The Science of Your Political Soapbox

 

One of the other most important things we’ve learned in the past 20-30 years about humans as political thinkers is just how much the left and right are genetically predisposed to their beliefs. In other words, when someone annoys you with their dodgy, ill-conceived political opinions, seek solace in the fact that they often can’t help it, because a significant part of what they think is likely to be ingrained in their mental hardware.

Our moral judgments arise from a set of psychological foundations shaped by evolution to help us thrive in social settings – and there is strong evidence that left and right wing adherents tend to prioritise these moral foundations differently. I said in a recent blog post that leftists tend to more strongly emphasise values like care/harm and fairness/reciprocity, while conservatives consider a broader array of moral considerations - adding loyalty, authority, and sanctity to their core concerns. And personality traits, such as openness to experience and conscientiousness, are partly heritable, and they also correlate with political orientation. Openness to experience is associated with liberal or left-leaning views, and conscientiousness is associated with conservative or right-leaning views. This is especially backed up by twin studies, which have shown that identical twins (who share the same genes, of course) are more likely to have similar political views compared to fraternal twins, who share only about half their genes (I say ‘around half” because the specific combination of DNA inherited by each sibling is random, which leads to slight variations around the 50% average). These findings suggest that genetics potentially accounts for around 30-40% of the variation in political attitudes, with environmental and cultural factors (like upbringing, life experiences, and social influences) making up the majority of the rest of the percentage.

Don’t get me wrong, political beliefs are not fixed and unchangeable – there is a complex interplay between genes and environment – and all dubious political views have the potential to be revised with better reasoning and stronger empirical analysis. But, given that we know that these differences in moral priorities appear to have a heritable component, where genetics predisposes people to certain orientations and beliefs, it ought to make us wiser in how we discuss politics – and also encourage us to take the political rants we see with a huge dose of salt. In fact, when we see our friends waxing lyrical about politics and social justice online, perhaps we can amuse ourselves with the thought that they may have a degree of limited control over these views like they do limited control over preferences for spicy food or their fear of heights.

Left Turn to Ruin: The Decline of Modern UK Society

 

It’s well-documented across various research areas that, from the perspective of an average leftist and an average conservative, the latter consistently demonstrates a better understanding of the former's viewpoint than vice versa. In social experiments, conservatives were more accurate in predicting how leftists would respond to moral and political questions, whereas leftists were less accurate in predicting conservative responses (I have a blog post from 2016 discussing this discordance, focusing on the Ideological Turing Test).

The evidence suggests that conservatives are better at taking the perspective of leftists, because they tend to emphasise and balance a broader range of moral foundations, including loyalty, authority, sanctity, in addition to care and fairness. Because conservatives are more cognisant of all five foundations, they should be better equipped to understand the perspectives and the consequences of political theory better than the narrow range of considerations upheld by the left.

I’m also fairly confident that the average conservative is more intelligent than the average leftist. And I should imagine that the evidence that shows conservatives tend to balance more moral dimensions in their reasoning is because, on average, conservatives display higher cognitive abilities, particularly in conservative values in economics and the foundations for a stable society. But that said, as I laid out in my Blog on three dimensional left and right wing politics, while conservatives often display a preference for order, structure, and stability, leftists are often more open to novelty, complexity, and change – which means a thorough political analysis from any UK citizen must involve reflecting these different ways of processing information.

All that said, I’m fairly confident that the fact that leftists tend to balance fewer moral dimensions in their reasoning, and exhibit a narrower set of perspectives on how the world really works, sheds light on certain political dynamics in the UK, particularly when considering the left’s approach to socialist policies, climate alarmism, and woke ideology. Most leftist commentary on wealth redistribution, extreme climate activism, and identity politics is undermined by the same defects as demonstrated in the Ideological Turing Test. And a lot of this is driven by misguided views about care and fairness – both of which are noble qualities (and, of course, key tenets of conservatism too – something many leftists miss, which is a further part of their moral dimension problem) – but they are frequently abused by being taken into excess at the expense of other important values, or often just simply used as virtue-signalling shibboleths as markers of ideological identity without deeper engagement or consideration of the broader picture.

One of the problems in the UK right now is that, as the Conservative Party has become a centre-left party, it now mirrors many of the same errors that undermine the political left, gradually destroying its own core values in the process, and diluting its own ideological foundation as the party of small government, free market values, personal responsibility, and individual liberty.

And the excessive leftist influence on UK society extends way beyond the woes of the Conservative Party. We have a state that’s far too large for the size of the economy (which, alongside Gammon’s Law, is the main reason why public services are in crisis), an overly-regulated, bureaucratic society, economic stagnation and increased welfare dependency, a sickness and mental health crisis, the continued erosion of free speech and open debate, a widespread identity crisis, a cost of living crisis (exacerbated by bad government policies), an immigration crisis (remember to heed Comte’s famous warning that ‘demographics is destiny”), a decline in educational standards, half-witted environmental policies that result in significant economic burdens for businesses and households alike, and waning trust in institutions and political leadership.

A continuation of this will inevitably lead to collapse, as it did in the 1970s. The seeds of economic stagnation and societal disintegration have been planted, the current public services will buckle under these unsustainable costs, businesses will continue to be choked by perverse over-regulation, and myopic environmental measures will sow the seeds of their own destruction. Things will get worse before they get better – and years henceforward, we’ll look back on this period with lament.

