Since Chris Schoen has taken the trouble to write this long blog post, which he has dedicated to me, I should at least draw attention to it. I'm quite touched that he's gone to so much trouble, and there's no overt snark aimed my way, even though I take it that he's trying to explain to me - or perhaps show me by a kind of linguistic performance - why there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in my rationalist philosophy; and he wants to help me reach an understanding that I'm labouring under the Ionian Enchantment (along with Richard Dawkins, A.C. Grayling, Steven Pinker, and Jerry Coyne ... all people with whom I'm very pleased to be associated, by the way). The Ionian Enchantment is said to be "a conviction, far deeper than a mere working proposition, that the world is orderly and can be explained by a small number of natural laws." (Do I really have a conviction quite like that? I'm not sure that I do, or that I don't. I certainly don't have any conviction to the contrary, but that's as far as I'd want to commit myself.)
So anyway, I thank him for this. Despite having read it quite carefully, not once but twice, I can't extract from it any overall argument that I find at all convincing, but that's okay. Actually, I don't quite get the overall argument at all, though I do get bits of it. There seem to be quite a few puzzling logical leaps, changes of subject, and so on, but it certainly reads nicely and must have taken a lot of thought.
But I'm worried, for example, by the analysis of a recent book review by A.C. Grayling (a contributor to 50 Voices of Disbelief, in case anyone has forgotten), of a book by John Polkinghorne and Nicholas Beale. In the passage that Chris draws attention to, Grayling claims that Polkinghorne and Beale attempted to obtain some of the prestige of the Royal Society, by association, when they conducted a book launching at its premises. I don't see how this claim is weakened by Chris's statement that Grayling's prose is "dressed up in the language of the caste system" - particularly when it is not. Allow me to explain.
The actual quote from A.C. Grayling's review is as follows:
Of course the point is that Beale-Polkinghorne and their tuppence-halfpenny religious publishers wish to get as much of the respectability of the Royal Society rubbed off on them as they can. This is the strategy adopted by the Templeton Foundation too, of sidling up to proper scientists and scientific establishments and getting their sticky religious fingers on to respectable coat-sleeves in the hope of furthering their agenda - which, to repeat what must endlessly be repeated in these circumstances, is to have the superstitious lucubrations of illiterate goatherds living several thousand years ago given the same credibility as contemporary scientific research.
Grayling certainly uses some aggressive language here, but that's plain enough on a naive first reading before any critical analysis is carried out. What would such an analysis show? Well, most strikingly, there is a strong pattern of binary opposition between what Grayling thinks of as genuine science and what he thinks of as meretricious pre-scientific thought - with a threefold pattern of representatives of the latter attempting to obtain some of the prestige of the former. This idea is presented, on the three relevant occasions in the passage, with changing images, examples, and prose rhythms. The examples move from the more particular to the more general; simultaneously, the changing rhythms produce a sense of increasing vehemence, rising to a final crescendo of denunciation.
Thus, Grayling (1) contrasts the (legitimately prestigious, as he sees it) Royal Society with (disreputable or suspect) "tuppence-halfpenny religious publishers"; he next (2) contrasts genuine scientists (and their organisations) who have legitimately earned prestige with disreputable persons associated with the Templeton Foundation, imagined as having sticky fingers that reach out to touch the clothing of the scientists; finally, he (3) contrasts contemporary scientific research in general with the "drunken lucubrations" of prehistoric tribal pastoralists (presumably at the dawn of religion). Thus, the rhetorical pattern is of a twice-repeated (but varied) binary opposition between what Grayling thinks of as the legitimately prestigious pursuit of scientific knowledge and what he thinks of as disreputable religious doctines. The overall message is more than just, "Science, good; religion, bad." It is a condemnation of those who advocate religion but at the same time attempt to obtain the prestige legitimately accorded to science.
This analysis of Grayling's rhetoric shows how it conveys such a strong tonal effect, combining, as it does, suggestions of anger and distaste. However, to explain how a rhetorical effect is achieved is not to show that it is achieved unjustly. After all, doesn't Grayling have a point here? In any event, if he's actually wrong about attempts by certain religionists to associate themselves with the prestige of science, that can't be demonstrated just by examining how he's imbued a few sentences with a certain tonal quality (something that he probably did without needing to conduct much or any of this conscious analysis).
Furthermore, having carried out this little job of practical criticism on Grayling's prose, I just don't see why Chris mentions the caste system. Obviously, Grayling is distinguishing between (1) individuals, organisations, and practices that have merited prestige and (2) those that do not (but try to obtain prestige by association). It's a binary hierarchy (though, again, not just that).
Perhaps Chris finds that unattractive because, in a sense, it is inegalitarian. Grayling is emphatically suggesting that science and religion are not epistemic equals. To say the least, however, he's not obviously wrong about that. Although there's a simple, two-level hierarchy, moreover, there's no reliance on anything to do with the caste system - which is just as well for Grayling, given the poor regard in which the latter is held by most Westerners (or anyone else likely to read his review). If he had done anything of the sort that Chris attributes to him, it would have been a rhetorical blunder. But it's not as if he is arguing that some people are analogous to brahmins, others to ksatriyas, others to vaisyas or to sudras, and that each kind must act in accordance with its particular dharma (or duty), as defined by an individual's caste and stage in life - or anything even remotely analogous to this. Comparison to the caste system (which is intricately entwined with doctrines such as karma and moksa that have absolutely nothing to do with the passage) neither sheds any light on the passage's rhetorical force nor undermines its message.
In short, the caste system isn't there in Grayling's sentences. Sorry.
But, really, go and have a look at Chris's post, dear readers and you may be more persuaded by it than I have been.
Meanwhile, Chris, thanks again for going to all this trouble. I'm not being sarcastic, either, just expressing some friendly bemusement. Put yourself down as playing the role of Ludwig Wittgenstein to my uncomprehending Bertrand Russell if it pleases you to do so.
About Me
- Russell Blackford
- Australian philosopher, literary critic, legal scholar, and professional writer. Based in Newcastle, NSW. My latest books are THE TYRANNY OF OPINION: CONFORMITY AND THE FUTURE OF LIBERALISM (2019); AT THE DAWN OF A GREAT TRANSITION: THE QUESTION OF RADICAL ENHANCEMENT (2021); and HOW WE BECAME POST-LIBERAL: THE RISE AND FALL OF TOLERATION (2024).
Monday, May 04, 2009
Sunday, May 03, 2009
NAS on the compatibility of science and religion
Here is the NAS statement on the compatibility of science and religion. Sorry, but I'm not buying it. I understand the concerns behind it, and I'm not suggesting that it is realistic to change it. It could be a lot worse.
I just don't think it's true:
Compatibility of Science and Religion
Science is not the only way of knowing and understanding. But science is a way of knowing that differs from other ways in its dependence on empirical evidence and testable explanations. Because biological evolution accounts for events that are also central concerns of religion — including the origins of biological diversity and especially the origins of humans — evolution has been a contentious idea within society since it was first articulated by Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace in 1858.
Acceptance of the evidence for evolution can be compatible with religious faith. Today, many religious denominations accept that biological evolution has produced the diversity of living things over billions of years of Earth’s history. Many have issued statements observing that evolution and the tenets of their faiths are compatible. Scientists and theologians have written eloquently about their awe and wonder at the history of the universe and of life on this planet, explaining that they see no conflict between their faith in God and the evidence for evolution. Religious denominations that do not accept the occurrence of evolution tend to be those that believe in strictly literal interpretations of religious texts.
