Archive for December 9th, 2008


I Get It Even Less Than I Used To

December 9th, 2008 by Oskar Kennedy

There is a lot about creationism that baffles me. I’ve never understood how anyone could simply dismiss the mountain (range) of evidence that supports evolution. I’ve never understood how one could swallow the internal contradictions and provable falsehoods of the bible as a blueprint for creation, or the laughably absurd logic of the arguments in favor of a universe created as a lark by a lonely deity who needed a few million new BFFs. I’ve really never understood how someone could assume the existence of an intelligent creator, and then not spend every single waking second giving that creator a hard time for all the horrible shit that happens on a daily basis.

The one thing, though, that I always thought I understood was the emotional underpinning of creationist belief. Intuitively, I can see why it’s comforting to believe that humanity, as a species, has a divinely ordained place as the cheesy Christmas star on top of the tree of life. That the whole big, beautiful world was custom designed for our comfort, so that god’s millions of new buddies would have some place to park their boats.

I always thought that I got the appeal of that notion, but lately I’m starting to find it a lot less… well, appealing. The universe is, at every scale, an amazing, wondrous, fascinating, awe-inspiring place. It took many billions of years to take the form we observe today, and it all happened without any agency. All of that amazing stuff happened as a result of chance and blind luck. It wasn’t inevitable. It didn’t have to happen. That, to me, is far more special than the idea that it was all pre-determined, created as is by the the snap of divine fingers.

As we learn more about everything from cosmology to biology, I find the “god done it” hypothesis less and less satisfying. Okay, so we weren’t magicked into existence to rule over our own private playplanet. So what? We’ve gotten to the point where we can observe the largest structures in the universe, and hack the code that controls all terrestrial life, and we did it with the tools we had, not at the behest of a deity. We can be proud of our accomplishments, and humbled by our mistakes, without having to shift the praise (or blame) to an invisible causal agent.

Take the recent story about induced out-of-body experiences. Scientists were able, without any drugs or physical manipulation of the brain, to convince subjects that they had swapped bodies with a mannequin. And they were surprised how easy it was.

Why is this so cool? Because it shows that the sense of “self,” the perception that your body is an individual entity, is an illusion created by the brain. Somewhere along the way, the brain developed a system to convince itself that it was inside of the body it was inhabiting. It’s a way for an organ that can’t directly sense its location to “know” that it’s perched atop the spinal column. And it’s really easy to fool.

This means one of two things. Either this essential regulatory system developed in response to environmental pressures, or it was plugged in by a creator who was simultaneously a) powerful and insightful enough to build such an intricate system, and b) too lazy or incompetent to design a system robust enough that it couldn’t be fooled by a couple of video cameras. I just can’t fathom what is more satisfying about the second scenario.

And it’s the same all over the body. It’s sophisticated enough to wring molecular nutrients out of food, but it’s clumsy enough that it takes in air and solids through a single structure. Anyone who’s ever choked on a chunk of hot dog or laughed until milk shot out of his nose is evidence against a competent designer.

I suppose I’m biased by my (total layman’s) interest in science, but I can no longer understand how it’s more satisfying to believe that humanity was specially created. We’re discovering so much amazing stuff about ourselves and the vast universe around us. I’d rather know that it happened on its own, and we’re lucky enough to be able to observe and understand even a small part of it.

Next time, we’ll talk about why this dilemma matters at all. In the meantime, does anyone have a better reason, something that I’m missing, that explains why creationist belief is more comforting? I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments.

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Pet Peeve

December 9th, 2008 by Oskar Kennedy

My law school is part of a large university in the Philadelphia area, that has a reputation for its technology curriculum. Despite this reputation, it is utter crap at tech support. As an example, it recently replaced its reliable, campus-wide wireless network with a new one, which is subject to frequent random outages, and often doesn’t work in random pockets of certain buildings.

To compound the annoyance, our Student Bar Association – the law school equivalent of a student government – sent around an email telling us what to do in the event of a network outage.

Attention All Students:

-If you have complaints about the Internet not working, contact the IT department at email redacted.

Sure, I’ll get right on that. I’ll log onto the nonfunctional network, pull up the website where I access my university email account, and send an email to let IT know that I can’t connect to the Internet.

I’m amusing myself by rewriting it to feature other, more primitive, communication technologies.

Attention All Students:

-If you have complaints about your telephone not working, contact the IT department at phone number.

Attention All Students:

-If telegraph not working telegraph IT department STOP

Attention All Students:

-If you have complaints about your pen running out of ink, write a letter to the IT department.

Attention All Students:

-If you have complaints about your courier being captured or killed by enemy forces, order your courier to take a message to the IT department.

Attention All Students:

-If you have complaints about your signal fire going out, send a smoke signal to the IT department.

Attention All Students:

-If you have complaints about your jungle drum being broken, beat out a soothing rythym to the IT department.

Attention All Students:

-If you have complaints about your carrier pigeon being eaten by a hawk, send a carrier pigeon to the IT department.

Attention All Students:

-If you have complaints about losing your voice, open the window and scream at the IT department.

Funniest blog evar.

I take things like this far too personally.

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