Evolutionary biology adopting religious traits

[Thumpalumpacus]

My experience in college, at the jc level, was pretty different.

[Alex K]

Well, your professor was an idiot then. There are many idiots on this earth, and your college apparently doesn't do a good job screening them out. Was the guy a researcher in evolutionary biology? What gave you the idea that what the guy does is in any way representative of the science itself?

[tantric]

Darwin Day (what the hell, why can't I post links?) Google it. No Einstein Day. Newton Day in America would be about fig bars.

In any case, that caused me to inspect how ordinary people experience science. It's a little disconcerting. Imagine a post-apocalyptic tribe that has inherited our base knowledge, but not the proofs of that knowledge. They believe in a heliocentric solar system, the cosmological model, germ theory, etc, but they have absolute no proof and no knowledge of the scientific method. The knowledge is passed down by priests, who memorize it. They believe, very firmly, in No God and secular humanism. Do these people have a religion?

Many people, even most people, treat science like magic and scientists like priests. It's a source of orthodox information, the approved world view, but they have no understanding of how it came to be. Even intellectuals do it...the other day I was talking about how food preferences can be passed from mother to child, and someone said, "I refuse to believe that memories can be passed..." What? Why do you need to believe anything - it's science, you know or you don't.

People get VERY attached to their theories, especially those they use to form their world views. Consider dark matter - what is that but some idea a physicist made up to plug a hole in a theory/observation set. The whole idea is fairly new, and considering how cosmological theories come and go, it likely has a short life span. But some folks just can't handle having unknowns, or worse, unknowables. They will *believe* anything to avoid that hole.

Consider Marxist-Leninism. It went from a political philosophy to a state religion. Like it or not, religion plays a part in human social organization. When we move beyond ethnic chiefdoms to multiethnic states, historically, religion has been the glue. In the USSR, is seems that in some horrid way Communism became a substitute for the binding religion, and began to take on religious traits. They pickled their prophet and made him a shrine. They have a holy book, and persecute heretics. There are zealots and true believers, etc. Hell, in the PRC people pray to Mao.

See, I'm kind of purist with science. I REALLY don't want to see a similar process occur, creating Science instead of just doing science. That's one of the reasons I have a religion, to make sure that part of my psyche is occupied. Now y'all can explode, because I'm stretching the definition of 'religion' to breaking. I don't use that word myself, I use 'dharma' - teachings, a classification of constituents of the entire material and mental world. Atheism isn't a religion, but secular humanism is a dharma. State communism certainly is. And I really don't want science to be - it should remain, simply, a process of investigation, nothing more.

BTW, one of the bits of Buddhism I follow is called 'Right Speech', meaning not lying and not using language to damage your community. Meaning I don't like snotty crap, just saying.

[robvalue]

Whhh...whhhh... What?

People don't have time to become an expert in every single subject, so a certain amount of trust in qualified people is required, sure. But you can go and investigate anything you like, to check for yourself whether it is true or believable.

And if established claims are wrong, people get famous for showing they are wrong.

I agree, it would be good if everyone understood all our scientific knowledge, but I'm afraid that's impossible. Even the brightest wouldn't have time to study every angle of every subject.

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Ordinary people know science works because science is powering all their shit. There's no science conspiracy, if that's what you're implying?

Or that we should discard proven results in case other people won't understand them? The work is usually available for review, it's not a big secret.

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I'm not sure if you're trying to compare religious and scientific faith... Please don't do that

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I'm eating cake in my pyjamas. What am I learning about science, really? It's still christmas until we run out of cakes and sweets.

[Gawdzilla]

Calling modern evolutionary theory "Darwinism" is like calling aeronautical engineering "Wrightism".

[Alex K]

Calling modern evolutionary theory "Darwinism" is like calling aeronautical engineering "Wrightism".

Yeah, it has always annoyed me, but some science communicators are prone to it. Neodarwinian synthesis is more like it.

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Darwin Day (what the hell, why can't I post links?) [because you haven't been a member for 30 days or have posted 30 posts - it's the roolz]Google it. No Einstein Day. Newton Day in America would be about fig bars.

It could just be the time, if Newton had lived till the late 19th century, there might be one. However, the fact that it's now highlighted in the US is, in my opinion merely a small pushback against the strong creationist influence in politics and public opinion in the US.

In any case, that caused me to inspect how ordinary people experience science. It's a little disconcerting.

Hey, if you want to trash the way the majority of media handles science communication and science journalism, and the general state of science literacy, I'm all with you! That, however, has exactly zero to do whether actual scientists do their science wrong. I'd like for you to carefully separate the two: in your thread title, you seem to conflate the way science is carried out and the way science is communicated, and your following posts didn't exactly make the distinction clearer. The thousands of evolutionary biologists working in the field are not adopting any religious traits in their work, so don't claim that. Whatever some stupid college teachers or journalists make out of it is an entirely different story.

