Rating: 
Summary: Skeptics, True Believers, and for those in between as well
Review: Chet Raymo grew up Catholic, as did I. Through his life of studying science, he valued the scientific search for Truth. That brought him, as many scientists, to face the apparent dichotomy between science and religion. Raymo interestingly takes that "science vs. religion" apart, and reconstructs it as "Skeptics vs. True Believers", and in doing so, examines the human aspect of the conflict as well as the more ubiquitous aspects. The whole creation vs. evolution argument has gotten worn out, and it's replacement, "intelligent design" vs. evolution has gotten equally abused. Raymo makes his case briefly (thankfully), and goes on to face *why* people seem to have the need to be either Skeptical (doubtful despite evidence) or True Believers (faithful in spite of contrary evidence). Raymo came to what I call a "full basket" moment with his Catholicism -- either he had to buy the full basket, accept and believe it all, or he could believe none of it. For other people, readily acknowledged by Raymo, the full basket moment is not an all-or-nothing. For some of us, it is, instead, a turning point. This is why I mention "those in between" in the title of this review. For those of us who cringe at the negative connotations of the "Skeptic" title, and cringe equally at the naivete implied in "True Believers"; for those of us who don't buy the full basket of the beliefs of our church and religion, but still find great value in that religion -- this is a valid place to be. Raymo does not ignore that, and that is specifically the human aspect of the dichotomy that mixes the black and white to live in the gray area. Perhaps "avoids" rather than "mixes". A Raymo very eloquently discusses, humanity is the only earthly life that is brutally, painfully aware of its mortality. Religion is the primary psychological force dealing with (or avoiding?) that mortality, promising life after death, through death, through reincarnation. Religion is a home for morality instruction, for rituals, for change-of-life ceremonies and celebrations. Religion has a tribal aspect, a belonging that is much needed by the human psyche, which no amount of skepticism, science, or knowledge of facts can replace. While the title and much of the book is set up to explore the dichotomy, pinning one side *against* the other, it does just as much, perhaps unintentionally or perhaps not, blending the two sides together into a place where one can be comfortable with both. This book might be written as Raymo's attempt to find that place for himself. I give it five stars. Whether Raymo has found that place of balance for himself or not, his exploration of the topic is well written, interestingly prepared, and very thought provoking.
Rating:
Summary: Skeptics, True Believers, and for those in between as well
Review: Chet Raymo grew up Catholic, as did I. Through his life of studying science, he valued the scientific search for Truth. That brought him, as many scientists, to face the apparent dichotomy between science and religion. Raymo interestingly takes that "science vs. religion" apart, and reconstructs it as "Skeptics vs. True Believers", and in doing so, examines the human aspect of the conflict as well as the more ubiquitous aspects. The whole creation vs. evolution argument has gotten worn out, and it's replacement, "intelligent design" vs. evolution has gotten equally abused. Raymo makes his case briefly (thankfully), and goes on to face *why* people seem to have the need to be either Skeptical (doubtful despite evidence) or True Believers (faithful in spite of contrary evidence). Raymo came to what I call a "full basket" moment with his Catholicism -- either he had to buy the full basket, accept and believe it all, or he could believe none of it. For other people, readily acknowledged by Raymo, the full basket moment is not an all-or-nothing. For some of us, it is, instead, a turning point. This is why I mention "those in between" in the title of this review. For those of us who cringe at the negative connotations of the "Skeptic" title, and cringe equally at the naivete implied in "True Believers"; for those of us who don't buy the full basket of the beliefs of our church and religion, but still find great value in that religion -- this is a valid place to be. Raymo does not ignore that, and that is specifically the human aspect of the dichotomy that mixes the black and white to live in the gray area. Perhaps "avoids" rather than "mixes". A Raymo very eloquently discusses, humanity is the only earthly life that is brutally, painfully aware of its mortality. Religion is the primary psychological force dealing with (or avoiding?) that mortality, promising life after death, through death, through reincarnation. Religion is a home for morality instruction, for rituals, for change-of-life ceremonies and celebrations. Religion has a tribal aspect, a belonging that is much needed by the human psyche, which no amount of skepticism, science, or knowledge of facts can replace. While the title and much of the book is set up to explore the dichotomy, pinning one side *against* the other, it does just as much, perhaps unintentionally or perhaps not, blending the two sides together into a place where one can be comfortable with both. This book might be written as Raymo's attempt to find that place for himself. I give it five stars. Whether Raymo has found that place of balance for himself or not, his exploration of the topic is well written, interestingly prepared, and very thought provoking.
