A late entry
Paul W has a long interesting comment on Ben Nelson’s The Unquiet Scientist post from last year, a post which has been quiet so long that Paul’s comment might be missed.
One or two highlights:
…experimental data that seem to support the opposite view—including a bunch of very basic and very well-known social psychology results from the 1960’s and 1970’s about bracketing, conformity, and groupthink. They seem to support Overton reasoning: if you don’t voice the “extreme” views, the group tends to converge on a new center position, midway between the views that are voiced. The center thus shifts away from the people who self-censor their (perceived) “extreme” views.
And
The individual psychology of belief fixation is complicated, and the social psychology is far more complicated. If things were as simple and one-sided as Mooney makes them out to be, politics would be simple, and that’s just false. There are a lot of two-edged swords flying around, for basic, deep reasons.
Good image!
Just to echo that, the latest comment is well worth reading, even though the thread is dead.
Interesting article and comments. What I don’t understand about the accommodationists (there must be a shorter name for them) is that religions are fictional belief systems that make statements about the world without evidence or despite evidence to the contrary. How can that in any way be reconciled with scientific modes of enquiry?
I understand the accommo sentiment that if we don’t ruffle the deeply held, albeit false, beliefs of the populace, they will more readily understand scientific concepts. I just don’t buy it.
In the areas of evolution and pre-big bang (assuming there is such a thing), and if you think about it in many other regions of knowledge about the world, there is zero compatibility between science and religion. Maybe they think knowledge of science will erode religious belief, and in some limited fashion it might, but I think atheism is more likely to enable rationality, and thus scientific understanding, among younger people especially.
And as many have stated before, there is room on the atheist, critical thinking, skepticism continuum for both “strident” and mild voices, for confrontation and accommodation.
[…] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Skeptic South Africa and Ophelia Benson. Ophelia Benson said: A late entry http://dlvr.it/DM0YP […]
Thanks for the link Ophelia it was a genuinely brilliant comment.
My personal take home is the group politics bit. Accommodationists more generally seem uninterested in wondering about what it means to have group pressures and the idea that those are an essential tool for us to use. I know that it can seem wrong, for precisely the reason Paul gives, that it runs counter to the idea of valuing truth. On the other hand it’s very effective and it also fits with general stories about not only how atheism develops in people but also how we train thinkers in University (I.E through doing science or history or philosophy).
Having read Chris Mooney’s latest two blog entries (Sci Online Session 1 & 2: Defending Science Online) it occurred to me that Mooney has no interest in truth (or does he?), only in information. Therefore, it is important (to him) to push scientific information as unquestioning and authoritarian, rather than allowing people to see the evidence and ‘think’ for themselves.
My approach (and perhaps the approach of other sceptics) may differ to everyone else, because I’m not so much interested in pushing information that people should accept on ‘authority’ but that there critical thinking mind is switched on, allowing them to process information for themselves.
Thus, if Mooney is interested in persuasion, marketing, management talk, political rhetoric, then that might all work okay for passive consumers and passive voters, but not for the aim of engaging people to think critically and to process scientific knowledge so as to bring forth ‘understanding’.
Mooney seems to come across as ‘orthodox’ in his style. His version is the pure version that we must all abide by, but his main weakness seems to be the complete lack of critical thinking.
In an uncertain and confused world of mixed messages, it’s essential that people begin to think critically for themselves. Attempting to be the most persuasive message among persuasive messages (rather like a free market of messages) seems like a futile approach to me. It is the nature of critical thinking that people argue and confront mixed messages rather than hide away in a sensitive protective bubble.
His use of ‘framing’ is essentially no different to creating an orthodoxy of information, whereas those who disagree are ‘heretics’ or ‘denialists’. When he talks about truth, he does so as given, without giving reasons or evidence. Presentation and explanation are considered ‘facts’ in themselves (direct facts are no longer helpful but dull in Mooney speak), that do not need to be questioned. Nothing must interfere with the re-evaluation of personal beliefs critically, only a safe passive acceptance of explanation as fact.
After having presented or explained his own ideas about ‘framing’, he now considered this as a fact (or valid argument) from which to proceed with his agenda. Although nothing reasonable or evidential has been made to support ideas, he proceeds to confuse explanation with argument or facts, and then accepts his explanations as facts in themselves.
I am completely open to the possibility that Mooney is a deep thinker who provides rational and evidential arguments for his position, but I’m afraid I simply don’t see any of this in his writing.
This may be an inherent problem in ‘conservative’ thinking itself, hence why the word ‘orthodox’ is appropriate. Rather than thinking critically, information is not processed but simply accepted on the authority of authority figures who package their information in a friendly and safe way.
