Science and Religion in the News

I do not know how I missed this when it came out but when a serious peer-reviewed medical journal publishes an article on religion I would have thought I would have caught this by now. In any event it would appear that the debate that is continuing about the benefits and consequences of male circumcision (it is kind of odd that female circumcision is universally considered horrible) has looked to history for some context.

To say that the early church and later the Catholic church were obsessed with the circumcision of Jesus Christ would not be overstating the case. Theologians have had considerable difficulties with the whole concept of living a perfect life yet marked with pain, blood and loss. So the question became what happened to the part of Jesus that was removed? It seemed that at its worst there were 21 European cathedrals that claimed to have the holy relic.

There were some very strange people who had some very strange obsessions with this topic including the 17th century theologian Leo Allatius who wrote in De Praeputio Domini Nostri Jesu Christi Diatriba, "that the holy foreskin may have ascended into heaven at the same time as Jesus himself, and might have become the rings of Saturn."

Science and Religion just gets stranger and stranger.

Mattelaer, JJ, et al. (2007). "The Circumcision of Jesus Christ". The Journal of Urology. 178: 31-34.LINK to Journal of Urology paper

Edge of Reason Debates: Contraception and God

So, we had our first "Edge of Reason" or EoR debate. The topic was ... Contraception and fertility treatments in all their forms interfere with God’s action and are therefore inappropriate for Christians.

The debate did not go well. There was very little reference to source and other than vague counterarguments there certainly was not a debate in the sense of point-counterpoint.

We did get the debate converted into a discussion where the majour points were made but we will need to work a bit more on our debating skills. The other issue with the debates is that they are an opportunity for people that are hesitant to speak in class to contribute (as is this blog). As we continue into the course those students that do not contribute will get low subjective evaluation marks.

With respect to the debate topic the expected progression (with reference to sources) was:

Theists have a position on the sanctity of life that should inform the KIND of contraception (barrier, chemical, abortificant).
Theists have a belief in an immanent God that can participate in procreation.
Theists believe that God wants us to enjoy a sexual relationship with our life partners.
Theists (some at least) believe that (like lightning rods) science has revealed blessings from Creation to help us enjoy life ... that includes contraception.
Atheistic science pretty much has a different morality and ethic based on reductionism and a profound materialist view that this life is all there is.

Christians in good conscience disagree about contraception mostly on the issue of the sovereignty of God in procreation and the role of an immanent God in our lives.

So, it isn't so much that there is a "Right" or "Wrong" position on contraception but that as thinking Christians we can articulate why we have our position consistent with our worldview and personal theology.

Brooke Week 1: Nothing is Simple

I am going to open this blog for comments and questions that you may have had for the sources that we are considering. In this case I would like to focus on the readings from Brooke for both the Introduction and Chapter 1.

As noted in class the danger with historical review is that for the most part we have to accept that the author is an authority so that assertions are from knowledge not bias. We also have to assume that the author is faithfully reporting the facts of history. Given those assumptions we consider Brooke.

Below the image you will find what I feel are some of the key quotes from the passage. I would also include the chapter summaries from the introduction. So, read the selected quotes and if you have questions you need to ask them now before we move on.

"An ounce of scientific knowledge could be more effective in controlling the forces of nature than any amount of supplication."

"The popular antithesis between science, conceived as a body of unassailable facts, and religion, conceived as a set of unverifiable beliefs, is assuredly simplistic."

"Sprat suggested that, of all pursuits, the study of experimental philosophy was most likely to engender a spirit of piety, perseverance, and humility - the hallmarks of Christian virtue." (Author's commentary on T. Sprat "History of the Royal Society", 1667)

"Certainly the Catholic Church had a vested interest in Aristotelian philosophy, but in much of the conflict ostensibly between science and religion turns out to have been between new science and the sanctified science of the previous generation."

"The fundamental weakness of the conflict thesis is its tendency to portray science and religion as hypostatized forces, as entities in themselves"

"Apologists wishing to stress the harmony between science and religion may gloss over those facets of Christianity as it was that distinguished it from Christianity as they now wish it to be."

"For the cynic will always say that the scientist of the past simply feigned their belief in order to escape persecution."

"The purpose of this chapter has been to establish three propositions: that religious beliefs have penetrated scientific discussion on many levels, that to reduce the relationship between science and religion to one of conflict is therefore inadequate, but to construct a revisionist history for apologetic purposes would be just as problematic."

Now, if I were to ask questions on the final exam on this passage they would take two forms:
1) I would give you a quote from the source and ask you what it meant
2) I would ask you to compare what Brooke says to other sources in the course.

So pretty much what you have above are quotes that you should be able to place in context and you should be thinking as you read where other sources have discussed the same topics.

Faith and Science Issues: Medicine

There was an odd co-incident topic sharing today between the current comic for Indexed and a story about the fact that several families in the US are currently going to trial cover the fact that the families have withdrawn from medicine to heal their children with prayer resulting in the deaths of the children. In an issue relating Science and Religion as emotional as this where it involves the death of children I would never reduce the pain of the families to something to joke about. I would note however that the Indexed cartoon clearly indicates that prayer is not an effective route to a solution to a problem. This separation model for the roles of Faith and Science is one that we will see again.

You might remember that I said in the first lecture that some would argue that the measure of religious faith and conviction is not to be willing to die for your faith but to be willing to kill. I guess I have to set that measure aside for this kind of faith that would allow your child to die in misery. This just sets the faith / conviction bar too high for me.

