Being human
Lucy Odling-Smee
Friday, 17 October 2008 14:46 UTC
What can science tell us about why we behave in the way that we do? And what are the consequences of that knowledge for society?
A series of Essays in Nature asks exactly these questions. Experts explore the potential impact on society, now and in the future, of discoveries in psychology, anthropology, genetics, neuroscience, game theory and network engineering.
All eight essays in this series have now been published. Take a look at the collection and tell us what you think.
Updated 12 February 2009 18:04 UTC
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Hello Lucy! Welcome to Nature Network. How lovely that you are posting. Looking forward to this Essay series as I know you have been planning this for a long while – it sounds fascinating. I hope all is well with you.
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Its a pleasant surprise to see a scientific analysis of Religious belief in Nature. I say “surprise” because the premier journal of science has not exactly covered itself with glory in this area. In the last 1-2 years, Nature has published some unscientific junk in “specials” like “Islam and Science” that seemed to indicate that political correctness rather than scientific evidence were driving the agenda.
Anyway, good job this time. -
hello!
I am glad that nature have begin this series of essays.
I am an archaeologist working from an evolutionary perspective in Patagonia. So, for me , is clear that science, and specially evolutionary theory, has a lot to say about what we do as humans. But also, and in agreement with Nature editorial, is clear that evolutionary theory had “bad press” among social scientist. Then we have to fight for all that evolutionary theory has to do yet for understanding human behaviour. I think this essays are a welcomed beginning
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Needless to say, many readers have very much enjoyed _Nature_’s Islamic science and other special issues and coverage of this area. Nature receives accusations of “political correctness” from both ends of the political spectrum, which tells us that we are probably on the right lines, that is, “independent”. (“right” with a lower-case “r” of course.)
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We have to be Poist-Scientific in order to understand humanity after Heideger and Levinas. God do not exist. God is a mode of hope. Religion can be understood from the insight that the universe is a quantum computer (Web 5.0) , Like Set Lloyed and David Deutsch teach us.
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I’m very glad to see a serious discussion about “Being Human” in Nature. I think it is gonna be really a very interesting series of articles and I look forward to reading the next ones.
Anyway, I was intrigued by the report from Boyer saying that people best remember the stories containing counterintuitive physical feats and human psychological features. Unhappily the author does not include a reference on it for this memory-related study. Does anybody know the reference for this paper described by the author? I would appreciate to take a look on it.
I also believe that all this discussion stressed by Boyer might be linked to the studies of Joseph Campbell on human mythology — and it could be linked too with the Perennial philosophy theorized by the Darwin’s bulldog grandson: Aldous Huxley. Moreover, all of this may take us into interesting issues treated by Carl Jung on the psychological archetypes and the collective unconscious. Shall now be the time of natural sciences to be actually reconciliated with psychology?
Maybe someone would like to push these discussions forward…
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Anonymous
‘Most modern, organized religions present themselves as a package that integrates all these disparate elements (ritual, morality, metaphysics, social identity) into one consistent doctrine and practice. But this is pure advertising. These domains remain separated in human cognition. The evidence shows that the mind has no single belief network, but myriad distinct networks..’
This may be why we continue to get various off-shoots from almost all the prevailing religions. It may have to depend on which set of belief newworks are triggered the most for a group. -
Maxine, Your reply to my charge of “political correctness” is, frankly, lame. This is a scientific journal. If you get criticism from BOTH evolutionary scientists and creationists, we would not regard that as evidence of your remarkable sense of balance, but of your alarming lack of commitment to science! Similarly, the fact that “both ends of the political spectrum” were critical of your Islam and Science special is NOT evidence of your sagacity. I will quote from a comment I wrote at that time on your blog.
The articles in your Islam and Science special provide very little hard information and absolutely no original sociological or psychological insight. Why, for example, is it reasonable to even use the term “Muslim science”? Does that mean science practiced in predominantly Muslim countries, or science practiced by Muslim scientists? Are the contributions of agnostic or heterodox Muslim scientists to be counted in this endeavor or not? And how is it different from “Hindu science”, “Buddhist science”
or even “Christian science”? We are talking about 50 countries with little in common beyond the allegiance of varying proportions of their population to one somewhat heterogeneous religious tradition. Does it make sense to discuss countries as varied as Chad (no science to speak
of) and Iran (more than half a million university students with a fairly high standard of science education) in one breath just because they happen to be Muslim?In their eagerness to be politically correct, the contributors also repeatedly refer to a “golden age” of rationality and science one thousand years ago in the Middle East. One writer asks Muslims to “reclaim… a great Islamic past in which new knowledge was valued and scholars were free to pursue all lines of enquiry”. This may be great propaganda, but in a science journal, one expects greater fidelity to truth. Enlightenment values of free enquiry are not the property of any one civilization, but projecting them backwards, even with the best of intentions, is a disservice to science and to history. Islamicate civilization, while much more eclectic than current Islamist orthodoxy would like to believe, was not especially enlightened by modern standards. Slavery was widespread, women were kept out of public life, democracy and constitutional government were unheard of, and free inquiry was frequently suppressed at the whim of one or the other absolutist ruler. An attempt to “go back” to that world is hardly a mission that “Nature” should be endorsing.
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I once learnt, sciece provides answers ‘how’, and religion answers ‘why’. I think it will be impossible to find an answere for a religious mind scientifically. But one must use both to get an complete idea about unknown (its like looking at the same object from different angle) and live peacefully and happily and the people who are ignorant to this will be extremely important for them to realize this truth as quickly as they can.
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This essay was interesting but blatantly biased. For example the claim that religious beliefs are based on “no evidence” is simply ludicrous. You may think that the evidence for (say) the existence of God or the resurrection of Jesus is insufficient, but it is intellectually indefensible to suggest that there is “no evidence” for them.
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