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People who are intuitive thinkers are more likely to be religious, but getting them to think analytically even in subtle ways decreases the strength of their belief, according to a new study in Science.
The research, conducted by University of British Columbia psychologists Will Gervais and Ara Norenzayan, does not take sides in the debate between religion and atheism, but aims instead to illuminate one of the origins of belief and disbelief. "To understand religion in humans," Gervais says, "you need to accommodate for the fact that there are many millions of believers and nonbelievers."
One of their studies correlated measures of religious belief with people's scores on a popular test of analytic thinking. The test poses three deceptively simple math problems. One asks: "If it takes five machines five minutes to make five widgets, how long would it take 100 machines to make 100 widgets?" The first answer that comes to mind—100 minutes—turns out to be wrong. People who take the time to reason out the correct answer (five minutes) are, by definition, more analytical—and these analytical types tend to score lower on the researchers' tests of religious belief.
But the researchers went beyond this interesting link, running four experiments showing that analytic thinking actually causes disbelief. In one experiment, they randomly assigned participants to either the analytic or control condition. They then showed them photos of either Rodin's The Thinker or, in the control condition, of the ancient Greek sculpture Discobolus, which depicts an athlete poised to throw a discus. (The Thinker was used because it is such an iconic image of deep reflection that, in a separate test with different participants, seeing the statue improved how well subjects reasoned through logical syllogisms.) After seeing the images, participants took a test measuring their belief in God on a scale of 0 to 100. Their scores on the test varied widely, with a standard deviation of about 35 in the control group. But it is the difference in the averages that tells the real story: In the control group, the average score for belief in God was 61.55, or somewhat above the scale's midpoint. On the other hand, for the group who had just seen The Thinker, the resulting average was only 41.42. Such a gap is large enough to indicate a mild believer is responding as a mild nonbeliever—all from being visually reminded of the human capacity to think.
Another experiment used a different method to show a similar effect. It exploited the tendency, previously identified by psychologists, of people to override their intuition when faced with the demands of reading a text in a hard-to-read typeface. Gervais and Norenzayan did this by giving two groups a test of participants' belief in supernatural agents like God and angels, varying only the font in which the test was printed. People who took the belief test in the unclear font (a typewriterlike font set in italics) expressed less belief than those who took it in a more common, easy-to-read typeface. "It's such a subtle manipulation," Norenzayan says. "Yet something that seemingly trivial can lead to a change that people consider important in their religious belief system." On a belief scale of 3 to 21, participants in the analytic condition scored an average of almost two points lower than those in the control group.
Analytic thinking undermines belief because, as cognitive psychologists have shown, it can override intuition. And we know from past research that religious beliefs—such as the idea that objects and events don't simply exist but have a purpose—are rooted in intuition. "Analytic processing inhibits these intuitions, which in turn discourages religious belief," Norenzayan explains.
Harvard University psychologist Joshua Greene, who last year published a paper on the same subject with colleagues Amitai Shenhav and David Rand, praises this work for its rigorous methodology. "Any one of their experiments can be reinterpreted, but when you've got [multiple] different kinds of evidence pointing in the same direction, it's very impressive."
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119 Comments
Add CommentI think use of the term "religion", as well as questions about "God" are a bit misplaced.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI'd say that the study is more directly applicable to superstition, not "religion". It is true that virtually all religions are based on sets of superstitious beliefs, but distinguishing between the two is important.
"Religion" is a formal set of doctrines and beliefs, typically involving worship of deities and some form of institutional hierarchy.
"Superstition" is merely a product of assuming that correlations are causal, or rather, superstition is a belief that the world works in a way that it actually does not.
Religions basically universally incorporate superstitions (though in theory this wouldn't have to be true), but it's important not to attribute "religion" to mere "superstition".
And the reason for this is that "superstition" IS an inherent quality of the human condition, religion is not. Superstition describes the natural human tendency to mis-impart causation to correlation, or to mis-impart agency to change, or to mis-impart mind to the inert.
This is a natural product of how the mind works. Religion, on the other hand, is not. Religion is a product of the human exploitation of those superstitious tendencies to control and direct human behavior.
Religion is an institution created by man. All religious beliefs are ideas invented by man AND PASSED ON to other people. Only superstition is "inherent".
This is where we get to "God". Belief in "God" is NOT "natural", it is not "inherent", it is a product of religious INSTITUTIONS.
People's superstitious mindset may make them more or less likely to accept this belief, but it is something that is learned, its not an inherent quality of mind, like superstition is.
What this study is really saying is that thinking analytically about anything tends to make people think more analytically about everything, which is really no surprise. But this is different from "God belief", because remember that the "God" of modern Western civilization was largely created BY philosophers! The "God" of Western Civilization is first of all, actually very peculiar historically speaking and NOT representative typical gods worshiped by most historical cultures. The "God" of Western Civ. was largely produced by neo-Platonic philosophers during the 4th-12th centuries in Europe based on "LOGICAL" arguments. (Unfortunately for them those arguments weren't rooted in empiricism).
At any rate, don't conflate superstition with "God", there is no inherent belief in "God" at all.
This is an interesting perspective. Thank you for taking the time to write a coherent comment that provoked thought.
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Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisrationalrevolution --- In the course of making some excellent points, you add an entirely spurious history
--- cf. Richard Dawkins, 'The God Delusion" for a discussion of the traditional God "Jehovah" --- who was clearly not invented by the "philosophers" you mention but is the main character in a number of ancient texts.
In fact, this argument is so wildly off the mark that
Dawkins takes special pains to distinguish the `Philosopher's God" from the notion implicated in his title.
If you are interested in a lengthy philosophical discussion which covers numerous key points entirely overlooked by Dawkins, you will find it in "Critique of Religion and Philosophy" (Anchor Books: Doubleday, 1961)
by Walter Kaufmann.
This is extremely interesting so I went to read the full text of the study. Unfortunately it is behind a paywall. I do wish the the researchers would consider publishing in an open access journal in the future. (That or Science itself could open access.) :)
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisFirst of all, thank you S.A. for a psychology article with real numbers, this made it far more enlightening and enjoyable.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhile the results are interesting and make sense, the obvious counterargument is that a change that is less than the standard deviation could very well be due to chance. So this was a good start, but verification with a larger group is needed. I would also like to see before and after results on the same group. I wonder which people are the ones who change: everyone, the ones who tend to most use intuition or those who already are more analytical.
I am also inclined to disagree with the statement that "analytic thinking isn't some oracle of the truth." Intuition is where the hypotheses come from. Figuring out how true (or not) they are comes from fact-based analysis.
Re: Ricosoavarooski
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBut the concept of "God" in Western Civilization is not the tribal deity of the ancient Jews, and that's the point.
The only relationship between the God of the "Christian world" and the "Jehovah" of the Torah is story telling, but clearly the concept of "God" that we have today doesn't come from these stories, it comes from Roman philosophers.
The concept that "God" is "all knowing, all loving, and all powerful" comes directly from Greek philosophy, its not found in the Bible. Many of the qualities that we associated with "God" are from Greek/Roman philosophy. Those concepts were layered on top of ancient Hebrew stories, yes, but we can't attribute qualities that were developed by philosophers in the 3rd century BCE - 4th century CE to Hebrew tribesman from prior to the 7th century BCE.
This is what people commonly do. They assume that modern concepts of God existed 3,000 years ago, when in fact many of the modern concepts of God were invented much later, and in-fact have continued to evolve over time.
Also, Dawkins is horrible when it comes to religious history unfortunately. He's a great evolutionary biologist, but a sorry historian. He actually imparts many modern concepts on ancient religions and confuses "religion" the institution with "superstition" the way of thinking.
When you go back and read the "Old Testament" clearly the tribal deity being described there is little different from the pagan gods of the time, the only difference being that he was the one god for the Jews as opposed to one of many, but even then he was not the only god, or "The One True God", he was just the only god FOR THE JEWS. The concept of "One True God" wasn't invented until much later and again was a product of philosophy, not superstition, i.e. the argument for "One True God" was a philosophical one.
I'd say that when you say "God" to most people in Western Civ. today, the concept in most people's head's is the concept of "God" that was created by Christian theologians 1,700 - 1,000 years ago, not the concept of "Yahweh" (who is little different than Zeus) from 3,000 years ago.
Also, keep in mind that until the spread of Christianity, the concept of "God" was foreign to virtually every human on earth, superstitious thinking, however, obviously was not.
Gervais and Norenzayan may be overconfidently assuming that their experiments differentiate between analytic and intuitive thinking. I find it hard to believe that glimpses of statues have any effect on religious beliefs. (Of course, I'm ignorant of how the researchers "measured" beliefs.) They assume that seeing the Rodin somehow stimulates an analytic-thinking response because the statue is iconic. For all they know, viewers could be affected in other ways, e.g., the good-humored may feel it looks like someone on a toilet. Discobolus might induce analysis of the difficulty of throwing the discus, the ideal angle of release, etc. The font test may have merely demonstrated differences between the patient and the impatient.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThose concerns aside, I'm really tired of hearing so many people equate believing in God with being religious. All religions are based on someone's "knowledge" of what an "unknowable" God is thinking. They are usually founded on one person's interpretation of God's "word," which, in turn,is interpreted and reinterpreted ad nauseum by hordes of prophets, priests, scholars, et al., for hundreds, even thousands, of years. And most of these folks have heard from God personally, of course. Those who convince themselves that they've finally heard the right message spam their friends with it, jam the message down their children's throats, and...Bingo! Have faith!
The faith that most people espouse is a faith in a particular religious text, not necessarily a faith in God.
What does some set of religious tenets have to do with the belief that some unimaginable, incomprehensible Creator or Prime Mover must be responsible for the existence of the universe?
Whether analytic thinking undermines belief is not a law of nature or absolute truth, but relative. Analysis is good and intuition is also good. They are not each other's predators, or in need any one of them to grow at the expense of the other. On the contrary.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhether intuition is overriden by analysis depends on the size, scope or hunger of the intuition. If analysis catches up with all the challenges envisioned by intuition, then there is no more need for intuition or belief. The same happens when we watch the CSI series on TV: we start 'believing' that somebody is the murderer, but then come lab analyses (and investigation) by Horatio, Delko and Boa Vista, and the mistery is solved: we turn certain, because the questioning of our intuition didn't go beyond wanting to know who the murderer was.
