We do not now have the understanding
Sorry – a couple of people have reproached me for linking to Nagel on Dawkins when it’s subscription. Sorry. I got access via bugmenot (which will probably now be taken away) a long time ago, so I forget that it’s subscription. I thought it might be on the Dawkins site but it isn’t, at least not yet. Try bugmenot – it doesn’t always work, but it sometimes does. It’s cheating, but then again, one can read magazines at libraries, and that’s not cheating.
It’s worth the effort (no surprise there).
One of Dawkins’s aims is to overturn the convention of respect toward religion that belongs to the etiquette of modern civilization. He does this by persistently violating the convention, and being as offensive as possible, and pointing with gleeful outrage at absurd or destructive religious beliefs and practices. This kind of thing was done more entertainingly by H.L. Mencken (whom Dawkins quotes with admiration), but the taboo against open atheistic scorn seems to have become even more powerful since Mencken’s day.
Just so, perhaps especially in the US (although it seems to me to be pretty powerful [in public discourse] in the UK too). I was saying just that to Jeremy the other day – that yes Dawkins and Dennett are rude about religion, but that I think they do that not because they are smug or arrogant but because the default assumption has become that it is taboo to be scornful of religion, with the result that unbelievers can feel very isolated and peculiar, especially young ones; I think what both are doing is at least partly performing the fact that it is and ought to be permissable to be scornful of religion. They’re performing for that high school student that Dennett talked about in his NY Times Op Ed – the one who felt so isolated and peculiar until Dennett spoke at his school and was quite matter-of-factly atheist. At least I think they are, I think that’s one possible and even likely explanation, though they may also just be being irritated.
I agree with Dawkins that the issue of design versus purely physical causation is a scientific question. He is correct to dismiss Stephen Jay Gould’s position that science and religion are “non-overlapping magisteria.” The conflict is real. But although I am as much of an outsider to religion as he is, I believe it is much more difficult to settle the question than he thinks. I also suspect there are other possibilities besides these two that have not even been thought of yet.
That’s just it, in a way – other possibilities. That’s interesting, where saying ‘God’ is the opposite of interesting. It’s about as interesting (and plausible) as saying Joe.
A religious worldview is only one response to the conviction that the physical description of the world is incomplete. Dawkins says with some justice that the will of God provides a too easy explanation of anything we cannot otherwise understand, and therefore brings inquiry to a stop. Religion need not have this effect, but it can. It would be more reasonable, in my estimation, to admit that we do not now have the understanding or the knowledge on which to base a comprehensive theory of reality.
You bet. I’m happy to admit that. I resent the ‘God’ answer partly because it claims we do have the knowledge – because it’s content with an answer that’s not an answer, and uses the non-answer to close off the question. It’s doubly annoying.
I’m all for being matter-of-factly atheist, but I’m not so sure about being “rude about religion.” Granted that there is a rather fine line between them, but I tend to think that the best way of winning “converts” to secularism is just to model it by going about one’s business, providing good logical and empirical arguments on the issues of the day, and refraining from calling religious people names and implying that they are stupid (not that either Dawkins or Dennett does that, although using the term “brights” borders on it).
On the “comprehensive theory of reality” issue, I’m not even sure what such a “theory” would look like, much less whether we will ever have one, but we certainly don’t have one now. But the average person apparently wants to *feel* that she/he has one, which is why trying to convince religious people that “God” is not an explanation is such tough upstream-rowing. They just don’t want to hear that.
I think it may also explain why people like Collins (and Gould, perhaps) think that science and religion can be reconciled. They understand the science perfectly well, and understand that it is not a complete explanation of reality. But they have the emotional need to feel that there is such an explanation, so they stick their favorite religion into that slot. And since the religion can’t be falsified, it’s safe.
>I think it may also explain why people like Collins (and Gould, perhaps) think that science and religion can be reconciled…. But they have the emotional need to feel that there is such an explanation, so they stick their favorite religion into that slot. And since the religion can’t be falsified, it’s safe.< I think we can safely omit Gould from such an argument. My impression is that Gould did not favour any specific religion, and regarded himself as an unbeliever. Nor, in my understanding, was he saying that science and religion can be “reconciled”, in the sense of there being logical consistency between them. His description of their being “non-overlapping magisterial” implies that they occupy different conceptual regions (or something like that). Not that I entirely agree with him, but it’s important to get straight what he believed:
http://www.stephenjaygould.org/library/gould_noma.html
Rude about religion?
Why not/
A couple of days ago I went to a fabrics-and-cloth show (I can get good shirts there) but there was a set of displays by a well-known (in the field) maker of woven/stitched pictures/tapestries/displays – one of which was a joint portait of Mary Tydder and PhiliII of Spain.
