ASM126 Suicide, New Earth, and the Flat Earth Society

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suicide new earth and the flat earth society all that and more on this week's episode of ask science [Music] [Applause] not mike i'll talk anyway we got problems he won't stop there but he'll talk and talk and talk until he flew in the face science faith welcome to ask science mike the weekly podcast where i answer your questions about science faith and life really exciting show this week to me it's the one year anniversary of the release of finding god in the waves my first ever book and happened to come up in the answers for one of the questions this week so what do you say let's do a podcast let's get it started okay this podcast should be coming out on wednesday september 13th which means uh you have very little time to get tickets for the liturgist gathering in los angeles on september 15th and 16th i'm telling you this event is going to be great there are a couple dozen tickets left so if you haven't got a ticket yet there is still a little bit of time and a few tickets available but they are going fast uh this could very well be a sellout event of course if you're not in or around the los angeles area don't worry we've got you covered october 6th and 7th the largest gathering is happening in boston oh man if we got some cool stuff planned for you boston and uh then october 27th 28th the liturgists gathering will head to seattle all the liturgist gatherings have surprise special guests all of them people you've heard on the podcast people you love from the podcast will be at these events so i'd love to see you at the liturgist gathering just go to the liturgistgathering.com for more information october 11th i will do an ask science mike live in london october the 13th in birmingham uh in the united kingdom not alabama october 17th i'll see you in edinboro for ask science mike live and october 21st i will be at the rubicon conference in dublin ireland so uk friends plenty of chances to come see me tickets available for all those events right now online just go to asksciencemike.com click on events you can get more information and grab your tickets i'd love to see you in these events and then in november november 15th i will be at the ripple effect conference in lawrence massachusetts so one more chance to see me in 2017 2018 is already starting to book up so if you thought about bringing me in to your church or college or conference or community i'm available but don't wait too long slots do fill up fast go to asksciencemike.com click on speaking and you can contact the folks at chaffee management who can tell you all about bringing science mike to your town so that's enough about events let's do some questions [Music] hey mike chris here from texas so i don't know if you're like me but i've been getting into a lot of conversation with friends about how the earth is actually flat no idea why this has gotten popular lately but give me some quick pointers on proving that the earth is indeed round and that we will not fall off if we get to the edge thanks i have noticed with some dismay the increasing number of questions about a flat earth coming into the program and i absolutely do like covering science questions on this program that's why i started the podcast was actually for science question the faith questions and the advice and life questions just sort of happened but this is this is not a science question i love answering uh because it seems strange that in 2017 there is any debate over whether the earth is around or not this is not new knowledge this is not poorly justified scientific insight that the earth is around as opposed to flat um you know sure there's a lot of ways you can demonstrate that the world is round that the earth's surface is curved i've got a link to 10 methods from popular science in the show notes on ask sciencemike.com some of those you know watching a ship sail over the horizon it doesn't get smaller and smaller and smaller become a point if the ship is large enough and the view clear enough instead the ship sails over the horizon vanishes like it's falling off the edge and that's because the earth is round another thing comparing the position of constellations at the same time from different points on the earth surface what you see only makes sense if the earth is round a dome over a flat disc would not produce this kind of pronounced effect geometrically nor would for example polaris the north star be invisible from the southern hemisphere if you had just a dome over a flat disc grab a sheet of paper draw it for yourself this is not complicated science because the ancients figured this out they didn't need nasa they didn't need rocket ships they used their own senses and reasoning and pre-scientific approaches that ultimately led to the scientific method mathematics geometry now here's the bad news something as pervasive and powerful as the night sky probably won't convince your friends the truth of the earth's spherical nature why because a flat earth worldview is a conspiracy theory this this rise of flat earth belief is so endemic of the post-fact post-truth culture that we're living in and this stems from the same well believe it or not as climate change denial or labeling anything you disagree with as fake news when fake news is an actual measurable phenomenon because i think it all started when scientific insight started to be politicized so for example carbon emissions warm the climate came to have political implications and in response a cottage