Life in the pandemic III: The ultimate act of self-isolation.

So much that might once have seemed strange now seems normal. I used to work in an office in a building in the middle of a busy city centre University campus. For the last few weeks I have been going to work in my dining room. In previous years, we would have gathered on the morning of Good Friday with about three hundred other people, in Bridge Chapel, to reflect on a pivotal event in the history of humanity – the death by crucifixion of Jesus 2000-ish years ago. Yesterday we sat in our front room, viewing prayers, songs and talks on the interweb. Today, a bright, warm, spring day, we might well have headed off somewhere to have a meal or a walk. We actually spent it at home, only going out for our one-hour, Government-mandated exercise (cycle ride for me, walk for my wife). We are of course “self-isolating”, our contribution in the fight against the Covid19 pandemic.

Self-isolation for us is far from intolerable. There are three of us in a large, comfortable house in a pleasant street in a quiet neighbourhood. And as there are three of us, we’re not that isolated. We see other folk from time to time walking past, and when we’re out and about for our walks or bike-rides. We’re in contact with our family and friends by means of the wonders of modern technology. We are safe, and well fed and watered. Solitary confinement this is not. I realise these are not the happy circumstances of everyone. Calls to the National Domestic Abuse helpline have increased 25% since the start of the lockdown, prompting the Government to announce today an extra £2M for domestic abuse services. Staying at home for some does not equate to being in a place of safety. For the old person living on their own, self-isolation might well be more like solitary confinement, particularly if they have no family or neighbours to keep an eye on them. Never-the-less the experience for many of us, at least in the short term, while trying, is far from tough. And of course it serves a purpose.

We have all become used to the mantra of “stay at home, save the NHS, save lives”; that’s the UK version, but it has its equivalents across the globe. The aim is to stop the transmission of the virus, so that fewer get infected at any one time, fewer are hospitalised, fewer need access to intensive care, and the whole system copes. My inconvenience makes a small, but I hope, tangible contribution to the overall effort. It seems incomparably insignificant to the efforts being made by so many on our behalf on the healthcare frontline. But the message is clear: isolation (even if it turns out not to be that isolating) saves lives.

Isolation is, of course, the central point of what transpired on that first Easter, and is one of its more controversial aspects. Easter really has not got a lot to do with pastel outfits, chocolate eggs (and the hunting thereof), and roast lamb rather than beef for Sunday lunch. Much as tinsel and trees obscure the meaning of Christmas, the aforementioned distract us from a supreme act of self-isolation that saves lives.

There are four accounts of the death of Jesus to be found in the Gospels and all of them repay close attention. Among many things that are striking about them, one is that they are all relatively matter-of-fact about the detail of what was done to Jesus at the cross – you won’t find much blood and gore. There are a number of reasons for this. First of all, the original readers of the Gospels were familiar with crucifixion; they needed no reminder of the suffering endured by those condemned to die in this fashion. It was a cruel punishment, certainly; unusual it was not. But secondly, brutal as the physical suffering of Jesus was, in and of itself this could achieve little. If this was simply about the untimely albeit brutal death of a man for some political or religious but ultimately human cause, it would have been then, and would remain now, obscure. Far from unique. But the key to what was going on, and what makes it unique, was not what could be seen. It was something that was unseen, but was evidenced by that most desperate and devastating of all the statements that Jesus made during His suffering. After three hours of darkness, lasting from noon until 3pm, He is recorded as crying out “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”. A cry of dereliction; a cry of isolation.

There is much about the mechanics of what transpired in those hours of darkness that I’m not capable of understanding. But this much is clear, in the darkness something fundamental changed. Just a few hours previously, Jesus had prayed in Gethsemane, addressing God as His Father, His Abba. But now, that relationship is broken; He can no longer address God as Father, but only as God. With the help of the rest of Scripture, we can reconstruct what has happened, and it is breathtaking. “God made Him who had no sin to be sin for us” is how Paul puts it in 2 Cor 5:21. As such, He is cut off, abandoned, isolated.

