How to change the zeitgeist
Jason Rosenhouse has done the perfect, brilliant reply to Josh Rosenau’s latest on Hau too Hellp and on howtohelping in general. I would love to have written it myself, but I’m not clever enough.
Turns out people tend to mistrust information that comes from people they don’t like. Who knew?
Heh. Yes, we knew, and we also knew that’s not quite all there is to it. We know for instance that there are not just two participants in every conversation. We know that liking or not liking are not the only two possibilities. We know that information is not the only product of discussion.
Atheist spirituality, such as it is, has almost nothing in common with traditional religion. So far as I can tell, it refers simply to the notion that atheists, no less than theists, can look at nature and be impressed. To suggest that this represents a point of contact between the religious and the nonreligious, which was, after all, the point of Mooney’s original USA Today article and was the issue raised by Jerry in his post, trivializes religion to the point of making it vacuous. People with religious concerns about science are not worried that if they accept evolution they will no longer be able to feel things deeply.
Well some of them are, or pretend to be. Josh is one of them, in fact – he did a post awhile back saying that if religion were kept out of science then baseball and ice skating would disappear – or something like that. It was that random. Cathy Grossman pretended to think that Jerry Coyne, being an atheist, is incapable of appreciating a sunset – Jerry Coyne, who gave us a picture of a rabbit at dawn on the U of Chicago campus recently. But the larger point is right: no, religion is not just a matter of landscape-plus-emotion (Wordsworth notwithstanding).
Josh acts as though it is a problem of poor marketing that people think evolution and religion conflict. That, I believe, is a misapprehension of the issue. They see a conflict because they are thinking clearly. You can tell them they are not, and you can point out the folks who manage to reconcile the two, but in the end all of the slick marketing in the world cannot change the basic facts.
Exactly. What I would have said if only I had thought of it.
I am far more interested in changing the religious values themselves.
The big problem that needs fixing is not so much that people reject evolution. It is that people’s religious values are teaching them to be mistrustful of atheists…if you want to mainstream atheism you have to make it visible. You have to make it ubiquitous, so that gradually it loses all of its mystique and scariness and becomes entirely ho hum and commonplace. It is not so much about making an argument that will cause conservative religious folks to slap their foreheads and abandon their faith, as though that were possible. It is about working around them, by making atheism part of the zeitgeist. It is a long-term strategy, one starting deep within its own endzone thanks to years of more effete strategies. Will it work? I don’t know. But I am confident that nothing else will.
Yes.
In defense of the New Atheist strategy of creating tension and making atheism visible we have a body of research on advertising that shows that repetition and ubiquity are essential for mainstreaming an idea. We have the historical examples of social movements that changed the zeitgeist by ignoring the people urging caution, and by working around the people whose value systems put them in opposition to their goals…
Against this Josh has a few papers breathlessly reporting that people don’t like it when you offend them. It is on this basis that he gives smug lectures about communications strategies.
I am underwhelmed.
Rosenhouse has, in about the last year or so, become one of my favorite bloggers.
Yes, he’s terrific.
Rosenhouse is dead on! If you strongly believe in something it is imperative that you say it loudly, clearly and repeatedly. How else do you think intelligent design went mainstream?
Maybe it would be more obviously absurd if the accomodationist message were put more honestly. They might as well be telling us to look at the successes enjoyed by the movements for social change on the sexual and racial fronts, from the suffragettes, through the civil rights movement and equality for gays, to take careful note of the methods involved in those successes and to be super-careful not to do anything similar.
Because atheists and defenders of science overlap in such a significant way, they (the accomodationists) are trying to sell their message as “this is what’s strategically good for science, so don’t rock the boat with atheism,” while ignoring the fact that for many defenders of science, equality for atheism is itself an important goal. This is the smarmy part of the accomodationists’ self-identification as atheists; they’re telling us that if they can put loftier aims, like getting science to reach believers without scaring them away, above the petty, and, by implication, more self-interested, cause of equality for atheists, then so should we.
I love it! Josh’s thinking is so muddled when it comes to religion, yet the religious and the accomodationists keep complaining that it is new atheists that don’t know anything about belief.
