ASM009 Climate Change, the Evolution of Religion, and Why Atheists Have Better Kids

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climate change the evolution of religion and why atheists have better kids all that and more on this week's episode of ask sciencemic

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it's the super sleepy edition of ask science mike i've been in laguna beach california hanging out with some friends and meeting listeners of the program i've had a blast but i'm exhausted and you guys couple that with really challenging but wonderful questions this week so hopefully i can keep it interesting just don't forget i need your questions especially you ladies this isn't a boys party hashtag ask science mike let's get it started [Music] hey science mike my name is sean i want to thank you for all you're doing with the podcast it's such a great resource and i'm really happy that it's out there my question is in regards to the evolutionary origins of religion i've been working through a book recently called the faith instinct by nicholas wade where he talks about religion being an actual part of natural selection and religion causing tribes and peoples to have greater social cohesion and be able to survive more so than their counterparts lays out a very detailed case and i was wondering what you thought about that if you would agree with that or would you subscribe more to a cultural cause for religion and how you relate this to your understanding of the bible and any any of your thoughts on that would be great thanks so much so first of all let's take one part of that question about is it cultural or is it evolved culture is evolved there's a lot of misunderstandings about evolution and the theory of natural selection and first of all i have to tell you every single human being is an evolutionist everyone everyone believes in evolution because evolution is just change it's all evolution is anything that changes evolves the controversy is over this idea of natural selection that there are pressures that reward or penalize different adaptations so the engine of biological evolution is the gene you have these bits of digital information encoded in your dna and they can get scrambled when people sexually reproduce so you can have little mutations little flips most of those mutations are benign they may not even express an organism but then the next most common thing would be adaptations that are uh negative they reduce the likelihood that an organism can reproduce and so they get weeded out over time because of a slightly or dramatically lower statistical likelihood of reproduction and then the most rare type of mutation at all is the beneficial mutation the thing that is new and actually helps a species survive better that's biological natural selection but then these biologies express themselves behaviorally so it's not just a difference in your physicality it can be a primate that genetically is a little more or less likely to respond to stimulus through anger that could either create like an alpha champ or if you are very angry and small it creates a dead chimp right when you talk about humans because of language and because of our very very large brains we introduce a whole new level of selection pressure in sociological information called memes our memes matter a meme is an idea or belief that self propagates in the same way that a gene is a piece of biological information that self replicates so you can imagine that at some point a human male had the idea that he might hold the door open for a human female and that human male had a higher likelihood to pass on his genes as a result and the next thing you know is human males all over are opening doors for women without being told they should do so that is memetic evolution so there is no divide between a cultural development of religion and an evolutionary development of religion in both cases different behaviors and different beliefs increase the ability for an organism to adapt to the environment religion is absolutely a selection pressure let's think about where it came from we're a species that is aware that we exist and we're aware that we'll die and we're aware that there are things that we do not know so religion likely began as this coping mechanism we saw the elders in our tribe die we saw the hunters be mauled and we could mourn we could grieve we can understand that they stopped and we're still going and one day we too will stop and at the same time we also saw that there were these forces in the world that we could not control but influenced us if the rains came we had plenty if they did not we starved if the reigns came too much our little tribe got washed away and in that model you had these shamans who could interpret the forces they could understand why things were happening they could create prescriptive actions to appease them and that created oral law or oral traditions where there were codes that you had to obey in order to make the gods happy over time humans learned to write their thoughts down and this amplified this tribal religion into a much larger organized system that included sacred texts we see that cultures that rally around these central ideas together have a cohesion that can allow them to out-compete other cultures now is this a bad thing or a good thing well when religion is authoritarian it's bad it can trample out individual liberty it can be oppressive it can be dangerous and so even though it might help you in the short term you know some organized shared values or progress over barbarism an eye for an eye is better than if you get one of mine i'll burn down your town it's progress but ultimately where we're at now is the reason there's this reaction to religion that's negative in society is we're so aware of the downside the bad things we've seen too many isis we've seen too many um people saying well you know they can't get married because what this book says and we see the harm to human life but religion evolves the memes that power our belief in god change and mutate over time now fundamentalists freak out when i say that but the