The Debate Over Unscientific America

Your conversation with Bob is identical to one I’ve had with my mom. Blah.

I’m concerned more with truth than with coddling others. I’m not going to pretend that science and mainstream Christianity are compatible, because they’re not. You know what? Understanding evolution did lead to my atheism, as did learning how to think critically and scientifically about situations. Religious people who claim to support science yet hold unscientific beliefs are making exceptions that just do not make sense. I don’t support doublethink.

I think M&K hold a very academic view of religion, and that’s why they don’t get it. They don’t get where the public hostility towards science comes from.

Understanding science is largely corrosive to religious belief (not always, but often). There’s stats that back that up, but also many of our own personal anecdotes. Once I had a good grounding in evolution (from my catholic HS bio class no less) I started slipping from deism toward agnosticism. Enough physics classes to understand big band cosmology and that was it. I’d estimate that my fellow physics students had about a 60/40 favoring the godless, and I don’t think it’s a coincidence.

Further, M&K really don’t get why it wasn’t the fault of the big mean scientists when the reclassified Pluto. That part of their book (link) was just plain insulting to those of us who use it as a teaching opportunity ever chance we get. I still get asked all the time why Pluto was demoted, and every time, it’s a chance to explain about planet formation, exoplanets, the fact that Pluto orbit is subordinate to Neptune just like many asteroids are subordinate to Jupiter. The media, who didn’t care about the “Why” questions were far more to blame than the scientists or the public. And that’s representative of “the Intersection” of science and media in which they claim to be experts.

I can’t even figure out which side they’re on. The belief in belief article kind of hit home after following the back and forth with them. I’m really on the verge of dropping their blog from my reader out of shear frustration with their anti-scientist self loathing. Next thing they’ll want drag queens out of gay pride parades to make it more palatable to “middle America.”

Do I sound frustrated with them? I am.

Great Post! This is the first one in the fray that I’ve completely agreed with. I think the suggestion for them to tour in churches is right on, and would hope that they at least try it once and let us know how it goes.

The problem with the religion v. science debate is that the two have entirely different ways of evaluating truth claims.

Religion will declare something true if it’s in their holy book, even if it contradicts evidence. Science will declare something true if the evidence supports it, even if it contradicts established work.

It’s a completely different method of evaluation, leading to no end of problems. That’s why we often talk past one another – we’re asking and answering different questions from different starting points.

I agree mostly with what you said, Hemant, save for one sticky bit:

But it’s their loss, not ours.

This is only true on the micro scale. On the macro, we run into situations where the religious use their beliefs to try to create laws, such as those who would prefer to ban stem cell research. Choosing faith over science can definitely have effects outside of the person who holds the faith.

The problem I have with M&K is primarily that, in a book about how the American populace has an anti-science bent, they’ve targetted the “new” atheists. This gives fuel to those out there in the religionist camp who love to crow about how irrational and unscientific atheists are.

Science and religion are most definately incompatible. The advance of science almost always means the retreat of religion. That is difficult for many to accept. And the process can be flat out dangerous when those of faith attempt to dig in their heels in an effort to prevent their god from shrinking further. But it is better to press forward than to return to the dark ages.

I like M&K’s blog. But this whole stink has completely extinguished any interest I might’ve had in their book. And they completely misunderstand the atheist community as a whole. We are freethinkers. We are independent. We aren’t good at following the crowd. And when we’re told to quiet down and play nice it doesn’t really sit well with many of us.

I’m really quite shocked at how ill prepared M&K were for PZ’s reaction. Go after Dawkins and you get one of those old-time boxing matches, where everyone fights repectfully and proper. Go after PZ and you get a knife fight in a dark alley filled with broken bottles, smelling of booze and urine. In my opinion M&K haven’t held up well against him.

I’m glad our Friendly Atheist has finally commented on this debate. I was hoping you would. And I also agree that M&K should tour churches. I think that is a fantastic idea. But you made another point that I think is very much overlooked:

“And when that doesn’t go well, it’s not the fault of pro-science/anti-religion advocates like PZ Myers and Richard Dawkins. I guarantee most evangelicals have never heard of either.”

I would go so far as to say that most christians haven’t heard of them either. I know my catholic mother wouldn’t bat an eye at either name. In that respect I think M&K have misread the effect “new atheists” (a term I hate almost as much as “brights”) have had on the decline of scientific literacy. As PZ pointed out, scientific literacy was on the decline well before the new atheists appeared on the scene. I personally believe that the new atheists are our only hope of reversing that trend.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think M&K should be shouted down. And I won’t stop reading their blog. But I am disappointed with their attempt to accommodate those that are uncomfortable with the advance of science. In the end I guess I can only hope they’ve learned something from this can of worms they’ve opened. And maybe someday, when I find their book at a used bookstore, maybe then I’ll read it.