This state of affairs could have been avoided, and could not have been imposed. As you track through the events that preceded Jesus’ death on the cross, all the way from His arrest in the garden where he had prayed, via His show-trial and abuse, to the cross were he suffered, it’s clear that He is not being driven by events, but that He is driving events. His arrest, His trial, the procession out to Calvary, perhaps right to the very point of His isolation, a halt could have been called. So this was something He did and to that extent His isolation was self-isolation.

 Just as His suffering was qualitatively and quantitatively, breathtakingly, different from mine, so also is what was won by it.  His being isolated from God, His being cut-off, and as sin-bearer also bearing the answering anger of God for sin, wins for me the end of an isolation that is naturally mine. In my natural state I am isolated from the God I was made to know, with all the consequences that flow from that isolation. But that isolation was ended the moment I came into the good of His sacrifice for me. Does sin make God angry? You bet. And I was a target of that anger, until a great transfer took place – my sin to Him, His righteousness to me (that’s the other half of 2 Cor 5:21).

Our self-isolation in the great pandemic is endurable, partly because of that greater act of self-isolation that restores me to the most basic relationship I was created to be in. And the best bit? Have to wait for Sunday for that.

Life in the pandemic II: Between hubris and humility

In the midst of the pandemic that we continue to endure, there have been intriguing, even welcome, moments. Acts of kindness, like folk shopping for their elderly neighbours and then refusing to take payment for it; healthcare workers coming off shifts, being boosted to the front of supermarket queues. There has been the conspicuous bravery of those healthcare workers tending to the seriously ill in full knowledge of the risks posed to their own health. There have been moments of solidarity, like when us normally reserved Brits stand at our doors and in our streets and applaud all those on the front line. There’s been stupidity too of course, like the burning of 5G phone masts after nonsense on social media linked them to the spread of the virus. And there’s been the scary, like attacks on people of Asian heritage blaming them for the virus. But in general there’s been a lot to admire in the response to the pandemic (so far) and perhaps also a touch of pride. Maybe collectively we’re not as selfish or self-absorbed as we sometimes appeared to be pre-virus. Maybe we are not a “snowflake” generation, and can endure and prevail like our forebears who faced wars and disasters in their time.

The Government certainly continues to try to evoke that spirit of battling through that has been likened to the “blitz” spirit. Whether it’s the plucky engineers and manufacturers heroically struggling to mass produce medical ventilators or parents inventing ways to educate their own kids in their own homes (and quite possibly thinking wistfully of the teachers who had that burden up until a few weeks ago). By pulling together, by getting our heads down, by all doing our bit, we can win the struggle. You can’t fault them for the approach. Much more is likely to be achieved by encouragement than by coercion. And if in a few short weeks the crisis abates or even passes, if there’s a return to something that approaches normality, we will undoubtedly heave a collective sigh of relief and indulge in pats on the back all round. We’ll be proud that we did it. Don’t get me wrong. We should all be doing our bit. And we should be applauding the heroic contribution of so many. There is something genuinely touching about many of the stories emerging. There is selflessness to be celebrated, and cynicism to be avoided. But pride can quickly slide into hubris, and I do feel slightly conflicted about some of what’s going on.

Even among Christians, it seems that so far we’ve been concentrating on the practical things we should be doing and not thinking too much about what it all means. Of course, for many people the idea that there is any “meaning” to be gleaned from a pandemic makes no sense. Viruses come and go; they are neither good or bad, they’re just viruses. Occasionally a dangerous one comes along and a pandemic results. It has happened before, and will probably happen again. At least this time we have technology and science that wasn’t available to combat the Black Death or Spanish flu. But this pandemic is not a natural disaster (like an earthquake or volcanic eruption). It was caused by human activity and behaviour in a way that earthquakes are not. The spread of the virus and its effects have been enabled and amplified by human activity and behaviour. And to be fair, stopping the pandemic, or at least the speed of its stopping, will also depend on human behaviour. So at a minimum, there will be lessons for us to learn from our behaviour good and bad.

