Screaming Penguin - Source Does Matter

Its been a while since I posted a book review. Not because I havent read anything but I havent read anything lately that was really good and inspired me to do a review, that is until now.

Michael Shermers books How We Believe - Science Skepticism and the Search for God is an incredible book that everyone should read. 5.2 penguin afros out of a possible 5.2 on our scale.

The book is about the evolution of the human brain and how and why we believe. It contains astonishing statistical data (collected in very strict scientific means by third party organizations, all detailed in the book) that displays how many people believe in ghosts, ESP, astrology, bigfoot, nessie, UFOs, communication with the dead, haunted houses, and so on. NONE OF THESE BELIEFS ARE SUPPORTED BY ANY CREDIBLE EVIDENCE. Yet they are still believed by a majority of people (at various leves for the various beliefs). The quest is to understand why this is so.

That same statistical data shows an overwhelming majority of people believe in "God". It is very interesting to see people answer questions about God, in their own words, including why people say they believe in God and why they say OTHER people believe in God.

The book uses a great deal of psychological, anthropological, biological, and sociological information (every single bit elaborated upon and cited) to discuss the "belief engine". The books starts right off with religion, one of the main focuses (because there is also not evidence to support many religious views, thus it becomes a compelling and very interesting area to study in terms of belief) and religion continues to be a theme throughout.

This book details Shermers background as a "born again" Christian and his attendance of Pepperdine university and his studies in Theology. Shermer is very careful to point out time and time again that he has great respect for all beliefs and that he is not trying to belittle or berate but merely to understand. He is no longer a Christian and considers himself agnostic, but he declares his purpose as "for examining God, relegion and myth as Spinoza would have it: not to ridicule, not to bewail, not to scorn but to understand".

Shermer then also explains that he finds it incredulous when religion tries to justify beliefs using science. Religion has its realm, faith, and science has its realm, questioning everything and accepting only empirical reality, and the two are exact opposites. To try to justify religious views with science does a disservice to BOTH science AND RELIGION. Shermer rightly and aptly calls this out and exposes many of the problems with various religious works that try to use science as a justification for God (both historical and modern works). As he puts it you are missing the point of the RELIGION and the science when you attempt to do this.

The book does some analysis on the history of organized religions and Christianity. It also delves into the qunitessential questions of theism, atheism and agnosticism, what they are and the history and usage of the terms. The "question of evil" and the "question of free will" are discussed as well.

In the end the book details the pattern seeking human brain and how it has evolved in social groups to value trust and respect. This is the basis of morality. Social groups were able to use trust and respect to reward people that behaved and shunning or shame to punish or kick out those that did not (with gossip actually being an important conduit of information). Once social groups got larger (larger than our target number of references for our brains, 150 people, still statistically shown to be about the number of people in our modern circles of friends and in our address books and so on) then other entities were formed to control the larger groups, supernatural belief systems, religions. That is right, religion EVOLVED out of more personal direct contact/communication human interaction systems as a means to control larger groups. The guilt comes not from the neighbor or the direct scorn of a person in your social group, but from the entity in the sky that sees and knows all.

That same human brain that seeks patterns commits errors in pattern recognition and errors in beliefs. Sometimes we believe something that is false and sometimes we disbelieve something that is true. This books aims to understand that and to make sure that we use science to do so. This book covers a lot of ground but it is a great read and it basically answers some very deep questions about belief and about religion. In the end it is Shermers conculusion that as far as God goes agnosticism is the only scientific approach to the matter. It is just as silly to say there IS NOT a God as to say there IS a god he states. I dont agree with this exactly, but I understand it. (I would say that its less silly to say there is NOT a god in the abscence of any evidence for it, and more silly to say there IS a god in such abscence, but Shermer is correct that neither position is defensible in terms of science.)

Must read, get it.