"Origins of Religious Disbelief"

This is a few months old, but I just came across it.

"The origins of religious disbelief "
Ara Norenzayan and Will M. Gervais
Trends in Cognitive Sciences January 2013, Vol. 17, No. 1
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2012.11.006

Check out a podcast by Gervais, a University of Kentucky prof, on the origins of religious disbelief here, and read the review paper on the subject here.

Anti-intellectualism and conservatism

Analyzing the fall of the GOP in the past two elections has induced a cottage industry, so I may as well join in. After reading a neat piece on the anti-intellectual base of the GOP, I see dark days ahead for the party, and I'm not alone. David Brooks thinks that the GOP is heading for major reforms:

Moreover, the Reformers say, conservatives need to pay attention to the way the country has changed. Conservatives have to appeal more to Hispanics, independents and younger voters. They cannot continue to insult the sensibilities of the educated class and the entire East and West Coasts.

The WSJ published a really insightful piece along the same lines:

It's a sad tale that began in the '80s, when leading conservatives frustrated with the left-leaning press and university establishment began to speak of an "adversary culture of intellectuals." ... The die was cast. Over the next 25 years there grew up a new generation of conservative writers who cultivated none of their elders' intellectual virtues -- indeed, who saw themselves as counter-intellectuals. Most are well-educated and many have attended Ivy League universities; in fact, one of the masterminds of the Palin nomination was once a Harvard professor. But their function within the conservative movement is no longer to educate and ennoble a populist political tendency, it is to defend that tendency against the supposedly monolithic and uniformly hostile educated classes. They mock the advice of Nobel Prize-winning economists and praise the financial acumen of plumbers and builders. They ridicule ambassadors and diplomats while promoting jingoistic journalists who have never lived abroad and speak no foreign languages. And with the rise of shock radio and television, they have found a large, popular audience that eagerly absorbs their contempt for intellectual elites. They hoped to shape that audience, but the truth is that their audience has now shaped them. [...]

Writing recently in the New York Times, David Brooks noted correctly (if belatedly) that conservatives' "disdain for liberal intellectuals" had slipped into "disdain for the educated class as a whole," and worried that the Republican Party was alienating educated voters. I couldn't care less about the future of the Republican Party, but I do care about the quality of political thinking and judgment in the country as a whole. There was a time when conservative intellectuals raised the level of American public debate and helped to keep it sober. Those days are gone. As for political judgment, the promotion of Sarah Palin as a possible world leader speaks for itself. The Republican Party and the political right will survive, but the conservative intellectual tradition is already dead.

And the WaPo says:

Tuesday's Republican debacle was, as the social scientists say, "over-determined." It had many causes. Was it brought on by congressional corruption, Bush administration incompetence, intellectual exhaustion or John McCain's failings as a candidate? All of the above -- and then some.

They go on to dissect three of those four causes, but not intellectual exhaustion.

I mentioned the other day a study that contradicted one of the favorite myths of the GOP and the Religious Right: that going to college will lead you to either Socialism or hell. My question is -- do you go to college to get told what to think, or shown how to think by asking questions and looking at all the angles? It's church where you're told what you must believe and are started from a very early age with songs and verse-memorization to try to mold you in the direction of religion. The Red Scare converges well with the Religious Right, in my humble opinion, because they are reminded of what the Soviets and Chinese did to churches: they shut them down.

The fact is, conservatives have been dissing intellectuals for decades, and I don't know if it's because academia is thoroughly leftist or because the true power base of conservatism is the Religious Right. I'm convinced that there is a link between religiosity and conservatism that extends beyond the trite, "if you love Jesus, vote Republican." I think it is part of the nature of religiosity to tend towards anti-intellectualism: why study philosophy if the Bible has all the answers?

Religious conservatives are, in my humble opinion, to blame for the death of the conservative intellectual force. These people are devoted to a farcical worldview that does not reconcile easily with assault weapons or laissez-faire capitalism to begin with, so they twist and contort social issues in order to ascend within the GOP and use demagoguery in place of reason. Some people may think that this period will result in a "purging" of these godbots from the Republican Party, but I am willing to put down money that they will only make the GOP even further right, at least in the near term. And then, hopefully, a true multi-party system may emerge in the US, which I think will bring more health to our political system.