Big events, particularly big, bad events should cause us to pause, think and reflect. This is a global pandemic, the biggest of big events, so there is thinking to do. If nothing else, it is a dramatic reminder of how fragile life is - as fragile as it always has been. I don’t know how much time Boris (our Prime Minister) has for God and His ways; I suspect not much. Boris has been in an intensive care unit in a London hospital for the last few days. I am sure this is not what he was anticipating just a few weeks ago when he won a decisive election victory, and obtained the prize that he had spent years working, scheming, (lying?) and plotting for. I really do hope he recovers fully (he appears to be on the mend), and returns to do the job he was elected to do. But I also hope he returns with a changed perspective on his personal fragility, on his ability to control circumstances, and yes on the God he has probably spent his life ignoring. A bit more humility. And if Boris’ perspective should change, why not mine? But Boris is of course just one individual.  

I am emphatically not drawing a straight line either between Boris and the judgement of God, or between the pandemic as a whole and the judgement of God, although there are some Christians who are happy to do exactly this. But neither do I think that it is misconceived to look for explanations and meanings in current circumstances from a Biblical perspective (as N.T. Wright recently argued in Time magazine). Any explanation will be far from simple; any meaning will apply at multiple levels. And I claim no particular insight or authority. Indeed the Bible itself warns us about making bold explanatory claims in tough circumstances. God Himself challenged the “friends” of a man who suffered unjustly, who offered simple explanations for his predicament: “Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge?” (Job 38:2). I’m fully aware that there is a huge knowledge gap in the current situation. But not knowing everything is not the same as there being nothing to know.

I do know that these events are not just happening. Yes, there are natural and naturalistic explanations for much of what is going on. But underpinning all of these are the purposes of God. That’s a problem as much as an explanation. How a global pandemic, with the suffering and struggle implied, maps to the purposes of a good, faithful and gracious God raises difficult issues. Some will argue that it raises insurmountable arguments against even the existence of such a being. However, I also know that He is to be trusted, even when, as in current circumstances, I don’t understand His purposes either in their detail or their totality. And I also know that, given events of Good Friday, the same God in the person of His Son, endured suffering to good purpose. So there is no room for smart, slick, simple, arrogant, told you so, single Bible verse pronouncements here. No proud boast that thanks to my reading of the Bible I (or we) have it all worked out. But He knows all the things I don’t. So there is plenty of room for humility and trust.

It’s dark today, but Sunday is coming.

Life in the pandemic I: The return of the experts….

It wasn’t that long ago that some were lamenting the death of reason and the revolt against experts. TV studios were filled with serious looking people trying to work out how it was possible for on the one hand Donald Trump to be elected in the United States and on the other the UK voting to leave the EU. Clearly, they intoned, the populus of both countries had taken leave of their senses. Expertise was under attack and ignorance was being encouraged, commended and rewarded. There was perhaps some truth in this.

Both experts and expertise came in for a bit of a kicking, particularly in the US. Experts formed a convenient target of course. This was partly because the terms were rarely clearly defined. Blame was attributed to an amorphous group, without examining too carefully if it was experts who were the problem, or the political decision makers. Many of the latter seemed unwilling to engage properly with a whole range of issues, inform themselves using appropriate expert input, and take and be accountable for the decisions that people elected them to take. In the UK we got into the Brexit mess (remember that?) partly because of this sort of political cowardice. A host of complex issues, requiring a range of expertise to unpack them, was boiled down to a binary choice and forced on a population that consistently claimed that it was generally ill-informed, and in some cases actively deceived. A proportion of the population appeared to be delighted with this general approach. On both sides of the Atlantic the notion gained traction that the experts had done too many of us no good at all. They were therefore of little value and could happily be dispensed with. How things have changed.

As I have pointed out before, there are many situations in life where we are happy and indeed obliged to depend on the expertise of others. I do not have the first notion about how to fly an aeroplane, but (until recently) I needed to use them from time to time. What to do? Well, fortunately for me there are experts in flying aeroplanes; they are called airline pilots. There used to be quite a lot of them flying aeroplanes with skill, and able to fly me safely from point A to point B. I was really glad to avail myself of their expertise. And not just theirs. It turns out that while they were using their expertise for my benefit, they in turn were depending on the expertise of lots of other people, like air traffic controllers, aircraft maintenance engineers, and a whole host of others. Together, all this expertise could safely transport me thousands of miles at a time. I was happy to trust them to do so. Clearly some experts have their uses.

