The right to silence dissent?

A response to, "I have always supported Kirk Cameron and will continue to do so. I mean no disrespect to those who believe differently than I but just as they have the right to speak out for gay marriage, I have the right to speak against it. I agree 100% with Kirk Cameron. Sorry if anyone is offended, but that "First Amendment" thing applies to us Christians too."

Edits are noted. 

"I'm more offended that you think that people who disagree with you are not allowing you your First Amendment Rights.

I don't know how many times I've pointed out to people WHY I disagree with them, WHY I think their stance denies the human dignity of my friends and family, WHY I think their stance is counter to the ideal of equal protection under the law,....or when I point out how their ideas are flat-out wrong, such as Kirk Cameron and Ray Comfort's version of biological evolution - what a "transitional fossil" is, that the modern banana [was created in its current form instead of being] is the product of generations and generations of human agricultural intervention and looks very little like a wild banana, or any other such factual inaccuracy - and then instead of addressing what I have just said, instead of having an honest conversation with me, I am confronted with, "I have First Amendment Rights!!!"  Look, nobody is shutting Kirk Cameron up...at all.  In fact, unlike me and most other people, because he was an actor on an old TV show, he gets on the news - in front of literally millions of people and he says what he wants with no formal repercussions.  He and Ray Comfort have a YouTube channel where they produce videos that communicate their ideas.  They even distributed a bunch of books (such as they were) at one point.  Even if I were rude enough to call him names, TELL him to shut up (with no power behind me), or lament at why anyone would give this guy air-time - I would not be taking away his First Amendment Rights.  Yes, of course the First Amendment applies to Christians.  They are THE most privileged religious group in the United States.  They control a GREAT deal of the wealth.  Very few people who are not Christian are able to gain public office.  There are not one, but multiple television channels that are produced by Christian organizations.  There are many, many lobbying organizations that represent the interests of various Christian sects and religiously motivated stances.  How on earth do you think that your First Amendment Rights are under attack when people are offended by your ideas and point out why they are offended?  Does that make any sense?

You can find examples of areas of the world where there is no Freedom of Speech - where there are blasphemy laws - where you can literally be shot by the legitimate authority of the country for insulting the state religion.  There are places - like Iran - where apostasy is a capital offense.  There are places where, if you speak against the government, you will be "re-educated" and the political opposition lives in fear of death and torture.  Show me an example of where the people being persecuted are in the same group as the one who control[s] the money, the power, and the means of production.  Usually, it's the other way around.  However, I think only in the U.S. are the oppressors so insistent that they are actually the oppressed - when they point out any disturbance in their traditional political authority, social privilege, and dominance as threats to liberty.

How twisted do you think what you just said would seem to those who live under these oppressive regimes - who currently languish in prisons and await brutal execution for simply speaking true to their conscience?

This isn't about Christians being silenced.  They aren't.  If anything, this is about Christians speaking their mind.  It's about Christians and others waking up to the realities of the ingrained injustices within our culture and our law - and attempting to fix it.  Only a few years ago were laws against personal intimate relationships between adults rejected by the Supreme Court, before then, you could be jailed in many states for things that are absolutely nobody's business.  Just a few months ago, several of my friends had to live in fear of being discharged from the military if they happen to mention their girlfriends or boyfriends.  Now, we're attempting to deal with the fact that many families do not have the legal protections and privileges that legal marriage provides.  I understand that you don't see that as a natural progression toward the idea of civil rights and liberty for all.  I do.  I understand that you might see this trend as disturbing as what I see as a progression toward a more just society chips at your white privilege,  your straight privilege, your male privilege and your religious privilege. 

I suspect that you see any sort of dissent to your opinion as an attack on your rights.  That's not true.  You have a right to express your opinion, and I will defend that right as I defend my own right to express my sincere convictions.  However, you do not have the right to get your way."

[He responded calmly and I admitted that was projecting quite a bit.  At some point he brought out Pascal's Wager - and I realized that reading Pascal's Wager feels like this:  Good times.]

Your Creator is not a shim

After responding to the following meme with, "Misrepresenting science and conflating it with atheism is sort of silly. :)" my brother sent me a message concluding with, "Strict scientists would downgrade evolution of species from a theory to an hypothesis, and also include creation by intelligent being as an hypothesis."

So, I responded (while my children threw oranges at me, played hide-n-seek with my smart phone, and attempted to use me as a ladder to get on the top of the couch.  I made some edits).  My ideas here aren't anything new to anyone who has read my previous blog posts.  However, I expressed these ideas a bit differently.  I think it's important, if you care about such things, to show how religiously motivated anti-science and pseudo-science movements in the U.S. are counter-productive to the interests of religious people.  Attempting to expose the misinformation, or using ridicule, or correcting other people with your own scientific misconceptions - oops; are not always good tactics.


"The scientific method includes two philosophical premises for explanations: Occam's Razor and methodological naturalism. For an explanation to be a "scientific" one, it has to satisfy both of those. Also, the only scientific hypotheses are hypotheses that are falsifiable and testable. Creation by an intelligent being is not testable. There is no empirical test that you can design that would be able to falsify it. So, "science" simply can't say anything about it - one way or the other.

Also, "theory" is different than "hypothesis". Hypotheses are based on theories. You can't "downgrade" or "upgrade" one to the other. That's doesn't make sense. The way that science works is that you construct a theory and then use the theory to form hypotheses, you design experiments or make other systematic observations to test predictions that are based on your hypothesis. If your observations are consistent with your predictions, your observations support your hypothesis and the theory that the hypothesis was based on. If your observations are not consistent with the predictions; then either the hypothesis need revision, or in some cases, the theory is revisited (either in small or large ways). You just repeat this over and over again - and the strength of a theory depends on how well tested it is. We talk about "powerful theories" and "weak theories"; or "well supported theories" and "novel theories". Very seldom does anyone use the phrase "proven theory" because claiming that anything is "proved" discourages testing, which discourages revising and refining theory to make it better.

