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Valued Visitor,

It is 2009, Darwin Year. Exactly a hundred and fifty years ago, scientist Charles Darwin published his seminal book “On the Origin of Species“, wherein he introduced the theory that the evolution of species is driven by natural selection. Darwin’s evolution theory departed from the then-reigning belief that God created the earth, with all her species, in six days. Consequently, even many Christians no longer believe the Biblical Creation story. However, one man from Urk [Ed: The Netherlands], Kees van Helden, together with a number of creationist organisations, want to blow new life into the Creation story.

This month about 6 million homes in The Netherlands received a one-sided [biased] pamphlet “Evolution or Creation” from the Actie Comité Schepping [literally: Action Committee Creation?] in their mailboxes. According to van Helden and his supporters [colleagues? friends? ilk?] Creationism deserves, in 2009, a serious place in Dutch society. These blogs are protesting against this 250,000 euro costing pamphlet-campaign.

This pamphlet is unwelcome in our homes, since we can think for ourselves just fine. In addition, we find it highly objectionable that a religious opinion is forced beyond our front doors. Our plan is thus: Send the pamphlet back to its creators [makers]! Let the religious fanatics know that they must stop with pushing their indoctrination into our homes.

On this site you can find an accompanying material to send with the pamphlet, written by the columnist Luuk Koelman. You’re welcome to modify the letter as you like, so that you can add your own message.
Show your support for this action by signing. If you have a website, place a banner that links to this site and let us know.

The wording of that site feels a bit more aggressive than I typically aim for in my blog posts these days. This post’s purpose is informational in nature, sharing some of the conflict also happening in Europe; the above is a (translated) quote. The friend that informed me of this, also provided a link to an annotated pamphlet (in Dutch) [pdf... Linux/Gnome users: the annotations don't seem to work in evince 2.22.2]

Bear in mind: 6 million homes is effectively all homes in The Netherlands, which has a population of ~16.5 million people. And I hear this is a relatively uncommon occurrence, the fundies there aren’t usually as in-your-face, and the “rationalists” don’t typically respond to provocation. But won’t it be fun if the person sending out the flyers/pamphlets were to receive even just… <thumb suck> five thousand returned copies? I’d love to see a photo of that!

Evolution occurs when you have some complex kind of replicator of which replications (copies) are created by a slightly imperfect copying mechanism. The replication process needs to have sufficient fidelity (accuracy) that descendants significantly share characteristics with their immediate ancestors, but the process must not have perfect fidelity.

Imperfections in the copying procedure cause mutations, which result in new traits or characteristics in descendants. Perfect copies would be clones in the case of single-parent replication, or mere permutations in the case of recombinations of traits of parents in multiple-parent descendants. Without imperfection in the copying process, there will be no mutations, and hence no evolution of interesting new traits or characteristics.

In any instance where such a replicator exists in an environment with limited available resources, some replicators will necessarily be more successful at replicating than others. Such environmental pressure brings about selection. Due to this selection, the traits or characteristics that prove “beneficial” are selected for, and the replicators evolve better “fitness” through the interaction between imperfect replication (and therefore mutation) and selection (survival of the fittest).

Defining “Fitness”

In an evolutionary scenario, “fitness” is defined solely in terms of a replicator’s success at replication. As the evolutionary environment changes, some traits that used to be beneficial can become detrimental, and vice versa. As such, any qualitative comparison between two entities that attempts to determine which is “better”, is meaningless in terms of evolution, except when discussed with reference to its survival potential in the context of a particular evolutionary environment. (There are of course other ways of measuring “good” and “bad”, but such qualitative measures would be unrelated to the evolutionary process.)

If there is some way to quantify fitness, we could, in principle, find or define a “fitness function”. This function would conceptually return the quantified fitness of a particular replicator. The evolutionary process is effectively one that attempts to maximise this function in the process of developing the descendent replicators. The result would be replicators that appeared “designed” for that particular function. As such, this “fitness function” serves as a representation of the evolutionary environment and its implications for the replicator.

To recap, for evolution to occur, we need some kind of replicator with traits that can mutate, and some form of selection that occurs. This selection occurs as a result of the evolutionary environment, or conceptually according to some fitness function.

Evolution Within Computer Science

The simplest environments are the mathematical and artificial ones. One technique sometimes used in computer science for finding a decent solution to a particular problem (typically a number of parameters that need to be tuned) is the “genetic algorithm”. In short, a structure is programmed that has a significant number of parameters (“genes”) that need to be tuned. A particular instance of this structure, with a particular set of parameters/genes, could be considered the “organism” (the replicator) that must evolve. An initial population might only have one organism, or it may have a number of organisms with random parameters.

Also defined by the programmer, is an explicit fitness function that provides a measure of how good any particular solution is — where any particular “organism” is a potential solution, i.e. a particular set of parameters. Using the fitness function, “organisms” can be compared and the better organisms can be selected. Based on a set or population of the best organisms, a new generation of “offspring” organisms are evolved by making a number of copies of a parent, and randomly twiddling a couple of parameters to provide for mutation. Optionally, multiple parents can be selected and parameters chosen randomly between them, in order to implement “genetic recombination” (effectively sex), before adding a couple of mutations to produce new offspring.

By letting an algorithm like this run for thousands of generations, you “evolve” a decent solution to a particular problem, as defined and measured by your fitness function. (The disadvantages of genetic algorithms is not relevant to this post, but they would be computational complexity and local optimums.)

Purpose in Evolution

The above example (genetic algorithms) involved a designed fitness function in order for the result of the evolution of the “organisms” to be useful to its designer. Despite that fact, the fitness of the “organisms” is still purely their reproductive success within the context of their evolutionary environment. The connection of this reproductive success to the will of the designer occurs due to the fact that their evolutionary environment (represented by the fitness function) was designed to coax it out of them. Personified, the abstract “genes” of these organisms still only “care” about their own reproductive fitness, irrespective of the reasons behind a particular fitness function or evolutionary environment.

