a prettyish kind of a little wilderness

We live on a small suburban block with a main road behind. But there are plenty of trees around and we have retained as many as we can. So we attract some wildlife .....

Our yard.

Rainbow lorikeets - loud, sassy and generally fearless.

Sulphur crested cockatoos - comical, persistent and messy eaters.

Eastern rosellas - shy and only rarely seen.

Crimson rosellas - also shy and not commonly seen.

Pigeons and doves - I don't really know the difference.

And my favourite, the magnificent and gentle king parrot.

With so many different birds, there are bound to be the occasional problem, such as a messy deck, and the occasional fight. Here two rosellas face up to an aggressive noisy miner.

And there's not just birds, but spiders ....

..... autumn leaves .....

..... and possums. This old brushtail mother possum was so blind she came out in daylight. She successfully reared a succession of babies until she died recently.

When I was a boy, living not far from here, there were few trees and most of the birds were small - sparrows, blue wrens, silvereyes and willie wagtails. But in recent years, the drought and the increased number of trees have brought the bigger birds into the suburbs.

There are organisations which can help us make our gardens more friendly for native birds, especially the smaller ones, such as finches, pardalotes and wrens. You can check them out - Birds Australia, Flora for Fauna, and Backyard Buddies.

i always loved this cartoon

buy bye

Ever felt like you've accumulated too much stuff, and it's just getting in the way? Does Xmas shopping take away your peace of mind? Or have you ever bought something you didn't really need, or even want all that much?

You're not alone.

But doing something about it is another thing. It's simply hard to break out. But there are people taking a stand against corporate consumerism.

Compact is one such group. It was formed by a group of friends in San Francisco who were concerned about the environmental damage of the enormous amounts of waste we generate in western societies. So they did something very radical.

They agreed to not buy any new stuff for a whole year, except for a few important items such as medicines, food and safety items. Instead, they would buy second-hand, borrow/lend, barter or make what they needed.

The idea caught on, and thousands of people have joined the Compact Yahoo Group, and Compact Groups have started around the world. People have found the freedom from consumerism to be very liberating, sometimes even helping to create new community feeling. But not everyone is impressed - some have labelled these ideas as "unAmerican" and undermining economic growth.

The Sydney Morning Herald recently (They're just not buying it, Jacqui Taffel, Oct 27-28) reviewed the efforts of several people trying to live by the Compact principles in Australia. It seems that not everyone is able to keep it up, and some live by less stringent principles. But as with the original San Fransisco group, most do not miss the products they are doing without, and feel positive about the idea.

One said: "It made me think about what is our purpose - is it just to go and buy stuff? And I don't think I've worked that out yet."

I find it ironic that America is at the same time both the world's strongest exponent of capitalism, and supposedly the world's most christian nation. Yet Jesus warned against excessive consumption: ".... guard yourselves from all kinds of greed, because a man's true life is not made up of the things he owns, no matter how rich he may be." (Luke 12:13).

What do you think? Do we consume too much? Have we been conned by advertising to do what doesn't make us more fulfilled and happy? What can/should we do about it? Do we need to go to such lengths, or is there a more moderate approach to resisting consumerism?

Read more about Compact from the SMH; read an interview with one of the founders; or read the Compact blog.

beautiful scotland (and northern england)

Holiday photos aren't really the purpose of this blog, but I can't resist sharing these. (The pictures are small so they loader quicker, but you can see a slightly larger version by clicking on each photo.)

The Lakes District (Cumbria) on a frosty morning.

The waterfront at Portree on the Isle of Skye.

Thirlmere in Cumbria.

Coniston Water (Cumbria) - the house is Bank Ground Farm, the model for
"Holly Howe" in Arthur Ransome's well-loved "Swallows and Amazons" books.

Eilean Donan castle overlooking Loch Alsh.

The stark beauty of Skye - you can just make out a remote farmhouse dwarfed by the mountains.

600 year old building in the walled city of York.

The 17th century harbour at Portsoy on the north coast of Scotland.

Many neolithic (around 4000 years ago) stone monuments remain in Scotland,
including this burial cairn and standing stone near Inverness.

The village of Crovie on the north coast of Scotland - established as a fishing
village during the "highland clearances" in the eighteenth century, when the
conquering English forced many Scottish farmers off their land. But it is not
suitable for modern fishing, and is now a remote holiday village.

Windswept Iona.

where's that wally, unkle e?

I'll be away from my computer for a little while, so blogging is unlikely. Back in a few weeks, maybe tell you about it all then. Ciao.

are the stories about jesus true?

You might think that, after 2000 years, everything that could be written about Jesus would have been written. But books about Jesus are still being published in their thousands, and not all by believers.

