How to spot a hidden religious agenda

[n2doc]

28 February 2009 by Amanda Gefter

AS A book reviews editor at New Scientist, I often come across so-called science books which after a few pages reveal themselves to be harbouring ulterior motives. I have learned to recognise clues that the author is pushing a religious agenda. As creationists in the US continue to lose court battles over attempts to have intelligent design taught as science in federally funded schools, their strategy has been forced to... well, evolve. That means ensuring that references to pseudoscientific concepts like ID are more heavily veiled. So I thought I'd share a few tips for spotting what may be religion in science's clothing.

Red flag number one: the term "scientific materialism". "Materialism" is most often used in contrast to something else - something non-material, or supernatural. Proponents of ID frequently lament the scientific claim that humans are the product of purely material forces. At the same time, they never define how non-material forces might work. I have yet to find a definition that characterises non-materialism by what it is, rather than by what it is not.

The invocation of Cartesian dualism - where the brain and mind are viewed as two distinct entities, one material and the other immaterial - is also a red flag. And if an author describes the mind, or any biological system for that matter, as "irreducibly complex", let the alarm bells ring.

Misguided interpretations of quantum physics are a classic hallmark of pseudoscience, usually of the New Age variety, but some religious groups are now appealing to aspects of quantum weirdness to account for free will. Beware: this is nonsense.

more:
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20126975.800-how-to-spot-a-hidden-religious-agenda.html

[fasttense]

1. Read some of the comments. Some religious wing-nuts have posted

and are of course trying to prove there is no such thing as evolution. It is very fun reading.

[GeorgeGist]

2. Ironically ...

religious wing-nuts maybe the best evidence against intelligent design. But then most lay people, and many scientist, don't appreciate that evolution acts by primarily by negative selection.

[zbdent]

3. they always argue "why don't you create life" blah blah blah ...

I would tell them ... okay, give me billions of years and infinite resources ... and get out of my face ...

[phantom power]

7. What's funny is, people *are* starting to create life...

and, predictably, the same woo-woos are now saying "stop playing God!"

[zbdent]

9. I remember a number of years back, it's been lost to time now, but there was

some corporation which wanted to patent a new life form which more or less digests oil spills ...

wonder why we never hear of that?

[RandomThoughts]

4. Interesting article some clarification requested.

It reads as if you are pushing a non religious agenda? hehe :)

I do understand there are many people that push agenda's and many get frustrated. I stay away from the creation/intelligent design/evolution argument (I found my own solution that works well enough for all of them, for me at least) :), so I am not discussing about that.

But what you said about free will and quantum weirdness sparked a comment. I went through the first 20 hits searching "quantum weirdness" I did not find any mention of free will in any of the pages. So I searched quantum weirdness "free will" to try and find what you were mentioning. I did not see any conversations except the ideas below(my thoughts paraphrasing) that state free will would require some spiritual or random thing to exist. But not anyone saying what you mentioned.


In its purest form, free will would not exist without some spirituality. Because if no action was ever random, from the first movement of the first atom, every collision and every action could be played forward with the same results. So everything will happen as it will in a universe that is not mutable beyond normal means. Einstein spoke on this also saying he can't imagine an electron choosing a path, leading to the plausible next thought that things built from that can not choose either. Making free will an illusionary construct of the mind, and not real scientifically.

This also was spoken of by Isaac Asimov in one of his non fiction books, where he suggested that if the original universe was a single state pre-big bang mass. And if the universe ever collapsed back to that mass, then time would repeat over and over exactly the same. (I think the movie American Beauty mentions this in its epilogue.(although it might be mentioning recursive relive doctrine. :shrug:)) Or if at any time if you reset all the atoms and sub conditions of atoms to the exact same state as they were at a previous time, then the exact same results would proceed forward.

I would guess, that your comment

Misguided interpretations of quantum physics are a classic hallmark of pseudoscience, usually of the New Age variety, but some religious groups are now appealing to aspects of quantum weirdness to account for free will. Beware: this is nonsense.

I would guess that comment would be from some groups stating that at some sub atomic level things act outside of any 'rules' therefore some other thing like spiritual force is effecting universe. I would guess they are trying to prove supernatural this way.

Personally my thoughts put the supernatural outside of natural world and in that way natural world scientific proof requires faith since it can not be seen by normal world directly, only effects can be seen. And someone can always just call it luck or coincidence, since the mechanism do not operate in normal existence.

And I believe free will exist because the soul or spirit, in my belief, does have an influence or an effect into the natural world and modifies what could be called 'rules' of nature. But understanding that would be like asking a sim city character what the programmer, or users, keyboard looks like. (Just an example I do not follow that doctrine). So I understand your comment that using less then understood elements of the natural world to prove supernatural is a stretch. But if effect above some threshold of 'coincidence' could be proven, that would be cool.

But I degrees, what was the point again... Oh yea, what articles are tying supernatural into quantum weirdness. If you know any that exist.


Note: I do believe in supernatural world of the Christian religious type. But I understand others believe differently and do not think they are nonsensical. I just think they do not have the same experiances... :) yet :) Ok, a little arrogant on the 'yet' but it is a bit funny. :)

[Orrex]

5. Try searching for 'quantum consciousness' and 'free will'

"Quantum weirdness" in this context strikes me as an offhand description of some of the more bizarre implications of quantum theory, rather than any specific aspect of it.

[bananas]

8. There are some misconceptions in the OP

I haven't read any of the creationism or intelligent design stuff, but she has some misconceptions.

For example, she writes:
"Proponents of ID frequently lament the scientific claim that humans are the product of purely material forces. At the same time, they never define how non-material forces might work. I have yet to find a definition that characterises non-materialism by what it is, rather than by what it is not."

There has long been a trend in science away from materialism, as pointed out in the wikipedia article on information:
"In 2003, J. D. Bekenstein claimed there is a growing trend in physics to define the physical world as being made of information itself (and thus information is defined in this way). Information has a well defined meaning in physics. Examples of this include the phenomenon of quantum entanglement where particles can interact without reference to their separation or the speed of light."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information#Information_as_a_property_in_physics

Before the discovery of quantum mechanics, the world seemed entirely deterministic, following the completely deterministic laws of classical mechanics. That left no room for free will, because all actions were predetermined from the past. According to quantum mechanics, actions are not completely pre-determined, there are rules and constraints, but there is also room for free will. And your choices don't just affect the future, they can actually affect the past, as proven by the delayed choice quantum eraser experiment. This is a real effect, experimentally verified. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delayed_choice_quantum_eraser

[Realityhack]

6. Man the woo woo crowd really jumped on that articles comments. n/t

[PetrusMonsFormicarum]

10. n2doc rocks!

I *knew* you must have some advanced bona fides, with all the cool stuff you've posted!

I'm sick of hearing about "God" particles too!

What bothers me most about creaintelligent designtionism is that it is intentionally confrontational, like a dog pissing on your shoes because he wants attention. How much easier would it have been if the church had simply proclaimed that the evolutionary process was a part of their deity's plan. Ahh, but their most stolid members believe that they are better than everything else and could not possible have risen from primate or amphibian forefathers.