Author: Ophelia Benson

We have some allies in the battle against Ruseism and Evansism. PZ at Pharyngula is kind enough to say that I’ve been on a tear lately. Pardon me while I blush and simper. But then who could help being on a tear, with so much provocation around. Anyway PZ is helping with the tearing and shredding, which is good, because my desk is about to collapse under the weight of work I have on hand.

Evans has this idea that religion is a kind of symbolic art, and that atheists are criticizing it as a bad painting, while all the good religious people are sharing his view of it as an elaborate metaphor for life. That is false. Atheists can appreciate the religious music of Bach, the quality of some of the books of the Bible—I even have a favorite book—and that the concentration of wealth in the religious hierarchy has supported a lot of great art and literature and thought. Most atheists are not interested in taking a flamethrower to the next choir singing Handel’s Messiah. Likewise, it is ludicrous to imply that religious people are largely sensible of the metaphorical nature of religion and share his view of it. Face it: most religious people in the western world believe that god is real. Heaven and hell are real. Jesus is god. Etc., etc., etc. They do mistake the art of religion for reality, and as he condescendingly puts it, must be “only a child”.

Indeed they do. If they didn’t (bless their hearts) there wouldn’t be any problem, would there. If everyone agreed that this was all just a story, there would not be any problem! Obviously! There aren’t any campaigns to force schools to teach that Hamlet was King of England from 1555 to 1603. There is no Osama bin Laden-equivalent who wants us all to live according to the morals and manners of The Tale of Genji. There is no Pat Robertson who wants us all to model ourselves on Dorothea Brooke. There is no pope who spends her time issuing edicts and encyclicals about what really happened in Pride and Prejudice. There are no settlers building houses in disputed territory because they think it was promised to them by a character in Little Dorritt. There is no guy in the White House who thinks he doesn’t have to think about anything carefully because King Lear wants him to be where he is and do whatever he decides to do. If the whole mess were art and nothing else – then it wouldn’t always be telling us what to do and peddling ignorance every chance it gets. It wouldn’t be threatened by everyone who doesn’t buy its fantasies.

PZ also commented on the Michael Ruse article. And I did a search at B&W to find some other Ruse material. There’s this review in the LRB of a book of his on the supposed relationship between science and religion. Sounds ghastly, as Marvin would say.

Attempts to reconcile science and religion are usually doomed to failure, as in the Radio 4 exchange, because nearly all religions make claims about the real world – the domain of science – that don’t stand up to scientific scrutiny. Faced with these difficulties, advocates resort to circumlocution, sophistry or absurd speculations that offend both scientists and believers. Despite the difficulties involved, however, reconciling science and faith remains a popular project…Michael Ruse’s book is an astonishing contribution to this literature. It astonishes because of the bravado of its thesis. Instead of espousing Gould’s tame view that religion and science are distinct but complementary, Ruse, a philosopher and historian of science, maintains that at least one form of science (Darwinism) and one form of religion (Christianity) are mutually reinforcing. They are reconcilable, he asserts, because virtually every tenet of conservative Christianity, including original sin, the immortality of the soul and moral choice, is immanent within Darwinism and an inevitable result of the evolutionary process.

Hoo-boy. Read the whole thing – it’s interesting. The reviewer is polite but deeply unconvinced.

Perhaps aware of the weakness of his arguments, Ruse makes a final evolutionary plea to sceptics: ‘We are middle-range primates with the adaptations to get down out of the trees, and to live on the plains in social groups. We do not have powers which will necessarily allow us to peer into the ultimate mysteries. If nothing else, these reflections should give us a little modesty about what we can and cannot know, and a little humility before the unknown.’ One can only wish that Ruse had heeded his own advice. In the words of the physicist Richard Feynman: ‘I think it’s much more interesting to live not knowing than to have answers which might be wrong.’

That’s enough for the moment. There’s a lot more Ruse, but there aren’t a lot more hours in the day. More later.

