Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster

One of my great heroes was the late great Douglas Adams, sometime resident of London and Santa Barbara California; now decaying gracefully in Highgate cemetery along with such luminaries as Karl Marx, Michael Faraday and Herbert Spencer. Despite having the bleak world-view of the militant materialist, Douglas was always able to find the humour in the situation. One of my favourite quotes of his was a remark he made at Digital Biota in Cambridge:

‘There are some oddities in the perspective with which we see the world. The fact that we live at the bottom of a deep gravity well, on the surface of a gas covered planet going around a nuclear fireball 90 million miles away and think this to be normal is obviously some indication of how skewed our perspective tends to be’

But that isn’t even the half of it. According to recent research, right now our tiny pea green speck of a planet and its accompanying solar system is moving at about 600,000 miles per hour rather than the previously estimated 500,000 miles per hour. This additional rotational velocity means that our galaxy’s mass is half-again as great as what had been thought, making the Milky way just about as large as the Andromeda Galaxy. Our particular sprinkling of stars probably has four, not two, spiral arms of gas and dust where stars are forming and we are probably justified in calling ourselves a regional heavyweight.

The residents of the Andromeda galaxy might be looking on jealously, however it looks like with the greater mass, we will collide with them in the near future (2-3 billion years away). This kind of Galaxy merging is fundamental to building up structure in the universe and the process of star creation. In case you are actually worried about this, I should point out that, as with all such collisions, it is unlikely that objects such as stars contained within each galaxy will actually collide. To give you some idea of how diffuse a galaxy actually is, if the sun were scaled to the size of a quarter (or 10p if you prefer) the next closest star would be the equivalent of 475 miles away. If the collision occurs, the galaxies will likely merge into one larger galaxy. As with all mergers there will have to be corporate re branding and possible redundancies. The current intention is to call the new super galaxy ‘Milkomeda’ which sounds a bit too much like a suburban shopping plaza for my taste; but thankfully we have quite a while to come up with a better name; possibly 'The Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster'. There is also a remote possibility our solar system will be ejected from the new galaxy, which will have no adverse effect on it, but will be rather humiliating.

Another mystery which has been solved is the conundrum of how young stars manage to exist in the center of the Milky Way where logically they should be ripped apart by gravitational tides. The explanation is probably that molecular gas and dark matter at the center of our galaxy is denser than previously thought. Greater density means greater gravity, enough to overcome tides from the black hole and hold together sufficiently to form new stars.

We should delight in the fact that we seem to be part of such an elegant and beautiful system. Stephen Hawking once said humanity is nothing but ‘a chemical scum on a moderate-sized planet’, yet despite these lowly origins and the onset of paralysis, he still managed to develop theorems regarding singularities, discover Hawking radiation, father three children and have an extra-marital affair with his nurse.

Not bad considering he is supposed to be the Universe’s equivalent of a yeast infection.


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Papal science

A friend sent me this interesting article about the Pope's views on science and Christianity. Here's a short quote:

The fact that matter carries within itself a mathematical structure, or is full of spirit, is the foundation upon which the modern natural sciences are based. It is only because matter is structured in an intelligent way that our spirit is capable of interpreting it and of actively remodeling it.

Much more at the link, including the Pope referring to "the great Galileo."


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The Anthropic Principle for Misanthropes, part 3

In part 1 I explained what the Anthropic Principle is: in order for life to exist anywhere in the universe at any time in its history, multiple conditions must be met which make it virtually impossible that the universe would be hospitable to life if left to its own resources. Since the universe is hospitable to life, it follows that it was not left to its own resources: Something that exists independently of the universe made it so that it would be able to support life. In part 2, I dealt with several objections to this monotheistic conclusion. In this post I'm going to take a look at two more objections to it. I saved these two for their own post because they require a fuller response than the others.

1. "Maybe there are an infinite number of universes and this just happens to be the one with all the necessary conditions for life." This is known as the multiverse hypothesis (also called the "many worlds" or "world ensemble" hypothesis; Humphrey's been blogging on it lately), and it has some gynormous problems. The first is that it violates Occam's Razor. This is the idea that the simpler explanation is more likely to be the correct one. Often, atheists misunderstand this to mean that a qualitatively simpler explanation is preferable, and then argue that an omniscient and omnipotent God would be the most complex explanation imaginable. Unfortunately, at least for their case, there are two difficulties with such an understanding. First, it just flies in the face of the doctrine of divine simplicity. This is the view that God is the least complex entity in existence, and was held by most of the Christian theologians and philosophers in history, although it's fallen on hard times recently. But even if we ignore that, this argument completely misunderstands what is meant by simplicity. It's not that the cause of an effect must be understood as ontologically simple; it's that it must be numerically simple: the more entities you have to posit, the less likely your theory is correct. In other words, Occam's Razor is the claim that the quantitatively, not qualitatively, simpler explanation is more likely to be true.

