers. We do not follow blind programming, following some sort of decision tree. Instead our brains process information holistically, and the choices we make are likewise holistic. There is no single switch which makes us choose option A over option B. Our brains also do something computers generally don’t. Because the connections between neurons strengthen and weaken depending on how they are used. This means the structure of our brains are affected by the ideas flashing around our head. Our brains shape our thoughts, and our thoughts shape our brains.

It is a subtle and beautiful picture of ourselves. Not machines, not computers, but sentient living creatures connected to the world around us. Still this is small comfort to those who seek a soul which transcends the physical world. We may not be machines, and yet science still seems to tell us that in the end we are no more than flesh and blood. Atoms, molecules, neurons, synapses. Parts.

And yet that isn’t what we are at all.

Growing up, I spent most of my summers at that lake in Minnesota. One of my favorite memories is when I would take the canoe out on the lake around twilight. Usually, in that hour between light and dark, the lake would take on a glass-like calm. It was then that you could paddle out onto the lake, gliding through the water with the only sounds being the whoosh of your oar, the occasional glup of a fish eating at the surface, and the lonely calls of distant loons.

When you paddle through calm water, the water rushes in behind your oar creating vortices. This always happens. It is basic physics. But in calm water you can see these spirals of water clearly, and they can last a very long time. The interesting thing about these water spirals is how they spin through the water. You can watch them form, drift slowly, and die as if it is a single entity.

But in reality, these spirals are a form the water takes. The spiral is made of water, but not the same water for its whole existence. Water molecules are caught up by the spiral, make a swirling dance within it, and then return to the stillness of the lake. The spiral moves on, flowing through the calm.

Humans, as with all living things, are much the same. Our bodies are a dance of atoms and molecules. We move through the world as a single pattern. But the physical world flows through us. The air we breathe, the food we eat, the water we drink, becomes a part of us for a time. They join us in our dance only to leave after a time. We flow on until, like spirals of water, we fade into the calm.

We are not simply atoms and molecules, neurons and synapses. We are a form the physical world takes. Break us down into parts, and you will find nothing but parts. But to do so means losing our form. It is this form which represents the essence of who we are.

Our souls are not hiding in our bodies. Our souls are our bodies. Our souls are spirals in the universe.

But if this is so, what happens when our spiral fades back into oblivion? Is it possible for our form to survive beyond our fading? This is a question philosophers and theologians have pondered throughout the centuries. It is a philosophical rabbit hole, and like Alice we could pursue the white rabbit down the hole if we wish.

Or perhaps to find out where we are going, we need to look at where we’ve been. For that, we need to go back to the beginning. But that is for next time.

Be Brave. Be Human. Flow.

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Although intelligent design advocates claim to be doing real science, the real purpose of intelligent design is to counter what is seen as materialist (i.e. atheistic) science. It was developed as part of a Wedge Strategy initiated by the conservative Christian think tank known as the Discovery Institute. The purpose of the wedge strategy is to cast science, particularly evolutionary science, as an anti-Christian dogma propagated by followers of the “religion” of atheism. It is the Discovery Institute which came up with the brilliant “teach the controversy” strategy.

In order to work as a political strategy, intelligent design must be careful to always appear neutral on the issue of the what the intelligent designer actually is. This is why the “intelligence” of intelligent design is always kept intentionally vague. We could have been manufactured by aliens from Zeta Reticuli for all anyone knows. But of course if we were created by space aliens, who created the space aliens? They couldn’t have just evolved naturally, because ID states very clearly that evolution doesn’t work. The only way out of this is to place the intelligence outside the realm of the physical universe. It must therefore be a supernatural intelligence. This supernatural intelligence must also be capable of interacting with the physical universe in order to build and assemble all the “irreducibly complex” creatures we see around us.

The intelligence of intelligent design has to be God.

