When it comes to finding ways to help people deal with life's challenges, social scientists are finding out what religious practices perfected centuries ago. https://t.co/njZAb8degp
— WIRED (@WIRED) September 14, 2021
“When I was a boy of 14, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be 21, I was astonished at how much the old man had learned in seven years.”--Mark Twain
Probably the best part of this article is in the opening sentences:
EVEN THOUGH I was raised Catholic, for most of my adult life, I didn’t pay religion much heed. Like many scientists, I assumed it was built on opinion, conjecture, or even hope, and therefore irrelevant to my work. That work is running a psychology lab focused on finding ways to improve the human condition, using the tools of science to develop techniques that can help people meet the challenges life throws at them. But in the 20 years since I began this work, I’ve realized that much of what psychologists and neuroscientists are finding about how to change people’s beliefs, feelings, and behaviors—how to support them when they grieve, how to help them be more ethical, how to let them find connection and happiness—echoes ideas and techniques that religions have been using for thousands of years.
It's condescending, reductionist, and based almost wholly on ignorance that's too much trouble to dispel; until you become interested in ritual (which is all this article in the end, is about). Of course, ritual arises from religion, and without religion ritual is a paralyzed force, a gesture without motion. But this is science, so who cares about that?
The premise of the article is that science is superior to human knowledge that is centuries old because it is, well: science! The arrogance should be staggering, but we've all come to accept that science came down from the heights of reason with the tablets of truth and banished all darkness with the light of empiricism which is true and can be trusted because it....comes from the god of knowledge?
Something like that, anyway. Most of this foolishness is based on 18th century Enlightment hoo-hah and 19th century Industrial Revolution (where science proved its true value!) arrogant nonsense. It is also unabashedly based on ignorance of the humanities (who needs those centuries of human knowledge? We have science now!). To remind you, the universities arose from the monasteries, and the preservation of Plato and appreciation of Aristotle (let's be honest, the Muslims saved his works) and general knowledge of Greek and Roman culture is due largely to the Church. When Rome collapsed knowledge of Rome collapsed with it. The author of "Beowulf" describes the ruins left by the Romans as the work of giants; because such engineering feats are beyond the knowledge of the tribes who wrote and recited the epic poem of the epic Viking warrior. What knowledge survived, like a flickering candle flame in the darkness of the "Dark Ages" (which weren't but that's another matter so we'll accept the errant metaphor for the time being), was kept lit by the efforts of: the Church. Plain and simple.
Aristotle and Aquinas' appreciation of the then newly discovered works, gave rise (it can be argued, as I am doing) to the natural sciences in Europe. It was the natural sciences which were finally supplanted by what we call "science" today, and I say "finally" because in mid-19th century America Thoreau still considered himself a naturalist (which is to say, a student of natural sciences). Naturalists weren't finally supplanted until the early 20th century, as chemistry and then physics became the new source of "truth" about this material world. We do well to remember genetics has its founder in Gregor Mendl, a monk messing around with his peas; and the Big Bang Theory was the product of the work of a Jesuit priest, George LeMaitre. I don't know how much of their work was built on "opinion, conjecture, or even hope," but maybe they found a way to set aside theology and rely just on ritual to uncover "truth," huh?
You see, our new standard for truth is science; and all that doesn't fit within its rubrics (as defined by who ever is speaking at the moment; its much the same way with Christian theology, actually) is discarded as useless. Until, that is, we can find a way to recast it as "science-y" at least, and then it might prove interesting again, science having washed the ideas clean of the corruption that shrouded them in "opinion, conjecture, or even hope."
Hope is the thing with feathers. Science must remain featherless to be true to its...well, to what? It's philosophy? Can't be that, scientists hate philosophy. Founders? Science has no founding; the truth just....is. Ideas? Science is not a set of ideas, science is TRUTH!
Yes, I know there are more intelligent scientists than this; but try telling almost any engineer or scientist in any field that her work is describable and analyzable as a philosophy (just as religion is, let's be fair and balanced), and the very idea is anathema to them. I know of scientists who just reject the notion that Thomas Kuhn was talking about science at all, beceause they can't accept that science is a set of propositions based not on observations but on how those observations are interpreted and understood (which is all Kuhn was on about). Interpretation and understanding, for many scientists, is not a practice of a philosophy, it is the discovery of truth!
And there we get into the fight between science and religion, between discovery and revelation. Basically, for science the only truth is that which is discovered, which is "found" by removing all that obscures the "truth", until the "truth" is revealed and is undeniable. And that "revealing" is not to be confused with "revelation," because the action of revealing is the action of applying "science." Let me give you a commonplace example, because I've been watching "The X-Files" again (what can I say, it came out when my daughter was born, and I practically raised her on it. I'm sentimental, you see.). Anyway, in the classic contrast, Scully the "scientist" is always refusing to accept the obvious (even when it is obvious) in favor of removing that from considering so she can "discover" the "truth" hiding in the dross. To be fair, this is pretty much was detective work is, at least in the murder mystery: eliminate the impossible, as Holmes said, and what is left is the truth. But what if the impossible is the truth? That's Mulder's purpose: to argue for revelation over discovery, and he brings a different set of facts and ideas to bear, seeing the possibility of a non-rational explanation (like Peter Boyle's character in one of my favorite episodes, who can see how anyone he encounters is going to die) where Scully insists such explanations "hide" the "truth."
