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Humanists of ColoradoVolume 22 Number 8 May 2009

Last Month At The HOC

In April Ken Roberts, past president of the HOC, spoke on the topic of “Humanism 101”. Ken at first adopted a historical approach to the topic. He started with the first unnamed proto-philosopher 50,000 years ago, then moved quickly to that remarkable time 2 ½ centuries ago when philosophy, and with it humanism, took deep root in 3 diverse cultures, championed by 3 great men: Confucius in China, Gotama Buddha in India, and Thales in Greece. None of these had much to say about supernatural gods, and all founded more-or-less humanistic traditions that stretch into the present day.

Roberts emphasized especially the importance of ancient Greek thought, which combined what he termed the three core disciplines of rationalist thought. These three, mathematics, natural science, and philos-ophy, gave humans for the first time a “complete intel-lectual toolkit”.

At this point Roberts set aside the historical develop-ment and launched into an analysis of the nature of religion and religious questions. To him, religion is concerned with three main topics: morality, purpose, and an ideal of human character. Supernaturalism is not a necessary component of religion, he said, and as evidence he cited Confucianism and even Humanism, which he termed a “Rational Religion”.

The last part of the talk, aside from questions, was given over to a listing and explanation of the five key elements of Confucianism: Jen (human-heartedness); Chun-zu (the personal ideal); Li (propriety); Te (the power of moral example); and Wen (the arts). Sure enough, none of these has anything to do with super-naturalism or gods, making Confucionism about as Humanistic as a so-called religion can be.

As has been the case for most of this year at HOC meetings, the question-and-answer portion of the talk was the more accessible. Roberts, who sometimes attends our Humanist book discussions, is a master at organizing the answer to a question in the few seconds available before his response. He did not disappoint in this instance either, offering detailed and insightful explanations of many of the points upon which he had already touched, plus many others upon which he had not.

From many of us, Roberts got serious push-back on his contention that Humanism falls under the rubric of “Religion”. If Confucianism and Humanism are so different from other religions in giving short shrift to supernatural gods, why call them religions? Why not call them “movements”? Certainly the atheists in our organization would recoil at the thought that the HOC were a branch of a religious organization. Many people do not join us because we meet in the back of a church!

But Roberts was adamant that Humanism should not be tied too tightly to atheism, which offers no morality, purpose, or ideal of human character. He sees Humanism increasingly offering exactly these three – and to him, at least, that makes it a religion.

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Humanists of Colorado Newletter

Editor: Richard A. Berg

Contributors: Joan ChaseGreg ReederJeanette M. Norman

Artist: Greg Reeder

Thanks to: Ken RobertsBarb Sannwald

Letters to the Editor:HOC Newsletter EditorP.O. Box 461112Glendale, CO 80246

Humanists of ColoradoAround The HOC

In April the HOC Board met without our President, who was on one of his globe-trotting work sessions. Because two other Board members also did not attend, we did not reach a quorum. There's still plenty of room for more Board members!

Unable to vote, we spent most of the time designing the new HOC brochure, which we hope to print before the People's Fair takes place in June. Stop by the COCORE booth there to say Hi!

As of the date this is written, we still have not found an entertainer for our June meeting. It isn't clear that we have collectively tried very hard, either, probably because we can always fall back on showing a DVD, something that we have avoided doing for a year or so. If you have an idea for entertainment, let us know!

Sharp-eyed readers might notice that the mailing address for the HOC has changed. We once again have a Post Office Box:

Humanists of ColoradoP.O. Box 461112Glendale, CO 80246

Even sharper-eyed readers might notice that we printed the new address no fewer than three times in this issue. (Hey, it takes up a lot of space which would otherwise have to be filled with blather like this sentence.) We also include a comic by Greg Reeder and a photo of Barb Sannwald.

CONTEST – CONTEST – CONTEST - CONTEST

Taking after the example of Wired magazine's current issue, we offer a prize – a hardcover copy of Austin Dacey's book The Secular Conscience – to the first person who can identify where Barb's photo was taken, and what Greg's cartoon is about, and send the answers to our new post office box, along with a letter to the editor to be printed in a future issue. In case of a tie, which is awesomely unlikely, the prize will be awarded to whomever writes the best letter to the editor, as determined by the editor.

Skepticamp

Coming up a couple days after you receive this (sorry for the short notice) is one of our favorite events of the year. Skepticamp is not actually a camp, it's a one-day free conference at which participants speak on topics related to skepticism, which is a broad topic.

The format of Skepticamp derives from conferences held in the world of computer programmers, who have a tradition of pooling their time rather than their money to create “open-source” software. At these conferences, nobody pays to listen or is paid to speak. The speakers are drawn from among the attendees, who can simply sign up to present at some time or other. Presenting is not actually mandatory, but strongly encouraged. After attending once or twice without presenting, it would be unseemly to attend without doing so.

The following is from a recent email sent by Rich Orman, who spoke recently at the HOC and is one of the organizers of the event.

This Saturday, May 9th, is Skepticamp Colorado 2009! Started two years ago in Colorado by Reed Esau, it is designed to be a rapid-fire, interactive, information-intense day of Science and Skepticism. This is a prime opportunity to learn about new topics and stretch your sciencey skeptical brain-muscle-thingie (technical term).