To apply it to the case in point, the multiverse hypothesis has to posit an unfathomable or infinite number of universes in order to account for one universe having the necessary conditions for life. By contrast, Monotheism posits the existence of one causal agent who brought the universe into existence with the necessary conditions. Obviously, the latter is the simpler explanation, and so according to Occam's Razor, we should prefer it to the multiverse hypothesis.

The second problem with the multiverse is as follows: if you watched someone flip a coin a million times and it came up heads each time, you could either conclude that it's fixed in some way (maybe it's a two-headed coin) or you could conclude that there are an infinite number of coins being flipped and you just happened to see the one that came up with a million heads in a row. The gambler takes the chance on the latter and so bets that the coin is due to come up tails on the next flip. But 1) even if it is an honest coin, it only ever has a 50-50 chance of coming up tails at any particular flip. It isn't "due." This is the gambler's fallacy. The multiverse hypothesis, however, does not commit the gambler's fallacy, it commits 2) the inverse gambler's fallacy. Basically, regardless of whether the gambler was right to think the coin is due to come up tails, his assumption that it's an honest coin would only be valid if he actually saw all the other infinite number of coins coming up with all their different results. When you have a sample of one, it is much more rational to conclude that the game is fixed. (This, incidentally, is a further response to the third objection in part 2, that we cannot draw any conclusions about probability because we only have the one universe to work with.) So the fact that we have a universe that appears rigged is best explained by the hypothesis that it is, in fact, rigged. The universe is the way it is because someone decided it should be.

Third, no one has been able to come up with a multiverse that does not itself have a beginning as well as numerous anthropic coincidences of its own. So it doesn't evade the question of why the universe can support life; it just forces us to ask it again with slightly different terminology.

Fourth, the supposition of other universes by itself does not evidently lead to a solution of the Anthropic Principle. As William Lane Craig writes,

even if we conceded that a multiple universe scenario is unobjectionable, would such a move succeed in rescuing us from teleology and a cosmic Designer? This is not at all obvious. The fundamental assumption behind the Anthropic philosopher's reasoning in this regard seems to be something along the lines of

8. If the Universe contains an exhaustively random and infinite number of universes, then anything that can occur with non-vanishing probability will occur somewhere.

But why should we think that the number of universes is actually infinite? This is by no means inevitable, not to mention the paradoxical nature of the existence of an actually infinite number of things. And why should we think that the multiple universes are exhaustively random? Again, this is not a necessary condition of many-worlds hypotheses. In order to elude the teleological argument, we are being asked to assume much more than the mere existence of multiple universes.

Finally, the multiverse hypothesis is just as metaphysical as the monothestic hypothesis. For those who don't like metaphysics in their science, the multiverse is no better than saying "God did it." So it's not a choice between one theory that's metaphysical and one that's not (or perhaps one that's less so); it's a choice between two equally metaphysical solutions, one of which commits fallacies and one which does not.

2. "These characteristics are just for life as we know it." Another way of stating this objection is that life accommodates itself to its surroundings. Observing how the universe just happens to meet the necessary criteria for life is like a puddle observing how the pot hole just happens to be shaped for the puddle to fit in it.

So let's clarify our terms. When we refer to life in this context we mean physical life, life that is composed of matter, i.e. atoms. Moreover, in order for something to be physically alive it must be capable of processing physical energy to perform work; when a living thing stops processing energy we call it death. Now of course, one may simply say that there may be non-physical life out there. Certainly. In fact, most religions maintain that there are entities that are not physical. They're called angels. Or one could say that non-living material entities are alive in some sense; perhaps each rock is conscious for example. But this would merely be ascribing an occult property (rather than a physical property) called "life" to physical objects; as such it would also be a form of non-physical life. And if one is willing to accept the existence of a non-physical realm in order to explain the Anthropic Principle, there can be no objection to the monotheistic explanation of it. In order to avoid such an explanation, therefore, this objection must say that the Anthropic Principle only applies to physical life as we know it.

In order for a physical entity to process energy, it must have complex molecules which are physically capable of such processes. Complex molecules are those that are based on atoms that are able to form a large number of bonds with other atoms. There are only three elements capable of forming complex molecules: silicon, boron and carbon. Silicon can only form about a hundred amino acids, which is insufficient for physical life. Boron is rare, and poisonous to life where it does exist in concentration; plus, wherever boron exists, carbon exists in much greater abundance, so it's not very likely to happen. Thus, when we discuss the necessary parameters for life, we refer to carbon-based life. One might think if the laws of nature were different it would change the situation. True. The Anthropic Principle shows that if the laws of nature were different, physical life could not exist at all.

