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On the need for grownups [Thoughts from Kansas]

Josh Rosenau has a sermon on the perils of attacking those who think science and religion can coexist at On the need for grownups [at Thoughts from Kansas]. It’s a pretty damned good sermon. He points out that the claim that science and religion are incompatible is itself an untested, and hence unscientific claim. It’s a point I would like to discuss a bit.

Back when a philosophy known now as logical positivism was fashionable, the claim was made that whatever was not scientifically verifiable was metaphysical rubbish. This was known as the Verification Principle. Karl Popper, among others, noted that the Verification Principle was not scientifically verifiable and was therefore, on its own account, metaphysical rubbish. That put an end to that version of logical positivism (although no philosophical position ever really dies). It was self-defeating.

What Jerry Coyne and the anti-accommodationists are doing, as Josh points out, is a version of logical positivism (Josh does not use that example – that’s me). They are saying that those who attempt to argue that religion and science are compatible or might coexist are being unscientific, are themselves being unscientific. In fact, the data is that science and religion coexist nearly all the time – most of those who support scientific views are religious. This is because most of everyone is religious, of course, but the fact remains: if one approaches this as a scientific matter, science and religion just are coexistent, that’s the fact of the matter.

What Coyne and others seem to want to argue is that religion and science should not be coherently expressed by a single person. That is a philosophical position one might argue for, philosophically. It is not a fact of science, though, nor, it seems, a fact of logic. So argue for it. Others, as is the way of debates, will argue the contrary, or some other view. As an accommodationist, I think that whether or not science and religion should be treated as compatible, in fact they are, or as compatible as any potentially competing set of beliefs may be, such as the belief that science is the only way to gain justifiable beliefs, which is not, itself, scientifically justifiable.

There is a facet of religion I greatly despise. It is the idea that we should use beliefs as tribal markers to identify those who are worthy and good, and to thereby exclude others as unworthy or bad. Like most tribal markers, such as ritual behaviours, accents, clothing, vocabulary, profession, ethnicity and the like, these are arbitrary markers. They have to be arbitrary, to act as honest advertisements of in-group and out-group identity. So it comes as a great disappointment, a facet of irreligion I greatly despise as much as I do when the religious do it, that this happens in reverse.

This is why I made my snide cheap shot about the split in Dawkins’ website. Dawkins, Coyne, and many others (but not all those who happen to agree with them substantially, I hasten to add) are in the business of building an exclusionary group. Ken Miller and Francis Collins believe in religion? Exclude them from science, and damn them to the outer hell of irrationality. The irony that this is itself an irrational behaviour (or, better understood, is an act of strategic rationality rather than conceptual, to keep allies close and enemies away) escapes them, as our own sins always do.

For example, Coyne’s term “faithiest” is a term of opprobrium and abuse, just as Josh points out, other racial or sexual epithets are. While one may not identify the exclusion of non-“Caucasians” or LGBT’s in American society with that of accommodationists (or, for that matter of atheists in theist America), they are of the same kind if nowhere near the same degree. Dawkins’ claim that accommodationists “like the idea that someone has faith” or that we “have faith in faith” is a similar act of abuse. But they are rational, of course. No self-defeating behaviour for them, no sir.

Look, I don’t care if atheists are aggressive or not. Certainly being excluded themselves, they have the right to be loud and proud. I think they should speak out at every turn. But does that require that they must denigrate and belittle those who don’t entirely agree with them? Must they turn into what they themselves despise? It seems, sadly, this is the human condition. But don’t pretend to be the vanguard of rationality when you are just as irrational and tribal as everyone else. The term for that is not “rational”, but “hypocritical”.

49 Comments

  1. I’m loud and proud and I agree with every word you’ve said.

  2. Jeb Jeb

    Me too.

  3. jeb jeb

    I came across a few remarks regarding the metaphysical society set up in London in 1869, which seems to have debated matters surrounding belief and science with many members of the clergy and a number of interesting figures. Sadly there appear to be few remaining records of the lectures it held.

    On it’s demise the wiki cites the Dean of Westminster as saying.

    “We all meant the same thing if only we knew it”

    It’s civil and informed debate that is the key I think. Not to completely agree but to at least understanding how many things we do all hold in common.

  4. ckc (not kc) ckc (not kc)

    “On the need for grownups”

    …of course, children sometimes have less trouble reconciling (and revelling in) myth and reality

  5. MalcolmW MalcolmW

    I thought Josh made a few good points, but his title alone was very condescending and rather at odds with having a “civil conversation.”