This was a truly great piece of analysis, and, to my mind, it hits the nail right on the head. What more is there to say about this subject. Time for Chris and Josh (et hoc genus omnes) just to shut up. They’re not helping.
Okay, I thought I’d better substantiate that baseball claim, so I tracked it down. That’s what he said all right. It was a memorably long meandering not fully coherent post, about putative other ways of knowing, whose final paragraph began with this opaque observation:
Oy.
I had the same feeling when I read the post.
Baseball as a way of knowing. Who knew?
Next thing you know, the NCSE will hire baseball analysts to write columns on the connection between the sacrifice bunt and sexual selection or maybe even adaptive radiation.
I did a post on that post of Rosenau’s at the time, and at least two later posts on follow-up posts of his. On and on it went! And clarity was never obtained.
Concerning the sweeping away of art as a “way of knowing” – I addressed something similar on my blog, partly in response to learning the the NSF Informal Education Division plans to sponsor a workshop entitled “Art as a Way of Knowing”. Outside of useful scientific illustrations that select and highlight pertinent information, art isn’t really a way of knowing. It can be a way of exploring previously won knowledge. I would hazard also to say that baseball is a way of playing. It does not reveal knowledge, other than perhaps how good an individual is that day at throwing an object a distance at certain speeds.
Wow. So if I say religion (i.e., superstitious speculation) is not a valid “way of knowing,” then I’m also necessarily “sweeping away” The Great Gatsby and The World Series?! Huh. The planet on which this sort of reasoning makes any sense has not yet been discovered.
And just who are these people who are evidently going around saying that “non-scientific” enterprises are “unworthy”? I’ve never heard a serious person say anything like that. Hell, I’ve never heard an un-serious person say anything like that. Here again we have this lightly-bigoted caricature of scientists as Spocks, unfeeling automatons who are unable to comprehend these strange things humans call “tears” and “emotion.” What bullshit.
Oh for christ’s sake. That’s exactly what I said a year ago – so did Ben Nelson – so did a lot of people, here and on Josh’s posts. No art is not a way of knowing. Understanding, yes; exploring, yes; knowing, no.
This must be the new wheeze – tell the proles that art is a way of knowing therefore so is religion so everything is all right there there. Next the NAS will be holding a seminar on poetry as a way of knowing and the AAAS will be sponsoring a conference on modern dance as epistemology.
Lots of comments on that post. Sigmund is there – Peter Beattie – Dave W – Tulse – Badger3k – JoshS. All trying valiantly to get him to see more clearly. No luck.
That’s what I meant Ophelia. I swear! The locution “way of knowing” sucks.
He did one long reply late in the game, I think I missed it, because I never replied. It starts with a real jaw-dropper…
What?????
Who the hell thinks golf and dance produce truth in the first place?
Andy, I know, I was arguing with Rosenau, not you! :- )
Perhaps he was angling for emotional truths people perceive when they read a well-described sensation in a novel or something. As a way of *ahem* understanding a familiar emotion with clarity provided by art or writing or dancing golfers.
@ 17
Yeah I know Ophelia. As usual, I realized that two seconds after hitting “Post.” Long day, too much coffee.
Glendon, I’m sure that’s exactly what he was doing, but it’s wrong. It’s just misleading to call that knowing. And then how he got from there to the golfing dancers…
Golf is an ‘other way of knowing’?
If only I’d known then I might have taken up golf. Or, if only I’d taken up golf then I might have known?
@6
Eric : As much as I share your exasperation, I really wish you won’t ask anybody to shut up. Let them say whatever they want to. We will rebut them if we have to and ignore them if we want to. This is, after all, a free marketplace of ideas. And one of the unending chores of being in a marketplace is having to watch frustrated vendors whining about competitors driving away their customers.
Never mind golf, what about the truth of porn? Why can’t scientists appreciate porn truth with their scientific method?
Clearly, the debate is leading to grasping at straws.
I am trying to write a summary of it all, and it doesn’t help when the debate keeps raging on with endless posts and articles everywhere!