Rating:
Summary: The Interface Between Science and Religion
Review: Chet Raymo has always been one of my favorite authors. I read his "365 Starry Nights" with a fascination that I have had for few books. After reading Kenneth Miller's "Finding Darwin's God" I was quite receptive to getting Raymo's take on the interface between science and religion in his book "Skeptics and True Believers." I was not disappointed. Raymo's thesis is that there needs to be a connection between religion and science that does not contradict solid scientific results and concepts. Raymo is clear in his writing and, among other things, rightly attacks the muddled postmodern concept that all ideas are equal. You cannot argue that Ptolemy's construct of epicycles is as good an idea as Copernicus' sun-centered system. This is utter nonsense. Science at its best does seek the closest approximation of "truth" at a given time and is also at its best a self-correcting system. Thus you cannot really have a conservative or liberal science. The Nazis tried to have an Aryan science and the Communists in the former Soviet Union tried to have a Socialist science, but they both failed miserably. This inability to be ultimately used for political purposes is one of the main strengths of science and what separates it from absolute belief systems. Raymo also takes on strict reductionism, which is (as he points out) pretty close to a faith-, a faith that you can explain the universe in a final relatively simple theory of everything. Even Stephen Hawking has apparently given up on this idea (although he espoused it quite emphatically in his "A Brief History of Time.") The problem is the mind-boggling complexity of the universe and of the development and structure of life. Still, reductionism has served us well in the laboratory- it just does not take on the biggest problems easily. Perhaps one day we will know everything there is to know, but I think that we will be buried in mountains of data long before that day dawns. I do partially disagree with Raymo on one point. While I think that he is absolutely correct that quantum physics cannot be used to "prove" the existence of God or of a spirit world, the chance effects of quantum theory could serve a basis for free will, as Roger Penrose suggests. I am not convinced that quantum events never affect events at larger scales, as Raymo thinks. However only time and more knowledge will settle that one. It may be, as Raymo says, that quantum events are swamped at larger scales. It may even be that at our level apparently indeterminate events become determinant if an infinite number of these events are summed. This is the "coin tossing" paradox- we cannot predict the outcome of a particular coin toss, but if you make a large number of tosses the ratio will be nearly 50-50 and if you made an infinite number the 50-50 ratio would be absolutely determined. However, I think that dispensing with free will completely (as some recent authors do, but Raymo does not) makes a mockery of science itself, as its practitioners than become automatons who are deluded into believing that they chose their views. I will add one other quibble. Although I, as an agnostic, pretty much agree with Raymo, I still would hesitate to attack someone else's faith in a personal God. For one thing, while I would not depend on any ancient holy text as a source of truth, I am not going to tell a grieving parent that their child is not in a biblical heaven if that should give them comfort. Beside, I think that religious belief is to some extent probably a characteristic of the human species and may not easily be eliminated by all the science education we can provide. Why some believe or do not believe in a particular version of God is not easy to discover. However, I think it may be a result of the genetic makeup of humans interacting with their culture and apparent need for answers. None the less, I agree with Raymo that it is important for scientists to explain the logic and evidence for their theories to the public. We just cannot expect everybody to immediately see scientific "truth" as THE truth, and modify their beliefs over night. Humans (including scientists sometimes) are really good at ignoring evidence against some cherished belief. We also need to avoid the trap of scientific hegemony over religion and the humanities in which science itself becomes god and other human endeavors, such as art, literature and music, are dismissed as "unscientific." Read this book if you are at all interested in the subject of the relationship of science and religion. Even if you do not agree with Raymo, it will cause you to think about a very important subject that may well determine mans future survival.