Now some might suggest that I'm simply not taking the concept of "life as we know it" far enough. I'm still working in terms of atoms, and perhaps if we look into the subatomic realm, we would find ways for different types of atoms to form into different types of molecules that could then form living creatures. The problem here is that the ability of atoms to form bonds is directly related to the configuration and properties of its electrons. So the capacity for something to be alive in a physical sense is based on the basic properties of atoms, and thus of matter. Now the question arises: would it be possible to alter the basic properties of electrons or other subatomic particles in such a way that they would still be able to form into complex molecules capable of processing energy to perform work? To the best of my knowledge, the answer is no. The properties of electrons, protons, and neutrons as well as their interaction are some of the most dramatic examples of anthropic coincidences. Their masses must be precisely what they are, their decay processes must be precisely what they are, their ratios to each other must be precisely what they are, etc. in order for life to exist. For example, the ratio of electrons to protons that were created in the Big Bang must be exactly the same number to within one part in 10³⁷ in order for their charges to balance out. Otherwise, the electromagnetic force would have dominated gravity and prevented the formation of planets, stars, and galaxies.

One might still object, though, that if completely different subatomic particles were created in the Big Bang which then formed completely different atoms and molecules, it would be possible to have a different type of life. But as soon as we're positing a completely different type of matter, it becomes difficult to continue calling it matter. In other words, this would (again) be just as metaphysical a solution as the monotheistic one. Moreover, at this point, we're positing different universes in order to explain the Anthropic Principle, so for this suggestion to have any force it must be wedded to the multiverse hypothesis with all of its failings. Thus, the monotheistic solution to the Anthropic Principle is preferable.

There's one more installment to go. Stay tuned.

Update (13 Feb): See also part 1, part 2, and part 4.

(cross-posted at Agent Intellect)


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Great expectations: the importance of genre for NT criticism

There was a story recently in the news about the discovery of yet another fabricated memoir. The author, Herman Rosenblat, had become famous for his story of how he first met his wife while in a concentration camp, only to be reunited much later in New York. He appeared twice on Oprah and this was actually to be his second published book. Alas, scholarly scrutiny revealed that the story couldn't have played out like Rosenblat said it did, and he was forced to admit that he made the whole thing up. As a result his publisher canceled the book along with a children's book based on his story, expressing 'shock' and 'disappointment' at having been misled (see here for the original reporting that brought this controversy to the public).

Why did this revelation produce such a negative response? One might argue, as do his agent and a producer making a movie of his story, that even though the love story was fabricated the important thing is that he was really a Holocaust survivor and he "found a way to tell his story and bring a message against hate." Isn't it good enough that the story 'might have happened' or that it is representative of other stories that did? (As the defenders of Rigoberta Menchu argued in the face of anthropologist David Stoll's demonstration that her own highly acclaimed autobiography of Guatemalan oppression contained significant distortions and embellishments) Isn't it good enough that the story might express some truth about the author's life, such as redemption from the horrors of the concentration camp through the love of his wife?

Well, no. The problem is not that Rosenblat's memoir mixes fact with fiction. Historical novels do this all the time, while composite characters are a commonplace in autobiographical writing. What makes the fabrication a moral wrong and not just a literary device is that the popularity and acclaim for the book was explicitly based on its having actually happened. There is an emotional resonance true-life stories have that fiction cannot achieve. Rosenblat evoked this resonance by telling his love story as if it actually happened, and people took him at his word. When it came out that he had lied about this, people felt betrayed and misled.

The upshot is that Rosenblat broke a contract with his readers that we usually call genre. In simplest terms genre is simply a set of expectations that a reader brings to a literary work, which expectations were also the author's intentions in writing. It is important that we acknowledge the latter element as well as the former. People are often misled about the genre of a book through no fault of the author, either because of cultural distance or carelessness. It is the responsibility of the author to communicate clearly to the reader what he/she should expect: whether the events recounted actually happened the way they are described, and if so whether the account is comprehensive or selective, etc. This does not have to be set out explicitly: often there is a tacit understanding between author and reader communicated through various literary devices in the text itself. But at the end of the day the reader comes to the author expecting to learn in advance what kind of literary work they are reading, since that will determine their emotional investment and how they let it affect them.

Again, the important issue here is not whether a book, even one called a memoir, can mix together fact and fiction. What is crucial is that the author informs the reader in advance or at least from the text as a whole whether there is fiction and to what extent. The fictional material may very well express some deeper truth about the author's life, but the reader must know that the material is fictional and has that particular function.

