Wow

Some simply staggering beauty on show at the Astronomy Photographer of the Year 2012, and a lovely slideshow on the BBC site to go with it.

Glorious

Some mind-blowing images from the Hubble Space Telescope. More at the Hubble Advent Calendar, provoking plenty of comments. I'm with those who think that arguing about God and his existence or otherwise is a poor second to simply trying to retrieve my jaw from the desk at each new image.

Faith and Darwin

I'm hoping to get to see the Darwin film in the next couple of weeks, but it seems like a good time to revisit 'Faith and Darwin', a research piece done by Theos earlier this year. They even produced a map based on the results, so that if you want to move in next to a Creationist you know where to look.

They quizzed 2000 people on their ideas about God, science and evolution, and discovered the following:

54% of the sample knew Darwin had written 'Origin of Species'

37% agreed that evolution is proved beyond reasonable doubt (36% said 'not proven', 19% 'no evidence')

75% agreed that science could explain most things, but not everything.

53% believed in God: 8% used to believe in God but now didn't, and the same percentage had made the opposite journey.

Who's Who
The research breaks the sample up into 4 groups, according to what they believe about the origins of life on Earth:

1. Young Earth Creationists (believe earth is less than 10,000 years old) 17%
2. Intelligent Design (evolution, but with specific intervention by God to make certain stuff happen ) 11%
3. Theistic evolution (evolution, but with God as the ultimate agent behind creation) 28%
4. Atheistic evolution (life has evolved full stop, there is no God) 37%
Sorry the picture's a bit faint. The maths-heads among you will have already noted that 10% more people believe God had a hand in the origins of life, than actually believe God exists. The main finding of the survey seemed to be inconsistency: over 40% of the sample gave contradictory answers to questions on the same topic.

Demographics
Amongst those who consistenly fall into the above categories, there were a few demographic differences.

- 'Young Earth Creationists' more females, economic class DE, older people. Oddly, 8% of them don't have a religion.

- 'Intelligent Design' younger and more educated than average

- 'Atheistic Evolution' generally younger, more in the ABC economic groups, and with degrees. There's suggestions here of the middle class atheism referred to in some recent blog exchanges, and this today by Ariane Sherine.

Attitudes:
Some interesting snippets:
- 31% of those in the 'atheistic evolution' category think that Christianity and evolution are incompatible, and 21% that science undermines religion. That leaves a sizeable majority who don't hold to these views, even among folk who don't beleive God had anything to do with creation.

- Only 1/5 of these folk agreed that 'evolution tells us there's no purpose to life'. This gives the lie to the idea that atheists think that life has no meaning or purpose. Most of them clearly do, though whether that's a logically consistent position is another matter. I'm not even sure if 'meaning and purpose' are scientific categories, or unverifiable value statements.

- 18% of the sample believe Genesis is a literal and accurate account of the origins of life. Bizarrely, 22% of the 'theistic evolutionists' believe this, which doesn't really leave much time for evolution to happen!!!

- 85% of the sample believed that science and faith can coexist, though about half of these think that science challenges faith to some degree.

Spiritual beliefs
- 72% 'see a spiritual element in the universe', which is a lot more than the 53% who believe in God.

- Of those who believe in God, 1/5 see him/her/it as an 'impersonal force', and roughly the same amount are pantheists - that God and the universe are the same. Believing in God isn't the same as believing in the orthodox deity of Christianity.

Other spiritual beliefs:
Human soul 70
Heaven 55
Life after death 53
Ghosts 39
Reincarnation 27
Astrology/horoscopes 22
Fortune telling/tarot 15

Quotes:
It highlights that there is an element of confusion, and suggests that many people hold contradictory views. There is also evidence of significant variation in how people form their opinions and how much engagement with the topic they have previously had (p20)

It has been considered by some that Darwin’s theory of evolution has been abused by ‘extremists’ of two very different philosophical positions. From an atheistic position, some suggest that evolutionary belief must disprove belief in God and from a creationist point of view, considering evolution and Christianity to be incompatible has led to suggestions that evolution contradicts a theistic view of God and so theists cannot hold an omnipotent view of God together with evolutionary theory.

