KSU Student Coalition for Inquiry

A university is often seen as a bastion of free expression and an open forum for controversial ideas, even when such ideas are held in poor regard by the majority of its citizens.  It might grieve many members of Kennesaw State’s faculty, staff, and student body to learn that our own Sturgis Library is no longer such a safe haven.  Through no fault of the outstanding staff and student assistants who work there, at least one book has been vandalized by a student (or visitor) who wished to remove the content by ripping out pages that he or she found particularly challenging to his or her belief system, thus preventing any interested readers from arming ourselves against their propagandist apologetic attack on sound science.

Denying Evolution is not a particularly imposing book—certainly not of the recently incendiary kind so popularly referred to as the “New Atheism”—it is not even a counter-religious book.  Rather, it is an outstanding attempt to shed light upon the creation–evolution debate and to help bridge the supposed rift between people’s religious beliefs and their understanding of the natural world.  Apparently, the very suggestion that this dichotomy might be a false one is such a terrifyingly devious attempt to change fundamentalists’ perception of a sentience (who they must admit is beyond their full understanding) that the topic is best kept from even reaching our ears (or eyes) to begin with.

As a member of KSU’s student body and staff, I am deeply disturbed by the knowledge that among my peers, there are those who would rather obscure knowledge that they believe is false than to openly and honestly challenge it, for fear that they may either lose face or lose faith; I know not which.  So to those whom it behooves to deface not only physical property to which they have no rights of ownership, but intellectual property that should never be censored, no matter how offensive; I offer this open letter, which I hope you will accept as an assertive invitation rather than an aggressive challenge:

In light of what we have come to understand since our prehistory, your religious views might benefit from revision, which need not be rejection.  I’m sure you have sat through enough mediocre high school history classes and Indiana Jones films that I need not expound upon the fundamental weaknesses exposed by ideologies that lead people to destroy books, by fire or otherwise.  But I would strongly encourage you to consider what sets apart the scientific method and community from those who would instead bend science to their will by treating it as a source of post hoc verification of preconceived conclusions, rather than a method of preventing oneself from superimposing one’s own ideals upon nature when one honestly and humbly investigates it.  And that difference would be the self-correcting nature of science.

Whereas an ideology will likely fail when it must be held true, even in spite of evidence to the contrary; an ideology that is not only open to revision, but outright relies upon it, succeeds precisely because of the recognition that no single person is without flaw or incapable of mistakes.  Even if you believe in the infallibility of some particular scriptures, such infallibility certainly does not extend to every reader and interpreter of such ancient texts.  The very existence of your Protestantism is a testament (pun intended) to that fact.  (That is, unless the perpetrator was a fundamentalist of another persuasion.  Muslims and some Native American tribes have also been known to keep their creation stories well guarded from scientific progress.  But the sheer magnitude of a majority that Christians hold at this university makes me think that the extremist is more likely to come from this camp than either of the latter.  Pardon my misrepresentation if I am wrong, but I don’t think that is quite the point anyway.  I am NOT attacking Christians.)

The content that you removed from this book reveals that you were not attempting to scratch out lies and propaganda, because the pages you removed were simply critiques of common misunderstandings of certain scientific evidence.  One section of removed material described the great Cambrian Explosion of life, which a number of creationists assert is evidence of a single moment in time when life was created all at once and for a special purpose.  But Dr. Pigliucci calmly reminds readers that when geologists describe the Cambrian Explosion as “instantaneous,” geologically instantaneous means that this is a process that occurred over a few or dozen MILLION years, rather than the usual hundreds of millions of years it usually takes for so much diversification of life to arise.  Furthermore, the fossil record gives no indication that the order and kinds of “created” life forms in any way mimic the account in Genesis.  The other large section of removed material was a point-by-point critique of Jonathan Wells’ Ten Icons of Evolution, which he does not attack as being a book full of lies, rather one full of misinterpretations of scientific evidence.  To tear out such gently informative and recuperative pages from his book is to silence one who attempts to openly converse with you, not one who oppresses you or belittles your precious beliefs.

