Paul Simon's "Proof" to an #AtheistEar

In 1990, I was caught in the grip of Paul Simon's incredible 1986 Graceland album. I wore out more than one copy of that cassette in the tape deck of my ancient Datsun while commuting to school. Then in 1991, Simon followed that album up with another.

Rhythm of the Saints was a clear attempt to build on Graceland by bringing together an eclectic group of musicians from around the world. Where Graceland had famously (and infamously) defied the international boycott on South Africa by featuring South African artists, Rhythm went to South America and the Caribbean to find inspiration. Simon also attempted to recreate the magic of Graceland's breakout hit video for You Can Call Me Al by recruiting his Saturday Night Live buddies, Chevy Chase and Steve Martin, to appear in his new videos.

Critically and commercially, the new album didn't quite reach the heights of Graceland, but I fell in love with it - and when it comes to songs that might work as "atheist anthems," this one seems to be a contender:


 

 (Lyrics are available here.)

Typical of Paul Simon lyrics, you could interpret the verses in many ways - but the chorus seems pretty clear to me.

(Proof)
Some people gonna call you up
Tell you something that you already know
Sane people go crazy on you
Say, "No man, that's not
The deal we made
I got to, I got to, I got to"
Faith
Faith is an island in the setting sun
But proof, yes
Proof is the bottom line for everyone

When I really began to own my atheism a few years ago, I really felt like one of the participants in the conversation from that chorus. Sometimes, when people would realize that I no longer believed in the God we used to share, their shock would cause them to "go crazy on me" and withdraw. Sometimes, I am sure, they felt as those I was the one who had gone crazy. "That's not the deal we made...I got to, I got to...." In some cases, I have been able to talk to them and rebuild some sense of normal; with others, I haven't.

Even with those folks who have been okay with my non-belief, there is a certain delicacy required when speaking of matters of faith. As a rule, people don't consciously choose to delude themselves. The things that they believe tend to be a fundamental part of who they are and how they deal with the rest of the world. Sometimes the things that people believe - the things they put their faith in - seem trivial to me, but more often, their faith is how they deal with harsher realities.

I struggle when the things that people have chosen to believe are not only wrong, but also harmful. On occasion, the "harm" done by believing things that are not true is hard to explain. (If you visit What's the Harm? there are some tools for doing so.) Most of the time, I try to take a "live and let live" approach, but participating in society means talking to other people, and that is an activity that almost always leads to disagreement.

When that happens, I find it useful to understand the standards of logic and the burden of proof.





I'm sure there are times when I get caught up in the emotional baggage of an argument, but I try to stay open-minded enough to be persuaded by evidence. I hope you don't mind if I check that evidence before I change my mind, though - because proof, yeah... proof is the bottom line for everyone.

The Satanic Panic to my #AtheistEar

I really wanted to show you something that would convey to you just how bad we evangelical Christians thought things were in the 1980s when it came to the occult. I remember the figures on our local Family Life Radio station excoriating the popular trends of horror films and heavy metal music, and I remember hearing parodies and take-downs that I thought (at the time) were really sticking it to those heathens.

But for today's post, this is the best I could find:


(Lyrics are... probably available somewhere. I'll let you Google this one if you really want to.)

I'm truly sorry for that, but it was honestly the best video I could find to represent what I wanted to talk about today. And by "best," I mean that it's almost listenable.

That was Carman, one of those artists I thought was pretty cool and entertaining in the mid-1980s. He apparently went on to re-imagine Buffy the Vampire Slayer as a wild west showdown. He made several videos like this in the early 1990s, and they tend to be longer and less entertaining. I guess a career is a career.

But I remember there were a lot of smaller-time artists out there doing similar things at the time. I can't remember their names, and clearly, they aren't easy to find on YouTube. But what I wanted to talk about was the way they went so over the top in portraying their Enemy.

There is no denying that a lot of the things that rural Christian communities like mine saw coming out of pop culture in the late-1970s and early-1980s were terrifying. John Carpenter's Halloween, the Exorcist, and the slasher movies they inspired; Black Sabbath, Judas Priest, and the increasingly cacophonous and increasingly depraved bands they inspired seemed to confirm that demons and Dark Powers had taken over our land, and were intent on convincing kids (like me!) to ignore their upbringing and sin, sin, sin.

