Saturday 20 February 2010
Saturday 6 February 2010
Friday 5 February 2010
Popculture and the new religions
I went into a book shop, something I do a lot, and found myself wondering about the gap between pop culture and academic life. Unless the shop is particularly huge, I rarely find a book which is actual history, actual psychology or actual science. The reason may be that the true concepts behind the disciplines are far too complex for the uninitiated to grasp and in the case of science this is certainly true.
The likes of Brian Cox and Stephen Hawkins write stunning books, beautiful in their description of unfathomably complex terminology, free of equations. A physicist would argue that you cannot translate the language of Physics, Maths, into English and expect people to truly understand it and this is true however, there are some excellent books that stick to the evidence and give us a glimpse of that amazing scientific world out there.
The same could be said of psychology, very complex and hard to understand so the language used in pop psychology books is a simplification for those without the time for 3 years of study to understand the principles. History too, perhaps people don’t want to read the statistics, the source analysis and the historiography that lies behind the history itself, they just want a good, interesting, narrative.
The problem is this; the dark side of pop culture.
In amongst the Hawkings and Dawkings, the Dennett and Cox, sit other, more popular science books. Rubbish like “The Genesis Enigma”, where Dr. Andrew Parker tries to shoehorn Evolution into Genesis 1:1-1:19. Awful pseudo scientific nonsense like “The Edge of Evolution” by intellectual pornographer Michael Behe, whose Intelligent Design arguments are, at best, laughable and at worst, dangerous. Mr Behe and other creationists: please go and stand in the corner with the Flat-Earther’s and Earth Centralists, the argument is over, you have lost.
In the Psychology camp we have “The 7 habits of successful people” and similar classics, to vloumous to mention. Of course, success is that simple, it has nothing to do with luck, timing and connections at all. The pop-psychology books and parapsychology rubbish go on for miles in most book shops; genuine interesting psychology like Malcolm Gladwell’s “blink” do occasionally crop up, but rarely.
As for history, pseudo-historic conspiracy rubbish is all the rage. Aliens built this, atlantis did that. Lizards rule, freemasons planning the new world order. The story of Jesus was a copy (it was embellished but not copied) of Horus and Moses was from Alpha Centauri, not Hyksos.
Listen very carefully I will say this only once. If ANY historian found ANY genuine evidence for ANY of that stuff, they would not be ‘held down by the conspiracy’. They would shout it from the rooftops! It would make them famous, make them rich, make them the Einstein of history and basically, that is what all of them dream about. Every historian on the planet would want a piece of the action and start studying the exact same thing. It would not be pushed down; it would not be ‘covered up’. It would be big, very big, news.
So why do people want this drivel? Well, because they want the world to be more than it is. The lack of Gods, fairies and monsters in post-Enlightenment times seems to have driven people to find new superstitions, no matter how farfetched. Then, they enter a new circular belief and their new imaginary world and accept nothing else. I really don’t understand it at all.
I think the universe we live in is more than enough. It is amazing, breathtaking, stunning. Read some Sagan- “we are made from star stuff, a way of the universe to know itself”- if you want spirituality. Read Hawkings describe the event horizon if you want to be amazed, buy Richard Dawkins’ “Greatest show on Earth” and see the amazing chaos led act that is natural selection in all its glory.
There must be more than this? How much more do you want!
mrgodbehere
The likes of Brian Cox and Stephen Hawkins write stunning books, beautiful in their description of unfathomably complex terminology, free of equations. A physicist would argue that you cannot translate the language of Physics, Maths, into English and expect people to truly understand it and this is true however, there are some excellent books that stick to the evidence and give us a glimpse of that amazing scientific world out there.
The same could be said of psychology, very complex and hard to understand so the language used in pop psychology books is a simplification for those without the time for 3 years of study to understand the principles. History too, perhaps people don’t want to read the statistics, the source analysis and the historiography that lies behind the history itself, they just want a good, interesting, narrative.
The problem is this; the dark side of pop culture.
In amongst the Hawkings and Dawkings, the Dennett and Cox, sit other, more popular science books. Rubbish like “The Genesis Enigma”, where Dr. Andrew Parker tries to shoehorn Evolution into Genesis 1:1-1:19. Awful pseudo scientific nonsense like “The Edge of Evolution” by intellectual pornographer Michael Behe, whose Intelligent Design arguments are, at best, laughable and at worst, dangerous. Mr Behe and other creationists: please go and stand in the corner with the Flat-Earther’s and Earth Centralists, the argument is over, you have lost.
In the Psychology camp we have “The 7 habits of successful people” and similar classics, to vloumous to mention. Of course, success is that simple, it has nothing to do with luck, timing and connections at all. The pop-psychology books and parapsychology rubbish go on for miles in most book shops; genuine interesting psychology like Malcolm Gladwell’s “blink” do occasionally crop up, but rarely.
As for history, pseudo-historic conspiracy rubbish is all the rage. Aliens built this, atlantis did that. Lizards rule, freemasons planning the new world order. The story of Jesus was a copy (it was embellished but not copied) of Horus and Moses was from Alpha Centauri, not Hyksos.
Listen very carefully I will say this only once. If ANY historian found ANY genuine evidence for ANY of that stuff, they would not be ‘held down by the conspiracy’. They would shout it from the rooftops! It would make them famous, make them rich, make them the Einstein of history and basically, that is what all of them dream about. Every historian on the planet would want a piece of the action and start studying the exact same thing. It would not be pushed down; it would not be ‘covered up’. It would be big, very big, news.
So why do people want this drivel? Well, because they want the world to be more than it is. The lack of Gods, fairies and monsters in post-Enlightenment times seems to have driven people to find new superstitions, no matter how farfetched. Then, they enter a new circular belief and their new imaginary world and accept nothing else. I really don’t understand it at all.
I think the universe we live in is more than enough. It is amazing, breathtaking, stunning. Read some Sagan- “we are made from star stuff, a way of the universe to know itself”- if you want spirituality. Read Hawkings describe the event horizon if you want to be amazed, buy Richard Dawkins’ “Greatest show on Earth” and see the amazing chaos led act that is natural selection in all its glory.
There must be more than this? How much more do you want!
mrgodbehere
Monday 1 February 2010
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