Now we find ourselves in a situation where expertise turns out to be a matter of life and death, potentially for thousands. The centrality accorded to expertise in these pandemic days has been clear for all to see. At least in the UK great stress has been put on policy being informed by scientific and medical experts. Day after day the Prime Minister or other senior ministers have appeared flanked by experts to whom they constantly defer. Of course there could be a deep cynicism at work. It could be, and no doubt some will argue it is, simply the politicians using the claimed expertise of others as cover for them taking very unpopular decisions. But I don’t think that’s what’s going on. I think that in life-critical situations, it turns out we have no problem taking experts and expertise seriously. This is our attitude in aeroplanes, and it appears to be our attitude in the pandemic. At least for the most part.

Perhaps the consistent undermining and downplaying of expertise is recent times explains why governments are finding that advice, sound advice based on science, is frequently being ignored. Just this week, it has been stressed just how important it is that in the current pandemic we socially isolate ourselves and not meet with others unless it is necessary. Other experts have told us that there is no necessity to panic buy and hoard foodstuffs and other thing (like toilet rolls - for reasons no-one seems able to fathom). And yet the flagrant disregarding of “advice” now means the state taking powers to enforce what the science says should be done. All over Europe, and now in the UK, there will be police (and in some places military) enforcement of the advice. Expertise is back, and with teeth.

It is still the case that not all expertise is the same and we need to understand some important distinctions.  For the appropriate expert, flying an aeroplane is a well constrained and defined task. While it is not true to say that there are no unknowables, there are relatively few. Do things in a certain way, in a certain order, and a safe flight will result – usually. “Usually” in this context means almost always; in 2018 there were only 0.36 fatal accidents per million flights. However, the expertise we’re depending on in the pandemic is different, although it is no less expertise. Here there are very many unknowns. We are dealing with a new virus and while information about it is accumulating, no one has anything like the full picture. So the scientific advice that decision-makers are relying upon is a best effort, based on the information to hand. And sometimes, experts looking at the same evidence may well interpret it in different ways. There are different models of how the virus is spreading, leading to different projections of how the pandemic may develop, and potentially different recommendations about the actions that should be taken to improve the situation. Then factor in that any advice issued has to be heard, understood and acted upon by millions of citizens. You can see how the unknowns in this situation rapidly multiply. But the experts and (in this case) their scientific methods are all we’ve got, and a lot better than the alternative - either doing nothing, or doing anything.

The experts have returned. Time to exercise a bit of faith; although let’s be clear – that’s what we’re doing. Putting our faith in experts and their expertise (again). And on a planetary scale.

Don’t be duped (or even gooped….)

I may have invented a new word. As far as I can tell there is currently no verb “to goop”. However, goop does exist as both a common and proper noun. In the dictionary “goop” is defined as a sludge or slimy concoction. “Goop” (capital G) is a completely different box of frogs. It started off as a newsletter, authored by the actress Gwyneth Paltrow. It has since become a money-spinning “lifestyle brand”, and most recently, in the form of “The Goop Lab”, a 6-part Netflix “documentary” series. There is of course the obligatory website, a cursory look at which suggests that Goop is primarily a shop window for expensive cardigans and handbags, quack remedies and lifestyle hacks. To be fair, you’ll find various disclaimers on the website, and in Netflix series, that those behind Goop are not making medical claims. However, if people don’t buy their stuff they don’t make any money, so I suspect the hope is that the disclaimers will be quickly passed over and forgotten as you move on to various opportunities to part with your cash. I confess I’m not fashionable and I’m tight with my cash, so Goop wasn’t really on my radar. That is until the boss of the NHS mentioned it in a recent speech.  

Sir Simon Stevens is the Chief Executive of the National Health Service in England. He is clearly frustrated by health “fake news” and more importantly its effects. Political fake news is bad enough. And you could argue that it has led to a number of alarming consequences in recent years. But health fake news can have fatal consequences. Essentially his charge was that Goop, particularly with the reach given it by Netflix, was spreading health fake news widely and quickly.  In his remarks he grouped Goop with snake oil salesmen and anti-vaxers. It was, in his view, not a source of useful, health-related information. Nor was it providing health-related but basically harmless entertainment.

