Circumcise the Shechemites!
The U.N. is actually recommending that adult males in Africa be circumcised, and New York City is considering the same.
This is astonishing, not only because it is wacky science, but because it is the quintessential 3,000 years-old example of wacky science.
Basically, the U.N. did the work to show that men who were circumcised as children are only half as likely to get AIDS (in Africa). Circumcision and low incidence of AIDS are correlated. But as all good students know, correlation does not equal causation. It only makes sense that there is an external third factor which accounts for a significant part of the correlation.
Any mother willing to slice her baby’s anatomy for the sake of righteousness is probably going to raise him with some hang-ups about sex. On the other hand, circumcision probably gives no significant protection to a man who was raised with no sexual hang-ups, who is so attached to his virile escapades that he is willing to undergo a painful and disfiguring operation in order to continue chasing his desires unhindered by AIDS. The U.N. has no evidence or experimental data to support the conclusion that circumcising sexually promiscuous adult males will help. It is incomprehensible that they would be exhorting a whole continent to experiment on such flimsy premises.
But the most bewildering part is that nobody seems to notice that this story was told once before, 3,000 years ago. There are some differences, but the similarities are eerie. In the story, the Shechemites are overcome with desire and are convinced that circumcision will give them membership to the tribe; both allowing them to escape punishment for succumbing to the temptation, and giving free rein to continue in that desire. They fail to realize that circumcision is a side-effect of membership in the tribe rather than cause. When all of their adult males have mutilated themselves and are lying in pain, they are slaughtered – presumably to make way for people who are a bit smarter about the distinction between correlation and causation.
April 16th, 2007 at 4:36 am
” It is incomprehensible that they would be exhorting a whole continent to experiment on such flimsy premises.”
“Science” is often about debunking the correlation/causation confrusion. Religion and currently popular politics are based almost entirely on furthering said confusion.
The incomprehensibility and its attendant “unsanity” permeate most of our behavior as we stand in awe and wonder that we are both aware of and pay little more than lip service to the central ideas that we are all members of one another and irredemably interdependent.
Hence starvation as policy and war as strategy. Gots to get that oil!
Love.
April 16th, 2007 at 7:15 am
Interesting.
In response to Mr. Loughborough… I don’t think you can say that religion is insanity. It has evolved to be a part of man just like language. No civilization has survived without it (although Nazis and Communists made a good effort to eradicate it, although they only redirected it through worship of the state). Calling religion insanity is like calling the wings on a bird insanity. Like it or not, it is part of us.
Even so called atheists need religion. Hence the rise in vegans, anti-war protesters, and inconvenient truth’s. Look closely, and you will see that they are just as dogmatic and irrational as the orthodox people they abhorrer.
April 16th, 2007 at 12:25 pm
Honestas; I think that’s exactly what William is saying. People get “religious” (in the perjorative sense) around nearly any topic. Religion itself is a form of idolotry, and like idolotry, is found everywhere yet still qualifies as “unsane”. Defending religion simply because it has historically coincided with search for ultimate truth, is like defending “science” for the same reason, and is like saying that circumcision is a source of salvation.