Author: Ophelia Benson

Another item from Pharyngula. About the fact that scientists talking about the details of a scientific subject can quickly bore an audience.

It’s true: we aren’t trained to be showmen. We are very good at talking to other scientists – I’m sure Wesley’s talk would have been a pleasure for me to listen to, and I would have learned much and been appreciative of the substance – but most of it would have whooshed over the heads of a lay audience. I wrestle with this in my public talks, too. There’s always this stuff that I am very excited about and that I know my peers think is really nifty and that gets right down to the heart of the joy and wonder of biology, but it’s so far from the perspective of the audience that it is well nigh impossible to communicate. And I know that when I try, I usually fail.

And the important thing to notice there is that we’re the ones who are missing out. Necessarily; we can’t know everything, and we’re all always going to have subjects we don’t know enough about to follow detailed discussions with interest, let alone excitement and joy – but I think it’s really important to keep always in mind that that means we are missing out. There’s something there, and it’s joy and excitement to people who understand it. This is kind of basic to the running argument I’m always having with ‘anti-elitists’. With people who accuse me of 1) thinking I know a lot (which is a joke; I know damn well I don’t know a lot; I know damn well I wouldn’t be able to get the joy and excitement in PZ’s public talks) and 2) thinking that means I’m Special. But that’s not it. That’s completely point-missing. No, what I think is that there is joy and excitement to be had in many kinds of knowledge and intellectual exploration, and that the more ‘anti-elitists’ insist that easy obvious poppy stuff is every bit as good as more challenging subjects, the more they encourage people never ever in the whole of their lives to find that out. ‘Anti-elitism’ pretends to be somehow sticking up for ‘ordinary people’ or some such amorphous group, but what it’s really doing is just encouraging them to remain permanently shut out from intellectual excitement. With friends like that who needs enemies, kind of thing.

The two creationists in the series, on the other hand, are simple and clear (and the young earth creationist has the advantage of being entertainingly insane). They don’t have any complex data to explain, so they aren’t tempted to try, and they put everything in terms everyone can follow. An absence of evidence can be an advantage in a talk, because then everything rests on well-honed rhetoric; the scientist’s reliance on actual information means we often skimp on the presentation. I’ve heard Johnson speak, and he’s smooth and confident, and slyly appeals to his audience’s prejudices. Of course, he also lies like a [censored] . It simplifies lecture preparation if you can simply make up glib lies to fill in the holes, another strategy to which scientists will not resort.

And that’s another important thing to keep in mind. Part of the appeal of the religious side is that it’s easy. It’s easy. Never forget that. In fact it ought to play a much bigger part in the rhetorical toolkit. Religion is for lazy thinkers, because there is literally nothing to do. No evidence-finding, no argument-improving, no illogic-detecting. It’s easy. Easy, easy, easy. It’s like lying back in a soft chair watching tv while the cat gently spoons chocolates into your mouth. Got that? Easy. Couch-potato thinking, lazy thinking, easy easy easy. Not impressive. Not buffed. Not butch. Easy.

They won’t like that!

I was surprised to read this about Panda’s Thumb at Pharyngula yesterday. I didn’t know any of it. I don’t read Panda’s very often, whereas I do read Pharyngula almost daily, because I love PZ’s steady flow of irascible atheism. I now realize that the absence of irascible atheism is not absence of mind but intentional. No wonder I’ve never formed a habit of reading it.

The Panda’s Thumb has done a terrible job of covering the Mirecki situation. F-. Total flop. Nosedive into the latrine pit…No names, no details, but let’s just say that there are a few people in the group who would be more comfortable with Michelle Malkin’s innuendo or John Altevogt’s slanders than with supporting an academic critic of fundamentalism…Another lesson I’ve learned, that might be reassuring to some, is that the group as a whole is far more religion-friendly than you might think from reading creationist sites. Criticizing “fundies” is a bad, bad thing, and will cost you the support of many of the Panda’s Thumb gang. Mirecki should be grateful that he isn’t an atheist; I definitely got the feeling that there’d have been anti-Mirecki diatribes publicly washing our hands of him if that had been the case. At least, I don’t feel particularly welcome there, and definitely perceive that I’m a third-class citizen in the hierarchy (heck, I didn’t even know there was a hierarchy until recently). I don’t feel bad enough about it to start going to church to win the prize of being a valued theistic evolutionist, though.

Oh. Oh dear. How unfortunate. See, I think criticizing fundies is one of the more urgent tasks out there right now. What else can we do? Just lie down and let them take over?

