Mooney goes to Point of Inquiry

The Center for Inquiry (CFI) has just announced three new hosts for its popular Point of Inquiry podcast. They are to replace D.J. Grothe, who has left the CFI to take up a top executive position with the James Randi Educational Foundation.

The new hosts of Point of Inquiry will be Chris Mooney, Karen Stollznow, and Robert Price. Mooney will be doing about half of the interviews, while the other half will be divided evenly between Stollznow and Price. Before I go any further, allow me to make it clear that I have nothing against either Stollznow or Price. I know relatively little about Price and very little about Stollznow, but I've heard nothing to make me doubt their competence or fairness, and I wish them every success. Still, even if I could say the same about Mooney, D.J. Grothe's act would be a hard one to follow.

I was interviewed by Grothe last year, and I totally enjoyed the experience. He was friendly, skilled, and gave me every opportunity to explain my views about the imperative to scrutinise and criticise religion. The interview was not done live or uncut - it was quite heavily edited. However, I was always assured that the editing would not present me in a bad light ... and, of course, it didn't. Since I had confidence in Grothe, I was able to talk very frankly to him knowing that hesitations, false starts, and so on would be okay. There was no need to be on my guard, so the final product, if somewhat artificial, is a truer presentation of my views than comes across in most interviews, where the opportunities to open up are fewer and it is necessary to maintain a degree of suspicion and caution.

Thus, when Grothe asked me to re-answer a question because I'd brought up a point he wanted me to come to later, I was fine with it. I didn't say anything I didn't want to say, but I could trust him to do some shaping of the podcast, knowing I'd still be allowed to get across what I had in mind. With two people cooperating on producing the best possible product to get the interviewee's ideas across clearly, there is a feeling of mutual confidence and trust. The interviewee can open up because he or she is confident of being treated more than fairly in the end product.

I have every confidence that D.J. Grothe would likewise have treated someone with very different views from mine: i.e., help them to present their best case. He would not set out to undermine anyone with editorial tricks. I've listened to his interviews with a wide range of people holding an equally wide range of views, always being more than fair.

My concern is that I simply do not trust Chris Mooney to take the same attitude. Doing a heavily-edited interview with him could be dangerous. Even if he did not edit the recorded material unfairly, to put the interviewee in a bad light, he could make the interview a hostile experience. Sometimes, of course, we must all do hostile interviews, but that is not what Point of Inquiry is for. It's supposed to provide outreach into the community with messages that are broadly congruent with CFI's positions (even if not totally consistent with each other). That should specifically include messages that criticise religious doctrines, leaders, and organisations. Even prior to Grothe's departure, there were few non-print outlets for someone with views like mine - few places where we could explain our views in an atmosphere of friendly cooperation with skilled media professionals. Contrast the immense funding available to religious apologists, and the many sympathetic outlets they have for their views across the full range of electronic media.

Now the situation is worse.

Why is that so? Why is Mooney so dangerous? Because he opposes robust public criticism of religion, or at least of supposedly moderate religious viewpoints that are not fundamentalist in character. He opposes that kind of criticism even if it is civil and thoughtful. He is well known for his unfair and vitriolic attack on P.Z. Myers, in his book Unscientific America. More worrying, however, and perhaps more easily forgotten is that he has used this New Republic review by Jerry Coyne of books by Kenneth R. Miller and Karl W. Giberson as an example of the sort of thing that should not be said in public. If you have not already done so, I suggest you read Coyne's review for yourself. Consider it in its entirety before reading on. ...

Coyne's review is highly critical of Miller and Giberson, particularly their attempts at Christian apologetics, but it discusses the perceived strengths as well as weaknesses of their books. It certainly does not travel beyond the area of robust, yet thoughtful and civil, public discourse about ideas. Authors should expect this sort of criticism when they venture into print, much as they might hope for unqualified praise. Indeed, an author who received no review worse than this would be very fortunate. In short, whether you agree with its conclusions or not, there is nothing wrong with Coyne's review, i.e. nothing discourteous, irresponsible, unprofessional, or uncivil.

Yet, Mooney has claimed that this sort of thing should not be said. If you find that difficult to believe, check for yourself. Here is Mooney:

In a recent New Republic book review, Coyne took on Kenneth Miller and Karl Giberson, two scientists who reconcile science and religion in their own lives. Basically, Forrest’s point was that while Coyne may be right that there’s no good reason to believe in the supernatural, he’s very misguided about strategy. Especially when we have the religious right to worry about, why is he criticizing people like Miller and Giberson for their attempts to reconcile modern science and religion?