Evolution of species is a very well-supported theory. Whether or not a deity was involved in the creation of life itself or humans specifically, is something scientists cannot test. For all we know, some powerful deity popped humans into existence with a Word and when that deity created the earth and the universe, the deity just decided (for fun or something) to fashion genetics to point to common ancestry and insert the fossil record just to give evolutionary biologists and anthropologists something to do.

The big bang theory is also a relatively well-supported theory - it is based on observation, not just made up. The more and better observations we are able to make, the better the theory. This theory also says nothing about whether or not a deity was involved in causing space and time to expand into the universe, or involved in matter condensing and forming galaxies, stars, planets, etc as it cooled. For all we know, that low-entropy dot the universe expanded from was a pantheistic deity or an all-powerful deity said a Word that caused the universe to expand into existence. Or, of course, a deity could have blinked the universe into existence in it's current form last Wednesday; and the appearance of the universe expanding was just part of that deity's artistic license as a lark, and when cosmologists attempt to put their finger on the cosmological constant or figure out how that constant changes in time, the deity has a good giggle.

Yes, some atheists point to methodological naturalism as evidence of their stance of philosophical naturalism. I find that problematic because science cannot say word one about non-falsifiable hypotheses which most religions are ripe with. It is compelling to see how powerful methodological naturalism is in creating predictive theory, but that alone does not lead to the conclusion that the knowledge we construct with those methods is the only knowledge. It's also counter to the scientific method to claim that the scientific explanations are "True" with a big "T".

What I find extremely obnoxious, however, is when Creation Scientists attempt to use "science" to support their religious conclusions. You might as well be claiming that since we don't know everything there is to know about how lightening forms in clouds; that Thor exists and he is the son of Odin. It makes little sense to do that in the first place. If you place God in the gaps of our scientific understanding, you set God up to be crushed as those "gaps" are slowly closed. If you want God to be a scientific hypothesis, you set God up to be falsified and discarded.

So, what you get is a group of people who are making "gaps" where none exist in order to artificially make room for God. Worse, if you lie about what we know and don't know, if you lie about what the scientific explanations actually are (such as claiming that the ultra-low-entropy seed that the universe expanded from is "nothing" so the "big bang" theory violates conservation of energy principle; claiming that no transitional fossils exist; asserting that cosmological theory violates conservation of momentum or that evolutionary biology violates the second law of thermodynamics; or latching onto a math joke as evidence for your stance; or proclaiming the bacterial flagellum or the banana atheist nightmares; or pointing out 20 year old fossil hoaxes and the fabrication of a half-dozen fetal development drawings (that were used to support a theory that has since been discarded) and using those stories to negate all other evidence of modern theory, as if all evolutionary biologists have done for the last 150 years is read the Origin of Species and drink coffee; while strangely refusing to discredit hoaxes that support the Answers in Genesis version of events such as human and dinosaur foot prints walking together in a lake bed) then what you are doing is not only reducing God to an explanation used when there isn't a more evident one; you are reducing God to a lie."

Although atheists seem to be the ones most upset with Creation Science - or at least the ones that get the most media attention - many religious people in the U.S. (as well as pretty much the majority of religious people who haven't been subject to propaganda from our friends responsible for The Wedge Document and Creation Science Museums) do not see these movements as representing their interests.

For example when asked about the Creation and Evolution debate, Pope Benedict XVI answered:

"They are presented as alternatives that exclude each other," the Pope said. "This clash is an absurdity because on one hand there is much scientific proof in favor of evolution, which appears as a reality that we must see and which enriches our understanding of life and being as such." source 

Ken Miller (a Catholic) and Mark Noll (an Evangelical) have both written books on the subject.  The mantra coming from religious academics, scientists of faith and some religious leaders (such as the Pope) is pretty clear: "Creation Science is not only bad science, it is bad theology."

It's no surprise that religious people will not listen to atheists when it comes to anything - much less science.  Not only are religious people inundated with misinformation about atheism and science both, to the point where some don't even think of atheism and science as separate topics, when they think of atheists the caricature of an angry, hateful, loudmouthed, name-calling rude crude blowhard comes to mind.  In other words, when they think of atheists a picture of this guy pops into their heads:

(Yes, this is a real person.  Yes, I am insulting him.  Yes, I feel justified.  If you don't know why, you really really don't want to know why.)


AronRa (an atheist of youtube fame) understood this, and when choosing moderators for a debate concerning educational policies of the Texas Board of Education, he chose Christians not fellow atheists.  "The reason that my scientific experts promoting evolution had to be Christian, was because I was not going to let this denigrate into debate on whether or not there is a God.  The discussion of whether we teach evolution is not a theological or religious discussion.  There is not a polarity here, and, damn it, these people behind me proved that...but it denigrated anyway."  So, what was the reaction to these religious people who supported the teaching of evolution?  Well, they weren't "true Christians". source


This isn't a fight between "evolutionist atheists" and "creationist theists".  It isn't a fight between philosophical naturalism and super-naturalism.  Those are side-shows.  Creation Science is an assault on fellow Christians, an affront to honesty, and a theological travesty.  It is pitting the Creator against the study of creation; as if an understanding of one denies the other.  

