A religious voice of reason in the ID debate

[David Swidler]

I came across this article (http://www.ouradio.org/index.php/shabbat_shalom/article/2675) and found it a welcome counterpoint to the nonsense coming from some proponents of teaching ID.

From the article:
If that’s the case, neuroscience is the worst thing to happen to God since the French mathematician Pierre de Laplace told Napoleon that he had no place for a divine being in his equations. What should God-fearing people do?

Clearly, we must forbid our universities to teach neuroscience. At the very least, we should require professors to tell students that acetylcholine and noradrenalin are "only theories" and to teach the Ten Commandments alongside journals like Neuron.

The absurdity of that last paragraph shows just how ridiculous the intelligent design debate has become. Of course we don’t want to eliminate an entire field of knowledge, especially not one as useful and as interesting as neuroscience. And when Ms. Yu and Mr. Dayan analyze how the brain makes decisions, they are not offering moral teachings, any more than Moses on Mt. Sinai was telling the Children of Israel which neurons to fire or what substances to swallow when they encountered a widow or an orphan.

[RandFan]

Excellent link. Those who only read the quote are missing a lot.

Thanks David.

As an Orthodox Jew and a science writer, I have the unhappy task of breaking some bad news to my fellow-believers of all religions. If you thought evolution was a threat to God, wait until you hear the latest. Brain scientists are getting close to being able to explain our moral choices by charting chemicals in our heads.

In a recent research paper published in early 2005 in the journal Neuron, two British neuroscientists, Angela J. Yu and Peter Dayan, use a clever experiment and lots of equations to show that people’s decisions about whether or not to continue to hold a belief depends on how two molecules, acetylcholine and noradrenalin, interact in the human brain. Being British, Ms. Yu and Mr. Dayan give the example of whether or not to believe the weather forecast when deciding to leave home with an umbrella in the morning. But it could just as easily apply to a person’s decision to believe in intelligent design or evolution, in the rights or wrongs of abortion, or in the existence or non-existence of God. Cool stuff.

[geetarmoore]

Yea.. That is good!

After the Dover ruling, I'm seeing more and more non-fundamentalist religious followers who were embarrassed by the whole mess come out against religious overtones in the science class. I think they really fear a full on assault by science against religion if the practice of trying to intermingle the two continues.

[SirPhilip]

Clearly, we must forbid our universities to teach neuroscience. At the very least, we should require professors to tell students that acetylcholine and noradrenalin are "only theories" and to teach the Ten Commandments alongside journals like Neuron. If they want proof acetycholine exists, just give them forbidden fruit (http://www.erowid.org/experiences/exp.php?ID=25679) that inhibits it's synaptic action. That'll teach them more about the human brain in two days than most neurology majors grasp in 11 years.

[Dylab]

I wonder percentage of religious people accept that are actions and thoughts are directly interwined with the chemical processes in our brain. I agree with the article. I think many religious people would have trouble accepting "the astonishing hypothesis" more so than evolution.

[Ryan O'Dine]

Good link. It reminds me of work done by Michael Persinger.

From a Wired article (http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/7.11/persinger.html?pg=1&topic=&topic_set=)

... My lobes are about to be bathed with precise wavelength patterns that are supposed to affect my mind in a stunning way, artificially inducing the sensation that I am seeing God.

I'm taking part in a vanguard experiment on the physical sources of spiritual consciousness, the current work-in-progress of Michael Persinger, a neuropsychologist at Canada's Laurentian University in Sudbury, Ontario. His theory is that the sensation described as "having a religious experience" is merely a side effect of our bicameral brain's feverish activities...

[SirPhilip]

Good link. It reminds me of work done by Michael Persinger. From a Wired article (http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/7.11/persinger.html?pg=1&topic=&topic_set=) From the article: "Technically speaking, what's about to happen is simple. Using his fixed wavelength patterns of electromagnetic fields, Persinger aims to inspire a feeling of a sensed presence - he claims he can also zap you with euphoria, anxiety, fear, even sexual stirring."

Three woos for Mr.Persinger. The hell with God, I want a weaponized version of that thing to fire at women.

[Dr Adequate]

Being British, Ms. Yu and Mr. Dayan give the example of whether or not to believe the weather forecast when deciding to leave home with an umbrella in the morning. THAT IS SO RACIST!

* removes bowler hat and jumps on it in fit of rage *

I must sip some tea now to calm me down, I say, what.

* rings for butler *

[Ryan O'Dine]

snip

Three woos for Mr.Persinger.

snip


Are you saying Persinger is bunk? I'm not sure, but here's (http://www.innerworlds.50megs.com/Persinger_pubs.htm#Peer) a partial list of peer reviewed journal articles.

He may be wrong, but he's legit.

[SirPhilip]

Are you saying Persinger is bunk? I'm not sure, but here's (http://www.innerworlds.50megs.com/Persinger_pubs.htm#Peer) a partial list of peer reviewed journal articles.

He may be wrong, but he's legit. No, I meant that literally - woo! The grandfather of the sex ray. But on a serious note, he has his work cut out for him replicating spiritualism around the world, much less making people feel that they are genuinely experiencing God, in a messy room. It should also be noted that substances such as DMT and 5-MEO-DMT, have been around for years that overwhelmingly replicate transcedental states of mind, including an absolute state, but while overpowering, they're still just that, and qualitatively in the same catagory as other hallucinatory drugs. In other words, there isn't a strong dissonance between subjective and objective, the person knows they didn't go anywhere or actually see anything.