If we ever do wake up, it must be to the reality that the only societal forces that have consistently fostered human progression, liberty, and stability are the free-market principles of trade and competition, personal responsibility, a smaller state, fewer regulations, equality before the law*, egalitarianism, meritocracy, and the protection of individual freedoms.   

*Equality before the law has historically been the cornerstone of justice – it is literally the only kind of equality that a society needs as its bedrock. With equality before the law, the natural concomitant is equality of opportunity; because with equality before the law, it should mean there are no artificial barriers to equality of opportunity. Unfortunately, equality before the law is increasingly being undermined by laws tailored to favour certain minority groups through mechanisms like positive discrimination and identity-based policies. These approaches create new forms of inequality before the law, where the majority is unfairly discriminated against, unjustly (and artificially) elevating group identity over individual merit and fairness.

My Definitive Guide to Understanding Evolution and Debunking Creationism Myths: A Full Resource for Evidence, Education, and Rebuttals

Over the years, I’ve dedicated significant effort to the field of biological evolution, clarifying the scientific facts and truths, while also defending it against the misconceptions and challenges posed by young earth creationists and other fundamentalist groups

To streamline access to my contributions, I've decided to create a comprehensive resource page that consolidates all the links to my articles and videos in one place—a thorough hub for evolution education and critical analysis of YEC arguments.

This will serve as a single, convenient source that I can share when needed, functioning as a portal to all my relevant material.

So, where to start? I’ll offer some suggestions for navigating this page, although if you prefer, feel free to move around at your leisure in any order you wish. Articles are in blue and Videos are in purple

For comprehensive coverage on the basics of the evolution and creation topic, both from a scientific perspective and a Biblical perspective, I’d start with this talk I gave:

An Evening With The PM #6: Creation & Evolution Talk + Q & A

Then you might wish to follow it up with this video:

Simple, But Irrefutable Evidence For Evolution

Then I think I’d recommend my eight part series It's Impossible To Love The Truth And Deny Evolution, which takes the reader on a comprehensive journey through the key elements of the creation/evolution topics: 

It's Impossible To Love The Truth And Deny Evolution 

It's Impossible To Love The Truth And Deny Evolution: Part II - Alleles & Genetic Algorithms 

It's Impossible To Love The Truth And Deny Evolution: Part III - Assigned DNA Codes 

It's Impossible To Love The Truth And Deny Evolution: Part IV - On Speciation 

It's Impossible To Love The Truth And Deny Evolution: Part V - How & Why We Evolved Two Sexes 

It's Impossible To Love The Truth And Deny Evolution: Part VI - The Origin Of Life 

It's Impossible To Love The Truth And Deny Evolution: Part VII - On Interpreting Scripture 

It's Impossible To Love The Truth And Deny Evolution: Final Part - How We Know It's A Tree Of Life, Not An Orchard

Then, it might be good to suggest some more niche or specialised articles on evolution:

My Favourite Metaphor For Evolution 

On The Evolution Of The Eye

On The Myth That You Can't See Evolution Happening 

We Did *Not* Evolve From Apes. We *Are* Apes, Silly! 

Next, a few articles on God’s creation may help appreciate His Divine handiwork: 

Creation was very good, but was it perfect? 

God's Genius in Evolution 

Understanding the nature of God’s creation 

Evolution helps us marvel in the extraordinary

The Mathematical Bias Theory Redux: Why There Probably ‘IS’ a God – in 20 Steps  

Then, here are a few deeper, philosophical articles on evolution: 

On Evolution & Random Walk 

Irrreducibly Complex Society, Biology & All That Mathematical Jazz 

A Fascinating Twist On The Theory Of Our Evolution 

God, Evolution, Genes, Morality, Altruism, Grace & Sacrifice 

What Would Happen If We Rewound Evolution?

Then, some general criticisms of creationism and of the denial of evolutionary theory: 

Going 12 Rounds With An Evolution-Denier 

Sunday Faith Series: The Fundamental Error Of 'Creation Science' 

The Base Rate Errors of Young Earth Creationism

Probing The Answers In Genesis Cult 

There's No Greater Abuse Of Knowledge In Christianity Than Young Earth Creationism 

Dodgy Belief Bandits: The Hawks, Pigeons and Sparrows 

Why Intelligent Design Fails As A Theory 

The Wrong Adam: Why Stories Are The Deepest Part Of The Text 

Putting creation myths up against real science 

The similarities of creationists and atheists

How Science Decodes The Past 

Exposing AIG's Ken Ham & Nathanial Jeanson: The Dangerous Cult of Lies 

Young Earth Creationists Deny Themselves The Most Astounding Evidence For God 

Why It's Absurd To Take Adam & Eve's Fall Literally 

Ask The PM: If You Were Forced To Defend Young Earth Creationism 

An Evening With The PM #17: Going Head To Head With A Creationist 

Last, but by no means least, here are some conversations I had that are worth exploring – in the first 2 videos, we hear from ex-YECs who’ve seen the light; and in the third video, I have an interesting discussion with Herman Mays, professor in genetics at Marshall University: 

An Evening With The PM #14: Former Young Earth Creationists Who've Seen The Light 

An Evening With The PM #15: Former Young Earth Creationists Who've Seen The Light  

An Evening With The PM #7: A Discussion With Dr. Herman Mays On Creationism

Edit to add: Here is a great resource from my friend Kristine Johnson, entitled Basics of Evolution, which is full of excellent material on a wide range of topics, with input from a wide range of good contributors. 

