Thanks to reddit, and friends on facebook for pointing this out...

William Shatner reads Sarah Palin

Francis Collins has been appointed as head of the NIH.  There is much on-going discussion, so here is my contribution.

Why is this bad?

The reason is simple. Collins does not trust science, or other scientists. That is a harsh thing to say, but I believe it is backed by Collins' own statements.

Collins is a biologist. In fact, a biologist with pretty limited experience – medicine and molecular biology.

And yet, he feels qualified to discuss how the values of the physical constants of the universe are an indication of the existence of God. He feels qualified to say that God arranged the laws of the universe so as to produce us. Evolution isn't random – we have arisen.

Now, imagine Collins were to make statements about geology:

“God is an Englishman. Therefore, all of geology was fine-tuned so as to produce the British Isles.”

He would be a joke. An object of ridicule. So what is it about physics and, specifically, evolution, that allows people to make such absurd statements and still be taken seriously?

Collins believes he knows more about what is going on in physics than physicists. He believes he knows more about what is going on in evolution that evolutionary biologists. There is no more profoundly anti-scientific position that to make definite statements about areas of science you know little about.

I don't always agree with PZ Myers, but in this case he is spot on:

http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2009/07/monday_must_be_pick_on_francis.php

“The situation is this: the White House has picked for high office a well-known scientist with a good track record in management who wears clown shoes. Worse, this scientist likes to stroll about with his clown shoes going squeak-squeak-squeak, pointing them out to everyone, and bragging about how red and shiny and gosh-darned big his shoes are, and tut-tutting at the apparent lack of fine fashion sense exhibited by his peers who wear rather less flamboyant footwear.”

Suppose a new form of transport has just become widely popular.  It allowed people to travel very quickly on pre-prepared trackways to almost anywhere they wanted within a country.  The problem is that it isn't quite safe, and between hundreds and thousands are found to die every year using this way of travelling.  It would be called a disaster.  It would be banned.  The problem is that it has been around for over a century.  It is called 'driving'.

And so with flu.  It has been around for a very long time.  Tens of thousands die of it each year in the UK.  But now there is a new form of flu.  It may actually be milder than conventional flu for almost everyone.  But, people will die of it, just as with conventional flu.

So what is going on?

The answer is that our societies are having an allergic reaction.  We are reacting strongly to a normal new infection.  This could have serious implications.  Firstly, the idea that swine flu can be specifically diagnosed over the phone (current UK policy) is nonsense;  There is nothing to distinguish swine flu from common flu, or even a very bad common cold.  Secondly, giving everyone anti-flu drugs is worrying.  This will encourage the virus to adapt to resist these drugs.  If the virus then evolves to become more virulent, then we are in trouble. 

There is a more troubling sociological problem.  As each new death from swine flu is noted, this helps reveal the huge annual toll that normal season flu inflicts on our societies.  Will we tolerate tens of thousands of deaths annually from flu when the possibly milder swine flu has had such media attention?  Treating swine flu as if it is a national disaster will put a huge burden on health services to try and deal with a level of fatalities that for decades we have assumed is tolerable.  We may have been wrong to accept past levels of flu deaths, but to provide the resources to deal with this could be a major problem.

A really great blog post by Russell Blackford,

I do believe that religion should be challenged publicly, and I'm frankly amazed at the suggestion that nothing turns on the question of whether the epistemic content of the various religions is actually correct. Much, very much, turns on it. The Catholic Church and other religious organisations claim to be in a position to speak with great epistemic and moral authority. This enables them to pronounce in public on all sorts of issues, including abortion rights, censorship, gay rights, stem-cell research, IVF, and on and on. I can think of no more important issue for public consideration than whether or not these organisations really do possess the epistemic and moral authority that they claim - and which politicians and journalists are all too ready to assume they actually have.

Very well said, Russell.  Too many apologists try and excuse religious ideas as beyond the reach of science and even beyond reason.  That just isn't acceptable while those ideas are being used to provide people with authority.

