I’m aware that I risk derision and worse by saying, with attempted insouciance, that I have just been reading Erasmus’ Praise of Folly, but never mind that; he has rather wonderful things to say about ‘those who court immortal fame by writing books’:
“But people who use their erudition to write for a learned minority and are anxious to have either Persius [the learned] or Laelius [the not-so-learned] pass judgement don’t seem to me favoured by fortune but rather to be pitied for their continuous self-torture. They add, change, remove, lay aside, take up, rephrase, show to their friends, keep for nine years, and are never satisfied. And their futile reward, a word of praise from a handful of people, they win at such cost – so many late nights, such loss of sleep, sweetest of all things, and so much sweat and anguish. Then their health deteriorates, their looks are destroyed, they suffer partial or total blindness, poverty, ill will, denial of pleasure, premature old age, and early death, and any other such disasters there many be. Yet the wise man believes he is compensated for everything if he wins the approval of one or other purblind scholar.”
I get a little comfort from knowing that the literary world was as crabby and self-obsessed five hundred years ago. But even then they had their Dan Browns:
“The writer who belongs to me [Folly] is far happier in his crazy fashion. He never loses sleep as he sets down at once whatever takes his fancy and comes from his pen, even his dreams, and it costs him little beyond the price of the paper. He knows well enough that the more trivial the trifles he writes about the wider the audience which will appreciate them, made up as it is of all the ignoramuses and fools. What does it matter if three scholars can be found to damn his efforts, always supposing they’ve read them? How can the estimation of a mere handful of savants prevail against such a crowd of admirers?”
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
Punishment is different in China
[This is my latest Muse article for Nature News. I have the feeling that I’ve encountered guanxi several times in a personal context, and it certainly is hard for a Westerner to figure out what is really going on.]
Doing business abroad is not like doing it at home. A tough, no-nonsense approach will get results in New York but may be seen as rude and aggressive in Tokyo, where business negotiations are a mixture of ceremony and courtship designed to avoid direct confrontation. In Japan, an apparent ‘yes’ can mean ‘no’, and there are sixteen ways of avoiding having to say ‘no’ directly [1]. So negotiations there are long-winded, ambiguous and, to outsiders, plain baffling.
Traditional economics makes no concessions to such cultural differences. Its models tend to adopt a ‘one size fits all’ view of human interactions, in which choices and strategies are based on the cold logic of ‘utility maximization’: whatever gets you the best deal. But behavioural economics, which sets out to investigate how real people conduct their decision-making, is undermining that picture. Now a paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA reports that Chinese people respond quite differently to Americans in transactions that contain the threat of punishment for uncooperative behaviour [2].
Yi Tao of the Chinese Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Zoology in Beijing and his coworkers have looked at how Chinese university students play a version of the Prisoner’s Dilemma. This is the classic model system in game theory for studying two-person interactions that include a temptation to cheat. The game awards points according to whether the two players decide to cooperate or ‘defect’. Two defections – the players both try to cheat each other – elicit a low payoff, while both players are better rewarded if they cooperate. However, if player 1 cooperates while player 2 defects, then player 1 is the sucker, getting the worst possible payoff, while player 2 does best of all.
The ‘logical’ way to play this game is always to defect, because that gives you the best payoff whatever your opponent does. Yet if the game is played repeatedly, players realise that they can both score more highly if they agree (tacitly) to cooperate. Thus cooperation can arise from self-interest.
The Prisoner’s Dilemma (PD) – which was devised during the Cold War in a US think tank but was anticipated in the political philosophies of Thomas Hobbes and Jean-Jacques Rousseau – has been used to show how altruism can develop in animal communities and human society. This kind of game theory is also central to economic analysis of competitive markets.
It’s generally necessary for PD players to encounter one another repeatedly before the long-term benefits of mutual cooperation become apparent. That’s why, the theory suggests, we cultivate good relations with our neighbours and local shops. But in 2002, behavioural economists Ernst Fehr and Simon Gächter in Switzerland showed that cooperation may also emerge without repeated encounters if there are opportunities to punish defectors [3]. In those experiments, groups of players were given a sum of money to invest in a project, and the group was jointly rewarded according to the level of investment. Freeloaders can enjoy the group reward without investing. But if such selfish behaviour can be punished with fines, it is suppressed. Punishment is typically used insistently: players will do so even at a cost to themselves.
Gächter and his coworkers have investigated whether attitudes to punishment in this ‘public goods’ game differ across cultures [4]. They compared the amount of expenditure on punishment for players in 15 different countries, including the US, China, Turkey and Saudi Arabia. They found that the cooperation-enhancing effect of punishment, and cooperation overall, was strongest in democratic countries with a long tradition of market economies.
The behaviours in this case were similar in the US and China. But Tao and his coworkers show this doesn’t mean American and Chinese people regard or employ punishment in the same way. The participants in their study played the straightforward iterated PD, but with the added provision that each player could opt to punish rather than to cooperate or defect. Punishment deducts several points from the other player, but also costs the punisher. Ill-gotten gains from defection can be cancelled by being punished in the next round.
This might be expected to promote cooperation – and when other researchers tested the game on US students last year, that’s what they found [5]. But in China, punishment made virtually no difference to the amount of cooperation: it was, if anything, slightly lower than in control games without that option.
Tao’s team says this probably reflects the fact that, in China, individuals conduct transactions by cultivating so-called guanxi (literally ‘closed system’) networks of two-person relationships based on empathy and mutual understanding. That might sound chummy, but in fact guanxi is a delicate dance in which feelings of friendship, obligation and guilt are patiently probed and manipulated to reach the desired goal. Since the rules of the PD-with-punishment allow for nothing of this sort, there’s nothing to link cooperation to punishment.
All the same, reputations are important to guanxi networks, so in the public-goods game [4] where reputation (for reciprocity, say) may come into play, punishment is restored as an operative force – making the US and Chinese behaviours more similar, although for different reasons.
One implication is that it’s dangerous to extrapolate from lab tests of behavioural economics to evolutionary questions – for example, to ‘explain’ the adaptive role of punishment in human society. Economic behaviour too can evidently depend on the ‘culture’ in which it happens. For example, economists are divided on the issue of how incentives affect productivity, because real-world experience sometimes seems at odds with what behavioural tests imply. But that’s no longer surprising if behaviour varies according to the system of norms within which it is enacted. It’s a reminder that a search for economic and behavioural ‘first principles’ may be doomed to fail.
References
1. D. W. Hendon, R. A. Hendon & P. Herbig, Cross-Cultural Business Negotiations (Quorum, Westport CT, 1996).
2. Wu, J.-J. et al., Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 10.1073/pnas.0905918106 (2009).
3. Fehr, E. & Gächter, S. Nature 415, 137-140 (2002).
4. Herrmann, B., Thöni, C. & Gächter, S. Science 319, 1362-1367 (2008).
5. Dreber, A., Rand, D. G., Fudenberg, D. & Nowak, M. A. Nature 452, 348-351 (2008).
Doing business abroad is not like doing it at home. A tough, no-nonsense approach will get results in New York but may be seen as rude and aggressive in Tokyo, where business negotiations are a mixture of ceremony and courtship designed to avoid direct confrontation. In Japan, an apparent ‘yes’ can mean ‘no’, and there are sixteen ways of avoiding having to say ‘no’ directly [1]. So negotiations there are long-winded, ambiguous and, to outsiders, plain baffling.
Traditional economics makes no concessions to such cultural differences. Its models tend to adopt a ‘one size fits all’ view of human interactions, in which choices and strategies are based on the cold logic of ‘utility maximization’: whatever gets you the best deal. But behavioural economics, which sets out to investigate how real people conduct their decision-making, is undermining that picture. Now a paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA reports that Chinese people respond quite differently to Americans in transactions that contain the threat of punishment for uncooperative behaviour [2].
Yi Tao of the Chinese Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Zoology in Beijing and his coworkers have looked at how Chinese university students play a version of the Prisoner’s Dilemma. This is the classic model system in game theory for studying two-person interactions that include a temptation to cheat. The game awards points according to whether the two players decide to cooperate or ‘defect’. Two defections – the players both try to cheat each other – elicit a low payoff, while both players are better rewarded if they cooperate. However, if player 1 cooperates while player 2 defects, then player 1 is the sucker, getting the worst possible payoff, while player 2 does best of all.
The ‘logical’ way to play this game is always to defect, because that gives you the best payoff whatever your opponent does. Yet if the game is played repeatedly, players realise that they can both score more highly if they agree (tacitly) to cooperate. Thus cooperation can arise from self-interest.
The Prisoner’s Dilemma (PD) – which was devised during the Cold War in a US think tank but was anticipated in the political philosophies of Thomas Hobbes and Jean-Jacques Rousseau – has been used to show how altruism can develop in animal communities and human society. This kind of game theory is also central to economic analysis of competitive markets.
It’s generally necessary for PD players to encounter one another repeatedly before the long-term benefits of mutual cooperation become apparent. That’s why, the theory suggests, we cultivate good relations with our neighbours and local shops. But in 2002, behavioural economists Ernst Fehr and Simon Gächter in Switzerland showed that cooperation may also emerge without repeated encounters if there are opportunities to punish defectors [3]. In those experiments, groups of players were given a sum of money to invest in a project, and the group was jointly rewarded according to the level of investment. Freeloaders can enjoy the group reward without investing. But if such selfish behaviour can be punished with fines, it is suppressed. Punishment is typically used insistently: players will do so even at a cost to themselves.
Gächter and his coworkers have investigated whether attitudes to punishment in this ‘public goods’ game differ across cultures [4]. They compared the amount of expenditure on punishment for players in 15 different countries, including the US, China, Turkey and Saudi Arabia. They found that the cooperation-enhancing effect of punishment, and cooperation overall, was strongest in democratic countries with a long tradition of market economies.
The behaviours in this case were similar in the US and China. But Tao and his coworkers show this doesn’t mean American and Chinese people regard or employ punishment in the same way. The participants in their study played the straightforward iterated PD, but with the added provision that each player could opt to punish rather than to cooperate or defect. Punishment deducts several points from the other player, but also costs the punisher. Ill-gotten gains from defection can be cancelled by being punished in the next round.
This might be expected to promote cooperation – and when other researchers tested the game on US students last year, that’s what they found [5]. But in China, punishment made virtually no difference to the amount of cooperation: it was, if anything, slightly lower than in control games without that option.
Tao’s team says this probably reflects the fact that, in China, individuals conduct transactions by cultivating so-called guanxi (literally ‘closed system’) networks of two-person relationships based on empathy and mutual understanding. That might sound chummy, but in fact guanxi is a delicate dance in which feelings of friendship, obligation and guilt are patiently probed and manipulated to reach the desired goal. Since the rules of the PD-with-punishment allow for nothing of this sort, there’s nothing to link cooperation to punishment.
All the same, reputations are important to guanxi networks, so in the public-goods game [4] where reputation (for reciprocity, say) may come into play, punishment is restored as an operative force – making the US and Chinese behaviours more similar, although for different reasons.
One implication is that it’s dangerous to extrapolate from lab tests of behavioural economics to evolutionary questions – for example, to ‘explain’ the adaptive role of punishment in human society. Economic behaviour too can evidently depend on the ‘culture’ in which it happens. For example, economists are divided on the issue of how incentives affect productivity, because real-world experience sometimes seems at odds with what behavioural tests imply. But that’s no longer surprising if behaviour varies according to the system of norms within which it is enacted. It’s a reminder that a search for economic and behavioural ‘first principles’ may be doomed to fail.
References
1. D. W. Hendon, R. A. Hendon & P. Herbig, Cross-Cultural Business Negotiations (Quorum, Westport CT, 1996).
2. Wu, J.-J. et al., Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 10.1073/pnas.0905918106 (2009).
3. Fehr, E. & Gächter, S. Nature 415, 137-140 (2002).
4. Herrmann, B., Thöni, C. & Gächter, S. Science 319, 1362-1367 (2008).
5. Dreber, A., Rand, D. G., Fudenberg, D. & Nowak, M. A. Nature 452, 348-351 (2008).
Friday, September 25, 2009
Darwin on screen
For a limited time only, I can be heard on BBC Radio 3’s Nightwaves talking about the new Darwin biopic Creation. The film is worth watching, but don’t expect any revelations. New Scientist got a bit hot under the collar about the use of ‘supernatural’ imagery – Darwin’s dead daughter Annie, it says, returns as a ghost. Well, not really: there’s never any doubt that this is Darwin’s mind talking to itself. It’s fanciful, perhaps even sentimental in the end, but hardly an affront to reason. It’s a fairer complaint, though, that this ‘makes for a cartoon account of the writing of On the Origin of Species’, especially given that the book was published 8 years after Annie died.
For a limited time only, I can be heard on BBC Radio 3’s Nightwaves talking about the new Darwin biopic Creation. The film is worth watching, but don’t expect any revelations. New Scientist got a bit hot under the collar about the use of ‘supernatural’ imagery – Darwin’s dead daughter Annie, it says, returns as a ghost. Well, not really: there’s never any doubt that this is Darwin’s mind talking to itself. It’s fanciful, perhaps even sentimental in the end, but hardly an affront to reason. It’s a fairer complaint, though, that this ‘makes for a cartoon account of the writing of On the Origin of Species’, especially given that the book was published 8 years after Annie died.
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
Truly wonderful
It’s official, then: the Royal Society Science Book Prize goes to The Age of Wonder by Richard Holmes. The decision was announced yesterday, and the Guardian is apparently going to put online a podcast of the press conference at which my fellow judges and some of the shortlisted authors discussed science books and science writing in general. I almost felt sorry for the other candidates being up against a book as good as Richard’s: it was a wonderful shortlist, but The Age of Wonder left us all awestruck in its erudition, imagination and – despite what you might imagine from the subject and the size of the book – its readability. It is a glorious read, with something to enjoy on every page (and don’t skip the footnotes!). I was slightly nervous that the other judges might deem it too ‘historical’ to count as a science book, but happily they had no such qualms. The book looks at several strands of science that emerged in the early nineteenth century, all of which allied themselves with the Romantic spirit of wonder, awe and the sublime: for example, the geographical journeys of discovery by Joseph Banks, Mungo Park and others, William Herschel’s telescopic observations, Humphrey Davy’s chemical inventiveness, and the origins of hot-air ballooning. One of the very special attributes of this book is that it makes science sound breathtakingly exciting – not only then, but still.