history of it is pretty clear it's it's abundantly obvious i hate to i hate to be so blanketed with the term but uh it's just if you look at history it's very clear the way we understand relate to god has changed over time so the question is as we consider the meme of religion is it possible to approach a way of understanding god that increases human flourishing that increases cooperation that encourages empathy and encourages compassion and i would say absolutely because memes matter there's an idea that can help you understand a little more about the evolution and development of religion alongside human consciousness called spiral dynamics we talked about on the liturgist podcast and i'll include a link to that episode in the show nights on ask sciencemike.com [Music] hey mike not shy just don't use twitter it's a bit of information overload for me so i've gotten sucked into reading up on client science a ton lately turns out the science of these issues is buried under ridiculous layers of social religious political nonsense that completely ruins the discussion of what's actually going on and what we should do about it given your skills and experience sorting through scientific issues what are your thoughts on this one bonus question how do you feel the argument that if we have a perfect creation from god how could humans hurt it thanks my thoughts on climate change uh yes climate change is happening overwhelmingly yes humans are causing it absolutely this is such good science why do people freak out so much because human beings believe things as a function of social identity if you consider yourself a conservative religious person or a republican part of the cognitive framework that creates that position is agreement over the state of the earth and the role humans play in the planet's experience okay it's not a lack of evidence that keeps people from believing in climate change it's social identity that said let's look at some science because they do call me science mike the earth is warming the most dramatic warming we have on the record has occurred since the 1970s and 20 of the warmest years have happened since 1981. not only that 10 of the warmest years on the record have occurred in the last 12 years and this is even though the 2000s had a solar output decline the sun sent us a little bit less energy regardless of that surface temperatures on the planet are still going up our oceans are warming now that's most of the surface of the planet and the oceans are getting warmer they're rising now first of all water as it heats expands that's that's a property of our good friend h2o but even more terrifying to me is the oceans are acidifying they're interacting with the co2 increase in the atmosphere and creating acid in the oceans that's really damaging to wildlife the ice sheets and glaciers on this planet are shrinking now they have a growth and retreat cycle every year with summer and winter but the fact is every year they're smaller is smaller and their bigger is smaller than the previous year most convincing of all to me is the fact that carbon levels in our atmosphere are the highest that they've been in 650 000 years now you may wonder how we measure atmospheric carbon without a time machine we tap into ice so as ice melts and refreezes every year it captures little bubbles of the atmosphere and using glaciers using other deposits we can travel back in time and sample the ancient atmosphere and when we see that there's been a spike that coincides with industrialization so suddenly you have this giant spike in carbon higher than 650 000 years aka a really long time that coincides with human activity and here's the deal greenhouse gases are a big big deal look at venus venus is farther from the sun than mercury and yet it's much much hotter and the biggest difference between mercury and venus's atmosphere is very high levels of what carbon dioxide so it's completely uncontroversial to me that climate change is real and happening now the two meta-narratives in our society are one climate change is not happening which is wrong and number two that climate change is happening so dramatically that we're doomed which is wrong uh you may hear it said that you know we could have a runaway greenhouse effect thanks to methane coming out of the polar ice caps in polar lakes uh and tundra melt that we could have calamities in the next 25 years or four years or whatever the fact is what we're talking about is things get really difficult for human civilization over the next couple of centuries now we do have massive species die off right now and climate change is a factor there it's not as big a factor as a habitat destruction and other forms of overfishing things like this that are really hurting the ecosystem but here's the deal you yes you can make a difference what can you do number one you can use less electricity most electricity is produced by coal so if every month you took an incandescent light bulb and replaced it with an led light bulb over time you'd cut your energy consumption and oh by the way you'd save money you can check your tire pressure you can change your oil filter those two things alone will improve your fuel economy when you do them regularly and guess what that's going to do it's going to save you money now the other thing is an absolutely enormous amount of carbon dioxide is produced in agriculture growing meat not only that cows fart a lot and that produces methane and methane is a potent greenhouse gas each cow can fill a 55 gallon drum with methane every two hours that's a phenomenal amount of greenhouse gas now methane breaks down pretty quickly in the atmosphere but it's still contributing methane is is a more potent greenhouse gas than co2 so what if you reduce the amount of meat you eat i'm not even talking about going vegetarian pick a day a week and don't eat meat i do meatless monday eat smaller portions and guess what if you eat less meat if you eat less animal protein you're going to be healthier most americans eat way too much animal protein now the bonus question there are some people who say because of an interpretation