Unfortunately for their message, the people behind the Satanic Panic went too far in building up the Enemy. What do I mean by that?

First, a lot of the panic was based on lies. A man named Mike Warnke was one of the more famous, but there were several people who made a living touring the country and telling stories of their lives as "high priests" in Satanic cults. They described awful rituals, murders, baby-killing, and rapes occurring, and then spoke about how Jesus had saved them, and told them to spread the word. Spoiler alert, Mike Warnke, and those like him, turned out to be frauds.

But not only were these people lying about things that Christians find scary, the truth is that those scary things - like demons and the Devil, and Hell - don't actually exist. I don't just say that as an atheist who does not believe in the supernatural - I also say that as a former Christian who is quite familiar with the Bible. The very concept of Hell, as these people teach it, is not Biblical.

As the Slacktivist said a few years ago, after controversy flared up over a book by Rob Bell:

"Dante teaches this. Jack Chick teaches this. Iron Maiden and countless B movies teach this. But the Bible does not. The doctrine of Hell can be, with only partial success, taken from Dante and Chick and Iron Maiden and grafted onto the Bible. But it cannot be derived from the Bible...
"The Hebrew scriptures offer no support for Team Hell. None. The pages of the Old Testament mention “sheol,” or “the grave,” but not Hell...The gospel as Paul preached it, as he described it in his epistles, does not include the doctrine of Hell."  (from Team Hell gets loud)

The point is that none of these supernatural beings exist, either in reality, or in the scriptures that those perpetuating the Satanic Panic claim to follow.

So why were evangelical Christians like me motivated to buy into the lurid stories we were being told? Why did we want to believe those stories were true? For the answer to that, I'll refer you to another incredible Slacktivist essay, this one about the Anti-Kitten-Burning Coalition. (Spoiler: it comes from a deep need to feel superior to others that becomes more important that combating actual evil.)

At the end of the day, it's important to remember that the vast majority of Christians want to help make the world better. They see the problems that come from drug use, alcoholism, poverty, and crime, and they want to share what they think is a simple solution. If only solving real problems were as easy as shooting a demon with a magic pistol.


But, since you put up with that Carman video, I thought I'd share this gem: it's Steve Taylor's  live performance from 1984 of his song criticizing Bob Jones University and its racist policies. Enjoy!

Nickel Creek's "Twenty-first of May" to my #AtheistEar

If last week was an example of a great song with disturbing overtones, this week's song takes a tongue in cheek look at those overtones.

Nickel Creek included this song poking a bit of fun at the followers Harold Camping, who believed that Jesus would return on May 21, 2011, on their 2014 album, A Dotted Line:

(Lyrics are here.)

While it may seem a bit cruel - not to mention shooting fish in a barrel easy - to poke fun at people like the late Mr. Camping, it's worth remembering that there is such a thing as Being Wrong. 

Too many people throw dumb ideas around that are painfully, obviously, and predictably wrong; and yet, they somehow defend themselves from criticism by claiming that you can't prove them wrong. Their sincerely held beliefs trump all of the facts, evidence, and rational reasoning you might bring to bear. Sometimes they wrap themselves in "different ways of knowing" or cast doubt on your credibility, ignoring everything - even previous errors of their own - for the sake of insisting that they have some mystical foreknowledge that you don't have.

Well, I've never been so sure
And I've never led no one astray
'Cept in the fall of '94
But Hallelujah, the 21st of May

They laughed while Noah built his boat
Then cried when came the rain
They mock me now but I will float on the 21st of May
They mock me now but I will float on the 21st of May

It's all harmless enough when they are just selling pamphlets and putting up billboards, but there are deeper, more insidious ways that people are wrong. They ignore evidence to cast doubt on the safety of vaccines, they ignore the body of science on global warming, and insist that economic austerity is necessary to "fix" our economy - all subjects on which the vast, overwhelming body of study contradicts them.

Still, people like me have a responsibility to remain civil. We can't force people to see reason; we can only explain it, sometimes repeatedly, and hope it sinks in. And yes, sometimes, we poke a bit too much fun at them, making them hunker down in their miserable wrongness and ignore us even harder.

