Yep, people were getting smarter until the boomers came along – hey, there is no arguing with science, and if UPI says a study says so, it must be true. And while the study applies to cognitive function over 50, let’s face it the parents of the boomers were always sharper, grittier, and nicer than boomers (yes, technically I’m one, but just barely). They had to be – they grew up in the depression, went off and won WWII, came back and made America the most prosperous country on earth (probably the solar system, maybe the galaxy, possibly the universe). According to science -or at least some associate professor of sociology so my trust level is sky high – fat, dumb ,and drunk is no way to go through life. OK, the dean said that, and it’s a great proverb that should be stenciled in every nursery, but it mostly applies as boomers are fatter, dumber, and more depressed than previous generations. Tough times make you lean, smart, and happy when they are over, or so I’ve been told. Maybe by science.
Archive for category Science
Boomers Go Backwards Again
Nov 18
Apparently Sam was right, the fundamental things still apply as time goes by. The importance of diet and exercise doesn’t get less if you are well or if you are sick. Who knew?
Finally some science we can all get behind.
Masquerade
Jul 13
There is a chart that’s been floating around the inter webs for a while now that purports to show the effect of masks on coronavirus spread. Let’s just say it’s more full of shaving cream than a 10 pound can of Barbasol. Rather than delve into the chart, let me provide my thinking (right, wrong, or indifferent) about maskology.
Let’s start with how you get infected. You have an infected person who is emitting viruses. You have an uninfected person who is taking the viruses in. If you don’t interact with an infected person, you can’t get infected (I include encountering their viruses later on a surface and then taking that in somehow as part of interacting, but since this is about masks and CDC says (and let’s hope their right about something for a change!) surface contact is an unlikely infection route we will ignore it).
So rule number one is limit your interactions with other people, and one A is don’t touch your face until after you wash or otherwise disinfect your hands.
But let’s say you do interact with an infected person. You have to take in a certain threshold of viruses before you are likely to become infected, so you can think of it as ignorable risk until you hit a certain number, then your risk rapidly climbs as you take in more, and then it reaches you’re pretty much going to get infected after this number – a big S curve of risk versus viral load (number of viruses you take in). And you know what – the value where the risk starts to climb, where it hits 50%, and then becomes virtually certain is going to vary somewhat by person. But for the sake of this thought process we’re just going to say when you hit a certain viral load you’re infected.
How much virus that person emits depends on what they are doing – just breathing, talking, sneezing, coughing, singing, talking loudly and excitedly, etc. And again, it’s going to vary from person to person based on how infected they are, what stage of their illness they are in, and probably another half dozen things that we are, you guessed, going to ignore other than people emit the virus at different rates.
So you have an infected person, not wearing a mask, they emit virus at a rate such that at the geometry (i.e. distance, relative positions, direction of emitting and taking in) the uninfected person will receive an infectious viral load in 10 minutes. So if you interact with that infected person for 10 minutes you become infected. For you advanced thinkers out there, we’ll pick the leading edge of the rise in probability so we can say you can stand there for 10 minutes before you start up the rise in infection so you’re safe as houses until that 10 minute mark.
Now let’s add a mask. The infected person puts on a typical cotton mask. This reduces the number of viruses that reach the uninfected person – but by how much? And that’s where the evidence get’s thin. So I’m going to pick a reasonably conservative number that also happens to make the math work out easier, and say that the mask decreases the viral load per minute by 30% – so 70% makes it through. I know, I know, if you blow particles through the material you may well come up with a higher value, but given fit, variation etc. etc. I’m picking a value that is for illustration purposes only since we don’t know the real value and it probably will vary with how well it fits, the actual material, if you wear it below you nose like some people do, etc. etc. So that means that means you need 1/0.7 longer to reach the infectious threshold so I’ll do the math for you that means 1.4286 times longer or about 14 minutes, 17 seconds instead of 10 minutes.