While I’m a flaming liberal atheist, most of the people there are not, and they’re actually a diverse bunch; it’s too bad there’s less interest in seeing that diversity expressed than in maintaining a bland front of tepid inoffensiveness. The Panda’s Thumb is a great resource for science and focused critiques of creationism, and everyone should keep reading it, but we should also be clear on what it is not. It is not ever going to address the root causes of creationism in our country: the virulent, pathological brands of fundamentalism that are growing in our midst. That would be…rude.

That’s just it – the root causes problem. They have to be addressed, because the alternative is just submission.

One of the PT people commented on PZ’s post, and said something I find very strange and somewhat worrying.

As a biologist, I can claim some expertise in my area of study. I also have strong views on politics and religion. But no matter how strongly felt my views of religion and politics are, in these I’m just another citizen. As a biologist, I’ll happily tell you when your facts about science are wrong. As a citizen, I don’t believe I have the same warrant to make pronouncements about the personal, individual, subjectively held beliefs of whole classes of people.

But we’re all just other citizens in our views on religion and politics. Why would it follow that we don’t have warrant to make pronouncements about everyone else’s views – whether they belong to whole classes of people or not? That’s just a total abdication of argument, thought, and rational discussion, isn’t it? And if we do that – if we just throw up our hands and say we don’t have warrant to make pronouncements on people’s ‘beliefs’ then we just give the irrationalists a free hand. And that’s the worst thing we can do. The worst. We’re all citizens (if we’re lucky, if we don’t live in dictatorships), we live in democracies (those of us who do), and public matters are for public discussion. Public discussion rests on reasons rather than authority or revelation – it has to – those are the only alternatives. If you give up on reasons and reason, then authority and revelation is what takes over. So the idea that citizens should abstain from challenging one another’s beliefs merely because they are personal, individual, and subjectively held – is a dangerous idea, in my view. It’s just locking up the only tools we have, in the face of a determined, aggressive, hostile, totalitarian enemy. Why would we want to do that?

It’s hard to tear oneself away from The Panda’s Thumb today. They are having one hell of a party over there. And writing one great post after another while they’re at it.

One on our friend Steve Fuller for example.

Professor of Sociology Steven Fuller may not know much about the history or content of science (see his recent confusion — just like Linus Pauling’s! — between protein and DNA at Micheal Berube’s blog) but he is good the kind of jargoneering that the Discovery Institute and its allies use to confuse the public about science…Fuller proved to be quite compliant generally, but Judge Jones seems not to to have heard his pleas to institute in Dover a kind of affirmative action program for ID. Instead, it was the repeated acknowledgement that Intelligent Design is, in fact, creationism, that Judge Jones took away as the salient point of Fuller’s testimony…What the TMLC failed to appreciate when they booked Fuller as a witness was that he doesn’t believe in any kind of science. In the pomo view, science is all about social relationships and power dynamics. Whatever privileged role science has in society is fraudulantly obtained. Scientific authority is a sham…Calling an expert witness who doesn’t believe in science to a trial about an idea’s scientific status was probably a mistake. Certainly, Steven Fuller wins second place (behind Michael Behe) in the race for the title of “Best Defense Witness for the Prosecution.”

Pretty funny! Also satisfying – especially after the display of condescension mixed with confusion he gave at Michael’s.

And Tim Sandefur does a great one on the judge’s reasoning, full of interesting stuff.

In summary, the disclaimer singles out the theory of evolution for special treatment, misrepresents its status in the scientific community, presents students with a religious alternative masquerading as a scientific theory, directs them to consult a creationist text as though it were a science resource, and instructs students to forego scientific inquiry in the public school classroom and instead to seek out religious instruction elsewhere. Furthermore…introducing ID necessarily invites religion into the science classroom as it sets up what will be perceived by students as a “God-friendly” science, the one that explicitly mentions an intelligent designer, and that the “other science,” evolution, takes no position on religion…. [A] false duality is produced: It “tells students…quite explicitly, choose God on the side of intelligent design or choose atheism on the side of science.” Introducing such a religious conflict into the classroom…forces students to “choose between God and science,” not a choice that schools should be forcing on them.

This could turn into something of an education in science and epistemology for a lot of people.