Organizations such as the Discovery Institute, Answers in Genesis, and others; don't agree with one another.  However, if you have the audacity not to reject cosmology and evolutionary biology; to allow our knowledge of science to inform your own beliefs or even just acknowledge that our scientific theories concerning the origin of the universe or the origin of species is good science; to many of them, your faith is invalid.

When I heard about the Wedge Document, I wonder what exactly they wanted to split apart in their effort to combat "scientific materialism and its destructive moral, cultural and political legacies."  The analogy refers to using a wedge to create a space - the idea essentially is to thrust science apart to make room for supernatural explanations.

With the act of insisting that Christians must believe their lies about science in order to be considered "true" Christians, they aren't just using a wedge of misrepresentation, pseudo-science and out-and-out lies to create gaps to shove their deity into like a shim; they are causing a theological split, a political split, and a cultural split; they are causing conflict where there doesn't need to be conflict - just ask the citizens of Dover, Pennsylvania.

I don't care because I do

[Someone in my google+ circles shared a tragic story.  With the story, she made a philosophical/political point.  I regret that my comments were directed too squarely at her.  I'm guilty of it as well.  The question is: Is using specific cases as a jumping-off point for broader conversations a productive way of learning?  Here is what I said - slightly edited.]

I say those things because I was in a peer group on the other side of this sort of sensational titillating tragedy porn. I know what it's like to have a bunch of insensitive vulture "journalists" swoop down, desperately attempting to mold the truth into a compelling narrative, hounding people who have just lost someone they cared about, incessantly asking for interviews from people who want to be left the hell alone, and packaging all the crap they dig up in an easily consumable media blimp-vert. Then everyone with a pre-conceived notion about what causes these things to happen - latches onto whatever bit of information that suits their inevitable outrage. 

I understand the appeal - this situation is really terrible and pretty much everyone has difficulty not focusing on the spectacle of the horrendous and the bizarre; and that's why stories like this are great for advertising dollars.  Media outlets love it.  However, as you pass judgement on all those people that obviously should have waved their magic wand and looked into the future to figure out the right course of action - realize that if you really care about [the subjects you are tying this situation to] you can always read up on those topics and be as proactive as you are expecting everyone else to have been only after they have experienced a tragedy that gets media coverage. 

The advantage of doing academic reading on the subject, is that the people who write those things actually have to follow a set of ethical standards with IRB oversight in order to publish it. The people who write this stuff don't. After the experience that my friends had with their "high-profile" case, I have a different perspective than I otherwise would. I also think there is essentially nothing to learn from these cases, since they are so atypical. If anything, it distorts reality - especially when we are looking at it through a media lens as well as the filter of our own assumptions. 

When people post stuff like this, I choose not to read it. It just makes me upset about the fact that something horrible happened (because apparently I did develop empathy at some point) - and intellectually, I think that discomfort is useless, and the means of bringing that information to me (and everyone else) is often counter-productive to actually making a positive impact on the situation. 

I'm sorry if my post sounded too much like an attack - I just wanted to share my feelings about it.

Half of my brain is not missing

The other day I went to a talk about pseudo-science surrounding the immunization public conversation.  The information about immunizations seemed very credible, but the pop-psychology that was thrown around seemed a little questionable at times.  At some point, I openly giggled despite myself (for anyone who knows me, they know this was not subtle).

Before the offending giggle, the speaker was discussing innumeracy.  This is a topic that I care deeply about, and in various times in my career a great deal of my energy is attempting to correct innumeracy.  Someone who is innumerate, simply cannot understand numerical information sufficiently.  An innumerate person is more likely to be misled by or misinterpret statistics, financial products, and scientific studies.  An innumerate person is more likely to use emotional anecdotes as a basis for making decisions than dense research on a topic since they simply don't have the basis to understand (much less evaluate) that research.  The term is sometimes used to mean nearly the same thing as "scientifically illiterate".  However, it literally means that they don't read or write the language known as Mathematics - and a great deal of scientific literature is written in that language.

So, what made me laugh out loud?

The speaker said, "If it weren't for innumerates, we wouldn't have great music..."  He may have said a few other things, but I couldn't hear it over the sound of my own reaction.  Unfortunately, I didn't discuss this with him at the talk at length.  I just let it go, since I had already been rude enough to literally laugh at him, I certainly didn't want to derail his talk completely.

In fact, my explanation to him was pretty stupid.  So, here is what I wanted to say.

"I grew up on Bach.  What the....?  Are you high?"

Just by coincidence, a few days later, I was at a forum for work where a book was passed around about how "right brained" people were going to rule the world.  It is recommended reading that I have not read.  Near the end of the discussions, we were told that someone was concerned that too much money was being spent on out-reach activities surrounding the arts when our organization focuses on the sciences.  An interesting discussion followed, that seemed to affirm our organization's commitment to a well-rounded approach.

With the previous talk still rattling around in my head as well as the idea that "right brained" people will control the world in some sort of dis/utopian future, I sort of lost my shit and said:

"Us science people are not soulless computers!"

And I was informed that the "right brain" and "left brain" thing was just an analogy - and not the pseudo-scientific pile of doo doo that I was accusing it of being. (This reminds me of Deepak Chopra's assertion that his phrase "quantum healing" is just an analogy.)

Fine.  So, is that analogy a good one? - or does it just lead to misunderstanding of the topic and an assumption of undo scientific support for an essentially made-up idea?

Well, would it make sense for me to say that if it weren't for illiterates, the Origin of Species and the Principia would never have been written and the telescope and the Hadron Collider would never have been built?  I mean, if it weren't for illiterates, we would never have been to the moon.

