Month: July 2009

We’ve seen that Mooney and Kirshenbaum claim that ‘faith and science are perfectly compatible.’

Austin Cline has a very helpful post explaining how this is done.

Chris Mooney regularly insists that all he wants is to promote the “pragmatic” position that science and religion are compatible. He doesn’t want critics of religion and theism to “shut up,” he just doesn’t want them to keep being so publicly critical. This differs from shutting up in that… well, Chris Mooney can’t quite explain how it differs. But it does, really. You can trust him on that.
As a demonstration of just how trustworthy Chris Mooney is, as well as a demonstration of just what he he thinks “framing” is all about, he recently cited a report which reveals that there is a “silent majority” of Americans who agree with him that science and religion are compatible.

That report, from the Pew Research Center, does indeed shed new light on how people find science and religion to be compatible. What they do is, whenever science says something they don’t like, they just ignore it. Simple!

[A]ccording to a 2006 survey from the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life and the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, 42% of Americans reject the notion that life on earth evolved and believe instead that humans and other living things have always existed in their present form…Interestingly, many of those who reject natural selection recognize that scientists themselves fully accept Darwin’s theory. In the same 2006 Pew poll, nearly two-thirds of adults (62%) say that they believe that scientists agree on the validity of evolution. Moreover, Americans, including religious Americans, hold science and scientists in very high regard…So what is at work here? How can Americans say that they respect science and even know what scientists believe and yet still disagree with the scientific community on some fundamental questions? The answer is that much of the general public simply chooses not to believe the scientific theories and discoveries that seem to contradict long-held religious or other important beliefs.

Ah! So that is what is meant by compatible! We suspected as much all along, but how helpful of Mooney to cite a report that spells it out so bluntly and in such detail. Science and religion are ‘compatible’ because many people are perfectly happy just to ignore any theories and evidence that contradict their religious beliefs. Right. We knew that. That’s one of the first things Jerry Coyne said in the New Republic review –

True, there are religious scientists and Darwinian churchgoers. But this does not mean that faith and science are compatible, except in the trivial sense that both attitudes can be simultaneously embraced by a single human mind.

Or the even more trivial sense that people can pay lip service to one attitude while allowing it to be trumped by the other whenever that seems more pleasant.

In other words, for a great many Americans, religion and science are ‘compatible’ in a sense that simply contradicts the real meaning of the word. They are ‘compatible’ in the sense that people in this demographic will allow science to go its merry way, and will avail themselves of its benefits, but they will ‘simply choose not to believe’ anything they don’t feel like believing. That’s not genuine compatibility – it’s just compartmentalization, which is in fact the opposite of epistemic compatibility.

It’s funny that Mooney doesn’t seem to dwell on that part of the Pew report very much. He did slip up though in his ‘silent majority’ post, and Austin Cline spotted the slip-up. Mooney quoted this from Pew:

These data once again show that, in the minds of most people in the United States, there is no real clash between science and religion. And when the two realms offer seemingly contradictory explanations (as in the case of evolution), religious people, who make up a majority of Americans, may rely primarily upon their faith for answers.

Right – and that, Chris, makes religion incompatible with science, not compatible. It makes the two ‘compatible’ in the brute force sense that people can always just ignore mountains of evidence, but it makes them incompatible in the sense that just ignoring mountains of evidence is in fact not a reliable way to discover the truth about anything.

Mooney seems to rely on equivocation between the two meanings for his whole case, and then express baffled outrage when anyone points this out. Not good.

Moving on.

Scientists as a group are more secular than ‘the rest of the nation.’ Religion is an emotional matter. Creationists fear that evolution [the subject, not evolution itself] will ‘undermine their religious culture.’

Abrasive atheism can only exacerbate this anxiety and reinforce the misimpression that scientific inquiry leads inevitably to the erosion of religion and values. [p. 100]

They apparently mean ‘abrasive atheism’ of scientists there, but they failed to specify that, which is one problem throughout – a constant tendency to overbroaden their claims and confuse the issue. As it stands the claim is nonsensical – ‘abrasive’ atheism as such can only exacerbate fear of evolution? Well, possibly, but it’s not obvious how CM and SK know that. In any case what would one be expected to conclude from that? Abrasive atheism in general will have X predicted bad consequence, so…what? Everybody everywhere should stop being an abrasive atheist? That would be asking a lot.

But they do ask a lot. That’s the problem.

To further the cause of scientific literacy, we need a different, and far more sympathetic, approach, one that’s deeply sensitive to the millions of religious believers among our citizenry. [p 100]

See what I mean? That’s asking a lot. It’s asking a great deal too much. We’ve had that – we’ve had years and years of nearly everyone being deeply sensitive to the millions of religious believers among our citizenry, and we don’t want to be deeply sensitive any more. We want to talk freely. The millions of religious believer can toughen up a little and get used to disagreement.

Then there are two pages of fundamentally irrelevant stuff about history, which demonstrate only what we already know, that people can combine incompatible beliefs, and have done so in the past. Then we get back to the advice.

The official position of the National Academy of Sciences and the American Association for the Advancement of Science is that faith and science are perfectly compatible. It is not only the most tolerant but also the most intellectually responsible position for scientists to take in light of the complexities of history and world religion. [103]

That hasn’t been demonstrated.