Now let’s add another mask. The uninfected person puts on a typical cotton mask. I’m one of those weirdo’s who thinks that to a first order if a mask stops virus from leaving at a certain rate it stops it entering at the same rate, so we will pick the same 30% reduction. That means that 49% of the virus gets through (70% times 70%) which I’m going to round to 50% to make the math easier. Which means you have twice as long, 20 minutes instead of 10, before the viral load reaches the infection point. So I think that instead of saying a mask cuts your risk by x% it’s better to think it takes longer, probably significantly longer to reach the same risk level as without a mask.
That’s how I see masks working. They allow you to interact longer with infected people before becoming infected yourself.
What does that mean in practice? Here’s an example. Let’s say you go to get your hair cut. Amy and Betty are both infected (so, yeah, a true story except for the names), and both take 10 minutes of close interaction to complete a haircut. And the rules are both you and the stylist are masked. When I get my haircut, the stylist is above and right behind breathing over the top of me, so the geometry is not good. Let’s say Amy, for whatever reason, emits enough virus that without masks you are infected in 6 minutes. So with masks, it will take 12 minutes. You only interact for 10, so you and everyone else whose hair she cuts are not infected. Man, masks are wonderful!
Betty, for the sake of comparison, emits emits 50 percent more virus – maybe she’s a non-stop talker, maybe she’s a loud talker, maybe she’s in poor shape and breathes heavily, maybe all three, who knows – enough virus that without masks she infects others in 4 minutes. So with masks, it will take 8 minutes. You interact for 10, so she infects everybody whose hair she cut that day. Man, masks are worthless!
So tell me, what is the effectiveness of masks if someone did a study? If Amy and Betty work at the same salon and were infected the same day, you would be tempted to say 50% since half of the people who got their haircut that day were infected and everybody wore masks. If Amy and Betty worked at different salons and were sick at different times, you would likely see one study that said masks are 100% effective and another that said they had no effect – and all of us would go see, I’ll keep right on believing what I want to believe because SCIENCE!
I will mention that there is some evidence and a lot of feeling that viral load affects how sick you do get with COVID, which is a very variable disease in its severity, so even Betty’s clients may see benefit from wearing a mask because even though they still were infected, they might not get as sick as they would have if they didn’t wear a mask.
Masks are one more layer of protection that ultimately can be overcome, so wear them but don’t rely on them.
And if you see a graphic that says if both people wear a mask you only have a 1.5% chance of infection, remember it’s full of shaving cream. You stay close enough to an infected person long enough, you’ll get infected too even if you both wear masks (unless you’re both wearing N95s in which case it would take literally days).
For really super advanced people, let’s talk N95 masks which in theory are guaranteed to only let in 5% of tiny particles, so you would have 20 times longer – so if it takes 10 minutes without masks, just you wearing an N95 would give you 200 minutes before starting to run the risk of infection. And I’ve read that they let in more like 3%, so you have 33 times longer. And N99 masks – well, you get 100 times longer. That’s right, an N99 is not 4% better than an N95, it’s 5 times better. When you compare masks, you need to compare what they let thru, not what they stop.
I’d like to highlight a huge revision from the CDC (https://www.cdc.gov/coronavir…/…/hcp/planning-scenarios.html) to the USA case fatality ratio for COVID 19 to current estimate of 0.4% overall for symptomatic cases. Not 3.4% which was the WHO’s value from China and what we started the pandemic with. But that number hides just how significantly it changes with age. The value for people under 50 is 0.05 percent, and when you take into account that CDC estimates that 35 percent of cases are asymptomatic, you get a infection fatality rate of 0.0325% for people under 50, and if you factor in the effects of pre-existing conditions and the likelihood that younger people have a higher asymptomatic rate than older people, it’s probably less. If you are under 50 without any COVID preexisting conditions, you’re chance of dying isn’t one in a million but it is getting surprisingly close – heck, if you’re under 25 it may actually be better.
