Showing posts with label John Polkinghorne. Show all posts
Showing posts with label John Polkinghorne. Show all posts

Friday 15 March 2013

Preaching to the unconverted: or how to convey science to the devout

It's said that charity begins at home. Likewise, a recent conversation I had with a pious Mormon started me thinking: just how do you promote science, both the method and the uncomfortable facts, to someone who has been raised to mistrust the discipline? Of course, there is a (hopefully) very small segment of the human race that will continue to ignore the evidence even after it is presented right in front of them, but stopping to consider those on the front line - such as biology teachers and ‘outed' atheists in the U.S. Bible Belt - how do you present a well-reasoned set of arguments to promote the theory and practice of science? 

It's relatively easy for the likes of Richard Dawkins to argue his case when he has large audiences of professionals or sympathetic listeners, but what is the best approach when endorsing science to a Biblical literalist on a one-to-one basis? The example above involved explaining just how we know the age of the Earth. Not being the first time I've been asked this, I was fully prepared to enlighten on the likes of uranium series dating, but not having to mention the 'D' words (Darwin or Dawkins) made this a relatively easy task. To aid any fans of science who might find themselves in a similar position I've put together a small toolkit of ideas, even if the conversation veers into that ultimate of controversial subjects, the evolution of the human race:
  1. A possible starting point is to be diffident, explaining the limitations of science and dispelling the notion that it isn't the catalogue of sundry facts it is sometimes described as (for example, in Bill Bryson's A Short History of Nearly Everything). It is difficult but nonetheless profitable to explain the concept that once-accepted elements of scientific knowledge can ostensibly be surpassed by later theories, only to maintain usefulness on a special case basis. A good illustration of this is Newton's Law of Universal Gravitation, which explains the force of gravity but not what creates it. Einstein's General Theory of Relativity provides a solution but Newton's Law is much easier to use, being accurate enough to use even to guide spacecraft. And since General Relativity cannot be combined with quantum mechanics, there is probably another theory waiting to be discovered…somewhere. As British astrophysicist and populariser John Gribbin has often pointed out, elements at the cutting edge of physics are sometimes only describable via metaphor, there not being anything within human experience that can be used as a comparison. Indeed, no-one has ever observed a quark and in the early days of the theory some deemed it just a convenient mathematical model. As for string theory, it's as bizarre as many a creation myth (although you might not want to admit that bit).
  2. Sometimes (as can be seen with Newton and gravity) the 'what' is known whilst the 'why' isn't. Even so, scientists can use the partial theories to extrapolate potential 'truths' or even exploit them via technology. Semi-conductors require quantum mechanics, a theory that no-one really understands. Indeed, no less a figure than Einstein refused to accept many of its implications.  There are many competing interpretations, some clearly more absurd than others, but that doesn't stop it being the most successful scientific theory ever, in terms of the correspondence between the equations and experimental data. So despite the uncertainty - or should that be Uncertainty (that's a pun, for the quantum mechanically-minded) - the theory is a cornerstone of modern physics.
  3. As far as I know, the stereotype of scientists as wild-haired, lab-coated, dispassionate and unemotional beings may stem from the Cold War, when the development of the first civilisation-destroying weapons led many to point their fingers at the inventors rather than their political paymasters. Yet scientists can be as creative as artists. Einstein conducted thought experiments, often aiming for a child-like simplicity, in order to obtain results. The idea that logic alone makes a good scientist is clearly bunkum. Hunches and aesthetics can prove as pivotal as experimental data or equations.
  4. Leading on from this, scientists are just as fallible as the rest of us. Famous examples range from Fred Hoyle's belief in the Steady State theory (and strangely, that the original Archaeopteryx fossils are fakes) through to the British scientific establishment's forty-year failure to recognise that the Piltdown Man finds were crude fakes. However, it isn't always as straightforward as these examples: Einstein's greatest blunder - the cosmological constant - was abandoned after the expansion of the universe was discovered, only for it to reappear in recent years as the result of dark energy. And of course mistakes can prove more useful than finding the correct answer the first time!
  5. There are numerous examples of deeply religious scientists, from Kepler and Newton via Gregor Mendel, the founder of genetics, to the contemporary British particle physicist the Reverend John Polkinghorne. Unlike the good versus evil dichotomy promoted by Hollywood movies, it's rarely a case of us versus them.
  6. Although there are searches for final theories such as the Grand Unified Theory of fundamental forces, one of the current aspects of science that differs profoundly from the attitudes of a century or so ago is that there is the possibility of never finding a final set of solutions. Indeed, a good experiment should generate as many new questions as it answers.
  7. If you feel that you're doing well, you could explain how easy it is to be fooled by non-existent patterns and that our brains aren't really geared up for pure logic. It's quite easy to apparently alter statistics using left- or right-skewed graphs, or to use a logarithmic scale on one axis. In addition, we recognise correlations that just aren't there but we which we would like to think are true. In the case of my Mormon colleague he was entrenched in the notion of UFOs as alien spacecraft! At this point you could even conduct an experiment: make two drawings, one of a constellation and one of evenly-spaced dots, and ask them to identify which one is random. Chances are they will pick the latter. After all, every culture has seen pictures in the random placements of stars in the night sky (or the face of Jesus in a piece of toast).
Constellation vs random dots
Ursa Major (see what you like) vs evenly-spaced dots