Forrest then gave three reasons that secularists should not alienate religious moderates:

1. Etiquette. Or as Forrest put it, "be nice." Religion is a very private matter, and given that liberal religionists support church-state separation, we really have no business questioning their personal way of making meaning of the world. After all, they are not trying to force it on anybody else.

2. Diversity. There are so many religions out there, and so much variation even within particular sects or faiths. So why would we want to criticize liberal Christians, who have not sacrificed scientific accuracy, who are pro-evolution, when there are so many fundamentalists out there attacking science and trying to translate their beliefs into public policy?

3. Humility. Science can’t prove a negative: Saying there is no God is saying more than we can ever really know empirically, or based on data and evidence. So why drive a wedge between religious and non-religious defenders of evolution when it is not even possible to definitively prove the former wrong about metaphysics?

Forrest therefore concluded her talk by saying that we need are "epistemological and civic humility" – providing the groundwork for "civic friendship." To which I can only say: Amen.

Note, of course, that Mooney hides behind a series of statements allegedly made by Barbara Forrest. However, it's clear that he agrees with her analysis. He is offering Forrest's thoughts for our edification. He cites them as something that we should accept, does so without any qualifications, and ends up saying "Amen", to indicate his echoing agreement. Thus, all arguments attributed by Mooney to Forrest can quite properly be taken as Mooney's own views, not just the views of "Forrest". Out of "epistemological and civic humility" we are not supposed to publish the kinds of criticisms that Coyne makes of Miller and Giberson.

The three supporting points allegedly made by Forrest are so naive that I must call them foolish. If Forrest, as opposed to Mooney, really did say these things, I have to inquire what planet she has been living on in recent decades. I can only deal with these points briefly, or an analysis of them will end up taking over the whole discussion. First, however, even supposedly moderate religion must be subjected to criticism for all the reasons that I have stated so often, including in my article in The Philosopher's Magazine, and it is nonsense to say that supposedly moderate churches do not try to force their views on everyone else. The quintessential "moderate" religion that Forrest/Mooney refer to is Roman Catholicism, which continually attempts to impose its barbaric ethical views on the rest of us through its influence on secular law-makers.

Second, just because we criticise fundamentalists, we do not have to give a free pass to non-fundamentalist religion, which can be just as socially dangerous, or even more so. Once again, the political power and influence of the Catholic Church, in particular, is immense. Year by year, it draws upon this in every country, wherever it can, usually to promote a morally despicable social agenda - attacking gay rights, abortion rights, the use of condoms for safe sex, the conduct of stem cell research, and anything else that does not fit into its miserable and medieval worldview. When it seeks to do this, it is natural and proper to ask what authority it really has. Where does it get the authority that it claims? From a god? Well, does this god exist? From a sacred tradition? Well, what sanctity does it really have? From holy books? Well, what is their provenance? Are they divinely inspired or are they all-too-human constructions?

Third, of course there are many different religions, but many of the so-called "moderate" ones are just as determined as the fundamentalist ones to translate their ideas into public policy. Often, as I've stated, the proposed policies are morally reprehensible. Once again, it is natural and proper to ask where the claimed authority to do this comes from. Do the gods of these religions even exist, let alone say what is attributed to them?

But, leaving aside the three reasons put forward by Mooney, the bottom line is that he does not think that we should write material that is critical of non-fundamentalist religion. Thus, Jerry Coyne's moderate and civil book review is held up as an example of the sort of thing that should not have been written. Worse, Mooney has since defended his views acrimoniously and often unfairly.

I have no idea what the CFI managers had in mind when they decided to employ someone with views like this - which are contrary to the CFI's entire mission - and such a one-eyed approach to defending them. But in any event, I cannot imagine working on CFI-related business with somebody who has such views and such an approach. They're free to employ him, of course, as he is to accept the job, but I'd not be happy to be interviewed by Mooney. If I did do an interview with him, I'd be in a situation of having to treat CFI's interviewer as hostile. I'm sure that many other secular public intellectuals would feel the same way.

It's an inappropriate, divisive, damaging choice. The controversy may help Chris Mooney sell more copies of his book, but it will not help the cause of reason. What on earth were the CFI people thinking?