Computer Worms and Viruses, and Artificial Life

Computer worms and viruses are replicators. They produce offspring. However, typically the copies are perfect, and the worms or viruses do not mutate. As such, they cannot evolve. If taking a bigger picture view, and including mutations by external agents (evil computer programmers), a virus or worm could be incrementally “improved”. In a sense, this could represent an “evolution” of the harmful computer code, but the selection criteria (“fitness function”) is rather a human choice. As such, this is rather a part of human cultural and technological evolution than it is a good example of evolution in its own right.

The “reality” in which computer code lives is determined by the instructions available on the machine that is running the code. The nature of those instructions is such that a randomly mutating program (worm or virus) isn’t a very practical technique. Artificial life simulations (implementing evolution of artificial organisms in computer code) typically define a new environment, programming language or virtual machine, specifically designed for such simulations.

Biological Evolution

The study of biological evolution deals with the science behind how living organisms changed (and change) over time, within their evolutionary environment. The fundamental replicator in the case of biology as we know it is the gene, found in the DNA. (Note that there is no reason why the earliest life, the earliest replicators, necessarily had to have DNA as we know it. DNA could have been a later development.) Mutation occurs due to copying mistakes or environmental effects (e.g. radiation), recombination occurs through a variety of ways (not just sex). (For example, “E. coli swaps lots of genes with other species”, to take a particularly minor piece of information from a very interesting post.) The selection that occurs is known as “natural selection”.

In terms of the genetic algorithm mentioned above, the scientific study of biological evolution would study the functioning of the interaction of the organisms with their artificial evolutionary environment (the fitness function), and how that impacts the evolution of the “organisms”. Such science does not deal with any purpose behind the evolutionary environment or the fitness function: it would not deal with what the programmer is trying to achieve with the algorithm. (If you’re looking for discussions on meaning or purpose, that would be the realm of philosophy, or maybe religion or theology.) Limited to the realm of that artificial world, that world’s empirical science would probably be unable to produce any empirically testable claims about the computer programmer that created that artificial environment.

Domesticated Animals and Plants

Domesticated animals share our biology and environment, but there is an interesting twist to the selection process: as domesticated animals, their survival and selection are influenced by us humans. Through our interference with artificial selection, their evolutionary landscape is modified such that their fitness function is determined according to their usefulness to humans. Through generations of breeding, their replicators (genes) have evolved qualities beneficial to us. (This goes for the modern banana as well.)

If we were to turn our domesticated animals loose, they might not survive in the wild. Or they might, and their genes would then gradually evolve to a state of fitness relative to natural selection. I.e. they would evolve an improved ability to survive, simply for survival’s sake, rather than the characteristics that help them survive by being beneficial to the people that take care of them. They would thus become less useful to humans.

Again, the genes only care about survival. Any “purpose” with regards to what humans need from their domesticated animals impact the evolutionary environment, the “fitness function” if you will, but does not change the “pure survival and propagation instinct” (“instinct” due to personification) of the genes. Survival and propagation is all the genes care about.

Evolution of Language

Language is also a replicator. It might be more abstract, but it propagates from one person to another. These days humans need it in order to function in society, so it becomes a symbiotic relationship, a little bit like domesticated animals. The “evolutionary landscape” of language is human minds and human interactions. Language evolves because language also develops and mutates, as new generations pronounces things differently from another or create new words. Recombination takes place when different “tribes” with different languages meet, and exchange words and concepts.

Through the development and evolution of language, we can determine a lot about the evolutionary landscape that shaped it. For example, based on how words were incorporated from one language into another, we can determine who traded with whom. The fitness of the language is determined by who else can understand what you are trying to communicate. So Afrikaans is not very “fit” in the context of China, but has some fitness in The Netherlands. Of course, Dutch is still more fit than Afrikaans, and if you are living in The Netherlands amongst Dutch people, Dutch language skills, or “Dutch memes”, would find a new mind to colonise: yours. (I’m taking the “language’s-eye view”.) The language’s survival or opportunity to colonise your mind is determined by what you find useful or attach value to.

It remains a very symbiotic relationship though: language continues to exist for the purpose of human communication. There isn’t much danger of language finding a way to propagate independently of its usefulness to humans. However, language also isn’t completely limited to direct communications usefulness: some language developments propagate through exploitation of other unique traits of human psychology, like humour or tribal identity. Take for example l33tspeak, or even the “lolcat language”, or the development and spread of the Klingon language. Any memes (ideas, cultural units) that can find a mechanism by which they can be propagated, by which they can “procreate” by colonising more minds, can develop and evolve to some extent.

Evolution of Technology and Culture

Culture and technology also evolves. Technological progress is made in small steps, small mutations from one idea or invention to another. Giant leaps in scientific and technological developments and progress are in fact not very common: people make small contributions (small mutations), and some bright spark pulls together a large number of these contributions recombining them into what looks like a huge leap forward.

The evolutionary environment is again determined by human minds, selection occurs according to what is supposedly “useful”. However, lately the “usefulness” of developments are in fact not the real fitness measure. Through contemporary marketing techniques, the developments that survive are in fact not necessary beneficial to their hosts (us humans), but rather just an example of an evolved, co-adapted meme complex, or set of ideas, exploiting our psychology to get us to buy whatever is the latest craze.

Manipulation of our subconscious desires is rife in the marketing industry, with the most successful ideas being propagated through economic mechanisms in free market capitalism. It becomes a question of what best attaches to human desires, what can make the most money, rather than what is truly useful. It results in materialism, which does not bring happiness, does not bring “benefit” to the hosts.