I am as much against the intimidation of people by religious institutions as anyone, but I have some problems with PZ Myer's latest post against the Catholic Church.   For one thing, I think he has missed a key aspect of a very nasty situation.

His post is to do with the consequences of a terrible event: months ago a nine-year-old Brazillian girl was raped, became pregrant and had an abortion.  She was Catholic.  The Brazillian Church responded by excommunicating everyone involved.

Myers posts:

We now have an official document from the Catholic church clearly stating their position. Anyone involved in an abortion for any reason is to be automatically excommunicated, no exceptions. They've actually hardened their position.

Hold on a minute.  There is something odd here.  Not too long ago Myers was very visibly mocking any idea that someone should put any supernatural value on a communion host, saying that "it's just a cracker".  But now he is talking about the Church being hard on people by excommunicating them?  So Myers has changed his mind, and thinks that the views of Catholics on supernatural matters should now be taken into account?  Surely his reaction to the phrase "you have been excommunicated" should be "it's just some words"?

Aside from this, Myers does pick up on some illuminating text used by a senior Vactican official:

"We have laws, we have a discipline, we have a doctrine of the faith," the official says. "This is not just theory. And you can't start backpedaling just because the real-life situation carries a certain human weight."

Myers justifiably responds:

I see. Dogma is more important than reality, and most surprisingly for representatives of a religion that claims the moral high ground, it is more important than human needs.

The point that is being missed here is, I think, significant.  It isn't just that the Church is dogmatically standing firm.  It is that their words imply that they realise that their stance is lacking in humanity.

This makes the situation both better and worse.  Worse because they realise this and won't change their mind.  Better because they do at least see that their position can be seen as inhuman. 

This raises many questions.  Is there hope for change in the Church's position?  Can their own words be used against them here, to illustrate the lack of compassion in their position?  Do we care about excommunication (considering what it might mean to those subject to it)?

So, I managed to find out where everyone was on Sunday evening.  Some people had apparently been partying non-stop until early afternoon, so were not there.   A Guinness or two, and then on to a restaurant.  I sat between Philip and Anna.   I love hearing Philip go on about the history of the idea of Jesus.  I really enjoy people speaking about ideas with such intelligence and enthusiasm.  On the other side of me was Anna, Charla's daughter.  She was bright and witty and will clearly be someone to be reckoned with.    The restaurant was followed by some late beers, standing in the street outside a rather noisy pub.  At about 1am, I wandered back to the hotel.

I was going to catch the 14:30 ferry to Holyhead.  Everything seemed simple.  I would check out late-ish, as it was only 15-20 minute walk to the central bus station.  I had looked at the bus service website.  A bus at 13:15 would take me to the ferry port.  So, I set off.  After 5 minutes I realised I was walking in the wrong direction.  No problem.  About 20-25 minutes later, I found the bus station.  It was large.  I looked at a bus stop sign.  No mention of a ferry bus.  I walked all around the bus station, dragging my wheeled baggage behind me.  No mention of a ferry bus.  I went into the bus terminal.  There were buses at 13:15, but no mention of a ferry.  I went to the enquiries desk.  I was told 'Gate 16'.  I went to gate 16.  No mention of a ferry, but some kind of international coach check-in.  I went back to the enquiries desk.  "The bus you want probably stops somewhere near Gate 16".  I went back to gate 16.  Realising I had just one chance to catch the right bus, I walked around the bus station, found a waiting bus, and asked the driver: 

"Sorry, but they keep changing everying.  A bus used to go over there, but no longer.  You might find the stop around that road."

So I followed that road, checking stops.  For about half an hour.  Nothing.  Eventually, feeling tired, I wandered back to the bus station.  I went back again to the enquiries desk.  I thought I would try and pin them down:

"Could you please tell me what the number of the bus is that goes to the ferry port, and it's timetable?".  "Irish Ferries?".  "Yes".  He flicked through a pile of leaflets.... "No, but it's somewhere over there..".

