science

“Not every policy is scientific Murray”

/ MurrayCampbell

I’ve been hearing this line of argument over and over again for the past four years. Ours is a post-scientific age, where what is true is no longer measured by empirical evidence and objective reality, but by what each individual feels is real for them.

A clear and blunt example of this epistemological transition was recently recorded in Scotland. A 17-year-old school student by the name of Murray suggested to his teacher that there are only two genders. The conversation was recorded on the student’s phone (not a move that this Murray condones), and the commentary is telling. The student was asked to leave the classroom, with the teacher informing the student that he should keep his opinion to ‘his own house’. In other words, in this Scottish school which is following the national education curriculum, there is no safe place for students to suggest the biological fact that there are two genders.

Murray responded to the teacher who defended teaching the set curriculum,

“That’s not scientific whatsoever.”

To which the teacher replied,

“Not every policy is scientific”

Scotland was once the seat of the Enlightenment and a key player in Scientific Revolution. I imagine Scotland’s Enlightenment thinkers now wanting to be raised from the dead and come back to educate Scotland’s teachers (and haunt them at the very least!).

Most of us like to view ourselves as rational and as believers in science, but the reality is, we drop the truth into the toilet as soon as it clashes with a priori commitments to our preferred moral and preferences and worldview. If truth doesn’t support my moral inclinations, then flush it down the sewer. I am who I think I am, which is somewhat problematic if I identify as an 6-year-old girl (as one 46-year-old Canadian man decided), but isn’t prejudice that we dare question what he believes himself to be?

If as in the case of gender, we affirm the biological reality of male and female, and that biology and sex and gender belong together, there is an obvious tension when there’s a disconnect between what is true and how I feel. It becomes necessary to claim an alternate reality. This alone can create a plethora of problems because not every self-identity is good for the individual or for the relationships around them.

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This conversation has a renewed relevance in my home State of Victoria. We are already the world sporting capital and food capital and atheist capital (some say), and we’re now vying to be the most progressive capital in the world. Let’s kill off the unborn up to point of birth and let’s kill the terminally ill, and let’s feed our economy off the backs of the vulnerable through gambling, and let’s beat Scotland to be even more progressive with our school curriculum.

As I said, this Scottish teacher’s honest slip of the tongue has an immediate application in Victoria at the moment. The Victorian Government is renewing its intent to amend the birth certificate laws to enable people to change the gender on their birth certificate in order to match how they wish to be identified.

Birth certificates were once sacrosanct and rightly treated as definitive legal documents. What was once subject to facts surrounding the birth of a child, can now be repeatedly altered according to how individuals wish to reconstruct their sexual identity. Does this undermine the very nature of such documents?

I want a pause for a moment and recognise that gender dysphoria is real but rare.  am not without personal knowledge of Victorians who are genuinely struggling and suffering due to gender confusion, and they seek resolution and acceptance (which does not always mean being identified in ways contrary to their biological sex). I want to affirm their dignity and humanity and pray that they would come to know the God who loves and gives us the greatest and most fulfilling identity, of being in Christ and knowing him. 

My intent is not to cause people greater consternation, but to alert the fact that Labor’s proposal is no solution at all.

Here’s are a few questions that require attention:

  1. Children can apply to alter their birth certificate, but doing so with the approval of their parents and with a supporting statement from either a medical practitioner or psychologist. One question that needs to asked, however, is what will happen when a child wishes to change their gender on the birth certificate and the parents believe that such action is not in the best interest of their child? Are we to expect a similar situation to what now takes place in Victorian schools where children can be given resources to transition without parental consent and knowledge?
  2. Will the new legislation, like its predecessor in 2016, allow persons to change their birth certificate every 12 months, or is only one change permitted? As the medical and scientific fraternity attest, the major of people dealing with gender dysphoria will grow out of it by adulthood, identifying comfortably with their biological sex. What will happen in these cases?

On another occasion, I’ve quoted from this article in The Atlantic and it is worth repeating here (it should be noted that it’s not a conservative publication). The author warns against moving quickly to intervene in cases of gender dysphoria. Keep in mind, in this instance the Victorian Government is not proposing psychological or medical intervention (which already happens) but a legal declaration.   This is more than recognising that a person feels like they are a certain gender, this is the State announcing that a person is their chosen gender.

“the World Professional Association for Transgender Health…states that while some teenagers should go on hormones, that decision should be made with deliberation: “Before any physical interventions are considered for adolescents, extensive exploration of psychological, family, and social issues should be undertaken.” The American Psychological Association’s guidelines sound a similar note, explaining the benefits of hormones but also noting that “adolescents can become intensely focused on their immediate desires.” It goes on: “This intense focus on immediate needs may create challenges in assuring that adolescents are cognitively and emotionally able to make life-altering decisions…But some clinicians are moving toward a faster process. And other resources, including those produced by major LGBTQ organizations, place the emphasis on acceptance rather than inquiry. The Human Rights Campaign’s “Transgender Children & Youth: Understanding the Basics” web page, for example, encourages parents to seek the guidance of a gender specialist. It also asserts that “being transgender is not a phase, and trying to dismiss it as such can be harmful during a time when your child most needs support and validation.”