Still, there remains the undeniable fact that the only appropriate response to ridiculous ideas is to ridicule them.

(If you haven't seen this, by the way, you owe yourself 20 minutes to see them perform four songs on their NPR Music Tiny Desk Concert - 21st of May is the 3rd song.)

Extreme's "There Is No God" to the #AtheistEar

When people claim there are no atheist anthems - as Steve Martin and the Steep Canyon Rangers did in our inaugural post - a quick Google search for a counterexample might lead one to this song... and fool you into thinking that you had found one.

Extreme put out their 1994 album Waiting For the Punchline when the Grunge movement was in full flower, and there is no doubt that this hurt them as far as album sales and publicity goes. Their previous album, III Sides to Every Story, had played around with the conflicts between War and Peace, and re-purposed slogans from both 60's peace movements and 90's era talk radio hawks to skewer the weaknesses of both sides. For my money, their genius at writing challenging songs that sound like they mean one thing while forcefully making the opposite point was undiminished when they made their 1994 record.

Punchline focuses heavily on religious themes, and calling out hypocrisy and criticizing the abuses and excesses of organized relition. But Extreme were never satisfied with making a straightforward statement. They prefer to mix multiple arguments up in their lyrics and let the listener come to their own conclusions - while playing coy with their own (often strong) opinions. The opening track of the album does exactly this with the notion that There Is No God.

(Full lyrics available here.)

On the surface, this song comes out fighting. It would be easy to take one listen and declare this to be an Atheist Hymn (giving the lie to Steve Martin's song from a couple of weeks ago).

The first verse is clearly attacking the kinds of charlatans who were making the news in the late 80's and 90's - people like Jim Bakker, who was convicted of mail fraud and other charges related to his televangelist ministries. People like Bakker had become an easy target, not just of the anti-religious, but also of churches like my own, which saw these sprawling, lavish "ministries" as something akin to the "money changers in the temple" who made Jesus so angry that he got a whip and drove them out. (See Matthew 21:11-13 for that story.)

So you're a self proclaimed messiah
or maybe a blasphemous liar
a clever hypnotic hoax
a hallowed heretic coax
who tells these stories so old
no, never the same twice told
speaking in distorted truths
i see that thomas wants some proof
did you come to heal the sick
with one more magician's trick
ye generation seeks a sign
while blind keeps leading the blind

If you stopped there, that could stand as a withering critique of religion in general. This verse probably sounds a lot like what you hear from atheists on the internet. But take note of one small detail before it gets away. Most of this song is framed in "you" statements: "You're a self proclaimed messiah" and "did YOU come to heal the sick..." But there is one line that stands out as an "I" statement: "I see that Thomas wants some proof."

That's important for two reasons. First, it signals very subtly that the listener and the singer aren't interpreting these words from the same point of view. The listener is primed to sympathize with one view ("there is no god") or the other ("who tells these stories so old...speaking in distorted truths"), but there is a third point of view here: that of the singer. (Remember, the band's previous album was divided into "III Sides" - Yours, Mine, and The Truth.)

He's putting a lot of ideas out there, but he hasn't actually taken a "side" yet. And while he is laying out the usual case against charlatans and false prophets - or at least fallible humans - he isn't necessarily owning those arguments. He's also distancing himself from the critique by referring to someone as "Thomas." If you're not familiar with your Bible, this is a clear reference to Doubting Thomas, the disciple of Jesus who refused to believe that the Messiah was back from the dead until he put his fingers in the nail holes and stuck his hand into the wound on his side. The gruesome point being that in the end, Jesus appeared to Thomas, let him touch him, and chided anyone else who insisted on that degree of proof as a fool.

(See John 20 for that story.)

To return to the song, the band goes on to establish in the chorus what seems to be a summation of the case against religion:

so you say there is no god
just a clever man's charade
a once upon a fairy tales fraud
has god made man or man made god
there is no god

Read superficially, this can be interpreted as an assertion that "there is no god" at the end of the verse. If you're a believer, you're probably past the point of caring or wanting to hear more at that point; but if you're a non-believer, you're primed to keep going. You might even be pumped and excited to see more "red meat" thrown out.

But settle down; because now that we've identified the singer hiding in the "I" statement, it becomes important to see that the whole chorus is a "you" statement. YOU say there is no god... and YOU follow that logic to its conclusion. But what does the singer really think?

