At last year's SciFoo there were a couple of interesting and heated
debates around the topic of science, engineering, religion and
spirituality. Tim stayed away from these debates.
Thaths
On 4/4/07, Danese Cooper <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Cool topic. I've proposed discussions on Intellect vs. Spirit at
> OSCON, but O'Reilly has never touched them.
>
> Danese
>
> On Apr 4, 2007, at 11:25 AM, Eugen Leitl wrote:
>
> > ----- Forwarded message from "Hughes, James J."
> > <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> -----
> >
> > From: "Hughes, James J." <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> > Date: Wed, 4 Apr 2007 13:51:02 -0400
> > To: [EMAIL PROTECTED],
> > World Transhumanist Association Discussion List <wta-
> > [EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> > Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> > Subject: [wta-talk] Nerds,
> > religious fundamentalism & atypical personality in India
> > Reply-To: World Transhumanist Association Discussion List <wta-
> > [EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> >
> >
> > [1]http://www.gnxp.com/blog/2007/04/nerds-are-nuts.php
> >
> >
> >
> > Nerds are nuts
> >
> > Reading [2]In Spite of the Gods: The Strange Rise of Modern
> > India, I
> > stumbled upon this passage on page 151:
> >
> > ...Whereas the Congress Party was dominated by lawyers and
> > journalists, the RSS was dominated by people from a scientific
> > background. Both groups were almost exclusively Brahmin in their
> > formative years...three out of four of Hedegwar's [the
> > founder, who
> > was a doctor -Razib] successors were also from scientific
> > backgrounds: M.S. Golwalker...was a zoologist...Rajendra Singh
> > was
> > a physicist; and K.S. Sudarshan...is an engineer....
> >
> > Some quick "background." The [3]RSS is a prominent member of the
> > [4]Hindutva movement, roughly, Hindu nationalism. Some people have
> > termed them "Hindu fundamentalists," suggesting an equivalence with
> > reactionary religious movements the world over. There is a problem
> > with such a broad brush term: some proponents and adherents of
> > Hindutva are not themselves particularly religious and make no
> > effort
> > to pretend that they are. Rather, they are individuals who are
> > attracted to the movement for racial-nationalist reasons, they view
> > "Hindus" as a people as much, or more than, a religion. One
> > could make
> > an argument that the "Christian Right" or "Islamism" are not at the
> > root concerned or driven by religious motives, but, members of both
> > these movements would assert at least a pretense toward religiosity
> > almost universally.
> > With that preamble out of the way, I was not surprised that the RSS
> > had a core cadre of scientifically oriented leaders. This is a
> > common
> > tendency amongst faux reactionary movements with a religious
> > element.
> > I say faux because these movements tend to be extremely
> > innovative and
> > progressive in the process of attempting to recreate a mythic
> > golden
> > past. The militancy of some of the organizations in the Hindutva
> > movement, like the VHP and RSS, has been asserted by some Hindu
> > intellectuals as being...un-Hindu. Some of the early
> > intellectuals in
> > the movement admitted that they were attempting to fight back
> > against
> > Islam and Christianity by co-opting some of the modalities of these
> > two religions. The question becomes at what point does pragmatic
> > methodology suborn the ultimate ends? I won't offer an answer
> > because
> > I have little interest in that topic, at least in this post.
> > Rather, I
> > want to move back to the point about scientists and their
> > involvement
> > in "fundamentalist" religious movements. Scientifically trained
> > individuals are over represented within Islam in the [5]Salafist
> > Terror Network. As a child the fundamentalist engineer was a cut-
> > out
> > stereotype amongst the circle of graduate students in the natural
> > sciences from Muslim backgrounds that my parents socialized
> > amongst.
> > Ethnological research confirms that Islamist movements are highly
> > concentrated within departments of engineering at universities.
> > Engineers are also very prominent in the Creationist movement in
> > the
> > United States. If civilizations can be analogized to organisms,
> > then a
> > particular subset of technically minded folk get very strange when
> > interfacing with the world around us...and turn into
> > fundamentalists.
> > So why the tendency for technical people to be so prominent in
> > these
> > groups? First, let me clarify that just because technical folk are
> > heavily over represented amongst religious radicals does not
> > mean that
> > religious radicals are necessarily a large demographic among
> > technical
> > folk. Rather, amongst the set of religious radicals the technicians
> > seem to rise up to positions of power and provide excellent
> > recruits.
