Whilst rank corruption, mining all within, infects unseen
Dan Jones, also in the Guardian, also reacting to the atheist reaction to the Templeton prize, is slightly less belligerent than Michael White. Only slightly though.
Unlike Coyne, however, I don’t see a bogeymen round every religious corner, and I don’t feel compelled to denounce the Templeton Foundation as a enemy of science.
Only very slightly. It’s not a matter of bogeymen and it’s not every corner.
I say to Coyne: “Show me the money!” – where is the evidence that the mere existence of Templeton, and the facts of its funding activities, have corrupted science in any sense?
I offered some evidence in a comment.
Take a good close look at Templeton-funded BioLogos, for a start. Or the Templeton-funded “Ian Ramsey Centre for Science and Religion,” which is “part of the Theology Faculty at the University of Oxford.” Or the Templeton-funded and created “Faraday Institute for Science and Religion” which is based at St Edmund’s College, Cambridge.
Templeton money has done a lot to create a pretend “discipline” of “Science & Religion” (never Religion & Science, because that would give the game away) which in turn has done a lot to create new dogma about how compatible the two have been through history and still are today. Check out The Cambridge Companion to Science and Religion, edited by Peter Harrison, director of the aforementioned Ian Ramsey Centre. Harrison says in the intro that the book is about the compatability of the two and that incompatibility won’t even be addressed in the book, because that notion has been so thoroughly rejected.
We talked about all this last October. We talked about that Cambridge Companion, for instance, and Harrison’s claim that the “conflict model” of religion and science is totally out of fashion and stale and icky.
This kind of thing does look like corruption to me – not necessarily in the criminal sense, but in the sense of spoilage, taint, pollution; an admixture of something alien that undermines or destroys the host substance. I don’t think the scholars doing it are corrupt, but I think what they’re doing tends to corrupt the subject. I think they have an agenda, whether they know it or not, and I think Templeton money makes it possible for them to forward that agenda. I don’t think that’s a good thing. I wonder what Dan Jones would think if he were aware of any of this, which he pretty clearly isn’t.
Let’s not forget:
Science and Religion: A Very Short Introduction By Thomas Dixon
(http://www.butterfliesandwheels.org/2010/review-of-science-and-religion-a-very-short-introduction/)
A recipient of an academic writer’s award given by the John Templeton Foundation, as well as grant[s] from the Templeton Foundation.
“Thomas Dixon is senior lecturer in history and director of the Centre for the History of the Emotions at Queen Mary, University of London. His research and writing have focused on the history of passions and emotions, the history of debates about altruism, especially in Victorian Britain, and, more generally, the history of the relationship between science and religion. A graduate of Cambridge University, where he studied at King’s College and took first-class honours in theology and religious studies, he received a master’s degree with distinction in the history and philosophy of science at Imperial College, London, and earned a Ph.D. in divinity at Cambridge in 2000.”
http://humbleapproach.templeton.org/faith/ThomasDixon.html
and this:
Postdoctoral Research Associate: Philosophy of Science
Funded by the John Templeton Foundation … The project concerns methodological and philosophical issues that arise from the interaction between biology and physics
http://www.bshs.org.uk/news/item/1502
My point being that if scholars wishing to promote the opposing view can’t get similar funding then you get the appearance of agreement re compatibility.
Thank you Felix. I hadn’t forgotten, I just didn’t take the time to look for more links. I think there are several, because the discussion went on for some time.
I find a new (new to me) organization to watch via that link – The European Society for the Study of Science And Theology. Lots of Templeton people belong to it; I wonder if Templeton funds it…
And this is amusing – Templeton’s Sci and Relig Today says in March the prize is coming up, and some innocent commenter asks “how do you know?” How does it know! It’s Templeton, that’s how!
That European society is in the list of Templeton outfits listed in the right-hand column, so they probably do fund it.
According to Wiki,the value of the Templeton prize is adjusted to ‘exceed the value of the Nobel’,perhaps there’s a clue there somewhere. Nudge,nudge,wink,wink.