If it weren't for people who had no imagination, no creativity, and no acumen for self-expression; we would know nothing about the bottom of the ocean, we would not know what stars are made of, and we would certainly be cooking on wood stoves and lack refrigerators.

Look, if someone is innumerate, illiterate, lacks social awareness, or is completely ignorant of one or many major fields of study or endeavor that doesn't mean they are not a good person or that they lack value.  Nobody knows it all or can do it all. 

However, if someone is innumerate, illiterate, lacks social awareness, or is completely ignorant of one of more major fields of study or endeavor it also does not mean that they magically gain other skills, knowledge and cognitive abilities to somehow compensate for their deficiencies.  Likewise, because you are a "science person" or a "math person" it doesn't mean you don't care about and are incompetent at art, music, theater, and other human activities, it does not make you socially unaware, uncreative, imagination-less, or even faithless.

That's not how the universe works.

"Evolutionary morality"

So, my brother used the phrase "evolutionary morality" in a message to me recently.  He's been interested, and been a supporter of, "creation science" before "creation science" was cool - so you can imagine we have some lively discussions.

In our last discussion, he used the phrase "evolutionary morality".  So, I've been trying to figure out what that might be.

Apparently, according to some creation science advocates, evolutionary theory is racist, responsible for the holocaust, is demeaning to humanity, causes moral decay, is counter to egalitarian ethics, promotes socialism, the common cold and head lice.

It's easy to just dismiss this as fantasy, and have the same old argument about Hitler's personal and public religious beliefs and all that nonsense; or rail about how Social Darwinism is a misnomer and has nothing do with Darwin's personal beliefs; or how the term "race" in the subtitle of some early editions of On the Origin of Species was a much more general term than it is used now.  Let's not.  The old ashes of that dead horses bones do not need to be beaten anymore.  I just wanted to point out the bones of the dead horse in the unlikely event you haven't tripped over them yet.

So, let's just clear this up a bit.  It would be completely dishonest to pretend that evolutionary theory has not been used by racists and eugenicists.  It has.  The tiniest bit of wiki-reading reveals that the co-option began very early as various translations of Darwin's book into other languages (notably French and German) were added to and changed to suit the agenda of the translators.  However, it would also be dishonest to pretend that somehow selective breeding, ethnocentrism, and genocide were inventions of evolutionary theory.  If they were, they would not exist before it, right?  I mean, you can find stories of the whole-sale slaughter of ethnic groups in very old accounts...well, like the Bible.  Also, evolutionary theory began to solidify around 1855, yet Friedrich the Great was selectively breeding humans to create a regiment of taller-than-average infantry around 1688.  How could he ever have gotten that wacky idea?  (Perhaps from those guys that were selectively breeding and hybridizing bananas.)

But, let's get back to the here and now.

I asked a friend of mine about why many people considered evolutionary theory "racist" and she explained to me that her father, a scientist himself, would never accept it.  As a black man living in the United States, he was referred as an "animal" and a "monkey".  To accept common ancestry of humans and accept the idea that humans are related to other animals; was simply emotionally impossible.  I find this incredibly regrettable, but I can't blame him one bit.

I had an interesting conversation with an old-school Nazi I met at the mall.  He certainly viewed non-whites as simply monkeys dressed up as people.  I'm aware that some "pro-white" groups teach that white people were created and non-whites evolved, and see inter-racial marriages and nothing less than bestiality.  I know, I know...I suggested NOT talking about Hitler, but Hitlers dead - the Nazi aren't.

Let me be clear about my position on that:

Is that where evolutionary theory leads?

Are we somehow destined to become racists, eugenicists, and complete arses if we accept the scientific consensus?  We will be compelled to consider the humans around us as "more" or "less" evolved as some sort of value judgement on their right to exist and reproduce?  Does accepting evolutionary theory require us to also accept a hierarchy of races with black people a the bottom? Does accepting evolutionary theory require that we reject the notion of a Creator-God?

Many Creationists answer all of those questions with an emphatic, "yes".  While the vast majority of evolutionary scientists slap their foreheads with their palms and say, "no".  If you doubt me - spend some time on YouTube - starting with this:

First things first.  What does evolutionary theory actually say?  Maybe, just maybe, we shouldn't be trusting Nazi scumbags to tell us the truth about science.  Similarly, we probably shouldn't be trusting a movie that quotes On the Origin of Species, a 150 year old book on the subject, to make a point that is contradicted in the next paragraph that they fail to mention.

Don't trust me either.  I'm not even a biologist.  I'll do my best, but if you actually care to understand the issues in-depth, go to the Talk Origins website or better yet, buy a book about evolution written by a biologist who writes text books. 

Be that as it may, here is a summary of my understanding of fundamental biological evolutionary theory:

1) There exists genetic diversity in living things.
2) The genetic traits of living things more suited for thriving within their environment and/or are more preferred as mates within their population, will be more likely to be passed onto the next generation.
3) The frequency of genetic traits within a populations of living things change in time.

Here is my understanding of the fundamental concept of common ancestry:

1) Early life was much different than it is today.
2) As populations of living things became isolated from each other, they evolved separately.
3) All current life on Earth can trace it's ancestry to early life.

The "Tree of Life Web Project" explains our current understanding of how living things are related to one another.

If we assume that is actually the case, does that automatically send us to racist crazy town?  Well, what are some common racist and eugenicist ideas?  Let's address them one by one.

There are distinct races.

