I too am both a pagan and a scientist, and I will happily switch between tales of the Green Mother’s handfasting to the Dying King and Gould’s theory of Punctuated Equilibrium. I find it no more ridiculous than Francis Collins, the leader of the Human Genome Project and a man I respect greatly, publicly embracing evangelical Christianity.
Our brains are complex creations, with many levels and conflicting functions. The scientific method, with its falsifiable hypotheses and reductive materialism, is a stellar belief system for those systems responsible for predicting and understanding how the physical world works. Unfortunately, it provides little if any support for those pre-rational, emotional, and social systems all our brains share. Your amygdala needs something a bit different than physics.
Many of my fellow biologists share your confusion when confronted with the common person’s dislike of Darwinian theory. What they fail to understand is that creation myths serve a critical function in people’s lives that has nothing to do with what “really happened”. Think about the function of belief from an evolutionary perspective for a moment. What survival benefit is there in understanding what “really happened” when the universe was formed billions of years ago—especially to our ancestors on the savanna? Yet all cultures place a great importance in their creation myths, despite the fact that most can be easily disproved. It is a universal in human experience.
You may want to ask yourself what the evolutionary function of a creation myth is, and why they are a universal human conceit. With that knowledge in hand, you may have a better understanding of how a creation myth should be judged, and you may finally understand what your pagan panelist was trying to tell you.
Please enlighten me. If she did not believe what she said as literal truth, then what was she trying to say? And why did she not say what she meant? Is it possible that you mean to say her whole speech was an act to communicate a deeper message? A secret message that only pagans understand? Or do you mean to say that this woman had social (or other reasons) to believe this, and she promoted that it didn’t matter what she believed because it didn’t conflict with her scientific life? Or do you mean that she was encouraging the separation of science and religion by making herself an example of how irrationally stubborn people can be, making it too difficult for science to ever eradicate any false religion because it’s “the opium of the people”? Is that what you mean by the “evolutionary function of a creation myth”? How could it play any role in evolution? Were you there during this event, or do you know something I don’t?
I have no idea who Zenkat 2 is, much less the original pagan panelist, but here are some plausible suggestions about what she might have been thinking:
She was trying to say that her story about the Primordial Cow was the most emotionally satisfying story currently available on the topic of “where do we come from?”
She did not explicitly describe her story as false because this makes a story less emotionally satisfying.
She believed that telling false stories as if they were true is not necessarily a mark of an inferior scientist—some people can effectively compartmentalize, and it would be reckless to insist (without evidence) that all such people would be more productive if they forced themselves to adopt rational modes of thinking in all aspects of their life.
Creation myths could be a common but accidental byproduct of the evolutionarily advantageous ability to develop stories (improves communication), the urge to complete stories (improves curiosity), and the urge to build community (i.e., the relevant in-group shares a common origin and should act like kin; improves cooperation). Alternatively, the cooperation-improving function of a really good creation myth might be part of the cause of its ubiquity.
Some individuals (and I presume more here than most venues) struggle with any internal inconsistency, while others readily compartmentalize and move on. I am an engineer by training and of course most of my workmates are engineers, yet they represent a variety of religions as well. Most have some questions and doubts about their own, and plenty more about others, and yet that doesn’t make a huge difference for day-to-day life.
Some would quickly conclude that such an engineer’s judgement is questionable, and discount their work, but most seem to be adequately logical in other spheres.
Perhaps the better questions is one of utility—what value does the individual get for their beliefs? I graduated with many Elect Engrs; let’s presume one went to work on microprocessor design (driven by quantum theory) and another does correction math for GPS satellites (driven by relativity). It is well understood that the two theories have been objectively demonstrated to work well in their respective domains, and yet are mathematically incompatible (at best each may a simplification of a more universal rule). Both cannot be ‘true’, and while both could be false and likely are to some degree, they are both incredibly useful.
From a systems perspective I tend to fall back on the Systems rules-of-thumb, like “all models are wrong; some are useful”, and “draw a box around what is working together to do what you’re interested in, and analyze within”. Compartmentalization allows one to get down to the work at hand, in support of a utilitarian view.
I am here to learn, though. Must inconsistency be driven out, or simply embraced as part of the imperfect human machine?
