Ex-spelled out, Pt. 2

Around 3:20, the interviewer confirms the suspicion that this is not a critical interview, but just two guys with the same opinion who want to bash serious science behind closed doors. These are intellectual cowards. The closest Ben has ever got to having some opposition in the interviews he has done is being on the O'Reilly Factor and Hannity & Colmes, which are notoriously close-minded and conservative. Then he starts his sermon on classrooms.

Close mindedness being taught in classrooms? Religions try to offer evidence (strange experiences that they have no explanation for) but must always ultimately fall back on faith because there is no way to totally prove or disprove the argument. I have no way of proving that an intangible god(s) did not create the universe and there is no way to show solid proof that one did, because if Evolution is incorrect, it just means that we need to go back to the drawing board. Classrooms—though some individual teachers may be fundamentalist (repeating the same material to students every year or semester probably has a big effect on your position on material)—are meant to meant to “arm students with the weapons to wage intellectual warfare,” as one of my history teachers once said. There is some truth to it, that in a sea of differing opinions, we have to be skeptical in order to protect ourselves from harmful misconceptions.
Let’s play “devil’s advocate” for a little while. Assuming that Evolution is true, all beings exist in the way they do because it benefits their survival. Some prehistoric primates found it useful to stand upright often, to look out over the grass for predators and other reasons probably.
This freed their hands from being a second pair of feet and now opened up a Pandora’s Box of tool making and dexterity. These could now be used as hands and a long line of successive improvements and survival led us to where we are today. Assuming this makes sense to you, much of the improvement is not just physical. As early hominids (obviously, there are at least dozens of different species that have been found) became more effective at surviving, they began to devote less focus on staying alive, and more on the quality of life. Some species were lucky enough to live in areas with a healthy variety of food, and some had access to fish. Iodine is found in seafood, and is a proven necessary nutrient for brain development (some countries have passed laws requiring it to be added to salt—hence “iodized” or “non-iodized” salt…maybe that’s why dolphins are so smart…). This was another “chance” occurrence that was not intended but worked favorably for us and once again exponentially boosted our survival rate. If you do not believe in the scientific method that led us to concluding that iodine is a necessary nutrient, etc… then you can stop reading now and go in the direction of Neanderthals or those who think the Surgeon General’s Warning on cigarettes is a lie. Ultimately, being wrong symbolizes death because it does not stand the test of time. Jesus was right about the truth being the path to life in that general sense—but I’m digressing in a new direction now, let’s get back to the first digression. As our brains developed, there was much more room for evolution within one’s own lifetime. What this means is that our new freedom to think—instead of running off of basic instinct for survival all day long—not only gave us the freedom to relax but to experiment. To a certain extent, this had been going on long before, but now there was room for education. For a deer that has been set loose in a tiger cage at the zoo, there is no time for education. This guy knows the only thing worth worrying about is extending life as long as possible. Becoming a difficult creature to catch and kill made hominids eventually drop off that list of prey that predators would have, and so (just like freeing of the hands) a world of opportunities was opened. Forms of communication and other technology may have been developed before, but this transition may have been like moving a plant from a pot to a spacious garden. I mentioned education, and that is because one of the most defining characteristics of intelligence is the ability to learn from another. Most of this intelligence is encoded in instinct, or intuition, through genes that support a certain composition of the brain that has proven useful for survival. Mammals are generally known for caring for their young (obviously useful for survival), and often serve some sort of guidance. Parents are not just the means for continuing the species, but must be responsible for being a set of training wheels for life, to make sure the offspring will survive and have children of its own. Along with this, the child must have some measure of respect for its parent’s judgment, since it is very valuable for survival. The little cub that leaves the burrow is just as dumb as the guy who goes swimming in waters where shark attacks were recently reported. Parents are the representation of the carrot and stick: the father tending to encourage a child to grow and “get a job,” a mother tending to nurture and warn that “you’ll shoot your eye out with that thing.”
Faith is programmed into us as a temporary survival mechanism for our youth. Most species have weird little behaviors like this that can be dangerous in situations that the adaptation was not originally useful for. Moths come out at night and the only source of light to them for hundreds of millions of years was the moon. Now any campfire or porch light leaves them spinning in circles and often killing themselves, relying on outdated navigation. Faith is very similar for humans. It used to be a valuable tool for decision making, where we could stand on the shoulders of elders and learn from them. However, the world today is radically different and things are not even the same as they were twenty years ago. Faith, instinct, and intuition are tools for making intellectual leaps that would take a ridiculously long period of time to meticulously think through logically. The fact that a lion poses a threat, even when thirty feet away, is a testament to the generations that had to learn this the hard way. Now, the knowledge has been passed down both by survival of genes that foster neurosis, and elders in the herd that might have witnessed an attack. The faith that a gazelle has in a possible outcome is not from God trying to look out for his safety, but collected wisdom through heredity and experience. The more intelligent a species is, the more there is this duality of evolution between genes and ideas (or “memes”).
In a survival situation, there is no time to be open-minded to alternate solutions. By definition, faith is being close-minded, believing in something that has no evidence in it. The only thing that resembles evidence is the fact that it once served a purpose, and may be encoded in our genes. It certainly is embedded in culture as well. Human growth has had little to do with survival in the past 50,000 years and everything to do with cultural and intellectual growth. Aside from the fact that personal gods would give ancient tribes courage for battle and hardships, religions have been held on to because it’s like the big fish stories that little boys are proud to recount about their fathers. Everything about major Western religion, specifically, is centered on the “good old days.” It’s the nostalgic, selective interpretation of Bronze and Iron Age myths that were created in a time when gladiators, animal (sometimes human) sacrifices, and dragon attacks were a common occurrence. We’re talking long before the crusades and Salem witch trials.
We are pattern-seeking animals, it’s what we do. When something profound happens (in a cultural context), but the explanation is extremely simple, many of us deny the presented evidence and insist that there was something equally profound behind it. Conspiracy theories are a good example of this. In a sense, religious teachers are doing a righteous thing in teaching traditional beliefs. They are fulfilling an evolutionary parental role. Unfortunately, doctrine is now another vestigial adaptation that is an appendix of the mind. Close-mindedness is being taught in classrooms—religious classrooms.