A response to “7 Ways Religion is Detrimental to Science”

General,

I read 7 Ways Religion is Detrimental to Science, and thought it would be an interesting read. It was, but I don’t think it really made sense. Let’s look at the 7 ways they highlighted:

1. Faith and the Scientific Method are Opposites

The article states:

Faith is a belief in an idea regardless of the evidence for or against it.

Actually, that’s not true at all, at least for traditional Christianity. (Note that traditional Christianity is not the same as fundamentalism). Marcus J. Borg describes faith in four ways:

Fiducia — trusting in God. Borg says, “Faith . . . [means] we trust in God as the one upon whom we rely, as our support and foundation and ground, as our safe place.”

Fidelitas — loyalty, or “the comment of the self at its deepest level, the commitment of the ‘heart’. Faith as fidelitas does not mean faithfulness to statements about God. . . Fidelitas refers to a radical centering in God.”

Visio — a way of seeing — “a way of seeing the whole, a way of seeing ‘what is’. . . the ability to love and to be present to the moment. It generates a ‘willingness to spend and be spent’ for the sake of a vision that goes beyond ourselves.”

Assensus — perhaps the closest to what the author meant, is “faith as belief.” Borg goes on to add:

The notion that Christian faith is primarily . . . about belief, about a “head” matter, is recent. . . For many, Christian faith began to mean believing questionable things to be true. . . this is the most widespread contemporary understanding of “belief”.

This is very different from what faith as assensus meant. . . A deep but humble (and therefore imprecise) understanding of Christian faith as assensus, as involving affirmation of the centrality of God as known in the Bible and Jesus, is very close to faith as vision. It is a way of seeing reality.

As a Christian, I do not find the scientific method to be a problem. I find it to be enlightening in all sorts of matters, including even the history of religion in some instances. Christian faith is not about believing in certain ideas (such as the world being created in 6 literal 24-hour days), though there are those that distort it to be so. Rather, Christian faith is about living your life a certain way, about the meaning of life, about our duties to make the world a better place.

2. People Vote Base on Religious Ideas

The author says that “Stem Cells weren’t the first time a body of research didn’t get proper funding because some religious wack-jobs.” Well, I agree that that was a problem. Non-religious people can vote in odd ways too. I argue that the rejection of stem-cell research goes against Christian teaching; after all, we are to help the least among us, and do not people with Alzheimer’s qualify?

I think the author’s point should have been “exremists have odd views.” Extremists can be atheist, Christian, Muslim, Buddhist, or other religions. Religion does not have a monopoly on them.

3. Religion Removes the Need For Science

The author says:

When people are content to believe in something that explains why they are here, even if it is wrong, they become less interested in other ideas. Religion often leads people to believe that they have all the answers. Science is self-correcting in that nobody assumes they are absolutely correct.

That is incorrect on several levels. First, science cannot explain why we are here. It can explain some of the mechanics. As an example, let us take for granted that modern scientific thought on the origin of humanity is correct: that there was a Big Bang, that single-celled creatures evolved on earth, and that human life eventually evolved through a complex process of evolution and natural selection. Fine; this does not contradict religion in any way. Science and religion answer different questions. Science answers “how”. Religion answers “why”. Science cannot answer the question “Why was there a big bang?” or “Did the evolution of humanity serve a larger purpose?”

Moreover, religion should not assume that they have all the answers, either. The canonical Christian Bible was mostly fixed within a few centuries AD. Life in 200AD was a lot different from life today. Part of the reason there are many different groups of Christians is the complexity of applying the stories in the Bible to modern life. The ideas in any given denomination evolve over time, too. I think it would be the height of hubris for anyone, religious or not, to claim that he or she had all the answers. Again, I know that some religious people act that way, but then so do some atheists or agnostics.

4. People Lean on Religion, When They Could Benefit From Science

The author of “7 Ways” cites the quite rare case where a child dies of a curable disease while his/her parents pray, refusing medical care. This is an extreme position that is not shared by the vast majority of religious people. Most religious people are perfectly content to use the latest medical care.

Meditation or prayer does not replace medical care; it supplements it. Scientific studies have even demonstrated its effectiveness.

5. The Church Takes Up Natural Resources

The original author states that “The land that churches take up around the world could be used to build schools, homes, recreational buildings and commercial operations.” This is perhaps the most frivolous of arguments. Putting aside the fact that many churches operate schools, churches are often one of the few ways that modern city dwellers have to form a sense of community. They are not just places to engage in religion. They are places to meditate, to get away from it all, to meet your neighbors, to vote.