Of course, advocates of intelligent design can’t call their designer God. If they did, ID would be revealed as religious faith, and it would never have a chance at being taught in public schools. So instead, ID proponents focus their energy on casting doubt on evolution, hoping that the public will view evolution as a tenuous model with no real basis in factual observation. Unfortunately their strategy is working.

Viewed honestly, intelligent design is simply creationism molded to fit the facts. Creationism spread across millions of years rather than in six days. Like intelligent design, creationism also holds that we were manufactured. The book of Genesis tells us “And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.” Our bodies are meat manufactured from dust, but we are the breath of God. We are the ghost in the machine.

The concept of the human soul evokes a certain poetry and beauty. It speaks to us on an emotional level. From a scientific perfective, however, the soul is deeply problematic. Perhaps the biggest difficulty is the fact that a soul is considered to be entirely non-physical. It can’t be seen, heard, smelled, measured, or detected in any way. Yet despite its incorporeal nature, the soul somehow acts as the invisible puppeteer. It is the man behind the curtain, pushing the buttons and pulling the levers of the great and powerful Oz.

Viewed scientifically, the soul is an invisible, non-physical entity that does, well…nothing. Because not only is the soul not seen, what we can observe of the modern brain indicates there is no central control mechanism. The brain is an integrated system of neurons and synapses which as a whole drives our actions.

There is a good analogy to be made between creationism vs. evolution and the soul (or mind-body dualism) and neuroscience. Before the development of evolutionary biology, the cause of life’s diversity was anyone’s guess. It was perfectly reasonable to presume that there was some creative act, since that explained things as well as anything else. But once the evidence for evolutionary science was in place, even asserting the gradual creationism of intelligent design is in disagreement with the facts. The same is true with neuroscience. When the mechanism of the brain was poorly understood, dualism and the soul worked as well as any other idea. But we now understand the mechanism of thought. We can scan the brain as it thinks and reacts. We have a solid understanding of how the brain reacts under the influence of drugs. We can even induce hallucinatory experiences via magnetic fields. The idea of a soul which controls our actions is as superfluous as the idea that we were built by space aliens.

This is not an idea that makes people comfortable. It is probably even more discomforting than the concept of evolution. It is one thing to say you are cousins to monkeys. It is quite another to say you have no soul.

It is interesting to note that while groups such as the Discovery Institute are vocal in their opposition to evolution, they are silent on neuroscience. Each directly challenges traditional Biblical interpretations, but neuroscience is more esoteric, and so remains unopposed. No one argues that we should teach the controversy in a psychology course.

But if neuroscience is true, where does this leave us? Having learned through evolution that we are not machines, it seems we are forced to accept that we are only meat. Grown meat, with a deep connection to the meat around us, but lacking a soul.

It seems we are again faced with the choice. Science and a brutal acceptance of the facts, or faith held in contradiction to what science clearly shows us.

Except things aren’t quite as clear as they seem. Just as evolution shows us that we are not machines, neuroscience has a story to tell as well. But I’ll leave that for next time.

Be Brave. Be Human. Think.

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When you think of evolution the image which probably comes to mind is that of a fish flopping out onto land, which then magically grows feet, becomes a dinosaur, then a monkey, and finally a human. In reality, this view is more of a cartoon version of evolution.

Like any scientific field, evolutionary biology is full of twists, wonders and mysteries. But the basic idea of evolution is quite simple. The principle of evolution can be summarized quite succinctly.

First, start with the basic observation of life:

1. Living organisms reproduce.
2. Reproduction is imperfect (i.e. mutations occur).
3. This results in a variations among living things.

Add to this some basic physics:

1. Living organisms require energy and resources to survive.
2. Energy and resources are finite.
3. Therefore organisms must compete for energy and resources.

From these two simple facts, one comes to an obvious conclusion:

1. In the competition of life, a variation can be advantageous (or neutral, or disadvantageous).
2. Organisms with an advantageous variation are more likely to survive and reproduce.
3. The process of variation and competition results in natural selection.

What we call evolution is simply natural selection over time. That’s it. The rest is, as they say, details.

