American readers might be slightly surprised to find that church schools (nowadays often called faith schools so as not to discriminate against non-Christian religions) should be a big issue in the UK. The argument has historical roots. Once upon a time, most free schools in the country were run by the Church of England. From the mid-nineteenth century, the Catholic Church also began to set up schools, which tended, because of demographics, to be in quite poor areas. In the 1940s, schools were nationalised and the state started to pay for most of their upkeep. Despite increasing levels of regulation, many church schools have retained some independence, especially over admissions and ‘ethos’.
The arguments for church schools are two-fold. Firstly, people have a right to have their children brought up within their own tradition. Secondly, church schools tend to be better than non-church schools. The reasons for the later fact are hotly debated. Some claim that it is purely due to the middle classes packing church schools while leaving secular schools to deal with the socially disadvantaged. Others claim it is due to the culture of discipline and hard work at church schools which leads to their success. I would think that both factors contribute but that it is the strong ethos that leads to middle class parents being attracted to the school in the first place, thus further improving its image and results.
The propensity to blame the middle classes for clogging up the best schools has even infected the Conservative Party. Their schools spokesman, Michael Gove (him again), recently referred to the sharp elbows of the middle classes, presumably forcing their way past the worthy poor to bag all the desks at the local school. The Conservative leader, David Cameron also got himself into a muddle on the Church Schools issue. In a recent Times interview he said he would not blame parents trying to do the best for their children. This was interpreted as condoning atheists who pretend to a Christian faith so as to get their kids into a church school. Journalists often peddle the idea that non-believers turn up at church each Sunday just to improve their chances of getting their children into the attached school. I’ve always found the image of worthy Dawkinistas laying aside their copies of The God Delusion to march off to Communion on Sunday rather ridiculous. What probably does happen is people who never really bothered with religion one way or the other suddenly find they have an urge to investigate it if the local church school is any good. I rather suspect that David Cameron himself falls into this category.
There is no doubt that the stakes for us middle class parents are frighteningly high. State schools are free but vary between excellent and utterly dire. No self-respecting parent will accept a poor school for their offspring but the allocation of places to the best state schools is a lottery, increasingly quite literally so. The alternative private schools start at around £8,000 a year. Many middle class parents, unsurprisingly, decide that kind of money is worth a Mass.
The argument against church schools is harder to pin down because it is only usually made by ranters like Polly Toynbee. The traditional objection is that church schools encourage religious segregation although no one seems to provide any evidence for this beyond insisting that it is ‘obvious’. Some of it is ideological egalitarianism which would rather all schools were poor than some were better than others. The fact that church schools do generally appear to be better than secular schools is clearly a red rag to the bulls who refuse to see any good in religion. Perhaps they are also worried that parents who are attending church to ease access to a school might fall under religion’s wicked spell as well. The arguments have now been confused by concern from all sides about Muslim state schools (of which there are so far only one or two). Some on the left would rather close down all church schools than admit to discriminating against Islam. If Islamic schools funded by the taxpayer do take off, we can expect that this argument will get a lot louder.
Click here to read the first chapter of God's Philosophers: How the Medieval World Laid the Foundations of Modern Science absolutely free.
Saturday, February 02, 2008
Wednesday, January 30, 2008
Can a Christian believe in Free Markets?
There has been some debate below Friday’s post about to what extent being an economic left-winger is a valid choice. We all know that socialism is not a successful way to achieve economic growth. It is less widely accepted, but I think still true, that the best way for a country to become rich is following an unfettered free-market and free-trade policy. For example, before 1990 India followed an economic policy that was centrally planned and protectionist. This resulted in an average growth rate of 3% per annum – respectable for an industrialised country but disastrous where it could not even keep pace with population increases. After over a decade of free market reform, growth is up to 10% a year and ordinary Indians are finally getting richer. Some are getting extremely rich and herein lies the left-winger’s gripe.
To be economically left wing is, I think, to value social justice and fairness more highly than economic growth. A left-winger would sacrifice some of the gains from an unfettered free market to even up the benefits. There are two powerful arguments in favour of this approach. The first is that, beyond a certain level, increased wealth does not seem to make us happier. Indeed, people are likely to be made unhappy by a neighbour who is clearly prospering more than they are (what we in England call having to keep up with the Joneses). Pop-psychologist Oliver James has written a couple of books claiming being rich has actually made us miserable but as he has declined to provide any evidence for his assertions, they must stand unproven.
The second powerful argument for the left winger is not one that many of them are inclined to make. It concerns equal opportunities. It is true that the best way to create opportunities for those willing and able to take them is an unfettered free market. However, many are either unwilling or cannot take their chances. The left will blame lack of education or other social disadvantages for this, but the real reason is the genetic lottery whereby many people do not have the raw brainpower or determination to give things a go. Thus, an unfettered market will always fail some people who are not, through their own efforts, able to do much about it. This might be what Jesus, whom we must at least credit with a shrewd idea of human nature, meant when he said that the poor would always be with us. He also blesses them and charges the rest of us with looking after them. Thus, I think it is possible to construct a left wing and Christian argument against leaving the market to its own devices.
