If only he had used his science for niceness, instead of evil 11 Sep 2010 In the Great Tone Debate, it seems to me that we have been overlooking some of the crucial elements of mixed strategies. Something that works in one case may not work in another, and so general arguments that one should be nice or dickish all the time are going to fail no matter what. There’s a further issue known in the science communication literature as the deficit model; many scientists seem to think that just asserting or communicating the results of science will fix the problem, because many ordinary folk only lack the knowledge or information (hence, the deficit). It is widely agreed that this does not work, although more sophisticated approaches indicate that a knowledge of what the science actually says does correlate with people’s acceptance of it. I think that the tone debate is confused because what works well in one case (when, for example, you have a group of intelligent and honest students who had the bad fortune to be raised by creationists) will often not work well in another (when you have a school board that is trying to get rid of that humanist secularist communistic evilution). Those who engage in debate (or shouting) in the latter context and similar ones will find those who engage in the former to be pussies (a lovely term that I have had applied to me frequently), while those who spend more time in the former and similar contexts find the dickitude of the latter cohort jarring. I don’t think in this domain, though, that calls for niceness, instead of evil, are necessarily attempts to disenfranchise the oppressed, or whatever is the cause of the day. It can be, but often enough it’s a call for manners. I guess it depends on what you think of manners. Education General Science Pop culture culture
General Science The difference between astrology and astronomy 20 Aug 2009 … about 50 IQ points: [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b4F5z8cVux0&hl=en&fs=1&] Read More
General Science Lectures. Huh. What are they good for? 19 Feb 2008 As I prepare my lectures for this semester (Australian universities start the academic year in late February, early March, apart from those poor sods who have summer semesters) I am moved by Moselio Schaechter’s little essay In Defense of the Lecture to ponder what propaedeutic use lectures are. Or, in… Read More
Education How scientists think, a book proposal 17 Sep 2010 I’m too busy at the moment to blog, write, think or maintain my personal hygiene, so I thought I’d add content by getting my readers to provide it for me. So I’m going to propose a little project. First, a bit of background. I often try to explain to students… Read More
I’ll go with Vonnegut: Hello, babies. Welcome to Earth. It’s hot in the summer and cold in the winter. It’s round and wet and crowded. At the outside, babies, you’ve got about a hundred years here. There’s only one rule that I know of, babies — “God damn it, you’ve got to be kind.” It’s not as polite or as comprehensive as the golden or the silver rule, and it’s as impossible to live by as either of those, but it’s hard to fault it.
Well said silverback. What annoys me in the whole dontbeadick debate is how one sided it seems to be. I do not hear Myers, Dawkins, Benson, Coyne, etc condemning Miller, Scott, or others for not being dickish (although the dicks may attack their positions). No, it always seems to be the “good” side getting their undies wedged up their ass about tone. This is also the side that seems to think the “dicks” are monotonous robots. Myers does not teach (from what I have heard) like he blogs, Myers definitely doesnt debate or present seminars like he blogs. I personally find it difficult seeing Dawkins included in the dick list. Dawkins seems to be a dick in the same way Kepler and Galileo were dicks, he says things that people with certain view points do not like to hear. I find the “debate” akin to many dealings I had with a high school girlfriend. Whenever there was a disagreement, we would not focus on what we said, but how we said it. One the plus side, we never had to deal with the substance of our disagreements, one the negative side, we broke up after a short time.
Lorax, have you read Dawkins recently? Check out the beginning of Chapter 2 of the God Delusion. It’s highly dickish. And even if we with what he says we can disagree with how he says it b/c it’s going to make zero converts and just further polarize the debate. As for Myers, I’ve only seen him speak once and I think he definitely qualifies as a dick in his approach – again, preaching to the choir and making zero converts.
I like for example P.Z when he attacks individual clear cut acts of lunacy with his brand of satire. It is a very effective contemporary political tool. Its not the sharp and assertive nature of the debate, it is the way in which contemporary politics and emotion seems to colour research, which in turn leads to such assertive claims that I find concerning. To much emotion and fire.
