At the fringes of neurotheology: Rhawn Joseph
Neurotheology is clearly a legitimate scientific enterprise: it seeks out the biological correlates of religious experience. But sometimes it also seems to involve cranks zapping their heads with magic helmets, fringe elements claiming to have been visited by aliens, and oddballs with their own theories of the universe.
Consider the following claims:
- There are specific regions of the brain which allow us to experience the reality of life after death.
- A primitive form of life was deliberately planted on earth by a technologically advanced society from another planet.
- The human genome contains programming for all man’s future evolution in the “introns”.
- Advanced beings from other planets have additional cortical layers—eight or even twelve.
- Specialized neurons in the brain respond to the shape of the cross.
These are just a few of the assertions made by “neuroscientist” Rhawn Joseph (picture) in a jumbled compendium of articles he put together under the name NeuroTheology: Brain, Science, Spirituality, Religious Experience.
For unknown reasons, some reputable researchers apparently agreed to have papers included in this volume. One wonders if Joseph even read the papers, since some authors, such as Scott Atran, are scathingly critical of Joseph, accusing him of basing his his claims on “sparse and controversial data”, “straying way beyond the facts”, “crucially ignoring or contradicting much recent work”, and limiting himself arbitrarily to a single variety of religous experience.
What Joseph says is not just wrong or outlandish, but also completely incoherent. Judge for yourself:
Because genes are activated by experience and complex genetic mechanisms, and as the brain has also evolved in response to environmental demands and experience, it would appear that humans evolved the capacity to have religous and spiritual experiences, because these experiences acted on gene selection, thereby enabling humans to evolve specific brain structures which allowed them to more fully participate in and experience the spiritually sublime.
Normally I would not worry about such goofballs. But they have the potential to discredit the entire field. As neurotheology gains in visibility, those involved in the area must concern themselves with its image as well as its content. If kooks like Joseph succeed in hijacking the term “neurotheology” to refer to their crackpot theories, it may be time to take the plunge and come up with a new name, such as “biology of religion”.
[The picture of Dr. Joseph in this post prior to July 17, 2005 was incorrect. Our apologies. His site is here.]
July 17th, 2005 at 5:34 pm
First off, it is Francis Crick, who recieved the Nobel Prize who wrote: “A primitive form of life was deliberately planted on earth by a technologically advanced society from another planet.” This has never been my view.
And yes, there are neurons which respond to the shape of the cross, and to other geometic patterns.
Also, that is not a picture of me.
And I never claimed that Aliens have 12 layers of neocortex.
The comments made by Scott Atran were published in the book, NeuroTheology, which I, Dr. Rhawn Joseph, edited. I invited Dr. Atran to make critical comments as I believe critical debate is healthy.
Dr. Andrew Newberg describes Dr. Rhawn Joseph as one of the founders of the field of NeuroTheology.
And, it doesn’t take much courage to make up lies and to call other people names, which you don’t have the courage to sign your name.
November 5th, 2006 at 5:37 pm
大大的好阿