For one extreme example, one could argue that the native Americans “had it good”. I’m speaking under correction due to lack of knowledge of the topic, but conceptually they may have had a really good life: a sustainable economy, in symbiosis with nature, a tribal culture that avoids a huge disparity between the have’s and the have-nots, a way of life that was good. However, Western civilisation, technology and culture was the more successful replicator. The desire for more land, the desire for greater knowledge: such ideas necessarily propagate better. The colonialist, with memes that makes him think he and his culture is better than those of the people whose land they are colonising (“stealing”?), as well as memes that provided him with the technology to overpower the “savages” that lived there, ends up spreading his ideas, irrespective of whether they are “good” or not. (Don’t get me wrong, I like our technology. I like space exploration, I like mountain biking and skiing, I like computers. But I am, among other things, the product of my genes and memes. How can I objectively claim I am “better off”?)

Nuclear weapons might not be a good idea, but the idea continues spreading, because once some people have them, they possess the competitive advantage: the other people also need to have them to maintain balance, to defend their genes and memes. Without possession of that particular idea or meme or piece of technology, a culture comes under threat. So the culture must absorb the “bad ideas” for survival purposes. The cultures that don’t, may die out in competition with those that do.

And so ideas and technology is ever so slightly out of our control, with regards to a healthy symbiotic relationship.

Evolution in Religion

Unsurprisingly, I end up at religion. Religion is yet another replicator, by nature of it being passed on from one generation to another. Some religions include instructions to spread laterally as well, by bringing in new converts. Religions also evolve as a result of the mutations of new understandings, irrespective of whether these mutations come from divine inspiration when a prophet believes he hears God’s voice, or whether these mutations come from philosophical thought or from scholarly study and the development of systematic theology, or from adapting religious understandings based on the progress of scientific understanding.

The Bible shows a particularly interesting evolution of the understanding of God. The understanding develops during the Old Testament, but the Christian Bible sees a large and significant mutation occurring due to Jesus. The New Testament understanding is particularly different from the Old Testament understanding.

Religions also develop from one another. Judaism likely finalised their scripture, their Canon, in response to the threat of the heretical Jesus movement/sect. Jesus was a Jew, and yet Christianity split from Judaism. Such is effectively a speciation event. Later, under the teachings of Mohammed, middle eastern monotheism saw another significant speciation event, leaving us with the “three great monotheistic religions”. (Note that none of this is saying anything about which is right and which is wrong, this is more of a higher-level overview.)

Getting back to Christianity, there is much that can be studied with regards to the development of various denominations. Wikipedia has some interesting diagrams of the “speciation events” within Christianity that can be seen in the Christian denomination article. The fact that the same text is used and does not change, does not mean that the way these texts are interpreted cannot evolve. Some cultural insight into the way certain words, concepts or ideas were understood, can result in a rather different understanding of certain texts than is typical of contemporary Christianity. Some of the fads in contemporary Christianity are really very recent developments.

Now the selection process of religion is rather interesting. I will not get into details, because I only want to focus on one particular thought. Religion is supposedly looking for “Truth” (let’s say, the “right” way to live, or the best way to live). In the case of Christianity, this Truth was found in Jesus, two thousand years ago. What he taught, what he demonstrated, his way of life and teachings, these are to be considered “the way, the truth, and the life” by a Christian. This was where it started.

Much of Jesus’ teachings were about helping the poor and about redressing social imbalance. He radically and unrelentingly challenged purity codes and institutionalised oppression, what he considered to be immorality within the “religious” structures and organisations of his time. He taught a value-based existence, moving beyond a law-based one. He taught compassion. The way I see it, it could be considered a call to humanist values. (There are many forms of humanism, including Christian Humanism.)

Whatever it was, is also not quite the point I want to make. It was a radical tradition-breaking “earth-shattering” change in the culture of the times. Some argue he did not teach anything new, but uncovered the truth that was there all along, bringing together pre-existing ideas in new, better ways. Memetic recombination. It might have been a mutation event, or it might not, but what was most significant, was the selection event that took place. It was a selection event designed by Jesus, demonstrated by Jesus, and followed by the early church. Assume this is the “Truth” we are talking about.

Now fast forward a couple of thousand years. Religion is still a replicator, remember. It is still passed from generation to generation. It still evolves. And two thousand years is a significant time for cultural and religious evolution. Christianity evolved and still evolves in various Christian traditions. Among other places, it evolves in America, which is arguably far removed from the socio-political and economic situations at the time of Jesus. There are poor people, yes, but the difference between the beggars and the “impure”, the socially downtrodden, the oppressed, much of it is missing in America, at least in easily recognisable forms. What is also missing is the socially outcast prophets, that tore their clothes, married prostitutes, and protested the status quo. What is missing is the selection process that selects for the real truth and value of and in religion.

What remains, when the guided selection process goes missing? Pure unadulterated natural selection.

What emerges is a religion that is particularly successful at propagating, but starts serving no real purpose other than that. Yes, it needs to appear beneficial to the individual in order to successfully propagate into his mind, and to encourage further propagation. The results we would expect from this kind of natural selection in religion, would be a religion that is obsessed solely with how many people are reached, how many people are “saved” (how many minds the replicator can find into which to replicate, producing the maximum number of offspring). We would expect it would evolve a tendency to target the rich, and convince them to give significant amounts of money, to find the funds necessary to further increase the offspring of this meme complex.

What goes missing is the call to help the poor, the call to go out there and actually make a difference. People don’t like to be pushed beyond the borders of their comfort zones. Instead of going out to help the poor, the natural-selection evolved religion encourages people to sit at home and pray that God will take care of the poor, helping them believe they are making a difference to help them feel good. Go read Jesus’ prayer, Matthew 6. Notice that the prayer is a personal one. Jesus commanded his followers to take care of the poor, not to sit back and ask for divine intervention that all the world’s problems may be solved.