In response, beyond the widely reported and relatively anodyne statements put out by Goop directly, Gwyneth herself went on the record to reject this criticism. She feels it is unfair primarily because she claims that Goop doesn’t give health advice at all. And it might be that that the professionals are just over-reacting to bit of entertaining fluff, with the expected sniffiness of professionals and “experts”. One Guardian columnist while agreeing with what Stevens had said, reckoned there wasn’t too much to be concerned about. The public were smart enough to work out that Goop was an over-priced, modern snake oil operation. “It’s just a wellness brand – expecting it to hold toscientific/medical criteria is like expecting a lip gloss to do a handstand.” I’m not sure I get the allusion, but you get the idea.

So what about Gwyneth’s claims that advice isn’t being issued and scientific claims are not being made? On the Goop UK site, under the “About” tab, it’s not too difficult to find language that at least drops heavy hints that both scientific and medical thinking are central to Goop’s operations. Under “Wellness” we read “We have a tightly edited wellness shop of products vetted for efficacy by our in-house research scientists, and we’ve also created five vitamin and supplement protocols with doctors to cover all the bases.” (emphasis mine). And as for the Netflix series, it is called the Goop lab. I accept that on one level this all falls short of clinical advice and scientific claims. But at the very least there is a particular kind of signalling going on. It strikes me that they want a veneer of intelectual respectability, and think this comes from signalling the involvement of a degree of scientific and medical competence.

This isn’t just me being over sensitive (I am after all a scientist, and I do clinical research). Or if it is, I’m not alone. Dominic Pimenta, a cardiologist writing in the Independent put it this way:  “The problem is that the Goop“lab”  gives itself the appearance of scientific rigour, while in fact offering pseudoscientific laziness: they cite“trials and experiments” without evaluating them, and talk to “practitioners and doctors” without critiquing their conflicts of interest (of course the largest conflict of interest on the show is Goop's, a billion-dollar brand selling, among other things, alternative health products).” It appears Gwyneth and her chums want the respectability that comes from hinting that they are taking a scientific and responsible approach, without doing any of the hard (and expensive) work that this entails. This would after all impact on the bottom line.

Of course part of the problem is that we don’t really need Goop to tell us how to be well at all. We know what leads to wellness, and it is not expensively packaged supplements, coffee enemas, and various beads and balls stuck in unmentionable places. It’s simple, boring stuff like a diet with plenty of fresh fruit and veg, a reasonable amount of exercise and as much sleep as you need. Accompany these with a degree of intellectual stimulation (analogue or digital) and engagement, and a network of meaningful human relationships and psychologically you’ll probably be the right side of fine. None of this costs a fortune or need involve Goop or any other website.

Mind you, this will only keep you in temporal (and therefore temporary) good nick. Without wanting to sound deliberately preachy (which of course means I am about to), while these simple measures will keep us in good physical and psychological health, they won’t ultimately satisfy our most basic need. At the beginning of his “Confessions” Augustine of Hippo pointed out that “..our heart is restless until it finds its rest in you.” It’s that restlessness that Goop and much else in modern life seeks to address or at least distract us from. Inevitably it fails.

Don’t be duped. To quote the Psalmist: “For he satisfies the longing soul.” (Psalm 107:9). The "he" in this case is of course the God who created and sustains us (whether we recognise it or not).

Surely you’re joking (Mr Feynman)?

Richard Feynman was a Nobel prize-winning physicist, who is perhaps best known these days for his role in the Rogers Commission which investigated the Challenger disaster. It was Feynman who famously worked out what had caused the disaster. He was as far from the stereotypical nerdy, bespectacled, white coated boffin as it is possible to get. When I was a student (of Physiology, not Physics) his memoir “Surely you’re joking, Mr Feynman”[1] was a must read. One thing you won’t read in it is a quote about the philosophy of science that’s usually attributed to Feynman: “The philosophy of science is as useful to scientists and ornithology is to birds”. No one appears to be able to pin down where and when he said (or wrote) this – hence the brackets in the title of this blog piece. So it is possible that it’s not one of his aphorisms. But it captures fairly accurately his attitude toward philosophy in general and the philosophy of science in particular. It is an attitude probably shared by not a few physicists.

