Author: Ophelia Benson

As we saw, Nisbet quotes Paul Kurtz on the need to be for things as well as against things. ‘It is what you are for that counts, not what you are against!’ I agree with that – and I’ll tell you some of the things I’m for.

I’m for free inquiry – open, fearless, unashamed, uninhibited inquiry. That means inquiry that is not expected to be deferential to majority opinion or belief; inquiry that follows the evidence wherever it goes without worrying about what the neighbours or bosses or ‘moderate believers’ will think.

I’m for telling the truth, on the whole, especially in public discourse. (That means no, I’m not for telling people they’re ugly or boring or fat or old, even if they are. I’m not for telling cruel personal truth, but that’s a different subject, and not relevant here.) I’m for telling the truth more than I’m for manipulating or wheedling. I realize – and realize more since reading The Political Brain – that that doesn’t always work in politics, but that’s one reason I wouldn’t want to go into politics: because I am for telling the truth more than I am for manipulating or wheedling.

I’m for progress, and change, and reform, including in thinking. I think all of those are impeded by the idea that the majority must not be ‘offended’ and that therefore certain ideas are taboo or sacrosanct.

I’m for thinking, and for universal freedom to think – freely, fearlessly, without inhibition.

I’m for knowledge, and learning, and evidence, all of which require free inquiry in order to flourish.

I’m for treating people as sensible grownups who can bear to have their ideas challenged without going into meltdown. That means I’m against treating people as fragile idiots who have to be protected from disagreement.

I’m for honesty in public discourse, which entails making reasonable efforts to address questions and objections rather than ignoring them in favour of repeating the original (questioned) claims.

See how affirmative I can be?

Matthew Nisbet answered my question about Paul Kurtz by transcribing some of a Point of Inquiry interview of Kurtz. Kurtz does indeed say things along the same lines as what Nisbet says. There are differences, but there are also large similarities. I was skeptical about that yesterday, and Nisbet did indeed provide the requested link as well as doing some transcribing.

GROTHE: …I take it that you wonder how effective evangelical atheists are if all they are talking about is atheism?

KURTZ: I think they have had a positive impact, and I know most of the leaders, and they publish in Free Inquiry…so they have had positive impact, of course they are criticizing religion. However, that is not enough. One has to go beyond that! You can’t talk about abstract atheism, or merely a negative attitude. It is what you are for that counts, not what you are against! So I think on that point, one must affirm a positive humanist morality.

The emphasis is different from Nisbet’s, and the hostility to ‘New Atheists’ is (not surprisingly) not there, but he is talking about (broadly) the same subject. (It’s one that JS and I don’t agree with – we found ourselves saying ‘we’re atheists, we’re not humanists’ quite often at C f I – and that JS amused himself by roundly attacking in his last lecture, thus forfeiting his chance at a standing ovation like the one Julian got; but that’s not the issue here.)

Now we’ve got that straight, what about what Nisbet is saying? It doesn’t grow on me. It makes me bristle, and the more I contemplate it, the more bristly I get. This is no doubt one of those fundamental moral intuitions, one of those emotional reactions that I then attempt to consider rationally. What is it that I dislike so much?

The dishonesty, basically. The secrecy, the manipulativeness, the ‘shhh.’ The whole idea that scientists should be quiet about something they take to be true because if they’re not quiet they are likely to alienate an unknown number of potential political allies.

Even if Nisbet is right about the empirical question of the potential alienation, it doesn’t follow that he’s right about what to do about it. I think his goal of ‘bringing diverse publics together around common problems’ by urging scientists to refrain from challenging the truth claims of religion is antithetical to free and open inquiry. Of course it’s true that free inquiry always risks angering or alienating some or many people who don’t like what free inquiry turns up – but that’s why it’s called ‘free inquiry.’ If we decide in advance to shackle it in deference to pre-existing beliefs, then it’s not free inquiry anymore. The Center for Inquiry, if it heeded Nisbet’s advice, would have to change its name to The Center for Cautious Limited Deferential Inquiry. I think that would be a bad thing.

I hate this ‘framing’ crap – and I’m not the only one, which is good to know. Matthew Nisbet seems to be doing a good job of communicating to people what framing is and getting them to hate it. Excellent.

Over the coming decades…scientists and their organizations will need to work together with religious communities in order to formulate effective policies and to resolve disputes. A major challenge for scientists will be to craft communication efforts that are sensitive to how religiously diverse publics process messages, but also to the way science is portrayed across types of media. In these efforts, scientists must adopt a language that emphasizes shared values and has broad appeal, avoiding the pitfall of seeming to condescend to fellow citizens, or alienating them by attacking their religious beliefs.

