Five reasons the world lost thier minds over #HomoNaledi

After it's discovery, the newly discovered human relative has sparked interest in more than just the scientific community. Among a few controversies, it got a lot of politicians talking science and evoluton.

The short video below is packed with juicy tid-bits about the world-famous discovery made in our very backyard in a digesteable format perfect for any curious SAfrican. The video was made by the good people at SciBraai.co.za with a little help from yours truly; yup, I wrote the script!

So, go onto their website and enjoy an array of great South Africa science stories and share them with your friends!

You can follow me on Twitter: @astrosibs

On the origin of misconceptions

Here is a column article of mine that was published in the Zululand Fever newspaper last year in response to a letter from a reader who was responding to a previous opinion piece about evolution I had penned.

I think it is still relevant in light of the many misconceptions that have risen from the announcement of the newly discovered homo naledi bones at the Cradle of Humankind.

 
On the origin of misconceptions


There are many misconceptions about the sciences and I find that facts can be twisted to suit a certain group’s beliefs. But reality has this nagging tendency to not bend to the will of those who choose to misrepresent it.

I am referring to instances I am usually exposed to where some people subscribe to misconceptions disguised as scientific facts. These misconceptions, I have observed, seldom come from people who have actually read the scientific concepts they refer to and often their references are authoritative accounts from people who themselves are non-scientists.

Here I am referring to a letter published in the Zululand Fever last week (1 August 2014) in which a Mr. S. Naidoo made some categorical mistakes in his inferences about the theory of evolution. First of all, having explicitly excluded religion from the discussion, Mr. Naidoo delved into the world of science and proceeded to explain why evolutionary scientists are racist zealots.

Whilst I cannot comment much on that, I can comment on the science. For one, I cannot find any historical references where the world famous naturalist, Charles Darwin, was said to have racist intentions on voyage aboard the H.M.S. Beagle en route to the Galapagos archipelago in the 17th century.

Mr. Naidoo supports his “evolution is racist” theory with the idea that evolution infers a difference in the races, more specifically that black people are less evolved that white people. No. the scientific theory of evolution does not at all say this. Also, it is not true that the scientific theory of evolution means that one species begets another.

A common question people ask is “if we evolved from apes, why are they still around?”  That is a fair question but it is unfortunately followed by “this proves that evolution is wrong.” Evolution does not mean that “we came from monkeys”. According to the theory of evolution we share a common ancestor with our ape and monkey cousins.

A number of people are not too happy to be associated with our hominid cousins - sort of like that drunkard uncle you don’t want your friends to know about.  You cannot erase the DNA evidence that links you to such relatives just because they are always naked and they swing on trees. The ape cousins, that is. Not your uncle.

Naidoo then talks about "true science" and explains how species do not change from one to the other. And he is right, because that is not the theory of evolution. To better understand what evolution means, no one column article can do it justice, but to use an example I usually use, let us consider this gedunkanexperiment.

Imagine a herd of species of antelope on a veld. Now, if some natural barrier were to suddenly prevent the two halves of the group from meeting for several generations, each would adapt to the unique conditions on each side of the barrier, provided conditions do change respectively.

Now, if they were to somehow overcome the barrier to meet again and find that they look different, would we then have new species?

Species are defined as a group of organisms whose offspring are able to interbreed. That means that their babies can have babies. Now, let’s say that these two antelope groups try to get it on and we find that any two individuals (one male and one female from each group) are unable to interbreed; we would then say that they are now two different species.

From one species, came two. Not one species changing into another when the urge strikes it. That is not evolution. Another important aspect of Darwinism is that individuals do not choose to “evolve”, it is those individuals who happen to be best suited to survive conditions being dished out by nature that survive. This is what we call evolution by natural selection.

This information is not bound in some sacred texts hidden in some fortress under the section “Forbidden Knowledge: 300-399”, but is science that is easily available at public libraries and reputable bookstores. Just ask for the Origin of the Species by Charles Darwin and your effort at actually reading the book and enriching your mind on what evolution really is, should open your mind to reality.

I am not saying Darwinism is cast in stone as there are still gaps in the science of it. But the beauty of it is the overwhelming evidence that is written in the deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) of “non-believers” and the scientifically literate alike. On the origins of the universe; whether it was created by God or happened by accident, no-one can say for sure.

I applaud those who apply their minds in considering the question anyway instead of dogmatically sticking to one idea.

Umkhosi woMhlanga explained - Reed Dance Ceremony

The annual Reed Dance Ceremony is a Zulu event that sees tens of thousands of young Zulu virgins (maidens) flock to Nyokeni Palace in Nongoma where they deliver fragile reeds, symbolic of their precious purity, to the Zulu monarch, King Goodwill Zwelithini kaBhekuzulu.


Here is an interactive map of Nyokeni Palace which shows what happened at this year's Reed Dance Ceremony at the palace in Nongoma.


Be sure to hover over the yellow icon if you have any burning question you need answered. This is my first attempt at this kind of infographic so be kind.

