Author: Ophelia Benson

Ah-a. Sandra Harding has a new book – and it does look like a corker. Happily, people are taking note, and adding it to their science studies course outlines as required reading. Splendid.

The idea of this science as value- or culture-free is pulled apart by postcolonialist analyses of the culturally distinctive ways that Western science has developed…Harding problematizes the claim to universality that Western science rests upon…This evaluation is not only presented in terms of how we might transform the scientific traditions of the “Global North”, but also how we might transform the way we study science to be more critical, reflexive, and politically-engaged.

Great. Study of science that is more politically engaged. Great idea. Of course, the Bush admin has been doing that for more than six years now, but more encouragement is always welcome. And of course the first step is to problematize the claim to universality that Western science rests upon – because of course it’s not universal at all, it’s purely local, and researchers in Manila and Mumbai and Lima are bound to find different, local results if they’re doing the work properly.

The first section of this book also reviews the antiracist and feminist argument that modern Western science exacerbates social inequalities through discriminatory projects, philosophies, technologies, and social structure. One of the most intriguing chapters of this section is devoted to an analysis of the discriminatory epistemologies and philosophies of science (chapter 5); here Harding reaffirms her commitment to standpoint theory in light of recent and innovative work on its application to science studies.

Ever read Harding on standpoint epistemology? It’s impressive stuff, I can tell you. Women have a different epistemology because they have different lives. See?

(No, that’s not unfair. She really is that crude.)

Perhaps the most valuable contribution that this volume makes can be found in its second section, comprised of three chapters on the topic of Truth, Relativism, and Science’s Political Unconsciousness. In these final essays Harding pulls together…proposed means of securing a future “world of sciences” with the possibility for advancing social justice…Harding lays out the “central foci of a still emerging network of postpositivist philosophies of science” in a way that allows for an interlocking plurality of sciences to exist that are best suited to particular local resources, goals, environments, and cultures for producing effective and socially-just outcomes…Here she brilliantly analyzes how both the anti-democratic and (supposedly) pro-democratic ideals of Western science are deeply problematic, preventing this model, which “speaks in a monologue”, from being suitable as a universal system.

Right. It speaks in a monologue, so it’s undemocratic, so it’s not ‘suitable as a universal system.’ It’s inappropriate. It’s impolite. It speaks in a monologue in the sense of saying some findings are not supported by evidence and so probably wrong. Well obviously that’s neither democratic nor kind – didn’t we all learn not to talk that way in kindergarten? I think so. So that’s that for that kind of science then; on with the new kind.

Instructors in particular will appreciate this new resource of not only a comprehensive overview of arguments in both past and present critical science studies, but also an “updated” and clarified understanding of one of the most important and influential writers in this area, who clearly has continued to push forward with innovative engagement.

One of the most important and influential, alas – that’s why she made an extended guest appearance in Why Truth Matters: because she is indeed, however incredible it may seem, influential.

Mark Vernon discusses what he calls ‘common mistakes of atheists’ – but the examples he gives aren’t examples, because they don’t make the mistakes he says they make. His attributions are rather sloppy. Okay very sloppy. He doesn’t quote, he just says.

If you do the rounds of the philosophically minded blogs of atheists, it is common for arguments about the non-existence of God to be rehearsed. Typically, they present ‘proofs’ that require empirical evidence. For example, Stephen Law, argues that if God is all-powerful and all-good, then the fact that there is so much evil in the world provides evidence that tilts the odds decisively against God’s existence.

But arguing that something tilts the odds is not the same thing as ‘presenting “proofs”,’ and Stephen Law hedges things a good deal more than that.

Would this constitute a “proof” that there’s no God? Depends what you mean by “proof”. Personally I think these sorts of consideration do establish beyond any reasonable doubt that there is no all-powerful all-good God. So we can, in this sense, prove there’s no God. Yet all the people quoted in my last blog say you cannot “scientifically” prove or disprove God’s existence. If they mean prove beyond any doubt they are right. But then hardly anything is provable in that sense, not even the non-existence of fairies.

And so on. He doesn’t just ‘present proofs,’ so that ‘for example’ is misleading.

Vernon also just says about me, and I’m not convinced by what he just says.

Or they say that God is a supernatural entity for which there is as much evidence as fairies – a familiar trope on butterfliesandwheels.

Is it? A familiar trope? Is that something I say a lot? I’m not sure I’ve ever said it, and I am sure I don’t say it a lot, so what does he mean ‘a familiar trope’?

And more to the point, why do theists and pro-theist ‘agnostics,’ which is what I take Vernon to be (since he certainly seems to spend a lot of time rebuking imaginary atheists for saying things they don’t say, for a just plain agnostic) – why do they do that? Why do they mischaracterize atheists and then scold the caricature so much?