I gave up.  I found a taxi rank.  "How much to the Irish Ferry port?".  "120 Euros".  My jaw dropped open.  "No, I'm not that bad.  Probably about 10 Euros".  I got in.  We set off.  I described my experience with the buses.  The driver replied: "Why do you think there are so many taxis in Dublin?".

I reached the ferry port in plenty of time.  Boarded.  Decided I would pay for an upgrade to the comfy chair and free food of Club Class.   It was worth it, as the journey back was not smooth.    I was counting the minutes as they passed while the boat rocked.

There was some anxiety as the baggage-reclaim as I had to catch a train from Holyhead, but I got on on time.  The return journey was awful.  It was hot, and my reserved seat was for a carriage that was not on the train, so I was stuck in a corridor with many others.  I spend much of the time struggling to stay awake, anxious to change at the right station.  However, I did have a technology triumph when a foreign couple needed to know their ongoing train journey and I found it on-line using my iPhone.  I eventually got back to Coventry, although there was a near miss at one station.

Would  do it again, even with all the travel horrors?  I would have no hesitation.  It was the best gathering of internet friends (who have now become personal friends) I have ever experienced.  It has helped build friendships that I hope will last for a lifetime.

So, I plan to organise a UK meet this autumn...

Terry Eagleton is gunning for the New Atheists.  Let's see what he is firing.

I'm going to work through Laurie Taylor's write-up of his interview with Eagleton, and then see if any conclusions can be drawn.

"Imagine," fired Eagleton, "someone holding forth on biology whose only knowledge of the subject is the Book of British Birds and you have a rough idea of what it feels like to read Richard Dawkins on theology."

This is a lovely misunderstanding of the arguments Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Daniel Dennett and others.  They aren't so much writing about theology itself.  They are trying to point out that theology only makes sense as a way of understanding reality if the subject of theology exists.  Dawkins' writings on theology may be simplistic, and that may annoy some theologians, but it doesn't matter for the message Dawkins is trying to send: theology is a subject without an object.

Further down the page Eagleton proceeds to shoot up Dawkins's failure to do justice to the complexity of the God he sought to rout ("He seems to imagine God, if not exactly with a white beard, then at least as some kind of chap"), his literality and lack of imagination ("Dawkins occasionally writes as though 'Thou still unravish'd bride of quietness' is a mighty funny way to describe a Grecian urn") and his belief in the progressive nature of history ("We have it from the mouth of Mr Public Science himself that aside from a few local, temporary hiccups like ecological disasters, famine, ethnic wars and nuclear wastelands, History is perpetually on the up").

It isn't Dawkins who consider God "some kind of chap", it is the overwhelming majority of Christians and Muslims.  The idea of God as some kind of vague creative force is not what Dawkins is dealing with, although philosophically, that idea is pretty nonsensical unless how the force can work is understood.  Also, Dawkins is not a historian.  He says nothing about progress at all.  All he has done is to discuss how the "zeitgeist" of societies can more easily change when they start to be freed from the constraints imposed by religion.  Dawkins' argument isn't about progress.  It is about freedom.  Society should not be forced to change, or constrained from change, by undue influence from beliefs that can't be backed by reasoned argument.  "God wants this", alone, not an argument.  This does not mean societies should not take into account that religious people have feelings about their religion, but that this feeling should not be privileged over any other feeling of attachment to an idea, such as passion for a political party, or even a football team. 

None of this, after all, was likely to obscure the considerably less acceptable news that I was to interview him for a magazine which not only laboured under the intellectually suspect title of New Humanist but was also a product of an organisation called the Rationalist Association. (Eagleton is particularly exercised by the New Atheists' tendency to conflate reason and rationality. "We hold many beliefs that have no unimpeachably rational justification, but are nevertheless reasonable to entertain.")

That is a very poor analysis.  The argument isn't that all beliefs should have rational justification; only beliefs that we expect to have weight in public arguments. 

After this point some interesting statements from Eagleton appear in the discussion:

I was taught by people at Cambridge who got an almost erotic frisson from the idea that they didn't know what they thought and could afford not to know. Whereas I came from a background where it was thought that there were certain things you really had to get sorted out. There's a difference between reasonable certainty and dogmatism.