I don’t know how prevalent such degenerate religion has become, but I know that examples of such degenerate “American Fundamentalism” is being imported into South Africa. The evidence is all over the place. They count the number of people that get “saved”, rather than getting their hands dirty and making a real and lasting difference. They care about their fellow man only while they are “on a path to getting saved”. Once a person is saved, they no longer care. Cha-ching, another deposit in the heavenly bank-account. On to the next potential convert, the next recruitment commission supposedly paid out in the afterlife. A remarkably effective replicator…

The best and clearest example I have of this kind of behaviour so far, is Jarrod Davidoff’s sermon at Shofar in December. I wrote about it in Jarrod Davidoff, an “Evangelist”, at Shofar. No, I don’t know whether he really makes a difference in people’s lives or not. No, I don’t know whether this represents what Shofar is standing for or not. All I know is that I really didn’t like what I saw, because it really looks like a degenerate faith that serves only one purpose: getting itself propagated to as many people as possible. And serving the people that adopt it only enough to convince them and help them to continue propagating it. Cha-ching. And challenging them only so far as to keep them coming back. Cha-ching.

From Wikipedia:

Cosmos: A Personal Voyage is a thirteen-part television series written by Carl Sagan, Ann Druyan, and Steven Soter, with Sagan as global presenter. [...] It covered a wide range of scientific subjects including the origin of life and a perspective of our place in the universe.

The series was first broadcast by the Public Broadcasting Service in 1980, and was the most widely watched series in the history of American public television until 1990’s The Civil War. It is still the most widely watched PBS series in the world.[1] It won an Emmy and a Peabody Award and has since been broadcast in more than 60 countries and seen by over 600 million people, according to the Science Channel. A book to accompany the series was also published.

For details on the contents of episodes, check the episode guide on Wikipedia. The first episode gave an overview of the universe, from billions of galaxies, to our local group, to billions of stars, to the planets, and on to the Great Library of Alexandria. It contained some speculation and imagination, I think its purpose was to inspire, as well, of course, to serve as an intro to the 13-episode series.

The second episode dealt with biology, explained natural selection and evolution, and animated the evolutionary process from microbes to humans. It covered the Miller-Urey experiment. The science update at the end (ten years later) presented the idea of exogenesis. Some speculation on the potential nature of extra-terrestrial life was included, including gaseous life-forms on Jupiter, an idea I first came across in Arthur C. Clarke’s novel 2010: Odyssey Two, published 1982.

Thoughts on Educational Potential

Mentioned on the Wikipedia page:

Other parts of Cosmos were controversial among the general public, though hardly among scientists, such as Sagan’s straightforward treatment of astrology as a pseudoscience and his equally straightforward description of biological evolution.

The straightforward description of biological evolution in the second episode describes to the layperson what science has found. It is unapologetic, and the evidence these conclusions are based on is not shown. It is not an episode aimed at dealing with skeptics and evolution-denialists. (In this case, the skeptics are those undecided between evolution and creationism, and the denialists are those that are explicitly creationists ).

The basic idea is this: when teaching science, the first aim is to bring people up to speed with what science has learned, and teaching the basic principles of how science works. There is so much knowledge in science these days, that until you’re specialising in a particular field, you cannot spend excessive amounts of time dwelling on the evidence that led to its conclusions. Cutting edge science research takes place in postgraduate research work, not at school or in undergraduate courses.

Now the Cosmos series was targeted at laypeople that wanted to know more about science, not at skeptics and denialists. Getting bogged down in the details of and the evidence for every claim would be counter productive to the primary goal of introducing as much science as possible. Of course the side-effect is that those that do play skeptic and denialist will remain unconvinced, having been encouraged to distrust any authority figures or experts in the field.

Episode Three

Episode Three was great, dealing with the history of science and the work of Johannes Kepler. Kepler was a contemporary of Galileo, and participant in the shift from Geocentrism to Heliocentrism. Between Copernicus, Kepler and Galileo, I suspect Kepler is the least famous, but that he maybe deserves more fame than he gets?)

The episode presented through these examples, good insight into how the scientific method works. Some of Kepler’s cherished ideas had to die at the hands of evidence. I also liked the illustration of the impact human pride and politics can have in holding back scientific progress, but that it is unable to influence eventual scientific conclusions.

This episode should be quite uncontroversial (except maybe to those that think astrology is “true”) and can be a wonderful resource for illustrating how science works.

The Remaining Episodes

If anyone wants to join in when I watch episodes four to thirteen (over at least three sessions), let me know. It will probably only take place after 9 June.

I’ve discovered how hard it would be to obtain a neutral atmosphere where seekers, undecided between evolution and creationism, could feel comfortable asking questions and discussing theories and the supposed “debate”. The first Christian to arrive simply assumed everyone there would be “evolutionists” like him, demonstrating an incredulous attitude towards creationism. We won’t even need any scientists or atheists at such an event to make them feel inhospitable to creationists…

I’m not sure what we’d have to do to make the atmosphere more conducive to such discussions. Creationist-leaning people typically reject the authority of scientists on science, preferring the authority of their religious leaders (who have not studied science and have typically avoided a university theology degree), or more specifically, the authority of famous creationist websites. For this reason, they may experience the series as a “brainwashing attempt”. (Of course, if they consider that brainwashing, they cannot complain if creationism seminars are also considered brainwashing.) Evolutionists typically “know they’re right”, and may find it very difficult to avoid coming across as condescending. Unless I hand-pick the audience… ideally picking primarily people that have wondered about “creationism versus evolution” in the past, thereby more able to understand what the creationist-leaning folk are going through, or else science educators that have grappled with creationism long enough to understand the nature of the problem, but not too long to have given up on patience.

Most people might say “let them figure it out for themselves or live in ignorance”, but I’m weird. I’m still interested in doing what I can to facilitate dialogue and scientific learning. Maybe it is because humans fascinate me. Should I become a psychologist or an anthropologist, maybe?