Where do I stand? With a billion critically poor, I am not sure we have the luxury to worry about inequality. The quickest way to generate the trillions of dollars needed to lift the poor above the subsistence line is through global markets and free trade. That this money will end up very unevenly distributed is not, for the moment, the most pressing problem. My argument is not with those on the left whose priorities are different from mine, but with those who go on pretending that capitalism-lite can do the job better at wealth creation than capitalism.
Click here to read the first chapter of God's Philosophers: How the Medieval World Laid the Foundations of Modern Science absolutely free.
To be economically left wing is, I think, to value social justice and fairness more highly than economic growth. A left-winger would sacrifice some of the gains from an unfettered free market to even up the benefits. There are two powerful arguments in favour of this approach. The first is that, beyond a certain level, increased wealth does not seem to make us happier. Indeed, people are likely to be made unhappy by a neighbour who is clearly prospering more than they are (what we in England call having to keep up with the Joneses). Pop-psychologist Oliver James has written a couple of books claiming being rich has actually made us miserable but as he has declined to provide any evidence for his assertions, they must stand unproven.
The second powerful argument for the left winger is not one that many of them are inclined to make. It concerns equal opportunities. It is true that the best way to create opportunities for those willing and able to take them is an unfettered free market. However, many are either unwilling or cannot take their chances. The left will blame lack of education or other social disadvantages for this, but the real reason is the genetic lottery whereby many people do not have the raw brainpower or determination to give things a go. Thus, an unfettered market will always fail some people who are not, through their own efforts, able to do much about it. This might be what Jesus, whom we must at least credit with a shrewd idea of human nature, meant when he said that the poor would always be with us. He also blesses them and charges the rest of us with looking after them. Thus, I think it is possible to construct a left wing and Christian argument against leaving the market to its own devices.
Where do I stand? With a billion critically poor, I am not sure we have the luxury to worry about inequality. The quickest way to generate the trillions of dollars needed to lift the poor above the subsistence line is through global markets and free trade. That this money will end up very unevenly distributed is not, for the moment, the most pressing problem. My argument is not with those on the left whose priorities are different from mine, but with those who go on pretending that capitalism-lite can do the job better at wealth creation than capitalism.
Click here to read the first chapter of God's Philosophers: How the Medieval World Laid the Foundations of Modern Science absolutely free.
Monday, January 28, 2008
The English Neo-Cons
Over on this side of the Atlantic to call someone a neo-conservative is far ruder than to question the genus to which their mother belongs or make implications about their destination after death. Like ‘heretic’, ‘neo-con’ is a word that no one would use to describe themselves. It is a throwaway insult, usually used to describe someone supportive, if only in a broad way, of United States foreign policy. But it can be applied to anyone you don’t like. Today an article by a bona fide left-winger on breast milk earned him the insult from someone who apparently equates bottle-feeding with American imperialism.
For this reason, I am not going to use the term neo-con to describe the English neo-cons. But this does leave us lacking a collective noun to describe a group that, although disparate, has quite a lot in common.
Interestingly, they all tend to be journalists. Apart from Tony Blair, now retired, few British politicians ever appeared to give wholehearted support to the Iraq War. Fewer betrayed any liking for George Bush. This was the same on the opposition benches where their erstwhile leader, Iain Duncan Smith – himself an ex-soldier – was one of the few Conservatives to summon up much enthusiasm for the venture. The only full blooded supporter of Iraq now in the shadow cabinet, Michael Gove, has been parked in the (admittedly important) education portfolio where he can’t stir up any foreign policy hornets.
Most of the other not-to-be-called-neo-cons in England are journalists or writers – Nick Cohen, Johann Hari, David Aaronovitch, Christopher Hitchens, Oliver Kamm and Martin Amis to name a few. Realising they have much in common, some have signed up to a document called the Euston Manifesto, which, in substance is a sort of mutual defence pact to watch each other’s backs in print. They tend to be from the left of the political spectrum. This echoes the situation of the original American neo-cons, whom, I understand, also found there way from Democratic or even socialist backgrounds. However, the English group claim that they continue to be left wingers and spend much of their time defending themselves from the old left for whom being anti-Israel and anti-American are articles of faith. The signatories of the Euston Manifesto supported the Iraq War because they believed that Saddam Hussein was a fascist and lefties should axiomatically be anti-Fascist. In this, together with their critical and some grudging support for Israel, I tend to agree with them.
