Who’s Insisting?
More guilt-mongering of non-theism, more default assumptions that there is something wrong or wicked or suspect or in need of a damn good explanation about naturalism. Also more Michael Ruse.
Professor Ruse takes a long look at why opponents of evolution feel so threatened and why evolutionists are so surprised and perplexed at the opposition…Although Darwin’s own work was a model of professional science, a great deal of evolutionary thought before and after him, in Professor Ruse’s judgment, deserves to be termed evolutionism, a kind of secular religion built around an ideology of progress.
Okay, stop right there. A ‘kind of’ secular religion? That’s a weasel-term. Could be the reporter’s rather than Ruse’s – but either way it’s weasel-language. And then, what does ‘secular religion’ mean? And ideology is not the same thing as religion. Ideology can certainly do a lot to distort thinking, but it’s not the same thing as religion, and it just confuses things to talk about it as if it were. An ‘ideology of progress’ does not require any supernatural beliefs whatever; religion does; it’s the supernaturalism that’s at issue; so to conflate an ‘ideology of progress’ with religion in a context where supernaturalism versus naturalism is the subject, is cheating. People who defend or try to protect religion resort to cheating a lot. That’s annoying, and they ought to stop doing it.
From the beginning, evolutionary theory has been drenched in religion. The aggressors in the warfare between theology and science were not just religious believers insisting that their ancient Scriptures were the basis of scientific truths but scientific enthusiasts insisting that evolutionary theory was the basis for conclusions about religion.
More cheating, though of a milder kind. Tendentious language. For one thing, ‘drenched in religion’ turns out to mean pointing out that evolutionary theory doesn’t require religion, or makes religion superfluous. That’s an odd thing for ‘drenched in religion’ to turn out to mean. For another thing – aggressors? Why aggressors? Why is it aggressive to try to explain a naturalistic subject by naturalistic means? And then, more minor rhetoric: there’s ‘enthusiasts’ and ‘insisting’. It’s minor, but it all adds up: it adds up to the usual default assumption that no one has any business pointing out that there is no good evidence for the truth claims religions make, or that religious answers to naturalistic questions are not helpful and are not answers.
But as Professor Ruse notes, as genuine science no less than as pseudoscience, “Darwinian evolutionary theory does impinge on religious thinking.”…Other elements of Darwinism go right to the heart of any belief in a caring, almighty God. The power of strictly natural interactions of random events and reproductive advantage over huge spans of time to explain the emergence of diverse and complex life forms appears to render the guiding role of such a God superfluous. The grim picture of those life forms, including humanity, emerging through a ruthlessly cruel process of natural competition appears to render such a God implausible.
Yes, true. Although problems with the idea of a caring almighty God did not begin in 1859. (Actually it’s a rather depressing reflection on human history that so many people did manage to believe in a caring almighty God for so long. I mean – caring? Caring? How could they possibly have thought that?)
Then there is the debate about the “methodological naturalism” that for purposes of scientific investigation restricts explanations to findings about material nature. Does “methodological naturalism” lead inexorably to a “metaphysical naturalism” holding that material nature is in fact the whole of reality? Professor Ruse says no. But he acknowledges that the slippery slope is there.
There again – the slippery slope. That’s another pejorative. More cheating.
In the end, Professor Ruse’s new book suggests that the religious resistance to evolutionary theory is a lot more understandable and a lot less unreasonable than its opponents recognize.
Well of course it’s understandable: religious believers don’t like having their beliefs challenged. That’s not a secret. But less unreasonable? Well, only if you think it’s reasonable to let wishes determine beliefs about the world, and to let them control what other people write and teach, as well. It’s not self-evident that that is particularly reasonable, frankly.
Once it’s been noted that “Darwinian evolutionary theory does impinge on religious thinking” and a caring almighty god has been rendered implausible, why then vitiate that huge step forward by suggesting that those who can’t handle that possibility are not unreasonable?