Either way, I might have to give up on such discussions on Cosmos-nights, but discussion on this blog afterwards might be possible. There were a number of questions that came up during the night, shall we discuss them here? (Mostly unrelated to creationism, rather just curiosity about certain things in astrophysics and biology.)

He has to believe in evolution because that is the career he chose. He sucked up what they told him.

This creationist tactic is disingenuous. They are taught that the reason scientists accept evolution, is because they would not otherwise get a job, and thereby find an excuse to distrust the opinion of any expert or professional in the field. Yikes.

Why is this so effective? Because it is true… albeit with a nasty spin. In order to get a job as a scientist, you need to accept the scientific method. The scientific method leads to the acceptance of evolution. Thus, indirectly, you do have to accept evolution to get a job as a scientist. Rejecting evolution requires either rejecting the evidence, or rejecting the scientific method.

I suppose if you’re in a field of science where you can remain wilfully ignorant of the evidence, you can get by while ignoring evolution. Maybe that explains why some students refuse to study the section of the work devoted to the “E” word, too “satanic” to even say the word… They choose ignorance, maybe suspecting that the evidence will be too convincing to ignore. Rather refuse knowledge of the evidence than having to find another excuse, like rejecting the scientific method.

Did he “suck up what they told him”? Sure, yes, he did, because it was backed by evidence and peer reviewed studies in reputable journals. That’s the reason he “sucks it up”. Evolution had as hard a time as any paradigm shift in science, when it was first introduced, and it was only eventually accepted due to the body evidence piling on, and being much more accurate than any other alternative theory.

Now we can turn the tables on the creationists: creationists also suck up what they’re told. I suggest it is not because of a body of evidence, because no creationist has presented evidence for creationism or provided an alternative scientific theory that stands up to scrutiny yet. That’s why they go for attacks like this disingenuous one. They have to believe in creationism because that is the interpretation of the Bible they choose, a literal one.

For creationists, I would suggest one of the following two courses of action:

1. accept and admit that you are rejecting the scientific method in favour of a literal interpretation of a Judeo-Christian version of the ancient Sumerian creation myths (using the academic definition of myth: I’m not implying they are true or false — in fact, I believe they do contain profound truths despite being non-factual), or
2. find yourself a church where the preacher/pastor has a degree in theology from a reputable seminary, and is able to recognise the human imprint and prophetic imagination in the book of Genesis. Among Stellenbosch churches, that includes Stellenbosch Gemeente and the Moederkerk. In authors, that includes CS Lewis, though I could recommend going with contemporary authors like Brian McLaren, Rob Bell, or Ron Martoia.

The unfortunate thing is that that short list likely ended up on a number of “authors and churches to avoid” lists, which can contribute to the impression that creationists and Shofarians are “anti-intellectual”.

Other alternatives include staying at Shofar while realising the leadership is incorrect about Genesis and evolution, or else choosing to remain ignorant on science. I just wish people choosing the last option could realise that they are choosing ignorance.

UPDATE: Sorry, “choosing to remain ignorant” is somewhat loaded. Rather, “choosing to get on with your life, not paying any more attention to the creationism/evolution thingy, and just leaving it with oh, I don’t know.” It is not possible for everyone to know everything, and knowledge of science is not necessary for everyone. Just please leave it at “I don’t know” then, and stop spreading disinformation. Thanks!

Here is an opportunity to learn more about evolution:

Greetings Freethinkers!

Tuesday 12 February is Darwin Day. Charles Darwin, one of the founding fathers of modern science, was born on 12th February 1809 – thats 199 years ago on Tuesday!

As with many intellectual, scientific, and freethought societies, Freethinking Maties will be marking the occasion with a modest celebration. We will be hosting a small video presentation about Darwin’s most enduring theory – the theory of evolution by the processes of natural selection.

Date: 12 February 2008
Place: Music Department (Konservatorium), corner of Neethling and Victoria str (use Neethling street entrance)
Time: 19.30 (with allowance!)
Cost: Nothing!

The Music Department have kindly agreed to host us for free in the Endler foyer. Please bring along any interested parties or curious friends, and spread the word! For more information on Darwin Day see www.darwinday.org.

Hope to see you there…

FREETHINKING MATIES

I will be there, I hope it is a good video…

There are churches that join in on the celebration of Darwin day — last year they celebrated “Evolution Sunday” the day before. The clip below is a news report on the “Creation Museum”, just after half-way through is a brief interview with a clergyman that is teaching Darwin in Sunday school to counter the creationists’ undermining of science.

While I seriously doubt any churches in Stellenbosch or South Africa can take a strong pro-evolution stance, there are indeed churches that do not have a problem with it. Typically, the more educated the church leadership, the better.

For those that understand Afrikaans, Stephan Joubert has a post on ekerk that gives the kind of response that could work in most situations. In this country, at this point in time, I would be really hesitant to advocate a strong pro-science stance in churches. An alternative to avoiding the question in that manner, is to emphasize the acceptance of diversity in the congregation, that everyone do not share the exact same opinions or interpretations.

I was hoping to come across a Jewish and/or Muslim society as well, but no such luck. Unless it is hidden behind some non-obvious acronym, I could also not find such groups on the list of societies on the University website. I suspect the Jewish and Muslim communities are strong enough to function independently and not require society-status?

The Dutch-Reformed church was only represented via the outreach programs falling under the “Crux-aksie” umbrella, Dutch-Reformed membership is typically a family thing. Stellenbosch Gemeente was also not represented, I think most of SG’s marketing is word-of-mouth.

Below follows more from discussions with various groups.

On Evolution

A number of groups are quite strongly against evolution. The “big two” in Stellenbosch is generally Shofar and EveryNation. I’m careful of making sweeping statements about other churches, as I cannot usually be sure whether it is just personal opinion or general church policy.

The rep I talked to at the NewGen (New Generation) church stall said evolution is out of the question, and believed in a literal six-days creation less than 10,000 years ago. I assume this goes for the whole church.