Humanist Symposium # 49

You might like to check out the 49th edition of the Humanist Symposium, which has been posted at The Purloined Letter, with an Edgar Allan Poe theme. One of the items there is my recent discussion of Robert Wright's The Evolution of God, but there's much other material that (also!) looks interesting.

Go read and check it out. These blog carnivals/symposia need readers, so if you like what you see spread the word.

Embroiled!

I seem to have spent the day embroiled in debates about political theory and related matters on three different sites at once. That's not a productive way to use my time, so I must stop doing it. For the record:

1. I don't think the "New Atheists" want to ban religion, as opposed to criticising it. If they did, I'd be on the front line defending the rights of the religious.

2. I'm not disturbed at the idea of a bogan wearing a combination of pajama bottom, T-shirt, and slippers in a supermarket. I find it mildly amusing as a style of dress, but I don't think it's a breach of the social contract that should be punishable by law. Nor do I approve of supermarket owners banning this sort of attire on their own private property, though I acknowledge their legal right to do so (and don't wish to remove it).

3. I don't think that polygamous (including polyandrous, communal, etc.) relationships should be banned by the state, but I don't necessarily think that they should be able to be registered as formal marriages. Admittedly, I don't necessarily think that any sexual relationships should be able to be registered as formal marriages. I'd prefer the state to get out of the marriage game entirely. But if the marriages of heterosexual couples are to be eligible to be registered in this way, with a standard package of associated legal rights, there's a compelling argument of fairness for doing likewise for homosexual couples. Groups larger than two are too varied for a one-size-fits-all set of legal rights, so there's probably good reason to leave their entitlements to the flexibility of the general law. OTOH, I would be fiercely opposed to any attempts to prohibit such relationships outright.

All these positions seem reasonable to me, but it's marvellous how I can get tied up in defending them against people who see things differently.

Currently reading: Chained to the Alien

My author's copy of Chained to the Alien turned up recently, and I've put aside a bit of time to read it (I'm over halfway through). This book is a selection of material from the relatively short-lived, but nonetheless legendary, zine, Australian Science Fiction Review (Second Series) published from 1986-91. I was one member of the editorial collective, which consisted, in addition, of Jenny Blackford, John Foyster, and Yvonne Rousseau. Lucy Sussex was also on the team for about the first two years, while Janeen Webb joined for the last four years or so.

Much of the material was written by members of the editorial collective, but we also had input from a wide range of people from around the world, and we influenced other zines including The New York Review of Science Fiction. The ASFR(2) days were weird and wild, and I'm astonished as I reread some of the material that Damien has selected - the intensity of the analyses and the passion of the debates were really quite extraordinary. Looking back, we created something special. One highlight is a symposium on George Turner's The Sea and Summer, a.k.a. Drowning Towers, in which several of Australia's best sf critics examine Turner's Arthur-C.-Clarke-award-winning novel from all angles, creating a composite work that is almost as interesting as the novel itself.

I put a huge effort into the first couple of years of the zine in particular, as a result of which almost 30,000 words of my 1980s literary criticism is reprinted in Chained to the Alien. Again, when I read this material by my younger self, I am surprised at its intensity and passion. This applies especially, but not at all solely, to my long discussion of Samuel R. Delany's Stars in my Pocket Like Grains of Sand (which won me an award the following year, and attracted an appreciative letter from Delany himself). I don't think I could write in that way about literature any more, partly because my 1980s work has a hint (fortunately, no more than that!) of influence from then-fashionable literary deconstruction ... something I've left well behind me in the following two decades. But it's mainly because I don't think I can summon the same focus and energy when talking about works of fiction as I had back then. If I was, in some ways, a little bit naive, that may even have helped my energy level.

Damien is working on a companion volume of selections from ASFR(2), with more emphasis on the shorter pieces that appeared in the zine and on some of the more fiery debates that arose as time went on. I'll look forward to seeing this second book later in 2010. Meanwhile, okay ... ASFR(2) was, I realise, a fairly obscure little corner of Western culture. But this is good stuff. I'm obviously biased, but if you have an interest in science fiction as a literary genre, and in what happens when bright, geeky people discuss the genre with a kind of intellectual obsession that sometimes rises to fury, you just might like to have a look at Chained to the Alien.

Or maybe you'd like to pass on the word.

