On the wicked ‘new atheists’
I half-promised to stop disputing the claims of Chris Mooney yesterday, but then Jerry Coyne sent me the SEED summary of Mooney’s and Kirshenbaum’s new book, and I realized I had been premature.
Following up on his The Republican War on Science. science journalist Chris Mooney joins Sheril Kirshenbaum in explaining the disconnect between scientists and the public. This time the onus is on not just on obfuscating and interfering conservatives, but largely on scientists themselves. By talking down to the misinformed – and outright insulting the religious – scientists, they argue, do more harm than good in their quest to enshrine reason in American politics and culture. While the authors’ call for more friendly and magnanimous champions of science is far from a radical conclusion, it duly highlights the Sagan-and Gould-shaped holes we have in our current scientific discourse.
Oh, thought I, I’ll have to look into that. So I did. I read chapter 8, which is titled ‘Bruising Their Religion.’ It starts with two pages scolding PZ Myers for the eucharist incident, mentioning the death threats against Webster Cook (the student who removed a communion wafer) but not mentioning the campaign to get Cook expelled. It says it’s a good thing that Myers wasn’t fired or disciplined, but…
Nevertheless, Myers’s actions were incredibly destructive and unnecessary. He’s a very public figure. His blog often draws over 2 million page views per month. It was dubbed the top science blog by Nature magazine in 2006…Yet Myers’s assault on religious symbols considered sacred by a great many Americans and people around the world does nothing to promote scientific literacy; rather, it sets the cause backward [sic] by exacerbating tensions between the scientific community and many American Christians. [Unscientific America p. 96]
After some more scolding in this vein, we get to the nub of the matter.
Myers is certainly not alone. In recent years a large number of ‘New Atheist’ voices have arisen…The writers Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, and Daniel Dennett are generally considered the ‘big four’ (or if you prefer, the ‘four horsemen’) of new atheism. [p 97]
Note, before we go further, the silly vulgarity of all that. There are scare quotes on the first mention of ‘new atheism,’ but that is the only distancing there is; after that the term is simply taken for granted without ever being explained or itemized or pinned down in any way. But it’s a stupid term. We all know that. There is no such thing – it’s just that some existing atheists have written some books which did well, and they and other existing atheists have done other writing and speaking, and atheism has belatedly managed to get a little more public attention than it was able to get ten years ago. That’s all. That’s not such a coherent or organized or sinister phenomenon that it deserves its very own label, but CM and SK give it one anyway, and treat it as established and self-evident. The nonsense about the ‘big four’ or (why would we prefer?) the ‘four horsemen’ is just dopy journalistic jargon; it should be beneath them.
They’re hardly a monolithic group…But the broad tenor of the movement they’ve impelled is clear: It is confrontational. It believes religious faith should not be benignly tolerated but, rather, should be countered, exposed, and intellectually devastated.
The most outspoken New Atheists [sic] publicly eviscerate believers…If the goal is to create an America more friendly toward science and reason, the combativeness of the New Atheism is strongly counterproductive. [p 97]
And so on and so on, for another eleven pages.
America is a very religious nation, and if forced to choose between faith and science, vast numbers of Americans will select the former. The New Atheists err in insisting that such a choice needs to be made. Atheism is not the logically inevitable outcome of scientific reasoning…A great many scientists believe in God with no sense of internal contradiction…[pp 97-98]
Yes of course, but the issue is whether there is in fact a contradiction, not whether or not people have an internal sense of such a contradiction. The chapter never comes to grips with that distinction but instead relies on pointing out the brute fact that many people have combined science and religion in their own heads. The fact that this is fundamentally beside the point never gets a look in.
That’s about halfway; I’ll let you digest that and me take a breather, before I continue.
Thanks for this commentary – do they cite any evidence to back their claims? Are people really less friendly to science now than before Dawkins, Dennett, Hitchins and Harris wrote their books? I want to see numbers.
