ASM014 The Anti-Vax Movement, Complementarianism, and the Science of Booze

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the anti-vaccination movement complementarianism and the science of booze all that and more on this week's episode of ask science mike

[Music]

to ask science mike a weekly podcast where i answer your questions about science faith and life i've had several people comment that the last few episodes have been relatively light on science questions and well i answer what people send in but i'm so excited to let you know this week is just packed with science questions that relate to faith so without further ado let's get it started [Music] hey science mike um i'm currently looking into the difference between males and females in the bible and mostly regarding leadership and authority i wondered if you could give some insight on the subject from a science perspective thanks i am a stay-at-home dad and the previous church that i was a part of they were complementarian and so i received a little bit of flack about my wife being the breadwinner and me as the man staying home to raise our kids and so i'm just curious what the science behind complementarianism and that way of thinking would be and as opposed to today's more accepted view of egalitarianism feminism slash the stay-at-home dad phenomena all of that thank you all right men and women feminism complementarianism all that good stuff uh i get questions like that a lot and that's why i put two in a row there those two questions come from slightly different perspectives but ultimately what we're talking about is how are men and women different scientifically and what does that mean for how we structure societies and how we structure our marriages and lives and all that kind of good stuff so first let's clarify a couple of terms for anyone who's not familiar a complementarianism is a particular view in theology uh typically associated with the abrahamic monotheistic religions uh christianity judaism and islam chronologically actually it would be judaism christianity and then islam but basically that men and women have different but complementary roles in life and marriage leadership all that kind of good stuff that men and women are not the same and that they have different roles to play in society of course feminism is a merely a platform that works towards women having equal rights and access as men in society and egalitarianism would be sort of the opposing viewpoint from complementarianism that men and women are equal and that their roles in society should not be prescribed based on their gender so if we look at the science behind complementarianism i don't really see very much science behind complementarism people who are proponents of complementarianism typically don't use science to advance their view they use scripture and so they interpret scripture in such a way to support that men and women should have different roles in life so let's look at see where science weighs in on that topic and believe it or not science actually does support the idea that men and women have some different characteristics now some of these are obvious if you look at a man and you look at a woman we are structured differently men tend to be larger they tend to be more muscular we obviously have different secondary sex characteristics and primary sex characteristics i can certainly grow a nice full beard rather easily and my wife is not gifted with that same power unfortunately for her because my beard really is glorious but it goes beyond external differences like men tend to be taller we can actually look at our brains and see some differences between men and women first of all in our development girls tend to get better at language first their brains develop linguistic capacity faster than the average boy while the average male brain young boys typically are better at math and geometry although of course both of those differences level out over time we're talking about a few years prepubescent and pubescent development okay now if we talk about adult differences men's brains tend to be a bit larger women's brains tend to be a bit more intricate men have more gray matter women have more white matter those are different types of brain tissue speaking from an oversimplified macro level gray matter is more associated with i guess rigorous thought white matter more associated with connective functions in the brain but again those are wild over simplifications to the point they're almost meaningless but in terms of what we see in lasting sort of neurocognitive differences men do tend to be a bit better spatially a little bit better at navigating three-dimensional space while women tend to retain a lasting advantage with language and identifying people's emotions but here's the kicker when i say men or women we're talking about these averages over large population groups right we're not talking about any particular man or woman and this is absolutely critical because the distribution curves of the traits i've just talked about overlap significantly between men and women not to mention the fact that there are tremendous cultural factors at play during development that are influencing brain development it is difficult for us to parse out what is nature and what is nurture and the way men and women's brains are structured so look at me i'm a male identify myself as relatively masculine but i have fantastic language skills and i'm very empathetic it's easy for me to understand other people's feelings and i'm an absolutely horrible navigator and so you take some things that are associated with male brains and they don't apply to me as an individual but it's not that i'm not male it's not that i'm effeminate it's that for those capacities i'm on an overlap between male and female characteristics of brains and the trouble with complementarianism is that it forces cultural and some biological average norms on individuals it ignores the differences the things about us that make us unique the things in which god made us truly special and that's why i think eagletarianism is good it allows us to play to our strengths in my home if we were completely prescribed to traditional gender roles i couldn't probably be quite as nurturing with my kids i probably couldn't be as natural a conversationalist my wife would probably not be the