“Ignoring the diversity of these experiences and focusing only on those who were effectively “born in the wrong body” could cause harm. That is the argument of a small but vocal group of men and women who have transitioned, only to return to their assigned sex.”

We have entered a very new and strange space where what is true is no longer true, and what is good is considered bad for society, and where people crying for help are told there is nothing wrong. I also suspect biology teachers may soon be out of work, or at best they’ll be transitioned into the humanity’s department.

Our culture has tried to kill off God and now we’re displacing science. One thing is clear, the path forward is not befitting of the word, progressive. I heard it once, and I’ve been trying to say it regularly ever since a day is coming when a generation of disillusioned and damaged Victorians are going to need safe places for healing and love. Governments may play the game of identity politics and flaunt the neo-marxist ideas that are pulling strings out of the universities, but there is a better way. We can affirm a fellow human being and acknowledge their struggles and needs without approving of every self-belief. Perhaps the Labor Bill will pass on this occasion and join the growing line of regressive ideological positions that have been enshrined inside Parliament over recent years. Perhaps common sense will win the day. Whatever the outcome, I trust our Churches will have doors wide open to welcome, love, and care for those who come inside looking for hope and resolution. 

While being careful to avoid misapplying texts of Scripture, I’m noting at the back of my mind that this Sunday we are preaching on 2 Corinthians 5:1-10. It is not a passage about gender dysphoria but it does hint at dysphoria more broadly speaking. The verses recognise that there is a groaning and discontentment in the human condition and a longing for permanency and settling into what is good and right.

“While we are in this tent, we groan and are burdened, because we do not wish to be unclothed but to be clothed instead with our heavenly dwelling, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life.”

 

Post-Truth is not so new

/ MurrayCampbell

Post-truth has been declared word of the year, by the Oxford Dictionary.

I have to confess, I can’t recall ever hearing of the word prior to the announcement, but rarely have I been confused with owning hip, cool, and trendy oratory. I have no doubt though, our cultural frontline linguists know what they are talking about!

The Dons of the Oxford Dictionary define post-truth as, ‘an adjective defined as ‘relating to or denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief’.’

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Oxford Dictionary website

There is a drop of irony here, post-truth’s rise to the top coincided with Donald Trump’s victory in the Presidential election. Apparently, the  Presidential campaigns were responsible for a spike in world-wide usage of post-truth, as was the Brexit campaign earlier in the year.

According to the official website, post-truth first appeared in 1992, in an essay written by the late Serbian-American playwright Steve Tesich. In 2016 there has been an observed 2000% increase in its usage, thus warranting the title of Oxford Dictionaries’ word of the year.

The word may be new, but the concept has had a long run through history.

In the 4th Century BC Aristotle pre-empted post-truth when he spoke of the tripartite art of persuasion: ethos, logos, and pathos.

Jesus Christ spoke of post-truth. In the parable Lazarus and the Rich Man, Jesus makes the point, that should a man rise from dead, people will not believe the evidence if they are not also prepared to believe God at his word. In other words, empirical demonstration is important but it is not suffice to persuade a person of what is true and good.

Accordingly, the Bible adds a fourth category to Aristotle’s tripartite art of persuasion: pnevmatikós (or spiritual). Ardent rationalists may scoff at this notion, but perhaps it is the case that their post-truth commitment to naturalism denies them the reasonable conclusion of accepting the reality of Christ, including the overwhelming evidence of his resurrection from the dead.

Post-truth is a word that carries with it an air of elitism and superiority. It is used to denigrate those whom we deem are less rational and intelligent.

In a documentary series marking a trip across the United States, Stephen Fry visited Los Alamos, the place where the first hydrogen bomb was developed. While exploring this once secret location, Fry made this remark,

“some people would think this is a grizzly place, a place of death, but to me I see nothing but optimism, and that’s because I believe in science. Many people today don’t.”

Stephen Fry is an example of a generation who credit science and rationalism as being security for human progress. Indeed, in the recent election a wave political experts and pollsters proclaimed the moral high ground on the basis of their education and they decried the uneducated who followed Donald Trump.

Whether we believe ourselves intelligent or not, and whether we have letters running after our name or not, we have always been post-truth, at least part-time.

The reality is we all need facts and truth to live well, and we adhere to these when these thing conform to our likes and wants. But rarely, are our ethical positions and personal decisions determined solely or even primarily because of what is true.

Today I was reminded of a classic post-truth moment in Victoria this year. Roz Ward has found herself in the media’s eye once again, with a photograph capturing the Safe Schools architect bullying a bystander during an anti-Trump demonstration in Melbourne yesterday. As I saw the photograph I was reminded of Roz Ward’s now infamous declaration, that the Safe Schools program is not primarily about creating Safe Schools but is designed to teach children Marxist values. Despite the repeated admission by this key designer of the curriculum, many politicians and social commentators have glued blue tac to their ears, and pretended the truth had never been leaked. Why? Political and social ideology trumps a confession.