Just googling for further links and saw that my post above was already in Google search results <amazed>
Heh.
B&W has a high google ranking, always has had. I used to brag about it.
In the interest of ambiguity :-), I have to say that this Templeton grant looks pretty good:
https://lists.cam.ac.uk/pipermail/cl-isabelle-users/2007-April/msg00015.html
I’m so relieved you’ve stopped bragging about it. :)
Actually, I felt like saying something about compatibility. There are compatibilities where conflict just doesn’t arise, no matter how far you take it. Me sitting down and typing at the keyboard, two different actions that simply do not conflict with each other, period. People, or especially couples, are said to be compatible if they are largely in a state of harmony, with friction coming rarely enough to prevent the relationship from being endangered. Supposing a couple does have conflict because, say, one likes staying at home, while the other likes going out. That conflict has nothing to do with either activity being truer or “righter” than the other, it’s sheer personal preference. But with religion and science, conflict is simply there, unless you do something to dilute one or the other, and what is being diluted is an adherence to either founding texts (in the case of religion) or the method by which science defines itself. The scientific method is, in the clearest way possible, incompatible with deriving knowledge or truth from an ancient text of questionable authorship. It is less easy to state science’s incompatibility with religion a la Karen Armstrong, but only because that version has ceased to define itself by any standard on which one can get a firm grip, so even discussing compatibility in such a case is merely an exercise in silliness. And that is what is so underhanded about the whole Templeton enterprise: it is endeavouring to promote something that cannot be done at all unless adherence to minimal standards of honesty is abandoned.
Belligerent? C’mon Ophelia, don’t embarrass yourself with silly charges like this. You quote one line from the beginning of my piece in support of this claim, and it’s one that at best is a bit facetious. You also quote the final line of the piece – and conveniently ignore the 1,000 words making up the main body of the article. I presume you don’t have an argument or evidence to the effect that Templeton funding has corrupted the scientific research that they have enabled – if I’m wrong, please show me how the studies of Haidt, Wagner, Keltner, Gazzaniga, Solaon Wilson etc. have been corrupted by Templeton funding. If you accept that the scientific studies I alluded to are, in fact, quality science, then it seems you should say something a bit more complicated than the usual claim that Templeton is all bad, something along the lines of “Templeton funds important, quality scientific research, and is also a corrupter of science” – and then explain these seemingly conflicting statements. If Templeton is a corrupter of science, then the work it funds should sully the fields related to the funded research – but where’s the evidence that evolutionary genetics, game theory, behavioural genetics, social psychology or neuroscience have been so tainted? You’ve got none. At the very least this should give you pause before advocating any blanket condemnation of all Templeton activities. (Unless you’re so monumentally bigoted as to say that anyone who has views different from your own should not be allowed to fund science.)
I’m not so dim that I can’t see what you’re grasping at in your condemnation of Templeton, and you make this clear in the things you cite in support of the corrupting effect of Templeton. Yet these simply show that Templeton pursues activities related to a perceived overlap between religion and science (or science and religion – I don’t care about the word order) that you don’t share. That’s all good, and I have no beef with you or anyone else arguing against the compatibility of religion and science. (Our views on this are, perhaps surprisingly, quite similar.) But it simply doesn’t follow that because I disagree with Templeton about the relation of science and religion that I have to argue that they’re completely corrupt, with the sole mission of giving credibility to science (the points I was arguing against in my piece). To do so is simply prejudicial, and comes off as paranoid tribalism. I know you’re left wing, as I am, but you end up sounding like someone with an extreme right-wing authoritarian personality (perhaps mixed up a strong social dominance orientation). All your language of taint and pollution calls to mind social conservatives when they talk about gays, or justifications for caste systems. You appear to want to make everyone who has the temerity to disagree with you an ‘Untouchable’ (do you remember describing what Chris Mooney does as disgusting? Remember Russell Blackford calling Mooney a ‘disgusting traitor’?). The way you approach this whole topic reveals the stunning deep of your cognitive biases and how powerful motivated reasoning can be. I never thought I’d be writing this about people I had so much respect for a few years ago.