Sir Peter Medawar, also a Nobel prize winner (this time for Physiology and Medicine for his work on immunity), had a bit more time for philosophy, at least to the extent that he was quite fond of perpetrating it. He pointed out that if you ask a scientist about the scientific method, “….he will adopt an expression that is at once solemn and shifty-eyed: solemn because he feels he ought to declare an opinion; shifty-eyed because he is wondering how to conceal the fact that he has no opinion to declare.”[2]  What he was highlighting was that in professional science we have tended not to think about the intellectual procedures we follow, and we rarely explicitly teach them to students either. I was expected to learn my scientific methodology through a combination of observation and osmosis. Of course what this has meant is that when challenged to articulate how we do what we do, we are apt to come up short. That was Medawar’s point. Given the undoubted success of science in providing explanations for, and control over, all sorts of aspects of the natural world, this apparent vacuum about science itself was bound to be filled with something.

Of course on one level there have always been philosophers of science. The list includes the like of Aristotle who philosophised about science before science, as we know it now, existed. Bacon, Hume, Mill and Kant all had something to say on the topic. Scientists did from time to time contribute; Newton famously had a dig at hypothises. But throughout the 19^th Century a division began to set in between those on the outside talking about science, and an increasingly professional cadre of scientists on the inside doing the science. And it appeared that you could do it fairly successfully, without actually knowing too much about how you were doing it. Perhaps this is when (some) scientists started getting a bit sniffy about the philosophers. It didn’t help that sometimes the description of science from the outside was not flattering. In the 1960’s it was the philosopher Thomas Kuhn who talked about one set of new scientific theories conquering and displacing an older less powerful set as a “conversion experience that cannot be forced”[3]. Not entirely rational on Kuhn’s account. Interestingly, his views were shaped by examples from physics and cosmology; perhaps this explains the antipathy of at least some physicists to philosophers.

But thinking has to be done, concepts have to clarified, and this is the proper province of philosophers. Yet even today there remains a bit of a prejudice against burdening science students with thinking about what science is and how it works. I used to be in charge of a large health sciences module on research methods. As part of the module I introduced a session on the philosophy of science, so that students would be introduced to a coherent account of scientific methodology (the sort of thing that might avoid the situation described by Medawar). To say that my colleagues thought that this was the lowest of low priorities would be an understatement. It didn’t remain a part of their course for very long!

However, there are a number of issues within contemporary science that mean it is more important than ever that  students are trained properly in scientific methodology, and that as a profession we understand what we’re doing and to what standards. There’s no harm at all in understanding research ethics (ethics being a branch of philosophy no less), and being introduced to issues in research integrity. There has always been successful and unsuccessful science. Some experiments work, others fail. Some turn out to be misconceived and doomed to failure from the start, at least when viewed with scientific hindsight. That’s all grist for the scientific mill. But success and failure in scientific terms are not the same as good and bad science, or for that matter good and bad scientists. The bad ones are the ones that fabricate data and such like – in other words they lie and cheat. This is of sufficient concern for governments, agencies and institutions to have introduced research integrity codes of practice. Perhaps the best known example of these is the Office of Research Integrity in the US.

Research misconduct certainly happens (as the ORI website attests). It is not common, and it is not widespread (probably). Along with proper policing and an open culture, better training might well improve the situation. Clearer understanding of how science works and what is, and is not acceptable practice, can only be a good thing. But more is required. This is about something beyond science; one might even say that it requires knowledge of something above science that underpins good science. Policies and procedures, clear thinking (yes, aided by the philosophers) will get us so far. But at root, this is about right and wrong, it is about values. But where do we get the right values? This is not a scientific question at all. But science (as well as every other area of human endeavour) depends on it.

Birds don’t need ornithology, but scientists do need lots of resources from beyond science. Intellectually, the help of the philosophers should be welcome. But an underpinning morality is needed too. And where are we going to get that?  

1. R.P. Feynman (1985) "Surely you're joking, Mr Feynman". 

2. P. Medawar (1982)  "Induction and intuition in scientific thought" in "Pluto's Republic".

3.T.S.Kuhn (1962) "The structure of scientific revolutions"

Faith in aliens….