Inasmuch as the intuition or envisioning capabilities are bigger than the analytical capabilities, there will always be room for belief. This is the reason why religious belief may be present regardless of the degree of intelligence.
Faith or belief or intuition is evidence that the mind of an individual can see and question more than his/her reason can analytically explain in particular fields.
It would be interesting to do the same experiment testing before the power or size of intuition of the control groups. If such thing could be measured.
Very true. What I say is that human "intellect" is a product of pattern finding. This pattern finding results in the "discovery" of both "real" and "false" "beliefs".
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe only way to sort out the difference between the "true" and "false" beliefs is empirical analysis, i.e. science, HOWEVER, even prior to empirical analysis the basket of beliefs may contain "true" facts.
What separates humans from other animals is how large our basket is and how many associations we dump into it.
Our brains are master "pattern finders" We find LOTS of patterns and throw them all into the basket of beliefs. As a result, humans operate on more FALSE beliefs than other animals, but we also operate on more true ones as well.
Our brains work on CORRELATION. All we can detect is CORRELATION. The more correlations we detect, the richer our model of the world is. Science and analysis is merely the process of CULLING OUT the false beliefs from the "true" beliefs, or rather the process of determining when patterns are a result of CAUSATION rather than mere correlation.
But here is the thing, an intelligent person may be bad a performing the culling process, but still be "more intelligent" because their whole basket of beliefs is larger than another person's, i.e. even though they believe more false things, they also believe more true things too.
In addition, a person may have a good INTUITIVE ability to sort beliefs that would be proven true from beliefs that would be proven false, even without the use of analysis, but as a result still be highly susceptible to deeply held FALSE beliefs, because their intuitions are right MOST of the time, thus they rely on intuitive thinking more. In other words, the more reliable a person's intuition, they more they may rely on it, but it will never be 100% correct, thus making them more susceptible to stuff like "confirmation bias".
I think you actually see this. People with good intuitions, like sports coaches, are often deeply religious. Intuitive thinking isn't inherently wrong, its often correct, its just a different form of thinking that, while faster and perhaps MORE APT to pick up on correlations, is also more apt to be FOOLED by correlations. In other words, its a form of thinking more likely to find patterns and also more likely to make mistakes, but sometimes the cost of the mistakes is less than the benefit of greater pattern finding.
Sir Isaac Newton did believe in God, and he cannot be faulted for lack of analytical skills, or lack of intelligence. Any of you think that you're smarter than Newton was?...Just asking.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWe can debate the existence or non-existence of God until we are blue in the face; but, the fact remains that man has, down through the ages, insisted on a higher power of some kind that will accept his pleadings, in whatever form, be they requests for help or a worshipful admission of guilt for one sin or another. Every civilization has had their god, to the exclusion of all others. It will not go away even with the proof of scientific validation that none exists.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisPresent day sects, particularly in the United States, have loudly proclaimed their doctrine of certainty, however foolish it may be. And it is gaining ground, particularly in the political arena, common sense and rational judgement notwithstanding. We may find ourselves in a jungle of overwhelming zeal for which there is little escape. Belief is imagination and imagination is rampant in the hinterland.
I've been measured on Myers Briggs tests as a nearly polarized intuitive thinker. It is interesting to me that I once had strong feelings of faith as these studies indicate is common among intuitive people. However I also think it was my intuition that led me to the questions that needed to be asked in order to break the mind virus type loop my faith had my mind trapped in. So I see both a correlation in my life to support this study, and the opposite at the same time.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou know it is funny. Religion and science always mix like oil and water and both assume they are looking for the truth. I was initially very religious, Irish Catholic Altar Boy with a calling to be a priest and then I discovered the truth of the Catholic Church. I didn't give up on the concept of a higher being and will touch on that if word count allows bur I lost religion and that may have been a mistake.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisScience on the other hand has opened my eyes to the wonders of nature and I find the quantum sphere and relativity are truly what explains what and how we see the universe. Freeman Dyson, Lee Smolin and Albert Einstein are my heroes and Niel Bohr is the perfect balance to Albert's assumption that his concept of God would not play dice with the universe.
That said, lets evaluate the fact that science in the raw has decided that morals and ethics do not matter, only what can be done and how far can we push the envelopes. That is a conceited attitude and smacks of the same hypocrisy that organized religion has in that it believes that only the specific brand of religion has the right side of morals and ethics.
So lets think a minute about where the two may have more use to us lay people. Religion today really does not help people find God and God is not some old man in a robe or a Zombie that came back in three days. God if anything would be the multiverse that we are probably part of and in looking at the universe and looking at a cell they are mirrors of each other. If we look at the Gaia ideal as Freeman Dyson has done so well and also at the slow but constant death we are spreading on the earth as we kill ecosystem after ecosystem creating feedback system crashes then is it that hard to extrapolate the concept to a living universe. I see the galaxies acting as atoms within the bounds of a Cell like structure we call the universe. That defines well a higher being which may or may not be called a God but living it is.
Religion in its initial form in the world that was big at one time was useful in giving an individual worth and position in a closed society. We have shrunk that big world and religion did not follow, instead it became a three headed Hydra that has created war, control and confusion in man. That is not its purpose as intended by the originators but it was hijacked and I speak from my perspective as the Christian by emperor Constantine to rule the masses and Koptics and Gnostic s were tossed to the side. This started the death between religion and science. It is salvageable in a new form.
I might not be smarter than Newton but I know a lot more about the life, the universe and all that. What were deep mysteries in Newton's time are high school science today. Historically the concept of "god" has been used to fill the gaps in scientific knowledge. Given the rate at which those gaps have shrunk since Newton's time I think it is unwise to infer that a modern Newton would be a believer.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI don't believe you are being genuine(a quick Google search gives away the 'smarter than Newton?' trope). At any rate, go read up on Newton's religious beliefs, and why he held them. No one is denying his genius, but he certainly had analytic blind spots. God began where his insight ended. Insight that we have since gained. The truth of a creative god may well be beyond our ability to know, but the myths created by humans are easier to see through when thinking analytically.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisRead Dyson and learn something from a very smart old man. The concept of Gaia is a great clue and extrapolation allows for things beyond science. Remember science holds up to what is our event horizon (Big Bang).
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind." Albert Einstein. I remain unconvinced. I agree that we need a constructive moral framework. I believe religion to be our initial failed attempt at one.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisRealistically, a lot of faith is about people believing what they want to believe. It's emotionally satisfying more than a groping for knowledge.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAnd an underpinning of analytical thought is the recognition that what you want to be true, isn't a guide to truth.
That is my point. I agree religion has failed. It only works at a tribal level and the world is too small. However science shows not ethics, conscience or morals it is allowed to be corrupted and puts its hands up and claims 'What?'.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisReligion is the deitification of hormonal states. I'd like to see a study where endorphins are measured during a moment of religious feeling. People feel that rush and tingle, and go "Wow, that's GOD!"
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisCombine it with people's biologically driven tendency to find patterns in random information, pareidolia, and you have religion. Any religion.
And then people use that to justify killing each other.
I think you may be mixing religion with spiritual and they may not have that much in common. I think all humans are looking for value or worth and also purpose. Religion originally was useful for helping to understand why people did what they did and was a way to complete what law failed to provide and with good reason. Law should be rules of behavior between people or where your rights start to step on mine such as if I steal from you, kill a family member, slander or libel your name.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisReligion is a way to justify your existence on earth so that if you are a dog catcher there is dignity in that, if you are a scientist there is dignity in that. Also religion can establish morality and ethics with a common base that we can agree on. This is a very cultural based issue and if you look at tribal customs what is acceptable in one culture may be looked down on in another. Even what we eat comes under this heading such as Kosher. Even in societies where Kosher is not the law, the food of choice can be as varied as whales, cows, dogs, horses but we do tend to all eat chickens. (Maybe because they descended from dinosaurs.)
The search for deity is artificial and unattainable if you use religion as the basis because it is a personal search and transcends morals, ethics etc. It is what you judge the universe to be and if there is more or less to what we see. In a lot of my studies I have found the Gaia approach the most appealing because it matches what I perceive when I look at ecosystems.
All ecosystems are parts of more complex feedback systems that depend on each other to survive. Urban sprawl has taxed many systems that were somewhat still untouched before the 60's thru 70's and really the world shrank quickly after we entered space and saw how puny this planet really is. If you look at landstat pictures from the 70's to now the slicing and dicing of the environment has been phenomenal and it was well on its way in the 50's in this country, we just lacked the satellites to verify this. Thus today we are in the middle of the largest extinction period since the end of the dinosaurs and the scale is tipped to far to stop it.
All that said, the point is religion as it was no longer serves the purpose it did and now is more of a causus belli than an institution to create stability. We need to address that issue and find a way to re-instill worth, purpose for the individual and create common values, morals and ethics. The day of my God is better than yours is over unless we really are suicidal. God is personal.
When we compare countries with the highest scores on math and science we also find the greatest number of unbelievers. Looking at test scores in the US we find similar results with less religious belief in the states with better educations. It takes a great deal of thinking to analyze and compare the beliefs of the various religions-- especially those who believe in the God of the Mideast-- Christians, Jews and Muslims. Reading the Scriptures of these religions is clear that a merciful God does not exist. But our hope that we will not die and our inability to think of ourselves not existing gives most people enough intellectual push to believe in things that are unbelievable. If more people would actually study their Scriptures more critically and study end understand the natural sciences I have no doubt that there would be fewer believers. it takes a great deal of knowledge and courage to toss out what our mothers have told us and that which is emphasized by our priests and imams who know everything.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIn my case, my point is that analytic thinking undermines beliefs only if the intuitive capability is smaller than the analytic capability.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThat analytic thinking undermines belief is not a general rule, because it is relative to each individual: in some cases it is true, in some other cases it is false. This is the reason why I suggest a variation of the experiment in which the power or scope of intuition is tested beforehand. If the intuition is very powerful, it is less likely to be affected by seeing "Le Penseur".