Dan, you don’t seem to understand the way this game works. It’s like with charities. The religious charities love to use their prestige to prop up the truth or goodness of their religious beliefs. We see this happening all the time, and it’s practically a meme right now that only religious organizations do any charity work because of their higher morals as opposed to the morals of those atheists who do no charity work and are only concerned with helping themselves. You are focused solely on a few science projects that probably had no choice but to take the Templeton money, but you are missing the intent behind the calculated funding of all these projects which is to garner prestige for the Templeton Foundation so they can toot their own horn about how a religious organization is one of the leading science organizations in the world. They yearn for credibility for religious superstitions among the great institutes of science no less than the Discovery Institute wishes for primary and secondary school classrooms across the USA to be hijacked into teaching Biblical-creationism-lite.
Jerry Coyne brings up important points here: http://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2011/04/10/jesus-in-a-lab-coat-the-last-word-on-templeton/
Thanks for schooling me, Aratina Cage. A couple of points occur to this benighted mind, however. First, you say “You are focused solely on a few science projects that probably had no choice but to take the Templeton money…”. Where on earth did you get the idea that these projects probably had no choice but to accept Templeton funding? I picked these examples because they’re such big name scientists — not fledgling researchers trying to make a name for themselves and willing to swallow anything to do so (again, unless you have evidence to the contrary). Now, given that you read my comment, you must have seen the bit about “motivated reasoning” (a huge topic in psychology in case you want to go look that up) and so I would’ve thought you’d have paused before making things up or indulging in completely unfounded speculation to support your desired conclusion (classic motivated reasoning!). This is precisely the kind of cognitive problem some people have in talking about Templeton, and which I’m trying to highlight, so thanks for the helpful example.
Your sentence carries on: “… but you are missing the intent behind the calculated funding of all these projects which is to garner prestige for the Templeton Foundation so they can toot their own horn about how a religious organization is one of the leading science organizations in the world.” Did you actually read my original piece? In it, my point was to rebut Jerry Coyne’s claim that the sole aim of the Templeton is to give credibility to religion, and that it corrupts science (this latter claim is made with no caveats or qualifications whatsoever). I cite examples of Templeton funding good research on topics that don’t inherently give credibility to religion, and which is not presented in that way by the scientists who actually do the research (many of whom are atheists). Furthermore, there’s no evidence that this funding activity has corrupted science, but merely enabled some good science to get done. Therefore Coyne’s claim is false, and he should at least acknowledge this positive contribution. To fail to do so leads to precisely the polarised debate we’re having (though I don’t go fully the other way, saying that everything Templeton does and believes is right and good). It’s this us-versus-them mentality that I’m not into.
We can then ask “Well, over and above the good aspects of Templeton funding, is there something else to object to in their agenda?” You (or we) might disagree with its stated view on the relationship of science and religion, or the compatibility of the two. But what follows? That we have to characterise the whole enterprise as a malicious, insidious, devious entity which solely does bad and no good? Of course not. Yet this is what happens. Why? That’s what I’m trying to get the bottom of. Someone says Templeton has one goal and corrupts science, and I show otherwise. So the reply goes, “But look – they think science and religion are compatible, and that’s unacceptable! Let’s rally against them and say everything they do is intellectually and morally infected! Anyone who is touched by Templeton money has their offensive properties transferred to them, and we can therefore treat them as we like! We must keep ‘them’ despicable faith-heads away from ‘us’ righteous rationalists!”. Human irrationality, cognitive biases, and motivated reasoning come in many forms, and there are not limited to the domain of religious thinking. I’m suggesting that they’re coming into play here too, in a big way.