Imagine a post-apocalyptic tribe that has inherited our base knowledge, but not the proofs of that knowledge. They believe in a heliocentric solar system, the cosmological model, germ theory, etc, but they have absolute no proof and no knowledge of the scientific method.

You basically talk about the general population today. Yes, science literacy is too low. You are preaching to the choir here.

The knowledge is passed down by priests, who memorize it. They believe, very firmly, in No God and secular humanism. Do these people have a religion?

Erm... do you have a religion because you assume that your computer works by actually doing calculations using electrons on its microscopic computer chip, as opposed to magic - even though you probably haven't checked it for yourself?

Many people, even most people, treat science like magic and scientists like priests.

Actually, my current occupation is that I am an actual real scientist. Bow to my authoritah, peasant! Snotty crap removed in post processing

It's a source of orthodox information, the approved world view, but they have no understanding of how it came to be. Even intellectuals do it...the other day I was talking about how food preferences can be passed from mother to child, and someone said, "I refuse to believe that memories can be passed..." What? Why do you need to believe anything - it's science, you know or you don't.

That's science for you? you know or you don't. That's not how science works. There are degrees of belief depending on the quality of data and plausibility.

People get VERY attached to their theories, especially those they use to form their world views. Consider dark matter - what is that but some idea a physicist made up to plug a hole in a theory/observation set. The whole idea is fairly new, and considering how cosmological theories come and go, it likely has a short life span.

Ok, that's a bit underwhelming now. You think the majority of scientists believe dark matter to exist because it's some kind of religious truth? Something tells me you don't know much about astrophysics, do you?

But some folks just can't handle having unknowns, or worse, unknowables. They will *believe* anything to avoid that hole.

And again, you think that's the reason a majority of (astro)physicists believe that dark matter exists? Have you ever attempted to understand the different strands of independent evidence we have for it before making such insulting claims?

Consider Marxist-Leninism. It went from a political philosophy to a state religion. Like it or not, religion plays a part in human social organization. When we move beyond ethnic chiefdoms to multiethnic states, historically, religion has been the glue. In the USSR, is seems that in some horrid way Communism became a substitute for the binding religion, and began to take on religious traits. They pickled their prophet and made him a shrine. They have a holy book, and persecute heretics. There are zealots and true believers, etc. Hell, in the PRC people pray to Mao.

Yeah yeah, the Communist state doctrine sucks... what's your point here?

See, I'm kind of purist with science.

Then you should try to understand a bit better what you are talking about. You misrepresented how science works and strongly misrepresented the motivations behind the scientific consensus concerning dark matter.

I REALLY don't want to see a similar process occur, creating Science instead of just doing science.

I don't know what that means-

That's one of the reasons I have a religion, to make sure that part of my psyche is occupied. Now y'all can explode,

Kablaam.

because I'm stretching the definition of 'religion' to breaking. I don't use that word myself, I use 'dharma' - teachings, a classification of constituents of the entire material and mental world. Atheism isn't a religion, but secular humanism is a dharma. State communism certainly is. And I really don't want science to be - it should remain, simply, a process of investigation, nothing more.

Science is done by human beings, and they are fallible and prone to all kinds of weaknesses as well as prejudice. You still haven't convinced me that there is a noticeable problem of current science being elevated to a religion. Above you've tried to use dark matter as an example. But it is a terrible example because you criticise the scientific consensus, which you are not competent enough to do in general, instead of the public perception of science, which is more viable.

BTW, one of the bits of Buddhism I follow is called 'Right Speech', meaning not lying and not using language to damage your community. Meaning I don't like snotty crap, just saying.

What do I care whether your religion forbids snotty crap. Mine does not. I'll still take you seriously though if your contributions deserve it.

[Esquilax]

The novel I'm currently working on uses the word "the" more times than the Old Testament mentions god too, I'm sure. Does that mean, therefore, that my kinky romance novel is religious toward the word "the"? Or can we all just acknowledge that word usage is not a reliable indicator of the contents of the book, over... the contents of the book?

Reading Darwin's biography is a bit much. Your argument is snark - I don't do that (online).

My argument may have been snarky, but it also served a point; you brought up word usage as evidence that Darwin is viewed like a religious figure in science, and I was able to find a counter-example within my own life to demonstrate that word usage does not correlate to religious fervor. Yes, it was a silly argument I made, but then, the point I was responding to was equally silly. So sorry that I felt the need to have some fun with it.

The author of Darwin's biography was bad at his job by mentioning the subject? A book on Galapagos spends more time talking about the Beagle than the animals? It's very deliberate.

