NY Times reports bogus science claims

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/25/opinion/sunday/neuroscience-under-attack.html?_r=3&

The New York Times article cited above reports that some books and articles about the human brain have gone overboard trying to explain things by brain chemistry, and that some scientists are blogging to correct this inaccuracy.

As an example of an inaccurate, misleading book, they mention The Republican Brain which was published earlier this year:

"which claims that Republicans are genetically different from — and, many readers deduced, lesser to — Democrats. “If [this] argument sounds familiar to you, it should,” scoffed two science writers. “It’s called ‘eugenics,’ and it was based on the belief that some humans are genetically inferior.”

(Just FYI, eugenics was the theory that inferior people should be stopped from reproducing. Eugenics has been completely discredited and is considered dishonorable.)

The lesson here is to not blindly swallow everything somebody writes or says!  Even if it sounds scientific.

This article from the NYT says it very well, " bogus science gives vague, undisciplined thinking the look of seriousness and truth."

So you will still have to think things through, even when it looks like an expert said it.

New LOWER Class

This book, Coming Apart, says that there is a New Lower Class (NLC) in America at the same time as the New Upper Class described in my earlier posts.  This is the reason that America is "coming apart" - greatly  increasing distance between the two new classes is pulling our country apart in a number of ways according to this author.

How are they different?  In education and affluence of course.  But in addition to that, there are some differences that you might not expect.   Sociologist and author of Coming Apart, Charles Murray, references studies to show the following:

• The core of religious believers is less influential in the NLC
• Marriages overall are fewer in number and less happy in the NLC
• People generally, but especially men, are less industrious in the NLC 

And in the New Upper Class?

• Religion is still important
• Marriage is more common and happier 
• Men in particular as well as women work longer hours

SuperZips: "Overeducated Elite Snobs"

That New Upper Class we were talking about, they carry with them "an unmistakable whiff of a 'we're better than the rabble' mentality."  Some people call them "Overeducated Elite Snobs" (OES).

"The daily yoga and jogging that keep them whippet-thin are not just healthy things for them to do; people who are overweight are less admirable as people.  Deciding not to recycle does not reflect just an alternative opinion about whether recycling makes sense; it is inherently irresponsible.  Smokers are not to be worried about, but to be held in contempt.

"They just quietly believe that they and their peers are superior to the rest of the population, intellectually and in their nuanced moral sensibility."

Where do they get this opinion of themselves?  Well, from their education at HPY (Harvard, Princeton, Yale) or another elite university, and from their super high income that is higher than 95% of all Americans.

Where in the U.S. are these SuperZips where the OES live?   More to come.

Pres. Abraham Lincoln's Thanksgiving Proclamation, October 3, 1863

The year that is drawing toward its close has been filled with the blessings of fruitful years and healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the Source from which they come, others have been added which are of so extraordinary a nature that they can not fail to penetrate and soften even the heart which is habitually insensible to the ever-watchful providence of Almighty God. . . .

It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently, and gratefully acknowledged, as with one heart and one voice, by the whole American people. I do therefore invite my fellow-citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next as a day of thanksgiving and praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the heavens.

[Signed]
A. Lincoln

SuperZips: Home of the New UPPER Class

You've never heard of SuperZips?  Charles Murray created the term in his book Coming Apart, published 2012.

A social scientist, he uses studies and statistics to demonstrate the rise since about 1990 of a New American Upper Class.  These people have extremely high levels of education/intelligence and wealth,  They are segregated into homogeneous zip codes.

SuperZips are habitat of the New American Upper Class.

By his definition, SuperZips are the 882 zip codes in which resident adults have educations better or more elite than 95% of all Americans and incomes higher than 95%.  They are "substantially whiter and more Asian than the rest of America" and they enjoy a culture something like you would have seen in the tv series "thirtysomething."  They may "obsess about how smart their baby is, how to make the baby smarter, where the baby should go to preschool, and where the baby should go to law school."

"Members of the new upper class don't watch much television", but maybe PBS NewsHour.  They don't go much to "bars with pool tables in them, bars that allow smoking, or bars with many wide screens showing professional sports."

More to come about the New Upper Class.

Perspective reversed

The word "bigot" is defined by dictionary.com as:

"a person who is intolerant of any ideas other than his or her own, esp on religion, politics, or race"

Professor Rorty's quotation below is so provocative.  Was the highly credentialed professor intolerant of his students' parents' religious ideas?  Was he a bigot by this definition?  Does he sound a bit vicious?  Just saying.

Christian students go to college and find . . .