Louis Pasteur was also deeply religious. The "father of modern genetics", Gregor Mendel, was even a priest. Jérôme-Jean-Louis-Marie Lejeune, the French geneticist who identified (1959) the human chromosomal abnormality linked to Down syndrome, or trisomy 21, whose discovery marked a turning point in the new science of cytogenetics (the scientific study of genetic variations at the chromosomal level), was also deeply religious. John Eccles (neurophysiologist) who won the 1963 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his work on the synapse, was also intensely religious. No need to argue in favor of the analytic thinking of these scientists, which, however, did not undermine their beliefs.
Since the existence of God cannot be proved -neither disproved- by scientific methods, it is a hypothesis that must be accepted or rejected only by faith. Since the hypothesis is a legitimate object of intuition, for the existence of God is of the highest relevance, nobody should be blamed for taking it as positive. It is also a legitimate stance to reject it.
In other words, there is a real need for faith. We would go nuts if we had to personally prove everything we take for true, such as that our father is really our dad.
And while analytic thinking is unable to give full account of the whole cosmos, the hypothesis of the existence of God will remain for milleniums to come. Of course, I can declare now the hypothesis as false, but, would it be the right bet?
In my case, my point is that analytic thinking undermines beliefs only if the intuitive capability is smaller than the analytic capability.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThat analytic thinking undermines belief is not a general rule, because it is relative to each individual: in some cases it is true, in some other cases it is false. This is the reason why I suggest a variation of the experiment in which the power or scope of intuition is tested beforehand. If the intuition is very powerful, it is less likely to be affected by seeing "Le Penseur".
Louis Pasteur was also deeply religious. The "father of modern genetics", Gregor Mendel, was even a priest. Jérôme-Jean-Louis-Marie Lejeune, the French geneticist who identified (1959) the human chromosomal abnormality linked to Down syndrome, or trisomy 21, whose discovery marked a turning point in the new science of cytogenetics (the scientific study of genetic variations at the chromosomal level), was also deeply religious. John Eccles (neurophysiologist) who won the 1963 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his work on the synapse, was also intensely religious. No need to argue in favor of the analytic thinking of these scientists, which, however, did not undermine their beliefs.
Since the existence of God cannot be proved -neither disproved- by scientific methods, it is a hypothesis that must be accepted or rejected only by faith. Since the hypothesis is a legitimate object of intuition, for the existence of God is of the highest relevance, nobody should be blamed for taking it as positive. It is also a legitimate stance to reject it.
In other words, there is a real need for faith. We would go nuts if we had to personally prove everything we take for true, such as that our father is really our dad.
And while analytic thinking is unable to give full account of the whole cosmos, the hypothesis of the existence of God will remain for milleniums to come. Of course, I can declare now the hypothesis as false, but, would it be the right bet?
Doh?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis was exactly what I did when I was 12/13 after being raised in a moderate Catholic environment. It had something to do with thinking about The Emperor's New Clothes, I remember that.
Why don't other people start to think as they grow up? I don't understand. Help?
You forget if not for the Muslims, we would still be using Roman Numerals and no decimal system and no zero. Again, the point is religion and science share a role, they split it was good. But don't relegate religion under the rug, just the concept that it provides the path to God. That is really not the purpose if you study history, it was rather the glue that gave us morality and culture.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMy point is the world has shrunk to where old time religion causes more problems than it solves but man will always look for purpose in life and a concept of right and wrong. Laws can serve some of the right and wrong on a civil level, but what is socially acceptable does fall into the realm of religion and we need to adjust some of the flaws with overt control of morality when there is null effect to society or the individual. But culture and the core of a human is in search of rule and reason.
Science has proven time and again that morals, ethics and purpose do not sit in the front seat and too often technology and science outpaces the capacity of where man is socially with serious consequences. We have allowed the concept of scientific reasoning to take total control and in some esoteric issues it cannot provide any useful answer just as religion cannot come up with a valid alternative to evolution.
But if society is to continue at the population rates we are at and we are heading to we need to re-evaluate the role of religion and bring it up to date. All studies I have seen and I have studied this since the 50's about 60% of the population is in need of the service that religion offers and if we don't fix the basics of what are the current religions we are doomed as a species. You can talk erudite concepts all day but that does not change the nature of man.
It seems that myths, religion, culture come first and then science finds its way into the picture but I cannot stress enough that science has no conscience and no sense of right and wrong. And it is not in the realm of science to fix that issue is it?
"I cannot stress enough that science has no conscience and no sense of right and wrong. And it is not in the realm of science to fix that issue is it?"
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSam Harris disagrees with that statement. Look up "science can answer moral questions" on TEDtalks or youtube, or "The Moral Landscape".
Also, it is the secular movement that has dragged religion and its values kicking and screaming into the modern day and age. It is not religion who made us realize that slavery is immoral or that women should have equal rights. The Bible clearly states that it is OK to have slaves and even how you can beat them. Or that the penalty of a rapist is to marry his victim. Clearly, no one sees that as a good moral advice any more?
Morality is created and comes from all of us interacting together, not from some old book or supernatural being.
Everybody creates his God according to his own image and spirit
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf triangles made a God they would give him three sides
/ Charles de Montesquieu . Persian Letters, 1721 /
Therefore if physicists make a God they will give him
concrete physical parameters.
#
Which parameters they can be ?
We know that God is something Infinite.
What is ‘INFINITY’ ? Nobody knows.
The conception of ‘ Infinity’ we can find not only in Bible
but in Physics too. Are they equal ? Are they different ?
I think that ‘INFINITY’ is ‘INFINITY’ and can be only one
for every knowledge, for every meaning.
I think there isn’t special ‘INFINITY’ for Bible and special
‘INFINITY’ for Physics. I think the conception ‘INFINITY’
is equal for every part of Science.
#
Again and again the ‘INFINITY’ appears in many physical
and mathematical problems.
/ Part Physics: Theoretical applications of physical infinity .
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infinity /
And:
Infinity is the cause of the crisis in Physics.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infinity
#
It means that ‘INFINITY’ is some kind of reality. (!)
Does Physicists meet God In the Infinite ? (!)
Does God live in the INFINITE ? ( !)
=======.
Best wishes.
Israel Sadovnik Socratus
=====================.
The study is an example of manipulation of an experiment to achieve a result, “why does increasing rational thinking tend to decrease belief in God” is not a well formed, testable, postulate. First, rational and analytical thinking are not at all the same. One may engage in rational speculation without having support from analytic experimentation. Witness the rational belief by most physicists that string theory describes our universe despite the fact that analytic thought cannot prove the assertion. Analytic thought led Newton to the rational conclusion that time and space are absolute, intuition (followed by analytic thought) led Einstein to prove otherwise. The point is that it should not be surprising at all that increasing the analytic focus of a human being on any postulate increases the recognition by that individual that their belief in the truth of the postulate may be wrong, not that it is wrong. The experiment demonstrates human nature, but says nothing about whether it is rational or irrational to have, or whether analytic thought supports or does not support, a belief in the existence of God.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisFurthermore, if God does exist then we might posit that God exists beyond our human sensory boundaries. If we do not observe that which can be observed, we can say with some degree of statistical confidence that the object does not exist. But if we cannot observe an object because it exists beyond our sensory boundaries, then we cannot say anything objective about it at all. So if God exists in some manner beyond human ability to observe, then we cannot make any “analytic” statement whatsoever about the existence of God. We cannot say that it is objectively likely that God exists, more importantly, we cannot say that it is statistically unlikely that God exists. We simply cannot use analytic thinking as an objective basis for belief or disbelief in the existence of God (this limitation is examined at length in the book LifeNotes available in the Apple and Kindle stores). So the statement that “increasing rational thinking tend(s) to decrease belief in God” is as much a fallacy as saying that because the world looks flat it is.
It is interesting that the author focuses on 'religious' rather than spiritual thinking in this rather silly article. I don't think any two people believe precisely the same things, even within orthodox religions. Each week I show how analytic thinking can undermine lack of spiritual belief with a new article posted at my blog http://metaphysicalarticles.blogspot.com/
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAn immaterial god that doesn't interact with the universe in any way or matter cannot be tested or disproven. But that is a useless god.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe god that most people believe in interacts with the world, answers prayers, heals the sick, gives visions of the future, performs miracles etc. These kind of claims can be scientifically and statistically tested and has been many times. All of them have failed miserably.
Cont.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisRational and analytical people are more likely to see through these claims and therefore not believe in them.
They are also less inclined to believe in unsupported untestable things such as an immaterial god. It doesn't make sense in believing in things that cannot possibly be proven/disproven - then you can beleive in everything you want! Ewoks on Endor for instance. Occams razor applies.
Therefore it makes perfect sense that using your analytical abilities makes you less prone to believe in supernatural things.
You are so missing the point. I do not support zombie gods, creationism, witch hunts etc. I also do not support creating weapons for the sake of doing it because we can, genetically altering viruses and publishing the works so that some idiot zealot can take that ideal and use it on us.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhat I am saying is that 60% (a majority if you will) of people look to something like religion for purpose and value. You have to deal with the cards in the deck. You claim that secular wisdom has dragged us into the modern age, and I will argue that you are myopic. Take a look around the world has gotten too small it is becoming tribal as a response. That does not bode well for humanity when each sect has its own version that their morals, values and salvation are the only way.
What I am trying to propose is remove the search for God from organized religion because it doesn't work, study Buddhism and even Siddhartha told his closest follower he must find his own path! But religion does set a moral and ethical conscience and watching Edward Teller think that we should nuke everything not like us is not a moral decision.
Slavery and abuse of women come from a Bible, Torah, Koran written by white men to rule over the rest of the Klan but it was technology that allowed us to decimate the native Americans and enslave the Blacks and slavery still exist to this day.
You cannot tell me after the fall of wall street, the damage of industry (oil at the lead but chemical, genetic and others not far behind) have made the world better. A truly secular society would mimic China and between you and me, no thank you. The point again is we are dealing with a species that thrives best with meaning and purpose and knowing that what they contribute matters as much as the next guy. Your secular world has destroyed that with everyone wanting to have an MBA and be rich or be a sports star or rock star.
The education under a secular crunch had gone to hell in a hand basket and the break down of the family unit is probably at the root of it and that was driven by the materialistic need to consume.
