On How We Know and Lying for the Truth

How do we know anything? There are three basic ways:

• instinct
• we are taught by someone else
• we find out for ourselves

Maybe there are more, but these will do for the moment. Each of these methods can fool us:

• instinct Sometimes, if we are careful, we can catch our brains red handed making things up. Consider your blind spot. This can be a shocking phenomenon if you are not familiar with it. Google: "blind spot" gives Seeing more than your eye does. I strongly suggest that if you have never seen your blind spot before, that you do the exercises there. So our visual system tells lies to us.
• we are taught by someone else Are they a reliable source? Where did they get their information from? It's easy to lie, sometimes emotionally harder to tell the truth.
• we find out for ourselves This method is the most direct but it is strongly discouraged by religions. It is easy enough to misinterpret facts, and so we must keep alert for our own biases. It's easy to fool oneself. But if you check things out for yourself they can be quite convincing. For example, you don't need to rely on what I say to know that you have a blind spot. You can check for yourself. You will if you are a normal human with normal eyesight. You won't if you are an octopus. (If you are an octopus, please write to me.)

So how can we know anything when all the roads have pitfalls? Fortunately we have figured out a way to gain solid, reliable knowledge. It's called science. You don't need to trust me on this. You can learn how the system works and verify it for yourself.

Science is a community effort at knowing about the universe and ourselves. It has a big advantage over other methods in that it is self correcting. People who lie are exposed by other scientists. Sometimes this happens quickly but that is rare because scientists know that they might get caught so they are careful if they chose to lie. But eventually they get caught. The case of Hendrik Schon is an example where a scientist cheated and was caught. Science burns away untruths.

In a prevous post, I wrote about Lying for the Truth, an unethical practice of many religious people.

The purpose of this posting is to examine this ugly practice a little closer because the case covered in that posting is the tip of the iceberg.

What do I mean by that? When I hear religious sermons (yes, I have been in churches listening on occasion) they often make me want to stand up and shout. The person giving the sermon will often make statements that are clearly made up and that have no substantial backing.

Let's take an example and google for "god told me". The first hit is quite interesting:

God told me to invade Iraq, Bush tells Palestinian ministers BBC 06.10.2005.

So what could the president have meant?

1. The statement was denied by Scott McClellan, the Whitehouse spokesperson, so maybe it was never said. In this case the Palestinian ministers lied. (On the other hand, McClellan is probably not a reliable source.)
2. The president heard things in his head. Normally we consider this a sign of illness. It's a terrifying thought that the most powerful nation on the planet is being run by an insane person.
3. God spoke to the president. Do we have a reason to believe this? No, all we have is what he (presumably) said. There is plenty of evidence now that he is not a trustable source.

   The president stated in the 2003 state of the union address "The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa. Our intelligence sources tell us that he has attempted to purchase high-strength aluminum tubes suitable for nuclear weapons production." The first of these statements was refuted by Joe Wilson before the address was given and the second one was also proven to be false. Apparently the Whitehouse response was to attack Wilson by (illegally!) revealing that Joe Wilson's wife was a CIA agent. (Republicans have been stalling the investigation of the situation for months. Why have Republicans become so dishonest? Is it their religious inclinations?) The Iraq war was sold on the basis of weapons of mass destruction but it is now well known that there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

   So president Bush is not a reliable source for difficult questions! Given that, it is unlikely that a god spoke to him and other possibilities are much more likely. The next possibility is more reasonable.
4. The president made it up. This is called a lie.

Many hits are for Bush, so let's google away from him: "god told me" -bush

That leads to an interesting statement, partially true and partially false by Mike Feazell: 'God told me'. Let's examine it as an illustrative example. Some quotes:

• "God told me to..." is often a euphemism for "I want to and have decided to..."
  
  It isn't wrong to want to do something and decide to do it. But why not be honest? Why not say: "I have decided to go to Africa and work in a health clinic. Please pray for me." That would be honest. But 99 times out of a hundred (in my opinion, of course) when someone says, "God told me to go to Africa and work in a health clinic," they are playing fast and loose with honesty.

  Excellent! But then he stumbles:

• God can and does bless us in our decisions without making them for us. God gives us the ability to weigh the factors in our lives, get advice, do some research, study the issues involved and make informed, well-considered decisions. And we should ask him to lead us.

  How does he know these things? He made them up! He was dishonest in exactly the same way he had just spoken against!