There are some important points to keep in mind about evolution. To begin with, unlike the cartoon view of evolution, individual organisms do not evolve. Evolution occurs within and between species, not individuals. Another point to keep in mind is that evolution is not evolving toward some goal. Species don’t start evolving legs because they will need them in 1000 generations. Also, while variation is largely random, natural selection is not. Natural selection is the filter which removes disadvantageous variations and allows advantageous variation to build upon itself. Finally, it is important to keep in mind that the theory of evolution does not address the origin of life. The study of how life arose from non-living matter is a completely different field of study, known as abiogenesis.

Evolution has been observed both in the lab and in the wild. It is so well documented that even advocates of creationism and intelligent design concede that living things evolve. Where they part company with evolutionary biology is on the question of whether evolution is the ONLY mechanism for generating the diversity of life we see around us.

Evolutionary biology states very clearly that evolution is the only mechanism by which diverse species arise. This hypothesis has been verified countless times, which is why we call evolution a theory, not just a model. Evolution accounts for drug resistance in staph germs. It explains the fossil record. It is verified by DNA sequencing. There is simply no case of an organism or living mechanism which could not be derived though natural selection.

Proponents of intelligent design disagree. They argue that evolution could not possibly account for every diversity of life. In support of their claim, they look for examples which demonstrate “irreducible complexity.” Originally proposed by Michael Behe, the basic premise of irreducible complexity is that certain living things contain contain multiple interacting parts which could not have evolved in tandem. Remove a single part, and the whole system collapses. Since it couldn’t have evolved, so the argument goes, it must have been designed by some unspecified intelligence.

Proposed examples of irreducible complexity include the eye, the blood clotting cascade, and the bacterial flagellum. In all of these cases scientists have found mechanisms by which evolution can account for them, and so irreducible complexity is generally viewed as so much weak tea. Scientists generally place intelligent design in the same recycle bin as the caloric model of heat which held that heat was an invisible fluid which flowed from hot things to cold.

For many people, intelligent design has a certain appeal. People generally don’t like the idea that we have monkey cousins, and they certainly don’t like the idea of a universe without God. It gives parents an out. They want their children to learn about science, but they also want them to grow up to be God-fearing Americans. Nobody wants their children to be taught that life is a meaningless struggle to propagate DNA. Advocates of intelligent design frame themselves as standing in opposition to atheism and nihilism, which they think evolution represents.

It is ironic then that atheistic nihilism is exactly what intelligent design proposes. The basic premise of intelligent design, as I mentioned earlier, is that evolution cannot account for all organisms. Some organisms must have been designed. Not only that, since they didn’t arise naturally they must have been manufactured. Intelligent design advocates would probably prefer the term “created”, but the result is the same. Their argument is that some intelligence built us. Evolution can’t account for us, so an extra-terrestrial intelligence must have assembled us from parts. When we design and build things we call them machines. Robots, if you will. So what advocates of intelligent design are really proposing is that we are nothing more than meat robots.

Evolution says something very different. Meat we may be, but we are decidedly NOT robots. We are organisms. We are not manufactured items with no heritage and no connection to the world. We grew in our mother’s womb, just as she grew in her mother’s. We have a lineage which traces back through time. One which we share with all living things on our planet. Life begets life. Life changes and adapts. Life finds a way.

Despite this beauty, evolution remains plagued by the common view that it somehow strips humanity of its dignity or value. How are we supposed to give our lives meaning if our only purpose on this planet is to keep our DNA from becoming extinct? What possible purpose could life have if evolution is true?

It raises an interesting question, but one for another time.

Be Brave. Be Human. Evolve.

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Personally, I’m more in the former camp than the latter, but I also part company with them in some ways. Most significantly is in recognizing that our philosophical context is fundamentally connected to our approach to science. We can’t separate our philosophy from our scientific interpretations. The best we can do is recognize what our philosophical foundations are and be mindful that there are other views in the world.