industry was built in right-wing media that started to divorce its audience from a consensus about reality let's just create a new reality let's use a separate fact set of facts quote facts not actual facts but let's call them facts to construct a new world view fundamentally incompatible with the other this is dangerous this is scary stuff you know it used to be the parties had the same blind spots you know the left and the right both ignored white supremacy for example but on matters of you know what does science say about an issue both parties basically respected scientific insight within the aforementioned social constraints about white supremacy and uh that's where we are now everybody based on their social identity and their personally curated uh media believe what their tribe believes now conspiracy theories are especially alluring because they make you feel like an enlightened insider surrounded by the ignorant masses it is psychologically gratifying and it creates some interesting partners interesting partners we have kind of some of the anti-science alt-right promoting a flat earth ideology along with like prominent professional athletes including athletes of color both of these ideologies flat earth ideologies are driven not by a set of scientific facts or interpretive lenses but instead a fundamental distrust of the establishment and authority of which nasa becomes emblematic so you're not going to scientifically reason your flat earth friends into enlightenment about the shape of the earth it's actually going to require a more fundamental approach reconciling why they are drawn to this hidden knowledge where their fundamental distrust of our institutions comes from now don't get me wrong i have all kinds of mistrust towards authority structures in our society i'm deeply concerned about police violence i'm deeply concerned about state surveillance my civic role in america is not one that lacks critique of american systems processes or institutions but that doesn't mean i disregard literally everything that comes from the government that i say every study can't be validated a government study should undergo and does undergo the same peer review process as something that comes from a university i fundamentally have confidence in the scientific method as a way to reveal facts about reality and that is not universal today it seems like it's less universal than it was a few years ago which is frightening uh so i'd encourage you to check out the how do we know what we know episode of the liturgist podcast as well as the fake news and media literacy episodes now that's going to be a couple hours of listening but i think that's going to equip you to have these kinds of conversations with your flat earth friends reporting live from a spinning spherical object in space it's science mike our next question came in via email and it reads hi mike i'm a new listener to the podcasts having just finished reading and enjoying finding god in the waves about a week ago loved the book and i think stances similar to your open and honest one on discussing issues of importance are needed in the 21st century i have one question about the book that's been nagging me though okay i'll just interrupt you just one is impressive people usually have more than one question back to your letter at the end you write science gives us fact faith gives us meaning to me this sounds very similar to a statement you attributed to rob bell earlier in the book that science tells us how while faith tells us why of course you stopped rob bell at that point and explained that science can explain meaning and beauty to us perhaps i'm misunderstanding but the sets of statements science gives us fact faith gives us meaning and science tells us how and faith tells us why seem to be saying the same thing what is the difference between the statements or how did your stance about these statements change so that you ended up accepting them rather than criticizing them thanks nate well nate thank you for such a thoughtful question about my book finding on the waves which came out one year ago today the day this podcast is released september 13th man i can't believe that book has been out a year it has been a wild year that is an event that really changed my life a lot of people told me releasing a book is no big deal it doesn't change a lot it changed everything for me uh i mean full-time author podcaster now uh i've traveled and met so many of you on the book tour i really can't overstate the impact finding god in the waves had in my life and i hope dear listeners the book has in some way impacted yours as well by the way the paperback comes out october 3rd with a discussion guide and a new low price i looked on amazon the paperback is debuting at a much lower price than the hardback ever got to so if if if cost is an issue on a hardback book finding on the waves will be much more universally economically accessible october 3rd again with that really cool discussion guide but back to your question science gives us facts faith gives us meaning yeah i do think that is actually different in substance from you know science tells us how faith tells us well here's what i mean why can include fact why does the sun rise can be explained via science the why is there why do we find sunrises beautiful that can also be answered scientifically why do we fall in love why do we feel love you see those why questions are easily addressable via the scientific method but at the end they are still just facts understanding the astrophysics of a rising sun