But let’s compare that to the flu, and we will leave it at the 0.03%. Looking up values for last seasons flu numbers which CDC estimates led to 60,000 deaths in the US (and let me say it’s a very loose estimate- all values from: https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/2017-2018.htm) for the 18-49 year age bracket we have estimates of 2,803 deaths from 14,428,065 illnesses or 0.02% death rate for that age group, which is 50% higher but sure looks pretty similar especially as they are both estimates. So for the under 50 crowd COVID19 looks like a bad flu. And does anyone remember any lament in the spring of 2018 that the flu season that year had killed more Americans than the Vietnam war?
For the over 65 crowd, you have a 0.86% for the flu in 2017-2018, the number is 1.3% for symptomatic which I’m not going to adjust because at that age I’m not sure how many cases are asymptomatic which again leads to about a 50% higher death rate but at those values doesn’t look too similar. And since the over 65 crowd is estimated to have suffered 51,000 deaths out of the estimated 61,000 that season, you can see how the seniors not only drive the flu numbers but drive the COVID numbers even more.
Did you know that if you are under 50 your chance of dying from an accident as you go about your daily life is higher than of dying from COVID if you catch it?
If you’re really feeling cheery, dive into the Deaths and Mortality (2017 is the latest) statistics with me (https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/deaths.htm) where you can see that at 100,000 deaths COVID has passed up flu/pneumonia (55,700 deaths) and diabetes (83,500) – although since diabetes is considered one of those death enhancing preconditions for COVID, which one gets credit if someone dies with both diabetes and COVID – and is closing in on Alzheimers (121,400). Then comes stroke (146,300), chronic lower respiratory disease (160,200 – and same question as diabetes), accidents (169,900) and then the two biggies – cancer (599,100) and heart disease (647,500). I’m hoping COVID doesn’t make it past Alzheimers. When you add it all up, the average death rate for all causes for all Americans in 2018 was 0.87%.
So while on the one hand it’s kind of amazing that COVID can come out of nowhere and become the seventh leading cause of death in roughly 3 months, on the other hand all those others kill people year in and year out without much fanfare from the media or concern on our part.
All the politicians and bureaucrats who are making the rules we live by these days always invoke science and data as the ultimate arbiter for all the rules. You would be hard pressed to find a bigger fan of science and data than me, and less of a fan of politicians and bureaucrats. So now that CDC says transmission is primarily through respiratory droplets and not surfaces, how important is it to wash our hands? (Full disclosure, I still wash my hands for 20 seconds after returning home). What’s the science and data on the effect of masks? I think it’s accurate to say not clear and copious. (Full disclosure, I wear a mask when indoors and around others.) And how about the magic 6 foot rule? Yeah, not a lot there either, and if you’re indoors and down fan from a sick person 6 foot isn’t enough. In most of Europe, it’s 2 meters except Nordic countries where their yardstick is 1 meter. (Full disclosure, I still try to keep my distance from others, especially indoors). I think they are all good guidelines, I’m not sure how scientific (as opposed to commonsense) they are.
First data analysis showed no correlation between lockdown timing and cases by state. Now data analysis shows by and large declining transmission after state reopenings. And not just in the US, but in Europe as well. And then comes along video from Memorial Day weekend that showed people violating all the rules. So once again I’m asking we stop focusing exclusively on something and pull back and take a systems look. Quit focusing on the edicts and look at people’s behavior, in its full spectrum. Governors etc. have pretty good control over government actions, but much less over citizens behavior. The better they understood that, the more they would try to persuade and provide data and keep current, as opposed to the current approach of rules, rules, rules that can’t help but be arbitrary whereupon you lose compliance. What do you see in those videos at the Lake of the Ozarks? Big signs saying stay 6 feet apart. So how are those rules and edicts working out for you?