The second verse seems to continue the scathing criticism, but halfway through, there is a slight twist. See if you spot it:

confused thy talk in parables
accused thou walk in parallels
a simple game of simon says
of this month's flavor sciences
today's fact, tomorrow's fiction
leave the rest to superstition
if knowledge comes from learning books
wisdom comes from discerning looks
a fool that says there is no god
don't feel for that sorry sod
who needs proof then he'll believe
i wonder if he's been deceived
there is no god

There, in the middle of what the average atheist might consider to be the crushing blow in the case against religion, the lyrics turn around on you. Pivoting on that line - wisdom comes from discerning looks - the singer delivers two couplets that seek to undo everything they have built up to this point. This verse begins by subtly shifting from describing the failings of religious hypocrisy to criticizing "this month's flavor sciences," and ending the song with the suggestion that requiring proof is foolish.

On its merits, this is a disappointing argument to make against atheism; particularly in the context of having flayed the disappointing failures of religion. The argument turns on the fact that science does not have "all of the answers" - a common criticism from religious apologists which fails to recognize "I don't know" as one of the most powerful answers that science has.

"I don't know, let's go find out," is what makes a scientific viewpoint so strong. That was the vital driving force behind the Age of Enlightenment, and the last two centuries of discovery and learning. Recognizing that we don't know everything is not foolish - it is the beginning of wisdom, and it is the reason that we take discerning looks. The flip side of that is that a person who thinks scientifically ought to be willing to change their mind if they discover new information or evidence that does a better job of describing reality.

That is what drives me to demand proof before accepting extraordinary claims. That is also what drove me to discard religion. I held out hope for many years, and looked for anyone making supernatural claims who could provide any evidence at all. Needless to say, what was offered was not sufficient. I suppose that puts me in the shoes of Doubting Thomas, as the singer criticized earlier.

But the mistake in those lines of the song lies in trying to shift the burden of proof onto the non-believer. It doesn't matter that the religious apologist has tried to distance themselves from "self-proclaimed messiahs" or "blasphemous liars," because in the end, they are still making the claim that there is a god, and what is missing from their argument is any reason to believe that there is. Instead of saying, "I don't know, let's go find out," they are saying, "I don't know for sure - but you don't either, therefore, I choose THIS - and you're a fool."

I shied away from open atheism for many years because I couldn't see past that agnostic predicament. Technically speaking, I might still be classified as "agnostic" because I admit that there is no way to prove the negative. But insisting that I'm a fool for not believing something that you can't even coherently articulate is not going to convince me that you know what you're talking about.

Looking at this song through that lens is rather disappointing. Still, twenty-plus years later, this band still rocks, and I appreciate the fact that they put together such a swaggering, sassy puzzle-box of a song. It makes me think, and it keeps me seeking... if only to someday find a real Atheist Anthem.

Reality Denial in Children

I have four (4) children. They range in age from 8 to 14. That means that for the last 8 years I have had four (4) people in my home between the ages of 0 and 14. I am well aware that this number is far too small to represent any kind of statistical sample of the general population - but despite that fact, I feel safe in drawing some conclusions about children.

Observation A - A child has an object - such as a toy, a cup full of milk, or socks (on their feet). Later, the child is unable to locate said object, even if it is pointed out to them.

Conclusion 1: When something a child has in their possession loses contact with that child, it ceases to exist.

This object or possession effectively disappears when the child lets go of it. You or I may see the object fall from the child's hand and fall for a very long time and shatter in a spectacular display of destruction and disorder, and the child WILL NOT NOTICE. And when you call attention to said object, they will be surprised to discover it there in a pool of its own constituent elements.

Observation B - The child pours a cup of milk. The adult, witnessing this, cautions the child not to leave the milk on the table (where it will inevitably cease to exist - and also become cheese). Despite this helpful warning (see Conclusion 3), the child will later deny leaving the cup of very new cheese on the table in the sun.

Conclusion 2: The history of a given object has no bearing on its current condition.