The Two Categories of God's Truth

 

We are told that Christ is the Truth - but what is the nature of His truth?

In philosophy, true propositions are often classified into two main categories: necessary and contingent.

Necessary Propositions: These are propositions that are true in all possible worlds and cannot be false under any circumstances. For example, "2 + 2 = 4" is a necessary proposition because its truth is independent of any particular situation or context.

Contingent Propositions: These are propositions that are true in some possible worlds but not in others. Their truth depends on the way the world is. For example, “property x will expand when heated." is a contingent proposition because its truth depends on the specific physical properties in nature.

It’s probable that necessary truths are also connected to who God is, in that they couldn’t be any other way; and contingent truths are connected to God’s creation, which could have been different, but constitute truths about the specifics of the world He chose to create. Therefore, in being called to seek the truth at all times, we are being called to assent to truthful, necessary propositions (which will bring us closer to God) and to truthful contingent propositions (which will enhance our understanding of God’s creation).

The Game of Words

In his Philosophical Investigations, Wittgenstein argued against the idea that every concept has a strict set of "necessary and sufficient conditions" that define it. Instead, with his 'Language Games' and his 'Family Resemblance Principle' he understood concepts through shared features that overlap in various ways, rather than through a strict set of essential criteria. Here's a passage of note, in which he compared language to being like describing various games:

“There must be something common, or they would not be called ‘games’”–but look and see whether there is anything common to all. For if you look at them you will not see something common to all, but similarities, relationships, and a whole series of them at that. To repeat: don’t think, but look! Look for example at board games, with their multifarious relationships. Now pass to card games; here you find many correspondences with the first group, but many common features drop out, and others appear. When we pass next to ball games, much that is common is retained, but much is lost. Are they all ‘amusing’? Compare chess with noughts and crosses. Or is there always winning and losing, or competition between players? Think of patience. In ball games there is winning and losing; but when a child throws his ball at the wall and catches it again, this feature has disappeared. Look at the parts played by skill and luck; and at the difference between skill in chess and skill in tennis. Think now of games like ring-a-ring-a-roses; here is the element of amusement, but how many other characteristic features have disappeared! And we can go through the many, many other groups of games in the same way; can see how similarities crop up and disappear. And the result of this examination is: we see a complicated network of similarities overlapping and criss-crossing: sometimes overall similarities, sometimes similarities of detail.”

Let me say, in using the term ‘games’, Wittgenstein is not being in the least bit trivial or frivolous here – he is stating something rigorous about the entanglements into which humans get themselves through their misuse of language. The precise definitions and contextualisations in our language are not strictly and clearly demarcated – they seamlessly integrate like the characteristics of a family integrate. Choosing the language we use to discuss a particular topic is like choosing a game and adhering to its rules. Just as we shouldn’t use the rules of chess when playing tennis, equally we shouldn’t apply the wrong kind of language to the wrong discussion. When Wittgenstein talks of our seeing a complicated network of similarities overlapping and criss-crossing, he means that some of the terms used are used carelessly, and as such, these errors militate against fruitful discussion.

The trouble that underlies many discussions is that those jointly sufficient terms are often misused, and this amounts to people criss-crossing their communication and getting their language entangled in knots. So, while some misunderstandings may arise from misuse, Wittgenstein was more focused on the idea that people often expect language to function with fixed meanings when, in fact, meanings shift based on context.

I think this is a useful thing to learn from as young an age as possible – apprehending the importance of the Wittgensteinian method of using language like we use tools, where words are jointly sufficient for many disciplines, and discerning the extent to which language evolves in a fluid, context-dependent manner, even within individual dialogue over time. In religious discussions, for example, words like God, soul, spirit, proof, evidence, morality, purpose, good, evil, fact, miracle, beauty, heaven, hell, faith and sin are good examples of this. In political discussions, words like fair, justice, freedom, equality and rights are also good examples of this.

I would say the main reason discussions frequently result in needless discord is because we construct our language in a proprietary way in an attempt to make sense of the reality with which we interface – and as such, we are always operating within one particular language game or another, which changes when we change subject. The trouble is, there is no meta-structure from which we can stand back and appraise the language games, because even in appraising a particular language game, we are still operating from within a language game when doing so.

Finally, even more importantly than science, philosophy and politics, marriage is a shared language game between beloveds. Successful relationships often rely on couples developing their own set of shared meanings and language, where they can understand each other more effectively through clear communication. Due to different backgrounds and experiences, what one beloved means by “support,” “honesty”, “listening”, “love,” "commitment,", "happiness or “respect” is likely to differ from another’s interpretation of those terms. These words, and many like them, don’t have fixed meanings – they must be shaped by the couple’s evolving experiences and honest development of mutual understanding.

Imagined Beauty, Real Love

 

An age-old question in philosophy is, “Is beauty in the mind or in the object?” We know that in most cases it is in the mind as a result of what’s in the object – in the eye of the beholder, internally constructed by the first-person state of consciousness. The sounds of great music, the mathematical proportions in classical architecture, the stunning natural sunsets, and so forth, are configurations of physical reality that are reified by the fecundity of our sophisticated cognition.