And when that doesn’t go well, it’s not the fault of pro-science/anti-religion advocates like PZ Myers and Richard Dawkins. I guarantee most evangelicals have never heard of either. The problem is that scientific facts contradict popular religious beliefs, and the other side is not about to compromise.

Telling M&K to conduct their book tour sessions in churches is a freakin’ brilliant proposal, Hemant, and the follow-up comment is a spot-on analysis of the dynamics of the situation. Beautiful!

~David D.G.

I’m starting to wonder more and more if there is such a thing as a reverse Poe? I’d hate to think that these two somehow slipped through the cracks and are really religious people posing as atheists to try to break things down from the inside but I’m really starting to wonder…

I think science and some forms of religious belief can be somewhat compatible.

There are religious people who make claims about the world (i.e. it’s age) that go directly against what we have discovered through science. That form of belief is not compatible with science – a serious amount of cognitive dissonance has to be going on.

But is belief in a divine being who in some way instigated the creation of the universe (e.g. set off the Big Bang), perhaps set off the transition from non life to life and then let evolution take its course, and who very occasionally intervenes in the world through miracles that defy the normal functioning of the world something that science can really disprove? An awful lot of people, including presumably “Bob”, believe something along those lines. I can argue about how unlikely and unnecessary that all is, but I can’t disprove it..

Hemant, you should definitely follow Jerry Coyne’s “Why Evolution is True” blog, as well. He deals with Mooney all the time these days.

Also, if you’re interested in some philosophy and psychology, take a look at this. The link to the paper is in the third comment.

ATL-Apostate:

The answer is simple.

Boy are those famous last words.

Just answer a couple of simple questions:

Does science make claims about reality?
Does religion make claims about reality?

The answer to both is yes.

Do the answers that science and religion provide differ?

If you answer “yes” to the final question …

… then you need to pay more attention, because religion is so diverse that the answer is often “depends.” Kaylya described the facts on the ground very well.

Hemant Mehta:

It’s virtually impossible to find a “middle ground” because religious people constantly want to draw the line further into the realm of science — where it doesn’t belong.

Given that you’ve been careful before about treating religious people as human beings rather than some anonymous, homogeneous evil horde, I’m surprised that you wrote that. Religious people are not monolithic. Not even close.

Kaylya,

But is belief in a divine being who in some way instigated the creation of the universe (e.g. set off the Big Bang), perhaps set off the transition from non life to life and then let evolution take its course, and who very occasionally intervenes in the world through miracles that defy the normal functioning of the world something that science can really disprove? An awful lot of people, including presumably “Bob”, believe something along those lines. I can argue about how unlikely and unnecessary that all is, but I can’t disprove it..

Science can’t disprove that fairies aren’t responsible for gravity. That’s not what science is about, we can disprove very little, science shows us how we can know much. Science demands theories that can be falsified and evidence supporting conclusions, religion does not, quite the opposite in fact. This is the philosophy of science, you can be a scientist without accepting it but it’s contradictory and requires compartmentalisation.

It’s obviously irrational to me to have alternative theories in place until science can explain something. Hypotheses maybe, but then as far as hypotheses go they tend to be terrible, and aren’t even remotely treated as such but the majority of religious people. Perhaps all the evidence that would be needed to discover why the universe and life happened is lost. It doesn’t present a conflict with science to place beliefs into gaps of scientific knowledge, however it does offend reason.

Believing in miracles is clearly viewing particular events in an unscientific way, and anything can be a miracle viewed in such a way. The question is why do people view particular events in an unscientific way, i.e. believe in miracles? Wishthinking. I want it to be true so it is, strikes me as an antithesis to science. Miracles do conflict with science.

Science and religion have been mortal enemies since before the time of Galileo. And I do mean “mortal”. As in, religious authorities will kill you for being a scientist, for daring to question doctrine. In societies where religion dominates, this is what happens.

Even today, in America, if they really had their way — Creationists would kill you.

So yeah, not compatible.

Nemo:

Science and religion have been mortal enemies since before the time of Galileo

Ahem! See here: http://thonyc.wordpress.com/2009/06/29/science-and-religion-in-the-early-middle-ages/

Aj:

Believing in miracles is clearly viewing particular events in an unscientific way, and anything can be a miracle viewed in such a way.

That depends entirely on the level of evidence for the miracles that one believes in.

The question is why do people view particular events in an unscientific way, i.e. believe in miracles? Wishthinking.

Wishthinking. Or because one thinks (rightly or wrongly) that the miracles have been properly evidenced. Or being brought up to believe that particular miracles happened.

