Thursday, 23 February 2006

British Muslim yearning for Sharia is misunderstood

The response to ICM's poll of British Muslims (Telegraph, 19 Feb) does more to explain the growing gulf between Muslims and their fellow citizens than the poll itself. The Home Secretary voiced a meaningless desire to make Muslims "feel part of modern British society" while the Shadow Home Secretary spoke of reinforcing "the voice of moderate Islam" to win the "battle of ideas" within the Muslim community.

Had ICM asked the 40 per cent of participants that supported the introduction of Sharia law in pre-dominantly Muslim areas in the UK why they so wished, I wager the response would have had more to do with moral rather than political issues. The irreverence shown to Prophet Muhammad and other religious icons, socio-economic discrimination, Western double-standards and hedonism are all seen as moral ills flowing from our secular culture that can only be cured with the draconian sanctions of ecclesiastical law.

Last year Chechen Muslim rebels told Time magazine (24 Oct 05) that the prime motivation for extending their insurgency across the entire North Causasus was a rejection of Western values based on "materialism and atheism". In 2000 Nigerian politician Alhaji Abdulkarim Daiyabu sought to calm nerves over the introduction of Sharia in northern states with this explanation: "Those southern leaders who entertain fear over Sharia do not understand that . . . for majority of northerners, Islam in its pure unadulterated form represents the only hope. This is because they have watched a situation where somebody rose to become the head of state of Nigeria and looted the national treasury. Yet he called himself a Muslim. Under Sharia he will never get the opportunity to do that and even if he tried he would never get away without being punished."

Of course there is an element of utopianism in all such reasoning -- religion is hardly incorruptible. But growing anti-secularism is not confined to 'radical' Islam. In the US, Christian fundamentalists with similar yearnings for a return to moral certainties have played a key role in securing two presidential terms for George Bush against all the odds and there have been battles over public displays of the Ten Commandments. Here in the UK, Tony Blair's Respect plan for combating anti-social behaviour, proposals to deal with the blight of street prostitution and encouragement of faith-based schools are all tacit admissions that we can no longer rely solely on the humanistic ideals of secularism if we want a well-ordered society.

In The New Divinity (1964) Sir Julian Huxley warned that while we may feel 'a deep sense of relief' at abandonment of a god hypothesis that had ceased to be scientifically tenable, 'we must construct something to take its place'. Clearly we have failed.

Monday, 20 February 2006

Intelligent Design is not Creationism

The Guardian's report on 15 Feb 06 (School board delivers blow to creationism) continues the shameful media trend of equating Intelligent Design (ID) with Creationism.

The much-cited ruling in the Dover, Pennsylvania case (Dec 05) concerned the narrow point whether ID, in its present form, passed the test set by peers for what should constitute 'science'. This is of immense importance in the US where there are legitimate concerns that the Bush administration's pursuit of faith-based policies, that are perceived as hostile to science, is incompatible with the strict separation of church and state in the US constitution.

Young Earth Creationism is a long-discredited movement dating back to the 1960s that manipulated scientific facts to fit the creation narrative in the Bible (Genesis). A key element is purported evidence that reduces the timeline to thousands of years rather than the millions of years expounded by evolution.

ID, or the design hypothesis, has been succinctly defined by leading advocate Stephen Meyer (holder of a Cambridge University doctorate in the philosophy of biology) as the "idea that the origin of information is best explained by an act of intelligence rather than a strictly materialistic process" (The Scientist, Vol.5, Issue 1, Sep 04). It is important to understand that ID has been developed by rational, respected scientists that believe intelligent causes exist and that these can be empirically detected. The theory does not seek to substantiate historical allegory, biblical or otherwise.

ID can hardly be described as lacking 'intellectual merit'. Numerous supporting papers and books have been published, including one peer-reviewed article in the journal of the Biological Society of Washington in August 2004 that managed to slip through the usual censorship net. Despite the impeccable credentials of the three peer reviewers (all of whom hold faculty positions in biological disciplines at prominent universities and research institutions) the article provoked such hysteria and venom in the scientific community that the society, in a move reminiscent of Galileo's recantation before the Religious Inquisition, issued a statement of regret without any attempt to address the evidence outlined in the article and instigated action that led to complaints of discrimination by the managing editor.

It is extraordinary that the same body of scientists that accepts the possibility of extraterrestrial intelligence and is willing to speculate about multiple universes etc. should be so vehemently opposed to the idea of intelligent design in systems closer to home. Hostility to religion dating back to The Enlightenment and academic protectionism are of course the factors at play.