This research challenges both the extreme atheists and theists, who frequently join in this debate. In general people do not subscribe to such polarised views, but rather happily hold a spectrum of beliefs reconciling scientific theory and religious belief.

Thoughts:
Richard Dawkins gives the impression in his latest book that vicars are to blame for the prevalence of Creationism, and that if we get our act together, it'll all be sorted. Bad news Richard, there are far more Creationists out there than Anglicans.

There is a lot of confused thinking, and with sizeable numbers believing in astrology and horoscopes, we're dealing with a large chunk of the population who don't form their spiritual beliefs on the basis of reason alone (or even reason at all).

The strength of atheism amongst folk with higher education means that the 'new atheism' will continue to be a favourite of the chatterati* for some time to come. Given that the CofE is middle class, the temptation will be to think that this is the only argument we need to engage with. It will probably be the faith/God position which is held most forcefully, and by those most able to articulate it, but that doesn't mean we should stop listening to everyone else. The majority of the population, vague and confused though their beliefs might be, have a sense of the spiritual, and of life being more than just random acts of biology. These are the folk who accost our Street Pastors with questions about God, who want their kids baptised, and who sing along to Robbie Williams.

This creates a problem. The church needs to communicate with both groups. If we talk in spiritual terms to engage with the majority, there'll be talk of the Flying Spaghetti Monster in postgrad chatrooms. If we talk in scientific terms to engage with the rationalists, that will turn everyone else off. And of course postmodernism means that there'll be people who hold to both worldviews, and several others, all at the same time.

*over 1200 blog posts in, I guess that includes me too.

Telegraph #fail on creation and evolution

Steve Borthwick highlights the risible attempt by the Daily Telegraph to name the top 5 arguments for evolution and creation.

I despair, I really do. I am bored witless with arguments about creationism, but it seems impossible to have a decent debate about science and God without the C-word being uttered in the first 3 minutes, and then everyone jumping up and down calling each other morons.

For the record.
- I'm a Christian, I believe God created the cosmos.

- I'm not a 'creationist' - I believe the universe is roughly as old as science says it is, until they get a better measurement. Last I heard it was about 15 billion years.

- I'm convinced that the thrust of the first three chapters of the Bible is not chronology but theology: what kind of world is this, what kind of God have we got, where do humans fit in, what's our relationship supposed to be to God, the world, and one another.

- I would love to hear more from the physicists, if the biologists could let them have a word in. There's lots of fascinating stuff about the origins of the universe, evidence of 'fine tuning' of the cosmos to make life possible etc. There's more to science than evolutionary biology, just as there's more to Christianity than how exactly God made the world. Not all physicists are theists, so it's clearly not a done deal, but there are some good debates to be had in that area.

- I don't know a great deal about evolution, but from what I have read it sounds like there's still some questions not settled, including the phenomenon of evolution happening in short bursts, followed by long periods of stability. It would be interesting to hear what someone better informed has to say about this, as I'm not expert enough to know what that's all about, or how much of a discussion is going on.

Derren Brown & Hubble: 2 remarkable things after bedtime

After an excellent evening with our confirmation group, a series of amazing things:

- England winning a sporting contest

- the latest Hubble space telescope pictures

- Derren Brown had a staged attempt to predict 5 out of 6 lottery numbers from this evenings draw (see earlier post). He got all 6. On Friday he'll explain how he did it. Remarkable. Up on Youtube already, if you want to try to spot any fakery, it certainly wasn't obvious, if it was there.

update: here's one thread on how he might have done it.

Humanists call for Zoo to evolve.

The British Humanist Association is trying to get Noahs Ark, a themed zoo in Somerset, de-listed by the British Tourism Authorities. BBC story here, BHA press release here.

The BHA argues that the zoo presents anti-scientific ideas, and risks undermining the teaching of science. They state ‘We believe Noah’s Ark Farm Zoo misleads the public by not being open about its creationist agenda in its promotional activities and by advancing misunderstandings of the natural world.

