Metaphors Bewitch You

Do these statements sound familiar to you?

·       “An atom is like a little solar system, where the nucleus is the sun, and the electrons are the planets.”

·       “The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field.”

·       “Working memory is a conveyor belt.”

During the last few years, as I spent time listening to Great Courses, learning about disparate disciplines like writing, philosophy, physics, history and theology, I have been struck with one recurring method used by the many teachers I’ve heard, and it occurred to me that every teacher I could remember used that same method.  What is the method?  Comparison as explanation.  Simile, metaphor, models: all of these are ways to explain one concept in terms of another, and they all depend on the ability to compare something you already know to something you want to learn more about.

When you’re learning something new, you’re standing on what you can think of as an island of existing knowledge, and you want to cross over to some new island of knowledge.  To get from one island to another you can walk over a bridge of metaphor.  That is, you can base your understanding of the new, by comparing it to something you already know. 

This is not simply an effective teaching technique, it’s also both something our minds seem programmed to do and a method we apply to our own lives without even thinking about it.  Often, when we learn about something for the first time, especially if the new topic is complex, we can get a basic understanding by comparing one thing to another.  For example, the first statement above compares atoms to planets.  By the time we start learning about atoms in school, we have typically been exposed to the solar system in previous science classes.  The comparison, then, makes sense.  It gives us a mental picture on which we can scribble mental notes.  This is very, very helpful.

But as we drive over the bridge of simile, we need to be careful that it does not collapse and drop us to our doom.  Why would that happen?  Well, the comparison can only be as good as the underlying structure of the known thing is similar to the underlying structure of the new thing.  If the two things are not extremely similar, we might make a generalizing assumption which gets us in trouble.  For example, two primates are very similar, whereas a primate and a jellyfish are not.  So, while you might deduce some similarities between a jellyfish and an ape, based on them both turning food into energy, for example, you probably don’t want to generalize a similarity when it comes to how they will react to a mirror introduced into their environment.

And, in the case of the atomic structure being like a solar system, you might picture electrons being solid objects, similar to planets.  This would be carrying the analogy, perhaps, too far – depending on the degree of detail you need.  Electrons, as explained by current quantum theory anyway, don’t “really” travel in circles (or some other relatively “flat” closed-loop paths) but sometimes it helps to think of them that way, especially when first learning about them.  Once you get to a point, as an engineer or physicist, to require a deeper understanding of subatomic structure, however, you need to know quantum theory, and that is not much like a solar system at all.

The trouble with using these comparisons, you see, is noticing when you have fallen off the bridge.  If the bridge were a real thing, instead of a metaphor, it would be obvious.  You’d be falling, or submerged in water, or smashed to a pulp.  But, as this bridge is metaphorical, it can be more like a wrong turn, which seems to be making progress towards your goal, but which is really taking you somewhere you didn’t intend to go.

Many years ago, for example, scientists thought that light was a wave.  This caused them to posit a material through which the wave traveled.  They called it “ether.”  Why did they think ether existed?  Well, the waves they knew about all had some substance through which the wave transmitted itself.  Waves in the ocean have, at their basis, water.  Without the water, there is no wave, so clearly light – because it was a wave – must have some “stuff” in which to carry itself. 

Of course, ultimately, scientists proved this was nottrue.  They had been using the metaphor of a fluid wave, and it had led them down an incorrect path.  Light might have some properties of “physical” waves, but not the requirement to have a transmitting material.

None of the above is meant to discourage anyone from using comparisons!  Far from it!  As I said before, our minds seem to look for similarities, and those similarities help us learn.  My point today is about being aware of the metaphors you are using, so that if you need a more thorough understanding of something, you can use more than the model. 

Of course, even when you do, you’re probably going to just encounter another model – those scientists who care about electrons need to understand mathematical probability – because true understanding of many topics might just be beyond what you need, or what we can accomplish.  But if an additional metaphor helps you comprehend the thing more completely, then, by all means, use it!  Just be aware, it’s still just a model.

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[I have been wanting to write about this topic for well over a year, but I’ve been avoiding it because I feel it’s very expansive, which makes it hard to cover properly in a blog, which I feel is a medium typically more conducive to taking a concise approach.  So, what changed my mind?  Well, I recently bought another Great Course, and as I looked at the list of lectures, it appears I will be hearing 30 minutes on this very topic.  I decided that I want to get my thoughts captured before being exposed to those of the professor.  I will be happy to revisit the whole idea later.  Meanwhile, I remain abashed proud of the silly pun in the title.  So I like Star Wars; so sue me. ]

Memory Part 1: Echoic and Iconic

Today, I’m just going to jot down a few things I’ve begun to learn as I’ve heard the first few lectures in a new Great Course.  The course is on Memory (Memory and the Human Lifespan), which is a subject I find fascinating.  This fascination stems from my ongoing study of the subject of knowledge.  I think most of us would agree that memory is intimately involved in knowledge – how can you claim to “know” something if you can’t also claim to “remember” it, in some sense.  Yet, memory can be so amazingly flawed, even in people with “normal" memory.

Anyway, here are a few tidbits:

“Memory” is not one single thing.  It is a set of processes which go on in our brains, which allow past experiences to affect our current or future behavior.  And though many of us think of there being just “short-term” memory and “long-term” memory, it’s more complicated than that.  In fact, there are two easily recognized kinds of memory which are even “shorter-term” than what we call “short-term” memory.  They are both types of sensory memory.