When you say PZ is effective could you explain how you know this? I keep waiting for these hard nosed hard core science advocates to show scientifically that there way is better. Certainly the question of whether method A or B or C is persuasive can be determined objectively. Yet when it comes to asserting what they want to do science goes out the window. So, please, if you can show me actual evidence that PZ is effective do so.
Sorry if its unclear. Satire is a very effective contemporary political tool. P.Z has considerable potential he is a very talented writer. It was not a statement with regard to P.Z’s impact or effect on debate, which i think is somewhat counter-productive.
I would also like to see evidence that he is “not helping” as is more often claimed. I have some anecdotal evidence that he has had a positive effect on a few people. How would you set up a study to find out what works and what doesn’t? What would be the controls, the methods and the tests used to determine that either PZ hurts or helps “the cause.” Of course, we would need to start with a workable definition of “the cause” because acceptance of science is rather hard to measure.
Evidence is impossible to find that is not anecdotal. But there are studies about the effectiveness of various strategies (one of which I linked to above), and insofar as PZ falls into one or the other of the classes of strategy and context in those studies, conclusions may be drawn. To find out what influence a single blog or individual may have would be, I think, nigh on impossible. So perhaps you are asking too much.
There’s a discussion of several studies over at the Tribal Scientist blog, in the post “A Ridiculous Essay on Rational Outreach”. The general gist is that ridicule can be a great method to enforce in-group norms, but to outsiders, use of ridicule tends to make one appear less credible, even to outsiders who are not the target of the ridicule.
I can’t respond to others, so I will respond to all here. As John and J.J. say, you look at how an approach works rather than how a single individual does. The issue here is not PZ himself, but between different approaches to the problem. John, I can’t be asking too much, I did not claim that PZ was effective or ineffective. sbej said he was effective, I asked for support for that claim. Showing me that ridicule or rudeness or such offensive behavior was an effective method of teaching or persuasion would do it. I agree that PZ is good at ridicule and good at being rude, I just don’t see how that can help. What is more, I see no effort by PZ to judge his own behavior by actual effect. I see nothing that says that he has used the tools of science to modify his approach. No effort to see what approaches work, not attempt to see if he has convinced anyone.
I’m sorry, Matt; I meant to say that one cannot assess individual influence (not you in particular; sbej’s claim and others like it). I do agree that PZ and those who take a “be a dick” stance do not have evidence or attempt to find evidence (so far as I have seen; it’s regarded as “framing” and hence unworthy of a rational soul); this is probably for that reason. A reasonable person modifies their behaviour in the light of evidence and experience, and every scientist repeats the refrain “anecdote is not data”. So attention to the actual literature (like the one I linked to that gives an entré into the literature and research) would be a reasonable demand. Instead. we get moral outrage from both sides (and I have been as guilty of that as anyone, despite my repeated claim to be a moral blackhole).
I think what bugs me is a lack of proportionality about the application of dickishness. Nazis, child abusers, 9/11 bombers, the people who stone adulters, etc. — sure, they deserve the dick treatment. Fundamentalists, creationists, and IDists? A whole different category than murderers, but they are sufficiently absurd and out-of-touch with actual science that they deserve some snark sometimes. But Francis Collins and Simon Conway Morris? Chris Mooney? Michael Ruse? You can disagree with these sorts of folks, fine, but they aren’t villians, or retards, or whatever. And treating all religion / all religious people as if it’s on the same level as fundamentalists and 9/11 terrorists is just histrionic and scapegoating. It’s not fair or scholarly or accurate. Oh, and politically not helpful, probably (although it is likely that what happens in AtheistBlogWorld has viritually no practical impact on what happens in ActualProfessionalScienceAndPoliticsWorld).
Dickishness, or even sarcasm, isn’t very effective when used like a shotgun. Inevitably, you’re going to hit someone who just isn’t deserving of that treatment, and reasonable people then start questioning what’s going on. Interestingly, I wonder if that starts a selection process: the more you’re a d…, the more you attrack people who want you to be a d…
And, you bring up another good point. The whole tone debate is really a sideshow: the bigger question is whether, when advocating exclusivist atheism, they make claims about science and or religion that hurts science advocacy? A moot argument IMO, because I think exclusivist atheists are going to advocate for what they believe in whatever way they want to do it regardless.