Dr. Pigliucci is an educator and a vigorous popularizer of science, the likes of which have thankfully become more frequent since the advent of Carl Sagan and his Promethean mission to bring science out of the ivory tower.  He most certainly does not deserve to have his ideas treated the way communist and fascist tyrants treat ideas that challenge their ideological positions.  Although you may disagree with him, you should at least let him do the same with you.  You may even do so in person, if you have the integrity to engage him face-to-face.  For all those who would vandalize books to restrict knowledge, and to those who would congratulate such a coward for demonstrating the extent of his faith rather than criticize this act of biblioclastic vandalism, I invite you to participate in a discussion this coming Saturday, November 14, 2009, when Dr. Pigliucci himself will deliver a presentation on the role of reason in our lives.  He will deliver his lecture at 5:00 p.m. in the Social Science building, and you will have the chance to question him at the conclusion.  (Click here for event info)

I read in his book (on the pages you were gracious enough to leave in) that he would strongly encourage you to get involved in this civilized, open, and public debate.

And to all the rest of us, whose thirst for knowledge may never be quenched, and who recognize that true scholarship requires open, intellectual criticism, and who realize that freedom of speech is meant to protect specifically that speech which is offensive (for what other speech must be protected?); this invitation is heartily extended to the rest of us as well.

This past Sunday’s Wall Street Journal featured what were presented as diametrically opposed views, but after reading the articles, they seem to me to be complimentary arguments for rejecting mainstream religious views.

Foremost, the title “Man vs. God” suggests a forced choice between belief in religion and belief in the theory of evolution. Yet some of the largest Christian sects in the world accept the theory of evolution as “perfectly compatible” with their religious beliefs (this is the official Catholic stance, but Lutherans, Anglicans/Episcopalians, Methodists, etc., also largely endorse Theistic Evolution), and Islamic creationism is not entirely at odds with evolution (unless it concerns mankind’s origin).   Clearly, the WSJ was attempting to catch as many interested readers as possible with a token controversial title, but I could think of at least one title that would have been more honest and just as inflammatory.  Furthermore, the title depicts the conflict as between mankind and God, when no such conflict is even possible in the eyes of nonbelievers, and among believers, the only premise for conflict is their own scriptural orientation. Even the pictures chosen to represent these two imaginary iconoclastic dipoles give the impression that we must either take Charles Darwin’s side or take the side of Michelangelo’s vision of Yahweh. Am I the only one who thinks it odd that those “most faithful” to their god don’t pay him the same respect you would to a total stranger, by not putting words in his mouth when he isn’t here to speak for himself, and by not forming opinions of him based on hearsay before actually meeting him in person? The logical fallacy we face here is a false dichotomy, but I am more concerned with the presentation of these two arguments as in opposition, not because they aren’t collectively exhaustive (i.e. the only choices), but because the aren’t mutually exclusive choices.

Karen Armstrong begins her argument by agreeing with Richard Dawkins that evolution dealt a blow to the traditional idea of benign creator, although she seems naively to consider the fundamentalists’ concept of a concrete God as a new one, coinciding with and opposing the rise of scientific naturalism. I say naive because theology had not described gods as scientifically provable prior to the enlightenment precisely because that type of argument and its vocabulary were not in use yet, but I dare anyone to suggest that a 9th-century peasant considered the Garden of Eden story to be merely an allegory; not to mention that in the Book of Acts, the tradition of early apostolic martyrdom was not in the name of principles but rather the “fact” of Jesus’ death and resurrection—literal, not allegorical (except in the case of Paul’s letters, which precede the Gospels and Acts). However, Armstrong asserts that Darwin did religion a favor by undercutting this premise of god’s nature, allowing believers to develop a more abstract, symbolic approach to religion: “a kind of art form” she says. Indeed, Armstrong does not speak for the majority of practicing Christians when she says that “we cannot regard God simply as a divine personality, who single-handedly created the world,” for she is clearly making an argument for Deism, not Theism. (Actually, she calls herself a “freelance monotheist.”)  And this is what I wish someone had noticed and made more clear in this presentation, which will doubtlessly be read or at least noticed by the WSJ’s 2 million readers.