Since its inception Skepticamp has grown rapidly, with successful Skepticamps having been held in seven cities and two countries. This year we are pushing the format even further, with a larger venue and multiple simultaneous presentations. Oh, and it's still free.

This year we have a remarkable range of topics, including presentations on claims and investigations of the paranormal, cold reading, creationism, placebo medicine, a review of the latest work of the Cassini probe, cryonics, a skeptical analysis of the Madoff scandal, and many more.

Be sure to sign up at: http://skepticamp.org/events/1-skepticamp-colorado-2009

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Humanists of ColoradoEugenie Scott

by Greg Reeder and Jeanette M. Norman

Eugenie C. Scott lectured on "The Pillars of Creationism" at Denver University on April 8. Scott is the Executive Director of the NCSE, the National Center for Science Education (www.ncseweb.org), the author of Evolution vs. Creationism, and a well-known and outspoken advocate of science education. The lecture was well attended, and latecomers had to sit on the steps on each side of the room.

Dr. Scott began her lecture by introducing NCSE, and then gave an overview of recent media articles about the evolution/creationism controversy. She then discussed recent attempts by state legislatures to pass anti-evolution laws. She pointed out that most of these bills die in committee only because people take an active role to oppose them

When Dr. Scott launched into the main part of her lecture, the “Pillars of Creationism,” she explained that arguments given by creationists fall into three broad categories:

1. Evolution is a “theory in crisis”.

2. Evolution and religion are incompatible.

3. It is only fair to teach creationism alongside evolution (the “academic freedom” argument).

1) One of the favorite arguments of creationists is that evolutionary theory is in trouble. They claim that because there is no complete explanation of the origins of life, then evolution did not take place. Dr. Scott presented several examples that creationists use to show that evolution is in trouble, such as the Cambrian explosion, peppered moths, and Haeckel’s embryo illustrations. She then proceeded to show how all of these are not scientifically controversial at all.

2) With the idea that evolution and religion are incom-patible, the creationists' strategy is to present the debate as a “two-model approach,” so that if they can disprove evolution, that makes creationism automati-cally true. Dr. Scott showed that despite this attempt to

frame the issues in this fashion, religious ideas about evolution actually fall along a continuum. At one extreme are the flat-earthers. From there, the continuum moves through varying degrees of biblical literalism such as geocentricism and young-earth creationism. Then come various types of old-earth creationists, including intelligent design proponents. These bleed into theistic evolution (for example, the Catholic Church) and finally, at the opposite extreme, materialists.

Dr. Scott made the point that if we claim that science can prove there is no god, it alienates religious people and makes them more likely to be sympathetic to anti-scientific ideas like creationism. She contends that Richard Dawkins is wrong when he says that science disproves deities, just as Francis Collins is wrong when he says that science proves there is a god.

3) To leverage the fairness argument, creationists claim that there are a large number of scientists who do not accept evolution. But, in fact there are very few scientists, and almost no top researchers, who do not accept evolution, according to Dr. Scott..

Another part of the fairness argument is that students have the right to hear all sides of the argument. But it was pointed out that it is not “academic freedom” to teach fringe science alongside solid, vetted theories. The high-school level, where most of these attacks are directed, is a place to teach the uncontroversial basics of a science. And evolutionary theory, as presented in high school curricula, is as uncontroversial as any.

When Dr. Scott opened the floor to questions, the blogger known as Splendid Elles asked whether one could look for signs of god in nature. Scott replied that it was a theological question, and explained that some theologians say that god works on the quantum level, so there wouldn't be any scientific evidence. Someone else asked if life could have multiple origins, and Scott replied that she was not an expert on the origin of life, but she was inclined to think it unlikely because life on Earth is all made of the same "stuff." There was also a question about whether evolution is falsifiable, which brought back a quick reference to J.B.S. Haldane's quip about "rabbits in the Precam-brian.", meaning that yes, evolution is falsifiable.

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Humanists of ColoradoMeet the HOCBarb Sannwald

Barb Sannwald restored and reinvigorated the HOC's Humanist Book Discussion group in the fall of 2008, incorporating participants from similar groups held through First Universalist and DAFT. Whereas a year ago a meeting might have consisted of 5 or 6, a good number for a discussion but too few to last through the inevitable personnel changes, today our discussions involve 12 or 15 well-read and outspoken people, each discussion seemingly more interesting than the last.

Ed.: Barb, what prompted you to resurrect the Humanist Book Discussion group?

Barb: I have a giant stack of books that need to be read.

Ed.: Uh... couldn't you just read the books?

Barb: After the previous version of the group stopped meeting, I missed it. Besides motivation to read the books, a group offers different perspectives on the topics.

Ed.: You could get different perspectives on any and every topic through the internet. Just type in ...

Barb: I know how to use the internet, I'm a software engineer! But, I also like the human company, like-minded and interesting people. I also participate in a discussion group on travel writing.

Ed: What books has the humanist group been reading?

