(I don’t own the image.)

The incident attracted the attention of NUS Office of Student Affairs (OSA) and the Provost, who advised the student group to remove the poster. The Singapore Police Force (SPF) was contacted and the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) is currently investigating the matter. Even Facebook was involved in removing photos of the poster that was circulating.

NUS CCC did as told and released an apology as follows:

“We humbly apologize for the distress we have caused you through the poster of ours that has gone viral online. We recognize that our choice of words used should have been more sensitive and tactful. We acknowledge that everyone is entitled to their own beliefs and it is definitely not our intention to force anyone to believe in what we do. We have since removed our posters and websites, and will be watchful of future actions. Thank you for your understanding and our deepest apologies again for the distress that this incident has caused you.”

Some has defended NUS CCC by stating that the poster is meant for internal circulation, but this only add to the incredulity for it suggests that it is okay to make such remarks privately and not publicly. Indeed, a careful reading of the apology statement by NUS CCC shows that they have yet to apologize for their remarks – only for not being subtle enough and for being politically incorrect.

This is not the first time that Evangelicals launched unjust attacks against Buddhists in Singapore. Exactly one year ago, Pastor Rony Tan of Lighthouse Evangelism was called up by Internal Security Department (ISD) for “unacceptable and inappropriate” remarks on the Buddhist/Taoist communities – a matter in which he later apologized for publicly. An article was published in The Online Citizen (TOC) with a cryptic subtitle, “it has only just begun”. Indeed, it had only just begun.

Continuing reading the apology, the students from NUS CCC “acknowledge that everyone is entitled to their own beliefs and it is definitely not our intention to force anyone to believe in what we do”. It looks to me that NUS CCC is asserting their freedom of speech or freedom of religion (to blaspheme other religions). The difference between free speech and hate speech can often blur but in this one occasion, are they right to claim their right? I have no lost love for entities such as evangelism, but it seems that they are correct.

Just a few months back, there was an attempt at invoking the Sedition Act against Mr Donaldson Tan for a repost of “an extremely offensive picture to Muslims”. Disgusted, I commented that using political power to crush people who disagree would never win anyone any respect; respect must be earned when both parties are on equal grounds.

Likewise now, when so many authorities that were or are involved (OSA, Provost, SPF, MHA), I really have to ask this: Exactly what kind of society are we moving towards? Instead of intelligent civic engagement, the temptation to have an authority to settle disputes seems quite high (of which I am guilty of sometimes too). And we know how authorities would settle disagreements: Censorship. Suppressing autonomy, censorship of this manner would only build up undercurrents and both parties on either side would only go on believing in whatever they had already believed in, leading to even deeper and wider gulfs that would eventually become unbridgeable. Racial and religious tolerances of these kinds are superficial and can scarcely be called true harmony/tolerance. We won the battle and lost the war.

Many have disagreed, stating that conversations with the religious often end up as a waste of time. I share the same sentiments. From my experience over the years, no evangelicals speak with an open mind and I am the only one who is allowing my views to be changed. Such people reinforce the idea that it is impossible to form a proper society with them, since many issues must be dialogical and reflective in nature. These people dress up their words in honey-sweeten rhetoric and refuse to seek compromises, and indeed, why should they if their deity is the one true one?

Nonetheless, I hope I am correct to say that not all Christians in Singapore have evangelical leanings. On the one end, the existence of “de-converts” should signal some hope, and somewhere in between, I believe there are some who are reasonable and capable of engaging in fruitful conversations. Further, as members of a shared society, such dialogues are probably not consensual, but obligatory. And I contend that one of such obligation is, as the late Christopher Hitchens puts it, “the taming and domestication of religious faith (as) one of the unceasing chores of civilization”. But to do so, there must be contact and active engagement. I am not a pacifist; I am just being pragmatic. We cannot ignore them and we cannot bank on the government to always “do the right thing”; they are part of society and it is dangerous for all of us if we abandon them to believe in whatever they wish to. We can’t control what others believe, but we can moderate them. And we pay a heavy price if we choose not to. We can call it the failure of human psyche: Without alternative views, people have the tendency to fall for everything that one side have to say, often being overconfident in their abilities to objectively access the situation, thus resulting in an illusion that they have impartially arrived at their conclusions.

Also, specific to the incident, beyond the discussions about free/hate speech and importance of pluralism, there should also be another discussion which has been noticeably missing in both the mainstream and alternative media. And the discussion is about the meaning of “true joy”. Some Christians seem to think that there is really no “true joy” outside their religion. This is demonstrably false. Just climb out of the well and ask individuals from other religions. Reinterpretation of the phrase may be done, as is often done with the holy books, but this does not whitewash the fact that these people still regard others as somehow deficient.

Lastly, I am excited to say that upon CCC’s attacks on the Thai/Buddhist community, disparate freethinkers have gathered to stand in solidarity against unjust remarks and for pluralism that is our treasured society. I am not certain what will become of it, but we shall see.

“Jesus” is more than a man and more than a “god” (however vaguely defined). “Jesus” is a symbol – a symbol of power. “Jesus” is the moral licence that sanctions terrible religious behaviours. No doubt religions can be a force for good, but the moment you subscribe to this moral absolutism called “Jesus” and have somebody who claims to know for certainty the mind of this being or thing, any behaviour is permitted and can be justified as “the ultimate good” easily through the structures of religion. Religion is only a bureacracy, a means of organizing people. It does not kill. What kills? Ideas. Ideas can kill. And if an idea is coupled with moral absolutism, we have a very big problem. Come on, it is no coincidence that religions without god(s) tend to be more peaceful. So be careful with the idea of “Jesus” and what the word represents.

Read more.

A christian replies too:

Or so I heard, of conscious, free, will, you created a forbidden tree of good and evil in the middle of where Adam and Eve resided and warned that the consumption of its fruits would cause death. To say nothing of who or what the “first cause” of the serpent in the garden is, you poured the blame onto Eve, who was as gullible as she was created, when she consumed from the forbidden tree. Who would have expected that you, the all-benevolent god, would create and allow deceit in paradise? And who would have expected Eve to understand the concept of “deceit” or “obedience” without the knowledge of morality, precisely because she was disallowed to consume from the tree of good and evil?

This absurd scenario is like what Christopher Hitchens described: A father putting cigarettes in his children’s hands and then telling them not to smoke. I would add on. This father had actually previously prohibited his children from learning about morality, repudiated his parenting responsibilities when his children were deceived by another by blaming his children – the victims! – for not understanding right and wrong, then finally cursing and casting them out of home but was kind enough to clothe them before their final departure.

This must be black comedy! Tell me it is untrue.

I will skip the mass genocides, massacres, rapes, slavery etc. that has been said that you had masterminded and which your believers touted as morals befitting of the times, and wonder about your appearance during Bronze Age before semi-literate people, who spoke ancient languages most people do not understand today and who did not have proper documenting technology, under the cover name “Jesus” and as a Jew. Given such circumstances, I can’t say if you had expected to convince a lot of people about what you had to say.

I also can’t say that I understand the need for you to rile up the Roman (and Jewish too?) authorities, especially when Roman-Jewish relations were pretty volatile and tense during that period, through teachings that were suspiciously similar to a particular militant Jewish sect then, of which the Romans eventually destroyed. I trust that it was according to your divine plan that you allowed yourself to be betrayed, captured, tortured, and subjected to the horrible sentence of cruxification? One might almost entertain the possibility that you were repenting for your sins of unjustly throwing our first ancestors out of your home, until we realize you were just here to sign a new lopsided contract with us: we are guaranteed eternal hell unless we blindly follow your orders and commands with the warranty ending during the Second Coming, which you had promised to be, according to some ancient texts, during the lifetime of your or your apostles’.