of the bible that we can't affect this planet oddly enough in the very beginning of the bible if you read it literally the bible tells us that adam and eve ate from a tree and in doing so changed creation a literal reading of genesis tells us that god allows human agency to have consequence for the natural world so this narrative that humans can't affect the planet is unbiblical no matter how you read the bible we have a responsibility to this world we are the only species that can make reasoned decisions based on an understanding god gave us a gift the question is what are we going to do with that gift and i will hope that you would join me in increasing shalom and bringing god's good gift to this earth by protecting our climate [Music] hey science mike this is jacob from denver colorado first off love what you're doing i think it's great that we have a place to openly discuss these hard questions of our faith so my question is in regards to you being a mystic so with what you believe correct me if i'm wrong the first couple chapters of genesis are a mythical account so in terms of not being factual but still being true in a sense of who god is and creating everything my question in regards to that is how does the rest of the bible not fall apart when you believe a mythical account of some of these stories so the big issue i'm having is is how can we believe that these earlier stories were or myths and then you come to the story of jesus how do we know that you know jesus was a real person was a real person that died for our sin was god in the flesh how can we understand that as true and regard other stories in the bible as not true i hope this makes sense really appreciate it thanks so let's start with uh mysticism versus mythic mystic and mythic are two different ideas i am a mystic because i believe that although language can point to god it cannot contain or accurately describe god anytime we talk about god we are using metaphor if you are a mystic so i am a mystic a guy named richard rohr would be a mystic if you believe parts of the bible are mythical that has nothing to do necessarily with mysticism my friend pete ends believes that there's mythic content to the bible but to my knowledge pete ends is not a mystic okay so all you're saying is that when you read the bible that there's these different reference frames that you have to use some greek ideas logos and mythos you have some things that are meant kind of factually and some things that are meant thematically okay so i say often that i think a lot of genesis or even the torah is mythical in nature i don't think there was ever a global flood for example that doesn't mean i think those scriptures are worthless and i don't sound like a broken record for the frequent listeners of the program but this point comes up so often it must need repeating these stories teach me things about how mankind understands god and how mankind struggles for meaning and how people thousands of years ago tried to understand and serve the same god that i try to understand and to serve and so if archaeological evidence shows me that some story in the old testament does not have deep historical basis it's actually freeing it means i don't have to be afraid of science i don't have to be afraid of archaeology i can just appreciate the gift of wisdom that the scriptures offer me but then we get to the new testament and people get much more nervous about mythic ideas why because our faith rests on jesus and it rests not only on jesus but on a specific part of the life of jesus and that's his resurrection so the question is does the new testament contain mythic themes well i think good scholarship would tell us absolutely that the authors of the gospels did not write without an agenda they were trying to explain and demonstrate the divinity of christ to a specific audience and the different gospels bear the mark of their different audiences it's not a bad thing how do we know jesus is real how do we know jesus was a real person anthropology archaeology there's not any great academic controversy over the idea that jesus was a real person we have more historical evidence for jesus as a person than we do for alexander the great but nobody's arguing that alexander the great isn't real the controversy is over the resurrection and guess what we can't prove it we can't even get close to proving it scientifically it's a weak belief so why in the heck does science mike believe jesus rose from the dead because the cross is a symbol of god reconciling humanity to himself and the resurrection is a sign of the victory of god over death and chaos and all the things that keep us up at night and i don't have a scientific basis for my faith instead i have experiences with god it is when i contemplate a risen christ that god moves in my life and when it comes to jesus i have more questions than i have answers and that sounds a lot like the disciples in the gospels according to those accounts they were there and they questioned what god incarnate meant in the presence of christ they certainly questioned it as jesus hung on a cross in those accounts but guess what when jesus rose again and then ascended they had more questions and not less our faith is not an exercise in certainty or empiricism our faith is an exploration of the mystery of the universe that emerged from that which was formless and void all you have to do is follow you don't have to understand jesus and god is a really lame puzzle there's no satisfaction in trying to make all these pieces fit together instead god is an experience god is something that moves us that changes us and that grows us and christ shows us how to serve and to follow this god that's why we call it faith [Music] there was a huffington post article a couple weeks ago that said that kids who were raised in non-religious homes ended up better off they were more empathetic more inclusive more understanding it looked to me like they were really picking certain kinds of religious homes because i know at least in my home we try and raise our kids to have all those attributes as well along with their faith but uh