Just a few brief thoughts about an article that hit my desk recently.
Right off the bat, the title struck me as odd:
Dare you protest against God? Perspectives from a CWRU psychology study
From this atheist's perspective, it seems the question is something of a schizophrenic one. Because 'God' exists in the mind -- at least by an semi-stringent scientific standards we must conclude that -- the question is really about protesting against an imagined entity. Which is kinda crazy.
But sure, from another perspective, we can see the study as an investigation of types of belief and the cognitive response to internal dissonance between ideas.
The survey finding -
The researchers discovered if a person views God as cruel, then protest toward God is seen as more acceptable.
But when people see God as a kind and loving authority figure, then protest seems less acceptable. "In this case, protest could appear disrespectful to a good and fair leader," says Exline.
A couple things. First, isn't this a bit obvious? From a social standpoint, protesting against a loving parenting or village elder or some other authority figure certainly makes less sense than protesting against a cruel one.
Second, the description seems to reflect a focus on the individual removed from his/her social groups. My guess is that there is an integral cultural component to the issue. People don't pull their beliefs about a god out of a magic hat. They generally acquire them from others. Also, one's religious social group likely also influences beliefs about what type of relationship with this god is normative and/or expected.
Finally, as you might expect, my larger issue is reflected in the lead sentence:
Is it OK to protest God's actions—or inactions?
Ah . . . What god? Is this a precisely defined variable? Not only does the sentence assume the existence of a god, but also that this god performs actions, or at least can.
Really?!
In the least, scientists should quit perpetuating the idea that "God" is a neatly circumscribed variable. Why not "a god," "your/their god".... I know, it's more work. But science is work.
Isn't it possible that what the finding basically tells us is that whether or not a person thinks it's okay to protest against their god depends in part on what type of god a person believes? And right here we are back to my major issue. What type of god. Different types of 'god' does not equate to one GOD. Not in my book.
I have heard claimed that all bits of humor have a grain of truth to them. As is claimed about stereotypes. But humor strikes me as akin to gazing in a funhouse mirror. Sure, there must be something there you recognize. But just as the large nose can be distorted to hilarious proportions, so can the small. So what is the truth about the nose?
As for the following cartoons, I find in them the theme, "It's the dogma, stupid." To me that is often the issue at stake when atheists and theists clash: Backwards dogma and a dogmatic clinging to preconceived notions. And yes, it is possible to be dogmatic without being religious.
Here's the cartoon that got me thinking about it (and a couple others that fit the theme in some way):
[cartoon thanks to atheistcartoons.com]
[cartoon thanks to jesusandmo.net]
[click to enlarge, cartoon thanks to xkcd.com]
Could Dadaism be used as an antidote for dogmatism?
"Why are my bones so small?" Ha! I think that's going to be the new Zen koan I work on.
[recycled material - first appeared here]
An issue I frequently harp on is that of language use. While precision with instruments is essential to good measurement, precision with language is crucial to defining variables, crafting hypotheses, and developing theories. Unfortunately, when it comes to educating the public about scientific findings, many writers "sexy" things up by playing fast and loose with words. Other times the problem may consist of a lack of good words to describe the phenomena in question.
When a writer lacks a good, tight-fitting word, he or she doesn't just leave a void in the sentence. They work with what they've got. "Sorry, we don't have this word in a size 9, we'll have to go with an 11 and add some fill." The more responsible and scientific thing to then do is to "add some fill," to explain how the word doesn't quite fit, and in doing so, outlining and better filling the void.
Case in point -- an article from ScienceDaily bearing this title: Scientists Show Bacteria Can 'Learn' And Plan Ahead.
Okay, we've got half-quotes around learn. So the bacteria don't learn as we customarily think of learning. What about plan ahead? Can bacterial truly do that as we do? Or is more explanation needed?
In the article we find many loose-fitting words in need of further explanation.
Bacteria can anticipate a future event and prepare for it, according to new research at the Weizmann Institute of Science.
How do they anticipate? What do they do to prepare? Explanatory paragraphs further confuse as much as they clarify:
Their findings show that these microorganisms' genetic networks are hard-wired to 'foresee' what comes next in the sequence of events and begin responding to the new state of affairs before its onset.
Foresee? Respond?
the scientists found that when the wine yeast feel the heat, they begin activating genes for dealing with the stresses of the next stage.
Feel? Activating?
After reading the article more closely a second time, I have a better understanding of the research, and the meaning of the words used to describe it. I may be wrong, for this is not my area of specialty, but the underlying science seems to be about a type of epigenetic change in bacteria.
What does epigenetic mean? Good question. The Wikipedia entry is quite clear on the matter. It fills the shoe of that term nicely.
In biology, the term epigenetics refers to changes in phenotype (appearance) or gene expression caused by mechanisms other than changes in the underlying DNA sequence, hence the name epi- (Greek: over; above) -genetics. These changes may remain through cell divisions for the remainder of the cell's life and may also last for multiple generations. However, there is no change in the underlying DNA sequence of the organism;instead, non-genetic factors cause the organism's genes to behave (or "express themselves") differently.
Notice how the loose-fitting behave was tightened parenthetically? That is good science writing. And let's end with the good.
Does texting cause a decline in language skills? From the headline to this ScienceDaily news release, you might think so:
Texting Affects Ability to Interpret Words
To affect (with an "a") means to influence. So it seems the new research has shown such an influence. But has it?
Here's what the researcher, Joan Lee, did to collect her data:
The study asked university students about their reading habits, including text messaging, and presented them with a range of words both real and fictitious.
And she found that -
those who texted more were less accepting of new words.
Which is certainly an interesting finding. Though I'd like to know just how less the "less accepting" was.
What this study revealed was a correlation between texting and language skills. For the "texting" variable was not manipulated to discover it's influence on language skills.
And yet a jump was made from correlation to causation. Such as when the report states:
texting has a negative impact on people's linguistic ability
Is the activity of texting really impacting people's linguistic ability? It may be. But from this study -- as far as I can tell -- that conclusion is premature.
[recycled material - first appeared here]
Yesterday I listened to a podcast that featured a personal hero of mine, Neil deGrasse Tyson, in which he responded to questions from the audience. Before answering one, he objected to the word "prove" in the question, saying he didn't like that term. Right on! Neither do I. And he explained why he didn't like the word, paralleling something I wrote here roughly a year ago.
Rather than providing proof, scientific findings support hypotheses; they boost our confidence in a theory; they increase the probability that our understanding of how things work is accurate.
To read more of that post, click here: Prove, Shmoove
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