Science and religion are based on different aspects of human experience. In science, explanations must be based on evidence drawn from examining the natural world. Scientifically based observations or experiments that conflict with an explanation eventually must lead to modification or even abandonment of that explanation. Religious faith, in contrast, does not depend only on empirical evidence, is not necessarily modified in the face of conflicting evidence, and typically involves supernatural forces or entities. Because they are not a part of nature, supernatural entities cannot be investigated by science. In this sense, science and religion are separate and address aspects of human understanding in different ways. Attempts to pit science and religion against each other create controversy where none needs to exist.
I do agree that the methods that are distinctive to science are not the only ones used for obtaining knowledge and understanding. For example, I can gain knowledge by investigating historical records in a way that may be quite rigorous but not distinctively scientific. However, it's not true that science is unique in its reliance on empirical evidence. We seek knowledge based on empirical evidence all the time, without doing anything distinctively scientific. It's true, though, that our methods of investigation start to look more distinctively scientific when they use replicable experiments. Hypothetico-deductive reasoning is not unique to science, but science makes distinctive use of it, combined with replicable experiments to test hypotheses. But there are other features as well, such as the use of instruments that expand the capacities of the human senses, the use of mathematical models, and doubtless others.
Science is continuous with other kinds of inquiry that may use some of these techniques. It can also draw on knowledge gained from inquiries that don't especially utilise these distinctive techniques, such as ordinary sensory observation, testimony, historical records, our learned ability to interpret human behaviour and language, and so on. Thus, there's no clear boundary between the sciences and the humanities, such as history.
It is not so much that there is more than one way of knowing. Rather, there are different techniques for investigating different aspects or parts of reality. Not all aspects lend themselves to investigation through distinctively scientific techniques, and some lend themselves to investigation through other techniques (examining historical records, etc.). Still, we expect that knowledge and understanding obtained through different techniques will be consistent. Where lines of evidence obtained from different techniques show a convergence, we can be confident that we're getting at the truth.
Science has been especially useful for examining phenomena that are very small, very large, very distant in space or time, or indiscernible by our senses. By proceeding step by step, testing conjectures (by looking for other phenomena that conjectured entities, forces, etc., predict), using precise mathematics, adopting potentially consilient lines of inquiry, and so on, science is often able to reach robust, very well-evidenced conclusions about things that no one has ever seen with their unaugmented senses (such as the moons of Jupiter, long-extinct animals, and microscopic entities). In other cases, science's conclusions are more tentative, or problems are left with no plausibly-acceptable conclusions in sight. Because the evidence for scientific claims is typically circumstantial, and highly theory-laden, sometimes with very long chains of inference, those claims are always considered provisional, but some are so robust that they are unlikely ever to be overturned. E.g. it's inconceivable that the geocentric picture of our solar system will ever be restored. There is too much evidence from too many lines of inquiry. (And we should not forget that many ordinary, not-especially-scientific claims are also quite heavily theory-laden.)
Still, the picture of the world emerging from science is always incomplete.
On this view, there are methods of rational investigation that are not distinctively scientific, but there are no "other ways of knowing" that somehow compete with rational investigation itself. There is plenty of room for science (and, indeed, the humanities) to falsify various religious claims or render them implausible. For example, science has decisively falsified the religious claim that the Earth is 6,000 to 10,000 years old. Historical investigation has made it quite implausible that there was ever an Egyptian captivity of the Jews or a culture hero such as Moses. Some religionists may not give up such claims in the face of empirical evidence, but that doesn't mean that religion is fundamentally compatible with science; it means that some religious positions are (clearly) incompatible with it.
As for the inability of science to investigate the supernatural, this is either trivially (and unhelpfully) true or false. Unfortunately, the NAS statement doesn't nail down what is involved here beyond saying that religious faith typically involves "supernatural forces or entities". It is trivially and unhelpfully true that science cannot investigate such forces or entities if "supernatural" is defined to mean "that which science cannot investigate" (or in some other way that amounts to the same thing).
But it is false if it means that science is, in principle, unable to investigate claims about such paradigmatically "supernatural" things as ancestor spirits, water nymphs, fire demons, magic dragons, or astrological influences. If these things exist and behave in fairly regular ways - like lions, elephants, kangaroos, crocodiles, and the flow of water - then science can investigate them. Of course, if they did exist we might come to think of them as part of "nature", but that's just the point. There is no clear and meaningful line between "natural" and "supernatural", such that science cannot investigate beyond that line. It is simply that certain kinds of things, notably disembodied intelligences, don't actually seem to exist; in any event, hypotheses involving these things have had a lousy track record over centuries. It is usually good practice for scientists to avoid those kinds of hypotheses if they can (this is the grain of truth in "methodological naturalism").
Nonetheless, there is no reason, in principle, why science cannot investigate claims about, say, ancestor spirits as long as the spirits in question are alleged to behave in ways that are reasonably regular and affect things that can be detected by our senses (possibly via scientific instruments).
The kinds of hypotheses that are most difficult to test by distinctively scientific means - apart from those involving interpretation of texts, artworks, and so on; or alleging one-off, small-scale historical events - are not necessarily "supernatural" ones. They are any that: (a) are framed so vaguely that it is difficult to know what to look for out there in the world; or (b) are systematically protected by ad hoc modifications.
However, we don't have to falsify a conjecture together with all possible auxilliaries before we reject it; a conjecture that is preserved only by ad hoc modifications should also be rejected. Thus, if someone seeks to preserve the conjecture that the Earth is only 6,000 years old by postulating that an all-powerful being created the Earth in an "aged" form, we have good reason to reject that hypothesis. The auxilliary claim is too ad hoc.
In short, the relationship between science and religion/the supernatural is more complex than the NAS acknowledges, and it doesn't make religion as immune to scientific investigation as the NAS implies.
Once again, though, it doesn't follow that the statement should be changed at this late stage, or that it is not doing any social good. Nothing in this posts suggests that the policy implications of my discussion are clear. My best suggestion is that the current NAS statement be reviewed at some future time when the organisation is conducting a larger review of its communications strategy. At that stage, points such as I've made above can be taken into account.
I just don't think it's true:
Compatibility of Science and Religion
Science is not the only way of knowing and understanding. But science is a way of knowing that differs from other ways in its dependence on empirical evidence and testable explanations. Because biological evolution accounts for events that are also central concerns of religion — including the origins of biological diversity and especially the origins of humans — evolution has been a contentious idea within society since it was first articulated by Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace in 1858.
Acceptance of the evidence for evolution can be compatible with religious faith. Today, many religious denominations accept that biological evolution has produced the diversity of living things over billions of years of Earth’s history. Many have issued statements observing that evolution and the tenets of their faiths are compatible. Scientists and theologians have written eloquently about their awe and wonder at the history of the universe and of life on this planet, explaining that they see no conflict between their faith in God and the evidence for evolution. Religious denominations that do not accept the occurrence of evolution tend to be those that believe in strictly literal interpretations of religious texts.
Science and religion are based on different aspects of human experience. In science, explanations must be based on evidence drawn from examining the natural world. Scientifically based observations or experiments that conflict with an explanation eventually must lead to modification or even abandonment of that explanation. Religious faith, in contrast, does not depend only on empirical evidence, is not necessarily modified in the face of conflicting evidence, and typically involves supernatural forces or entities. Because they are not a part of nature, supernatural entities cannot be investigated by science. In this sense, science and religion are separate and address aspects of human understanding in different ways. Attempts to pit science and religion against each other create controversy where none needs to exist.