    I don’t think coexistance and compatibility are the same thing. Just because religion and science coexist doesn’t make them compatible. In fact, defining religion as outside the scope of science implies incompatibilty to me.

    What worries me about religion is its malleability and lack of testability. It’s far too easy to manipulate large numbers of people with harmful ideas in the name of religion.

    I haven’t seen any difference in the name-calling on either side of this debate. I can’t imagine that you are actually surprised that we are all capable of acting and speaking irrationally.

    So to be at the “vanguard of rationality,” one must be 100% rational? I suspect the bar is much lower than that.

    • John Wilkins John Wilkins

      Of course I do not expect people to be 100% rational: I have a paper in which I argue this very point – we are boundedly rational. This is not contrary to my views, but it is contrary to the views and motivations of the critics of accommodation. If everyone is occasionally irrational, then so too are the exclusionists. This means they suffer a tu quoque – if they are irrational also (and I have had some deny this), then the very same criticisms that apply to the religious also apply to them, nu?

      Yes, religion can be untestable (what do you call religion that is testable? Either false, or scientific), but that was my point about their positivism – it, too, is untestable. The claim that everything must be science is itself not science. It’s a self-defeating view.

      I also object to the irony (which, for Americans, is like goldy or silvery) of atheists who object, quite correctly, to being told to shut up, telling others like Ken Miller that if only they had kept their religious views quiet, then they would not have been attacked. They clearly want a religious test for science these days, not to mention public office (which underpins their attack on Francis Collins’s appointment to head the NIH).

      • MalcolmW MalcolmW

        I also object to the irony (which, for Americans, is like goldy or silvery) of atheists who object, quite correctly, to being told to shut up, telling others like Ken Miller that if only they had kept their religious views quiet, then they would not have been attacked.

        I guess attacked sounds nastier than criticized, but I read Jerry’s post as saying that he (Jerry) did not think Ken Miller should be mixing science and religion. That is hardly telling Ken to shut up. I hope you are not saying that Ken can not be criticized by someone who does not agree with him.

        As an American, I can assure you that there already is a religious test for public office, and it’s not changing anytime soon.

      • Coyne says “If Miller kept his faith to himself, neither P.Z. nor I would say a word about it.” Yes, he is being criticised, and that is a form of (intellectual) attack, but it is not that Miller is religious as such, and a scientist that Coyne dislikes, but that he dares to speak it in public. And it is telling Miller to shut up, unless the English language has radically changed since I learned it. Basically Coyne is little better than O’Reilly shouting “shut up” to his opponents, because, heavens forfend, he may actually convince someone of a view Coyne does not like.

        Miller may be criticised. I will also criticise him and others who are religious, when they say something that is opposed to scientific thinking or results; so far, though, nothing Miller has said is in any way in that bucket. What we are left with is Coyne’s own religious test.

        And just because there is one religious test for public life in one country, doesn’t make any other religious test any better. I was told two wrongs do not make a right, and I still believe that (or should I keep that to myself?).

      • That is hardly telling Ken to shut up.

        But that is exactly what the “New Atheists” claim … that criticizing them is equivalent to telling them to “shut up”. The worst that “accommodationists” (not John) do is say that “New Atheists” should not be mixing science and atheism. But those same “New Atheists” are quite vocal, claiming that to suggest that is telling them to “shut up.”

      • Ian H Spedding FCD Ian H Spedding FCD

        I think everyone should just shut up and give us all a break. At least, that’s what I’m tempted to say when this sort of squabbling breaks out.

        Of coursePZ, Dawkins, Coyne et al (especially Al) should be allowed to proclaim their atheism (new or old) as stridently as the like. By the same token Believers like Miller and Collins should not be under any pressure to hide their religious beliefs. What harm can it do?

        I understand that this is why the NA’s are so irritated by anything that looks like a concession to religion, that they fear it will enable or facilitate the religious right’s social and political ambitions which could have adverse effects on science. But from a tactical viewpoint, what they fail to realize is that their scattergun attacks on religion will tend to work against them. Any social group that might otherwise be riven with internal divisions will tend to suspend disagreements and unite in face of an external threat. This is as true of believers as any other group, maybe more so. They also vastly outnumber atheists . Against united faiths, atheists will have about as as much chance of seriously incommoding them as they would of sinking a battleship with the aforementioned scattergun.