Today, your followers preach that we are supposed to feel guilty, as well as your unending love for us simultaneously, about your dramatic display of being the ultimate bloody human sacrifice on a cross despite it being part of your plan all along. Your followers preach that every baby is born worthless and corrupt, and the only way to save ourselves is to throw our sins, or wrongdoings, onto you, thereby dissolving ourselves of them. I had thought that every moral choice or ethical deliberation is based on the concept of personal responsibility! Perhaps it is time to stop devising creative ways of punishing your creation – the world you created clearly has quite a number of needless suffering – and start learning at least a thing or two from us, particularly, in this case, from the parents who teach their children about responsibility, about readily and courageously admitting to and correcting wrongs, and not playing the finger-pointing game and pushing blame on others.

By the way, I thought that your promotion of human/god cannibalism is uncanny.

I also can’t say I know why you considered humans to be your better creations since we have vestiges like the appendix and wisdom teeth, both of which can cause infections and diseases, and possibly death, if not taken care of properly. I sometimes wonder if the brain is a vestige as well, because if what your followers say are true about you wanting us to believe you on faith, then the brain is not only useless, but an obstacle too because of its powers of reasoning. The brain is a wonderful organ, so I trust that you wanted us to use ours, to be free to inquire and to be free to think critically, regardless of the outcome. Thomas Jefferson famously said, “Question with boldness even the existence of a god; because if there be one he must approve of the homage of reason more than that of blindfolded fear”. Oh, but the fear-mongering and intimidation your followers are waging on non-believers today! You can see it for yourself so I do not need to gossip to you about them.

There is a curious thing about your followers which I fail to understand. Being followers of a great being such as you, I would expect them to be the best humans around. Yet, strangely, it is not the case.

(The following are based on studies, a few can be found on this blog, others in the video link later; I am not just shooting my mouth off.)

Why do the non-religious tend to be more intelligent on average? Why are most of the Nobel Prize winners atheists? Why are most university professors atheists? Why are most scientists atheists?

Why do the non-religious know more about religions in general?

Why do the non-religious tend to be less violent and commit fewer crimes? Why, in the United States for example, proportion of atheists in prison is inexplicably much less than the proportion of atheists in the general population?

Why are poverty rates and illiteracy rates less among atheistic societies?

Why do atheistic societies have higher average income?

Why are divorce rates, abortion rates, teen pregnancy rates and STD infection rates lower among atheistic societies?

Why is religiosity linked to racial prejudice?

While we are at it, you might also want to check out what this other person has to say to you. I couldn’t match the eloquence in what has been said.

Might I arrive at the conclusion that you are an atheist (you must be actually), judging on how you seem to favour atheists and atheistic societies? Whatever the case, your followers are so confident and so convinced that you want us to be christians, or more precisely, be part of their own brand of Christianity. I must admit, it is difficult to choose from the 30,000-40,000 distinct christian denominations. I find it amusing that each profess to have a direct line of communication to you, and some, the only true line of communication.

I don’t know. Sometimes I think that Christianity does not need you. You know, people are happy going to church; they are not happy because of the belief in you. Almost paradoxical, isn’t it? The reason people go to church is because of you and they are happy not because of you, but because of the sense of community, which can be replicated anywhere else. Sometimes I also think that Christianity would be better off without you. You have become a moral license for some of the most abhorent behaviours. In such cases, I wished you had at least spoken up against them. But, you didn’t do anything at all.

I think I am getting long-winded. You are a psychic and can read my mind after all so I don’t need to say much. I shall end off with a question.

Did I mention “psychic” just now? (I don’t own the image.)

Do you seriously want these stated persons to suffer eternally?

If so, then you are not worthy of being called god, much less deserving of the eternal praise you reward yourself with when the world ends. To think that one – anyone – deserves punishment forever is unjust. Some of the listed persons didn’t do anything wrong in the first place. Some don’t even exist!

I am going to share this letter to all those who care to read it. If you think that this letter is blasphemous, then you will find some way to stop me. I will give you one night to do it. But, if you think that this letter will brighten people and their minds up, I will go ahead and share it.

Yours truly

P.S. I will write to you again if I have time, no doubt with more complains about your followers. Here is an update about your followers:

The story:

The Ministry of Education (MOE) has drafted a revised Sexuality Education Programme (SEP) to boost emphasis on abstinence over contraception, reported The New Paper (TNP).

The new programme, Breaking Down Bridges (BDB), will be taught to Secondary 3, first-year junior college and centralised institute students, said the paper.

TNP also reported that the old programme faced some criticism from some Catholics due to the emphasis on using contraception, and the lack of awareness given to abstaining from sex. While it understands from MOE that the new programme will be ready in 2012, no details have yet been confirmed.

An MOE spokesperson told TNP that the revamp is part of its “periodic review” of the SEP curriculum to “ensure that it is updated and relevant” to students.

Parents of students in Catholic schools in Singapore welcomed the change to the programme.

Yahoo! Singapore spoke to Marilyn Koh, 47, a Catholic whose son attends a Catholic school, “I’m really looking forward to MOE changing their focus on the SEP. I was not very comfortable with the previous curriculum as it was not catered to Catholic teachings.”

Francis Chan, who also has a son in a Catholic school, agreed with the change, “It’s a lot more appropriate for Catholic schools to be teaching the children to abstain from sex, instead of promoting contraception. I’m perfectly fine with the current programme running in a secular school, but Catholic schools should be imparting Catholic values, right?”

If removing Penal Code Section 377A* is the encouragement of homosexuality, then censoring out information about contraceptives as the better alternative in combating STDs must be the encouragement of the spread of STDs. This logic, of course, is plain ridiculous, but I accept no double standards from these self-appointed religious experts of human sexuality.

*It criminalizes male (if female, it’s okay?) homosexual acts. It has since become a non-enforceable “signpost” to indicate Singapore society’s rejection of homosexuality – but I have not seen any survey done to support this claim.

Because of the way Singapore politics are, I make no apologies in saying that the ruling party has yet again shown itself to be out of touch of reality because I do not see how emphasizing abstinence instead is being “updated and relevant”. It must be one of those template statements yet again. Interestingly, more than a year ago, the state-run newspapers managed to publish the article “Abstinence-only program do not work” and I have commented on it before. I summarize the main points:

1. Teaching abstinence has no effect on the frequency of having sex.

2. Teaching abstinence increases the likelihood of having unprotected sex.

3. As a result, there are higher rates of teenage pregnancies and STDs.

The author notes that Singapore functions like the “Christian strong states in the United States” and it is precisely there we find the higher rates. Christians make up only 18.3% of Singapore’s population so why are we functioning like them? I know they are loud, hence they may be a perceived majority, but even a majority does not grant a free-pass for intrusion into public policies. Whatever happened to secularism? Perhaps, the ruling party is banking on some fictitious “Asian values” upheld by the conservative (or apathetic?) Singapore society in order to justify its denial and retreat from effective STD prevention methods. In MOE’s website, it almost seems as if it just stopped short of blaming “liberal values” for STDs (last paragraph).