Well, maybe because they don’t have much to say if they don’t. I don’t know. But I must say I’m beginning to suspect it. All this complaining about imaginary atheists is beginning to remind me of people who say everyone to the left of Bush is a traitor.

Vernon says more, and most of it seems pretty woolly to me.

Now, I am an agnostic. So I think that the jury is out on the existence of God and, in fact, always will be. Why? Because the very best theologians – those who it is only reasonable to consult before claiming to have disproved the thing about which they are experts – say so.

Wait – what? ‘I think the jury is out on the existence of God and always will be; why? Because the very best theologians say so.’ Did he really mean to say that? Or did he lose track because of the inserted clause, and say something much cruder and sillier than he meant to. Probably. But then there’s that inserted clause, which is also not very good. Atheists don’t claim (most of them) to have ‘disproved’ the existence of god. And what does he mean ‘disproved the thing’? How would you disprove a thing? And then the ‘about which they are experts’ bit – experts in what sense? And experts in what? The thing, we know; but what does that mean? Do they have special expert knowledge that there is a god or that god does exist (and what kind of god it is and what it does and what it wants us to do)? If so why don’t they make it public? I realize they have arguments, but I’m not sure that having arguments that god exists (or ‘about the thing,’ for short) makes them experts. I have no problem agreeing it makes them scholars, but experts? No. No, frankly, I think that’s a stupid word to use about a supernatural subject – unless of course one of these experts comes up with some real evidence (yes, evidence) that a supernatural entity exists. That would be expertise. But just saying? Not so much.

There’s more, but that’s enough. I find this kind of thing depressing.

To be fair to Terry Eagleton, he’s perfectly capable of being entirely lucid and even (dare I say it) sensible. I leafed through The Eagelton Reader earlier today to find a sample – and it was not difficult. From an essay called ‘Deconstruction and Human Rights’:

Equivocation and ambiguity are not always moral virtues; and there seems no doubt that such finespun obliquity on issues of central political importance has done much to disillusion those erstwhile enthusiasts for deconstruction who somewhat gullibly credited its promissory note to deliver some political goods.

There you go. Clear as a bell.

Update: I shortened the quoted passage, to omit a swipe at Derrida that I almost didn’t include to begin with, but ended up including for the sake of offering some context. But Roger points out that it’s inaccurate – and I don’t agree with the point of it anyway (which seems to be that all writing ought to be politically useful in some way, or at least ought to be rebuked for not being), so out it goes. My main goal was just to be fair to Eagleton; and the passage is more elegant on its own anyway.

I’m not the only one who wasn’t impressed or convinced by that piece by Stuart Jeffries. Caspar Melville is another.

Stuart Jeffries piece on faith and unbelief is an example of a certain kind of liberal intellectual position which seeks to stand above the current debates about the place of religion in contemporary society…He quotes without challenge the preposterous assertion from Colin Slee, Dean of Southwark, that “atheists like Richard Dawkins are just as fundamentalist as the people setting off bombs on the tube” (since when is writing books and making arguments comparable to mass murder?)…Jeffries is quite right to point out that these days secularists seem exasperated. But who can blame us when the case against unaccountable and undemocratic religious privilege is so misrepresented by articles like his?

Well exactly. If people like him didn’t keep saying silly things like that, people like us would be better-tempered and sweeter and would stop blowing up tubes and buses, or rather not so much blowing them up as, well, not blowing them up. We wouldn’t stop not blowing them up – we’d – oh never mind.

David Thompson also comments.

What we’re hearing instead, and hearing very often, are statements like another quoted in Jeffries’ article, by Oxford theologian Alister McGrath: “We need to treat those who disagree with us with intellectual respect, rather than dismissing them – as Dawkins does – as liars, knaves and charlatans.” This rather presupposes that intellectual respect could in all fairness be assigned to a person who presents no credible argument to support grandiose claims regarding the origin and nature of existence, and the alleged preferences of a hypothetical deity on whose behalf he affects to speak. Well, if you want to avoid being viewed as a knave or a pompous little fraud, it helps to have the goods to back up your claims.

And it’s just asking too much to demand that we treat all those who disagree with us with intellectual respect. What if they’re not intellectually respectable? Civility is one thing, but intellectual respect is another.

David cites that comment by Colin Slee too – I daresay everyone who discussed that article cited that comment. It certainly did stand out! So much so that it caused me to lapse into a rare but sincere fantasy about violence.

Ben at Religion is Bullshit has a splendid comment. Stuart Jeffries is probably feeling pretty silly by now! One can hope so anyway.

Stephen Law has posts about the ever-popular ‘atheism is faith’ trope here and here. He also has ones on cultural relativism here and several other places – I don’t have the strength to link to all of them: you should just go explore the whole blog.