So 'god told me' collapses to either a lie or an unbelievable and unproven claim. However, it is frequently made by religious leaders, which makes it likely that they are lying all the time.

One of the highest ethical principles is to tell the truth. Religions are failing to tell the truth and this is causing death and misery. It is time to stop lying.

Lying for the Truth

Antiabortion advocates jumped on the suggestion that abortions cause breast cancer. For example, an entire web site is devoted to this religious cause, www.abortionbreastcancer.com. Another example is The Abortion Breast Cancer Cover-up Susan B Komen, "Race for the Cure" which is full of quotes from the bible and religious statements claiming a relationship. It is by Angela Michael and dated June 18, 2005.

Is breast cancer caused by abortion? This is a straight forward scientific question.

To determine the current scientific understanding of the issue, I looked to the vast collection of biomedical abstracts at PubMed. I searched for

abortion "breast cancer"

and found

J Epidemiol Community Health. 2005 Apr;59(4):283-7. Risk of breast cancer after miscarriage or induced abortion: a Scottish record linkage case-control study. Brewster DH, Stockton DL, Dobbie R, Bull D, Beral V.

The link provided gives the original scientific paper. The date of publication was April of 2005. Their conclusion was:

CONCLUSION: These data do not support the hypothesis that miscarriage or induced abortion represent substantive risk factors for the future development of breast cancer.

To confirm this, I looked to the National Cancer Institute of the U.S. Nationa Institutes of Health. This organization has top world scientific experts on cancer and they are making fantastic progress at detecting and curing cancers. If there is a linkage they would know, and be studying it intensely. At that web site I searched for 'abortion' and found the fact sheet Abortion, Miscarriage, and Breast Cancer Risk which states

In February 2003, the National Cancer Institute (NCI) convened a workshop of over 100 of the world's leading experts who study pregnancy and breast cancer risk. Workshop participants reviewed existing population-based, clinical, and animal studies on the relationship between pregnancy and breast cancer risk, including studies of induced and spontaneous abortions. They concluded that having an abortion or miscarriage does not increase a woman's subsequent risk of developing breast cancer.

So the scientific case appears quite clear - abortions do not cause breast cancer.

One is given to believe that religious people are ethical and that they are on an intense search for the ultimate truth. The following quote from the Center for Reproductive Rights:

A stark black and white billboard looms over Interstate 95 near Philadelphia, thrust on motorists by Family Life Education Foundation and boldly displaying the provocative message: "abortion increases breast cancer risk." In 1996, similar messages were posted on subways, buses and trains in metropolitan Baltimore, Washington D.C. and Philadelphia by a group called Christ's Bride Ministries (CBM). Matthew Staver, legal counsel for CBM and other conservative religious groups, has defended this anti-choice chicanery by saying, "I don't think the First Amendment depends on truth. I think you can say things that are wrong." It appears he is right on that count.

The science has come down on the side that their statement was wrong. But nothing can ever excuse a lie for 'Truth'.

It is irresponsible for religious groups (or anyone else) to continue to propagate this idea in support of a religious agenda.

It is unethical to lie for the "Truth".

How is it possible that modern religions lie?

Thanksgiving without stupidstition

Thanksgiving: To Whom (or what) Are We Grateful -- and Why? by Jone Johnson Lewis.

Morning for the Loss of a Friend

Within hours of my October 31 posting New candidate for Darwin Awards, which is the case of a who pastor who used a microphone while standing in water to do a baptism, Shaun Groves wrote to me about it. His main objection was that my posting was callous. This is my response.

Dear Shaun:

I am saddened by the loss of this person and I'm particularly unhappy that he had a wife and children. It is certainly a tragedy.

However, the simple facts are:

• In case you are making a connection with the date of the posting, there is none, I blogged the day it appeared in CNN.
• I was reporting the facts, though I did mention that the case was sad. But facts themselves are often callous. This is a hint about how the universe runs.
• According to their web site, the Darwin Awards are verified, not fictional.
• Many electrical devices come with warnings that caution one not to use them while in contact with water, hair driers in particular. The tag on my little travel one says