Both Ben Goldacre’s Bad Science and Jo Marchant’s Decoding the Heavens have received well deserved praise elsewhere (here and here) (as the other two Brits, they were the other shortlisted authors present at the ceremony). But I’d like to put in a shout for all the other three candidates too, and especially for Neil Shubin’s Your Inner Fish, which we all agreed was exquisite, making a tricky subject (evo-devo) very accessible and engaging. The memory of being confronted with three boxes stuffed full of books is now fading, and I’m left feeling lucky to have been involved in this process.
It’s official, then: the Royal Society Science Book Prize goes to The Age of Wonder by Richard Holmes. The decision was announced yesterday, and the Guardian is apparently going to put online a podcast of the press conference at which my fellow judges and some of the shortlisted authors discussed science books and science writing in general. I almost felt sorry for the other candidates being up against a book as good as Richard’s: it was a wonderful shortlist, but The Age of Wonder left us all awestruck in its erudition, imagination and – despite what you might imagine from the subject and the size of the book – its readability. It is a glorious read, with something to enjoy on every page (and don’t skip the footnotes!). I was slightly nervous that the other judges might deem it too ‘historical’ to count as a science book, but happily they had no such qualms. The book looks at several strands of science that emerged in the early nineteenth century, all of which allied themselves with the Romantic spirit of wonder, awe and the sublime: for example, the geographical journeys of discovery by Joseph Banks, Mungo Park and others, William Herschel’s telescopic observations, Humphrey Davy’s chemical inventiveness, and the origins of hot-air ballooning. One of the very special attributes of this book is that it makes science sound breathtakingly exciting – not only then, but still.
Both Ben Goldacre’s Bad Science and Jo Marchant’s Decoding the Heavens have received well deserved praise elsewhere (here and here) (as the other two Brits, they were the other shortlisted authors present at the ceremony). But I’d like to put in a shout for all the other three candidates too, and especially for Neil Shubin’s Your Inner Fish, which we all agreed was exquisite, making a tricky subject (evo-devo) very accessible and engaging. The memory of being confronted with three boxes stuffed full of books is now fading, and I’m left feeling lucky to have been involved in this process.
Friday, September 11, 2009
The soul and the embryo
Perhaps you noticed this article in the Guardian last year by David Albert Jones, a bioethicist at St Mary’s College, part of the University of Surrey. I didn’t, but plenty did, judging from the feedback.
But it came to my attention after having just read Jones’ 2004 book The Soul of the Embryo, as research for my next book. It’s a very interesting survey of how this issue – whether embryos have souls, when they get them, where they come from, what happens to them – has been debated in Christian theology throughout the ages.
It is also an unintentionally revealing portrait of the mixture of bad logic, warped and misrepresentative argumentation that seems to pervade the Catholic rejection of embryo research. In the language of the Telegraph reader: I am appalled.
Oh, there are the little deceits, such as his insinuation without evidence that IVF clinics routinely seek to overproduce embryos so that they have plenty for research purposes. (For one thing, no embryos can be used in research without the permission of the donors.) Or the sudden switch, when we reach the modern discussion of abortion, from the almost universal use of ‘embryo’ and ‘fetus’ earlier in the book to ‘unborn child’ – or even just ‘child’.
But far worse is the perverse logic and the unprincipled cherry-picking of facts and arguments. Now, I can fully understand how someone might reach the conclusion that, from the moment of fertilization, an embryo is a human being and is entitled to the basic right of being allowed to live – and that abortion is therefore murder, as is discarding of human embryos in any form. It’s a point of view, so to speak. If you believe that the embryo has the same status as a newborn child, and that killing is always wrong, then that’s a consistent position.
It means, as a corollary, that you are an unconditional pacifist, and must consider that papacy wrong and unethical not to share this position. That, somehow, does not seem to be Jones’ view.
Ah, so perhaps you feel that, no, one can’t simply say one should never in any circumstances kill, but that one should not in any circumstances kill something as small and weak and vulnerable as an embryo. So OK, we can now get into an issue of relative merits: there are circumstances in which it is alright to kill, but this isn’t one of them. Then you can no longer take refuge in absolute prohibitions, and must instead be ready to place things on the balance. Why is it wrong to prevent the further development of a ball of cells that might or (more probably, as IVF statistics make clear) might not implant in a womb (even though it is never going to have the opportunity to do so anyway) in order to find a way of alleviating some extreme human suffering? What is the ethical calculus that leads you to this position? Not only does Jones fail to explain it, he fails even to consider it. The only mention he makes of the medical potential of embryo and stem-cell research is to say that it has been exaggerated by its supporters. This man is said to be a bioethicist, remember.
But OK, he is opposed to the destruction of any embryo. It must follow that he opposes the attempted production in IVF of any more embryos than would be implanted – which means two, in the UK. This would, at a stroke, cause IVF success rates – already pretty low, at 20-30 percent – to plummet. But that would of course be a pretty unpopular course, and so Jones keeps quiet about it. After all, it would seem a bit harsh, wouldn’t it – and he is very keen not to appear harsh or unfeeling.
Now, you might have spotted that all of this takes no account of the soul. Indeed, for there is absolutely no reason why it should. But for Christian readers, all the arguments seem likely to carry so much more weight if we can get the soul in there as soon as possible. Give the embryo a soul, Jones seems to imply, and it is ethically unassailable. And so he marshals arguments for why Christian theology supports the notion of ‘ensoulment at conception’.
The problem is that the Bible is all but silent on the issue of when, how or to what degree ensoulment happens during embryogenesis. So the story must be constructed by indirect inference. This is where the façade of logic really starts to unravel. I can’t go through all the reasons for that – they are too plentiful – but here’s a taste.
One of the key arguments rests on the example of Christ as an embryo. To some theologians (Jones downplays this), the image of Christ in the womb was unsettling, particularly if it meant we were forced to regard him as a developing embryo (even in ancient Greece it was clear that embryos acquire their form gradually). So some considered Christ to have been created fully formed – as a kind of homunculus – at the moment of the Immaculate Conception, and just to have grown bigger. Jones, on the other hand, is prepared to contemplate an embryonic Christ, but stresses that the Bible emphasizes his humanity and rules out the notion that Jesus could ever have been a less-than-fully-human embryo. But souls are always possessed by humans, and so if, as the Bible says, Jesus was as fully a human as any of us, then we too must be fully human, and thus in possession of a soul, from conception. This insistence on Jesus’s humanity rules out the possibility that there could have been something exceptional about his embryonic status – indeed, this whole argument hinges on being able to make the case against this exceptionalism, so that what is true of the embryonic Jesus is necessarily true of us. (I know what you’re thinking – is this a modern theologian, and not some obsessive medieval scholastic debating angels on pinheads? Bear with me.) But the problem with that is that it overlooks a few other things that do seem to rather set the embryonic Christ apart from your run-of-the-mill embryo:
1. He is the son of God
2. He is in a virgin’s womb
3. He was created without human sperm
Oh yes, he was different like that, but otherwise, you know, just like us.
Oh, souls. They’re amazing, once you start to think about them. One common objection to the ‘ensoulment at conception’ notion, says Jones, is that some embryos become twins. Where does the other soul come from? He admits this is a bit tricky: does the old soul die and two new ones get added to the two embryos (but then where is the ‘dead’ being from which the old soul fled)? Or does one embryo get to keep the old soul, and the other get given a new one? Or maybe God knew that the embryo would split, and so added two souls in the first place? ‘The problem with twinning seems less our inability to tell a ‘soul story’ and more the inability to judge between these stories’, says Jones. ‘Until more is known empirically, it is difficult to know what sort of story to tell.’ No, that is not the problem. The problem is that it is transparently obvious that you will indeed inevitably end up doing just that – telling a story. In other words, once the ‘facts’ are known, Jones is confident that a story can be tailored to fit them. I’ve no doubt that is true – and equally, no doubt that any theological justification for it will be a masterpiece of post hoc inference. That’s to say, any such ‘story’ will be not only scientifically untestable (we’re talking about souls here, after all), but also theologically unverifiable In the process, incidentally, it seems likely to turn God’s supposedly mysterious creation of beings into high farce: ‘Oops, looks like we need another one of those souls over here.’
(Note also that, while the twinning issue seems like a minor wrinkle to the debate, it played an important role in swaying the opinion of some people involved in the debate around embryo research in the British Parliament between the Warnock Report in 1984 and the HFE Bill in 1990. They were not so ready as Jones to sweep it under the carpet.)
It was with growing dismay that I realised, as I read on, that Jones was not merely exploring changing ideas about what the soul is and where it comes from; he felt he was telling us some literal truths about this, just as if explaining the origin and evolution of species. What this means is that he pursues some arguments with the fine-toothed rigorous logic of the philosopher, but quickly moves on or changes the subject as soon as some gaping flaw in the logic presents itself. Some theologians, says Jones, have worried about the idea that, if all embryos have souls, then most of the souls in heaven are those of embryos that never developed further. What are they like? And what form do their bodies take in the Resurrection? ‘This is not an easy question’, he admits, and leaves it there. But is it a question at all?
Jones suggests that the soul of an individual being is in some ways synonymous with that individual’s life. That makes it easy enough to argue that it’s in the embryo from conception, which is arguably the moment that a ‘potential new life’ appears. But it also forces him to slip out the fact that plants too must have a soul – though not the rational soul of humans, naturally. Presumably God puts them there too. So when does a cutting acquire its new soul? Given that it is a clone (literally), does it need a new one? Hm, no answer.
Or take this, from an article by Jones in Thinking Faith, the online journal of British Jesuits on why the latest Human Fertilization and Embryology Bill (now an Act, of course) is such a terrible thing:
“It is more difficult to know what to think about ‘true hybrids’ which are the most extreme kind of human-animal embryo permitted by the Bill. True hybrids are made by mixing sperm and egg from different species and would be 50% human and 50% of some other species. This raises the issue about whether there is something wrong with crossing the species barrier. This is easiest to see if we ask what would be wrong with bringing a half-human half-chimpanzee to birth. The primary issue here is not how much protection to give to a ‘humanzee’, it is whether we should allow scientists to create humanzees in the first place (this was actually attempted by soviet and other scientists in the 1920s but happily none succeeded). The act of creating true hybrids seems to be inhuman. It fails to respect our humanity.”
I agree with Jones that making a fully developed ‘humanzee’ (if it were possible) would not do a lot for our dignity, and I can think of no reason why it would be desirable. But I wonder what kind of soul Jones thinks God would give it. Or how God would decide the issue. Or how we might decide how God would decide the issue. Better to evade the matter by saying that scientists shouldn’t do it in the first place.
I don’t object to the fact that, in bringing a Christian perspective to these bioethical issues, one has to accept that the issue of souls might arise. That goes with the territory, just as one would have to accept that in other contexts Christians may want to invoke notions of heaven, resurrection and so forth. But if, say, the latter were to happen, I think we might reasonable expect now that we would not be forced to contemplate such questions as how big heaven is and where it might be found. I think we can hope that theologians have moved beyond this sort of medieval literalism. But Jones’ view of souls has not – they are still entities (albeit immaterial) that have to be injected into living beings at some point in time, and accounted for in quantitative terms. To many people, the idea of a soul does seem to carry some valuable meaning, perhaps bound up with notions of individuality and human dignity. I can live with that. But once you start trying to make ‘soul’ a precise concept, it seems you’ll inevitably end up with this sort of absurdity.
This matters partly because people like Jones are the sort who will get their voices heard in these bioethics debates. But it rankles me most of all because he ends up cloaking his position in the seductive mantle of Christian compassion for ‘the least of these little ones’, while – as so often in these cases – refusing to think compassionately about the other side of the coin: the compassion in treatments for disease and infertility (not to mention any consideration of the role and experience of women). In other words, ideological principles before people.
Perhaps you noticed this article in the Guardian last year by David Albert Jones, a bioethicist at St Mary’s College, part of the University of Surrey. I didn’t, but plenty did, judging from the feedback.
But it came to my attention after having just read Jones’ 2004 book The Soul of the Embryo, as research for my next book. It’s a very interesting survey of how this issue – whether embryos have souls, when they get them, where they come from, what happens to them – has been debated in Christian theology throughout the ages.
It is also an unintentionally revealing portrait of the mixture of bad logic, warped and misrepresentative argumentation that seems to pervade the Catholic rejection of embryo research. In the language of the Telegraph reader: I am appalled.
Oh, there are the little deceits, such as his insinuation without evidence that IVF clinics routinely seek to overproduce embryos so that they have plenty for research purposes. (For one thing, no embryos can be used in research without the permission of the donors.) Or the sudden switch, when we reach the modern discussion of abortion, from the almost universal use of ‘embryo’ and ‘fetus’ earlier in the book to ‘unborn child’ – or even just ‘child’.
But far worse is the perverse logic and the unprincipled cherry-picking of facts and arguments. Now, I can fully understand how someone might reach the conclusion that, from the moment of fertilization, an embryo is a human being and is entitled to the basic right of being allowed to live – and that abortion is therefore murder, as is discarding of human embryos in any form. It’s a point of view, so to speak. If you believe that the embryo has the same status as a newborn child, and that killing is always wrong, then that’s a consistent position.
It means, as a corollary, that you are an unconditional pacifist, and must consider that papacy wrong and unethical not to share this position. That, somehow, does not seem to be Jones’ view.
Ah, so perhaps you feel that, no, one can’t simply say one should never in any circumstances kill, but that one should not in any circumstances kill something as small and weak and vulnerable as an embryo. So OK, we can now get into an issue of relative merits: there are circumstances in which it is alright to kill, but this isn’t one of them. Then you can no longer take refuge in absolute prohibitions, and must instead be ready to place things on the balance. Why is it wrong to prevent the further development of a ball of cells that might or (more probably, as IVF statistics make clear) might not implant in a womb (even though it is never going to have the opportunity to do so anyway) in order to find a way of alleviating some extreme human suffering? What is the ethical calculus that leads you to this position? Not only does Jones fail to explain it, he fails even to consider it. The only mention he makes of the medical potential of embryo and stem-cell research is to say that it has been exaggerated by its supporters. This man is said to be a bioethicist, remember.
