Author: Ophelia Benson

More guilt-mongering of non-theism, more default assumptions that there is something wrong or wicked or suspect or in need of a damn good explanation about naturalism. Also more Michael Ruse.

Professor Ruse takes a long look at why opponents of evolution feel so threatened and why evolutionists are so surprised and perplexed at the opposition…Although Darwin’s own work was a model of professional science, a great deal of evolutionary thought before and after him, in Professor Ruse’s judgment, deserves to be termed evolutionism, a kind of secular religion built around an ideology of progress.

Okay, stop right there. A ‘kind of’ secular religion? That’s a weasel-term. Could be the reporter’s rather than Ruse’s – but either way it’s weasel-language. And then, what does ‘secular religion’ mean? And ideology is not the same thing as religion. Ideology can certainly do a lot to distort thinking, but it’s not the same thing as religion, and it just confuses things to talk about it as if it were. An ‘ideology of progress’ does not require any supernatural beliefs whatever; religion does; it’s the supernaturalism that’s at issue; so to conflate an ‘ideology of progress’ with religion in a context where supernaturalism versus naturalism is the subject, is cheating. People who defend or try to protect religion resort to cheating a lot. That’s annoying, and they ought to stop doing it.

From the beginning, evolutionary theory has been drenched in religion. The aggressors in the warfare between theology and science were not just religious believers insisting that their ancient Scriptures were the basis of scientific truths but scientific enthusiasts insisting that evolutionary theory was the basis for conclusions about religion.

More cheating, though of a milder kind. Tendentious language. For one thing, ‘drenched in religion’ turns out to mean pointing out that evolutionary theory doesn’t require religion, or makes religion superfluous. That’s an odd thing for ‘drenched in religion’ to turn out to mean. For another thing – aggressors? Why aggressors? Why is it aggressive to try to explain a naturalistic subject by naturalistic means? And then, more minor rhetoric: there’s ‘enthusiasts’ and ‘insisting’. It’s minor, but it all adds up: it adds up to the usual default assumption that no one has any business pointing out that there is no good evidence for the truth claims religions make, or that religious answers to naturalistic questions are not helpful and are not answers.

But as Professor Ruse notes, as genuine science no less than as pseudoscience, “Darwinian evolutionary theory does impinge on religious thinking.”…Other elements of Darwinism go right to the heart of any belief in a caring, almighty God. The power of strictly natural interactions of random events and reproductive advantage over huge spans of time to explain the emergence of diverse and complex life forms appears to render the guiding role of such a God superfluous. The grim picture of those life forms, including humanity, emerging through a ruthlessly cruel process of natural competition appears to render such a God implausible.

Yes, true. Although problems with the idea of a caring almighty God did not begin in 1859. (Actually it’s a rather depressing reflection on human history that so many people did manage to believe in a caring almighty God for so long. I mean – caring? Caring? How could they possibly have thought that?)

Then there is the debate about the “methodological naturalism” that for purposes of scientific investigation restricts explanations to findings about material nature. Does “methodological naturalism” lead inexorably to a “metaphysical naturalism” holding that material nature is in fact the whole of reality? Professor Ruse says no. But he acknowledges that the slippery slope is there.

There again – the slippery slope. That’s another pejorative. More cheating.

In the end, Professor Ruse’s new book suggests that the religious resistance to evolutionary theory is a lot more understandable and a lot less unreasonable than its opponents recognize.

Well of course it’s understandable: religious believers don’t like having their beliefs challenged. That’s not a secret. But less unreasonable? Well, only if you think it’s reasonable to let wishes determine beliefs about the world, and to let them control what other people write and teach, as well. It’s not self-evident that that is particularly reasonable, frankly.

PZ Myers has an excellent post on – broadly speaking – the tension between religion and science. Narrowly speaking it’s on a non-excellent post by the widely over-rated Eugene Volokh (though I gather he’s less over-rated now, ever since that post on what a good thing it is to torture certain criminals to death in front of an enraged crowd). And he makes a point that I’ve made here more than once. It’s a very, very widespread mistake and confusion, even among people who – you would think – really ought to know the difference. It’s pretty ominous and disturbing that the confusion is so pervasive even among educated people like lawyers and journalists. Clearly everyone should be learning the difference in kindergarten and having it reinforced throughout their educations – possibly it ought to be the first thing anyone learns. It’s not really possible to think clearly without it.

Here’s the confusion:

What’s more, how exactly do scientists come to the conclusion that “God had no part in this process”? What’s their proof? That’s the sort of thing that can’t really be proved, it seems to me — which makes it sound as if scientists, despite their protestations of requiring proof rather than faith, make assertions about God that they can’t prove.

It seems to him – what, as if he’s the only one who thinks so? Of course it can’t be proved! And ‘scientists’ know that perfectly well, and they don’t make ‘protestations of requiring proof rather than faith’ – they ask for evidence. Not proof, evidence. There’s a difference – a big difference. It’s so basic, and yet so many people seem to have no clue. That’s alarming.

PZ commented on the confusion:

Scientists don’t talk about “proof”, period. We leave that to the mathematicians. This is something I yell at my freshman biology majors, by the way. I know it’s out of the purview of a scholar of constitutional law, but if he’s going to make claims about science, shouldn’t he know the bare basics of the discipline?

Yeah, he should, especially since the difference between evidence and proof is not just a basic of science, surely – it’s a pretty general basic of epistemology. It has to be – because it’s about the difference between certainty and non-certainty, doubt and no doubt, open questions and closed ones, how and when and if we know what we know. Susan Haack points out that scientific inquiry is continuous with other forms of inquiry, as opposed to being special in some way. Saying ‘there is evidence for X’ a very different thing from saying ‘it is proved that X’ in any empirical field you can think of.

