Steven Dutch, Natural and Applied Sciences, Universityof Wisconsin - Green Bay
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I will respond to questions and comments as time permits, but if you want to take issuewith any position expressed here, you first have to answer this question:
What evidence would it take to prove your beliefs wrong?
I simply will not reply to challenges that do not address this question. Refutabilityis one of the classic determinants of whether a theory can be called scientific. Moreover,I have found it to be a great general-purpose cut-through-the-crap question to determinewhether somebody is interested in serious intellectual inquiry or just playing mind games.Note, by the way, that I am assuming the burden of proof here - all youhave to do is commit to a criterion for testing.It's easy to criticize science for being "closed-minded". Are you open-mindedenough to consider whether your ideas might be wrong?
The Web site Fark.com recently gushed:
Scientists find straightforward medical explanation for at least three of the world's major religions.
The link leads to a story by Julie Robotham in the February 24, 2006 Sydney (Australia) Morning Herald:
Glad tidings of great joy: there could be a straightforward medical explanation for at least three of the world's major religions. Moses, Mohammed, and Jesus all experienced revelations on mountains, but they were probably just suffering a form of altitude sickness, say a group of Swiss and Israeli neurologists, casting doubt in the process on the very existence of God.
All three felt, heard or saw a presence, experienced lights and felt afraid, say the brain scientists from Lausanne, Geneva and Jerusalem. But so have contemporary mountaineers who are more interested in ice picks and thermal undies than anything mystical - suggesting the dizzy heights may have the effect of turning ordinary mortals into prophets. "Different functions relying on brain areas such as the temporo-parietal junction and the prefrontal cortex have been suggested to be altered in altitude," they write in the marvellous journal Medical Hypotheses, which is positively boastful about giving a run to bright new ideas that haven't been through the usual discouraging process of scientific peer review. "Moreover, acute and chronic hypoxia significantly affect the temporo-parietal junction and the prefrontal cortex and both areas have also been linked to altered own body perceptions and mystical experiences." (Julie Robotham February 24, 2006 Sydney Morning Herald)
Now there's nothing inherently unscientific about wondering whether some varieties of religious experience have natural explanations. In particular the visions and revelations attributed to fasting might well be nothing more than the product of hunger. What raises (or lowers) this particular speculation to the level of pseudoscience is the fact that it resorts to such a preposterous explanation. Oxygen deprivation might play a role in some aspects of Andean or Tibetan religion, but there just aren't any high mountains anywhere remotely close to the homelands of Moses, Jesus, or Mohammed. None of them could have climbed even to 10,000 feet, enough to make a person in poor shape short of breath, but hardly enough to induce hypoxic hallucinations. 10,000 feet might make a particularly flabby American couch potato woozy, but certainly not people in ancient times who walked just about everywhere they went. And then to suggest that the effects lasted for years afterward pushes silliness into new dimensions.
Considering that some of the authors of this study are Swiss, it could just as well be that they are suffering from the after-effects of altitude sickness. Since lots of Californians go into the High Sierras, by this hypothesis much of the population of California should be loopy .... wait, never mind. Or consider the application of this concept to politics. Lots of environmental activists have been on mountain tops. Could it possibly be that environmental activism isn't based on rational thought but on altitude induced hallucinations? Is the Colorado Rocky Mountain High a literal high? No, I don't think so, but then again I don't think Moses, Jesus, or Mohammed were suffering from altitude sickness, either.
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Created 3 April 2006, Last Update 24 May, 2020
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