No. There are stats about percentages – how many creationists, etc – but as for evidence to back their claims that The New Atheists are a major cause of this, no.
There is historical stuff, with citations (that’s the next installment), but it doesn’t show what they seem to think it shows.
Even if it did have stats that showed people were more comfortable with Mooney’s unchallenging version of “science”, it would just mean that people are happy to swallow an obliging lie. I would argue, though, that those people wouldn’t actually understand science.
I’ve appreciated your clear, unrelenting honesty on this topic, Ophelia, and I posted this over at Coyne’s site:
I think the emperor’s clothes makes an apt analogy in this case. Which teacher communicates the science of the situation the best?– the one who declares the emperor naked or the one making semantic arguments about imaginary fabrics and invoking some mystical “other ways of knowing” while deriding those who speak the blunt truth?
Mooney is in the latter category. He enables delusional thinking while deriding those who’d cut it off at the quick. He wants to imagine himself the “good guy” as he muddies scientific thinking further and denigrates those more honest then himself. He is confirming his own delusions of grandeur as he makes apologetic noises about the delusions of others, and I am not fooled. His methods are more responsible for “unscientific America” than the undiluted honesty (and pointed irreverent humor) of those whom he imagines himself superior to.
Where is the evidence that your method works, Chris (Mooney)? Do you have any evidence to go with your spin? I think the “new atheists” have educated far more people in regards to the benefits of rational thought than you and your accomodationist pals have. In any case, there is certainly room for many methods, and you’ve failed to make a case that your “respect faith” methods are superior in any way. To me, you sound almost as muddle-mouthed as religious apologists–so many words, and so little said.
(Normally, I like Chris Mooney, but his self-serving “be-more-like-me” involvement in this debate lessens my opinion considerably. I choose my own role models, and I much prefer the candor of people like you as well as those Chris blames for “unscientific America”.)
“There are scare quotes on the first mention of ‘new atheism,’ but that is the only distancing there is; But it’s a stupid term.”
Harris, Hitchens, and the rest sure showed a lot of gall by not publishing their books 500 years ago.
I think Mooney ought to consider Austin Dacey’s hypothesis for what he calls “The Dawkins Effect”: The presence of messages of science-religion conflict make messages of science-religion harmony better known and more palatable to religious believers.
This has also been referred to as “shifting the Overton Window.” Intelligent Design proponents understood the public’s tendency to assume that truth is going to be “somewhere in the middle,” so they strategically tried to position themselves as the moderate stance between the two extremes of Young Earth Creationism on one side and all of evolution on the other (which side includes theistic evolution.) Not too much God, not too little God: just enough God to satisfy an easily pacified religious.
Unfortunately, they’ve been stymied by the presence of outspoken atheists who make up a new “extreme,” allowing the theistic evolutionists to jump onto the coveted Golden Middle Ground. Not too much, not too little. God’s in His just-right place, and all’s right with the world. The religious can relax.
Of course, all this political jockeying ignores the small matter of truth, but what the hey.
Giant wrestling match over the Overton window! This way! No, this way, god damn it!
Second installment about to be posted.
“it’s just that some existing atheists have written some books which did well, and they and other existing atheists have done other writing and speaking, and atheism has belatedly managed to get a little more public attention than it was able to get ten years ago. That’s all. That’s not such a coherent or organized or sinister phenomenon that it deserves its very own label”
Ha. Tell that to Anthony McCarthy. He thinks every single new atheist spends his and her time studying memetics and equates epigenetics to Lamarckian inheritance. Of course, he’s a kook…so there’s that.
> the ‘four horsemen’ is just dopy journalistic jargon; it should be beneath them.
Erm. Hate to break this to you, but the term was coined by Dawkins. And he’s apparently quite proud of it. See here
Oh god above, I wouldn’t dream of telling Anthony McCarthy anything.
