Against the Gospel of Instagram

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I recently sat down with Scott and Maurine Proctor of Meridian Magazine for another “Come, Follow Me” podcast discussion:

“How the Plagues Defied the False Gods of Egypt–Come Follow Me Old Testament Podcast #14, Exodus 7-13”

(I had previously also discussed Exodus 1-6 with the Proctors.)

Tomorrow night — 7 PM, Sunday night, 27 March 2022 — I’m scheduled to be on the Interpreter Radio Show; during its second hour, I’ll be discussing Exodus 35-40 with Steve Densley, Mark Johnson, and Matt Bowen.

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I wonder how many of you have seen a film called The Cokeville Miracle.  I think that it would be appropriate for viewing on the Sabbath.  Years ago, I read some things about the remarkable 1986 story upon which the film is based, and I’ve spoken with people who had family members there in Cokeville, Wyoming.  And, two or three times now, I’ve even stopped off in Cokeville while driving home from Yellowstone, wanting to have a sense for where the events unfolded.

That said, I still learned a few things about the story from the film that I hadn’t known.  I assume, though I don’t know it for certain, that they’re based in fact.

The standard source on the events at Cokeville has long been the book by Judene and Hartt Wixom, which, I believe, has now been reissued under a revised title in connection with the movie.  The Wixoms’ son Kamron, twelve years old at the time, was among the hostages at the elementary school.

Here’s a good website on the story, including eyewitness accounts:

http://www.cokevillemiracle.com

I like its banner headline:  “If you don’t believe in divine intervention then you weren’t there that day,” which it attributes to “Scott Miller, Lincoln County Sheriff’s Office.”

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Steve Smoot kindly sent me this note some time back, and I just ran across it again:

Thought you’d appreciate this.

http://www.vox.com/2015/5/13/8591837/how-science-is-broken

That science can fail, however, shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone. It’s a human construct, after all. And if we simply accepted that science often works imperfectly, we’d be better off. We’d stop considering science a collection of immutable facts. We’d stop assuming every single study has definitive answers that should be trumpeted in over-the-top headlines. Instead, we’d start to appreciate science for what it is: a long and grinding process carried out by fallible humans, involving false starts, dead ends, and, along the way, incorrect and unimportant studies that only grope at the truth, slowly and incrementally.  

So why aren’t these problems caught prior to publication of a study? Consider peer review, in which scientists send their papers to other experts for vetting prior to publication. The idea is that those peers will detect flaws and help improve papers before they are published as journal articles. Peer review won’t guarantee that an article is perfect or even accurate, but it’s supposed to act as an initial quality-control step. 

Yet there are flaws in this traditional “pre-publication” review model: it relies on the goodwill of scientists who are increasingly pressed and may not spend the time required to properly critique a work, it’s subject to the biases of a select few, and it’s slow – so it’s no surprise that peer review sometimes fails. These factors raise the odds that even in the highest-quality journals, mistakes, flaws, and even fraudulent work will make it through. (“Fake peer review” reports are also now a thing.) 

But when Dan Peterson says any of this relatively uncontroversial stuff about science and peer review, he’s branded an anti-science fundamentalist loon. 

Alas! 

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Here’s a pair of short but interesting reads.  The first of them is by Richard Ostling, who is, among other things, a former senior editor of Time:

“This is still a question that scholars debate: Why did early Christianity rise so rapidly?”

The second of them is a very important warning from the redoubtable Cassandra Hedelius:

“The Motte, the Bailey, and the Gospel of Instagram: Beware those who would use your good heart to deceive you into accepting bad arguments.”

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Finally, I first read the Meditations of the Stoic Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius (AD 121-180) back when I was in high school.  I’ve had a deep fondness for him ever since, and (although he himself was a pagan and not particularly friendly toward the novel sect of the Christians) much of what he had to say seems appropriate, in my view, for reflection on the Sabbath.  After all, Sunday — tomorrow, as I write — is a time when faithful Latter-day Saints renew their covenants with God in the sacrament and when many of us resolve to try to make the next week better than the last one was.  Here are some words of wisdom from Marcus Aurelius for such resolutions, though I sincerely hope that the first maxim doesn’t actually describe the members of your ward:

Ἕωθεν προλέγειν ἑαυτῷ: συντεύξομαι περιέργῳ, ἀχαρίστῳ, ὑβριστῇ, δολερῷ, βασκάνῳ, ἀκοινωνήτῳ: πάντα ταῦτα συμβέβηκεν ἐκείνοις παρὰ τὴν ἄγνοιαν τῶν ἀγαθῶν καὶ κακῶν.

“When you wake up in the morning, tell yourself: The people I deal with today will be meddling, ungrateful, arrogant, dishonest, jealous, and surly. They are like this because they can’t tell good from evil.”

Ὀλίγα πρῆσσε, φησίν, εἰ μέλλεις εὐθυμήσειν

“‘Let your occupations be few,’ says the sage, ‘if you would lead a tranquil life.'”

Ὄρθρου, ὅταν δυσόκνως ἐξεγείρῃ, πρόχειρον ἔστω ὅτι ἐπὶ ἀνθρώπου ἔργον ἐγείρομαι· ἔτι οὖν δυσκολαίνω, εἰ πορεύομαι ἐπὶ τὸ ποιεῖν ὧν ἕνεκεν γέγονα καὶ ὧν χάριν προῆγμαι εἰς τὸν κόσμον; ἢ ἐπὶ τοῦτο κατεσκεύασμαι, ἵνα κατακείμενος ἐν στρωματίοις ἐμαυτὸν θάλπω;

“At dawn, when you have trouble getting out of bed, tell yourself: ‘I have to go to work – as a human being. What do I have to complain of, if I’m going to do what I was born for – the things I was brought into the world to do? Or is this what I was created for? To huddle under the blankets and stay warm?’”

Μηκέθ᾽ ὅλως περὶ τοῦ οἷόν τινα εἶναι τὸν ἀγαθὸν ἄνδρα διαλέγεσθαι, ἀλλὰ εἶναι τοιοῦτον.

“Waste no more time arguing what a good man should be. Be one.”

I’m also fond of this passage from the great UCLA basketball coach John Wooden:

“Make each day your masterpiece.”

I fail at it every day.

Marcus Aurelius is especially good in times of tumult or worry.  His is a very calm and calming spirit, encouraging us to focus on what’s most important and and on what’s unchanging rather than on the often distressing and almost always distracting things about us.

I see considerable consistency between much of the Emperor’s counsel and some of the teaching of the late Thomas S. Monson:

“Do not pray for tasks equal to your abilities, but pray for abilities equal to your tasks. Then the performance of your tasks will be no miracle, but you will be the miracle.” 

“The principles of living greatly include the capacity to face trouble with courage, disappointment with cheerfulness, and trial with humility.”