  "KEEP AWAY FROM WATER DANGER--- AS WITH MOST ELECTRICAL APPLIANCES, ELECTRICAL PARTS IN THIS DRYER ARE ELECTRICALLY LIVE EVEN WHEN SWITCHED OFF: TO REDUCE RISK OF DEATH BY ELECTRIC SHOCK: 1. ALWAY "UNPLUG IT" AFTER USE. 2. DO NOT PLACE OR STORE WHERE DRYER CAN FALL OR BE PULLED INTO TUB, TOILET OR SINK. 3. DO NOT USE WHILE BATHING. 4. DO NOT USE NEAR OR PLACE IN WATER. 5. IF DRYER FALLS INTO WATER, UNPLUG IMMEDIATELY. DO NOT REACH INTO WATER"

  Everybody must have seen these warnings not to use electrical devices in water. One might argue (as the Darwin Awards review committee did) that microphones are supposed to have low voltage. Perhaps, but any electrical device can fail and it apparently did in this case.
• The physics of electricity is fully understood. The fact that you can read this is stunning evidence of our full mastery of this physics.
• A god did not teach us anything about how electricity works, nor did any even say it exists. At best we have the story of the god Zeus, with some confusion about him holding lightning bolts. (You would probably need a magnetic confinement system in addition to the hand to confine the bolt the way it is normally depicted.) No, it wasn't a god who helped us, it took generations of hard work by scientists to figure electricity out.
• Natural selection occurs all the time. To some degree, we can avoid being killed by understanding how the universe works and flowing with that.
• Prayer is obviously ineffective or this person would have been immediately revived by all the people watching.

To prevent further needless deaths, you could use a radio transmitter microphone. Google for radio transmitter microphone or wireless microphone and you will find many sources for as little as $25 (www.techbuys.net).

Finally, we come to the philosophical problem of 'why' this good person died if there is a God. Here are some possibilities for solving the puzzle:

• God hated this good person and is a murderer, causing the electrical fault. Unfortunately there is plenty of heresay 'evidence' in the Bible for this.
• God knew this was going to happen but didn't come to the rescue. This is either heartless or impotent, certainly not omniscient.
• God didn't know this was going to happen. (Maybe God doesn't understand how electricity works?) This is incompetent, not all-seeing.
• God wasn't watching. Then we must conclude that he is not omniscient. Also, this person was conducting a special ceremony for God and God was not polite enough to watch?
• God moves in mysterious ways. Sorry, that's a cop-out. It doesn't cut it compared to the science we now understand.
• There is no god. This hypothesis fits all the facts of this case and it is simple. It also fits thousands of other facts we know about how the universe works. Why would a god make human eyes have blood vessels in front of the light sensing parts? You can apparently see this sometimes. The octopus has a better design than we do. So we are not the favored species ... or there is no favored species. Why do we have bad backs and bad knees? Why don't women just unzip at the abdomen instead of squeezing our heads (which are too big) through the tiny cervix? That would be a better design and it would avoid untold pain. Why do our DNA polymerases fail to replicate our DNA properly, giving our children horrible genetic diseases? Etc. etc.

From these points (and thousands of other facts) I conclude that it is highly unlikely for there to be a God. Given modern scientific knowledge, all the old arguments fail. At best, Jesus was a person. In his article The World's Most Dangerous Book, Alan Watts proposed that Jesus was like Buddha, and that Jesus understood how we are all 'godlike'. Watts thought that the things Jesus said were misunderstood, perhaps intentionally.

So (apparently) the answer to "Why Did This Happen?" is: that's an incorrect question, there is no why. The physics of the universe is consistent, and if one choses to ignore the physics, then there may be consequences one doesn't like.

But that means that, if there is no external guide, we are more responsible for what happens on this planet, not less. It means that if we choose kindness and being ethical, that leads to a pleasant place to live. Morality comes from within us.

How did morality come to be within us? I think we can make a pretty good case that we evolved that way. (You are welcome to do the genetic studies to test this hypothesis! It will probably be done in the next 50 years at the rate we are going.) Those who disagree, by chosing violence, will be selected against by being thrown in jail or killed - this has been true of societies for a long time and so we have selected ourselves to be [mostly] pleasant! While on a trip to Finland this fall I learned that the word berserk comes from Berserker - a person who would go wild when the vikings were invading. They were great for raides but caused a problem when they got back home. There are stories about how the town's people would have to gang up on these guys - get them drunk and then kill them. So exceptionally nasty people get eliminated from the gene pool by other people. (This suggests that there could be genetic forces towards peaceful people. Unfortunately the reverse may also be true: war leads to rape which spreads genes around the planet.)

All that's irrelevant in the face of the loss of a friend and family member. I am sad that this happened. My deepest condolences to you and your friends.

Tom