The cause that wit is in other people
One good thing, Rosenau’s goofy “I haven’t heard the Lindsay-Mooney podcast but I know PZ (who has heard it) is rong about it anyway” post elicited some good comments (along with a whole lot of bad ones from the usual suspects, especially the indefatigable McCarthy). From PZ for instance.
Your problem, Josh, is a total inability to appreciate any approach beyond your own. There is no surprising inconsistency in my views; all along the Gnus have been saying we need a multiplicity of approaches, so I can simultaneously endorse someone advocating a softer approach while favoring a hard core strategy myself.
My approach works for some people — actually, it works very, very well for a lot of people. And some people run away screaming. So? I’m not the one pretending a one-size-fits-all set of tactics is the way to go.
Quite. Me neither. I certainly don’t dispute that some people run away screaming. Mooney seems to think we don’t get that. Of course we get it.
And from someone called horse-pheathers.
Being nice doesn’t work. All that happens when you treat rank superstition with respect is you lend it credence it doesn’t deserve. If polite, rational argument stood a chance of swaying the believers, we wouldn’t be living in a world where over 80% of the population is some form of theist.
As H.L.Mencken observed in 1925, “The way to deal with superstition is not to be polite to it, but to tackle it with all arms, and so rout it, cripple it, and make it forever infamous and ridiculous. Is it, perchance, cherished by persons who should know better? Then their folly should be brought out into the light of day, and exhibited there in all its hideousness until they flee from it, hiding their heads in shame.”
See? We ain’t so gnu.
Correction: May 14 6:59 a.m. We ain’t so new. We are gnu, but not new.
The templeton defense amuses me as well.
Which blatantly ignores John Horgan.
No one has yet said what benefits science in a science/religion dialogue.
I haven’t read this blog post yet, but bravo Ophelia. Bravo.
Phooey! We are Gnu! We just aren’t new. (Mencken, there and elsewhere, was Gnu too.)
That seems to me one of the more prominent benefits of Jacobi’s neologism.
Michael, it’s been very gratifying to see you taking us seriously, and changing your mind about some things, and deciding a lot of what concerns us is reasonable.
Thank you.
Wouldn’t it be great if there were a class of meta-accommodationists? They could shake their finger at the accommodationists and tell them that their vocal advocacy concerning evolution was needlessly driving away people that might otherwise be receptive to their arguments about climate change. I can hear them now: “So many Americans are just not ready to accept that they share ancestors with dung beetles. If you insist that people who accept the evidence for climate change must also accept the evidence for evolution, you will turn away potential allies.” The accommodationists would hear it and think, “That is plain silly, because I’m just as concerned that people accept evolution as I am that they accept climate change.” Then maybe they would understand that we are just as concerned that people are reasonable about religious claims as any other type of claim.
Jeffy Joe,
A bit of an aside here, but I get the impression that while there is not 100% correlation between theism and AGW denialism, in my experience, the two seem to be linked.
I don’t know if there is any survey evidence one way or another on this, however.
There are two plays being made: the short and the long. Gnus recognise the utility of both and therefore play both, according to the audience. Accomodationists play only one, being the short game. Their position is that if there is no immediate beneficial effect it then the strategy must be abandoned.
Typing the above I thought of an analogy. An aspect of the Gnu approach is like boxing: it’s rather unlikely you’ll win the bout with a single KO punch at the start, but sustained punches over the course the bout, through many rounds, will get you there. And of course the opponent will defend their position. It’s to be expected. But Accoms want to declare a draw before the opponents even step in to the ring.
Rosenau:
Why do they have to work equally for each to be to be pursued? What if accommodationism works on a certain kind of person, but gnu-ism works on this other kind of person (which I would guess is probably the case), well then they both have value—even if one is shown to “work” on more people than the other, it would still be impotent on a whole population of folks whom the other one is reaching.
He keeps insisting that there’s zero evidence that gnu atheism works. In the absence of peer-reviewed studies that specifically examine this issue (gnuism vs. accommo-ism), Josh scoffs at the anecdotal and testimonial evidence out there (“Convert’s Corner,” etc.). This is just being churlish, at this point. The anecdotal and testimonial evidence, while unscientific, is certainly abundant—so much so that he could at least give gnus a little credit for enlightening at least some small number of people who had previously not accepted evolution and/or were fundamentalists. How many people? Who knows. But I’d put Richard Dawkins’ head count up against Rosenau’s any day of the week.