Evolutionary theory says no.  There are populations of people that have been isolated from others, and because of that isolation have evolved separately.  However, there is a continuum of genetic diversity.  There is a multitude of ethnic groups scattered about human migratory routes.  There is an evolutionary advantage to having light skin in areas of the world where there is little sunlight, because of increased vitamin D absorption.  As populations of people migrated north from equatorial regions in Africa, those with lighter skin thrived better in that particular environment.  However, there is not a distinct "white race" or "black race" or "Asian race" or any "*blah* race" - which is probably one reason race-obsessed people have such difficulty deciding who belongs to what "race".  Instead of realizing that their model is wrong, they explain that natural multitude of human variation in terms of degrees of "racial purity".

Let's contrast this with an alternate theory to evolution: theistic polygenism. 

Polygenists say yes.  According to some polygenists, God created the races separately and placed them in separate areas of the world in order to keep them apart.  Just ask Judge Leon Brazile, who justified his ruling in the landmark interracial marriage U.S. court case of Loving v. Virginia by invoking his particular view of :

"Almighty God created the races white, black, yellow, malay and red, and he placed them on separate continents. And but for the interference with his arrangement there would be no cause for such marriages. The fact that he separated the races shows that he did not intend for the races to mix."

To assert that there are distinct separate "races" or a biological category resembling the social construct of "race" is to deny evolutionary theory, it is not a consequence of it.

Some races are better than others.

Evolution tells us nothing.  Science does not make value judgements.  However, some have interpreted evolutionary theory to mean that some groups of people or individuals are more "evolved" than others.  This assumes that there is a linear progression to evolution making living things better and better.  This isn't the case.  All the is required for a particular genetic trait to become more prevalent is if more of the next batch of babies has it.  These are sometimes very specific to the environment, sometimes are pretty neutral, and sometimes are pretty bad in every way except survival and reproduction.  Genetic traits that become more prevalent in a population might have little to do with how "good" anyone is.  If we had the chance to meet some of our common ancestors, there is no guarantee that we'd find them "inferior".

Another common misconception of evolutionary theory is that since the population of humans that we are all descended from probably came from somewhere in Africa that Africans are "less evolved".  Evolution of African human populations didn't just stop once groups of people started moving around.  We have common ancestors, modern African people are not actually our ancestors.

Also, again, there is no such thing as a distinct biological category called "race".  There is a tremendous amount of genetic variation within each social construct of "race" - as much if not more than the genetic variation between them.  Even if you had some sort of criteria for judging "better", you're going to have a very tough time making value judgements concerning "races" if you buy into science, especially since many of the differences among "races" commonly used to justify racism are demonstrably the result of racism.  I'm just waiting until the local "pro-white" group buys into mainstream science and, in desperation, starts carrying around signs that say "The percentage of Northern Europeans with lactase persistence is 95%!  We are the master race!!!" during an annual milk drinking parade.  (Although, I'm not sure if they could possibly look any more ridiculous, but they could always try.)

About the only genetic traits that could be considered objectively bad are ones that are incompatible with comfort and life.  Some of these are more prevalent in some ethnic groups that others, such as the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes that are linked to increased breast cancer risk.  This seems like a pretty stupid reason to hate on anyone, but I suppose if you really felt like it you could. 

Let's contrast this with a completely different idea: curses and blessings.

The Jews are cursed because they killed Christ - well, until Vatican II.  It is God's Will to enslave black people because they carry the "Curse of Ham".   Add to this list various and contradictory claims of  being a member of "God's Chosen People" based on ethnicity or "race".

People of the same race as me should attempt to eliminate other races or at least isolate them.

Again, evolutionary theory says nothing about this because science doesn't tell anyone what we *should* do.

However, one idea within evolutionary theory is that given a specific set of circumstances, living things with particular traits are going to thrive while others do not.  Which essentially means that genetic variation increases chances of survival as environmental pressures change.  Mass slaughter of entire ethnic groups is a great way of lowering the genetic diversity of humanity.  That's not good.  One immediate way that could be incredibly problematic is if you accidentally slaughtered one of the only groups of people that happen to have members with a natural immunity to the next pandemic.  Oops.

Isolation includes some of the same problems.  If your little in-group is isolated from the rest, there may be limited genetic diversity within the group.  So you are lowering the chances that there will be people within your cultural group surviving and thriving given various circumstances because your just too genetically similar.

Of course, both of these concerns are extremely minor compared to the ethical implications.  I just wanted to point out that evolutionary theory certainly doesn't require that you slaughter other ethnic or "racial" groups or freak out when your child brings home someone with more or less melanin in hir skin.

Let's contrast this with: Christian Identity Theology

A prominent figure in the movement is a cute little Quisling named Richard Kelly Hoskins, an American who identifies with the "Nordic Race" which apparently was descended from the original Israelites and believes that the Jews are literally the children of Satan, and uses the story of Phinehas in Numbers 25:1-15 as a justification for domestic terrorism against race traitors.  He wrote a few books, one called "Our Nordic Race" which included the lines:

"...we must add to the large number of states who already have laws prohibiting racial interbreeding and insure that these laws are made ironclad. It would be an irony indeed to protect ourselves against a second Pearl Harbor only to be destroyed by Marxist mongrelism from within"

He tries a little bit of pseudo-science here:

"When a race which produces original thought breeds with a race which produces little or no original thought, the resulting breed is a failure."

He also ran for office once:

"A political candidate need take just 3 simple stands. 1) Abolish usury. 2) Root sodomists from the land. 3) Outlaw racial interbreeding."

Just to put a fine point out his complete break with reality or decency, he is also a holocaust denier.  He does pepper his crazy with a few pseudo-science concepts such as "breeding" and "race" but he appears to be fueled primarily by the concept that the "Nordic Race" is God's Chosen People and that the United States is the promised land.  It sort of makes all those white blonde Jesus pictures I grew up with seem much more sinister.
 