I do agree that the methods that are distinctive to science are not the only ones used for obtaining knowledge and understanding. For example, I can gain knowledge by investigating historical records in a way that may be quite rigorous but not distinctively scientific. However, it's not true that science is unique in its reliance on empirical evidence. We seek knowledge based on empirical evidence all the time, without doing anything distinctively scientific. It's true, though, that our methods of investigation start to look more distinctively scientific when they use replicable experiments. Hypothetico-deductive reasoning is not unique to science, but science makes distinctive use of it, combined with replicable experiments to test hypotheses. But there are other features as well, such as the use of instruments that expand the capacities of the human senses, the use of mathematical models, and doubtless others.
Science is continuous with other kinds of inquiry that may use some of these techniques. It can also draw on knowledge gained from inquiries that don't especially utilise these distinctive techniques, such as ordinary sensory observation, testimony, historical records, our learned ability to interpret human behaviour and language, and so on. Thus, there's no clear boundary between the sciences and the humanities, such as history.
It is not so much that there is more than one way of knowing. Rather, there are different techniques for investigating different aspects or parts of reality. Not all aspects lend themselves to investigation through distinctively scientific techniques, and some lend themselves to investigation through other techniques (examining historical records, etc.). Still, we expect that knowledge and understanding obtained through different techniques will be consistent. Where lines of evidence obtained from different techniques show a convergence, we can be confident that we're getting at the truth.
Science has been especially useful for examining phenomena that are very small, very large, very distant in space or time, or indiscernible by our senses. By proceeding step by step, testing conjectures (by looking for other phenomena that conjectured entities, forces, etc., predict), using precise mathematics, adopting potentially consilient lines of inquiry, and so on, science is often able to reach robust, very well-evidenced conclusions about things that no one has ever seen with their unaugmented senses (such as the moons of Jupiter, long-extinct animals, and microscopic entities). In other cases, science's conclusions are more tentative, or problems are left with no plausibly-acceptable conclusions in sight. Because the evidence for scientific claims is typically circumstantial, and highly theory-laden, sometimes with very long chains of inference, those claims are always considered provisional, but some are so robust that they are unlikely ever to be overturned. E.g. it's inconceivable that the geocentric picture of our solar system will ever be restored. There is too much evidence from too many lines of inquiry. (And we should not forget that many ordinary, not-especially-scientific claims are also quite heavily theory-laden.)
Still, the picture of the world emerging from science is always incomplete.
On this view, there are methods of rational investigation that are not distinctively scientific, but there are no "other ways of knowing" that somehow compete with rational investigation itself. There is plenty of room for science (and, indeed, the humanities) to falsify various religious claims or render them implausible. For example, science has decisively falsified the religious claim that the Earth is 6,000 to 10,000 years old. Historical investigation has made it quite implausible that there was ever an Egyptian captivity of the Jews or a culture hero such as Moses. Some religionists may not give up such claims in the face of empirical evidence, but that doesn't mean that religion is fundamentally compatible with science; it means that some religious positions are (clearly) incompatible with it.
As for the inability of science to investigate the supernatural, this is either trivially (and unhelpfully) true or false. Unfortunately, the NAS statement doesn't nail down what is involved here beyond saying that religious faith typically involves "supernatural forces or entities". It is trivially and unhelpfully true that science cannot investigate such forces or entities if "supernatural" is defined to mean "that which science cannot investigate" (or in some other way that amounts to the same thing).
But it is false if it means that science is, in principle, unable to investigate claims about such paradigmatically "supernatural" things as ancestor spirits, water nymphs, fire demons, magic dragons, or astrological influences. If these things exist and behave in fairly regular ways - like lions, elephants, kangaroos, crocodiles, and the flow of water - then science can investigate them. Of course, if they did exist we might come to think of them as part of "nature", but that's just the point. There is no clear and meaningful line between "natural" and "supernatural", such that science cannot investigate beyond that line. It is simply that certain kinds of things, notably disembodied intelligences, don't actually seem to exist; in any event, hypotheses involving these things have had a lousy track record over centuries. It is usually good practice for scientists to avoid those kinds of hypotheses if they can (this is the grain of truth in "methodological naturalism").
Nonetheless, there is no reason, in principle, why science cannot investigate claims about, say, ancestor spirits as long as the spirits in question are alleged to behave in ways that are reasonably regular and affect things that can be detected by our senses (possibly via scientific instruments).
The kinds of hypotheses that are most difficult to test by distinctively scientific means - apart from those involving interpretation of texts, artworks, and so on; or alleging one-off, small-scale historical events - are not necessarily "supernatural" ones. They are any that: (a) are framed so vaguely that it is difficult to know what to look for out there in the world; or (b) are systematically protected by ad hoc modifications.
However, we don't have to falsify a conjecture together with all possible auxilliaries before we reject it; a conjecture that is preserved only by ad hoc modifications should also be rejected. Thus, if someone seeks to preserve the conjecture that the Earth is only 6,000 years old by postulating that an all-powerful being created the Earth in an "aged" form, we have good reason to reject that hypothesis. The auxilliary claim is too ad hoc.
In short, the relationship between science and religion/the supernatural is more complex than the NAS acknowledges, and it doesn't make religion as immune to scientific investigation as the NAS implies.
Once again, though, it doesn't follow that the statement should be changed at this late stage, or that it is not doing any social good. Nothing in this posts suggests that the policy implications of my discussion are clear. My best suggestion is that the current NAS statement be reviewed at some future time when the organisation is conducting a larger review of its communications strategy. At that stage, points such as I've made above can be taken into account.
Secularism cuts both ways
I haven't yet read the full judgment in this court case, only a couple of media reports, so maybe I'm missing some facts. I'll see if I can learn more. On the face of it, though, the case was correctly decided.
A teacher in an American public school made a statement to the effect that creationism is superstitious nonsense (plus, I gather, various other anti-religious comments). This was found by the court to contravene the freedom of religion clauses in the First Amendment to the US constitution.
There's been quite a bit of fuss about this in the secularist blogosphere this morning, but I don't think it's justified. The case concerned a trivial incident, so any actual damages should be minimal (these are yet to be assessed). Perhaps nothing more than a declaration of the parties' rights is required, though I expect that more relief than that will be given. But in any event, the finding of law appears correct.
Teachers in public schools should just teach the science, or the history, or whatever subject it is that they are paid to teach. If some of the content is inconsistent with a student's religion, then it's up to the student to work out the reconciliation. The First Amendment does not give anyone the right to go through life without being exposed to scientific or other knowledge that may happen to be inconsistent with her particular religious beliefs. How could it? People have all kinds of strange beliefs that are inconsistent with research by scientists, historians, and others. A teacher does nothing wrong if simply teaching secular knowledge in a religion-blind way. In particular, there is nothing wrong with teaching well-supported science, such as the theory of evolution. But the teacher shouldn't be expressing either a religious view or an anti-religious view.
I do realise that this can be a fine line, and it is going to get more and more difficult to maintain strictly in a litigious society such as the United States. There could be embarrasssing situations for teachers, and an overly-officious application of the principle could chill valuable discussions in such subjects as English literature, where it may be necessary to explore the worldviews of authors and the responses of students. Courts should allow teachers some margin for discretion, though not too much margin or we'll find teachers exploiting it to indoctrinate school children with blatantly religious views.
Be that as it may, this particular case looks clear-cut to me. From a quick look at the reports, I can't see anything in the situation that forced the teacher to refer to a particular religious view as superstitious nonsense (even though that's obviously what it was).