Francis Collins and Simon Conway Morris? They deserve some of the strongest opprobrium of all. They are explicitly smuggling in unscientific claims into the scientitific discourse and have the gall to suggest that their “reasonable and moderate” religious positions are somehow acceptable because they happen to appeal reasonable and moderate to a majority religious culture. Their respective positions are no more and no less reasonable than fairies or crystal skulls or the Catholic church’s attachment to geocentrism. It is the irrationality and anti-scientific bent of their ideas that is offensive, not their apparent moderation or its absence. As for Mooney, contra what John is prescribing here, he is an advocate for the always “nice” strategy. (Or perhaps one could say the always coddling or always unoffensive strategy.) And he cares so much about that strategy, he is willing to stop only one step away from lying to promote it. (Recall Tim Johnson. When a journalist actively pursues stories that support perspectives that they hold dear and actively rejects those that support perspectives that they despise, this is one step away from lying.) And come now. Talk about false dichotomies. Nazis, murderers, and 9/11 terrorists vs. Morris and Collins? This is so risible as to not even deserve being addressed. Suffice it to say that if you believe that “being a dick” is simulataneously more appropriate for such murders AND impotent, then you aren’t a strong advocate for effective action. This is also skating some sort of corollary to Godwin’s law. (The logic implicit in Nick’s argument being that if dickishness is approriate against Nazis, then applying the same method to kindly, avuncular, guitar playing Collins is SO extreme that it doesn’t deserve consideration.) And finally, I keep getting back to the following question. What are the concrete examples of “being a dick”? Links please. Then we can talk about who is and isn’t being dick in the grand sweep of discourse. I’d like to see some examples of dickish behavior both in and ot of the religous sphere of discourse and I’d also like to those who complain about being dickish in those two domains, mainly because I suspect that complaining is much more common when a taboo is being violated. Given that the affirmative case appears to be those who say “Being a dick is both common and counterproductive” you’ll forgive me if I await the evidence before I start my rebuttal. But not to be completely silent, I offer the following: I hypothesize that the only thing that makes strident dissent against religion “dickish” and strident dissent against one’s political enemies not is the special place of relion in society. In other words, it is the collective wincing of people who are inculcated into not challenging cultural taboos. I short, I believe that the objections to “dickish” behavior is rooted less in effectiveness or ineffectiveness of strategy than a culturally conditioned aversion of violating taboos. Of course, it could be both, as they aren’t mutually exclusive. But unless I miss my guess, there is a whole lot more dissent against dickish behavior in relation to religion than in relation to almost any other topic.
John’s 9/12 linkfest points to an interesting Guardian article where someone gives an example of “dickish” behavior – their own. It’s an interesting read, notably because if the charge hadn’t come from a valued friend the author probably wouldn’t have recognized that they were being a “dick.” And I think that’s where the evidence is going to have to come from – self admission. Anything pointed out by a political foe – even if it’s obvious – isn’t going to be acknowledged for reasons having nothing to do with whether it’s true or not. Aside from that your post, for me, pretty much proves Nick’s point.
“Francis Collins and Simon Conway Morris? They deserve some of the strongest opprobrium of all. They are explicitly smuggling in unscientific claims into the scientitific discourse” And your evidence for this is what? A complaint like that has been made before about Collins, but it hasn’t withstood scrutiny.
@ TB You don’t even address my main points: 1) even among “moderate” religious scientists, non-scientific thinking is regularly smuggled into science; 2) religious critics are far more often accused of being dickish than are critics of other topics, and I suspect that this is a largely unrecognized conditioned response to a taboo topic. And your train of logic was sufficiently sparse, that I have no idea the antecedants or objects of the following sentence: “Aside from that your post, for me, pretty much proves Nick’s point.” The rest of your post provided insufficient context for me to digest that.