Ha! Well Dawkins thought ‘Brights’ was a good idea. He has these lapses of taste now and then. It’s still dopy journalistic jargon even if he coined it (and are you sure he coined it first, and that he was the source?). I might add a footnote to that effect though.
If atheism and theism are the extremes, shouldn’t agnosticism be the third way? It can’t be theistic evolution, can it?
The most ridiculous thing about Mooney’s argument here is how it ignores obvious ramifications of the evidence which prompts the argument in the first place. Who are these “New Atheists”? Writers of very popular books which have sold millions and millions of copies. Why pick on PZ Myers in particular? Because his website has over 2 million regular readers. Clearly, this sort of forthright communication about atheism has a large and growing audience. The continued growth of that audience – and the frequent assertions of audience members that exposure to real critical thinking disabused them of some or other faith-based delusion – should lead anyone to conclude that this communication strategy works, at least with some people. Of course it doesn’t work with everyone: That’s why it’s not the only communication strategy everyone adopts; nor should it be.
“America is a very religious nation, and if forced to choose between faith and science, vast numbers of Americans will select the former,” Mooney says. This rather entirely misses an important point: Vast numbers of Americans have already chosen faith beliefs over science. It is not outspoken atheists scientists who demand or “force” that choice, it is authoritarian conservative religious ideologues. Yes, some people will be hardened in their preconceived religious opinions by the mere existence of outspoken opposition to those opinions: But what on Earth makes Mooney think such people are in any way persuadable – or even reachable – on science and policy issues in the first place? There is no good reason to think they are, and every reason to think they are not.
In contrast, more moderate believers are not likely to reject science and science-positive public policy simply because some atheist scientists criticize and make them uncomfortable about their continued adherence to unsupportable beliefs. After all, they can find plenty of people who disagree with Myers et al and will feed them all the pablum they could possibly desire about the compatibility of religion and science. Ken Miller’s Finding Darwin’s God and Francis Collins execrable The Language of God are also best-sellers, after all.
I have yet to see Mooney – or anyone else pushing these “Atheists should shut up in general, and most especially should shut up about the evident incompatibility of a scientific worldview with embracing unsupported and unsupportable beliefs (i.e. faith)” arguments – provide a single shred of concrete empirical evidence supporting the effectiveness of the radically limited, “none of us must ever say anything that might offend religious believers” rhetorical strategy they insist upon. There is no reason to think that religious people who might otherwise be science-supportive are made science-hostile by the dissemination of arguments that science and faith are incompatible, and Mooney et al have produced no evidence that they have. As for religious people who are already science-hostile, they have had decades and decades of exposure to widely disseminated arguments that science and faith are compatible – from the Catholic endorsement of evolution by natural selection (with the predictable dogma-driven caveats about human evolution and God starting the whole shebang) to books like those by Miller and Collins and many, many predecessors. If the science-hostile have not been persuaded to be more science-accepting or science-positive by those arguments, what possible basis is there for Mooney et al‘s insistence that the mere existence people who openly speak and write about science’s incompatibility with faith constitutes a substantial obstacle to the possibility of persuading them? Where’s the argument? Where’s the evidence? Where’s even a single tiny morsel of plausible reasoning? All I read from these people is bad arguments which miss all the important points, willful distortions of their opponents, and cheap rhetoric.
It’s not outspoken atheist scientists who cause some religious people to reject science, it’s the science-rejectors’ own rigid religious dogmatism and the willful ignorance which must be embraced in order to preserve any dogma. No amount of careful rhetorical strategy – however unified or multifaceted – can undo already-entrenched dogmatism. What can? Much more widespread exposure to the very idea of rejecting authority and doubting received opinion – and vigorous, entertaining role models for doing so – would seem to offer some potential for chipping away at entrenched dogmatism, if only by offering a way out for those more trapped in it by circumstance than psychologically committed to it. In other words, the approach of Myers et al seems a whole lot more plausibly helpful for the real root of the problem than the approach Mooney advocates. Better still, early, substantial education in critical thinking could prevent much of the problem from arising in the first place.
