Lost Integrity

It has happened again. It appears as if it is an eternal struggle and a lingering question, what kind of scientific rigour should you aspect from a university. Although, or perhaps because, Uppsala University is my Alma Mater I have to voice my concern. It happened May 22^nd and it was the defence of a doctoral thesis named The Eucharist as Orikonso at the faculty of theology.

The thesis is only one example of a fundamental problem at many universities and since I have not read it myself I will not linger in critiquing the thesis. Anyone can read the abstract of the thesis, it gives some idea of what aim the author had with his work. First the thesis and latter the defence is described by one knowledgeable source as:
“The author does not hide in his book that his ambition from the outset has been a normative one, not a scientific one.”
“When the author is ranking religions and cultures no secular values, norms or characteristics seem to be used but only private evaluations and declarations.”
At the defence of the thesis:
“In front of the faculty opponent he frankly declared that he as a Christian theologian is in his full right to formulate a Christian theology as a doctoral thesis. This is what he had done, he said. He seemed to be very satisfied with himself.”
It is certainly not the first time that someone uses a doctoral thesis to push his or her own ideas and it will not be the last.

A conviction is a dangerous thing because it can have a person looking for all the things that support the conviction and disregard anything that contradict it. This behaviour appears to have no correlation to the intelligence of the individual. In Uppsala the person that discovered the lymphatic system and who started the botanical research continued by Linnaeus was the same man who wrote a book “proving” that Sweden was the ancient Atlantis. His name was Olof Rudbeck and he was living in a time when the understanding of the scientific method was not common knowledge. (Not that the scientific method is common knowledge today.)

There will always be people with strong convictions that want the seal of approval from universities. It can be for strange theories where the facts do not agree with the preferred conclusion, violating the scientific method, or it can be for ideas and interpretations of a purely subjective nature, outside the scope of the scientific method.
These two types of conviction can be compared to claiming that chocolate ice-cream always contain pineapple and that chocolate is the best flavour of ice-cream; clearly none deserve any kind of endorsement from a university.
Still universities in Sweden and without any doubt throughout the world, give passing degrees to people that do not meet the requirements. Why?

A great number of other examples from Swedish universities can be found in the book Högskolans lågvattenmärken (in Swedish). And talking to friends still at university I know that teachers are now told to make sure that every student pass certain classes. This is of course recommendable if it implied making sure that the students all learn the curriculum unfortunately that is not the case.

Without doing the necessary research I can think of three different reasons why unscientific thesis are accepted and students that have not learned the curriculum are given a passing degree.

It is a fear of conflict. Every student consider it their right to get a passing degree and it is easier to give it to them than to have them making a fuss about it. (People that feel unjustly treated can make a real big fuss about it.)

It is an economic matter. Since a department receives money for each student they pass (meant to be an incentive for high quality education) in financially strained times money is more important than quality.

It is a question of epistemology. The universities are filled with people that have a relativistic view of knowledge where each opinion is of equal value.

Of these three the last one is the least likely because if the professors and researchers believed in that kind of relativism they would not complain. But perhaps more people will come to have this relativistic opinion even at the universities.

Whatever the reason, when the scientific rigour is abolished the university has lost its integrity and if the university loose the idea about the scientific method it has lost its soul. It was supposed to be about searching for the truth and not about pushing opinions.

A close encounter

Although I am very interested in the phenomenon that is called New Age I have unfortunately not met that many people who can be said to have this belief, or type of believes. New Age is not new nor one belief; it is a goody bag of ideas some of great antiquity and others from today although they might claim to be from tomorrow. Recently though I had a close encounter with some very nice New Age people.

New Age is old news so I will not talk much about it. Confronted with some of the teachings the questions that are raised can be both scientific and theological. I overheard statements about energy lines, alternative medicine, and the god within oneself when I eavesdropped on the blonde angel-like guru. I would not have mind to learn more about her message and her theology than the few minutes I had together with her allowed.

What I will write about is my own experience of meeting the enthusiastic people that organised what they termed a lecture and a course though I would rather label it a religious service.

I am no enemy of religion unlike some sceptics and rational thinkers. Indeed I am religious myself in case someone like to know. It is interesting to think about religion and not just dismiss it because it has no foundation in science. Even if there are no gods people have religious convictions, feelings, and traditions, that is a fact.

The people I met really felt their religion; that was the impression I got. They wanted to feel the energy, the peace of mind, the oneness with the universe. The focus was very much on feeling perhaps to the deterioration of reflective thought. This flight from asking questions is not unique to New Age but if one is to accept everything it is perhaps a prerequisite that not too many questions are asked.

Without contradicting myself I have to say that a lot of questions were asked and the “guru” Anette Carlström answered them all. But they were practical questions and not critical questions. No one seemed concerned with the critical questions about truth or epistemology and if there was any discussion about the consequences of the theological message I did not hear it.

Not asking critical questions is not being stupid. The people I met were all very pleasant to be around and I do not get along well with stupid people. They were all very good people, open and friendly, I am grateful I had the opportunity to meet them.

Sceptics are sometimes unnecessarily condescending toward New Age believers. We are all living on the same planet (at least most of the time) and we try to live our lives the best we can. If we are open and ask questions we might understand each other better.
That goes for more traditionally religious people as well, just remember that understanding someone is not the same as agreeing with them.

How did I meet these people? They had rented space in the church I belong to and it was my turn to act as a host that day.

My first blog entry

I do not care that former vice president Al Gore thinks that blogging is a way to save democracy in a world where reason is assaulted. The majority of the blogs I have seen have been inane comments to known events so it is with some hesitation I have begun mine contribution to the information overflow on the Internet.

The only justification for a blog in my opinion is to either present well considered comments to known events or present new information before the major media corporations get hold of the news. If one is really lucky one might be able to do both but to do neither is a waste of bandwidth.

To stumble over a spectacular news story is perhaps not that easy so one may excuse people that write blogs from failing to do so on a regular basis. But having the belief that one’s own opinion on any topic is of vital importance to the entire world is something many bloggers can be blamed for.

It would serve any serious blogger well to chose a topic for his or hers comments since few of us can have well founded opinions in all matters of public interest although everyone has an opinion.
This will be the topic of this blog: Well founded opinions and believes, and of course not so well founded opinions, gut reactions, silliness, and the manipulation of people, the question of how do we know what we know and are we sure about that?

So in one sense I cheat, I have been know to do that from time to time, this blog can discuss a great variety of different topics under the disguise of focusing on the arguments presented without contributing with any factual knowledge.

I do have factual knowledge of a few things but my expertise is limited and all to often I do not have a good source for where my knowledge comes from. This is true for most people but we rarely see it as a problem but it can become a problem.
When two believes stand against each other it is vital that we know how to determine what proposition is correct. Or if it is merely a matter of subjective opinion where both believes are equally valid we need to be able to determine if this is so.
Unfortunately neither is self evident. Leibniz had the idea that with a perfect language and knowledge of logic it would be possible to sit down and calculate the answer to a question instead of endless debating but where is the fun in that.

Hopefully the readers will find some of the comments I make well considered since I am unlikely to present any revolutionizing news. People have been thinking and debating since before antiquity and there is a wealth of material to comment upon and loads of warning examples. (Although the examples from before recorded history are scarce.)

This blog will not stop the assault on reason but if it can be a contribution in the battle I am content.