One of the things that strikes me about Paul W’s account is this remark:
I have often thought this myself, and wondered precisely what Mooney thinks he is achieving by the way that he frames the discussion. I know that I’m not the only one, of course, but there is a kind bland assumption that his view is somehow obviously superior, and he doesn’t need to take the (new) atheists into account, since they are just obviously wrong.
I’m not familiar with Overton, and his theories, but there is an interesting tendency in churches that suggests that over time they will tend towards the more conservative, fundamentalist understanding of faith, and not towards a middle ground which somehow mediates between the extremes. The reason for this in religious contexts is quite simple. Religions are, as I have said before, very conscious of issues of power and influence, or what might be called market share. The Anglican Church in Canada, for example, has tended to bleed members, because, for some time, at least, it seemed to favour fairly liberal understandings of Christianity (biblical intepretation and theology and the mission of the church — viz., social justice concerns, women’s issues, gay rights, critical understanding of the Bible, less literal understandngs of dogma), and this did not provide the kinds of reassuring faith that many people are looking for. Therefore, the hierarchy tends to favour conservative movements, since they see liberals as damaging the church, however much more attractive it may make the church look morally. So the church has a tendency to shrink towards the right. The (possibly unconscious) hope is that this will lead, eventually, to church growth, as people see the church reassuming some of the historic traditions of belief. Strangely, this process has worked pari passu with the increasing number of women in ministry.
As this has happened, however, there has been a certain amount of drift away from the church in the other direction: people leaving the church altogether, because their main concerns, very often justice issues, begin to take second place to the reassertion of traditional beliefs. However, in this context, there are also a number of people in the middle ground who could easily move either way, that is, towards increasingly conservative belief, or towards more explicit kinds of secular humanism. The thing that keeps many of them in the church is community, a place where they feel accepted, develop friendships, discuss important things. In this situation, for unbelief to be content with a kind of bland, unthreatening, sedately philosophical expression of scepticism is not going to go very far. That’s why, I think, that books like Dawkins’ and Harris’s were so successful, because this is precisely the kind of engagement that people are looking for. People waffle, they don’t have settled beliefs, they need to have some sense of being engaged in a movement. That’s why new atheism is a successful strategy, in my view. The core of religious believers won’t like it, of course. That goes without saying. But for a large number of people, this is something they can sink their teeth into, and, without that, which way they will jump will depend on what engages their attention and imagination. In this context, Mooney’s idea of framing is hopelessly out of touch with where a lot of people find themselves, in my humble opinion, of course!
Egbert, we cross posted, but I think what you say is important — viz., about the idea of authoritative info vs. the ability to process information by learning the arts of critical thinking. I think this is, in part at least, what I was saying. One of the things about liberal Christianity is that, whether this is possible or not, it at least seeks to be a kind of rational religion, and the emphasis is placed on trying to think about questions of belief for yourself. In the end, I think, this must lead out of the church, but, in the meantime, there is a place here for truly sceptical thought to make inroads, because, if people really are thinking for themselves, this should, in fact, lead them out of belief in the end. But it is important to keep this in mind, and to make one’s pitch as aggressive as possible, without undue offence. But this goes without saying in any event. There’s not much point in calling people stupid. The best course is to point out how “stupid” they are, if they think their beliefs are rational, and this can be done by means of argument instead of name calling.
Eric,
Thanks Eric, and I think we were both saying much the same thing. This might be what is fundamentally wrong with Mooney, or the conservative nature of American dialogue itself. Confusing the message (or explanation) with facts or reason itself.
Egbert:
“Thus, if Mooney is interested in persuasion, marketing, management talk, political rhetoric, then that might all work okay for passive consumers and passive voters, but not for the aim of engaging people to think critically and to process scientific knowledge so as to bring forth ‘understanding’.”
Exactly. That is the Mooney approach. As a strategy it is highly dangerous since if those passive consumers can be persuaded one way today they can be persuaded another way tomorrow. The real battleground is in the schools. If we don’t produce students from our K-12 systems who actually know a little science and math and have already developed some critical thinking ability we lose. Many of those students, especially nowadays, won’t go on to any further education so what they leave school with is critically important. The fundies know this which is why they are so keen to control school curricula.
As for Mooney; I see he is still described as a science journalist/educator so WTF is he going to start educating the great american public about science and quit wasting all his energy in these stupid battles. Good grief that man can whine!!