        The better strategy against a more numerous enemy is divide and conquer. In the case of religion that means trying to split the extreme wings away from the more moderate centre – assuming there is one. From this perspective, NA attacks on accommodationists like Miller and Collins make sense if they serve to make them more appealing to moderates. It would be nice to think that the attacks are a cunning tactical ploy rather than outbursts of genuine resentment but somehow I doubt it.

  6. ckc (not kc) ckc (not kc)

    “It’s far too easy to manipulate large numbers of people with harmful ideas in the name of __________.”

    (you choose)

  7. jeb jeb

    History and ethnicity are difficult things to unravel.

    It needs grown-up on topic discussion from all perspectives. I think what will then be discovered is that diffrences are not as prounonced as they first may appear.

    Asking the question why they exist to such a degree in the first place and what motivates such constuctions is a question for us all. Not one specific group.

    Ethnicity is built in the mind it is not reality although some real objects are symbolic markers of it.

  8. coldwater coldwater

    i am afraid i understand neither side of this argument, nor any of the agitation surrounding it.

    can a process of dealing with facts and knowledge coexist with a series of rituals regarding a particular belief set? well, i guess, sorta. but my real reaction is, HUH?

    can kindergarten coexist with astrology? can chemotherapy coexist with deconstructionism? can apples coexist with oranges? just teach the controversy i guess.

    not a philosophical problem here IMHO. the controversy lays in the practical problems of political life (e.g., objection to stem cell research, gays in the military, a right to keep a child or society ignorant in some way).

    more often than not, this “philosophical problem” seems to boil down to money.

    • John Wilkins John Wilkins

      True but not my point. My point here is what exactly is meant by the claim “science and religion are not compatible”. Do you mean that this is a claim of science? No? Then what? Philosophy? Then philosophical arguments are worth airing, which is what Miller and others are being criticised for.

      Since philosophical arguments are fixed neither by simple facts (or they’d be scientific arguments, not philosophical ones) nor by simple assertion (“Are too! … Are not!”), we do not have the right to simply exclude religious philosophical arguments from consideration. So requiring the religious to shut up, but not the irreligious, is a fallacy of begging the question.

  9. Malcolm,

    How would you have expressed Josh’s point so that it was more civil?

    I would guess that you agree in principle with the appeal to a grown-up, non-reactive discourse. How to promote it without implicitly calling everyone children? And isn’t there a “lower bar” in your words, of just refraining from calling people jerks and imputing to them bad motives?

    In fact, defining religion as outside the scope of science implies incompatibility to me.

    Not very encouraging for the prospect of ethics, aesthetics, politics, economics, or jurisprudence, is it?

    • John Wilkins John Wilkins

      Actually, I might agree on jurisprudence. Eyewitness testimony, one of the privileged lines of evidence in the law, is about as unreliable a mode of evidence there is, according to science…

    • MalcolmW MalcolmW

      Chris,

      Of course, I would not have expressed Josh’s point, because I don’t agree with it.

      My point was that incivility and name-calling is not limited to one side of this debate. I doubt that any disagreement can go on very long without reactive discourse, and I’m not particularly bothered by it. When it gets excessive, nothing much of substance gets through the noise; sometimes entertaining, usually boring.

      You’ll have to explain to me how the imcompatibility of science and religion says anything about ethics, aesthetics, politics, economics or jurisprudence. Science is about making testable claims; religion is not-incompatible.

  10. pazuzu pazuzu

    Come on, it is impossible to agree with the statement that they denigrate their opponents. They emphatically, again and again, point out that their criticism is directed towards the blatant endorsement of religion put forward by Miller & Collins in open sources aimed at the public. Not their religiosity per se. I like your writing but here you are simply being pigheaded.

    • John Wilkins John Wilkins

      But fortunately you are not denigrating me by calling me pig headed…

      Is it wrong to endorse one’s views in public now? What does that mean for those who endorse atheism? Whose views should Miller and Collins endorse then?

  11. ‘Pure’ science (the application of the scientific method to all) is not compatible with ‘pure’ religion.

    Science and religion are compatible only if one is distorted or constrained. Scientists can be religious, but only by corralling their belief in a god from their scientific principles.

    In which case does this form of compatibility become trivial? After all, a ravenous lion can be compatible with a lamb, provided the lion is constrained in some way.

    If there needs to be some form of constraint or distortion in order the make two things compatible, are they really compatible in a meaningful sense?