That depends entirely on the level of evidence for the miracles that one believes in.

That implies that there is some objective standard for what constitutes a miracle that can be checked or verified independently of looking for evidence. Consider why we don’t consider quantum mechanics a miracle: in a world where we only have the evidence of our senses, that which we have evidence for goes in the bin labeled “science” and that which we don’t have evidence for but nonetheless pretend is true goes in the bin labeled “miracle,” basically by definition of the words. Talking about “evidence for miracles” is a category mistake, unless you’re suggesting that the phenomena was mistakenly classified as a miracle and have simply decided (for notational convenience) to continue calling it a miracle until you prove this classification wrong.

trixr4kids,

Except for some forms of Buddhism. And for some important 20th century theologians like Paul Tillich, Bishop Robinson, and Bishop Spong, none of whom believe(d) in god(s).

Then either Buddhism isn’t a religion, it’s a philosophy that some religions have adopted, or Buddhism is a religion but some people have stripped the religious element out of it akin to non-religions like the Humanistic forms of Judaism, Chrisianity, and Buddhism.

And for some important 20th century theologians like Paul Tillich, Bishop Robinson, and Bishop Spong, none of whom believe(d) in god(s).

I’d question whethey they’re religious at all, and whether they’re actually practicing theology, or in fact arguing about fiction.

J. J. Ramsey,

That depends entirely on the level of evidence for the miracles that one believes in.

Science demands a level of evidence that miracles will never be supported by.

They become incompatible when they make incompatible claims. So back before people knew how babies were conceived (on a sophisticated level), before Darwin posited his original theory, back before most modern science was done, they weren’t incompatible – or they didn’t know it yet, at any rate.

Now, however, we have lots of scientific knowledge about the world that contradicts many religious claims. If you’re religious and you don’t make any claims that contradict current scientific knowledge, then bully for you – your particular flavor of religion might very well be compatible with science! But the vast, vast, vast, vast majority of religious people believe in at least a few claims that flatly contradict science.

M&K want us to just stop mentioning this, gloss it over, and maybe even apologize for being so discourteous as to threaten someone else’s magical thinking. It’s like saying, “Well, it’s awfully rude of those doctors to keep insisting that the anti-vaccine crowd is wrong! Sure, the evidence is on their side, but they’d better shut up about it if they don’t want to scare people away from all medicine!”

AJ,

“Then either Buddhism isn’t a religion, it’s a philosophy that some religions have adopted, or Buddhism is a religion but some people have stripped the religious element out of it akin to non-religions like the Humanistic forms of Judaism, Chrisianity, and Buddhism….

…I’d question whethey they’re religious at all, and whether they’re actually practicing theology, or in fact arguing about fiction.”

You’re begging my question. Whether or not a non-supernatural belief system should be classified as a “religion” is debatable. Given that these exceptions I’ve mentioned are considered by some to be “religious”, maybe we’d be better off being more precise (surely not a novel concept for critical thinkers!) and saying that science is opposed to supernaturalism–in religion and elsewhere.

Or at least, let’s define our terms carefully, before we go making blanket statements about religion’s incompatibility with naturalism.

J. J. Ramsey,

So, according to you, the statement “Miracles don’t happen” is unfalsifiable. Brilliant.

Miracles by definition, events outside an ordered universe determined by causally connected events, are not applicable to science.

Events viewed from a scientific perspective would never be miracles. A virgin birth would falsify what we know about the biological process of human reproduction. New phenomena, falsifying theories is how science progresses.

It’s through reason that we decide to use science over wishthinking. Even if a person sees something extraordinary for it to be deemed a miracle in my opinion involves spurious reasoning.

When people decide to view somethings through a scientific perspective and others through a religious perspective there’s no rhyme or reason to it, it involves wishthinking or unjustified authority.

J. J. Ramsey,

If you can’t think of anything that could potentially disprove the proposition “Miracles can’t happen,” then you are holding an unfalsifiable claim, which is very unscientific. You ought to have something in mind equivalent to J.B.S Haldane’s “fossil rabbits in the Precambrian.”

I didn’t make the claim “miracles can’t happen”, you are clearly quoting out of context, and even then it’s a big stretch to make it imply what you’re suggesting.

Events viewed from a scientific perspective would never be miracles. A virgin birth would falsify what we know about the biological process of human reproduction. New phenomena, falsifying theories is how science progresses.

It’s as if you didn’t bother to read the entire four paragraphs I took to explain my position, and just decided to take one ambiguous sentence to manipulate. Nevermind that the paragraph before and after it would clearly expose your error.

J. J. Ramsey,

Both of those are fancy ways of saying that miracles can’t happen.