Echoic Memory – This is something I never thought about, but it’s clearly something which exists.  “Echoic” comes from “echo” and as you might guess, it relates to auditory memory, or the memory of what our ears have heard.  But it’s not long-term, such as remembering the song you heard at a concert.  Echoic memory stores, for a very short time, the information which your auditory system took in while you were concentrating on something else.  As Dr. Steve Joordens explains, we often have the experience that someone begins talking to us when we are focused on something else, and our immediate reaction is to say “What?” Often, the person then begins to repeat the question, but before they can, we realize that we actually did hear what they said.  But, in fact, we did not “consciously” hear it when the speaker first spoke.  Instead, the information was stored, for a brief time, in our Echoic Memory, which “plays it back” for us.  I expect many of you recognize this same effect. 

For me, personally, it seems related to another behavior I have.  I’ll be sitting in my living room, next to my wife, but paying attention to my computer (probably a game.)  I will then say something and Sherry will say “I just said that.”  I don’t remember, at all, hearing her.  But I believe her.  And now I know how it could happen.  The words she said went into my Echoic memory, but they stayed there, unattended to, for too long.  Yet, they somehow reached a sub-conscious part of my mind.  I can't be sure that this is truly a function of Echoic Memory -- this specific topic did not come up in the lessons I have heard -- but it seems to fit.

Iconic Memory – Like Echoic Memory, which is related to the sense of hearing, Iconic Memory is related to the sense of sight.  This type of memory is even shorter-term than Echoic.  The easiest way to realize that you have this type of memory is to think of watching a light source in a dark place.  Personally, I think about watching sparklers on the fourth of July – imagine it, if you can.  A kid waves a sparkler in the darkness, and you seem to see a streamer of light following behind the sparkler.  The same thing can happen with any other light source while it’s moving.  We know, physically, that the light source is in only one position at any moment, but we “see” a residual image of the light as it moves.  That is a function of Iconic Memory. 

It turns out Iconic Memory is also in constant use when we are living normal lives.  The perception we have of one seamless view from our eyes is really built from the combination of hundreds of little pieces of Iconic Memory.  Our eyes, we learn, are very rarely holding themselves in one position for very long at all.  They are making tiny little movements, capturing the scene in front of us, helping us build a more complete scene.  

 It’s fascinating.

I've also heard about Episodic Memory, and was just listening to two lectures on Working Memory.  More on those another time.  Additionally, the course is teaching techniques for "Improving" memory, though really it's more about understanding how memory works, so you can to put the right kinds of effort into getting things to be more easily retrieved from your memory.

I bet I will listen to this course more than once.  But I am also pretty certain to write more about what I have learned before the course is over, because, as it turns out, writing about what I've learned helps make it more likely that I can retrieve it in the future.  Which is, after all, one thing I really want!

Oh, and one other thing about this course: it describes some of the seminal experiments which were used in the study of memory, and so far most of them have been very easy to understand and would be quite easily duplicated, in one were so inclined.

Fascinating, I tell you.

Great Course - Building Great Sentences

You know what's intimidating?  Well, try this:

Step 1: Listen to 24 lectures entitled Building Great Sentences: Exploring the Writer's Craft taught by Dr. Brooks Landon.

Step 2: Contemplate writing a blog about it.

Don't think that's intimidating?  Please!  Think about it.


After spending twelve hours learning about building great sentences, when you might have thought there was no way a person could talk about sentences for more than, say, fifteen minutes, unless they were your 7th grade English teacher, after being impressed by dozens of mesmerizing sentences from great literature, after being given advice on constructing sentences from one of the best teachers of writing in the country, realizing that you had better have learned something from all of this, wouldn't you be just a bit intimidated by the idea that people might read your review of the course and ask themselves "How could he write like this after supposedly learning something about sentences?"

Well, I was.

Nevertheless, I will put virtual pen to paper and let you know that, if you are at all interested in how writers can work at their craft to make their ideas even more powerful, then you would be well served to listen to what Dr. Landon has to say.

The first part of Building Great Sentences deals with unlearning some of the "received wisdom" most of us were taught in English class about the value of brevity.  It turns out that longer sentences can be far more powerful than our typical middle school and high school teachers told us.  For that reason, Landon talks extensively about cumulative sentences - what they are, how to build them, what makes them helpful and how to avoid mistakes - additionally addressing another piece of false advice which has been passed along in writing courses - that periodic sentences are clearly better than anything else.

Oh, the course does talk about periodic sentences - though Landon redefines them as "suspensive" for very good reasons - but it also demonstrates that the true periodic template is limited, and that great writers throughout the years have used other forms with equal effectiveness.

I must remember to ask June Melby if she ever took a course from Professor Landon, as his bio tells us he works at the University of Iowa, and if I recall correctly, June received her MFA in writing from that school.  Anyway, listening to this course definitely felt like being in a master class.  I am confident my future writing projects will be influenced by what I heard in the lessons.  And I am heartened by the idea that Dr. Landon also preaches -- that a good writer can hear when a sentence needs help, and when it has reached a truly effective state after receiving that help, without the need to go into tedious exercises such as sentence diagrams. 