I meant to do this sooner but things have been horribly busy. But a correspondent tells me that Oona King needs all the volunteers she can get; the SWP and the MAB will be out in force on election day. I’m 6000 miles from Bow and Bethnal Green, but I know some of you are much closer than that. Her office is 0207 613 4749.

Update on the Dylan Evans article. New information. This just in. Your correspondent has learned. In short, my colleague tells me that Dylan Evans has said sensible things at times. For instance in a certain philosophy magazine that my colleague has something to do with.

It’s very confounding, frankly. Because some of the things he says in that there magazine seem diametrically opposed to the things he says in that Guardian article. Are there pod people in his garden, I wonder? Or has he simply had a radical change of mind.

For instance, from a TPM-sponsored public debate on the issues raised by a paper given by Professor John Dupré at the
Mind/ Aristotelian Society Joint Session titled ‘Against Reductionist
Explanations of Human Behaviour’ in which Evans was the other protagonist and the chair was Ian McEwan.

Dylan Evans began by noting that science has always had to face down its
detractors. ‘They sit, Canute like, on the sands of obscurantism, shouting
in vein at the advancing tide of knowledge. “Get back! Come no further!
Leave me this little piece of unexplained territory!” Thankfully, science
takes no notice. The Promethean spirit that animates scientific enquiry,
that terrifying curiosity that inhabits the human soul, always proves
stronger than the fear of knowledge that opposes it.’

The Promethean spirit? That terrifying curiosity? Does that jibe with the hostile and, frankly, inaccurate characterization of science in the Guardian article? Especially with this bit –

But I do think there is one respect in which religion is more truthful than science – in its depiction of the longing for transcendent meaning that lies in man’s heart. No scientific theory has ever done justice to this longing, and in this respect religions paint more faithful pictures of the human mind.

Well. Maybe with some very determined hammering, the two can be made to fit. It depends what he means by ‘transcendent meaning,’ I suppose (but then what does anyone ever mean by that handy, elusive, capacious phrase?). But surely a Promethean spirit of terrifying curiosity is one form of transcendent meaning. (And in fact arguably a far better one than actual, existing religion, as opposed to the wishful religion that Evans has in mind, provides. Religion gives such dull, limited, closed, unexciting answers to the questions humans ask, after all. They’re about as Promethean as a Sunday advertising supplement in the newspaper.) And the Promethean thing, the terrifying curiosity thing – that seems to me to have far more to do with ‘longing’ than religion does. Religion does the opposite of the Promethean, it doesn’t keep looking for more, opening newer doors, it just seals everything off. It’s not really about longing so much as it is about termination. About giving inadequate answers to large questions.

Evans noted that ‘although the
evidence for evolution is overwhelming today, there are still those who
ignore it. Over half the US population still believes in the literal truth
of Genesis. Thankfully, the population in the UK is somewhat more
enlightened on this matter. Few people here seriously doubt that we evolved
from other life forms. But even in the UK, there is still a widespread
reluctance to take this idea to its logical conclusion, namely, that our
minds are just as much the product of evolution as our bodies. This is
Canutism. The new Canutes admit that the tide has come further up the shore.
Science has already claimed the human body as its own, they recognise, but
please don’t let it claim the human mind.’

Evans is taking religion awfully literally there. Why doesn’t he just treat it as a metaphor?

And then from another piece, this one written by Evans, about a public discussion at LSE between Alan Sokal and Bruno Latour.