This leads me to profound questions about the differences between a beautiful fictional character and a beautiful real person. So, consider the following question: Which film or TV character of the opposite sex have you desired most, in a way that simulates a desire for a real person you might know? I don’t know if it’s possible to fall in love with a fictional character. One may fall for the ideal, or acknowledge compelling physical and mental traits in the character that one finds desirable – but whether that’s really just the case of falling for the actress or actor’s portrayal is a complex question. It might not be possible to fall in love with a fictional character like one does a real person one gets to know, on account of the fictional character not being a real person. Perhaps one could be seduced by their qualities so much that one could wish they existed, but I fancy that real love for those who exist is on a different plane to the ersatz love in fiction.

Given the foregoing, if we think about what loving someone is, it’s a complex, multi-faceted response to qualities we value. If we love honesty, or beauty or creativity, and someone has those things, this may induce desire for them, that turns into affection, and then love. So, if all good things come from God, then loving good things is a way that humans love God, even if some of them don’t acknowledge it as love of God. Here’s an example. God is truth. Suppose a man who doesn’t believe in God nevertheless passionately loves the truth, to the extent that he is willing to seek it throughout his life and go wherever it leads him (intellectually, morally, psychologically, philosophically, politically and emotionally). Now, I am certain that such a man would find God eventually – but even before he does find God, you can say that in loving truth he is loving God (at least to some extent).

Perhaps it’s like how a lady who loves wit is really loving intelligence, because of how wit is a fundamental property of intelligence; or how a teacher’s love of perseverance is really a love of determination, because of how perseverance is a fundamental property of determination. Similarly, I can conceive of how an individual’s love for justice offers love towards God’s righteousness; how their love of beauty offers love towards God’s creativity; how their love of compassion offers love towards God’s mercy; how their love of wisdom offers love towards God’s Omniscience; how their love of harmony offers love towards God’s order; and how their love of forgiveness offers love towards God’s grace.

How To Talk About Politics

Jonathan Haidt’s elephant and the rider metaphor develops Hume’s famous “reason is the slave of the passions”, and illustrates the elephant as the powerful, emotion-driven part of the mind, while the rider symbolises rational, controlled thought trying to steer it. However, the elephant often steers the rider, as emotions, instincts, and ingrained beliefs influence our actions and shape our reasoning. While the rider may believe they are in control, they frequently justify decisions the elephant has already made, highlighting how emotional impulses frequently overpower rational thought, particularly in tribal areas where the beliefs of your in-group are what you feel compelled to defend, even if there’s no empirical basis for them.

Consequently, most political commentary we read in newspapers and on social media is a reflection of an individual’s tribal and emotional biases, rather than thoughtful, well-reasoned analysis. Because of which, most political opinions are not really edifying – and I think you’re only likely to offer worthwhile contributions if you can master your elephant as a competent rider and transcend the litany of prosaic in-group discourse. I think the most compelling perspectives are those where the agent has tried to transcend instinctive allegiances, in an attempt to cultivate a clarity that allows meaningful engagement beyond the pull of predictable ‘them vs. us’ tribal partisans.

A Little Note Of Encouragement

 

There is an old maxim that goes 'The longer I live, the less and less I believe in, but the little I believe in, I believe in more and more.' I think that nicely reflects what I feel about so much of the worldly affairs that predominate our news channels, as I try to grow more maturely in my faith. The above maxim is a good algorithmic sentiment about focussing on the most important things in life, where the bigger they become, the smaller the less important things become. If we believe more and more in the important things, and prioritise them, the more trivial things fade into the background.

The stronger my relationship with Christ, the more that strength dwarfs my worldly problems; the more we invest in people who are valuable to us and have our best interests at heart, the less our lives are affected by shallow connections; the more we anchor our hearts in love, the more we reflect the light of Christ in the world; the deeper we grow in gratitude, the less we dwell in negativity and cynicism - that sort of thing.

The more we focus on what truly matters, the better our lives will be, and the clearer our purpose will become. 

Your Individual Vote Won't Affect The Outcome

 

People who think we are compelled to vote in elections use ethical persuasion (namely, civic duty and the value of participation), but they never use mathematical probability, because then they wouldn’t have a good argument. Their thinking is roughly; before an election, without knowing the margin of victory, it’s theoretically possible for any vote to be decisive if the race turns out to be exceptionally close, so you should vote, because all votes count.

But there’s a lot wrong with that reasoning, because all votes do not count in a way that they would need to, to make it worth your while voting. In my constituency, the Norwich North seat was won by a margin of 10,850 votes. That means the chance that a single vote in Norwich North could change that outcome would be one in 10,850. It’s so unlikely for a large lead to be reduced to a margin of just one vote, the probability of an individual vote deciding the outcome here is actually much lower than one in 10,850. In fact, it’s closer to being so rare that it’s practically negligible.

Even more so across the pond - the chance of your vote making any difference to the US Presidential Election result is even smaller.

So, I don’t think we have a civic duty to assent to the value of participation, when the actual value of participation in terms of a probability estimate is close to zero.