Continuing the main points from the article:

4. While US have the highest teenage pregnancies in the developed world, Netherlands have the lowest.

5. Sexuality education in the Netherlands is non-judgmental and there is space for open discussion – such an environment actually delayed intercourse instead.

6. Knowledge of contraceptives did not encourage its use, but it does allow for a safe option.

7. Evangelical Protestants teenagers are more likely to believe in abstinence, but more sexually active than other religious groups. (Anyway, I think most Christians in Singapore are evangelicals.)

8. The president of Planned Parenthood Federation of America said the study shows “the national policy of promoting abstinence-only programs is a $1.5 billion failure”.

Last I heard, it was the “conservative values” that were so quick to hide behind sexual morality in order to impose their misguided sense of what’s virtuous, creating an air of apprehension and deterrence against earnest questions and quest for knowledge.

Particularly, the Vatican has decreed that that the use of contraception is not only wrong, but “intrinsically evil”. This is despite a clear and unambiguous statement from the UN stating the effectiveness of the condom in the global effort. Stephen Fry gave a passionate defence against Catholic dogma (starts at 4:15):

So, really, is MOE’s SEP striving to be “updated and relevant” or to be outdated and irrelevant? In the October 2007 debate on Section 377A, the Prime Minister suggested that we continue to observe how the Western countries are coping with the gradual acceptance of homosexuality (sorry, no citations – I think the parliamentary records are being re-archived currently). So, if our sovereign state is to also take cues from foreigners with regards to sexuality education, then I think the verdict is already out. Abstinence is not superior to contraceptives in the prevention of the STDs.

I am not familiar with how Catholics in Singapore operate but if other fundamentalist political Christian denominations provide any clues, emphasizing abstinence is only a springboard to the ultimate goal of pushing for abstinence-only programmes.

When Catholic opposition against state sexuality education first came out earlier this year in the news, I wrote in to the state newspapers to voice my concerns but it was not published.

I do not deny the right of parents – Catholic or otherwise – to decide what is best for their children. I have no doubt that most parents have the best of intentions. But, do parents know what is best for their children? If we are to admit the imperfections of the human being, then we must necessarily admit that sometimes parents do not know what the best is.

The evil that is in the world almost always comes of ignorance, and good intentions may do as much harm as malevolence if they lack understanding. (Albert Camus)

And prejudice can often prevent people from dealing with reality, causing them to deem incompatible views as unquestionably wrong.

Furthermore, what about the rights of children/youths – the right to a proper education? If we are to deny children’s rights and bow down to the unsubstantiated belief that abstinence is the best, which is demonstrably false as shown by numerous studies, how then are the state and we, as a society, supposed to answer should any misfortune befall on our younger generations?

As far as the current relationship between state and religion is, religions have the green light to continue teaching and spreading whatever its beliefs are – for the most part. But, imposing a particular religion’s brand of morality in state education and in the public sphere is something that we should not tolerate. This is no place for public morality; only public reason. Why should we, the responsible citizens of society, be fooled into buying and accepting second-rate STD prevention programmes? To downplay the importance of contraceptives is to disarm ourselves in the battle against STD and to losing half the battle even before it begun! And it is preposterous if this is because we have to pay false respect to religious dogma.

The way to do it is not to pressure the government into censorship. The way to do it, if one is truly upright, is allow for a comprehensive state sexuality education, but also to educate about Catholic teachings if the parents so wish. I take the fear that Catholic sexual morality may be eroded as a lack of faith in the foundations of its doctrines.

I take what little comfort is left in that MOE has not confirmed any details. Maybe the new programme will apply only to Catholic schools (even though there may be non-Catholics in these schools who would thus be shortchanged) and the rest of us can have the more comprehensive one. This position, however, would also be unsatisfying because I imagine higher teenage pregnancies and higher STD rates among the communities that favored abstinence as a primary guide. If so, then society as a whole has to bear the burden of the erroneous actions of the unlistening few who had been advised otherwise. However, I hope my imagination has run wild. After all, above the issue of contraceptives-or-abstinence, what I believe to be the most important is still the quality of interpersonal relationships in a positive, supportive social environment that encourages openness and honesty.

However, what sustains a religion? The continuation of a religion depends not so much on how good its teachings are, but on the prevalence of existential vulnerabilities. In the 2011 study “A cross-national test of the uncertainty hypothesis of religious belief”, the author found that religion declines where there is greater economic equality, income distribution and health security. To put it bluntly, religion is the bacteria which strive in the rot that is the failure of society and governance, catalyzed by factors such as human cognitive and emotional biases. It is the vulture that circles above, waiting for that one chance when human minds are weak and unguarded to swoop down and feast on our fears and anxieties. Of course, not all religions are like that, but Abrahamic religions tend to be so. Religion succeeds only where others have failed. It cannot stand on its own.

The author summed up as follows:

Why is religion in decline in fast-paced countries where ordinary people enjoy a good standard of living? It seems that with better science, with government safety nets, better health, and longer life expectancy, there is less fear and uncertainty in people’s daily lives. As a result there is less of a need for religion to help people cope with the feeling that they have little control over their lives.

In the past, when natural disasters hit and upheaved people’s lives, when people died of viral infections whose cause they did not know etc., science did not exist yet and so there was a failure to acquire the necessary knowledge on how they happened. Religion comes in and offers non-answers to enable the people to deal with them. Now, with science, we have a much better understanding of how natural processes works and through knowledge, we gained the strength past generations never had and empowered ourselves. As we battle ignorance to the edges, religion finds itself with less of it to exploit. It cannot survive without ignorance.

In the past, when wars were more common and injustices more likely etc, there was a failure to maintain stability and peace. Religion soothes people and tells them that it is okay if life is harsh or if you die, because there is another better life waiting for you after that. Now, consider that with the spread of democracy, for a long time, no democratic country has gone to war with another democratic country. And the rule of law is better upheld in today’s world and practical solutions such as the social security system actually tries to deal with the problem, not just comfort people that life’s like that. With these progresses, religion finds itself with less authority than before in claims of offering a better way out.

As life becomes “less painful”, religion is no longer needed as an aspirin (or rather, a placebo). I believe it was Karl Marx who suggested that religion is the expression of the inequalities in society. Data appears to support him. If so, the prevalence of religion should be used as a litmus test of how equal and how just a society is. It can be a measure of how successful a government has done its job.

Our country, Singapore, is one of the more economically developed countries and yet maintained a high percentage of people who proclaim to belong to a religion. This would not be surprising if we realize that our country is one of the most, if not the most, economically unequal societies among comparable democracies. Richard Wikinson talked about the social effects of income inequality. Relationship has been found with children’s well-being, trust in society, mental illness, homicide rates, proportion of population in prison, children dropping out of high school and social mobility. In short, income inequality is positively correlated with health and social problems.

TED: Correlations of Inequality

Of course, I am not claiming that religion leads to these problems, though it can contribute to it, but I am saying that there is correlation among inequality, health and societal problems, and religiosity. As a cluster, they must be brought down in order to promote well-being and progress.

Opium makes you feel good, but it is cheap pleasure. Choose a healthier diet.

Schemas and Models

This philosophical approach is compatible with what we know from the field of cognitive science on how humans form expectations about the world. It is from these expectations humans navigate around the world. The keyword to look out for is schema. Schemas are the result of how we categorize and organize stored information in our brain. An example of a schema is script, which refers to expectations about socially approved behaviours in particular circumstances (e.g. be respectful at funeral processions) and socially approved behavioral procedures (e.g. how to use a fork and a knife to cut a steak while dining).