But OK, he is opposed to the destruction of any embryo. It must follow that he opposes the attempted production in IVF of any more embryos than would be implanted – which means two, in the UK. This would, at a stroke, cause IVF success rates – already pretty low, at 20-30 percent – to plummet. But that would of course be a pretty unpopular course, and so Jones keeps quiet about it. After all, it would seem a bit harsh, wouldn’t it – and he is very keen not to appear harsh or unfeeling.
Now, you might have spotted that all of this takes no account of the soul. Indeed, for there is absolutely no reason why it should. But for Christian readers, all the arguments seem likely to carry so much more weight if we can get the soul in there as soon as possible. Give the embryo a soul, Jones seems to imply, and it is ethically unassailable. And so he marshals arguments for why Christian theology supports the notion of ‘ensoulment at conception’.
The problem is that the Bible is all but silent on the issue of when, how or to what degree ensoulment happens during embryogenesis. So the story must be constructed by indirect inference. This is where the façade of logic really starts to unravel. I can’t go through all the reasons for that – they are too plentiful – but here’s a taste.
One of the key arguments rests on the example of Christ as an embryo. To some theologians (Jones downplays this), the image of Christ in the womb was unsettling, particularly if it meant we were forced to regard him as a developing embryo (even in ancient Greece it was clear that embryos acquire their form gradually). So some considered Christ to have been created fully formed – as a kind of homunculus – at the moment of the Immaculate Conception, and just to have grown bigger. Jones, on the other hand, is prepared to contemplate an embryonic Christ, but stresses that the Bible emphasizes his humanity and rules out the notion that Jesus could ever have been a less-than-fully-human embryo. But souls are always possessed by humans, and so if, as the Bible says, Jesus was as fully a human as any of us, then we too must be fully human, and thus in possession of a soul, from conception. This insistence on Jesus’s humanity rules out the possibility that there could have been something exceptional about his embryonic status – indeed, this whole argument hinges on being able to make the case against this exceptionalism, so that what is true of the embryonic Jesus is necessarily true of us. (I know what you’re thinking – is this a modern theologian, and not some obsessive medieval scholastic debating angels on pinheads? Bear with me.) But the problem with that is that it overlooks a few other things that do seem to rather set the embryonic Christ apart from your run-of-the-mill embryo:
1. He is the son of God
2. He is in a virgin’s womb
3. He was created without human sperm
Oh yes, he was different like that, but otherwise, you know, just like us.
Oh, souls. They’re amazing, once you start to think about them. One common objection to the ‘ensoulment at conception’ notion, says Jones, is that some embryos become twins. Where does the other soul come from? He admits this is a bit tricky: does the old soul die and two new ones get added to the two embryos (but then where is the ‘dead’ being from which the old soul fled)? Or does one embryo get to keep the old soul, and the other get given a new one? Or maybe God knew that the embryo would split, and so added two souls in the first place? ‘The problem with twinning seems less our inability to tell a ‘soul story’ and more the inability to judge between these stories’, says Jones. ‘Until more is known empirically, it is difficult to know what sort of story to tell.’ No, that is not the problem. The problem is that it is transparently obvious that you will indeed inevitably end up doing just that – telling a story. In other words, once the ‘facts’ are known, Jones is confident that a story can be tailored to fit them. I’ve no doubt that is true – and equally, no doubt that any theological justification for it will be a masterpiece of post hoc inference. That’s to say, any such ‘story’ will be not only scientifically untestable (we’re talking about souls here, after all), but also theologically unverifiable In the process, incidentally, it seems likely to turn God’s supposedly mysterious creation of beings into high farce: ‘Oops, looks like we need another one of those souls over here.’
(Note also that, while the twinning issue seems like a minor wrinkle to the debate, it played an important role in swaying the opinion of some people involved in the debate around embryo research in the British Parliament between the Warnock Report in 1984 and the HFE Bill in 1990. They were not so ready as Jones to sweep it under the carpet.)
It was with growing dismay that I realised, as I read on, that Jones was not merely exploring changing ideas about what the soul is and where it comes from; he felt he was telling us some literal truths about this, just as if explaining the origin and evolution of species. What this means is that he pursues some arguments with the fine-toothed rigorous logic of the philosopher, but quickly moves on or changes the subject as soon as some gaping flaw in the logic presents itself. Some theologians, says Jones, have worried about the idea that, if all embryos have souls, then most of the souls in heaven are those of embryos that never developed further. What are they like? And what form do their bodies take in the Resurrection? ‘This is not an easy question’, he admits, and leaves it there. But is it a question at all?
Jones suggests that the soul of an individual being is in some ways synonymous with that individual’s life. That makes it easy enough to argue that it’s in the embryo from conception, which is arguably the moment that a ‘potential new life’ appears. But it also forces him to slip out the fact that plants too must have a soul – though not the rational soul of humans, naturally. Presumably God puts them there too. So when does a cutting acquire its new soul? Given that it is a clone (literally), does it need a new one? Hm, no answer.
Or take this, from an article by Jones in Thinking Faith, the online journal of British Jesuits on why the latest Human Fertilization and Embryology Bill (now an Act, of course) is such a terrible thing:
“It is more difficult to know what to think about ‘true hybrids’ which are the most extreme kind of human-animal embryo permitted by the Bill. True hybrids are made by mixing sperm and egg from different species and would be 50% human and 50% of some other species. This raises the issue about whether there is something wrong with crossing the species barrier. This is easiest to see if we ask what would be wrong with bringing a half-human half-chimpanzee to birth. The primary issue here is not how much protection to give to a ‘humanzee’, it is whether we should allow scientists to create humanzees in the first place (this was actually attempted by soviet and other scientists in the 1920s but happily none succeeded). The act of creating true hybrids seems to be inhuman. It fails to respect our humanity.”
I agree with Jones that making a fully developed ‘humanzee’ (if it were possible) would not do a lot for our dignity, and I can think of no reason why it would be desirable. But I wonder what kind of soul Jones thinks God would give it. Or how God would decide the issue. Or how we might decide how God would decide the issue. Better to evade the matter by saying that scientists shouldn’t do it in the first place.
I don’t object to the fact that, in bringing a Christian perspective to these bioethical issues, one has to accept that the issue of souls might arise. That goes with the territory, just as one would have to accept that in other contexts Christians may want to invoke notions of heaven, resurrection and so forth. But if, say, the latter were to happen, I think we might reasonable expect now that we would not be forced to contemplate such questions as how big heaven is and where it might be found. I think we can hope that theologians have moved beyond this sort of medieval literalism. But Jones’ view of souls has not – they are still entities (albeit immaterial) that have to be injected into living beings at some point in time, and accounted for in quantitative terms. To many people, the idea of a soul does seem to carry some valuable meaning, perhaps bound up with notions of individuality and human dignity. I can live with that. But once you start trying to make ‘soul’ a precise concept, it seems you’ll inevitably end up with this sort of absurdity.
This matters partly because people like Jones are the sort who will get their voices heard in these bioethics debates. But it rankles me most of all because he ends up cloaking his position in the seductive mantle of Christian compassion for ‘the least of these little ones’, while – as so often in these cases – refusing to think compassionately about the other side of the coin: the compassion in treatments for disease and infertility (not to mention any consideration of the role and experience of women). In other words, ideological principles before people.
Friday, August 28, 2009
Francis Collins and his God – but no, not more of that New Atheist stuff…
[Well, not really. This is the pre-edited version of my latest column for Prospect.]
The unanimous praise for President Obama’s scientific appointments is faltering. When in January he offered the position of surgeon general to the ‘media doctor’ Sanjay Gupta of CNN, many considered it a lightweight choice. In the event Gupta declined, and Obama’s new nominee, Alabama community physician Regina Benjamin, has raised no eyebrows.
But the nomination of Francis Collins to head the National Institutes of Health, the US biomedical research organization, is more controversial. At face value, Collins looks an obvious choice: former leader of the Human Genome Project, he has a proven track record of large-scale management, and commands respect from peers by remaining scientifically active rather than becoming a pen-pushing adminstrator. Geneticist Eric Lander has called him ‘a superb choice for an NIH director’, while others praise him as a ‘scientist’s scientist.’
So what’s the problem? In a nutshell, Collins’ 2006 book The Language of God. He is outspoken, even evangelical, about his Christian faith. Even that might not have been a problem if Collins had not appeared to equivocate about ‘old-time religion’ issues such as the interpretation of the Fall and the possibility of divine intervention in evolution. Some scientists are troubled by what one can find on such issues on the website of the BioLogos Foundation, established by Collins to reconcile science and religion.
Collins will step down from BioLogos before taking up his new role, and some of his colleagues offer reassurances that they have never seen his scientific judgement clouded by his religious beliefs. But with the crippling religious opposition to stem-cell science in researchers’ minds, this may not be enough to dispel concern. Collins has become a figure of almost obsessive loathing among the ‘New Atheist’ scientists seeking to combat the religiosity of American life.
Biologist P.Z. Myers of the University of Minnesota, whose Pharyngula blog is a flagship of New Atheism, calls Collins’ BioLogos ‘an embarrassment of poor reasoning and silly Christian apologetics’ and worries that ‘he will use his position to act as a propagandist for Christianity.’ Harvard psychologist Steven Pinker calls Collins ‘an advocate of profoundly anti-science beliefs.’
But Myers offers what might be in the end a more compelling reason to question Collins’ appointment: ‘he represents a very narrow, gene-jockey style of research, which… often exhibits a worrisome lack of understanding of the big picture of biology.’ He’s not alone in fearing that Collins’ enthusiasm for ‘big science’ – especially genomic stamp-collecting – will leach funding from smaller but more intellectually guided areas, such as environmental and systems biology. Collins will initially have plenty of cash to spread around – the NIH was granted a one-off sum of $10.4 bn as an economic stimulus until September 2010 – but things will get leaner, and it will take boldness and vision to find space for innovation rather than more safe but dull genome-crunching.
*****
It’s disconcerting astronomers almost to the point of embarrassment that a scar the size of the Earth has turned up unexpectedly on Jupiter. The dark ‘bruise’ in the giant planet’s dense atmosphere is evidence of some gigantic impact, presumably an asteroid or comet. The last time this happened, in 1994, it was widely anticipated and supplied a cosmic fireworks display both exhilarating and sobering: the fragmented comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 ploughed into the planet, leaving a trail of scars each of Armageddon proportions. But this wasn’t exactly a case of ‘there but for the grace of God’, so much as a reminder of Jupiter’s role as our guardian angel. The strong gravitational tug of the gas giant is thought to suck up many lumps of wandering debris that would otherwise pose a threat to Earth. Some researchers even think that the existence of a big brother to mop up impactors could be a condition of habitability for Earth-like planets around other stars.
All the same, we’d like to see such events coming. But no one foresaw the dark smudge in Jupiter’s south polar region until it was spotted by an amateur astronomer in Australia on 19 July. Word spread almost at once, and within less than a day two large infrared telescopes in Hawaii had seen the same spot, glowing brightly with sunlight reflected by the material thrown up through the jovian atmosphere.
We still don’t know what caused it, however. It could have been a faint icy comet, or a rocky asteroid. Jupiter also acquires blotches from storms, but none tends to look like this. It’s going to be tough now to figure out how big the impacting body was, or how much energy was released, especially as Jupiter’s winds will soon wipe away the traces. The similar ‘holes’ left by Shoemaker-Levy 9 were probably made by fragments several hundred metres wide: on Earth, that wouldn’t wipe us out, but it would make an almighty bang.
*****
Has anyone visited the Meta Institute for Computational Astrophysics recently? It’s well worth it: led by some heavyweight astrophysicists, it hosts seminars for specialists every Friday, as well as regular public talks and outreach events open to all. But you won’t get there by air, road or rail, because MICA exists nowhere on Earth. It is the first professional research organization to be based exclusively in virtual reality, in Second Life. The potential of virtual worlds to bring together scientists for meetings and conferences without leaving their desks has been much heralded. But MICA takes that more seriously than most. Its seminars happen in a pleasant, wooded outdoor amphitheatre looking conspicuously like the Californian coast. It has to be said that the audience is rather better looking than it tends to be in reality too.
[Well, not really. This is the pre-edited version of my latest column for Prospect.]
The unanimous praise for President Obama’s scientific appointments is faltering. When in January he offered the position of surgeon general to the ‘media doctor’ Sanjay Gupta of CNN, many considered it a lightweight choice. In the event Gupta declined, and Obama’s new nominee, Alabama community physician Regina Benjamin, has raised no eyebrows.
But the nomination of Francis Collins to head the National Institutes of Health, the US biomedical research organization, is more controversial. At face value, Collins looks an obvious choice: former leader of the Human Genome Project, he has a proven track record of large-scale management, and commands respect from peers by remaining scientifically active rather than becoming a pen-pushing adminstrator. Geneticist Eric Lander has called him ‘a superb choice for an NIH director’, while others praise him as a ‘scientist’s scientist.’
So what’s the problem? In a nutshell, Collins’ 2006 book The Language of God. He is outspoken, even evangelical, about his Christian faith. Even that might not have been a problem if Collins had not appeared to equivocate about ‘old-time religion’ issues such as the interpretation of the Fall and the possibility of divine intervention in evolution. Some scientists are troubled by what one can find on such issues on the website of the BioLogos Foundation, established by Collins to reconcile science and religion.
Collins will step down from BioLogos before taking up his new role, and some of his colleagues offer reassurances that they have never seen his scientific judgement clouded by his religious beliefs. But with the crippling religious opposition to stem-cell science in researchers’ minds, this may not be enough to dispel concern. Collins has become a figure of almost obsessive loathing among the ‘New Atheist’ scientists seeking to combat the religiosity of American life.