won't actually provoke you to any action in your day understanding the neurochemistry of your circadian rhythms in your sleep and wake cycles will not get you out of bed in the morning humans as organisms animals with a narrative consciousness find meaning in our narrative and facts alone don't create a narrative map of the world we find meaning and some arc across all of these facts that's not to say you can't create a life narrative of meaning and purpose without faith i know too many atheists who have done so to deny the effectiveness of their secular worldview but ultimately they are relying on some philosophy or worldview to create a narrative across scientific facts in order to find meaning in life and my point is that is the school faith belongs in personal philosophy moral philosophy and world view that create a narrative that allow us to find meaning in that sun coming over the horizon find meaning to get out of bed a purpose to strive toward beyond our survival impulses for some reason our species doesn't do well just on a survival basis we need more and a narrative of a god who lovingly creates our universe and a christ incarnate in jesus but present cosmically that draws that entire creation toward reconciliation gives me meaning among the facts of science but i don't let my faith question scientific fact science is the king of facts my faith doesn't come into play questioning what science discovers my faith tells me what i do with those facts that's a little different or i would say pretty radically different than science telling us how and faith telling us why why is not necessarily associated with meaning now what do we do with that [Laughter] i i made that book to show how i journey through some questions and it was more important for me to lead the reader on a journey of how i question things and how i started to construct a new worldview less so that you would follow in my footsteps and more so that you would bravely and boldly embark on a journey of your own that's what i wanted finding god in the ways to do i've seen many people do that very common among people who listen to my podcast listen to the liturgist podcast or read my book is the degree to which they are not becoming a clone of me they're not duplicating my beliefs they're not duplicating my approach but they are enjoying solidarity on a journey of their own and that has been incredibly incredibly affirming to me in my life so i would say to you nate if science tells us how and faith tells us why and science gives us fact faith gives us meaning both fall short and how you assemble a story to live out then it's time for you to craft your own language it's time for you to give to the world the gift of sharing how you have struggled to learn to embrace the gift of life and awareness wherever it comes from this is a trigger warning the next question is about suicide so if that's something a topic that may be upsetting to you just go ahead hit pause on this episode and either listen in a space where you have people who can comfort and support you or just skip the rest of this episode and come back on at sciencemike127 hello science mike i'm curious as to what is going on in the brains of suicidal people i've had fleeting dark thoughts before while feeling depressed but i'm curious if there's a significant change in brain activity when someone actually makes the decision to end their life although i don't know how that could be analyzed now that i think of it still perhaps you have some insight also can you talk about suicide from an evolutionary standpoint i don't see how it makes sense from a survivalist natural selection standpoint thank you so much for you grace and peace andrew yes i loved your children of god sermon it was awesome okay um let's start with the evolution stuff because that's the easiest part remember evolution via natural selection create selection pressures against any genetic mutation that reduces reproductive livelihood or prevents offspring from reaching reproductive age and we have to state the simple fact that suicide often happens after offspring are produced or even after offspring have reached reproductive age of their own so evolution won't necessarily punish against it or if it's completely genetic in nature which is not but if it were completely genetic in nature if it was caused by you know a combination of recessive genes uh it would not get filtered against in the environment the same way that a sickle cell anemia is not selected against effectively by evolution via natural selection evolution is not a engineer sitting in a white board trying to architect a perfect solution evolution throws a lot of stuff against the wall and what works wins but that doesn't mean winning as in survival of the fittest the biggest strongest fastest evolution rewards survival of the most timely adaptations remember fitness is suitability for a given environment if food and water are very scarce to be fast and strong creates a lot of wasted muscle mass and perhaps the meek and lean survives until the next rainstorm now in terms of the neurological cognitive and psychological factors in suicide one of the most compelling theories i've seen about suicide comes from dr thomas joyner at florida state universal florida state university i can't believe it's mangled the name of the university in my town he has a powerful predictive psychological theory for when people will attempt suicide dr joyner sees three simultaneous factors being necessary for a given person to attempt suicide two out of three will lead you