Stewart: Yes, Coyne does bring up some points. How much importance you attach to them depends on where you’re coming from. (Curiously, Coyne has mentioned every piece published on the Guardian website, except mine — I don’t care about being ignored (meaning in my life does not derive from how much web commentary my articles generate), but it is curious as I offer a clear and direct challenge to Coyne’s hyperbole. C’est la vie!) You’ll notice Horgan’s quoted comments from his new post are about the relation of science and religion: “What bothers me most about the Templeton Foundation is that it promotes a view of science and religion–or “spirituality,” to use the term it favours–as roughly equivalent.” This isn’t synonymous with saying that the sole aim of Templeton is to give credibility to religion, nor that Templeton corrupts science. It’s pointing out that Templeton holds a view that Horgan doesn’t. So what? That doesn’t warrant all the vitriol heaped on Templeton and, more indirectly, on the researchers and journalists who have received Templeton money (and this DOES NOT include me). I’m familiar with Nick Cohen, and have read his book What’s Left?, but his post doesn’t make the case that Templeton corrupts science or only strives to give credibility to religion (I’m sounding like a broken record repeating these words, but I have to – people can’t seem to keep in mind what I’m objecting to!). He points out some of the pernicious effects of religious belief. Again, what is the import of this? Are we really saying that anyone who has religious beliefs should be banned from providing funding for scientific research? Should they be banned from carrying out research, or working within the scientific establishment, lest they pollute the whole enterprise from within? If not, what’s the point of creating inventories of the bad things that have been, and are being, done in religion’s name? Just how far are you willing to go with anti-religious prejudice simply because religion — along with political and cultural ideologies — can lead to bad things? If you start from the position that everything about religion, and the people who hold religious beliefs, is repulsive, you’re probably not the best person to engage in slightly more subtle, difficult debates about religion, science, and the wider world. I know enough about human psychology (I’ve been lucky to have had personal tuition on these matters from the world’s leading researchers as part of my day job) to appreciate that otherwise highly logical people can easily succumb to precisely the forms of irrational thinking that beset some religious people when it comes to thinking about certain issues. Again, all of what’s being said in these comments is simply grist to my argumentative mill.
Why thank you! What a lovely thing to say.
What the fuck is “a strong social dominance orientation” when it’s at home? It’s a funny thing how often I get men accusing me of being “dominant” or domineering or similar – because I write words on screen and paper. Why is that, I wonder. Is it because there are so many men commenting here? Lots of men comment here, but it’s my site, so it’s as if I were the “boss” – so that’s “strong social dominance.” Is that it? Because otherwise – what in the sam hill would make you or anyone think you had enough data to speculate that I suffer from “a strong social dominance orientation”?
As to the substance – I know Templeton funds some worthwhile research. I did an article about it for TPM a year or two ago, and I said that. But it does other things too, some of which I pointed to in the post. I don’t disagree with everything you said, but then I didn’t say I did. I could have said I didn’t though; that would have been fairer.
I used language about contamination deliberately; I know the idea of pollution is suspect, of course, but I was making the point that that is what the TF does, by covering things up, naming things after universities and famous institutes, locating itself in university towns, etc etc etc. It’s not just an open honest funder of good research; it’s also a stealth PR organization. The good research is useful for that endeavor. Good research is still good research, but if there’s an agenda…it’s at least worth knowing that.
Oh, I see what it is – social dominance orientation. It’s an even nastier accusation than I thought. Man…this stuff amazes me sometimes.