The Stellenbosch Baptist Students stall was manned by one of their pastors, in charge of Students & Youth. He has a conservative approach, and reads Genesis literally. He received his education at a Bible college whose name I’m afraid I forgot. (Bad journalist, me.)

TBT describes it’s theology as “evangelical, reformed, conservative”. By conservative, they mean the Bible is without error. I’m not sure what they mean by that actually, there are different ideas of what constitutes “error” and what doesn’t. The individuals I talked to were relatively apathetic about the “creationism-evolution debate”. One had some “evolutionist” friends (attending TBT, I assume. My memory is weak, my notes are weaker. Bad, bad journalist.)

The rep at the Vineyard Christian Fellowship stall gave me the name of the person I should talk to. (The rep’s personal perspectives involved little exposure to evolution theory and a dislike of the idea that humans and present-day apes share a common ancestor.)

The Anglican society is associated with, well, the Anglican church. Their theology is similar to Episcopalian theology. There is some diversity in the international organisation, with one extreme found in Nigeria, and the other in New Hampshire (USA). Backed by “serious theology”, their views should be compatible with secular social sciences. I expect most of the leaders in the organisation would accept theistic evolution.

My preference definitely remains with congregations that have leaders with serious theological study in their background, for example from the University’s faculty of theology. In Stellenbosch, this would include (but not limited to) the Dutch Reformed church and Stellenbosch Gemeente. I hear they share a common vision, the minor doctrinal differences are not of much concern. The greatest majority of “well-educated” leaders will be accepting of science. Expecting them to publicly stand by evolution acceptance might be too much to expect though, each congregation has a diversity of members with diverse perspectives. Also, the cooperation between churches is more important than their promotion of science: the most significant science promotion will have to be done by the scientists and the scientifically minded.

And then there’s of course the Freethinking Maties society, seeking to promote scientific understanding, science education (including evolution), promoting freedom of religion, including the right to unbelief.

On Homosexuality

I’m not going to be able to give a detailed breakdown, as I am unable to represent all groups to equal depth. In particular, I didn’t ask the more liberal-leaning groups about this matter. My typical question was whether homosexuals would feel welcome in their congregation. From there I usually received a response reflecting the “love the sinner, hate the sin” idea, often with elements of “but we are very accepting and open” mixed in — homosexuals are typically welcome just like other sinners (adulterers, fornicators?) are welcome… Whether they really feel welcome or not, is of course another question altogether. I don’t know if there are any churches in Stellenbosch that would actually be prepared to “host” a homosexual marriage. Actually, I strongly doubt it. This town’s general community is probably too conservative, making such an event too controversial?

On “Primary Emphasis” and Social Action

This was rather hard to determine. Some groups place most emphasis on the evangelical side, caring mostly about “winning souls”, on the theory that once they have Jesus in their lives, everything else should improve…

Other groups place pleasing amounts of emphasis on sharing love/compassion and making a difference in the community, trying to help break the cycle of poverty. For example, one of the outreach programs under the “Crux-aksies” umbrella is “Funda Fundisa” (Xhosa for “Teach and Learn”, not to be confused with fundamentalism). This is an outreach program providing tutoring in Maths, Science, English, Biology and Accounting at Kayamandi High school. (Kayamandi is Stellenbosch’s informal settlement, or “shanty town”.) With regards to cooperation, I know Stellenbosch Gemeente is forming partnerships with Vineyard Christian Fellowship and the Dutch Reformed church (and/or vice-versa). I’m sure there are more alliances that I am not yet aware of.

As mentioned in the previous post, there are also non-religious organisations such as Habitat for Humanity which works to help build houses for families from a low-income background, and UNA-SA, which is committed to the millennium development goals.

Ok, enough of that, I’ve gotta go to bed. I hope this is good enough, I’m hitting Publish without another re-read.

Title: Wat is Evolusie en Maak Dit Regtig Saak?
Time: 13:00 on Thursday 18 October 2007.
Venue: “Broom Seminaarkamer”, room 2020, Department of Botany and Zoology, Sciences (“Natuurwetenskappe”) building, Stellenbosch Campus.
Presented by: Dr Jurie van den Heever, a Palaeontologist.

Space is limited, and the lecture isn’t advertised very widely. Despite lack of time, I will probably be there. I clearly need more “technical knowledge” of this field, if I am to pursue my chosen path in life… This may also be a good networking opportunity to get into contact with the right people for a possible public lecture/seminar series early next year (with participation from theologians as well).

The Pharyngula Mutating Genre Meme

There is a set of questions below, all of the form , “The best [subgenre] [medium] in [genre] is…”. Copy the questions, and before answering them, you may modify them in a limited way, carrying out no more than two of these operations:

1. You can leave them exactly as is.
2. You can delete any one question.
3. You can mutate either the genre, medium or subgenre of any one question. For instance, you could change “The best timetravel novel in SF/ Fantasy is…” to “The best timetravel novel in Westerns is…” , or ”The best timetravel movie in SF/Fantasy is…, or ”The best Romance novel in SF/Fantasy is…”
4. You can add a completely new question of your choice to the end of the list, as long as it is still in the form “The best [subgenre] [medium] in [genre] is…”.

You must have at least one question in your set, or you’ve gone extinct, and you must be able to answer it yourself, or you’re not viable.

Then answer your possibly mutant set of questions. Please do include a link back to the ‘parent’ blog you got them from, to simplify tracing the ancestry, and include these instructions.

Finally, pass it along to any number of your fellow bloggers. Remember though: your success as a Darwinian replicator is going to be measured by the propagation of your variants, which is going to be a function of both the interest your well-honed questions generate, and the number of successful attempts at reproducing them.

