หนังสือโคตรมั่ว

วันนี้ไปร้านหนังสือ SE-ED แล้วเจอหนังสือเล่มนี้ครับ

ชื่อว่า"บางสิ่งที่น่าเสียดาย ไอน์สไตน์ไม่เคยพบแต่พระพุทธเจ้าเห็น" ครับ วูบแรกผมก็คิดเลยว่า เอาอีกแล้วเหรอ ไอ้หนังสือประเภท ไอน์สไตน์ปนกับพระพุทธเจ้าเนี่ย ซึ่งทุกๆเล่มที่ผมดูผมก็จะเปิดดูส่วนที่เกี่ยวกับวิทยาศาสตร์ และจะพบว่าค่อนข้างมั่วทุกเล่ม ดังนั้นผมจึงคิดว่าส่วนอื่นๆที่ผมไม่ได้อ่านก็น่าจะค่อนข้างมั่วด้วย ผมจึงไม่ให้น้ำหนักกับหนังสือพวกนี้นัก

สำหรับเล่มนี้ ปรากฏว่าจากการสุ่มอ่านส่วนที่เกี่ยวกับวิทยาศาสตร์แล้ว เล่มนี้มั่วมหากาฬเลยครับ ไม่รู้ว่าคนเขียนมันกล้าเขียนออกมาได้อย่างไร ผมอ่านแล้วก็เซ็งว่าถ้าคนไม่เคยศึกษากระบวนการทางวิทยาศาสตร์มาอ่านเข้า จะสมองเสียถาวรหรือเปล่า ผมถึงรู้สึกว่าต้องมาเขียนเตือนไว้ที่นี้ เผื่อท่านได้ไปประสบพบพานเข้า จะได้ระวังตัวไว้ ถ้าจะอ่านก็ต้องมีวิจารณญาณดีๆ ท่องคาถาสามข้อนี้ไว้ครับ:

1. จริงเหรอ?

2. รู้ได้ไงว่าจริง หลักฐานมันคืออะไร?

3. จะแยกได้ไงว่าไม่ใช่ประสาท/สมอง หลอก/หลอน ตัวเอง?

The Brick Testament

The Brick Testament: The world's largest, most comprehensive illustrated Bible!

I especially like the rating (N, S, V, C described in the Content Notice near the bottom.)

I first read the Bible when I was about 17 when I went to a US high school which was a Catholic school. I called myself a Buddhist then, but I didn't know much about any religion, just what was osmotically absorbed into my brain from Thailand environment since my birth.

I went to a mass and tried wine and bread (the Eucharist) to see if I can feel any transubstantiation (In Roman Catholic theology, transubstantiation means the change of the substance of bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Christ occurring in the Eucharist while all that is accessible to the senses remains as before.) When I told the girl next to me that I didn't feel anything different, just wine and bread, she hissed at me with "BLASPHEMOUS!" I didn't know why she was so angry. I thought it was very reasonable to check.

Anyway, I found the stories in the Bible gruesome but exciting, especially in the Old Testament. I finished the whole Bible in a week.

Currently, I don't think any religion group would claim me as one of their own since I think large chunks of every religion I know are not true. I like the teachings of Gotama Buddha's though, especially the Kalama Sutta. (Note that this is very different from Kama Sutra, although that's interesting too.)

I'm pretty sure that when we upgrade our biology (or brain) so that we become hugely more advanced, religious beliefs will be very different. I suspect that religions were invented because humans don't like uncertainties, so any certainties, even made-up ones, are preferred. If our descendants can run a billion simulations of how the future might turn out in their head, they will feel very comfortable with uncertainties and probabilities and they don't need to believe anything without solid evidences.

Yet Another Example In Which Power Corrupts

Here is another cautionary tale of giving power to religions. No matter how noble the teachings sound, when there is a power hierarchy, unscrupulous men will more likely climb to the top and do evil things under "religious" supreme authority. Rational arguments with these religious power-holders are impossible since their religious belief says they are absolutely right and anybody who disagrees is wrong.

The funniest/most ironic sentence in the article for me is "Here is a historical irony: the first Dalai Lama was installed by a Chinese army."

You might ask, what would be an alternative to blindly uncritically following a religion then? I think you can start with Humanism and won't be too wrong. Also, practicing the more reasonable teachings in each religion while ignoring the blatantly stupid ones would be a good guide to life.

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P.S.

1. I don't automatically say a religion is non-sensical. However, to a very high probability, if you use the "and" conjunctive between all teachings in a religion, the result would be false. (Since True and True and True and False = False.) While there are many true/applicable/moral things in each religion, the trick is to separate the true/applicable/moral teachings from non-sensical ones. I think our ability to discern which is which would be enhanced if we subscribe to humanism in the first place.

2. See Buddhism role in my Things to Teach My Children (Version 1.0). Even there, my children and I must have some ability to separate the good parts from the non-sensical parts.

3. You can guess my stance on mixing Buddhism and Constitution in Thailand. The last attempt of such mixing was significantly sponsored by a certain temple known for its exquisite blend of {Buddhism + Greed + Capitalism + Conflicts of Interest + Human Stupidity} that would have benefited greatly from a state-backed religion. Thank goodness there were enough people with clear head in the parliament.

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ย้ายไป http://witpoko.com/?p=476 แล้วครับ

Superstition Is Not Limited To Human!

In 1948, there was an experiment by B.F. Skinner that showed that pigeons appeared to exhibit superstitious behaviors.


Full paper is here.


I think the result might be applicable to why human perform rituals, pray, bribe karma wheel, buy lotteries, etc. I also wonder whether animals have their religious thoughts too.


I like to collect these animal examples because, based on what we learn from animal and human behaviors, I believe that biology created human morals and religions through evolution of societal units and it's up to the us, not supernatural mechanisms, to make sure that bad deeds got punished and good deeds got rewarded. I don't believe that human require special treatment from nature in terms of mechanisms that shaped us.


A few books that shaped my thinking about this matter:

• Chimpanzee Politics: Power and Sex among Apes
• Peacemaking among Primates
• Sociobiology: The New Synthesis, Twenty-fifth Anniversary Edition
• Moral Minds: How Nature Designed Our Universal Sense of Right and Wrong
• Journey to the Ants: A Story of Scientific Exploration
• The Evolution of Cooperation

In the last book, bacteria show cooperative behaviors that might be examples of what we would call moral behaviors. That book, along with The Blind Watchmaker started my education in evolution.

Two Ways To Combat Ignorance Promulgated By Religious Fundamentalists

Lately, religious fundamentalists of all types are trying to force schools in many countries to either stop teaching evolution as an explanation of how life and species were formed, or to spend equal time teaching nonsense that is amply contradicted by evidences.

Here are two ways to combat such vile attempts:

1. A rational way: Explain the frequently misunderstood aspects of evolution, and,
2. A sublime way: Convert the infidels to the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

If you are interested in evolution, you can start here.

The book that changed my view of how the world came to be is The Blind Watchmaker, by Richard Dawkins. I read it when I was 19 and I'm so glad I did. Dawkins wrote in the book: "I want to persuade the reader, not just that the Darwinian world-view happens to be true, but that it is the only known theory that could, in principle, solve the mystery of our existence."

You can learn more about the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster here (Wikipedia), here (Uncyclopedia), and here (the official website.)