Put all that aside and think of this, there will be religion you cannot kill it. 60% of the people demand something like it, and 10% of that group will be true believers (science is full of those too (String theory)) and they are what caused slavery, war, abuse of technology etc. We need to work in the real world because this transcends a math problem. Regarding God, Creation etc, that is the voodoo that made the masses believe. We are beyond that now!
Ted, I think you are so wrapped up in the concept of a waiter god. In that I mean a god that sits there at our beckon command, whose only purpose is to solve our woes. That is why I tried to put out the Gaia concept which does have foundation in science and is regarded as truth by some very esteemed scientist, Freeman Dyson is one of them and he is perhaps one of the smartest men remaining from the days of relativity vs quantum. Remember he was the man who could translate Feynman so you and I might understand what quantum mechanics really is.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI think that if you look at the universe on a scale where it might and I only say might mimic the internal structure of a cell. The fact that there is any life in the universe supports the concept of a living universe and if truly we are part of a foam of multiverses who is to say this is not a fractal form of a living being that again is part of another universe that continues or perhaps in some form of Escher like space is a self contained singularity. The concept is weird and kind of out there but it deals with infinity better than any other answer I have looked at.
Benoit Manderbolt did some outrageous work he 60's and 70's that turned me on my head and he seriously saw the patterns that today still hold solid. With that in mind is it so outrageous to consider a black hole the other side of a big bang and as Smolin wrote in his book 'Life in the Cosmos' would it not hold up that a universe that creates the right characteristics to support life, atoms, physics like we know it and creates black holes also not be a fractal generating living organism.
Now that said, it is not a servant, subservient or even a knowing god but it is something bigger and more mysterious than we can understand, true?
So again, I leave the search for reality and where it goes in the hands of science, it is much more interesting and creative. Also if you read Smolin's book 'the Trouble with Physics' and Dyson's many books and really a lot of other scientist (Including Einstein) Science is very guilty of group thought and guess what I see the same zealotry that exist in religion. It is a flaw or a strength in the human wiring and since we are still here and it is so tightly bundled in our essence, I for one consider it a strength once we are aware of it. Dolphins are wired also and one of the biggest issues they have is that once in a net, although their brains are larger than ours, they do not realize they can jump over the net to safety. Wiring is the core of living creatures and their hell.
The concept of God is in itself a paradox when viewed with the perspective of the historical teachings that define God as a unique being or beings.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI tend to believe that God is concept, not a being or group of beings. I think of it like we are all the eyes and ears or senses of God, plants and animals included. All our senses and experiences combine to make us all a unique subset of God. I also believe in reincarnation and eternal life. There is no paradox in my mind. Heaven and Hell is right here on Earth. Our life is indeed whatever we make it to be. Essentially, I think of life is no more and no less then an inquisitive student standing on a bridge and watching the river of life flow by.
In my experience, GOD cannot be understood analytically, but must be accepted on Faith. It's my opinion we exhibit a fundamental flaw when we attempt to reason about GOD. The flaw is the belief that if something exists it can be accurately described or understood in a symbolic manner. Symbols however are discrete and can therefor only express a pix-elated representation of reality. No matter how much precision we ascribe to our representations we cannot escape that they are discrete and that some portion of reality escapes us.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBelieving and knowing are two entirely different entities. Every master from Ram to Krishna to Buddah to Christ to Milarepa to Nanak,etc have said that the creator can be experienced directly within, that in fact this is our true nature and our right as human beings. It has been said that the Master unleashes the power of the human heart to know its creator while religion is, after the fact, an exercise in power over humans.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisKabir put it quite well. "Everyone knows that the drop is in the ocean but few know that the ocean is in the drop".
I think a singularity works best because infinity always fails when carried out. I like the concept of a living universe and I think it transcends in a fractal matter ie multiverse but I do think it wraps in an Escher type space which again is why I end up at singularity. Really just conjecture but it took a long time to conjecture that.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI like the idea of a living universe because if you study any living creature on earth it is essentially inert matter with some internal force that drives it. The more you study the earth the more you see how the earth uses its feed back systems to encourage an environment favorable to more life. So the entire system is truly interdependent or possible the entire system is alive or Gaia.
I agree with Rick Deckard -- thanks for the well thought through response.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThanks for the thoughtful comments. To me they make a lot of sense. Well done. John C. Fentress, Eugene, Oregon, USA
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNot smarter, just better informed.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisTruly thoughtful discussions. Thanks folks. One thing that is clear is the tangle of issues often makes things unclear, which I guess can in turn lead to better clarity. Maybe....? The good news here is that previous contributors have shown how folks of both high intuitive and analytical bents can have constructive conversations.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSo Benjamin Franklin was finally proven correct:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"The way to see by Faith is to shut the Eye of Reason."
Across the board it's all utter nonsense. No analysis needed.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAmen!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou sound like a tea partier?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOnce again religion vs. science. Being not American, I have a question. Why do you, Americans have millions for gays’ programs\projects and nothing for shuttle program as a part of science? I have an answer. You lost your religion. For me science is another way to perceive God. And, I know that God exists as well as I know 2x2 is 4. Does anybody have a proof 2x2 is 4? Can smbd explain 2x2 to monkey? I can’t explain God to Homo sapiens. Atheists call this evolution, some monkeys or Homos have more developed abstract thinking, less undeveloped will have to disappear. Monkey looks at sky and doesn’t see stars, human does. This is the reason of belief and disbelief.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNo; you are drastically simplifying a shifting and malleable concept --- "God" --- into a mythical paradigm
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thissupposedly subscribed to over the course of centuries by
"Western Civilization," although I agree with you about the severe limitations of Dawkins. But his book `The God Delusion' (Houghton Mifflin, 2006) lives up to the Kirkus Reviews comment:
"This is exceptional reading --- even funny at times...You needn't buy the total Dawkins package...."
You state that "the concept of God we have today doesn't come from these [Old Testament] stories, it comes from Roman philosophers." Well, not from Seneca or Marcus Aurelius it doesn't --- the Stoic notion of Deity is so far removed from a miracle-making, personal
entity as to render that idea far off the mark. So which
Roman philosophers are you claiming invented this particular version of the concept --- or do you mean, "Roman Catholic philosophers"? And what about the heretical teachings variously endorsed and condemned over that time period?
You state: "I'd say that when you say `God' to most people in Western Civ. today..." Well, you may say many things, but a statement that sweeping would seem to require some very basic empirical survey data to back it up. Meanwhile, do you really believe that "Jahweh" or "Jehovah" as portrayed in the Old Testament, or to be fair to the original writers and believing Jews of today, the Torah, which is only classified as "Old" in relation to a religious system to which they do not subscribe --- do you really want to try to make the case that that figure is fundamentally indistinguishable from
"Zeus" of the classical Greek pantheon? If so, I would be interested in seeing your arguments (or cite me some scholarly references).
Now possibly your last paragraph is the key statement of your agenda: the claim that until the spread of Christianity, "the concept" of `God' "was foreign to virtually every human on earth; superstitious thinking, however, obviously was not." I don't recall having run across anyone lately willing to arrogate to their own understanding THE correct concept of `God' which according to you, resides uniquely within one and only one religious tradition, and outside of which is only `superstition." By that reasoning, absolutely everyone who has in any way experienced a different sort of religious consciousness and interpreted that awareness in light of their own cultural history, is merely falling into a "superstition" --- as contrasted, according to you, with
THE correct concept of `God.'
Arguably the greatest scientific mind of the last three centuries was Sir Isaac Newton (physicist, mathematician, astronomer). He had an estimated high-genius IQ of 190 (Einstein's IQ was 160). When a number of Europe’s most prominent mathematicians were challenged to solve an extremely intractable problem, and all had failed to do so over a six month period, Newton was subsequently handed the same problem at lunch-time, and successfully solved it the same day.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNewton affirmed that "...The main business of natural philosophy is to argue from phenomena without feigning hypotheses, and to deduce causes from effects, till we come to the very first Cause…and that's why we study science. Whence is it that nature does nothing in vain; and whence arises all that order and beauty which we see in the world?… Was the eye contrived without skill in optics, and the ear without knowledge of sounds?... In the absence of any other proof, the thumb alone would convince me of God's existence. It is the perfection of God's works that they are all done with the greatest simplicity. He is the God of order and not of confusion.”
A modern brilliantly executed treatise (translated from German into English) entitled In the Beginning was Information http://www.clv-server.de/pdf/255255.pdf confirms the total rationality of Newton’s conclusion.
The real reason why so many today have a "disbelief" in an intelligent universal Creator is that as people (whether highly educated or not) we believe what we want to believe, even if our belief is totally irrational. For after all, a belief in the Creator requires submission to His governing physical, social and moral laws, and an inescapable recognition of a future judgment in which every human being will be called into account for the life he/she lived here upon this earth.
Arguably the greatest scientific mind of the last three centuries was Sir Isaac Newton (physicist, mathematician, astronomer). He had an estimated IQ of 190 (Einstein's IQ was 160). When a number of Europe’s most prominent mathematicians were challenged to solve an extremely intractable problem, and all had failed to do so over a six month period, Newton was subsequently handed the same problem at lunch-time, and successfully solved it the same day.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNewton affirmed that "...The main business of natural philosophy is to argue from phenomena without feigning hypotheses, and to deduce causes from effects, till we come to the very first Cause…and that's why we study science…. Whence is it that nature does nothing in vain; and whence arises all that order and beauty which we see in the world?… Was the eye contrived without skill in optics, and the ear without knowledge of sounds?... In the absence of any other proof, the thumb alone would convince me of God's existence. It is the perfection of God's works that they are all done with the greatest simplicity. He is the God of order and not of confusion.”
A modern brilliantly executed treatise (translated from German into English) entitled In the Beginning was Information http://www.clv-server.de/pdf/255255.pdf confirms the total rationality of Newton’s conclusion.