I asked “Why were these two muderous christian tyrants on dispay?” To which the answer was: “It was a paid comission.”
Fair enough, but, as I said a t the time – Ugh (and a large shudder.
I t was a long time ago, but the idea of deliberately oppressing people for the Wrong (including none) religious beliefs is still around, isn’t it.
Allen – thanks for the link to Gould. I put in the “perhaps” because I was admittedly vague about his position, and will accept your correction.
GT – there have been a lot of really nasty religious people, and a lot of really nasty non-religious people. Human beings are unfortunately constructed in such a way that they can find all sorts of reasons for being brutal.
What I’m suggesting is that if you want to talk with religious folks (the ordinary everyday type you meet in your neighborhood, not the religious royal tyrant type), it’s probably not a good idea to spend all your time shouting at them that they are stupid, evil, bloodthirsty, monumentally ignorant, etc., etc., as a lot of atheists and secularists seem to have a compulsion to do.
I find, as usual, the following rather silly:
I also suspect there are other possibilities besides these two that have not even been thought of yet.
Other possibilities besides science and religion, you say?
Reading stuff like that, I always feel at pains to point this out, and forgive me if it’s just obvious, and said here a thousand times before, yadda yadda:
Science isn’t just the present consensus view (where that exists) of how the world works. It’s also a set of qualified evaluations about how certain that knowledge is, and a toolbox full ways of generating and evaluating new ideas. It tends, for this reason, to evolve, to refine ideas and techniques, over time.
So in at least one very important sense, science already grasps that there are more than two possibilities. It is itself a body of many, many possibilities under constant evaluation–an evolving, moving body of ideas we refine over time, with the intention that we might better grasp how our world works.
It is also a view of how you approach knowledge, how you argue, what counts as evidence. It’s empiricism, and it’s rationalism, in an old marriage that has borne many, many remarkable children. And it’s in that sense that it stands poles apart from any religion that proposes ‘I have faith’ is a respectable argument for asserting anything.
So if the writer wishes to propose that there’s a third way, somehow between those two–the only sense, given what science is, that seems to me to be even worth mentioning–I’m, well, intrigued.
What, is there going to turn up, suddenly, another way of knowing that does not involve a systematic consideration of what our senses reveal, but which isn’t simply ‘faith’? Are we going, thereby, to discover a better way of working out how our world works? Better than science?
I also suspect there are other possibilities besides these two that have not even been thought of yet, he writes.
For the record, I absolutely do not suspect this.
But Nagel wasn’t saying he suspects there are possibilities other than science and religion, but that he suspects there are other possibilities than design versus purely physical causation.
Jon,
The issue as I understand it isn’t about shouting at believers that they are [various rude things] but about saying blunt things about religion.
OK, as long as one makes a distinction between saying blunt things about religion and insulting religious people. Sometimes that’s a little tricky; for example, making a distinction between “the existence of God is a stupid idea” and “you, Mr. or Ms. believer in God, are stupid.”
Sure. Understood. That is (I assume) one reason there is a taboo about being blunt about religion: it is very difficult to say ‘this idea has no legs’ without seeming to cast aspersions on people who hold the idea. But all the same there is a distinction.
OT, I suppose, but this might amuse you, Olivia. Fresh out of Poland, via Hungary. And forgive linking.
Thanks, George, it does amuse (and sure enough, I am a veg). And the link needs no forgiveness! Wrong name though. Olivia’s the detective; I’m the one who couldn’t detect her own keys if they were sitting in a spotlight.
But Nagel wasn’t saying he suspects there are possibilities other than science and religion, but that he suspects there are other possibilities than design versus purely physical causation.
Sorry. I was trying to avoid ‘cheating’, as you put it. I just read your excerpts. And I’ve read enough naive, idiotic arguments that do go just that way that I got a bit trigger happy. Especially in concert with the A religious worldview is only one response to the conviction that the physical description of the world is incomplete. stuff you excerpted later, I naturally assumed that’s how it went.
Clarifying to why I’d assume that: science doesn’t claim that the physical description of the world we have is complete, and it’s a frequent (and typically misleading) attack by certain woo woo thinkers that attempts to imply it does. Just figured it was another one of those.
But, incidentally, having now (cheated and) read the rest of the article, I’m still entirely unimpressed with this guy. I don’t find his argument wildly different from the one I’d thought it was, nor particularly more honest.
So he seems to feel it’s ‘the fear of religion’ behind certain assumptions, that these assumptions are tantamount to a’ defensive, world-flattening reductionism’.