Biologist P.Z. Myers of the University of Minnesota, whose Pharyngula blog is a flagship of New Atheism, calls Collins’ BioLogos ‘an embarrassment of poor reasoning and silly Christian apologetics’ and worries that ‘he will use his position to act as a propagandist for Christianity.’ Harvard psychologist Steven Pinker calls Collins ‘an advocate of profoundly anti-science beliefs.’
But Myers offers what might be in the end a more compelling reason to question Collins’ appointment: ‘he represents a very narrow, gene-jockey style of research, which… often exhibits a worrisome lack of understanding of the big picture of biology.’ He’s not alone in fearing that Collins’ enthusiasm for ‘big science’ – especially genomic stamp-collecting – will leach funding from smaller but more intellectually guided areas, such as environmental and systems biology. Collins will initially have plenty of cash to spread around – the NIH was granted a one-off sum of $10.4 bn as an economic stimulus until September 2010 – but things will get leaner, and it will take boldness and vision to find space for innovation rather than more safe but dull genome-crunching.
*****
It’s disconcerting astronomers almost to the point of embarrassment that a scar the size of the Earth has turned up unexpectedly on Jupiter. The dark ‘bruise’ in the giant planet’s dense atmosphere is evidence of some gigantic impact, presumably an asteroid or comet. The last time this happened, in 1994, it was widely anticipated and supplied a cosmic fireworks display both exhilarating and sobering: the fragmented comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 ploughed into the planet, leaving a trail of scars each of Armageddon proportions. But this wasn’t exactly a case of ‘there but for the grace of God’, so much as a reminder of Jupiter’s role as our guardian angel. The strong gravitational tug of the gas giant is thought to suck up many lumps of wandering debris that would otherwise pose a threat to Earth. Some researchers even think that the existence of a big brother to mop up impactors could be a condition of habitability for Earth-like planets around other stars.
All the same, we’d like to see such events coming. But no one foresaw the dark smudge in Jupiter’s south polar region until it was spotted by an amateur astronomer in Australia on 19 July. Word spread almost at once, and within less than a day two large infrared telescopes in Hawaii had seen the same spot, glowing brightly with sunlight reflected by the material thrown up through the jovian atmosphere.
We still don’t know what caused it, however. It could have been a faint icy comet, or a rocky asteroid. Jupiter also acquires blotches from storms, but none tends to look like this. It’s going to be tough now to figure out how big the impacting body was, or how much energy was released, especially as Jupiter’s winds will soon wipe away the traces. The similar ‘holes’ left by Shoemaker-Levy 9 were probably made by fragments several hundred metres wide: on Earth, that wouldn’t wipe us out, but it would make an almighty bang.
*****
Has anyone visited the Meta Institute for Computational Astrophysics recently? It’s well worth it: led by some heavyweight astrophysicists, it hosts seminars for specialists every Friday, as well as regular public talks and outreach events open to all. But you won’t get there by air, road or rail, because MICA exists nowhere on Earth. It is the first professional research organization to be based exclusively in virtual reality, in Second Life. The potential of virtual worlds to bring together scientists for meetings and conferences without leaving their desks has been much heralded. But MICA takes that more seriously than most. Its seminars happen in a pleasant, wooded outdoor amphitheatre looking conspicuously like the Californian coast. It has to be said that the audience is rather better looking than it tends to be in reality too.
Wednesday, August 12, 2009
The weather forecast
[Here’s the pre-edited version of my review of Giles Foden’s new book Turbulence, which appears in the latest issue of Nature.]
Turbulence
Giles Foden
Faber & Faber, 2009
353 pages, £16.99
ISBN 978-0-571-20522-6
It’s a rare enough thing to encounter a novel based around one of your favourite obscure scientists; but when two of them appear in the same book, you feel Christmas must have come early. Add to this a plot that hinges on one of my pet nerdy topics – fluid dynamics – and I couldn’t help suspecting that Giles Foden had written Turbulence especially for me.
The result is compelling. Whether it fully works as fiction is another matter, to which I’ll come back. But Foden’s book one of the most attractive additions to the micro-genre of science-in-fiction for a long time.
Fluid dynamics features here in the context of weather prediction. That may seem like deeply unpromising material for a gripping story, but Foden has dramatized what has been called the most important weather forecast every made: that for the D-Day landings, the invasion of continental Europe at Normandy by the Allied forces towards the end of the Second World War. General Eisenhower, in overall command of the operation, had to be sure that the crossing of the English Channel would not be disrupted by bad weather. And he needed that information about five days in advance – a length of time that stretches today’s forecasting techniques to their limit, and which was in all honesty beyond the capability of the primitive, pre-computer prediction methods of meteorologists in 1944. Adding to that the need for a low tide to evade the German sea defences, the task confronting the Allies’ weather experts was all but impossible.
Foden tells this story through the eyes of Henry Meadows, a (fictional) young academic attached to the forecasting team led by British meteorologist James Stagg. The process by which Stagg and his fractious colleagues, including the brash American entrepreneur Irving Krick and the arrogant but astute Norwegian Sverre Pettersen, made their decision occupies the final third of the book. Stagg and Pettersen both published their own accounts in the 1970s.
Before that, Meadows is sent to rural Scotland to glean some vital clues about forecasting from the leading authority of the day, the difficult genius Wallace Ryman. Ryman is a fictionalized version of Lewis Fry Richardson, who Foden rightly calls ‘one of the unsung heroes of British science’ (he is perhaps best known for his work on fractal coastlines). Like Richardson, Ryman is a Quaker whose experiences in the Friends’ Ambulance Unit in the First World War have convinced him that war must be avoided at any cost. He therefore shuns collaboration with the military, and Meadows has to pursue his mission by stealth – an attempt that he mostly bungles in spectacular style.
In Scotland Meadows also runs into the second wayward genius in the book, this time without a pseudonymous disguise: Geoffrey Pyke, the man behind the Habbakuk project to build gigantic aircraft carriers out of ice reinforced with wood pulp. This so-called Pykrete is extraordinarily resistant to impacts and melting. There is also a fleeting appearance by ‘Julius Brecher’, a döppelganger for Max Perutz, who assisted Pyke during the war. This part of the plot may strike readers as far-fetched if they don’t know that it is quite true.
The more serious problem, however, is that Habbakuk feels like something Foden couldn’t resist cobbling on simply because it is such a striking tale. It’s certainly entertaining, and the portrayal of Pyke rings true, but there’s no real need for any of it in the plot, despite the framing device that has Meadows recounting his wartime exploits on board an ice ship built in 1980 for an Arab sheikh. When Meadows joins Pyke in London only to see the project terminated a week later, it feels like a cul-de-sac.
One could carp at a few other points of creaky plotting or narrative – Foden sometimes seems over-concerned to ensure that the reader gets the point, telling us twice why ‘Habbakuk’ is misspelled and revealing the purpose of a subplot about blood analysis in three successive encounters on the same day. But these are quibbles in a book that does a splendid job of animating a buried story of scientific endeavour and triumph. It is no mean feat to make meteorology sound both heroic and intellectually profound.
In any book like this, one has to ask whether the author succeeds in creating scientists who are fully fleshed individuals. In some ways Foden complicates his task by making Meadows explicitly withdrawn (the result of a childhood trauma in Africa) and awkward. One might argue that Meadows’ constant recourse to the turbulence metaphor and his narrow frame of reference skirt the caricature of a dry scientific life. Brecher similarly refracts everything through the prism of his own research topic (blood), while Ryman is the crabby boffin and Pyke the dotty one. But there’s motive in all this. Through Meadows we sense the dour, buttoned-up character of wartime Britain. And when he talks about turbulence and hydrodynamics, there is none of the breezy ‘beginner’s guide’ flavour that is the usual hallmark of undigested authorial research. Foden had the immense benefit of advice from his father-in-law Julian Hunt, one of the world’s leading experts on turbulence and meteorology and, fittingly, a recipient of the Lewis Fry Richardson medal for nonlinear geophysics. Skilfully balancing fact and fiction, Turbulence is a tale that is dramatic, intelligent and convincing.
[Here’s the pre-edited version of my review of Giles Foden’s new book Turbulence, which appears in the latest issue of Nature.]
Turbulence
Giles Foden
Faber & Faber, 2009
353 pages, £16.99
ISBN 978-0-571-20522-6
It’s a rare enough thing to encounter a novel based around one of your favourite obscure scientists; but when two of them appear in the same book, you feel Christmas must have come early. Add to this a plot that hinges on one of my pet nerdy topics – fluid dynamics – and I couldn’t help suspecting that Giles Foden had written Turbulence especially for me.
The result is compelling. Whether it fully works as fiction is another matter, to which I’ll come back. But Foden’s book one of the most attractive additions to the micro-genre of science-in-fiction for a long time.
Fluid dynamics features here in the context of weather prediction. That may seem like deeply unpromising material for a gripping story, but Foden has dramatized what has been called the most important weather forecast every made: that for the D-Day landings, the invasion of continental Europe at Normandy by the Allied forces towards the end of the Second World War. General Eisenhower, in overall command of the operation, had to be sure that the crossing of the English Channel would not be disrupted by bad weather. And he needed that information about five days in advance – a length of time that stretches today’s forecasting techniques to their limit, and which was in all honesty beyond the capability of the primitive, pre-computer prediction methods of meteorologists in 1944. Adding to that the need for a low tide to evade the German sea defences, the task confronting the Allies’ weather experts was all but impossible.
Foden tells this story through the eyes of Henry Meadows, a (fictional) young academic attached to the forecasting team led by British meteorologist James Stagg. The process by which Stagg and his fractious colleagues, including the brash American entrepreneur Irving Krick and the arrogant but astute Norwegian Sverre Pettersen, made their decision occupies the final third of the book. Stagg and Pettersen both published their own accounts in the 1970s.
Before that, Meadows is sent to rural Scotland to glean some vital clues about forecasting from the leading authority of the day, the difficult genius Wallace Ryman. Ryman is a fictionalized version of Lewis Fry Richardson, who Foden rightly calls ‘one of the unsung heroes of British science’ (he is perhaps best known for his work on fractal coastlines). Like Richardson, Ryman is a Quaker whose experiences in the Friends’ Ambulance Unit in the First World War have convinced him that war must be avoided at any cost. He therefore shuns collaboration with the military, and Meadows has to pursue his mission by stealth – an attempt that he mostly bungles in spectacular style.
In Scotland Meadows also runs into the second wayward genius in the book, this time without a pseudonymous disguise: Geoffrey Pyke, the man behind the Habbakuk project to build gigantic aircraft carriers out of ice reinforced with wood pulp. This so-called Pykrete is extraordinarily resistant to impacts and melting. There is also a fleeting appearance by ‘Julius Brecher’, a döppelganger for Max Perutz, who assisted Pyke during the war. This part of the plot may strike readers as far-fetched if they don’t know that it is quite true.
The more serious problem, however, is that Habbakuk feels like something Foden couldn’t resist cobbling on simply because it is such a striking tale. It’s certainly entertaining, and the portrayal of Pyke rings true, but there’s no real need for any of it in the plot, despite the framing device that has Meadows recounting his wartime exploits on board an ice ship built in 1980 for an Arab sheikh. When Meadows joins Pyke in London only to see the project terminated a week later, it feels like a cul-de-sac.
One could carp at a few other points of creaky plotting or narrative – Foden sometimes seems over-concerned to ensure that the reader gets the point, telling us twice why ‘Habbakuk’ is misspelled and revealing the purpose of a subplot about blood analysis in three successive encounters on the same day. But these are quibbles in a book that does a splendid job of animating a buried story of scientific endeavour and triumph. It is no mean feat to make meteorology sound both heroic and intellectually profound.
In any book like this, one has to ask whether the author succeeds in creating scientists who are fully fleshed individuals. In some ways Foden complicates his task by making Meadows explicitly withdrawn (the result of a childhood trauma in Africa) and awkward. One might argue that Meadows’ constant recourse to the turbulence metaphor and his narrow frame of reference skirt the caricature of a dry scientific life. Brecher similarly refracts everything through the prism of his own research topic (blood), while Ryman is the crabby boffin and Pyke the dotty one. But there’s motive in all this. Through Meadows we sense the dour, buttoned-up character of wartime Britain. And when he talks about turbulence and hydrodynamics, there is none of the breezy ‘beginner’s guide’ flavour that is the usual hallmark of undigested authorial research. Foden had the immense benefit of advice from his father-in-law Julian Hunt, one of the world’s leading experts on turbulence and meteorology and, fittingly, a recipient of the Lewis Fry Richardson medal for nonlinear geophysics. Skilfully balancing fact and fiction, Turbulence is a tale that is dramatic, intelligent and convincing.
Monday, August 10, 2009
Don’t call me sir
The Financial Times has a little article on the Royal Society Science Book Prize, on the back of an interview with Jared Diamond. In the process, they have given me a knighthood. Kind, but more than a little unlikely. I suspect I have been granted it on loan from Tim Hunt, who is chairing the judging panel. He can have it back now.
The Financial Times has a little article on the Royal Society Science Book Prize, on the back of an interview with Jared Diamond. In the process, they have given me a knighthood. Kind, but more than a little unlikely. I suspect I have been granted it on loan from Tim Hunt, who is chairing the judging panel. He can have it back now.
Friday, July 31, 2009
Artificial babies are so last century
[Here’s the pre-edited version of my latest Muse for Nature’s online news.]
The best way to understand the recent fuss about 'artificial sperm' and the 'end of men' is to consider old versions of the same debate.
Few science stories seem as guaranteed to make headlines as those that can be distorted to reinforce lazy clichés about gender. These range from the folksy – women are better multitaskers – to the ugly – ‘women who dress provocatively are more likely to be raped’.
So no one should be terribly surprised that recent reports of ‘artificial sperm’ made in the laboratory focused on the question of whether the advance makes men obsolete (see here and here). It hardly seems worth blustering about tabloid stories that claim ‘Women have always known that men are a bit of a waste of space’. And weary resignation seems the best response as even the ‘more respectable’ press plod in bovine array down the same false trail (see here and here).
