The Science of Discworld IV

we need to be rational, to keep civilisation running? More to the point, these days: how many people does it take – gangsters or terrorists, bigots or zealots – to break down the workings of a civilised society? And why should (some) religions foster that kind of terrorism, aiming to do just that? It may just be extremists, but there are clearly belief systems that encourage such extremism.
    There’s an answer, but we would be happier if it were wrong. People live their lives, and are acquainted with all kinds of events, but for most people it’s a small world. In an African tribe, there may be fasts and festivals, intimate relationships with about twenty people, mostly relatives, and a nodding acquaintance with about another hundred; just like Orthodox Jews in Golders Green, or Muslims in Bradford. Workmates, hobbyists, football supporters,pub acquaintances and friends can bring the total up to about 150. Humans seem to be able to remember about 200 faces, at most.
    In consequence, the lives of all these folk are nearly all parochial, much as life is portrayed in TV soaps. The events that happen to them are mostly small. Births, marriages and deaths are rare, coronations much rarer. It is not surprising that religions, bringing order into that narrow kind of life, setting it in a much bigger frame, are popular. They provide prayer, hymns and sermons to make such lives feel more meaningful. They promise bigger things: gods, angels and life after death. Tabloid newspapers’ obsession with celebrities, people everyone has seen on TV, similarly gives ordinary lives some glamour.
    But there is another, darker side. Religions that preach damnation, or that predict an imminent end of everything in some kind of cataclysm, will also be attractive because what they are concerned with is imminent, now, tomorrow, happening to me and to the people I know. Relatives and friends will be damned, or caught up in the cataclysm. We must save them! Whether they want it or not.
    Religion is human-centred. Though it pretends to be universe-centred, that universe is the tiny one created by their god, whether it be Odin or Jehovah or Brahma. Like the universe of
Star Trek
, it’s minuscule compared to the real thing. It is a human-sized village with its own headman, blown up to cosmic proportions but not greatly changed.
    Astrology, like many other ‘personal’ new-age philosophies, picks up on the same attraction: what matters is what happens to
me
. Such lifestyles don’t even pay religious dues (maintaining the church roof, the vicar’s salary, hush-money to erstwhile children assaulted by priests or celebrities). They are belief systems that pretend to knowledge of the future,
my
future – convincingly enough to have caught more than one American president – while taking no responsibility for the accuracy of those predictions. Religions whose compass includes heaven-or-damnation contrive equally to promise and threaten without any guarantee of a blissful, or terrible, afterlife. Butit’s an afterlife for
me
that’s at stake; deeply personal, not a bit universal. No guarantee is needed if you have faith.
    Contrast that with the scientific stance. It’s surprisingly difficult to find science that matters, to
me
, that isn’t embodied in technology. The numbers are meaningless; even that important Sun is about 150 million kilometres away; solar storms may disrupt electronics, but not (mostly)
my
electronics. There are billions of stars in the Milky Way, billions of galaxies each like our own – but what does that do for me? There are hundreds of chemicals in our foodstuffs, hundreds of kinds of plant – mostly weeds, whose particulars are not necessary for nearly everyone – in our forests and meadows. There are millions of transistors in a computer, a mobile phone or a television. But
I
don’t need to know about that to operate them; just turn them on, play games on the computer, watch EastEnders on telly. Watch nature programmes, watch science programmes. Don’t get involved, as there’s nothing there that seems to affect
me
directly. It’s all universe-related, not people-related; it’s Benford’s contrast again.
    A story about Jack is relevant here. When he was about fourteen, he was breeding tropical fish to accumulate money for going to university. His father had been killed dumping ammunition after the end of World War II, and his mother was earning about £2 a week as a machinist: not enough to pay rent