I am not a famous ex-anything.  I’m not an ex-premier league footballer making even more of my millions. I’m not an ex-MP or ex-minister of Her Majesty, who makes TV documentaries about trains wearing brightly coloured clothes. In particular, I am not an ex-astronaut. I don’t regret not having played professional football (being fairly uninterested in the amateur variety). And, although sometimes it has had its attractions to my argumentative side, I don’t regret not being involved in professional politics (a tricky thing for a Christian – just ask Tim Farron). But who would not want to sit atop one of the most powerful machines ever invented, and then be blasted into orbit at unimaginable speeds, to look down on this blue jewel we all call home, or to look outward with unimpeded clarity at the stars? Too much? Anyway, the point is, I’m not an ex-astronaut. But some people are.

Helen Sharman is. She belongs to a select club that numbers just over 550. And, of course, she also has the additional distinction of being one a very few female ex-astronauts. In May 1991, after 18 months of intensive training, she blasted off in a Russian rocket, to conduct an 8-day mission on the Soviet Mir space station. Most of her time was spent running experiments. I have always assumed that astronauts are quite bright (this is partly about rocket science after all). As well expertise in science or engineering (Sharman’s background is in chemistry), there are all the other things you have to master connected to flying into, and then operating, in space. It’s a complex, difficult and dangerous environment. Since her return, she has busied herself as a science communicator and populariser, has received several honours from the Queen and the Royal Society of Chemistry and a host of honorary degrees from a list of universities. And she does occasional media interviews.

One of these interviews was published in the Guardian earlier this month. It was notable because it generated relatively little comment about one particular aspect of what she was quoted as having said. 

On the subject of aliens:

“Aliens exist, there’s no two ways about it. There are so many billions of stars out there in the universe that there must be all sorts of different forms of life. Will they be like you and me, made up of carbon and nitrogen? Maybe not. It’s possible they’re here right now and we simply can’t see them.”

(published in The Guardian, Jan 5th, 2020)

I have no reason to believe that this was said “tongue-in-cheek”, or was a random, throwaway statement. It is a view, an opinion, and a statement of faith. It is not stated as a hypothesis - a provisional statement of affairs, waiting to be tested and supported (or refuted) by evidence. That would make it a kind of scientific statement, with the weight and authority that such statements have (or at least should have). Helen is clear and emphatic: aliens exist. Indeed they “must” exist. She is basing this on a statistical argument (not evidence), that has been around for a while. But it’s an argument, based on an intuition, not an observation. The intuition is that we are not alone; it is widely shared. Is there any evidence that this intuition will be satisfied by the discovery of alien life? No. This is an exercise in faith. There is no evidence to support either the substantive assertion or the possibility that is alluded to. And it’s not that the evidence is lacking for want of effort.

The “search for extra-terrestrial intelligence” has gone on in one sense probably since the first human looked to the sky. In its modern form it began in earnest with the discovery of radio. Apparently Tesla suggested that his newly invented wireless could be used to contact beings on Mars. New technology brought new suggestions and opportunities. In the 1950’s it was searches in the microwave range. In the 1960’s it was searches in other frequency bands with radio telescopes. Then in the 1970’s NASA took up the reigns, spending large sums on various projects designed to search for signs of life out in the further reaches of space. Eventually NASA’s funding for SETI projects was cut (although efforts come and go to restore it), and the SETI institute carried on projects with private funding. There have been sizeable donations to the effort. Paul Allen, the co-founder of Microsoft, notably donated a sum in the region of $25M to support SETI. So a cumulatively large sum, running into tens of, if not hundreds of millions of US$, have been spent on this search. Some of the science along the way may well have been impressive. But (so far) the search has turned up nothing coming close to the evidence being searched for.

But who needs evidence. Aliens are real and probably among us, right? There is a bit of a double standard going on here. There are things that I claim that are clearly statements of faith. I’m apt to claim that the life of Jesus of Nazareth has significance beyond the historical and sociological. But this is based not on faith, but on facts. The faith bit is about the response, not the foundation. There are a number of well-attested and constantly investigated facts that lead me to believe certain things about Jesus (facts about what he said and did). The facts are of course contested, and even the concept of “fact” can be a bit slippery. But there is an evidence base to be engaged with. The facts are of a specific type of course. They are historical facts, and therefore the kind of investigation and validation that is necessary belongs to the discipline of history, not science. Other disciplines also have a role, because these facts are attested to by documents – in the main the Bible. But facts there are, none-the-less.