And there are so many different views: from fringe christian through mainstream christian, to mainstream unbelief, and fringe unbelief. Some people follow Jesus as the Son of God, others don't believe he ever existed.

If you were interested, how would you know who to trust?

I have been researching this question for a while, and I think we must start by checking what genuine historians say. And we can navigate between the people with preconceived opinions either way and get a reasonably neutral assessment by (1) looking at the consensus of historians working in the area (there is safety in numbers), and (2) checking out an agnostic historian with no axe to grind either way.

So I checked out almost every book in our local library by a reputable historian. This included many of the most respected names in current scholarship, such as Dominic Crossan, Marcus Borg, Ed Sanders, Geza Vermes, Tom Wright and John Meier. Here's what I found out .....

how much can we know?

History is not an exact science. Historians can say what probably happened, and what probably didn't, but there is a large amount of material on which they have insufficient information to make a judgment. This is especially true of the New Testament, because of the miraculous element, on which a historian cannot pass expert judgment - our acceptance of the miraculous will depend on what we believe as much as on the historical facts.

So we have to accept some uncertainty, and go with what we have.

the consensus of historians.

Most professional historians are scrupulously objective. (Most of the books that specifically aim to argue for or against christianity are from non-historians.) And here's the range of their conclusions on whether the stories of Jesus are historical.

The most sceptical of historians are probably those in the "Jesus Seminar" - a group of scholars which has methodically applied the most critical analysis to this question. They nevertheless conclude that Jesus was undoubtedly a historical figure who most likely did and said about 15-20% of what we find in the Bible. Much of the rest of the New Testament reflects things that Jesus may have said and done, but it has been interpreted by the early christians in such a way as to make it impossible to know the original historical facts. So these scholars provide some sort of minimum of what we can confidently believe about Jesus.

At the other end of the spectrum, many professing christian scholars believe that almost all the New Testament is not just believable, but also able to be established historically.

But the majority of historians conclude something between these extremes. Here are some examples of what they conclude we can know:

• Marcus Borg: "some judgments are so probable as to be certain; for example, Jesus really existed, and he really was crucified, just as Julius Caesar really existed and was assassinated......We can in fact know as much about Jesus as we can about any figure in the ancient world."
• E P Sanders: ".... we have a good idea of the main lines of his [Jesus] ministry and his message. We know who he was, what he did, what he taught, and why he died."
• G Stanton: "Few doubt that Jesus possessed unusual gifts as a healer, though of course varied explanations are offered."
• E P Sanders: "That Jesus' followers (and later Paul) had resurrection experiences is, in my judgment, a fact. What the reality was that gave rise to the experiences I do not know."

Thus the mainstream of historians conclude that quite a lot of what is recorded about Jesus actually occurred.

michael grant

The late Michael Grant was an eminent historian who wrote more than 50 books on the history of the Roman Empire. Importantly for the question we are discussing here, he was not a believer. His book, Jesus: an Historian's Review of the Gospels, draws the following historical conclusions about Jesus, using the same methods he used in his other historical investigations:

• Did Jesus exist?: "[The Jesus myth] has again and again been answered and annihilated by first-rank scholars .... no serious scholar has ventured to postulate the non-historicity of Jesus."
• Is the New Testament historical?: "the picture they [the gospels] present is largely authentic .... information about Jesus can be derived from the gospels."
• Jesus acting as God: "Jesus introduced a very singular innovation. For he also claimed that he himself could forgive sins."
• Why did Jesus die?: "Jesus lived his last days, and died, in the belief that his death was destined to save the human race."
• Grant also concludes that Jesus' tomb was really empty, though he does not believe in the miracle of the resurrection.

Thus Michael Grant's conclusions support, and perhaps go a little further than, the consensus of historians.

what may we conclude

While I have tried to present the historical information fairly, I must make it clear that I write as one who has concluded that the historical evidence supports belief in Jesus. But this is not the only option.

I think it is impossible for a fair-minded person to believe Jesus never existed - the weight of historical study does not allow this. So we are faced with a couple of options, either .....

1. ..... on the basis of the historical evidence we can believe that Jesus truly came from God, and then we can trust (in faith) the rest of the New Testament that historians cannot verify, or .....
2. ..... we accept that a man named Jesus lived and taught and died, but that he was mistaken about the more radical claims that he made to represent God on earth.

What do you reckon?