@ J. J. Ramsey I assert that Collins repeatedly bills himself as a scientist that presents evidence for god from a scientific perspective. First question: in your experience, can you name any claim of evidence for god that conforms to the norms of what we call science? Second question: do you deny that Collins makes such claims? What follows is what I’ve gleaned of Collins’ beliefs: He believes in what he calls “pointers to god” from nature (not that these are proofs, by golly, just “pointers”): – there is something instead of nothing (there’s no reason that should be); – unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics (that suggests that the universe was put together by a mathematical mind, otherwise why would mathematics be so much in the fabric of the way energy and matter behave?); – the big bang implies that the universe had a beginning, and since we haven’t observed nature creating itself that implies that something outside of nature would have had to do that creating, something that doesn’t require a creator itself, therefore the creator would have to be SUPER natural, and that sounds like god; – the fine tuning of the universe has precise values that promotes complexity; – moral law points to god (radical altruism cannot be explained by evolution; presumably god is sufficient). Oh, and if any of those points were disproven, his faith wouldn’t be shaken of course, pointers or no. So, they aren’t proofs, they are merely suggestions, and this isn’t really “evidence” for god per se, even though he bills himself as a scientist presenting evidence for god. Or something. And when it is asked what is the relationship between Collins’ faith and science is, he says: “Almighty God, who is not limited in space or time, created a universe 13.7 billion years ago with its parameters precisely tuned to allow the development of complexity over long periods of time. God’s plan included the mechanism of evolution to create the marvelous diversity of living things on our planet. Most especially, that creative plan included human beings. After evolution had prepared a sufficiently advanced ‘house’ (the human brain), God gifted humanity with the knowledge of good and evil (the Moral Law), with free will, and with an immortal soul. We humans used our free will to break the Moral Law, leading to our estrangement from God [That’s what the story of Adam and Eve is all about.]. For Christians, Jesus is the solution to that estrangement.” Then he goes on to caricature an atheist perspective: “If the Moral Law [as evolutionists…who are atheists would argue] is just a side effect of evolution [then where that take us?], then there is no such thing as good or evil. It’s all an illusion. We’ve been hoodwinked.” He also says “DNA is god’s language, and that provides us as scientists with an opportunity when we make a discovery about genetics to be getting a little glimpse of god’s mind. For me as a scientist, this makes the process of discovery infinitely more exciting than it would be if I was an atheist.” So, Collins doesn’t mix science and faith, and certainly if he does, the former isn’t poisoned by the latter. Whatever.
JJE: “You don’t even address my main points” Seriously? I hesitate to extend the conversation since it seems pointless to debate you and I don’t know that our host wants that here. But I suppose he’ll cut us off in that case. As for 1), you fail to give us any kind of study that shows the regularity of religious ideas being smuggled into peer-reviewed scientific papers. So there’s nothing to address there. Unless you’re saying that religious scientists shouldn’t express their personal opinions about philosophy unless you happen to agree with that philosophy? Because I know of a few atheist scientists who express their point if view all the time (which is perfectly fine) and you don’t seem to be including them in your criticism. 2) is just an observation that, yes, different camps of atheists are debating about how to proceed (with some of us agnostics weighing in at times). Whether other classes of the population are or are not having this debate doesn’t seem relevant. If it’s important to them, they will. So upon examining your arguments I made the personal judgement that you seem to reflect the type of behavior Nick was talking about. And that’s where we are. Digestable yet?