Post-truth is not a 2016 problem, it is a human problem. Our word of the year communicates something about the proclivity of the human heart. Searching for truth is a noble task; as Jesus himself said, ‘the truth will set you free’. But knowing what is true and listening to it requires more than simple assent to objective facts. It requires a posture of humility, whereby we allow truth, especially God’s truth, to penetrate and challenge and restore.

Christians are to blame for Climate Change Inaction

/ MurrayCampbell / 3 Comments

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Michael Pascoe wants to throw much of the blame for Australia’s apathy on climate change at the feet of those who believe in God. I share his frustration at the lack of action Australia has taken, but his account of the Christian view carries with it the flair of a Donald Trump argument, vociferous but empty.

No one doubts there are climate change skeptics among theists, but evidence suggests that they are few.

Let’s leave aside the cascade of “Christian” figures whom Pascoe names and shames (none of whom are practicing evangelicals, and seriously, would Alan Jones or Andrew Bolt consider themselves anything more than agnostic?), does the evidence stack up? Is the Christian ‘right’ somehow to blame? Does Australia even have a Christian ‘right’?

Long before Paris 2015, and prior to Copenhagen, Poznan, and Bali, Churches in Australia were vocal advocates for taking Climate Change Science seriously.

In 2006, the Baptist Union of Victoria called the Federal Government to take more action on Climate Change. Included in the resolution was the following:

“Commit to a target of 60% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, and develop policies towards this goal, such as:

  • Funding significant research and development in renewable energy sources;
  • Introducing a carbon-trading scheme in which reduced carbon emissions are rewarded financially;
  • Promoting much greater use of public transport and fuel-efficient vehicles”

Similarly, in 2007 the Anglican Diocese of Sydney accepted the emerging scientific consensus and called for action from both Governments and from Diocesan parishes.

The reality is, Christian leaders and denominations have readily accepted scientific consensus and have been calling Government to account for a decade or longer. If anything, the issue is that no one has been listening.

Perhaps though these Christians are acting despite their biblical convictions, preferring the light of science rather than the darkened halls of faith. After all, science and faith oppose each other like the positive and negative forces of magnets. Michael Pascoe adopts this now popular myth when he says,

“Religious faith, by definition, is a matter of faith – not evidence.” 

This may be true for some religions, but it certainly not true of Christianity, which is the group Pascoe targets.

Faith is not the exercise of belief where evidence is absent; the word used in the Bible means belief or trust. What (in)validates faith is the object in which the person puts their trust. Reason is an aspect of faith, as are ethos and pathos, as was notably argued by Aristotle. What forms our beliefs is a combination of truth, social and ethical influences, and desire.

I accept the science of climate change, not because I am a qualified scientist who grasps all the data, but because I am trusting the scientific community of whom the vast majority  have reached consensus (having a climate change scientist in my church hasn’t hurt either!). Unless Michael Pascoe is himself a scientific expert, he too is trusting the information being presented, and with warrant. Christianity is not dissimilar in that demands scrutiny, it anticipates verifiability. The Apostle Paul wrote of the resurrection of Jesus Christ,

“if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith.  More than that, we are then found to be false witnesses about God, for we have testified about God that he raised Christ from the dead…if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins.”

Perhaps then, the problem is the Bible itself. Far from inciting rubbishing the environment, the Bible reference that Michael Pascoe quotes, Genesis 1:28, is in fact about responsibility. When read in its context, this is an important verse that calls for humanity to care for creation.

“God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground” (Genesis 1:28)

I suspect this is a case of reading meaning into the text, which is somewhat understandable given how the language of ‘subdue’ and ‘rule’ hold negative connotations in our minds. But if one allows the text to speak for itself, we discover that the responsibility to oversee creation is given a framework; humanity was to rule in a manner similar to God himself. Genesis ch.1 demonstrates a God who blessed the cosmos through his creative and caring power. So too, humanity was to rule under God by looking after the world he had made. The positive language of blessing, being fruitful and increasing, suggests this, and it is further demonstrated by the following chapter of Genesis where man and woman cultivate the garden, giving names to the animals, and bringing order and beauty to this astonishing world. Perhaps the closest analogy we can have is that of a gardener. In the same way a gardener works his garden, she/he does not destroy or harm it, but cultivates it so that it grows in its beauty. That is the mandate given in Genesis 1:28, but sadly we have failed miserably.

Michael Pascoe, you may lay blame at the feet of the Republicans, an absent Cardinal, Tony Abbott, Aussie shock jocks, and poor biblical exegesis, but your hypothesis is evidence light.

If there is a difference between Christians and other members of the community on this issue, it is not about agreeing with the science or with proposed action, but with the question of hope. For the God-skeptic this world is all there is, and so it makes sense that they would invest so much effort into minimising rising temperatures. Christians on the other hand, while valuing creation and seeking to obey the mandate of Genesis 1:28, believe with reason that the one day there will be a new creation; the resurrection of Jesus Christ being the guarantor of this event. Christian hope does not diminish the responsibility that lays before us, but it offers a perspective that humanity needs. Imagine a world without pain and suffering, without disaster and death? For all our science and genius, we have not achieved these things, and most often we lack the resolve to do so. It is wise to take action on climate change, but it is foolish to bank all our hope in the endeavour.