For further reading, I recommend:

• Michael Grant's book on Jesus.
• John Dickson: A Spectator's Guide to Jesus. A historian who believes in Jesus presents the historical evidence in a fair-minded way.
• A more detailed summary on my website - also provides links to websites by both christians and atheists.

marriage, infidelity and singleness

Back in April I reported on marriage strategies - how living together before marriage reduces the likelihood of the marriage lasting. Now the Sydney Morning Herald has reported on some more interesting facts about marriage.

cohabiting & singleness

A new study by Ruth Weston shows that in the last 5 years there has been an enormous increase in the number of people in their 30s who are not in a live-in relationship, married or otherwise. While the divorce rate is now more or less stable, living together has become more unstable.

In the 1980s, couples tended to live together as a "trial marriage", but now live-in relationships tend to begin more casually. This apparently makes it more likely that couples might live for years in a relationship with little commitment that ends up going nowhere. If or when they finally separate, this time has been "wasted", and the prospects of finding a marriage partner much reduced.

marriage & infidelity

Pamela Druckerman has researched marriage infidelity in several countries, and found some slightly surprising conclusions:

• The French are among the more faithful in marriage. They do not make a fuss about infidelity, but nevertheless value faithfulness very highly.
• Americans too value fidelity, but are slightly less faithful than the French. Those who are victims of infidelity tend to suffer more than in other nations, get angrier and almost always seek extensive counselling.
  
• Britons, Japanese and Russians appear to be among the less faithful. The instability in Russian marriages seems to be a related to other social problems, like poor health, crime, alcoholism and a growing AIDS problem. In Japan, infidelity seems to be related to an unrealistic approach to marriage, and is beginning to lead to women delaying marriage because of male propensity for discreet affairs.
  
• Togo has a level of infidelity many times that of western nations (which may help explain why AIDS is such a problem in Africa!).
• Most faithful of the nations investigated are Kazakhstan, Bangladesh and ...... Australia.
• Overall, wealthy countries tend to have lower rates of infidelity, especially among men.
  

Not sure what all that proves, except maybe that we can flout the conventional standards but it doesn't seem to make anyone any happier.

is this obscene, or what?

A few months back, I commented on the wealth imbalance between different countries. Recently I came across statistics on the ratio of salary of the CEO of companies to the average worker in that company.

The figures show that in 1965, CEO's were paid 24 times what the average worker earned. By 1989, the ratio had risen to 71. The disparity grew even faster in the 1990's, peaking at a massive 300 times in 2000 before a stock market fall reduced the ratio to 143 in 2002. But it is rising again, reaching 262 in 2005.

Thus, CEOs are paid more in one day than their workers earn in a year!

It is hard to believe that anyone can usefully use this much money, and even harder to accept that it reflects true human worth. Communism has been shown to be oppressive and not to work, but surely capitalism is showing itself to be oppressive too, only in a slightly subtler way.

bigger, uglier and emptier?

Houses in Sydney are, on average, getting more expensive. Not because housing costs are greater (they are actually cheaper) but because houses are getting bigger. About a 50% increase in the last twenty years.

At the same time, the average household size has fallen, from about 3 people per household twenty years ago to about 2.5 now (16%). So the average person uses about 60% more space than they did two decades ago.

And some people who have studied these matters are worried:

• If we were satisfied with smaller houses, we wouldn't always need two incomes to pay them off, allowing people more choice in having and raising families.
• Some people are mortgaged to their eyeballs to purchase these large houses, and if interest rates rise (as they have recently), they can no longer meet the requirements, and they lose their house. Loan defaults have risen. In a new suburb near me, one street has four uncompleted houses, presumably because of this.

• Bigger houses and smaller blocks mean very small backyards with nowhere for children to play outside, and people being isolated behind the wall of their "fortresses".
• Bigger houses use more of the world's precious resources, especially energy.
• It's just one more symptom of "affluenza", the disease of excessive materialism that makes no-one happy, and is built upon inequality that keeps so many people in the world in poverty.
  

And another thing. The new big "McMansions" seem to generally be less attractive, as people tend to maximise space at the expense of good design, and (I'm guessing) want their homes to be imposing rather than attractive. At least that's how it looks to my eyes. Here are a few examples.

Houses don't need to be like ugly boxes. They used to know how to build attractive houses.

And they still do.

So we have more space, but less beauty and utility. Affluenza and status extract a heavy price. And, sadly, we are often so desperate to build our self image that we are willing to pay the price. Truly we are sometimes like sheep without a shepherd!

forgiveness and reconciliation can work

Sometimes the news is good!

So often the TV news is full of hatred, murder and war, so it is good to be able to report people giving peace a chance.

The sectarian conflict in Northern Ireland generated a lot of hatred, division and violence. But not all Protestants and Catholics hated each other. Way back in 1965, the Corrymeela Community was formed, with both "sides" of Christianity represented. Among its purposes was to "Work to realise a society whose priorities are justice, mutual respect, the participation of all, concern for the vulnerable and the stranger, stewardship of resources, and care for creation."