Dawkins’ position was that science has filled in so many gaps in our prior knowledge that it now leaves God with nothing more to do to influence the world. Although he and Armstrong both wrote their articles without knowledge of what the other would say, Armstrong ironically and specifically addresses Dawkins’ main point: “What does science leave God to do?”—”Why, to grasp the wonder of our existence, of course!” Abstract aspects of our humanity are not claims about nature, and so do not fall into the realm of scientific investigation (except as to their origins in our history and their relationship to our physical brain). But the meaning of our art, stories, music, emotions, etc., Armstrong argues is precisely the role God still has in our lives. She never once even suggests that science itself at odds with religion, because by all rights it shouldn’t be. As the Dalai Lama said: “If science proves some belief of Buddhism wrong, then Buddhism will have to change.” Rather, she stresses that there are aspects of our lives that the scientific method of investigation is not appropriate or even able to address.  Carl Sagan would say she is half-right, in that people at least perceive that to be the case, and he wrote prose in such a way as to inspire wonder for that very reason: to help people connect the method and findings of science to their lives in a humane way.

However, as her title makes clear, she asserts that God’s existence is necessary to fill this role in our lives, and it is with that I (and I assume Sagan also) must disagree. This is logically fallacious: “Because I experience wonder about a transcendental life and higher being, such a life and being must therefore exist, for we could not wonder about it without its existence.” By presuming God’s existence as the premise for arguing that he inspires wonder, she is begging the question, using circular reasoning. To be fair, proving God’s existence is not her goal in this article, but proving the source of wonder is, so she is just picking another point on the circle to begin arguing from.

I would like to amend her thesis by pointing out that descriptions of God tend to encompass the core values of the descriptor. Whether they recognize the fact or not, everybody who believes in God believes in their own (not that all these God concepts are mutually exclusive): Mormons, fundamentalists, and liberal Christians do not identify with the same Jesus, and you would be lucky to find two identical conceptions of Christ even within a single congregation. I agree with Armstrong that a symbolic, cathartic approach to religion would certainly be a more useful approach, and probably with fewer negative consequences than mainstream religion. However, her argument taken to its logical conclusion is therefore to create our own religion—not to adopt it from others, but to utilize it as a form of self-expression—and this view is in no way opposed to Dawkins’, who himself argues that we can celebrate religious ceremonies for their sense of community and deeper intention, without actually believing in the superstition that founded them.

And that is a position that I share, along with Dr Robert M Price, who still attends church after years of being an atheist, precisely because of its archetypal symbolic appeal. He fully acknowledges that he is afraid to die and that he is relatively ignorant of the full scope of the universe, and although he does not believe he will be going anywhere accept in the ground to rot, he enjoys the experience of celebrating the immortal soul (which he doesn’t believe in) as a therapeutic way to deal with this human preoccupation so he can get on with his life every week. “I don’t have to believe in Wookies or the Force to be inspired by the story of Star Wars, either!” Well said, Dr Price, and I hope Karen Armstrong was listening. God is not the prerequisite for wonder; he is the result of our wonder. That is, whether he exists or not, our individual understanding of him results from our creative process of trying to understand what he must be like, and of expressing our highest ideals.

So when Dawkins said that God has nothing left to do, he was right, even in Armstrong’s argument, because it is not God who does the wondering.  It is we who wonder, without any help at all, because life is just so mysterious and beautiful and scary.  And if Armstrong hoped to defend religion in general by highlighting her favorite philosophical aspects from among the most educated and tolerant of its adherents, I think she failed.  As Dawkins ended his article: “If sophisticated theologians or postmodern relativists think they are rescuing God from the redundancy scrap-heap by downplaying the importance of [scientifically verifiable] existence, they should think again.  Tell the congregation of a church or mosque that existence is too vulgar an attribute to fasten onto their God, and they will brand you an atheist.  They’ll be right.”  So welcome to our club, Ms. Armstrong.

