I searched the forums and found no discussion of either Beyond Belief symposiums, and decided to start a thread about them. I think this is just the right kind of content for this forum, so hopefully we can get a good discussion going.
Beyond Belief: Enlightenment 2.0 is the second symposium of this type, in which the relationship between religion, science, morality, and the humanities are discussed at length by prominent scientists and philosophers.
Beyond Belief 2: About Beyond Belief 2: Speakers
There is a whole lot of content between the two symposiums, so I have decided to start off with a summary of the lecture given by Princeton geneticist,
Lee Silver.
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Lee Silver is Professor of Molecular Biology and Public Policy at Princeton University. He received a doctorate in biophysics from Harvard University and trained at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory. He is the author of Challenging Nature: The Clash Between Biotechnology and Spirituality; Remaking Eden; and Mouse Genetics, and co-author of an undergraduate genetics textbook. He has published 180 articles in the fields of genetics, evolution, embryology and behavioral genetics.
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And the video:
Beyond Belief 2: Lee Silver
A summary of the lecture(I've seen these requested here before, so I decided to take some notes and share
[I may summarize some of the others if there is interest]):
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Originally Posted by summary Silver's main point is that New Ageism, and Gaia or Mother Earth Godess religious beliefs are not as benign as their disorganization may first imply.
-He opens up with an example of how religion works in a small town in Ghana whos inhabitants worship a total of 78 gods. He explains that 77 of the gods are each assigned to watch over a neighborhood, and report on a weekly basis to the priests to inform them of who's wives have been cheating. Thanks to Christian missionary work in the region, the 78th god happens to be Jesus, who works as a sort of "supervisor" of these other lesser deities.
-He points out that in Burma, depsite what is written in Buddhist texts, Buddha is like the Burmese Jesus; parents pray to him to have their children healed, etc.
-An interseting story is related about another Ghanian village in which the priest gives out "special potons", which actually happen to heal his followers, because they are actually drugs he purchases from a village several miles away. In return, the priest gets to have many wives. Silver notes that there isn't really anything wrong with this; it is apparently working for them.
-Silver then draws attention to the following data regarding the controlling of genetic traits in unborn children: 
This is alarming he says, because "no one" beat out the "parents", and suggests this is because many people do not think nature is random, they think there is some cosmic plan to its workings. To anyone who understands Mendelian inheritance and heritable disease, this is not a good worldview for people to hold.
-50% of people in France have taken homeopathic medicine
-He then goes on to denounce New Ageism, and gives some example of New Agers using pseudo-scientific videos to suggest that there is "wisdom in the organaztion" of the world; basically that nature is a god like entity.
-New ageism is the transformation of traditional Christian Mythology, "A single 'God' created the world. God has a master plan for the future" to "New age mostly subliminal transformation of God to Mother Earth Godess.
-He goes on to complain about an implicit "harmony" or misuse of the term "symbiosis" in describing nature in literature intended for both children and adults, and why this does not reflect a scientific understanding of biology
- showed results from a poll he conducted on his Princeton students: 
He says that Princeton students believing this sort of nonsense is as dangerous as Intelligent Design, both socially and economically |
My response:
I have to say, I agree with his analysis, and thought it was a very unique point to bring up when contrasted with many of the other lectures.
New Ageism, Quantum Mysticism, Gaia religions, or just the idea that there is some peaceful teleology in nature, are all severly misguided worldviews, and seem to be a common alternative to organized spirituality.
Darwin himself gave a pretty good assessment of this position, when he stated "I cannot persuade myself that a beneficent and omnipotent God would have designedly created the
Ichneumonidae with the express intention of their feeding within the living bodies of caterpillars.", but runs deeper than just this one statment. Silver pointed out that few animals live to old age, most symbiotic relationships are not mutually beneficial, and animals are constantly fighting and competing with each other. I'd like to add that 99% of speecies that have ever lived are now extinct, and died childless.
Not only is this a very misinformed worldview for an adult to hold, I agree that when it comes to medical science, it can be counterproductive or regressive. Genetically engineering healthier babies(as in eliminating the possilbity for heritable disease), or possibly mitigating the suffering of a great many people through cures reaped from stem cell research will both often come into conflict with someone who beleives in immaterial spirits or that nature is anything other than pitiless and indifferent to our well being.