We need to be consistent about secularism. Religious teachers in American public schools don't get to teach that religion - or a particular religion - is correct. Teachers in public schools don't get to teach that a particular religious viewpoint that they disagree with is incorrect. If they teach material that happens to be inconsistent with a student's religious view, that's fine - they do so in a religion-blind way for the secular purpose of imparting knowledge. But it's gratuitous for them to go the extra step and express the conclusion that some religious position (such as creationism) is wrong.
Unless there are facts not obvious in the media reports, the court has simply applied these secular principles, which we should all subscribe to.
This case also highlights why it's so important that legal training and intense advocacy experience teaches judges to be objective. As today's blogosphere discussion shows, it's obviously very difficult for people to resist the temptation to cheer for their "side" - the side for which they feel sympathy - on every issue that comes up. But that is not the role of judges; they are there to apply the law to the facts, without playing favourites.
We need to know that our legal rights are safe in the hands of people who have the capacity to distance themselves from personal likes and dislikes and to apply the law neutrally. What would worry me far more than this case would be a judge who seemed not to be neutral and objective, or who displayed a shaky understanding of legal fundamentals, even if my "side" of a dispute won the case in question. I suggest we not be too quick to attack judges just because the side that we're sympathetic to loses a particular case. The important thing is that sound legal principles be upheld, even if the result in a particular case seems unfortunate in the sense that the "bad guys" have a win.
We should criticise judges when they seem to fudge the law to produce an outcome that they favour, even if we are sympathetic to the winning party. When judges apply sound legal principles objectively, based on a plausible construction of the facts, they are simply doing their job - a very important job in any society, and absolutely critical for the functioning of a liberal democracy.
A teacher in an American public school made a statement to the effect that creationism is superstitious nonsense (plus, I gather, various other anti-religious comments). This was found by the court to contravene the freedom of religion clauses in the First Amendment to the US constitution.
There's been quite a bit of fuss about this in the secularist blogosphere this morning, but I don't think it's justified. The case concerned a trivial incident, so any actual damages should be minimal (these are yet to be assessed). Perhaps nothing more than a declaration of the parties' rights is required, though I expect that more relief than that will be given. But in any event, the finding of law appears correct.
Teachers in public schools should just teach the science, or the history, or whatever subject it is that they are paid to teach. If some of the content is inconsistent with a student's religion, then it's up to the student to work out the reconciliation. The First Amendment does not give anyone the right to go through life without being exposed to scientific or other knowledge that may happen to be inconsistent with her particular religious beliefs. How could it? People have all kinds of strange beliefs that are inconsistent with research by scientists, historians, and others. A teacher does nothing wrong if simply teaching secular knowledge in a religion-blind way. In particular, there is nothing wrong with teaching well-supported science, such as the theory of evolution. But the teacher shouldn't be expressing either a religious view or an anti-religious view.
I do realise that this can be a fine line, and it is going to get more and more difficult to maintain strictly in a litigious society such as the United States. There could be embarrasssing situations for teachers, and an overly-officious application of the principle could chill valuable discussions in such subjects as English literature, where it may be necessary to explore the worldviews of authors and the responses of students. Courts should allow teachers some margin for discretion, though not too much margin or we'll find teachers exploiting it to indoctrinate school children with blatantly religious views.
Be that as it may, this particular case looks clear-cut to me. From a quick look at the reports, I can't see anything in the situation that forced the teacher to refer to a particular religious view as superstitious nonsense (even though that's obviously what it was).
We need to be consistent about secularism. Religious teachers in American public schools don't get to teach that religion - or a particular religion - is correct. Teachers in public schools don't get to teach that a particular religious viewpoint that they disagree with is incorrect. If they teach material that happens to be inconsistent with a student's religious view, that's fine - they do so in a religion-blind way for the secular purpose of imparting knowledge. But it's gratuitous for them to go the extra step and express the conclusion that some religious position (such as creationism) is wrong.
Unless there are facts not obvious in the media reports, the court has simply applied these secular principles, which we should all subscribe to.
This case also highlights why it's so important that legal training and intense advocacy experience teaches judges to be objective. As today's blogosphere discussion shows, it's obviously very difficult for people to resist the temptation to cheer for their "side" - the side for which they feel sympathy - on every issue that comes up. But that is not the role of judges; they are there to apply the law to the facts, without playing favourites.
We need to know that our legal rights are safe in the hands of people who have the capacity to distance themselves from personal likes and dislikes and to apply the law neutrally. What would worry me far more than this case would be a judge who seemed not to be neutral and objective, or who displayed a shaky understanding of legal fundamentals, even if my "side" of a dispute won the case in question. I suggest we not be too quick to attack judges just because the side that we're sympathetic to loses a particular case. The important thing is that sound legal principles be upheld, even if the result in a particular case seems unfortunate in the sense that the "bad guys" have a win.
We should criticise judges when they seem to fudge the law to produce an outcome that they favour, even if we are sympathetic to the winning party. When judges apply sound legal principles objectively, based on a plausible construction of the facts, they are simply doing their job - a very important job in any society, and absolutely critical for the functioning of a liberal democracy.
Saturday, May 02, 2009
The (faux) sophistication of young-earth creationism
It's nice to be informed about this:
Young-earth creationism is a complex system. YEC's conception of history includes not merely a six-rotational-day Creation, but also a young age of the earth, miraculous creation of plant and animal life, a commitment to a historical Adam and Eve, a historical Fall with universal spiritual and physical consequences, and a global catastrophe.
This comprehensive framework fosters understandings of sin, the problem of evil, divine nature, judgment, Christ as the Second Adam, salvation, and eschatological redemption. A full view of the Creation can only be acquired from the whole of Scripture—from Genesis to Revelation—not by focusing, even intently, on but one chapter.
Discuss!
(I also liked the links, especially the one that tells us "How to intelligently design a winning case for God's role in creation.")
Young-earth creationism is a complex system. YEC's conception of history includes not merely a six-rotational-day Creation, but also a young age of the earth, miraculous creation of plant and animal life, a commitment to a historical Adam and Eve, a historical Fall with universal spiritual and physical consequences, and a global catastrophe.
This comprehensive framework fosters understandings of sin, the problem of evil, divine nature, judgment, Christ as the Second Adam, salvation, and eschatological redemption. A full view of the Creation can only be acquired from the whole of Scripture—from Genesis to Revelation—not by focusing, even intently, on but one chapter.
Discuss!
(I also liked the links, especially the one that tells us "How to intelligently design a winning case for God's role in creation.")
Udo Schuklenk on human dignity
Udo Schuklenk is on a roll this week. Here's a brilliant post on the dubious concept of human dignity.
I've written about this issue previously, concluding:
... our moral worth does not reside in the fact of our Homo sapiens DNA. For this reason, it makes no sense to argue about bioethical issues, such as cloning and stem cell research, on the basis that there is a specific human dignity. The concept of human dignity is a blunt tool for any careful analysis of those issues. It is a tool that we should discard.
The real issue is about what reasons we have for showing certain kinds of respect or consideration when we deal with other people (and with creatures or things that are not people). When we ask that question, it will yield a more subtle and helpful analysis than we can get by throwing around vague, quasi-religious expressions such as "human dignity". If we are asked what it is about human beings that demands our respect or moral consideration, it gets us nowhere to reply that they have the property of human dignity. We may as well claim that dry wood burns because it is inflammable.
Our reasons for regarding other humans as beings whom we cannot treat just as we want, without regard for their interests, relate to the fact that they possess a rich set of intrinsic and social characteristics that we feel we cannot ignore (notice the Humean element of this analysis: it is a mixture of facts about them and how we respond, psychologically, to such facts). The intrinsic characteristics at issue include sentience, self-consciousness, rationality, moral agency, autonomy, and so on.
