Veto That Demand
Earlier this morning while working on something unrelated to B&W (which I do occasionally) I was reading this review by Judith Shulevitz of books on the conflict between evolution and creationism by Eugenie Scott and Michael Ruse respectively, and I was brought up short by this gloss on Ruse’s argument:
Nonetheless, he says here, we must be careful about how we use the word “evolution,” because it actually conveys two meanings, the science of evolution and something he calls “evolutionism.” Evolutionism is the part of evolutionary thought that reaches beyond testable science. Evolutionism addresses questions of origins, the meaning of life, morality, the future and our role in it. In other words, it does all the work of a religion, but from a secular perspective.
Okay not so fast. Hang on a minute. What do you mean all the work of a religion? Who says that is the work of a religion? and even if you concede that other disciplines or ways of thinking or systems of ideas also do that work, who says that’s the work of a religion at all? why is it the work of a religion? What qualifications does a religion bring to the task? What tools of inquiry does it use? What kind of logic does it apply? What are its criteria for accepting or rejecting evidence? What is religion’s special knowledge or expertise or insight into those questions that is available only to religion and not to any other interested human inquirer? I’m serious, now – please name one. People never do. When one asks that question, people never do answer – at least not that I’ve seen. What tools does religion have that no one else has that enable it to ‘do the work’ of addressing those questions? I want to know. And if the answer is, ‘Er, don’t know,’ then why is that platitudinous falsehood so endlessly recycled? I want to know.
It’s just a big damn falsehood, it seems to me. The part of evolutionary thought that reaches ‘beyond’ testable science is the kind of necessarily (because of the reaching beyond bit) speculative thought that is open to anyone to pursue. There is no magical third category where the thought is still speculative but it has some sort of voodooish instrumentation and rules of logic or llojick and special weird untestable evidence or evvedentz that is accessible only to graduates of theological seminaries. Nuh uh. There ain’t no such. There’s only the real world of empirical inquiry of various kinds, and the unreal world of speculation and supernaturalism (or if you prefer the reaching beyond testable science), where the findings may or may not be true but are (by definition) not subject to verification. That second world is wide open. By its nature, it has no expertise, because there is nothing for it to have expertise in. Expertise in speculation about The Beyond is a peculiar kind of expertise – which is to say, no expertise at all. Thus religion doesn’t get to declare a monopoly on the subject. So it’s just flat-out false to say or imply that evolutionary thought is as it were trespassing on religion’s territory, or committing some kind of lèse majesté or blasphemy or violation of the sacred by addressing questions of the meaning of life, morality, the future and our role in it. Don’t people think about what they’re saying? Don’t they realize that it is a disaster to claim that only religion is allowed or qualified to address those questions, that those questions are its (and implicitly only its) ‘work’? Do we want religion and only religion addressing questions of the meaning of life, morality, the future and our role in it? I sure as hell don’t! I want good, sane, rational answers to those questions, not woolly pious authoritarian rootless ones. Those questions are public ones, wide open ones, ones that benefit from rational inquiry; they’re not special, sacred, fenced-off, taboo ones, and religions don’t get to declare them such. Some religious believers want them to be able to declare them such, but the rest of us have to veto that demand. So if Ruse is claiming that evolutionary thinkers should forbid themselves to address such questions, by way of placating and mollifying religious believers and the ID crowd – I just think he’s wrong.
Er, nobody is saying that religion has exclusive rights. But evolutionists are acting like religious leaders and they have no more special right to do this than conventional religious leaders.
It’s also rather silly. Most practising Christians have no trouble in accepting evolution as a scientific theory and regard creationism as silly.
And, frankly, I have more respect for Benedict XVI as a religious leader than I do for Richard Dawkins.
Richard should stick to the science and stay away from theology.
“Acting like religious leaders”? In what way? Are they dressing in sactified robes? Sprinkling holy water? Delivering sermons from the pulpit? Baptising infants?
From where I sit, they are sometimes expressing their opinions about ethics and such (which everyone has the right to do, I believe), but mostly informing the public about the science of evolution. Which of these should they stop doing?
“Er, nobody is saying that religion has exclusive rights.”
Well, that’s why I asked what Shulevitz meant – because it’s not clear whether she is or not. But what she wrote does sound like saying exactly that.
What do you mean “evolutionists are acting like religious leaders”?
“Richard should stick to the science and stay away from theology.”
Atheism is not theology. And why should he stay away from it in any case? We’re all expected to take religious truth claims seriously – so how can we also be expected to back reverently away and never investigate them? That’s asking a lot.
“And, frankly, I have more respect for Benedict XVI as a religious leader than I do for Richard Dawkins.”
I don’t think Richard Dawkins has ever tried to claim any status as a religious leader. Nor is he claiming that his job description includes fighting religion. He has used his public profile to point out a lot of things that are wrong with religion and I tend to think he is telling the truth when he says he does this out of a genuine conviction that much needless harm comes from faith. Should he keep his trap shut on religion because he is a world-renowned scientist? Does he have less rights to speak out than anyone else? Does this mean Prince Charles should never be allowed to open his mouth again as long as he lives?
Or is it, just possibly, too dangerous for someone really clever who knows what he’s talking about to let the masses know his opinion of religion?
“nobody is saying that religion has exclusive rights”
Maybe nobody we respect and consider rational is saying it. But I daresay it would not be difficult to assemble a pretty long list of people who are, if nothing else, at least prominent and who are clearly saying that religion does have exclusive rights in many areas. I think it’s only justifiable to ignore them if they are really a small and powerless fringe element and I fear that is anything but the case.
as a cloud of dust rises from the scuffle
cackle
I know. How can one not rise to that?
Evolutionism is a straw man, set up for no reason other than to have a reason to bash, which doesn’t otherwise exist. I’m sure if we put our minds to it we can come up with far better reasons to forbid Michael Ruse to talk about evolutionism than he can come up with to forbid Dawkins talking about religion.
And where the hell are all the “respect” people when atheists complain that they find religion offensive?
It’s all rigged, I tell ya…
Interesting
One must assume that Mr Mushens, as a reader of B&W, is a) at the more tolerant end of the religious spectrum and b)has a brain.
And yet we get the same unthinking ad hominem nonsense that we would expect from some redneck evangelical. It is, as I say, interesting. Clearly this whole subject presses a very sensitive button.
What I’d like to hear sometime from someone making that kind of claim is the specifics – details of exactly how the scientists in question are behaving as if they had a religious agenda. An obvious first point would be that science is fenced off, inaccessible to investigation that might upset its core truths, the way religion is. But of course that is also the first obvious difference between them; science only got to where it is (“theories” some opponents want to call “dogma” merely because they’re so well-evidenced) through a process of investigation that didn’t protect anything from being questioned.
That is the ludicrous thing about ID: defenders claim science is censoring them for the sake of its own dogma, when the real reason scientists don’t want to re-open the issue is simply “been there, thought of that, didn’t make sense, have way better options.”
“What I’d like to hear sometime from someone making that kind of claim is the specifics – details of exactly how the scientists in question are behaving as if they had a religious agenda.”
So would I – which is exactly why that is the first question I asked. But answer came there none. It never does.