Latour was clearly the most accomplished
public speaker, often raising hoots of laughter with his quips and
one-liners. Latour’s rhetorical skill, however, was not matched by a
corresponding level of logical rigour. Indeed, many felt that his
entertaining performance was deployed to conceal the lack of clarity in his
argument. Sokal, on the other hand, while not so accomplished an
entertainer, was crystal clear, and made the most incisive arguments. Again
and again he pressed Latour to clarify his position, but to no avail; Latour
gave contradictory responses, first speaking in terms that could only be
construed as highly constructivist, then denying that his position was
relativist when challenged by Sokal. The result was a rather frustrating
debate, in which the speakers never quite managed to make contact. Sokal
tried valiantly to clarify some complex issues, but was defeated by Latour’s
apparently deliberate obfuscation and ambiguity. Some might put this down
simply to a clash between two very different intellectual traditions; those
of Anglo-American philosophy of science and French cultural criticism. This,
however, merely avoids the real issue, which is not merely a question of
cultural differences – the issue of scientific objectivity. Unfortunately,
the debate will not get any further until the Latours of this world learn to
speak and write with greater clarity.

No comment.

Strange, isn’t it? Either there’s a pod in his garden, or he’s just had a radical change of mind. But I have to say, I don’t think the change of mind has done much for the clarity of his writing.

Oh honestly. What was that I said about the unending flood? Here is another break in the dam – more nonsense than I’ve seen in one place for a long time. (Well not all that long. There was that Butlerian review the other day, and that item where paganism meets disability rights and gets spectacularly tangled in its own feet. But a long time if you’re waiting for lunch, anyway.) If you can read this without wanting to be violently sick – then there’s something wrong with your cognitive functioning and I want nothing further to do with you.

There are many species of atheism, just as there are many species of religion. But while many religions still thrive, most of the atheisms that have ever existed are now extinct. The non-religious person today is, therefore, rather like a person who wanders into a shop to buy a breakfast cereal and finds only one variety is for sale. Moreover, this variety isn’t very tasty, because the kind of atheism that flourishes today is old and tired.

Oh for Christ’s sake. Start off with a bang why don’t you. That is so stupid. There aren’t many species of atheism, because atheism isn’t like religion, so it’s no good saying ‘just as there are many species of religion’ as if that made it true. Religion is all about multiplying entities, and about making up stuff to believe; atheism isn’t, it’s just about not believing the stuff other people have made up. It’s not a belief, it’s not a religion, it’s not a mirror-image of religion only with minus signs where the pluses should be. It’s just not believing there is a god, that’s all. It’s not old and tired today because there’s nothing to be old and tired. It’s not a system, not an ideology, not a set of postulates or rules or myths; it’s just non-belief in a deity. It’s no more stale and tired than all the other things we don’t believe, because there’s no bread to get stale. My non-belief in the Great Pumpkin isn’t stale, so why should my non-belief in ‘God’ be? No earthly reason. People just think it sounds deep or wise or shrewd to say so. Well it doesn’t.

Today’s prominent atheists – people such as Jonathan Miller and Richard Dawkins – hawk around a belief system that reeks of the 19th century, which is not surprising, for that is when it was born. Dawkins is virulently anti-religious, passionately pro-science and artistically illiterate – thus manifesting all three of the main characteristics of the old atheism in a particularly pure form.

[Taking tight grip on temper and speaking through clenched teeth] It is not a belief system! It’s not even an it; it’s the negation of an it. Therefore it wasn’t born in the 19th century, because it wasn’t born. It’s just not believing in god or gods. Not believing is not believing. How else can one say it? Saying ‘I don’t believe X’ is not a belief system, it’s the opposite of a belief system, because it’s the rejection of one. It’s not incompatible with a belief system, or many, of course, but it itself is not a god damn belief system, it’s the refusal of one! Pay attention, dammit, Dylan Evans.

Furthermore, Dawkins is emphatically not artistically illiterate. Dylan Evans can’t have read Unweaving the Rainbow or he wouldn’t have said that.

My kind of atheism takes issue with the old atheism on all three of its main tenets: it values religion; treats science as simply a means to an end; and finds the meaning of life in art. When I say that I value religion, I don’t mean that I see any truth in the stories about gods, devils, souls and saviours. But I do think there is one respect in which religion is more truthful than science – in its depiction of the long ing for transcendent meaning that lies in man’s heart. No scientific theory has ever done justice to this longing, and in this respect religions paint more faithful pictures of the human mind.