    • J. J. Ramsey J. J. Ramsey

      How, though, is “the application of the scientific method to all” a useful definition of “pure science”? There is no such thing as the scientific method. There is something called that in elementary and high school textbooks, but that is an oversimplified picture that gets later refined in higher levels of education, much in the same way that the idea of an atom as a nucleus with electrons orbiting it is an oversimplification used as an educational starting point. Someone doing, say, numerical theoretical physics calculations is unlikely to be going through the process of starting with a hypothesis, creating an experiment to test it, etc.

      Furthermore, the concept of “pure” religion only makes sense from the perspective of a religious insider, someone who thinks that there actually is a true form of a religion as embodied in holy books or ancient tradition or whatnot. From a non-theistic perspective, there is no such thing as a “True Christianity,” “True Islam,” and so on, so talking about “pure” religion from such a perspective is nonsense.

  12. What complicates the situation is that Christianity, among all the historical religions, has a special relationship with philosophy and therefore science. The new atheists could, and probably should, stop attacking the religion indiscriminately—at some point it becomes strategically counterproductive—but the war will be renewed from the other side in any case. What makes Christianity especially problematic is that its central tradition attempts to be both a foundation of social identity and the bearer of universal truth. This schizophrenia guarantees eternal conflict with any rational enterprise, whether secular law, philology, philosophy, or science, that does not acknowledge the primacy of a faith that is essentially monarchical as well as monotheistic. The problem isn’t just that the atheists act as if they had a religion; it’s that the Christians act as if they had a science, indeed the science, a doctrine that is not merely universally true but existentially obligatory. Of course, Christianity can always dissipate into a harmless recreational spirituality or simply dispense with its traditional connection with philosophy and become mere identity politics—there are plenty of precedents for both options—but so long as it remains its old self, it doesn’t much matter what Jerry Coyne says. The overlapping magisteria bit doesn’t work so long as one of the magisteria defines itself by its exclusivity, and the religious claim to exclusivity is a lot older than the positivist one.

    By the way, though I’m generally critical of the neo-atheists, I certainly understand their scorn for people who take Templeton Foundation money. The way you win religious wars is to corrupt bright young men with the prospect of money and career advancement. That, and not burning Lutherans and Calvinists at the stake, is how Austria became a Catholic country during the Counter-Reformation. I don’t think that even Templeton has enough cash to bring about a religious revival—it certainly didn’t work for the Earl of Bridgewater—but his aim is corrupt and a little disgusting, at least for me. Maybe it’s a matter of taste. Others may believe that if you accumulate enough money, you’re entitled to buy people’s consciences or if you’re offered enough money for your soul, you ought to embrace the offer.

    • I have to concur with your assessment of Christianity in general, but there is a problem here of overgeneralisation. The variety of Christianity, and Islam, Judaism, Buddhism and Hinduism, etc, that I do not find offensively imperialistic and prejudicial is the rare form, at best a few percentage points of the overall population – roughly the distinction between folk religion, which behaves as folk so often do, and elite forms, which is what intellectuals tend to support, although the lines blur.

      But this is not to say one must consider all Christians as folk Christians, and in fact the people whose right to exist I seem to find myself defending just are the elite Christians in academic and intellectual life. Sure, they will attack and defend as Christians, but then I attack and defend as an agnostic, and the atheists attack and defend as atheists. That is what it is about – let them bring it on. Nothing philosophically new has been offered for a very long time.

      But the Templeton Foundation is accused of a lot of things, and in those two cases where I have personally encountered Templeton recipients (Ruse, an atheist, and Justin Barrett, one of those elite Christians), both have told me they have not been interfered with in any way. I suppose this is like pharmaceutical funding for medical research – it might go either way. But to make out the accusation of undue influence, some actual, not merely potential, evidence is required. So far I haven’t seen it. To call it “corrupt” is I think a long bow to draw in the absence of any actual, you know, evidence, that thing we keep harping on as the basis for knowledge claims? Is the aim corrupt? Maybe – show me. Are those who receive the money corrupted? Show me.

      So far the objection to Templeton seems to be that if you have taken their shilling, you are supposed to be bound to do what they want, except that so far all I have seen is that someone who received their money and told them they would not do what the money was granted for was criticised by a Templeton person for applying for the money in the knowledge they would not do what the money was granted for. Hardly corruption, at least, from the Templeton side.