“Shut up, Flanders.”

What fantastic examples arise to illustrate the contingent nature of evolution!

In this week’s 60-second Science podcast, SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN’s Karen Hopkin presented the results of a study in the Proceedings of the Royal Society. Mae Hingee and Robert D. Magrath demonstrated “that crested pigeons, which have modified flight feathers, produce distinct wing ‘whistles’ in alarmed flight, and that individuals take off in alarm only after playback of alarmed whistles.” In other words, these birds fly away differently when they are in a panic than when they are merely changing their position or flying after some food. The different take-off pattern that is associated specifically with fleeing in alarm results in a different set of sounds made by their wings, and this specific sound pattern is a cue to pigeons in the same vicinity to flee as well, even if they didn’t detect the source of the alarm itself.

Furthermore, the alarmed flock (who flew away in response to the sound of another’s alarmed flight) responded to the “structure” of the sound, i.e. the tempo, not merely to how loud it was. So we can be sure it is the nature of the whistle itself that causes the mob to flee in unison, not merely that it is a loud noise that startled them, nor the mere sound of wings flapping in general. Imagine if pigeons became startled whenever they heard their peers’ wings flapping: They would never get to eat! I’m sure enough of us have been to large cities to notice that pigeons are constantly landing and taking off to peck at our crumbs on the street. If the mere sound of flapping wings was enough to send them in a panic, they would all be constantly rising and falling whenever a single additional pigeon joined their feast.

Having studied psychology, I am particularly interested in this phenomenon as an illustration of the role of learning and conditioning in behavior. Remember Pavlov’s dog? Pavlov began to ring a bell just before feeding his dog, and measured how much his dog salivated when he was fed. He then began to ring the bell without feeding him at all, and measured the same salivation in response to the mere sound of the bell, even when there was no food present. Of course, the conditioned stimulus (the bell) would lose its effect (extinguish) if he had continued to ring the bell without feeding the dog, because the dog would then begin to pair the ringing sound with a different response (having his saliva measured, without being fed).

Now imagine which came first: the chicken or the egg? Certainly we cannot assume (without extraordinary evidence, of which we have none) that the pigeons wing structure and behavior was genetically engineered, “designed” if you will, to make different specific sounds—even if they had, genetic predisposition is not enough to account for behaviors that animals must learn in order to perfect. Nor can we assume that pigeons (though possessing some remarkable intelligence when compared to the majority of the animal kingdom) were intelligent enough to have simply noticed the different sounds that their wings made, and subsequently formed a Pigeon Senate Subcommittee to decide how best to utilize that knowledge to their benefit by consciously choosing to fly one way in a fearful situation and another way for other situations.

No, the simplest explanation (not the one that requires the fewest number of words, but the one which requires the fewest unknown variables that also need to be explained) is grounded in co-modification of the behavior and the trait. These pigeons’ ancestors had the same basic fears and sources of that fear as they do today. Pigeons don’t choose to fly differently when they are frightened any more than humans choose to speed up their heart rate or become tongue-tied when they are startled. Nor do pigeons need to be aware of what triggers a flight-response when there is no obvious source of alarm. Pavlov’s dog wasn’t focusing on the ringing bell when he was fed; originally, the dog didn’t respond to the bell at all. But the brain of mammals is built such that patterns are recognized unconsciously whether the animal itself notices or not. Don’t think it hasn’t happened to you already. How many of us have been sitting at a red light, not paying attention to the light itself, but when a car in the next lane or ahead of us suddenly and momentarily releases their brakes, don’t we do the same thing without thinking about it? Sure, we rationalize it afterward by saying “I thought we were getting ready to go; I just assumed the other car moved because the light was green,” but the truth is we weren’t thinking at all when our foot automatically released our brake pedal; we simply responded.