Manifesto of Liberation of Women in Iran

The very existence of the Islamic regime of Iran is incompatible with freedom of women. The Islamic Republic of Iran is a misogynist state, architect of gender apartheid and perpetrator of three decades of the most odious forms of abuse, discrimination and violence against women in Iran. A society cannot be free if women are not free. Without the overthrow of the misogynist Islamic regime, women in Iran will not achieve their rights. The Islamic Republic must go! This is the message of Neda Agha Soltan, the symbol of the ongoing revolution in Iran; it is the decree of the brave women who at the front lines of people’s protest have been challenging the entire Islamic state for the past seven months.

Thirty years ago on March 8th, 1979 in Iran, we freedom-loving women and men stood up to the reactionaries who had just come to power, with shouts of No to compulsory veil! Today, with the painful and bloody experience of three decades of gender apartheid, gender slavery and nonstop suppression of women behind us, we state even more clearly and forcefully, along with the young and progressive generation of today, that the Islamic Republic, as a misogynist state, as a regime of gender apartheid must be overthrown. We say that the leaders of the Islamic Republic must be arrested and put on trial for systematic crimes against millions of women, for crimes against humanity. This is the decree of the revolution in Iran. With the overthrow of the Islamic Republic we will lend a helping hand to millions of women in Islam-stricken countries who are prisoners of terrorist Islamic states and gangs and honour-worshiping, male-chauvinistic Islamic traditions.

Today, support for the ongoing revolution in Iran can and should become a vast international movement. March 8th is International Women’s Day, which this year bears the mark of solidarity with women and people in Iran in the struggle to topple the Islamic regime. We call on women’s rights activists and organisations to express their solidarity with the women’s movement in Iran, while remembering Neda Agha Soltan as the symbol of the revolutionary movement against the Islamic Republic. March 8th this year is the day of solidarity with the movement of the people of Iran for freedom!

We issue the following Manifesto of the Liberation of Women in Iran, and call on all women’s rights’ activists and secular and progressive forces to support this Manifesto and join up in solidarity with the people of Iran in the struggle to overthrow the Islamic regime of gender apartheid:

1.Prosecution of the leaders and officials of the Islamic Republic for crimes against humanity, including for thirty years of the vilest abuse, discrimination and violence against women in Iran

2.Abolition of all misogynist Islamic laws and all laws that discriminate against women; complete equality of women and men in all economic, political, cultural, social and family spheres

3.Complete separation of religion from the state, the educational system and all laws

4.Abolition of segregation of the sexes and gender apartheid

5.Prohibition of sighe (Islamic ‘rent-a-wife’) and polygamy; unconditional right of separation (divorce) for women and men; abolition of all laws which make women’s civil rights (such as the right to travel, social intercourse, participation in social activities, etc.) conditional on obtaining the permission of the husband, father or other male members of the family; complete equality of women’s and men’s rights and duties in the custody and care of children following separation

6.Abolition of compulsory veil (hejab) for women; prohibition of hejab for children; full freedom of dress

7.Abolition of all the barbaric laws of stoning, execution, retribution (qesas) and other Islamic punishments

8.Unconditional freedom of expression, protest, strike, assembly, organisation and forming parties

9.Immediate release of all political prisoners and prisoners of conscience

10.Freedom of religion and atheism and freedom to criticise religion.

Mina Ahadi
Mahin Alipour
Shahla Daneshfar
Maryam Namazie

22 January 2010

To sign up to the manifesto, please go to: http://equal-rights-now.com/IntWD/IntWD649.php?nr=63719093&lang=en

To see Maryam Namazie’s call to show solidarity with the people of Iran, click here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ynMU92o7TlE

To see how you can support the people of Iran, click here:
http://iransolidarity.org.uk/act_now.html

For more information on the manifesto or March 8 events, email manifestzanan@gmail.com or iransolidaritynow@gmail.com; call 0049-1775692413 or 0044-7719166731 or visit http://equalrightsnow-iran.com/ or http://iransolidarity.org.uk/.


==========

I've put this here to assist people who might want to sign it, or might otherwise be interested in its content. Please give it your consideration as it's generally a worthy cause.

However, I have not signed it because there are parts of it that I don't fully agree with, and it's my policy not to sign any document unless I'm in total agreement. Of course, that raises questions about whether this is a good policy to follow or whether we should be prepared to sign off on things like this if we agree with the spirit and most of the detail, without quibbling too much about relatively minor points of disagreement. Still, although I'm open to discussion, I'm unlikely to change my policy on that.

