I often think about the details of events in the Bible. Like Jesus: did he share half of his chromosomes with Mary? If so, it must have been from one of her eggs. Was there a holy sperm that appeared in her uterus? If not from one of her eggs, a completely fertilized egg must have appeared. Did it arrive implanted or not?
So if Jesus was divine, was each of his cells also inherently divine? Did the dead skin cells he shed all the time carry this divinity, and if so, did that have any effect on the surrounding environment?
Similarly, when Jesus appeared after death to his followers, was it an actual image that produced photons, or was it a simulation of an image implanted in each person's brain?
When I ask these questions of religious people, they tend to dismiss them as if they can't be asked, but they are certainly completely valid questions. Biology and physics didn't just stop working around Jesus. Another example would be: when Moses parted the Red Sea, what would have happened if you had thrown an object from the seabed at the water being held back? Would it bounce off? Get sucked into the water? I hate that people don't think of these as valid questions that must have answers, even if those answers are unknown.
Showing posts with label biology. Show all posts
Showing posts with label biology. Show all posts
Thursday, April 17, 2008
Tuesday, February 5, 2008
The arrogance of creationism
A lot of people don't realize how arrogant creationism is. It's like this: literally tens of thousands of very smart people have dedicated their entire lives to the subject, and have collectively come to the same conclusion. A person who is almost entirely uneducated in the subject to claim that they know better is extremely insolent.
People think they're smart, that they know everything—or even that they can know everything. And because of that, they think that their opinion on some subject matter should have weight. But it doesn't. The fact is that biology is far too complex for an uneducated person to truly understand it. The body of knowledge is so vast that only people whose careers are in the field have the time and capability to absorb it all. To criticize its findings without knowing the field is preposterous.
This is part of a bigger lack of integration of science in society. Science is about the method. If you trust in the method, you should trust in the results. You don't get to pick and choose. But people think they know better than the scientists. I had a conversation with a guy about global warming. He was saying, "See, they aren't taking into account the cycle of this or that." I asked him, "So you think you're smarter than the thousands of scientists who have all come to this conclusion?" And he said, "No." "But," I responded, "if you know about this certain aspect that either none of the scientists have thought of, or none have been able to get convincing data on, then you must surely be smarter than all of them!" And that's really the problem.
Accepting science is in large part about accepting one's own limitations. The point of peer review is that one person alone is not enough to ensure quality. The most committed scientists, when someone derails their work by pointing out a flaw, will thank that person. Science is about the wisdom of collective study—that though one person can only work in a very limited scope, they can use information from others, trusting that the process made the information reliable. Science is about admitting that there are people who know more than you, to whom you could never catch up. Science is about admitting that people, but more specifically that you yourself are biased, and that the only path to truth is trusting the data.
People think they're smart, that they know everything—or even that they can know everything. And because of that, they think that their opinion on some subject matter should have weight. But it doesn't. The fact is that biology is far too complex for an uneducated person to truly understand it. The body of knowledge is so vast that only people whose careers are in the field have the time and capability to absorb it all. To criticize its findings without knowing the field is preposterous.
This is part of a bigger lack of integration of science in society. Science is about the method. If you trust in the method, you should trust in the results. You don't get to pick and choose. But people think they know better than the scientists. I had a conversation with a guy about global warming. He was saying, "See, they aren't taking into account the cycle of this or that." I asked him, "So you think you're smarter than the thousands of scientists who have all come to this conclusion?" And he said, "No." "But," I responded, "if you know about this certain aspect that either none of the scientists have thought of, or none have been able to get convincing data on, then you must surely be smarter than all of them!" And that's really the problem.
Accepting science is in large part about accepting one's own limitations. The point of peer review is that one person alone is not enough to ensure quality. The most committed scientists, when someone derails their work by pointing out a flaw, will thank that person. Science is about the wisdom of collective study—that though one person can only work in a very limited scope, they can use information from others, trusting that the process made the information reliable. Science is about admitting that there are people who know more than you, to whom you could never catch up. Science is about admitting that people, but more specifically that you yourself are biased, and that the only path to truth is trusting the data.
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