The Dish

"Once scientists move outside their scientific experience, they become like a layperson. I’m not a religious person, but if I want to talk religion with someone, it won’t be a scientist; it will be with someone who understands theology (who might be either an atheist or a believer). I believe people like Dawkins give atheism a bad name because their arguments are so crude and unsubtle. They step outside their narrow competences when they produce these arguments.

In our book we too criticize creationism’s pretensions to be a science, but we don’t treat it as a trivial problem. Our critiques of creationism are: (a) that it stops scientific progress in its tracks by answering questions in a way that closes off further research; and (b) that there is no real attempt to meld the approach with the existing methods of science," – Harry Collins.

Paul Bloom’s 2005 article explores the scientific basis for religion and belief in God. Among other topics, he tackles why people cling to creationist beliefs:

Richard Dawkins may well be right when he describes the theory of natural selection as one of our species’ finest accomplishments; it is an intellectually satisfying and empirically supported account of our own existence. But almost nobody believes it. One poll found that more than a third of college undergraduates believe that the Garden of Eden was where the first human beings appeared. And even among those who claim to endorse Darwinian evolution, many distort it in one way or another, often seeing it as a mysterious internal force driving species toward perfection. (Dawkins writes that it appears almost as if "the human brain is specifically designed to misunderstand Darwinism.") And if you are tempted to see this as a red state—blue state issue, think again: although it’s true that more Bush voters than Kerry voters are creationists, just about half of Kerry voters believe that God created human beings in their present form, and most of the rest believe that although we evolved from less-advanced life forms, God guided the process. Most Kerry voters want evolution to be taught either alongside creationism or not at all.

What’s the problem with Darwin? His theory of evolution does clash with the religious beliefs that some people already hold. For Jews and Christians, God willed the world into being in six days, calling different things into existence. Other religions posit more physical processes on the part of the creator or creators, such as vomiting, procreation, masturbation, or the molding of clay. Not much room here for random variation and differential reproductive success.

But the real problem with natural selection is that it makes no intuitive sense. It is like quantum physics; we may intellectually grasp it, but it will never feel right to us. When we see a complex structure, we see it as the product of beliefs and goals and desires. Our social mode of understanding leaves it difficult for us to make sense of it any other way. Our gut feeling is that design requires a designer—a fact that is understandably exploited by those who argue against Darwin.

This 1958 article, People of the Golden Land, from a recently rediscovered Atlantic supplement on Burma, strikes me as close to tragic given the current situation:

Burma’s geography is that of an abundant, warm, and well-watered land, where raising enough food for the population has never been difficult. Our religion is a form of Buddhism which tempers and moderates, and which, as it has evolved over the centuries, absorbing elements from several cultures, has come to provide a full range of activity for the many rather than a difficult mystic philosophy for the few. And the history of the Burmese has been that of a nation long victorious over all neighbors until a conquest by the British, which, after only some sixty years of colonial subjugation, was ended with apparent ease. These factors have made us relaxed and generous; neither fanatical nor preoccupied; proud, and in a great many ways unusually contented with ourselves.

I traveled through Burma with Max Kennedy (son of Bobby) and Thant Mynt-U, grandson of U-Thant, in the late 1980s, just before the revolution. Everything in this piece remained true about the varied peoples who live in Burma. I’ve never seen a more poignant contrast between the gentleness of a culture and the brutality of its evil rulers. And the spirit of Buddhism has remained with me ever since – and almost prompted a conversion at the time.

"The Story of the Father" by Tony Hoagland

This is another story that I often think about:
the story of the father

after the funeral of his son the suicide,
going home and burning all the photographs of that dead boy;

standing next to the backyard barbecue,
feeding the pictures to the fire; watching the pale smoke
rise and disappear into the humid Mississippi sky.

Aware that he is standing at the edge of some great border,
ignorant that he is hogging all the pain.

How quiet the suburbs are in the middle of an afternoon
                      when a man is destroying evidence,
breathing in the chemistry of burning Polaroids,

watching the trees over the rickety fence
                 seem to lift and nod in recognition.

Later, he will be surprised
               by the anger of his family:
the wife hiding her face in her hands,
                 the daughter calling him names

—but for now, he is certain of his act;

Continued here. Read aloud here.

A concept face mask that modifies reality:

…these augmented reality devices would offer a new dimension – a virtual layer that could be used to “re-skin” the troubling outside world. A boundary between the wearer and the world around him, the device would become a sort of visual drug, used to make the world appear a better place – even if just for a moment.

Where did Bush get his?

James Pethokoukis thinks that the falling dollar could be a "dark-horse political issue."

A reader writes:

Count me among the folks who take the President’s views on foreign policy seriously.

I believe – and have for some time – that the struggle we face is as much between those of us who believe that there is evil in the world and it cannot – will not – go away with appeasement and those who believe that if we can just find the right words that those who hate us will all of a sudden change their ways OR of we just leave them alone "they" will leave us alone.

President Bush is a good man who has tried to do what he thought was best for the country without regard to the political costs.  Calling him a war criminal is an easy and unfortunately popular thing to do these days – but the real debate needs to be over what do we do to both protect ourselves and our allies and gain the kind of rights to which we believe all men and women are entitled in the Islamic world.

A religion that permits – indeed requires  – the murder of gays and women who go against the principles of a barbaric code is not a religion and it is time we all deal with this "elephant in the room."

From the new issue, an article on post-secondary education by a professor who fails many of his students:

America, ever-idealistic, seems wary of the vocational-education track. We are not comfortable limiting anyone’s options. Telling someone that college is not for him seems harsh and classist and British, as though we were sentencing him to a life in the coal mines. I sympathize with this stance; I subscribe to the American ideal. Unfortunately, it is with me and my red pen that that ideal crashes and burns.

Sending everyone under the sun to college is a noble initiative. Academia is all for it, naturally. Industry is all for it; some companies even help with tuition costs. Government is all for it; the truly needy have lots of opportunities for financial aid. The media applauds it—try to imagine someone speaking out against the idea. To oppose such a scheme of inclusion would be positively churlish. But one piece of the puzzle hasn’t been figured into the equation, to use the sort of phrase I encounter in the papers submitted by my English 101 students. The zeitgeist of academic possibility is a great inverted pyramid, and its rather sharp point is poking, uncomfortably, a spot just about midway between my shoulder blades.

For I, who teach these low-level, must-pass, no-multiple-choice-test classes, am the one who ultimately delivers the news to those unfit for college: that they lack the most-basic skills and have no sense of the volume of work required; that they are in some cases barely literate; that they are so bereft of schemata, so dispossessed of contexts in which to place newly acquired knowledge, that every bit of information simply raises more questions. They are not ready for high school, some of them, much less for college.

I am the man who has to lower the hammer.

Bradford Plumer looks at the fallibility of forensics.

Childhood drawings remade in real life.