Likewise, these birds ancestors were not on the lookout for different wing-flapping sounds while they were on the lookout for predators. They simply tried to fly away in panic whenever there was reason to do so. Even if the pigeon was caught and killed while making that distinct sound before it had the chance to procreate, the other pigeons in close proximity would have noticed their buddy biting the bullet. Without being aware of it, hearing a certain sound being made consistently before becoming aware of an alarming situation, resulted in the living pigeons becoming conditioned to automatically interpret another’s flight response as cause for their own alarm. Sure, maybe only a minority of them did so at first, but when those pigeons, who were born predisposed to become conditioned, survived more often to pass on more of their genes than pigeons who weren’t so conditioned… Well, guess who’s descendants rule the roost now?

Written by SCI member Matthew Dudt on our Facebook Group discussion:

As to not put a wall of text on the wall, I’ll respond to Greg’s question here. I’m only really answering the question, “what is free thought?” though because my thoughts on what skepticism is are mostly congruent with the view presented by the Youtube video we saw and discussed as a group.

Obviously, the term is an ambiguous one with many connotations. To what extent can thought be free? On one extreme we have ‘free thought’ in the sense that it is unhindered by any outside idea whatsoever. This is only possible if one is hermetically sealed away from others to prevent any communication; however, learning to communicate at any effective level requires that contact to exist. Thus, learning language, which is highly integral to thought on an abstract level, means that your thought, though freed from ignorance, has been influenced by outside ideas. Therefore free thought cannot really exist in this sense at any salient level. (Side note: Cognitive linguists assert that concepts of quantity require language and a counting system. Many hunter-gatherer cultures do not have the ability to grasp exact numbers higher than three. The words they use to express quantity are one, two, three, and ‘many.’

The other extreme is thought uninfluenced by anything, but having exposure to other ideas. In other words ‘free thought’ would be causeless if not lacking in cause outright. This utter lack of causality means that it is not even the self that is generating the thought and really should have no rightful claim to it. The self here has no cogency in regards to what its thought is.

Somewhere between these two extremes I think, is where any appropriate definition must fall. A thought then, to have any degree of freedom, must be influenced by other thoughts that the self has accumulated. For instance, it’s doubtful that I would have come up with this argument if I hadn’t been exposed to both Hume and Rousseau. Free thought is honestly a misnomer because absolute freedom of thought results in a meager quality of consciousness. In the first extreme it lacked the ability to think in any meaningful sense of the term and in the second the self could lay no claim on it.

What comes to mind predominately when one thinks on free thought is, is that the person accepts reason and uses it as a tool to try and determine truth. The definition of skepticism is related to this. To me, a free thinker is a lover of truth, though I am hesitant to say that to be a free thinker one must love truth and consistency above everything. People often love their own happiness and sometimes the happiness of others more than truth. This is understandable in both cases, and in my opinion, respectable. Fortunately though, truth for many people leads to happiness.

From PZ Myers over at Pharyngula

Men, Women Divided Over Sex Bill
Category: Religion
Posted on: August 19, 2009 7:30 AM, by PZ Myers

There is a bill pending in the Bahamas which would outlaw marital rape, and it is facing a lot of opposition. There is a common theme in the arguments against it: see if you can figure out what it is.

“It is ridiculous for them to try to make that a law, because I don’t think a man can rape his own wife. After two people get married, the Bible says that they become one – one flesh. How is it possible to rape what is yours?” asked Mr. Sutherland.

“Even if a woman says no to her husband it still can’t be considered rape because she is his wife. He already paid his dues at the church and she already said ‘I do,’ so from then on, even if [a man] forces sex on his wife, it isn’t rape,” he said.

“I disagree with the bill because I disagree that a man can rape his wife. The Bible tells me that a man’s body is his wife’s and her body is his. How could he rape her?” asked Ms. Sweeting.