Schemas are essentially models. We construct these models so we can predict what to expect and how to behave. Following up an example listed above, every funeral is different but there are basic elements in each one that does not deviate from the others. As such, without knowing anything about the next one, we already can expect certain things because we have these schemas. If something happened unexpectedly but was actually part of the social norm, we modify our schemas accordingly.

The point I am driving through here is that the way in which humans deal with information is naturally schema-dependent, or model-dependent. I have tried to articulate this previously but I used the word “constructs” instead. So, while the term “model-dependent realism” is new, it is not strange.

What is Model-Dependent Realism

Let’s be more explicit about what model-dependent realism is and I quote directly from The Grand Design:

(Model-dependent realism) is based on the idea that our brains interpret the input from our sensory organs by making a model of the world. When such a model is successful at explaining events, we tend to attribute to it, and to the elements and concepts that constitute it, the quality of reality or absolute truth.

Information flows into our brain through our five senses and our brain interprets this incoming information by forming a model. For example, when holding up a ball, we feel its curved surface, see its round shape and then we model an image of a ball in our heads. This is a simple case. Models can also refer to, say, physical equations, theories etc. For example, given Force=MassxAcceleration, we can measure the mass of our ball and multiply it by the known acceleration of gravity to find the force exerted on the ball. If the force is tested to be correct, we credit it to the accuracy of the equation and take the equation to be true.

Note that in the last statement I put “we” in italics. This is because it is humans who think that the model is true, but it does not say anything about whether the model is really true or not. This is because the objective reality – if there is one – exist independently of humans (i.e. realism) and I have argued elsewhere that reality cannot be known by us due to the way we receive information from the external world (disclaimer: in the link, only the first half is applicable because I have since evolved my views in epistemology). Hence, it would be more accurate to say that the model is assumed to be true (unless shown otherwise).

The question now becomes: given that we cannot know objective reality, how then can we ensure that our assumptions/models of reality are the best approximates of reality? And this is where the rigor of the scientific methodology is so important because it is the answer.

I have covered this here.

Implications of Model-Dependent Realism

From The Grand Design:

According to model-dependent realism, it is pointless to ask whether a model is real, only whether it agrees with observation.

I have nothing much to say about this.

If there are two models that both agree with observation … then one cannot say that one is more real than another. One can use whichever model is more convenient in the situation under consideration.

I will elaborate on what I think the authors are saying here using Venn diagrams.

Given a universal set “The Unexplained” which represents the reality that we do not know, we have two models, A and B, which attempt to explain it. The area of the blue disc represents the amount that is explained by Model A; the area of the red disc represents the amount that is explained by Model B. Both models must agree with observations and predictions if they are to be legitimate models at all. The overlap as shown above is where both models explain and predict the same phenomenon. Both models should agree with each other. If they do not, it might be the case that one of them is wrong and probably has to be discarded. If they do, we can just use whichever model which is more convenient. For example, engineers use Newton’s laws, even though Relativity has shown to be a superior model. This is because in the everyday speeds that we encounter, Newton’s laws agree with Relativity and are good enough for their work. But, the Venn diagram probably looks more like this (note that all Venn diagrams are only for illustrative purposes; they do not represent actual proportions):

Where both models are equal in explanatory power (two fully overlapping circles), the model that makes less assumptions is used (Refer: Occam’s Razor). A model with too many assumptions won’t become a “model” (i.e. theory) at all – it remains as a hypothesis.

We should always aim to achieve models that have “bigger areas of disc” – models that can not only explain what old models can, but also what old models could not. Old models need not necessary become obsolete because if they function well enough in their specified limited areas, they continue to serve.

So in science, when a new theory is said to replace an old one, it could sound as if there is a big overhaul in thinking, implying great instability and uncertainty within the scientific community. This is not true. What it means is that there is a new model that can explain even more than the old one, and the old model is not necessarily incorrect – it is still correct in what it does explains. But generally, I would think that it is better to switch to the new paradigm because old models have less explantory power and usually have more assumptions which we will prefer to make do without.

It might be that to describe the universe, we have to employ different theories in different situations. Each theory may have its own version of reality, but according to model-dependent realism, that is acceptable so long as the theories agree in their predictions whenever they overlap, that is, whenever they can both be applied.

I find this a little controversial. I imagine the following Venn diagram:

Each disc represents a model. What the authors seem to be suggesting is that it is acceptable that multiple models exist, even though they may be different, as long as they agree with one another in the overlaps. I am not sure what to think of this yet. The history of physics suggests that it moving towards achieving bigger and bigger discs (e.g. electricity and magnetism into electromagnetism, electromagnetism and weak force into electroweak force), rather than adopting multiple discs.

I will be writing on the basic processes in social sciences as opposed to natural sciences though there should not be great differences in the basic concepts.

The general processes can be summarized in the acronyms HOMER (got this from a professor).

Hypothesize
Operationalize
Methodology
Evaluate
Revise/Replicate 

Hypothesize

To hypothesize means to make a guess about something you are interested in. Or even better, make an educated guess based on past research. This will increase the probability that whatever you hypothesize may turn out to be right. For example, you may hypothesize that watching violent TV programs makes a child more aggressive. Then, from here you may carry out your study for evidences.

Note that you are not looking for evidences that support your hypothesis. If you do so, you are doing things backwards. Evidences lead to conclusions; not conclusions biasing evidences. It is no different from cherry-picking in that you are only searching for evidences that support your claim, conveniently discarding those that don’t. You should be just looking for evidences and they might or might not lend support to your hypothesis.

Hypothesizing is different from theorizing. Theorizing comes only when there are evidences to base the construed model on and since this is just the beginning, there are no evidences to speak of.

Operationalize

To operationalize means to define any concepts that does not have an objective criterion. I expect that this is seldom seen in natural sciences because inanimate objects usually have defined precise instruments to measure them. For example, the speed of free-fall of a ball can be measured using instruments such as a ruler (distance) and a stopwatch (time), then speed is found by distance divided by time.

Unfortunately in social sciences, concepts such as aggression do not have a precise measuring instrument. One way to go about the problem is to ask raters to decide how much aggression is shown and then we take the average rating scores as our results. Sadly, if we understood anything about human biases, we do well learn not rely too much on our senses and perceptions. To illustrate this, we refer to a 1985 paper by Condry and Ross “Sex and aggression: The influence of gender label on the perception of aggression in children”. It was found that when watching a video of play behaviour of two children (their sexes were disguised by their clothing), participants rated them as significantly less aggressive when told that they were both boys than when participants were told otherwise (girl-boy, boy-girl, girl-girl). Obviously, since it was the same video, the level of aggression did not differ. The ratings were colored by cultural biases.

Another way to operationalize aggression is to use an objective behavioral checklist can be utilized with possible items such as “number of hits on another person” and “number of shoves”. Such things can be counted, thus more detached from human biases. But, this is easier said than done. Such checklists do not appear out of the thin air. Any checklist created must be tested and retested before use for validity (i.e. accuracy) and reliability (i.e. precision), both concepts of which I will not go through here. Suffice to say that after much work is done, we now have established aggression behavioral checklists that are both valid and reliable to a large extent.

The take-home point about operationlization is really only this: human senses and perceptions cannot be trusted; an objective criterion must be used instead.