The real reason why so many today have a "disbelief" in an intelligent universal Creator is that as people (whether highly educated or not) we believe what we want to believe, even if our belief is totally irrational. For after all, a belief in the Creator requires submission to His governing physical, social and moral laws, and an inescapable recognition of a future judgment in which every human being will be called into account for the life he/she lived here upon this earth.
http://jessejohn.hubpages.com/hub/lifequotes =real reasons to believe in god
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBoy talk about talking at each other. You all remind me of the democrats talking at the republicans talking at Occupy Wall Street talking at the Tea Party.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHas anybody listened to the idea that religion as a search for God is no longer valid and Science has done its job with evolution, extinction events, bio feedback systems etc. We have shown Big Bang makes the most sense, we have described exactly 4% of the universe and call the rest dark matter or dark energy with dark energy overwhelmingly taking the largest share of the pie.
So Science can explain 4% of what we see, touch, feel and where we came from. I think it is safe to say the world is older than 6,000 years. Lets all agree on that because I think any religious leader worth their weight would never try to tell us how a God would create the universe.
That said, lets get back to what religion should, could and hopefully can do which is create a pillar of society in this tiny little planet that deals with self worth, purpose, morals and ethics. Some of the comments said that a secular world with intelligence can create morals and ethics and that is all we need. Well then tell me why we are where we are today.
Wall Street, the banks, manufacturing, the wealthy, the poor, the military and yes even the scientist have all failed on a moral and ethical scale. The financial institutions all but screwed the little guy to advance their false idol money, manufacturing has outsourced its jobs to its false idol production, the wealthy have seen their tax base shrink from 90% to 34% for their idol greed, the poor have given up the family unit to their need to survive and science continues to pollute, create sprawl and enable war to become more deadly because of their idol of knowledge for knowledges sake.
Religion that creates a bound of organic worth and purpose, seeks common morals and ethics and reminds man that he is part of this earth which is part of this solar system which is part of this galaxy which is part of this universe would do us all well and perhaps create a world where we are our brother's keepers and we lift up those less fortunate.
So give up the Zombie gods, the crap we have called religion for 5,000 years and work on a system that completes what law and order cannot because their area of concern is society on a person to person level not people on a society level. They are two different pillars and both are required for civilization to succeed. We are currently failing miserably and all we continue to do is talk at each other.
The author paints all religion with a very broad brush, and does not differentiate between them. What the author fails to recognize is that Judaism is probably the only only religion that is almost entirely based on analytic reasoning. I will agree there are core components that are largely taken on faith, but even those are subject to discussion through a detailed analytic process.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf one explored the Talmud, which embodies an analytic approach to understanding the Chumash, Jewish legal codes and practices, the science as understood in the time (approximately between the 3rd-5th centuries C.E.), and a wide variety of topics that the were of interest to the Jewish leadership, the analytic approach Judaism fosters become readily apparent. There is a very good discussion regarding the history and construction of the Talmud at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talmud.
As far as the the people involved in the study of the Talmud, they come from all educational backgrounds, but the consistent theme amongst a very large percentage are very good to superb analytical skills, as one needs them to understand the logic of the arguments that comprise the Talmud. Further, you do find a disproportionate number of the community of learners to tilt toward college educated and beyond, with a disproportionate number of scientists, engineers, mathematicians, physicians, and lawyers. These are people that very active participants in the learning process, and they leverage their secular analytical skills in mastering the Talmud. And the reverse is even more true: learning Talmud is a tremendous aid in developing very refined analytical skills, which is why so many people who learn Talmud end up in professions that leverage those same skills. The learning process, in turn, helps amplify, not diminish, commitment to Judaism.
Arguably, most religions do not have this corpus of reasoned argument that is constantly studied...I posit that all other religions don't have any process or body of knowledge that is comparable, and focus on dogma and faith, putting believers in a very precarious theological and cognitive position, which the author describes. But that situation is limited to religions that discourage reasoned thought and compel people to accept the dogma without question.
Yep.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"Religion must be disciplined by democracy." Forgot the source, but it makes a great deal of sense. In any case I am not convinced that self-worth, morals and ethics, purpose on an existential level either require or are necessarily improved by invoking suprasensible entities which themselves require further explanations ad infinitum --- until, once again, the entire enterprise boils down to: "Here, we have reached a limiting question and the only answer we have is that you must accept this set of conclusions `on faith.'" Why?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBuddhism in at least some variants also does not discourage rational scrutiny, but that's apparently one reason why it is often classified as a philosophy rather than a `religion.'
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHell no. And if I lived in 17th Century England where where atheism was a capital crime ...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisRead the 'True Believer' by Eric Hoffer, study any tribal society (about 2/3 of the world) explain the isolation or ethnic cleansing going on through out the world.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this60% of the people are begging for meaning, purpose and direction. Again, Big Business, Big Government, Banking, Religion in its current state, MFG, Consumerism all call flat on delivering this. Think of it as glue that holds a clan of animals together, in other words realize that as a species we are wired like all other species and by trying to deny this concept modern secular only morality and ethics are killing us.
Trying to keep religion as the source of reality, truth or anything that creates ethnocentric concepts of superiority leads to war because one god is always superior to the other god and instead of serving as a uniting pillar in a small world it becomes the rot that separates us. Secular mode encourages consumerism, selfishness and lack of organic bonding required for a successful culture.
Take a look around you and think about what changed since the 60's.
Most people are aculturated to believe in one or another religion most of which involve espousing the reality of imaginary events and beings. Belief in these religion requires the absence or specialized suspension of the ability to distinguish between magination and reality.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOn a scale between 1 and 100? You either do or you do not accept the postulate that god(s) exist(s). There is no grey. Regardless of what evidence you may cite to substantiate that world view.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt is unfortunate that the study did not record the religious institutions the participants claim adherence to. I wonder how the breakdown would fall out for those who follow institutions claiming to be directed by individuals who have seen or possibly continue to be visited by god(s). Along those same lines, it would be interesting to know psychiatric and work histories of the participants.
why is anyone bothering to have a serious discussion about this? how did this even manage to get published in Science?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"Their scores on the test varied widely, with a standard deviation of about 35 in the control group." (difference in means of ~20) is really all you need to know. their data wasn't anywhere close to statistically significant for one of their touted experiments.
In addition to their piss-poor data, considering their experimental conditions are "let's show people a picture, THEN have them take a survey" or "let's have people take surveys in different fonts!", the claims outlined in this article are outrageous.
I find it ironic that so many anti-religious posters both here and on facebook, etc. are using this as ammunition. Shouldn't your supposed 'analytical nature' spur you to actually look at the data and experimental construction?
I find it incredibly amusing that some people find it easier to believe in an Omnipotent, Omniscient, Omnipresent supernatural entity which lives "outside of time and space" than to believe in a well-documented test performed by palpable human beings.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHaving discovered 'anti-truths' in 1989, it should be noted that there appears to be a dark undetected side to truths, call them colored-truths, that shows a connection between the scientific properties of LIGTH and the proposed expanded definition of TRUTH.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisA little too angry but on mark. I really would stick to the idea that science can explain 2 to 4% of the universe and even that is a 50% deviation of certainty. However just like space and time the concept of God is so subjective that even religion will fail to adequately describe the entity. I stick with religion can serve as social glue, is required as social glue and should be remodeled before they all eat each other up in the hate between them selves.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBut there is no science to back that up, only some great research on group thought such as Lee Smolin, Eric Hoffer, The Catholic Church, the Nazi's, the Tea Party, String Theory, Republicans the list does go on and on even includes progressives, liberals, them, us etc...
Nothing undermines belief in religion like scoundrels who hold themselves out as religious, or religious authority figures who loudly proclaim that the world works in ways it does not, e.g. the sun and planets revolve around the earth and man did not arise from nonhuman creatures.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYour imaginary friend is better than my imaginary friend?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI am pretty sure mine doesn't wear army boots and has no interest in eyes or teeth... But better, that is too relative a thought.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisFor those who don't know, usually you can find a scholarly article such as this at the Web site of the institution where an author works. Also, while it seems improbable that the experimental conditions (the pictures of Greek statues) could cause the results, one should recognize that the authors did statistical testing to check for the likelihood of the results being just chance. I haven't yet read the article closely, but I'm willing to bet they say somewhere that "more research is needed."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhy do rational people assume that it takes a machine 5 minutes to make a widget? The problem says that it takes 5 machines 5 minutes to make 5 widgets. Maybe 4 machines could make zero widgets because 5 machines are essential. Maybe 100 machines could gain efficiencies and make 100 widgets in 4 minutes. The scientists label as rational the people who make the same assumptions as them. The rest of us are raving lunatics. I will pray to Zues now -- just kidding -- there is no space to think about gods now that I am puzzled enough as to why the whole article in not considered a nonsequitor.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"It: The Architecture of Existence"(ISBN 9781857566680) treats intuition as the irrational shortcut to knowledge (pp.234-236); theism as the embrace of god-belief (pp.702-720), and spirituality as the immaterial search for self-evidence (pp.789-798). Central to these ideas is recognition that the only form that God can be demonstrated to exist is that of an idea.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisimpact of religious dogma of early childhood impossible to erases by analytic thinking. The brain has bursts of growth and then periods of consolidation when excess connections pruned.The most notable burst are the first two or three years of life.and their impact is tremendous on our conscious mind,to change this impact by analytic thinking is not possible
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisConcerning Greence's last question, perhaps believing in God who exists is perfectly irrational. Who can explain those miracles (Moses' Red Sea parting or resurrection of Jesus Christ) with the rational thinking? Reason helps, but in the end it comes down to faith. Apostle Paul put it nicely in Hebrew 11:1 "Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see".
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this@rationalrevolution: You wrote "What this study is really saying is that thinking analytically about anything tends to make people think more analytically about everything, which is really no surprise."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis is EXACTLY what I thought upon reading the article. Pretty much a no-brainer that applies to everything. On a less generalized level people change their assumptions when thinking things over more carefully. People overcome prejudice by getting to know the subjects of their assumptions. Thinking beats guessing etc. Yet true believers define the core of their beliefs as the foundation of absolute truth, no matter how absurd they seem to outsiders. And no amount of thinking will change that.
I have always believed that 'intuition' was the product of the 'subconscious' while 'analysis' was the operation of the 'conscious' in the testing of 'intuition'.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSuperstitious people believe in 'intuition' without questioning. Religion is the consolidation of this superstition and ensuring blind belief through a number of rules.
Scientists put 'intuition' to scrutiny and accept only what works. That is, in superstition we 'believe' it works while in science we 'know' it does or does not work.