Rating:
Summary: The Interface Between Science and Religion
Review: Chet Raymo has always been one of my favorite authors. I read his "365 Starry Nights" with a fascination that I have had for few books. After reading Kenneth Miller's "Finding Darwin's God" I was quite receptive to getting Raymo's take on the interface between science and religion in his book "Skeptics and True Believers." I was not disappointed. Raymo's thesis is that there needs to be a connection between religion and science that does not contradict solid scientific results and concepts. Raymo is clear in his writing and, among other things, rightly attacks the muddled postmodern concept that all ideas are equal. You cannot argue that Ptolemy's construct of epicycles is as good an idea as Copernicus' sun-centered system. This is utter nonsense. Science at its best does seek the closest approximation of "truth" at a given time and is also at its best a self-correcting system. Thus you cannot really have a conservative or liberal science. The Nazis tried to have an Aryan science and the Communists in the former Soviet Union tried to have a Socialist science, but they both failed miserably. This inability to be ultimately used for political purposes is one of the main strengths of science and what separates it from absolute belief systems. Raymo also takes on strict reductionism, which is (as he points out) pretty close to a faith-, a faith that you can explain the universe in a final relatively simple theory of everything. Even Stephen Hawking has apparently given up on this idea (although he espoused it quite emphatically in his "A Brief History of Time.") The problem is the mind-boggling complexity of the universe and of the development and structure of life. Still, reductionism has served us well in the laboratory- it just does not take on the biggest problems easily. Perhaps one day we will know everything there is to know, but I think that we will be buried in mountains of data long before that day dawns. I do partially disagree with Raymo on one point. While I think that he is absolutely correct that quantum physics cannot be used to "prove" the existence of God or of a spirit world, the chance effects of quantum theory could serve a basis for free will, as Roger Penrose suggests. I am not convinced that quantum events never affect events at larger scales, as Raymo thinks. However only time and more knowledge will settle that one. It may be, as Raymo says, that quantum events are swamped at larger scales. It may even be that at our level apparently indeterminate events become determinant if an infinite number of these events are summed. This is the "coin tossing" paradox- we cannot predict the outcome of a particular coin toss, but if you make a large number of tosses the ratio will be nearly 50-50 and if you made an infinite number the 50-50 ratio would be absolutely determined. However, I think that dispensing with free will completely (as some recent authors do, but Raymo does not) makes a mockery of science itself, as its practitioners than become automatons who are deluded into believing that they chose their views. I will add one other quibble. Although I, as an agnostic, pretty much agree with Raymo, I still would hesitate to attack someone else's faith in a personal God. For one thing, while I would not depend on any ancient holy text as a source of truth, I am not going to tell a grieving parent that their child is not in a biblical heaven if that should give them comfort. Beside, I think that religious belief is to some extent probably a characteristic of the human species and may not easily be eliminated by all the science education we can provide. Why some believe or do not believe in a particular version of God is not easy to discover. However, I think it may be a result of the genetic makeup of humans interacting with their culture and apparent need for answers. None the less, I agree with Raymo that it is important for scientists to explain the logic and evidence for their theories to the public. We just cannot expect everybody to immediately see scientific "truth" as THE truth, and modify their beliefs over night. Humans (including scientists sometimes) are really good at ignoring evidence against some cherished belief. We also need to avoid the trap of scientific hegemony over religion and the humanities in which science itself becomes god and other human endeavors, such as art, literature and music, are dismissed as "unscientific." Read this book if you are at all interested in the subject of the relationship of science and religion. Even if you do not agree with Raymo, it will cause you to think about a very important subject that may well determine mans future survival.