Methodology

There are different methodologies in which a study may be carried out such as naturalistic observations, correlational studies and experimental studies. I will just be focusing on experimental studies since it is the only one that can establish causality. (But this is not to say that other forms of studies are not important.) It is, in my view, the most difficult to conduct and it represents the heights of human inquiry.

To establish causality, three preconditions must be fulfilled without exceptions.

1. Cause and effect must be associated. In other words, there must be a correlation.

2. Cause must precede effect.

3. Cause must be the only cause of effect. In other words, there are no alternative explanations on how the effect came about.

It is really too much of a cliché to say that correlation is not causation, yet this point is still often missed by some groups of people. I have heard a person say that he was emotionally devastated when his close friends passed on and he saw the sky raining even though the sun is still shining, hence presumably “proves” that there is someone or something up there concerned about him. Granted that both Point 1 and Point 2 are fulfilled, Point 3 is still unaccounted for. Is it possible for rain to occur when it is shiny? Of course it is possible. Furthermore, I was giving too much credit when I said that Point 1 was fulfilled. Does it always rain when it is shiny after someone passed on? Is your close friend the only one who passed on during that time period? The correlation is weak, to say the least. The lesson to learn here is really what I had pointed out earlier: due to human biases, emotional biases in this case, we cannot trust our perceptions.

Correlation is a necessary but not a sufficient condition in establishing causality (Point 1). Why? Because when there is correlation between two events, A and B, other than “A cause B”, it could well be the case that “B cause A” (that’s why Point 2 is needed) or “Event C cause A and B to correlate” (that’s why Point 3 is needed).

Experimental studies and only experimental studies rise up to the challenge of all three preconditions. If Point 1 is not fulfilled, null results are observed and limited conclusions can follow it. (Strictly speaking, null results do not imply that there is no correlation but the lack of correlation definitely leads to null results.) Point 2 is usually fulfilled by the nature of experimental conduct: the experimenter manipulates something and then observes the effect, so this temporal criterion is satisfied. Generous efforts are devoted to Point 3 because if there is even one confound (alternative explanation), the entire study loses its credibility. Such is the level of scrupulosity. From first-hand experience, I can say that it is not easy and it requires experienced hands.

I will illustrate a possible research question and the possible pitfalls in experimental designs. It is by no means exhaustive though.

Take the research question of whether drinking coffee (i.e. consumption of caffeine) increases the ability to focus (i.e. attention). I hypothesize that caffeine intake increases attention. Measuring attention can be done though, say, cognitive tasks, but I won’t elaborate them here.

Possible Experimental Design 1

One way I can conduct this study is to pour coffee (with fixed amount of caffeine) in a cup, ask a person to drink it and measure his/her attention-level. Sounds reasonable? Yes, of course. But, as I often note: what is reasonable has no bearings on whether it is right or wrong. The problem with this design is that we do not know the person’s pre-experiment attention-level, so even if we got the results, we do not know if it increased or decreased.

Possible Experimental Design 2

So we measure the initial state first. Then we got results to show that before the experiment, attention-level is low, but after the experiment, attention-level is high. Can we therefore conclude that my hypothesis is right? Yes, it is reasonable to conclude as such, but no, it is still wrong.

Note that the hypothesis actually primed you (me) to believe that the coffee increased attention-levels. Imagine, for a person who does not know the effect of caffeine, he/she might have thought that the act of drinking (moving cup to mouth and swallowing contents) increased attention-level. In other words, the act of drinking is an alternative explanation i.e. Point 3 is violated.

Hence, we need another person to participate in the experiment, go through same environment as the first person did, except that he/she drinks water. We say that the person who drinks coffee to be in the experimental condition and the person who drinks water to be in the control condition. “Control” because the alternative explanation is being controlled for.

This is also to establish the baseline level of attention-levels. Ideally, both persons’ attention-levels in the initial state are around the same level. This is important if we want to know not just the direction of change, if any, due to caffeine consumption but also the magnitude of change due to caffeine consumption. If the levels are different, the magnitude must be discounted accordingly.

Possible Experimental Design 3

So we add a control condition in. Then we got results to show that the coffee-drinker increased his/her attention-levels before and after, the water-drinker did not, and the baseline is the same. At last, we conclude that my hypothesis is right? It is still a “no”.

The problem is something called placebo effect. The increased attention may not be a result of physiological changes due to caffeine, but due to the psychological expectations that coffee does increase attention, and so attention is increased. It is a form of self-fulfilling prophecy. What we need here is then a person in the placebo control condition, in which the person drinks a brownish liquid which he/she thought is coffee (with caffeine) but is actually not.

Possible Experimental Design 4

So we add a placebo control condition in. Then we got results to show that the coffee-drinker increased his/her attention-levels before and after, the water-drinker did not, the placebo-drinker did not, and the baseline is the same. Is this good enough? No.

What if by chance, the person in the experimental condition has an especially low caffeine tolerance (hence the effect of caffeine is especially pronounced), but had the experimenter chose another participant with normal caffeine tolerance, the results would be nullified? What if by chance, the person in the experimental condition has a “cold start” – begins the initial state lethargically (hence low attention-level), but as the experiment continued, he/she became more activated and that has nothing to do with caffeine? In short, there are individual differences. These individual differences originate from many sources and to control for each one of them is difficult, if not impossible.

But we are not going to surrender and admit that alternative explanations can never be ruled out, thus causality can never be determined (in the social sciences). The solution is not to have only one participant in each condition. We must have many participants in each condition. The way to select these participants is through random sampling. It is a technique that is employed to do something like equalizing the individual differences across the conditions. Random sampling means every member in a population has an equal opportunity to be selected to participate in the experiment. Note that the individual differences are not eliminated but held constant across the conditions. As such, they influence all conditions equally and do not serve as alternative explanations.

There exists another form of experimental design where individual differences can actually be eliminated, thus yielding a stronger result. This is when each participant goes through all the conditions, but the example here is inappropriate to describe such a design.

Possible Experimental Design 5

Finally we have a sensible-looking experimental design the addresses the three pre-conditions of establishing causality. For a simple question that involves drinking coffee, it is not so simple after all, considering all the precautions that we must undertake. And it is still not the end. When we have many participants, statistics become a necessity.

How many participants are considered enough per condition? Conservatively, there must be at least 30 in each condition (Refer: Central Limit Theorem). However, there are cases we as little as 15 is good enough. This depends on the shape of the distribution of the data (attention-levels) collected from the participants. When the shape of the distribution is “normal”, fewer participants are required. A “normal” distribution looks like this:

There are techniques beyond visual inspection to measure how “normal” a distribution is but I won’t go through them. Most data are “normal” in nature and if it is not, it will be in large samples (Refer: Central Limit Theorem), therefore we can confidently assume they are normal and analyze them as such. There are other distributions such as t-distribution and F-distribution – which I won’t go through too – but they can be seen as derivatives of the “normal” distribution (also known as Z-distribution), so the basic concept is the same.

In those cases where the data do not approach the “normal” distribution as sample size increases, alternative statistical techniques are used, but I won’t go through them either.

I will be writing in a non-technical way so I hope it won’t be too simple to the extent of being inaccurate.

Returning to the coffee/caffeine experiment, we start with the raw distribution of attention-levels before the start of the experiment (no caffeine consumed yet). Let’s say there are 30 participants in each condition. Let’s also insert an arbitrary number and say that for each of the conditions, the average attention-level is at 10 (i.e. same baseline).