Barb: We just finished a challenging book on the philosophy of consciousness, discussed in two parts. In the past we read a series of books on belief and non-belief, by authors such as Bertrand Russell, Sam Harris, and Francis Collins.

Ed: Francis Collins is not much of a Humanist.

Barb: We occasionally like to explore viewpoints with which we are unlikely to agree. In fact, our book for May, Redefining The Sacred, tries to straddle the scientific viewpoint and the religious viewpoint, going

so far as to attempt to redefine god.

Ed: Do you plan books far in advance?

Barb: Normally we schedule out three months so that we have time to acquire books through libraries or online used book sites. Books have gotten expensive!

Ed: OK, so what do you have coming up?

Barb: In June we will be discussing more selections from Hitchens' anthology The Portable Atheist, which we started some months ago. In July we take on Susan Jacoby's The Age Of American Unreason, and later a book on humanist ethics by Paul Kurtz.

Ed: Are these all books from your stack?

Barb: The Jacoby book is, I've been wanting to read that since it came out, having heard her speak a few months before the book was released. But actually, the group votes on which books to read, and when.

Ed: How close does the discussion stay to the content of the books?

Barb: Sometimes it stays close, other times it wanders far off-topic. Usually both in the same evening. That's great for us.

Ed: What do you do if a person shows up who has not read the book?

Barb: If a person has read substantial parts of the book, or is knowledgeable about the topic, or is new to the group and wants to see how it goes, they would be welcome.

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Humanists of ColoradoHumanist Discussions

by Joan Chase

Did Dennett do it? Did he really explain conscious-ness? Is there something telling about the fact that he entitled his last chapter “Consciousness Imagined”, as if even he was not satisfied with the conclusions to which he had come? Was wading through his discus-sions of heterophenomenology, Cartesian theaters, multiple drafts, animal brain evolution and computer simulations instructive?

Some of our group felt that it was, especially those who were steeped in the physical and engineering sciences and wanted to discuss Dennett in terms of physical reactions and computer processing, an inter-pretation with which Dennett himself seems to feel most comfortable.

Others of the group championed a more biological approach to the issue, suggesting that, however Dennett tried, he did not explain feelings such as perceptions of pain, love or beauty, nor did he show how the unexplainable, those things that philosophers call “qualia” (seeing red, feeling pain) impinge on the consciousness except to insist that they did not inher-ently exist because they were not qualities that could be looked at objectively.

In Part III of Consciousness Explained, Dennett attempts to show how “the mind is accomplished by the brain”, how language contributes to thought and how lack of language in animals and even in human

deaf mutes limits their ability, not only to enjoy all the mental delights that the hearing experience, but to suffer adequately. For him, suffering is not the experi-ence of some horror but the denial of hopes and aspi-rations to which animals and deaf mutes can never give voice. Whether or not this statement is highly controversial remains to be discussed in some future confrontation between Dennett and a linguist such as Steven Pinker.

Dennett closes by stating, “My explanation of consciousness is far from complete. One might even say it was just a beginning, but it IS a beginning, because it seeks to break the spell of the enchanted circle of ideas that made explaining consciousness seem impossible.”

Dennett suggests that he has replaced the metaphorical theory of the Cartesian Theater (see April newsletter) with a more scientific, non-metaphorical theory. But then he contradicts himself by suggesting that he has replaced one family of metaphors with another. For him, there is no Cartesian Theater or witness to the “play” being performed, just virtual machines, soft-ware and multiple drafts. We can imagine conscious-ness in a robot “brain” because that is, according to him, very much the way that our brain functions.

For May, the group will be reading Reinventing the Sacred, in which Stuart Kauffman quarrels with the idea the one can learn about biological phenomena, especially those described in evolutionary theory, by “reducing” them to physics. We are not computer brains to Kaufmann. Comparing his ideas to Dennett’s will surely engender a lively discussion.

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Humanists of ColoradoVolume 22 Number 8 Editor: Richard Berg May 2009

Sunday, May 10: General Meeting, Abel Francisco on the West BankLocal activist Abel Francisco recently returned from the West Bank, Palestine, where he documented human rights abuses and the daily life of Palestinians. At our May meeting he will be speaking about his experiences and taking questions.

As always, we will meet in Colvin Commons, behind the First Universalist Church at Colorado and Hampden. Potluck Supper at 6 pm, followed by the program at 7 pm.

Sunday, May 17: Humanist Discussion: Reinventing the SacredStuart Kauffman wrote Reinventing the Sacred out of a sense of duty to attempt to bridge the gulf between the scientific and religious world views. The book centers on the topic of “Emergence”, a philosophical position which contends that not everything in the universe can be reduced to its lowest-level scientific description. Importantly, Kauffman argues that science itself is moving towards the same inevitable conclusion.

This event will take place at 7:00 at a private home in east-central Denver, near Colorado Blvd. and Alameda Ave. To join this discussion, send email to barbara@frii.com, or visit our page on the Meetup.com website.

Join the Humanists of Colorado!

Annual Dues Single Member ............. 24.00Sustaining Member ....... 60.00

To join or renew, please write a checkmade out to “Humanists of Colorado”and send to the address at right.

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