This is a very strange statment considering what Eagleton says later about not knowing what theological statements mean, and certain not being interested in sorting out what they mean.

But what he can never overlook in his opponents is their failure to ever engage in intellectual debate with the likes of the Dominicans who changed the course of his own life at Cambridge. It is because they never exposed themselves to this type of theological debate that they can now be indicted for having "bought their atheism on the cheap". They are, in the equally scathing words of other Eagleton enthusiasts, nothing more than "discount store atheists" or even "schoolyard atheists".

This is a fascinating point of view: atheism should have to be arrived through effort, through paying a price.  What is that price?

But what precisely have these alleged cheapskates overlooked? In his LRB review, Eagleton provides a namecheck. "What one wonders are Dawkins's views on the epistemological differences between Aquinas and Duns Scotus? Has he read Eriugena on subjectivity, Rahner on grace or Moltmann on hope? Has he even heard of them?"

However...

This is good knockabout stuff but, as Anthony Grayling pointed out in his LRB letters page response, charging Dawkins with failing to read theology "misses the point that when one rejects the premises of a set of views it is a waste of time to address what is built on those premises".

Which is, of course, the point.  Without a reasonable demonstration of the existence of the object of theology, a reluctance to deal with theology is not surprising.  Particularly a reluctance to deal with theology as a way of showing the existence of its subject.  Theology can't bootstrap it's own subject into existence.  It isn't self-sustaining.

Recall that Eagleton criticised Dawkins for believing that God is "some kind of chap"? 

God, Eagleton tells us, may not have created the world like a mega-manufacturer but he is the reason why there is something rather than nothing. He is what sustains all things in being by his love. He made the world not for any instrumental reason but simply "for the love and delight of it".

Oh dear.  If there isn't a "chap", then who's love are we talking about?  How does love exist as some kind of (presumably) immaterial essence?  How can that essence sustain anything?  Emotion as the reason for the continued value of the charge on the electron? 

"That's right. Aquinas is saying that the relationship between God and the world is about the fact that the world is in some ways His. Not in the sense that my shoes are mine because I manufactured them but because at the centre of the world lies his love and freedom. God didn't create the world. He loved it into being. Now what that means, God knows, but that's exactly what Aquinas was saying. The concept of God is what will not let you go. He will not let you slip through his fingers. It's that kind of unconditional love. If you like, that's impossible. We can only know conditional love, but if you are to have some kind of authentic idea of God that's the place from which you have to start, not seeing God as some kind of manufacturer."

After a first read through this you can get the feeling that you have missed something.  You haven't.  It really does contain no sensible content.  Apart from one phrase... "Now what that means, God knows".

Science, for example, couldn't even begin to answer the question of why there was a world in the first place, why there was something rather than nothing, why what we did have was intelligible to us. But did this mean that we needed to call upon religion to provide to such fundamental questions? Wasn't this more properly the domain of philosophy?

"Yes, I think that's fair enough. It was Leibniz after all who raised the question of why there is anything at all. If that is a coherent question, and some philosophers think it isn't, then it has received an answer from the theologians. It is because of God. Now that might not be right but it is a question that theology tries to deal with."

I disagree that science can't say why the world we are in is intelligible to us - a species that could not understand to some level the world in which it lives would not get very far.  Aside from that, this is yet more strangeness: God might not be the answer.  Which God might not be the answer?  If Eagleton can't even come up with a definition of what God is (although he criticises what he believes Dawkins idea of God is), how does the question of God being the answer start to be addressed?

Eagleton was conciliatory. "I don't want to deny that there are a lot of simplistic ways of thinking in religion. And yes, maybe I do have a more sophisticated view of religion than many believers but, hey, most people's understanding of evolution is not like Mr Dawkins's understanding of evolution and most people's understanding of Marxism is not one that you or I would want to defend."