Facing the sectarian violence that was rampant at the time, the community specifically aimed "to establish over time a shared society defined by tolerance: a normal civil society in which all individuals are considered as equal, where differences are resolved through dialogue in the public sphere and where all individuals are treated impartially."

The community won an international peace prize for its programs and promotion of reconciliation in 1997. You can read about its current programs here. It is, of course, only one of many groups that have led to the current peace in Northern Ireland.

In August, the British Army ceased "active deployment" in Northern Ireland, although a peacetime garrison remains, a significant development.

Other stories about reconciliation have made news recently.

• A year ago, former South African Police Minister. Adriaan Vlok, visited a church in Soweto to apologise to the Rev Frank Chikane for attempting to murder him during the apartheid regime. Rev Chicane commented: "The fact that Mr Vlok has come to make a confession to me and is here with us today is a miracle". He said that, despite being angry, people should be prepared to "pick ourselves up and move on...... We must not let the past we've defeated dictate our future."
• In April this year, Matthew Cloyd, along with two others, was convicted and sentenced to prison for arson attacks on nine churches in Alabama. One church was Galilee Baptist, a small congregation whose building was burnt to the ground. A replacement building has been completed, and recently Cloyd's family were among those who attended a service to celebrate the new building, in an attempt to reach out to the congregation. "We felt like they deserved to hear from us," Mrs Kim Cloyd said. "We felt like they needed to know that this was not about racism or hatred."In return, the congregation hugged the Coyd family, and visitors reported they were overwhelmed by the sense of forgiveness and love in the congregation towards the family.

Jesus said: "If you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there in front of the altar. First go and be reconciled to your brother; then come and offer your gift." (Matthew 5:23-24) Reconciliation is more important than religious ceremony.

We need more people to live out this teaching, like the brave examples in these stories.

the politics of fear

Terrorism in one form or another has been around for millennia, but modern weaponry makes it so much more fearful. Since the attacks on the World Trade Centre in New York, the United States has been hypersensitised to terrorism. The attacks a year later on two nightclubs in Bali commonly frequented by holidaying Australians, had a big impact on thinking in Australia. Attacks in London, Madrid and elsewhere have also played their part in making all western countries re-think security.

Sydney has just hosted a meeting of APEC, which resulted in a massive disruption to thousands of workers and businesses, and claims of heavy-handed policing and unnecessarily strict security.

Few of us would think that we can ignore the threat of terrorism, and most would surely support some tightening of laws and some increase in police and security powers. The question is, how much security is necessary, and what is the "correct" balance between security and civil freedoms?

Australian economist, author and thinker, Clive Hamilton, has addressed this question in a recent speech and an essay in the Sydney Morning Herald titled "Fear the creeping powers of the state".

He argues that we have gone too far in creating laws that no-one fully understands, making it easier for people to come to the attention of shadowy surveillance and security organisations without knowing it, and without presenting a security risk in reality. He argues that even if most of us don't know the technicalities of ordinary laws, we all know murder and theft are against the law. But with new anti-terrorism laws, it is hard to know exactly what actions or acquaintanceships or interests might be construed as presenting a security risk.

"The [anti-terrorism] laws are not transparent and are no longer in alignment with our natural sense of what is right and wrong."

He cites the recent case of a Pakistani doctor working in Australia who gave his mobile phone SIM card to a relative, who was an associate of a terrorist in the UK. Government actions to charge him with terrorist offences and then expel him from Australia (by cancelling his visa) were shrouded in secrecy and ambiguity. When facts were finally made public, the Government's case was generally considered inadequate. But it was all done using the new anti-terrorism laws that give the government and police enormous powers.

So are these laws an over-reaction? Those whose family or friends have been victims of terrorism may not think so, but many others are concerned. It is worth considering the following:

• 88 Australians died in the 2002 Bali bombings, with a few also killed in other terrorism attacks. By comparison, about 1600 Australians die each year as a result of road accidents.
• About 2,800 people died in the 2001 World Trade Centre attacks. By comparison, more than 3,700 US troops have been killed in the Iraq war, together with about 300 other coalition troops, about 7,000 Iraqi troops and perhaps 80,000 Iraqi civilians (this number is hotly disputed, with estimates varying from about 15,000 to more than 100,000). Back home, each year about 30,000 people die because of firearms and about 42,000 die on the roads.
• In the UK, 52 people died in the 2005 London bombings, compared to about 170 British deaths in the Iraq war, and about 3,200 Britons killed on the roads each year.