THE LINEAGE

My gr-gr-gr-great-grandparent is Pharyngula.
My gr-gr-great-grandparent is Metamagician and the Hellfire Club
My gr-great-grandparent is The Flying Trilobite.
My great-grandparent is Leslie’s Blog.
My grandparent is The Meming of Life.
My parent is The Friendly Humanist.

THE MUTATING MEME

No need to copy this, included for reference, for examples of “historical” mutations:

Pharyngula says:

• The best time travel novel in SF/Fantasy is…The Anubis Gates, by Tim Powers.
• The best romantic movie in historical fiction is… Cold Mountain.
• The best sexy song in rock is… Gloria, by Patti Smith.

Metamagician and the Hellfire Club says:

• The best time travel novel in SF/Fantasy is… Singing the Dogstar Blues, by Alison Goodman.
• The best romantic movie in fictionalised biography is… Beyond Good and Evil.
• The best sexy song in rock is… “You Can Leave Your Hat On”, by Joe Cocker.
• The best cult novel in American fiction is… Stranger in a Strange Land, by Robert A. Heinlein.

The Flying Trilobite says:

• The best time travel novel in SF/Fantasy is: Hyperion by Dan Simmons.
• The best romantic movie in scientific dystopias is: Gattaca (1997)
• The best sexy song in rock is: #1 Crush by Garbage from William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet soundtrack
• The best cult novel in Canadian fiction is: JPod by Douglas Coupland (2006)

Leslie’s Blog mutated it to:

• The best timetravel television in SF/Fantasy is: Heroes
• The best romantic movie in scientific dystopia is: THX 1138
• The best sexy song in traditional is: “Chan Chan” by the Buena Vista Social Club

THE MEMING OF LIFE’s mutation:

• The best romantic movie in scientific dystopia is: THX 1138
• The best sexy song in traditional is: “Chan Chan” by the Buena Vista Social Club
• The best satirical movie in comedy is: Life of Brian

The Friendly Humanist’s contribution:

• The best romantic novel in scientific dystopia is: The Dispossesed
• The best sexy attire in traditional is: the codpiece
• The best satirical movie in comedy is: Life of Brian

ThinkTooMuch’s mutation:

• The best romantic movie in scientific dystopia is: Gattaca
• The best sexy attire in traditional is: the Ndebele beaded bodice
• The best satirical television show in comedy is: The Colbert Report

THE SOWING

I’m not sure which blogs might provide fertile ground, but I want to try breaking into a new “ecological niche” – I’m having a go at the South African blogosphere, and also extending an invitation to the Real Live Preacher. Why I’m not sure whether this will be fertile ground: how many of these would like to link back to a raving atheist like Pharyngula?

Anyway, we’ll see if this gets anywhere… South Africans: Salige Rus, Pienk Zuit, Johan Swarts, TheKro’s Nest, Uno de Waal. I suspect Dave is too busy making a difference in the real world to take part in an internet meme game/experiment… What about cpbotha over in NL? He blogs relatively regularly and has a sense of humour…

I’m sure the Bad Astronomer would have received an invitation to this meme already. What about The Primate Diaries? Or do they keep their subject matter too serious for procrastination posts like these?

SOME SILLY, LIGHT-HEARTED MUSINGS

Increasing your chromosome count (adding a question) gives you more genetic material to propagate, leading to greater influence on your descendants. However, greater chromosomal counts are also harder to mutate (as only two mutations are allowed), hence also harder to adapt and propagate… less viable. I suspect three chromosomes are likely the “sweet spot”.

The “answers” are an “expression” of the “genes”. The expressibility (the ability to answer) the genes provides the “natural selection” step, weeding out the bad mutations. Absolutely arbitrary mutations would not be viable, too hard to answer, and are weeded out immediately. The cost of reproduction is the time that needs to be spent to get this “meme complex” propagated. The mutations might make the questions more relevant to a new “ecosystem”, but it takes some time to adapt. For example, to break into a blogosphere niche that does not read or watch much sci-fi, would require the genes to mutate to more answerable questions. (Drama, horror or soap operas perhaps? <grin>) I wonder if we will observe anything drastic enough that we would be able to call “speciation”?

UPDATE: Hah! I was too slow. Or rather, too unknown, more likely. The Primate Diaries received the meme from A Blog Around the Clock, and I doubt there will be much promiscuity in this bunch. The Bad Astronomer, if he bites, will go with a more famous parent. My hopes for descendants then lies with the South African blogosphere. It’s a challenge surviving here, but if I succeed, there would likely not be much competition from other bloodlines.

In a last ditch attempt, using tadpole tactics, I wonder if I could get some other blogs to bite: The Friendly Atheist has not yet chosen a parent, neither has Bad Science, but I would feel bad about stealing that one. What about Leaving Eden then? It would pleasantly surprise me if The Friendly Christian would take part. What about the denialism blog, or the Framing Science blog? I think some would say I’m in the “framing” camp. What about Happy New Atheist?

OK, now I’ve really spammed the blogosphere with tadpole tactics… if some of those blogs choose me as parent, I’d be sure to be getting a great opportunity to play “minister” to atheists finding my blog via this meme.

As Wikipedia points out, “other fields of science, such as cosmology and earth science, also conflict with literal interpretations of many religious texts”, yet, “evolutionary biology has borne the brunt of these debates”. Considering evolution is obviously harder to accept than its necessary preconditions, I often think it makes more sense to shift the discussion to the Age of the Earth instead.

Consider this quote from Augustine (apparently the originator of the phrase “Love the sinner and hate the sin”), written around the 5th century CE:

Usually, even a non-Christian knows something about the earth, the heavens, and the other elements of this world, about the motion and orbit of the stars and even their size and relative positions, . . . and this knowledge he holds to as being certain from reason and experience. Now, it is a disgraceful and dangerous thing for an infidel to hear a Christian, presumably giving the meaning of Holy Scripture, talking non-sense on these topics; and we should take all means to prevent such an embarrassing situation, in which people show up vast ignorance in a Christian and laugh it to scorn.

