Skip to content

Is Science Close to Defeating Religion?

Is Science Close to Defeating Religion?

On Sunday The Observer published an article by Colin Blakemore entitled ‘Science is Just one Gene away from Defeating Religion’. (See http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/feb/22/genetics-religion). After a necessarily brief overview of the history of tensions between science and religion Blakemore settles on a target, which is a well-known argument recently presented by Richard Harries, the former Bishop of Oxford, for the conclusion that religion provides a type of explanation that cannot be provided by science. Science, on this view only answers ‘how questions’, whereas Religion answers ‘why questions’. This distinction is overly simplistic. Science does answer some why questions. It can tell us why we observe solar and lunar eclipses, why the naked mole rat is eusocial and why almost all track and field world records have been set in the late afternoon or early evening. However, it seems unlikely that science will ever be able to provide us with compelling answers to ultimate why questions such as ‘why do we exist?’ and ‘why does the universe exist?’. Blakemore tells us that he is dubious about the legitimacy of these (ultimate) why questions. He suggests that these questions can either be dismissed as nonsensical, or can be recast as how questions that we will be able to answer by appeal to science.

Read More »Is Science Close to Defeating Religion?

Event Announcement: Direct to Consumer Genetic Testing Workshop May 21

The Ethox Centre and the Programme on the Ethics of New Biosciences are co-organising a one-day workshop to explore the ethical and regulatory issues surrounding the recent development and marketing of direct to consumer genetic tests. Companies such as deCODE Genetics, 23andME and DNADirect are already marketing direct to consumer genetic tests but there has… Read More »Event Announcement: Direct to Consumer Genetic Testing Workshop May 21

Am I allowed to throw away *my* memories: does memory editing threaten human identity?

A paper has recently been published demonstrating that a previously learned fearful reaction can be weakened using a drug. The aim of the research is to ameliorate PTSD, post-traumatic stress disorder, where traumatic experiences cause an ongoing state of anxiety and stress reactions. In the media it of course became "drug can erase bad memories" and "Pill to erase bad memories: Ethical furore over drugs 'that threaten human identity'". Are we getting close to a memory eraser pill, and would it pose any ethical challenges?

Read More »Am I allowed to throw away *my* memories: does memory editing threaten human identity?

A kidney for a heart – some thoughts on ownership of biological material

Back in 2001 Richard Batista, a vascular surgeon at Nassau University Medical Center, donated a kidney to his wife Dawnell Batista in an attempt to save both her life and their failing marriage (here and here). Although the transplantation (Ms Batista’s third) was a success nothing could salvage the marriage and in 2005 Ms Battista filed for divorce. The infuriated Mr Battista responded by demanding his kidney back. Mr Battista said that while he had done everything to save her – as his lawyer put it “acted ‘godlike’” – she had exploited his kindness and betrayed him in the worst of ways. He accused her of having an affair with her physical therapist, said that she refused marriage counselling (implying it could have saved the marriage) and that she would not let him see their 3 children. Ms Battista, on the other hand, denied the affair and said that her soon to be ex-husband was “insanely jealous and hyper-suspicious”. Faced with the impossibility of actually getting the organ back Mr Battista has announced that he wants to be compensated monetarily. More precisely he holds that $1.5 million would be the appropriate market value of the kidney. The hearing started last month and it seems fair to assume that the claim for monetary compensation will be rejected. The selling of organs is illegal in the USA and as pointed out by one of the lawyers involved; a kidney is not a marital asset to be divided. The sensationalist overtones of the Batista case aside, it is clear that ownership of biological material is one of the most challenging issues in bioethics today. Arguably, a strongly contributing factor is that it is not particularly clear what it means to own biological material. Which are the rights and obligations that we have with regards to our own, and other people’s, biological material?

Read More »A kidney for a heart – some thoughts on ownership of biological material

In search of lost heterosexuality

“Luca was gay”(in Italy Luca is a male name) is the title of a song that will compete at the next Italian musical festival of Sanremo in few days.
Unluckily the regulation of the competition forbids circulating lyrics and music of the songs before the show begins, but this time the title and some previous public declarations of the singer make it easy to guess what this song is about.