http://dash.harvard.edu/handle/1/3207711
What the fuck’s a social dominance orientation? You’ve got a fucking internet connection, go and fucking look it up yourself. And it’s got nothing to do with our respective sexes, you paranoid loon! This paragraph makes no sense to me! Seriously, I’m laughing at the ridiculousness of it! Hey ho. And you say it isn’t nice to say that you end up “…sounding like someone with an extreme right-wing authoritarian personality…”. Fair enough, but is that seriously worse than the terms you bandy about, willy nilly (bridbes, disgusting, all that jazz)? You make out you’re a tough cookie. Walk the talk you talk. And to be very clear, I don’t think you’re being dominant or domineering, and certainly not because you’re a woman who writes words. (I like women and words, and don’t find the conjunction threatening or domineering in the least.) In any case, I was trying to make the point that you get so carried away with your own rhetoric that you end up *sounding* like something that you are most likely not. Right-wing authoritarians, people with an SDO, and social conservatives are typically more disgust sensitive than liberals, and tend to think that disgust reactions are more morally relevant than liberals. Talking the language of disgust is not, in my books, particularly cool. (Obviously this language has also historically been recruited to argue against inter-racial sex and for the segregation of public utilities/spaces, and today is deployed against gays, as well as by religions to keep women out of sacred areas due to a fear of contamination by menstrual blood.) SDOs also appear to see the world as operating according to zero-sum rules, so everything has to be a battle between groups, and if one does well the other must do badly. That can easily slip into tribalism — and that’s what I see evidence for here. I’m not saying you *are* right wing or have an SDO; I’m just trying to point out that your style of presentation makes you come off really badly to everyone except those who are similarly fervent in telling people that religion is a VERY BAD THING INDEED.
Finally, you graciously say: “The good research is useful for that endeavor. Good research is still good research, but if there’s an agenda…it’s at least worth knowing that.” Can I take that as a concession that I was correct and Jerry Coyne was wrong, in that Templeton doesn’t solely use its money to give credibility to religion, as it also funds good research? That was the original point of my article, and if you accept that, I’ve no idea why the fuck you wrote your original post disagreeing with that, and calling me belligerent for making the point you accept!
You know that, do you? Everyone? If you do know that, can you confide exactly how you know it?
Oh, well done, another point for pedantry. Discount that comment, and replace everyone with *some* if you think it helps your cause. It’s funny that you’ll pick me up on that, but wouldn’t question another of your readers speculating – with no evidential basis whatsoever – that the people who received Templeton funding probably “had no choice”. But of course, that’s what the confirmation bias looks like in action! I’m done with this – it’s getting way fucking tedious, and you’re not interested in actually engaging with anything I’m saying. I should have known better. Now I do.
Wow Dan. Ophelia was right to call you belligerent.
Just considering how hard it is to get any funding for research, you often get it from wherever you can. Are you confident that these projects could have been funded by another organization other than the Templeton Foundation? I’m not. Still, that isn’t the point at all about what I wrote. If those projects had ample resources and didn’t have to go to the Templeton Foundation, it wouldn’t have changed what I said a bit.
Belligerence. First, you are completely overlooking everything we are saying about why Templeton money is dirty money. Second, how much money did the projects you listed get from the Templeton Foundation? How much from elsewhere? Are these projects being conducted under the wing of organizations or companies with plenty of existing funds and no financial reason for the Templeton funding?
No, you do not show otherwise. What you show is that they have inserted themselves seemingly innocuously into many areas of science while overlooking all the signs of their intent.
More belligerence. Tell me Dan, how ethical are people who don’t give a crap where the money comes from as long as it goes into their bank account?
FFS.
Whew! The original post was actually very mild about Mr Jones; most of it wasn’t even about him (or his article). I had no idea he was as belligerent as that!
(It’s also reliably funny when a man loses his temper and blurts out some sexist smack and then when he’s called on it says “I am not sexist! I like women!” Oh well in that case…)
Yeah, I’m glad you can laugh that off. It makes me cringe when it happens. I also noticed how Dan tried to shame you and Russel Blackford for using the word “disgusting” by associating its usage with homophobes and racists, which, frankly, disgusted me because it was being applied to a specific instance of what some might consider bad behavior.
I can’t remember whose law this is (it has been named someone’s Law in homage to Godwin’s Law I seem to remember), butI also call Mooney’s Law! It is a clear case of an Accommodationist whining about the tone of Gnu Atheists and then going on to be much much worse, much nastier, than any Gnu Atheist was in the first place (if at all).
Really. It could as well be called Ruse’s law, or Hedges’s law, or Berlinerblau’s law – it could have any number of names. It amazes me how often we see it demonstrated in public.
Oops. Formatting error in #23. The second line (“I can’t remember but…”) was supposed to have had a strikethrough applied to it in its entirety because I was able to find the name given to that law by Feynmaniac.