But in religion the revelation doesn't come (necessarily) from knowledge: it comes because it is shown, and the knowledge is revealed by....Well, now that depends on the religion, doesn't it? In a three-part "X-Files" episode involving the Navajo code talkers, a Native American speaks of "omens" that reveal some truth; but of course that truth is open to many interpretations (not unlike the utterances of the Delphic oracle). Science is usually more certain of its discoveries; until they change the interpretation because they find it actually "reveals" something else. Science says that willingness to change "proves" the "truth" of science; except religion has changed dramatically in its interpretations and understandings of what the "signs" (semeia, in John's gospel) or "miracles" (dunamis, acts of power, in the synoptics) or even the parables, mean. When science changes, it proves it is flexible and can adapt to new understandings. When religion changes, it proves it is unreliable and unstable and after all nothing more than "opinion, conjecture, or even hope." Nice work, if you can get it.
It's all a matter of whose making the definitions, isn't it?
I mean, if you go back to that first paragraph, the last sentence essentially says: "Modern science has reinvented the wheel! See how clever we are?!"
Feh.
These things that pass for knowledge I don't understand.
ReplyDeleteScience says that willingness to change "proves" the "truth" of science; except religion has changed dramatically in its interpretations and understandings of what the "signs" (semeia, in John's gospel) or "miracles" (dunamis, acts of power, in the synoptics) or even the parables, mean.
I would like to think this is more a reflection of the field of psychology, but I suspect it's more endemic to the sciences. I was a poor physics major, I barely eked out my degree but even I understood the nature of science from my classes. They even offered a philosophy of science class, which I unfortunately never had time to take. This post brought back a strong memory. I was reading an article where the writer, a physics professor, was refuting the idea that physics was a dead field, that all the big discoveries had been made. The premise was that there was 20th century physics, there would be 21st century physics, and even 25th century physics. The limitation was not data or experiments (and for this I am going to use the word phenomena because I think it more accurate). The phenomena always exists, what changes is our understanding. Classical physics described everything, until it didn't. Black holes, the photoelectric effect, the effects of gravity have always existed even if we didn't know of them yet. The limitation on our understanding is only human creativity and inventiveness. The writer thought human creativity as effectively infinite, so we would always be coming up with new ways interpreting phenomena. Even with my humble learning, in real science, someone creates an idea of how to interpret phenomena. Then there are experiments to test the theory or idea. The experiment never "proves" the theory, or make it "true". At best, the experimental results match the prediction of the theory. That can go on for a long time, until it doesn't. An experiment can have results that the theory failed to predict. Those are not moments of actual failure, but moments of enlightenment, because now there is inspiration for creativity, invention, "revelation", to find a new explanation for the phenomena. The same phenomena can be reinterpreted over and over with new insight. In real science, it's a back and forth process. A theory may point in new directions never considered, then it needs to be tested to see if this previously unknown phenomena exist (Einstein made us look for black holes, gravity bending light and more). Other times, we stumble on an unexpected phenomena and that invites a new explanation. In this way there is no "truth" in science, every theory, "law" or more is only waiting for the discovery of a phenomena that overturns it ability to predict. That doesn't mean science isn't immensely powerful, it is! But it is also limited.
An "aha" moment for myself was someone point out the most important thing to have when reading the Bible was imagination. How it applies to our world, will always be changing. The bible is not static, but in motion from our imagination. "[R]eligion has changed dramatically in its interpretations and understandings of what the "signs" (semeia, in John's gospel) or "miracles" (dunamis, acts of power, in the synoptics) or even the parables, mean." Science is built "on the shoulders of giants", and those giants include theologians and more from thousands of years ago. A little humility would go a long way in the current environment.
Your explanation of "theory" is what I understand Kuhn to have been after with his concept of "paradigms." Yet I have heard scientists, as determined to defend their sphere as the most fundamentalist preacher, decry such ideas because they impinge on science finally producing "truth." And part of the problem is the idea that truth is one, solid, immutable; and knowable.
DeleteOne of the threads (there's a dangerous concept, arising out of the attempted "Bibilical theology" to find a consistent "theology" in the scriptures holy to Jews and Christians) of scripture is that the understanding of God's revelation is constantly changing because interpretation is constantly changing. Hiding in plain sight is the four gospels, each of which describes a different Jesus, even when working with the same material (Q, for Matthew and Luke). There are two versions of Mosaic law: Leviticus and Deuteronomy (Greek for "second law," basically). There are two versions of the creation story: Genesis 1, and Genesis 2. Some of the most important rituals in the Hebrew story ("A wandering Aramean was my father," the harvest blessing one is supposed to make when bringing an offering from the harvest as a sacrifice at the Temple) is in Deuteronomy, which post-dates the Exile. Then there are the various prophets, from Isaiah (three of them, actually) to Jeremiah to Ezekiel to Amos to Hosea. You won't find more different visions of God than in those books, and yet: they are not in conflict with each other.
Hidden from most Gentiles is the other part of Jewish holy writings: the midrash, where scholars and rabbis over centuries have argued with each other over the meaning of every word (probably every letter) of the Hebrew Scriptures.
It is a mistake to think knowledge, understanding, interpretation, insight, in religion (at least the religions of the book) is static. It's an easy thing to insist on in Christianity alone (where examples abound), but it is contrary to the nature of religion to do so (and yet we do! We argue over and reinterpret and understand for ourselves about everything!)
It's very human. Just as it is human to do science. The two arenas are not in combat with each other; nor are they reducible to complemntary states. They are in fact, too much alike. They are family.
And nobody fights like family.
Thanks for your comment, by the way. I really enjoyed it.