So to sum up:
  1. There's a fuzzy line at the cutting edge of physics and no-one understands what most of it means;
  2. We've barely started answering fundamental questions, and there are probably countless more we don't even know to ask yet;
  3. Science doesn't seek to provide comforting truths, only gain objective knowledge, but...
  4. ...due to the way our brains function we can never remove all subjectivity from the method;
  5. No one theory is the last word on a subject;
  6. Prominent scientists easily make mistakes;
  7. And most of all, science is a method for finding out about reality, not a collection of carved-in-stone facts.
So go out there and proselytise. I mean evangelise. Err...spread the word. Pass on the message. You get the picture: good luck!

Saturday 20 March 2010

Come all ye faithful: do faith schools threaten British science education?

With the announcement of a New Life Academy in Hull opening later this year the debate over religious education in Britain has become more intense than ever before. Of course we need to take Richard Dawkins' rhetoric with a pinch of salt, but has the current administration allowed or even provided financial support for fundamentalist organisations to infiltrate the British education system at the expense of science and rational thought?

The Hull Academy will follow the Accelerated Christian Education curriculum that amongst other tenets supports the literal truth of the Bible. So how likely is it that the UK will take on aspects of the American Bible Belt, with critical thinking and enquiry subservient to dogma and absolute belief? One of the main criticisms of the ACE system is its reliance on learning by rote, yet at least in their pre-teens, children are shown to benefit from such a system. It appears to do little to quench their thirst for exploration and discovery, which if anything is largely stamped out by an exam-obsessed education system. If all learning is given via rote there is an obvious problem, but in the vast majority of British faith schools this does not seem to be the case.

Alongside the four Emmanuel Schools Foundation academies, the NLA Academy is an easy target for those fearing religious extremism. But outside of Hollywood, the real world is rarely so easy to divide into good and bad. Not only are the ESF schools open to all faiths but an Ofsted inspection failed to support the allegations of creation science being taught. Even if these faculties were heading towards US-style fundamentalism, linking their techniques to all faith schools would be akin to arguing that the majority of British Jewish children attend the Yiddish-speaking private schools in North London's Stamford Hill orthodox community. Parents who are desperate to indoctrinate their children will take a do-it-yourself approach if they cannot find a school to deliver their requirements.

Many senior religious figures of various faiths, including the Archbishop of Canterbury Dr Rowan Williams, have stated that they do not want creationism taught in schools. If there is any stereotyping in this subject, it is here: most fundamentalists concentrate solely on evolutionary theories, natural selection and its implicit linking of mankind to other animals, rather than any other branch of science. Although the age of the Earth (and therefore the universe in general), as well as the sun-centred solar system, is sometimes denied for its disagreement with the Bible and the Koran, there are few extremists prepared to oppose other cornerstones of modern science. Clearly, would-be chemists should feel safe, potential geo- and astrophysicists less so, and those considering a career in evolutionary biology should not move to the American Midwest (or even Hull!)