      There is a fallacy of affirming the consequent here. It seems to be said that if you get the money you must be corrupted, but instead my own contact is that if you accept the prior position, that science and religion may be reconciled, you can in good conscience apply for the funding. That is no more objectionable than if, say, the Richard Dawkins Foundation funded someone to work on the prior belief that science and religion cannot be reconciled. If a religious believer accepted those funds and then said they were being corrupted to find out things against their beliefs, we’d call that hypocritical. Of course, in either case one might find that one’s prior beliefs are not what one ought to find, but that’s not a problem for the project funding of either foundation.

      Unfortunately, nobody seems to want to corrupt me to find out that science and religion have only a contingent relationship rather than a necessary one, so I lose out either way. Damn these prior views…

    • MKR MKR

      “The problem isn’t just that the atheists act as if they had a religion; it’s that the Christians act as if they had a science.”

      I just quoted that because it’s worth quoting.

  13. I’m not making a philosophical point here. I’m simply appealing to historical experience. Are the pet liberals that sometimes appear on the Fox network corrupt? Seems to me they are, at least for practical purposes even if they are never forced to say anything they don’t want to–forced, that is, in so many words. If the Templeton Foundations discovers that paying non-believers doesn’t promote belief, it will simply stop doing so.

    In the not very long run, he who pays the piper calls the tune. Now if I needed the $15,000, I might well accept it, but an honest hooker doesn’t claim that they work for love.

  14. JJ Ramsey.

    Oh good grief! See the quotation marks around ” ‘pure’ “? It’s there to denote unusual usage not high school usage. How about ‘consistent scientific viewpoint’ and ‘consistent religious viewpoint’

    Science is incompatible with religion unless one or both are distorted or corralled.

    If you are allowed to distort things to make them compatible, then any statement about their compatibility becomes trivial.

    The ‘true’ test then (and since you dislike the term I’m going to put it back in) is it a ‘pure’ compatibility – i.e. are two things compatible without any distortion or corralling?

    In the case of science and religion, the answer is no. Science and religion are compatible only in the trivial sense that (in this case) a scientist can hold both views but only by distorting one or both.

    In any meaningful sense (both held without any distortion) they are incompatible.

    • ckc (not kc) ckc (not kc)

      …saying “pure”, “true”, “without distortion”, “consistent” (with or without quotation marks and in the absence of further explication) doesn’t add an iota to any meaningful distinction between science and non-science, or their compatibility, as viewpoints. I do science – it’s not pure or true, though I do my best, but it’s science, not non-science. What a non-scientific person does or knows in their life doesn’t affect my pursuit of science (at the moment, and in my context). I’m not saying that non-science can’t conflict with science, or vice versa, but invoking purity on either side is a wasted effort. Pure science and pure non-science may be incompatible (whatever that implies), but I’m willing to leave those pursuits to purists.

    • J. J. Ramsey J. J. Ramsey

      I saw the scare quotes you put around “pure,” but they don’t really help you since it isn’t clear what you mean by them. You still write as if you have some standard of purity.

      Chris Nedin: “How about ‘consistent scientific viewpoint’ and ‘consistent religious viewpoint’”

      But science isn’t a viewpoint but a discipline practiced by people with a variety of viewpoints. And as for a consistent religious viewpoint, against what standard are you measuring consistency?

  15. Mike Mike

    Yes, religion can be untestable (what do you call religion that is testable? Either false, or scientific), but that was my point about their positivism – it, too, is untestable.

    What is the test for this claim? And the test for that claim ad infinitum? I’m not sure this is consistent with other claims you have made about what constitutes knowledge.

  16. Mike Mike

    Furthermore, the concept of “pure” religion only makes sense from the perspective of a religious insider, someone who thinks that there actually is a true form of a religion as embodied in holy books or ancient tradition or whatnot. From a non-theistic perspective, there is no such thing as a “True Christianity,” “True Islam,” and so on, so talking about “pure” religion from such a perspective is nonsense

    That is empirical nonsense. There are “insiders” who hold views like you claim and their claims can be studied by others with facts and data, whether theistic or not. There are also religious “insiders” that don’t fit your stereotypes, but if they make claims about amputees and quantum uncertainty then they are subject to the same rules.

    • J. J. Ramsey J. J. Ramsey

      I’m not sure what you are going on about. I was saying that nonbelievers have no basis to judge what the true form of a religion is, a matter that, for example, Taner Edis discussed in his article, “A False Quest for a True Islam.” Given that, it is meaningless to speak of “pure” religion.