We should prevent the genetically inferior from breeding or at least encourage the breeding of good "stock".

Evolutionary theory includes the concept of "natural selection" - note the term "natural".  Evolutionary theory does not directly concern "artificial selection" although both obviously involve genetics and heredity.  (Also scientists can artificially create select environmental pressures on living things to guide their evolution.  This is done a lot with bacteria.)  To say there are no implications would be dishonest.

To be fair, I have to say, that if I happen to be carrying some sort of serious genetically determined disease, depending on the specific situation I would seriously consider not having biological children and ponder why others in the same situation would.  However, we all know that in various times in our own history and even now, the number of traits that some regard as "undesirable" enough to actively attempt to destroy is frighteningly large and many of these traits have little to do with genetics and more to do with environmental factors and social perception.

Have you ever used some sort of ridiculously fake Ozark accent to indicate that what you were saying was stupid?  It's sort of an awful thing to do, but innocent enough right?  Well, reportedly some eugenicists thought that having a rural accent was justification for sterilizing people without their consent - because even with the doctors' considerable social privilege they were too stupid to understand the difference between an accent or dialect and a genetically based mental deficiency.  Ironic dotcha think?

The other problem with purposefully selecting-out undesirable traits within a population, is that under some circumstances they are desirable or have some desirable aspects.  For example, we are currently dealing with an "obesity epidemic".  This is a big deal, and at least in theory, we have control over our weight.  However, there are genetic factors that affect appetite, how the body uses fat, and how the body reacts to stress and a host of other fun things.  For example, about one in three American have a so-called "fat gene" FTO.  (It is most prevalent among Americans with European descent; a fact which could be used to taunt the lactase-persistance parade.)

Being obese is generally bad.  It is linked to all sorts of health problems.  It certainly would seem to not give an evolutionary advantage, especially since obesity is associated with fertility problems and complications in pregnancy.  How could being obese possibly be a good thing?  Shouldn't we take steps to eliminate FTO as well as the genetic mutation associated with binge eating and all other genes and mutations associated with obesity?  Everyone will have the same healthy appetite, the same healthy well-oiled fat burning apparatus, and it will be great!

Well, my husband read an incredibly depressing book a while ago, which detailed someone's experiences living in a society under famine.  Dying relatives became so common-place it was light conversation.  The author certainly saw a pattern in who seems to die first and who died last.  Well, who tended to survive?  It wasn't the thin people, obviously, but it wasn't healthy active people either.  The ones who fared best were the obese sedentary people (in jerkese that's "fat and lazy").  If those people had some of the genetic traits associated with obesity, went on to have more children than those without those traits, and passed those traits onto those children, the population evolved.  If the prevalence of genetic traits changes in a population, that population is evolving.  That is evolution by definition.  Attempting to encourage or discourage the prevalence of genetic traits that we have decided are good or bad, is not.

Biology and genetics can help us understand how nature works in order to make better decisions.  However, it doesn't say anything about where we should draw lines or make compromises or which ethical concepts we hold firm when discussing the difference between a genetic disease and natural genetic variation; or how a society views the autonomy and rights of it's citizens.  It certainly doesn't require us to start draconian efforts to "purify our race" or find the "most eugenics baby" or attempt to create some sort of homogeneous "master race".

Let's contrast this with: The Christian concept of Creation and Original Sin.

I've mentioned quite a few Christian ideas so far.  All of them are not the least bit mainstream.  Most Christian theology is not polygenist, does not accept the idea of curses or blessings on groups of people based on race or ethnicity, and certainly doesn't resemble the bizarre theology of the Christian Identity movement.  With this one, I'm going to hit the mainstream a bit.

We were created as perfect beings.  It was because of sin that we are imperfect.

This is a mainstream idea that is usually no longer interpreted the way it has been in the past.  Not too long ago, if someone were ill, or was poor, or heaven forbid had some sort of deformity, it was because of sin.  A baby with a birth defect was considered evidence of a mother's sin.  Those who were rich were considered blessed by God - Divine Right and so forth.  Left-handed people were sinister.

Very few people believe this today, however, the implications that there is some sort of perfect human is a persistent concept.  It denies natural variation as a potentially positive feature of living things, and instead replaced it with a model that makes it easy to consider traits outside the norm as perversions of this mythical "perfect human" brought about by sin, or being sinful.

God made Adam and Eve and not Adam and Steve.  Transgender people are denying their God-given sex - men are men and women are women.  God made women to be good at this that and the next thing, and men to be good at this that and the next thing.

Does anyone actually believe that Alan Quist, once candidate for Minnesota governor, was informed by scientific research when he said, "Men are genetically predisposed to the be heads of households"?

It all boils down to a underlying idea that there is only one, perfect, way to exist that is ordained by God, and all other variation are dangerous, sinful and unhealthy.  God has made nature in His perfect image, and straying from that is going "against nature".  However, this concept of "nature" is not a scientific concept.  Within science, nature is what it is.  As one of my insightful young students once said, "It do what it do."

Some living things are humans and others are animals

We are animals.  We are vertebrates.  We are mammals.  We are primates.  We are apes.  Absolutely.  However, this applies to all of us.  Using the terms "animal" and "ape" as an insult, is generally used by people who consider themselves neither.

If evolutionary biology is true, what sets us apart from the animals?  Well, nothing at all.  There are plenty of things that humans are incredibly exceptional at, but biologically speaking, we are most certainly classified as animals.