i was just wondering what your thoughts on the benefits and dangers of raising kids in religious home versus non-religious home thanks appreciate what you're doing i'm not surprised at all that that study found that because there is a seed of insight there let's talk about something first though study methodology is important there's factors you have to adjust for anytime you do a sociological study and that's why you usually have to assemble a lot of studies that find similar conclusions in order to create new movements in the sciences for example atheism and secularism are highly associated with high education levels and relatively high levels of affluence you have to learn a lot and have money to be an atheist it's like a non-belief is a luxury now why is that you have to have the time and space to deconstruct things and you have to have the personal autonomy to challenge conventions right if you are struggling at the poverty level you don't have time to contemplate whether god is real or overturned tables about social convention you just want to make sure you and your kids get to eat so if this study didn't adjust for the fact that uh non-religious homes are going to have much higher education levels and much higher income levels than the general population or the religious population we have a bias in the study uh i couldn't get access to the actual study only write-ups in the press so i can't tell you about that methodology i would love to i can't but what's the germ of truth secular morality is based on the golden rule you do unto others as you would like them to do unto you secular ethics are reasoned and not dictated you're not doing something because god told you to you're doing something because you believe it is right and you make decisions about what is right based on the liberty of human consent meaning you don't violate people's ability to make choice and you don't cause suffering to other people those are the metrics of ethical discussions and secularism why would non-religious children be ethical which studies have shown they're less likely to go to prison just like their parents they're less likely to commit crimes they have higher success in marriage the best group at marriage in this country is atheists and secularists living in the northeast and the highest divorce group and the highest rates of marital infidelity are in the religious southeast that's just how the math breaks out folks and it's because atheism and secularism is encouraging personal autonomy it's encouraging positions based on reason and it's definitely promoting high degrees of empathy that does not mean religion is bad for children it means some forms of religion aren't necessarily really good at driving positive change in human behaviors okay authoritarianism isn't healthy for human beings it just isn't because i said so is a terrible response to why now at some very young ages and children they have to understand there's parental authority but as children mature that maturity should be rewarded with greater freedom and greater dialogue and personal autonomy personal liberty and accountability matter in the way that humans develop cognitively also prohibition just saying something's absolutely forbidden is an awful way to change human behavior prohibition tends to drive taboo and fetish we don't drink in this home tends to produce closeted alcoholics you can look at the sociological data we are an abstinence only family tends to drive higher rates of teen pregnancy higher rates of oral and anal sex higher rates of sexually transmitted infections and there's a correlation between pornography consumption and religiosity right so there's there's a meta ethic in here there's a story there's something we can learn as religious people the why matters knowing why we do something is important understanding the heart of god in scripture is just as important as understanding the scripture and so i actually think that secularism and atheism in modern society provide a valuable service they hold the mirror up to religion and show us not only our strengths but also our weaknesses the places where we're taking dogma and using it to destroy instead of to build so when you look at how to raise your children don't simply look at what the tradition is but look at the outcome always be self-evaluating and the best thing you can do as a parent is foster trust filled honest relationships reward questions don't penalize them incentivize good behavior and in many ways parent like an atheist that puts another episode of ask science mike on the books despite the fact that i'm in a beautiful home overlooking the mountains and beach in laguna beach california there's also a dog that really hated us recording so i apologize for that in the show it was probably my just incredibly manly voice that intimidated him and he wanted to chase away an alpha male i understand you know makes sense to me uh here's the deal folks uh getting tons of questions i appreciate really good questions too i still would like to hear more recorded questions from women uh we need to push back on the the stereotype that science and technology and engineering and math are male disciplines right let's uh let's be all about girl power on ask science mike now you can ask questions by using the hashtag asksciencemike on twitter soundcloud or youtube if that's too confusing or weird no big deal just go to asksciencemike.com scroll down to the bottom of the page and you can record a question right there either on your computer or even on your iphone it's really really easy you can also submit a question via email there so if you have an anonymous question or you really don't like to hear the sound of your own voice something i frankly can't 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episode to record this is so much easier because you're pressing all the buttons and our theme song is by my good buddy jed bodifor if you have a podcast and need music he's your guy links to additional information for every question on the program is on sciencemike.com you can also find greg and jeb on twitter guys i'll see you next week