I think both halfs of this charge are trumped up for rhetorical purposes. ‘Fear of religion’ isn’t the only reason to assume generally that all phenomena we observe are consistent with essentially mechanistic or probabilistic physical laws–a perfectly sensible reason for that assumption which has nothing to do with any such fear is that, as he himself notes, generally, we’ve got a lot of mileage so far from this general assumption.
As to his implication that Dawkins and hils ilk are out to reduce all phenomena to particle physics: the assumption, as I’d describe it, is rather merely that the universe does obey laws–probabalistic or mechanistic, and we should not expect to find they contradict one another, at the very least. A corollary is we can discover those laws–or some of them, at least, to useful and inertesting degrees. That’s the grand assumption of science and of Dawkins, and, for that matter, I’d suspect, of most atheists, but hell, that’s a lot harder to ridicule than the ‘reductionism’ he half describes, so I can see why he wouldn’t want to take that on. Better to imply those silly atheists are out to explain ethics in terms of particle physics, and move on.
They’re cheap shots. But then, if all you’re really saying is “abiogenesis currently seems improbable, and thus there might be a ‘teleological principle’ intrinsic to the universe that causes order”, I guess it’s kinda necessary to take a few cheap shots.
Damn damn damn and apologies, Ophelia. What with Hamlet and all, how could I be so stupid. Olivia is in Twelfth Night.
Quite all right, George! (I’d quite like to be Olivia. Much prettier name.)
AJ,
Hmm. I liked Nagel’s review – thought it was interesting. I generally do find Nagel interesting (he wrote the famous bat article, you know). I took his main point to be just that it’s not an easy question, why there is life, or how everything got here. Well it’s not. Is it? After all, no one knows. That’s not at all to say there is a woo-woo answer, it’s just to say that it is a hard question.
JonJ,
I agree that it can be hard to criticize an ideology without some scorn spilling over onto the person who believes in it. But no harder than “hating the sin, but loving the sinner”.
Sauce for the goose and all…
The problem with claims about other ways of knowing is that they are used to shift scientific discussions onto a metaphysical ground. By its very nature, metaphysics cannot by verified or falsified–if it could be, it would be science, not metaphysics. Once you accept the claim that science rests on purely metaphysical presuppositions–indeed, once you enter into metaphysical discussions at all–you have conceded most of the argument to religious believers. This is exactly where they want you to go.
Science may begin with certain presuppositions, but those presuppositions are then strongly supported by the efficacy of science. The proof lies in the successful empirical application of scientific principles. No purely metaphysical systems can make this claim–indeed, it is precisely the burden of proof that rival claims are attempting to escape. The basis of all such arguments is epistemological relativism, which asserts that evidence is itself irrelevant.
As for being rude to religious believers, I haven’t much sympathy for people who position themselves to be offended by any criticism of their beliefs. One of the motivations behind ‘witnessing’ is that the act of witnessing is a profession of a strong personal belief, guarded by etiquette from being questioned. Religion relies upon the politeness of others for its final line of defense. It is the original political correctness. I find that many religious believers have no such scruples about making blatantly false claims, which I find outrageously offensive. If they can offend at their leisure, why can’t we?
Which (as always with the supernatural) leads us nicely back to Hume, as ever…
boy, did he spank their evidentially-challenged backsides.
:-)
No wonder many people wouldn’t attend his funeral, but watched over the churchyard wall because they thought that Balezebozo would appear…
About time we had a vague effort at a second Scottish Enlightenment, perhaps…maybe we might get some coherent thinking together in time for the tercentenary of his birth in 2011?
I took his main point to be just that it’s not an easy question, why there is life, or how everything got here. Well it’s not. Is it? After all, no one knows.
Should probably apologize for taking my sweet time for responding to this. Life keeps intervening. You know.
I could go on about abiogenesis–I will say briefly I find the parallels between his claims and those of certain creationists interesting. There’s something of a history, there, of exaggerating the difficulties of getting to something which can actually evolve. I’m not sure I buy his numbers. But then, I guess, if Dawkins mentioned nothing of the efforts made to piece together what might have happened, and said only ‘it only had to happen once’, I guess not dealing with that at length is at least forgiveable, in a reviewer.
But, more broadly, I’d say even introducing the notion of underlying teleological principles in the universe without at least dealing with issues surrounding the anthropic principle is a bit dishonest. I think, inevitably, reading such arguments, of Douglas Adams’ happy little puddle, noticing how perfectly the hole it is in seems to be have been designed to accomodate a puddle of its particular shape.
… And, following from that, just getting to ‘teleological principles’ from the rather narrow problem he does cite directly (abiogenesis), giving Paley a hearing even so far as he does really strikes me as, again, giving equal time to arguments which simply aren’t equal.
Life? Wozzat? And where’d it come from? And wozzit designed so that it could intervene? Or did it just happen?
[general mirth]