All in all, this course was a very good use of my time.  And I am certain I will return to it for reference in the future.

Great Course - The Spiritual Brain: Science and Religious Experience

I have just finished the Great Course called "The Spiritual Brain: Science and Religious Experience" taught by  Professor Andrew Newberg.  Today, I will write about my reactions to the course.  I won't be able to do so without mentioning some of the content, but I suspect I will not be able to delve as deeply into that content as I might like. 

I am a strong believer in studying the world scientifically, and I have enjoyed going through many Great Courses on scientific topics.  I am also clearly interested in faith and religion.  And, if you have been following my Knowledge Series of posts, I clearly approach both topics with a heavy focus on philosophy.  Consequently, when I saw this course offered, it was clear I would want to hear it.

 

Here we have a doctor, a scientist and a believer all rolled into one teacher.  Dr. Newberg has done some very interesting brain studies related to spiritual experiences, and has detailed knowledge of other related studies.  I entered this course expecting a very technical and scientific experience.

That's not quite what I got.  I did get some science -- in particular, Dr. Newberg taught his listeners about the basic parts of the brain, and what parts of the human mind those parts are involved in.  And several scientific studies were described during the lectures, to show how science is being applied to the study of spirituality and religion, as well as practices common to both. 

But mostly, the course was philosophical and "directional."  I'll explain.

First why do I say "directional?"  Well, it appears that, while science has done some work on understanding how spiritual experiences manifest themselves in the brain, and how physiology differs between spiritual and non-spiritual people, the science is not particularly mature.  In the course, Dr. Newberg often talks about directions new studies could take.  There are directions it could go from the studies done so far, and from what we know about how the brain works during other uses of the mind.  But apparently, science has not taken up those directions to an extent which would allow a true scientist to make definitive statements.

Second, why "philosophical?"  Well, two of reasons, really.  First, in order to talk about the functioning of the brain, Dr. Newberg has to talk about the mind, and science, and religion, and spirituality.  In order to do this, he is touching on topics which he felt obliged to describe with philosophy.  I can understand this, to some extent.  I have learned a lot about the philosophy of each of these things in my other studies, though, and so some of what he taught seemed superfluous to my goals for the course. 

Second, the course was "philosophical" because Dr. Newberg makes the case for doing this sort of research at all.   I can't fault him for that.  When people think about studying spirituality scientifically, many object, and for widely different reasons.  One camp thinks of spirituality as something which is super-natural and those who are close to this end of the spectrum are concerned that a scientific study will only be used to try to eliminate or disprove that.  Another camp thinks that spirituality and religion are social constructs only, and therefor not appropriate for study by "hard science."  This makes it difficult to get funding for such work, and clearly Dr. Newberg believes there is significant value to be found in research on these lines, so he argues for its importance - philosophically, but with interesting facts and significant knowledge of how the brain works.

I did get some very interesting things from this Great Course.  I hope to document a few of them in a later post, but just to give you some idea:

• Brain scanning techniques show clear changes in how the brain is being used during prayer and meditation practices.  That brain activity corresponds well to what one might have predicted, knowing how the various portions of the brain function in non-spiritual settings, and knowing how people describe those experiences.
• Religion & spirituality has been a part of human existence since before civilization was founded, based on the current scientific information.
• There are physiological differences -- at a statistical level -- between groups of people who are spiritual and those who are not, between people who engage in spiritual practices and those who do not.  Cause and effect are not clear, but the differences exist.

On the whole, this course was probably the least interesting one I have heard.  Largely this is because I think the material could have been covered in twelve lectures rather than twenty four.  There were many times, especially later in the course, when I thought "OK, you said this same sort of thing in another lecture.  Your topic is slightly different (mystical vs revelation experiences, for example) but the points are similar.  You could have combined these topics."  I also would have found it more gratifying if the "known science" had been collected, at least in summary, near the end of the course.

However, I am not sorry I listened.  I won't listen again.  I will refer back to points made in the lectures -- so I hope the course guide book is as good as previous courses have had -- but this will not be a repeat course.

So, that's it for this time.  Once again, I will mention that I truly appreciate being able to hear university-level lectures from highly qualified academicians.  If any of you do, and you know me personally, I would be glad to loan you a course.

Essays and Philosophy - the Foreword

For years now, I've had a long series of essays forming in my mind.  At various points in this blog, they've slipped out, or colored my other topics.  When trying to think of an overarching theme for this series, I've toyed with several ideas.  One of these ideas would be the title of the collected essays if anyone were ever to care to collect them -- or if I were ever industrious enough to write them.  Anyway, some of these ideas are:

• INTS - It's Not That Simple   (or)
• You're Wrong - But We All Are  (or)
• You Don't Really Know That
• Don't Be So Sure

(Now wouldn't it be amazing if someone comes out with a book with one of those titles?  It'll be on the New York Times Bestseller List for six months, the author will be a guest on Ellen and The View.  Or at least on Fresh Air with Terry Gross.  I'll kick myself for not writing the book first.  Especially because I'd miss talking about my ideas with Terry Gross.  Wouldn't that be amazing?  But I digress.)

Perhaps its clear, perhaps it's not, but I am fascinated by the uncertainty -- the incompleteness -- of human knowledge.  And in my fascination, I am frequently dismayed by how strongly others act on their beliefs that their personal knowledge is certain.