Evidence, disputed and debated as it is, is available to be disputed and debated, probed and weighted. Potentially, an awful lot hangs on the outcome of such investigations into the claims, work, death and (claimed) resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth. Much more than is the case for the non-evidenced claim that aliens exist.

New atheism’s old problem(s)

Christmas ratings suggest that the demise of network TV may have been overstated. Here in the UK the BBC’s new Dracula drama (a co-production with Netflix) has been praised by the critics and watched by millions. My interest was piqued by quotes attributed to its co-creators, Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss, self-described “ageing atheists”. The thrust was that in their version of the story they had set out to respect the “Christian themes” of the original Bram Stoker book. With perhaps a gentle dig as some of their theological fellow-travelers they suggest that there’s something in these themes to be taken seriously. The cross should be respected because “that icon of morality built a civilisation”. Their broader point seems to be that Western culture has been shaped by Christianity and that the cross is a symbol that still resonates. The stubborn refusal of such symbols and what they symbolise to fade from the scene, particularly given the occasional claim that science explains everything, can be usefully contrasted with "New Atheism".

“New Atheism” was dismissed in one recent article as “..a rather slight intellectual movement [that] fizzled out quickly..”; I’ve discussed its decline previously. Its celebrity proponents have faded from view, and its project seems to have moved on. God is apparently not a big problem anymore. Maybe the New Atheists feel that they’ve so conclusively refuted His existence that it would be in bad taste to continue banging on about Him. Except of course they refuted nothing, and argued things to the same standstill as the old atheists, except with less philosophical sophistication.

In terms of winning the population at large over to their views, the evidence is not that encouraging. Recent data from the US, courtesy of the Pew Centre, does show that in the US the proportion of those who self-identify as atheists doubled between 2009 and 2019, at least that’s how an atheist (old or new) might spin it. But it went up from 2% to 4%. Mind you, after more Trump, it may have gone up further. In the UK, the figure for those identifying as atheist was 8% in a 2017 survey. However, the other thing that both of these surveys show is that the real problem isn’t atheism, but apatheism – the notion that arguments about God just don’t merit a hearing. He might exist, He might not. Either way, there is no point in bothering.

Just like "new" atheism, apatheism isn’t new. It’s as old as the Bible (and probably older). It’s a state of mind and affairs that was familiar to the Old Testament prophets. God might be there, and might even matter a bit. But His existence doesn’t make any practical difference to life, so we can basically ignore Him for the most part. In modern terms, if I like old hymns, like a bit of ritual and want to hedge my bets, I can turn up occasionally to a church service. If the best school for my kids is a church school, then it will do no harm to sign on the dotted line, appear slightly more frequently, and actually learn the words of a hymn or two. This might have the added benefit of currying some favour with the Almighty. I’ll have some ticks in the good column, to balance out the ticks in the bad column. Just as long as no one takes any of it too seriously.

This is the “practical atheism” that the prophets in the Old Testament, and the Apostles in the New, railed against. It’s a kind of hypocrisy that I suspect the New Atheists would object to. At least as far as Christian, Biblical, theism goes, it makes no sense. If Jesus Christ is not who He claims to be, then he was (because He’s clearly dead, buried and decayed) either a bad or a crazy man. He was extravagantly clear in the claims He made as to who He was, what He was going to do, and how people should respond to Him. If He was wrong you should have nothing to do with Him. But, if He is who He says He is, then C.T. Studd put it well: “If Jesus Christ be God and died for me, then no sacrifice can be too great for me to make for Him”. 

Polite respect for symbols and a wistful regret at the passing of outmoded institutions just won’t cut it. Old and new atheism’s problem (or at least one of them) has always been the cross, or more particularly the death of Jesus on the cross - a unique, Universe shaping event with eternal implications and a means of transformation for individual men and women through history. Certainly much more than an “icon of morality”.