This idea manifests itself in a variety of ways. In the previous example, the child will deny breaking the object - regardless of their shared history with that object. Even if they have carried that cherished possession with them for an entire day, singing songs about it and professing their love for it, when they become angered and hurl it away, Conclusion #1 takes effect, and Conclusion #2 allows them to say - with all true honesty and belief, "I didn't do that!"

Observation C - Child sitting on the couch, pulling socks off of their feet, is warned that socks do not belong stuffed behind the cushions, and nods violently with understanding (while craning to see the TV). Later, when confronted with the 5 socks discovered in the cushions behind the spot where they were sitting, they deny loudly and sincerely having ever placed any sock anywhere. The adult will insist on the child removing the socks to their laundry basket. This is declared to be completely unfair.

Conclusion 3: Cause and Effect are not related.



Observation D - You observe a child armed with a dark crayon traversing a room. No other children are home. Upon entering that room a few minutes later, you discover a new work of art not in the Sotheby's catalog, but sure to be worth $24.95 (for the jug of caustic chemicals which will be required to remove it, and the paint to patch the marred spot on the wall). When asked, the child will nod sagely, and cluck with false sympathy that it must have been Sibling A or B - who have both been at school for 4 hours.

Conclusion 4: The existence of Other Children absolves every child of all blame for everything - ever.

If you have an Only Child, you may not have noticed this phenomenon; that is assuming that you also have no pets, cousins, local playmates, convenient adults (like Dad), or imaginary friends for the Child to blame. They don't have to live with you in order to take the rap.


I do hold out hope that these phenomena are limited to the larval stage of human... despite the existence of Doomsday Believers, Global Warming Deniers, and Supply-Side Economists.

Going to Pet the Rabbits

NOTE: This is about me and my discovery of something about myself. It is not intended to be an attack on anyone or their faith. If you read this and choose to be offended, I'm not going to take responsibility for your choice.

I sat in a church this morning for the first time in many years.

It was a memorial service for the little daughter of a friend - a girl who had a degenerative condition which was expected to take her by age two. She made it almost to seven.

I can't imagine the kind of strength it must take to care for someone with a condition like that. I've known a number of people who have carried that burden, including my friend Karen, who didn't develop her condition until she was in her twenties; her mother had to watch her decline from a healthy young woman until she passed away last February. When I think about it all, it hurts; and I'm weak, so I don't often think about it. But my friends who are in that situation don't have the luxury of simply turning away and going back to a life like mine - they need to be strong and face it every minute... and they need to draw that strength from somewhere.

So I sat in a church this morning for the first time in many years, listening to my friend's pastor.

Being a memorial service, it was all about the family's comfort. The songs they used happened to be mostly familiar to me, because I grew up with them; "Amazing Grace" and "It Is Well With My Soul" were featured. The first verse of the latter one is particularly appropriate, and I was struck today by how Zen it is:

When peace like a river, attendeth my way,
When sorrows like sea billows roll;
Whatever my lot, Thou hast taught me to say,
It is well, it is well, with my soul.
by Horatio Spafford

That part, at least, is a universal comfort; attaining peace in the tempest is a skill that everyone should learn - and the elemental imagery of the water here is striking. As I listened, I thought about how important that Idea was to me growing up, and how I've held onto it. That, at least, was something good and honest that could help my friend grieve, I thought.

But I sat in a church this morning for the first time in many years, listening to my friend's pastor talk about Heaven.

And I started to feel angry and creeped out. Because listening to him speak, and toss out all of those Great Truths that pastors must keep in their repertoire, I bristled at the undercurrent of what he was saying.

It wasn't just that he kept referring to God and Heaven as if they are real things - like I said, I grew up with that stuff, and came to terms with it long ago. I think of it as the poetic license that grief and comfort require of religion. It was something else. Two things, actually.

First, I felt like this service was being used against me. My very presence was being co-opted by this man to accuse me - not personally, but as part of the group. He took the liberty of declaring that "we are all here to affirm what we know to be true - that there is a God and He is in control" - things that I don't know to be true, and do not affirm. This was a lie, and what's more, his body language and use of repetition and verbal sleight of hand showed me that he knew it was a lie.

This pastor didn't know me or what I believe. His descriptions of Heaven, and his logic for "proving" its existence, while being tolerable in the context of comforting the family, were cheapened by his assertions. His repetition of that idea, and his flowery and alluring descriptions of the things that the little girl would now be doing in Heaven - that all rang even more hollow.

