Diagnosis: Extinction

Human religion has evolved over the centuries. Is it heading to extinction in some parts? The BBC reports that using the mathematical model of nonlinear dynamics, a Northwestern University team suggests religion is going the way of the dinosaur and the trilobite in nine selected countries. A similar model was used to predict the extinction of the world’s minor languages. Does the parallel hold? Is religion just a cultural marker like language? Or will we faithful end up hidden to view like living fossils?

The report, titled, “A mathematical model of social group competition with application to the growth of religious non-affiliation” is here.

From Richard Wiener, one of the co-authors:

The idea is pretty simple. It posits that social groups that have more members are going to be more attractive to join, and it posits that social groups have a social status or utility.

In a large number of modern secular democracies, there’s been a trend that folk are identifying themselves as non-affiliated with religion; in the Netherlands the number was 40%, and the highest we saw was in the Czech Republic, where the number was 60%

And what were the other countries? Australia, Austria, Canada, Finland, Ireland, New Zealand and Switzerland. Lest you think this is a recent phenomenon, the research team used data going back well over a century for nations where it was available. Was the handwriting on the wall before the Great War? Why weren’t the knees of religious leaders of the last century knocking?

As a man of faith, I’d like to think that religion goes deeper than tribal languages. Still, you have liberals chased out of organized religion by conservatives who, in turn, implode in sex scandals and coopt secular political models to run what’s left of their show.

Dr Wiener again:

For example in languages, there can be greater utility or status in speaking Spanish instead of [the dying language] Quechuan in Peru, and similarly there’s some kind of status or utility in being a member of a religion or not.

Is the greater utility to be found in acting like Republicans? I don’t really think so. I think the Church maintains a sufficient number to remain viable, and we have enough diversity and differentiation not to stagnate philosophically. And the study focuses too much on the non-religious. It’s possible to deduce things from that, but it makes as much sense to determine what’s Catholic from sampling not-Catholics–in other words, Protestants.

 

Tracking the Storm

The movement of clouds is so beautiful from above. What’s underneath them, much less so, from the view on the ground.

 

Yellowstone Slumbers

One of the world’s most dangerous volcanoes could bury two-thirds of the continental US if 640000BC repeats itself. The new that the Yellowstone hot spot may be securely under the Rockies: I like that. Should we be nervous that the ground in this part of Wyoming is “taking a deep breath”?

 

IVF: Not Necessarily Soul

I received a communication from the Newsy.com site, and a suggestion I link to their 160-second piece summing up major reaction to the 2010 Nobel Prize for Medicine.

One thing that caught my ear was the assumption that a fertilized egg has a soul and this is the reason for Catholic moral opposition to IVF. That’s not quite true.

On one hand, a fertilized egg is not yet a unique human being. It still has the potential to split into twins, triplets, or such. And even twins at a very early stage in embryonic development have a chance to merge into one individual.

However, the Catholic moral position against IVF is based on respect for human life. Embryos may not yet be individual persons, but they are human life. Newsy does underscore the main public objection: the storage or discarding of, or experimentation with human enbryos.

 

What Do You Mean It Was Just A Symbol?

I see the attempt to mock climatologists has had something of a reverse effect. Mark, too, has been taken in by the cute picture of a polar bear on an isolated oceanic ice chunk. (Not the real image on the left.)

Some enterprising Republican thinks a big scandal has been uncovered by comparing the identical ice, ocean and sky behind the bear and the penguin. Here’s a clue: I knew they were photoshopped from the start. Polar bears, though they can swim, are not aquatic animals. But even getting stranded on a real iceberg (back in 2007) is usually not a big deal. Bears will go to shore–that’s where they hunt, eat, breed, and bother human beings.

Did they not know these images of a lonely animal on a shrinking piece of ice were icons? Symbols to elicit an emotional connection?

