December 23, 2007
Democracy and The New Atheism
Tina Beattie in openDemocracy:
The 19th-century confrontation between religion and science was largely fuelled by a power-struggle between men of science and men of God, most of them members of the Victorian ruling classes. Whereas the clergy and the Church of England had previously ruled the roost of English public life, in the mid-19th century the dynamics of power shifted, and scientists began to wrest much of the authority from their clerical counterparts in shaping intellectual enquiry and values. But just as this "war" masked a much more amicable and creative dialogue between scientists and theologians in a society which was still largely Christian in its beliefs, so today the attempt to portray the relationship between science and religion as one of irreconcilable conflict is a distortion of a more pluralist intellectual and religious environment.
Many scientists see no fundamental conflict between science and faith, and some argue that quantum physics challenges any attempt to maintain a strict distinction between scientific and philosophical or theological knowledge. Some scientists - such as the head of the human-genome project, Francis S Collins - have converted from atheism to Christianity as a result of their scientific research. Many members of the scientific community have sought to distance themselves from the self-publicising polemics of Richard Dawkins and his fellow "new atheists", for they see the fact that Dawkins in particular has become so dogmatic and ideologically driven in his militant atheism as a betrayal of the very scientific values which he claims to represent.
The attempt to stage a war between religion and science - whether fuelled by religious or scientific fundamentalists - is part of the problem and not part of the solution with regard to the times we are living in. If we seek to preserve our liberal western values, then we need to resist the spirit of aggression and confrontation which is becoming increasingly characteristic of public debate - in Britain and the United States especially - concerning the role of religion in society.
Posted by Robin Varghese at 05:40 PM | Permalink
Comments
Not to be crotchety, but as a result of just what scientific research did Collins become a Christian? Christianity posits an all-powerful, perfectly good being as the creator and orderer of the evil-afflicted world around us. That, to put it as nicely as I can, makes no sense. It's as illogical as, say, believing that something can be both one and three. One might, nonetheless, throw logic out the window if confronted by overwhelming evidence that all this illogicality existed. So where's the evidence for the all-powerful One-in-Three? Certainly not anywhere on the human genome.
Dawkins has his faults, but what exactly has he done wrong in bluntly and uncompromisingly asserting that Christian doctrine is absurd and unfounded?
Posted by: Aaron Baker | Dec 23, 2007 6:55:43 PM
The rub with religion comes not from science, but from modern secular philosophy. Science can no more attack religion than politics can hold a candle to cooking.
True, scientific understanding arms secular philosophy while simultaneously disarming religious world views, but I haven't seen an outspoken critic of religion who is also purely a scientist. Dawkins et al are much more in line with traditional philosophers (assigning value to the world, defining that value, etc) than they are scientists who trying to widen a gap between the practice and the faith.
Science is reality, faith is a suspension of reality, and philosophy is the proxy through which they define their positions based on one or the other.
That Dawkins and others maybe world class scientists is often besides the point of their arguments...
Posted by: mrgoodbar | Dec 23, 2007 7:27:51 PM
As Sam Harris has repeatedly asked, why are the adsurdities of religion alone outside the realm of criticism? If I declare myself to be a god, will you respect or disparage me?
Posted by: Scythrop | Dec 23, 2007 7:39:06 PM
Actually, Scientists are among the most atheist groups.
Collins is an exception. Yes, there are others.
I honestly think that Atheists are misunderstood. We're accused of being "dogmatic" when, in fact, our claim is more "we don't see any convincing evidence for a deity" than "we are certain a deity doesn't exist."
In short, we put the burden of proof for those who claim that there is a god, and frankly, that burden hasn't been met.
Posted by: ollie | Dec 23, 2007 8:23:07 PM
Great Post! Many try to spur a debate between two camps that share little by way of boundaries. Please note one is built upon reveal truth and the other discovered. One the natural and the other super natural.
Posted by: bee | Dec 23, 2007 8:36:35 PM
Scythrop, I would respect you.
Aaron, the very zealotry and dogmatism, closing one's mind to a point of view and claiming that its proponents need to be "eradicated" is precisely the kind of thing Dawkins does wrong. Why do his followers fail to see the hypocrisy and fallacy, there?