It reminded me of Steinbeck's "Of Mice and Men" - the pastor was George, spinning the fantastic story of a promised ranch full of puppies and bunnies, and I felt like Lenny. If you take a moment to review the plot summary, I'm sure you'll understand why I say I felt creeped out.

As for the second thing, the thing that made me angry, well that's more complicated... and it has more to do with my "atheist conversion experience."

Remember, I already expressed immense respect for the strength required of people who have to deal with something as painful as what my friend has dealt with. Raising ANY child is a challenge and a non-stop roller-coaster of fear, risk, and heartbreak - interspersed with just enough joy to make it worthwhile. But for these parents, that joy can be bitter and elusive - and even a victory can be tragic.

To do what they do - to survive and thrive as my friend has done - is a pure triumph. We cheapen these things in our culture with our perpetual tabloid stories and Lifetime or Hallmark "disease of the week" movies - but these are quiet, epic heroes who are doing the impossible. I don't blame any of them for leaning on something that I don't believe in. In the past I've made the mistake of referring to their faith as "a crutch," but it really isn't that. A better analogy would be to compare it to weight training or long-distance running; rather than a prop to support them, it is conditioning for facing reality in the long term instead of the short, escapist bursts the rest of us can get away with.

Look again at the first verse of "It Is Well With My Soul" and tell me which is easier - to look objectively at yourself from the middle of your pain and simply "decide" to accept it, or to tell yourself something comforting and poetic that helps you move past it? Most healthy and otherwise happy people I know can't face the prospect of a vast, cold, empty Universe that doesn't care about them; how do you expect people under tremendous pressure to cope without giving that Universe a name (God) and convincing themselves that despite all evidence to the contrary, there is hope and love and joy in it?

There is - but it's hard to see unless you work at it.

So, no - I don't balk at all when people need to draw strength from these ideas, and I don't think it would be helpful or kind to "correct" them when they tell me (and affirm to themselves) that it came from Jesus or God - or the Magic Feather they clutch in their trunk. The truth is that wherever they think they're getting that strength, it's coming from within themselves - and being humans, it is an amazingly deep well. (Doctor Who says so all the time!) So why am I angry at the pastor for playing into this helpful world of hopeful poetry?

My own break with Faith came when I realized what a logical cheat God was. Well, not God, but those speaking on His behalf. (Poetic construct that I believe Him to be, none of my anger is really ever directed at "Him" anyway.) Those pastors love to tell us that everything good comes from Him, and is solely to His credit. Without Him, we are not capable of anything at all. And what about all of our failures and sins etc.? That's all on us. Me, specifically. Or you.

(Today, I heard the pastor lay blame for the tornados and flooding going on in the Midwest on our wicked ways. Very comforting, indeed.)

The important idea here is, no matter what you do, no matter how hard you try - or even if you don't try at all - God gets all the credit for your "goodness" and you get credit for the bad stuff... right down to horrific weather phenomena. It's a logical trap designed to prey on those who need to tell themselves that there is a source of strength outside themselves. To defy the pastor is to put the source of their strength at risk; to question his logic is to risk their faith in themselves. So the pastor tells them their own strength is an unreliable and dangerous flaw, and that they should trust in God - and someday, we'll have a ranch where we can pet the rabbits. Just like Lenny.

As I grew up, and realized that maintaining my faith meant I was expected to surrender to this double whammy of self-denial, I balked. Obviously, I assumed at first that it was just my sinful pride talking, right? Except... I came to understand that the source of my "slackerdom" stemmed from distancing of responsibility from myself, and placing it in this God who seemed not to take care of my homework or my auto maintenance and bills without a heck of a lot of assistance from me.

But I don't mean to trivialize this concept. I watch people suffer through these awful things in life all the time. They call on their God all the time, and sometimes, when they stop crying and dig down deep, they find something inside themselves that gets them through. Sometimes it's just a matter of letting go - of becoming the water, if you will - and they can cope. Then they thank God for it.

You can believe that is God, if you want to, and if it helps you get through whatever you're facing, who am I to rip that away from you? But it still bothers me because denying our successes and only claiming our failures robs us of something vital. It denies that we have that strength in the first place, and by taking away that faith in ourselves, we are weakened.