Rosenau has posted what he believes is a riposte to Rosenhouse. It’s the same tiresome excuse over and over again. Francis Collins doesn’t see any conflict between Christianity positing a loving god and evolution positing a cruel and wasteful process of bringing about the teeming diversity of life as we see it. Ergo, neither should we. They don’t get it. Never have, never will.
Yeah, Saikat, I know. I wasn’t really telling them to shut up, but they really don’t have an answer to Jason. He’s basically shut them down. They go on and on and on and on and on … well, you get the idea. It get’s to be a bit tiresome after awhile, and I just wish they’d change the tune. That’s what I meant. Besides, they’re effectively telling the Gnus that they should shut up, and it get’s my goat! As Jason points out, atheism has never been discussed so widely by so many people, and it just keeps going, so why are these guys trying to shut it down? Of course, the interesting thing is that they’re right in at least one respect: if you keep telling Gnus that they should shut up, they’ll get offended and shout a bit more loudly. But it really would be nice to get on with it, rather than going over the same ground over and over.
Yes, Egbert, there’s porn, but there’s tiddly-winks too. All ways of knowing, ways of putting yourself in touch with the deep rhythms of the universe. Hey, there’s conkers too, and marbles, and … well, so many different ways of knowing. What a rich world we live in!
But don’t you see Eric, they are singularly incapable of reasoning coherently. Just read Rosenau’s latest post. The inanity just keeps getting more exquisite.
Oh, I guess Free Cell is a way of knowing too.
@Eric
Haha indeed! Tiddly-winks deserves a serious place in academia and science, perhaps a tiddlywinkonian will write the history of science and tiddly-winks in a tiddly-friendly language.
I guess I’ve also reached that point of saying oh shut up, enough is enough, by brain is turning to mush.
Ha! I said the same thing to one of the philosophers at my uni, who was trying to shut me up (or take the edges off my communication – basically undermine my confidence). I told him I think atheism / explicit secularism needs to be normalised, ie. part of the basic background hubbub, and that that wouldn’t happen unless atheists / secularists pressed on with being outspoken, in spite of the current hue and cry of the offended. He seemed to disagree, in a patronising sort of way, implying that my style of communication would have a deleterious effect on the cause: all for my own good of course. What an ass. Funny how these debates can trickle down / be played out at the level of one-on-one communications between a student and a faculty member.
As an artist in this discussion, I must protest the unsophisticated and false equivalence of tiddlywinks with the intricacies of art as a learned artheologian, er, art historian would understand it.
No serious art historian believes knowledge can be won from the shallow study of tiddlywinks. Unless you’ve read the writings of Ruskin or Kruger, please keep your strident opinions about art to yourself.
Josh Rosenau’s posts on accommodationism can certainly be a bit tiresome; his latest was the first in a long time that I was able to force myself to read all the way through. But I wouldn’t want him to stop writing. He seems to act as sort of a muse for Jason Rosenhouse. On balance, I think the net effect is strongly positive.
The problem with Rosenhouse is that he writes his brilliant posts notably infrequently. He’s a rather low-volume blogger.
There might be some kind of supply-and-demand thing going on here: low supply correlates with high value.
…by which I do not mean to denigrate high-volume bloggers, such as a certain cephalopod worshipper.
I see Josh’s problem in his lack of understanding of religion and his lack of interest in understanding religion. This allows him to accept anything he likes about religion that people pass on to him. He takes on face value Ecklund’s pronouncement that scientists are spiritual and that the spirituality of someone who classifies him or herself as spiritual but not religious, spiritual but an atheist and spiritual and religious as equivalent. I don’t think spirituality is ever defined and if probed, I am not sure that religious believers would find “likes to take long walks on the beach and enjoys sunsets” to be their definition of spiritual. Also no one on the religious side such as Karl Giberson criticizes Mooney or Rosenau for their dismal understanding of religion, but will lambast Coyne or Dawkins who have made enormous efforts to read theology and try to understand it.
Josh also claims that many religions say they accept evolution without any effort to explore their adherents’ views. Do they really understand evolution and its implications for theology? Do they accept that humans are animals which share almost the entirety of their genome with other apes? Do they accept that the human mind evolved without guidance from supernatural beings? I think someone should survey what these people actually believe and understand before the claim is made that they accept evolution and science.
