E.O. Wilson might arguably be the world’s greatest biologist. He is the Einstein of contemporary evolutionary studies. He has been involved in some of the biggest paradigm shifts around. He was involved in theoretical ecology in the study of Island biography, instituted the Sociobiology era, and has been active in understanding the world’s biodiversity in ways both scientific and popular. He’s twice won the Pulitzer Prize and published hundreds and hundreds of papers on ants. (He also wrote a novel that quite frankly is not all that great so let’s ignore that). He’s the hero of every myrmecologist both budding and ancient. I’ve read his biography and to my great joy had lunch with him once at the National Ecological Society of America meetings. He was as nice to that young graduate student as anyone has ever been with a gentlemanly Southern charm that endeared him to me forever. In short, he is someone whose science and insights have both defined and challenged many areas of biology.

Yet many people think he’s gone off his rocker because he is attacking one of the great sacred cows of modern evolutionary biology: Kin Selection. Ken Selection is used to explain aspects of altruism. The idea that if we share genes, and genes determine much of behavior, then if one of my compatriots needs saving, the risk I put into saving her, ought to be proportional to our relatedness. As early evolutionary biologist J.B.S. Haldane quipped, “I would lay down my life for two brothers or eight cousins.”

It’s used in explaining the evolution of social hymenoptera (bees, certain wasps, ants and such). Because they came from unfertilized eggs, the worker ants within a colony are related to each sister in the colony by 75%. Which means according to Haldane they ought to be willing to lay down their life for a sister and a half. This gets complicated, and if you want more just google haplodiploidy. On to the controversy.

Last year three Harvard big wigs, Martin Nowak, Corina Tarnita, and Edward O. Wilson, published a scathing broadside on kin selection. Nowak is a well-known powerhouse evolutionary mathematician whose work is widely respected (and by me also, I’ve used his work in my own theoretical work on selection in spatial contexts). However, the paper caused such a stir that an attack/rebuttal was published by . . . wait for it . . . 137 authors defending kin selection countering Nowak et al.’s paper.

All their criticisms will be addressed, Wilson claimed recently in the Atlantic Monthly, in his new book, The Social Conquest of Earth. I’m currently reading it and so far it’s a thought provoking book, exploring the communalities among all the species in which sociality has developed. Amazing reading. I’ll review it here in the near future.

But here’s the important thing. This is real science in action. One of the leading lights of evolutionary theory is staking out a new position. A very controversial one and vastly unpopular. What will happen? Watch the scientific literature. It’s playing out where all science is done. Not in the arena of popular opinion. But in the place where scientific discourse is done: The peer reviewed literature. This is how science works. It’s not a conspiracy. It’s not a popularity contest. It’s not an ideology. It’s a method for uncovering material truths. Follow along and enjoy! It’s likely to be an exciting ride.

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v471/n7339/full/nature09831.html

In his book [Talking with Mormons:  An Invitation to Evangelicals],  [Richard] Mouw [president of the Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, Calif.] argues that understanding Mormonism isn’t about being nice, it’s a Christian mandate.

Too often, Evangelicals pick up little-taught LDS beliefs–such as human becoming gods or having their own planets–and put them at the center of Mormon theology, rather than at the periphery.

I would personally argue that the belief in ”humans becoming gods” is central to Mormonism.  It helps define why we are here on Earth; it describes where we are going.  It is not–and I repeat–a peripheral doctrine.  It is central to our view of the universe.

On the same subject, Noah Feldman, a law professor at Harvard University and a Bloomberg View columnist writes (reprinted in the SLTrib on 22 May 2012):

The consequences of turning Mormonism into just another denomination are epochal for Mormons.  The doctrine of “be careful what you wish for” certainly applies. . .

Entering the mainstream poses major risks.  If Mormons think of themselves as another Christian denomination, the risk of defection rises.  The distinctive Mormon beliefs in a new scripture and in the possibility of joining the supernal realm for eternal life is in jeopardy precisely because they mark the differences with the Protestant mainstream.  If you believe you are not that different from others, there will be a tendency to downplay those practices and beliefs that suggest otherwise.

Mormons need to think long and hard before they place beliefs like human deificiation into the category of “periphery.”

The author of a controversial 2001 study claiming that gays [can change their sexual orientation] has now disavowed his conclusions . . .  “I believe I owe the gay community an apology,” [Robert L.] Spitzer [considered by some to be the father of modern psychiatry] wrote in a letter to a psychiatric journal, according to a New York Times story last week.

Spitzer was referring to his study in which he interviewed 200 gay men and women before and after therapy to change their orientation.  The majority said they had become “predominantly or exclusively heterosexual.”