It’s good to separate the issues from one another. First, the question of a warming trend in Earth’s climate is pretty well conceded across the board. That’s a step up from ten or twenty years ago. In the bigger picture of the environment, it’s not a big deal. The Earth has warmed and cooled in the past, and will continue to do so for billions of years. Plants and animals will survive, though some species will eventually go extinct and be replaced by new species.

So then the second line of protest is that human beings didn’t really cause the warming trend of the past several decades. Well, the degree to which human heavy industry contributes is not known exactly. It’s greater than 1%, and probably less than 100. There’s no other single factor that accounts for warming across the globe than the byproducts of burning hydrocarbons. Scientists have looked. In the air and oceans. In space. Something might be there that’s causing it, but we know that human beings can significantly alter the Earth’s atmosphere by dumb blundering. Fluorocarbons and nitrogen compounds take out the ozone layer. It happens. We see it and measure it. Carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere are also climbing. People who suggest human beings aren’t at fault haven’t found another suspect.

Third line: there’s nothing we can do about it anyway, so let the next ice age or ice melt come. These people may have a point. It might be that human beings lack the ability or even the will to shape their environment. You tell me. I do know that if the Earth’s climate changes, either by flooding Bangladesh or India (Florida, not so much: they always have Alabama) there will be a planetload of political instability falling out from shifts in monsoons, or tens of millions of refugees on the move. Climate change is less about what it will do to polar bears. It will be a hell of an inconvenience if Nashville-style flooding plays out on a national scale in South Asia. Climate change would seem to demand some response from us. At the very least, knowing when to pull Americans out from foreign coastal regions (not to mention Florida and Rhode Island) in case the worst happens.

I know much objection is spit out there because of the political ramifications of climate change. Obviously, Big Oil is on the hook. But in another few centuries we’re going to run out of hydrocarbon fuel anyway. Unfair, others say, to spend our shrinking tax dollars to put carbon emitters out of business. I don’t know. We supported Big Oil and their automakers quite a bit by installing the interstate highway system. Are we operating a welfare state or not? Do we sponsor their shift to hydrogen cells and fusion? How did carmakers treat manufacturers of those horse buggies and steam trains?

Anyway, what to do in public policy about climate change is separate from the debate on whether or not it exists. But posting videos on plants making happy in high-carbon dioxide environments isn’t generating any credibility. That’s third-grade science, one blogger concedes.

 

Teach Creation, But Not In Science Class

South Australia’s Non-Government Schools Registration Board says creationism can be taught, but not in science class. That strikes me as about right. The ruling that …

… a science curriculum in a non-government school which is based on, espouses or reflects the literal interpretation of a religious text in its treatment of either creationism or intelligent design …

is unsatisfactory has been criticized by Christian educators.

 

Freezing Fog

Interesting weather here in central Iowa yesterday and today. Clouds ordinarily high up in the sky have clung to the ground. With temperatures just at freezing, it looks freaky-beautiful around here. The young miss commented that it’s like Narnia under the White Witch.

Walking the dog late last night, I caught these images from the neighborhood. Lit by street lamps, they have an otherworldy quality to them, don’t you think?

 

Move Over Marty; It’s The Plastic

A link between feminized boys and contemporary music has yet to be made. But researchers from my undergrad alma mater have called into question shower curtains, vinyl floors, and other plastics to which little boys are exposed.

When I was a kid, I had a lot of metal cars, marbles, wood blocks and stuff. Also I read a lot of books. Paper. I remember getting a three-foot plastic gun from an uncle that shot plastic projectiles. My mom wouldn’t let me lock-n-load. I pretended it was a spaceship, and I took a magnifying glass to it, carving it up like a roast. Fun. I didn’t like guns anyway.

 

Let’s Chill on Global Cooling

The Universe Today blog reports on a blind study in which statisticians were presented with disguised data on warming trends. Seth Borenstein from AP has the original article here. Deke Arndt from NOAA:

The last 10 years are the warmest 10-year period of the modern record. Even if you analyze the trend during that 10 years, the trend is actually positive, which means warming.