A generation or so ago (and arguably now as well), people who were physically different were put on display.  The people who were put on display were not regarded as performers or entertainers or reality TV stars, but as essentially "animals" while the people paying money to go to the shows were considered, at the very least a "higher order" of animal. 

Here is how P.T. Barnum promoted an "exhibit" of African Pygmies.

Is it a lower order of man?  Or is it a higher order of monkey? None can tell!  Perhaps it is a combination of both.  It is beyond dispute the most marvelous creature living, it was captured in a savage state in Central Africa, it is probably 20 years old, 2 feet high, intelligent, docile, active, sportive, and playful as a kitten.  It has a skull, limbs, and general anatomy of an orangutang and the countenance of a human being.

The Bronx Zoo displayed a young man named Otta Benga who was also an African Pygmy, although they attempted to justify their treatment of him by explaining that the monkey house was the most practical place for Otta to meet the large crowds of people that came to meet him.

Many would see these actions and point to evolutionary biology as the cause of them.  The people put on display were sometimes billed as "the missing link" or some other sort of pseudo-scientific clap-trap.  As mentioned earlier, calling Otta Benga or any other human being a "missing link" or "lower order of man" is like calling your brother your great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great (well you get the idea) grandfather.  Evolutionary biology didn't cause anyone to treat a fellow animal with the "countenance of a human being" as anything other than a human being.

If evolutionary biology tells us anything, it's not that some humans are "animals" but that other animals may be much more like humans than we previously believed.  We now know that keeping chimpanzees in captivity, even in well-run zoos, leads to mental illness.  The worse the conditions, the worse the effect, but even in very good conditions the simple fact that the chimpanzees are confined leads to abnormal behaviors associated with psychological problems.  Similarly, some scientists do not dismiss the idea that dolphins and whales may have the capacity to mindfully commit suicide.  This disturbing possibility was given media attention when Richard O'Barry explained that one of the dolphins he trained for Flipper, Cathy, refused to breath as a means to end her own life.  He blames himself for bringing her and other dolphins into captivity and contends that doing so is inhumane.

Let's contrast this with: Dominion Theology.

I'm talking about the idea that God told humans to "Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth."

Some Christian thinkers have interpreted this passage as a mandate of "husbandry" which is the idea that humans should be good stewards of the earth.  Others - not so much.  This is what a Jesuit named Joseph Rickaby wrote in 1896:

"By divine ordinance the life of animals and plants is preserved, not for their own sakes, but for the sake of man." 

Others, like Augustine of Hippo, had the idea that people should be kind to animals, only because if they were not kind to animals this would carry over into a lack of kindness to humans.  It was also practical to be kind, because abusing your livestock is really financially irresponsible.  He also pointed at Jesus' drowning of the swine as evidence that refraining from killing animals was simply superstitious.


I wonder how these early Christian thinkers would respond to the research being done with other primates, showing that they are able to learn language, are self-aware, show empathy, and bond with one another.  Would it make sense to them that their philosophical ideas are being used to justify changing the face of the earth the way that we have, while treating all animals as things, regardless of the extent to which they are aware, feel and suffer? 

So, what is "evolutionary morality"?

As a rule, science does not deal with morality.  My knee-jerk reaction to my brother is simply to say, "There is no such thing!"  Arguably, however, there are moral implications to accepting evolutionary theory as valid.  Many people digest the ideas as simply a strong concept of interconnectedness and legacy, as well as an affirmation of the positive aspects of naturally occurring biological diversity.  While, some fixate on the tenuous idea of an evolutionary hierarchy, distort science beyond recognition or simply make things up as an excuse to hate-on people.

I can imagine a Christian reading this post being offended by most of theological ideas I discussed.  I hope they're disgusted.  The interpretations of those theologies are seen by many Christians as focusing on the wrong messages of the Bible, distorting the Bible beyond recognition, or simply making things up as an excuse to hate-on people.  Some may even go as far as calling a few of them good old fashioned blasphemy.  It would be incredibly dishonest and insulting to pretend as if those examples represented Christianity or how Christians, as a group, thought and felt.  Most Christians see the moral implications of their ideas as affirming life, treating all other human beings with respect, and treating all living creatures as sacred.

Whether or not someone accepts biological evolutionary theory does not determine whether or not that person is a crazy racist.  Just as, whether or not someone accepts Christian doctrine does not determine whether or not that person is a crazy racist.  (They aren't mutually exclusive either!)  Someone with the self-loathing to require using an immutable personal characteristic as a means of boosting a decrepit sense of self-worth and positive identity is just going to take any excuse, and half-learned fact, any obscure passage, any notion of confirmation of preconceived models of reality....well, what I'm trying to say is:

Science is not on my side

It doesn't take sides.

In a recent online discussion, the subject of male and female typical traits came up.  Inevitably, the person I was talking with mentioned the studies involving spatial reasoning.  From what I could gather, the person believed men act like "normal" men and women act like "normal" women but that, with training, a man or woman could "go against biology" and be an exception.

My response was:

There are two common mistakes in interpreting scientific research 1) thinking of results as prescriptive instead of descriptive and 2) over-generalizing results to the entire population.  

For this, I was accused of being "anti-science", which is a first for me.  Ironically, I tried to teach the boy math - you know, overlapping distributions and standard deviations.

At any rate, I'd like to take that phrase "go against biology" and think on it for a moment.  How can someone "go against biology"?  How would someone do that?

I mean, can I "go against physics"?  If I were to float up in the air, would I be somehow defying physics?  Well, I might be going against our current understanding of nature, but I couldn't go against nature herself.  ("Nature" as in how the universe functions, not as in trees and birds.)  If I could float in air unaided, obviously our understanding of nature is incomplete and physics would need to be changed.