Turning now to the Gospels: a common motif in skeptical criticism of the Gospels is to find inconsistencies within and between them as proof that they cannot be trusted to give an accurate account of Jesus' life. The equally common response is that many of the objections stem from cultural distance: chronological and thematic re-ordering of events, or giving different versions of the same event were all common biographical practices in the ancient world, even if we in the modern West find them bizarre or even unethical. This response seems to always go over the heads of atheists, however, so it bears repeating and expanding in light of the above discussion of genre: criticisms of a text must only be made in light of the contract between the author and the original readers. It is hardly the evangelists' fault that we come to the Gospels with different expectations from the first Christians.

Note that this is not an argument for the irrelevance or incomprehensibility of texts from distant historical periods or cultural settings. On the contrary, after careful work by historians and textual scholars we can understand the original contract between author and reader and appropriate the text for ourselves in light of that understanding. Of course there is the danger that due to cultural distance a certain understanding of a text will have become so embedded in the consciousness of its readers that the correction of this misunderstanding is very upsetting. Say for example a biblical passage that we read as straightforward factual narrative was actually a complex parable. We might feel betrayed and hurt because our appreciation of the passage was based on our assumption that it was factual. But that does not cast a negative light on the author the way Herman Rosenblat's intentional deception did.

I conclude that a true debunking of a biblical book or passage only occurs when a critic demonstrates that that book or passage doesn't have the meaning, genre or relationship to other passages we have come to expect, and that this resulted from a deliberate fabrication and intent to deceive on the part of the author. So far I have seen many examples of the first part of the criterion, but none of the second.

This article is cross-posted at Christian CADRE


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Those darn replicators

When not penning depressing materialist diatribes, Dr Susan Blackmore has been engaged in a heroic but ultimately unsuccessful attempt to bring the ‘meme concept’ into credible scientific discourse; as opposed to the badlands of fringe pseudoscience where it currently lingers. The meme was first proposed by Richard Dawkins as a kind of cultural replicator ‘a unit of cultural transmission, or a unit of imitation’. This would provide a physical basis for ideas, thus banishing Cartesian dualism and unifying biology, psychology and cognitive science. As Dawkins suggests:

‘Just as genes propagate themselves in the gene pool by leaping from body to body via sperm or eggs, so memes propagate themselves by leaping from brain to brain by…imitation’

In this view of human nature, minds do not simply produce original thoughts, they get infected by them, directly from other people and indirectly from viruses of the mind. People are not completely in control of their own thoughts; rather they find themselves taken over by parasitic ‘cultural transmission units’, which once unleashed take on a life of their own. So for example, I wouldn’t say that I became a communist from reading and being persuaded by the writings of Karl Marx; rather, I would say I picked up a book in my library and upon reading it became infected by a parasitic meme which took over parts of my brain and manipulated me into referring to my friends as comrades and wearing a Che Guevara t shirt.

The meme concept has floundered in recent years, mainly because it is extremely silly, adds nothing to an understanding of the history of ideas and has no evidence supporting it whatsoever As the paleontologist Simon Conway Morris points out:

‘Memes are trivial, to be banished by simple mental exercises. In any wider context, they are hopelessly, if not hilariously simplistic. To conjure up memes not only reveals a strange impression of thought but, as Anthony O’Hear has remarked, if memes really existed they would ultimately deny the reality of reflective thought’.

Undeterred, Blackmore has written a piece for the ‘Edge’ discussion site in which she unveils her view of the human condition and its future fate. It starts badly and goes downhill from there.

All around us the techno-memes are proliferating, and gearing up to take control; not that they realise it; they are just selfish replicators doing what selfish replicators do—getting copied whenever and wherever they can, regardless of the consequences. In this case they are using us human meme machines as their first stage copying machinery, until something better comes along. Artificial meme machines are improving all the time, and the step that will change everything is when these machines become self-replicating. Then they will no longer need us. Whether we live or die, or whether the planet is habitable for us or not, will be of no consequence for their further evolution.

In case you can’t be bothered to wade through it here is a summery. First there were the genes ,the selfish replicators, which found a way to mercilessly copy themselves. In the fullness of time they produced blindly programmed sex robots called humans as copying machinery. But this had an unintended consequence. The gene copiers accidentally made themselves into meme machines which could copy and transmit mind viruses. What next I ask?. Apparently , with the advent of technology we are going to unwittingly unleash a frightening new entrant into the mix.

‘As we old-fashioned, squishy, living meme machines have become overwhelmed with memes we are happily allowing search engines and other software to take over the final process of selection as well. Have we inadvertently let loose a third replicator that is piggy-backing on human memes? I think we have. The information these machines copy is not human speech or actions; it is digital information competing for space in giant servers and electronic networks, copied by extremely high fidelity electronic processes. I think that once all three processes of copying, varying and selecting are done by these machines then a new replicator has truly arrived.’

A new replicator?!?