That silly claim about “disgusting” annoyed me too, because I use the word in very narrow circumstances and it obviously means morally disgusting. He really is trying to use political smears throughout. A dirty little mind.
Oh, hey! Thanks for fixing that! :)
Yeah. He flies off the handle (as if I “schooled” him, hah! I was mostly just responding to his first response to you where he didn’t seem to have yet grasped what the problem is–and I’m not sure he has even yet) and then has the nerve to say that we are the ones who can’t handle criticism.
Aratina Cage and Ophelia – I was going to leave this alone, but as you’ve carried it on I’ll reply. Just a re-cap on the history if this exchange: Jerry Coyne wrote an article (quite belligerent, as this seems to be the word de jour), and I wrote a reply that I really don’t think was very belligerent (Ophelia called me this on the basis of me saying Coyne sees religious bogeymen, and then asking for the evidence to support his claims). I replied saying “Come off it, I wasn’t being particularly belligerent – and in any case, what about the substance of what I said?” This request for further detail was ignored, and then it was implied I was being sexist (this was pretty ludicrous – yet Ophelia in a later comment reiterates this, and says I did “blurt out some sexist smack” and was called on it! This isn’t true!). Ophelia also got a bit sweary, and I did in my reply. I’m happy to keep these words out of the discussion, and move on from charges of belligerence etc.
I didn’t try to shame anyone in my comments, and I wasn’t trying to forge a link between your comments and racist/homophobic ideologies. I was using those as examples where I know you’d be uncomfortable advocating the language of disgust as an attempt to get you to reflect on whether it was an appropriate style of discourse in any context. It’s not a political smear, but an attempt to appeal to your sense of decency. (What I mean is, I’m not trying to forge a link between your comments and racism/homophobia in the general public’s mind – I imagine this is a conversation that only we’re really paying attention to.) As for Ophelia’s claim that she was obviously talking about moral disgust, homophobes will say that too about gays. The fact that their moral disgust is based on visceral or core disgust is precisely why moral disgust is unreliable, because the elicitors of core disgust (body fluids etc.) are not morally relevant. (I haven’t got time to go into all the fascinating research on the different types of disgust, and why it’s so problematic, but you can have a peek here [here’s the link – http://nsm.uh.edu/~dgraur/niv/disgust_nature_2007.pdf – as the linking fucntion doesn’t seem to eb working properly in my browser. I may be being a techo-idiot though]– but see footnote* too) That’s why disgust talk in the moral domain is bad news. We can, instead, talk about harms and justice, rather than revulsion of pollution. As for citing the disgust language used by Ophelia and RB, I cannot see what’s so out of line about quoting what people say back to them – that’s not unfair.
As for not grasping the problem you’re discussing, and ignoring the larger issues, I beg to differ (obviously!). I was trying to move away from a blanket condemnation of all Templeton activities, and the dismissal of the researchers who receive Templeton funding. There seems to be acceptance that this funding doesn’t corrupt the science itself, nor even the researchers who receive the money, so the corruption must be somewhere else. Then we start talking about the fact that Templeton sees science and religion as compatible, perhaps even mutually informative. Now, like you, I don’t agree with this last claims – but, and this is the crucial difference between us, that doesn’t lead me to think that the Templeton is thus a VERY BAD THING. And this is not because I have a wishy-washy respect for religion (I scarcely know what that means – there are many different religions, and many different ways of practicing those religions, and I haven’t got a one-size-fits-all attitude for them). To explain why I don’t have the same reaction as you do to the fact that Templeton is a religious organisation would be difficult and take a long time – but if I gave it a shot, without being belligerent or deliberately offensive, would you give me a fair hearing? If so, it might be worth me attempting to do so – not to try to show that you’re wrong, but to facilitate dialogue between atheists of different stripes. Honestly, this is really where my interest lies – not name calling on comment boards.