One way to do this is to examine the philosophical views of scientists throughout history. In so doing we often find that scientific philosophy has always been more subtle and complex than we might expect. A good example of this can be seen in Isaac Newton. Newtonian physics represented a triumph of theoretical and empirical science. With it you can predict the motion of everything from planets to baseballs. It is so accurate that we can use it to land spacecraft on Mars with pinpoint precision.

Within half a century after Newton’s work, the philosophical view of science underwent a revolution. No longer was the universe chaotic and unfathomable. Instead it was a great machine. A clockwork universe where Newton’s physics worked as gears and springs. For some, Newton included, this was clear evidence of Divine power. Newton was deeply religious, though his theology was unorthodox and would have been considered heretical for his day. For him, the clockwork universe was definitive proof of God. The planets moved with mathematical precision because God held them to their course. Without God, the universe would collapse into chaos.

But others did not share his view. The mathematician Laplace, when asked about the existence of God is said to have replied “I have no need of that hypothesis.” The philosophy of Laplace held that a clockwork universe proved God did not exist. The machinations of the universe churn ever onward, without God’s intervention. God becomes superfluous, since order and structure is all we ever need.

Between these two views arose a philosophical middle ground, that of Deism. This was a view held by many of the founding fathers of the United States, including Thomas Jefferson. The philosophy of Deism held that the universe in its present form is indeed a clockwork machine, but that God was the creator of the machine. God invented the laws of physics, set the universe in motion, and then left it to its own devices.

All three of these are in complete agreement with what we observe in the modern world. In each of these philosophies Newtonian physics works equally well. But these three views also diverge significantly on matters of faith, and on what is physically possible. Consider, for example, the miracles of Jesus as described in the Gospels. Miracles are perfectly consistent with Newton’s universe. Since God is needed to constrain objects to their proper motion, God is also free to relax this constraint so as to allow miracles to happen. In the universe of Laplace, the Bible is mostly fable, and the miracles it describes are nothing more than false legends. In Jefferson’s universe, miracles become more ambiguous. If God set the universe in motion, he could intervene miraculously, making course corrections or adjusting the machine from time to time. But Jefferson, like most Deists of his time, did not subscribe to this view. For Jefferson, God’s interaction was a one time deal. For this reason, Jefferson saw the miraculous side of Jesus as allegory rather than literal truth. Jefferson even went so far as to rewrite the Gospels with the miracles expurgated, leaving only the teachings and history of Jesus.

If we were to ask a dozen people to consider their philosophical views of science and the nature of reality, I suspect we would get two dozen answers. I have no doubt that all of us hold a mish-mash of philosophical views, many of which are vague or even contradictory. I also suspect that there is a division in the views of scientists versus non-scientists here in the States. It seems to me that most Americans hold views somewhere between Newton and Jefferson. A mostly mechanical, sometimes miraculous universe which God created. Most scientists, on the other hand probably range between Jefferson and Laplace. If God exists, he is a distant king outside of time and space.

In the debate on science vs. faith, scientists (myself included) like to argue from the basis of evidence and facts. We don’t like arguing about philosophy or meaning, because that leads to a lot of “anyone’s guess”, or “I don’t knows”. It isn’t that we don’t like mysteries, in fact mysteries are what drive us to seek answers. There are a lot of interesting mysteries in science that we find fascinating, but we don’t usually talk about them outside of scientific circles. So in talking to the general public, we are most comfortable talking about what we can quantify, which is theory, fact, and evidence.

And therein lies the difficulty many scientists have in conveying science. Most people care about meaning much more than evidence. Their religious, philosophical and political views are chosen primarily by what speaks to them on an emotional level, rather than a cold analysis of objective evidence. This is not to imply that most people don’t look at evidence, but rather they tend select evidence that supports the view they like, while questioning evidence they don’t. It is known as confirmation bias, and we are all guilty of it to varying degrees. The process of science, with its repeatability and peer review is designed to eliminate confirmation bias as much as possible, and scientists are trained to be mindful of such biases. We are trained to be convinced only by the evidence, and so we often assume everyone works solely on evidence. They don’t, and it is difficult for many scientists to wrap their heads around that fact.