I honestly don't know what to make of these figures, but I can't help feeling our level of concern should somehow be more in proportion to the numbers of deaths. Nor do I know what laws will best preserve our quality of life, but I think we would all do well to consider Clive Hamilton's points.

a tale of 3 watches

One watch has the slogan: "It's your watch that tells most about who you are." And this is who they hope you'll want to be like ...

Another watch suggests your watch determines what you are made of ...

So what does Unkle E's watch tell you about him?

Let's resist advertising and social images that try to sell vanity, and self esteem where it cannot and should not be found!

stuffed or starved?

Photo: Freeimages.

It shocks you at first, then it makes you think. A map of the world with all of the countries distorted - some bulging much larger than they really are, some thin and emaciated.

The map shows who produces the world's food, who consumes it, and who over-consumes. And what it shows is really no surprise. South America (notably Brazil), Canada, Russia, Finland, Sweden and Australia produce much more than they consume. The United States, most of Europe, much of the middle east, South Korea and Japan consume more than they produce. The richer countries generally over-eat, and the poorer countries, notably in Africa, don't have enough.

But what is really shocking is that the food imbalance is so great. Almost a billion people in the world go to bed hungry. But more than a billion are overweight (see the flabby country?).

A new book, Stuffed and Starved:Markets, Power and the Hidden Battle for the World Food System by Raj Patel, reviewed recently in the Sydney Morning Herald, analyses the world's food supply systems and finds them inequitable, unsustainable and manipulated for profit.

We all know that food is not distributed well or evenly, because of inequalities in wealth and suitable land. But this book reveals the large part played by governments and big business, for example:

• High farm subsidies in the US and Europe provide more funds to each cow than a poor family in a developing country can earn. Trade restrictions limit the opportunities for farmers in poorer countries to make a living.
  
• With food seen more as a multi-billion dollar business than a necessity of life, corporations create foods rich in sugars, fats and taste while poor in nutrients, leading to endemic obesity in western countries, poor nutrition in poorer countries, and often economic dependency as farmers in poorer countries move from subsistence farming to cash crops. "Through processed food, consumers are engorged and intoxicated. The agribusiness's food and marketing have contributed to diet-related disease, harming us today and planting a time bomb in the bodies of children around the world. Supermarket shelves offer an abundance of cheap calories, even as they bleed local economies."
• Trans-national companies control 40% of the world food trade, with some foods almost totally controlled by a few companies.
• Several major food companies also own weight-loss enterprises. They "promote products that make customers fatter and thinner simultaneously."

There are good health reasons why we in the west should modify our eating habits, consume less fat (and probably less sugars), eat more good carbohydrates, and avoid highly processed foods with a concoction of artificial additives. Doing our bit to avoid supporting companies which put profit way ahead of health may be another reason.

selfish genes?

It was a nightmare story which attracted enormous public interest.

A couple of months ago, in Melbourne, Australia's second largest city, the morning peak hour was disturbed by a man dragging a young woman towards a taxi. Two men intervened to help the woman, shots were fired and the assailant fled. One man, a husband, father and city solicitor on his way to work, lay dead. The other man, a Dutch backpacker, and the woman, were seriously injured, but survived.

And in the following days people asked: "In the same situation, would you intervene?"

Altruism is an interesting phenomenon, and was discussed in a recent Sydney Morning Herald article. It is a key question in any discussion of ethics.

Photo:Pix

Where do ethics come from, and why should we obey them? And why should we help others if we may endanger ourselves?

There seem to be three main views:

1. Some would say human beings have no ability to choose beyond how our brains are programmed, and therefore, ethics are an illusion. Thus Professor William Provine says: "Naturalistic evolution has clear consequences that Charles Darwin understood perfectly. ..... no ultimate foundation for ethics exists; .... and human free will is nonexistent."

If this view is true, then we don't have any real choice about altruism - it is something our brains either do or don't lead us to do. We have evolved to sometimes behave in unselfish ways, if it benefits the species, and the survival of our genes. "Psychiatrist Dr Michael Dudley thinks our selfishness and also our latent altruism might simply get back to biology. He says there are arguments for altruism being beneficial for the species."

But if this view is true, we cannot really criticise another person's behaviour, no matter how extreme - they are behaving as they are programmed to do. It also makes punishment for crime unfair.

2. Others also believe that ethics, and altruism in particular, did evolve as human society evolved, but that we have a genuine choice whether we act selfishly or unselfishly. Thus social researcher Hugh Mackay writes: ".... morality is a social construction. At its core is the idea of mutual obligation .... willingness to take the rights, needs and welfare of others into account, on the assumption that they will do the same for us."