Well, anyway, because I have this particular attraction, I have been attracted to Philosophy.  If you have read any of my "Knowledge Series" you have probably guessed as much.  If you have followed along as I have described the Great Courses I've read, you would have noticed the same thing.

"So what?" you say.  Well, see, if I'm ever going to write this series of essays, I am going to have to write some introductory essays.  "Why?" you ask.  Glad you asked.

There are some concepts in Philosophy which were very powerful in getting me thinking about the whole topic of knowledge in the first place, so I will want to refer to them in my essays.  While most people who have studied some Philosophy will know about these concepts, I would guess most people who read this blog won't. 

So, today, I am going to start writing blog posts about some of those concepts.  And they will become the "foreword" for the series I really want to write.  If you read my blog for movie reviews, or discussions about games, or even just to see Favorite Foto Friday photos, you are welcome to skip what follows.  But I hope some of you will stick around to read some of what I find fascinating.

Next time: The Ship of Theseus

Laws of Nature - "Is" vs "Must Be" and Counterfactuals

I am revisiting the Great Course on the Philosophy of Science.  It is so long, and packed with so much to learn and consider, I could not hear it just once.  Dr. Kasser explains the facets of this topic quite well, so most of what I am saying below comes from his lectures, but I also need to react a bit.

I recently heard the pair of lectures which deal most specifically with the idea of Laws of Nature (or scientific laws.)  I'm not sure I can do this topic justice without laying a lot of groundwork, but I am going to write a bit, because I want to get some thoughts down while the lessons are still pretty fresh in my head.
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Preface:  The Philosophy of Science, like the philosophy of pretty much anything, asks questions which challenge us to examine our base assumptions about the subject.  This is part of what I enjoy about philosophy. 

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Let's suppose there are Laws of Nature.  Most of us have learned about them as we took science courses in junior high and high school.  When I am talking about Laws of Nature, think of things like Newton's Laws of Motion, or the laws of thermodynamics or something.  I'll use a specific example below, and by the end, we'll abstract things a bit.

One of the big topics in Philosophy of Science is how much science should claim.  One group of scientists, and philosophers about science, promote the idea that science should describe what does happen, and only that.   These are the Empiricists, and the thrust of their argument is that, in order to avoid metaphysical claims, science needs to make claims only about things which have been observed.

In this viewpoint, then, a Law of Nature, or a Scientific Law, only describes the way things ARE.  The Law contains a set of statements which describe how one interprets all observation into a coherent description of how the observed phenomena fit together.  This version of Laws tells you how to predict future observations based on patterns or relationships.  (It's very reliant on induction, which has its own logical issues, but that's something outside the scope of this post.)  A Law might even claim that there will never be a counter-example to the law.  "All copper conducts electricity" is an example of such a law, used extensively in the course, and in the Empiricist view it describes every piece of copper ever seen, plus every piece of copper we will ever see. 

However, most of us want to give science more power than that.   Most of us want science, and in particular scientific laws, to not only claim what the observations are and will be, but also to claim that they MUST BE what they are.  We want the Law to also say that, for example, every piece of copper MUST be conductive.  The supporters of this view are Necessitarians.  Their statement of the law above would be "Being made of copper necessitates conducting electricity."

In the former view people create laws.  In the latter view, the laws are out there for us to find, and we discover them.

The point about the differences in these approaches is subtle. I grant you that.  But the empiricist view does not deal well with what are called "counterfactuals."  A counterfactual is a statement which conflicts with known facts, but makes a prediction.  To use the example from the lesson, imagine you have a pen.  You could say "If this pen were made of copper, it would conduct electricity."  The known fact is that the pen is NOT made of copper.  But a claim is being made about a world in which the pen were.  Does that make logical sense based on each view of laws?

I think it's clear that the Necessitarian version of the law logically leads to the truth of "If this pen were made of copper, it would conduct electricity." Why?  Because "copper-ness" embues conductivity.  It's right there in the definition of the law.

The empiricist view, though, is not so clear.  Empiricist laws describe how things work in this world. Not in a world where things are different. Counterfactuals deal with a world which does not exist.  That's metaphysics, and not something empiricists think science should address.

Why do counterfactuals matter?  Because, when we examine many of the Laws we were taught in school, they are counterfactual.  The premises of the Laws never happen in reality.

For example, Newton's Laws of Motion tell us how bodies would react in the absence of any other forces.  But such a world does not exist.  All bodies we have ever seen have more than one force acting on them (in the Newtonian sense.)  This means that Newton's Laws never, ever have an observed instance.  Never.  The laws are, in their nature, counterfactual.   And yet we can use those laws to correctly predict motion (within certain limits; outside those limits we need Relativity or Quantum theory.)   

Personally, I believe that Laws are out there to be found.  I'm a necessitarian, I guess. When trying to discover those laws, the intellectual difficulty stems from only having observations from which to work.  From there, if we want to get to counterfactual laws, we have to apply imagination and reason.  Reason can only carry us so far, and once we're into imagination, we're definitely into the "meta" realm.

This is already long, so I will deal with related questions another time:  If the Premise is never True, what good is the Law?  If a Law is False, was it ever a Law?