Babies and children don’t possess all of those characteristics, at least not to the same degree as adults, but they possess others that compel us to have regard to their interests. Indeed, they strike us as uniquely appropriate subjects of our care and kindness. Not least important are their developing human minds and personalities, and their social dependence if they are to grow and flourish. As do adults, they also have their place in our societies, a very important one, since all societies see children as their hope for the future: no society would last for long if its members thought or felt otherwise. When we look at the world of non-human things, the very fact that other animals can suffer seems to demand some consideration or - in a broad sense - respect from us. But we do not have the same reasons to treat all of these different kinds of beings with various kinds of consideration and/or respect, and we do not actually respond to them in the same way. For example, we grant adult citizens political rights (such as the right to vote) that we don't accord babies. We provide babies with certain paternalistic protections that would be offensive if applied to competent adults.
Udo and I don't always agree about everything (strangely enough!), but we seem to agree that the concept of human dignity is pretty much a myth. At best, it can be shorthand for more defensible ideas.
I especially commend this part of Udo's discussion - I wish every UN apparatchik would read it and take it to heart:
The German enlightenment philosopher Immanuel Kant initially understood respect for someone's dignity really as respect for a rational, autonomous agent. In that sense, dignity is kind of a short for respect for autonomous persons. That probably is a sensible thing. All other things being equal, we should be respectful of at least the self-regarding actions autonomous beings wish to undertake. May be that is what we should be saying, however. Of course, since then religious folks and invariably the UN have stepped in with a deluge of dignity here and dignity there declarations and statements that resulted into dignity being reduced to a campaign tool for everything and nothing at all. Christianity, for instance, quickly removed the Kantian criteria of reason and rationality and agitated for embryos' dignity, and human rights related claims derived from those. In case of doubt the supposedly necessary respect for these embryos' alleged dignity was used to override women's interest in controlling what's happening with their bodies. The UN has declared, for no good ethical reason at all, that reproductive human cloning is dignity violating. This emperor certainly is naked! Human dignity, warm and fuzzy as it may sound, is a useless tool for advancing arguments on any of the relevant fronts in bioethics. This insight is true regardless of the substantive stance that you'd take on any of these controversial issues, by the way. Dignity really is just a rhetorical tool as opposed to a serious conceptual means to advance discussions on these issues.
Udo's piece concludes:
Today we are probably well advised, should we face the need to make a snap-decision, to reject dignity related claims unless these claims have another rationale attached to them that is based on some other framework. If anything, you'd probably right if you assumed that more often than not human dignity is deployed as a means of preventing people from making self-regarding choices.
Well said!
I've written about this issue previously, concluding:
... our moral worth does not reside in the fact of our Homo sapiens DNA. For this reason, it makes no sense to argue about bioethical issues, such as cloning and stem cell research, on the basis that there is a specific human dignity. The concept of human dignity is a blunt tool for any careful analysis of those issues. It is a tool that we should discard.
The real issue is about what reasons we have for showing certain kinds of respect or consideration when we deal with other people (and with creatures or things that are not people). When we ask that question, it will yield a more subtle and helpful analysis than we can get by throwing around vague, quasi-religious expressions such as "human dignity". If we are asked what it is about human beings that demands our respect or moral consideration, it gets us nowhere to reply that they have the property of human dignity. We may as well claim that dry wood burns because it is inflammable.
Our reasons for regarding other humans as beings whom we cannot treat just as we want, without regard for their interests, relate to the fact that they possess a rich set of intrinsic and social characteristics that we feel we cannot ignore (notice the Humean element of this analysis: it is a mixture of facts about them and how we respond, psychologically, to such facts). The intrinsic characteristics at issue include sentience, self-consciousness, rationality, moral agency, autonomy, and so on.
Babies and children don’t possess all of those characteristics, at least not to the same degree as adults, but they possess others that compel us to have regard to their interests. Indeed, they strike us as uniquely appropriate subjects of our care and kindness. Not least important are their developing human minds and personalities, and their social dependence if they are to grow and flourish. As do adults, they also have their place in our societies, a very important one, since all societies see children as their hope for the future: no society would last for long if its members thought or felt otherwise. When we look at the world of non-human things, the very fact that other animals can suffer seems to demand some consideration or - in a broad sense - respect from us. But we do not have the same reasons to treat all of these different kinds of beings with various kinds of consideration and/or respect, and we do not actually respond to them in the same way. For example, we grant adult citizens political rights (such as the right to vote) that we don't accord babies. We provide babies with certain paternalistic protections that would be offensive if applied to competent adults.
Udo and I don't always agree about everything (strangely enough!), but we seem to agree that the concept of human dignity is pretty much a myth. At best, it can be shorthand for more defensible ideas.
I especially commend this part of Udo's discussion - I wish every UN apparatchik would read it and take it to heart:
The German enlightenment philosopher Immanuel Kant initially understood respect for someone's dignity really as respect for a rational, autonomous agent. In that sense, dignity is kind of a short for respect for autonomous persons. That probably is a sensible thing. All other things being equal, we should be respectful of at least the self-regarding actions autonomous beings wish to undertake. May be that is what we should be saying, however. Of course, since then religious folks and invariably the UN have stepped in with a deluge of dignity here and dignity there declarations and statements that resulted into dignity being reduced to a campaign tool for everything and nothing at all. Christianity, for instance, quickly removed the Kantian criteria of reason and rationality and agitated for embryos' dignity, and human rights related claims derived from those. In case of doubt the supposedly necessary respect for these embryos' alleged dignity was used to override women's interest in controlling what's happening with their bodies. The UN has declared, for no good ethical reason at all, that reproductive human cloning is dignity violating. This emperor certainly is naked! Human dignity, warm and fuzzy as it may sound, is a useless tool for advancing arguments on any of the relevant fronts in bioethics. This insight is true regardless of the substantive stance that you'd take on any of these controversial issues, by the way. Dignity really is just a rhetorical tool as opposed to a serious conceptual means to advance discussions on these issues.
Udo's piece concludes:
Today we are probably well advised, should we face the need to make a snap-decision, to reject dignity related claims unless these claims have another rationale attached to them that is based on some other framework. If anything, you'd probably right if you assumed that more often than not human dignity is deployed as a means of preventing people from making self-regarding choices.
Well said!
Ronald Bailey on transhumanism and the limits of democracy
Interesting paper over here. There's always stuff to quibble about, but I think that Bailey is essentially correct: much of the political opposition to emerging technologies and transhumanist thought is essentially illiberal, and should gain little political traction in modern liberal democracies. Of course, the citizens of modern liberal democracies are not always as committed to a Millian or Rawlsian liberal framework as one might hope. There's always a strong temptation to employ state power to impose your worldview on others by force. If you spend some time at leading atheist sites, you have to conclude that some of my fellow atheists also show signs of being tempted by this - it's not just religious leaders and adherents.
The liberal framework is fragile and needs constant defence.
The liberal framework is fragile and needs constant defence.
Friday, May 01, 2009
Science, religion, weasel words, and the meaning of life
The "Science and Religion" page on the National Center for Science Education's website provides a gateway to many pages of interesting resources on the issue. In introducing the theme, the NCSE, in the person of one Peter M. J. Hess, NCSE Faith Project Director, commences as follows:
In public discussions of evolution and creationism, we are sometimes told that we must choose between belief in creation and acceptance of the theory of evolution, between religion and science. But is this a fair demand? Must I choose only one or the other, or can I both believe in God and accept evolution? Can I both accept what science teaches and engage in religious belief and practice? This is a complex issue, but theologians, clergy, and members of many religious traditions have concluded that the answer is, unequivocally, yes.