to a very dark place indeed but not all the way to an attempt to take your own life here are those factors one if someone says i feel like a burden on others that's a big risk factor you feel like those you care for are harmed by your very presence number two if you were to say i don't belong or if you experience no sense of social belonging that isolation is a serious risk factor and third would be if you could say i don't fear death or lethal self-harm interestingly enough dr joyner's theory explains why antidepressants can actually cause suicidal thoughts to turn to suicidal ideation to turn into suicide attempts because they distance people from the fear of death they reduce the amygdala response to images or attempts of lethal self-harm three factors i feel like a burden on others i don't belong i don't fear death or lethal self-harm and um from a little personal experience as someone who has attempted suicide in the past uh that that's right on the money i couldn't have articulated it better myself there was a time in my life where i felt like a burden on others like i did not belong and i certainly did not fear death today i'm a much lower suicide risk because i only have one of those things i don't feel like a burden on others uh i feel like i belong i still don't feel death fear death or lethal self-harm whatsoever it's a little uh weirdness in my wiring um now the neuroscience picture as you alluded to in your question isn't isn't so clear for obvious reasons how do you have someone in a brain imaging situation the moment they decide to kill themselves how could you image a brain that was about to die from self-inflicted harm ethically you would have an obligation to prevent the act from occurring but they do have one workaround we can study the brains of people who've attempted suicide but survived and interestingly enough we see a dramatically higher degree of neurological arousal in certain regions of the brain that show up as a sensitivity to emotional stimuli especially displays of anger consistently in the brains of suicide attempt survivors we also have some studies that show an implementation in decision making excuse me an impairment in decision making and executive function in some tests basically people who attempted suicide don't learn trends over time that create a penalty for them and i'll read you a quote from an article called the suicidal brain which is linked to in the show notes on sciencemic.com this week here's the quote mri scans confirmed that something was amiss the left lateral orbital frontal cortex of the brain which is associated with decision making lit up when healthy subjects chose the bad decks this is a gambling game they were doing but in suicide attempters the region was markedly less active this and past behavioral studies seem to suggest that decision making is impaired in numerous psychiatric disorders so for whatever reason either from genetic inclination environment say living with clinical or chronic depression or both there are possibly structural functional differences in the brains of people who attempt suicide and those who do not since brain imaging scanners aren't all that common i think thomas joyner's cognitive psychological model is very helpful and should be more widely known because if people can assess for themselves where they're at with those three risk factors you know they might be able to ask for help or for people talking to someone who is in a very dark place instead of saying are you suicidal if you were to say you know tell me about how you feel do you feel like you're a burden on others do you feel like you belong do you fear death or self-injury that might be a more useful diagnostic criteria to understand how risks someone is at for suicide it's important research suicide is a growing cause of death uh in many demographics of it's becoming the leading cause of death actually in a couple of american demographics and what a tragedy that is the gift of life snuffed out because people can't find the will to go on and i don't view that as pathetic don't hear that in my voice uh i but i know what it is to want to end your life i just think as a society and a culture we need to get better at identifying intervening and aiding people who have reached that very dark place our last question came in via email it reads hey science mike so my parents believe in the new earth theory of christianity i do not i've been struggling with a lot of my beliefs about christianity recently so in a recent conversation with my dad about how they found a triceratops near our city of thornton colorado my dad proceeded to inform me about how there is a scientist who discovered by accident that dna was found in dinosaur bones which according to these christians proves the new earth theory because dna decays too quickly to last millions of years i read an article in science magazine which basically states that they can date dna back over a hundred million years can you tell me how they can date dna and if their discovery of dna and dinosaur bones should mean anything to new earth believers thanks danielle well danielle thank you so much for your question and i think in this conversation with your dad some terms have gotten confused and intermingled so let's let's tease that apart so we can understand the underlying scientific principles and that'll aid you in doing further research both for your own enlightenment and discussions with your father by the way my hope for you is that you and your dad could learn to enjoy these conversations as opposed to