Great Course: Albert Einstein

I have just finished the Great Course called "Albert Einstein: Physicist, Philosopher, Humanitarian" taught by Professor Don Howard from the University of Notre Dame.  It was a great course for me to take (pardon the pun) for several reasons.

First, as I mentioned on this blog a couple of months ago, I have been mulling over the intersection of philosophy and science as work through my own understanding of the power of science and its place in the creation of knowledge.  In my mind, I can only appreciate science fully when I understand its roots, its strengths and limitations, its relationship to truth and knowledge.  Well, as it turns out, my whole attempt to understand science in this way is a part of what's known as Philosophy of Science, and while Albert Einstein was definitely a scientist, he was also a philosopher of science.  The Great Course, being biographical, did not merely focus on Einstein's work as a scientist, but also on how he approached science -- which turns out to have been influenced greatly by philosophy.  He, himself, thought and wrote frequently on the topic of the philosophy of science, and was a proponent of requiring physicists to study philosophy.

The second reason this was a good course to take right now is that it was not as heavy as several of my more recent courses.  Yes, it described Einstein's theories, but not in as much depth as did Einstein's Relativity and the Quantum Revolution: Modern Physics for Non-Scientists, 2nd Edition.  And yes, it covered some philosophy of science, but only insofar as it related directly to Einstein, not as deeply as is necessary in Philosophy of Science.    Being biographical, this course had periods of historical description -- both of Einstein's life and of the world in which he lived -- which are easier to absorb.  It was, in some sense, a "break."   Like the flat part of a long run, it was still work, but not nearly the work represented by "hills" of other courses.

A third reason is quite personal - in the sense that it relates to me as a person.  When I was in grade school, I remember reading a lot, but there are only a few things I remember reading specifically.  I got into "The Boxcar Children" and "The Hardy Boys" and I still appreciate the fourth-grade substitute teacher who introduced me to Tolkein's "The Hobbit."  But, thinking back to those days, I realize that while my penchant for fiction was clearly established, I had one non-fiction fascination -- biographies of Albert Einstein.  I read two or three which were stocked in my grade school library, and I remember getting help from the librarian to borrow some more from other libraries, through school.  It's funny -- I can't say I remember many facts which I read back then, but I certainly remember reading the books.  I can even picture what one of the covers looked like.  In any case, this Great Course was like going back to childhood again, in one sense, as I re-learned about one of the heroes of science.

Of course, in a blog, I can't relate even a meaningful fraction of what I learned in 24 lectures.  Let me give you a few tidbits:

• Contrary to popular myth, Albert Einstein was not bad at math.  This myth arose from sloppy work by  early biographers.  Einstein spent a year in Aarau which had a grading system which was the opposite of what we might expect.  A cursory look at his grades made it appear he did poorly, but in fact, his grades put him near the top of the class.
• Thought experiments - a staple for Galileo centuries earlier - were an early tool for Einstein, and one which he continued to use throughout his life.  Picturing tough problems through simplified scenarios focused his mind, and also allowed him to explain difficult theories in a more accessible way.
• His dislike of nationalism, which put him immediately and consistently against facism, was part of a firm belief that a world government would be better -- even necessary -- for the advancement of humankind.  This belief sounded too much like anti-democracy for some powerful people, causing Einstein to be left out of the Manhattan Project.  We'll never know exactly what his response would have been, had he been invited to join.   Despite strong warnings against the use of nuclear weapons after the war, and despite working for pacifist causes throughout his life, he pointedly agreed that war against Hitler was necessary.

This Great Course is an excellent mix of science, history, biography and philosophy, and it reacquainted me with the life and work of one of the most influential people who ever lived.

Statistics about Christianity and their relation to Science and Evolution

Gathered these facts in 2013.  Never posted.  Not sure why, but as they are still valid (for the time they were gathered -- unlikely to have changed since 2013)  and pertinent to a discussion I was having, I'll post now.

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There are 2.2 billion Christians in the world.  [Sources: Washington Post, Pew Forum]

Of those, 1.2 billion are Catholic. [Sources: Catholic Culture, Pew Forum]

Pope John Paul II reaffirmed the Catholic stance that the theory (or theories) of evolution are not in conflict with scriptural truth (see Message to the Ponfical Academy if Sciences: On Evolution) and in fact, the centuries-old recognition that "We know that the truth cannot contradict the truth. (Leo XIII, Providentissimus Deus)"

Here are two important things for people involved in the "Church vs. Science" false debate to take from the above:

Christians -- you are not the minority.  Many Christians speak, act, and even stand in pulpits and preach as if they were somehow the minority.  While it is true that there are more non-Christians in the world than there are Christians, of people professing a religion, you are the largest group.

People who claim "Christians are opposed to science and particularly the Theory of Evolution": The numbers above demonstrate that a majority of Christians in the world profess a type of Christianity which supports the Theory of Evolution, and has done so for decades.  And that's only the Catholics.  There are plenty of Christian denominations which are not Catholic, but which also acknowledge that "truth cannot contradict the truth" and that, to the best knowledge humans have today, Evolution is scientific truth.

While researching this, I came across an essay by Doug Linder: The Vatican's View of Evolution: The Story of Two Popes, which I found very interesting.  It selected some of the key quotes from two Popes, which show the progression of acceptance of evolution in that branch of Christianity.