The problem with the New Atheism [sic], however, isn’t just that it’s divisive or historically incorrect about the relationship between science and religion. It’s also misguided about the nature of science. [103]

Then there are a couple of pages on the putative distinction between methodological naturalism and philosophical naturalism, which is treated as if it were gospel.

The American scientific community gains nothing from the condescending rhetoric of the New Atheists [sic] – and neither does the stature of science in our culture. We should instead adopt a stance of respect toward those who hold their faith dear, and a sense of humility based on the knowledge that although science can explain a great deal about the way our world functions, the question of God’s existence lies outside its expertise. [105]

And that’s about it. I’m not skipping the part where they present a real argument, because there isn’t one. There is some handwaving about methodological naturalism versus philosophical naturalism, but nothing we haven’t seen on their blog.

One thing that’s interesting about this is that it shoots to pieces Mooney’s recent claims that he hasn’t been telling anyone to shut up. The whole chapter is all about telling ‘the New Atheists’ to shut up – not literally as in ‘Hey, New Atheists: shut up!’; but plainly nevertheless, as in ‘We should instead adopt a stance of respect toward those who hold their faith dear.’ It’s true that it’s not literal censorship, or even a literal command to self-censor – but it’s pretty damn close to being the latter. It is very strong moral advice to self-censor. I think it’s pretty disingenuous of Mooney to keep expressing shock-horror that everyone thinks he’s telling us to shut up. That is pretty much what he is telling us.

I half-promised to stop disputing the claims of Chris Mooney yesterday, but then Jerry Coyne sent me the SEED summary of Mooney’s and Kirshenbaum’s new book, and I realized I had been premature.

Following up on his The Republican War on Science. science journalist Chris Mooney joins Sheril Kirshenbaum in explaining the disconnect between scientists and the public. This time the onus is on not just on obfuscating and interfering conservatives, but largely on scientists themselves. By talking down to the misinformed – and outright insulting the religious – scientists, they argue, do more harm than good in their quest to enshrine reason in American politics and culture. While the authors’ call for more friendly and magnanimous champions of science is far from a radical conclusion, it duly highlights the Sagan-and Gould-shaped holes we have in our current scientific discourse.

Oh, thought I, I’ll have to look into that. So I did. I read chapter 8, which is titled ‘Bruising Their Religion.’ It starts with two pages scolding PZ Myers for the eucharist incident, mentioning the death threats against Webster Cook (the student who removed a communion wafer) but not mentioning the campaign to get Cook expelled. It says it’s a good thing that Myers wasn’t fired or disciplined, but…

Nevertheless, Myers’s actions were incredibly destructive and unnecessary. He’s a very public figure. His blog often draws over 2 million page views per month. It was dubbed the top science blog by Nature magazine in 2006…Yet Myers’s assault on religious symbols considered sacred by a great many Americans and people around the world does nothing to promote scientific literacy; rather, it sets the cause backward [sic] by exacerbating tensions between the scientific community and many American Christians. [Unscientific America p. 96]

After some more scolding in this vein, we get to the nub of the matter.

Myers is certainly not alone. In recent years a large number of ‘New Atheist’ voices have arisen…The writers Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, and Daniel Dennett are generally considered the ‘big four’ (or if you prefer, the ‘four horsemen’) of new atheism. [p 97]

Note, before we go further, the silly vulgarity of all that. There are scare quotes on the first mention of ‘new atheism,’ but that is the only distancing there is; after that the term is simply taken for granted without ever being explained or itemized or pinned down in any way. But it’s a stupid term. We all know that. There is no such thing – it’s just that some existing atheists have written some books which did well, and they and other existing atheists have done other writing and speaking, and atheism has belatedly managed to get a little more public attention than it was able to get ten years ago. That’s all. That’s not such a coherent or organized or sinister phenomenon that it deserves its very own label, but CM and SK give it one anyway, and treat it as established and self-evident. The nonsense about the ‘big four’ or (why would we prefer?) the ‘four horsemen’ is just dopy journalistic jargon; it should be beneath them.

They’re hardly a monolithic group…But the broad tenor of the movement they’ve impelled is clear: It is confrontational. It believes religious faith should not be benignly tolerated but, rather, should be countered, exposed, and intellectually devastated.

The most outspoken New Atheists [sic] publicly eviscerate believers…If the goal is to create an America more friendly toward science and reason, the combativeness of the New Atheism is strongly counterproductive. [p 97]

And so on and so on, for another eleven pages.

America is a very religious nation, and if forced to choose between faith and science, vast numbers of Americans will select the former. The New Atheists err in insisting that such a choice needs to be made. Atheism is not the logically inevitable outcome of scientific reasoning…A great many scientists believe in God with no sense of internal contradiction…[pp 97-98]

Yes of course, but the issue is whether there is in fact a contradiction, not whether or not people have an internal sense of such a contradiction. The chapter never comes to grips with that distinction but instead relies on pointing out the brute fact that many people have combined science and religion in their own heads. The fact that this is fundamentally beside the point never gets a look in.

That’s about halfway; I’ll let you digest that and me take a breather, before I continue.