6. The Church Takes Up Monetary Resources

The original author says “if people donated to scientific advancement like they did to the church, imagine where we would be today.” It’s not a pleasant picture. Religion, and institutions supported primarily because of the teaching of religion, are the people that feed the hungry after natural disasters, that operate food pantries (our church operates the only one in our community, and it’s open to anyone without any questions or talk about religion), that operate schools in disadvantaged areas, that have spread the whole idea of fair trade for third-world artisans, etc.

It is true that acts of evil have been committed in the name of the church, too. It is also unquestionably true that some church groups spend money more carefully than others. As with any donation, people should be careful where they give. Government-operated research studies are not necessarily a good use of money, either.

7. Religion is A Strong Meme

The author of the original story seems to be responding to a particular brand of Christianity: what Borg calls “literal-factual” religion. There are quite a few people that take that stand. They are sometimes inaccurately referred to as “evangelicals” or the “religious right”; while there is some overlap between the groups, they are not one and the same. The people with the literal-factual view are not representative of the whole.

More interestingly, Borg points out that the literal-factual view was actually a response to the development of the scientific method during the Enlightenment. As the modern idea of truth moved to literal, factual, provable truth, some Christians grew defensive about their faith, and started to look for “scientific” ways to prove that the world was created in 6 days, etc. in an attempt to show the world that Christianity fit their new notion of truth.

That makes a compelling argument that the scientific method is the stronger meme in today’s Western world — so strong that the author of the rant against religion has apparently forgotten the more prevalant — both throughout history and today — view of Christianity that is “more than” Science, not at odds with science.

Troops

Humor

Back in 1997, long before the days of Youtube, there was a film short called Troops. Troops is about 10 minutes long, and an absolutely hilarious piece of work. It’s done in the style of Cops, but set on Tatooine in the Star Wars universe. Many people today credit it with kickstarting the fan film genre and inspiring what has evolved into stars of Youtube.

I remember giving a talk at the Air Capitol Linux Users Group (Wichita, KS). I brought with me my laptop, and had downloaded Troops onto it. I played it for the group. This was at a time when being able to play video on a laptop was something new and interesting, and under Linux no less, even more so. Also, at a time when video of this size may have taken a day to download. Everyone there loved it. I think I used xanim to play it (remember that?)

Anyhow, you can still download that same original file from theforce.net. Or, for the less patient, just watch it here:

Obama, RFK, and Making History

Politics

I think that for the first time, when I go to vote this November, I will probably not have to hold my nose as I make a selection for president. I don’t agree with Obama on everything, of course, but the core of what he stands for — that it is time to enter a post-racial, post-partisan time — and that putting the interests of the people before those of the corporation — is a powerful message.

And I’m not the only one that thinks so. One interesting read is Why This 55-Year-Old White Lifelong Republican Wants Obama To Win by Frank Schaeffer. He’s a pro-life, pro-military Republican that actually campaigned for McCain in 2000, and this year he’s supporting Obama. He pointed out another key point: Obama does not play on our fears.

Then there’s A Transformational Moment by Jim Wallis, who grew up in a time when white people that supported civil rights were literally putting their lives on the line. He ends with:

This morning I heard several interviews on NPR with black Americans about their response to Obama’s nomination. One older woman said, “A black man running for president, did you hear what just I said? A black man running for president of the United States ….” She just kept repeating the words, and succinctly captured my own personal feelings.

Yes, it is truly historic, and the U.K. newspaper headlines captured that sentiment as did papers around the world. Nothing could change the image of America around the world more than this. But it is more than historic; it is very personal for many of my generation. A new generation just sees this as natural — he’s an inspirational leader who happens to be black, which matters little to them. But for my generation — I’m dating myself now — this is a transformational moment, one we didn’t think would come in our lifetimes. Race was the issue that changed us, shaped us, determined our path, and even defined the meaning of our faith. Now a black man is running for president of the United States. Amazing grace.

Tom Hayden reflects on the similarities between Obama and RFK, another interesting read. He concludes with:

Those who denounce Obama — and the possibilities of all electoral politics- – should ponder the effectiveness of sitting judgmentally on the sidelines while an Unexpected Future arrives through the sheer will of a new generation. They should consider whether politics and history can be reduced to a fixed determinism that is endlessly repeated, as if there are no surprises. We can have our differences with Obama’s specific policies, as I certainly do, but those should be measured against the prospect that a movement might transform him even as his very rise continues to transform the rest of us.

