No more NOMA, no, no, no.

This evening I watched something my faithful telly-watching machine recorded for me last week — Rosh Hashanah: Science vs Religion, a half-hour programme presented by the Chief Rabbi, Jonathan Sacks.

Lord Sacks is often on Thought for the Day, speaking with his characteristic measured pace, endowing each word with great meaning and authority. His precise enunciation, however, fails to conceal an embarrassing fact: that the meaning and authority are wholly spurious. It's almost as if he strings words together solely based on their euphony, without consideration of what the words might actually mean.

 

"For me, science is one of the greatest achievements of humankind — a gift given to us by God."

Well, which is it, Lord Sacks? An achievement of humankind? Or a gift from God? (Is it any wonder he thinks science and religion are compatible when he obviously can't see the blatant incompatibility of what he's saying right at the start of his own TV programme?)

You have a couple of days to catch the whole thing on iPlayer:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b01mqvmv/Rosh_Hashanah_Science_vs_Religion/

Some clips:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01mqvmv

The blurb from the BBC website:

Religion and science are frequently set up as polar opposites; incompatible ways of thinking. The Chief Rabbi Lord Sacks begs to differ. For him, science and religion can, and should, work together. To mark Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, he puts his position to the test. He meets three non-believing scientists, each at the top of their field: neurologist Baroness Susan Greenfield, theoretical physicist Professor Jim Al-Khalili, and the person best known for leading the scientific attack on religion, Professor Richard Dawkins. Will the Chief Rabbi succeed in convincing the militant defender of atheism that science and religion need not be at war?

It's clear that all three of the atheist scientists to whom Lord Sacks puts his plea are willing to concede that there are limits to science — and that's where the Chief Rabbi jumps in to claim the ground for himself, while simultaneously decrying "God of the gaps". But he doesn't seem to realise that just because science doesn't have answers to certain questions, he cannot claim that religion does. Because it doesn't. All that religion can do is interpret scripture — which more often than not means making stuff up.

Brainy stuff

Pinkish grey and vaguely reminiscent of an oversized walnut, the human brain is composed of brainy stuff, which allows it, by means that are far from fully understood, to do brainy stuff. Currently screening on BBC Four TV this week (and available on iPlayer) this year's Royal Institution Christmas Lectures are delivered by Professor Bruce Hood, who is inviting us to "Meet Your Brain".

Here's a trailer, from the RI Channel website:
http://www.richannel.org/christmas-lectures/2011/meet-your-brain#/the-christmas-lectures-2011--trailer

The Christmas Lectures 2011 - Trailer from The Royal Institution on Vimeo.

There are lots more videos relating to the Christmas Lectures on the RI Channel, including some snippets recorded well before the lectures themselves. Worth a browse.

As an unexpected bonus, Professor Hood's new book The Self Illusion — not due to be published until April 2012 — is partly available as a free Kindle download from Amazon (remember you don't need a Kindle to be able to read Kindle ebooks — there are free software readers for Mac, Windows, iOS and Android).

The last time brainy stuff was the subject of the Christmas Lectures they were delivered, if I remember correctly, by Susan Greenfield. Presumably she went on to carry out rigorous, detailed research — fully documented in respected peer-reviewed scientific journals — into the effects on the brain of activities such as video-gaming and internet social networking. Or something like that.

OK, not cancer. How about rewiring kids' brains?

Hard on the heels of the unfounded "Facebook and Twitter will give you cancer" scare, we have the Daily Mail now warning that in addition they will reprogramme children's brains:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1153583/Social-websites-harm-childrens-brains-Chilling-warning-parents-neuroscientist.html

Here's a summary:

A neuroscientist says social networking websites shorten attention-spans, encourage instant gratification and make young people more self-centred. That's it. No evidence is cited, or even suggested to exist. Here are a few quotes from the neuroscientist, as reported in the article:

"My fear is that these technologies are infantilising the brain..."

"I often wonder whether real conversation in real time may eventually give way to these sanitised and easier screen dialogues..."

"It is hard to see how living this way on a daily basis will not result in brains, or rather minds, different from those of previous generations..."

"Of course, we do not know whether the current increase in autism is due more to increased awareness and diagnosis of autism, or whether it can - if there is a true increase - be in any way linked to an increased prevalence among people of spending time in screen relationships."

Fear, wonderment, difficulty of seeing, and lack of knowledge - not exactly the soundest basis for such conclusions, is it?

Susan Greenfield is a respected scientist, but the Mail's article gives the impression that her warning is nothing more than unsubstantiated opinion.

(via Derren Brown Blog)

UPDATE 2009-02-25:

Ben Goldacre appeared with Aric Sigman on BBC Newsnight the same day, in a segment also featuring recorded sound-bites from Susan Greenfield. Her statements are indeed unfounded - she admits as much. Watch the Newsnight segment on YouTube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gg8LlUME-IM


...and there was a follow-up on this morning's Today Programme, with Colin Blakemore injecting a modicum of common sense into the whole affair (thereby backing up Ben Goldacre's position):

http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_7909000/7909623.stm