The most serious flaw, critics argued, was that the change was all self-reported.

Spitzer now agrees.

“I offered several [unconvincing] reasons why it was reasonable to assume that the subject’s reports of change were credible and not self-deception or outright lying.” the psychiatrist writes in a letter to Ken Zucker, editor of the Archives of Sexual Behavior, the journal in which Spitzer’s original study appeared.  “But the simple fact is that there was no way to determine if the subjects’ accounts of change were valid.”

The Internet Safety Project (InternetSafetyProject.org) is a non-profit venture at Brigham Young University dedicated to educating parents, teachers, and teens about the benefits and risks of technology. Their goal is to make solutions to technical issues accessible in an educational, entertaining, and useful way. They explain both the benefits and risks of technology.

Want to learn more about texting, social networking, cyberbullying, online predators, online games, identity theft, online pornography, malware, or viruses?

• The Internet Safety Blog is an ongoing collection of articles with something new to read all the time.
• The Internet Safety Podcast (founded in 2007) is a collection of free audio programs that explain different technology issues.
• The Internet Safety Wiki (founded in 2008) lets you enter a word or phrase and learn about various topics and websites. You’ll find concise definitions along with tips, suggestions, and guidelines for keeping your kids safe from the risks associated with technology.

Writers from the discipline known variously as “postmodern science studies” or “sociology of scientific knowledge” are often cited in discussions of science, philosophy and religion. Some of this literature, notably the writings on the philosophy of science by Karl Popper and Thomas Kuhn, has significant merit and relevance to the field of scientific research.

Karl Popper

Karl Popper, a British economist and philosopher, declared in his book The Logic of Scientific Discovery [Popper1959, pg. 40-41]:

I shall certainly admit a system as empirical or scientific only if it is capable of being tested by experience. These considerations suggest that not the verifiability but the falsifiability of a system is to be taken as the criterion of demarcation. … It must be possible for an empirical scientific system to be refuted by experience.

Popper’s ideas remain highly influential in scientific research even to the present day. For example, several prominent scientists have recently expressed concern about whether it is prudent to continue pursuing string theory, given that practitioners have not yet been able to derive empirically testable consequences even after 25 years of effort. Physicist Lee Smolin, for example, writes, “A scientific theory that makes no predictions and therefore is not subject to experiment can never fail, but such a theory can never succeed either, as long as science stands for knowledge gained from rational argument borne out by evidence.” [Smolin2006, pg. 352].

However, Popper’s ideas do have some limitations, some of which were pointed out by Popper himself in his earliest works. To begin with, in most real modern-day scientific research, major theories are seldom falsified by a single experimental result. There are always questions regarding the underlying experimental design, measurement procedures, and data analysis techniques, not to mention statistical uncertainties. Often multiple follow-on studies, in some cases extending over many years, are necessary to conclusively decide the hypothesis one way or the other.

It must also be kept in mind that in most cases, “falsified” theories continue to be extremely accurate models of reality within appropriate domains. For example, even today, over 100 years after Newton’s mechanics and Maxwell’s electromagnetic equations were “falsified” and supplanted by new theories of physics, they remain the basis of almost all practical engineering and scientific computations, giving results virtually indistinguishable from those of more modern theories. Relativity corrections are used in the GPS systems now incorporated into many automobiles, and quantum mechanical calculations are employed in semiconductor device design, materials science and chemistry. But beyond a handful of examples such as this, it is hard to identify any instances in the modern world where the classical theories of physics don’t suffice.

Thomas Kuhn

Another influential author in this arena is Thomas Kuhn, whose work The Structure of Scientific Revolutions analyzed numerous historical cases of scientific advancements, and then concluded that in many cases, key paradigm shifts did not come easily [Kuhn1970]. Kuhn was actually trained as a scientist, receiving his Ph.D. in physics from Harvard in 1949. Thus he was able to bring significant scientific insight into his analyses of historical scientific revolutions.

One difficulty is that Kuhn’s “paradigm shift” model has not worked as well in recent years as it did in the historical examples he cited. For example, the “standard model” of physics, the currently reigning fundamental theory of elementary particles and forces, was developed in the 1960s and early 1970s, and was completed in essentially its current form in 1974. Yet by just 1980 it had completely displaced previous theories of particle physics, after a very orderly transition — even initial skeptics quickly recognized the new theory’s power, elegance and precision, and soon threw their support behind it [Tipler1994, pg. 88-89].