Dude, way over the top. The statue in the article it the Thinker by Rodin circa 1902. Several millennium since ancient Greece.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou know for a field that can explain 2 to 4% of the observable universe, not make a valid provable claim to how life started other than something happened and eventually when bacteria started having sex evolution stepped in as up till then mutations in clones took millions of years. Catastrophic events were ignored until the 60's and then some and they have as much influence if not more than mutations do. A niche opens up something will come into to optimize it and eventually feedback systems will happen to sustain it and as long as the ecosystems stay in synch the system is stable but non-linear and sensitive to the next event.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou make a brave statement that God is a figment of someones imagination. When we can explain suitably and verifiable what the other 96 to 98% of the universe is, your argument and thoughts will have merit. Until then, accept what we have discovered with science as what we have discovered with science. Newton gave way to Einstein gave way to Bohr gave way to particle gave way to string gave way to who knows what comes next I bet on fractals, chaos and Escher space (BUT that is purely conjecture). Just like life, science is a self evolving creature and often group think, just like in all other institutions clouds its true think options.
I have a better chance in my claim the universe is alive than you do in that God is a figment of imagination. Lets just keep asking, observing and learning because even with all the obese people in the world the FAT LADY HAS NOT SUNG nor will she as long as we exist as a species.
Your comment reminds me of one of my constant issues with SCIAM. I am a subscriber to the rag, have been since the 60's at one point had a stack that was actually 5 stacks each about 4 feet tall and went back to 72. That was when I could look up past articles on the fly using the web, so like an idiot I threw away the fire hazard and trusted the digital data.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNow half the time I go to look up something I read in the past it is number 1 almost impossible to find (lousy search engine SCIAM) and then half the time it is out of print or for pay only. Going forward I book mark the links and pray they are still there. Sometimes I really think big oil controls some of it because the often overlooked examples had a shell commercial on them originally.
Here are two articles one I could find the other is in the twilight zone. This is very interesting on cynobacteria and their ability to prolifically poop H2 and O2 on a fuel of Chlorophyll. http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=hydrogen-production-comes-natu&posted=1
Then there is the article about custom tipping viruses to create anything you can imagine and BTW the author and scientist from MIT got a scientist of the year from SCIAM that year and DARPA is using her technology to create batteries which was by far the easiest thing the technology can do.
Here is the original work now a pay to play http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=viral-nanoelectronics
Here is a more interesting read but the bottom line is the original work is gone from the public and at what cost to someone that may have been able to exploit this to create a computer that looks and feels like a place mat or tee shirt.
http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2006/sciam-belcher.html
I love SCIAM but they are dumbing down the science to USA today style and they are trying to make money where they already did. I am so sad that many great articles I read over the years are gone. I can imagine in 150 years when the magazine does the 150 100 and 50 years ago it will state 150 years ago we became dumb and went under. Sad very sad.
I did more digging on this study, including looking through the supplemental data available on the Science magazine web site, and I admit I was wrong when I said that larger statistics were needed: the results look pretty solid. In fact, there looks like there should be enough data to resolve my other question about which type of person was most likely to be influenced by these techniques, the most or least intuitive thinkers. My guess is that it was the ones who were least intuitive to begin with, but it would be nice to see that there exists a way to get the most obstinate non-thinkers to start thinking at least a bit.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI'm glad you made the preface my guess is the least intuitive thinkers making a somewhat least intuitive comment. Did it occur to you that someone not satisfied with the concept of reality being only at best 4% testable that a more intuitive thinker would want to know more about the 96 to 98% of reality that cannot be explained by any proven science yet.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt is derogatory talk like that on both sides of the chasm that acts like the Rio Grand keeping the chasm deep and separated between disciplines. You know so little and yet make such huge claims. When we understand dark matter, dark energy can incorporate them into our technology, hell lets make it easier, when we totally understand quantum physics then lets go after metaphysical issues such as religion.
Again, if you remove the God and mystical parts of it which were required for said superstitious man, religion serves a more common purpose than science coming in on the level of politics and law and order. Science is an enhancer and enabler that has allowed the others to exist but some form of the above are required of all civilizations or they crack,crumble and fail.
By the way my concept of the role of religion is a work in progress. I hate organized religion as it stands today because it is control by fear rather than good thought good action to enhance good thought and action universally but if you study the core of the big three the concept is interaction within civilization and without. Actually it holds truest in Buddhism.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisGranted in a large world with little meeting or communication a separate and more egocentric/ethnocentric concept of God would occur such as a different color of Christ. But that is the control over the shaman part of the tribe so that law and order, might makes right survive while still keeping the tribal architecture legitimate. Look at the contract between the Saudis and the Wahhabi in Saudi Arabia and perhaps the most Shariah Law oriented country. Ask any of our female veterans that served in that country.
So figure it out the masses deserve and demand religion as a way to assert worth and purpose in this world so they can feel justified in their actions and their contribution. Have you noticed that most people do not retire well. Think about it,it has to do with the need to cooperate. We are a social animal and it is vital we share a culture to interface with. If we have to learn it all over again so be it.
But currently there is no social contract and religion as was, is no longer valid or relevant ergo this long argument on the existence of God. Religion cannot, could never answer that. When science exposed that fallibility religion and science had to part because religion could not give up its moral and cultural hold on man. And there were too many wars to fight and things to take.
We created a republic that turned into a democracy. That means it will not last, they just never do. But we can start to realize the pillars a society requires, look at all we learned and maybe just maybe use that knowledge for more than missing particles, undefinable matter, FTL and concentrate on putting our species together before it is too late.
Once we can take that step the other ones we really want will make sense and we will be in a position to conquer the universe (at least our quadrant of it). But stop yelling at each other and start listening. Science is way cool and metaphysical is way eerie, what a combination. DaVinci would have thrived at the challenge and Einstein only wishes he had an IPad.
Here is some objective proof for all of you, in list form and in no particular order, given in charity:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this1. There is one God.
2. The Old Testament is the history of man's fall from God and subsequent journey back to Him.
3. God became Man to suffer and to die unjustly so that His justice could be fulfilled and man could be reconciled to God.
4. Jesus Christ, who is God, lived, performed many miracles and gave Himself to be tortured and killed in expiation for the sins of the whole world.
5. Jesus rose after three days in the tomb and was resurrected by His own power as he foretold.
6. Jesus told Peter that he is giving him the keys to the kingdom and that everything he bound on earth would be bound in heaven. This is the teaching authority of the Church. He also said, "You are Peter, and on this rock I will build my Church." This made Peter the first pope of The Catholic Church.
7. For 2,000 years there has been an unbroken line of popes taking us right to the present.
8. The Church has made mistakes and people have died and even popes have made terrible decisions and sinned awfully but none of this changes the fact the the Church was founded by God himself and is the only true Church and deposit of Christian tradition.
9. Priests have the power to forgive sins as an extension of the power given to the apostles themselves by Jesus who commissioned them saying "whose sins you forgive are forgiven them and whose sins you keep bound are kept bound." The Sacrament of Reconciliation is one of the greatest gifts of God to man.
10. God loves you more than you can even begin to imagine and created you to live forever in perfect happiness.
If any of the above is troublesome to you intellectually, look deeper. Ultimately, you must resign yourselves to the fact that God's ways are not our ways. Innocent people die, a loved one gets cancer or dies suddenly, a child suffers somehow, all of this happens because God has either allowed it to happen or because he has ordained it to happen, there is no other way. We look at a tragic event and lose faith and weep and ask why but we should instead strive to pray for comfort and to praise God. His ways are not our ways. We cannot see the big picture, the butterfly effect created by the events in our lives and in our world, tragic or otherwise, only God can see that. Our consolation is that no matter what happens, it is always for the ultimate good because God, the Fountain of all Goodness, Mercy, and Perfect Love has allowed or ordained it.
Christ asked his disciples, "Who do you say that I am?"
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWho do you say that Jesus Christ is? You must choose one of the three because no other option is reasonable You may be familiar with this question:
Was He Lord, Liar or Lunatic?
Jesus Christ claimed to be God. His disciples worshiped him and he accepted this as just and right.
If Christ was a liar, he would be a sick con man. He was poor, he helped the poorest and most outcast of society, loved them and healed them. These are not the actions of a sick con man.
Was he a lunatic? Read the gospels, clearly Jesus Christ was of sound mind. He left the greatest minds of his accusers baffled by his words and actions.
The only conclusion is that Jesus Christ was Lord and God and any attempt to find some excuse such as that he didn't exist is not scholarly and does not square with reality. You cannot ignore Jesus Christ, who do you say that He is?
In the earlier version of this article, I posted that Orthodox Judaism historically has been driven by a rationalist approach to understanding both its theological constructs as well as observance of halacha (Jewish law) as embodies in the Talmud, as well as lesser-well know works of Jewish writing. As a result, many of the people who gravitate to Orthodox Judaism are, in fact, highly rationalist in both their daily behavior, as well as their choice of professions, to wit, lawyers, scientists (i.e., mathematicians, physicists, biologists, chemists), physicians, engineers, and business analysts (i.e, finance, accountants, bankers). There is a symbiosis in how learning Talmud early in life (beginning around age eight or nine) tends to drive people towards these professions, and how the skills that one needs to succeed in these professions makes one better learners of Talmud, as well as the vast corpus of published Jewish knowledge that has grown over the past three millennia.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAnother point to be made here: Judaism puts belief in a subordinate role to both behavior and learning, and one's belief evolves from both action and learning. Other faiths do the reverse, and in fact, Christianity explicitly rejects the need to both observe and learn the law in favor of simple belief. As a result, if this study was done with a community of Orthodox Jews who have a solid secular education, one would likely find a very different result than this study shows.
On a different note, I find that SciAm as a journal has taken taken on a very different approach from the product it was when I was in high school and college in the 70's and early 80's. I find the articles have moved away from solid science articles to ones pushing sociological agendas. Articles like this makes it very difficult to distinguish SciAm from the religious "salesmen" that knock on my door trying to sell me their version of salvation. SciAm has taken on the atheist theology, and works very hard to "sell" it to people as the correct way of thinking about the world. I am not against publishing this perspective, but there are journals that already do that, such as Skeptic and the Skeptical Inquirer. I argue these topics are not science...they are people trying to prove opinion with selective data and interpretations. It is important to recognize that theology will have assumptions that cannot be proved...they are relegated to he category of belief. Even atheism cannot be proved as true...it is as much a belief as belief in God. The exercise is a fools errand.