It seems that it's an intrinsic part of conservatism (by definition) to preserve the social order and resist progress. It seems that it's an intrinsic part of liberalism (by definition) to question and challenge the status quo and the institutions of power and push for social reforms. If your philosophy is innately resistant to change, then as the world slowly changes around you, your philosophy becomes irrelevant. This is what's happened with religion to a large degree: the thriving churches are thoroughly modern and provide huge social outlets and social supports for members. The danger of liberalism is change for change's sake, if the net result does not better prosper or secure our nation. Liberals can believe too much in government spending to solve all ills and not enough in the power of free markets.

I would love to see a smart, lean and mean progressive coalition that enacted real reforms, cut the budget in all the right places, and increased it where it counts. And I think the only way to get there is to depend upon evidence and study in knowing what to do and how to do it, rather than relying upon party dogma.

Kristof talks about intellectualism in his column Sunday:

An intellectual is a person interested in ideas and comfortable with complexity. Intellectuals read the classics, even when no one is looking, because they appreciate the lessons of Sophocles and Shakespeare that the world abounds in uncertainties and contradictions, and — President Bush, lend me your ears — that leaders self-destruct when they become too rigid and too intoxicated with the fumes of moral clarity.

I really think that Americans were so sick of our Idiot-in-Chief that listening to Barack refuse to oversimplify answers and pontificate was actually refreshing. We understood that it was time for a leader who was goddamned razor-sharp and willing to consider arguments from all perspectives. Republicans had some ideas for this election, but their ideas lacked the force of power that Democrats' did, precisely because Republicans have a sort of dogma that resists challenge.

A myth destroyed

The idea that liberal professors indoctrinate students is a favorite canard of the anti-intellectual right that I've commented on before. It's mainly the fear of the Religious Right that college = atheism, despite contradictory evidence. New research pulls the rug out from under this claim.

Genius and depression

I've been fascinated with prodigies since I was young. Perhaps it was watching Doogie Howser, Searching for Bobby Fischer and Little Man Tate growing up. Once in high school, after reading Asimov's On Numbers, I remember being frustrated that some of the things I felt (intuited) about mathematics had already been articulated by others, rendering my sense of genius and creativity null and void. In geometry class, I impressed my teacher (James DeBord) by multiplying 500 times any 2-4 digit number faster than he could punch it in on the calculator. Of course, cutting things in half is fairly easy by mental calculation standards. Later, I borrowed a book called, "The Great Mental Calculators" and it set me to rights on how un-prodigious I was with numbers.

Brooks on "Neural Buddhism"

Interesting editorial by David Brooks about how science will be forcing a cultural revolution when it comes to religion. In his view, traditional belief in the Bible will continue to erode (as it has been) in the newer generations, while he thinks a sort of Buddhist approach to God will be embraced. Unfortunately, as with so many opinion pieces, his lacks any attempt whatsoever to provide evidence that this is occurring. I present mine in the form of statistics and trends.

Perhaps David thinks it's a framing issue? He never bothers to substantiate claims like:

Lo and behold, over the past decade, a new group of assertive atheists has done battle with defenders of faith. The two sides have argued about whether it is reasonable to conceive of a soul that survives the death of the body and about whether understanding the brain explains away or merely adds to our appreciation of the entity that created it.

The atheism debate is a textbook example of how a scientific revolution can change public culture. Just as “The Origin of Species reshaped social thinking, just as Einstein’s theory of relativity affected art, so the revolution in neuroscience is having an effect on how people see the world.

And yet my guess is that the atheism debate is going to be a sideshow. The cognitive revolution is not going to end up undermining faith in God, it’s going to end up challenging faith in the Bible.