But while one could have predicted that some commentators would line up to express shock and horror (or pretend to do so), and others would tell them not to be so silly, it’s far more instructive to take the long view. For we’ve been through all this before. Fears that men would become surplus to requirement for perpetuating the race were voiced in the 1920s, and on similarly fatuous grounds. Then, as now, the debate revealed much more about the society that spawned it than about the future of humankind.
First, to the latest news. Contrary to what was widely claimed, Karim Nayernia at the University of Newcastle in England and his colleagues have not made artificial human sperm. They have found a way to turn embryonic stem cells into cells with some of the attributes of sperm [1]. That, however, certainly seems a big step along the way, and Nayernia’s group has already achieved live births of mice from eggs fertilized with sperm made by this technique. That the mice pups did not live long suggests there are some serious remaining problems. (Nayernia’s paper has just been retracted, but not because of any concerns about the results – it seems that the introductory material foolishly plagiarized essentially verbatim two paragraphs from a review article by different authors.)
Now, let’s not go into the wrongheaded objections about destroying ‘perfectly healthy human embryos’ (such God-like omniscience!) to make these pseudo-sperm. And the concern of one critic that the method might be used to create children who do not know who their father is seems bizarrely to suppose that no such children already exist.
But the main worries seem to be about ‘babies being born entirely through artificial means’, or of sperm being created from the genetic material of men long dead, including perhaps some we’d rather remain that way. And (shudder) they might not even have to be men…
This research undoubtedly raises important ethical questions. But the alleged horror at such imaginary scenarios is disingenuous. We do not shy away from ‘monstrosities’ of this sort, but instead return to them compulsively. They are among our most persistent cultural myths: we have been contemplating artificial babies in ‘test tubes’ since at least the Middle Ages. We needn’t be embarrassed by this fascination, but neither should we parade it with fresh indignation (and amnesia) each time it surfaces. We should instead simply consider what it tells us about ourselves.
The modern vision of the homunculus was conjured up in 1923 by the British biologist J. B. S. Haldane in his book Daedalus; or Science and the Future, one of the influential ‘To-day and To-morrow’ series of short books by leading thinkers published by Kegan Paul. Here Haldane prophesized about ‘ectogenetic children’ conceived and gestated in artificial wombs entirely outside the body. Haldane and others saw this as having two main benefits. First, it would allow eugenic selection of the progeny; second, it would liberate women from the burden of childbearing. Those views were echoed by Dora Russell, Bertrand Russell’s wife, and other campaigners for women’s freedom such as the feminist Vera Brittain and the sexologist Norman Haire, all three of whom contributed to the To-day and To-morrow series [2].
This emancipating role of ‘artificial babies’ was precisely what terrified the conservative philosopher Anthony Ludovici, who claimed in Lysistrata, or Women’s Future and Future Women (1924) that ectogenesis would relegate men to mere sources of ‘fertilizer’, perhaps with one man considered sufficient as a sperm machine for every 200 women. Mark my words, Ludovici warned in his ludicrous diatribe, ‘in a very short while it will be a mere matter of routine to proceed to an annual slaughter of males who have either outlived their prime or else have failed to fulfil the promise of their youth in meekness, general emasculateness, and stupidity.’ It makes the current tabloid hysteria (a singularly inappropriate word here) seems mild.
All this was set within the context of the decimation of Europe’s menfolk by the Great War, and the dystopian vision of Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World. These fears were connected to the encroaching industrial mechanization of other all-to-human tasks. Concerns for the role of men resurfaced when, in 1934, American biologist Gregory Pincus announced the ‘in vitro fertilization’ of rabbit eggs (actually a form of parthenogenesis in which the eggs were stimulated to grow without fertilization by sperm). This early precursor to human IVF was reported by some as an assault on the male: ‘No father to guide them’ ran the title of an article in Collier’s Magazine in 1937.
Today, it seems, the ‘end of men’ is cast in terms of bathetic solipsism – who will take the spiders out of the bath? – mixed with the frisson of The Boys from Brazil via Jurassic Park (it being de rigeur for modern myths to find a role for Hitler). While we can laugh or scoff now at the dreams and nightmares of the 1920s, we should feel confident that our grandchildren will do the same at ours.
References
1. Lee, J. H. et al. Stem Cells Dev. doi:10.1089/scd.2009.0063 (2009). Paper here.
2. Ferreira, A. Interdiscipl. Sci. Rev. 34, 32-55 (2009). Paper here.
[Here’s the pre-edited version of my latest Muse for Nature’s online news.]
The best way to understand the recent fuss about 'artificial sperm' and the 'end of men' is to consider old versions of the same debate.
Few science stories seem as guaranteed to make headlines as those that can be distorted to reinforce lazy clichés about gender. These range from the folksy – women are better multitaskers – to the ugly – ‘women who dress provocatively are more likely to be raped’.
So no one should be terribly surprised that recent reports of ‘artificial sperm’ made in the laboratory focused on the question of whether the advance makes men obsolete (see here and here). It hardly seems worth blustering about tabloid stories that claim ‘Women have always known that men are a bit of a waste of space’. And weary resignation seems the best response as even the ‘more respectable’ press plod in bovine array down the same false trail (see here and here).
But while one could have predicted that some commentators would line up to express shock and horror (or pretend to do so), and others would tell them not to be so silly, it’s far more instructive to take the long view. For we’ve been through all this before. Fears that men would become surplus to requirement for perpetuating the race were voiced in the 1920s, and on similarly fatuous grounds. Then, as now, the debate revealed much more about the society that spawned it than about the future of humankind.
First, to the latest news. Contrary to what was widely claimed, Karim Nayernia at the University of Newcastle in England and his colleagues have not made artificial human sperm. They have found a way to turn embryonic stem cells into cells with some of the attributes of sperm [1]. That, however, certainly seems a big step along the way, and Nayernia’s group has already achieved live births of mice from eggs fertilized with sperm made by this technique. That the mice pups did not live long suggests there are some serious remaining problems. (Nayernia’s paper has just been retracted, but not because of any concerns about the results – it seems that the introductory material foolishly plagiarized essentially verbatim two paragraphs from a review article by different authors.)
Now, let’s not go into the wrongheaded objections about destroying ‘perfectly healthy human embryos’ (such God-like omniscience!) to make these pseudo-sperm. And the concern of one critic that the method might be used to create children who do not know who their father is seems bizarrely to suppose that no such children already exist.
But the main worries seem to be about ‘babies being born entirely through artificial means’, or of sperm being created from the genetic material of men long dead, including perhaps some we’d rather remain that way. And (shudder) they might not even have to be men…
This research undoubtedly raises important ethical questions. But the alleged horror at such imaginary scenarios is disingenuous. We do not shy away from ‘monstrosities’ of this sort, but instead return to them compulsively. They are among our most persistent cultural myths: we have been contemplating artificial babies in ‘test tubes’ since at least the Middle Ages. We needn’t be embarrassed by this fascination, but neither should we parade it with fresh indignation (and amnesia) each time it surfaces. We should instead simply consider what it tells us about ourselves.
The modern vision of the homunculus was conjured up in 1923 by the British biologist J. B. S. Haldane in his book Daedalus; or Science and the Future, one of the influential ‘To-day and To-morrow’ series of short books by leading thinkers published by Kegan Paul. Here Haldane prophesized about ‘ectogenetic children’ conceived and gestated in artificial wombs entirely outside the body. Haldane and others saw this as having two main benefits. First, it would allow eugenic selection of the progeny; second, it would liberate women from the burden of childbearing. Those views were echoed by Dora Russell, Bertrand Russell’s wife, and other campaigners for women’s freedom such as the feminist Vera Brittain and the sexologist Norman Haire, all three of whom contributed to the To-day and To-morrow series [2].
This emancipating role of ‘artificial babies’ was precisely what terrified the conservative philosopher Anthony Ludovici, who claimed in Lysistrata, or Women’s Future and Future Women (1924) that ectogenesis would relegate men to mere sources of ‘fertilizer’, perhaps with one man considered sufficient as a sperm machine for every 200 women. Mark my words, Ludovici warned in his ludicrous diatribe, ‘in a very short while it will be a mere matter of routine to proceed to an annual slaughter of males who have either outlived their prime or else have failed to fulfil the promise of their youth in meekness, general emasculateness, and stupidity.’ It makes the current tabloid hysteria (a singularly inappropriate word here) seems mild.
All this was set within the context of the decimation of Europe’s menfolk by the Great War, and the dystopian vision of Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World. These fears were connected to the encroaching industrial mechanization of other all-to-human tasks. Concerns for the role of men resurfaced when, in 1934, American biologist Gregory Pincus announced the ‘in vitro fertilization’ of rabbit eggs (actually a form of parthenogenesis in which the eggs were stimulated to grow without fertilization by sperm). This early precursor to human IVF was reported by some as an assault on the male: ‘No father to guide them’ ran the title of an article in Collier’s Magazine in 1937.
Today, it seems, the ‘end of men’ is cast in terms of bathetic solipsism – who will take the spiders out of the bath? – mixed with the frisson of The Boys from Brazil via Jurassic Park (it being de rigeur for modern myths to find a role for Hitler). While we can laugh or scoff now at the dreams and nightmares of the 1920s, we should feel confident that our grandchildren will do the same at ours.
References
1. Lee, J. H. et al. Stem Cells Dev. doi:10.1089/scd.2009.0063 (2009). Paper here.
2. Ferreira, A. Interdiscipl. Sci. Rev. 34, 32-55 (2009). Paper here.
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
Finally on the Reason Project
Now that the dust has settled somewhat, I’m in a position to see what people made of my debate with Sam Harris. Most of the discussion seems to have happened on what it seems we are meant now to call New Atheist sites, such as richarddawkins.net and Pharyngula, so I guess there is, let’s say, a certain angle to it. But I have the impression that some people who follow this sort of thing have already decided which boxes exist, and it’s just a matter of determining which ones to put us in. Thus my position is characterised as that of an accommodationist who figures that religion is here to stay so we might as well make our peace with it. OK then, once more: I haven’t the faintest idea if religion is an inevitable aspect of human culture. Neither have you. Neither has Sam. So let’s, please, not bother ourselves about taking positions on that. What I say is that, thus far in history, religion or movements like it (Maoism, Stalinism, Nazism, to name a few of the ones that might make us glad of a cup of tea with the vicar) have tended to occur pretty much everywhere. I humbly suggest there might be something worth learning from that, and that this something perhaps amounts to a little more than that people are suckers for idols to worship (though that probably plays a role). I suggest that it might also derive from rather more than that people have just been given bad information. So what else is there to it? I’d hoped we might talk about that.
But I guess that if you shout in a crowded marketplace, you can’t expect much nuance to survive.
A lot of folks feared that I am out of touch with what religious people think, by which they seem to mean that I’m out of touch with what the religious people they know think. Religious people think an awful lot of different things. But one key question is whether, to make an analogy, we judge communism by Marx or by Stalin. Frankly, I’m undecided about that. Or another way: do we judge or music by Stravinsky, or Andrew Lloyd Webber? Or do you start to get the feeling that this is the wrong question? (However, I can’t help feeling we get closer to the core of music by considering Stravinsky.)
Inevitably, there is a lot one might say about Sam’s final response, appended to the end of our debate. From most, I will try hard to restrain myself. But I want to comment on one issue because it seems an interesting and revealing one. Sam says:
Let’s look more closely at Ball’s notion of life’s daunting complexity (from his last post):
You say ‘You do not seem to see what an astonishing number of the world’s conflicts and missed opportunities arise from people’s false knowledge about God’. Which are you going to cite – Northern Ireland? Iraq? The Crusades? If only it wasn’t for that pesky God and his offspring, all these places would have lived in blissful peace! The Taliban? – why, they’d be lovely folks if they weren’t Muslim extremists! How wonderful, how simple and easy, to be able to blame all these things on a false belief in gods! Gosh, this counterfactual history is easier than I ever imagined!
Sorry, facetiousness is no help. I am afraid that I fall into it here as a substitute for real anger, because I find it maddening to see the suggestion that sectarian violence in Belfast, tribal conflict in Iraq, Hindu-Muslim violence in India, and goodness knows how much else suffering in the world could be solved if we could just persuade people to give up their ridiculous faiths. I fully accept that it is no good either to simply say, as I know some do, ‘Oh, it’s only human nature, and religion is just the excuse.’ No, the truth is, sadly, much more complicated. And that is why I think the answers are too. But I have been left from our exchange with the feeling that ‘complicated’ is for you just a cop-out. I guess maybe that is where we fundamentally disagree. You seem to feel that any attempt to introduce into the debate considerations about culture, history, society and politics are unwelcome and even willfully deceitful diversions from the main business of demolishing religions for believing in things for which there is no evidence. That seems to be your ‘point’ – I’m afraid I simply can’t accept it.
This is the sort of stuff that could make a person angry all over again… Ball is trying have things both ways (as he was throughout our debate): on the one hand, the fundamental problem is NOT religion (and I’m a simpleton for thinking that it is); on the other, OF COURSE religion is sometimes involved, so he’s well aware of the problem of religion (and it’s very bad form for me not to acknowledge how clear he has been in his opposition to the bad effects of religious “extremism”). [PB: Is the notion that ‘religion is not the fundamental problem but that religious extremism often is a problem’ really ‘trying to have things both ways’, or just making a rather straightforward claim?] Okay… Let’s try to map this onto the world. Take the Taliban for starters: Who does Ball imagine the Taliban would be if they weren’t “Muslim extremists”? They are, after all, Homo sapiens like the rest of us. Let’s change them by one increment: wave a magic wand and make them all Muslim moderates… Now how does the world look? Do members of the Taliban still kill people for adultery? Do they still throw acid in the faces of little girls for attempting to go to school? No. The specific character of their religious ideology—and its direct and unambiguous link to their behavior—is the most salient thing about the Taliban. In fact, it is the most salient thing about them from their own point of view. All they talk about is their religion and what it obliges them to do…
Would there be conflict over land and other resources without religion? Yes. Are there other forms of tribalism and in-group/out-group thinking that have nothing to do with religion? Of course. But what seems to me to be undeniable, is that there are countless instances of terrible things done (and noble things left undone) because of specific religious beliefs. Some of the conflicts Ball cites would not have occurred (or would have been vastly ameliorated) without the influence of religion. A million people died during the partitioning of India and Pakistan. Would a million people have died if there had been Hindus on both sides? Very likely not. In fact, it is doubtful that the subcontinent would have been partitioned in the first place. Would the violence in Iraq be the same if it were all Sunni or all Shiite? Of course not. (The country may even be more coherently united against its western occupiers, but that is another matter, and one that is also energized by religious difference).