Hear Hear. Well said.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAt the risk of repeating myself I'm posting this comment again as I can not find it in the thread.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOur senses work mathematically: a musician that plays a tone 'A' not knowing that what defines 'A' is a speed of vibration, thus a number. He plays a scale from A to A, 220 vib. per sec. to 440 vib. per sec. intuitively tuning the instrument correctly.
Intuition has a logical basis and can not be put in opposition to critical thinking. Intuition is the result of unconscious calculation and is, for the best of us, the result of sensitive discrimination and critical thinking combined.
Novice critical thinkers may start by rejecting their learned idea of God and faith, which is good. With more reflection they may discover the ingenuity of symbolic discourse used in all ancient sacred texts and realize that modern science can still take inspiration from people who's intuition was better trained. Our modern brain are filled with a library of "facts" and the voice of intuition is being shut off as if it was the result of a lack of critical thinking, while it may in fact be just the opposite.
Chilton Pierce has made a good case in demonstrating the cumbersome and slow processing speed of rational thoughts, yet some people still believe it is the highest form of intelligence: we have a long way to go!
I read somewhere that someone had predicted that one day in the not too distant future belief in god(s) would no longer be necessary since the advancement of science would make him/these obsolete.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe theory was that as science solved the mysteries of the universe, people would be less awestruck, and as it met more and more material and physical needs people would feel less need for a benevolent other.
I thought this was not only a good idea but good science as well; that given time science would, by improving the world and man's circumstances, put all the gods to rest once and for all.
However, it seems that science is not leaving anything to chance and must keep coming up with these "experiments" to hurry belief in god on its way. I guess you could call it giving evolution a helping hand.
There may just be something to all this god business that science has not yet figured out, since the concept of god seems to die hard. Even scientists themselves appear to be overly preoccupied with god thoughts and "best sellers".
Why not simply pull the rug out from under the feet of the faithful by continuing to improve the world, and showing people that whatever god can do science can do better, given time.
What we call irrationality may just be a result of the mental mechanism needed to make critical decisions with insufficient information. Actual beliefs, including scientific, probably lie on a continuum between perfect irrationality and perfect rationality, gravitating to a median where they are neither too crazy nor too rigidly empirical to be useful. A smart enough eco-psychologist should be able to simulate the emergence of a whole menagerie of beliefs with a sufficiently rich model environment. A natural extension of the result would be the response to changes in the environment, such as the rapid increases in scientific knowledge and social and economic interconnectedness that we see today. These developments can be seen as a threat to human identity, which because of the nature of heredity is resistant both to rational economics and social homogenisation, in which people are treated as interchangeable or disposable. In terms of preserving and propagating identity, differences between species, and by extension any biological or social units, are irreconcilable, and hence irrational according to the notion that rationally a global optimum must exist for any system. In the long term, identity is not preserved (otherwise we would all be single-celled bugs), but that does not reduce the urge to self-preservation and homeostasis. Religion can be viewed as just one branch of the eco-psychological ground cover, which happens to be very effective at drawing nutrients from systems of identity and power. None of this, of course, has any bearing on whether 'God' exists, which is a purely rational question. Seen in that light the religious/scientific 'debate' is pointless because it cannot lead to any conclusion. As long as human beings have to eat, compete and reproduce in a universe composed of exotic fields and mathematical laws, irrationality and rationality must learn to coexist.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI hasten to point out a paradox in my previous argument. As people become more inter-dependent as rational economic units, buyers and sellers, their individual identities and preferences become more important. Conversely, as people see their identity as common to a group, they become more disposable. We can see the unstable tension between these conflicting tendencies all over the world today.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisJust out of curiosity, do any of you scholars ever get your hands dirty, talk with normal people and look at what their lives are like. There are many facets to the human being and because of the complex social structures they must survive in logic, scientific method and bare bone empirical data doesn't always cover the answers.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOne more time for the hard of hearing, science explains 4% of the observable universe at best and may be as low as 2%. What creates events, makes galaxies spin like they do, explains why we may be expanding faster than we should are all labeled dark. Dark Energy, Dark Matter etc. and we have ideals but no real concrete answers for these apparitions.
So before you keep arguing is God real or even is God relevant to religion, start on a more basic scale. I cannot state enough, look at what purpose religion has served over history. It is like politics, emperors, generals, nations, institutions and a lot of other human inventions needed to keep chaos and lawlessness at bay.
God is an esoteric issue and to some is no more than the creator of chaos and pain, the keeper of perfection (theres a word for you), a higher being, a zombie that died and came back in three days, a burning bush etc... Basically what ever God is or might be has never been the same to any two observers so maybe just maybe religion has a lot less to do with God than we give it credit for. Maybe God was a prop to which the said religion could hold fear and control over the people to accomplish its need for order.
So there we are back to religion serving as a means to instill order on a tribal and eventually cultural level that transcends a tribe into a nation state. And again that would work well as long as the world was big, now it is very very small.
Who financed the research study? Always follow the money trail for the real agenda;)
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThat is so much like the answer is 42. As if?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this[Part 1 of 2]
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIn my evolution of religiosity course at the University of New Mexico, I explore the possibility of a "mystery instinct" or "rationality/irrationality switch." I posit the existence of a discrete cognitive adaptation that allows humans to switch cleanly and quickly from (1) a mode of belief / thought / feeling centered on rationality and an appreciation of evidence to (2) a radically alternative mode in which belief is based on heartfelt faith in the truth of in-group specific supernatural pronouncements and associated claims about reality. In this second "faith" mode, rational arguments are experienced as empty or even distasteful.
In the current study, it appears to me that the experiment manipulated this hypothesized switch in a low potency manner. Moderate to mild (low stakes) stimuli requiring rationality were followed by mild stimuli to switch into the faith mode. More potent stimuli to switch to faith or irrationality mode would entail the use of religious narratives, symbols, and things like music native (traditional) to the specific subject's social in-group.
What would be the sense of having such a potent cognitive switching mechanism from a Darwinian, evolutionary psychological point of view? To me, the adaptive significance seems obvious. [Continued in part 2...]
[Part 2 of 2]
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHumans have been subject to a long and crazily contradictory history of natural selection to be BOTH (1) rational experimentalists, technologists, and strategists, obsessed with real cause and effect and skeptical of any proposition not based on sound theory and evidence, AND (2) capable, at the drop of a culture-specific hat to fiercely, and with great uniformity / conformity, cohere as a group around a leader or set of leaders, to engage in fervent unquestioning collective action, for example, when in conflict with another group. Indeed, many of the fitness benefits of the methods and plans painstakingly discovered and developed when operating in rational mode would be gained during smooth, swift, well-coordinated bouts of collectivist action.
What a crazy program of selection we have been under! No?
I suspect that much pan-cultural religious ritual provides individuals a chance to display and to actually exercise (neurally wire and crystallize) one's ability to switch from being a "good and productive citizen scientist" to an "unquestioning believer" in the in-group's morals, priorities, goals and leadership system. Nothing shows one's ability to radically transform oneself from critical thinker to blind collectivist than requiring one to publicly display that one finds systematically improvable and far-fetched religious narratives emotionally compelling. Such rituals become occasions for sending important honest signals that one is reliably able to make such a fantastic cognitive maneuver in response to the in-group's specific religious stimuli; it appears to me to be one of the most basic honest signals of commitment a person can make.
Again, to my mind, it all is explained by the fact that hominins 2-3 million years (?) of tremendous selection to be masters BOTH of penetrating science and decisive machine-like collective action.
My apologies if this idea has already been spelled out elsewhere.
Dr. Paul J. Watson
Department of Biology
University of New Mexico
RE: My May 5th 2012 comment (92 & 93, below); the obvious upshot is that using a robust adaptationist approach to understanding the coevolution of capacities for critical questioning and rational investigation on the one hand, AND the ability to snap into an uncritical collectivist mode of “thinking” on the other, probably should NOT be seen as having been in opposition. Indeed, displaying and exercising the ability to be BOTH kind of creature, systematically, in response to social cues and circumstances, probably leads to the most effective groups, in which individual inclusive fitness, on average, is likely to be maximized.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAlthough I do not remember it being developed much, I think I was helped to think in this direction years ago by a comment in Scott Atran's generally non-adaptationist book on the evolution of religion, "In God's We Trust." Atran states on p.5, "The trick is in knowing how and when to suspend factual belief without countermanding the facts and compromising survival." I have a feeling that the program of selection I outlined in my May 5th comment has taught us the “trick,” and that we are wired fantastically and ruthlessly well to switch, quite unconsciously, between impressively rational and supernaturally irrational modes of "thought" in a way that maximizes group function and so inclusive fitness. We should stop thinking of religiosity and rationality as having been at loggerheads in human evolutionary history. Although their coevolution has been “tricky,” when it comes to generating fitness benefits, in my view, they have been enormously complimentary.
Of course, this does not mean that we should be equally in support of both modes of mental operation in modern life. The religiously charged irrational mindset to which we are all more or less designed to be susceptible, given our population numbers and today's crazy military-industrial-grade destructive capacities could easily lead us down paths of sudden or slow-motion apocalypse.
-- PJW
The strength of your argument, rationalrevolution, rests in your ability to narrowly define the terms being used. If we accept your terms then we have no choice but to embrace your conclusion. On the surface your argument looks rational but a close inspection of your definitions reveals a powerful bias and an underlying fallacy.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisPaxVobiscum: It is incorrect to limit the choices to three. Humans have evolved an incredible ability to self-deceive. In evolutionary communication theory developed over the past several decades, we see that in an intraspecific "arms race" amongst individuals to favorably influence the models of reality produced by social partners (broadly defined), we evolved an ability to whole-heartedly beleive in our own unconsciously generated subjective (socially efficacious) self-models in order to be better deceivers or manipulators. Note that manipulation can be to hurt OR benefit the people we are trying to influence: but it is always an attempt to increase one's own lifetime inclusive fitness; again, one does not have to be at all aware of what one is doing here iin order for it to be effective. -- Paul J. Watson
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisPS: for a good primer on the topic of self-deception and deception, see Robert Trivers' recent book, "The Folly of Fools."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe premise of this entire article is just plain poppycock. It truly escapes me why Scientific American
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thistook a departure from providing accurate and intellectual content in their articles - and traded that in for the present day articles that are riddled with erroneous information; all the way across the board. Believe it - you got the raw end of the deal, because people are talking. Just what kind of a show are you people running over there now? What - did somebody buy out the organization; fire all the good writers, and replace them with a staff that uses made-up names in the bylines, and produces content that is so outrageously inaccurate that it is blatantly evident?