Oxford University Press published a book in 2005 on research by sociologist Christian Smith into the religious beliefs of U.S. teens:

"According to Smith’s research, American teens:  1) are almost completely inarticulate about their faith and unable to explain its most basic tenets, 2) are largely moral relativists and religious pluralists, and 3) view God as a distant being who exists solely to make them happy, but who is irrelevant to most aspects of their lives.  Furthermore, students who abandoned the religious beliefs they were raised with did so primarily because of intellectual skepticism and doubt.  Teens said things like, “’It didn’t make any sense anymore,’ ‘Some stuff is too far-fetched for me to believe,’ ‘I think scientifically and there is no real proof,’ and ‘Too many questions that can’t be answered.’”

When these teens get to college, here's what they find in philosophy class:

“...we try to arrange things so that students who enter as bigoted, homophobic, religious fundamentalists will leave college with views more like our own…we do our best to convince these students of the benefits of secularization....So we are going to go right on trying to discredit you in the eyes of your children, trying to strip your fundamentalist religious community of dignity, trying to make your views seem silly rather than discussable . . .students are lucky to find themselves under the benevolent Herrschaft [domination] of people like me, and to have escaped the grip of their frightening, vicious, dangerous parents ...” - Richard Rorty, former philosophy professor at Princeton University – ‘Universality and Truth,’ in Robert B. Brandom (ed.), Rorty and his Critics, pp. 21-22..

From:

http://www.thepointradio.org/point-blog/entry/37/20632

Create community in the city

“Seek the welfare of the city into which you have been called, for in its welfare you will find your welfare.”  Jeremiah 29:7

Here's a good article regarding how Christians can think about promoting a sense of community in our cities:  

http://www.civitate.org/2011/09/redeeming-civic-life-in-the-commons/

He suggests that common space for interacting with our neighbors is needed - easy to see the benefits of that.  Zoning laws and private individuality have reduced opportunity for community living.  Maybe Jer. 29:7 can inspire a new vision.

Front lawns with fences around them - can they actually be an encouragement to interaction with neighbors?  Yes they can, and here's an example from East Los Angeles:

 "in this context, the fence is actually creating a more social space by pushing the threshold out towards the sidewalk. The homeowner in this context has a defensible space where they can stand and interact with people on the sidewalk. They can actually position themselves in their front yard in such a way as to indicate what kind of interaction they are open to. They can orient themselves towards the sides of their fence for more familiar conversation with a neighbor, or they can rest their arms on the gate to chat with people as they pass by."

How about big buildings and parking lots?  Their effect on neighborhoods is early in the article. 

Your own effort

Isaiah 65:21-22 (Amp) - God describes His  vision for the good life in His new creation:  

"They shall build houses and inhabit them, and they shall plant vineyards and eat the fruit of them.  They shall not build and another inhabit; they shall not plant and another eat . . .My chosen and elect shall long make use of and enjoy the work of their [own] hands."

It's good to be rewarded with the results of your own effort. Real life backs up scripture in this principle. In his book, Gross National Happiness, Dr. Arthur C. Brooks cites studies that show happiness and satisfaction come from achieving success in your chosen goal whether it's a business or a charity or anything else that you consider worth doing.

Write off politics?

An interview with Rick Warren is posted on John Piper's blog. Rick says he has zero interest in politics. Why? Because laws have nothing to do with people's behavior. But no . . the opposite is true: laws reign in behavior and every person I know is glad they do! What is he talking about? Laws certainly don't construct perfect people, but they obviously shape the kind of society we live in.

Does he have any interest in the kind of society we live in? Would he just as soon live in Rwanda or Albania or Venezuela? Personally, I'm thankful for American life. I take an interest in the kind of people who govern it and in the quality of society its policies produce for Americans, the rest of the world (because we are not isolated), my family, and me.

Vishal Mangalwadi would certainly not subscribe to Rick's statement because he says that Christians must see the faith as being not only personally transformative but also culturally transformative.

Politics can be frustrating, sometimes disappointing - but way too important to just write off.

Myth Buster Rodney Stark

Rodney Stark has authored lots of books, well-written and fascinating.  Currently into his most recent, The Triumph of Christianity, published 2011.  As a respected sociologist, he's specialized in the sociology of religion including original research. His stuff has broken a lot of myths about Christianity's history and even its practice currently in America.  Here's what I learned today:

So-called mainline denominations over the past few decades have been losing "market share." Their decline is linked to decreasing demands on their members regarding belief and morality (even to the point of Episcopals tolerating an outspoken aetheist as bishop).  But denominations that require higher commitment and doctrinal belief have been growing fast!

There's another group that doesn't fit into denominations and on which there's no growth data because they haven't existed that long, a "large and very rapidly growing body of evangelical, nondenominational churches" (I've belonged to them half my life).  "Claims that those nondenominational churches, especially the megachurches among them, thrive by going 'light on doctrine and sin', are utterly false.  These are demanding churches."

In my experience, "demanding" churches are alive and rewarding.