> > There is I think a socioeconomic angle on this. Years back I was
> > curious as to the class origin of different scientific
> > professions. I
> > didn't find much, but the data I did gather implied that
> > engineers are
> > generally more likely to be from less affluent backgrounds than
> > more
> > abstract and less practical fields like botany or astronomy. This
> > makes sense, engineering is one of the best tickets to a middle
> > class
> > livelihood, and it might necessitate fewer social graces (acquired
> > through "breeding") than medicine or law. As it happens, oftentimes
> > fundamentalist movements draw much of their strength from upwardly
> > mobile groups who are striving to ascend up from lower to
> > lower-middle-class status. Though the Hindutva movement in India is
> > mostly upper caste, it is not concentrated amongst the English
> > speaking super elite who are quite Westernized, but rather its
> > strength lay amongst the non-Western sub-elites (e.g., merchants in
> > small to mid-sized cities) or the petite bourgeois. Islamism in
> > much
> > of the world can be traced to the anomie generated by the
> > transformation of "traditional" societies through urbanization and
> > other assorted dislocations, and as peasants enter the modern world
> > Islamic orthodoxy is a way to moor themselves within the new urban
> > matrix and the world of wage labor. Similarly, the rise of the
> > Christian Right can be tied in part to the entrance of evangelicals
> > into the broad middle class as the Old South became the New
> > South and
> > air conditioning led to the blossoming of the Sun Belt.
> > But there are likely other factors at play which are not
> > sociological
> > or cultural, but individual. Fundamentalists tend to be
> > "literalists,"
> > and have a tendency to look at their religious texts as divine
> > manuals
> > which describe and prescribe every aspect of the world. In some
> > ways
> > this is a new tendency in our species, at least as a mass movement.
> > One can definitely trace scriptural fundamentalism to the
> > Protestant
> > Reformation with the call to sola scriptura, but in the West its
> > contemporary origin can be found in the reaction in the late 19th
> > century and early 20th century to textual analysis of the Bible by
> > modernists. The assault on the historicity of the Bible,
> > combined with
> > both mass literacy and a democratic culture in the United
> > States, led
> > inevitably to a crass literalism that birthed the peculiarities
> > which
> > we see before us in the form of Creationism and its sisters. A
> > literal
> > reading of the Bible leads to ludicrous conclusions, but if one
> > perceives that the game is all or nothing, then perhaps one must
> > assert the truth value of Genesis as if it was a scientific
> > treatise.
> > Religious professionals have often been skeptical of literalism
> > because a deep knowledge of languages and the translation process
> > highlights various ambiguities and gray shades, but for those
> > whom the
> > text is plain and unadorned by deeper knowledge its meaning is
> > "clear"
> > and must be take at its word. Scientists and engineers live in a
> > world
> > of axioms, laws and theories, which though rough and ready, must be
> > taken as truths for predictions and models to be valid. You make
> > assumptions, you construct a model, and you project a range of
> > values
> > bounded by errors. Once science is established you take it is as a
> > given and don't engage in excessive philosophical reflection.
> > This is
> > "[6]normal science." The axioms are validated by their utility
> > in an
> > instrumental fashion in engineering and model building. Obviously
> > religious truths are different. Plainly, the direct material
> > benefits
> > of religion, magic, is easily falsifiable. The indirect
> > benefits, the
> > afterlife, etc., are often beyond verification. A critical
> > examination
> > of the Hebrew Bible shows all sorts of fallacious assumptions. For
> > example, there is an implication that the world is flat and that
> > the
> > sun revolves around the earth. Though these contentions are not
> > defensible, there are a host of other assertions which are less
> > plainly incorrect, or at least seem to be refuted only by a more
> > complex suite of contingent facts (e.g., the historical sciences in
> > the form of geology and evolutionary biology falsify the creation
> > account, but these are complex stories which require acceptance
> > of a
> > chain of inferences). Obviously many religious people have a deep
> > emotional attachment to their faith. If one is told that one's
> > religion is based on a book, and that book plainly seems to imply
> > ludicrous assertions, how to square this circle? Many a scientific
> > mind simply accepts the ludicrous axioms and starts to generate
> > inferences. Consider the[7] Water Canopy Theory. Or, the Hindutva
> > ideology that Aryans originated in India, spread to the rest of the
> > world, and so brought civilization (the gift of the Indians). Or
> > that
> > Hindu mythology records the ancient use of nuclear weapons and
> > spaceships. There are even books like [8]Human Devolution: a Vedic
> > alternative to Darwin's theory. Strictly speaking much of this
> > work is
> > not irrational, insofar as it exhibits internal logical
> > coherency. The
> > axioms are simply ludicrous.