The Noahs Ark website, under the heading 'Creation Research' (one of 6 principle tabs visible on all pages) says this: After looking at the current scientific explanations for origins and evolution; it is our view that the evidence available can be accurately explained using an evolution framework with an initial Creation by God. This is treated as controversial by some and welcomed by others: but our aim remains the same. We do not profess to have all the answers, but we will search for them with an open mind and publicise our theories.

That seems to me to be fairly clear about the 'agenda' of the zoo, so I'm not sure that first charge sticks. There are lots of other subsections there which explore issues of creation and evolution, without buying into either wholesale Darwinism or young earth creationism.

There are loads of museums and public attractions in which you could object to the content. Here in Somerset we have the Haynes Motor Museum, which glorifies car use (#fail - global warming) and Fleet Air Arm, which might encourage people to join the armed forces and get into fighting. Haynes also has the added issue of being incredibly dull. Wookey Hole has an area where cavemen are sited next to dinosaurs - which is historically flawed - and tells stories about witches and spells, which encourages children to believe in all sorts of nonsense. Glastonbury... well, lets not go there.

Murky territory. Maybe it's that Christians are allowed to do good things like protect animal species and encourage conservation, it's just that we're not allowed to explain what motivates us. Not happy with that at all. There's also the question of how far we trust people to think for themselves, and how far we try to 'protect' people from views that we aren't happy with. Both Richard Dawkins (see Monday's post) and the BHA seem to take the latter view, which is an interesting position for a rationalist to take.

And if you want to remove from the public eye things which are corrosive of the ability to reason and think, then start with Big Brother. Oh, sorry, that's already happened.....

Just for balance, here's a piece on the National Secular Society.

And other points of view, lest I be accused of undermining anything:
Independent
Wonderful life (supports BHA)
Fairly balanced piece at the Freethinker, which quotes an interesting letter from a local person who calls the zookeepers 'religious extremists' and 'far-Right'. Didn't realise it was run by Osama bin Laden and Margaret Thatcher, best avoid.
A site called 'Prats in Power' is very rude about the BHA, so rude I won't link them, but wonders how you become a self-appointed policeman of business.
Steve Borthwick looks at the educational value of the Ark.

Has anyone reading this actually been there?

Dawkins Calls for the Priest

The Times is serialising some extracts from Richard Dawkins new book 'the Greatest Show on Earth', starting today. In it, Dawkins claims science teachers face a 'dire' plight, with a rising number of children, and parents, refusing to accept evolution, and persecuting science teachers who expound it. He compares this with historians trying to teach 20th century history to Holocaust deniers - which makes a good headline, but I'm pretty uncomfortable with anyone who uses the Holocaust to make a point in an argument.

The main body of the piece is a plea to church leaders (not quite sure why it's just church leaders, I didn't realise all Muslims were 100% behind Darwin on this one) who have accepted evolutionary theory and integrated it into their faith. Here's a bit of it:

To return to the enlightened bishops and theologians, it would be nice if they’d put a bit more effort into combating the anti-scientific nonsense that they deplore. All too many preachers, while agreeing that evolution is true and Adam and Eve never existed, will then blithely go into the pulpit and make some moral or theological point about Adam and Eve in their sermons without once mentioning that, of course, Adam and Eve never actually existed!

If challenged, they will protest that they intended a purely “symbolic” meaning, perhaps something to do with “original sin”, or the virtues of innocence. They may add witheringly that, obviously, nobody would be so foolish as to take their words literally. But do their congregations know that? How is the person in the pew, or on the prayer-mat, supposed to know which bits of scripture to take literally, which symbolically? Is it really so easy for an uneducated churchgoer to guess? In all too many cases the answer is clearly no, and anybody could be forgiven for feeling confused.