Science has been doing that for decades and decades now. And I think, in large part, it's simply due to the way that science causes you to think and ask for evidence for claims and try to develop logical connections. Research has also pointed to psychological factors involved in the rejection of science in favor of creationism. I don't think it's simply a "liberal education = anti-religion" thing, although there are things to think through there. However, I've warned before against making another "failed prophecy" that science will wipe out religion, while at the same time recognizing:

f people agree that the scientific method establishes knowledge, and that faith is not knowledge, then the bifurcation of science and religion is a deep and meaningful issue. If faith has not suffered, it has certainly adapted as knowledge has been established to contradict the teachings and interpretations of the Bible. Admittedly, theists may always claim that the contradiction lies in the interpretation of their Scriptures, and not in the Scriptures themselves, but the effect of marginalization of faith via scientific progress is a real phenomenon that I think modern theists are quite well-aware of.

Next, David tip-toes up to the line of BS:

Over the past several years, the momentum has shifted away from hard-core materialism. The brain seems less like a cold machine. It does not operate like a computer. Instead, meaning, belief and consciousness seem to emerge mysteriously from idiosyncratic networks of neural firings. Those squishy things called emotions play a gigantic role in all forms of thinking. Love is vital to brain development.

Researchers now spend a lot of time trying to understand universal moral intuitions. Genes are not merely selfish, it appears. Instead, people seem to have deep instincts for fairness, empathy and attachment.

Scientists have more respect for elevated spiritual states. Andrew Newberg of the University of Pennsylvania has shown that transcendent experiences can actually be identified and measured in the brain (people experience a decrease in activity in the parietal lobe, which orients us in space). The mind seems to have the ability to transcend itself and merge with a larger presence that feels more real.

Not once does he bother explaining what, if anything, resembles supernaturalism in scientific research. Not once does he bother substantiating the idea that brain researchers are moving away from reductionist explanations, towards any form of spirituality whatsoever. Instead, he seems to make the same non sequiturs we've seen before from scientific findings claiming support for religious ideas. But there's biology, then there's bullshit. In fact, the more we look at morality and other previously-philosophy-only topics, the more simplified science makes them. Now, am I claiming here that some scientists and atheists don't admit that science does not yet (and maybe never will) have tools to "establish" things like qualia and morality as scientific theories? No. I've said so myself. But Brooks doesn't show us anything, anywhere, that resembles a "science is leading us away from naturalism and towards Buddhism" shred of evidence.

Academic freedom is for schmucks

Remember Cedarville U.? (Can't bear to call it a genuine "university")

It's in the news again.

On the other side of the irrational-rational divide, a particle physicist just got elected! I happen to think that if we stack Congress with enough Ph.D. scientists, our policies will finally be evidence-based...call me a dreamer!

So does college education correlate to loss of religion, or not?

No, according to a new study.

Percent of Young Adults Reporting Religious Declines, by Level of Education

Educational Attainment	Decline in Attending Services	Decline in Importance of Religion	Disaffiliation From Religion
Didn’t attend college	76.2%	23.7%	20.3%
Attended, but earned no degree	71.5%	16.3%	14.6%
Earned associate degree	60.3%	15.1%	14.4%
Earned at least a bachelor’s degree	59.2%	15.0%	15.0%

So with all the talk about supposedly liberal, anti-religious professors, why do the young adults who don’t go to college suffer more of a religious loss?

Regnerus said that what the study suggests — and his personal experience confirms — is that while there are plenty of non-religious professors around, they aren’t trying to discourage any students from practicing their faith. “Of course there are some who are hostile to religion. But they don’t teach that. They teach their discipline,” Regnerus said. The attitude, he added, is: “Whatever I think about evangelicals, when I go to teach quantum physics, I teach quantum physics.”

I guess PHC won't have as much business if parents aren't driven by fear that little Johnny and Susie will quite possibly burn in hell if they attend a godless secular university. They should get to work spinning this, somehow.

Well, at least liberalism is still alive and well at college, and that's enough, [they hope] right?
________________
Technorati tags: God, Religion, Atheism

Mike Adams Sues UNCW: Cites Denial of Tenure as Unfair

Adams thinks he's being denied tenure on solely ideological grounds, which I vehemently oppose the idea of. I'm not sure how to take this story, as I simply don't know enough about it. I do know that Adams has been shredded before by Jon Rowe, Ed, and PZ for general stupidity, so I am just not sure how worthy this particular fellow is for tenure on intellectual merits. If it's anything like Francis Beckwith's situation, though, I sympathize.
________________
Technorati tags: Politics, Academia