Other than that, enjoy the Election. 😅

Further reading that elaborates much more on this subject: 

A Radical Way To Change Politics For The Better

Some Things You May Not Have Considered About The Process Of Voting

Why It's OK Not To Vote

Why You Probably Shouldn't Have Bothered Voting

On Truth, Beauty & Simplicity: Literary Greats

 

In yesterday's Blog post, I explored the relationship between beauty and simplicity in scientific laws – and how, while simplicity offers clarity, beauty often reveals deeper truths by connecting seemingly disparate concepts. We also saw that beauty doesn’t always mean simplicity, as demonstrated by complex systems like general relativity – and that, ultimately, beauty can uncover profound insights that simplicity alone may overlook, further enriching our understanding of reality.

Now I want to examine this theme from the perspective of writers I highly value. Obviously, everything can be as simple or as complex as we choose, but some of the best expressions of literary greatness, in my view, are writers who explored complex subjects with elegant simplicity, and those who, at the other extreme, explored simple subjects with profound but creative and accessible complexity. Both appeal to me for different reasons.

Perhaps my favourite example of the former would be C.S. Lewis, who tackled complex theological and philosophical themes - Christianity, faith, and morality - with the kind of stylish and accessible prose to which all Christian apologists should aspire. His ability to convey intricate spiritual truths in intelligent, modest and relatable works, coupled with wonderful analogies and profound allegorical narratives is, in my view, unmatched. Lewis was invaluable to me when I was an agnostic exploring the Christian faith in the late 1990s.

At the other end of the scale, I love Kierkegaard for the almost opposite reason; he takes ideas - like faith, love, and suffering - and delves into them with beautifully complex, layered prose, and profound multi-dimensional philosophical explorations. Yet at the same time, Kierkegaard’s personal, intimate, existential style makes his works consistently accessible and relatable, which is a delicate balance to achieve.

Similarly, writers like Orwell, Dickens and Austen excel in their accessible handling of complex subjects - like power, poverty, justice, love and social status. By contrast, writers like Proust, Woolf, Camus and Kafka delight in their unpacking surface-level themes with deep insights, multitudinous layers of meaning and profound existential allegories.

And if, in my personal opinion, C.S. Lewis was the best I’ve read at exploring complex subjects with elegant simplicity – I think Dostoevsky is perhaps the best I’ve read at exploring simple subjects with profound but creative and accessible complexity. The way he takes matters like crime, guilt, justice, faith, humility and redemption, and infuses them with the rich layers of philosophical and psychological complexity, are remarkable feats in literary history. Dostoevsky’s use of profound dimensions through his exploration of faith, struggle and, ultimately, human nature offer literary experiences I’d encourage everyone to have at some point in their life.

I don’t necessarily mean these two are the ‘best’ by any objective measure (they have tremendous competition) – but they have touched me in the profoundest ways at pivotal different stages on my journey (especially C.S. Lewis).

It would be lovely to wax lyrical about writers I admire all day long. But ultimately, in summation, the interplay between beauty and simplicity in literature reflects the full range of profundities of human experience itself, just as the scientific laws we explored in the previous post reveal profound truths about nature through their elegant formulations. The literary journey and the scientific methods are invitations to embrace the depth and richness of existence itself. With this dance of words in literature, and this web of investigation in science, we find a deeper understanding of ourselves and the world, reminding us that both beauty and simplicity have their places in the structure and order of truth, enriching our lives in ways that resonate long after we turn the final page of the book.

On Truth, Beauty & Simplicity: Laws of Nature

 

The relationship between beauty and truth has always been fascinating to me, especially when we add in the elegance of algorithmic simplicity. Simplicity in scientific laws often appeals to us for its clarity and efficiency, offering the most straightforward explanation with minimal assumptions. However, beauty in these laws can reveal deeper truths, providing a more profound understanding that transcends mere simplicity. While simplicity seeks the shortest path to an answer, beauty often uncovers hidden connections and symmetries that weave disparate phenomena into a cohesive and elegant framework, offering insights that simplicity alone may overlook.

Aesthetic qualities like symmetry and unity are part of the substrate of the laws of physics - like, say, how Maxwell’s equations elegantly unify electricity and magnetism, or how Einstein’s field equations in general relativity reveal the curvature of spacetime in a remarkably concise and harmonious form. Beauty in scientific theories often manifests in the form of deep connections between seemingly disparate concepts, symmetries, and unifications – like in the aforementioned example of how electricity and magnetism were once considered separate forces, until they were unified by Maxwell’s equations.

Simplicity can push us towards an algorithmic or computationally efficient law, whereas beauty might hint at a more abstract or elegant formulation that unifies multiple phenomena under a single framework that simplicity alone may not capture. For example, the inverse-square law governing both gravitational and electromagnetic forces can aptly be seen as beautiful, especially for its ability to unify distinct forces while reflecting the geometric structure of the universe in a coherent and elegant way. But the beauty might lie more in its generality and symmetry extended across diverse contexts, rather than in mere simplicity. That is to say, a simple law would be algorithmic, and beauty in laws of nature can be apprehended with a kind of elegance that transcends mere simplicity.