In case there is confusion, the average attention-level is 10, but not all participants scored 10. The peak of the curve represents the attention-level which most people got (i.e. 10) and as we move left or right, we are looking at the number of people who have lower or higher attention levels respectively. As we move further away from the average, there are less people who have attention-levels very much different from the average.

For simplicity of analysis, assume the caffeine does increase attention level significantly (a term I will clarify later), and assume that the control condition and the placebo control condition yielded the same results, so we only look at control condition.

So carry out the experiment, and got the following raw results.

The new averages of attention levels, represented by the blue lines, are found accordingly for both conditions. We look at the control condition first. The new average here is the same as the old average, so it is as if attention-level never changed at all. For the experimental condition, we noticed something interesting: the new average is at 20 and it looks different from the old average at 10. We want to find out if it is really different. In other words, is the difference statistically significant, or in short, significant? We take a closer look.

To analysis the raw data, we standardize them, but I will not go through the technical parts (just take them as some mathematical equations). After standardization, the area under the standardized normal curve is actually probabilities. The question we want to ask hereon is: what is the probability that our new average at 20 is unlikely to occur and yet it still occurred? The answer is: if the probability of getting attention-level at 20 is less than 5%, we say that the number 20 is significantly different from 10.

The red area represents the 2.5% (the other 2.5% is on the other tail of the distribution but I have not illustrated it). If the standardized new average lies within the red area, it is significant; otherwise it is not significant. And this is really the whole logic of what we call hypothesis testing: Just because something is different doesn’t mean anything until we discover if the difference is meaningful and how we proceed to do so it to check if the difference is unlikely to occur. If the difference is unlikely, the difference is probably a real one.

There are some implications of hypothesis testing. One, just because a difference looks large does not necessarily mean it is a real difference. Two, the red area also represents the area in which we falsely say that the difference is real when it is actually not (i.e. false positive). One may ask why not set the red area to be as small as possible (i.e. equals 0%) so that we won’t make the error. However, if we set it to be zero, the probability of a false negative (real difference taken to be no difference) becomes guaranteed (i.e. 100%). So, there is a trade-off between chances of making an error of false positive and error of false negative. And the trade-off we have decided upon is at 5% (this is the norm; if an experimenter decides on another number, he/she must justify it).

But, what does this trade-off really mean in general? It means that any study has a 5% error of being a false positive. A study can potentially yield contradictory results not due to deliberate fraud or experimental error, but due to sheer chance. To overcome this problem, we can look a meta-analysis (collection of many studies) and we look at how many studies yield results that suggests this and how many studies yield results that suggests that. Majority wins. Simple.

So, when we explain an established phenomenon from the sciences and if someone comes along and says that a fully-legitimate so-and-so study actually contradicts what we say, there is really no need to be surprised. It is statistics! Moreover, whenever someone says that some study contradicts an established phenomenon, it is often the case that the study actually did not contradict and it is just that the person just did not bother to read the study carefully enough. All the big hoo-ha for nothing.

Evaluate

Evaluation involves proper handling of statistics and proper design of experiment (both of which I have touched on) as well as having results that can be applied across people and settings (achieved through random sampling which I have touched on, or replication of the study, which will be touched on below).

Once the experiment is completed with its design (and other preparatory work e.g. submission to ethics review board), conduct and analysis, the next thing to do is to seek publication in journals. The road to publication is not easy either. One of my professors shared the time he was young and it took around half a year to get an article published (experience cut down the time consumed by more than half). Much of the time involves exchanges between a group of experts reviewing his article and his subsequent replies to them. He never reads any of his published articles because he has read and improved on them constantly for the months to the extent that he has grown tired of looking at them. And not every article gets published after submission so it is possible to have all the work done to go down the drain. The greater the reputation of a journal, the more important your work has to be in order to be published. Such is the high quality that is expected in science.

Revise/Replication

To revise means to improve on the experiment and how to do so differs from experiment to experiment.

To replicate means to carry out the same experiment on different people (e.g. across cultures) and in different settings (e.g. coffee drinking at home and at workplace; alone and in groups). Replication is very important because we want to know if the conclusions of a study can be carried over to different peoples and environments. If it is applicable only to one culture, we want to know it; if it is applicable universally, we want to know it as well. We want to know the extent as well as limitations.

If a study cannot be replicated even under the same conditions, the study could be possibly be a false positive. We may have to discard its conclusions. And this is why I would practice caution when a study claims something very new or when the media picks up a new study and sensationalize it. I would want other experimenters to verify it before anything else.

Replication is about both verification and falsification, and in some sense, falsification is more important than verification. For example, one may go around the country and observe the color of swans. He/She may find that with each swan observed to be white and subsequent ones confirming the observation, he/she may conclude on this inductive basis that all swans are white. This is the Method of Agreement (i.e. verification). But, if he/she travels to another country and finds even one black swan, his/her initial conclusion is compromised. This is the Method of Difference (i.e. falsification). The Method of Agreement determines what the sufficient condition is and the Method of Difference determines what the necessary condition is. It is sufficient to say that swans are white because so many of them are but this is not necessarily true because there exist black swans.

Note that it is possible to establish what is sufficient, what is insufficient and what is unnecessary but not possible to establish what is necessary. Adequate number of observations leads to sufficiency; inadequate number of observations leads to insufficiency; observation of one black swan leads to unnecessity. But, what leads to necessity? It appears impossible to establish necessity. And this is why I am very sensitive to words like “prove”. In the strictest sense, there are no “proofs” we can speak of except mathematical proofs – but even those proofs relies on axioms.

In general, science is not out to “prove” things. It is more like a big hypothesis testing, whose logic I have already laid out above. To put it in layman’s terms, science is more like: I have tried my best to falsify something, and yet I failed, hence this suggests that that something satisfies the necessity condition. This is why science thrives on disagreements (falsification). Science does not want people to gather together, give one another compliments and make one another feel good. Science does not want people to listen to authority and agree with everything; science wants people to question and to reason. The best compliments are critiques and if something manages to stand the test of these critiques, it suggests that it is true.

Anyway, finally after all the studies come in, one looks at all the results and attempts to derive a theory underlying them all. The theory must conform to all results and must be able to successfully predict future results. A theory that does not have explanatory power and fails to predict accurately is discarded; if it is not discarded, it becomes a hypothesis, awaiting a better theory to be formulated.

As one sees, a scientific theory is not “just a theory”.

*

This would be my attempt at analyzing what a creationist mentality might be and it would be through a conversation between Richard Dawkins and Wendy Wright. I will just be focusing on what Ms Wright said.

“What a person believes about how human beings were created shapes what they believe about human beings…”

Is it reasonable to think like this? Of course! But is what is reasonable true? Of course not! What is wrong with this part of statement is that human beings are not created. If it is false, then whatever propositions or conclusions formed on the basis of it collapses.

Until proper evidence is presented on the creationists’ side for us to consider, instead of just chanting evolution is wrong or that it has no evidence (which is not true as I have already written a few posts on it) or waving their fabricated evidences, we will reconsider if creationists are right.

“…and if we believe that human beings were created out of love – that is by a loving creator – and has given each one of us not only a material body but a spirit and a soul, we are then more likely to treat other people with respect and dignity”

Implications of this second part of the statements are that those who do not believe in a creator are incapable of love, respect and/or dignity. This is demonstrably false. One cannot seriously believe this anyway, unless one has been in such a community for too long and is blinded.