Theologians from many traditions hold that science and religion occupy different spheres of knowledge. Science asks questions such as "What is it?" "How does it happen?" "By what processes?" In contrast, religion asks questions such as "What is life's meaning?" "What is my purpose?" "Is the world of value?" These are complementary rather than conflicting perspectives.
This section of the website offers resources for exploring religious perspectives on scientific questions and scientific perspectives on topics of interest to various religious groups, as well as resources for anyone interested in engaging with these issues.
Notice that the issue quickly gets extended beyond just evolution and Christianity to more general questions about science and religion.
Notice, too, that the claim that I can "both accept what science teaches and engage in religious belief and practice" is attributed to "theologians, clergy, and members of many religious traditions". The next paragraph attributes to "Theologians from many traditions" the idea that "science and religion occupy different spheres of knowledge"; this is the idea that science and religion are so-called "non-overlapping magisteria" (NOMA), although that expression does not appear. The site explicates it by stating that "Science asks questions such as 'What is it?' 'How does it happen?' 'By what processes?' In contrast, religion asks questions such as 'What is life's meaning?' 'What is my purpose?' 'Is the world of value?' These are complementary rather than conflicting perspectives."
It is possible that the entirety of this could be read as being attributed to the "theologians, clergy, and members of many religious traditions", but the inescapable fact is that the site elaborates on the point in a way that seems to endorse it. As the passage goes on, there are no reminders that it is merely attributing the idea to others. Moreover, the idea is formulated in a way that seems rhetorically attractive, and there is no indication that many scientists, philosophers, and, indeed, theologians reject the idea (and query the distinctions between the two types of questions). Any attempt to argue that the site does not really endorse NOMA, and is merely attributing the idea to various unnamed theologians, etc., would be disingenuous.
Putting this harshly, we have a classic example of pushing a viewpoint, without explicitly endorsing it, by the use of weasel words.
Over the past week, this issue, involving other American science organisations as well as the NCSE, has been debated hotly throughout the blogosphere. It now seems that some people who initially resisted the complaint that the NCSE used weasel words to advocate the total compatibility of science and religion (via the NOMA doctrine) have had second thoughts.
Certainly, Richard Hoppe has, as is apparent from the second of his recent long posts at Panda's Thumb. It's unfortunate that he only realised this only after he'd already fired off an inflammatory post in which attacked the criticisms of the NSCE by Jerry Coyne, Larry Moran, PZ Myers, and myself (complete with some rather nasty comments on the other three; presumably I am not important enough to have merited them, which is perhaps a relief).
Still, Hoppe is to be commended for his willingness to think further and change his mind about the main issue that was in contention.
The NOMA concept is false for at least two reasons:
1. The teachers, texts, and organisations associated with religions have never confined themselves to making "ought" statements or related statements about value, meaning or purpose. Rather, they have put forward factual-sounding statements about the existence of supernatural beings, such as gods, nymphs, demons and ancestral spirits. They have made claims about the dispositions and activities of these beings, and they have described their interactions with humans. In other cases, they have invoked over-arching forces or principles, such as Moira, Karma or the Tao. They have described unseen places, such as Hades, Valhalla, Paradise and Purgatory. They have posited deep components or aspects of the human makeup, such as the soul (associated in the West with the mind), or the Brahminical spiritual self (separate from both mind and body).
Religions have acted as encyclopedic explanatory systems, setting out the place of humanity in the total scheme of things. Any retreat from this is quite recent and quite limited, under pressure from the increasing body of well-corroborated scientific theory about the world and our place in it.
Gould concedes that, at earlier periods "when science did not exist as an explicit enterprise, and when a more unified sense of the nature of things gathered all 'why' questions under the rubric of religion, issues with factual resolutions now placed under the magisterium of science fell under the aegis of an enlarged concept of religion." But this is nonsense. The supposed "enlarged" concept of religion just is religion as we have historically known it. It is Gould who wishes to introduce an artificially narrowed concept of religion - a concept that very few religious believers outside of academic ivory towers are likely to recognise as their own.
2. But more importantly, although religion does attempt to offer answers to questions about moral guidance, purpose, and meaning, the last thing we should be doing is letting it carry out this job without criticism. While religious believers may be convinced that moral claims made by a church, priest or holy book are particularly authoritative, often the opposite is true. In many cases, these claims are unfortunate relics of more ignorant times. Religion can fossilise ancient, irrational and cruel moral viewpoints; we should not be according it any special authority within the "magisterium" of ethical discussion. It is better, in fact, to ignore the dubious claims of religious organisations, leaders, and writings, and to explore these issues through the use of reason - the remit of secular moral philosophy.
Given that such powerful criticisms can be made of the NOMA doctrine, I do object when I see it presented uncritically by bodies that carry the authority of the NCSE.
I should add that the clear-cut distinction between the two supposed "magisteria" does not exist, in any event. One of these is supposed to be about "is" matters and the other about "ought", and it is often claimed that there is a gulf between these. You can't, so it is said, go from an "is" to and "ought". There is a sharp distinction between factual claims about the world and moral claims about how we should act.
However, David Hume, to whom this view is often attributed, actually said something more subtle (and plausible): you can't go from a neutral statement about the world, standing alone, to an ought statement; when you go from "is" statements to "ought" statements, some explanation must be given as to how this was done. According to Hume, in A Treatise of Human Nature, this means that statements about the world must be supplemented by reference to our "desires", a word that he used quite broadly. Hume's view is that we are motivated by our beliefs about the world combined with such psychological aspects of our character as what we want, fear, value, and so on. According to Hume, even moral motivation must ultimately be cashed out in some such terms.
If Hume's picture was approximately correct, as I believe it was, there is endless scope for interaction between "is" claims and "ought" claims, even though we cannot be motivated (morally or otherwise) by reason alone, in the absence of our wants, fears, etc. Moreover, there is endless scope for science to investigate what wants, fears, etc., human beings typically have. Hume speculated about human nature from his armchair, based on his personal experience and extensive reading, but we can do a bit better.
Without necessarily buying into a full-blooded kind of evolutionary psychology, such as offered by Tooby and Cosmides, we can accept that we, as Homo sapiens, have an evolved psychological nature, and that it may impose some limits on what real-world moral systems can realistically demand of human beings. Various fields of science (not just evolutionary psychology) can now study human nature, and the outcomes may have implications for how we should try to constrain our own conduct - as may our increasing knowledge of the world that we live in and its exigencies. As we learn more, this can feed back into our moral understanding. Hume believed in moral progress, as understanding increased and civilization developed, and I see no reason to believe he was wrong about this.
Furthermore, the distinction between two kinds of statements - "What is it?" "How does it happen?" "By what processes?" versus "What is life's meaning?" "What is my purpose?" "Is the world of value?" - is simplistic, even taken at face value. It assumes, without evidence, that life itself has a "meaning" (as if it were something like a literary text), that an individual can have a purpose (as if we were bulldozers or computer programs, designed for a task) or that it makes obvious sense to ask, "Is the world of value?" Even if the last question is well-formed, i.e. that it makes sense to ask about the value of the entirety of things, as opposed to that of specific things, it is mysterious how the kinds of entities and forces described by religions can give the world as a whole any particular value.