More seriously, what of more subtle approaches by the mainstream denominations? A 2004 New Statesman article maligned an Anglican school in Canterbury for its attempts to inculcate infants with religious sensibilities via techniques that sounded more like a New Age cult than the Jesuit approach, but since then there has been little in the way of comparable stories. Whether senior figures in the Church of England see faith schools as a way of replenishing their ever-diminishing flock is unknown, but there is no solid evidence for such a master plan. Britain has a long and let's face it, fairly proud history of ordained ministers who have dabbled in the sciences, although few who could be compared with the Augustinian monk Gregor Mendel, the father of modern genetics. Although T.H.Huxley (A.K.A. Darwin's bulldog) railed against the ordained amateurs, his main bone of contention concerned Anglican privilege: comfortable sinecures allowing vicars to delve in the sciences whilst the lower social orders including Huxley had to fight tooth and claw to establish a paid profession.

There are many examples of religiously devout scientists who can be used to diffuse the caricatured 'us and them' mentality, perhaps the best-known current British example being particle physicist the Reverend John Polkinghorne. Organisations such as the International Society for Science and Religion, and the Society of Ordained Scientists, both of which claim Polkinghorne as a member, are against intelligent design from both a faith and science perspective. Whilst the hardline atheists might deem these groups as intending to both have their wafer and eat it, there are clearly a wide range of attitudes in support of current scientific theories at the expense of a literal belief in religious texts. But then don't most Christians today express a level of belief as varied as the rituals of the numerous denominations themselves, often far short of accepting literal Biblical truth? Believers find their own way, and so it is with scientists who follow conventional belief systems.

However, one potential danger of teaching science in faith schools may be a relic of Darwin's contemporaries (and of course Darwin himself initially aimed for a church career), namely the well-intentioned attempt to imbibe the discipline with a moral structure. Yet as our current level of knowledge clearly shows, bearing in mind everything from natural selection to asteroid impact, we cannot ally ethical principles to scientific methods or knowledge. Scientific theories can be used for good or evil, but it is about as tenable to link science to ethics or moral development as it is to blame a cat for torturing its prey. Of course children require moral guidance, but it must be nurtured via other routes. Einstein wrote in 1930 of a sense of cosmic religious feeling which has no need for the conventional anthropomorphic deity but to my mind seems more akin to Buddhism. As such he believed that a key role of science (along with art) is to awaken and preserve this numinous-like feeling. I for one consider this is as far as science can go along the road to spirituality, but equally agree with Huxley's term agnosticism: to go beyond this in either direction with our current, obviously primitive state of understanding, is sheer arrogance. If we wish to inculcate an open mind in our children, we must first guarantee such a thought system in ourselves. All else is indoctrination, be it religious or secular.

One of the ironies of faith schools in a nation where two thirds of secondary school children do not see themselves as religious practitioners, is that they are generally considered to supply a high standard of education and as such are usually oversubscribed. But all in all, there is little evidence to support this notion, since any oversubscribed institution is presumably able to choose a higher calibre of student whilst claiming to the contrary. Current estimates suggest 15% of British children attend faith schools, with a higher proportion in some regions (such as over 20% of London's secondary school places) but as low as 5% in more rural areas. Clearly, parents who want a good education for their children are not being put off by the worry of potential indoctrination. As has become obvious over the past few years, there are large increases in attendance at school-affiliated churches just prior to the application period: a substantial number of parents are obviously faking faith in return for what they deem to be a superior education.

For the moment it seems science education in Britain has little to worry about from the fundamentalists, at least compared to the divisiveness and homophobia that the National Secular Society deem the most prominent results of increasing faith-based education. We must be careful to ensure that as taxpayers we do not end up funding creationist institutions, but we can do little to prevent private schools following this approach. On a positive note, the closest faith school to me has a higher level of science attainment than its non-religious rivals. I admit that I attended an Anglican school for three years and appear to have emerged with as plural a stance as could be wished for. Indeed, I look back fondly on the days of dangerous chemistry experiments before health and safety-guaranteed virtual demonstrations began to supplant this fun aspect of school science: if you haven't used a burning peanut to blow the lid off a cocoa tin, you haven't lived!

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