However, the signatories extend their anti-fascist analysis to Islam as a whole. Many see this religion as a manifestation of evil that needs to be opposed wholeheartedly. Islam is, they say, anti-liberal, anti-democratic, anti-feminist and anti-enlightenment. This contrasts with some of the mainstream left which will cuddle up to even quite extreme Islamists in search of allies for the ‘real’ struggle against America and Israel. Here I part company with the Euston signatories because I have rather more respect and hope for Islam than they do. It should also be said that they are vehemently anti-Christian, but unlike the cowardly Toynbees and Dawkins of the world, they are brave enough to attack a Muslim target which might bite them back. I also admire the way that they follow their principles rather than run with the herd. The insults that they put up with on the Guardian’s Comment is Free site do not end with neo-con. In fact, that is one of the milder put downs.
Click here to read the first chapter of God's Philosophers: How the Medieval World Laid the Foundations of Modern Science absolutely free.
For this reason, I am not going to use the term neo-con to describe the English neo-cons. But this does leave us lacking a collective noun to describe a group that, although disparate, has quite a lot in common.
Interestingly, they all tend to be journalists. Apart from Tony Blair, now retired, few British politicians ever appeared to give wholehearted support to the Iraq War. Fewer betrayed any liking for George Bush. This was the same on the opposition benches where their erstwhile leader, Iain Duncan Smith – himself an ex-soldier – was one of the few Conservatives to summon up much enthusiasm for the venture. The only full blooded supporter of Iraq now in the shadow cabinet, Michael Gove, has been parked in the (admittedly important) education portfolio where he can’t stir up any foreign policy hornets.
Most of the other not-to-be-called-neo-cons in England are journalists or writers – Nick Cohen, Johann Hari, David Aaronovitch, Christopher Hitchens, Oliver Kamm and Martin Amis to name a few. Realising they have much in common, some have signed up to a document called the Euston Manifesto, which, in substance is a sort of mutual defence pact to watch each other’s backs in print. They tend to be from the left of the political spectrum. This echoes the situation of the original American neo-cons, whom, I understand, also found there way from Democratic or even socialist backgrounds. However, the English group claim that they continue to be left wingers and spend much of their time defending themselves from the old left for whom being anti-Israel and anti-American are articles of faith. The signatories of the Euston Manifesto supported the Iraq War because they believed that Saddam Hussein was a fascist and lefties should axiomatically be anti-Fascist. In this, together with their critical and some grudging support for Israel, I tend to agree with them.
However, the signatories extend their anti-fascist analysis to Islam as a whole. Many see this religion as a manifestation of evil that needs to be opposed wholeheartedly. Islam is, they say, anti-liberal, anti-democratic, anti-feminist and anti-enlightenment. This contrasts with some of the mainstream left which will cuddle up to even quite extreme Islamists in search of allies for the ‘real’ struggle against America and Israel. Here I part company with the Euston signatories because I have rather more respect and hope for Islam than they do. It should also be said that they are vehemently anti-Christian, but unlike the cowardly Toynbees and Dawkins of the world, they are brave enough to attack a Muslim target which might bite them back. I also admire the way that they follow their principles rather than run with the herd. The insults that they put up with on the Guardian’s Comment is Free site do not end with neo-con. In fact, that is one of the milder put downs.
Click here to read the first chapter of God's Philosophers: How the Medieval World Laid the Foundations of Modern Science absolutely free.
Friday, January 25, 2008
Books for the Centre-Right
When I am drawn into a bookshop, which happens quite often, I am struck by the political bias of its contents. Heading for the politics section, usually found hugging the newly created environmentalism section to its chest, I find shelves packed with the works of Noam Chomsky, Naomi Klein and their various disciples. Tome after tome condemns globalisation, the West and America in particular. All things green are praised and all things corporate condemned. Supermarkets which have brought us unprecedented choice and value are accused of all sorts of crimes against humanity. Where are the books explaining how free trade has lifted hundreds of millions from poverty, why the market is the only sensible economic system and that Chomsky is full of it?
I can’t believe that conservatives don’t read. And I know they can write – star newspaper columnists like Daniel Finkelstein, Michael Gove and Matthew D’Ancona are essential to my week. The conservative Spectator is an infinitely better bet for a train journey than the dull-as-dishwater New Statesman. So where are the books for the centre-right? Why do we have the progressive Verso publishing in the UK, but not the reactionary Regnery? The only conservative book I regularly see is James Delingpole’s How to be Right. Not intended to be serious, it is, in fact, sad to say, a bit silly.
So, as a public service, let me list a rare few of the essential reads for moderate conservatives. In the field of history, things are a bit better with Andrew Roberts and Niall Ferguson both in action for the right, so I will stick to politics, economics and science. Further suggestions would be very welcome.
The Blank Slate – Steven Pinker’s best book to date demolishes the idea that nurture trumps nature. In forensic detail, it explains why everything that the left think about human nature is wrong. Occasional dud chapters on art and violence do little to soften its overall impact.