LINK TO ARTICLE ON FAMILIES IN COURT

Making Connections: Rosalind Franklin

The lecture was intended to provide us with a platform to discuss the nature of truth and goodness in Science (and their opposites: falsehood and evil). The replacement of the emotive and relational nature of goodness and truth in the Judeo-Christian culture that we have been raised in with the dispassionate and objective ideals of Science wrecks once again on the failure of human nature to ever completely follow the whispers of our "greater angels". It was ever thus.

So we have to deal with reality in all its messy details. In "The Race for the Double Helix" the science myth is created where Watson and Crick are self revealed as lying, thieving, glory hounds. Since this is self revealed it must be true for who would promote a historical account of themselves that makes them seem foolish. Odd ... that argument seems strangely like the argument that the disciples must have been telling the truth when they recorded the New Testament accounts that make them all look like stupid, lying, thieving glory hounds.

In any event it was important for us to see how two accounts of the same events, even with many of the principle players still alive and involved in the accounts, can be different in both tone and content.



It is interesting however that just recently the New York Times published an article that referenced Rosalind Franklin. It would appear that in some of the sciences there continues to be an unexplained exit of female scientists. One of the organizations that promotes the role of women in Science turns out to be the Rosalind Franklin Society.

LINK TO ARTICLE ON WOMEN IN SCIENCE

If we understand her at all after all these years since her death I doubt that she would want us to shed a tear for her or waste our time on pity but the seize the day that we have been given.

PS there is a line in the NYT article that describes the relative difficulty level of physics, chemistry and biology and the writer in describing chemistry says "the fact that women earn half of the undergraduate degrees in chemistry, which is not quite plush toy material." LOL

Leture Notes: Water "The Bible and Science"

Our first source in this course comes to us from the more conservative, evangelical Christian end of the philosophical spectrum. We should be fair to the source and note that any source that has the words "... Made Easy" in the title is not intending to take us into the deep water. No, the intention in this pamphlet is to guide the reader in a series of reflections on the Creation and what it says about the Creator. Along the way there will be the odd mention of the possibility of people who might have different positions on some of these issues ... but they are all damned and going to Hell so we really do not need to worry about them.

The thinking university student needs to look at this source in the same way that you would a wolf in sheep's clothing. It is clear that the author is speaking from a biased position and is dismissive of other positions held even by those of the Christian faith. Being right does not mean you no longer should be fair or just (and I am not even going to allow that it is a or the right position ... I'm just sayin'). It most certainly is not an attitude that conforms to any liberal arts tradition or ideals.

What should you take away from this source? This source is the easiest to identify the authors position and bias. It will get steadily more difficult to do so as we progress through the sources in this course. But then again most Fundamentalist writers have the grace and subtlety of a boot to the head. It's true! I know I have a reputation for hyperbole and digression but really most Fundamentalist / Creationist authors write as if they did most of their work in the bathroom (by the way this is a tradition that goes way back the great Martin Luther was the 14th century version of Hank Hill's boss Mr. Buck Strickland).

In addition, I do like how Water takes us back over and over to the Creation as a guide to the attributes of the Creator. We are told in Scripture that indeed this is a correct and good thing to do. The source is not intended to be deep and is intended to provide comfort for a given faith position. That does not make anything in the source wrong but it does give us a reference point for comparison with other sources.

We needed to start somewhere. So from now on you can say ... "Water indicated that ..." and be comfortable that the position stated comes from a conservative - fundamentalist point of view. Get your boots on 'cause the mud only gets deeper from here on out.

Lecture Notes: The Socratic Method

So, we start the course again. We are at the beginning so now if the time to start good habits and eliminate bad ones. The readings in this course have a way of building up and can overwhelm you if you let them slide more than a week or two.

The lectures will follow the Socratic Method in terms of style following a form laid down by yet another dead Greek ... Socrates. Just once it would be nice to reference a living Greek. In any event this is the description of his method.

"To illustrate the use of the Socratic method; a series of questions are posed to help a person or group to determine their underlying beliefs and the extent of their knowledge. The Socratic method is a negative method of hypothesis elimination, in that better hypotheses are found by steadily identifying and eliminating those which lead to contradictions. It was designed to force one to examine one's own beliefs and the validity of such beliefs. In fact, Socrates once said, "I know you won't believe me, but the highest form of Human Excellence is to question oneself and others.""

Now, to be fair, in my opinion the Socratic Method is a bit aggressive and students can be a bit intimidated. You should come to class expecting to be asked questions. The first part of the lecture will be the easy stuff ... what did the source actually say and this. We will then likely have a class exercise : assignment or debate and finish with an analysis of the source for the day.

But Prof. H. I hear you say ... I am just a timid woodland creature and do not have an opinion until you tell me what it is. Well, to paraphrase the immortal Soup Nazi ...

NO A FOR YOU !

So, in the face of such a harsh system what is a poor student to do?

1) Read the source
2) Know the source
3) Form an opinion
4) Ask questions and make comments (this last point is an important one, in past years I have had students that had the knowledge base of a well trained Labrador Retriever but they still had exceptional subjective evaluations because they would ask questions. I have also had students that easily threw away 10% of their final mark (three whole grade fractions) because they refused to particpate). You get to decide. Decide well.