And the news media is not helpful, as ever since they pivoted to coronavirus is not going to happen here to a non-stop unchanging if one solitary virus so much as touches you, you’re dead. So one half of the country is too terrified to take in new data and the other half has decided since they are still alive the virus must be gone.
And as the data has rolled in, the picture is changing. For instance, this virus is a lot less deadly than first thought (see https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/hcp/planning-scenarios.html) with an overall infection fatality rate of 0.26%, not the original 3.4% WHO reported. And the death rate is strongly correlated with age – CDC says 0.003% if under 50 (bad flu territory), and 0.845% (or higher) if over 65. When you look at the death statistics, basically the older you are the more likely you are to die. Keep in mind, these are all estimates in part because there is fuzz on both number of infections and number of deaths. I did find it interesting that when looking at the length of time in hospital, non-ICU and ICU, time on ventilator, percent that are admitted to ICU and that go on ventilation there is not a lot of variation between age groups. So other than raw numbers, the disease looks pretty much the same to healthcare workers regardless of patient age.
The data on children is very encouraging, as it appears those under 25 don’t contract the disease as much, don’t transmit the disease as much, and have milder cases that result in death only with an underlying condition. As much as it pains me, for once not only do they feel invincible, they kind of are.
So why are we not adjusting? Shouldn’t we be less fanatic about sanitizing everything? Shouldn’t we be reopening schools, playgrounds, daycares, summer camps, etc. because the only thing you have to do to keep it safe is keep the over 25 crowd away. Pools are safe, how many of them are open?
Hospitals have been just crushed by the lockdowns. We issued suspension edicts because of our fear that there wouldn’t be room for all the COVID patients who never materialized, so why are we not going full open on all healthcare immediately? Why can’t we trust hospitals, clinics, practices, etc. to manage their own affairs to take care of all the normal issues while keeping enough space, PPE, etc to cover coronavirus cases safely? It’s one more ball in a hundred ball juggle and why we think governors are able to make a positive contribution is beyond me.
Why is the media not shouting these new numbers from the rooftops?
Why are we not letting everybody manage their own safety based on their own risk factors? Government’s default setting is one size fits all – if the government managed clothing we’d all be wearing muumuu’s. The only way to make someone responsible is give them responsibility.
And given how less deadly the disease is for people of working age (i.e. not significantly different than flu), and how much deadlier the disease is for older and those with certain underlying conditions, and extremely so for those in group care settings (AKA nursing homes) where at least 40% of Americans (out of 1.8% of the population) have died from COVID, we should really think about how to protect those who are at elevated risk without causing significant disruption, and increased death rates for those who aren’t.
PS I would add a couple of health guidelines, not just for COVID but life in general, take vitamin D and get regular exercise
Here’s something you don’t see everyday: The shadow of a contrail on the clouds below. What an amazing world we live in!
I have published another peer-reviewed article on the Hebrew Exodus from Egypt and Moses crossing the Red Sea. The citation is:
Drews, Carl, Examining Exodus 14 with the Geosciences (2015). Near East Archaeological Society Bulletin (NEASB) Volume 60, pages: 1-15.
Here is the Abstract:
There are similarities between the physical details described in the Exodus 14 narrative of the parting of the Red Sea, and a wind setdown event in the eastern Nile delta. This publication takes the ocean model results reported by Drews and Han in 2010 and places them in a biblical, archaeological, and historical context. Certain biblical and archaeological research also supports a crossing at the Kedua Gap or possibly at Tell Abu Sefeh. The proposed locations are within 10 km of a place identified as Migdol by several biblical scholars. Four possible crossing sites are evaluated with respect to the biblical text, and what they might imply for the route of a Hebrew exodus from Egypt during the New Kingdom period. The scientific plausibility of the ancient account suggests that Exodus 14 preserves the memory of an actual historical event.
Detail of Figure 3, showing the approaches to the four crossing sites. Drews, Carl, Examining Exodus 14 with the Geosciences (2015). Near East Archaeological Society Bulletin (NEASB) Volume 60, pages: 1-15.
