A friend who is a very accomplished and highly published author of science fiction and fantasy and I were having a discussion via email the other day about her observation that too many scientists don't like fiction because they are too literal-minded, but quick to point out that science fiction lovers were the exception. I, on the other hand, love fiction and certain types of fantasy (such as she writes) as much as good science fiction. That is, science fiction like Arthur C. Clark, Isaac Asimov, Ray Bradbury, or the like writes, not the horror or monsters-from-space or so-far-out-there-it-is-inconceivable stuff that some call science fiction.
As for non-fiction, other than science and nature writing, I do not read it because I get more than enough reality every day. Besides, just like news reporting (broadcast and print) that is supposed to be unbiased but most definitely isn't, non-fiction can be very biased, too. My news sources now tend to be either the Huffington Post or the BBC. Even scientific pubs can have definite bias and inappropriate interpretations. So, give me a good piece of fiction whose biases are clear!
There was a major bruhaha a few years back when several young-Earth/Noah's Flood scientists got a field trip approved for the annual meeting of the Geological Society of America. The description was good, the credentials presented no concern, and the proposal had no problem passing through the GSA reviewers. It was an interesting topic about local geology in the area where that annual meeting was being held and it filled to capacity. However, once the field trip started and the field trip participants were a captured and totally blind-sided audience, the religious interpretations of young Earth and Noah's flood started. Based on reports of a colleague who was on the trip, the geologists who organized and were running the field trip were met with very polite but strongly worded and scientifically sound responses from all participants who didn't fall into a complete and stoney silence (pun intended). My colleague told me that as a result of this reception, the organizers probably had as unpleasant an experience as the participants did. Not to be outdone, though, at the end of the trip as the participants loaded onto the vans to head back, the organizers gathered in a cluster and from all appearances, held an extended prayer session while the participants waited on the vans and watched.
Fortunately, it was only a one-day trip, and when the participants returned to the convention center, GSA staff wherever they could be found were inundated with complaints about there being no place for religion, non-science, and bias at a very reputable and respected international geological organization's activities. GSA agreed. Procedures changed and vetting was substantially increased in depth and breadth. GSA issued a formal statement of policy on ethics and bias in science and in the organization. GSA members now have to sign an ethics and bias statement when they join or renew. Also, when anyone proposes field trips, scientific sessions, workshops, and such, they have to disclose not only their credentials (which has always been the case) but also they must sign a legally-binding statement that indicates they have read the GSA policy on ethics and bias, the proposed activity adheres to it, and that the content will focus entirely on unbiased science content. Meeting registrants must now also sign an ethics and bias statement specific to the meeting.
Bottom line: I get enough non-fiction daily and from sources I would not normally expect. I don't care to add to its volume by consuming biased news reports or non-fiction with a hidden (or not-so-hidden) agenda.
In response, my friend rhetorically questioned why those folks were at a GSA annual meeting to begin with. From there, she expressed her anger with: (1) people who assume that she doesn't believe in God if she doesn't see it like they do; and (2) scientists who insist to her that there is no God. Group 1 upsets her because she very definitely does believe in God. Group 2 equally upsets her because she feels that there is not really a conflict inherent in the design of the world - science is the how it works, but God is the why it works. I absolutely agree!
Honestly, I am really not sure how one can BE a geologist if one does not recognize the validity of deep time, which is so very fundamental to understanding how Earth works as we currently understand it. Yes, rapid and catastrophic processes occur with regularity and have major effects on the landscape, but so many things can only make sense if they occur over very long periods of time via the very same processes that we can readily observe happening in the universe today. I love good magic and greatly enjoy being baffled, but I never suspend my belief that there is a process the magician utilizes that fits within the laws of nature. I don't have to know how it is done to love seeing it done! But, and this is very big but, I don't believe a new process suddenly pops up, does its work, and then suddenly disappears like a rabbit being pulled from a hat.
As for the meaning of "time", that, too, is a human construct that can be and has been changed, redefined, and bent to suit human needs and whims. Indigenous time was based on natural cycles of events that could be defined by Earth's rotation (from sunrise to sunrise), Moon's revolution around the Earth (months), and Earth's revolution (seasons and years). Modern time is not based on natural cycles. It currently is defined to a global atomic standard chosen to as closely as possible approximate the human definition of a second not vice-versa.