This is an interesting angle.  It is only fair that Dawkins should address the "sophisticated" view of God, as he has a sophisticated view of evolution.  The problem is that this still does not get past Grayling's objection: unless the premises of Eagleton's belief in God can be shown to be valid, there is no justification for dealing with his arguments about God. 

Our history, he believes, demands an image that constantly reminds us of our failures to set the world to rights. This is not for Eagleton a fatalistic denial of the value of attempting to improve the world, or indeed a denial of the manner in which liberal endeavours have enhanced our various freedoms. But it is a powerful iconic reproof to all those who have perverted liberalism - an ideology, asserts Eagleton, with its roots in Christianity - into a belief in unilinear progress.
.....
"Dawkins deeply believes in the flourishing of the free human spirit which makes him a liberal humanist rather than a tragic humanist. He believes that if only those terrible guys out there would stop stifling and shackling us, then our creative capacities would flourish. I don't believe that. As a Marxist I reject that simple liberationism. I'm not again humanism. I'm for a humanism which recognises the price of liberation. And that's what I call tragic humanism. The only idea of emancipation worth having is one that starts from looking at the worst, that starts from Swift's race of odious little vermin. If you're the kind of humanist who can understand what Socrates meant when he said it would been far better if man had never been born, you're on. A humanism like Dawkins's and possibly that held by Hitchens isn't worth all that much. It's too easy."

I shall stop quoting there, as the article proceeds to Taylor's views on Eagleton.

Reading interviews with Eagleton is like watching a very slow train wreck.  The thing seems to be moving in one direction, but then bits start to fall of and you end up with a smoking wreck littered with the dead and injuried bodies of ideas.  Nothing Eagleton says survives even his own analysis intact.  All we are left with is a general sense of what he feels, with a few hints at beliefs. It seems to me that he is very emotionally Catholic.  He seems to believe in some sort of Original Sin that makes people unworthy.  Which is kind of ironic considering he mentions how the love of God sustains everything.  He believes that atheism and humanism should be painful, otherwise it is too easy.  I am for freedom.  We should be free to make our own tragedies, and not have them imposed on us simply because we change our minds about our relationship to the supernatural. Atheism and humanism are a form of intellectual growing-up.  Not everyone has to have a painful adolescence.

In the end, Eagleton says nothing.  All there is self-promotion.  Dawkins and the "New Atheists" simply provide a platform for him, on which he can his perform his pointless literary dance.  I have seen his dance and I say this Brit has not Got Talent.
 

The worst morning.

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There was considerable discussion during and after the talks.  What I found pleasing what that there was an added resource to those who had formed a community on RD.net - the partners (and in once case, daughter) of those who had met on-line.  Particular mention has to go to Laurie's wife, who is an expert on language and it's development, and 'Epeeist's' wife, who may have significant political influence in improving and protecting rational education in the UK, but no disrespect to others.  I particularly had great discussions with Helen, Tim, and Anna (they know who they are).  There was discussion about what the point of the group was.  In the end, I think Laurie's view won out - we are a 'Think Tank', and the main thing is that we should exchange and discuss ideas.  The 'what next' will come later.  I think the consensus for now is that we could all meet every couple of years or so, but there will be local meet-ups within continents and countries more frequently.  There was discussion of construction of a website promoting discussion and as a resource, but neither 'decius' or I thought that was practical, as a website would have to be maintained, and would have to get some kind of internet presence.  Perhaps a more effective approach is to persuade Richard that we can contribute permanent resources to his site.

Then, on to more Guinness (I have to confess that at this stage I was still mostly on the lagers.  That changed).   A long evening followed, including a great Iitalian-style meal.  I did feel embarrassment at one stage, as I had both described a criticism of religion's attitude to women by Christopher Hitchens in perhaps inappropriately explicit terms in front of Oystein and his wife, and had also forgotten his nationality twice in a period of months (a fascinating, and necessary, history lesson about the political separation of Norway from Sweden followed).  But, the meal was very good, and at some point (if I remember right) I seem to have agreed to co-author a book on the philosophy, biology and physics of the Fine Tuning of the universe. 