The first thing to notice is that here Sam seems to imply the same view as I hold, namely that what is objectionable about a group like the Taliban is not that they are religious but that they are religious zealots who believe their religion compels them to throw acid in little girls’ faces. If that problem can be solved by waving a wand and turning them into moderates (we’ll come back to that…), isn’t that what we’d really want? Do we really then need to worry too that they are then Muslim moderates and not atheists?
This highlights a persistent problem I’ve felt in our debate. It seems that Sam objects both to the fact that such people are dangerous religious fanatics and that they are religious. I object only to the first (so long as neither group tries to foist their belief on others, and I fully recognize that some do try). This position seems guaranteed to make Sam consider that I am being selective and wanting it both ways – ‘oh, of course I object to that, but not to this’. Anyone who sits between two poles is bound to be accused of looking both ways. But I don’t see why this position need be so problematic, nor inconsistent. Sam seems in this example to hint that it is a tenable one, at least insofar as it addresses the issue that perhaps concerns both him and me most of all: the use of religion for oppressive and violent ends.
But Sam’s example and solution here reveal the crux of my argument about culture and society. Clearly he believes it is possible to be a Muslim without feeling the need to throw acid in people’s faces. In other words, the chosen religion of the Taliban does not compel them to believe as they do. It is their particular (mis)interpretation of that religion which does that. What this suggests to me is that the problem is not (in this case) Islam but that certain groups elect to adopt extreme and oppressive interpretations of it. The same is true, of course, for other religions: some Christians feel that their belief compels them to be pacifists, others that it compels them to shoot abortion doctors. My point is then that surely what is important is to understand why some cultural groups adopt one interpretation and some another. In the case of the Taliban, one clear aspect of their belief is that it commends the oppression of women. This is very obviously not a uniquely religious imperative, and so I suspect the real problem here is why a particular set of cultural circumstances have led this group to take a misogynist attitude while other circumstances allow another group, reading from the same book, to act otherwise.
Look at it another way. Sam suggests a thought experiment (that magic wand) in which we alter nothing about the Taliban but their inclination to interpret Islam in violent and oppressive ways. My view is that this has no real meaning. Of course it would solve the problem if we could take a bunch of zealots and simply pluck out their zealotry. But is it likely that one could do so? Isn’t the source of that zealotry likely to be found in a broader range of social, historical and cultural factors, given that it is evidently not an inevitable aspect of their religious book? And purely from a pragmatic view, isn’t it more likely that we might find ways of encouraging the spread of religious moderates than that we can hope to stamp out the religion entirely while needing to make no other social or cultural changes?
The comment about Sunni and Shiite sects in Iraq is particularly revealing. So Sam thinks this is basically an argument not between different tribal factions but about people who think that they need to kill one another because of a disagreement over who was Mohammed’s true successor? And presumably Protestants kill Catholics in Northern Ireland because the Catholics fail to heed Martin Luther?
There’s plenty more, but I think an awful lot resides in Sam’s assertion that it is “the people who spend all their time reading the Qur’an and the hadith, seeking fatwas for the their every action, and long to die as martyrs in the jihad because they are certain that every word of scripture is true” who are the ‘deeply religious’ ones. To Sam, being ‘deeply religious’ is apparently about how strongly you feel and how well you can recite your Holy Book, not about how well you understand it or how wisely you use it. It is, to return to my earlier metaphor, the people who weep at Lloyd Webber musicals who are the most ‘deeply musical’. From that starting point, I guess it’s inevitable that we wouldn’t find much convergence.
This, however, leads Sam to raise some interesting questions while apparently thinking them to be rhetorical and not questions at all. “Is the Pope a sufficient representative of Catholicism—or is he too “superficial”? Does he not “know his theology”?” Well Sam, what do you think? Does he? I’m not sure you have the faintest idea. The question doesn’t answer itself simply because he is the Pope. Whose theology, in any event? “Did Aquinas or Augustine know theirs?”, Sam asks. But Aquinas didn’t always agree with Augustine. Does Rowan Williams agree with the Pope on the interpretation of Augustine’s notion of original sin? I’d be surprised if he did. Does Augustine’s ‘original sin’ agree with what is said in the Bible? Some theologists think not. I am well aware of the attitude of “who gives a damn anyway, because they’re all wrong”, and I can appreciate why someone might say that. But I find it hard to see how one can truly argue against ‘religious belief’ without some notion of the range of what that belief is, and the merits of each.
Sadly, (honestly, it pains me) one other thing has to be mentioned. Sam addresses the complaint “Why didn’t you admit that you misinterpreted—and, therefore, unfairly attacked—Ball’s original article?”, by saying “I didn’t admit this because I don’t believe it to be true—as evidenced by virtually everything Ball has written subsequently.”
I was happy to let this go, really I was – but Sam wants to return to it again (like the compulsion to return to the scene of the crime?). This is really so simple. Sam’s letter to Nature claimed “Mr. Ball assures us that … there is no deeper contradiction to be found between scientific rationality and religious faith. “ I pointed out that I made no such statement, and that I didn’t think it was true. So: no misinterpretation? Sam went on: “As evidence of this underlying harmony, we are asked to contemplate the existence of The BioLogos Foundation” I pointed out that I didn’t offer any endorsement of the BioLogos Foundation, and didn’t wish to do so. I then called them ‘irenic’; Sam didn’t seem to know what this meant, but when I explained that, he moved swiftly on...
Certainly, the debate we had subsequently showed that we disagree over many things, and that Sam feels I am far too tolerant of religion. Fine. But on the issue of whether my article was misinterpreted in Sam’s letter to Nature, there really is no question. It is all there in black and white. Ah, but you see, Sam says “What I was hoping to avoid, and what Ball continually tried to provoke, was a tit-for-tat style of debate—you said I said X, but what I really said (or meant) was Y. Such exchanges are deadly boring.” Oh, too true. But when you get things wrong, you may be called upon to say so.
Finally, “All of Ball’s specific complaints about my misinterpreting his original article struck me as spurious.” But he will not say why. I think the reason is now pretty plain.
There is another way I could respond to this, which is to point out that Sam wants all scientists who are religious believers to be sacked from their departments and stripped of their qualifications. Of course Sam will respond by saying that he has never said anything of the sort, but I will simply say that the truth of my assertion is “evidenced by virtually everything Harris has written” and that to discuss the details would be too boring.
The fact is that this is all indeed a minor matter, and could have been easily dealt with by a brief acknowledgement that would allow us to move on. But Sam seems to have a real fear of making any concession whatsoever – a sign of a brittle position? – which regrettably turns this into an issue of intellectual honesty.
However, however. The truly sad thing about this exchange is that it has turned into adversaries two people who are unambiguously atheist, deplore the encroachment of creationism and fundamentalism, and are deeply opposed to the oppressive and anti-intellectual practices of some religious groups. I entered into this debate believing that we would find some way of agreeing to disagree. I leave it feeling that the kind of hardline atheism Sam espouses is, in its unyielding purism, potentially undermining of the very aims it claims to have.
Now that the dust has settled somewhat, I’m in a position to see what people made of my debate with Sam Harris. Most of the discussion seems to have happened on what it seems we are meant now to call New Atheist sites, such as richarddawkins.net and Pharyngula, so I guess there is, let’s say, a certain angle to it. But I have the impression that some people who follow this sort of thing have already decided which boxes exist, and it’s just a matter of determining which ones to put us in. Thus my position is characterised as that of an accommodationist who figures that religion is here to stay so we might as well make our peace with it. OK then, once more: I haven’t the faintest idea if religion is an inevitable aspect of human culture. Neither have you. Neither has Sam. So let’s, please, not bother ourselves about taking positions on that. What I say is that, thus far in history, religion or movements like it (Maoism, Stalinism, Nazism, to name a few of the ones that might make us glad of a cup of tea with the vicar) have tended to occur pretty much everywhere. I humbly suggest there might be something worth learning from that, and that this something perhaps amounts to a little more than that people are suckers for idols to worship (though that probably plays a role). I suggest that it might also derive from rather more than that people have just been given bad information. So what else is there to it? I’d hoped we might talk about that.
But I guess that if you shout in a crowded marketplace, you can’t expect much nuance to survive.
A lot of folks feared that I am out of touch with what religious people think, by which they seem to mean that I’m out of touch with what the religious people they know think. Religious people think an awful lot of different things. But one key question is whether, to make an analogy, we judge communism by Marx or by Stalin. Frankly, I’m undecided about that. Or another way: do we judge or music by Stravinsky, or Andrew Lloyd Webber? Or do you start to get the feeling that this is the wrong question? (However, I can’t help feeling we get closer to the core of music by considering Stravinsky.)
Inevitably, there is a lot one might say about Sam’s final response, appended to the end of our debate. From most, I will try hard to restrain myself. But I want to comment on one issue because it seems an interesting and revealing one. Sam says:
Let’s look more closely at Ball’s notion of life’s daunting complexity (from his last post):
You say ‘You do not seem to see what an astonishing number of the world’s conflicts and missed opportunities arise from people’s false knowledge about God’. Which are you going to cite – Northern Ireland? Iraq? The Crusades? If only it wasn’t for that pesky God and his offspring, all these places would have lived in blissful peace! The Taliban? – why, they’d be lovely folks if they weren’t Muslim extremists! How wonderful, how simple and easy, to be able to blame all these things on a false belief in gods! Gosh, this counterfactual history is easier than I ever imagined!
Sorry, facetiousness is no help. I am afraid that I fall into it here as a substitute for real anger, because I find it maddening to see the suggestion that sectarian violence in Belfast, tribal conflict in Iraq, Hindu-Muslim violence in India, and goodness knows how much else suffering in the world could be solved if we could just persuade people to give up their ridiculous faiths. I fully accept that it is no good either to simply say, as I know some do, ‘Oh, it’s only human nature, and religion is just the excuse.’ No, the truth is, sadly, much more complicated. And that is why I think the answers are too. But I have been left from our exchange with the feeling that ‘complicated’ is for you just a cop-out. I guess maybe that is where we fundamentally disagree. You seem to feel that any attempt to introduce into the debate considerations about culture, history, society and politics are unwelcome and even willfully deceitful diversions from the main business of demolishing religions for believing in things for which there is no evidence. That seems to be your ‘point’ – I’m afraid I simply can’t accept it.
This is the sort of stuff that could make a person angry all over again… Ball is trying have things both ways (as he was throughout our debate): on the one hand, the fundamental problem is NOT religion (and I’m a simpleton for thinking that it is); on the other, OF COURSE religion is sometimes involved, so he’s well aware of the problem of religion (and it’s very bad form for me not to acknowledge how clear he has been in his opposition to the bad effects of religious “extremism”). [PB: Is the notion that ‘religion is not the fundamental problem but that religious extremism often is a problem’ really ‘trying to have things both ways’, or just making a rather straightforward claim?] Okay… Let’s try to map this onto the world. Take the Taliban for starters: Who does Ball imagine the Taliban would be if they weren’t “Muslim extremists”? They are, after all, Homo sapiens like the rest of us. Let’s change them by one increment: wave a magic wand and make them all Muslim moderates… Now how does the world look? Do members of the Taliban still kill people for adultery? Do they still throw acid in the faces of little girls for attempting to go to school? No. The specific character of their religious ideology—and its direct and unambiguous link to their behavior—is the most salient thing about the Taliban. In fact, it is the most salient thing about them from their own point of view. All they talk about is their religion and what it obliges them to do…
Would there be conflict over land and other resources without religion? Yes. Are there other forms of tribalism and in-group/out-group thinking that have nothing to do with religion? Of course. But what seems to me to be undeniable, is that there are countless instances of terrible things done (and noble things left undone) because of specific religious beliefs. Some of the conflicts Ball cites would not have occurred (or would have been vastly ameliorated) without the influence of religion. A million people died during the partitioning of India and Pakistan. Would a million people have died if there had been Hindus on both sides? Very likely not. In fact, it is doubtful that the subcontinent would have been partitioned in the first place. Would the violence in Iraq be the same if it were all Sunni or all Shiite? Of course not. (The country may even be more coherently united against its western occupiers, but that is another matter, and one that is also energized by religious difference).
The first thing to notice is that here Sam seems to imply the same view as I hold, namely that what is objectionable about a group like the Taliban is not that they are religious but that they are religious zealots who believe their religion compels them to throw acid in little girls’ faces. If that problem can be solved by waving a wand and turning them into moderates (we’ll come back to that…), isn’t that what we’d really want? Do we really then need to worry too that they are then Muslim moderates and not atheists?
This highlights a persistent problem I’ve felt in our debate. It seems that Sam objects both to the fact that such people are dangerous religious fanatics and that they are religious. I object only to the first (so long as neither group tries to foist their belief on others, and I fully recognize that some do try). This position seems guaranteed to make Sam consider that I am being selective and wanting it both ways – ‘oh, of course I object to that, but not to this’. Anyone who sits between two poles is bound to be accused of looking both ways. But I don’t see why this position need be so problematic, nor inconsistent. Sam seems in this example to hint that it is a tenable one, at least insofar as it addresses the issue that perhaps concerns both him and me most of all: the use of religion for oppressive and violent ends.
But Sam’s example and solution here reveal the crux of my argument about culture and society. Clearly he believes it is possible to be a Muslim without feeling the need to throw acid in people’s faces. In other words, the chosen religion of the Taliban does not compel them to believe as they do. It is their particular (mis)interpretation of that religion which does that. What this suggests to me is that the problem is not (in this case) Islam but that certain groups elect to adopt extreme and oppressive interpretations of it. The same is true, of course, for other religions: some Christians feel that their belief compels them to be pacifists, others that it compels them to shoot abortion doctors. My point is then that surely what is important is to understand why some cultural groups adopt one interpretation and some another. In the case of the Taliban, one clear aspect of their belief is that it commends the oppression of women. This is very obviously not a uniquely religious imperative, and so I suspect the real problem here is why a particular set of cultural circumstances have led this group to take a misogynist attitude while other circumstances allow another group, reading from the same book, to act otherwise.