- Russell

Blame it on Nietzsche

In her book A History of God, Karen Armstrong notes that atheistic ideologies can lead to atrocities as readily as theologies. But then she smears Nietzsche by repeating the falsehood that he was somehow an inspiration for Nazism, and that his atheism somehow contributed to Nazi atrocities. The accusation is an insult not just to Nietzsche but to the victims of the Holocaust.

Armstrong says:

Like Hegel's, Nietzsche's theories were used by a later generation of Germans to justify the policies of National Socialism, a reminder that an atheistic ideology can be just as cruel a crusading ethic as the idea of "God."

Now, I don't doubt the last bit. If you think in apocalyptic terms, it doesn't much matter whether you think you have a personal God on your side or whether you "just" think you are doing the will of History or some kind of impersonal Providence - or some other abstraction that mandates your actions. An apocalyptic, all-encompassing ideology can drive people to commit atrocities whether or not the ideology is theistic. All such ideologies, theistic or otherwise, have the potential to drive their followers to horrible conduct that is deemed to be justified and necessary. Various non-theistic forms of revolutionary communism have been like this. Unfortunately, the greater the technological power that can be employed in the service of such a worldview, the larger the scale of atrocities that its followers can commit.

All the same, Nazism, unlike revolutionary communism of the Marxist-Leninist varieties, was never an atheistic system. Whereas Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot and others may have thought they were somehow doing the work of History, the Nazis were convinced that they were doing God's work. Whatever the Nazi leaders may have picked up from Nietzsche, it wasn't his atheism. Indeed, atheists were among those whom the Nazis hated. Moreover, Nietzsche was not anti-Semitic; he was contemptuous of anti-Semites. But the most horrifying of the Nazi actions - the death camps that were used to kill millions of Jews and others in the most cruel and atrocious ways - were a result of the extreme anti-Semitism pervading Nazi thought. Wherever the Nazis got this from, and it's not that hard to guess, it wasn't from the thought of Friedrich Nietzsche.

There's something repellent about these sentences in Armstrong's A History of God, something sinister in the way they gloss over the complexity of events to create an impression almost the opposite of the truth. The anti-Semitism of the Nazis did not come from Nietzsche's thought and had nothing to do with Nietzsche's style of atheism. Yes, there can be apocalyptic, comprehensive belief systems that are non-theistic, and which lead to atrocities, but Nazism was never such a system, and nor was Nietzsche's own (relatively unsystematic) thought. There can, of course, also be peaceful forms of religion that are not likely to commit atrocities. As far as I'm aware, no Quaker has ever massacred helpless victims in a ditch or burned them alive, or tortured them with insanely cruel instruments. For any atheist to deny this would be churlish.

There are many sensible things that could have been said in the vicinity of the passage I've quoted from Armstrong, but she doesn't say those things; and when she tries to make a point of her own, she does it over the cruelly abused bodies of Nazism's victims, all the millions of them.

I'm sure there's a name for what Armstrong is doing here, but if so I can't think of it. It's something worse than intellectual dishonesty, something more callous than ordinary cynicism. It can't be simple clumsiness. Maybe you can think of what it should be called ... better, at least, than I can. A passage like that makes my jaw drop. It leaves me more or less lost for words. Whatever it's called, this sort of writing has a peculiar nastiness about it, a kind of oblivious cruelty. It's not the sort of passage you'd look for from the high priestess of religion as compassion.

Or maybe it is.

More on freedom of speech

On the previous thread, relating to the Dawkins on Wilders post, Colin Gavaghan asks a good question:

Thought-provoking as always, but I'd like to ask a vit more about the nature of the relationship between speech and harm. Would it, for you, be sufficient that a particular exercise of free speech would, with something close to certainty, be causally implicated in serious acts of violence? Or would there have to be a 'reasonableness' component, along the lines of 'no reasonable person would be driven to violence by this'?

Of course, I'm thinking of the assorted 'provocations' of violent Muslims (the Verses, the Danish cartoons, etc), but closer to (my former) home, various football players have been accused - and in one notorious recent case, investigated by the police - for 'provocative' gestures on a footbal field, esp in the context of volatile derby matches.

My thinking has always been that the fan who throws a bottle because a player made a gesture should bear legal and moral responsibility for his actions. But is there - and if so, when is there - a plausible harm-based justification for outlawing gestures/comments that would, to a reasonable person, be innocuous, but which will, predictably, in the real world of irrational people, lead to violence?