But this then raises some difficult questions. If I have a choice, why should I disadvantage myself for the sake of someone else? Why should I follow society's rules if I think I can get away with it?

And who decides what is right and what is wrong anyway? A common answer, evident in Mackay's comment above, is that society as a whole decides. But are we really willing to accept that? If the majority of Germans supported Hitler (I'm doubtful they actually did, but this is a hypothetical), would that make the Holocaust "right" for them? And presumably wrong for the rest of us? Was slavery right when the majority accepted it?

In the end, most of us believe some things are REALLY right or wrong, but this doesn't fit well with this view of ethics.

3. The third view argues that ethics have a factual basis in the universe and can be true just as the laws of physics are true, with the difference that we have a choice about obeying ethical "laws". This view raises its own set of difficulties. Who or what makes things 'right' in the universe? And if the answer is "God", then which god are we talking about?

Nevertheless, this view is the only one which explains what we generally believe about ethics, that some things really ARE right and wrong.

So altruism isn't a simple thing. It seems to go against nature. Hugh Mackay: "It's actually not natural. The natural thing is to go along with the crowd." Thus altruistic behaviour is, for some, another indication that the naturalistic explanation for ethics isn't correct.

And perhaps altruism is becoming a rarer thing. After the Melbourne shooting, police spokesman Senior Constable Wayne Wilson said: "I have no doubt we're a far more selfish society and far more individually-orientated than we ever used to be. For that reason, people are less willing to intervene in a humanitarian way in other people's lives."

Perhaps ethical behaviour and personal integrity are also becoming less common on an individual level (e.g. truthfulness, faithfulness in marriage, selfishness, greed), even as it appears that we are making progress in improving society in the areas of racism, sexism, pedophilia, abuse and war.

Would you intervene if someone needed assistance?

Read more about where ethics come from, how our brains work, and our responsibility for what our brains decide.

don't drink the water!

Three songs about how white colonial people treated indigenous or black people:

Don't Drink the Water (Dave Matthews Band):

Written as the thoughts of a white colonist in frontier America, as he pushes the native Americans off their land, telling them "There's no place here ... not room for both, just room for me." The song ends with these devastating words:

"'Cause you're all dead now I live with my justice I live with my greedy need I live with no mercy I live with my frenzied feeding I live with my hatred I live with my jealousy I live with the notion That I don't need anyone but me

Don't drink the water There's blood in the water"

Blind Willie McTell (Bob Dylan)

Dylan starts by stating his thesis that America's prosperity is compromised: "Seen the arrow on the doorpost saying, 'This land is condemned, all the way from New Orleans to Jerusalem'" then quickly paints a series of scenes from the days of slavery. He ends with this conclusion:

"Well, God is in his heaven And we all want what's his But power and greed and corruptible seed Seem to be all that there is I'm gazing out the window Of the St. James Hotel And I know no one can sing the blues Like Blind Willie McTell"

Solid Rock (Goanna)

The white settlement in Australia from the viewpoint of indigenous Australians, who, understandably, feel betrayed:

"They were standin' on the shore one day, Saw the white sails in the sun Wasn't long before they felt the sting, white man, white law, white gun Don't tell me that it's justified, 'cause somewhere, someone lied Yeah well someone lied, someone lied, genocide Well someone lied."

Whenever I hear that song, I feel the raw sting of those words: "Someone lied".

Some people want to ignore our history, because they feel it wasn't our fault and only opens up negative thoughts. It wasn't our doing, but we can, and should, feel grief for the people our ancestors treated inhumanly, even if in ignorance.

Of course it is still happening today, as Indonesia invades and subjugates the people of Irian Jaya while the rest of the world finds it more convenient to look the other way.

"Someone lied!"

what sort of human being would you create?

Graphic taken from the Emergence lab website.

I read about an interesting new "show" on the weekend (I put "show" in inverted commas because that might not be the best word - "experiment" might be equally applicable).

It's called Emergence, and it's an "interactive audiovisual performance" coming to the Sydney Opera House this week. In the show, each member of the audience takes on the role of parent and decides on the characteristics of a human being they create, and then watch to see how it works out.

Before each performance. audience members log in to the Emergence lab, and decide on traits for their developing embryo. At the performance, they discuss and then vote on their being's emotions and characteristics, then watch film clips and live theatre, even interacting with their creation, and see the consequences of their choices. It sounds simple, but reports suggest that the outcomes are emotionally engrossing and thought-provoking.

The most interesting thing for me is the types of choices people have tended to make during the show's initial season in Canberra.