Rating:
Summary: Science as religious experience, but overreaches science
Review: Chet Raymo was a well-established Christian when he began studying science. In this book Raymo explains how science shook up his Christian beliefs and led him to view the world anew. Raymo describes a world whose truths are dictated strictly by science but whose experience is endlessly religious. I think this book speaks most directly to those who view the world scientifically who are also yearning for the religious experience. Raymo shows how one may live with a strict scientific world-view and still live spiritually, worshipping and communing with a world that still evidences enough aspects of the Christian God to merit a form of belief in God. He succeeds very well in this regard. Even trusting empirical evidence over the word of the Bible and the Church, there is still room for miracles, inspiration, mystery, communion and God. Instead of arguing that religious beliefs are compatible with science, Raymo demonstrates that religious experiences, feelings and practices are also found in science. _Skeptics and True Believers_ would have been the kind of book I'd recommend to any soul lost in this scientific age if it weren't for one huge error in Raymo's reasoning. Raymo asserts that because science has (supposedly) not revealed any of the truths purported by Christianity and that because all of the truths revealed by science suggest that there is no God shepherding humans, that science has therefore disproved most Christian beliefs (such as God, angels, heaven, hell, etc.). Raymo is making the same error that many religions make: concluding truths through rational thought rather than through meticulous, repeatable empirical experimentation. Raymo identifies no scientific experiments that explicitly disprove such religious convictions. How do you design a scientific experiment to test for the absence of angels, anyway? Occam's Razor may suggest that such theories are superfluous, but until you prove that they are superfluous, how can you really know? Raymo praises the Skeptic and derides the True Believer but when it comes to convictions about the falsehood of religious ideas, plays the role of True Believer more than he does Skeptic. I highly recommend this book to the scientifically inclined and spiritually lacking, provided that you can read as a Skeptic.
Rating: 
Summary: First Cause
Review: God created the universe and everything in it, including evolution, or somehow the first atomic particle magically created itself into being. (Either way, they're both miracles! Why can't Atheists realize that?) Atheist fallacy: God can't appear from thin air, but it's okay for atoms to.
Rating: 
Summary: How to Shave Mystical Stubble with Ockham's Razor
Review: In Chet Raymo's open-eyed assessment, a gaping rift exists between man's way of knowing/navigating the universe (via rigorous application of Ockham's Razor and the scientific method) and what we choose to believe about our ultimate destiny/place in it. While we remain coolly aloof toward the fruits of skepticism-driven science - pharmaceuticals, particle colliders, superconductors, computers, and CAT scanners, to name a few - we passionately embrace a host of logically unsupportable beliefs in angels, prayer, ghosts, horoscopes, and UFO abductions. Throughout this book the reader will find examples which testify to the guardian role of skepticism in maintaining the objectivity of contemporary science. Where skepticism "diminishes" man's importance in the grand cosmic scheme - and, to be truthful, puts his position in honest perspective, religion restores man to his central (and, therefore, more comforting) place in the cosmos - hence the appeal of religious belief. Raymo builds a compelling case here for adopting what he labels the "new story", an alternative belief system that discards antiquated myths and conceptions of human immortality in favor of one informed by the now-substantial body of scientific evidence yet infused with a profound sense of the universe's deep mystery. He concludes the book beautifully with a recapitulation of his position and a worthy discussion of Martin Buber's "I-Thou" relation as it applies to his vision of addressing the mystery to be found in a godless universe. I read this book immediately after finishing E.O. Wilson's "Consilience", which I consider a milestone achievement in the philosophy of science, and found that both books resonated harmoniously with each other.
Rating: 
Summary: Skepticism or poetic sophistry?
Review: On the page preceding the table of Contents, Raymo quotes Paul Davies: "If God is to be found, it must surely be through what we discover about the world, not what we fail to discover." If this statement is not true, it is said that God becomes "the friend of ignorance." [I enjoy reading Davies, but] Raymo's first attempt at profundity demonstrates his own confusion; the statement itself is one of both "true belief" and "skepticism." The discourses that follow make for often-eloquent prose, and if it asked to be judged by this standard only, the book should be a wonderful experience. But of course Raymo's claim here is to be imparting great truths gleaned from what he tells us is "skepticism." The `God' which the author engages in mortal combat is the gray-bearded caricature on the Sistine ceiling and "the face of Jesus" in a distant nebula. The claim is that wise men (like Raymo) know what DNA is and what SETI means, while superstitious folk (like Christian theists) know what ESP is and what a Yeti is. Is this skepticism or a salute to straw-man arguments? Are there poorly reasoned theists? Of course, just as there are poorly reasoned atheists, Hindus, and yes, perhaps even "wise religious humanist" writers. In acknowledging this, one merely accepts what the wise have always seen -- humans know less than they either aspire or pretend to know. In recounting how silly some people's ideas of God are, the author pretends he has debunked the transcendent First Cause. In decrying dubious Catholic traditions (like bleeding statues) he pretends to have ridded the universe of a willful Cause. The intimation is incoherent.