What’s more, Kuhn’s writings, much as Popper’s writings before him, have been badly misused by a host of eager but ill-informed and often amateurish writers thinking that they can smash the reigning orthodoxy of modern science. In a recently published interview of Kuhn by Scientific American writer John Horgan, Kuhn was deeply upset that he has become a patron saint to this type of would-be scientific revolutionaries: “I get a lot of letters saying, ‘I’ve just read your book, and it’s transformed my life. I’m trying to start a revolution. Please help me,’ and accompanied by a book-length manuscript.” Kuhn emphasized that in spite of the often iconoclastic way in which his writings have been interpreted, he remained “pro-science,” noting that science has produced “the greatest and most original bursts of creativity” of any human enterprise [Horgan2012].

More recent postmodern writings

More recent writings in the postmodern science studies field have extended the scope of their critiques, declaring that much of modern science, like literary and historical analysis, is “socially constructed,” dependent on the social and political environment of the researchers, with no claim to fundamental truth [Koertge1998, pg. 258; Madsen1990, pg. 471; Sokal1998, pg. 234]. Collins and Pinch, for instance, after examining a handful of case studies, assert that “scientists at the research front cannot settle their disagreements through better experimentation, more knowledge, more advanced theories, or clearer thinking” [Collins1993, pg. 143-145; Koertge1998, pg. 258]. Sandra Harding went so far as to describe Newton’s Principia as a “rape manual” [Harding1986, pg. 113].

Scientists counter that these scholars have distorted a few historical controversies, and then have parlayed these isolated claims to a global condemnation of the scientific enterprise [Gross1998]. What’s more, scientists have noted, in several instances of the postmodern science literature: (a) serious confusion on various concepts of science; (b) an emphasis on politically correct conclusions over sound scholarship; (c) engaging in lengthy discussions of mathematical or scientific principles about which the author has only a hazy familiarity; (d) applying highly sophisticated concepts from mathematics or physics into the humanities or social sciences, without justification; (e) displaying superficial erudition by peppering the text with sophisticated technical terms or mathematical formulas; and (f) employing lengthy technical passages that are essentially meaningless [Sokal1998, pg 4-5].

The Sokal hoax

The tension between the scientific and postmodernist communities came to a head in 1996, when Alan Sokal, a physicist at New York University, wrote a parody of a postmodern science article, entitled “Transgressing the Boundaries: Toward a Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity,” and submitted it to Social Text, a prominent journal in the postmodern studies field [Sokal1996a]. The article was filled with page after page of erudite-sounding nonsense, political rhetoric, irrelevant references to arcane scientific concepts and approving quotations from leading postmodern science scholars. Here are three excerpts:

In spite of its severe flaws, the article was not only accepted for the journal, but it appeared in a special issue devoted to defending the legitimacy of the postmodern science studies field against its detractors. As Sokal later noted, “I intentionally wrote the article so that any competent physicist or mathematician (or undergraduate physics or math major) would realize that it is a spoof.” [Sokal1996b, pg. 50]. He resorted to the hoax out of a deeply felt concern that the postmodern science world has taken a complete about-face from its roots in the Enlightenment, which identified with science and rationalism and rejected obscurantism. “Theorizing about ‘the social construction of reality’ won’t help us find an effective treatment for AIDS or devise strategies for preventing global warming. Nor can we combat false ideas in history, sociology, economics, and politics if we reject the notions of truth and falsity.” [Lingua2000, pg. 52].

Other prominent postmodern science writers

In the same issue as Sokal’s piece, a prominent postmodern writer (in a serious article) wrote:

Once it is acknowledged that the West does not have a monopoly on all the good scientific ideas in the world, or that reason, divorced from value, is not everywhere and always a productive human principle, then we should expect to see some self-modification of the universalist claims maintained on behalf of empirical rationality. Only then can we begin to talk about different ways of doing science, ways that downgrade methodology, experiment, and manufacturing in favor of local environments, cultural values, and principles of social justice. [Ross1996, pg. 3-4].

It is easy to imagine the potentially serious consequences if this extreme cultural relativism were widely adopted in modern science. As a single example, a few years ago the Mexican government encouraged potters, for their own safety, to use lead-free glazes, but the local potters were convinced that the lead issue was only a foreign conspiracy. Unfortunately, as Michael Sullivan has noted, “lead does not care who believes what.” [Sullivan1996].