> you fail to give us any kind of study that shows the regularity of religious ideas being smuggled into peer-reviewed scientific papers. That’s easy. I don’t believe it is. Nor did I claim it was. It is done in the same way that the “dickishness” is applied. Through popular books and media. E.g., the books by Gibberson, Miller, Collins, and Conway Morris. e.g. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DjJAWuzno9Y I think we’re talking past each other if you think I’m talking about religion in the peer-reviewed literature. I said “scientific discourse” instead of “peer reviewed literature” for a reason. > o upon examining your arguments I made the personal judgement that you seem to reflect the type of behavior Nick was talking about. And that’s where we are. Which type of behavior? He was talking about “dickish” behavior being appropriate towards Nazis et al. but not towards Collins. So, are you implying that my online comments in my first post in this thread qualify as “dickish”? Am I treating moderate religous people as “retards”? Am I treating them the same as fundamentalists? I think not. And if not, I’ve exhausted the entirety of Nick’s response and still can’t find a correspondence between your comment and his post. In what way do I validate Nick’s post? That I dare disagree ina public forum? That I violate the taboo of criticizing religion, even moderate religion, with the same aplomb that I’d criticize any other topic? Are my comments the sought-after examples of being “dickish”?
@TB So you really thought that I had in mind an issue of Nature where Collins had inserted god into the supplementary material, right between library construction and DNA extraction or something? For reals? Weird.
You’re point is obviously ineffable. No wonder it can’t be expressed in words or understood by mere mortals like me.
I take it back. “Science friendly” Christian scientists ARE trying to smuggle their theology into science: http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0012481
J.J.E.: “Science friendly” Christian scientists ARE trying to smuggle their theology into science: http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0012481 Right, because attempting to find a natural explanation for a purported miracle (in this case, the parting of the Red Sea) is really something that would help religion.
… knowledge of what the science actually says does correlate with people’s acceptance of it. Correlation, of course, does not imply causation, but it is always tempting to try a simple causal model. Two models suggest themselves: acceptance leads to knowledge or knowledge leads to acceptance. Well, by introspection, I certainly know which model works best to explain me. Readers may wish to perform this introspection on themselves before proceeding. As a second thought experiment, you may wish to speculate as to whether a positive correlation also exists in the following case, and which causal model best explains the correlation. … knowledge of what a religion actually says does correlate with people’s acceptance of it. Since this is a philosophy website, I am going to follow best philosophical practice and assume that not only are everyone else’s intuitions the same as my own, but also that they are correct. So, we confidently conclude that acceptance of a body of knowledge leads to educating oneself as to the content of that body of knowlege. That rejection of a body of knowledge leads to ignorance of the content. And that homeopathic medicine may be a counterexample to this whole train of thought. At least I would hope so.
I see you have understood and internalised the Philosophical Method. Well, the Cambridge version of it, anyway… I think that there may be a third, common, cause. Cognitive abilities. Those who do not accept science may prefer to reduce their cognitive load by accepting authoritative sources from their “safe” community, and so they fail to acquire scientific knowledge. Those who are capable of expending cognitive resources to acquire knowledge do not need to find authoritative sources (at least in that field) and so they become informed. So the deficit model may fail because it posits a direct causal relationship between knowledge and acceptance, when it may be that the two are due to another causal factor.
Dawkins seems to be a dick in the same way Kepler and Galileo were dicks, he says things that people with certain view points do not like to hear. Galileo really was a dick!
Newton even moreso… Wouldn’t argue with that. I’m on record as stating that Newton was an arsehole. You can also add Robert Hooke to the list.
Religious people tend to react to any criticism of faith as impermissible disrespect, almost an existential threat, which leads them to demonize mild-mannered Oxford dons. In some cases the message alone is the offense, not its manner of delivery, and there isn’t very much us affirmative atheists can do about it. As advocates of science we’re well advised to skirt what issues we can, but, when the issues involve the age of the universe and the common origins of life, for some audiences we might as well be advocating infant sacrifice, however polite and respectful we may be. They know their doctrines quite well, but we’re telling them their religion is wrong, which as a matter of fact it is, so they need to change their minds, or at least let their children learn the best we have to offer. Whether we’re peddling vaccination, evolution or climate change, people are going to object that we aren’t respecting their right to believe whatever they want. They’re right. We don’t, and we can’t. We’ve got to be kind, but we’ve also got be tough.