Theology, Reason and Science - Some History

In my previous Knowledge Series post, I discussed how Faith -- holding something to be True without the need to prove it -- is the basis for Reason.  Most of my discussion at that time was about how science uses Reason, together with Faith in a few things, to make Truth claims.  So, last time, the primary focus was on Science as a path to Truth.

This time, I want to discuss Religion and its relationship to Reason, and briefly to Science.  To do so, I need to get into a little history and introduce the idea of Theology.


In what we think of as Western culture, the search for Knowledge and Truth go back to the beginning of recorded thought. What we now think of as religions certainly had, as one of their functions, the delivery of Knowledge -- the explanation of how and why things happened and a description of what things Really were.  However, until the rise of what we now call Philosophy, Reason -- by our current definition --  was not required to support the Truth being described by those belief systems.

Around the time of Socrates (born in 469 BC) it is clear, however, that the Greek world had given rise to the idea of a "philosophy" -- a "love of knowledge" or "love of truth" -- and that philosophy in its nascent form said that Reason had to be applied in order to arrive at Truth.  This method of seeking Truth is probably the key inheritance we have received from Socrates and those who followed him.

Of course, at the time, the idea of "science" did not exist yet.  It would not exist for more than 2000 years, in fact.  What we might have thought of as "science" was more correctly called "natural philosophy" because it dealt with trying to find truths about the natural world.  Socrates, apparently, tried his hand at this sort of philosophy early in his life, failed at it, and moved on to a different branch.  Still, there were people at the time trying to apply reason to the study of the natural world, and then there were people like Socrates who were applying reason to less substantial things - truth, love, honor -- that sort of human endeavor.

OK, the first part of the history lesson is almost over.  I apologize that this is a very abbreviated and necessarily simplified history, but I need to tie it to the next part.  Because the next part deals with Christianity.

By the time Christianity came into existence, this approach of applying Reason to reach Truth was pretty well entrenched in the learned culture of the West.  I am not saying it wasn't at all in existence before Socrates, but certainly Socrates and his followers had tremendous influence by the time the first Christian churches were founded.

This meant that a reliance on Reason to support Truth statements was already inherent in the culture in which Christianity spread.  Thus was born, as part of the Christian belief system, Theology.

Theology, you see, is not simply a list of the things people of a particular Christian denomination hold to be true.  That, unfortunately, is how the word is quite commonly misused these days.  No, Theology is something quite different.

Theology is the application of reason to explain truth, given the faith statements which form the basis of Christianity, together with the theological material which has come before.

Compare this to today's view of science, modified to include my last post's view of faith statements:

Science is the application of reason to explain truth, given the faith statements which form the basis of science, together with the established science which has come before.

Undoubtedly you can see the parallels there.  Of course they are there.  Clearly, I was leading to this point.  Why was I doing this?

Long before the first professional scientist lived, there were professional theologians.  The early church was built by them.  The most famous and influential Christian who ever lived (perhaps excluding the Apostle Paul; let's not argue that point now) was Augustine of Hippo.  He deserves his own post or two, but for now I will merely talk about him as he relates to Theology.

Augustine was born to a Christian mother and a pagan mother, and for a very long time he rejected Christianity.  But he was determined that Reason would guide his path to the Truth.  Once he became a Christian, he applied his Reason very thoroughly.  Augustine laid down many of the theological doctrines which exist in Christianity today, by applying Reason to all manner of issues.

One key teaching of Augustine is that there were two "Books" of Truth.  The Book of Scripture, and the Book of Nature.  Both books, he said, demonstrated the Truth of God's Creation.  And, very importantly, whenever a conflict appeared to exist between the two, it was because people were not applying Reason properly.  In order to reconcile the two, we needed to examine, and find the flaw in, how we were reading the books.

This was obvious to him, by the way, even without considering what we'd call "science."  Augustine recognized the apparent contradictions in the stories of the scripture, and reasoned that there would be Truths explained when we understood them properly.  But when natural philosophy -- remember, the forerunner of science -- proved something to be true, Augustine was not opposed to the idea that the reading of Scripture would have to change to accommodate it.

And Augustine was not alone.  Almost 900 years later, Thomas Aquinas carried very similar beliefs about reason (as did many along the way, but Aquinas is historically and theologically very influential.)

This, friends, is the heritage of the Christian faith.  However, along the way, Theology got lost -- at least among many Christians.  Once the Reformation happened, many new branches of Christianity were so opposed to what became known as the Catholic church that they seemed willing to dismiss the centuries of reasoned thought which had grown up with the Church, in order to separate themselves from the abuses of that Church.

This was not "the fault" of the Reformation.  The Reformation and the Protestant movement did push a large segment of Christianity towards an idea that they could just read Scripture for themselves and be brought to an understanding of the Truth thereby.  While that may be true for the key teachings of the Gospel (again, let's not argue that point now) it most certainly is not true for the relationship between Augustine's Book of Scripture and Book of Nature.

Throwing out the theological baby with the corrupt bathwater allowed for the growth of denominations which do not take advantage of the benefit of theology.  They do not build on the foundation of Reason applied to Scripture which was meticulously built over time.

This leads to some interesting, and frustrating things. For example, something that might come as a surprise to many Christians and non-Christians alike:

A majority of Christians in the world belong to denominations which profess that the theory of evolution is consistent with Christian teachings.

Don't believe me?