But, for the sake of argument, let’s suppose that we were indeed created. Then wouldn’t someone who believes he/she is not created out of love but still capable of love, respect and dignity of a higher worth than someone who loves only because he/she believes he/she is created out of love? Is the implicit implication of the latter person be that if one day that he/she realizes that he/she is not created out of love, would choose not to love, respect and have dignity? What a horrible person! I rather be the former who believes there is no creator and still be willing to love. It would be my own independent choice to do so and not due to being a slave to how I was created.

Whether we have spirits/souls, I have already given the empirical suggestion that we do not. Actually, I have argued at the end that those who believe that they have spirits/souls are more likely to commit crimes against humanity.

“There has been an effort within the scientific community to censor out information against evolution that proves the evolution may not be as many scientists believe.”

Because of how science works, if there is even one piece of legitimate evidence against evolution, both the evidence and the discoverer would immediately make the news across the world overnight. Recently, there has been a measurement on faster-than-light neutrinos which caused great uproar in both scientific circles and the informed public. No one can miss such a startling finding! Imagine the amount of interest and excitement that would be generated!

The scientific community is not censoring out information. A person who understands what science is would not make such an ignorant statement.

On the other hand, we know who is fabricating information. If it is about censoring out fabricated information, I think we can all understand.

“There has been many times in which evidences that was brought forward to bolster the idea of evolution turn out to be fraudulent.”

Vague language: “many times” – how does that weigh against real evidences? I did a search on the word “evolution” in a database for the number of articles that has been written on it and it yielded three-quarters of a million results. And that’s only for one database.

Ms Wright is suffering from cognitive errors which are common in many Christians I have encountered. i.e. selective abstraction and magnification. “Selective abstraction” refers to arbitrary cherry-picking. “Magnification” refers to exaggerating the importance of an event. Certainly, what is needed here is to put things into perspective.

I am not aware of fraudulent cases, although Richard Dawkins appears to be familiar with it. Luckily, science is a self-correcting mechanism. It roots out falsehood by its nature. It is good that deliberate frauds are removed. In any case, Professor Dawkins clarified that the case was never about evolution.

Again, there appears to be ignorance about how science is carried out. A single piece of evidence is insufficient and unconvincing in establishing something new – like a new theory (but note that a single piece of evidence – especially strong evidence – in falsifying is good enough to cause concern because falsification is in some ways more important than verification). Very often, when something new props up, there will be skepticism. It is only through collecting more evidences that it will become established (or rejected if it fails the test). Even then, it will be continually be subjected to scrutiny and more tests. An isolated fraud is not going to throw the entire community into chaos.

“So what we argue for is to teach the controversy.”

I have given a picture here to explain what’s wrong with this statement.

After the embarrassment of being found out that the fraudulent case was actually not about evolution, there was an abrupt change of subject.

“There is no evidence of evolution from one species to another. There is micro-evolution within the species but not going from one species to another…”

I have explained the distinction between micro-evolution and macro-evolution is false.

“…and actually the way you this in your very closed mindedness really is a very good example of the kind of censorship we see within the scientific community that won’t even allow discussion about the controversy… (unclear)… we can’t even discuss any evidence that might show that evolution is questionable.”

I am getting used to seeing fundamentalists/literalists resorting to personal insults in what is otherwise an amicable conversation. I suspect it could be deliberate – to arouse negative emotions that may throw an unprepared person off balance.

The charge is repeated; I will not repeat my reply.

Professor Dawkins then asks where Ms Wright studied science and this was her reply

“Well, see that’s the point. Scientists are now claiming that they are the only ones that can speak on this issue.”

This is the third time, I am repeating myself: science does not work like that and I have replied to this charge.

It is also another way of phrasing the “teach the controversy” argument, to which I have also made my reply.

But, note that if Ms Wright has indeed studied science, she would be proud to say “yes” because it would then be the case that she would be showing that she is qualified to some extent. Clearly, she hasn’t and this fact constantly bores out throughout the conversation. She is reduced to repeating her mantra.

“And yet when people who look at the evidence, go to… Museum of Natural History, and look for where is the evidence to show evolution from one species to another, all we find are drawings/illustrations – they aren’t the actual material evidence showing it.”

Fossil evidences aren’t the only evidence. I have explained why we should not rely solely on fossils for evidence and provided other forms of evidence.

“ So, while there are attempts to say that only scientists can speak on this, what we have are then scientists creating an isolated community and we are the ones… almost like a religion in which only scientists are allowed to speak and teach on it and to teach everyone else, everyone else must believe scientist, what a particular scientists say.”

Logically, if you are very ill, will you recognize the expertise of doctors to treat you? Or would you want to talk to a witch doctor who believes you are possessed and the demon in you must be beaten out with a huge stick? If you want to learn about cosmology, will you recognize the expertise of the astrophysicist in telling you what’s going on? Or would you talk to an astrologer who believes that the stars determines your personality? If you want to learn about the life sciences, will you recognize the expertise of the biologist? Or would you talk to a lawyer who wants you to repent and convert to his version of creator? By all means, start from scratch in learning how to treat yourself, learn about the cosmology and the life sciences by yourself – no one is stopping you. Why do you care if you don’t like them? Unless, of course, you have an agenda and you wish to borrow the existing institutions to further it.

There is really ignorance about science and this is the fourth time that I have repeated this. The authority of science is different from the authority of religion, as in the link I have input above. Or maybe I shall write a new post to explain more specifically.

“But the scientists who question evolution are being censored out, are being blacked out from the scientific community and being told that the rest of the world cannot listen to them.”

This is the fifth time that I have repeated myself: Science does not work like that.

I should stop here. Otherwise, I will have to keep repeating myself because Ms Wright kept repeating essentially the same thing.

Towards the end of the video, Ms Wright seems to be confused about the difference between utilitarian and materialism. I guess any learned person would understand the difference. And it is not true that only creationists believe the people should not be measured by their productive capacity. Other religions do as well. Secular philosophies too. I touched on this briefly before.

There seems to be an unfounded belief that it is degrading to associate animals with humans, putting aside the fact that humans are animals. Some animals are highly intelligent and one could imagine what they might think of humans when they consider the wars, genocides and weapons of mass destruction etc. that we carried down through our existence. The number of lives lost in the millions! It could well be the case that it is degrading to them to associate themselves with humans. One such intelligent that I spoke of is the dolphins. Looking at their brain structure, it is suggestive that they are conscious, sentient creatures capable of feeling happiness as well as fear. They have saved human lives before. I have never seen a pool of blood but look at what humans are doing that I had the opportunity to do so:

Evolutionists speak of life on earth as akin to a family tree. Indeed, it is a family tree. Would understanding evolution make people more compassionate towards fellow life on the planet if they understood that they are not so different after all? And would people be more likely to commit cruelty against animals if they believed instead that somehow human beings are the chosen ones, specially created, and have the right to rule over other animals?

Taking a grander view of things, knowing that all life in earth is interconnected, and knowing that the elements that constitutes us are derived from the “death” of stars which implies that even the inanimate are related to us, it really is no longer a metaphor to say that “we are one with the universe”. Where science informs, it only makes the world seems even more beautiful than it already is. There is nothing degrading about this.

Perhaps the title is a little misleading as I won’t be writing what it is usually meant, but “creation” is a pun here.

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I don’t own the image.