I should also answer the direct question from Aratina Cage: “Tell me Dan, how ethical are people who don’t give a crap where the money comes from as long as it goes into their bank account?”. I hear you, Aratina, and obviously it would not be ethically cool to take money from neo-Nazis or whatever. But are we really putting Templeton into that kind of moral category, and therefore no one with a conscience should accept their money? If so, why? Is it simply because they are religious, and believe in a computability between science and religion that we don’t share? Or because they are religious, compatiblist and do something else morally heinous? Really, when I ask this, I want your answers – but so far I’m only getting a sense of outrage that people with compatibilist views are funding science, and hosting meetings that promote compatibilism. I disagree with them, but I don’t see it as immoral. Do you think I’m simply missing something?
Finally, yes, I appreciate I came off as quite belligerent yesterday, once pushed a bit. (I actually wondered whether I was been tempted into belligerence so that the original charge could stand, and I’m a mug to extent I fell for it.) However, another way of looking at it is that I’ll stand up for myself. Opehlia calls me belligerent; I ask why. She swears at me and implies I’m sexist; I swear back and say the implication is ridiculous. Aratina Cage patronisingly tells me that I don’t get what’s going on; I write a patronising reply back. And now I’m described as having not only a dirty mind, but a small mind to boot. I guess I should leave it there for now. If and when there’s a next time, shall we all refrain from calling each other names and being sarcastic and patronising, and talk to each other as if we wanted to get further insights into the world and how it works?
*Quick footnote about some disgust stuff. It turns out that, empirically, social conservatives are more disgust sensitive than liberals, and more likely to endorse it as a morally relevant emotion. This is especially true for activities that have a potentially visceral component, such as abortion and homosexual sex (particularly among men, when judged by straight men). Disgust sensitivity also predicts negative attitudes to immigrants and other social groups. Why? Well, in the case of disgust leading to negative views on immigrants, the effect seemed to be mediated by increasing right-wing authoritarianism, and social dominance orientation. That is, being highly disgust sensitive means that you regularly experience disgust, and this seems to feed directly into ideological orientations toward intergroup relations that reinforce avoidance with “others”, and social hierarchies (with the “purer” people being higher than the “dirty” people lower down the social hierarchy). In the case of disgust sensitivity and homophobia, this seems to be mediated by two factors too (both of which are related to the right-wing ideologies mentioned previously): increase in religiosity and “fear of committing sin”, and a greater tendency towards socially conservative thinking across the board (perhaps reflecting a combination of RWA and SDO). As such, I don’t think that nurturing the language of moral disgust is a good idea. It’s why I wouldn’t say Ophelia has a dirty mind, small or large. I’m putting this stuff in just because it’s very interesting, but it does also point to the complexity, and ugliness, of disgust, and that’s why I keep banging on about it.
@Dan Jones
I think you are too hung up on the word “disgusting” and need to look more carefully at the context in which it was used. Homophobes, sexists, and racists have long been co-opting perfectly valid words and applying them to things that are pathological to homophobic, sexist, and racist thinking alone. What such people find disgusting are things that non-bigots find special, affectionate, brave, natural, sensual, caring, etc. So, you’re way off base in this case.
As it pertains to the scientific research funding, well it is easy to see how that could lead to bias, yes, because a scientist might be wary of losing funding if something somewhere down the road aggravates the Templeton Foundation, such as unexpected results or a publicly aired difference of opinion over the value of religion. Also, is it really the research they are interested in or the prestige of a religious foundation funding science projects? As for the prize, several people have pointed out that Rees is already wealthy (which I did not know), so turning down the prize was probably a valid option for him and so the whole thing about the Templeton Foundation sticking its meddling fingers into scientific organizations has more weight in this case, although I don’t begrudge him for not doing so. Still, Rees has already been a loud advocate for the Templeton Foundation so it looks very fishy like they paid him so he can sneer at his fellow atheists at the Royal Society (such as, “Look what you’re missing out in!“) or perhaps it is to coax fence-sitters to follow Rees’s footsteps.