It’s odd, and interesting, and somewhat exasperating, to realize that probably most woolly beliefs rest on exactly this stupid confusion. ‘You can’t prove that God doesn’t exist, or that there is no space ship behind the Hale-Bopp comet, or that extra-terrestrials haven’t been abducting and impregnating humans, or that I don’t have a parking angel or a laundry angel or any other kind of angel’ – therefore we might as well believe any of them we want to. That’s probably how the default position works (we’ve been talking about the default position lately – that belief is right and good and it’s non-belief that has to explain itself) – since you can’t prove the belief is nonsense, therefore there is no reason not to believe it. That ‘therefore’ is idiotic, but it’s everywhere.

Brian Leiter makes a similar comment.

What interests me in particular here is what this display tells us about the limited understanding of science and scientific methods even among educated people and scholars. If professional scholars in fields like law have so little understanding of the nature and structure of scientific inquiry, is it any surprise that in the population at large nonsense like creationism and its offshoots, like Intelligent Design, have considerable traction?

Exactly. Discouraging, isn’t it.

Had lovely fishing trip. Caught a shark, a couple of eels, a sting ray, and an otter that seems to have been dead for some time. All made a very nice bouillabaisse, served with aioli and a hearty pain de compagne and some Chef BoyArDee canned ravioli. That’s the best meal I’ve had in awhile!

But life is not all holiday. Back to the dear old religious hatred bill. Frank Dobson does a not very compelling job of arguing for it in the Guardian, it seems to me. Maybe I’m missing something.

Do you believe that anyone should be allowed to incite hatred against other people on the grounds of their religious belief? I don’t, even though I have no religious belief myself. That’s because I believe that nobody should suffer assaults, or live in fear, because of their religious beliefs.

So – Mr Dobson – do you believe that people should suffer assaults, or live in fear, because of something other than their religious beliefs? Do you believe that people should suffer assaults, or live in fear, because of their fashion sense, or taste in fish soup, or nail-biting? Probably not – am I right? Don’t you just kind of think people shouldn’t suffer assaults, or live in fear, at all? Don’t you generally tend to think that assault and threatening ought to be against the law? Don’t you think they in fact are against the law? If so, what is the force of your question? What is that ‘because’ doing there? You might as well say, ‘Do you believe that people should be robbed at gunpoint because of their opinions on Star Trek? I don’t, even though I have no opinions on Star Trek myself. That’s because I believe that nobody should suffer assaults.’ See – the thing about opinions on Star Trek is completely superfluous. It’s not necessary. You don’t need it. Assault is already illegal, and adding ‘because of their religious beliefs’ to the end of it doesn’t make it any more so.

I’m not saying there is no argument for laws against incitement to hatred. I tend to think there is, especially in view of what happened in for instance the Balkans and Rwanda lately. I’m saying Frank Dobson didn’t make that argument, and doesn’t seem to have noticed that he didn’t make it. He just jumped right over it. He does more jumping.

If the proposed new law were widely drawn, it could in effect extend the blasphemy law. But it isn’t. It is narrowly drawn, confining the offence to expressions or behaviour intended or likely to stir up hatred. It wouldn’t outlaw The Satanic Verses or Jerry Springer – the Opera, just as the existing protection for Sikhs did not cover the play Behzti in Birmingham.

And that’s that. On to the next item. That is – incredibly enough – all he says about that issue. You may notice a certain emaciation about it, a certain lack of corroborative material, a certain absence of elaboration or explanation. That surplus ‘because’ in the first paragraph would have come in handy in this one, but it isn’t there. The law wouldn’t outlaw The Satanic Verses because – why? He doesn’t say. He doesn’t say! He just says it is so, and leaves it at that. Well – since that’s the very point that’s at issue, that doesn’t really cut it!

Not to mention that blithe assumption that it is obvious what ‘confining the offence to expressions or behaviour intended or likely to stir up hatred’ means – which it decidedly isn’t. Again, that’s the whole point – so just saying ‘it’s not a problem’ and nothing further is not really adequate, is it. But that’s all he says. Is this really the best they can do?

And that brings us to the next objection – that comedians won’t be able to make religious jokes, and clerics will not be able to promote their beliefs or attack the beliefs, teachings and practices of other religions. This isn’t true either. To fall foul of the law, offenders must use threats, abuse or insults that are intended to stir up hatred against people on the grounds of their religion, or are likely to do so. If threats, abuse and insults alone don’t break the law, jokes certainly shouldn’t. Surely no comedian needs the right to stir up religious hatred. Nor does any cleric.

Here we are again. Err – yes, we know offenders must use threats, abuse or insults that are intended to stir up hatred against people on the grounds of their religion – we know that, because that’s what this whole thing is about. Just keeping on repeating it isn’t going to answer our objections. How do you know when threats, abuse or insults are intended to stir up hatred against people on the grounds of their religion and when they’re not? How do you tell the difference? What are the criteria? And when are you planning to explain them to the people who will be subject to this new law? Ever?

Changes in the law bring about changes in behaviour, partly by acting as a deterrent and partly by declaring that something is wrong. We know the law against incitement to racial hatred has had that effect. Incitement to religious hatred is just as wrong, so the law should declare it wrong. If we fail to change the law, we are declaring that we are prepared to tolerate religious hatred. That can’t be right.

Again – yes, we know. Again, that’s the problem – we don’t want to change our behaviour, we don’t want a deterrent. You seem to be utterly convinced that you know religious hatred when you see it and that it’s not things like jokes or novels or plays, or articles or essays or tracts – but we’re not convinced, noisy disrespectful atheists that we are, and we’re even less convinced now you’ve shown us that you can’t even seem to see that there’s anything to be said on the subject. Nothing but ‘it won’t be a problem because it won’t be a problem.’ Not an encouraging sign, this level of obtusity.