Or a conservative force (such as gravitational or electrostatic forces), where the work undertaken is path-independent, can be derived from a potential function, where the relationship between a conservative force and a potential might be seen as expressing beauty (to the beholder) in nature when it ties together concepts in a mathematically elegant way. However, this elegance doesn’t necessarily equate to simplicity. The mathematical elegance of a relationship between force and potential - such as deriving forces from the gradient of a potential - can still involve complex expressions for the potential itself, especially in more intricate or realistic systems. Simplicity might hold for idealised cases (like point masses or charges), but when extended to real-world scenarios, the potential functions often become more elaborate and intractable, even though they remain conceptually beautiful.

There are even cases in nature where the potential function is more difficult to express than the force law itself, such as in the aforementioned gravitational potentials in general relativity (like dealing with the curvature of spacetime), extended mass distributions (like how the Earth’s gravity is distributed across a volume), and continuous charge distributions (like the electric fields in capacitors). 

Maxwell's equations and the conservation laws provide a simpler way to derive and understand complex behaviours in various macroscopic systems – they can perhaps be thought of as beauty uncovering a simpler order, with equations that reveal clear, well-structured laws that govern a wide range of phenomena in everyday life, and an elegant and unified description of electromagnetism, revealing the interconnectedness of electric and magnetic fields in a way that feels intuitive and ordered (although at this level I’d say it’s more an apparent simplicity that masks deeper complexity beyond the intention of this post).

Whereas relativity and quantum mechanics are beautiful in a different way, and can perhaps be thought of as beauty uncovering greater complexity, as they reveal deeper and often counterintuitive layers of reality. Although, of course, on the other hand, constancy of the speed of light and spacetime as a geometric entity also offer elegant simplicities that may beautify our conceptions too. While mathematically complex, Einstein's relativity simplifies the understanding of gravity as curvature in spacetime rather than as a force, which to me is conceptually beautiful. And although quantum mechanics takes us to deep and mysterious places, Schrödinger's equation, wave functions and the uncertainty principle are based on relatively simple mathematical rules of quantum mechanics, which present a kind of beautiful succinctness to the picture. And physics itself is also a spectrum of complexity, which I think is beautiful in its own way too.

Many scientific laws possess a kind of beauty in that they offer the most elegant, coherent, and far-reaching explanations, provoking an aesthetic appreciation as well as an epistemic one. But whereas I think simplicity is attractive in a different way – especially parsimonious models that explain complex phenomena with fewer assumptions or parameters, or even Occam's Razor, which suggests that the simplest explanation is usually the correct one - we often need a sense of elegant rigour to capture more profound truths that only become apparent when we consider the deeper structures and connections in nature, which are often revealed through the beauty of the mathematical relationships governing physical laws.

Perhaps the most enchanting thing about beauty, then, is that it can simultaneously point to a richer, more unified understanding of reality, while at the same time hint at a deeper truth that simplicity alone would fail to capture in its full gravitas.  

Part II tomorrow.

Islam’s Awkward Taboo

Islam is an intriguing religion in terms of its huge number of adherents and its identity in the modern world (and by modern, I mean the past 200 years or so) – in that it has not set up a single successful, thriving society anywhere in the world, in accordance with the majority of values that underpin most modern democracies. The ancient Ottoman and Mughal Empires were vast and influential, but their values fall way short of the freedoms and rights that Western democracies have cultivated over the past centuries. And even modern day Islam has many values and dogmas that are antithetical to liberty, equality, human rights and progression.

Consequently, the inability of Islam to foster a successful, thriving society that embodies these values is something that many Muslims surely must find awkward. The nations where Islam has gained political and theocratic control are usually places where those who value democracy, liberty, freedom, equality of rights, meritocracy, and progression would not wish to live.

I believe that although the situation is complex, and although there are rare places around the world where Muslims have attempted to balance Islamic influences with democratic principles (Malaysia, Indonesia, Turkey and Tunisia spring to mind), there probably is some kind of collective cognitive dissonance between Islam’s claim to being the right religion to follow, and the reality of its failed establishment as a nation with desirable values. It’s highly likely that this cognitive dissonance leads large swathes of Islam to try to establish themselves by sectarian force, oppression, authoritarianism, dogma and anti-Western extremism. 

 

How Science Decodes The Past

 

Sometimes religious fundamentalists question the historical nature of science in areas like evolutionary biology, cosmology and geology - claiming that if observations can't be performed in a lab under straightforward test/refute conditions in the present day then the conclusions cannot be justifiably asserted as fact. They say absurd things like: "The fossil record has too many gaps for evolution to be a valid hypothesis" and "We haven't been around long enough to confirm that the earth is older than 6,000 years."

Not only is this wrong, it misunderstands the nature of science, not just how all correct physical theories lock into one consistent, comprehensive inter-connected body of evidence, but how we do, in fact, make predictions about history by predicting what we'll go on to discover about the past.

I'll give you 3 examples of this - one each based on biology, geology and genetics.

1) Evolutionary biologists repeatedly make predictions about transitional forms between different species in their evolutionary lineage. Then subsequent transitional fossils are unearthed in what is a very sparse historical collection, demonstrating the accuracy of those predictions.

2) As well as being able to observe the shape of continents from on high*, geological evidence from plate tectonics and studies of continental drift strongly support the prediction that continents were once connected as a single landmass, known as Pangaea. Similar rock formations, fossils, and even climatic zones across continents that are now separated give clear indications of this once-united supercontinent. Studying the composition of continental edges, and strata similarity has shown how different continents were once fused.