  17. Mike Mike

    ckc,

    I do science – it’s not pure or true, though I do my best, but it’s science, not non-science.

    funny, does your utterly unjustified assertion of what you do “add an iota to any meaningful distinction between science and non-science”?

    Why do so many people who want to make profound points about metaphysics, use language like us unrepentant empiricists?

    • jeb jeb

      J.J Ramsey

      “ritual behaviours, accents, clothing, vocabulary, profession, ethnicity and the like, these are arbitrary markers.”

      You can come to considerable understanding of the form’s it takes. But the old rule of ethnology is that it dissolves but does not produce true forms.

      This is not exactly a new argument. Its been knocking around for years and is usual well understood by anyone who studies these subjects.

      You have excluded believers from you’re statement on judging true forms. They have some basis to judge true forms that non-beleivers don’t?

      • J. J. Ramsey J. J. Ramsey

        jeb: “You have excluded believers from you’re statement on judging true forms. They have some basis to judge true forms that non-beleivers don’t?”

        It’s more like the standard by which to judge “trueness” of a religion is nonsense to an outsider. For example, evangelical Christians who profess to be “Bible-believing” can and have regarded those who regard the Bible as fallible as lesser Christians, those who aren’t as true to the Christian tradition. From the perspective of a non-believer, it doesn’t make much sense to assume that the standards of an evangelical Christian should be taken as his or her own, especially if one takes the complicated history of Christian traditions into account.

  18. John,

    If my friend, perhaps from a lapse of memory, claims “The Blue Jays Won the Word Series in 2009,” I can note that this person is incorrect without incurring a responsibility to present him a ticket stub proving the Jays weren’t even in the world series. Moreover, if this person went to the world series with me, it would be ridiculous to suggest that he ought not correct himself until I re-iterate facts accessible to both of us.

    Point being, the people having the accommodationism debate are familiar with the points of incompatibility- they include literalist interpretations of biblical miracles, as well as garden variety scientific claims that happen not to be true (i.e. “the mustard seed is the smallest of all seeds”, that condoms do not protect from aids). As well as a whole cluster of religiously motivated doctrines about the nature of belief and evidence (Plantinga, and William Lane Craig and their respective critics), where even if you don’t agree with them, you are likely familiar with the arguments.

    Anyone who wasn’t familiar with these points probably wasn’t party to the accommodationism debate in the first place, so it is bizarre to suggest that these points must be articulated all over again.

    Even supposing we granted the above, Coyne has frequently and explicitly made such criticisms especially in the context of creationism. And a favorite pasttime of internet atheists everywhere is to issue ever newer debunkings of religious claims to a rabid audience, many of which are directly germane to the compatibility issue. Coyne, Blackford, Jason Rosenhouse and have frequently commented on specific claims of compatibility put forth by the likes of Armstrong and Wright. Where is the idea coming from that the they haven’t made the case for incompatibility, I’m not quite sure.

    I think what you mean is that such points aren’t raised specifically in the context of the accommodation debate. However, the larger part of the accommodation debate is really a meta-debate about how we should approach religious believers, in light of the facts. It’s about whether these facts prescribe some proper course of action and whether venturing into theology and offering to re-interpret doctrine in order to find a path from it to the acceptance of science is a legitimate extension of a dialogue about science.

    And to deal with a canard..

    In fact, the data is that science and religion coexist nearly all the time – most of those who support scientific views are religious. This is because most of everyone is religious, of course, but the fact remains: if one approaches this as a scientific matter, science and religion just are coexistent, that’s the fact of the matter.

    Coyne is not making any claim that would be contradicted by such data, as he has repeatedly emphasized (see point #1). The idea that “the data” contradicts any part of Coyne’s position on compatibility is simply a misunderstanding of what Coyne is calling incompatible.

    • John Wilkins John Wilkins

      First of all I have little confidence that scientists and other science-based critics of the philosophical arguments have a good grasp of what those arguments are. I do not think most scientists actually do have a good grasp, and Coyne, for all his undoubted virtues as an evolutionary biologist, is pretty facile in philosophical terms; begging questions and constructing strawmen all the time. If he showed that he understood what was being argued and presented a solid argument against those views I would applaud and praise. Where he does, I do (at least mentally; abject agreement makes for a bad blog).

      If science is incompatible with religion, it is a philosophical matter, not one of science, which means that at the very least, we have to have an airing of those ideas and a rational discussion. If Miller is wrong, and as it happens I tend to think his apologetics fail, but that’s just me, he is at least honest and open. I want him to make his religious claims in public, because it raises interesting questions.