The image above really shows the extent of their knowledge about what creationists are criticizing. Some really thought that evolution is about transforming from one modern creature to another modern one and the croco-duck above (cross between crocodiles and ducks) is the intermediary in which they demand as evidence. Such is the level of their creativity. Such is the level of the delusion. Such is the level of their ignorance. But, there is a more subtle point that must be picked up and that is: creationists use ridicule to assert their position. They poison the well in other words. They make themselves appear confident and their opponents appear silly in order to shore up their empty legitimacy. To be nice, let’s call it impression management. The attack on evolutionists using croco-ducks tells us more about the attackers than the attacked. Croco-ducks are the strawmen; no one seriously or intelligently believes such a thing. We have to return and wonder who came up such a ludicrous idea as a “croco-duck” and the answer is clear.

Let’s consider the following tree of life:

I don’t own the image.

Evolution is not about transforming Homo Neatherthalensis to Homo Sapiens. It is about, say, Homo Heidelbergensis evolving into Homo Neatherthalensis and Homo Sapiens. Homo Heidelbergensis is our ancestors so to speak and the further back in time one goes, the more dissimilar our ancestors look to us. The following is a very much compressed tree of life which attempts to cover a number of organisms:

I don’t own the image.

It is really quite amazing to think that we all came from a simple single-celled organism which evolved through the billions of years, resulting the complexity that is us and all the plants and animals. It is even more amazing to think that we are not the product of top-down design, but a bottom-up one. It is not impossible for a bottom-up process. I will use an analogy to illustrate how a bottom-up process might work and it is Economics.

Any one who has taken an introductory course in Economics would know what Adam Smith had said: Self-interest leads to the common good; even though no one worked for the common good. A person who has goods to sell or service to provide will do so for another who is willing and able to pay for it. This former is not out to benefit the latter with his/her goods or services, but wanted the money. The latter, buys the goods of the former or hires his/her service not because he/she wants to give the former money, but because he/she needs/wants the service. Now, the latter also has his/her goods or services to sell. And so does many others. Each person has things he/she wants/needs and things he/she sells. Everyone is acting on the same principle of wanting to benefit himself/herself. Yet, at the end of the day, through the buying and selling, everyone buys and sells what they want and need, and everyone is better off than without trading.  There is no one coordinating any one’s behaviour. Markets are the emergent property that arose from the simple act of individual self-interest, which contributed to the common good. This is an example of bottom-up process. No one created markets. There was no blueprint. There was no design.

Somebody said this before but I can’t remember who: If markets were created, it would be one of the greatest inventions.

Likewise, the mechanisms and the behaviours of a single cell need not be complex or too difficult. The moment it replicates itself and interacts with one another, amazing and unforeseeable things can happen. And it did.

It was too tempting to quote this from The Greatest Show On Earth Page 211; the bombshell was too big:

Professor Haldane, even given the billions of years that you said were available for evolution, I simply cannot believe it is possible to go from a single cell to a complicated human body, with its trillions of cells organized into bones and muscles and nerves, a heart that pumps without ceasing for decades, miles and miles of blood vessels and kidney tubules, and a brain capable of thinking and talking and feeling.

The reply:

But madam, you did it yourself. And it only took you nine months.

Some of the arguments of creationism can be refuted without even referring to evolution. The “missing link” argument (if it is an argument at all) is one such case. Basically it is about Organism A and Organism B, and the question is: where is the intermediary between A and B?

Again, it shows the lack of understanding about evolution. Evolution is a gradual process, something that is repeatedly repeated to the unlistening ears of creationists. In order words, it is a continuous process, not a discrete one. The “missing link” argument is a child’s game, as I illustrate below.

Take a number line, which is continuous in nature:

 A number line critic might say: “I don’t believe in number lines! Show me the missing link between zero and one!” And so, the number line critic gets one:

The number line critic laughs: “Haha! Now there are two missing links (0 and .5; .5 and 1)! The number line theory is more incredulous than ever!” And so, the number line critic gets another two missing links:

Now, there are four missing links! And this can go on ad infinitum and the number line critic will become more “right” with each missing link presented.

We know who has the biggest real missing link:

I don’t own the image.

Some “number line critics” may claim that they agree with micro-evolution but not in macro-evolution. To use my Economics analogy again, both microeconomics and macroeconomics are actually the same thing. They are not separate subjects! Both are just looking at the same phenomenon but with different angles: one from the top and one from the bottom. In introductory economics courses, they might look different but in more advanced courses, one might see both converging and are indeed talking about the same picture all along.

Again, I will use a visual analogy. Watch the following first:

Most people do not notice the change. The total time taken for the change to complete is 12 seconds. Imagine if one were to make a pair-wise comparison of the image of one second with the next i.e. 0th second with the 1st second, 1st second with the 2nd second,…, 11th second with the 12th second, one would conclude that in each of these 12 pair-wise comparisons, both images are the same (or very similar). These micro-changes are not observable to be very different. But, if one were to compare the 0th second image with the 12th second image, one immediately notices the difference! However, is not the macro-change just a collection of 12 micro-changes? Point in case: Macroevolution is just a collection of microevolution. The distinction is false.

I end with the Cambrian Explosion:

Part of understanding evolution requires understanding how much time has really passed. If not enough time has passed, then such diversity of organisms on earth is not possible by its account.

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Here is a list of radioactive clocks, their unstable isotope and respective half-lives (in years).

Rubidium-87 (49 billion)
Rhenium-187 (41.6 billion)
Thorium-232 (14 billion)
Uranium-238 (4.5 billion)
Potassium-40 (1.26 billion)
Uranium-235 (704 million)
Samarium-147 (108 million)
Iodine-129 (17 million)
Aluminium-26 (740 thousand)
Carbon-14 (5730)

To make things less technical, “unstable isotopes” are things that decay and “half-life” refers to amount of time that would have passed once that thing decayed by half. So take 1kg of Carbon-14. After 5730 years, one would observe that only 0.5kg of Carbon-14 is left. That’s it. And give it another 5730 years, one would observe the only 0.25kg is left.

This idea is used to date the age of Earth. Of course there is no 1kg of Carbon-14 lying around so it is not so convenient. In any case, Carbon-14 is inappropriate because it does not last very long (short half-life), among other reasons which I will come to later. So, just go around earth looking for the oldest rocks you can find with the appropriate isotopes and date it. But this sounds simpler than it really is. There are many factors that may pollute results and the challenge is really to find the suitable rocks. Once such rocks are found, take samples from different parts of them, use different dating methods (such as those listed above), and ensure that all the results converge. It does and the age of earth is estimated to be around 4.5 or 4.6 billion years.

It should be noted that there are 158 unstable isotopes on Earth. 37 of them have a half-life greater than 700 million years and 121 have a half-life of 200 million years. As a result, the latter are either extinct (decayed to insignificance) or if they still exist, is only because they are constantly renewed. Carbon-14 is one such example of an isotope that is continually renewed. So, one has to be careful about carbon dating because its process is different from some others. In any case, this also does suggest that the age of Earth must be measured in terms of millions or billions.

Notice that in the last two posts and this one, it could easily have been the case that no changes have taken place. There could have been no change in the wolves. There could have been no change in maize oil output. There could have been no change in bacteria functioning. There could have been no change among the different forms of life. There could have been no rocks beyond 6000 years old. There could have been a full range of isotopes found. At every turn, evolution could have taken a misstep. But, it did not.