Freakonomics – An academic and a journalist explain how to use statistics to understand the world. There is not all that much about straight economics and not everything here will gladden the conservative’s heart. But the sections on political funding, law and order and education provide much satisfying food for thought.
The World is Flat РOr why globalisation is a good thing. Taking a truly worldwide perspective, we learn how India and China are outpacing the West. Most of the myths about globalisation are attacked but the best thing about the book is the examples are all real people, not statistics. The problem is it is overlong and written in an annoying dialect of journalistic clich̩.
The Undercover Economist – A journalist from the Financial Times elucidates economics for idiots (like me). This book explains why markets and free trade work and why the socialist alternatives don’t. We find out why Africa is really poor (it’s not western imperialism) and China is getting richer. It is essential reading for anyone who wants to understand the driving forces of today’s world.
What’s Left? – An attack on leftist shibboleths by Nick Cohen, one of their own. I’ll be looking at the phenomena of the English neo-cons a bit later.
Just out is Sex, Science and Profits which explicitly links the rise of capitalism to the rise of science. It claims all those scientists demanding public funding for their work would be better off without it. It’s something else to add to the reading list. Any further ideas would be most welcome.
Click here to read the first chapter of God's Philosophers: How the Medieval World Laid the Foundations of Modern Science absolutely free.
I can’t believe that conservatives don’t read. And I know they can write – star newspaper columnists like Daniel Finkelstein, Michael Gove and Matthew D’Ancona are essential to my week. The conservative Spectator is an infinitely better bet for a train journey than the dull-as-dishwater New Statesman. So where are the books for the centre-right? Why do we have the progressive Verso publishing in the UK, but not the reactionary Regnery? The only conservative book I regularly see is James Delingpole’s How to be Right. Not intended to be serious, it is, in fact, sad to say, a bit silly.
So, as a public service, let me list a rare few of the essential reads for moderate conservatives. In the field of history, things are a bit better with Andrew Roberts and Niall Ferguson both in action for the right, so I will stick to politics, economics and science. Further suggestions would be very welcome.
The Blank Slate – Steven Pinker’s best book to date demolishes the idea that nurture trumps nature. In forensic detail, it explains why everything that the left think about human nature is wrong. Occasional dud chapters on art and violence do little to soften its overall impact.
Freakonomics – An academic and a journalist explain how to use statistics to understand the world. There is not all that much about straight economics and not everything here will gladden the conservative’s heart. But the sections on political funding, law and order and education provide much satisfying food for thought.
The World is Flat РOr why globalisation is a good thing. Taking a truly worldwide perspective, we learn how India and China are outpacing the West. Most of the myths about globalisation are attacked but the best thing about the book is the examples are all real people, not statistics. The problem is it is overlong and written in an annoying dialect of journalistic clich̩.
The Undercover Economist – A journalist from the Financial Times elucidates economics for idiots (like me). This book explains why markets and free trade work and why the socialist alternatives don’t. We find out why Africa is really poor (it’s not western imperialism) and China is getting richer. It is essential reading for anyone who wants to understand the driving forces of today’s world.
What’s Left? – An attack on leftist shibboleths by Nick Cohen, one of their own. I’ll be looking at the phenomena of the English neo-cons a bit later.
Just out is Sex, Science and Profits which explicitly links the rise of capitalism to the rise of science. It claims all those scientists demanding public funding for their work would be better off without it. It’s something else to add to the reading list. Any further ideas would be most welcome.
Click here to read the first chapter of God's Philosophers: How the Medieval World Laid the Foundations of Modern Science absolutely free.
Wednesday, January 23, 2008
Religion and Politics Part Two
I should update my post from last year on the religious views of Britain’s political leaders. Nick Clegg, newly anointed as the head of the Liberal Democrats, is now the only admitted non-believer leading a major political party in England. He claims to be an agnostic rather than an atheist. His wife, however, is a committed Catholic. Clegg’s first significant act as leader was to break his party’s manifesto commitment to hold a referendum on the European Union’s rewritten constitution. However, I hesitate to suggest that some religious feeling might have translated into greater probity on Clegg’s part. The deeply devout Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, has done exactly the same thing.
Which brings me to 2007’s highest profile conversion – Tony Blair’s reception by Rome. I have to admit to being singularly unmoved by this. Newspaper comment was confined to some bitchy remarks from columnists who have never forgiven him for the Iraq war. This led to inevitable non-sequiturs but told us very little of substance. I would only say that the Catholic Church allows confession to be heard in private and does not require a public mea culpa from its converts. For this reason, those wanting to hear Blair apologise, whether they were exercised by his support for George Bush or his supporting abortion, have no right to feel disappointed. It is striking that Blair has as many enemies on the red extreme of the political spectrum as on the blue. He has become almost as much a hate figure on the left as Mrs Thatcher was. I suppose she still is among those lefties who keep the socialist flame alive.
