Science Versus Faith
Most of us want to understand the world we live it. We seek to make sense out of our lives; why we are here; what the purpose of our existence is. Not knowing is unsettling, even scary.
For thousands of years, likely since humans could actually think as we understand that wold, we have tried to find ways to understand how things work. We tried to explain the forces of nature that we can’t control. Weather, seasons, earthquakes, volcanos. These things frightened us. To try to reduce the fear and uncertainty, we tried to explain these things as best we could. We created spirits, demons, monsters, and gods.
These creations varied from culture to culture. The Greeks had their Zeus, the Romans Jupiter, Bushmen had Cagn, Babylonians worshiped Marduk , Jews had Yahweh, Christians, Jesus. All of these deities had mostly similar traits, but also differences that varied according to the particular culture.
Some people, however, tried to find a different way to explain the world around them. Ancient Greeks had Plato, Aristotle, and others who tried to use reason and observation to explain things. The were often wrong, but it was a departure from just explaining things away as acts by a deity or deities.
In the 15th century, Galileo used his telescope to discover truths about the universe: that the planets were worlds like our own and not just points of light on the backdrop of the celestial sphere. Kepler, Copernicus, and later Newton, added to our understanding of the cosmos. The defining idea of these endeavors was that they used careful observations and reason to explain how things worked and, for the first time in history, accurately made predictions about the world that we could rely on. By the 18th century, the discipline of science was born. Engineering, medicine, communication, and other practical areas of study emerged that were different from the old ways of explaining the world. This way of learning about and explaining the world had two major differences from the mythologies that tried to explain things before: it was able to accurately make predictions, and it worked.
This leads to the most important difference between the mindset of religious and magical thinking, and reason and scientific thinking: People who rely on faith, hunches, and the like are afraid not to know. They seek solace in their faith in their god or gods. Their gods love them, watch over them, and will even save them from death by allowing an afterlife of rewards for being faithful.
Those who believe in the scientific way of thinking are not afraid of the unknown, in fact, they embrace it. The unknown is where we lean, where we can grow in understanding. It allows us to beat back the fear and uncertainly. It lets us make predictions about how the world works that can be tested and proved or disproved. This is how we can understand how our bodies work, which has lead to a doubling of our life spans in just over a hundred years. It is how we have provided ways to communicate across the globe, to share our thoughts and ideas, our emotions, our hopes and dreams.
It has been said by some that science is just another religion. This is false. The reason it is false is that science, unlike faith, can cause us to modify our ideas about the world as new information is discovered, giving us ever more accurate explanations for how the universe works. This allows the technological advances that save millions of lives and make our lives more comfortable. Unlike faith, it allows us to make predictions about the world that are accurate and reproducible, bringing certainty to the previously unknown, and pushing back the fear that the unknown brings. And unlike faith, science just works.
Albert Einstein Lives!
Well, ok, maybe he doesn’t physically live anymore, but our memory of him does. To celebrate the memory of one of my favorite heroes, I’ve found a few cool pieces of art featuring him.
Albert Einstein_three_quartersby ~edureboucas
Albert Einstein Etch-a-Sketchby ~Capital-J
And my personal favorite, because I think ol’ Albert could really kick some science ass:
Albert Einstein Is Still Aliveby ~MR-deviantArt
Science!
I just bought Why Evolution is True”, by Jerry Coyne, and Evolution: The Triumph of an Idea ,by Carl Zimmer. I’m also currently reading Death by Black Hole: And Other Cosmic Quandaries, by Neil deGrasse Tyson, and In Search of the Multiverse: Parallel Worlds, Hidden Dimensions, and the Ultimate Quest for the Frontiers of Reality,by John Gribbin. In case you haven’t noticed, I love science.
Just to balance it out, I am also working on Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, by Philip K. Dick and I’m getting ready to re-read “Sarum”, by Edrward Rutherfurd.
And now, here are some ornithopods drawn by hyrotrioskjan.
Discovery Channel Caves In
PZ Myers has an entry on his blog today about how the Discovery Channel purchased only 6 of the 7 episodes of David Attenborough’s latest, Frozen Planet. The reason? Episode 7 deals with global climate change. Yes, that’s right. The Discovery Channel that supposedly provides educational programming, has decided to strip off the final episode of this wonderful series because they choose to ignore science and fact. How is withholding and ignoring information on a critical topic that effects everyone on the planet educating? That the Discovery Channel chooses to give into ideologically motivated ignorance is infuriating.
I’ve chosen to express my ire to the Discovery Channel at their viewer relations page. Here is what I had to say:
“I am appalled that the Discovery Channel decided not to show the 7th installment of Frozen Planet. I thought that Discovery Channel was dedicated to providing quality educational and science programming, instead, I find that it has decided that it would rather cave to the uniformed idea that global climate change is not real and refuse to show the last installment of this series because it deals with the scientific fact. Shame on the Discovery Channel.”