And now for something less inspiring. If you go look over at the latest blog entry at hillaryclinton.com and read the comments, these readers frankly sound more than a little loony. There are rampant accusations that Obama “stole the election” with the help of the DNC. That makes no sense to me; he followed the rules, and the DNC gave Clinton more delegates than she should have had with the rules as they were at the start of the game (which she supported then). The Obama campaign even rejected a plan that was less favorable to Clinton at the DNC rules committee meeting on Saturday. They also go on and on about how Obama has had so many scandals (though the Clinton real estate scandals really are far more serious than a former pastor). It all looks so very petty, and I wonder why Clinton has whipped up her supporters to such a fervent extent. Perhaps it was an accident, but you’d think things like this are rarely an accident with her.

The Democratic Delegate Dance

Uncategorized

Several stories on NPR today have featured interviews with Democratic voters in Florida and Michigan. Many of them were mad about the situation, but mad at their state democratic parties. Many of them did not vote because they were told their vote would not count, so now they are upset at these efforts to count the vote from these states.

Meanwhile, there is a very interesting post about how Hillary may want these delegates to remain unavailable to her, as a way to continue pressing her case all the way to the convention. Sigh.

More Reasons To Like Obama

Politics

Ars has an article Previewing McCain and Obama on geek issues that is a thoroughly good read. I find myself agreeing with Obama on everything from net neutrality to privacy rights. I find it interesting that Republicans like to run as advocates of individual liberties but are the ones pushing laws that restrict them the most.

One gripe though: these are issues that are important to everyone. To call them “geek” issues implies that they are only of interest to some, and thus cheapens them. Ars ought to have a better title for their article.

Clinton Voters on Barack Obama

Politics

Some TV network did some interviews with West Virginia voters at the time of their primary. The Daily Showpicked up on it (click link for video). Among the comments:

“I guess because he is another race. I’m sort of scared of theother race because we have so much conflict with them.”

“He’s Muslim and that has a lot to do with it.”

“I don’t like the Hussein thing. I’ve had enough of Hussein.”

The segment on this starts at 1:03 into the video, and the comments start at 1:45.

By the way, if you think Obama is Muslim, check out IsBarackObamaAMuslim.com. (Though it won’t comment on the separate question of why it matters).

Sigh.

How to Start Bicycling to Work

Outdoors

Yesterday, I wrote about bicycling to work, pointing out that it’s a safe, inexpensive, way for many people (including office workers without access to showers) to get to work. There were a lot of thoughtful comments there too.

Today I’d like to provide some tips for getting started commuting on a bicycle. As I’m just getting started on this, these are mainly things I’ve learned from poking around online, so I’ll be including lots of links.

The Bicycle

This varies from person to person, but as a general rule: if you have a very short ride — say a mile or less — you can probably just use any old bike and a bicycling helmet. Don’t try to use a motorcycle helmet. It won’t vent your head, so you could overheat. Also, it won’t be comfortable.

Most people will have a longer ride and will want to get a bike that works specifically for them. Each model of bicycle comes in different frame sizes. It’s important to get a bicycle that is the right size for you. Also, you’ll want to get a quality bicycle that will let you be fast and won’t break down along the way.

For all these reasons, I — and every single other person I’ve ever seen talk about this — highly recommend that you buy your bicycle from a bicycle shop. Don’t buy a bicycle from a “big box” store like Walmart or Target. They may be cheaper up front, but you’ll pay for it in the long run because they won’t last as long, won’t fit you as well, and may even be unsafe. Bike shop staff will help you find a bike that fits you, which is important for avoiding aches and pains and even injury. They’ll be able to help you find appropriate accessories for your bike, as well as repair it. Here is a helpful article on this topic, written by a bike shop.

Generally speaking, bike shops can repair bikes bought at any other bike shops. However, they can instantly recognize bikes bought at big box stores. Many will repair those too, but some refuse to work on some of those bikes on the grounds that it is impossible to bring them to the level of service they expect their mechanics to do.

Aches and Pains

With any sport, when you start it, you can expect a little bit of aches and pains at first, as you start using muscles that you may not have really used at first. Bicycling is no exception, but it’s easy to deal with.

Your first stop if you have aches and pains might be the where does it hurt page. It provides detailed, helpful advice. There are also some common things that go wrong for people.

First on the list is wrong size of bike or improper adjustment of your bike. You want a bike frame that is the right size for you, and you want the seat and handlebars adjusted properly for you. A bike shop can help you get this done easily. If your feet can reach the ground while you’re on the seat, you almost certainly have the seat too low, which is a common mistake.

Sometimes the way you position yourself on the bike, or your technique, could be to blame.