It got late, and even with my hedonistic attitude, I decided to retire and not 'party on' with some friends.  Yet again, 'Corylus' walked back with me to the hotel, and I crashed out...

And so, I met up with the clique.  My memories of who at the gathering and when are vague, simply because it was so overwhelming to meet so many people I admire so much.  For that reason I won't try and list everyone.  I will just say that it was an excellent evening, with a good meal out, that ended up with me wandering back to the hotel late with the wonderful 'Corylus', who was one of many who were staying there, and who seemed to have a good sense of direction.  After some pleasant conversation in the hotel lounge over a G&T, I retired to bed.

Saturday was a big day.   The Day of Talks.  Several of us had taken the opportunity to speak in a relatively informal way to the others.  'Tyler Durden' - who did a fantastic job of helping to organise the weekend - managed to arrange a small classroom that was of convenient size. 

As Laurie was a touch late, I volunteered to start.  I have an informal talk about a favourite theme of mine: that the origin of life and its continual evolution is not some anomaly that has to be explained (as seems to me to be the implication of Dawkins' "Mount Improbable"), but some inevitable consequence of the kind of universe we live in, that is thermodynamically downhill, and so should be expected.  I was rattled a bit by 'Epeeist's' wife pointing out what she thought was a serious flaw in my admittedly vague use of terms like 'complexity' and 'entropy', but I think this kind of language has to be very simplified for common consumption.  Even so, it was a 'pick yourself up off the floor' situation.  I struggled through to the end of the lecture, which I has titled "Killing the Watchmaker" - we should try and avoid all mention of intentionality and purpose in biology, even as metaphors, to help with clarity of thinking.  I think the talk was pretty well received.  However, next time, I will take up 'decius's' offer of him preparing my visual material.

Then, it was Laurie's turn.  He gave an amazing talk, about how language and psychological development as a result of language can limit thinking.  It was a real insight into how the minds of those who come to RD.net to preach and who ignore evidence actually work - they don't have the reasoning apparatus to deal with high-level challenges to their ideas.  A discussion with Laurie's wife was less depressing - it is possible for people who aren't too far into middle age to expand their mental horizons so that they can reason beyond their initial capabilities. 

Lunchtime.  We were in a pub.  'Titania' was about to order.  She said "I suppose it is too early to order a Guinness".  A cute waiter with a strange goatee replied with a smile: "It's too early for stupid questions" (I love Ireland).

A short discussion about the evolution of the teabag by Philip was followed by a really professional lecture by Oystein.   He had the misfortune of giving a talk after a Guinness-fueled lunch.  Luckily he was guiness-fueled too.  It was a first-rate high-level yet accessible talk about the origins of the universe; how we know what went on, and when things happened.  There were two highlights for me.  One was the figure showing the predicted as against actual black-body radiation spectrum of the cosmic microwave background.  The fit was absolutely stunning.  It shows that we really do have a very good idea of what happened such a short time after the Big Bang.  The second was the high-resolution spectrum of that background radiation.  I realised I had not understood that the spectrum was not an just an indication of the situation several hundred thousands years after the Big Bang, it was also a picture of what had happened to the microwaves as they traveled to Earth during nearly 14 billion years.  It is a three-dimensional picture of the structure of reality.  Amazing.

The final presentation was a message from Diacanu.  Simply hilarious.  Especially to hear such language coming out of the mouth of 'SharonMcT'.

Then... more Guinness...