have an oppositional energy to them as is often the case involving young earth or new earth creationism the facts presented here have been misrepresented so yeah absolutely quite quite miraculously a triceratops was found in a construction site near thornton colorado and it was a very very significant finding there was a tyrannosaurus tooth in the animal um it's a it's a it's a well-preserved skeleton um with a a larger volume of the animal present than we typically find in a fossil recovery but and this is a big caveat absolutely no dna was recovered in that find it was a typical fossil find we don't find dinosaur dna because as alluded to in your question dna does not last for millions of years the dating of those dinosaur bones like all dinosaur fossils which aren't technically bones anymore they're rocks now happens via radiometric dating now there's a complete episode of radiometric dating and ask science mike episode 114 hypnosis high roller gals and humans writing dinosaurs i've got a link to that in the show notes on asksciencemike.com but a quick breakdown is that radioactive elements decompose or break down at predictable rates we know how often statistically it occurs so if you measure the ratio between parent and child elements or isotopes that can help you figure out how old a given rock is now different elements work for different time scales but all radiometric dating works best on what we would call geologic time scales hundreds of thousands or millions of years maybe some elements could give you tens of thousands of years granularity but it's not especially useful for like forensic dating right if there's a cadaver and you need to date the body you're not going to use radiometric dating you're going to look at the condition of organics organic molecules uh in that body and you're going to look at the environment the body is in and then you're going to be able to estimate how old a body is with the obvious intuitive understanding that bodies change much faster than rocks so dna an organic molecule the code underlying all life on this planet isn't stable like a rock or even a radioactive element the oldest dna we've ever recovered is about a hundred thousand years old it was preserved under ice a rare rare uh way in which organic material is preserved it's not normal glaciers move glaciers migrate over time plate tectonics cause changes in climate and uh we were just lucky i guess in theory some scientists believe perhaps in ideal situations dna could last a million years but a hundred thousand years is exceptional 10 times that length of time would be more so in hot wet environments dna can break down in days or weeks even hours in the right chemical conditions so a fleshy dinosaur or a little bit of bone marrow would indeed be a momentous discovery for young earth creationists but that hasn't happened instead every fossil we've ever discovered supports the dominant scientific picture that our earth is billions of years old and that humans and dinosaurs are separated by millions of years of geologic time on this planet so you're questioning a lot of your beliefs about christianity i think that's good i think it's healthy i think as much as you can it will help if you can preserve a healthy relationship with your parents through that process but i also think don't be afraid of what you're learning don't let new insights lead you to a place of darkness and fear but instead joy joy in all you can learn about the universe and creation science certainly undermines a young earth view of creation definitively so i might say but that doesn't mean that the meaning we find in the genesis narrative isn't significant it doesn't mean a god that creates with thought and intent and word instead of with violence isn't a major theological innovation the fact that genesis says that god says it was good in regards to creation tells us the nature of the god we try to discover and unravel through scripture the relationship between humanity and god and temptation is expertly portrayed in the genesis narrative we all know what the whisper of the serpent sounds like we all know when fruit looks good and we desire it but we know we shouldn't have it have it as you question you may find some of the historical and scientific grounding that you've placed in scripture and have confidence in may be eroded but i would encourage you to look to those higher themes of the bible of incarnation of resurrection of a god that is love and my hope for you is that you find those concepts beautiful and enduring even as you question what you've previously known [Music] i really want to see you i really really want to see you so if i'm coming anywhere near you at sciencemike.com events come see me if i'm not coming anywhere near you get some friends together talk to your pastor talk to your professor send a booking request i only do this because i like seeing you all meeting you all talking to you all that is the animating energy behind my work thanks for listening to the show as always i want to thank my patrons on patreon for making the show financially possible and for picking the questions that appear every week on ask science mike if you'd like to keep this show going just go to ask mike.com click on the patreon icon and you can throw me a dollar a month five bucks a month makes a huge difference i really appreciate it thank you andrew golucky for pre-producing the show greg nordin for sound designing and producing jeff otiford for writing the theme song thanks for listening friends and i will talk to you next week