ones if the girls want to learn to throw a football who they ask that would probably you know that doesn't fit within complementarian gender roles those are very egalitarian functions where we each find uh the roles we fit best in in parenting and in life women make great leaders i happen to work for a brilliant woman and she's a talented and capable leader i'd put her leadership skills against any man she's a brilliant person i'm just surrounded in my life with strong capable women who frankly would not be in the position they are in without the advances that feminism has provided so you can certainly make a scriptural case for complementarianism i also think you can make a scriptural case for eagletarianism but at the end of the day the way individuals function and deviate from group norms and the way that group tendencies overlap these distributions overlap in science means that i think science makes a great case for equalitarian society to say nothing of the data the studies which have shown that eagletarian marriages actually tend to outperform complementarian marriages uh in terms of fidelity rates and lower divorce rates so even by those metrics it's a win for eagletarianism so for the first question uh yeah men and women do have some biological differences and the bible certainly uh speaks of men and women frequently in distinct roles as was normal for the culture but for our second question the stay-at-home dad which by the way that's awesome man i'm jealous you shouldn't catch any flag for that science backs you up and i think you can read the bible to back you up as well [Music] our next question came in via email and it reads hey science mike what are the scientific pros and cons for alcohol as i've studied ancient cultures i've noticed that things like beer and even grain alcohol were some of the first things that caused humans to start forming agricultural based societies in places like egypt workers were even compensated in barrels of beer that sounds awesome clearly alcohol has been around almost as much as culture has been around and much of it is also connected to health benefits of some sort or another beer seems like a superfood of sorts my wife's doctor told her to have a beer every day to help her milk supply come in when our son was born so my question what does alcohol do to our bodies and our brains is there a healthy way to consume it regularly do different types of alcohol have different pros and cons should i have a drink or two at lunch to be more creative well let's talk about booze you know booze is uh fun i'm a fan in my own life i didn't start out as an alcohol drinker i was a dry baptist for the first three decades of my life that was good for me uh you know abstaining from alcohol was probably the right call i got really really really drunk when i was 21 and and got really sick and with a history of alcoholism my family i thought it was best for me to avoid it later in life a friend of mine said you know you can drink just one beer right you don't have to binge drink and a couple years later i did just that i went to savannah with some friends and had a couple of beers and it was a lot of fun and i didn't get sick and i realized that some of the ways we approach alcohol in america aren't healthy now let's start with uh the milk letdown and lactation and beer it's not actually the alcohol that probably does that it's some of the other ingredients in beer that is uh giving that that effect so we can't really link alcohol to that we also want to be clear that i'm not a doctor but based on everything i've seen it's best if you're going to do that to drink immediately after breastfeeding and not immediate before to limit the amount of alcohol that gets into the breast milk so now much people who aren't breastfeeding are rolling their eyes sorry about that um so thinking in terms of your brain and alcohol a lot of alcohol is is is not great it's gonna affect your executive function your judgment your reflexes you've heard all this a million times lots of alcohol can be can be dangerous in the short term okay make bad decisions don't drink and drive at all let me be really clear in my opinion one beer plus a car is a bad a bad scene if you're gonna if you're gonna drink have travel arrangements because based on the studies i've seen it does not take very much alcohol at all to affect your judgment making capacity and your reflexes both of which are critical when you a primate are going to operate some metal uh hurtling across uh asphalt at dozens of miles an hour there's tremendous physics involved lots of force and you can just ruin someone's life or or kill someone on accident okay so but as you alluded to just a buzz can make conversation fun it can lower anxiety it can be a social facilitator and that's fine now there are health benefits associated with drinking alcohol for example very moderate amounts of alcohol consumption can raise levels of the good cholesterol the hdl cholesterol in your bloodstream it's actually in one study been linked to an improvement in your libido it can even lower your risk of gallstones if you have just two servings of alcohol per day lower the chance of diabetes or dementia that's really cool those are all positive effects associated with one or two servings of alcohol per day typically in conjunction with a meal in other words not enough that you're actually going to feel most of the effects of alcohol when taken for recreational use the positive effects of alcohol are associated with very moderate use and when your usage of alcohol goes beyond that it gets bad quickly you lose that cardiovascular benefit and that hdl benefit and you actually move into uh increased chances of cardiovascular disease because of changes in the way that your body makes platelets they become more likely to clot together which can lead to heart attack and stroke you can increase your risk of certain types of cancer in the throat and the voice box the liver the esophagus uh even even the breast and and colorectal area and that's associated with high levels of alcohol consumption or frequent alcohol use obviously there's the liver effects and remember i just said that small amounts of alcohol can be therapeutic and preventing dementia well guess what larger amounts increase your chance of dementia it also increases your risk of