In other postmodern science writing, researchers have attempted to apply arcane scientific and mathematical concepts into the social sciences and the humanities, often with disastrous results. Here is one example. The reader need not feel bad that he/she does not understand this text. It is complete nonsense, yet it survived peer review in the postmodern science field:

We can clearly see that there is no bi-univocal correspondence between linear signifying links archi-writing, depending on the author, and this multireferential, multidimensional machinic catalysis. The symmetry of scale, the transversality, the pathic non-discursive character of their expansion: all these dimensions re-move us from the logic of the excluded middle and reinforce us in our dismissal of the ontological binarism we criticised previously. A machinic assemblage, through its diverse components, extracts its consistency by crossing ontological thresholds, non-linear thresholds of irreversibility, ontological and phylogenetic thresholds, creative thresholds of heterogenesis and autopoiesis. The notion of scale needs to be expanded to consider fractal symmetries in ontological terms. [Guattari1995, pg. 50; Sokal1998, pg. 166].

Conclusions

In summary, the works of Kuhn and Popper have provided valuable insights into the process of scientific research. In particular, their observations on falsifiability and paradigm shifts have been largely incorporated into the fabric of modern science. But beyond these two authors, what is generally termed the “postmodern science studies” literature has not been very useful in advancing scientific research. And even the writings of Kuhn and Popper have often been misused.

One criticism that applies rather broadly to this literature at the present time is that these scholars work almost entirely from outside the realm of real scientific research. Unlike predecessors such as Kuhn and Popper, most of these writers do not have substantial scientific training and/or credentials; they do not address state-of-the-art scientific theories or methods in significant technical depth; and they do not participate with scientific research teams in performing peer-reviewed scientific research. Their approach is best exemplified by a comment made by Andrew Ross in the introduction to one of his published works: “This book is dedicated to all of the science teachers I never had. It could only have been written without them.” [Ross1991].

But this is a point upon which virtually all practicing research scientists will disagree. According to an ancient account, when Pharaoh Ptolemy I of Egypt grew frustrated at the degree of effort required to master geometry, he asked Euclid whether there was some easier path. Euclid is said to have replied, “There is no royal road to geometry.” [Durant1975, vol. 2, pg. 501]. Indeed. And there is no royal road to modern science either.

State-of-the-art scientific research is all about the details: underlying physical theories; mathematical derivations; crisp, testable hypotheses; experimental design; data collection; data reduction; statistical techniques; computer simulations; numerical methods; and, of course, cautiously inferred conclusions. What’s more, the details of the methods underlying a study are often as significant as the conclusions. Thus, to the extent that the postmodern science studies community avoids delving into the technical details of leading-edge scientific research, these writers cannot possibly hope to have tangible impact in the scientific enterprise. And, needless to say, when leading figures in this community openly express their contempt for day-to-day scientific work, they are not building bridges that will lead to productive collaborations with real scientists in the future.

Canadian-American physicist Lawrence Krauss summed up his view of these issues in the following terms [Krauss2012a]:

As both a general reader and as someone who is interested in ideas and culture, I have great respect for and have learned a great deal from a number of individuals who currently classify themselves as philosophers. … What I find common and so stimulating about the philosophical efforts of these intellectual colleagues is the way they thoughtfully reflect on human knowledge, amassed from empirical explorations in areas ranging from science to history, to clarify issues that are relevant to making decisions about how to function more effectively and happily as an individual, and as a member of a society.

As a practicing physicist however, the situation is somewhat different. There, I, and most of the colleagues with whom I have discussed this matter, have found that philosophical speculations about physics and the nature of science are not particularly useful, and have had little or no impact upon progress in my field. Even in several areas associated with what one can rightfully call the philosophy of science I have found the reflections of physicists to be more useful. For example, on the nature of science and the scientific method, I have found the insights offered by scientists who have chosen to write concretely about their experience and reflections, from Jacob Bronowski, to Richard Feynman, to Francis Crick, to Werner Heisenberg, Albert Einstein, and Sir James Jeans, to have provided me with a better practical guide than the work of even the most significant philosophical writers of whom I am aware, such as Karl Popper and Thomas Kuhn.

The website Prophets and Apostles Speak Today (prophets.lds.org) released a new video titled “We Need Living Prophets,” highlighting a talk given by Elder D. Todd Christofferson on the importance of prophets. The video also includes testimonies of members from all over the world.

Illustrator’s Conception of the Book of Mormon Rameumpton

“What’s a Rameumpton, Daddy?”

“Well, the Book of Mormon says it was a place where the Zoramites stood to worship and pray.”

“But my Primary teacher said it was a tower that evil people used.”

“I can see how someone could think that.  The Book of Mormon says it was ‘a place for standing which was high above the head’ and only one person could stand there.”

“Was it like a speaker’s stand in church?”

“A speaker’s stand?  You mean a pulpit?  Yes, I suppose it was.  In fact the word ‘Rameumpton’ means ‘the holy stand.’”