A more thorough quoting can be found on Wikipedia, the version I used, I found in one of the responses in the Index to Creationist Claims on The TalkOrigins Archive.

Of course, Augustine was arguably a Young Earth creationist, but you can’t blame him, living in the 4th/5th century. His warning from 1600 years ago applies as much to our knowledge as it did to theirs, and our knowledge includes “the world is 4.5 billion years old”. It also applies to physics, chemistry, geology, astronomy, cosmology, molecular biology, genomics, linguistics, anthropology and archaeology, all fields that have some conflict with Young Earth creationist perspectives.

Some people do not realize there is such conflict, due to not being educated on such matters, and can therefore not be blamed for believing what they do. (Some may be blameable for some related things though: shunning education or critical thinking, or arguing about things they really know nothing about.) In some cases, then, it should be useful to educate people on such matters. I think it is also important to point out that there really shouldn’t be a conflict between their Christianity and their acceptance of science. (Of course, the anti-theist might disagree. The anti-theist might prefer it if all religious people were literalists, as literalistic religions really are such easy targets. )

I am also certain that accepting evolution does not decrease your chances of going to heaven.

A note about my context: What I see most often in my town and among friends that reject evolution, is Biblical literalism and Young Earth creationism. As such, that is what I will be discussing most often. Similarly, with respect to other religions, I mostly write as a “Christian”, with an audience of Christians in mind. I do also know people that do accept that the earth is old, but still doubt or reject evolution – they seem to be a minority however. We do not have a strong intelligent design movement, I suspect that is mostly limited to USA? (And yes, I placed “Christian” in inverted commas. There has been, for close to two millennia, some disagreement about what that label exactly means. Some of the more than 30 churches on Stellenbosch claim there really are only a small handful of these that are “real churches”.)

For my international readers, a little background on why this relevant to me: I’m studying at Stellenbosch University, South Africa. Stellenbosch is situated about 50km from Cape Town. The town is host not only to a University, but also to a diversity of churches. Apparently there are more than 30 Christian congregations of various denominations. Many of these (I’m being optimistic here) are not in conflict with science, rational thought, and critical thinking, but a couple are, and pride themselves in it. In certain groups of friends, the greater majority rejects evolution and embraces young earth creationism (and most of the rest are not prepared to stand up for evolution). Some embrace the “fundamentalism” label as something positive. (Maybe in a similar way as I might embrace “geeky” or “nerdy”, using some specific definitions of those words, but rejecting others.) There was some controversy at the beginning of the year, when the student newspaper, Die Matie, published an article titled “Dosente bevraagteken Shofar”, roughly translated “Lecturers question Shofar”, one of the pentecostal churches that denounce evolution. (If there is interest, I can write a bit about it, though some translation of articles might be necessary, and my time remains limited.)

Enough background, which I’m sure made my supposed “bias” in the matter rather obvious (to those that consider it bias). Let’s state it directly. I accept the theory of evolution as our best explanation thus far, and this post is obviously written from that perspective. This isn’t the place for a debate, “debates” just waste time. If you want some arguments, take a look at TalkOrigins’ An Index to Creationist Claims, responding to creationist claims from the perspective of mainstream science, or look at Answers in Genesis, arguably the leading site on Creationism. (Somehow, it pains me to link there. But I’ll get over it.)

So, why do people reject evolution (including theistic evolution)? Thoughts on “deeper” reasons behind such rejection, can be found at old posts (2005) on 3quarksdaily, majikthise and pharyngula. I found these three links at darwiniana.

3quarksdaily:

My explanation is simply this: Human beings have a strong visceral reaction to disbelieve any theory which injects uncertainty or chance into their world view. They will cling to some other “explanation” of the facts which does not depend on chance until provided with absolutely incontrovertible proof to the contrary.

majikthise:

Mostly, evolution makes people uncomfortable because it explains how life could have emerged without any external purpose or design. Evolutionary explanations are threatening to people who assume that naturalistic explanations undercut meaning in life. If we assume that we were designed by some creator, it follows that our existence has at least some built-in purpose. At the very least, we could say that we were designed by someone for some reason. It wouldn’t necessarily follow that we were designed for any good reason, of course.

pharyngula:

Ultimately, what brings people together to reject evolution is a sense of identity and belonging to a group that has a non-rational anti-evolutionary dogma as a part of their social toolkit. It’s not assessment of the evidence that drives them away from science, it’s entirely because the evidence challenges a facet of the beliefs they recognize as distinguishing elements of their tribe. In a war between reality and their social group, they cling to their subculture. It actually makes sense, in an evolutionary and biological way: an isolated human being is not a particularly viable unit, and it’s the cohesion of the clan and tribe that is more important for long-term success.

Please go and read the original posts for more on these ideas, read on for my list of “shallow” reasons.

In the light of these possible “deep” answers, I’m rather shy about the more “shallow” reasons I want to list. I’d like to think I’m being more “practically minded” because it’s rather close to home. (Many friends typically reject evolution, and many members of my extended family are also very likely to.) Maybe I’m just being silly, of course, if symptomatic treatment is ineffective and the “deeper” reasons, the origins, are the true power behind the rejection. (Discussing symptoms might help make the root cause more accessible though?)

Reasons (“shallow” reasons) why people reject evolution:

1. uninformed (lack of knowledge with regards to evolution)
2. misinformed (believing another evolution-denier, who might fall under another category)
3. apathy towards, or rejection of science (favouring some other form of authority, possibly their church’s leadership, despite being informed)
4. a perceived threat to cherished beliefs/memes
5. a perceived controversy in the scientific community, making it “more arbitrary” which perspective (of two “equally valid” perspectives) is chosen.

These reasons do intersect in places, and it is usually a combination of reasons. Some examples that do not fall into this list, so that this list can be lengthened? Or might this list be shortened? I don’t think so?