The description of the migration of the red knot is wonderful. The author tells us that this bird is a true miracle, not of God but of DNA. If Raymo could device a means of demonstrating a non-connection between an intelligent Designer and DNA he would actually be saying something. This non-connection cannot be produced. In his consideration of cosmology, he seems to willfully misunderstand Hawking's 'no boundaries' proposal (as did Carl Sagan); Raymo intimating that a universe with no "beginning in time" (actually Augustine's understanding of cosmology) does not infer (and logically require) a deeper explanation. Or is he suggesting that, as regards the deepest explanation, the author (Raymo) is "the friend of ignorance"? The book is an interesting exercise in True Belief, and Raymo at many times is precisely what Raymo rails against. To his credit, he eventually arrives at the admission that all human ideas of ultimate truth must lie within the empirically unprovable realm of -- faith. Raymo's faith is placed in the foggy assertions of Dawkins and Weinberg; humanity is an insignificant accident of matter (another insignificant accident). Yet in the human mind "the universe becomes conscious of itself." The meaninglessness of consciousness -- why care what the author (or anyone) thinks about anything? We are told that faith in this foggy `new' religion is a beautiful thing. Okay... but you'll have to check some of your skepticism at the proverbial door, gripping in True Belief the materialist's [mathematically and chemically] impossible doctrine of abiogenesis, for example. It is however, captivating prose, at least until Raymo begins to wallow in Sagan-esque condescension to "warm fuzzy" and "airy fairy" characterizations. Gauguin's last painting was not "Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going?", but it serves Raymo's thesis to say that it was. His slightly contrived versions of Pascal, Linnaeus and Newton are self-servingly Raymo-like. These are the types of arguments that self-ascribed "skeptics" generally accuse "true believers" of making.
The book is interesting and not without merit. Just as there are different ways of 'knowing,' there are different ways of believing. I think most of us know this. My two-star rating is an act of kindness.
Insomuch as we might look for God through science, "through what we discover about the world" (a completely reasonable endeavor), I suggest books which bring to bear a broader and deeper skepticism, and far more science: Show Me God, by Fred Heeren, (as regards cosmology), Not By Chance, by Lee Spetner and/or No Free Lunch, by William Dembski (as regards information theory and complexity).
Rating:
Summary: Fun reading for anyone interested in science and religion.
Review: Raymo does a great job of discussing many of the age-old tensions between religious belief and scientific skepticism. Our need for belief is rooted in our biology, and often leads our thinking astray. Raymo covers much of the same territory as covered by Carl Sagan, Steven Weinberg, Richard Dawkins, Victor Stenger, and EO Wilson, but in his own inimitable style. I enjoyed his discussions of Ockham's razor (parsimony), the bankrupt naming schemes of earlier eras which lead to so much confusion, arguments from incredulity, compartmentalized thinking ("we are riven"), etc. His approach is eclectic and inclusive, and moves from logical problems to poetry which resonates with the subject. An enjoyable read, best typified by quotes such as "science is founded on the twin cornerstones of skepticism and astonishment ...reasoned skepticism does not preclude passionate belief, and astonishment is enhanced by knowledge."
Rating:
Summary: WOW
Review: Somone [...]said this should be required reading. Well for me it was and I was very glad to have read this book. Read the book and you'll get it. I do have a hard time finding the bridges between science and religion though. All in all it still gives the reader a unique aspect about beleif and faith. This book merely trys to point the reader in a certain direction, such as finding faith in the world around you and not so much in religious dogmas. It is up to the reader to ultamently choose his path. Very good reading.
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