The journey started badly.  A late Virgin service (what a surprise!) at Coventry gave me 2 minutes to change trains at Birmingham International station.  But from then on things went reasonably well.  The final journey was a close-to-two-hour trip to Holyhead, which was really enjoyable.  The North Wales coast is stunning.  I checked in for the ferry, and had an unpleasant surprise.  The single portable item of luggage I brought along had to be checked in, rather than hand luggage.  I pointed out I had a computer in the bag - the baggage handler said "it should be OK", which was not that comforting.  So, I had a couple of hours on the ferry nervous about my laptop.  Turned out all was OK, and I walked out to the taxi rank in Dublin Ferry Port.  There was one taxi.  20 mins or so later, there still had been one taxi.  Apparently the port is not favoured by Dublin taxis.  Someone tried to offer me a lift to Dublin for 20 Euros, but that seemed a bit odd.  I discovered that a bus which had been waiting around was to the city centre, so I managed to get on just as it was setting off.  There was a cheering and eccentric guide to the city before I was dropped off at the bus station.  I found a taxi, and asked to be taken to the Dublin Alexander Hotel.  There followed a series of conversations between me and two taxi drivers about who had any idea where this hotel was, and who wanted to take me.  Moaning slightly, one of the drivers agreed, but did not manage to find the hotel for some time.  Eventually we arrived, and having no change the driver generously charged me 2 Euro less than the (reasonable) fare.  I like arriving at hotels, and unpacking.  As I was doing that, I received a text message from Philip, indicating where Guinness was already being consumed.  I set off...  it took some time, as the pub was not quite on the road mentioned.  But eventually, I met up with.. the clique!

Decades ago, Richard Dawkins popularised the idea of the "Selfish Gene".  What was the idea?  That the primary target of natural selection is relatively small sequences of DNA, mostly at the level of what are called "genes".  Why do this?  Because it is usefully reductionist and encourages a rigorous, often mathematical, way of looking at selection.  This was an important attack on discussions of evolution which were often very vague and even idealistic, with talk of group and species selection.

However, occasionally the ideas Dawkins popularised are attacked as dogmatic or constraining.  An example is  this article in New Scientist.

A good test for a weak rebuttal of an idea is few if any counter-arguments.  Elsdon-Baker's article contains no mechanisms for how alternative methods of selection actually work.  Nothing but a series of statements that there are other ideas.  This is the just the sort of wooly discussion that the Selfish Gene idea was, I think, partly intended to protect us against.

This is why I used the title "supergeneism" - it reminds me of supernaturalism.  It is the idea that there must be something more than gene-ish selection, but without usually stating clearly what this actually is and how it would work.

This is not to say that the Selfish Gene idea is perfect.  Genes can mutate and have no effect on phenotype (the characteristics of an organism)... this indicates that what is actually almost always being directly selected are phenes - possibilities for individual characteristics.  But this selection still contrains genes and is controlled by genes.  The selection is really about some complex and slightly wobbly gene/phene combination.  Some have argued that natural disasters can be a form of species selection, but that isn't really the case.  Even when a certain broad characteristic is selected by a disaster (such as size), that won't select all members of a species.  It is still broad gene/phene selection.

We need to stick with the Selfish Gene idea.  It isn't dogma.  It is a good constraint on initial thinking about evolution.  It is an important reductionist base from which to start investigating a particular example of natural selection.

So I gave in to my fears, and went for a train journey and ferry rather than a flight.

But why was I traveling?  It was a result of Richard Dawkins.  He set up a website for the promotion of rational and clear thinking.  That seemed interesting, so I signed up, several years ago. It was something of a shock.  There were so many people posting on the site.  People who really knew what they were talking about.  Some were experts in science, others experts in philosophy, or psychology.  I became engaged in debates like nothing I had experienced since I was a student nearly 30 years ago.  It has been the most exciting intellectual time of my life.  There have been good times but also problems associated with posting on RichardDawkins.net.  I have left the site occasionally to gather my thoughts and to deal with my feelings about political and philosophical issues, and even because I could not deal with the emotional intensity of debate.  There has also been an occasional price to pay because I am an out and non-anonymous gay man and atheist.  I have experienced some unpleasant stalkers.  To counter that, part of the positive aspects of the site was the experience of debating with Richard about one of his ways of explaining evolution, and having him take my ideas seriously.

As a result of joining the site, I have become part of an intellectual community that includes people who have become good friends.  As a result of a few of those people happening to have planned holidays that coincided in geography and time, we planned a meeting in Dublin, this July.

And so, I set off from Coventry station...