Scientists must adopt this baby-talk – while at the same time avoiding seeming to condescend to fellow citizens, and also avoiding alienating them by attacking their religious beliefs. Oh must they. Who says? Matthew Nisbet, of course.

He also, very puzzlingly to me, says he’s only ‘following the lead’ of Paul Kurtz among others. Paul Kurtz says scientists must avoid attacking (for which read disputing or criticizing or disagreeing with) people’s religious beliefs? Really?

In discussing Dawkins, I am actually only following the lead of many prominent atheists, some who happen to be his friends (i.e. Michael Shermer, Paul Kurtz etc).

Is he being tricky here? (Is he ‘framing’?) In context he seems to be claiming that he’s saying something similar to things Paul Kurtz and others have already says – but he avoids actually literally saying that. He leaves that impression without actually saying it. Maybe he’s just saying that Paul Kurtz has discussed Dawkins, and he is discussing Dawkins too. I did see Michael Shermer’s sloppy criticism of Dawkins (sloppy in that it was inaccurate, as so many of these pieces are), but I certainly haven’t seen anything similar by Paul Kurtz. I think it pretty unlikely that he would write anything of that kind – not unlikely that he would have any criticisms at all, but unlikely that he would write one of these ‘militant atheists should stop it this minute’ items. Look, Paul Kurtz likes B&W, he told me so himself, and nobody who likes B&W would write one of those soppy ‘extremist atheists are big meanies’ articles. I asked Nisbet where Paul Kurtz said anything similar to what Nisbet says, but who knows if he’ll answer. I’m mighty curious, I must say.

I like what Larry Moran said.

Nisbet believes that scientists should spin their scientific messages in a way that avoids upsetting religious people and religious groups…Many of us believe that this is a fundamentally dishonest way for scientists to behave. We believe that science should not be deliberately “framed” by the personal beliefs of scientists whether they are atheists – as are the majority of scientists – or Christians, or whatever. We believe that science should be presented as uncompromised pure science and that it is wrong for scientists to consciously alter their message in order to appease religious citizens who might be offended by hearing the scientific truth. It is not the business of scientists to second guess what the religious public wants to hear, or not hear.

I also like what PZ said.

We can gain some quick policy advantages by, for instance, appealing to purely practical concerns (“We can make more money/we can cure some diseases if you let us do this research”) or by accommodating our tactics to religious beliefs (“God wants you to save the planet!”) at the price of privileging flawed thinking…Let’s encourage people to think science is OK as long as it promotes American business and can be wedged into some theological rationale…and also continue to allow people to believe that religion and quick profits are primary over knowledge and truth. That’s precisely what this approach does, and precisely where it leads to catastrophe.

I hate ‘framing.’

I don’t like Doudou Diene. I’ve said it before here – probably during the cartoons fuss. He’s scary, because he works for the UN.

“Islamophobia today is the most serious form of religious defamation,” Doudou Diene told the U.N. Human Rights Council…Diene, a Senegalese lawyer who was appointed as an independent U.N. expert on racism in 2002, was presenting a report on defamation of religions to the 47-member council. The report also includes sections on anti-Semitism and other forms of religious or racial persecution around the world. African and Islamic countries welcomed the assessment and called for moves to draft an international treaty that would compel states to act against any form of defamation of religion.

A report on ‘defamation’ of religion. An international treaty that would compel states to act against any form of defamation of religion. These folks are working to make it illegal – everywhere – to criticize or dispute religion.

Diene said such caricatures were evidence that “the basic principle of coexistence of different cultures and different religions, which is the lasting basis for peace, is threatened now,” adding that “freedom of expression cannot be used as a pretext or excuse for incitement to racial or religious hatred.”

See? He’s scary.

Fortunately some EU members and others also think so.

European Union members of the council and other countries cautioned against equating criticism of religion with racism. “The EU finds it problematic to reconcile the notion of defamation with the concept of discrimination,” said Goncalo Silvestre of Portugal…”In our view these two are of a different nature.” Religions in themselves do not deserve special protection under international human rights law, he said.

No indeed they do not, and not only do they not deserve special protection, they must not have special protection, because they have vast power, psychological power as well as military and state power, and they have to be wide-open to criticism and disagreement. These demands for protection are demands for the termination of secularism and freedom.