A few important conclusions:
- Exodus 14 holds up well under modern scientific examination.
- The meteorological details given in the text are supported by ocean models and observations of similar events that have occurred in modern times.
- Analysis of the current flow and grain size within the Kedua Gap reveals that Moses and the Israelites would have been walking across coarse sand instead of wallowing in deep mud.
- The biblical narrative requires knowledge of Egyptian topography and meteorology that would be difficult to acquire without spending decades in that country.
- The historical interplay between the narrative in Exodus 14 and the “Song of the Sea” in Exodus 15 may be resolved by distinguishing between the ancient content present in both chapters, and the archaic language of Exodus 15.
To obtain a copy of the paper, please contact the Near East Archaeological Society.
Yet another atheist blogger has come upon the book “The Bible Unearthed” (Israel Finkelstein and Neil Silberman, 2001) and swallowed it (almost!) wholesale. Chris Hallquist posted Pulling some devastating punches: a review of The Bible Unearthed at Patheos.org on October 22, 2012. He admits that he has not verified the book’s thesis, “But if they are right, it’s just devastating to all the Abrahamic religions.”
Hallquist summarizes the hypothesis of Finkelstein and Silberman, that the majority of Genesis through 2 Kings is the product of seventh century authors working for King Josiah during the final 13 years of his reign (ending in 609 BC). That is an accurate summary of the Josiah Hypothesis, but then Hallquist makes this outlandish claim:
Ahistoricity is the verdict for every Biblical story up until David and Solomon.
Nope! Finkelstein and Silberman don’t say that. What F&S do say, with a lot of hedging and weasel words, is that the Josiah corpus was based on earlier material, and was skilfully woven together from earlier sources (pages 23, 33, 69-70, 284). The Bible Unearthed does not claim that the Exodus never happened, for example. (Between Migdol and the Sea, page 220)
Tel Dan Stele, referring to the House of David. Wikimedia Commons, by yoav dothan.
Chris Hallquist repeats the common error of concluding that if current archaeology cannot find direct evidence for the “supposed activities” of David and Solomon, then those activities of the United Monarchy never happened. This same error is prevalent in Wikipedia articles about the Exodus. Hallquist also thinks that most people have never heard of King Josiah, the famous reformer who found the long-lost Book of the Law in the Temple and tore his clothes.
The punches are really not so devastating
“The Bible Unearthed” is about as devastating to Abrahamic religions as the creationist claims of Answers in Genesis are devastating to Darwin’s theory of evolution: not at all. And here’s why: Many of us who adhere to one of the Abrahamic religions have learned the skills of critical thinking. More specifically, when we hear a series of claims we investigate what the other side has to say. (Acts 15:1-35) Here are two detailed rebuttals to The Bible Unearthed:
- On the Reliability of the Old Testament, by Kenneth Kitchen (2003), pages 464-468. The alleged anachronisms are no such thing, and the date markers for the Exodus point to the reign of Rameses II (1279 – 1213 BC).
- Between Migdol and the Sea: Crossing the Red Sea with Faith and Science, by Carl Drews (that’s me) (2014), Chapter 9 Confronting the Minimalists. The Josiah Hypothesis of Finkelstein and Silberman simply makes too many wrong predictions, doesn’t explain the evidence, and would be discarded under the Scientific Method.
The most interesting part of Chris Hallquist’s post comes at the end, where he discusses the Epilogue of The Bible Unearthed. Hallquist is struck by the dissonance between using the biblical saga of liberation (alleged by F&S) as an excuse to “invade your neighbors up north” and de-liberate them. He says:
As I read this stuff, I’m thinking, “did they forget what they just spent most of this book arguing? You know, the stuff about a lot of the Bible being royal propaganda? For a king who wanted to expand his empire through conquest? I dunno, maybe they think the desire to invade your neighbors up north and make them be part of your kingdom is a deep human need which makes perfect sense to include alongside the desire to be free from oppression, but otherwise I have no idea. I don’t know what else to say about this; it’s just really, really weird on the face of it.