depression lots of alcohol usage is associated with gout and high blood pressure even nerve damage or pancreatitis so a little bit of alcohol is a good thing a little bit of alcohol is fun a lot of alcohol is damaging to your health damaging to your relationships and extraordinarily dangerous when you carry out everyday tasks what we're seeing here is that moderation is essential with alcohol if you have any risk of alcoholism if you have trouble controlling your alcohol consumption then no alcohol is the best approach now everything in moderation including moderation i don't think there's anything wrong with occasionally you know celebrating with friends in a safe controlled environment and and drinking more alcohol you know one of my favorite things to do is have friends over the house where nobody has to drive and have a few beers and laugh and have a good time there's you know nothing wrong with that there's probably not tremendous long-term health consequences from that but moderation is essential and if you can't moderate your consumption of alcohol you shouldn't consume alcohol science says so [Music] [Applause] hi mike this is jessica from yukon oklahoma i know that the science is really strong behind getting your kids vaccinated and for staying up to date with them with booster shots as an adult but i have a lot of friends who don't vaccinate their children and they back up their decision uh by saying that god doesn't want them to vaccinate their children i've read blog posts and had conversations things like that where they tie it back to their face on why they don't protect their children from diseases with vaccines i'm just curious about your thoughts on this to me it is a christian issue to vaccinate your children because it's helping to protect people around you who can't protect themselves thanks mike i enjoy your show have a great day one of the things that made me uh originally decide i wasn't a person of faith anymore was the way that reasonable people can look at spiritual issues and look at scripture and come to differing conclusions that are both pretty easy to defend and i think frankly vaccination versus anti-vaccination is one of those i think you can make a compelling case in scripture that the right and moral thing to do is to vaccinate people and especially children against disease but i think you can also make somewhat of a case in scripture against vaccination and i think those are a mysteries of scripture but the people on the other side think that my view is a misread of scripture and i have to be clear starting out before i get into the science which obviously is much less ambiguous i'm sympathetic this is a tough case because we're pitting individual religious liberty on one hand versus public health on the other both of those are important vital functions in a free society it is important that people are able to believe what they choose and practice their faith in the way that they choose but this is a case where that faith practice has public health consequences and i've got to sympathize with people i disagree with here because when they make the point that religious liberty is important i actually agree with him but i am all in on vaccinations all in the science is a slam dunk and the arguments against vaccination are pseudoscience at best and widely discredited i mean you're talking about a tv star and uh a scientist who has been completely completely discredited in the uk but even if some of these arguments in science were valid like a supposed link to autism vaccinations would still be best because you're taking the remote possibility of some health disorder versus the very high probability of a dangerous uh or deadly disease the diseases we vaccinate against polio measles whooping cough these are these are not casual diseases these claimed lots of human life before we had vaccines they still claim lots of human life in the developing world where we have trouble distributing vaccines but i thought it might be interesting i did some googling honestly i wasn't really familiar with the religious arguments against vaccination so i spent more than my two minutes i usually give myself researching this question and honestly i could probably come up with better counter arguments if i spent more than i don't know 10 minutes and a few minutes ruminating at the dinner table thinking about this but let's look at a couple of religious arguments against vaccination one i saw was that god's design is perfect we don't need to add to our bodies or immune systems because god has already in genesis 1 created us exactly as we were made to be that's one point you could take from scripture but i would ask someone who takes that point do you take aspirin because god made your body perfect but you know if you've got a headache you take aspirin if you've got a sore shoulder i bet you take advil i call them adult m ms because grown-ups pop them so much but suppose you even don't do that you don't even take over the counter medications do you wear shoes because god designed your perfect feet do you drive a car because you can walk the same distance and god didn't make cars do you use the internet because you could speak to a person directly as you were designed in just as one this argument just doesn't hold weight for me another argument is that the body is the temple of god uh and that we you know we shouldn't um inject things into it but you know vaccines protect the temple of god just like uh you know any other precaution you take for your safety like a seat belt uh protects the temple of god so i don't i don't think that's a great argument you know i saw you know that we shouldn't submit ourselves to government authorities that don't submit themselves to scripture which is not exactly how the bible read because um you know paul and christ both exhorted christians to submit themselves to governments that were not christian but simply to resist those things that weren't scriptural not to completely reject the government then of course there's the claims that vaccines cause cancer autism all that stuff no no no no vaccines are not perfect so there are allergic reactions in some cases but those minor side effects and those rare side effects are still much better than the diseases that the vaccine protects you from okay and what we're talking about here is herd