Religious people tend to react to any criticism of faith as impermissible disrespect, almost an existential threat, which leads them to demonize mild-mannered Oxford dons. In some cases the message alone is the offense, not its manner of delivery, and there isn’t very much us affirmative atheists can do about it. …like a Catholic friend of mine who is offended by the title of The God Delusion — apparently, it’s so off-putting to be told you’re delusional or deluded (especially if you’re not sure which). Good grief: it’s a properly provocative title for a work of controversy, and anyone who balks at the front cover has signaled they are not interested in being taken seriously. Dickishness there may well be, but that ain’t it.
Yeah, like when people are offended by books like “Atheist Amorality”, or “The New Atheist Brain Fail”. I remember when people for some reason objected to “All Atheists Are Deluded or Immoral” even though it was quite reasonably suggesting that Atheists are either immoral as atheism doesn’t allow morality, or deluded because they believe it does. What’s dickish about that? “Religious people tend to react to any criticism of faith as impermissible disrespect, almost an existential threat, which leads them to demonize mild-mannered Oxford dons. In some cases the message alone is the offense, not its manner of delivery, and there isn’t very much us affirmative atheists can do about it.” Yes, there is a huge amount you can do, and no ‘religious people’ don’t tend to do anything as a monolithic group. Some religious people will be offended by any criticism, others will only be offended when the manner of it’s delivery is childish, vituperative, stupid or aggressive. So the thing you can do is present your message in a way that will not offend those who expect intellect, analysis and argument rather than insults and personal attacks, and then the people who are merely offended by the message can go hang. And they will know that despite their attempt to prevent the debate continuing because they find it offensive, the atheist and the reasonable theist have avoided that pitfall and continued without them. When oversensitive theists complain about the ‘offense’ they feel at any criticism, no matter how polite to try to shut down the conversation, and then atheists respond by ramping up rhetoric to levels that offend even those theists who are willing to be criticised, then the oversensitive theists win because that conversation has been shut down. This is a comment in general and not referring to anything or anyone here.
It’s the Godless Delusion – nothing can be considered valid unless it’s accompanied by empirical evidence.
I think it’s more that those of us who do not accept that there are good reasons for believing in Gods, consider that if we don’t know something, it’s sensible not to assert that we do.
Sure, but i’m not refering to a belief in god. I’m thinking about that Guardian article you linked to where someone specifically related their experience being a d…
I guess that atheism, as a simple term, just denotes absence of belief in god and, by extension, the supernatural. That doesn’t exactly make any moral claim. Atheists could do immoral acts (and they do do* them, just like non-atheists do). But for most atheists (as well as most theists, I’m guessing) their stance to the supernatural is coupled to something like humanism, which does have moral import, like following the golden rule. It’s just that many affirmative atheists have incorporated their moral stance into their atheism. I suppose that naturalism does compel one towards taking one’s fellow beings, including humans, as equals in the world, and rate their concerns as deserving of the same consideration as one’s own. Voilà some extended version of the golden rule. *[Bwahhh. My English is gross today!]
Does anyone have any evidence that it is actually possible to *change* a person’s mind? I vaguely remember that once a putative fact has become part of the ego – as opposted to “Paris is the captial of France” – is is basically impossible to change the person’s mind about it. Sure, I can see that it is possible to teach someone “the truth”, but only extreme cognitive dissonance – violent juxtaposition of observation and posited explanation, with the latter failing at every turn – will cause someone to question their ego-supporting truths. This is a personal journey: not one that the media and PR machines can influence overmuch. The bottom line is that there are relatively few people who are true ‘seekers’ for the truth. Most are happy with their little plot of misery and never seek to evolve or move out of it. It is up to those of us who do seek the actual truth to simply ensure that other seekers like us can find their way. We started with libraries, then the printing press, now we have the internet. Ultimately, if we are closer to the truth than the God-botherers and can form our own communities, then they can do the best with their beliefs; these won’t save them when the ships leave. LOL PS; to Ben B: look up secular humanism; it pops up in all kinds of philosophies, I think including Confusianism. Possibly a common theme to successful religions, ironically enough.
Yep, I think it’s an infusion of reality into many religious traditions. Of course other, less reality-based tenets then serve to define in-groups to which this moral is applied, and out-groups which it is denied (in some cases).