Is the universe any less amazingly awe-inspiring and incredible if it took millions of years to come to its current form than if it did so in "7 days"? I don't think so. Is what brought it into being any less incomprehensible? Definitely not!
I know how long it takes water to carve a conduit through a standard-sized salt block for livestock (9x9x11 inches) - about a week of constant and focused dripping on one place. I know this with conviction because I have run the experiment myself and with my students a number of times with consistent results. Salt is more readily dissolved by water than is limestone by orders of magnitude. When I am in a cave passage and think to that salt block, the current estimates we have on how long it takes that cave passage to form (approximately 2-3 million years or more), I can't see any way for that cave passage I'm in to form any more rapidly. As most cavers will tell you, we may have hodags in caves, but we do not have rabbits springing up, carving part or all of a cave passage in a minute or two, and then disappearing.
It is my firm conviction that it all comes down to a matter of where you put your faith - in the human construct that is the Bible, Torah, Koran, or any similiar book or religion, or in science. Both religion and science require faith in those dark areas where neither one has a show-me explanation based on careful study and repeated direct experience.
From my perspective, it is also all about how big one is willing to let the Grandfathers, God, Creator, or whatever you can them/her/him. If God is powerful and smart enough to create the entire universe, he is fully capable of doing whatever he bloody-well wants, but too often I see humans putting limits on him. (Why "him" anyway? Back to that human construct of religion and human biases.)
I got into an discussion once when a friend of a friend said I was a heathen/pagan/devil-worshipper because I adhere to my traditional Lakota beliefs and world views. He said I had to believe in Jesus. I told him about the sacred and revered White Buffalo Calf Maiden and said we saw her as the same teacher of the Grandfathers that Jesus was of God for Christians. He said the White Buffalo Calf Maiden was a myth of the ignorant unsaved and that it had to be Jesus. I asked him why God would plop a Jew speaking Hebrew talking about fishing into the middle of the hunter-gatherer Lakota people of the Great Plains and expect us to understand anything at all? Wouldn't a universe-creating God be wise enough to know to send a messenger that was culturally appropriate and relevant, and speaking in language, metaphors and analogies that the people would understand, like the White Buffalo Calf Maiden or Mohammed or the Buddha or who the Jews are still awaiting? Why put limits on God and who the heck are humans to put limits on the force behind the Universe?
This is why I love ethnogeology, the study of how groups of peoples explain the origins of Earth and the features on Her, and how that jibes with standard geological, meteorological, climatological, hydrological, astronomical, etc., explanations. No surprise that we use culturally-appropriate ways to understand and explain natural phenomena. Our Lakota story of Iya eating women from a village he ravaged and the men chasing him until he laid down to sleep and taking the women who were barely alive from his stomach sounds fanciful and impossible until we see Iya as a tornado ripping through a village, women being caught up in the tornado and tossed far away when the tornado dissipated and found later by the men searching for them. Or the eruption of Mount Mazama seen through the eyes of the Klamath and other indigenous peoples of the area who then described it incredibly accurately and with great detail in culturally-appropriate terms that are completely geologically accurate and precise.
My belief in the Grandfathers is deep and strong and in no way conflicts with my geological or any scientific understanding. My belief in Earth as a living being is equally deep and strong and without conflict. However, it is entirely personal and between the Grandfathers and Grandmother. My relationship with them is entirely individual to me, and that is the way it should be for everyone. I don't feel the need to get anyone else to believe exactly the way I do because nobody else can. My beliefs and relationship are entirely rooted in my individual life experience and communication with the Grandfathers and Grandmother, which is direct, private, and pretty much every minute. I don't need an interpreter, a go-between, an intermediary.
Like my friend, it is inconceivable to me that anyone could not see an organizing force behind all of the wonder around us, but they need to realize that their own personal experience will not be appropriate for anyone else. Apropos to this discussion, I heard Samuel Comroe, a comedian with Tourette's, last night who said a woman came up to him after a performance and said she could pray away his Tourette's. He said, "don't, and no you can't". She said, "yes I can, prayer works!". He said, "no it doesn't!" She said, "YES, IT DOES! How could you say that?!?!" He said, "because I prayed 15 sec. ago that you would walk away." At that point, she did walk away, and he said to himself, "Damn, prayer does work - it just takes time."
Everything works in its own time and way. It is all where we put our faith in those unilluminated places and times.
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