Also, clothing can be a problem. A good place to start here is with some cycling shorts. Another common complaint from new cyclists appears to be blisters on the feet. This can be caused by improper positioning on the pedals, or by using the wrong type of sock. Typical socks absorb moisture and trap it next to the skin; bicycling socks will wick it away and let it evaporate. In fact, cycling clothes: socks, shorts, and jerseys (shirts) are all designed to wick moisture away from you and let it evaporate, which keeps you cooler and more comfortable. Bicycling gloves are cheap and can help your hands stay comfortable.

Expense

You can easily save thousands of dollars by riding a bicycle instead of driving a car. Bicycles do need periodic maintenance, just like a car. Usually you can do a lot of that yourself. It probably will pay off to take your bike in to the shop for an annual tuneup. If you have no bicycling equipment at all, and buy your equipment at a bike shop new, you can probably get started for around $500. Even that will probably pay for itself in less than a year if you average riding your bike at least a few times a week.

Safety

Safety on a bicycle can usually be summed up with three rules: be visible, be predictable, and ride with traffic.

Unless there are dedicated bicycle-only lanes or paths, the safest way (in the United States) to ride your bike is on the road, riding with traffic (acting like a car). Don’t ride on a sidewalk, and never ride against traffic. This may sound counter-intuitive, but it is backed up by solid research. It all has to do with being predictable. Nobody is looking for something the speed of a bicycle to emerge from a sidewalk to cross a road or driveway. Sidewalks often aren’t that visible and frequently don’t provide enough room to pass. Sidewalk-riding cyclists get into accidents all the time with cars backing pulling out of driveways, making turns, or even just driving down a road where the cyclist cuts in front of them to cross a street.

A great book for learning how to ride in traffic can be viewed free online: the Bicycling Street Smarts book. There are also some safety videos online that are helpful.

Staying visible is certainly important. In some places, like cities where cyclists are common, drivers are going to be on the lookout for you already. In my case, I’m riding on rural roads that have some hills, where cyclists are rare, so I’m putting extra effort into this.

Staying visible in the day or at night starts with high-visibility clothing. A “screaming yellow” jersey or an ANSI safety reflective vest (less than $10) are good ways to do that. Several people recommend a Cateye TL-LD1100 flashing tail light for use at night, or even for daytime use when visibility is critical (such as my situation). If you will ever ride at night, laws require you to have the proper reflectors on your bike. And, you must also have a white headlight that does not cover up your front reflector (in some locations, you may also be required to have a red tail light that doesn’t cover up your reflector). Companies like Cateye carry those products as well.

Other tips: avoid drainage covers; they sometimes have slats that a bicycle tire could fall into.

Accessories

Here are some suggestions you might consider as a commuter.

Start with pannier bags. They mount over your rear tire and are cooler for you than a backpack because your back can still breathe. They’re more aerodynamic than a front basket. You can get bags suitable for carrying papers, laptops, a change of clothes, etc.

Next on your list might be a bicycle lock, to help keep it from being stolen. Your local bike shop can make suggestions here.

You might want to consider a spare inner tube (about $5) and tire-changing tools (also about $5) to carry with you in your bag. You wouldn’t want to have to walk 5 miles if you get a flat.

Along with that goes an air pump. I suggest a frame pump — it’s a small pump that can clip on to your bicycle’s frame, so you always have it handy. Obviously you will need this if you have to change a tube, but it could be handy even if you don’t.

You can find some more suggestions from bicycling.about.com and from Mike or your local bike shop.

Where to buy

Besides your local bike shop, you can buy a lot of accessories online. I wouldn’t suggest buying a bicycle online, because you really want to get a good fit at a bike shop.

When I asked at bikeforums.net, readers suggested three online stores:

www.pricepoint.com
www.bikenashbar.com
www.performancebike.com

You can also find some bicycling accessories at general-purpose stores like Amazon or sporting goods stores like REI. I personally wouldn’t recommend local “big box” sporting goods stores any more than I would Walmart or Target for this stuff, though.

More info

For more information, check out my bicycling links at del.icio.us.

Bicycling to Work

Outdoors, Uncategorized

We hear a lot these days about the price of gas, energy efficiency, and the like. But, in the United States, outside of a few progressive cities, there aren’t a lot of people that are using the ultimate zero-emissions transportation technology: bicycles.

That’s really too bad, because bicycles are a lot cheaper to operate than cars even before you consider gas prices. They also are great exercise and are probably faster, safer, and more convenient than you think.