Think about it, Bishop. Be careful, Vicar. You are playing with dynamite, fooling around with a misunderstanding that’s waiting to happen — one might even say almost bound to happen if not forestalled. Shouldn’t you take greater care, when speaking in public, to let your yea be yea and your nay be nay? Lest ye fall into condemnation, shouldn’t you be going out of your way to counter that already extremely widespread popular misunderstanding and lend active and enthusiastic support to scientists and science teachers? The history-deniers themselves are among those who I am trying to reach. But, perhaps more importantly, I aspire to arm those who are not history-deniers but know some — perhaps members of their own family or church — and find themselves inadequately prepared to argue the case.

thoughts
1. It's quite possible to make moral or theological points about things without having to say whether they really happened or not - many great novels and works of literature do this. You wouldn't come on stage at the end of Les Miserables and say 'now don't forget everyone, this is all fiction, just a story made up by Dumas, and none of it really happened.'

2. I love the line about 'uneducated' churchgoers. That's a fine commentary on our schools system, unless Dawkins is proposing that the church play a greater role in education? Thought not.

3. I'm not sure it's the place of church leaders to go 'out of your way' to argue for evolution over against creationism. For one thing, there are a lot of other things going on in the real world, and this comes some way down the list of concerns. Secondly, we're not preaching on Genesis 1-3 every other month. I'll happily say from the pulpit (though I'd rather be at ground level) that Genesis is more of a theological document than a historical one, but it's not as though I'll get the chance to go into all of that in fine detail. People can think for themselves.

4. I wonder if that second paragraph has ever happened in reality, or whether it's a figment of Dawkins imagination. If his argument is based on facts, we should know. If it's based on fictions, then we should know. We should be told whether this blithe and withering clergyman ever existed, even as he is used to make a moral point.

5. It's quite amusing, that having systematiclly abused and ridiculed religious people for years, Dawkins is now trying to co-opt us. I'm not sure how he can argue that a) evolution disproves the existence of God and b) people who believe in God should be defending evolution. Huh? That's like asking Flintoff to bowl for the Aussies.

Further reading
Is Richard Dawkins a stage magician? (Uncommon Descent)
'The God Delusion makes me ashamed to be an atheist' (Thinking matters)

it's a small world

incredible, even if you have seen it before

What Did Darwin Think of Religion

Theos have been busy this week, not only reporting on political God-talk (see below), but rounding up some quotes from Charles Darwin on what he thought of faith.

Also from the Times site, readers letters on creation and evolution in the light of the Royal Society mess, and some words of wisdom from Sir John Polkinghorne.

Creationism in Class?

Prof Michael Reiss, director of education at the Royal Society, has called for 'Creationism' to be explored on the school curriculum:

"Some of my comments about the teaching of creationism have been misinterpreted as suggesting that creationism should be taught in science classes. Creationism has no scientific basis.
"However, when young people ask questions about creationism in science classes, teachers need to be able to explain to them why evolution and the Big Bang are scientific theories but they should also take the time to explain how science works and why creationism has no scientific basis.
"I have referred to science teachers discussing creationism as a worldview'; this is not the same as lending it any scientific credibility."

I hadn't realised that he's a fellow vicar as well, and he seems to have had a busy 24 hours since the story broke! I have 3 observations:

- This whole story reinforces the Dawkins myth that there are only two possible worldviews when it comes to the origin of life - Creationism or evolution by natural selection. So therefore anyone religious must believe the world was made in 6 days. Creationism is a minority view among Christians, but you wouldn't guess that from the way this kind of stuff is reported. Most of us don't have a problem with evolution, and a cosmos many billions of years old. In fact, that cosmos is charged with the glory of God in a way increasingly discovered by scientists.

- By all means teach Creationism as a worldview, but if you're going to be fair why not teach Darwinianism (or Dawkinsism) as a worldview as well? Atheist scientists make faith statements too.

- Part of the debate is whether this belongs in science or R.E./PSHE (personal, social and health education) It's not as though there isn't an explicit worldview behind most of what's in the school curriculum, in terms of what's important, and education as a practical exercise to prepare you as a worker and citizen of a particular sort of society. Everything belongs in RE.

Update: great collection of links at Thinking Anglicans on this story. TA also reports rumours that the CofE is to apologise to Charles Darwin on his anniversary next week. Why? The scientific community gave Darwin plenty of stick too, and soon-to-be Archbishop Temple welcomed Darwins insights. And maybe it's time to re-examine the legend of Huxley vs Wilberforce too.