Look at it another way. Sam suggests a thought experiment (that magic wand) in which we alter nothing about the Taliban but their inclination to interpret Islam in violent and oppressive ways. My view is that this has no real meaning. Of course it would solve the problem if we could take a bunch of zealots and simply pluck out their zealotry. But is it likely that one could do so? Isn’t the source of that zealotry likely to be found in a broader range of social, historical and cultural factors, given that it is evidently not an inevitable aspect of their religious book? And purely from a pragmatic view, isn’t it more likely that we might find ways of encouraging the spread of religious moderates than that we can hope to stamp out the religion entirely while needing to make no other social or cultural changes?
The comment about Sunni and Shiite sects in Iraq is particularly revealing. So Sam thinks this is basically an argument not between different tribal factions but about people who think that they need to kill one another because of a disagreement over who was Mohammed’s true successor? And presumably Protestants kill Catholics in Northern Ireland because the Catholics fail to heed Martin Luther?
There’s plenty more, but I think an awful lot resides in Sam’s assertion that it is “the people who spend all their time reading the Qur’an and the hadith, seeking fatwas for the their every action, and long to die as martyrs in the jihad because they are certain that every word of scripture is true” who are the ‘deeply religious’ ones. To Sam, being ‘deeply religious’ is apparently about how strongly you feel and how well you can recite your Holy Book, not about how well you understand it or how wisely you use it. It is, to return to my earlier metaphor, the people who weep at Lloyd Webber musicals who are the most ‘deeply musical’. From that starting point, I guess it’s inevitable that we wouldn’t find much convergence.
This, however, leads Sam to raise some interesting questions while apparently thinking them to be rhetorical and not questions at all. “Is the Pope a sufficient representative of Catholicism—or is he too “superficial”? Does he not “know his theology”?” Well Sam, what do you think? Does he? I’m not sure you have the faintest idea. The question doesn’t answer itself simply because he is the Pope. Whose theology, in any event? “Did Aquinas or Augustine know theirs?”, Sam asks. But Aquinas didn’t always agree with Augustine. Does Rowan Williams agree with the Pope on the interpretation of Augustine’s notion of original sin? I’d be surprised if he did. Does Augustine’s ‘original sin’ agree with what is said in the Bible? Some theologists think not. I am well aware of the attitude of “who gives a damn anyway, because they’re all wrong”, and I can appreciate why someone might say that. But I find it hard to see how one can truly argue against ‘religious belief’ without some notion of the range of what that belief is, and the merits of each.
Sadly, (honestly, it pains me) one other thing has to be mentioned. Sam addresses the complaint “Why didn’t you admit that you misinterpreted—and, therefore, unfairly attacked—Ball’s original article?”, by saying “I didn’t admit this because I don’t believe it to be true—as evidenced by virtually everything Ball has written subsequently.”
I was happy to let this go, really I was – but Sam wants to return to it again (like the compulsion to return to the scene of the crime?). This is really so simple. Sam’s letter to Nature claimed “Mr. Ball assures us that … there is no deeper contradiction to be found between scientific rationality and religious faith. “ I pointed out that I made no such statement, and that I didn’t think it was true. So: no misinterpretation? Sam went on: “As evidence of this underlying harmony, we are asked to contemplate the existence of The BioLogos Foundation” I pointed out that I didn’t offer any endorsement of the BioLogos Foundation, and didn’t wish to do so. I then called them ‘irenic’; Sam didn’t seem to know what this meant, but when I explained that, he moved swiftly on...
Certainly, the debate we had subsequently showed that we disagree over many things, and that Sam feels I am far too tolerant of religion. Fine. But on the issue of whether my article was misinterpreted in Sam’s letter to Nature, there really is no question. It is all there in black and white. Ah, but you see, Sam says “What I was hoping to avoid, and what Ball continually tried to provoke, was a tit-for-tat style of debate—you said I said X, but what I really said (or meant) was Y. Such exchanges are deadly boring.” Oh, too true. But when you get things wrong, you may be called upon to say so.
Finally, “All of Ball’s specific complaints about my misinterpreting his original article struck me as spurious.” But he will not say why. I think the reason is now pretty plain.
There is another way I could respond to this, which is to point out that Sam wants all scientists who are religious believers to be sacked from their departments and stripped of their qualifications. Of course Sam will respond by saying that he has never said anything of the sort, but I will simply say that the truth of my assertion is “evidenced by virtually everything Harris has written” and that to discuss the details would be too boring.
The fact is that this is all indeed a minor matter, and could have been easily dealt with by a brief acknowledgement that would allow us to move on. But Sam seems to have a real fear of making any concession whatsoever – a sign of a brittle position? – which regrettably turns this into an issue of intellectual honesty.
However, however. The truly sad thing about this exchange is that it has turned into adversaries two people who are unambiguously atheist, deplore the encroachment of creationism and fundamentalism, and are deeply opposed to the oppressive and anti-intellectual practices of some religious groups. I entered into this debate believing that we would find some way of agreeing to disagree. I leave it feeling that the kind of hardline atheism Sam espouses is, in its unyielding purism, potentially undermining of the very aims it claims to have.
Monday, July 20, 2009
Why astronomers are twittering
Here’s my Lab Report column for the August issue of Prospect…
Visitors to the Jodrell Bank Observatory in Cheshire typically take one look at the gigantic dishes of the radio telescopes and ask the same question: what is it looking at? But it’s not just outsiders who wonder that. Astronomers who have been granted viewing time at the big observatories to look at their favourite objects also want quick notification of when the telescopes have done the job. This is just the sort of question for which Twitter was invented: what are you doing now? And so radio astronomer Stuart Lowe at Jodrell Bank proposes that the astronomy community set up an AstroTwitter service dedicated to letting followers know in real time what the world’s telescopes are up to.
A service like this has already been created for NASA’s Mars Phoenix lander, which had 3,000 followers by the time Phoenix touched down on Mars in May of last year. By September it had 35,000. Phoenix is studying the composition of the martian ‘soil’, particularly to look for clues about the planet’s suspected watery (and perhaps habitable) past. It’s arguable that NASA’s decision to put the feeds in the first person (‘I’m on MAAAARS! Now it’s back to work digging for treasure…’) is over-egging the cuteness, but as a public outreach tool the Phoenix twitter was a triumph. Inspired by this, Lowe fantasises about online mash-ups that show the locations of all the telescopes on the globe, each linked to its own twitter stream. And with the help of Google Sky, we could see what’s in the telescope’s sights too. No doubt all the big-science installations will be at it soon: stand by for HiggsTwitter.
A prime candidate for a service like this would be the Mars rover Spirit, currently stuck in deep sand on the martian surface. NASA has set up a web site (with the corny but inevitable tag ‘Free Spirit’) to provide regular updates on efforts to get Spirit out of the sandpit in which it has been trapped since May. This has involved making a mock-up of the predicament at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, lodging a replica of Spirit in a sand tray and trying out escape manoeuvres. A rock revealed by Spirit’s cameras under its ‘belly’ offers some hope of finding purchase. Without the earthbound tests, the scientists fear that any attempted move might just dig the rover in deeper.
Spirit and its companion Opportunity have become the indomitable Wall-Es of Mars, anthropomorphized way beyond Phoenix to the extent that ending the rover missions would now be seen by many as akin to putting down a pair of favourite pets. It’s all projection, of course – no one felt this way about the lunar buggies of the Apollo teams, because there were people around them to identify with. All the same, the Mars rovers have vastly exceeded expectations by remaining active for five years on the planet’s surface, prompting the question of whether humans could do any better. Spirit’s current predicament, however, suggests that future landers on sandy worlds like Mars might be better off with legs rather than wheels. NASA is testing a scorpion-like robot explorer, and last February a team at the Georgia Institute of Technology reported that their six-legged ‘SandBot’ could alter its gait to make good headway in sand that would leave a wheeled vehicle floundering.
*****
After the genome, the proteome and the metabolome, here comes… the shitome? Well, someone has to do it (quite literally, I fear). The microbial community of the gut is vital to human health, and changes in the ecological balance of the 500 or so bacterial species (comprising around a trillion cells per millilitre of faeces) might offer early warnings of disease. So two microbiologists at MIT are planning to look at the genetic sequences of microbes in their stools every day for six to 12 months, tracking changes in the community structure in response to shifts in diet, mood, general health and so forth. Unfortunately, that means storing a lot of frozen samples. At the moment they are going into the freezer of graduate student David Lawrence, apparently next to the chocolate ice cream. The study could reveal a lot about this poorly understood aspect of human biology. But right now, Lawrence’s supervisor Eric Alm admits, ‘it’s just a freezer full of shit.’
*****
Recent research reported in Nature by three international collaborations has revealed that the genetics of schizophrenia involves variants of genes that govern our immune response. Since schizophrenia runs in families, it’s long been clear that genetic factors are at play, even if these may also depend on environmental triggers. The new discovery shows where a significant focus of the genetic origin lies. But it’s important to remember how dispersed the genetic causes are nevertheless. Both these studies and previous work have found links with genetic variants on several of our 23 chromosomes. Earlier talk of “a gene for schizophrenia” merely highlighted the simplistic notion of genetic causality that the genomic age has tended to foster. Illnesses caused by variations in one or just a few genes are rare: more are like this one, caused by poorly understood interactions of many genes. Much has been made of the link reported in the new studies between the genetics of schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. That’s not a new finding in itself, however, as a paper in the Lancet announced the same thing in January. But the new results help to show where the genetic overlaps occur.
Here’s my Lab Report column for the August issue of Prospect…
Visitors to the Jodrell Bank Observatory in Cheshire typically take one look at the gigantic dishes of the radio telescopes and ask the same question: what is it looking at? But it’s not just outsiders who wonder that. Astronomers who have been granted viewing time at the big observatories to look at their favourite objects also want quick notification of when the telescopes have done the job. This is just the sort of question for which Twitter was invented: what are you doing now? And so radio astronomer Stuart Lowe at Jodrell Bank proposes that the astronomy community set up an AstroTwitter service dedicated to letting followers know in real time what the world’s telescopes are up to.
A service like this has already been created for NASA’s Mars Phoenix lander, which had 3,000 followers by the time Phoenix touched down on Mars in May of last year. By September it had 35,000. Phoenix is studying the composition of the martian ‘soil’, particularly to look for clues about the planet’s suspected watery (and perhaps habitable) past. It’s arguable that NASA’s decision to put the feeds in the first person (‘I’m on MAAAARS! Now it’s back to work digging for treasure…’) is over-egging the cuteness, but as a public outreach tool the Phoenix twitter was a triumph. Inspired by this, Lowe fantasises about online mash-ups that show the locations of all the telescopes on the globe, each linked to its own twitter stream. And with the help of Google Sky, we could see what’s in the telescope’s sights too. No doubt all the big-science installations will be at it soon: stand by for HiggsTwitter.
A prime candidate for a service like this would be the Mars rover Spirit, currently stuck in deep sand on the martian surface. NASA has set up a web site (with the corny but inevitable tag ‘Free Spirit’) to provide regular updates on efforts to get Spirit out of the sandpit in which it has been trapped since May. This has involved making a mock-up of the predicament at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, lodging a replica of Spirit in a sand tray and trying out escape manoeuvres. A rock revealed by Spirit’s cameras under its ‘belly’ offers some hope of finding purchase. Without the earthbound tests, the scientists fear that any attempted move might just dig the rover in deeper.
Spirit and its companion Opportunity have become the indomitable Wall-Es of Mars, anthropomorphized way beyond Phoenix to the extent that ending the rover missions would now be seen by many as akin to putting down a pair of favourite pets. It’s all projection, of course – no one felt this way about the lunar buggies of the Apollo teams, because there were people around them to identify with. All the same, the Mars rovers have vastly exceeded expectations by remaining active for five years on the planet’s surface, prompting the question of whether humans could do any better. Spirit’s current predicament, however, suggests that future landers on sandy worlds like Mars might be better off with legs rather than wheels. NASA is testing a scorpion-like robot explorer, and last February a team at the Georgia Institute of Technology reported that their six-legged ‘SandBot’ could alter its gait to make good headway in sand that would leave a wheeled vehicle floundering.
*****
After the genome, the proteome and the metabolome, here comes… the shitome? Well, someone has to do it (quite literally, I fear). The microbial community of the gut is vital to human health, and changes in the ecological balance of the 500 or so bacterial species (comprising around a trillion cells per millilitre of faeces) might offer early warnings of disease. So two microbiologists at MIT are planning to look at the genetic sequences of microbes in their stools every day for six to 12 months, tracking changes in the community structure in response to shifts in diet, mood, general health and so forth. Unfortunately, that means storing a lot of frozen samples. At the moment they are going into the freezer of graduate student David Lawrence, apparently next to the chocolate ice cream. The study could reveal a lot about this poorly understood aspect of human biology. But right now, Lawrence’s supervisor Eric Alm admits, ‘it’s just a freezer full of shit.’
*****
Recent research reported in Nature by three international collaborations has revealed that the genetics of schizophrenia involves variants of genes that govern our immune response. Since schizophrenia runs in families, it’s long been clear that genetic factors are at play, even if these may also depend on environmental triggers. The new discovery shows where a significant focus of the genetic origin lies. But it’s important to remember how dispersed the genetic causes are nevertheless. Both these studies and previous work have found links with genetic variants on several of our 23 chromosomes. Earlier talk of “a gene for schizophrenia” merely highlighted the simplistic notion of genetic causality that the genomic age has tended to foster. Illnesses caused by variations in one or just a few genes are rare: more are like this one, caused by poorly understood interactions of many genes. Much has been made of the link reported in the new studies between the genetics of schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. That’s not a new finding in itself, however, as a paper in the Lancet announced the same thing in January. But the new results help to show where the genetic overlaps occur.