More Cool Science and Skeptical Images
Here are some more cool science and non-theist images for your enjoyment!
They make as much sense as the Christian trinity.
It is just as plausible as the Christian version.
Science rocks!
The man who showed the world that science can be exciting and beautiful.
Probably the most influential scientist since Newton. Evolution baby!
His work greatly influence Darwin. He is the forgotten hero of evolution.
Pass the peas please! The theory of inheritance derived by his work with peas laid the groundwork for the science of genetics. I still remember this to this day from high school biology class.
Using Humor to Show Up Delusions
There is a well known example that supporters of science use when refuting the idea of a perfect creator. The example is the laryngeal nerve. This nerve supplies motor function and sensation to the larynx. What is unusual about it is that, even though the larynx is located in the throat in most invertebrates, it follows a path down from the throat, into the chest, and back up to the brain, rather than the shorter and more obvious route of going straight from the throat and up to the brain.
In referring to Richard Dawkins use of the laryngeal nerve argument, Wikipedia states:
“The extreme detour of this nerve (over fifteen feet in giraffes) is cited as evidence of evolution as opposed to intelligent design. The nerve’s route would have been direct in the fish-like ancestors of modern tetrapods, traveling from the brain, past the heart, to the gills (as it does in modern fish). Over the course of evolution, as the neck extended and the heart became lower in the body, the laryngeal nerve was caught on the wrong side of the heart. Natural selection gradually lengthened the nerve by tiny increments to accommodate, resulting in the absurdly circuitous route now observed, which, if designed, could only be described as unintelligent.”[1]
I’ve heard this argument against intelligent design given many times and in different ways, some more effective than others, but as is often the case, humor and satire can serve to drive the point home much better than any physical evidence or well articulated argument can.
Jonathan Rosenberg draws the funny, topical, and skeptical Scenes From A Multiverse. Today’s installment address this particular augment with great hilarity and precision. It is a perfect surgical strike against the idea of a perfect creator, and leaves us with the conclusion that god either does not exist or, if he does, is just plain stupid. The next to the last panel says it all.
1. ^ Dawkins, Richard (2009). “11. History written all over us”. The greatest show on Earth. New York: Free Press. pp. 360–362. ISBN 9781416594789. Retrieved November 21, 2009.
Made With Science!
By http://lithiumboy.deviantart.com/
Look around you. If you are reading this then you are most likely surrounded by things that science make possible. When you read about people who are anti-science and who seek to replace science with their fantasies of religion, think about all the things that make your life easier and richer than you would not have without science. I’m not just talking about iPhones and the Internet, or big screen TVs or even cars. Think about running water; clean running water. Think about electricity. How about the fact that most children in western societies regularly survive to adulthood? All these things can be attributed to science. If the religious right (you can’t call them radical anymore as they now make up the mainstream of the GOP) gets their way and vastly useful and proven scientific theories such as evolution, plate tectonics, and germ theory are suppressed in our educational systems and research funding, it can only bode ill for our modern way of life. If they get their way, you will need to move to Canada, Europe or Asia to have the same quality of life you have now.
So next time you hear someone going on about cutting science funding or trying to get intelligent design (creationism) into science classes in public schools look around and remember that much of what you see was made with science.
A Practical Use For A Science Education – A Job
Phil Plait, the Bad Astronomer, has a nice article in where he discusses how data shows that the jobs with the least percentage of unemployed tend to be science based. This means that if you have a science education, any kind of science education, you will likely have an easier time finding a job than those who don’t. He also bemoans the current anti-science platform being pushed by Republican legislatures across the country and nationally because they work against real job creation in the country.
The fact is , science works. It isn’t perfect; it is constantly being revised as we learn more and more about the universe in which we live. In fact, it is this very trait, the falsifiability of scientific theories, that makes is such a powerful tool for understanding and making the most out of the world we live in. It is able to adapt and improve as more data is collected.
Look around you. You are reading this on a computer or smartphone. You cook on stoves that use natural gas or electricity instead of over an open fire. You live in houses that have electricity and running water. In fact, almost everything that you own or use is a product of science. Each law that is passed to push creationism in schools, that strips science funding from colleges and universities, that limits stem cell research, that seeks to deny global warning chips away at the foundation of our economy and national security.
There is a good reason why people call the current religiously motivated, anti-science, Republican party the American Taliban. Like their brethren in Afghanistan, they too seek to take us back to the middle ages where people work from sun up to sunset to scrape together an existence; where children die of starvation and disease in a world surrounded by plenty of food to feed them and medicine to cure them. Yes, this is a bit of hyperbole, but the fact remains that the more science is marginalized and vilified, the more this country loses its place as a leader in the world and becomes a follower, begging scraps from those it once looked down on.
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