We might call these level-three replicators “temes” (technological-memes) or “tremes” (tertiary memes). Whatever we call them, they and their copying machinery are here now. We thought we were creating clever tools for our own benefit, but in fact we were being used by blind and inevitable evolutionary processes as a stepping stone to the next level of evolution….When memes coevolved with genes they turned gene machines into meme machines. Temes are now turning us into teme machines.

Brilliant. As I read this my ‘sense of the ridiculous’ meme is causing me to erupt into involuntary giggles and is bringing forth tears of laughter from my face. And yet, unbeknownst to myself, this article I am writing is a ‘teme’ which, when posted, will become part of a mighty ‘temeplex’ which will one day enslave my gene and meme copying descendants.

At the moment temes still need us to build their machines, and to run the power stations, just as genes needed human bodies to copy them and provide their energy. But we humans are fragile, dim, low quality copying machines, and we need a healthy planet with the right climate and the right food to survive. The next step is when the machines we thought we created become self-replicating. This may happen first with nano-technology, or it may evolve from servers and large teme machines being given their own power supplies and the capacity to repair themselves. Then we would become dispensable. That really would change everything.

Thus the genes have produced the gene replicators, which produced the memes which defied the genes, but in a cruel twist of fate the memes are producing the temes which will enslave the genes and the memes. I imagine this state of affairs will continue until the temes produce, and are enslaved by ‘even more technological-memes’ (emtemes), and so on and so forth. Bit of a bum note on which to start 2009.

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This Blog Contains Adult Material

I entered our blog into a blog rating site and, someone to my surprise, the following came out.



The problem is apparently our emphasis on pain and death. Still, at least this shows we take things seriously around here.



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Hmmm...

This is interesting. Astrophysicist Frank Tipler has raised some hackles in science with his omega point theology, the view that the universe will eventually evolve into God, which he identifies as the Judeo-Christian God. His books include The Anthropic Cosmological Principle, The Physics of Immortality, and The Physics of Christianity. Now it looks like he's trying to raise more hackles. Urgent Agenda has posted a letter from Tipler where he argues that anthropogenic (i.e. man-caused) global warming "is a scam, with no basis in science". Here's one of his eight points:

It is obvious that anthropogenic global warming is not science at all, because a scientific theory makes non-obvious predictions which are then compared with observations that the average person can check for himself. As we both know from our own observations, AGW theory has spectacularly failed to do this. The theory has predicted steadily increasing global temperatures, and this has been refuted by experience. NOW the global warmers claim that the Earth will enter a cooling period. In other words, whether the ice caps melt, or expand --- whatever happens --- the AGW theorists claim it confirms their theory. A perfect example of a pseudo-science like astrology.

In case you're wondering, my views on anthropogenic global warming are those of the utterly ignorant. I just don't know enough about the issues to justify having an opinion.


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News on God's Philosophers

God’s Philosophers is due out in August 2009. I can confirm that it will be released in Australia and Canada, probably before the end of next year. However, it may be delayed to avoid the Christmas rush of celebrity biographies and reprinted cookbooks.

And as you can see, we have a cover design. I think this looks fantastic and I’m very grateful to Icon for commissioning it from such a talented designer. However, we might change the central figure (which is a sixteenth century woodcut of a doctor examining a bottle of urine!) for a bookish scholar. I’ll keep you posted.

Unfortunately, my posting will be slight for the next couple of months as I beat the manuscript into shape (as well as doing my day job). A big thank you to Jim, J.D. and Humphrey for their excellent blogging and to everyone else who contributes to the discussion board.



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The deep sleep of Adam

‘Other pursuits become insignificant in their objects when placed in contrast with ours ...what are any, or what are all these objects when contrasted with the most precious and valued gift of God - human life’

James Young Simpson

According to many of the self appointed experts of the internet, throughout human history Christianity has been a force of backwardness and oppression, holding back scientific and intellectual advance and resisting the march of progress inch by bloody inch. Take this example from the site ‘religioustolerance.org’:

‘In 1846 James Simpson, a Scottish physician promoted the use of chloroform to relieve pain during childbirth. This was opposed by the Church, citing Genesis 3:16 "...I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children". The avoidance of pain was seen as thwarting God's will. Fortunately, Simpson found a competing passage (Genesis 2:21) which describes the first surgical operation; it seems to support the use of anesthetic: "...God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam.....he took one of his ribs and closed up the flesh.." In time, the Church's opposition dissipated; pain killers have since lost their religious significance.’

Another site expresses outrage at the churches effrontery:

Astonishingly, far from crediting him for having saved countless women from avoidable pain, he (James Simposon) was severely castigated by the Scottish Church for interfering in the Divine Plan. That many other doctors from the previous centuries had used hypnotism and narcotics to relieve pain without censure was irrelevant to the Church. They wanted Simpson to stop – putting people to sleep artificially, they claimed, was making it easier for the Dark Powers to overwhelm them. In the case of women, it was particularly heinous and insensitive to try to save them from feeling pain. After all, wasn't it said in the Genesis - "In Sorrow thou shalt bring forth children"?