> > Which gets me back to the way scientists think: though some
> > scientists
> > are very philosophical, the way in which science is taught is often
> > not particularly focused on the nature and reasoning beyond the
> > axioms
> > given. PV = nRT. Why? There are quick primers in regards to the
> > root
> > of the Ideal Gas Law, but the key is to take this law and
> > utilize it
> > to solve problems. But what if PV = nRT is subjective, a
> > misinterpretation. Perhaps a cultural mix-up resulted in a
> > transcription error which introduced the gas constant, R. This
> > is an
> > idiotic question to ask in science. If you're taking a course on
> > the
> > kinetics of gases you don't have long discussions lingering upon
> > the
> > nature of motion and gas particles, those are assumed. In
> > contrast in
> > softer disciplines the very concept of "motion" an "particles" are
> > subject to critique because the objects of study are far more
> > slippery. Is it the "Red Sea" or "Sea of Reeds"? Does the Bible
> > refer
> > to Mary as a virgin or an unmarried woman? Does the color coding of
> > the Aryans and Dasas in the Vedas refer to literal differences in
> > complexion, or are they narrative conventions? Language lacks of
> > the
> > interpersonal precision of mathematics, and while [9]
> > uniformitarianism
> > has served us admirably in the natural sciences, the dynamic
> > nature of
> > idiom, phrase and speech within shifting context means that teasing
> > apart meaning from the records of the past can be a difficult feat
> > which requires care, erudition and common sense.
> > Up until this point I have focused on the way scientists work,
> > and the
> > necessity of background assumptions, and the relative short shrift
> > they often give to the "meta" analysis of background concepts.
> > Though
> > I don't want to push this line of thought too far, I will offer the
> > following illustrations of behaviors which I think are not totally
> > unlike the manner in which some fundamentalists behave. Someone
> > tells
> > a child to "pull the door behind" them. He proceeds to unscrew the
> > hinges and drag the front door across to the street to his house.
> > Siblings are told that there is life after death by their
> > parent. They
> > proceed to plan the death of one so that some confirmation of this
> > possibility can be ascertained. These two instances are real
> > examples
> > of individuals who exhibit Autism/Asperger's Syndrome. Anyone who
> > would behave in this way lacks common social sense. I believe
> > that a
> > disproportionate number of those who are attracted to
> > fundamentalism
> > tend to lack the same perspective and contextualizing capacity in
> > regards to their religious beliefs. If they can do some matrix
> > algebra
> > too, they're nerds. On a mass scale, consider that both Salafis
> > among
> > Muslims and Puritans among Calvinists debated whether all that
> > was not
> > mentioned within their Holy Texts as permissible were therefore
> > impermissible. I suspect that for most people common sense might
> > persuade one to the conclusion that these sort of debates imply
> > a lack
> > of a sense of proportion, frankly, of normalcy.
> > In sum:
> > * Hard core religious fundamentalists are somewhat atypical
> > psychologically
> > * Scientists and engineers are also atypical psychologically
> > * Some of the traits modal within these two sets intersect
> > * Resulting in a disproportionate number of scientists amongst
> > fundamentalists
> > * Science converges upon rock solid truths, which become the
> > axioms
> > for the next set of projections and investigations.
> > Fundamentalism
> > presents itself as axioms and clear and distinct inferences
> > from
> > those axioms. Both are fundamentally elegant and simple
> > cognitive
> > processes, but, the content is so radically different that the
> > outcomes in regards to truth value are very different
> > * Mass literacy and mass society, as well as the
> > decentralization of
> > authority and power, likely made fundamentalism inevitable
> > as the
> > basal level of individuals with susceptible psychological
> > profiles
> > could now have direct access to the axioms in question (texts)
> > * Just as some scientists tend to take ideas to their "logical
> > extremes" (e.g., the "paradoxes" of physics) no matter the
> > dictates of common sense, so some fundamentalists take the
> > logical
> > conclusion of their religious texts to extremes
> > * No matter the religion it seems that modernity will produce
> > faux
> > reactionary fundamentalism because of the nature of normal
> > human
> > variation combined with universal inputs (e.g., the rise of
> > normative consumerism, urbanization, etc.).
> >
> > References
> >
> > 1. http://www.gnxp.com/blog/2007/04/nerds-are-nuts.php
> > 2. http://www.amazon.com/Spite-Gods-Strange-Modern-India/dp/
> > 0385514743/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/002-9954258-8060061?
> > ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1175666384&sr=8-1
> > 3. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rashtriya_Swayamsevak_Sangh
> > 4. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hindutva
> > 5. http://www.gnxp.com/blog/2005/07/profile-of-salafi-jihadists.php
> > 6. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normal_science
> > 7. http://www.godandscience.org/youngearth/canopy.html
> > 8. http://www.amazon.com/Human-Devolution-alternative-Darwins-
> > theory/dp/0892133341/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/002-9954258-8060061?
> > ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1175674970&sr=1-1
> > 9. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uniformitarianism_%28science%29
> >
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> >
> > ----- End forwarded message -----
> > --
> > Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org";>leitl</a> http://leitl.org
> > ______________________________________________________________
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>
>
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