What are you thinking? Is it an "experiment" of some sort - to determine how many folks these days will notice? Or conversely, are you providing incorrect information, with the hope that the masses will buy into it? Or perhaps, something so insidious that one of integritous moral character wouldn't even think of it?
Or maybe it is something as simple as, some really wealthy individual purchased SciAm, and hired a bunch
of people to write what they're told to, so the wealthy owner can be entertained by the responses of all the educated folks who are hip to the right information.
Who knows? All I do know for certain, is "Scientific
American" needs to change that name, because there is nothing "Scientific" about any of the information they
put out now - and incorporating "American" is a disgrace, because the America I grew up in wasn't like this; and we're working hard to restore her.
I would be so embarrassed to be involved in the shenanigans you people are attempting to put forth, because you fake it so poorly that it is very evident.
And yet you joined the fray. What does that say, some pray, some lay, some say okay but in the end we all play. It is amazing that while this article draws the attention of 100 responses an article that describes a cynobacteria that poops O2 and H2 and prolifically, sustainably and cheaply has only 7 comments 4 of which are mine. So what does it really say about wanting to fix what is broke or bitch bitch bitch about esoteric crap?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf anyone is serious about fixing things take a look at these two links and think about what they are saying. You might just learn something.
Link 1) http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=hydrogen-production-comes-natu&posted=1
Link 2) http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2006/sciam-belcher.html
Well, it depends on what you mean by "smarter." Newton would have killed to have access to the knowledge that scientists now have. -- Paul Watson
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHow do we know this for sure..if not an adherent of religion, he woudl have been burned at the stake.. hard to say just how much of his religious fervour was real and how much was for show..
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisPeriods of deep faith experience can also be attained by using cocaine, or even maybe by smoking a joint.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSo is that why our secular society has made these things illegal? Violent times can be had with heavy use of alcohol and it seems to have worked well over the eons, I for one am in favor of joints and peyote with a mushroom or two and the abolishment of alcohol and tobacco. Seriously not.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSo no one has seen the merit of a system that assigns purpose and worth of the individual which from what I have seen is something we all strive for from birth till death as a reason behind religion with the ideal that it is the way to a higher being being the shiny lure used to control the masses. Is it really true that simple law and order can assume the disposition of morals, ethics, purpose and social standing in this world.
I think you folks may have spent too much time reading science and math and not enough history to figure out even if we can assign purpose and reason to all events we cannot serve those roles in the personality of the masses by simple A+B=C or e=mc2. People are wired to be social and we are a complicated lot with religion being the glue that had held us together fairly well until we saw how small our place in the universe truly is.
I still believe that if we do not replace what science has so eloquently killed with logic and reason man will continue to decay to the lowest form of might makes right and greed is all one needs. I have not seen us make any success at social cohesion since the 60's and 70's and see very little other catalyst than the loss of decay of religion.
If one studies the strengths of Islam it is because it does assign purpose but it also assumes that man alone is at the top of the heap and we at least put that inane concept to bed in the 70's.
But I argue that we must come up with a system that deals with morals, ethics, purpose and self worth and socialism, marxism, communism, democracy, republicanism and most other isms do not fit the bill. Rather they add to the problem and further create division between people. Just for one moment consider the following.
1) A world with no trash collection
2) A world with no skilled labor (tailors,seamstresses, mechanics, welders, electricians, plumbers, cooks, truck drivers etc)
3) A world where it only matters if you step in my space or vice versa other wise all is okay including my ability to work you to death so I can be wealthy.
4) We treat one another only as a Machiavellian device to attain the most we can from a relationship.
This my friends is what logic and science will attain no less and sadly no more.
TRUTH ~ LIGHT
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis simple relationship, provided us with the key to correct the definitions of 'half-truth' which leads to correcting the definition of 'lie' which leads us to correct the definition of 'truth'; the key to the gates of Eden ? Perhaps.
TRUTH ~ LIGHT
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis simple relationship, provided us with the key to correct the definitions of 'half-truth' which leads to correcting the definition of 'lie' which leads us to correct the definition of 'truth'; the key to the gates of Eden ? Perhaps.
I call this the "Jesus Christ Code"; he have been more correct than we thought ?
Please explain the phrase 'he have been more correct than we thought ?' I have some background in the English language and this does not compute. I think if you are saying there was great wisdom in the words of Jesus Christ (Not even close to his real name, maybe Joshua Ben Joseph would be closer but Jesus Christ is Greek and if anything he would have had an Aramaic name) But his words had the logic on par with Lewis Carrol and frustrated the authority figures of time including the Pharisees and the Roman authorities that oversaw all.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHe saw the uselessness of theocracy, the need to get along with foreigners, the need to work as a unit, the need for society to take care of all of its citizens and the fact that those in power on a secular level lead a hollow life. If that is your point, then it is well put. But pay attention to your wording because the phrase 'he have been more correct than we thought ?' is gibberish.
Thanks to one and all for one of the more sensible and rational discussions I've seen on these pages. This is a tough subject, it usually it runs off into some crazy places. Nice to get such intelligent responses. Dare I say, appropriate analytical considerations of the subject matter.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSuperstition is somone else's religion!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisshimagyoh
Oh come on Religion is mans opiate to the world....There are a bunch in the cliche book, and funny just as many about science.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisLogic has two faces. Deductive on the obverse and inductive on the reverse. The latter (connecting dots / creative thinking) is tough. The former is the one that gives opportunities to carpet baggers, politicans and the like who are non linear like priests as well as the Godly.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisVery interesting perspective. Thank you.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIn the 1690s Newton sent a manuscript to John Locke in which he disputed the existence of the Christian Trinity. Do you want to change your view of "god" to match his on the grounds that he was more intelligent than you?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI am starting to think that all this thinking is a byproduct of getting to the top of the food chain, controlling ones environment to allow for us to ask these questions. Rather there is a species doing it at any given time has nothing to do with the workings of the universe. We are side issues that are a luxury and short lived at best.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI really am starting to think self is myopic as the earth being the center of the universe. What we eat, poop, breed and how it interfaces with the other ecosystems and what ever niches it creates is all that we contribute.
Excellent article. I myself was formerly an intuitive (and, naturally, a believer- a Christian, in fact) but I like to believe I have now grown up. As a result, I operate now guided by reason and therefore am no longer susceptible to superstition.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisGIG
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWe use to be flat
That was that
Question if you dare
Only to be in a witches snare
Then we found ourselves in the middle
By God we solved the riddle
Around the Sun spin we
Thus Copernicus did see
Backed up by more facts
Two pieces of glass changed our act
Moons and rings spun around
On the planets that were found
This truth reported by Galileo
We had it backwards said this fellow
There we sat for the last millennium
The Earth contently orbiting the sun
Now Quantum and waves all kind of noise
We have to add more Zeroes Boys
It got more fun when someone sang
We began with a big Bang
Not a humble strum are we
We began with a Cosmic Twang
And just when we are sure we know it all
Some Math Nerd slapped us with Fractal
We use to be so big
Now just a cog in a Cosmic Gig
In the social sciences a between-group difference of more than 1 standard deviation would be considered quite large and would be very impressive indeed for such a simple intervention. A rule of thumb in psychology is that differences of half a standard deviation are considered "medium" or "moderate" sized effects, and most published studies report effects around this magnitude. The authors of the study used statistical tests to estimate the probability the results were due to chance and for each experiment, the results met the conventional criteria of less than 5% probability of chance.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOne feature of these experiments is that analytical and intuitive thinking were considered as diametrically opposed. While this is often the case, there is evidence that the two modes of thought work independently and that some people utilise both about equally. This is particularly striking when considering scientists who also happen to be religious - they somehow manage to balance commitment to empiricism (analytical) with religious faith (intuitive). I have written an article discussing the implications of this in more detail here: http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/unique-everybody-else/201209/reason-versus-faith-the-interplay-intuition-and-rationality-in-sup
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHow can scientists also be religious? Are these conflicting beliefs mediated by personality traits? Calling all scientists of PhD level or higher (both religious and non-religious) please fill out: https://hass.eu.qualtrics.com/SE/?SID=SV_9KLf7QBYCDKo2pL
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDkean, Science and Religion were one for many years. They are both attempts to understand the where and why we are here. Unfortunately the Church had and still does to some degree a Dogma of infallibility, similar to a lot of string theorist. (See Lee Smolin's 'The Trouble with Physics'). Galileo and the pope at the time were close friends and thank God, because when Galileo proved Copernicus correct that we are not the center of the Universe and I loved when Hubble proved we are not the center of anything, the rift was caused.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe Church (Catholic at least, we should all pray for the hard core Earth is only 6,000 years old and the Flintstones are real Christians are way off base and like some republicans and democrats impossible to have a logical conversation with). But remember that it was Father Lemaître who also proposed what became known as the Big Bang theory of the origin of the universe.
I think if Religion can give into the concepts of science and science can learn some moral and ethical mores from religion, the world would be better than it is right now. Read up on XNA and tell me we are not approaching a junction that may be to far. When we played with genetic modification of our food source we never expected that genetic advantageous can cross species creating hardier weeds.
Only three months ago, Sciam reported that only 1 out of 10 cells in our body our really from us, the rest are residents taking home in a symbiotic way thanks to evolution. And it was probably the combination of DNA and RNA that created the life we see today. But we now know that viruses and parasites can do things to creatures that would have appeared to be magic 500 years ago. Which is why XNA scares the Jesus out of me. :) The only thing I fear more is group thought (see the Smolin remark).