Interesting thing about the supposed “cooling trend” … even in the “chilly” years of 2000 and 2008, Earth temperatures were warmer than anytime before 1990.

In realted news, I notice that the Vatican is giving pseudo-science a hearing next month. Interesting that it only takes one day for a conference on the topic of disproving evolution. Speaking of science, I’m actuall.y surprised there’s that much to fill a twenty-four-hour period.

 

Bishop Olmsted on End-of-Life Issues

I noticed Phoenix bishop Thomas Olmsted’s Directives for Catholics Concerning Artificially Administered Nutrition and Hydration. I was pleased to see the recognition of the body’s natural shutdown during the dying process, the end of the body digesting food and processing liquids (section 9).

And yet, the identification of the “person” with the “body” may continue to blur the issue:

What if it is possible that a person may live indefinitely but need to be artificially fed? Then he or she must be provided nutrition and hydration even artificially. In this situation to deny one nutrition and hydration would hasten one’s death and would be immoral. In short, a person should die because of one’s illness, not because of a lack of nutrition and hydration.

Is a living body with a dead brain still a person? Does the essence of what makes a human being a person (as opposed to a simple animal) contained within the body processes that are identical to those of, say, cats, frogs, squid, or worms? The way the bishop words his document, I would agree: a person must always be nourished. But is he making the distinctions that we need to make?

A side question for the health insurance debate: do the insurance companies engaged for church employees support all these directives? And if they don’t, are the administrators involved cooperating with evil?

That said, it’s good to see a bishop taking initiative when there’s not some newsworthy life-hanging-in-the-balance situation afoot. This is when pastoral theology works: when discernment can take a proper course with prayer and thought.

 

Butterflies

I asked the docent at the Butterfly Garden at the Minnesota Zoo, “Why isn’t the term ‘flutter-by’?” I caught a few moths, like this luna moth:

And this moth >>>

<<< and this butterfly I used to be able to identify. Can you?

Some more full size images:

And one last small bit:

 

Conspiracy? That’s Ice

I like the discussion on the Universe Today site about arctic ice photos declassified by the Obama administration. Easy to see why the Bushies would want to keep this under their hats. (I wonder how much of the financial mess is tied up in getting a chunk of beachfront property on the shore of the Arctic Ocean?)

The discussion is great, though.

Those photos could of been shot in different seasons. One in the summer and one in winter.

Um. Okay. July and July. I get it: one of them is winter at McMurdo.

 

Stem Cells, Embryonic and Other

I’ve been following the Catholic blogoutrage on embryonic stem cell research, so hearing about it on NPR today took me a bit by surprise. One would think the matter was already settled and the Furnaces of Death already fired up. Apparently, the only change from the Bush II years will be federal support for research on embryos already existing at fertility clinics. No embryos for sale, no cloning, no genetic manipulation with non-human DNA. For the public commentary period I just hope the anti-Death fringe can avoid “Dear Babykillers” input. Let’s make the case calmly and respectfully, and if someone feels the need to vent, just grab a pillow and squeeze, and stay out of the way of the rest of us.

I’m more concerned that Big Business has already invested too much in ESCR, and that promising research in adult cells will be shunted aside. It was a business gamble that human embryos would be more fruitful, and the gamble looks to fail. Hopefully business interests will be discouraged by the public outcry too.

With all due respect for the sincerity of Michael J Fox and others, I’m pinning my hopes on adult stem cells for a miracle cure. Longtime readers know my daughter was born with a serious heart defect. While to all superficial appearances, she’s healthy and functional, there are questions about her ability to bear children or even to have an extended adult life. Her cardiologist does research (but not with the link) in the use of adult stem cells for heart valves. Aside from being an outstanding pediatric cardiologist, he is fully optimistic about the prospect of cloning from bone marrow stem cells to produce a fully functioning heart for the young miss sometime in the next twenty years.

