This morning, in the shower, my mind brought me up with a jolt. As usual these days it was fully engaged with the topics to which it was applying its usual, but newly recognised capacity for critical thinking,(1) when the self-accusatory 'born again' invaded the little grey cells. It was evidently time to examine my behaviour.
Some of those close to me have, I am aware, become a little concerned that I seem obsessed with the creation-evolution debate, religion and Dawkinsism, the important difference in historical records between piper and bagpiper, ill-considered 'woodland creation' schemes and, recently, critical thinking. One observed, "I think you're a bit naïve", though I think he'd jumped to the conclusion that I had some grand ambition to change the world. In this essay I will explore what has been happening to me over the past few years and the point I had reached today at 7.43 a.m., wringing wet with brain locked onto matters other than bodily refreshment.
Before my shower I had read a couple of chapters of Jonathan Sarfati's Refuting Evolution. There is not a lot to read, for the content is simplistic and puerile (also the print is large and widely spaced). He misunderstands and wilfully misrepresents the biology and physics he pretends to tackle, and his arguments always come to an abrupt halt with a Bible quotation accompanied by, one can sense, the implied, "So there!" I wish I did not have to conclude that this man is absurd, but he is.
It is my intention to read not only what has been written by people with whom I am likely to agree, improving my knowledge, but also to understand how authors of the contradictory persuasion think, by reading their books too. I want to be able to argue my corner from a position of authority. In spite of the tongue-in-cheek concern of my biologist friends,(2) I intend to read as many silly books as I can by Sarfati, Ham, Dembski, Behe and others, but I do not ecpect to be able to stomach the entirety of their output. Anyway, I don't have to because it soon becomes evident that not only does a single author of this sort say very little in his muddled way, but also that he repeats uncritically what his equally barmy peers have said (see discussions: 'A critique'). Citation within original discussion is fine, but in this sort of writing, shameless plagiarism is rife.
In the words of Robert Todd Carroll, to whom I was listening on DVD(3) last night: "[such books] are painful reading and to try to maintain a sense of fairness and objectivity rather than ridicule and horse laughter is very hard." I have wanted for some time to confront and rationalise this very problem (for I too am naturally given to horse laughter at the absurd) but now I can see there is a reason for it, I can try to moderate my reactions (a bit). Having learned some special wisdom from from Carl Sagan (Demon-Haunted World) and Daniel Dennnett (Breaking the Spell), I want to give the lunatic fringe a fair hearing. I don't want to set up in opposition to other people if what they think has been properly justified. But if they fail to achieve that, then I wish to understand what it is that makes them think irrationally whilst becoming confident of my own convictions, knowing that I have examined the alternatives and reached the wisest conclusions. If the irrationalists are wrong, or more wrong than I am, I wish to add their arguments to my store of wisdom. The strength of the Sagan/Dennett arguments and the might of their conclusions are all the more devastating following their authors' careful reflection of all cases.
Born again? Many people 'come to Jesus' and consider themselves suddenly reborn as though they had no past of any significance. My past has been of considerable importance to me. I think I have always been a critical thinker, but until recently I was undergoing gradual changes within my chrysalis, in preparation for my recent imagination.(4) That having happened at last, I feel rejuvenated, awake and aware, but not reborn thank you.
That has led me to wonder where my inquiring mind originated and the conclusion that it is the gift of my immediate ancestor, Victor George Merryweather (1917-2002). He was a highly damaged and underprivileged man, but he had a brain and the, frequently stifled, desire to use it.(5) When I was little, my dad told me the names of wild flowers, how to catch tadpoles and sticklebacks, what goes on where they live (ecology) and, I suspect, also encouraged me to ask questions and seek answers. He filled my little mind with knowledge and inspired inquiry. I must have rapidly become a mini-critical thinker who, later in life, was never afraid to have a go at anything: cookery, car maintenance, travel, unusual musical activities, camping and exploration of the world about me and the one inside my skull. I always had an appetite for the different or esoteric. I didn't automatically join the football crowds, but I did become a botanist. I didn't learn violin or piano. I wanted to play the bassoon. I didn't bother much with opera, but I performed medieval and renaissance music.
For most of my youth and early adulthood, I didn't make good use of my latent academic abilities. Like my father, I too was damaged by early life, a knock-on effect, I suspect, of his condition. Though fascinated by many things I did not learn the conventional ways of learning, school achievements were very average and, ultimately, I failed at university. I was not ready - I had not grown up sufficiently. However, life had a less deleterious effect on me than it did on my father and, around the age of thirty, I began gradually to wake up. By my mid forties I had begun to catch up with my academic peers (thirty years behind) and, at last, in 1997 earned the doctorate that I (and my father) deserved. Burnt out, I crashed and took early retirement. Then I really began to grow, and after six and a half years of rapid further development I feel ready: as ripe as a truckle of Montgomery's cheddar and as ready as the 1947 Ch. Beau-Séjour-Bécot was in 1984.(6)
I do not feel manic, obsessive, neurotically fanatical or born again; just mentally energetic, ready and, with metaphorical feet planted firmly on a foundation of knowledge and reason, able to take a stand for what makes good sense.
James Merryweather, 26 November 2007
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(1) I think I must have always had it.
(2) e.g. "Is this self inflicted torture good for you?" "I'm sure reading this stuff isn't good for you ..."
(3) A workshop presented with Dianne Swanson at The Amazing Meeting 5 of the James Randi Educational Foundation, Jan. 18-21 2007. Seeing this a few months ago provided me with the idea of critical thinking and was the springboard for Blue-Skye Thinkers. [An excellent introduction to critical thinking, except that the camera operator annoyingly fails to show us Carroll's illustrations.]
(4) Emergence of the imago. After a check of the shorter O.E.D. I think I might have coined a novel meaning for the word, but it might be valid.
(5) His father was killed in action (1916) whilst he was in utero. For 50 years he was obliged him to care for his mother who had multiple sclerosis. He was sent to a war about which he was never able to speak afterwards, so we have no idea how much or how it hurt him - but it did; his mother obliged to keep the failing family grocery shop in spite of his desperation to escape and flourish. He had no opportunity to take the further education of which he would have been eminently capable. In consequence, he was unable to connect intellectually or socially with his children once they had begun to achieve what he had not, and a huge gulf grew between us.
(6) Not guesswork, received wisdom or plagiarism, but experience. I tasted it (14/09/84) during a dinner at the chateau, so I have first-hand evidence. My notes are concise: 'Speechless!'