Regardless of which camp they are in, scientists generally agree that something needs to be done. Support for science in America is on the decline. More and more, people see science in opposition to their core values, and they see scientists as amoral at best. On the other side, a growing number of scientists take the view that one must choose between a rational view of evidence or a demon haunted world of myth and superstition. Both views argue that you are with us or against us, and you have to choose. Such an approach is not constructive in my view. Divisiveness may be human, but it isn’t brave.

So where to go from here?

I’ve thought about this long and hard over the past several months, and I’ve come to the conclusion that what we need is a scientist with the soul of a poet. Carl Sagan comes to mind. If we want people to regain an interest in science, then scientists need to start talking about meaning again. We need to speak on more than just an intellectual level. We need to evoke the beauty and wonder of science. We need to stop avoiding the mysteries and their philosophical implications.

Unfortunately no poet-scientist seems to be around. Instead we are left with the Richard Dawkins style of rationalism and ridicule.

I’m not a poet. Hell, I’m only a marginally competent writer. I can be arrogant and condescending, and I am deeply encamped in the scientific world view, but I am human, and I will try to be brave. So I will try to hold the candle until someone better comes along.

In the next several posts I will try to convey some of the meaning and implications of science. I will talk of evidence and meaning, of miracles and machines, and I will try to make it relevant. But I can’t do it alone. So I’m asking readers out there to help me. Help me to understand what people want to know about science. Help me to convey science more clearly and more effectively.

If you are willing to help, I am willing to listen. Maybe together we can find science a muse.

Be Brave. Be Human.

Brian

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I’m not familiar with the customs in other parts of the world, but here in the United States Halloween is a time for costumes and trick-or-treat. It is also a time when we bring out many of our fears, real or imagined, about death, spooks, and spirits. It is a time when it is okay to be afraid of the shadows.

It is therefore perhaps serendipitous that on this Halloween I came across a new image in the fight against terrorism. Meet the new logo from the CIA. The Terror Busters:

One can’t help but notice the similarity to the old Ghostbusters logo:

When I first saw the TerrorBusters logo, I thought it was a joke. But the above image comes straight from the CIA website. It is real.

What isn’t clear to me is the purpose of the logo. Perhaps it is simply a light-hearted way to represent their very serious jobs, a kind of inside joke to relieve stress. Still, I can’t help but think that in many ways the logo represents what the terrorists have become. Spooks which hide under our beds or in our neighborhoods, waiting to do us harm while we sleep.

Then again, maybe there is something I am missing. What are your thoughts?

Credits: The terror busters logo comes straight from the CIA. The Ghostbusters logo was found at Wacky Neighbor.

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Here’s a simple way to find out. Go to Pick Your Candidate, answer a few basic questions, and get an answer. It might surprise you.

Now given my liberal and intellectual afflictions, you won’t be surprised that my top candidate happens to be on the left. Right now, Clinton appears to be the strongest Democratic candidate, so you might figure she’s the one who most agrees with me.

Nope. She happens to be fifth.

Edwards? Nope, he’s fourth. Obama only rates third on my list.

The person at the top of my list happens to be Kucinich.

Does that mean I’m a radical nutcase lefty? Very possibly. But what is interesting is that of the more than 150,000 surveys submitted Kucinich tops the list. I suspect that one important factor here is that the type of people who take such online surveys tend to be more left-leaning, so it shouldn’t surprise anyone that the democrats lead the pack on the survey. It is also obviously true that a single survey will never be entirely reliable. You could probably also argue that the survey is biased, based on the type of questions it asks, and how it asks them.

Still, for me Kucinich is a surpise. I would have figured myself more along the lines of Edwards or Obama. I actually haven’t given Kucinich serious consideration, because I don’t honestly think he has a chance.

What do other Brave Humans find from the survey? Who might be in the running if we picked the candidates?

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