Religion: Why writing things down matters

One of the causes of "just-so" storytelling about human evolution is the fact that, until comparatively recently, people did not write things down or manufacture a lot of objects.

People like Pascal Boyer can write books like Religion Explained, secure in the knowledge that no documents or extensive artifacts are likely to turn up from 50 000 years ago that challenge his claims.

To see what difference this makes, consider the case of King Tut's tomb. Archaeologists have unearthed an extensive story of the short-lived effort of one Pharaoh to convert Egypt to monotheism. We actually know a fair bit about what happened there, due to deciphering writings and examining extensive artifacts.

Now and then a brief light is shone on a far earlier era, and here is one: An Australian cave painting depicts a marsupial lion ("Cave Painting Depicts Extinct Marsupial Lion " by Stéphan Reebs, Natural History Magazine 09 May 2009):

Several well-preserved skeletons of the leopard-size beast have been found. Now, a newly discovered cave painting offers a glimpse of the animal's external appearance.

In June 2008, Tim Willing, a naturalist and tour guide, photographed an ancient painting on a rockshelter wall near the shore of northwestern Australia. Kim Akerman, an independent anthropologist based in Tasmania, says the painting unmistakably depicts a marsupial lion.

It shows the requisite catlike muzzle, large forelimbs, and heavily clawed front paws. And it portrays the animal with a striped back, a tufted tail, and pointed ears.

Those last three features aren't preserved in skeletons, but Aborigines would have known them well. Australia's first people landed on the continent at least 40,000 years ago and were contemporaries of the big predator.

Similarly, an article in Science, 323 (30 January 2009) pushes back the art timeline:

In 2002, a discovery at Blombos Cave in South Africa began to change how researchers view the evolution of modern human behavior. Archaeologists reported finding two pieces of red ochre engraved with crosshatched patterns, dated to 77,000 years ago. Many experts interpreted the etchings as evidence of symbolic expression and possibly even art, 40,000 years earlier than many researchers had thought (Science, 11 January 2002, p. 247). Now the Blombos team reports on an additional 13 engraved ochre pieces, many dated to 100,000 years ago. The researchers suggest that some of the engravings may represent an artistic or symbolic tradition. If so, the timeline for the earliest known symbolic behavior must once again be redrawn.

Go here for more (paywall).

When timelines are getting redrawn this often, my advice is - for now - forget them. At some point, our ancestors differentiated themselves from knuckle-dragging apes, and that was an event with great consequences (if that is now it really happened), about which we have almost no information.

Note: Here is a contest question at Uncommon Descent: Question 3: In 400 words, to be judged in two weeks, and printed as a post: What do we really know about human evolution that could not simply be overturned by a new find? The winner will receive a free copy of Expelled. The contest will be judged in two weeks, May 27.

Spirituality and the arts: High time someone said this

From Martin Beckford, the Daily Telegraph's Religious Affairs correspondent, we learn that composer James MacMillan warns of "liberal elite's 'ignorance-fuelled hostility to religion' " (01 Oct 2008)

James MacMillan, one of the conductors of the BBC Philharmonic orchestra, claimed in a speech last night that the "ignorance-fuelled" hostility to faith shown by "metropolitan arts, cultural and media elites" risks making society bland and uniform.

He also accused pop culture of inhibiting musical curiosity in the young and leading to greater conformity.

MacMillan, regarded as the pre-eminent Scottish composer of his generation, added that embracing spirituality is now one of the most radical and counter-cultural moves a musician can make.

Well, I don't know why anyone should be surprised by any of that.

MacMillan, a Scottish composer, was commemorating the 30th anniversary of the Sandford St Martin Trust, a charity that furthers radio and television programs on religion, in a lecture at the Royal Institute of British Architects.

Of the "new atheist" project, MacMillan said

The campaigning atheists, as opposed to the live-and-let-live variety, are raising their voices because they recognise that they are losing; the project to establish a narrow secular orthodoxy is failing.

Yes, exactly. Human beings are spiritual by nature. The "new atheist man" could be a Nobelist, but he is far more likely to be a bewildered soul in rehab somewhere who "don't believe in nothing!" - and doesn't have the least idea how he should live, in consequence.

On Jane Goodall, apes, human uniqueness, and God

As New Scientist has published yet another piece on why humans are supposedly not so special (about which more later maybe), a friend reminds me of a comment by primate specialist Jane Goodall, contemplating the Cathedral of Notre Dame:

"How could I believe it was the chance gyrations of bits of primeval dust that had led up to that moment in time-the cathedral soaring to the sky; the collective inspiration and faith of those who caused it to be built …and the mind that could, as mine did then, comprehend the whole inexorable progression of evolution? Since I cannot believe that this was the result of chance, I have to admit anti-chance. And so I must believe in a guiding power in the universe-in other words, I must believe in God" - Jane Goodall (1999) Reason for Hope: A Spiritual Journey Warner Books Inc, New York, NY

My own response to the sort of claims made in the New Scientist article is that I will take the claims seriously when I discover a primate ape (or wait, I will settle for a dolphin or an octopus) that is struggling with the question of what differentiates humans from their species. Even asking such questions or considering them important puts us clearly on one side of a great divide, however we came to be here and whatever it means. Consider the intelligent apes in Planet of the Apes. I don't know if they would build Notre Dame, but they would build something that embodied ideas in a way that the apes at the local sanctuary will not do, because they feel no inner need to do it.


You can read an excerpt on line.

Incidentally, she also says,

I was taught, as a scientist, to think logically and empirically, rather than intuitively or spiritually. When I was at Cambridge University in the early 1960s most of the scientists and science students working in the Department of Zoology, so far as I could tell, were agnostic or even atheist. Those who believed in a God kept it hidden from their peers.

Generally, people do not learn materialism from science, they interpret science in the darkness of materialism.

Neuroscience and Arts: But HOW does meat think?

If you are not a materialist (but especially if you are), you must see this wonderful little film clip directed by Stephen O'Regan, and based on a short story by Terry Bisson.

Some (apparently) non-corporeal aliens come to Earth. Sitting in a booth in a small town greasy spoon, they are shocked, just shocked, by the fact that people are made of "meat".

Our brains are "meat." The aliens can't imagine how "meat" communicates. So ... how does meat think?

Don't miss the beautiful sequence where, while the aliens puzzle, in the next booth some very average people are celebrating their friend's excellent card castle (a completely useless activity that greatly exercises the mind and fine motor skills).

Note: In The Spiritual Brain: A neuroscientist's case for the existence of the soul, Mario offers a psychoneural translation hypothesis - how "mentalese" translates into "neuronese".