Imagine Rosenau’s reception of the latest from John Stuart Mill. “You’ll never convince the hard-core with that, you loser.”
I might invent a new game – Great Accommodationists of the Past. “Oh please, Mr Lincoln – you’ll never get elected that way.” “You must be joking, Mr Jefferson.” “You’re an extremist, Mr Douglass.” “You’re outside the mainstream, Mr Thoreau.”
“Dr. King, your ministry could reach a much wider audience if you’d lay off that civil rights thing”
And that one of course is authentic!
Oh fun game!
“Look Dr. King, where’s the evidence that these needlessly confrontational, so-called ‘lunchcounter sit-ins’ really are effective at changing people’s minds? This naively strident approach of yours is just going to end up pissing off a lot of good white folk. That’s not just my opinion—it’s based on a lot of evidence and a lot of knowledge. Seems to me you and your followers get off on provoking racist white people with these ‘in your face’ tactics. You’re such a jerk.”
Heehee.
What’s the over/under on how many more times I’m going to have to ask Rosenau to define “works” regarding Gnu Atheism before he’ll answer? We’re at two, already.
Maybe he’ll answer. He doesn’t want to, I think, partially because he knows the way he’s using “works” is a little bit of a shifting goalpost. Accommodationism “works,” apparently, because (he insists) gnu-ism doesn’t, and because Chris Mooney can point to this poli-sci study where people often didn’t change their minds after seeing newspaper corrections (the study doesn’t seem to have anything to do with the acceptance of science or with religious beliefs). But gnu-ism doesn’t work even though there seems to be no shortage of folks who say they’ve come to accept the validity of science and/or ditch their fundamentalism because of the work of gnus. As I say, I’d put Dawkins’ head count of converts up against any accommobot’s.
You’ll probably have to ask several more times. And Rosenau’s answer is sure to be…less than satisfying. That’s mainly why I find him so tiresome with respect to this discussion—because sometimes he’ll just say anything rather than concede even a minor point. Like when he said that there aren’t too many national science organizations that preach compatibilism (of science/religion), and then Jerry Coyne showed that, actually, a whole bunch of them do exactly that—and with some relish. Rather than acknowledge that he’d made an overstatement—a concession that wouldn’t even have detracted from his larger argument, btw—he literally claimed that that’s not what the organizations said, even though Jerry had posted the extremely unambiguous texts from the organizations for all to see. It was the equivalent of me writing the sentence “The tree has apples in it” and someone coming along and saying “That sentence has nothing to do with apples or trees.” It was nutty.
Andy Dufresne @15 wrote, “As I say, I’d put Dawkins’ head count of converts up against any accommobot’s.”
I’d like to see even a single testimonial which goes “I used to be an atheist, but that PZ Myers guy is such a meanie I decided to join an evangelical church.”
Well that almost describes Mooney’s trajectory. “I used to be an atheist, but that PZ Myers guy is such a meanie I left Science blogs for Discover blogs and I took up with Matt Nisbet and started telling atheists to pipe down and…”
I just read through the latest comments on that post, before reading Dave W’s # 14, and I too was wondering what the hell Rosenau thought he meant by “doesn’t work.”
It’s as if he thinks we’re trying to pry open a safe or something. We’re trying to accomplish a simple task, and what we’re doing doesn’t work. [eye roll]
Well, Rosenau gave me an answer in his comment #80. He doesn’t care what the Gnus’ actual goals are, he thinks they “often” say that their approach will lead to better science literacy, so that’s how he’s going to judge what “works.” So I asked him to name one Gnu who claims that being Gnu-ish will lead to better science literacy, and this “TB” guy pops up (comment #97) with Sam Harris complaining that faith is an impediment to embracing science, as if that’s the same thing.
Ophelia, I’m wary to get into this discussion again because it never seems to go well, but I’m wondering if you see any potential tension between quoting PZ saying “all along the Gnus have been saying we need a multiplicity of approaches, so I can simultaneously endorse someone advocating a softer approach while favoring a hard core strategy myself”, and then immediately quoting horse-pheathers saying “Being nice doesn’t work. All that happens when you treat rank superstition with respect is you lend it credence it doesn’t deserve.”
It seems to me that this could be read as endorsing a multiplicity of tactics with one breath while endorsing the idea that there really is only one effective tactic in the next. Or am I being unfair?