Testing the Josiah Hypothesis
Scientists test hypotheses by experimentation, by pushing the implications of their hypothesis to its logical conclusions and seeing if any contradictions arise. If the earth is flat, then it must have an edge all around; nobody has ever found such a thing, so the earth must not be flat. If the Old Testament expresses “timeless themes of a people’s liberation,” then King Josiah would be an idiot to order its creation as propaganda for his planned wars of conquest. If the purpose behind the Deuteronomistic history is to glorify the United Monarchy, then why do Kings David and Solomon have so many obvious flaws? Why is David an adulterer and a murderer, and why does Solomon marry so many foreign wives? (1 Kings 11:1-8) Why does the genealogy of Judahite Kings pass through the messy episode of Judah and Tamar? (Genesis 38) Yes, it is really weird.
The logical conclusion does not seem to have occurred to Chris Hallquist: The Josiah Hypothesis is wrong. The hypothesis is testable, and it fails those tests. Finkelstein and Silberman’s book The Bible Unearthed is fatally flawed. The Old Testament is not a fabricated history dreamed up by creative scribes to justify some national war of liberation. Instead, the Old Testament is an authentic record of the Hebrew people who described events from their own point of view, valued their history, refused to worship their ancestors, and saw the hand of their God in bringing them through many struggles. Archaeology cannot verify all the details of that narrative, but archaeology’s limitations do not mean that those events never happened.
That’s why I say that Chris Hallquist almost swallowed the book wholesale. He was on the right track, realizing that The Bible Unearthed has some major logical flaws in its thesis. Yes, Chris, you were not the only one who recognized that dissonance. You may not like the answer, but those are the results. The Josiah Hypothesis fails the scientific method.
A blogger named Hemant Mehta writes a column at patheos.com which he calls “Friendly Atheist.” On June 18, 2015 he wrote about a scientific article published in the journal Public Understanding of Science by Christopher P. Scheitle of West Virginia University, and Elaine Howard Ecklund of Rice University. The original article is:
The blog at Friendly Atheist is titled “New Research on the Science vs. Religion Debate Looks at the Effectiveness of Different Science Popularizers” (June 18, 2015)
Dr. Francis Collins
The atheist blogger does not like the scientific results of the study, which find that Christian scientist Francis Collins is more effective at persuading people that religion and science are compatible, than New Atheist scientist Richard Dawkins is at persuading people that religion and science must be in opposition to each other. But what caught my attention here is how this blogger attributes the difference to “social prejudice” against atheists. The self-proclaimed “Friendly” Atheist is taking a page from Ken Ham’s playbook at Answers in Genesis. Young-earth creationists routinely claim to be persecuted for their views, and here is “Friendly” Atheist claiming the same thing:
The one thing this suggests for me is that scientists who are known for being atheists will have a hard time moving the public with them because of social prejudice.
The word “prejudice” means pre-judgment. No, “Friendly” Atheist is wrong. It is a case of simple judgment. When the general public sees Professor PZ Myers pulling an offensive stunt like The Great Desecration of a communion wafer, it’s easy to draw the conclusion that New Atheists are very dislikable people. If some of the public, religious or not, encounter his foul-mouthed ranting on Pharyngula, the judgment is confirmed. Word gets around. Very few voters want a Mayor or Senator like PZ Myers in public office.
Dr. Richard Dawkins
Just about every presentation of young-earth creationism I have seen features a few inflammatory quotations by Richard Dawkins, sure to provoke outrage among the Christian fundamentalists. YEC activists are savvy enough to know that Dawkins moves their target audience away from science. Richard Dawkins is the best friend that young-earth creationism has ever had.