The central problem with this anecdote is that it is almost completely false. A. D. Farr, a medical historian has methodically searched through a vast body of literature from the 1840s and 1850s, where modern anesthesia during childbirth was first introduced, and found that the idea there was religious opposition to the introduction of childbirth anesthesia was a figment of later propaganda.

Straight after his famous experiment was performed at his house in the old town of Edinburgh, Simpson did indeed prepare a theological defense entitled ‘In Answer to the Religious Arguments advanced Against the Employment of Anaesthetic Agents in Midwifery and Surgery (1847). But the attack never materialized; not even the slightest hint of opposition occurred. On page one of the tract Simpson mentions that he had heard of patients and some doctors criticising what he was doing, but he does not name any religious organisation, theologian or religious leader as being responsible for spreading opposition to his work. Further on in the pamphlet he mentions that the leading obstetrician in Dublin had publicly denounced his work for religious reasons. Having read this, the man involved, Dr. Montgomery, in a letter of 27th December 1848 to Simpson, expressed his “astonishment” that Simpson had accepted “hearsay” and had, “taken the trouble of writing a formal reply to arguments which never were made use of by me. I never advocated or locum tenanced either in public or in private the so called ‘religious objection’ to anaesthesia in labour, ...” .In a later article he wrote, “I attach no value to what are called the ‘religious objections’ to the use of this remedy”

In a letter to Dr. Protheroe Smith, Simpson reported that following the publication of his pamphlet, he had received communications from some of the best theologians ‘...of all churches, ... Presbyterian, Independent, Episcopalian, and Protheroe’s own Anglican Church, approving of the view I had taken’. As A.D Farr’s analysis has shown, prominent leaders from across the established religious spectrum – including Rev. Thomas Chalmers (Moderator of the Free Church of Scotland),and Rabbi Abraham De Sola (Canada's first Rabbi) - were in written agreement with anesthesia. Most clergy, theologians, and religious physicians approved the whiff of painkiller. A few clergy feared that Satan was behind pain relief, but Chalmers described these dissenters as ‘small theologians’ and advised that they should be ignored.

Why did Simpson take it upon himself to write the tract in the first place?. The reason was probably that he was deeply religious and, acting on hearsay, decided to ally the fears of his peers. At home Simpson led morning and evening prayers. He frequently preached to Edinburgh congregations as well as preaching in the mining districts. He even wrote religious addresses, tracts and hymns. He also, being a man of conscience, broke from the Church of Scotland when the Free Church was formed in 1842. Given this background it seems logical that, having made a scientific breakthrough, he would expound upon the Christian teaching on the subject.

In a letter to a colleague in 1848, only a year after his theological defence was written, Simpson commented:

‘all religious opposition to chloroform has entirely ceased among us, if we except an occasional remark on the point from some caustic old maid whose prospects of using chloroform are for ever passed, or a sneer from some antiquated lady who grieves and grudges that her daughters should not suffer as their mother was obliged to suffer before them.’

These objections from lay women ceased when Queen Victoria accepted anesthesia for the birth of Prince Leopold in 1853 and described it as a pleasant experience.

So where did this myth of widespread religious opposition come from?. Professor Colin Russell throws some light upon the matter.

I had a research student who looked at this as part of a bigger task and, to cut a long story short, he found that all the stories to this effect, which are in all the modern textbooks on the history of medicine, are actually almost baseless; but not quite, because he traced them down in a sort of family tree to just one source, and that one source was A.D. White. There is a statement in A.D. White’s book that this clerical opposition was in fact the case and he doesn’t even give a footnote reference to it.

Sure enough, in 1896, Andrew Dickinson White claimed in his History of the Warfare of Science with Theology and Christendom that:

'In 1847, James Young Simpson, a Scotch physician, who afterward rose to the highest eminence in his profession, having advocated the use of anæ sthetics in obstetrical cases, was immediately met by a storm of opposition. This hostility flowed from an ancient and time-honoured belief in Scotland. As far back as the year 1591, Eufame Macalyane, a lady of rank, being charged with seeking the aid of Agnes Sampson for the relief of pain at the time of the birth of her two sons, was burned alive on the Castle Hill of Edinburgh; and this old theological view persisted even to the middle of the nineteenth century. From pulpit after pulpit Simpson's use of chloroform was denounced as impious and contrary to Holy Writ; texts were cited abundantly, the ordinary declaration being that to use chloroform was ``to avoid one part of the primeval curse on woman.'' Simpson wrote pamphlet after pamphlet to defend the blessing which he brought into use; but he seemed about to be overcome, when he seized a new weapon, probably the most absurd by which a great cause was ever won: ``My opponents forget,'' he said, ``the twenty-first verse of the second chapter of Genesis; it is the record of the first surgical operation ever performed, and that text proves that the Maker of the universe, before he took the rib from Adam's side for the creation of Eve, caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam.''

