Rachel’s Musings

I just got the latest eSkeptic, a weekly email sent by the Skeptic Society. Michael Schermer has just edited a pamphlet for the (gasp) Templeton Foundation entitled “Does Science Make Belief in God Obsolete?”. Although I think that Schermer made the skeptic equivalent of a Faustian bargain, and with that gave Templeton false credibility, the question is interesting, especially in light of many religious-wrong groups’ argument that science undermines religion. Since Templeton has enough money, the essays are available for a free read online…

The full list of essayists includes:

On the “Yes” side

• Victor Stenger: Yes. Worse. Science renders belief in God incoherent.
• Steven Pinker: Yes, if by science we include secular reason and knowledge.
• Pervez Hoodbhoy: Not necessarily. You must find a science-compatible God.
• Stuart Kauffman: No, if we redefine God as creativity in the universe.
• Chrisopher Hitchens: No, but it should.
• Michael Shermer: It depends: belief no, God yes.

On the “No” side

• Mary Midgley: Of course not, belief in God is not a scientific question.
• Kenneth Miller: Of course not. Science expands our appreciation of the Divine.
• William D. Phillips: Absolutely not! Belief in God is not a scientific matter.
• Robert Sapolsky: No. Belief offers something that science doesn’t.
• Jerome Groopman: No. Not at all.
• Keith Ward: No.
• Christoph Cardinal Schönborn: No.

I agree with Victor Stenger’s answer and highly recommend his book God: The Failed Hypothesis. It makes a very good case on why science can indeed say something about the existence of God, though we have to carefully define God and set up clear hypotheses that can be tested. If we accept that premise, and Stenger makes a convincing case, we can test God’s existence like any other hypothesis. There is overwhelming evidence that the hypothesis of God’s existence is wrong. After reading Stenger’s book, I feel that any other argument is intellectually dishonest. Maybe I need to read Ken Miller’s answer…

I also like Steven Pinker (PDF) summary sentence at the end of his short but thorough answer:

Science, in the broadest sense, is making belief in God obsolete, and we are the better for it.

Ken over at Open Parachute wrote a very good post about the climate changes we are facing. His summary does an excellent job of countering the arguments of climate change deniers.

Of course I had to add my 3 cents mentioning a couple of articles from the current issue of Skeptic Magazine.

There are a couple of interesting articles in the Skeptic magazine. One of them is arguing that

The claim that anthropogenic CO2 is responsible for the current warming of Earth climate is scientifically insupportable because climate models are unreliable.

IF I understand the article correctly (and that is a big if - I got somewhat lost), the author claims because climate models don’t predict well (your point 4), humans are not causing climate change. Obviously, this would confuse prediction with explanation: Even though we might not predict future climate well, as the other article points out, the models of historical climate change are pretty darn good but only if they take human generated pollution into account, which echoes what you wrote again in point 4.

I’d love to see other people’s interpretation of these articles, especially the first one. I am still hoping that I misunderstood something… Somehow, an article by a climate change denier in a skeptical magazine doesn’t seem too appealing…

There is also an interesting older episode of Point of Inquiry with Bill Nye in which he takes issue with climate change deniers.

Richard Eckersley presents in his book Well & Good “two scientific descriptions of the world, which represent the extremes of the modern scientific worldview” (220). At least that is his claim. He first presents a description by Richard Dawkins from his article God’s Utility Function in Scientific American:

In a universe of electrons and selfish genes, blind physical forces and genetic replication, some people are going to get hurt, other people are going to get lucky, and you won’t find any rhyme or reason in it, nor any justice. The universe that we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil and no good, nothing but pitiless indifference.

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Ken at Open Parachute pointed out a post on Uncommon Descent that tried to show the absurdity of the claim that Darwin was necessary for the Holocaust. DaveScot pretended to call for papers that could be published in a science journal. As DaveScot stated in a comment to Ken’s post, even though the blog is promoting intelligent design, he intended to show “that the theoretical connection between Darwin and holocaust is not science, no legit science journal would ever publish it, and every rejection would be valid.”

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While I think it’s probably too simplistic to think that most of the big issues we’re facing today can be traced back to one source, I do think that there is a lot more interconnectedness than we would like to admit. What are the big issues we’re facing, what are the symptoms of the malaise that has no name yet?

Here are some I could think of:

• Global warming
• Overconsumption
• Increasing debt both consumer and national
• Decrease in marriage rate/increase in divorce rate
• Increase in depression
• Depletion of natural resources
• Contamination of soil, water, and air
• Overpopulation
• Increase in work hours

Of course these are interrelated, you’ll say. Because we consume so much, we’re depleting our resources, contaminating everything, and create global warming! Yes, that’s true. I would like to step back a bit further, though, and ask why: why are we consuming so much? What need(s) are being met here? Certainly marketing and advertising have something to do with it but again, I don’t quite buy the story of need-creation. I don’t think marketers can create a need out of thin air. I do think that they can take a need and redefine it so that it will be met only if you buy a certain product. And I think there are some very fundamental needs that our modern society does not meet in the most direct way. The two fundamental needs that are not being met well are belonging and meaning.      Continue reading this post » » »

While leaving Buddhism behind, I thought that at least meditation might be something useful to keep. Jon Kabat-Zinn developed a secular version of meditation with his Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction program. MBSR seemed to be based on clinical evidence. Yet, while paging through Mind Myths, I came across a section written by Barry L. Beyerstein entitled “Is Meditation Good for You?” (You can read the whole chapter online.) Although, he focuses on Transcendental Meditation - simply because it is billed as scientifically grounded - Beyerstein makes the point that meditation as a relaxation technique is no more beneficial than simply relaxing. He writes:

Reviewing the literature on the alleged psycho-therapeutic benefits of meditation, Delmonte and Kenny agreed that meditation can help induce relaxation and alleviate mild anxiety, but they concluded that “there is no compelling evidence that meditation is associated with unique state effects compared with other relaxation procedures.”

I can only find citations of the 1985 Delmonte and Kenny study online and the only full one is in French. But trying to find their article led me to another meta analysis of research on meditation from 2007: an evidence based report from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. The abstract cautions:

Many uncertainties surround the practice of meditation. Scientific research on meditation practices does not appear to have a common theoretical perspective and is characterized by poor methodological quality.

In their executive summary, they write that

the results of the three highest quality trials [...] examining, respectively, Mindfulness meditation, RR [Benson's Relaxation Response], and Yoga are inconclusive with respect to the effectiveness of meditation practices. [...] The therapeutic effects of meditation practices cannot be established based on the current literature.

It looks like meditation is just another tool that can be easily packaged and therefore sold. Thus it is purported to be better for us than simply sitting in a comfy chair with a cub of hot chocolate and a good book, or listening to relaxing music, or just staring into the clouds. Now I wonder if there is anything left in Buddhism that is worth exploring in the modern world…

Update: Please see this comment to find out more about newer studies (and the follow-ups). Unfortunately, these studies were presented at a conference and are not peer-reviewed. The summaries, except for one, do not include information on sample size, so it is difficult to assess if these newer studies are indeed addressing the concerns raised in the meta-analysis cited above. Benedict Carey wrote an interesting piece in the New York Times about the increasing use of mindfulness meditation in therapy despite the lack of scientific studies supporting its usefulness.