For now the majority in the scientific community are successfully whipped into line, but sooner or later a split will emerge over ID that will dwarf recent battles over environmental change.

Wednesday, 15 February 2006

Is fear the only key to moral restraint?

It is ironic that the furore over cartoons that Muslims find blasphemous erupted barely a fortnight after Tony Blair's launch of the UK government's flagship Respect Action Plan that it imagines will curb the anti-social behaviour that now blights our communities. The irresponsible decision to print material that a section of the community was bound to find deeply offensive is merely a symptom of the cancerous moral turpitude that has been eating away at behavioural standards in western societies alongside decline in religious belief and traditional fear of God's wrath. Absence of the cartoons (so far) in the British media is not due to us having higher moral values than the rest of Europe. Rather, I suspect it is born of pragmatic wariness: why bait your neighbour gratuitously if it carries the risk of a troublesome fatwa?

Of course few politicians will admit any of this publicly. But we continue to ignore the real reasons for expanding social anarchy at our peril. Humanist philosophy advocated by Albert Einstein and other secular moralists has failed to foster voluntary restraint. No amount of government legislation or criminal sanctions will cure moral ills. The very freedoms that brought us the open society we are willing to fight pre-emptive wars to preserve are now threatening to destabilise our communities. And those to whom we have made it our mission to export our brand of democracy are recoiling in well-founded apprehension. Already a dangerous backlash is afoot.

Terrorism does not herald a 'clash of civilisations' as some politicians and pundits would have us believe. Rather, the growing influence of those that seek to import religious ideology into every aspect of life represents a desire for a return to moral certainties in both eastern and western societies. They see this as the magic broom that will sweep away the greed, selfishness and double standards that have spawned socio-economic deprivation and political oppression across the world.

Human survival requires social cohesion. The glue for that cohesion is a code of morality defining boundaries of behaviour that is socially acceptable to the majority. Religion presents moral codes as mandatory commands of unseen deities with carrot and stick concepts of heaven and hell, nirvana and reincarnation etc.. Secularism advocates voluntary surrender of a good measure of our free will for the common good, relying on the state and international institutions to enforce social order. But, as leading atheist philosopher Richard Dawkins has observed, we are born with ruthlessness and selfishness -- necessary traits for evolutionary survival -- ingrained in our genes. How then do we secure adherence to moral codes without recourse to fear of religious retribution or totalitarian regimes?

Whether or not one believes humans have a non-physical aspect, few will deny that we need nourishment other than that on supermarket shelves for a balanced and fulfilled existence. A sense of being and purpose is essential to human existence. Inspiration to altruism outside religion can only come from secular nutrition for the human mind that is universally palatable. Even if we accept the assertion by materialists like Richard Lewontin that there is nothing beyond material entities, we still need something that will appeal to humans beyond functional materialism.

There is an old saying in sub-Saharan Africa: Always be sure to remember where you have come from in case you lose your way going forward (lest you get hopelessly lost in the bush). Science teaches us that we come from nowhere and are headed nowhere. That is a void that encourages nihilism. To make progress science needs to embrace new concepts of design and purpose that do not involve superstitious notions of omniscient deities and allegory. Humility and acceptance of our current state of ignorance is perhaps our best spur to altruism.

Arrogant insistence on dogmatic secularism will only add more recruits to the ranks of religious fundamentalists.

Friday, 10 February 2006

Citizenship confers both rights and obligations
(Letter to Willesden & Brent Times)

Edward Case's claim (Feb 8) to absolute "right to ridicule or criticise religious beliefs or practices" brought to mind the words of 17th-century liberal philosopher John Locke, one of the intellectual giants of the American Revolution. In A Letter Concerning Toleration, Locke deplored the "narrowness of spirit on all sides [that] has undoubtedly been the principal occasion of our miseries and confusions" while warning against "opinions contrary to human society, such as manifestly undermine the foundations of society".

We living in Brent, perhaps the most multicultural borough in Europe, would do well to heed these twin insights that apply equally to religious extremism and gratuitous disrespect of sacred beliefs. Civilisation cannot exist without civility. Citizenship confers both rights and obligations. Any partner in a successful relationship will testify that important keys are willingness to compromise on issues, an agreement not to knowingly hurt each other's feelings and prompt, sincere apologies when hurt is caused inadvertently.

Defiant claims to secularist freedoms are hardly the key to peaceful co-existence in the 21st century. Case may not "give a monkeys mate" should Christ be insulted but we must accept that blasphemy is a serious insult to many that live among us. Dressing up the issue as one of freedom of speech is disingenuous and provocative.