This was a stunning blow, but it did not entirely kill the opposition; they had strength left to maintain that the ``deep sleep of Adam took place before the introduction of pain into the world---in a state of innocence.;; But now a new champion intervened---Thomas Chalmers: with a few pungent arguments from his pulpit he scattered the enemy forever, and the greatest battle of science against suffering was won. This victory was won not less for religion.'

He didn’t give a source because, as we now know, he made most of it up.

Postscript: What about Eufame Macalyane?

In the reference from Andrew Dickinson White I quoted, he also mentioned the story of Eufame Macalyane /Euphame McCalzane. The claim was that Calvinists, at the instigation of King James, burnt her to death at the stake in Edinburgh in 1591. This sentence was passed because she had accepted help to ease the pains of childbirth, thereby transgressing the orders of God given in Genesis 3:16.

When the story was traced it was found that this was actually a witchcraft trial which had been spun later as an anti-Calvinist myth. In 1591 a large group were found guilty of attempted murder by attempting to cast a spell. Their objective was to use witchcraft to cause a storm at sea so in order to sink the ship transporting king James VI of Scotland, and his new wife to Edinburgh from Denmark. Having been caught they were sentenced to be strangled and their bodies to be burnt.

Fifty two accusations were issued during the trial to show that one of the leaders, Agnes Simpson / Sampsoune was a witch. One of the charges was that ten days before Euphame McCalzane expected her baby, Agnes placed ‘Mwildis’ powder under her bed and used the summoning of evil spirits to ease the pains of childbirth. The powder was supposed to consist of the finger, toe and knee joints of disinterred male corpses. Euphame herself was not accused of using this spell, but of adding to the strength of the spell aimed at causing the storm. The judges were primarily interested in whether the defendants were witches attempting to assassinate the king and the childbirth element was somewhat irrelevant, as can be seen from the entry in the register.

the execution, on the Castle-hill of Edinburgh, of Euphame M'Calyeane, one of the most famous of the reputed witches of the time. Her trial had lasted from the 9th to the 13trh of June, and had been on various charges, from witchcraft for private purposes, eighteen years ago, to recent sorcery for drowning the King and Queen on their way from Denmark. Before she was strangled and burnt, the poor woman "tooke it on her conscience that she was innocent of all the crymes layed to her charge." (Register of the Privy Council of Scotland iv, 645n)

Have a go and see how many myths you can spot in this address.


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Philosophy and Raking

For hundreds of years, London has been the great corrupter. Many of the great actors of history, previously untainted by the risqué values of this great metropolis, have arrived through its gates and left with a collection of moral vices and, no doubt, a corresponding quantity of sexually transmitted diseases. In no century is this truer than the riotous eighteenth when the capital was seen in the eyes of its contemporaries as a ‘laboratory of sin’; and with good reason. Those who lament the worst excesses of reality TV should perhaps reflect on what passed for entertainment in this period of history. A handbill from the time which was displayed at Hockley in the Hole reads:

‘This is to give notice to all gentlemen, gamesters, and others, that on this present Monday is a match to be fought by two dogs, one from Newgate market, against one from Honylane market… Likewise a green bull to be baited which was never baited before; and a bull to be turned loose with fireworks all over him; also a mad ass to be baited, with a variety of bull baiting and bear baiting, and a dog to be drawn up with fireworks. Beginning exactly at three of the clock’

The young James Boswell's addiction to London was undoubtedly inspired by its venereal pleasures. When he first visited London in 1760 at the tender age of 21 he had a ‘gloriously rakish’ time of it; chasing street girls a plenty, which were hard to come by in the stony surroundings of Edinburgh. Upon his return two years later he wrote:

'When we came upon Highgate Hill and had a view of London, I was all life and joy. I repeated Cato's soliloquy of the soul, and my soul bounded forth to a certain prospect of happy futurity. I sung all manner of songs and began to make one about an amorous meeting with a pretty girl, the burthen of which was as follows,

'She gave me this, I gave her that
and tell me, had she not tit for tat?,
I gave three huzzahs! and we went briskly in'

Arriving again five years later, he 'sallied forth like a roaring lion after girls, blending philosophy and raking'. For many years thereafter he would 'still be in a flutter' at the prospect of returning to London despite the gruelling five day coach ride from Edinburgh. 'Swear solemn with drawn sword not to be with women sine condom nisi Swiss lass' he instructed himself in his continental diary and also to 'chase libertine fancies'. In fact, by the looks of it, it appears to have been more the raking and not the philosophy that mattered to him. By the age of 29 he had tried to seduce a dozen high born ladies, had made mistresses out of three wives, four actresses, Rousseau's paramour and three middling class women; he had also contrived to have sexual relations with over 66 street girls. Even though, according to his own testimony, he guarded himself ‘in armour complete', we should be sceptical of these precautions as he was infected with gonorrhoea at least 17 times in his life.