So, how would someone go against biology?  Has every women in science "gone against biology"? Well, there are a great number of successful women in the sciences and in engineering, so if biology says that's impossible (as if it did) then apparently biology would need to be changed.

The idea that science is telling us what *ought* to be is simply wrong.  Scientific theories and principles are predictive, but if they predict something different than what we actually observe, then those scientific theories and principles require revision.  That's how it works.  You don't point at the observation and say, "That goes against science, so it's wrong!"

This is similar to the argument that homosexuals and transgender individuals "go against nature".  Going against nature is impossible.  However, the existence of homosexual and transgender individuals goes against many people's concept of naturally occurring variation in humans, so those concepts would need to be changed for that understanding to conform to our observations of nature.  Just as it's silly to point at an observation and say it's wrong, it's bizarre to point to a person and say that the person "goes against nature".  What?  Are gays and gender queer people all supernatural?  OOooooOOooo spooky!

That's silly, so quit using science as if it is telling you anything about what *ought* to be the case.  Science is an attempt to make sense of how the universe functions.  It is a description of what IS.  It doesn't tell us what should be.  Even if what we know about psychology, sociology, or biology seems to require a particular result; we're living in that "result" currently.  The "result" is necessarily what IS and what actually happens, not what *ought* to happen according to our current models.

Don't confuse this with simply basing opinions on evidence, scientific or otherwise.  When someone tells you that science dictates *blah* that's nonsense, especially when *blah* isn't the case.  Science can predict and usually be right, but it dictates nothing.  In contrast, if people simply bring up a systematic observation within a scientific study to attempt to support their claims - they are golden.  Well, occasionally they are golden...okay, a great deal of the time they are still full of it, but at least they aren't implying that scientists are gods that create rules for nature to follow.

We are not the same

So, what first made me think of this topic is this wonderful piece by a school teacher discussing gender variance and gender concepts in small children.  This was my initial reaction:

I think it is important to realize that generally, the more gender variant a child is the worse off they are with respect to bullying. The code phrase here is "gay or perceived as gay" - and I don't think that reflects the underlying issue. It's not always about "the gay". The more we understand gender variance, the more we realize that forcing conformity is not the answer to social trouble - and doing so may cause extreme harm. This should not be controversial. I am not, in any way, advocating some sort of backlash against those who are gender conforming - there is no need to shame girls that love pink princesses. I am not, in any way, suggesting that we accept only androgyny or hate-on housewives. I'm suggesting that we stop bashing round pegs with a hammer in order to distort and mangled them enough to be shoved into a square hole, because we're just too simple-minded to deal with reality.

I have two relatives who are gender variant and my nephew has been living with us for the last four months, so I've learned a great deal.  I've stumbled along the way, but I'm hoping that I'm at least getting close to being able to support the well-being of children and adults who are gender variant without putting my foot in my mouth too badly.  Trust me, my nephew lets me know when cis-gender people, however well meaning, are being stupid and terrible (although he sometimes uses more colorful language).

I absolutely loved the article, but the title of one of the books that the teacher read to the students made me pause a bit:  "It's Okay to be Different" by Todd Parr.  I looked it up on Amazon to see the preview.  The body of the book includes phrases such as "It's Okay to be embarrassed" and "It's Okay to be adopted" and "It's Okay to have wheels" (showing a child using a wheelchair).  I don't have any of Todd Parr's books, but he has been highly recommended to me by my friends.  I don't have a beef with the book at all, don't get me wrong, but the title "It's Okay to be Different" implies that there is a standard normal against which to judge someone as "different".


There is no denying that sometimes there is a prominent "normal", in that the vast majority shares a trait with little variation of that trait.  For example, it is "different" to be conjoined with your twin.  However, the "standard normal" of some traits is complete fiction and the variance of a great number of traits is so broad that there is no clear distinction where "normal" ends and "different" begins.  Dividing the world into "normal" and "different", where the "different" people requires validation (of being "okay"), is completely unreasonable and I can guarantee not what Todd Parr was going for.


If "It's Okay to be Different" is taken in the spirit is was intended, it would mean the same as, "It's Okay to exist".  I'm pretty sure that is the message the children reading the book will take away from it, as the traits listed in the book are broad enough that at least one of those traits will apply personally to the child being read the book.  They will, at some point, realize that they are "different" just like everyone else!


A problem still remains when we categorize the traits of other human beings and label them, because one of those categories or labels is inevitably going to be considered the "normal" one.  So, now we're back to the creation of the mythical "normal" human - or at least a list of "normal" human traits.

The desire to label may arise simply for sake of brevity in communication.  It's much easier to simply say that someone is straight for example, without getting into the details of the person's personal experiences or attractions.  Parents I met at the playground mentioned that their daughter was autistic, without giving me a detailed explanation of the behaviors, their frequency and severity, that led to the diagnosis.  Someone may say zie is Christian, without giving a run-down of hir personal theological stances, church affiliations, or personal religious experiences.  Without using labels and categories, we would have a very difficult time - however, the labels and categories are invariably insufficient to communicate the nuances of human variance.  Those labels and categories take the fuzzy spectrum of human existence and artificially delineate and parse it into recognizable distinct illusions.


So, at what point do these categories simply become unacceptably non-representative?  I suppose they do when someone stands up and simply asserts, "No, that's not me".


So, at what point is our insufficient language forcing conformity to conceptual models and ignoring reality?  I suppose it is when someone takes the time to explain who zie is, what zie thinks, or how zie feels....and the person who should have been listening looks confused or annoyed and says, "I don't get it, are you an X or a Y?"