Avoiding magical explanations is “a ‘ground rule’ of science,” which some call “‘methodological naturalism,’ and is sometimes known as the scientific method.” (at 65). This approach is not arbitrary. It is based on the demands of epistemology as well as the proven superiority of this approach in producing usable results. “[O]nce you attribute a cause to an untestable supernatural force, a proposition that cannot be disproven, there is no reason to continue seeking natural explanations as we have our answer.” (at 66). ID proponents, Judge Jones notes, (and we might mention Beckwith by name here) are trying “to change the ground rules of science to allow supernatural causation of the natural world” to factor into the analysis. (at 67) But this approach would “embrace astrology,” (at 68), among other things. And, in any case, the fact that ID proponents seek “to ‘defeat scientific materialism,’” and “‘replace materialistic explanations with the theistic understanding that nature and human beings are created by God,’” (at 68) demonstrates that ID at least cannot qualify as science, whatever “merit” it might have (at 65). Since the current “essential ground rules…limit science to testable, natural explanations,” only changing those rules would allow ID to qualify as science. But “[s]cience cannot be defined differently.” (at 70).

Oh why not. Please? Pleasepleaseplease? Can’t we define science differently just a little bit just for this one time just for awhile if I’m really really good? Can’t we just pretend a little tiny bit that an untestable supernatural force is a good answer can’t we please please?

The judge is a Republican. Which doesn’t surprise me in the slightest. This has nothing (inherently) to do with left and right, it’s an epistemic issue. Making evidential questions into political ones is a mug’s game.

None of this should have happened in the first place, but since it did, at least the judge said what’s what. At least he didn’t do a lot of grovelling and respecting and protected space-providing and beseeching and apologizing. At least he came right out and said that the creationist side lied – and lied repeatedly at that. And since he said it, we can repeat it. A judge said it, in a decision, so no one can accuse us of libel if we say what the judge said. So: they told lies! Repeatedly! And they got caught doing it! Nyah!

Said the judge: “It is ironic that several of these individuals, who so staunchly and proudly touted their religious convictions in public, would time and again lie to cover their tracks and disguise the real purpose behind the ID Policy.”

It is, isn’t it. Very ironic. Not at all surprising, since we see the bizarrely truth-avoiding way they characterize atheists and atheism in whingeing article after whingeing article in newspapers and magazines – but very ironic. How satisfying it is for a change to see someone in a position to do something about it, point that out.

As P Z says at Panda’s Thumb, the judge’s decision is joyful reading for us on the side of science.

First, while encouraging students to keep an open mind and explore alternatives to evolution, it offers no scientific alternative; instead, the only alternative offered is an inherently religious one…Second, by directing students to their families to learn about the “Origins of Life,” the paragraph performs the exact same function as did the Freiler disclaimer: It “reminds school children that they can rightly maintain beliefs taught by their parents on the subject of the origin of life,” thereby stifling the critical thinking that the class’s study of evolutionary theory might otherwise prompt, to protect a religious view from what the Board considers to be a threat.

There it is, you see – that idea of protection again. Well, the only way to ‘protect’ ideas that have no evidence and no good arguments to back them up, is via various kinds of suppression and distortion, is via stifling critical thinking. That’s why it’s a bad idea to protect weak ideas. But those are just the ideas that a lot of well-meaning fools are keen to protect. But you can’t have the one without the other. You can’t have the bad idea-protection without the damage to the beneficiaries’ ability to think properly. That’s what protection means in this context. It means protection from critical thinking, which means protection from any kind of real thinking, as opposed to daydreaming. It means protection from having one’s ‘beliefs’ ‘attacked’ as the fatuous Guardian editor put it – ‘attacked’ meaning questioned, disputed, argued with, challenged. In other words protected from every process that enables people to learn how to think clearly. What a tragic, pathetic idea of protection.

To be sure, Darwin’s theory of evolution is imperfect. However, the fact that a scientific theory cannot yet render an explanation on every point should not be used as a pretext to thrust an untestable alternative hypothesis grounded in religion into the science classroom or to misrepresent well-established scientific propositions. The citizens of the Dover area were poorly served by the members of the Board who voted for the ID Policy. It is ironic that several of these individuals, who so staunchly and proudly touted their religious convictions in public, would time and again lie to cover their tracks and disguise the real purpose behind the ID Policy.

Yes, I do particularly like that bit. I do indeed.

…this case came to us as the result of the activism of an ill-informed faction on a school board, aided by a national public interest law firm eager to find a constitutional test case on ID, who in combination drove the Board to adopt an imprudent and ultimately unconstitutional policy. The breathtaking inanity of the Board’s decision is evident when considered against the factual backdrop which has now been fully revealed through this trial. The students, parents, and teachers of the Dover Area School District deserved better than to be dragged into this legal maelstrom, with its resulting utter waste of monetary and personal resources.