I don't want to be narrow and pedantic about this. There are doubtless some people who experience life as "meaningless" or "valueless", so the expressions are not totally ... well ... without meaning. But when someone experiences life in that way, it is a psychological condition in which they cease to value much of what they encounter in life. They can lapse into an unpleasant state of anomie. Everything seems weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable. But like other psychological conditions, this state of mind can be studied scientifically.
Meanwhile, we can all - by all means - engage in philosophical discussion about the nature of the good life. I simply find it unlikely that religion will have much to say that is genuinely of assistance. Even if this kind of discussion is a separate "magisterium", it does not follow that religion has any authority there.
Really, about the most that can be said in favour of religion as we've known it is that it helps some - yes, perhaps many - people to experience their lives as "meaningful". It offers them a sense of unity with something beyond themselves, when they might not have much else to fall back on. That so many people are stuck in this situation - where they need to have illusions about the world to provide them with a sense of meaning - may well be a reason not to hope that religion will disappear overnight. I'm not enough of a so-called "New Atheist" to wish for that sudden alteration, with all the disruption it would bring. But when we think about the plight of so many individuals who need religion to provide a sense of connection, meaning, and understanding, we should be motivated to work for a world where we can more easily put religion's false answers behind us.
This still leaves a practical question as to what the NCSE should do with the questionable material on its website. One can rationally wish that it had not been placed there in its current form, while also realising that: (1) it may nonetheless be doing some good; and (2) removing it at this stage may create more problems than it solves. I am very aware of both points, and I have no strongly felt or dogmatically-sustained views as to what should be done. Perhaps, for now, it's sufficient that the NCSE folks step back, realise that they were going down a path that was unnecessarily accommodating to religion, make no further moves down that path, and bear these issues in mind next time there is a major review of the material on their site. Perhaps there are some specific things they could do more immediately, but I wouldn't insist on this even if I were in a position to do so.
Nonetheless, constructive criticism is valuable, even when it applies to such cherished organisations as the NCSE. I only ask that it be received in the spirit in which it's intended, and that there be a bit less shooting of messengers next time it happens.
In public discussions of evolution and creationism, we are sometimes told that we must choose between belief in creation and acceptance of the theory of evolution, between religion and science. But is this a fair demand? Must I choose only one or the other, or can I both believe in God and accept evolution? Can I both accept what science teaches and engage in religious belief and practice? This is a complex issue, but theologians, clergy, and members of many religious traditions have concluded that the answer is, unequivocally, yes.
Theologians from many traditions hold that science and religion occupy different spheres of knowledge. Science asks questions such as "What is it?" "How does it happen?" "By what processes?" In contrast, religion asks questions such as "What is life's meaning?" "What is my purpose?" "Is the world of value?" These are complementary rather than conflicting perspectives.
This section of the website offers resources for exploring religious perspectives on scientific questions and scientific perspectives on topics of interest to various religious groups, as well as resources for anyone interested in engaging with these issues.
Notice that the issue quickly gets extended beyond just evolution and Christianity to more general questions about science and religion.
Notice, too, that the claim that I can "both accept what science teaches and engage in religious belief and practice" is attributed to "theologians, clergy, and members of many religious traditions". The next paragraph attributes to "Theologians from many traditions" the idea that "science and religion occupy different spheres of knowledge"; this is the idea that science and religion are so-called "non-overlapping magisteria" (NOMA), although that expression does not appear. The site explicates it by stating that "Science asks questions such as 'What is it?' 'How does it happen?' 'By what processes?' In contrast, religion asks questions such as 'What is life's meaning?' 'What is my purpose?' 'Is the world of value?' These are complementary rather than conflicting perspectives."
It is possible that the entirety of this could be read as being attributed to the "theologians, clergy, and members of many religious traditions", but the inescapable fact is that the site elaborates on the point in a way that seems to endorse it. As the passage goes on, there are no reminders that it is merely attributing the idea to others. Moreover, the idea is formulated in a way that seems rhetorically attractive, and there is no indication that many scientists, philosophers, and, indeed, theologians reject the idea (and query the distinctions between the two types of questions). Any attempt to argue that the site does not really endorse NOMA, and is merely attributing the idea to various unnamed theologians, etc., would be disingenuous.
Putting this harshly, we have a classic example of pushing a viewpoint, without explicitly endorsing it, by the use of weasel words.
Over the past week, this issue, involving other American science organisations as well as the NCSE, has been debated hotly throughout the blogosphere. It now seems that some people who initially resisted the complaint that the NCSE used weasel words to advocate the total compatibility of science and religion (via the NOMA doctrine) have had second thoughts.
Certainly, Richard Hoppe has, as is apparent from the second of his recent long posts at Panda's Thumb. It's unfortunate that he only realised this only after he'd already fired off an inflammatory post in which attacked the criticisms of the NSCE by Jerry Coyne, Larry Moran, PZ Myers, and myself (complete with some rather nasty comments on the other three; presumably I am not important enough to have merited them, which is perhaps a relief).
Still, Hoppe is to be commended for his willingness to think further and change his mind about the main issue that was in contention.
The NOMA concept is false for at least two reasons:
1. The teachers, texts, and organisations associated with religions have never confined themselves to making "ought" statements or related statements about value, meaning or purpose. Rather, they have put forward factual-sounding statements about the existence of supernatural beings, such as gods, nymphs, demons and ancestral spirits. They have made claims about the dispositions and activities of these beings, and they have described their interactions with humans. In other cases, they have invoked over-arching forces or principles, such as Moira, Karma or the Tao. They have described unseen places, such as Hades, Valhalla, Paradise and Purgatory. They have posited deep components or aspects of the human makeup, such as the soul (associated in the West with the mind), or the Brahminical spiritual self (separate from both mind and body).
Religions have acted as encyclopedic explanatory systems, setting out the place of humanity in the total scheme of things. Any retreat from this is quite recent and quite limited, under pressure from the increasing body of well-corroborated scientific theory about the world and our place in it.
Gould concedes that, at earlier periods "when science did not exist as an explicit enterprise, and when a more unified sense of the nature of things gathered all 'why' questions under the rubric of religion, issues with factual resolutions now placed under the magisterium of science fell under the aegis of an enlarged concept of religion." But this is nonsense. The supposed "enlarged" concept of religion just is religion as we have historically known it. It is Gould who wishes to introduce an artificially narrowed concept of religion - a concept that very few religious believers outside of academic ivory towers are likely to recognise as their own.
2. But more importantly, although religion does attempt to offer answers to questions about moral guidance, purpose, and meaning, the last thing we should be doing is letting it carry out this job without criticism. While religious believers may be convinced that moral claims made by a church, priest or holy book are particularly authoritative, often the opposite is true. In many cases, these claims are unfortunate relics of more ignorant times. Religion can fossilise ancient, irrational and cruel moral viewpoints; we should not be according it any special authority within the "magisterium" of ethical discussion. It is better, in fact, to ignore the dubious claims of religious organisations, leaders, and writings, and to explore these issues through the use of reason - the remit of secular moral philosophy.
Given that such powerful criticisms can be made of the NOMA doctrine, I do object when I see it presented uncritically by bodies that carry the authority of the NCSE.
I should add that the clear-cut distinction between the two supposed "magisteria" does not exist, in any event. One of these is supposed to be about "is" matters and the other about "ought", and it is often claimed that there is a gulf between these. You can't, so it is said, go from an "is" to and "ought". There is a sharp distinction between factual claims about the world and moral claims about how we should act.