Read More »In search of lost heterosexuality

Special lecture: Jeff McMahan on Cognitive Disability and Cognitive Enhancement

Friday 27 February, 12.30 p.m. – 2.00 p.m.Venue: Seminar Room 1, Old Indian Institute, 34 Broad St, Oxford, OX1 3BD Abstract: There are some members of the human species whose cognitive capacities and potential are no higher than those of higher nonhuman animals. I will seek to explain why it is important for our understanding… Read More »Special lecture: Jeff McMahan on Cognitive Disability and Cognitive Enhancement

Transparent brains: detecting preferences with infrared light

Researchers at University of Toronto have demonstrated that they can decode which of two drinks a test subject prefers by scanning their brains with infrared light. (Original paper here.) The intention is to develop better brain-computer interfaces for severely disabled people, but there are obvious other applications for non-invasive methods of detecting what people want. No doubt neuromarketers are drooling over the applications. But the threat to mental privacy might be a smaller problem than the threat of mistaken preferences.

Read More »Transparent brains: detecting preferences with infrared light

Born believers?

The latest issue of New Scientist features an article by Michael Brooks on the evolutionary origins of religious belief. Brookes spends most of the article considering the relative merits of the two main contending hypotheses. On one view, religion is an adaptation selected for its role in promoting cooperation; on the other, it is a by-product of other mental modules which are themselves evolutionarily advantageous. Towards the end of his piece, however, Brookes briefly addresses the implications of this research for the epistemic status of theism. As Brookes writes,

if religion is a natural consequence of how our brains work, where does that leave god? All the researchers involved stress that none of this says anything about the existence or otherwise of gods: as Barratt points out, whether or not a belief is true is independent of why people believe it.

Barring non-realist interpretations of religious discourse, it is undoubtedly the case that these studies do not impinge on the truth of religious claims. (It is not clear to me what would non-realist theologians, such as like Don Culpitt, say about this research.)  Yet the interesting question concerns, not the truth, but the warrant of theism in light of scientific findings about why people believe in God.

Such findings can, I believe, undermine theism, in at least two different ways. First, they may provide a rival, superior explanation for a belief which was previously thought to be best explained by a supernatural hypothesis. Secondly, they may show that belief in God arises not as a result of attention to arguments or evidence, but as a contingent accident of our evolutionary past. Let us consider these in turn.

Read More »Born believers?

Educating children on matters of food

As evidenced by recent declarations by the Children’s Secretary (see here and here),
the British government is determined to fight childhood obesity and to initiate
nothing less than a “lifestyle revolution”, resulting in more children leading
a healthy and active life. With this aim in view, a free cookbook was recently distributed to 11
year-olds by the Department for Children, Schools and Families. In
addition to that, from 2011
cookery lessons will be compulsory in England's secondary schools for children
aged 11 to 14, and £3.3 million will be invested in order to
recruit and train people capable of teaching cooking skills to children.
Parents are also urged to teach their children how to prepare meals from
scratch.

These are certainly sensible steps to take. With nine out of 10 British adults
and two-thirds of children expected to be overweight or obese by the year 2050
unless action is taken (http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2008/jul/30/obesity),
we are clearly dealing with an important public health issue. And given the
significance of the link between excess weight and an unhealthy diet (lack of
exercise being another major contributing factor), it seems clear that we should
teach children what a healthy diet consists in and equip them not to be dependent on
the local fast-food chain when the time of the next meal comes. We can hope
that the government’s scheme will help to achieve this, and that parents will
follow the lead – though it is also necessary that the meals provided in school
canteens be in keeping with those aims. However, I would like to suggest that
these steps should form part of a wider project meant to educate children on
matters of food. We want our children to be healthy, but we should also want
them to become autonomous and ethically responsible eaters (and, more
generally, consumers).

Read More »Educating children on matters of food