Knocking On Nature's Door

They're here! Agagooga has sounded the alarm, and the creationists have gotten their allegedly God-made foot in the door. But if the events unfolding overseas are anything to go by, I don't think that rubbishing them is going to matter one bit to these people.

The reasons are extensive, and they all stem from the fact that humans are prone to magical thinking, or non-scientific causal reasoning. Magical thinking is very much like science, except that it does not distinguish causation from correlation. This leads to interesting religious concepts such as karma, or magic. If I stand under a wooden porch, and it then promptly collapses on me, there is a scientific explanation that can be pointed to, i.e. termites have chewed out the pillars that support the roof, but people who believe in karma would instead ask why the roof happened to collapse on me at exactly the moment I stood under it. Believers in magic might attribute this to someone having cast a spell on me, or say that I was jinxed. Although there are independent chains of logic at work here, it is magical thinking that causes these independent chains to intersect. What is worth noting is that synchronicity, a Jungian concept that is frequently used by people of the TAR(thoughts affecting reality) persuasion, is also very securely fastened to in the magical thinking boat as well. The power of thought's ability to influence reality is great indeed, but it does not literally mean that anything is possible.

I do believe that curing people of magical thinking would be easiest if they were taught to be logical while still young, but this places the onus entirely in the hands of the parents, and if that's not what they're for, then their irrationality will only be perpetuated in their kids. It's helped by the fact that children have demonstrated a strong tendency to undergo a phase of magical thinking when they are very young...for example they might attribute rainy weather to their depression. If starting young is difficult, it doesn't get any easier during adulthood, because of confirmation bias. People tend to look for evidence which supports their beliefs, instead of seeking refutation, as stipulated in the scientific method. The reluctance is understandable, since to shatter one's beliefs can result in cognitive dissonance. I can personally attest to that, for during my third year as a philosophy major, something clicked into place, and I then saw and was haunted by a now completed jigsaw puzzle that I fond truly horrific. It took me about six months to adjust to the ramifications involved, and renounce a religion that I had previously been a devout follower of. This personal experience of how unpleasant it can be is also what keeps me from becoming too testy with my folks when discussing religion.

Neuroscience has also shown that the human mind has been demonstrated to have a great capacity for pattern identification, but is ill-equipped to differentiate between meaningful patterns and perceived ones. From an evolutionary perspective, magical thinking actually makes sense. If I spot something in the grass that looks like orange and black stripes, it's better to play safe and get lost, instead of venturing closer to confirm that it's a tiger.

In other words, magical thinking is here to stay. If there's anything about Singapore that prevents evangelistic creationist Christians from going amok as seen elsewhere, it's that we're multi-cultural to a point where no one religious denomination is so dominant that it can bully its way around the courthouse, parliament house, or classroom without other groups voicing objections equally loudly. At least, that's what I hope things'll be. Others have expressed worries to me that we're on the verge of becoming a Christian theocracy, but my fingers remain crossed for now.