There are 2.2 billion Christians in the world.  [Sources: Washington Post, Pew Forum]

Of those, 1.2 billion are Catholic. [Sources: Catholic Culture, Pew Forum]

Pope John Paul II reaffirmed the Catholic stance that the theory (or theories) of evolution are not in conflict with scriptural truth (see Message to the Ponfical Academy if Sciences: On Evolution).  In fact, he also supports the centuries-old recognition that "We know that the truth cannot contradict the truth. (Leo XIII, Providentissimus Deus)"   (Sound like Augustine to you?  It should.)

It must be said: while Catholics alone are a majority of Christians, there are other large Christian denominations which are not Catholic, but which also acknowledge that "truth cannot contradict the truth."  These people individually (and I am one) and these denominations corporately, agree that Evolution is scientific truth, to the best knowledge humans have today.

To me, one of the sad parts about the way Christians are perceived in the world today, and particularly in the modern American culture, is due to the fact that a very vocal minority of Christians has turned away from the historical underpinnings of applying reason to religion: they have tuned away from Theology.  Certainly, they apply reason to their arguments; they are Western, after all.  But they start with a set of base assumptions which was discarded by Christianity in the distant past -- the literal interpretation of scripture for one; the weighting of scripture above nature for another -- and then apply their reason from those assumptions.

In conclusion, let me say this.  It took me a long time to learn the facts which went into this post.  It seems as if it has taken me almost as long to write these few down. Of necessity, I have had to summarize large sections of very important information.  I have probably forgotten some details.  If I took another four months to revise this, it would get longer and more accurate, but at this point I think it has the key points I wanted to make.

Hopefully those of you who are currently inclined away from Christianity (and perhaps religion in general) because of its supposed opposition to Reason and Science will give it a bit more benefit of the doubt as the Knowledge Series continues.  Hopefully those of you who are Christians will recognize how tightly the two sources for Truth -- Theology and Science -- are actually connected, as well.

And hopefully, it won't take me quite so long to formulate my next post, so that the Knowledge Series can continue.

Waylaid by Learning

Yesterday I put some of the blame for my recent dearth of posts on a TV show.  Today, I am going to add "learning" to the list of things which distracted me.

You see, of all the blog entries I had been writing in recent months, it was the "Knowledge Series" which was taking more of my attention than anything else in Snippets and Wisps.  If you'll recall, the Knowledge Series started as a way for me to synthesize many of the things I had learned while listening to many Great Courses (from The Teaching Company.)

Well, two things happened related to Great Courses and Learning in general which sidetracked me.

First, at around Christmas time, I completed two courses which were both, roughly, on the topic of Psychology.  These were the first courses I had taken on this topic since an Intro to Psych course back at Luther.  They were excellent.  But I haven't yet written "reviews" of them for Snippets & Wisps.  I didn't write the first review because I wanted to have heard both courses before I wrote either review, so that I could compare, contrast and synthesize.  I didn't write the second review because, hey, it was Christmas break, and I don't push myself to blog while on vacation.

Unfortunately, that put me "behind" in writing Great Course reviews.  This would have been OK, except, well, I started another course and it forced me into a second detour.

Second, I started listening to  "Philosophy of Science."  Oh. My. Word.

Many of the things I was writing about in the Knowledge Series are directly related to the material in this Great Course.  And it's 36 lectures long!

I simply could not make myself continue the Knowledge Series without first having some of this new material in my head.  And I could not force myself to go back and review the Psychology courses -- when I write my reviews, I always return to the course books so that I can do justice to the material in the course, and so that it gets better "set" in my memory.  No, I could not go back to another course -- not while the Philosophy of Science was filling my brain.

So, you see, I was unwilling to continue to put my collected thoughts together while they were in the process of being updated by new information.

I am currently on lecture 35 of that Great Course, though (at the time of this writing, not at the time of your reading) so I anticipate I will be able to move on to some of the next points I need to make in the Knowledge Series soon. Perhaps by this weekend.

I must admit, of the "excuses" I'm giving for my blogging dry spell, this one feels least like an excuse, and more like a reason.  It's also quite satisfying.  Putting off talking while you're learning something?  I think that's generally a good idea, if I do say so myself.

GoldieBlox - Engineering Toys For Girls - Video

And now, maybe the last of this batch of things I shared on Facebook, but don't want to lose track of.

Watch this video.  Have your faith in the future of humanity raised.

When I get to buy gifts for a granddaughter, I will remember this.

Faith - the Starting Point for Reason

Have I already gotten your blood boiling?  Does my title already get a certain subset of you thinking I have done some sort of “bait and switch” – writing in my first two mini-essays about knowledge and reason, then all of a sudden switching to some sort of religious discussion?

I have not.  Do you trust me enough to read a little longer?  I will start to explain. 

Recall that in my last post in this series, I said this:

“To my way of thinking, there are three other justifications for claiming Truth for a fact, outside of Reason.  Those three justifications are Experience, Faith and Authority.”

That statement can be construed correctly to mean that I think all fact-based Truth claims rely on one or more of four things:  Reason, Experience, Faith and Authority.