immunity and so when you choose not to vaccinate your children or vaccinate yourself because of religious liberty even if you're saying you're not submitting because it's unscriptural you are putting at risk people who actually can't get vaccinated people with certain types of cancer people who are immunocompromised because of disease including children now there was one other argument i saw and that was that vaccines are made with human tissue that's been harvested from aborted fetuses and well that's not misinformation vaccines are tested and in some cases cultured because they have to be cultured in human tissue with these cell strains that we've been using for decades that were originally from discarded fetuses couple thoughts on that one human tissue is not a human right when we do a heart transplant we aren't merging human beings we are taking heart tissue from a donor and then giving that tissue to another person these fetuses were not aborted for the purpose of being turned into vaccine machines that's not where those cells came from now there's a whole sidebar here where we could go into abortion and when life begins and the ass science mic email box is already full of those questions so i'm going to save that tirade for another day i'm not even going to tip my hat on where i stand on that for now but basically that was the only argument i could see kind of holding some weight if you're pro-life and you believe that abortion is murder then there is some weak causal link where the vaccine is not possible without the the aborted fetus or at least not effective still on the organ transplant idea my kids get vaccines i get vaccines uh because as alluded to in the question the thing that is best the thing that protects the most people the thing that reduces suffering the most uh the way that we love our neighbor is to get vaccinated that's where i stand um i'm empathetic of the religious liberty thing i really am but because of that stance real harm is happening in the world we have flares of diseases in the united states that we're just about on their way out we've got whooping cough back we've got measles back it's crazy this stuff doesn't belong in our schools it doesn't belong in our society it should be going the way of polio when you vaccinate your children and most again most of the anti-vaccination stuff it's unscientific i mean if you just google this there's it's hard to find a coherent argument for the anti-vaxx movement that doesn't look like it's from a geocities page in the 1990s on the web just really unsubstantiated claims i just don't put a lot of stock in the whole movement i really don't other than i get the argument for religious liberty still for the love of god and the safety of our children vaccinate [Music] our last question also came in from the email inbox boy that's a popular way to drop questions to ask heights mike it reads g'day science mike and it actually does it reads g'day i didn't i didn't that's not flourish from me that's the actual question anyway english mentalist illusionist and atheist darren brown uses suggestion and psychological manipulation to perform tricks that appear psychic or spiritual in one episode he uses such techniques to convert a room full of atheists into believing in or being open to the idea of god and then later deconverting them and there's a link to a youtube clip which i'll have in the show notes on asksciencemike.com as an atheist he never actually called upon the power of god yet many people in the room felt as though the presence of god was there including one guy who fell over as if being slain by the spirit some churches are full of people who report being touched by the holy spirit or the presence of god how much of this is likely due to their mind with the appropriate atmosphere being set by the worship team could the right setting make a person more susceptible to psychologically fabricating such an experience speaking in tongues and being slain by the spirit how can we trust that we are having genuine spiritual experiences and not merely making it up to make ourselves feel more connected to god any insight on this topic would be greatly appreciated man fantastic question uh as soon as this one came in i got excited because i was so looking forward to answering it uh even even if my answer ends up not being that satisfying so a couple of ideas here uh how much this is likely due to their mind with the appropriate atmosphere being set by the worship team um yeah you can manipulate people we are a highly highly suggestible species we are social primates fitting in with others sharing their experiences sharing their values sharing their beliefs has been a recipe for reproductive success for human beings as long as we have been human beings belonging matters to us a lot and therefore our psychodynamic systems are oriented around group cohesion already that's kind of a case against god i guess isn't it let's see where we go from there could the right setting make a person more susceptible to psychologically fabricating such an experience like speaking in tongues etc absolutely the right setting can make people more susceptible to fabricating such an experience here's the crux how can we trust that we're having genuine spiritual experiences someone could lie to you and convince you that they're your friend they could convince you that they like you and that they are trustworthy and in doing so they would be manipulating your brain's systems for evaluating foes and emotions they would be acting and you may fall for it but just because you fell for it doesn't mean friendship doesn't exist just because one person is manipulative doesn't mean all people are manipulative here's the deal i am convinced there are charlatans and con men in all varieties of religion all denominations everybody has their share of people who are doing it for power or money or influence they are out there other people and i've actually seen darren brown's work before as well as other mentalist and illusionists who simulate religious phenomenon without being religious that isn't primarily educational enterprise although uh darren brown's case he doesn't disclose a lot of his methods so there's a lot of showmanship involved that's not necessarily a bad thing but he's certainly not an academic presenting us with the the entire case