If you can’t tell the difference between “miracles can’t happen” and “miracles can’t have supporting evidence” or “people believe in miracles because of wishthinking”, then I can’t help you. You have a severe failure in logic or language. Lets put it another way, people don’t have justification to believe in miracles.

You may refuse to read more than one paragraph in my comments but I did explain why miracles can’t have supporting evidence. By definition miracles aren’t scientific theories, they’re unfalsifiable. As such, miracles like all faith, are only limited by human imagination. As many possible miracle explanations can be used to explain a single event and there’s no way to differentiate the ones that are internally coherent from one another in terms of evidence.

J. J. Ramsey,

True, but one can have supporting evidence for purported events as well as theories, and miracles are most certainly purported events.

Purported events are just events with theories attached to them. Only scientific theories can have scientific evidence supporting them. If you want a lower standard of evidence I have some magic beans to sell you, my business partner has personally witnessed that they work.

Fixed it for you. The underdetermination problem is an issue even for non-miraculous purported events, and the tool for dealing with underdetermination is the same: Occam’s Razor.

Miracle explanations aren’t the same as scientific explanations. If something happens that goes against “natural laws” then they weren’t natural laws, one or possible more scientific theories have been falsified. If an explanation is found through science then it would be by making hypotheses, supporting with evidence, and developing theories.

Miracle explanations work in a different way to scientific explanations. Something happens that seemingly has gone against “natural laws”. People attribute this to a supernatural agency. This doesn’t suffiently answer the question, and adds more questions. The more assumptions, the more questions.

I’d like an example of competing miracle explanations that can be dealt with by using Occam’s Razor.

J. J. Ramsey,

Say, for example, that we have a purported healer. Someone examines what he does and witnesses him healing an amputee, and even records the limb growing back. Someone’s eye gets poked out and is restored. Now the healer says that he does his work in the name of Jesus. Now there are several competing possibilities. Maybe he has magic powers that would work regardless of his religion. Maybe he is telling the truth about the source of his power. Maybe the Norse God Thor is behind this. Maybe Douglas Adams has come back from the dead as a healing spirit. Those last two sample possibilities are pretty strained, since no one has even brought up Thor or Adams, so as competing miracle possibilities, they are even more off-the-wall than the first two.

That’s not Occam’s Razor, there’s no difference in assumptions. Each explanation doesn’t really explain anything, just adds questions. No additional assumptions are made over the Jesus or magic power explanation. The explanation from the person supposedly performing the miracles has no more weight than anyone else. The Thor and Adams explanations are bizarre culturally but not unusual in any logical sense.

J. J. Ramsey,

Except how this hypothetical healer is so flagrantly flouting the laws of physics.

“Magic man did it” is not an explanation, it’s an attributation. Not to me at least, it adds nothing to my comprehension of the event.

Yeah, because of course the performer of miracles would never have an inside line as to how they are performed.

If you believe in an “inside line” I have communed with the spirits, and they’re telling me a Nigerian prince is in need of a temporary loan, you will become rich.

What an individual attributes an event to is irrelevant. Their involvement doesn’t mean their explanation is automatically sound in reason, and justified with evidence.

And also because there is nothing in the context of the hypothetical healer’s activities that would warrant bringing Thor or Douglas Adams into the picture.

And Jesus or magic for that matter.

J. J. Ramsey,

J. J. Ramsey: Sure it is. We happen to live in a world where it isn’t a good explanation, but it is an explanation.

In the world I live in attributing events to unseen agents is not an explanation, if anything it only adds questions, not answers them. So the goal of an explanation is worse off than if none had been mentioned.

J. J. Ramsey: Not true in general. Relevance is dictated by how much knowledge the individual has of the event.

You’re quoting out of context again, I was specifically refer to your example which I quoted. Also the rest of the paragraph makes it clearer what I was writing about.

What an individual attributes an event to is irrelevant. Their involvement doesn’t mean their explanation is automatically sound in reason, and justified with evidence.

J. J. Ramsey: Um, yeah, there’s nothing about flagrant suspension of the known laws of physics that would warrant bringing magic into the picture. And flagrant suspension of these laws of physics done in the name of Jesus wouldn’t bring him in the picture either.

Um, yeah, I agree. The only thing that it suggests it that the person “healing” believes those things. Natural phenomena have been attributed to the supernatural due to ignorance for a very long time.

J. J. Ramsey,

True, but describing the sort of healing that I was talking about as a natural phenomenon is begging the question, is it not?

No, not describing. I was making a point that “flagrant suspension” could actually be natural phenomenon beyond our current knowledge. So I wouldn’t even go as far to say that it necessarily would be a “suspension” of said laws, but either mistaken observation or the laws being broken.