Blair’s conversion led to one columnist making a fool of himself. Matthew Parris, who is usually quite sensible, has a bad case of Russell’s syndrome. Regular readers will know that this condition afflicts men and women of high intelligence who are, in most respects, indistinguishable from their fellow members of the academic elite. However, the sufferer of Russell’s Syndrome (first identified in the third Earl [Bertrand] Russell), looses all his common sense, discrimination and reason when his mind turns to religion. Parris, who has long believed Blair to be insane, thought to prove that because British Prime Ministers tended towards agnosticism at best, religion was bunk. The trouble was, the historical record was unhelpful and he had to mould it to his prejudices. One example will suffice. He mentions that he "never sensed any abiding belief on Ted Heath's part". I found this an odd remark. It may well be that Sir Edward Heath chose to spend his retirement in a house situated on the close of Salisbury Cathedral for purely aesthetic reasons. It is, after all, one of the most beautiful places in the world, dominated by the architectural colossus of the great church itself. Still, it is hard to see why a man of no faith would wish to live in a spot dominated by a place of worship.
Furthermore, from personal experience, I can supply an anecdote even more fatal to Parris’s argument. When I was a pupil at Marlborough College, Edward Heath came and preached to us in the school chapel. As Marlborough is your archetypical minor public school and Sir Edward had no particular connection with it, I assume he must have been doing the rounds. To live in the shadow of a spire is one thing, but to spend ones days in a pulpit is quite another. At the time, teenage atheist that I was, I had the ill grace to demand of the chaplain why Sir Edward should want to talk about the boring subject of God when he could instead have enlightened us on the fine art of politics. Today, with a better grasp of history, I realise that Ted Heath would have been able to tell us very little of use about his inglorious career as Prime Minister. I only wish I’d listened to his thoughts on God.
Suffice to say, in the only case where I have some information to add to the case, I find Parris’s grasp of the facts seriously wanting. His other examples of non-religious Prime Ministers may be more accurate. But as he is clearly in the throes of Russell’s Syndrome, I doubt it.
Click here to read the first chapter of God's Philosophers: How the Medieval World Laid the Foundations of Modern Science absolutely free.
Which brings me to 2007’s highest profile conversion – Tony Blair’s reception by Rome. I have to admit to being singularly unmoved by this. Newspaper comment was confined to some bitchy remarks from columnists who have never forgiven him for the Iraq war. This led to inevitable non-sequiturs but told us very little of substance. I would only say that the Catholic Church allows confession to be heard in private and does not require a public mea culpa from its converts. For this reason, those wanting to hear Blair apologise, whether they were exercised by his support for George Bush or his supporting abortion, have no right to feel disappointed. It is striking that Blair has as many enemies on the red extreme of the political spectrum as on the blue. He has become almost as much a hate figure on the left as Mrs Thatcher was. I suppose she still is among those lefties who keep the socialist flame alive.
Blair’s conversion led to one columnist making a fool of himself. Matthew Parris, who is usually quite sensible, has a bad case of Russell’s syndrome. Regular readers will know that this condition afflicts men and women of high intelligence who are, in most respects, indistinguishable from their fellow members of the academic elite. However, the sufferer of Russell’s Syndrome (first identified in the third Earl [Bertrand] Russell), looses all his common sense, discrimination and reason when his mind turns to religion. Parris, who has long believed Blair to be insane, thought to prove that because British Prime Ministers tended towards agnosticism at best, religion was bunk. The trouble was, the historical record was unhelpful and he had to mould it to his prejudices. One example will suffice. He mentions that he "never sensed any abiding belief on Ted Heath's part". I found this an odd remark. It may well be that Sir Edward Heath chose to spend his retirement in a house situated on the close of Salisbury Cathedral for purely aesthetic reasons. It is, after all, one of the most beautiful places in the world, dominated by the architectural colossus of the great church itself. Still, it is hard to see why a man of no faith would wish to live in a spot dominated by a place of worship.
Furthermore, from personal experience, I can supply an anecdote even more fatal to Parris’s argument. When I was a pupil at Marlborough College, Edward Heath came and preached to us in the school chapel. As Marlborough is your archetypical minor public school and Sir Edward had no particular connection with it, I assume he must have been doing the rounds. To live in the shadow of a spire is one thing, but to spend ones days in a pulpit is quite another. At the time, teenage atheist that I was, I had the ill grace to demand of the chaplain why Sir Edward should want to talk about the boring subject of God when he could instead have enlightened us on the fine art of politics. Today, with a better grasp of history, I realise that Ted Heath would have been able to tell us very little of use about his inglorious career as Prime Minister. I only wish I’d listened to his thoughts on God.
Suffice to say, in the only case where I have some information to add to the case, I find Parris’s grasp of the facts seriously wanting. His other examples of non-religious Prime Ministers may be more accurate. But as he is clearly in the throes of Russell’s Syndrome, I doubt it.