It looks to me as if being brought up with a belief in the literal truth of a misogynistic document like the Bible can inculcate the evil idea that women are possessions, and that marriage is an act of handing over a woman’s bill of sale to a man. I thought a wife was a partner, not a slave.

From the Jon Snider over at American Freethought

Ben “Bueller…Bueller…” Stein has been let go from his biweekly gig writing a financial column for the New York Times, ostensibly because of his commercial work for a website called FreeScore.com and the associated (perceived?) conflict of interest.  Now, normally I wouldn’t cover something so non-freethoughtish here, but now Stein has written a lengthy self-defense for The American Spectator, in which he blames everyone but the Illuminati for his ouster.

Honestly, I couldn’t care less why the NYT fired Stein, but I do care that Stein blames those pesky “atheists and neo-Darwinists.”  He repeats the specious claim that Intelligent Design is “an issue as to which there is avid scientific disagreement.”  (Actually, there is virtually no scientific disagreement.  The overwhelming scientific consensus is that ID is not a scientific idea.  The only “avid disagreement” is from a tiny handful of credentialed scientists, plus a whole lot of Christian apologists and cynical Creationist marketeers.)  Anyway, what convinces me that Stein has lost his grip on reality is his implication that the NYT would fire anybody based on complaints from atheists!  Atheists are the least influential demographic in America, and it’s frankly laughable to think they could get anyone fired from a mainstream newspaper.

The bottom line with any publication is readership, and if a columnist–even a controversial columnist–can get people to come back for more, that columnist will get to keep writing.

Of course, there are limits to how controversial a writer can get.  What Stein fails to mention is that his documentary Expelled is not just an exposé on supposed academic suppression by Godless Big Science.  It’s also a dangerous propaganda piece that claims thatThe Origin of Species sent Jews directly to the fucking gas chambers.  It’s an inexcusable lie that by itself should have been enough to get Stein fired.  That the NYT didn’t fire Stein right away is a testament, I think, to their respect for Stein’s freedom of speech–even if it is incredibly stupid speech.  Which makes me think that, ultimately, this FreeScore.com business is either a) a blatant conflict of interest, as the NYT maintains; or b) the icing on the crazy cake, and the final excuse the NYT needed to dump this loon.

Either way, I predict this isn’t the last we’ll see of Stein and his ID rantings.  He’ll probably write a book, or (perish the thought!) produce a sequel to Expelled.  This is one mole that hasn’t been whacked enough.

from http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2009/08/so_thats_where_some_of_our_tro.php

Bill Dembski’s Intelligent Design course at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary has some interesting course requirements.

provide at least 10 posts defending ID that you’ve made on “hostile” websites, the posts totalling 2,000 words, along with the URLs (i.e., web links) to each post (worth 20% of your grade).

Another 20% of the grade comes from the development of a Sunday School lesson plan.

The whole course page is a rich vein of absurdity. Have fun mining it!

Hi everyone, time for your weekly update!

I’m at the beach, so I’m going to keep this quick- lots of coconut cocktails to drink!

First of all, I know you’re all excited about our big semester, we have a lot of things planned, and here is a quick outline:

First on Aug. 26th: Throw a Water Balloon at an Atheist Day! This is going to be our big fundraising event. We need volunteers to sit around on the green from 11:00-3:00 on the Campus Green and allow water balloons to be thrown at you, or for you to be sociable with the students that will hopefully be giving us money. If you are interested in helping out, e-mail me through facebook or at mdiedolf@students.kennesaw.edu.

Next, on Aug. 28th: We’ll be having our first pub night. I’m trying to find a good place to make our permanent home, so as soon as I find a location, I’ll let you guys know. Should be fun!!

Finally, for now, our first meeting will be on Sep. 2nd at 6:00. From then on, we will have our big meetings the first Wed. of every month, and a social event the third Wed. of every month, with some other fun activities sprinkled in at random.

Any questions e-mail one of the officers, we’ll be happy to straighten it all out for you.

Enjoy the rest of your summers!

Meagan, VP