We're not moving to Earth 2.0 any time soon

There has been a great furore about a new Earth (dubbed Earth 2.0) deep in outer space. People are excited about this scientific discovery but for all the wrong reasons.

Are we moving there soon?

Since the discovery, I have witnessed many an internet meme discussing the possibility of moving the human population to this new planet. Some even entertain the idea of it being a safe haven for when this planet goes to the dumps.

Our precious planet, this pale blue dot in the great vastness of the universe is precious to us. It is the only planet we currently live on, and more importantly, earth is where I keep all my stuff.

To our best scientific knowledge, planet earth is the only planet that can sustain life. For a planet to sustain life as we know it, it needs to pass some important criteria.

The planet needs to have liquid water which exists inside a very narrow range of temperature from 0°C to 100°C. A planet too close to its star will be too hot, a planet to far away from its parent star will be far too cold.

So a planet at just the right distance from its star is just right to host life as we know it. No wonder the zone where such a planet needs to exist is called the Goldilocks Zone for conditions for life that are "just right".

Like our home planet, Earth 2.0 is found to be in such a region and other analyses have found other similarities to our home planet using nothing else but thousand-four-hundred-year-old light.

Being so far away, going to the planet is out of the question. So, what is so great about an earth-like planet that is hopelessly out of our reach?

Well, it helps us edge closer to answering the question of whether we are indeed alone in the universe and to understand how this, we need to understand the process of looking for these planets in our galaxy.

Basics of planet hunting

Looking for planets in other solar systems isn't easy. No planet outside our solar system has ever been directly photographed so other means have to be used to find it.

A small telescope orbiting earth called the Kepler Space Telescope, looks toward the stars to spot the shadows of planets orbiting those stars. The task is equivalent to spotting a fly passing in front of a flood light from a few kilometres away.

In order to detect the fly, it needs to pass directly in front of the flood-light so that it is between the lamp and your line of sight and you need to be somewhat lucky to see it.

We were lucky enough to find this planet using this method and in order to understand the significance of this discovery, we need to consider another analogy.

Imagine you had to find a mango tree in a forest as the one (earth) you are currently at has been depleted of its fruit. Say, you take a few minutes look for another in the dense forest and find and another.

You would assume one of two things. Either you were very lucky to discover the only other mango tree in the dense forest or you are not so lucky and mango trees are abundant throughout the forest.

The latter would make better sense and give you hope in the abundance of more mango trees and therefore more mangos ripe for the picking.

That is the same idea we can apply in the search for another earth-like planet. The existence of this earth cousin increases the likelihood of other planets in the Goldilocks Zone which also increases the chances of the existence of life as we know it all over the galaxy.

Moral of this story

It is a good thing that people can get excited about science stories but what people discuss needs to be accurate.

'Coming out' as a Zulu atheist

I would like to tell you the story of how I came out to my family and community as an atheist. I would, more than anything, like to tell you what a difficult transition it was and how I can now put it all behind me. I would also like to tell you how accepting the Zulu culture, my culture, is of atheists and other free-thinkers.

I would love to tell you all these things, but I have learned that the truth is far from being rosy. Imagine being the only kid you know who did not believe in God when everyone you have ever known did. Now, imagine being an adult always defending what you (do not) believe in.

The trouble with telling people that I am an atheist, in isiZulu in particular does not sound as romantic as it does in English. Now, “I do not believe in God” sounds pretty straight forward to anyone who understands the language.

The same exact statement in isiZulu makes you sound like a crazy person or someone telling a sick, tasteless joke. “Angikholelwa kuNkulunkulu”, makes moderate and ‘advanced’ Chritians think you’re a lost soul or the spawn of the devil. I have even been invited to my very own exorcism by a prominent ‘prophet’ in the small suburb of eSikhawini.

While atheism may be accepted as an alternative religion in some contexts, I must stress here how the nature of atheism (opposite of theism- a belief in God or a deity) is the absence of belief in God and it is in its nature nothing else. It is as much a religion as “off” is a TV channel.
This is very hard to explain in isiZulu, not because my native tongue is backward in anyway, but because of the entrenchment of (ironically) Western religions in many of my fellow Zulus. You see, prayer and the acknowledgement of God makes up almost every family you will ever encounter in the Zulu nation.

“A family that prays together, stays together.”

There comes this Rasta-looking young man talking all this rubbish, by the grace of God, he will one day see the light and repent from his ways, they say. The irony of the statement is uncanny.

My coming out as an atheist to my family and my community has not been smooth at all. I suppose, all the years I have spent contemplating my decision, as I went on parading like a regular Christian should have prepared me for this backlash.

Church members who have looked up to me as a humble and respectful boy, can now barely spare me a second glance at the local mall. How very Christian of them. Respected former pastors today tell me how mistaken I am in my view and how I should do away with reason and replace it with unquestioning faith instead.

Some concerned Christians have even tried to gauge whichever traumatic experience in my past has led me to this path. Others are even claiming that “it is all these books you keep reading”. Perhaps I should tone it down on the Douglas Adams and company.