It would be very difficult for me not to take the $1 million if offered, not that any Gnu Atheists stand a chance at that. I think it might be the same for most people that Templeton has approached for funding. What we (well, I) don’t know is if there are any strings attached to most of these prizes, grants, and awards. We do know that people invited to join the foundation’s fellowship have to walk on eggshells to not disturb the current head Templeton or the foundations religious sensibilities. Anyway, do let us know when the Templeton Prize goes to a Gnu Atheist; until then, it does look like the prize is crafted for pushing a wedge of religion into science.
Oh can it, will you? How is what I wrote in #11 patronizing? Compare my #11 to your #10 to see who was being patronizing. You are not a victim here. You chose to kick off this conversation at the Guardian. And I responded after your roaring commentary at #10 where I felt you were missing the point. I didn’t even lift a finger to defend Ophelia from all your completely off-the-wall accusations when nearly anyone else who comments here might have done just that (I thought about doing so myself but did not).
Dan Jones, it’s too late for that. You went way over the top yesterday, and it’s too late to pretend to be all Reasonable Guy now.
No, because you said – obviously – a hell of a lot more than that. What I said about you in the post was mild, and there was very little of it. Your reply was unmild, and there was a lot of it. No, it’s not just a matter of back and forth.
I don’t need a lecture about disgust; I too have read about it; I reviewed Martha Nussbaum’s book on the subject for TPM a few years ago; I wrote an essay on the subject for a game Jeremy created for B&W/TPM in 2002. There is a difference between using disgust as a basis for moral judgments, and using the adjective to express moral opprobrium. I think it’s worth saying the Bishop of Phoenix’s actions and statements and demands are disgusting precisely because he is, socially, so entirely respectable. It’s a whited sepulchre thing. He gets slack for demanding that hospitals refuse to save pregnant women’s lives because he’s that Respectable thing, a bishop. There isn’t enough disgust for his policies and demands because people are fooled by the superficial Purity and Spirituality and Elevation of the church. The church is fair and fragrant on the surface and rotten underneath.
Oh and this –
In other words you wanted the last word, and since you didn’t get it, you’ll try again. Well don’t we all. It’s a bit much to imply presumption in my “carrying it on” on my own site. I make no promises to let you have the last word.
Ophelia and Aratina Cage, I’m obviously persona non grata round here now, and I do regret how this has panned out. Aratina Cage, I’m happy to accept that you did not mean your comments in a patronising tone, and so I was wrong and defensiveness in my original reply to you. (Not claiming total exculpation, but this does seem to be a common kind of misunderstanding of intent/tone online – I noticed someone here made a joke the other day about Ophelia getting back in the kitchen or something, and while it was pretty clearly a joke another reader didn’t take it as such – but that got caught and cleared up pretty quickly.)
OK Ophelia, we clearly differ in our take on this — I feel aggrieved, you feel aggrieved — but look, I’m happy to let the stuff about belligerence, sexism and me having a dirty little mind slide. Water under the bridge. And I apologise for my part in this, and for losing my cool. So, I extend a hand for you to shake – can we say, “OK, cool, this is history – let’s make a clean start and we won’t begin any mention of each other with name-calling in future exchanges”. Seriously, I’m not interested in harbouring a grudge against you, and I can easily forget this episode. In the future it would be nice if we could exchange ideas without getting off point and into the ad hominems (and I appreciate I was not an exemplar in this regard). I’m not disingenuously pretending to be reasonable here – I would, genuinely, prefer it if we could talk without such rancour.
Whadda ya say? (I’m not trying to have the last word here – drop me an email and we can see if we can sort this out in private, if you like)
Dan – yes, sure. The very fact that you want to is a sign that (as you said) you didn’t mean the social dominance orientation comment the way I read it…(or possibly that you did at the time but don’t now, which comes to the same thing). I apologize for being so quick to take it that way. Water under the bridge, as you say. Thanks.
Dan, I’m glad you realized that and backed down. And don’t worry about it; I’ve made the same mistake about the tone of other people in their comments and had to do the same when I realized I was wrong. It’s hard to get the voice and intent right sometimes in both writing comments and reading them.