"Physical reality of String Theory Demonstrated"


No, it hasn't been.   All it shows is that the mathematics used in String Theory is useful in other circumstances. 

Let's put this over-simply.  Special relativity involves division and square roots.  Just because these are useful elsewhere in physics does not imply that special relativity is true.  You need direct evidence for special relativity.

A friend posted a link to this video.  For some reason, it acts like audo-visual therapy.

Enjoy:

The Fantastic Machine

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I have tried a fear of flying course, and I have tried to book myself on a short flight.  Both have failed.  So, as this is my blog, I'm going to try and justify my wimpishness.

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As their alternative medicine sketch has gone viral/global, I thought I would introduce readers to more of the sublime and droll humour of perhaps my current favourite comedy duo.

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An article in the Independent describes how St Kilda's sheep are shrinking as an adaptation to changes in climate.  The article describes how animals restricted to islands can show interesting changes in size, with some being much bigger and some much smaller than their mainland equivalents.

So far so good.  All sound science.

But the subtitle of the article is:

"Darwinism turned on its head as milder winters allow smaller lambs to survive"

What is this supposed to mean?  Charles Darwin proposed that evolution can only make animals grow bigger?

It feels good, doesn't it?  Banning a symbol of the oppression of women by a different culture.  Let's get the symbol out of sight.  Our society does not approve of the symbol. But how do we ban a symbol?

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I keep coming across the question about how science and religion conflict.  It is a fascinating one, and I see all kinds of answers, such as when religion makes claims about history (there was a resurrection) or that God is operating in the world, listening to prayers for example.

But that really isn't the difference.  You can't honestly label some phenomena as supernatural and simply define them as out of reach of science. 

The difference between science and religion is one of approach to getting information about what is real.  And, the religious approach is very strange when examined in detail.

The scientific approach accepts that we have flawed minds, even when considering what goes on in our own minds.  We dream, experience delusions, even hallucinate.  So, we need to collaborate to explore reality through hypotheses and experiment.  We actually humbly test ideas, and are prepared to be shown to be wrong by reality.

The religious approach may sometimes seem similar, because theologians can change their minds, but it is really profoundly different.  The religious approach is that we can explore what is real based on feelings.  That really is it.  Traditions are picked, and scripture interpreted based on what feels right.  Other feelings lead people to identify a mental experience as a revelation from the Holy Spirit. 

That is the real incompatibility between religion and science is whether or not human feelings can be trusted as a way to explore reality.  It seems a bit arrogant to me to assume they can.  This seems a pretty ironic suggestion when the Abrahamic religions describe humans as flawed creatures.  

Finally, it is often said that science assumes a natural, regular world with laws.  If something occurs that is 'outside of Nature' or 'breaks the laws' then it is beyond science.  But this isn't true.  Scientists don't go into a lab with a head filled with the philosophy of naturalism.  The idea of naturalism and natural laws mostly comes after science, because science works.  It is strange how magic and miracles seem far less frequence as science has explored the world.

First, two apologies.

One for any delay in responses being approved.  I need to set up auto-approval on this blog.  I'm pretty tolerant of anything that isn't spam.

Second, sorry for the lack of posts.  I have been working on a presentation for an atheist/rationalist/friends meeting in Dublin next week.

But, as the discussion on accommodationism continues...  I want to add something (that I have already mostly posted on Russell's fine blog):

There is so much discussion about different strategies of accommodationism (or not), and who has been telling whom to shut up (or not)...

My view is that the pro/anti accommodationism issue is actually rather simple: We should not lie to protect science, and we should not defend others when they tell what we believe are lies to protect science. Science is about the search for truth, and it is tarnished if it is defended by falsehoods. The reason why I am not an exclusivist is that although I have no doubts that science and religion are factually incompatible, I don't believe religion needs to be mentioned in any way in the defence of science. Science can stand up for itself on its own terms.

If you believe that science and religion are compatible, say so. If  you don't believe it is, say that too.  Let both sides have an open and intense debate.  But let's stop the spinning.