Click here to read the first chapter of God's Philosophers: How the Medieval World Laid the Foundations of Modern Science absolutely free.
Monday, January 21, 2008
I'm Back
It’s been a while. The new job has allowed me little time to write anything here. I’ve been very flattered by a few emails imploring my return (very few in fact, but still nice) and have now hit upon a wheeze to re-activate this blog. A new laptop computer that I can use on the long train journey into work means I can finally find some time to write. I am not sure how well this system will work but I am prepared to give it a go. However much anyone missed my thoughts, I have missed inflicting them on the world far more. Apart from the new job and new child, I have little to report. My PhD is still not granted although the final hurdle is in sight. Nor has God’s Philosophers been published. If you have not had a chance to look over the first chapter and sign my register of people wanting to see it published, then do please spare a moment at the web site here.
Before I got the computer, I read on the train. This has meant a substantial number of books on the ‘to read’ list have been knocked off. They include Steven Pinker’s The Language Instinct, John Julius Norwich’s A History of Venice, Francis Pryor's Britain in the Middle Ages, business bestseller The World is Flat and Jared Diamond’s Collapse. If anyone is keen on my thoughts about these, let me know. I may eventually get around to writing some brief reviews of them anyway. Of course, ‘to read’ lists never get any shorter. I’ve been adding to mine some big picture economic history – The Wealth and Poverty of Nations by David Landes and The Green History of the World by Clive Ponting among them. I’d like to see if the rumoured link between science and prosperity has been noticed by historians of the dismal as well as of natural science.
Lots of things have happened while I’ve been busy. Richard Dawkins has admitted he likes Christmas carols (although who will be left to sing them if he gets his way, I have no idea. For a tradition to survive, it needs to be alive and not just a quaint museum piece, which is how he views the festival of the Nativity). In Rome, Italian communists have kept the Pope from opening a university year by complaining about a remark he made seventeen years ago about an event nearly four centuries before. In 1990, Benedict XVI had said he agreed with the late Paul Feyerabend that the trial of Galileo was “rational and just.” As the final chapter of my book will make clear, this is true in a narrow sense, but it hardly exonerates the Church from the initial mistake of banning heliocentricism. I expect the Pope acknowledged that too, but he is just going to have to get used to be quoted out of context by troublemakers, whether Muslim or atheist.
The neo-atheist storm shows no signs of blowing itself out but neither has the standard of debate improved. I have now had one email from someone for whom Dawkins’ book has been a disturbing experience. I’m not sure if that is a great return from sales approaching a million, but then it is hardly a great book. Christopher Hitchens’ companion screed, God is Not Great was reviewed in the Times Literary Supplement by none other than Dawkins himself. Needless to say, it was hardly a critical examinations of Hitchins’ arguments. Various other articles have appeared here and there. I’ll note a few of them over the next few posts. Having managed to type this post out, despite the train bouncing around like a revivalist minister, I am confident that there will be some more to come.
Click here to read the first chapter of God's Philosophers: How the Medieval World Laid the Foundations of Modern Science absolutely free.
Before I got the computer, I read on the train. This has meant a substantial number of books on the ‘to read’ list have been knocked off. They include Steven Pinker’s The Language Instinct, John Julius Norwich’s A History of Venice, Francis Pryor's Britain in the Middle Ages, business bestseller The World is Flat and Jared Diamond’s Collapse. If anyone is keen on my thoughts about these, let me know. I may eventually get around to writing some brief reviews of them anyway. Of course, ‘to read’ lists never get any shorter. I’ve been adding to mine some big picture economic history – The Wealth and Poverty of Nations by David Landes and The Green History of the World by Clive Ponting among them. I’d like to see if the rumoured link between science and prosperity has been noticed by historians of the dismal as well as of natural science.
Lots of things have happened while I’ve been busy. Richard Dawkins has admitted he likes Christmas carols (although who will be left to sing them if he gets his way, I have no idea. For a tradition to survive, it needs to be alive and not just a quaint museum piece, which is how he views the festival of the Nativity). In Rome, Italian communists have kept the Pope from opening a university year by complaining about a remark he made seventeen years ago about an event nearly four centuries before. In 1990, Benedict XVI had said he agreed with the late Paul Feyerabend that the trial of Galileo was “rational and just.” As the final chapter of my book will make clear, this is true in a narrow sense, but it hardly exonerates the Church from the initial mistake of banning heliocentricism. I expect the Pope acknowledged that too, but he is just going to have to get used to be quoted out of context by troublemakers, whether Muslim or atheist.