3) Biologists predicted a common ancestor between humans and other apes, and chromosomal studies later went on to show the prediction was correct when they observed that chromosomes in the great apes fused together at some point in the human lineage (Chromosome 2). Here's how we know this. Chromosomes have characteristics called telomeres (the end part) and centromeres (the central part). If fusion occurred between great apes and humans in the past, then one of the human centromeres would include fused telomeres, demonstrating end to end fusion of two ancestral chromosomes. Geneticists have found that this is precisely the case. The presence of a vestigial centromere (remnants of a second centromere in chromosome 2) and vestigial telomeres (remnant telomere sequences in the middle of the chromosome) give present day evidence of ancestral ape chromosomes that fused to give rise to the human chromosome - evidence that can be tested in a lab right before our eyes, and evidence that demonstrates that there is common ancestry between humans and other apes.

(Number 3, by the way, is one of the all time great discoveries - and incidentally one of the many pieces of genetic evidence that nailed the final coffin in creationists’ attempt to deny common ancestry).

One cannot help note with some amusement that, when it suits them, religious fundamentalists employ precisely the same scientific methods as above and steadfastly champion that method when it suits them. For example, they are quite supportive of the science of gravity, electromagnetism and thermodynamics when they are driving their car or enjoying household goods and services that were manufactured using those essential scientific tools.

Even in their reading of scripture they employ the methods they sometimes like to conveniently disparage. For example, in the field of philology, papryologists continued to predict that if any ancient scrolls were found, the discovery would show that books like the Old Testament book of Isaiah will be shown to have been copied faithful to the original. When The Dead Sea Scrolls were found, they contained the oldest extant copy of Isaiah, which showed a strong likeness, with only minor variations typical of ancient manuscript transmission.

The upshot is, historical science is able to inform us about the past, as well as engendering predictions, and it does this precisely because history (to us) isn't a static passage of time that stays unchanged – it is a dynamic story to which we are continually adding our own fuller picture by learning new things and finding further pieces of the conceptual jigsaw. 

* For example, look at an atlas and observe how neatly the eastern coast of South America fits into the western coast of Africa and how the eastern coast of North America fits against the western coastline of Europe.

Flat Tax Is Almost Certainly The More Progressive Tax

I have sympathy with arguments for flat tax rates and for progressive tax rates, but I think the best arguments against progressive tax rates are the declining marginal utility of government spending, and the associated poor allocation of resources. Progressive taxation feeds on the desire to tax individuals more responsibility, where those that have more, put more back into society. Just as we’d ask a man in a desert with ten thousand water bottles to give more water to thirsty people than a man with five. 

The idea being, if a proportionate sum of money has far less marginal value to super rich George, and more to others where it can do more societal good, then there is a reasonable call for George to wish to be able to contribute to wider societal needs. It’s not difficult to demonstrate a utility function with declining marginal utility for which the utility of the higher parts of someone’s income provides less utility, and taxation provides higher overall utility. But only up to a point. When you have a case, as you do in the UK, where declining marginal utility of government spending comes into play, and additional taxation leads to misallocation, waste, bureaucratic overhead, and spending on things that most citizens do not want, any theoretical gains from redistribution are eroded by poor execution in practice. 

So while the logarithmic utility function captures this idea of diminishing marginal utility - that the more you earn, the less each extra pound matters in terms of increasing utility – a tax system that tries to ensure that, after taxes, the marginal utility is more equal for everyone, is likely to be better under a flat tax system if the private allocation of resources has much more utility for the poorest than the public allocation.

Ten Ways God’s Creation Might Have Been Different

Atheist Richard Carrier wrote a provocative piece entitled Ten Ways The World Would Be Different If God Existed (which I’d encourage you to read). I should think most Christians would spot the primary issue running through the whole piece: that it really amounts to Richard Carrier subjecting God’s existence to a probability estimate, and concluding:

P) The world isn’t what I’d expect it to be like if God exists.
C) Therefore, God probably doesn’t exist.

Now, to be fair to Richard on two counts; 1) Subjecting God’s existence to a probability estimate is a quite natural and necessary thing to do – so there’s nothing inherently wrong with that approach, if it is undertaken with humility, and as long as it is understood that the probability of God can't be answered quantitively like we do with probability theory, where the probability of x is the ratio of cases favourable to x to all possible cases (although both of which are sorely lacking in Richard Carrier’s work). And 2), Even we Christians can all look at the world and ask ourselves why the world is this way instead of that way, and why it isn’t significantly better than it is, given God’s omnipotence, omniscience and omni-benevolence.

But even brief exposure to Richard’s work shows that he does not have much humility when considering the Christian faith, he has a weak understanding of probability theory, and he habitually begins with a desire to create arguments that back up his already existent position that God does not exist and that Christianity is not the true path to knowing God. It doesn’t seem to have crossed his mind that his “The world isn’t what I’d expect it to be like if God exists” is a bad argument for God’s probable non-existence, is riddled with hubris, and is blind to the realisation that the main reason that is probably the case is that God has ways and power and intellect that are far above and beyond Richard Carrier’s grasp.