Utter waste? When they got to spend a whole day listening to Steve Fuller’s incoherent ravings? How can that be?

No, of course that’s a joke. Having to go to court to prevent nonsense from being taught in the science classrooms is indeed an utter waste of resources, just as it would be a waste to have to go to court in order not to have flat-earth cosmology taught in the science classrooms. If people want to protect their beliefs, they should swap their brains for small piles of cotton wool, and let it go at that.

Mush. Most people can’t seem to think or talk about this subject without resorting to mush. To inaccurate assumptions and woolly language and category mistakes and undefined terms that need defining. To mush.

Editing it today – 33 years later under the same title – is the Guardian’s religious affairs correspondent, Stephen Bates. He defends it enthusiastically. He said: “I am by no means averse to including humanist or secularist writers but I tell all would-be contributors that the column is intended, in my opinion, to be a space for non-polemical or philosophical reflection. This means not attacking the beliefs of others. In my experience, humanists and atheists find this very difficult…”

Well maybe that’s because they’re profoundly puzzled by the idea that philosophical ‘reflection’ ‘means’ not attacking the beliefs of others. Oh yeah? Ever talked to or read any philosophers has he? But that’s where the mush comes in. He probably has some special – i.e. mushy – meaning for ‘philosophical reflection’ in mind. That it means just kind of dozily dreamily driftily pondering this and that, with one’s eyes unfocused and mouth hanging open and a little bit of drool trailing down one’s chin. He also no doubt has a special meaning for the word ‘attack’ by which it means point out the great gaping holes in someone’s ‘reasoning’ or ‘argument’. And a special meaning for ‘beliefs’ by which it means that which must never be questioned unless of course it is the ‘beliefs’ of non-theists in which case of course anything at all may be said however dishonest.

Even more, the mushy idea throughout the piece is that religion and non-religion are the same sort of thing, in the same way that ginger ice cream and coffee ice cream are the same kind of thing. The truth of course is rather that religion is a set of badly-warranted ideas while non-religion is abstinence from that particular set of badly-warranted ideas, so that in fact they are opposites rather than two flavours of the same kind of thing. So all the way through there is this silly assumption that atheists have no business saying religion is epistemically feeble.

Who qualifies to speak from this small platform is, in the end, he points out, a matter for the editor. The editor, when I asked him about this, said he believed there was still a good argument for preserving Face to Faith as, to use his term, “a protected space”.

Right. A protected space. Protected from what? From the bad mean people who ask what all this is based on? From cruel heartless people who ask what the evidence is? From savage unfeeling people who ask who designed the designer then? Or just from the winds and turmoil of the everyday world? But either way, why is a ‘protected space’ considered necessary or useful or a good idea? Why should religion be protected? Why shouldn’t it be expected to take care of itself by this time? Why does it need Guardian editors bending over it and tucking it in and telling it not to fret? (Not to mention allowing it to talk unmitigated drivel week in and week out.)

Well, I don’t suppose the Guardian will answer those questions, but I would love to know.

The decision in Dover will be handed down soon.

Legal experts said the big question was whether Judge Jones would rule narrowly or more broadly on the merits of teaching intelligent design as science. Proponents of the theory argue that living organisms are so complex that the best explanation is that a higher intelligence designed them.

Here we are back at that legs question. That sentence does look so very silly. ‘Proponents of the theory argue that living organisms are so complex that the best explanation is that a higher intelligence designed them while somehow not being so complex that it itself requires explanation.’ ‘Proponents of the theory argue that living organisms are so complex that the best explanation is that a higher intelligence designed them which means that it requires explanation even more – in fact orders of magnitude more – than the living organisms it designed, but we’re not going to mention that because it would complicate things.’ ‘Proponents of the theory argue that living organisms are so complex that the best explanation is that a higher intelligence designed them which means that an even higher intelligence designed the first higher intelligence which means that an even higher higher – oh look, is that a turtle?’ ‘Proponents of the theory argue that living organisms are so complex that the best explanation is that a higher intelligence designed them which makes absolutely no sense because if the organisms need explanation because they are so complex then obviously so does the intelligence that designed them, being more complex, but let’s not talk about that, because the fact is simply that we find it easier and more cozy to think of the whole thing having happened because a big person made it happen rather than because it just happened, and of course that’s good enough for a court of law, woo! woo! woo!’