• The majority of people would not choose for their creation to always be happy, but would prefer them to be able to feel sadness. However most men would prefer they never could feel pain.
• Only half of people, and even less of females, would like their being to always be honest.
• People would generally prefer their being to be more critical rather than more empathetic, if they have to choose between the two - I find this very surprising.

It may be that, before too long, the choices faced in this show will be faced by real people. I wonder if we have any understanding of the implications of tinkering with the balance of what it means to be human?

Read reviews of Emergence in the Sydney Morning Herald and The Program.

seeing the light

There's no doubt we humans have learnt to do some pretty clever things, but you have to wonder how smart we are.

It has been predicted that the world's reserves of petroleum will run out in about 30 years. Certainly we may discover more, but the rate of discovery is declining while the rate of use is growing, and faster than was predicted. If we don't do something, the next generation will certainly be forced to.

To make matters worse, our dependence on petroleum and other fossil fuel energy (such as coal-fired power stations) is a major cause of global warming.

There are quite a few alternatives to consider. For some people, nuclear power is the saviour, but for others it is the worst of all options. It would be wonderful if we could harness the more benign nuclear fusion, but that is still some way off.

Electric cars may one day take over from petrol vehicles, and geothermal energy may one day be a useful energy source. But many believe our greatest hope is to develop the safe and renewable energy sources - solar, wind, hydroelectric and tidal.

At present, renewables constitute only a small percentage of the world's energy sources, with fossil fuels being dominant at 67%. But the use of renewables, especially solar, is growing fast.

The sun (here shown being eclipsed) is ultimately the source of all our energy
(photo from PDPhoto.org).

Japan, the US and Germany lead the world in the use of solar power. In recent news, Germany is to build solar energy plants to generate almost a third of its needs. This is remarkable, considering that Germany has significantly less hours of sunshine per year than countries closer to the equator. India, Australia and large areas of Africa and South America have the largest number of sunshine hours and hence the greatest potential for solar energy.

Australia is also one of the leading nations in the development of solar technology, has vast areas of high sunshine, yet many believe we have squandered our natural opportunities. Currently renewable sources provide only about 5% of Australia's energy, with solar being only a small part of this. Many people believe we could and should do much more if only Governments would provide the right incentives. Certainly the Sydney Morning Herald has reported that many people are willing to pay more for renewable energy. However Australia has a lot of coal, which earns a lot of export dollars, and the coal industry is a powerful lobby group.

So we may be the "lucky country", but it seems like we have a way to go to be the smart country.

we know more than we can tell

What does riding a bicycle tell us about science and knowledge? (Photo:Webshots)

We live in a world where science and technology rule. So much so that some people seem to think that the only kind of real knowledge is that revealed by science. "Show us the evidence" they say, "We only believe what can be demonstrated." It all sounds very reasonable. It is, in fact, an expression of a philosophy known as positivism: "the only way we can know something is through empirical evidence, that is, observable via our senses."

Michael Polanyi was a scientist and philosopher who lived through much of the twentieth century. He reacted against positivism, and came to the conclusion that "We know more than we can tell".

From his and others' insights have come the ideas of tacit knowledge and the relevance paradox. Tacit knowledge is the information we carry in our heads that cannot be easily explained through logical statements. How to ride a bicycle might be an example - it cannot be learnt from a textbook, but requires experience and practice.

The relevance paradox arises where a group of people miss important information because they did not recognise its relevance. A classic example (according to Wikipedia) was when NASA scientists were trying to develop a knee joint for a spacesuit, and finally found that their problem had been solved centuries before, and the solution could be seen in King Henry's suit of armour in the tower of London.

Why is all this important? I want to suggest three reasons:

1. Tacit knowledge has been found to be important in innovation and research. Despite the scientific method being all about testing the evidence, many top scientists say that their initial ideas came via inspiration, which were then verified by evidence. Sometimes we know more than we can tell.

2. We have been burned many times by the relevance paradox, for example, in ecology. In Australia, foreign plant and animal species have been introduced for some purpose thought good at the time, but almost all have turned out disastrously:

• foxes and rabbits were introduced for sport, but now wreak environmental havoc;
• European Carp and the lantana plant were let loose in the wild and now are in pest proportions;
• cane toads were introduced to control two species of beetle which are pests for cane growers, but have multiplied and spread across vast areas of northern Australia, leading to much destruction of native species
• non-native feral cats are one of the biggest threats to many smaller native animals and birds which have never before had to cope with such voracious and vicious predators.
  

European settlers in Australia didn't understand the environment they were effectively experimenting with - and fell victim to the relevance paradox.