The neo-atheist storm shows no signs of blowing itself out but neither has the standard of debate improved. I have now had one email from someone for whom Dawkins’ book has been a disturbing experience. I’m not sure if that is a great return from sales approaching a million, but then it is hardly a great book. Christopher Hitchens’ companion screed, God is Not Great was reviewed in the Times Literary Supplement by none other than Dawkins himself. Needless to say, it was hardly a critical examinations of Hitchins’ arguments. Various other articles have appeared here and there. I’ll note a few of them over the next few posts. Having managed to type this post out, despite the train bouncing around like a revivalist minister, I am confident that there will be some more to come.
Click here to read the first chapter of God's Philosophers: How the Medieval World Laid the Foundations of Modern Science absolutely free.
Monday, November 26, 2007
Peter Lipton
Peter Lipton, the head of the History and Philosophy of Science Department at Cambridge, where I am a graduate student, died suddenly at the weekend. He was simply the best lecturer I've ever come across. A few years ago, a course on the logic of induction that he taught was booked into a seminar room because of its specialised nature. But not just his students and those taking the relevant course turned up. I was among those who packed the room to the rafters (and it was not a small room) simply because he was doing the lecturing. Mercifully, next week we were moved into a full scale lecture theatre and everyone could get a seat.
He took religion very seriously and had many interesting things to say about its relationship with science, even if I did not agree with many of them. A debate he took part in at the London School of Economics still sticks in the mind of my wife whom I had dragged along. Reflecting on the same debate, when I had one of my all-too-few chats with him in the department, Professor Lipton delivered an important dictum of his own subject of logical inference: "Just because Peter Atkins thinks a statement is nonsense is no evidence that it is." Although an atheist, Professor Lipton took his family to synagogue on Saturdays and was fully engaged with his religious culture. He represented the honest doubter whom we can all hope has a place in heaven.
Click here to read the first chapter of God's Philosophers: How the Medieval World Laid the Foundations of Modern Science absolutely free.
He took religion very seriously and had many interesting things to say about its relationship with science, even if I did not agree with many of them. A debate he took part in at the London School of Economics still sticks in the mind of my wife whom I had dragged along. Reflecting on the same debate, when I had one of my all-too-few chats with him in the department, Professor Lipton delivered an important dictum of his own subject of logical inference: "Just because Peter Atkins thinks a statement is nonsense is no evidence that it is." Although an atheist, Professor Lipton took his family to synagogue on Saturdays and was fully engaged with his religious culture. He represented the honest doubter whom we can all hope has a place in heaven.
Click here to read the first chapter of God's Philosophers: How the Medieval World Laid the Foundations of Modern Science absolutely free.
Wednesday, November 14, 2007
Sue Blackmore Flogging a Dead Horse
Every now and again, you come across an idea that you thought must have died. But lost causes seem to walk the earth in a state of undeath long after they should have been buried at a crossroads with a stake through their hearts. Memes are one such idea. Susan Blackmore is actually still arguing that religion is a bad meme or a mind virus. Honestly, I'm not joking. It's all here. Dawkins's old insult rises again.
No, I'm not going to bother refute this nonsense. But if anyone suggests to you that God is a meme, I suggest you point out to them that we have plenty of evidence that God exists and none for memes at all.
Click here to read the first chapter of God's Philosophers: How the Medieval World Laid the Foundations of Modern Science absolutely free.
No, I'm not going to bother refute this nonsense. But if anyone suggests to you that God is a meme, I suggest you point out to them that we have plenty of evidence that God exists and none for memes at all.
Click here to read the first chapter of God's Philosophers: How the Medieval World Laid the Foundations of Modern Science absolutely free.
Sunday, November 11, 2007
Interruptions to Service
It has been a while since I last managed to post anything here. I've got a moment now waiting for our week-old baby to wake up and demand a feed. My wife has already departed for bed so I am alone waiting for young sir to call for his cup. I also started a new job last week which means I will have less time going forward as well. I will try to compose something over each weekend and post about this time on Sunday, but cannot promise anything for the moment.
Thank you for everyone who has signed up as interested in God's Philosophers. The list is ticking over nicely at the moment. Also, my PhD has been awarded a pass subject to one of the examiners signing off on some corrections. Not too long now, I hope, before I really am a Dr.
Anyway, thank you for your patience. Do please check back from time to time to see if I've managed to post anything. Or add this blog to your readers. I am still reading and will have thinks to say about books as I finish them.
Click here to read the first chapter of God's Philosophers: How the Medieval World Laid the Foundations of Modern Science absolutely free.
Thank you for everyone who has signed up as interested in God's Philosophers. The list is ticking over nicely at the moment. Also, my PhD has been awarded a pass subject to one of the examiners signing off on some corrections. Not too long now, I hope, before I really am a Dr.
Anyway, thank you for your patience. Do please check back from time to time to see if I've managed to post anything. Or add this blog to your readers. I am still reading and will have thinks to say about books as I finish them.
Click here to read the first chapter of God's Philosophers: How the Medieval World Laid the Foundations of Modern Science absolutely free.