“Where’s even a single tiny morsel of plausible reasoning?”
That’s the really suprising thing about that chapter, to me – it just isn’t there.
Michael Fugate wrote:
Agnosticism doesn’t play ;)
No, the “extremes” are fundamentalism on the one side, and atheism on the other. This allows ‘liberal religion’ (and theistic evolution) to hold the Happy Place in the middle (because the truth is always in the middle.) Otherwise, it’s fundamentalism on one side, liberal religion on the other, and an insidious form of Literalism-Lite trying to pass itself off as moderate.
Ophelia wrote:
To be fair, at least some of the so-called new atheists use the term.
“The uniting feature of the New Atheists is that we have all decided that the traditional atheist policy of diplomatic reticence should be discarded.” (Dan Dennett)
Sastra:
To be fair, at least some of the so-called new atheists use the term.
Really? Without doing an exhaustive search, the only times I remember seeing that from Dawkins, Dennett, Hitchens, or Harris (or PZ) they’ve put big fat scare quotes around the term and generally treated it like the stupidity it is. Have I missed something?
“America is a very religious nation, and if forced to choose between faith and science, vast numbers of Americans will select the former.”
Speculation masquerading as fact? Besides, who’s forcing the religious to make any such choice? Oh, that’s right, the “new atheists” – you can see them in every shopping mall with a copy of Dawkins’ latest book in one hand and the bible in the other – their accomplices shove a shotgun into people’s backs and shout “Choose!”
Hi Everyone,
Our book is not out yet, though some copies are circulating. We would only ask that before making up your mind, you read the actual book, not this critique of a single chapter. The book itself is not about the New Atheism, but the troubled place of science in our culture, and what that means for our shared future.
More here
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/intersection/2009/07/02/pz-your-book-is-en-route/
Chris Mooney
I imagine Chris Mooney would have written in the 19th century that most people would choose racism over tolerance as an argument in favor of understanding slavery. The problem with Mooney is that he works to seduce what he clearly considers an uneducated audience (an audience that if “made to choose” between reality and faith they would be remarkably inflexible, while scientist work to “seduce” educated colleagues. Mooney needs to show “understanding” of ignorance because otherwise he makes no salary.
Regarding ‘new atheism’ and ‘new atheists’, honestly, it just strikes me as a bit of a misnomer, even potentially misleading. My impression of it is there’ve long been markedly vocal folk around calling organized superstition exactly what it is. I rather suspect the major difference isn’t what anyone’s saying now so much as how many people are paying attention to it. Now they’re getting published by the big houses, selling in the big stores, and racking up much bigger sales numbers, getting heard on programs with bigger audiences–that’s the difference. They’re not less invisible because they’re saying anything terribly new–they’re less invisible because more people are apparently more interested in hearing what they have to say, and thinking the same things themselves.
In my more suspicious moments, I sometimes wonder if that’s part of why there are folk who want to call it ‘new atheism’… it’s an effort to isolate it, make it sound like some kind of cult movement, somehow radical, fringey, when in fact, it’s really none of those things, and it’s not about the actions or words of a few at all. It’s about a whole lot of people thinking and saying much the same things themselves as got published in those few books. There’s also this tendency amongst critics to try to pick out stuff that sounds ‘inflammatory’, make as if that’s so shocking, when again, in the context both of the larger works and the larger history of thought, it’s anything but. It’s pretty hard to top anything that’s been said before, really. All that’s really different there, again, is: more people are reading it.
So it isn’t ‘the new atheists’. It’s just atheism becoming an acceptable viewpoint for airing. It’s people willing to hear said out loud what probably a lot of them already thought about religion anyway.
Very true AJ. And now I doubt I will ever again see the words New Atheist written without hearing New Audience in my mind.
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