This makes me wonder, though. Having not been exposed to this ‘Western idea’ of atheism, would I be a devoted Christian instead? Well, even when the bible was read to me in isiZulu, I found it very hard to reason how a man could turn water into wine, how two people populated the earth, or how God created the earth only to drown almost everyone for some reason.

Now, do not get me wrong, I am not an atheist because I do not like the Christian God’s personality, or that I am not overly excited about spending three hours at church every Sunday (and falling asleep half the time); I am an atheist solely because I am sceptical of the existence of God.

How do I explain that in isiZulu so that I do not offend anyone in doing so, or make myself seem like a devil-worker?

I have not yet figured that one out.

Why a photo of cats fighting with light-sabers? Because cats don't believe in God and they are freaking awesome. I like cats better than people.

The analogy of the windowless room

In a discussion I had with a pastor who wanted to understand my decision to announce my atheism, I constructed an analogy which I think explains the difference of opinion between him and I: The Analogy of the Windowless Room.

I was a member of a church in my township which is a 15 minute walk from my home. I have been attending the church since 2007 and I have participated in the church until I was elected youth leader last year, after holding a few important positions in the youth section of the church.

My decision to leave the church and express my scepticism and atheism has come as a great shock to some including my former pastor. My atheism stems from an inherent seed of doubt for everything I have ever learned ever since I was eight or nine years old.

Now, as I was trying to explain to the man of god that my scepticism is based on the lack of objective evidence for the existence of god or the validity of the Christian religion (or any of the religions for that matter), I was trumped by his refusal to acknowledge the facts.

He explained to me how the order of the universe is evidence of the existence of a loving creator. He then proceeded to undo the science of astrophysics and biology through evolution. His facts lacked a true understanding of science and this only served to support the widely excepted idea of believers in god and practitioners of religion being close minded.

This sparked an image in my mind during the discussion of a four-sided room with a roof completely disjoint from the outside room. In this room of the imagination, I conjured up a room where god exists and the walls and the roof are belief and indoctrination.

Inside this room (which is neither big nor small but merely finite in size) is where all those who believe without question reside. This room is as big as those who reside in it believe it to be but the room is still limited it its dimensions. Outside the room is the real world full of facts and wonders that are waiting to be discovered.

Having created this setting, I put my sceptic self on the outside, in the real world. In this real world that exists outside the room, there are things we know to be physical, things that are supported by facts and there are more things that are unknown but waiting to be discovered. The pastor understood my way of looking at things and he pointed out how it was ironic that this world view was in fact narrow minded.

He reminded me how there are professionals such as medical doctors and intellectuals who are theists besides their worldly education. This forced me to change my room and put small windows on it that lets believers have limited glimpses of the real world, the world outside of blind belief.

As we went our separate ways, he promised to pray for me and I nodded in appreciation. Anyway, I continued to modify the room, or at least what the occupants thought they saw. From outside the room, the real world, the room does not in fact exist, or rather the walls that hold the inhabitants back.

You see, the walls of belief, dogmatism, indoctrination and community acceptance are as real as the barriers that keep football players within the field of play. In reality, in my world of the imagination at least, these lines are drawn on the ground, and as the football players are conditioned to never cross their barrier lines, so are the believers bound by mere lines in the ground.

So, there are no walls; this means the inhabitants of the non-existent room can see everything, the real world they find themselves in, but they are not allowed to cross the lines drawn in front of them.

This is an imaginary world as you know and analogies can only stretch so far but this is how I see things as they are.

“Atheists are intellectual idiots”

This is a response to my How can we teach morality without religion opinion column published in the Stanger Weekly newspaper.

“IS it not obvious that we should do unto others as we would like to be done unto us?”

With reference to the column written by Sibusiso Biyela published on 20 February [2015]: since you referred to the Bible, I have a few things to say. What you referred to here is from Christ’s Golden Rule but the Bible contains and is so much more than that.

Some have accused Jesus of “borrowing” the idea of the golden rule from the Eastern religions, which you seem to imply by saying you don’t think you need the Bible for that. However, the texts for Confucianism, Hinduism, and Buddhism, cited below, were all written between 500 and 400 BC, at the earliest.

Confucianism: "Do not do to others what you do not want them to do to you" (Analects 15:23). Hindusim: “This is the sum of duty: do not do to others what would cause pain if done to you” (Mahabharata 5:1517).

Buddhism: “Hurt not others in ways that you yourself would find hurtful." (Udanavarga 5:18).

These sayings are similar to the golden rule, but are stated ‘negatively’ and rely on passivity. Jesus’ golden rule is a ‘positive’ command to show love proactively. The Eastern religions say: “Refrain from doing”. Jesus says, “do!”

The Eastern religions say it is enough to hold your negative behavior in check; Jesus says to look for ways to act positively.

Conclusion: I consider atheists to be intellectual cowards who choose simplicity over complexity and difficulty. They too have a religion (which they deny) where they are the gods because they feel that   they can do everything themselves and prefer the theory of evolution (non-scientific), basically saying that morality was refined in animals before animals evolved into men and women. 

Sue Naidoo.

Related: Jesus Heals Today (letter)