I'm tempted to answer the main question here by saying that near certainty is enough. Having thought about it, I'm not so sure. If the speech has some kind of social value, I think it should be allowed even if there's a near certainty that it will provoke violence. After all, the case for free speech goes far beyond the fact that the harm done by speech is always indirect (which leads the rejoinder that the direct/indirect distinction breaks down in marginal cases, and that there's at least a grey area where legislative discretion is appropriate). There's also a strong positive case for freedom of speech, which is a theme in Mill's On Liberty.

I certainly would not ban the Danish cartoons. But sometimes we have to make a value judgment and say that certain speech has no social value. Its only value is in allowing the speaker to let off steam. Conversely, it is highly likely to provoke immediate violence. So, if I get in someone's face, harassing and abusing him with the most hurtful comments I can think of, it's not surprising if he retaliates with violence. I think the state can do something about this for two reasons: first, this is a case where the sort of offence I am causing shades into harm (my expression is high impact, and is being inflicted on this person against his will ... and he has no easy way of avoiding it once it starts, not like turning a TV off or closing a newspaper); and second, it is predictably likely to provoke violence and disturb the peace.

I have quite deliberately broken with my usual practice here, and have written the presumptively sexist "he" and "him", because the violence is more likely if I'm picking on a man than a woman - though women can respond violently, too, of course. I'd prefer to settle this one on the blurring of harm and offence, as I'm (even) more motivated here to protect people from this kind of harassment than I am to keep the peace, but either way I'm happy for the state to have, and use, some discretion to ban the use of "fighting words" in people's faces.

In the fan-throwing-a-bottle sort of case, I'd prefer to leave it to the sports association concerned to make it a disciplinary offence for the player to make such gestures. That prevents the real legal system getting clogged up with such cases. Though the case may fall in the grey area, I think it's at the end where I'd prefer the law not be involved. In general, though, we needn't ignore what we know from history, psychology, etc., about the likely outcomes of certain provocations.

As I've said in the past, I'm not an absolutist about free speech. If someone can tell me why there is an exceptional and compelling need to prohibit a certain kind of speech, within the state's secular role of protecting its citizens and visitors to its jurisdiction (as opposed to enforcing morality or religion), I'm open to argument. In the past, I've seen the possibility of a compelling case to ban highly offensive "in your face" behaviour, especially of a racist kind where the degree of provocation is extreme and the social value is in the negative zone. I've also defended banning Nazi-like campaigns of racist propaganda that depict members of a certain "race" as vermin to be exterminated. If a country has reached a point where the society is getting like a powderkeg over racial intolerance, there may well be an exceptional and compelling need for the state to do something long before there are incitements to immediate violence. In theory, it doesn't have to be race: it could be another group such homosexuals, or a religious group, or whatever.

(Perhaps there's a case for Jamaica banning certain forms of rap music that relentlessly promote gay-bashing, but I don't know the facts on the ground there - I'll leave that one to Udo, who knows a lot about it.)

However, if we are going to make exceptions such as these, or whatever others may be the correct ones, we need to be very careful to ensure that there really is some compelling need in the situation of this particular society, and the compelling need is one that relates to protecting life, limb, physical liberty, and property - the sorts of worldly things that the state should concern itself with - and not to protecting (for example) belief in a religion or a traditional morality or even the "correct" morality, whatever it is ... or catering to populist sentiment. If we're not careful about that, we'll be back to burning heretics, banning Lady Chatterley's Lover, conducting the McCarthy trials, and on and on. As I said in a comment yesterday, there is always the prospect of disaster when the state thinks it's in the business of banning speech for its real or imagined indirect effects.

We also need to be careful that we don't enact laws that actually make things worse, by providing a new forum for mutually antagonistic elements to express their antagonism. Broadly-worded hate speech laws can certainly have the effect of making some minorities more despised, if they are seen as enemies of liberty. We've seen that recently in Australia, where the state of Victoria's religious vilification laws have probably increased, rather than decreased, anti-Muslim feelings in the community. If Wilders is convicted, it will probably make things worse, not better, for Muslims in the Netherlands. If the society is not already turning into a powderkeg, acting as if it is will likely be counterproductive as well as unnecessary.

With Wilders, this question could be asked: Is Dutch society such a powderkeg of hatred between Muslims and others that the country needs laws broad enough to make anything he's done so far a crime? Well, I'm not an expert on the Netherlands or its various social tensions. I can't give a definitive answer. I'll just say, though, that if that's going to be the excuse for putting him on trial merely for saying things, well ... I'm deeply sceptical.