Thursday, November 01, 2007
Nature and Nurture Reprised
I have taken some flack for allegedly being a genetic determinist. Regular reader Jack Perry has written a post on his blog, Cantanima, about his son. Jack was wondering if, as a parent, he can do anything about the way his eleven-year-old has decided not to believe in God. Was this, he wonders, all determined by genes?
Let me first lay down what the science appears to tell us. Many human traits have a heritability of roughly 50%. This includes personality, religious proclivity and political allegiance. Fifty percent means half – so about half of who you are is genetic. We know this because identical twins have identical genes and we can test them to find out how different they are from each other. We find they share about half their characteristics (actually, it is more complicated than that but works out to about 50% overall). Non-identical twins have about a 25% correlation to each other, as do siblings who are not twins and children to their parents. This is because we take half our genes from each of our parents. If you share half your genes with someone then you will have a quarter of your heritable traits in common with them.
I think most of us can live with our genes having a half share in ourselves. St Augustine identified this long ago and called the propensity we get from our genes to behave other than we would like ‘original sin’. He also realised it was inherited from our parents. Clever guy, St Augustine.
The shocking fact is not that we are half made from our genetic natures. It is rather than we can find no room for nurture. If genes are half the story, we naturally assume that the other half must be our upbringing and environment. The trouble is, we have no evidence for this at all.
Over the years, scientists have conducted loads of twin studies. They take identical twins who have been separated at birth. As adults, these twins have exactly the same amount in common with each other as when both twins have been brought up by their birth parents. In other studies, it has been found that an adopted child has nothing in common with their adopted parents but the usual 25% correlation to their birth parents, even if they have never met them. This seems to mean that parenting does not have an effect on the traits contributed to by our genes. And, if parenting has no effect, it is hard to believe other environmental factors do either. For instance, in Freakonomics we learn about work in the Chicago schools system, where places are allocated at random, shows no correlation between pupils’ performance and the school they go to, once schools reach certain minimum standards.
That leaves the 50% of ourselves, for which our genes do not appear to have responsibility, unexplained. Personally, I am quite pleased that we are left with this gap. If scientists had said we are half determined by our genes and half by our environment then there would be no room left for self determination. I would suggest that the other half is who we want to be. We do have the freedom to decide. As even Richard Dawkins admits on the last page of The Selfish Gene, we can defy our DNA. Jack may not be able to make his son more likely to return to God. Instead, it is the boy himself who will decide where he wants to go and what he wants to believe in. Again, the theologians of old were right and science has just caught up.
Click here to read the first chapter of God's Philosophers: How the Medieval World Laid the Foundations of Modern Science absolutely free.
Let me first lay down what the science appears to tell us. Many human traits have a heritability of roughly 50%. This includes personality, religious proclivity and political allegiance. Fifty percent means half – so about half of who you are is genetic. We know this because identical twins have identical genes and we can test them to find out how different they are from each other. We find they share about half their characteristics (actually, it is more complicated than that but works out to about 50% overall). Non-identical twins have about a 25% correlation to each other, as do siblings who are not twins and children to their parents. This is because we take half our genes from each of our parents. If you share half your genes with someone then you will have a quarter of your heritable traits in common with them.
I think most of us can live with our genes having a half share in ourselves. St Augustine identified this long ago and called the propensity we get from our genes to behave other than we would like ‘original sin’. He also realised it was inherited from our parents. Clever guy, St Augustine.
The shocking fact is not that we are half made from our genetic natures. It is rather than we can find no room for nurture. If genes are half the story, we naturally assume that the other half must be our upbringing and environment. The trouble is, we have no evidence for this at all.
Over the years, scientists have conducted loads of twin studies. They take identical twins who have been separated at birth. As adults, these twins have exactly the same amount in common with each other as when both twins have been brought up by their birth parents. In other studies, it has been found that an adopted child has nothing in common with their adopted parents but the usual 25% correlation to their birth parents, even if they have never met them. This seems to mean that parenting does not have an effect on the traits contributed to by our genes. And, if parenting has no effect, it is hard to believe other environmental factors do either. For instance, in Freakonomics we learn about work in the Chicago schools system, where places are allocated at random, shows no correlation between pupils’ performance and the school they go to, once schools reach certain minimum standards.
That leaves the 50% of ourselves, for which our genes do not appear to have responsibility, unexplained. Personally, I am quite pleased that we are left with this gap. If scientists had said we are half determined by our genes and half by our environment then there would be no room left for self determination. I would suggest that the other half is who we want to be. We do have the freedom to decide. As even Richard Dawkins admits on the last page of The Selfish Gene, we can defy our DNA. Jack may not be able to make his son more likely to return to God. Instead, it is the boy himself who will decide where he wants to go and what he wants to believe in. Again, the theologians of old were right and science has just caught up.
Click here to read the first chapter of God's Philosophers: How the Medieval World Laid the Foundations of Modern Science absolutely free.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