We examined Authority last time, and I briefly touched on Experience.  But I really need to get to Faith.  But I want you to understand that my definition of Faith is both very specific and very broad at the same time.  It is specific in that it is simple.  It is broad in that it does not merely apply to what people would call religious faith.  When we talk about faith, people often get caught up in thoughts and discussions surrounding religion.  This makes sense, given the use of the term faith in common usage.  But when it comes to Knowledge and Fact-based Truth, what does Faith really mean?

Here’s the definition I propose:  

Faith is that step in reason which allows us to assume the truth of something which cannot be proven.

Notice here that I am defining “faith” in the context of reason – of logic.  Later, perhaps I will tie it to the context of religious faith, but for now, I need to narrow in on the meaning related to reason.  Let’s take a look at what the definition does and does not say.  

A very important aspect of this definition is the final phrase: “cannot be proven.”  Notice, it does not say “is not proven.”  A close analogy for this definition is to the idea of a postulate in mathematical proofs.  

For those of you who never liked proofs in math classes, I apologize, but there was a very important point taught in your first few lessons:  in order to make a mathematical proof, you first had to start with some things which you simply assumed were true.  A very nice list of the postulates of normal geometry can be found here, but let me extract one as an example.

Unique Line Assumption: Through any two points, there is exactly one line.

That "assumption" is a postulate. If you assume this and the related postulates  then a large number of other things can be proven.  But, very importantly for my analogy to faith, the key here is that you never try to prove that this assumption is true.  You assume it.

Faith is somewhat like that.  In the definition, and in the analogy, there are statements of Truth which are simply accepted, upon which you base reasoned arguments and “proofs” but which are never proven.

The key difference between what my definition of Faith says, though, and what mathematical postulates represent is that my definition of Faith says the truth of the Faith statement cannot be proven.  Postulates, on the other hand, are not quite the same – a postulate is a True statement which does not require proof.   

The point I am making here is that, much like in math, Knowledge itself has statements which, at their core, are not Reasoned – they are assumed.  And it is my contention that Faith is exactly that thing which is required to assume that Truth because some statements simply cannot be proven.

This is hard for people to accept, though.  Our modern minds, particularly our scientific minds, want to believe that everything can be proven.  In particular, people want to believe that everything can be explained.  

It is my belief, though, that this is not completely accurate.  And, it is my assertion, based on my belief, that we all would be better off recognizing and appreciating the idea that Faith is required for Reason, and hence for Knowledge.

“Wait, wait, wait,” you might say. “How can this be?  Doesn’t modern scientific rationality operate based on the idea that all things can be proven?  Where is ‘faith’ in that?”

Let’s discuss.

At the core of it, science is based on reason.  A hypothesis is developed – or at least a claim is made – and then tested based on the application of reason.  But what components are used in this process of reason?  Existing mental models of the way the world works (scientific theories), and data derived from observation - Facts.

But: How do scientists know that the data they are collecting are actually True?  Everywhere?  No matter what?

The answer is, ultimately, they do not.  Truth of Data implies a Very Large Thing: that this same data would result by doing the same observation in all equivalent situations.  Since it is absolutely impossible to conduct the observation in every equivalent situation, they make the assumption that, the theories or laws which govern the outcome of this experiment, and the ones which confirm it, will apply throughout the universe, or everywhere on Earth, or whatever the generalized environment.  If the theory surrounding the explanation of the data is sound, then equivalent situations would always produce equivalent data.

But the assumption that things work the same way everywhere is, in fact, a statement of Faith, by my definition.  You cannot be everywhere and you cannot gather data in all equivalent situations, so to assume Truth based on limited information is, in fact, an act of Faith.  

Please understand.  I think this is a perfectly reasonable thing to do.  [I’d argue that you could not function in the world if you could not assume this, so it is the most natural assumption humans can make.]  Assuming a consistent set of physical laws throughout reality makes sense.  But ultimately, we cannot prove it.  We must assume it.

And, in fact, much new science comes about when something we assumed to be True in all situations turns out to be False in some specific situation – when data we collect leads us to believe we were wrong.  We assume that there is some natural law we have not described yet which is based on a new situation, or a new factor, which we had not adequately considered.

But we never assume that this new data is somehow different just for this one situation.  We assume it represents a difference for all of reality.

That is one of the few “faith statements” which form the basis of most scientific thought.  [And, amazingly, it actually has broken down, to some extent. But that’s a topic for another time – quantum theory is very, very strange.]

There are actually a few core Faith statements which we use in reason, and in scientific reason in particular.  The one above -- maybe we'd call it the Ordered Universe Postulate, or the Universal Laws Postulate -- is one which makes sense to us, so we barely consider it.  And I am not pointing it out in order to challenge it.  I believe it.  Just as I believe that an Objective Reality exists (another Faith postulate.)  My point in this post is to set this particular definition of what Faith means in the context of Reason.

Do you believe me yet?  Do you believe that there are things which are impossible to prove, but which serve as the basis for our Reason?  Just as in logic or math we have to start from somewhere and build logically on top of those starting points.  In all discussions and in all reason, we have to start somewhere.  When we start from the lowest level, we are using Faith.  Your Faith statements might seem completely reasonable to you.  They might, in fact, feel so certain that they seem to be unquestionably True.  The point is, they are not unquestionable – they are un-proveable.

In future posts, I'll come back to this definition, because of course, there are other definitions of Faith.  But there are also implications to how this definition of Faith affects the interrelationship between Science and Religion.