And it’s not just the prominent New Atheists who are ill-mannered and uncouth. The “Friendly” Atheist was unable to comment on the historical Adam without including the f-word in his post:
“There Was No Historical Adam” (June 2011)
I love how some Christians are debating things that secular science figured out a long fucking time ago.
The social problems of the New Atheists are entirely of their own making. Now of course we know that the First Amendment protects free speech. Hemant Mehta is free to fill up his “Friendly” Atheist blog with insults, cuss words, profanity, and foul language. Then he can claim “social prejudice” against the New Atheists and their causes. But nobody else will be surprised if the general public (outside of his blog followers) doesn’t buy it.
The unfortunate part of this situation is that most atheists (lower case a) will inevitably be stereotyped by the uncivilized behavior of the few prominent New Atheists. None of my friends have to use the f-word when discussing a theological matter. It’s up to the mainstream atheists to distance themselves from the ill-mannered activists.
The influence of science popularizers on the public’s view of religion and science: An experimental assessment
The research and publication by Christopher Scheitle and Elaine Howard Ecklund is far more interesting than the “Friendly” Atheist would have you believe. They used Francis Collins as the archetype of the religious scientist and Richard Dawkins as the archetype of the atheist scientist. Francis Collins is the director of the National Institutes of Health and an evangelical Christian. Richard Dawkins is an evolutionary biologist at Oxford University and one of the New Atheist activists.
For the relationship between faith and science, the researchers considered three philosophical models:
- Conflict: Faith and science must be in opposition to each other.
- Independence: Faith addresses questions of morality, while science discovers how the natural world works.
- Collaboration: Faith and science influence and guide each other toward better results.
Scheitle and Ecklund note that “While this conflict narrative receives a great deal of attention, a relatively small proportion of the US public states that they personally see religion and science as in conflict (Baker, 2012).” Young-earth creationists and New Atheists most commonly hold the Conflict model.
Harvard paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould is well-known for advocating the independence model with his “non-overlapping magisteria.” Theistic evolutionists hold the Collaboration model (such as Francis Collins, Ken Miller, John Polkinghorne, and Karl Giberson).
So here is what Scheitle and Ecklund did. They analyzed the Religious Understandings of Science (RUS) study. Respondents to the study were asked if they had ever heard of a scientist named Dr. Richard Dawkins, or Dr. Francis Collins. If not, then some respondents were given a short description of that scientist, including their position as Conflict or Collaboration between faith and science. Others were given no description (and presumably were left forever wondering why the survey would ask about that scientist). Finally the survey respondents were asked to state their preferred position; and if Conflict, which side they personally were on. Table 2 shows the results for Richard Dawkins [Scheitle and Ecklund 2015].
Table 2: Richard Dawkins
| View | Group | No description | Given Description | Change |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Conflict – on side of religion | Young-earth creationists | 15.6 | 14.7 | -0.9 |
| Conflict – on side of science | New Atheists | 10.7 | 12.4 | +1.7 |
| Independence | Gould | 35.8 | 34.4 | -1.4 |
| Collaboration | Theistic science | 38.0 | 38.6 | +0.6 |
The researchers say that these small changes are not statistically significant, and since I’m not a statistician I’ll take their word for it. Nevertheless, Dawkins seems to increase his New Atheist position by a small number (+1.7%), at the expense of the Gould Independence position (-1.4).
Table 3: Francis Collins
| View | Group | No description | Given Description | Change |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Conflict – on side of religion | Young-earth creationists | 15.4 | 10.3 | -5.1 |
| Conflict – on side of science | New Atheists | 12.5 | 11.2 | -1.3 |
| Independence | Gould | 36.8 | 28.7 | -8.1 |
| Collaboration | Theistic science | 35.3 | 49.8 | +14.5 |
Francis Collins makes the numbers change. The researchers state that the changes in Table 3 are statistically significant. Collins reduces the New Atheists by a small amount (-1.3%). But the big message here is that Francis Collins takes significant portions of Young-Earth Creationists (-5.1%) and Gould Independence advocates (-8.1%), and converts them to his own Collaboration model (+14.5%). And all by just a short description of his professional status and religious views. That’s remarkable!