3. I think there is a danger that twenty-first century western culture is falling foul of the relevance paradox and ignoring tacit knowledge in many ways. So much of what we know and do is changing so fast, from ethics to relationships to information and entertainment. It is like we are in the middle of an enormous social experiment and we don't know where we'll end up. Some of the gains are enormous, for example in medicine and communication, but I can't help feeling we may be throwing away some of the intangibles like ethics, courtesy, faith, altruism and common decency a little too fast. We may live to regret it. We know more than we can tell, but not as much as we think we do.

It is interesting to note that sociologists tell us that "modernism", built on the certainties of science has now almost passed, and given way to "postmodernism", which has far fewer certainties. But that's another story.

Read what Wikipedia has to say about Michael Polanyi, tacit knowledge and the relevance paradox.

truth in advertising?

miracles happen?

I guess most of us have seen the bumper stickers ... Some are positive ("miracles happen", "magic happens"), some tell us more negative stuff that we already know.

But can miracles really happen? And how could we be sure?

are there any credible accounts of apparent miracles?

Again, most of us have probably heard them, stories and urban myths that have come to us maybe sixth or seventh hand, so we have no way of assessing their reliability. We'd like to know if the witnesses are reliable; we'd like to know if there's any documentation.

But here are a few accounts which do have documentation and do appear to have reliable witnesses, so they are at least worth considering.

• Recently, American heart surgeon, Dr. Chauncey W. Crandall IV, gave an account of a man he had attended in hospital after he had suffered a massive heart attack. After attempts to re-start his heart had failed, the man was pronounced dead by the medical team. However Dr Crandall prayed for the man's healing, his heartbeat returned and he subsequently recovered. This is not the first time Dr Crandall has observed a miraculous healing after prayer. Dr Crandall is a respected cardiologist (as this summary shows) with over twenty years experience, he has performed heart operations in many hospitals and holds professorships in several universities, so this miracle is very well attested.
• In January 2006, Patsy was admitted to hospital with a virulent form of encephalitis, a virus that attacks the brain. Within a few days she was in a coma, connected to life support, and the prognosis was grim - she was unlikely to survive, and if she did, it was likely her brain would be impaired. More than a thousand friends, relatives and friends of friends were enlisted to pray for her healing, and she started to improve. After a few months, doctors confidently predicted a full recovery. The family attributes her recovery to God's intervention, and her husband has set up a website and billboard to advertise this.
• Many cases of apparently divine healing have been documented by the World Christian Doctors Network. Case studies of cancers, AIDS, multiple schlerosis and many other illnesses that were apparently healed miraculously are presented on the website, and include copies of case notes, scans and medical descriptions. It is hard to challenge such well-documented claims.
• Lourdes is a village in France where many healing miracles are reputed to have occurred since 1858. Of the half million people seeking cures each year, several thousand healing miracles have been reported. Where possible, people claiming healing are examined on the spot by a medical bureau, and the information is reviewed by an international commission of medical specialists. To be regarded as authentic, claims have to satisfy three requirements: (a) the illness was well documented, (b) the symptoms disappeared within hours and (c) the healing lasted for several years. Most claims lack sufficient evidence to be verified, but 63 miracles have passed this stringent checking and have been proclaimed as authentic. (Read more here.)
  
• I have also read a report of a medical investigation into 300 claimed miracles of healing at the Jamkaran mosque in Iran, in which 8 were authenticated, but I cannot find a reference to this now.
  

I find these reports, individually and as a whole, too credible to lightly discard.

but can we seriously believe miracles occur today?

Many people believe that miracle stories are simply not credible - our scientific knowledge has shown them to be impossible. But it seems to me that there are three possible explanations for an alleged miracle:

1. The story is untrue - it was a mistake or a fraud.
2. There is a natural explanation - perhaps coincidence or natural recuperative powers which we at present don't understand.
3. A supernatural (= beyond nature) explanation - God or another supernatural being did it.
   

I cannot believe all the above reports are frauds or mistakes, and I cannot believe they are all coincidences. If you believe the universe is a closed system and nothing exists outside it to interfere, then you cannot believe in a supernatural cause, and there is no obvious explanation for these miracles. But if you believe there could be a god (which is not something science can prove or disprove), then you are able to consider that explanation.

So I don't think it is science which prevents our belief in miracles, but a belief that nothing exists beyond this natural world. I don't think that's a good assumption.

what may we conclude?

Each person will draw their own conclusions about how much all this "proves", but it seems at least we can say that:

• it would be foolish to write off the miraculous too quickly, and
• if we need healing, it would be sensible to ask.

Since I wrote this, I have searched out some other reports on the apparent miracle involving Dr Crandall. Check out these additional reports in a later blog, here.

For more documented accounts of apparent miracles, see Healing miracles and God.

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