Then there is the dualism, when Josh writes his blog it has absolutely nothing to do with NCSE his employer or so he claims – really? Even though he is writing about the same issues that are entailed in his day job?
I do agree that his posts do inspire Jason and that is a good in and of itself.
Golf is a way of knowing I can’t play. Does that count? I saw Jason’s original post, and was too tired to figure out what I thought was wrong, then Josh wrote his post. Jason has responded on his blog (http://scienceblogs.com/tfk/2010/10/missing_the_point_1), and reading that, I feel like I am looking at a biblical literalist – he reads the words, but misses the bigger picture. Jason focuses on Jerry’s words, but doesn’t seem to get the overall point. Anyone else get that idea?
Thanks for all the kind words. Glad y’all liked the post. You’re making me feel guilty for having neglected my bloggily duties lately.
I draw your attention to this http://www.unomaha.edu/jrf/fieldof.htm without prejudice. My preference is for cricket as a way of knowing, as it a field where transgressing the boundaries scores 4 or 6.
Kruger is the very epitome of fashionable nonsense in academic art writing. I wouldn’t ignore anyone on the basis of not having read her or any of the other Octobrists. Quite the opposite.
[…] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Ori Meissa, Ophelia Benson. Ophelia Benson said: How to change the zeitgeist http://dlvr.it/6zqSJ […]
I thought Glendon Mellow’s comments were at first a kind of playful irony of the kind of comments we get from theologians, or literary critics like Terry Eagleton. I certainly hope so, because clearly our comments about tiddly-winks were meant as banter.
Dirigible #38 and Efbert #40:
Yah. I was just kidding around. If you see my comment further up the thread (#11), I am an artist-illustrator, but I don’t consider art to be a Way of Knowing. At ScienceOnline09 I discussed whether or not science-art was parasitic on science, and whether it gave anything back to science, led it in new directions. Many in the session thought art did inform science, but only one example anyone could come up with involved art leading to a new area of inquiry.
The rest of art’s influence in science was relegated to scientific illustration, commentary, and cheerleading.
To me, this was the most important quote from Rosenberg’s article:
I’m going to have to memorize this.
Exactly. Why are there atheists who think it is more important to dispel the idea of a connection between science and atheism than it is to dispel the idea that atheism is to be feared?
Rosenau wrote this? Woah. I actually used to respect him more than most accomodationists, but he just plummeted a bit in my book. It’s the same old stupid canard: “Science isn’t everything, therefore religion is something.” DOES NOT COMPUTE!
No guilt, Jason! You’re working on a book, after all. And even if you weren’t – still no guilt.
Sure, but Kruger. ;-)
I’m thinking that the issue here is one of priorities that different people have. Many scientists are atheists, however some atheists are scientists and many atheists are scientifically knowledgeable but not necessarily employed by science. Here is where the groups bifurcate:
For many scientists, it’s a matter of marketing the science brand to power and to the public. In a country where much science is so dependent on government funding, if you’re a professional scientist you need public support, you need your profession to stay in good stead with the money powers. So you need to push the brand. You need to keep a high profile positive image just like any other brand. You need to get science in the schools with minimal controversy (hence you have defenders of evolution completely refusing to criticize the religious component of creationism). You don’t step on toes. Of course not all are like that, but for each PZ or Jerry Coyne (JC?) there are a dozen scientists worried that this minor issue (to them) of atheism threatens a more important issue of political clout and paycheck.
For those of us who are atheist first, not on the public teat (including probably quite a few scientists in private industry), perhaps not even employed in the sciences, making nice is not our problem. we don’t care, indeed we are happy if science is connected with atheism because that is our priority. It is not a secondary issue to us, it’s a personal identity. I am not worried if my position offends half of Congress, or causes parents to complain to the local school board.
Perhaps that’s were the real difference lies.
Eric, you seriously expect Josh to shut up? Well. tough luck. He’s just made the remarkable discovery that the New Atheist utterances of today are somewhat similar to the ones that Malcolm X made against all white people in the sixties. His limitless capacity for missing the point just acquired epic proportions.