I live about 10 miles (16 km) from work, which includes several miles on sand roads. I haven’t bicycled in about 6 years. Last week, I got my bicycle out, touched it up a bit, and started riding. Sunday I rode in to work and back as a test. As soon as I get a bit of gear (hopefully by the middle of next week), I plan to start riding bike to work at least 3 days a week.

I’ve picked up some tips along the way. Let’s talk about a few of them.

Safety

Many people think bicycling is dangerous. In fact, bicycling is about as safe as driving an SUV. Not only that, but only 10% of bicycling accidents occur when you are hit from behind (and 90% of those produce only minor injuries). It turns out that the vast majority of bicycling accidents occur because people are not riding on the road with traffic, or are acting unpredictably. Following some basic safety advice can make you safer in a bicycle than an SUV. Oh, and don’t drink and ride; 24% of fatal bicycle accidents involve an intoxicated rider.

Distance

Think it’s too far? Think again. It’s fairly easy for an untrained, unfit person to ride a bicycle up to 10 miles without working hard at it. That can probably be done in about an hour. As you get more fit and used to the bike, you may be able to go that distance in half that time. Also, get pannier bags for your bicycle. They attach in back and let you carry work clothes, laptops, etc. without having to use a backpack.

Smell

Many people with office jobs are concerned about this. Not everywhere has a convenient shower. Check out these tips from the Tips and Tricks for Biking to Work manual.

I’m excited about it, and will be sure to post more here on how it goes.

Thoughtfulness on the OpenSSL bug

Debian,

By now, I’m sure you all have read about the OpenSSL bug discovered in Debian.

There’s a lot being written about it. There’s a lot of misinformation floating about, too. First thing to do is read this post, which should clear up some of that.

Now then, I’d like to think a little about a few things people have been saying.

People shouldn’t try to fix bugs they don’t understand.

At first, that sounds like a fine guideline. But when I thought about it a bit, I think it’s actually more along the lines of useless.

First of all, there is this problem: how do you know whether or not you understand it? Obviously, sometimes you know you don’t understand code well. But there are times when you think you do, but don’t. Especially when we’re talking about C and its associated manual memory management and manual error handling. I’d say that, for a C program of any given size, very few people really understand it. Especially since you may be dealing with functions that call other functions 5 deep, and one of those functions modifies what you thought was an input-only parameter in certain rare cases. Maybe it’s documented to do that, maybe not, but of course documentation cannot always be trusted either.

I’d say it’s more useful to say that people should get peer review of code whenever possible. Which, by the way, did occur here.

The Debian maintainer of this package {is an idiot, should be fired, should be banned}

I happen to know that the Debian programmer that made this patch is a very sharp individual. I have worked with him on several occasions and I would say that kicking him out of maintaining OpenSSL would be a quite stupid thing to do.

He is, like the rest of us, human. We might find that other people are considerably less perfect than he.

Nobody that isn’t running Debian or Ubuntu has any need to worry. This is all Debian’s fault.

I guess you missed the part of the advisory that mentioned that it also fixed an OpenSSL upstream bug (that *everyone* is vulnerable to) that permitted arbitrary code execution in a certain little-used protocol? OpenSSL has a history of security bugs over the years.

Of course, the big keygen bug is a Debian-specific thing.

Debian should send patches upstream

This is general practice in Debian. It happens so often, in fact, that the Debian bug-tracking system has had — for probably more than a decade — a feature that lets a Debian developer record that a bug reported to Debian has been forwarded to an upstream developer or bug-tracking system.

It is routine to send both bug reports and patches upstream. Some Debian developers are more closely aligned with upstream than others. In some cases, Debian developers are part of the upstream team. In others, upstream may be friendly and responsive enough that Debian developers run any potential patches to upstream code by them before committing them to Debian. (I tend to do this for Bacula). In some cases, upstream is busy and doesn’t respond fast or reliably or helpfully enough to permit Debian to make security updates or other important fixes in a timely manner. And sometimes, upstream is plain AWOL.

Of course, it benefits Debian developers to send patches upstream, because then they have a smaller diff to maintain when each new version comes out.

In this particular case, communication with upstream happened, but the end result just fell through the cracks.

Debian shouldn’t patch security-related stuff itself, ever

Well, that’s not a very realistic viewpoint. Every Linux distribution does this, for several reasons. First, a given stable release of a distribution may be older than the current state of the art upstream software, and some upstreams are not interested in patching old versions, while the new upstream versions introduce changes too significant to go into a security update. Secondly, some upstreams do not respond in a timely manner, and Debian wants to protect its users ASAP. Finally, some upstreams are simply bad at security, and having smart folks from Debian — and other distributions — write security patches is a benefit to the community.