I wonder whether the answer to Locutus7’s question might be simply a poor goal set for “scientific understanding”. Personally, I don’t think we’re any further ahead socially if the result of the efforts is that more people simply say words like “yeah, I accept evolution”, even if they are sincere and that. It is rather that I would want them to read and study and investgate and come to the conclusions (more or less, in broad outlines) supported by the theories and evidence we have. *This* is science, not memorizing and regurigitating. It is also this that in my view cannot be reconciled by an accomodationist position. It is by investigating the way the world works that one loosens (and to varying degrees) sloughs off the dogmas of the past of all sorts. I ask again: why is it that heterodoxy in general is extremely corrolated with scientific innovation?
Egbert, Eric: Precisely.
It appears that Mooney equates being reasonable with adopting an intermediate position between two poles, as is often the case in politics. His orientation towards difference-splitting makes it hard for him to recognize that some differences can’t be split. There doesn’t appear to be such a thing as a half-empirical position, but only half-empiricists who alternate between POVs without reconciling them.
Reading Paul W.’s comment, I’m reminded of how people (and even slime molds) are swayed by relative choices. Like seeing the original price is $5.00, you might be tempted to buy the $4.50 on-sale version instead of the cheap knockoff going for $2.00 (all made by the same parent conglomeration, of course). Think of atheism as an extremely costly object (maybe in terms of culture) for most religious people to buy into; then if we don’t get the offer out there, maybe most people will be stuck choosing from within the pool of low-cost and medium-cost religious options that they know of and not testing the waters of non-traditional religions, faith skepticism, or agnosticism on the more costly side of the scale. Or maybe not, but it was fun to think about.
Very interesting, about authoritative info versus critical thinking. It’s another way of putting the marketing/PR/political versus inquiring/truth-seeking polarity that I talked about on the previous thread based on Ben’s post.
One point worth noting is that you can’t get genuine information without genuine inquiring and truth-seeking. You can’t get it without critical thinking. In that sense, if it’s right that Mooney is focused on authoritative info, what he’s doing is parasitic on the very way of thinking he is in some ways opposing.
That doesn’t have to be true. One can do both. PZ often points out that he doesn’t have time to do things like speculate on the possibility of a Clever Designer in his introductory classes, because he has way too much authoritative information to impart. Those classes aren’t about critical thinking, but that doesn’t mean they’re Incompatible with critical thinking. On the contrary. So Mooney could do both, or support both. But…
Eric,
One thing his fans say is that he “knows” gnu atheists won’t be satisfied, no matter what he says, so he doesn’t try. I don’t think that’s right, not least because he doesn’t and can’t know that at all, not least because it isn’t true. He did tell me that (via email) at the very beginning of the “civility-Jerry Coyne in the New Republic” dispute; he said disputes at his place tend to go on and on without saying anything useful, or words to that effect. I think that’s just obviously not true: there were plenty of good reasonable useful comments there, until they started banning almost all their critics. I think that’s a self-serving excuse, frankly.
I suspect the real reason he ignores critics is that he doesn’t have much to say to them. He has his authoritative information, which they don’t consider authoritative, and he doesn’t know where to go from there.
This is referencing political discussion but the table at the beginning of the post describes exactly the problem is with accommodtionists (echoing what Ophelia has been saying)
http://www.marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2011/01/liberal-compromise-and-conservative-power.html
Just an update—that thread at Talking Philosophy isn’t dead yet. I posted a couple more long comments, including one in which I explained why so many Gnus despise Chris Mooney rather than just agreeing with it. Jean Kazez appreciated the explanation. Cool. The other was a ramble about the complexities, Overton issues, fragmentation of media, and political systems, which Jeremy liked.
I’ve got another one written, but it’s too long and I haven’t figured out how to condense it.
Tune back in if you’re interested.
I meant “despise Chris Mooney rather than just disagreeing with him,” of course.
Yes I read those yesterday (and the day before if that’s when you wrote the first one – which I think maybe it is), Paul. Good stuff (as always). I find it kind of odd that anyone who has been following the er controversy needs to have it explained why some gnu atheists despise Mooney rather than just disagreeing with him, but I know it is So.
It’s funny, you say several times that he has been doing what he’s been doing for years. Well not funny, just mildly interesting to me – because I really didn’t follow it at first, so my irritation is younger than that. I was (barely) aware of one intervention he did with Nisbet – the one after or during the “Expelled” fuss, when Nisbet said Dawkins (and PZ?) should sit down and shut up and let other people do the talking – I was aware of it but didn’t really follow it, I think precisely because I didn’t want to disagree with Mooney, so I just left it aside. I date my irritation very definitely from the “be more civil – Jerry Coyne’s review” post. I’m a newbie.