Posted inCoronavirus Religions Science

Religion is bringing out the coronavirus stupid in people

Not surprisingly, the coronavirus pandemic is causing religious people around the world to turn to superstition, fantasy, and unproven remedies.  Naturally they'd be much better off if they paid rapt attention to the public health experts who are using science and facts in their advice about how to keep from being infected by the COVID-19 virus. But religion often brings out the stupid in people. Especially when they're afraid of an unseen menace. Like a virus. Or the devil. The difference being that a virus is real, and the devil isn't, along with God and other imaginary supernatural entities.  Today…
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Posted inCoronavirus Science

Don’t spread false information about coronavirus

Science can be trusted. Though it isn't 100% perfect, science is way better than other ways of knowing -- especially when it comes to the coronavirus, COVID-19.  I just discovered that a frequent commenter on this blog left several comments on my HinesSight blog that referenced false information from mythical "Stanford board" advice about dealing with the coronavirus.  That information has been deleted by me.  Please, COVID-19 is tough enough to fight without people spreading false information about it. Here's the truth. ---------------------------------------------- CNN) — Contrary to what some may think, not everything on social media is rooted in fact.…
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Posted inBooks Science

Physicist Brian Greene talks about the cold, cruel, wondrous universe

Here's an excerpt from a story in the most recent issue of TIME magazine about physicist Brian Greene and his new book, Until the End of Time. (I've ordered it, naturally.) I get hugely more inspiration from science books like this one, because they're founded in reality, not fantasy, as religious writings are. I've been there and done that. Now, like Greene, I embrace the cold, cruel, wondrous universe. There's a lot of satisfaction in such neat solutions to head-cracking problems. But there is an equivalent neatness to the ostensibly dispiriting conclusions Greene reaches in his books and in his…
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Posted inBooks Science

Evolution shows how we are a small twig on the tree of life

Evolution is a scientific fact. Sure, all facts are subject to being proven wrong. But the chance of that happening to evolution is very slim, because the evidence for evolution is so strong. Since I love to learn about true things, this is why my pre-meditation reading each morning often consists of a science book. I see no reason to pick up a religious book any more, because my eyes have been opened to the falsity of believing in God or other supernatural entities. A few weeks ago I finished reading Joseph LeDoux's book, "The Deep History of Ourselves: The…
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Posted inScience

Woman who doesn’t feel pain shows mind-body connection

I'm 71. I've experienced a lot of pain and anxiety in my life, as has everyone. Well, almost everyone. Because a 72 year old woman who lives in the Scottish Highlands says she has never felt pain or anxiety, and scientists are making progress at learning why. I learned about Joanne Cameron via a fascinating article in a recent issue of The New Yorker, "A World Without Pain." Here's how it starts out. Joanne Cameron We like to think that what doesn’t kill us makes us stronger, or more resilient, or . . . something. Deeper. Wiser. Enlarged. There is “glory in our…
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Posted inScience

Why science can be trusted

I'm an admirer of science. My mother played a big part in fostering this when, in my childhood years, she bought me science kits, chemistry sets, and the like. I fondly remember cramming a card table into my bedroom closet, putting a light bulb over the clothing rod, and happily conducting experiments in my very own "laboratory." Our home also featured a subscription to Scientific American, which I still get, along with the British science magazine, New Scientist. I rarely read religious or spiritual books anymore, because I'd rather learn about reality instead of myths. But until I finished reading…
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Posted inReligions Science

Science rocks at comprehending the universe

When has somebody using the faith-based method of religion made a spectacularly accurate prediction about how reality behaves? Never. Not ever.  But people using the tools of science have done just that. This is one reason, among many, why science rocks and religion sucks.  I've finished the marvelously informative and entertaining book about calculus, Infinite Powers: How Calculus Reveals the Secrets of the Universe, that I've written about previously here and here. Below is an excerpt from the final chapter, where Steven Strogatz, the author, discusses how amazing it is that calculus can be used to make predictions about reality that are…
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Posted inBooks Science Spiritual practice/meditation

Mindfulness is calculus made spiritual

OK, I'm wading into some deep philosophical waters here, given the title of this blog post, because I only took one semester of calculus in graduate school, and then only because I was forced to by the powers-that-be in control of the Portland State University Systems Science Ph.D program. I found calculus to be difficult. By contrast, I've gotten back to reading an engaging book by Stephen Strogatz about calculus, Infinite Powers, which I blogged about back in August, noting that it had some spiritual aspects. This morning, reading a chapter on "The Vocabulary of Change" before I meditated, I…
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Posted inScience

Inference to the best explanation is a wise approach

In the course of reading books about modern science, I frequently come across an appealing phrase: inference to the best explanation. I like the sound of it. It makes sense to me. It's a foundation of both the scientific method and how we deal with issues in everyday life. Defining this approach in any detail can lead into some tricky philosophical territory that I'm not much interested in. This article summary from the Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy is good enough for blog post purposes. Inference to the best explanation is the procedure of choosing the hypothesis or theory that best…
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Posted inConsciousness Science

How the brain fools us into believing consciousness is immaterial

I love it! Because I loved The Matrix movie. There's something wildly appealing about our consciousness being deceived about the nature of reality in such a fashion that it is very difficult to escape the bounds of that deception. The "it" that I'm loving is a book by Michael Graziano, a professor of psychology and neuroscience at Princeton University. Rethinking Consciousness: A Scientific Theory of Subjective Experience is one of the best books I've read about the nature of consciousness, and I've read a lot of them. Here's a 13-minute video where Graziano describes the key aspects of his Attention Schema…
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Posted inConsciousness Science