So I sat in a church this morning for the first time in many years, listening to my friend's pastor talk about God, and about her strength, and I realized that I, as a non-believer could see something in her that no Believer really sees. They pay lip service to her, but then steal her credit and attribute it to God - a construct meant to put a happy face on a cold, brutal Universe.

And while they were doing that to her, I realized that as a non-believer, I can see what is really divine.

I Don't Understand It, So You Must Be Wrong

I have three anecdotal threads to tug on today. The concept isn't necessarily limited to the discussion of "Global Warming" or "Climate Change" (or whatever we're supposed to call it), but 2/3 of the anecdotes came from that discussion:

1. By coincidence, I was involved in two unrelated conversations at work where the person I was speaking with dismissed the idea of global, man-made climate change/warming (whatever poorly marketed descriptive term you wish to use) in this manner:

I just don't think we should make policy and harm our economy based on bad science. I mean "the hockey stick"? Come on!

2. I was driving my 8-year-old somewhere, and she began telling me what she learned in class about the environment:

When you drive, the gas from your car goes into the ocean and pollutes the moisture; then the moisture from the ocean pollutes the water we drink. And that's like drinking gas.

3. Then this morning I enjoyed this XKCD comic:



These three ideas caused a glimmer of Truth to flicker in my admittedly thick cranium - that glimmer being that despite having the science horribly wrong, the 3rd Grader was basically correct: driving cars does cause environmental damage. She's dead wrong on the mechanisms at work, the chemistry, and even the vocabulary ("pollutes the moisture"?); and she's got no idea what the relative impacts of auto emissions on the hydrological cycle might really be. But car exhaust does have an effect on the planet - and some rough guesses (based on data available at http://cta.ornl.gov/cta/) indicate that there are about 62 million cars which might be operated on any given day. So, her basic premise is essentially true.

Of course, what will the 3rd Grader learn if you try to correct her science? (See the last panel of the cartoon again.)

But this is the nature of the "debate" I see going on regarding the impacts that mankind has on our complex systems of atmosphere, water, and biodiversity. Those of us who aren't scientists have to have this stuff explained to us - I don't do the research, I don't have a degree, and I have an admittedly imperfect understanding of what I am told. And when I try to talk about it - especially when I try to figure out what information CAN be trusted in this discussion - I feel like the 3rd Grader being challenged by the skeptical student from the cartoon.

In other words, the more I read and try to figure out "ground truth" in the whole Global Warming discussion, the more I see people dismissing the real science offered by the "professor" because of the poor understanding the other students have of the issue. And that gives me an uncomfortableness.

It seems to me that if everyone who claimed to be interested in a rational approach took a rational approach, we could quickly establish what the "facts" are: that there are a LOT of people on the planet, and that their various activities have a complex, but calculable impact on said planet; that the sum of these activities *might* be causing problems that could put us in danger; and that there might be some choices we could make that would mitigate these dangers. Most scientists agree with the first fact. Even the scientists I have seen cited as "global warming skeptics" don't question that mankind is causing rising temperatures; and then there are the doubters who actually DO their own research and convince themselves in the process.

There are plenty of folks in the general public who will refuse to concede any ground because they see this as a political issue; but the "wacky liberals" are in the company of rational conservatives on this one, and even the solution that our politically motivated deniers attack most aggressively was first implemented by one of their own. I have found that these facts won't protect you from the scorn of those who insist there is no consensus, and that by buying into the idea that humans are damaging their own habitat you are falling victim to the money-making machinations of a vast, environmentalist cabal.

(One has to wonder how the non-profit environmentalists intend to make all of this money, but if one can ignore the multi-billion dollar oil industry's interest in promoting this conspiracy theory, then I suppose one can just as easily find that motive. I think it goes deeper than just the oil companies, though.)

I don't expect anyone to take my word for any of this. The discussion is all Out There - and I'm just a poor 3rd Grader trying to make sense of it. I can recommend a guide to the talking points. I can offer my opinions, and my poor approximations and explanations. But in the end, not understanding the real costs and the real damage that we are doing will most likely cost more than any steps we might try to take to avoid them.

I just hope our skeptical students will give their professors the opportunity to explain it.