      So if the argument runs:

      1. Science and religion are incompatible
      2. Religious scientists should shut up
      therefore
      3. Science and religion are incompatible

      I am entitled to point out the circularity and question begging nature of that argument. But if we want to show and not merely assert this, then the other side has to have the right to explicitly make their case.

      I do not think, contrary to some, that science exhausts the realm of knowledge, largely because I have a fairly broad and fallibilistic notion of what it is to know something – you can know that it is wrong to eat fish on a Friday, for example, or that one must not abuse children, neither of which are scientific questions. So I have no truck for those who merely assert that knowledge is all and only scientific – you have to argue for it.

      To do that is to raise questions that Coyne seems not to want raised. So my question was whether or not Coyne is being self-defeating in his assumptions (which is a philosophical question).

  19. The problem is that humans can have mutually incompatible beliefs in their own heads. Those that are not accommodationists, such as myself, point out that just because you can hold polar opposite beliefs in your head, doesn’t mean from a non-crazy-human perspective that the two beliefs are compatible.

    And while people, like you or Ken Miller, can rationalize that, somehow, someway, that science and religion are compatible, they’re not.

    What I believe I see in your logic process is the fallacy of rationalization. What I see you mistake for “compatibility” is the simple rationalization that humans are so prone to do… Like how an abused child deals with an abusive parent by adopting the classic rationalization defense of splitting the abusive parent into a “good mommy” and a “bad mommy.” (Or daddy if that’s how you rock, doesn’t matter…) The child cannot accept the fact that mom (0r dad) is some wildly inconsistent loon and splits them, psychologically, into two people…

    And, so we’re clear, I’m not suggesting these are entirely the same. What I am suggesting is that the human mind, in many ways and for many reasons, is entirely capable of holding two mutually-incompatible thoughts/positions and not seeing the obvious problem that they’re not compatible through the rationalization process.

    Now, I will spare the rest. I don’t see the point to belabor that science deals with reality and religion is nothing more than poorly written bronze age fairy stories.

  20. Im sorry I dont see “shut up” as the point the scary “New Atheists” are making. I see the these evil loud mouth devil worshipers saying that if you say Jesus did it because of a waterfall, or that Mary was a virgin raped by god and her son as killed yet brought back to life for several days in zombie-form and that jives with biology, they get to say bullshit.

    I guess philosophers/scientists are only allowed to attack each others definitions and first principles unless christianity is potentially offended.

    If you disagree with me, do I get to use the “You’re just telling me to shut up” card?

  21. llewelly llewelly

    John Wilkins:

    Ken Miller and Francis Collins believe in religion? Exclude them from science, and damn them to the outer hell of irrationality.

    Larry Moran:

    [John Pieret:]

    Hold on! Are/were Francisco Ayala and Theodosius Dobzhansky good scientists? Are they just “claiming” to be good scientists? For that matter, is Ken Miller? Are we going to have to compare credentials?

    I think they’re all good scientists. But when they pretend that they are still doing good science when they offer scientific evidence for God, that’s when they are not doing good science. I actually think that Scott Minnich is a pretty good scientist even though he believes in Intelligent Design Creationism. All of us slip up from time to time.

    In other words, when you claim Moran (or, for that matter, Meyers or Dawkins) wish to exclude religious people from science, and “damn them to the outer hell of irrationality”, you are making a strawman argument.
    PS, please fix preview.

    • John Wilkins John Wilkins

      What’s wrong with preview?

  22. bad Jim bad Jim

    It is a truth universally acknowledged that some religions promote beliefs which are controverted by some branches of science. Young earth creationism, which is a matter of faith among many evangelical Christians, contests many of the findings of biology, geology and astronomy. It’s clearly not the case that all religious beliefs are compatible with all scientific knowledge.

    It’s that simple: not all religion is compatible with all science. Anyone who accepts Gould’s NOMA has implicitly accepted the point.

    No one is contending that you can’t be a religious scientist or a chocoholic philatelist, so why should it be considered harmful to point out that stamps are nearly never made of chocolate?

    • John Wilkins John Wilkins

      I have often said that if a religion contradicts science, so much the worse for that religion. But it is assumed in this debate that the relevant aspect of religion is that which does not directly contradict science. We presume that Miller does not, for example, reject the second law. If he accepts miracles, he must see this as a suspension of the second law, not as the denial of it.