Dawkins on Wilders

Over at RichardDawkins.net, Richard Dawkins has a long comment on a thread about the trial of Geert Wilders (the thread involves three articles on the subject: a piece in the New York Times, my post from a few days ago, and Jerry Coyne's earlier post, which tipped me off and to which I tipped my hat).

Dawkins concludes, at comment 75:

Why is this man on trial, unless it is, yet again, pandering to the ludicrous convention that religious opinion must not be 'offended'? Geert Wilders, if it should turn out that you are a racist or a gratuitous stirrer and provocateur I withdraw my respect, but on the strength of Fitna alone I salute you as a man of courage, who has the balls to stand up to a monstrous enemy.

The entire comment is worth reading. Dawkins praises Fitna for its artistic choices and relative restraint when dealing with horrific material. See also comment 77, by "Drosera", who is critical of Dawkins: "You seem to think that the enemies of your enemies are your friends. Maybe that is not a very rational thing to do."

Dawkins replies to this at comment 81,commencing: "I did no such thing. I explicitly stated that my endorsement of Wilders should be withdrawn if he turned out to have made racist or otherwise objectionable statements." He concludes: "In Fitna, taken on its own, I have found no cause to put Wilders on trial or even to censure him in any substantial way."

I wholeheartedly agree with that final sentiment. Leaving aside any other accusations against Wilders, there is nothing in Fitna itself that should result in any sort of criminal prosecution, and nothing there which, taken out of the context of other statements, policies, and so on, by Wilders, merits any significant moral denunciation. Again, I don't suggest that Wilders is a nice guy or a good role model or that his proposed policies are in any way defensible or even workable. But he should still have a robust right to freedom of speech. That right should end with direct and specific incitements to violence that are likely to create immediate lawlessness (or at least with incitements that cannot practically be replied to in any way short of legal prohibition). I remain totally unconvinced that anything Wilders has said even goes close.

Does a child need both a mother and a father?

Does a child need both a mother and a father? Apparently not, according to this report in ScienceDaily, which summarises a new article in the Journal of Marriage and Family.

The study suggested that "... the science shows that children raised by two same-gender parents do as well on average as children raised by two different-gender parents. This is obviously inconsistent with the widespread claim that children must be raised by a mother and a father to do well."

All of which pulls out the rug from the already-incoherent claim that a child somehow has the "right" to a standard set of heterosexual parents. Of course, there was never any real evidence that there's any harm in children being born into non-traditional family situations. From the beginning, this was a scare tactic by moral conservatives, usually grounded in their religious socialisation. The only possible harm that makes sense is that children from such families will be discriminated against, or harassed or victimised, by those very same moral conservatives.

This research should also make you wonder whether children from even less conventional families would suffer any harm from it. Once again, there is the possibility of harassment, discrimination, and victimisation of various kinds, but that doesn't seem to have had a huge impact on the children of gay couples. I'm sceptical that it would have much (or any) impact on, for example, children born as a result of reproductive cloning. Admittedly, it might depend on the social milieu. Many choices are dangerous in an especially nasty and discriminatory social milieu, but that's not a reason to have a public policy that discourages such choices. If anything, it's a reason for a public policy of discouraging irrational discrimination.

One for the German speakers ... Edgar Dahl on atheism and religion

Edgar Dahl writes about atheism and the current debates over religion. He talks about the "Four Horsemen" - Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, Daniel Dennett, and Sam Harris - and about 50 Voices of Disbelief: Why We Are Atheists. He opens as follows with references to The God Delusion, God is Not Great, Breaking the Spell, The End of Faith, and 50 Voices of Disbelief:

Seit der Veröffentlichung von Richard Dawkins’ „Der Gotteswahn“, Christopher Hitchens’ „Der Herr ist kein Hirte“, Daniel Dennetts „Den Zauber brechen“ und Sam Harris’ „Das Ende des Glaubens“ gibt es wieder einmal eine erbittert geführte Debatte über die Religion.

Der Streit darüber, ob die Annahmen der Religion wirklich glaubwürdig sind, scheint dabei kein Ende zu nehmen. Mit dem kürzlich erschienenen Buch „50 Voices of Disbelief: Why We Are Atheists“ ist sogar noch einmal zusätzlich Öl ins Feuer gegossen worden.