For all of Carrier’s audacious mental contortions, with which he looks to explain why his interpretation of created reality is superior to God’s, he seems to have missed the most obvious truth about the Christian God; that our Lord is so much higher and better than Richard Carrier that a universe created by such a God is one in which we should expect a vast epistemological gulf between Creator and created, even if we are created in His image, and endowed with astounding cognitive fecundity relative to the rest of creation. What should be the most obvious starting point, and the one that drives the appropriate epistemic humility necessary for such a consideration, is the one to which Richard Carrier has given the least amount of consideration – and by least, I mean next to zero. It’s a bit like beginning an exploration into marriage and giving no consideration at all to the nature of love.

My book on God’s genius presents a very different perspective on creation to the one Richard Carrier offers, so I won’t say any more about his Ten Ways in this post. But as a Christian who knows God exists, there are still plenty of ‘What if?’ elements to creation that are puzzling to Christians, so I thought I’d consider some of the more prominent ones in a piece I’ve entitled 10 Ways God’s Creation Might Have Been Different.

 1~ God might have created a world with far less natural suffering in it, and over a far shorter duration.
It does surprise me quite how much suffering there is in the world, especially in the animal kingdom, and for how long it has endured. The earth has been subjected to hundreds of millions of years of ‘red in tooth and claw’ evolution, replete with animal pain, injury, starvation and death - most of which has been going on for millions of years before humans even existed, and even longer before God made Himself directly known to creation through the scriptures in an ancient part of the Middle East. It does seem an excessive amount of precursory suffering in the build up to the creation story revealed in scripture.

2~ God might have made His presence and accessibility much more obvious than He has.
Let me say, I believe that there is more than enough evidence available for any who want to know God and have a relationship with Him, through Christ and the Holy Spirit. But there’s no question that for many people, they feel it is harder to be convinced of God’s existence than they might expect it to be – and that for a loving God who wants a relationship with us, He could have created a world in which He does more to facilitate thart. A development of this idea was made famous by philosopher John Schellenberg, with his ‘divine hiddenness’ problem – in which he asks why God's existence is not more evident or obvious, particularly to those who seek God sincerely but fail to find convincing evidence of His presence.

3~ God might have made Christians somewhat more outstanding than they are.
I get that we are all imperfect, flawed, fallen, and that we Christians are all a work in progress. I also get that a typical church has all kinds of people with different backgrounds and experiences, who are on different stages of their journey. But it could be seen as peculiar that people who have a direct relationship with God, the Creator of the universe, are not more tangibly different than those who do not. I’m not saying there is no difference at all – but when a typical atheist or agnostic sees some of the absurd things that Christians believe, the strange behaviour, the half-hearted commitment to full truthseeking, the in-house squabbling, and the consistent inability to grow and progress with the passion and grace that one could expect, it’s conceivable that God might have created alternative conditions under which becoming a Christian has an even more radically, almost superhuman, enhancing effect on believers’ lives that most other people are hungry to have what they have.

4~ God could have created a reality in which all creatures, including us, began in some kind of blissful state, and things just kept getting even more blissful.
Now, ok, I can conceive of most of the benefits of living in an imperfect world, and the exhilaration of a ‘work in progress’ creation story like the one we live in. But God might have created a world without sin, fallenness, and where life is just blissful, yet with enough potential further bliss to keep being more and enhanced through His supreme power. I don’t really know to what extent such a world would even be possible, but I’m sure we can imagine the idea of a world that could be a lot better than this one, but still compelling enough to contain healthy degrees of freedom, growth and development.

 5~ God might have allowed a creation story without the need for hell, or where everyone is saved in the end.
Perhaps an alternative creation story without hell was a possibility. And some Christians do believe in hell but believe that all will eventually come to see the error of their ways, and eventually get to spend eternity in God’s presence. I trust God knows what He’s doing in that regard, and that His outcomes will be just and merciful – but perhaps it’s possible to at least consider a creation story without hell (either on earth, or as a final state of being) – especially as God created all the initial conditions in which the cosmic story brought about people who had the capacity to end up in hell.

6~ God could have created a world in which physical pain sensations weren’t quite so severe.
I get why we need pain fibres and sensitivity to physical pain to guard against further damage to our bodies. But it seems that God could have created pain sensations that weren’t quite so excruciating. You know the feeling you get when you’re holding fairly hot cup, and you know that within the next 5 seconds you’re going to have to put it down otherwise it will really burn – perhaps He could have created an upper limit on physical pain whereby it hurts enough but not as much as it does when it’s excruciating.

7~ God could have made scripture even more unmistakably and unambiguously His word.
God could have imparted information about physical reality that only God could know to the writers of the Old and New Testaments. If the Bible had information in it that would be impossible for ancient civilisations to have known without Divine revelation, then people would be more reluctant to claim that God has provided no proof for His existence.

Summary and conclusion
Let’s be clear; on balance, there is more than enough evidence for anyone seeking to know God to find Him. And while the seven points above are little more than flawed thought experiments from a mind unable to fathom more than a hint of God’s splendour and majesty, I must say, having written a book about God’s genius in creation, and having spent years in a relationship with Him, I have faith, trust and confidence in His choice of creation story, His Divine plan, and His perfect knowledge of what He is doing. I believe that an honest and sincere enquiry will reveal that God has made His presence as accessible as we need. As I advised a friend recently; keep seeking the truth about every proposition in the world, prioritise love, and follow where it leads, and you will find God.