It really makes one wonder what game is being played here. Who benefits (and how) from the promulgation of the idea that it’s possible to accept the rational without forsaking belief in the (comforting) irrational? I don’t necessarily mean Ruse is in the pay of the “Wedge” people, but he is making the water so damned muddy…
While waiting for that definition to come along, is it possible to agree that one of the connotations of religion is that it is dogmatically adhered to and not self-correcting as new evidence emerges? To say that one “treats something like a religion” surely is not synonymous with an open, enquiring and investigative attitude, and to do something “religiously,” in my experience, has always meant doing it to the letter, in the way and at the times appointed by an external authority. No pretence at dictionary accuracy here and I haven’t opened one before writing this, but I thought it worth airing the associations of the word in general. While the cultural anthropologists may indeed shed some very interesting light on this, as currently under discussion, the word appeared in the context of quotes in a mass-circulation newspaper and I doubt they were the primary target audience.
But I have defined it, G – or rather, I have said what I mean when I’m talking about it. Often. I don’t do it every time I post on the subject though (I post on the subject rather often…). I have said that what I’m talking about is religion in the sense of having supernatural beliefs – and that if the subject is religion as an attitude or feeling, I have zero quarrel with it, and that’s not my subject at all. I am talking explicitly about the kind of religion that makes truth claims.
I’m talking about theism. God-bothering. ‘Faith.’
“is it possible to agree that one of the connotations of religion is that it is dogmatically adhered to and not self-correcting as new evidence emerges?”
Well that’s the kind I’m talking about, anyway. The dogmatic part requires some truth claims to be dogmatic about – and that’s my minimal definition: religions make supernatural truth claims.
But Ruse is a professional philosopher and historian of science, not some unqualified pseudo-intellectual journalistic hack pundit! He’d better damned well define his terms if he’s going to use a phrase like “secular religion.” *harrumph*
More importantly, when one associates the word “religion” with just one of the many connotations, some weasel will turn to exceptions and caveats and other connotations to defend “religion” – and thereby dodge the real issue at stake in one’s criticism. It’s the dogmatism, especially about wholly unsupported supernatural beliefs, that’s really the problem – and so it helps to keep the focus THERE and nowhere else. Shine the spotlight on the exact problem so they can’t hide in the shadows.
“…religious resistance to evolutionary theory is a lot more understandable and a lot less unreasonable than its opponents recognize.”
What an odd statement!
Religious resistance (more accurately, the resistance of some forms of some religions) to evolutionary theory has ALWAYS been easy to understand! Elements of evolutionary theory conflict directly and unambiguously with matters of faith.
The fact that such resistance IS easy to understand does not make it in the LEAST bit reasonable. Rejecting evolutionary theory because the bible says the world was made in six days IS NOT reasonable.
(Reasonable: 1, ready to use or listen to reason, sensible; 2, in accordance with reason, not absurd, logical.)
The whole scientific project is founded on people being willing to challenge the claims of religion when it was too important not to.
Darwin, for instance had to deal with this at the personal level, going against the desires of mentors and institutions to take what were already a fairly well-accepted set of scientific ideas through the institutional barriers to common acceptance. You don’t do this by hiding under your non-tenured desk and saying ‘You keep stifling my free speech’ over and over to yourself.
All points well taken. The more one emphasises that Ruse does know precisely what he’s doing and saying, the less justifiable they are.
G – Oh, right, I see what you mean. Well, yes! That’s one reason I’ve been nagging away at Ruse for nigh on two years now. He’s making a specialty of this muddying the waters thing.
“It’s the dogmatism, especially about wholly unsupported supernatural beliefs, that’s really the problem – and so it helps to keep the focus THERE and nowhere else.”
Exactly. So I’m doing my best!
Now if lots more public people like law school deans start doing the same thing, there may be some hope. More David Rudenstines and fewer Michael Ruses, that’s what we need.