Quantum theory isn’t needed to explain consciousness

If I wasn't an atheist I would have called out Thank God! when i read the following passages in Christof Koch's book, "The Feeling of Life Itself: Why Consciousness Is Widespread but Can't Be Computed." Koch, who is President and Chief Scientist of the Allen Institute for Brain Science in Seattle, doesn't see any need to invoke mysterious quantum phenomena when attempts to understand consciousness are being undertaken. As I noted recently, it irritates me when someone -- who almost always isn't a scientist -- tries to inject quantum theory into a discussion of meditation, consciousness, or such. As Koch…
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Posted inReligions Science

Science is our best method of knowing reality

Here's a basic fact: science is well-suited to understanding the nature of reality. Religion, on the other hand, is a very poor way of knowing reality. So religious belief must bow down to the scientific method if a believer makes a claim about God, soul, spirit, heaven, life after death, or some other supernatural subject.  Below are excerpts from a book that I've finished reading, "The Case Against Reality: Why Evolution Hid the Truth From Our Eyes." In a concluding chapter, Donald Hoffman, the author, makes some great points about the primacy of science in separating fact from fiction.  Because…
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Posted inReality Science

“The Case Against Reality” seems more right than wrong

It's rare that I find it difficult to put down a non-fiction book because I'm so eager to read the final chapters and grasp the author's concluding arguments. Such was the case, though, with The Case Against Reality: Why Evolution Hid the Truth From Our Eyes, by Donald Hoffman. I hadn't planned to spend so much time reading the book this morning, but I carried on until I'd read all but a technical appendix. Hoffman's Big Idea is this: evolution selects for fitness, not truth. If a living organism perceives reality well enough to be able to pass on its…
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Posted inReality Science

Calculus is cool. Spiritual, even. Infinity rocks.

Astoundingly, I'm enjoying a book about calculus, Infinite Powers by Steven Strogatz. The subtitle is the reason: How Calculus Reveals the Secrets of the Universe. Hey, I'm all in on having the secrets of the universe revealed to me. Especially when the cost was a mere $16.52 to have Amazon deliver the book to my doorstep.  I started this post with the word "astoundingly" because I was forced to take a calculus class in the first year of my Systems Science Ph.D. program studies way back when. (I completed the course work, but then gave up on being called Dr.…
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Posted inBooks Science

Give up the illusion of body and mind being different

Here at the Church of the Churchless we worship truth. I love truth. I sprinkle truth on my cereal every morning. I rinse with truth when I take a shower. I brush with truthpaste three times a day. That's why I adore science and dislike religion. And why I'm enjoying Susan Blackmore's new book, "Seeing Myself: The New Science of Out-of-Body Experiences" so much.  Blackmore, a British psychologist, is a spiritual but not religious sort of person. As she notes in the passages from the final Who am I? chapter in her book (which I read first, because the title…
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Posted inConsciousness Reality Science

Science is our best guide to a possible supernatural reality

Here's another comment from David C. Lane on a recent post of mine that makes so much sense, I'm sharing it even before I've even lunch. Sometimes my hunger for transmitting truth is greater than my stomach's yearning for food.  Didn't someone  once say, man does not live by bread alone? (or Trader Joe's meatless chick'n tenders). Lane talks about his Remainder Conjecture in which supernatural claims should only be accepted after a rigorous examination of them through the lens of science. This fits with David Hume's observation, which I wrote about yesterday, that we have a tremendous amount of…
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Posted inBuddhism Science

Buddhists, the mind isn’t like a mirror. Science knows better.

In my churchless frame of mind, it's rare that I can get very far into a book with some religious overtones before I start using my highlighter to make question marks in the margins. The book I'm reading now, As It Is by Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche, was bought because I was curious to learn more about one of the Dzogchen/Buddhist teachers mentioned in Sam Harris' Waking Up book -- which I like a lot. (But which also has some question marks in the margins; just a few, though.) I'll write about what appeals to me in As It Is in another…
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Posted inReligions Science

Science is never certain. Religion should do the same.

For a little light reading today (I'm being ironic) I picked up my copy of physicist David Deutsch's "The Fabric of Reality: The Science of Parallel Universes -- and Its Implications." Thumbing though a chapter I'd already read, The Nature of Mathematics, I came to this passage. It made me wish that religions, mystical paths, and other varieties of supernaturalism were as wise as science. Mathematicians are rather proud of this absolute certainty [that mathematical proofs are true], and scientists tend to be a little envious of it.  For in science there is no way of being certain of any…
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Posted inReligions Science

Science touches reality. Religion only touches the human mind.

"We've got to get out of our own heads." I really liked this observation by Michael Shermer near the beginning of a podcast interview featuring him and Philip Goff. Shermer was speaking about how Eben Alexander claimed he went to heaven while in a coma, but actually there's solid evidence that he didn't. Heaven was just a place he made up in his head. Also, Shermer notes that Sam Harris, the noted atheist neuroscientist, writes in one of his books about taking MDMA (ecstasy) that led to a rather similar mystical experience. Except, Harris never claimed to have experienced a…
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Posted inGod Science

Stephen Hawking asks “Is there a God?” (Spoiler alert: No.)

Being a big fan of both science and Stephen Hawking, naturally I had to buy his last and most recent book, "Brief Answers to the Big Questions," which was published after he died this year.So far I've only read up through the first two questions, "Is there a God?" and "How did it all begin?" Since Hawking was an atheist, you can predict what the answers are. But I'll save the details for later in this post. First, I want to acknowledge Hawking's amazing courage and commitment to truth. He talks about the progression of his ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis),…
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