Garbage. Complete, unadulterated garbage. Wrong and uncomprehending in every word. Wrong about atheism, stupid about science, wrong about religion.

Atheists who attack religions for painting a false picture of the world are as unsophisticated and immature as religious believers, who mistake the picture for reality. The only mature attitude to religion is to see it for what it is – a kind of art, which only a child could mistake for reality, and which only a child would reject for being false.

More nonsense. Atheists attack religions for ‘painting a false picture of the world’ because that’s what religions damn well do! Dylan’s hearts and flowers let’s sniff the buttercups version is very sweet and nice but it’s not religion, is it. It’s not the Vatican banning condoms and telling women how to live, it’s not Islam forbidding people to leave Islam, it’s not creationists trying to get religion taught in biology class. Dylan’s version might be a nice idea. If all believers read his article and decided ‘oh, I see, it’s all a metaphor’ and immediately began living accordingly starting right now today, I would be delighted. But guess what, they’re not going to, are they. That being the case, there is still every reason to ‘attack’ or rather criticise religions for painting a false picture of the world, and one doesn’t have to subscribe to a ‘belief system’ to do so; one can just recognize bullshit when one sees it.

Good. After Michael Ruse it’s a relief to read Dawkins on the same general subject.

You can’t statistically explain improbable things like living creatures by saying that they must have been designed because you’re still left to explain the designer, who must be, if anything, an even more statistically improbable and elegant thing. Design can never be an ultimate explanation for anything. It can only be a proximate explanation. A plane or a car is explained by a designer but that’s because the designer himself, the engineer, is explained by natural selection.

And it’s no good pretending otherwise, is it, especially if you simply can’t possibly believe that otherwise. It’s ridiculous to expect it. And then, it’s not as if religion is uniformly and reliably beneficent, or even harmless. That’s worth keeping in mind too, when people get indignant with atheists who actually have the bad taste and lack of tact to say they are atheists. There’s that little matter of the Vatican and condoms, just for instance…

A delusion that encourages belief where there is no evidence is asking for trouble. Disagreements between incompatible beliefs cannot be settled by reasoned argument because reasoned argument is drummed out of those trained in religion from the cradle. Instead, disagreements are settled by other means which, in extreme cases, inevitably become violent.

Sometimes quietly violent, but nonetheless violent for that. The Vatican doesn’t go into Africa and Latin American with machine guns blazing, but it might as well. It abuses its ridiculous undeserved power, to order people to kill themselves and their relatives for no good reason; it causes the deaths of millions by that abuse of power; that’s pretty violent.

And you see the same problem of the inability of reasoned argument to adjudicate between incompatible beliefs in the case of religious hatred of homosexuality – or sodomy, as I heard some charm-boy call it on C-Span the other day. They can’t for the life of them come up with a good reason for it – but so what? They don’t need to. They are convinced that their invented god hates it, and that’s all they need. Reasoned argument doesn’t come into it. Secularists are always at a disadvantage in that situation, because the believers just brush off the reasoned arguments; they throw up what they ‘know’ as if it were a magic shield – and for them it is.

“Unweaving the Rainbow” specifically attacks the idea that a materialist, mechanist, naturalistic worldview makes life seem meaningless. Quite the contrary, the scientific worldview is a poetic worldview, it is almost a transcendental worldview. We are amazingly privileged to be born at all and to be granted a few decades — before we die forever — in which we can understand, appreciate and enjoy the universe. And those of us fortunate enough to be living today are even more privileged than those of earlier times. We have the benefit of those earlier centuries of scientific exploration. Through no talent of our own, we have the privilege of knowing far more than past centuries. Aristotle would be blown away by what any schoolchild could tell him today. That’s the kind of privileged century in which we live. That’s what gives my life meaning. And the fact that my life is finite, and that it’s the only life I’ve got, makes me all the more eager to get up each morning and set about the business of understanding more about the world into which I am so privileged to have been born.

Testify, brother. You rock.