Mrgoodbar: "Science IS reality"? Pardon me if I say Poppycock. Science is a method of experiential description that answers a very particular set of questions with a relative amount of consistency, within a wide margin of error. It has rules of behaviour and composition, and those who adhere to it often refuse to admit any other sets of rules which may also have consistent answers to very particular sets of questions.
Science, religion, and any other HUMAN ENDEAVOUR will bear the marks of human composition and the fundamental limitations thereof. We will continually seek to describe the world as best we can, while answering very specific questions about what, where, who, how and why we are able to even ask those questions.
To claim that human science IS reality is perhaps the most arrogant and ridiculous thing I've ever heard. And if you admit that it's only a system for Describing reality, then you must admit that any particular religion is that, as well. Each hold that their description is the right one, and each has internal inconsistencies, which its adherents seek to better understand.
Everyone needs to step back, get over themselves, breathe deeply, and think, for gods' sakes.
Posted by: Damien | Dec 24, 2007 12:40:09 AM
Scythrop, I would respect you.
Aaron, the very zealotry and dogmatism, closing one's mind to a point of view and claiming that its proponents need to be "eradicated" is precisely the kind of thing Dawkins does wrong. Why do his followers fail to see the hypocrisy and fallacy, there?
Mrgoodbar: "Science IS reality"? Pardon me if I say Poppycock. Science is a method of experiential description that answers a very particular set of questions with a relative amount of consistency, within a wide margin of error. It has rules of behaviour and composition, and those who adhere to it often refuse to admit any other sets of rules which may also have consistent answers to very particular sets of questions.
Science, religion, and any other HUMAN ENDEAVOUR will bear the marks of human composition and the fundamental limitations thereof. We will continually seek to describe the world as best we can, while answering very specific questions about what, where, who, how and why we are able to even ask those questions.
To claim that human science IS reality is perhaps the most arrogant and ridiculous thing I've ever heard. And if you admit that it's only a system for Describing reality, then you must admit that any particular religion is that, as well. Each hold that their description is the right one, and each has internal inconsistencies, which its adherents seek to better understand.
Everyone needs to step back, get over themselves, breathe deeply, and think, for gods' sakes.
Posted by: Damien | Dec 24, 2007 12:40:44 AM
Daniel Dennett in “Breaking the Spell”: “Science is not supposed to have all the moral answers and shouldn’t be advertised as providing them. We may appeal to science to clarify or confirm factual presuppositions of our moral discussions, but it doesn’t provide or establish the values that our ethical judgments and arguments are based on. We who put our faith in science should be no more reluctant to acknowledge this than those who put their faith in one religion or another….We cannot expect…to persuade others if we leave no room and opportunity for them to persuade us.”
Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza in “Genes, Peoples, and Languages”: “[S]cience progresses because every hypothesis can be confirmed or rejected by others. The great number of conditionals we use in our scientific prose underscore this truth…. This seems strange to the public: isn’t science infallible? In the end, only religion claims to deliver certainty. In other words, faith alone is immune from doubt.…”
Aaron Baker (1st comment on this thread): “Dawkins has his faults, but what exactly has he done wrong in bluntly and uncompromisingly asserting that Christian doctrine is absurd and unfounded?”
Treating your word “wrong” in practical terms, because I’m not going to make any moral judgments: Whether Dawkins has done anything “wrong” in behaving in this fashion depends on what his goals are. If his goals are to keep on reassuring himself of his own superiority by endlessly insisting on how stupid and deluded other people are, in the process increasing conflict and ill-feeling in the world, pushing a wedge between groups of people (as if we need more of that), and making the change he says he wishes for ever less likely every time he opens his mouth, then I guess he hasn’t done anything “wrong.”
If he had brought scientific methods of inquiry and openness to phenomena to bear on the question of how to bring about change in the world, I don’t think he would have ended up finding that his current methods are the way to go about it, to say the least. But I don’t think he’s really interested in bringing about any change except in the cast of characters who get to dictate to the rest of us about what to believe -- which isn’t a change worth the bother, in my opinion.