I don’t know that the obstacle to stem cell research is more the resources than the actual time needed for studies and trials. But you’ll pardon my deep and bitter skepticism about the Republican Party’s assuming any mantle for pro-life. Their warmongering, irresponsible economics, and dismissive approach to science were three slams working against my hopes for life. I’ll grant you that the other party is just as beholden to wealthy business interests, so I’ll be watching all this carefully. And I’ll still retain my optimism.

 

Baseball Jock Flunks Math/Science

Not A-Rod, but G-Will.

In his defense, he’s a good writer, and I think his books on baseball stand out above his political punditry. Funny how something as obvious as climate change can make chumps out of otherwise smart people.

 

Trinity, I Think Not

A curious quote from the usually competent Elizabeth Lev of Zenit:

An increasing number of people believe Galileo to be the father, Darwin (whose Origin of the Species is celebrating its 150th anniversary this year) the son, and Albert Einstein the holy spirit of a new materialistic religion. This will be a banner year for proponents of the triune god of science.

In the eyes of its worshippers, this deification of science has freed it of moral responsibility or accountability, which necessarily results in tensions with the Church. The devotees of the god of science often view Christians as superstitious simpletons at best, and, at worst, virulent heretics to be stamped out.

Trinity? Galileo was a long time ago. Darwin, too. It’s a long time for organized religion to hold a grudge.

For the record, most scientists have been more or less pleased to stay in the realm of academics. While it’s true that such science eventually trickles down to adolescents and children, rarely do you find scientists, especially their textbooks, prognosticating on religion. The reverse has not been true. Religion of many brands has intruded into the realm of science and attempt to pass theology through as authentic natural science.

From the beginning Galileo was seen by some as a threat to faith, even though he was mostly cooperative with church officials and was more concerned with the aspect of discovery. Bottom line: people looked through his telescope and they saw four moons in Jupiter orbit. Clearly not everything revolves around the Earth. Or even the sun.

The thought that looking through the telescope could be a Deception is irrelevant. A deceptive situation can happen just as easily without a tube full of glass lenses. History has shown that human beings conjure up sufficient evil in their own minds. Blaming telescopes or Galapagos animals or relativity is just a convenient scapegoat.

I don’t think this is about a deification of science as it is two things: a conflict between heroes and the trespass of religion into affairs it refuses to understand.

Scientists will acclaim Galileo, Darwin, and Einstein. But they generally will withhold the mantle of infallibility from their heroes. These scientists all had flaws in their science and their approach to science. Einstein fudged his equations; Galileo overreached on interpretation, as did Darwin. Successors in astronomy, biology, and physics have built on the foundations of Lev’s “trinity” and expanded a good bit beyond the original “canon.”

In science, heroes are as heroes do. But in the Western culture, it has become the fashion to attack the heroes of one’s adversaries. Take the SSPX situation for example. The SSPX’ers are wrong not because their leaders make foolish statements, but because they lack a grasp on Catholic theology as articulated by Vatican II. Darwin and Galileo are convenient targets for the Religious Right. But it’s just taking potshots at “saints,” hardly a religious effort.

In attempting to place non-scientific ideas into science education, scientists and teachers have every right to be upset. If creationists wish to propose their ideas in a philosophy or history or religion class, that would be appropriate. But it is true that a simpleton might mistake religion for science, math for history, social studies for music.

Now, given all that, I do think that science fails to provide a context for the application of knowledge in the realm of morality and the common good. Many scientists would suggest such applications are beyond their expertise. I might suggest this is where a diplomacy between science and religion may help. As individual human beings, scientists are only as good or bad as their own moral formation. Some scientists, like some people, are highly principled.

I would also suggest that the application of science for the common good is something that must involve people not only of science and of religion, but other representatives of human disciplines.

Science without conscience is certainly a problem, but it’s one more often caused by those in real power: political leaders. It has always been so, from way before the time of gunpowder to way past the atomic bomb. The god involved here is not one of science, but of human pride and greed. And the worshippers are not so much the scientists but the idolaters outside the discipline.

M100 from the Hubble Space Telescope at the top, by the way.