“What’s so evil about a holy stand, Daddy?”

“Well, it wasn’t the stand that was evil.  It was how it was used.  The people gathered there in their synagogue . . .”

“What’s a synagogue?”

“Just a different word for chapel or church, honey?”

“Oh.”

“They’d gather in their synagague one day a week.”

“Which day, Daddy?”

“I don’t know, honey.  It just says ‘one day’ and that they called the day “the day of the Lord.’”

“It must have been Sunday.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Because Sunday is the Lord’s day.”

“Well, maybe it was. . .  Anyway they’d gather there and whoever wanted to worship would go and stand on the top of the Rameumpton.”

“Could anyone go up there?”

“Well, no, that was part of the problem.  Apparently they had to wear the right clothes . . .”

“You mean like us when we wear our Sunday clothes, Daddy?”

“Well, not exactly but in a way yes, I suppose.  Some of us might have a hard time accepting certain kinds of clothes or people in sacrament meeting.  But we wear our Sunday clothes to help us be reverent don’t we?”

“Yes, Daddy.”

“So anyway, where was I?”

“They went to the top of the Rameumpton . . .”

“Yes, they’d do up and worship God by thanking him for making them so special.”

“Were they bearing their testimonies?”

“Well, uh, I guess maybe they were in a way, but they weren’t true testimonies.”

“How come?”

“Because they were too proud?”

“What do you mean ‘proud,’ Daddy?”

“Well, they would talk aabout how they were ‘a chosen and holy people.’”

“My Primary teach said Mormons are the chosen people and we’re a special generation.”

“Yes, honey, but that’s different.”

“How?”

“Because we are.”

“Oh.”

“Besides, they were very, very proud about how much better they were than everybody else because they didn’t believe the ‘foolish traditions’ of their neighbors.”

“What does that mean, Daddy?”

“It means that they believed everyone else was wrong and they alone were right.”

“Isn’t that what we believe?”

“Yes, but it’s different.”

“How?”

“Because we are right, honey.”

“Oh.”

“Everyone would stand and say the same thing . . .”

“That sounds like testimony meeting to me.”

“Don’t be irreverent.”

“Sorry.”

“Then after it was all over they would go home and never speak about God until the next day of the Lord when they’d gather at the holy stand again.”

“Isn’t that like us, Daddy?”

“No honey. we have Family Home Evening.”

“Oh.”

By guest blogger: Fernando Camilo

I recently had the opportunity to visit the Jerusalem Movie Set, the newest addition to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints’ film production sets. The set is located about 70 miles south of Salt Lake City, literally in the middle of nowhere. It was built to be the new filming spot for The Life of Jesus Christ: Bible Videos, a gift from the First Presidency of the Church to the world.

The Church-owned farm was carefully chosen by Media Services Department producers and approved by the First Presidency to be the home of the remarkable movie set. Initially, the production team had considered filming locations as far as Morocco, but after extensive search, Goshen turned out to be the ideal spot for the production.

The large set feels more like a miniature Jerusalem than an actual movie set. Everything in it was so carefully designed and crafted that at times I felt like I had not only been transported to the ancient land but also traveled 2,000 years back in time. Although the set was not dressed for shooting, it was still impressive. The unmistakable scent of manure was a constant reminder that you were certainly not in Jerusalem, but it definitely didn’t detract from the experience. Everything from doorknobs to staircases was masterfully built to reproduce the Holy Land perfectly. Wood columns made of Styrofoam and fiberglass-covered props easily fooled the eye. In fact, much of the set didn’t seem fake to the touch either. Everywhere you looked was picture perfect and undoubtedly a cinematographer’s dream.

Perhaps the most spiritually enlightening part of our tour was the walk down to “Gethsemane” and later on to “Golgotha” where the three infamous crosses still stood from last year’s filming of the Savior’s crucifixion. Although the grove wasn’t made of real olive trees and the crosses weren’t consecrated by the Master’s blood, the sense of reverence still permeated the spot.

Visiting that incredible movie set has been one of the highlights of my Church employment so far. Being a part of this project has been an incredible blessing and I sincerely hope more and more people will take advantage of these beautiful videos.

Shooting will resume this summer and Bible Videos will eventually become a large collection of vignettes about the life of the Savior, containing over 100 videos relating the story of his birth, ministry, death, and resurrection.

Below are pictures I took during my visit to the set, as well as pictures from the actual videos available at BibleVideos.org.

Note: The Church is looking for background actors for additional New Testament stories to be filmed during July and August of 2012.