Wednesday, 08 February 2006

New Guinea 'Paradise' should give much food for thought

The discovery of dozens of new species in New Guinea (Independent, 07 Feb 06) reminds us that we still know next to nothing about the planet we inhabit. Scientists working on the Species 2000 Catalogue of Life programme tell us that several thousand new species come to light every year and millions remain unidentified.

With each discovery evolution as the sole explanation for the origin, complexity and sheer diversity of life is looking increasingly untenable. Almost 150 years after Charles Darwin published his remarkable findings on the Galapagos Islands, no forms of life in transition between species (except for notorious forgeries) have ever emerged. All discoveries have been complete in design and function, with some animals -- e.g. army ants, sharks and crocodiles -- remaining relatively unchanged for millions of years.

The theory of Intelligent Design (ID) may fall short of the current rigid definition of 'Science' but it nevertheless retains much merit. In addition to the extraordinary complexity of organisms, cumulative inferences from other intriguing matters such as the anomalous structure of water, Anthropic coincidences, Fibonacci numbers and the Golden Ratio are persuading increasing numbers of secular academics that, as British Astrophysicist Sir Fred Hoyle once remarked, there are no blind forces worth mentioning in nature. This is a view others have come to share, including former agnostic and distinguished physicist Freeman Dyson and former leading atheist philosopher Antony Flew.

With human-driven environmental change now occurring at least 10 times faster than any natural variations in the last half million years, it is time to cast aside objections to ID that are based largely on antipathy to religion and academic bias. When Galileo put forward the revolutionary theory that the earth circles the sun and not the other way round, ecclesiastical custodians of knowledge in his day scoffed at the idea and denounced him as a heretic. Interestingly, a survey conducted by Ipsos MORI for a BBC Horizon programme broadcast in January this year revealed that most under 25-year-olds questioned wished to see ID included in school science lessons while over 55-year-olds were more likely to choose evolution.

There is hope yet that science will embrace multi-disciplinary research into design and open the door to new knowledge that will bury dogmas of all shades.

Saturday, 04 February 2005

Re: A N Wilson - Taming the Zealots
(Letter to Evening Standard)

A.N. Wilson is right that religion is now a "live political issue as it never has been since the early 17th century" and we are living in "dangerous and mad times" (3 Feb). Religious parties have advanced to the heart of political power right across world (India, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Turkey) and made considerable gains in others. Even the U.S.A., that mighty bastion of democracy where separation of church and state is sacrosanct, has fallen to an administration whose agenda is driven by Christian fundamentalism.

Undoubtedly socio-economic deprivation and political oppression are contributors to the rise of faith-based politics -- desperate people will follow any Pied Piper that promises a better life. But the 9/11 bombers hailed from reasonably well-off backgrounds and these factors have little weight in western societies.

We have to admit that the concept of humanism has not been as effective as religion in fostering voluntary moral restraint. To stem the rising tide of extremism and intolerance we must find a way to inspire humans to altruism outside religion. Only a sense of purpose based on new knowledge will help us break our dangerous addiction to cults.

Tuesday, 01 February 2006

Scientific protectionism is irrational and counterproductive

In his review of the Horizon television programme A War of Science that aired on Thursday, 19 February on BBC Two (Times, 26 Jan 06), David Chater suggests that the theory of Intelligent Design (ID) only appeals to "Christian fundamentalists" and asserts that it "appals the scientific community, which has reacted with a mixture of shock and laughter." Nothing could be further from the truth.

It is a great pity that the hijacking of ID by US religious fundamentalists (whose sole agenda is to challenge Darwinian evolution) has muted wider debate within the scientific community. ID is not restricted to issues of design complexity in organisms. Cumulative inferences from intriguing matters such as the anomalous structure of water, Anthropic coincidences, the Fibonacci number and so-called 'Divine' proportion are persuading an increasing body of secular intellectuals across various disciplines of the need for proper, unbiased investigation. Respected scientists that have dared to lay out the evidence for ID have been subjected to appalling attacks that amount to a witchhunt worthy of the dark ages. Why is there such vehement opposition to calls for Causation & Effect -- the same principle that underlies many scientific assumptions -- to be applied to our origins?

Scientific objections to ID invariably fail to address the issues. Ridicule and contempt are no substitute for well-reasoned argument. Such reaction smacks of self-serving protectionism that is both irrational and counterproductive. Just as acceptance of Galileo's revolutionary theory that the earth circles the sun and not the other way round (a truth that he was forced to recant by the Inquisition) opened the door to further exciting scientific discoveries, so eventual acceptance of intelligent design in nature will lead us into new fields of research and knowledge that will supplant current unwieldy suppositions and superstitions.