      And actually a great many people in this debate are less than careful and do deny that one can be a religious scientist, although I am quite sure that Coyne, Myers and others who are the public face do not. They are simply saying that one cannot be a consistent religious scientist, I think.

  23. It’s that simple: not all religion [e.g., YEC] is compatible with all science.

    True enough. By the same simple reasoning, though, nor is all science compatible with all science. For example, String Theory is not compatible with Quantum Loop Gravity. There is a “NOMA” within science itself.

  24. Sorry, I thought I had a chance to preview. Obviously the first sentence in my previous comment was a quote from bad Jim’s comment, directly above.

  25. RichardW RichardW

    It seems to me that it’s the compatibilists who are being philosophically naive, invoking simplistic demarcation criteria for science, such as methodological naturalism and falsifiability/testability. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I thought philosophers of science had largely abandoned such criteria.

    I think your presentation of Coyne’s arguments against compatibilism is a straw man, though I would at least agree that his arguments could benefit from greater clarity. FWIW there are professional philosophers making similar arguments more clearly. See Russell Blackford for example.

    To repeat what others have said, it seems very peculiar to describe Coyne as telling Miller to shut up. He is merely defending his right to criticise Miller against those who tell him not to do so because it hurts the cause (of defeating creationism). To say “If you continue saying those things I will continue criticising them” is not the same as saying “don’t say those things”.

    We need to make a distinction between:
    A. Your arguments are fallacious; and
    B. Don’t make those arguments, regardless of whether they’re fallacious, because doing so has harmful effects.

    Of course, the person saying A hopes he will persuade the other person of the fallacy of his arguments, so that person will stop making them. But that’s not the same as telling him to shut up.

    Finally, I do agree with your criticism of such unhelpful terms as “faithiest”, but I’d add that many on the other side are just as bad (or worse) with their use of terms like “fundamentalist atheist”.

    • John Wilkins John Wilkins

      Maybe I have set up a strawman. I am far from being concerned to do a proper analysis of Coyne as I don’t have time or interest. But I did read the comment that I quoted, that Miller should shut up about his religion, as being a requirement that – well – Miller should shut up about his religion. Is there another interpretation of that?

      I hate the term “fundamentalist atheist”. It is prejudicial, and I don’t think I have used it. To be honest, I’m not even all that happy with “new atheist”, since it doesn’t seem to be all that new to me. Pretty well every argument and trope was used by Russell and the “old” atheists a century ago.

      But it isn’t news that tribalism occurs on the opposition team – that is pretty much the definition of religion in my view. What I am trying to say in my own limited fashion is that atheists ought to hold themselves to a higher standard. If they reject religion, why behave the way religion typically and definitionally behaves?

  26. Bayesian Bouffant, FCD Bayesian Bouffant, FCD

    Back when a philosophy known now as logical positivism was fashionable, the claim was made that whatever was not scientifically verifiable was metaphysical rubbish. This was known as the Verification Principle. Karl Popper, among others, noted that the Verification Principle was not scientifically verifiable and was therefore, on its own account, metaphysical rubbish.

    OK, suppose I don’t insist in verifiability. What else do religious “ways of knowing” offer to justify their claims of knowledge? What is it that differentiates these “ways of knowing” from “ways of making shit up”?

    • John Wilkins John Wilkins

      That’s not for me to say, since I am not of that opinion – let others defend it. But I can’t rule it out as a position that deserves to at least be discussed without begging the question.

  27. Bayesian,

    “Knowing” is a very broad and imprecise term, and it does not easily reduce to the more constrained function of calculating propositional truth values. (Also: JW did not use the phrase “ways of knowing”–he wrote of “having justifiable beliefs,” which may amount to the same, but sounds a little less wishy-washy.)

    It remains to be shown that the only ways of having “justifiable beliefs” are those afforded by science. How would we defend such a position except by tautologically defining “justified” as verifiable? And what would this do to political discussion (to name the most obvious example of something we all have strong opinions about that we cannot apply the verification principle to)?

    The point is not that religious claims, in particular, deserve to be granted equal footing with scientific ones. The point is that this way of carving things up (so that only verifiable beliefs are justified) also cuts away many other things that are essential to us.

    Note that JW allows that we might oppose theistic metaphysics on philosophical grounds. But that is not what Coyne is doing. Coyne is drawing his circle much tighter, so that the only philosophical arguments that pertain are positivist ones. (At least in regard to religion he does this; I doubt he would apply the same argument to aesthetic theory).

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