You don't think it's a little unfair of you to call the books you were reading in your college course the "required reading" in your first post, and then spring the fact that it was actually Darwin's biography on me after my response, while acting as though I should have known that all along? I mean, wouldn't the more reasonable assumption when discussing the required reading of a college biology course be biology textbooks?

Usually I think 'hero worship' when a see a historical figure being put on a pedestal and given accolades.

Rather than simply being given recognition as deserved by their accomplishments? Seems more like a problem with you and the way you want to view this, than with the treatment of the historical figure.

The origin of life was spoken of extensively, as it is part of the refutation of God. This isn't a class about evolutionary biology, it's "Darwin was Right, Bitches".

The origin of life shouldn't have been used in that way.

No, I'm going to relate an anecdote. If I were working on a theory, I'd write a paper proposal, not waste my time answering snark.

I didn't say you were working on a theory, I said that if you have a working knowledge of science you should know better than to extrapolate the behavior of whole portions of the scientific community based on a sample size of one.

Okay, about snark. Communication is when two people exchange information, making a deliberate attempt to understand each other, in order to grow and learn. Snark is when people use language in an attempt to demonstrate intellectual superiority. They problem therein is that snark is inherently emotionally immature - even if you're right, you still look like an ass.

Would you like any more well poison? Perhaps another excuse to dismiss what I have to say out of hand?

Look, I'm quite capable of having serious discussions, in fact I like doing that. Unfortunately, what you presented here was patently ridiculous, and lacking a lot of information that you've since revealed in the meantime that might have made me take your claims more seriously. I still think your conclusions are hilariously overreaching, but don't blame me for not taking you one hundred percent seriously based on what little you gave in your first post.

[robvalue]

What I don't get is, your story was 6 years ago. That's a long time to still be thinking Darwin is worshipped, when I've never heard of a single person doing it ever.

[Thumpalumpacus]

Darwin Day (what the hell, why can't I post links?) Google it. No Einstein Day. Newton Day in America would be about fig bars.

Probably because Einstein and Newton didn't formulate theories generating so much controversy (any more, in Einstein's case).

Assuming that the Darwin Day Foundation speaks for scientists or scientifically-minded laypersons is quite the stretch, too.

Your point about the human urge to create groups of like-minded people who then go on to annoy the shit out of others about their own hobbyhorses is apt. Your assumption that one of those groups represents a much wider group, however, isn't.

[tantric]

Peace. See, I talk on forums just to shoot the shit. It's not meant to determine great things, it's not serious debate. It's just talk. In person, I *loathe* small talk, but on the net...

So allow me to start again.

Proposition: Religions serve a variety of purposes in human societies. One that I've noted is in state formation. When polities move beyond the ethnic chiefdom, they need a new glue, and often that is religion. It's the process that took the elegant philosophy of the Buddha and created a feudal theocracy in Tibet. Curiously, it also seems to have happened in the USSR and the PRC, despite both states being avowed atheists. The degree to which some of the customs of those societies mimicked religion is uncanny. Of course, there are counter examples - the USA didn't go so far down the same path, though we play with it more than we should. So, when you create a modern multiethnic polity, based on the principles of secular humanism, what risk is there of the 'canonization' of science? Do such societies simply need these legends?

Yeah, I saw an example that really bugged me. Since them I've been looking and thinking. Part of the problem is that whenever I mention the idea of science and secular humanism taking on religious characteristics, the resident proponents blow a gasket. That, to me, is telling - they have a personal attachment to their ideas, tied to their sense of self. Many such folks have some peculiar ideas, like defining 'religion' as inherently false or that it always involves God.

That's not how I see it. Yep, it's the dictionary definition, but there's more there. There's also the summation of a person's coherent worldview. To me, everyone has a religion. It's the combination of your beliefs on cosmology, eschatology, teleology, theology, morality and other fields. I don't see belief in the God of Abraham and belief in No God as fundamentally different. However, after being dragged down by semantic one too many times, I've yield and now use the word 'dharma' instead of 'religion' to describe this.

What is the difference between believing something that's true and knowing a fact? In the modern age, the beliefs of the masses have change a lot. Say, most people now believe matter is made of atoms, rather than the four elements. That's true (don't pick), but the fundamental mental process is the same. It's still belief. There's still a class of sorcerer-priests who hand down the Law, and people take it on faith. It can't really be any other way, so well and good. But there are sociological issues that go along with this process - you can see the wheels turning in every society on the planet. Is this making any sense at all? I'm trying to say that when scientists become the arbiters of Truth, there are secondary sociological processes that come into play. You can see it happen in the history of the USSR. As our cultures become more secular, we will see more of this within our societies.

Okay, is that well stated enough?