I too am both a pagan and a scientist, and I will happily switch between tales of the Green Mother’s handfasting to the Dying King and Gould’s theory of Punctuated Equilibrium. I find it no more ridiculous than Francis Collins, the leader of the Human Genome Project and a man I respect greatly, publicly embracing evangelical Christianity.
Our brains are complex creations, with many levels and conflicting functions. The scientific method, with its falsifiable hypotheses and reductive materialism, is a stellar belief system for those systems responsible for predicting and understanding how the physical world works. Unfortunately, it provides little if any support for those pre-rational, emotional, and social systems all our brains share. Your amygdala needs something a bit different than physics.
Many of my fellow biologists share your confusion when confronted with the common person’s dislike of Darwinian theory. What they fail to understand is that creation myths serve a critical function in people’s lives that has nothing to do with what “really happened”. Think about the function of belief from an evolutionary perspective for a moment. What survival benefit is there in understanding what “really happened” when the universe was formed billions of years ago—especially to our ancestors on the savanna? Yet all cultures place a great importance in their creation myths, despite the fact that most can be easily disproved. It is a universal in human experience.
You may want to ask yourself what the evolutionary function of a creation myth is, and why they are a universal human conceit. With that knowledge in hand, you may have a better understanding of how a creation myth should be judged, and you may finally understand what your pagan panelist was trying to tell you.
Please enlighten me. If she did not believe what she said as literal truth, then what was she trying to say? And why did she not say what she meant? Is it possible that you mean to say her whole speech was an act to communicate a deeper message? A secret message that only pagans understand? Or do you mean to say that this woman had social (or other reasons) to believe this, and she promoted that it didn’t matter what she believed because it didn’t conflict with her scientific life? Or do you mean that she was encouraging the separation of science and religion by making herself an example of how irrationally stubborn people can be, making it too difficult for science to ever eradicate any false religion because it’s “the opium of the people”? Is that what you mean by the “evolutionary function of a creation myth”? How could it play any role in evolution? Were you there during this event, or do you know something I don’t?
I have no idea who Zenkat 2 is, much less the original pagan panelist, but here are some plausible suggestions about what she might have been thinking:
She was trying to say that her story about the Primordial Cow was the most emotionally satisfying story currently available on the topic of “where do we come from?”
She did not explicitly describe her story as false because this makes a story less emotionally satisfying.
She believed that telling false stories as if they were true is not necessarily a mark of an inferior scientist—some people can effectively compartmentalize, and it would be reckless to insist (without evidence) that all such people would be more productive if they forced themselves to adopt rational modes of thinking in all aspects of their life.
Creation myths could be a common but accidental byproduct of the evolutionarily advantageous ability to develop stories (improves communication), the urge to complete stories (improves curiosity), and the urge to build community (i.e., the relevant in-group shares a common origin and should act like kin; improves cooperation). Alternatively, the cooperation-improving function of a really good creation myth might be part of the cause of its ubiquity.
Thanks
In case it isn’t clear, you’re asking questions to someone who posted a comment 5 years ago on Overcoming Bias. Don’t expect a response.
And hasn’t commented since, at least not under that username.
Some individuals (and I presume more here than most venues) struggle with any internal inconsistency, while others readily compartmentalize and move on. I am an engineer by training and of course most of my workmates are engineers, yet they represent a variety of religions as well. Most have some questions and doubts about their own, and plenty more about others, and yet that doesn’t make a huge difference for day-to-day life.
Some would quickly conclude that such an engineer’s judgement is questionable, and discount their work, but most seem to be adequately logical in other spheres.
Perhaps the better questions is one of utility—what value does the individual get for their beliefs? I graduated with many Elect Engrs; let’s presume one went to work on microprocessor design (driven by quantum theory) and another does correction math for GPS satellites (driven by relativity). It is well understood that the two theories have been objectively demonstrated to work well in their respective domains, and yet are mathematically incompatible (at best each may a simplification of a more universal rule). Both cannot be ‘true’, and while both could be false and likely are to some degree, they are both incredibly useful.
From a systems perspective I tend to fall back on the Systems rules-of-thumb, like “all models are wrong; some are useful”, and “draw a box around what is working together to do what you’re interested in, and analyze within”. Compartmentalization allows one to get down to the work at hand, in support of a utilitarian view.
I am here to learn, though. Must inconsistency be driven out, or simply embraced as part of the imperfect human machine?