However, David Hume, to whom this view is often attributed, actually said something more subtle (and plausible): you can't go from a neutral statement about the world, standing alone, to an ought statement; when you go from "is" statements to "ought" statements, some explanation must be given as to how this was done. According to Hume, in A Treatise of Human Nature, this means that statements about the world must be supplemented by reference to our "desires", a word that he used quite broadly. Hume's view is that we are motivated by our beliefs about the world combined with such psychological aspects of our character as what we want, fear, value, and so on. According to Hume, even moral motivation must ultimately be cashed out in some such terms.
If Hume's picture was approximately correct, as I believe it was, there is endless scope for interaction between "is" claims and "ought" claims, even though we cannot be motivated (morally or otherwise) by reason alone, in the absence of our wants, fears, etc. Moreover, there is endless scope for science to investigate what wants, fears, etc., human beings typically have. Hume speculated about human nature from his armchair, based on his personal experience and extensive reading, but we can do a bit better.
Without necessarily buying into a full-blooded kind of evolutionary psychology, such as offered by Tooby and Cosmides, we can accept that we, as Homo sapiens, have an evolved psychological nature, and that it may impose some limits on what real-world moral systems can realistically demand of human beings. Various fields of science (not just evolutionary psychology) can now study human nature, and the outcomes may have implications for how we should try to constrain our own conduct - as may our increasing knowledge of the world that we live in and its exigencies. As we learn more, this can feed back into our moral understanding. Hume believed in moral progress, as understanding increased and civilization developed, and I see no reason to believe he was wrong about this.
Furthermore, the distinction between two kinds of statements - "What is it?" "How does it happen?" "By what processes?" versus "What is life's meaning?" "What is my purpose?" "Is the world of value?" - is simplistic, even taken at face value. It assumes, without evidence, that life itself has a "meaning" (as if it were something like a literary text), that an individual can have a purpose (as if we were bulldozers or computer programs, designed for a task) or that it makes obvious sense to ask, "Is the world of value?" Even if the last question is well-formed, i.e. that it makes sense to ask about the value of the entirety of things, as opposed to that of specific things, it is mysterious how the kinds of entities and forces described by religions can give the world as a whole any particular value.
I don't want to be narrow and pedantic about this. There are doubtless some people who experience life as "meaningless" or "valueless", so the expressions are not totally ... well ... without meaning. But when someone experiences life in that way, it is a psychological condition in which they cease to value much of what they encounter in life. They can lapse into an unpleasant state of anomie. Everything seems weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable. But like other psychological conditions, this state of mind can be studied scientifically.
Meanwhile, we can all - by all means - engage in philosophical discussion about the nature of the good life. I simply find it unlikely that religion will have much to say that is genuinely of assistance. Even if this kind of discussion is a separate "magisterium", it does not follow that religion has any authority there.
Really, about the most that can be said in favour of religion as we've known it is that it helps some - yes, perhaps many - people to experience their lives as "meaningful". It offers them a sense of unity with something beyond themselves, when they might not have much else to fall back on. That so many people are stuck in this situation - where they need to have illusions about the world to provide them with a sense of meaning - may well be a reason not to hope that religion will disappear overnight. I'm not enough of a so-called "New Atheist" to wish for that sudden alteration, with all the disruption it would bring. But when we think about the plight of so many individuals who need religion to provide a sense of connection, meaning, and understanding, we should be motivated to work for a world where we can more easily put religion's false answers behind us.
This still leaves a practical question as to what the NCSE should do with the questionable material on its website. One can rationally wish that it had not been placed there in its current form, while also realising that: (1) it may nonetheless be doing some good; and (2) removing it at this stage may create more problems than it solves. I am very aware of both points, and I have no strongly felt or dogmatically-sustained views as to what should be done. Perhaps, for now, it's sufficient that the NCSE folks step back, realise that they were going down a path that was unnecessarily accommodating to religion, make no further moves down that path, and bear these issues in mind next time there is a major review of the material on their site. Perhaps there are some specific things they could do more immediately, but I wouldn't insist on this even if I were in a position to do so.
Nonetheless, constructive criticism is valuable, even when it applies to such cherished organisations as the NCSE. I only ask that it be received in the spirit in which it's intended, and that there be a bit less shooting of messengers next time it happens.
Millions and millions dead
Yes, I know this story is from The Onion. I thought it was funny, too. Go and enjoy it!
"As the body count continues to rise, a shaken nation is struggling to cope in the wake of the mass deaths sweeping the world population. With no concrete figures available at this early stage, experts estimate at least 250,000 U.S. citizens have died in the last month alone, with death tolls across the globe reaching into the millions."
"'Our family has been spared so far, but for how long?' asked mother of four Karen Beemis, of Scottsdale, AZ. 'Every night I lay awake in bed worrying and thinking, "This is going to get one of us someday, too. Who will be the first? Grandma? Grandpa? My great-uncle Ted in Michigan?' There's just no way of knowing."'"
From time to time, we have panics that don't come to as much as was feared, such as the panic about SARS ... and it looks, to date, as if the panic about swine flu may be in the same category. At least, I hope so, and there's evidence to that effect (but then again, nothing detracts from the individual tragedies that SARS did cause and that swine flu has caused so far). These panics can be put in perspective we think about the huge number of deaths every day, so many of them related to the frailty of old age.
Death the Destroyer is not our friend, and we shouldn't believe all the sententious rationalisations to the contrary (usually from religionists or crypto-religionists such as Margaret Somerville). We may not be able to do as much about it as we'd like, but we can probably do something . I think we should try, don't you?
"As the body count continues to rise, a shaken nation is struggling to cope in the wake of the mass deaths sweeping the world population. With no concrete figures available at this early stage, experts estimate at least 250,000 U.S. citizens have died in the last month alone, with death tolls across the globe reaching into the millions."
"'Our family has been spared so far, but for how long?' asked mother of four Karen Beemis, of Scottsdale, AZ. 'Every night I lay awake in bed worrying and thinking, "This is going to get one of us someday, too. Who will be the first? Grandma? Grandpa? My great-uncle Ted in Michigan?' There's just no way of knowing."'"
From time to time, we have panics that don't come to as much as was feared, such as the panic about SARS ... and it looks, to date, as if the panic about swine flu may be in the same category. At least, I hope so, and there's evidence to that effect (but then again, nothing detracts from the individual tragedies that SARS did cause and that swine flu has caused so far). These panics can be put in perspective we think about the huge number of deaths every day, so many of them related to the frailty of old age.
Death the Destroyer is not our friend, and we shouldn't believe all the sententious rationalisations to the contrary (usually from religionists or crypto-religionists such as Margaret Somerville). We may not be able to do as much about it as we'd like, but we can probably do something . I think we should try, don't you?
What the hell is Ireland doing?
Another story on Ireland's proposal for what looks like an extraordinarily draconian law forbidding "blasphemous libel". Just as I was giving credit to the Vatican for apparently being in (at least mild) opposition to the OIC's defamation of religion proposal, we get this proposal in a not-so-coincidentally Catholic country.
But Ireland, to its credit, is one of the countries that voted against the "defamation of religion" resolution last time it came up in the UN General Assembly. As of late last year, it was one of the good guys - one of the countries supporting freedom of speech.
The global politics of freedom of speech are getting more difficult to understand day by day, at least for me. If anyone can shed light on what the hell Ireland is doing, please go ahead. You have the floor.
But Ireland, to its credit, is one of the countries that voted against the "defamation of religion" resolution last time it came up in the UN General Assembly. As of late last year, it was one of the good guys - one of the countries supporting freedom of speech.
The global politics of freedom of speech are getting more difficult to understand day by day, at least for me. If anyone can shed light on what the hell Ireland is doing, please go ahead. You have the floor.
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