Author: Ophelia Benson

And another thing. (I’m behind. I’ve had all these items burning a hole in my pocket, and I keep having to do other things, so the list keeps getting longer. You know how that goes.) And another thing: the horrible outcome of that trial of the editor of a women’s rights magazine in Afghanistan. Reporters Without Borders, the Committee to Protect Journalists, International Freedom of Expression exchange, are all on the case. Good luck to them.

Nasab was prosecuted for reprinting articles by an Iranian scholar criticising the stoning of Muslims who convert to another religion and the use of corporal punishment for persons accused of such offences as adultery. An Afghan journalist present at the 22 October hearing before a Kabul lower court told Reporters without Borders that Nasab was interrogated by the prosecutor and judges without any defence lawyer being present. The judges refused Nasab’s request for a further adjournment to let him prepare his defence, and refused to free him on bail. The hearing lasted only an hour and a half. He appeared haggard after weeks of imprisonment, as he had during earlier hearings starting on 11 October when he was subjected to a series of tirades from the prosecutor.

Great – prosecuted for reprinting someone else’s criticism (and very good luck to that scholar too) of the stoning of Muslims who convert to another religion and the use of corporal punishment for adultery.

The Committee to Protect Journalists is outraged by the conviction of Ali Mohaqiq Nasab, editor of the monthly Haqooq-i-Zan (Women’s Rights), on blasphemy charges and the two-year jail sentence handed down by Kabul’s Primary Court on October 22. Judge Ansarullah Malawizada said that his ruling in Nasab’s case was based on recommendations from the conservative Ulama Council, a group of the country’s leading clerics. “The Ulama Council sent us a letter saying that he should be punished, so I sentenced him to two years’ jail,” Malawizada told The Associated Press. Police arrested Nasab, a religious scholar, on October 1 after clerics complained that he had published two articles that questioned harsh interpretations of Islamic law and were, thus, “offensive to Islam.”

Whereas the harshness of the laws themselves is not ‘offensive to Islam’ – that’s unfortunate.

When arresting Nasab…authorities bypassed Afghan legislation that states journalists cannot be arrested until the government-appointed Media Commission for Investigating Media-Related Offences has considered their case. The Media Commission met on October 18 to discuss Nasab’s case following a series of requests by Afghan media groups and international human rights groups. The Media Commission concluded that Nasab did not deliberately insult Islam in his articles and was therefore not guilty of blasphemy.

Well so much for the Media Commission. The clerics sent a letter saying he should be punished, so that’s that.

“The court’s decision to go against Afghanistan’s own legislation is a huge step back for both human rights and press freedom in Afghanistan,” said the IFJ president…Blasphemy laws remain the greatest threat to journalists in Afghanistan and the IFJ is concerned that Nasab’s sentencing will lead to increased self-censorship and an avoidance of reporting on important religious issues in the region. The prosecution called for the death penalty, accusing Nasab of apostasy (the abandonment of faith), leading observers to call the two-year sentence a compromise.

A compromise which might lead to increased self-censorship and an avoidance of reporting on important religious issues. Ya think?

House of Commons, please note.

I trust you enjoyed that Christopher Hart piece in the Times. I liked it so much I thought I would revisit a few of the highlights, just for the pleasure of it.

The difficulty is rather that all the religions on offer are so patently preposterous, if not downright unpleasant. Judaism tells us in its most sacred text, the Torah, that a donkey once turned round and started an argument with its master (Numbers, chapter 22); and that the supreme creator took time out to instruct his chosen people not to carry dead badgers, pelicans, hoopoes or bats (Leviticus, chapter 11). Christianity, while accepting these texts as sacred, further believes that God manifested himself on earth in the form of an excitable and frequently ill-tempered 1st-century Jewish rabbi called Joshua (“Jesus” in Greek) who disowned his family and believed that the world was soon going to end. How do we know Jesus was Jewish? Because he lived at home until he was 30 and his mother thought he was God.

Excitable and ill-tempered – well of course he was, on account of not being allowed to carry dead hoopoes or badgers around. Wouldn’t you be? We are a luckier people in a happier time – we get to bring blue teddy bears and bunches of flowers and cards with messages to an alley where someone found a bit of premature chicken. Thus are religions born.

Enter new Labour with shining morning face, like some eager perfectibilian schoolboy, believing that with a few waves of its legislative wand it can banish cultural frictions and religious disagreements from the earth…If the bill is passed then the kind of things I have written at the start of this article – to my mind, perfectly reasonable, evidentiary and legitimately discomforting things – could well land me in Wormwood Scrubs. It is astonishing that any modern democratic government should be even considering such a law…This is a blundering bluebottle of a bill, inanely buzzing around our heads, a colossal nuisance with no sign of intelligence behind it whatsoever.

Yeah. Always beware of eager perfectabilians with shining morning faces – little bastards.

Steve Fuller is a social constructionist, a Stong Progamme-ist. He says things like this:

So, what exactly do science studies scholars do – and why does it seem to bother scientists so much? We apply the theories and methods of the humanities and social sciences to the work of natural scientists and technologists. We study them as people, not minor deities. We observe them in their workplaces, interpret their documents, and propose explanations for their activities that make sense of them, given other things we know about human beings. This may sound like pretty harmless stuff, but it actually took a while even for sociologists to come round to it. Until the 1970s, the ‘sociology of science’ was based on a fairly uncritical acceptance of what distinguished scientists and philosophers of science had to say about the nature of science. To see what this means, imagine relying exclusively on the testimony of priests and theologians for developing a sociology of religion.

Propose explanations for their activities that make sense of them – yes – but what kind of sense? It’s possible to propose explanations that ‘make sense’ of things but are still inaccurate, or point-missing, or fantasy-laden, or tendentious, or all those. Strong Programme explanations of the activities of scientists tend to adduce explanations that have to do with status, financial interests, prestige, rivalry, and the like, while omitting explanations that have to do with evidence; thus they tend to ‘make sense’ of the activities they are considering, at the expense of leaving out major, central explanatory factors.

So maybe it’s not all that surprising that Steve Fuller would tell a US federal court that the theory of intelligent design is a scientific rather than a religious concept that should be taught to children in American schools. In fact maybe it’s not surprising at all. Maybe that’s where strict social constructionism gets you. If you think scientists are to science as priests and theologians are to religion, then no wonder.

Steve Fuller, a professor of sociology at the University of Warwick, said that the theory – which maintains that life on Earth was designed by an unidentified intelligent force – is a valid scientific one because it has been used to describe biological phenomena…Prof Fuller, the author of An Intelligent Person’s Guide to Intelligent Design Theory, was called by lawyers for the school board. He said the scientific community was slow to accept minority views, but argued that introducing intelligent design might inspire students to help develop the theory. “It seems to me in many respects the cards are stacked against radical, innovative views getting a fair hearing in science these days,” he said. Citing the work of Michael Behe, a leading advocate of intelligent design and a previous witness at the trial, Prof Fuller said scientists have observed biological systems and inferred that a “designer” must exist.

Behold, a variation on the Galileo fallacy. The ‘scientific community’ is slow to accept minority views, the cards are stacked against radical, innovative views getting a fair hearing in science these days – therefore it’s a good idea to cite the work of Michael Behe. They said Galileo was wrong, they say my ideas are wrong, therefore my ideas are right. Einstein did badly in school, I did badly in school, therefore Behe has a point. Radical, innovative ideas are sometimes greeted with skepticism, scientists are skeptical of ‘Intelligent Design,’ therefore ‘Intelligent Design’ should be taught in schools. Let’s call that the Transgressive Fallacy, shall we?