Boswell wasn’t unusual in his enthusiasms. The Duke of Norfolk for example had amours 'without delicacy and without number'. What he himself described as his ‘intemperate indulgence of animal impulse' lasted into his old age, even as he lived publicly with his mistress, Mary Gibbon.

When the young Benjamin Franklin left the shores of America in 1724 to buy a printing press in London he quickly realised that his backers had deserted him and that he would have to pay his own way. Upon taking his first job Franklin became disgusted at the habits of his fellow workers who believed, as was common at the time, that hard work required the consumption of strong beer. Workers of the time typically drank a pint of beer before breakfast, a pint with breakfast, a pint at midmorning, a pint with the midday meal, a pint in the afternoon and a pint at day’s end. When Franklin refused to contribute to the beer tab at his workplace he was ostracized by his colleagues who irritated him immensely by inserting errors into his printing work at every opportunity. When he confronted them about these activities they feigned innocence and claimed it was the fault of the company ghost.

Despite a strong moral upbringing in the Puritan surroundings of New England, Franklin was not able to resist the temptations of the city for very long. In his later biographies, he wrote that he had indulged in many ‘foolish intrigues with low women’. By ‘low women’ he of course meant prostitutes, who were described by a contemporary chronicler as ‘lechery-layers of around a guinea purchase’. At the time they were mainly to be found sitting in hairdressers shops, which were ‘seldom to be found without a whore as a bookseller’s shop in St Paul’s churchyard without a parson’. Presumably the consumers of the time could get a ‘foolish intrigue’ thrown in with their haircut.

On a more contemporary note, a few months ago I was interested to read that investigators researching the depraved sexual habits of the United Kingdom had discovered a website which had been set up for the purposes of reviewing and assigning ‘starred’ ratings to prostitutes. This was reported as heralding a new benchmark in moral turpitude; although apparently, in a typically British manner, the denizens of the website appear to have been more concerned with the availability of parking spaces in the vicinity of the prostitutes than with the ‘quality’ of the ladies in question.

Interestingly, and perhaps unsurprisingly, there was a precedent for this in the 18th century. The great moralist Francis Place wrote a full six volumes on the 'manners and morals' of the era including a great wodge of 'extracts from publications mostly sold at respectable booksellers without disguise'. One of the main targets for his wrath was a book called Harris's List of Covent Garden Ladies. This he explains was once an annual publication 'sold openly in booksellers shop(s). Despite the name Harris, it was actually written by Samuel Derrick, an impoverished Irish poet, who worked from the list of available women carried by the notorious Jack Harris (aka John Harrison) who had christened himself the 'Pimp General of All England'. Derrick himself was dubbed by Boswell as 'a little blackguard pimping dog'. The 1786 edition, which Place documented, contained the names of 105 women who, he quotes in disbelief, 'seem the most pleased with that refined sensation (who) wantonly and mutually enjoy the ecstatic bliss, (who), return with equal vigor...the meeting shower and sigh for sigh, the gasping torrent pour'. Place then documents the description for 'Miss M of New Compton Street (her price, one guinea)

'Lovely man my anguish
See supine a tender maid
Begs you will not let her languish
One good **** will ease the jade
Did you know how brisk her motion
You will need not long **** alone
Prince of nature’s balmy lotion
Nine inches long without the bone'

He also quoted the description for Miss L of 30 Newman Street whose 'seat of love' is 'supported on two marble pillows framed by the just hand of symmetry' and whose 'raven coloured harbour of bliss, is guarded by her blushing clytoris, now swelled with delight, now reddening with desire: apply then ye sons of pleasure, the full swelled engine and stem the rapid torrent. Three guineas is the price'.

Catering to a variety of vile tastes (eyeball-licking included), the List also recommended Miss Love, of Tottenham Court Road, as 'a damned fine hairy piece'; Nancy Basket, of Westminster, who 'flays, they say, with an amazing grace'; and 'roguish' Madam Dafloz, a Soho resident possessed of 'a certain cleanliness in the Netherlands'. It also warned prospective clients off Lucy Paterson, 'as lewd as goats and monkies… a vile bitch', Pol Forrester - 'breath worse than a Welch bagpipe' - and the 'contaminated carcase' that was Miss Young, at the Turk's Head Bagnio.

Place did note with some approval that, in the more refined moral climate of the early Victorian era, he had to scour a hundred bookshops to be able to find a copy.

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