of how his operation works but uh just because we can be manipulated into having manufactured spiritual experiences doesn't mean spiritual experiences are invalid we can be manipulated into experiencing love we can be manipulated into seeing things that aren't there through optical illusions our senses are fallible we can be tricked okay so that doesn't prove or disprove the existence of god at all nor does it prove or disprove the validity of spiritual experiences the fact is science tells us and shows us quite well that spiritual experiences and religious experiences can be healthy and beneficial for both individuals and for cultures period they can be used for bad as well in the same way that your emotions can be used to manipulate you so how do we know how we trust that we're having genuine spiritual experiences on some level you don't but on another level um when you're with a community over time uh when you're open to your own limitations your own fears your own hopes um when you do the work to know yourself and you do the work of showing up in prayer with god every day over time those experiences become more deepened more genuine and frankly it becomes easier to resist momentary sensationalism you know i had a pretty dramatic experience in my own life on the beach i'm sure every listener in the podcast has heard about that but that's not the bulk of my spiritual life that was a turning point that was a moment but the way i know that was a genuine experience is the lasting effect it's had in my life it wasn't just a momentary thing and it's not a thing that i'm primarily concerned about sharing with others the the most powerful spiritual experiences are the ones that change us are the ones that shape us in a lasting way so the the impact it has on how you live your life and how you view the world is probably the greatest litmus test of all over how genuine a spiritual experience is and obviously for those of us whose spirituality exists within a christian context there are other ways for helping discern uh which experiences are genuine which ones aren't um you know the degree to which it points toward christ and not ourselves the wit the degree to which it affirms the resurrection that's important in the christian tradition um you know the epistles speak a lot about that paul would be happy to tell you more but yeah you know i i have to admit because in the weird place i am in my spiritual life the first time i saw darren brown i actually got excited i thought it was really cool and i think that when you are comfortable in your faith when you and god are walking together even though you may not understand god you may be leaning into a lot of mystery these sorts of things become more fascinating than scary there's just nothing to fear about god in these kinds of inquiries and challenges and puzzles because god like i've said many times god's not a puzzle it's not an interesting jigsaw puzzle but god is an amazing companion and leader uh through the journey of life [Music] another week another episode of ask science mike you know i've been talking about uh how long the show could be i get so many questions that we don't get to cover on the show every week we have a few more questions than we have uh slots to answer and so we're just slowly building the stockpile of questions i'm worried we'll never get answered so i asked you guys if you thought this was a good length for the show if the show should be longer originally an overwhelming crush of people said make the show longer and then a second wave came that said don't make the show longer and uh they're about even it's almost 50 50. uh now so even though this episode was longer than normal and i guess i'll do that when the answers require it i think i'm gonna try to stick to that 30 to 35 minute format for the show frankly it's more sustainable for me i'm trying not to bite off more than i can chew and make sure this is a program i can do for a long time now i've got some pretty exciting announcements coming up in the future that may shift uh the amount of time i have to devote to this kind of work well just keep yours open good news coming uh thanks for helping me create open and safe conversations about science faith in life last week's episode i sound spike after dark uh i was really really amazed by how people responded to both the discussions of polyamory and pedophilia you guys are a really reasonable a bunch you are simply not prone to the same sort of inflammatory freakout that the rest of the internet seems to be and i want to thank you for that it's really encouraging to me now uh even though we have lots of great questions uh if you stop sending them in we will run out eventually so keep sending in questions keep them coming you can use hashtag ask sciencemike on twitter soundcloud or youtube but almost no one does most people go to asksciencemike.com and record a voice question or send in a typed question there type questions are a great way to give me questions you want to keep anonymous of course ask sciencemike is listener supported you can help me keep these conversations going every single dollar can help just go to ask sciencemike.com to figure out how you can donate and remember you can change or cancel a pledge at any time if money is tight and the itunes ratings guys holy cow they keep coming in they are not only encouraging to me but they help other people find the show so everyone has raided me on itunes giving me a star rating great for those of you who actually wrote a review that's amazing even more than downloads those ratings make the program jump up in the rankings and help people who need this program find it so that's one thing you could do that costs nothing that would really help and of course ask science mike is still free and that won't change the show is produced by greg nordin his work is cut out for him this week i've rambled a lot so hopefully it's uh it's tighter when you hear it and our theme song is by jeff bodafort if you've got a podcast and you want original music composed including turnarounds and tags and all the little effects you hear on this program jeb can help you out links to both greg and jeb can be found in the show notes on ask sciencemike.com along with resources for every single question asked on the program thanks for listening and i'll see you next week