Why is Francis Collins more convincing than Richard Dawkins?
Why does Francis Collins have more convincing power than Richard Dawkins in the RUS survey? Scheitle and Ecklund suggest:
- Familiarity. Although Richard Dawkins may be unknown, his Conflict position is familiar from media coverage of religion and science. Readers are neither surprised nor swayed by the Dawkins description. It follows that the New Atheists can manage to convince about 12.4% of the population that their Conflict position is correct, but that’s about all they will get.
Francis Collins, on the other hand, presents a surprise to many survey respondents. Table 1 of the original paper notes that 21.4% of the respondents had heard of Dawkins, while only 4.3% had heard of Collins. It follows that theistic scientists can convince 49.8% of the population that their Collaborative position is correct, if we can just get the word out.
- Perceived credibility. Scheitle and Ecklund state, “research has shown that the US public is generally distrustful of atheists and view them more negatively than most other ethnic, religious, and minority groups (Edgell et al., 2006; Gervais et al., 2011).” This is the point that “Friendly” Atheist Hemant Mehta calls “social prejudice” in order to deflect the blame elsewhere. Yet episodes like PZ Myers and The Great Desecration at his blog Pharyngula show that this distrust is well-deserved. We never know what offensive stunt the New Atheists are going to pull next.
- Tone and Openness. The researchers suggest that Francis Collins’ message is more appealing to the public. Richard Dawkins’ message, and the combative way he expresses it, does not appeal to anyone not already in his camp.
I will suggest another reason: 4. The Conflict model of Dawkins, Myers, and Jerry Coyne is just plain wrong. The very existence of Francis Collins, a world-class scientist and evangelical Christian, disproves their thesis of inevitable conflict. And if he were not enough, the thousands of scientific papers published annually by religious scientists provide sufficient evidence that there is no necessary conflict between faith and science.
The “Friendly” Atheist blog of June 18, 2015 is another example of atheists vehemently rejecting science when they don’t like the results (see Between Migdol and the Sea, Chapter 6). In this respect the New Atheists are much like their opposite counterpart, the Young-Earth Creationists. Science does not mix well with ideology, no matter what extreme position is the source of that ideology.
My latest scientific paper is an ocean modeling study that examines the influence of wind direction on storm surge. This particular question grew out of an embarrassing mistake I made during my first semester of graduate school at the University of Colorado. The full citation is:
Drews, Carl (2015) Directional Storm Surge in Enclosed Seas: The Red Sea, the Adriatic, and Venice. Journal of Marine Science and Engineering 3(2), 356-367. doi:10.3390/jmse3020356
The Adriatic case study looked at winds blowing toward the city of Venice, Italy. I calculated a maximum surge of 2.02 meters when winds are blowing from 320° Cartesian; this result agrees with the historical maximum surge of 1.94 meters recorded on November 4, 1966.
Why not the Gulf of Aqaba?
The Red Sea case study examined the wind-driven storm surge and wind setdown in the northern reaches of the Red Sea. The COAWST/ROMS ocean model shows that although sea levels at Suez can drop to 1.72 meters below sea level (without tides), the Gulf of Aqaba is too deep to generate significant storm surge or wind setdown. The sea level at Aqaba changes by only ±5 centimeters, with even smaller variation at Nuweiba and the Straits of Tiran (JMSE Figure 8).
5 centimeters is not enough provide a dry passage for Moses and the Israelites through the Red Sea, nor is it enough water to drown Pharaoh’s chariot army when the wind ceases and the waters return. For more detailed information on why the Aqaba crossings won’t work, please see my longer article at migdolbook.com: Crossing the Red Sea at Aqaba? No.