On the other hand, maybe Elatia Harris was right when in another thread she said that Dawkins’s marketing of himself is calcualted and brilliant. I keep wondering whether Dennett (see above) and Dawkins are playing good cop / bad cop on purpose.
Posted by: JanieM | Dec 24, 2007 10:24:03 AM
It was so much simpler when the world was flat and the center of the universe.
Posted by: eric | Dec 24, 2007 10:34:38 AM
When I read THE GOD DELUSION, I didn't see any call by Dawkins for the "eradication" of religion's proponents. Clearly, he would like religion to disappear, which is a different matter.
We can of course debate endlessly about whether religion has contributed more good or evil to the world; but Dawkins makes a fair case for the latter, which I think needs to be addressed. (I'm perfectly happy to grant that religion has inspired some of the most sublime art that human beings have ever produced, and it may well be that atheism will never afford comparable inspiration; but the costs of religious fanaticism have been such that perhaps the disappearance of religion would be worth a few less Mozarts and Michaelangelos.)
As to JanieM's assertion that Dawkins is just indulging his egotism: this sort of charge is always made against those who venture to call a spade a spade. A blunt statement of the absurdity of religious dogma might well convince many who are wavering. And such bluntness is, I think, particularly needed in a country like the United States, where deference to religion goes to appalling and sometimes dangerous lengths. There's an outside chance a dyed-in-the-wool Christian fundamentalist may win the Republican nomination for president. Such is the influence of a group that should be entirely marginalized in any enlightened society.
Posted by: Aaron Baker | Dec 24, 2007 11:40:16 AM
The fact that "this sort of charge is always made against those who venture to call a spade a spade" (even if true) doesn't make the charge unfounded.
Posted by: JanieM | Dec 24, 2007 11:58:21 AM
great post damien!!
my favorite quote about science, science doesn't tell us about the universe, science tells us about what the mind can know about the universe
i lost the source, but love the concept
Posted by: gregory | Dec 24, 2007 12:06:21 PM
E.O. Wilson's solution grows more and more the better path.
Posted by: beajerry | Dec 24, 2007 1:14:48 PM
Look at this bizarre interview...an excellent example of how far we bend over backwards to accommodate religion. By any standard, religious or secular, this most recent book of his is unadulterated garbage, demonstrative only of the fact that scientists can talk nonsense with the best of them. Would anyone bother making respectful noises about it if Collins didn't make nice noises about faith?
Posted by: D | Dec 24, 2007 2:46:05 PM
I'm not the one who woke up this morning believing in a psychopathic space daddy, I have not added or subtracted from raw experience. It is up to our Superstition Based Friends to come up with a explanation. : Extraordinary claims need extraordinary evidence in my world.
Of course we can always rely on the Talking Snake.
Childish creation myths from primitive people are hilarious compared to the awe and wonder of evolutionary biology.
Posted by: Dave Ranning | Dec 24, 2007 6:25:03 PM
"It was so much simpler when the world was flat and the center of the universe"--
Yes Eric, now we are getting to the crux of the matter. Religion does give a simple narrative to assure the frightened and ignorant that there is a solid self and soul that has contuance, and must not confront the fragile and arising and passing nature of existence.
But as the Buddhist point out, aversion to change causes suffering.
Bronze and Iron Age Fiction comforts the frightened better than science and it's position of equanimity with reality.
Posted by: Dave Ranning | Dec 24, 2007 10:31:16 PM
"The attempt to stage a war between religion and science - whether fuelled by religious or scientific fundamentalists - is part of the problem and not part of the solution with regard to the times we are living in. If we seek to preserve our liberal western values, then we need to resist the spirit of aggression and confrontation which is becoming increasingly characteristic of public debate - in Britain and the United States especially - concerning the role of religion in society."
This is a spineless response that has not succeeded. The real problem in the United States is a political one. It is a lack of confrontation and a lack of calling bullshit that has in part allowed the religious right to become as powerful as it has. Dawkins et al have made it possible to have an honest discussion about religion in this country for the first time in decades. Of course this is a good thing.
Posted by: Chris | Dec 26, 2007 2:21:09 PM
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