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
In praise of (New) Humanists
Ever since the kind folks at New Humanist decided to put me on their mailing list, my spirits rise when it pops through the letterbox. But the latest issue made me smile more than most.
For starters, the editorial gives prominence to the Simon Singh libel case, in which Simon is being scandalously threatened with a personal libel prosecution by the British Chiropractic Association over an article he wrote in the Guardian calling their treatments ‘bogus’. The absurd ruling in May was that by using this word he was implying that chiropractors foist treatments on patients while knowing them to be inefficacious. No one could defend against such an accusation, for who can prove what chiropractors believe either way? In any event, this is an eccentric interpretation of ‘bogus’, which is used colloquially to mean just what the OED says: ‘not genuine or true’. (The OED presumably throws the spanner in the works by ambiguously appending ‘used in a disapproving manner when deception has been attempted’. But to my mind that seems simply to qualify one particular instance of usage anyway.) The upshot is that Simon stands to lose half a million if he appeals – but he’s bravely decided to do so. As many groups have pointed out, a ruling like this threatens the ability of science writers to say without fear what evidence shows to be true and false. And it’s a threat to free speech more generally, thanks in essence to our stupid libel laws. At least this case is motivating calls to change them. But the behaviour of the BCA is profoundly cowardly. One of the things that became most apparent to me in the cold fusion affair was that genuine scientists don’t use courts to make their case, but evidence.
Elsewhere in the magazine, Brenda Maddox writes movingly of John Maddox’s funeral in April. I think everyone who worked with John was deeply saddened by his death, and the attendance at the celebration of his life at the Royal Institution in June was testament to the respect and affection people held for him. John sometimes drove us crazy at Nature, but I feel immensely privileged to have worked with him, both then and more recently.
In the light of my recent experiences in debating science and religion with Sam Harris (see earlier ad nauseam), the NH‘quiz’ –What Kind of Humanist Are You? – could hardly have seemed more timely. Frankly, it pretty much sums up our debate, and is a lot more fun. Suffice to say that I daresay I check in at somewhere between the categories of ‘Happy’ (‘You just want the world to be a better place. Bless!’) and ‘Hedonist’ (‘You can’t see the point of abstract principles and probably wouldn’t lay down your life for a concept, though you might for a friend’), while Sam does seem to me to qualify fairly and squarely as a ‘Hardline’ (‘You can’t stand mumbo jumbo, ritual, spiritual nonsense of any kind…they’re all just weak-minded pilgrims on the road to easy answers’). It was illuminating in this context to see the comment about New Scientist’s temporary withdrawal of a web story about ‘How to spot a hidden religious agenda’ in a book because of a legal threat (again). The magazine couldn’t explain, while the case was in progress, what was going on. But PZ Myers at Pharyngula was quick to suspect some ‘accommodationism’, saying ‘I hope that the New Scientist isn’t going to be catering to the whims of uninformed nervous nellies’, i.e. creationists and the like. ‘I am troubled’, he wrote, ‘by the apparent knee-jerk retraction of a legitimate article that is critical of creationism simply because there was a complaint.’ Yes, that would be troubling, and we’d be right to criticize it if it happened. But do you get the feeling, as New Humanist clearly did, that there might sometimes be a little jerking of knees in a different camp?
Meanwhile, my review of Fern Elsdon-Baker’s book The Selfish Genius, a critique of Richard Dawkins, in the Sunday Times has caused much gnashing of teeth on richardawkins.net, although it seems that no one who commented there has read the book. (Forgive my ignorance: what is this jargon ‘flea’ that you’ve invented?) Anyway, it’s funny – I’d hoped to give the impression that Dawkins has been a Good Thing for science communication. From what I know, he seems a nice enough chap too. (I always remember a book editor once telling me that, when he told people he’d edited both Dawkins and Stephen Jay Gould, they’d often say ‘Oh, I bet Gould is nice, but Dawkins must have been prickly’, whereupon he’d say that it was quite the reverse. And that doesn’t surprise me.) But richarddawkins.net does occasionally take on the worrying tenor of a cult, whereby No Criticism Is Permitted.
Then finally in New Humanist, there is Terry Eagleton. I confess that I struggle to take too seriously anyone who has been known to talk about ‘theory’ as if there has only ever been one theory in the history of the world; and Eagleton does sometimes seem to display the dubious traits of a contrarian. But in the light of recent experiences, I can’t help but smile at his comment that ‘We hold many beliefs that have no unimpeachably rational justification, but are nevertheless reasonable to entertain.’ Not to mention Eagleton’s readiness to admit that ‘there are a lot of simplistic ways of thinking in religion’ and that perhaps Christianity needs to be saved from (many/most?) Christians. You are unlikely to be permitted, Terry, to propose that there are other ways of thinking about Christianity than that ‘God is a kind of chap’, even if you want to call yourself an atheist in the end anyway. (Apparently he doesn’t.) Still, it seems Eagleton and Elsdon-Baker are setting themselves up as far bigger targets of the ‘Hardliners’ than I ever was, so I can hopefully now return to writing about science.
Ever since the kind folks at New Humanist decided to put me on their mailing list, my spirits rise when it pops through the letterbox. But the latest issue made me smile more than most.
For starters, the editorial gives prominence to the Simon Singh libel case, in which Simon is being scandalously threatened with a personal libel prosecution by the British Chiropractic Association over an article he wrote in the Guardian calling their treatments ‘bogus’. The absurd ruling in May was that by using this word he was implying that chiropractors foist treatments on patients while knowing them to be inefficacious. No one could defend against such an accusation, for who can prove what chiropractors believe either way? In any event, this is an eccentric interpretation of ‘bogus’, which is used colloquially to mean just what the OED says: ‘not genuine or true’. (The OED presumably throws the spanner in the works by ambiguously appending ‘used in a disapproving manner when deception has been attempted’. But to my mind that seems simply to qualify one particular instance of usage anyway.) The upshot is that Simon stands to lose half a million if he appeals – but he’s bravely decided to do so. As many groups have pointed out, a ruling like this threatens the ability of science writers to say without fear what evidence shows to be true and false. And it’s a threat to free speech more generally, thanks in essence to our stupid libel laws. At least this case is motivating calls to change them. But the behaviour of the BCA is profoundly cowardly. One of the things that became most apparent to me in the cold fusion affair was that genuine scientists don’t use courts to make their case, but evidence.
Elsewhere in the magazine, Brenda Maddox writes movingly of John Maddox’s funeral in April. I think everyone who worked with John was deeply saddened by his death, and the attendance at the celebration of his life at the Royal Institution in June was testament to the respect and affection people held for him. John sometimes drove us crazy at Nature, but I feel immensely privileged to have worked with him, both then and more recently.
In the light of my recent experiences in debating science and religion with Sam Harris (see earlier ad nauseam), the NH‘quiz’ –What Kind of Humanist Are You? – could hardly have seemed more timely. Frankly, it pretty much sums up our debate, and is a lot more fun. Suffice to say that I daresay I check in at somewhere between the categories of ‘Happy’ (‘You just want the world to be a better place. Bless!’) and ‘Hedonist’ (‘You can’t see the point of abstract principles and probably wouldn’t lay down your life for a concept, though you might for a friend’), while Sam does seem to me to qualify fairly and squarely as a ‘Hardline’ (‘You can’t stand mumbo jumbo, ritual, spiritual nonsense of any kind…they’re all just weak-minded pilgrims on the road to easy answers’). It was illuminating in this context to see the comment about New Scientist’s temporary withdrawal of a web story about ‘How to spot a hidden religious agenda’ in a book because of a legal threat (again). The magazine couldn’t explain, while the case was in progress, what was going on. But PZ Myers at Pharyngula was quick to suspect some ‘accommodationism’, saying ‘I hope that the New Scientist isn’t going to be catering to the whims of uninformed nervous nellies’, i.e. creationists and the like. ‘I am troubled’, he wrote, ‘by the apparent knee-jerk retraction of a legitimate article that is critical of creationism simply because there was a complaint.’ Yes, that would be troubling, and we’d be right to criticize it if it happened. But do you get the feeling, as New Humanist clearly did, that there might sometimes be a little jerking of knees in a different camp?
Meanwhile, my review of Fern Elsdon-Baker’s book The Selfish Genius, a critique of Richard Dawkins, in the Sunday Times has caused much gnashing of teeth on richardawkins.net, although it seems that no one who commented there has read the book. (Forgive my ignorance: what is this jargon ‘flea’ that you’ve invented?) Anyway, it’s funny – I’d hoped to give the impression that Dawkins has been a Good Thing for science communication. From what I know, he seems a nice enough chap too. (I always remember a book editor once telling me that, when he told people he’d edited both Dawkins and Stephen Jay Gould, they’d often say ‘Oh, I bet Gould is nice, but Dawkins must have been prickly’, whereupon he’d say that it was quite the reverse. And that doesn’t surprise me.) But richarddawkins.net does occasionally take on the worrying tenor of a cult, whereby No Criticism Is Permitted.
Then finally in New Humanist, there is Terry Eagleton. I confess that I struggle to take too seriously anyone who has been known to talk about ‘theory’ as if there has only ever been one theory in the history of the world; and Eagleton does sometimes seem to display the dubious traits of a contrarian. But in the light of recent experiences, I can’t help but smile at his comment that ‘We hold many beliefs that have no unimpeachably rational justification, but are nevertheless reasonable to entertain.’ Not to mention Eagleton’s readiness to admit that ‘there are a lot of simplistic ways of thinking in religion’ and that perhaps Christianity needs to be saved from (many/most?) Christians. You are unlikely to be permitted, Terry, to propose that there are other ways of thinking about Christianity than that ‘God is a kind of chap’, even if you want to call yourself an atheist in the end anyway. (Apparently he doesn’t.) Still, it seems Eagleton and Elsdon-Baker are setting themselves up as far bigger targets of the ‘Hardliners’ than I ever was, so I can hopefully now return to writing about science.
Sunday, July 12, 2009
They all shall win prizes?
So the judges of the Royal Society science book prize, of which I am one, have come up with our shortlist for the science book prize. I was very curious that this year’s Samuel Johnson prize shortlist had appreciable overlap: two of the same books, and another (Manjit Kumar’s Quantum) that I’d have been happy to see on our list (though I appreciated concerns that it isn’t the easiest of reads). I have a strong feeling that Mark Lythgoe, a judge on the Samuel Johnson, had a lot to do with that, for all that he denied it. Very nice to see science making such a strong showing in a general non-fiction award. But I guess I was a little glad in the end to see that neither of our candidates won, since that means there is more chance of spreading the awards around. The Royal Society Science Book Prize winner will be announced in September. But thank goodness the heavy reading is over.
So the judges of the Royal Society science book prize, of which I am one, have come up with our shortlist for the science book prize. I was very curious that this year’s Samuel Johnson prize shortlist had appreciable overlap: two of the same books, and another (Manjit Kumar’s Quantum) that I’d have been happy to see on our list (though I appreciated concerns that it isn’t the easiest of reads). I have a strong feeling that Mark Lythgoe, a judge on the Samuel Johnson, had a lot to do with that, for all that he denied it. Very nice to see science making such a strong showing in a general non-fiction award. But I guess I was a little glad in the end to see that neither of our candidates won, since that means there is more chance of spreading the awards around. The Royal Society Science Book Prize winner will be announced in September. But thank goodness the heavy reading is over.
Monday, July 06, 2009
I’m a fan of Jerry Coyne and PZ Myers, but…
.. not particularly of what they have to say about my debate with Sam Harris of the Reason Project.
On the Why Evolution Is True website, stemming from Jerry Coyne’s excellent book of that title, we have a mind-boggling claim: “In this corner, representing reason, is Sam Harris; in the other corner, representing faith, is Philip Ball.” Representing faith? An atheist who states that religions accrue a lot of superstitious claptrap, is representing faith? Almost makes me feel sorry for faith. Have the lines of combat, then, been drawn in so tightly around Sam’s position that anyone outside of that is somehow advocating faith and religion?
PZ Myers, in his great blog Pharyngula, takes a view that one can perfectly well understand from someone who daily fights the good fight against the absurdities of creationism. But it’s a little simplistic on this occasion. For example, he says
“It's a weird thing to argue with an atheist who claims religion is unavoidable (Oh? So what's so special about you?) and isn't that bad or is actually beneficial (So why aren't you going to church for your health?), but they're out there and they are irritatingly inconsistent.”
Do I say religion is unavoidable? No, just that it is an example of what seems so often to befall human societies – so perhaps it makes sense to try to understand why it arises so repeatedly. And perhaps there is some reason for that beyond sheer stupidity. Is it inevitable? I have no idea, and neither does PZ, and it would be idle speculation to make a statement one way or the other.
Do I say that religion is universally beneficial to individuals, like vitamins or something? Do I even say it is ‘not that bad’? What could one possibly mean by ‘not that bad’? Isn’t this a bit like saying ‘government is not that bad’, or ‘families are not that bad?’
PZ then goes on to quote, and respond to, other ‘accommodationists’. I guess I should feel pleased that he needed to recruit other targets in order to shoot them down. Well you know, like those Muslims, we’re all the same.
One comment on the blogs, however, did resonate, though I’m not sure if it was meant favourably: one chap in Utah said ‘Ball doesn’t live where I live’. It’s a good point, and Dakobstah and JimmyGiro reiterate it on my blog below. If I was exposed daily to the excesses of US religiosity, it is perfectly possible that my atheism may have hardened into one like Sam’s. I’d like to think that if someone like Sam lived where I live, where religion virtually never comes up as a topic of conversation (unless by mutual consent), where belief in God is never assumed, where religion is not the organizing force of society, where you often don’t even know who among your friends and neighbours is religious and who isn’t, well… who knows? (Doesn’t work for Dawkins, though, I grant you.) This has been pretty much the case in the UK since it became acceptable to call oneself an atheist, and indeed by some measures Christianity here continues to decline. My perspective gives me a conviction that religion need not inevitably undermine science or reason, despite the undoubted contradictions between them. I see proof of that all around me – although we need to patrol the lunatic fringe, and I don’t by any means deny that the lunatic fringe has a disturbing grip on other parts of the world. I can appreciate why Sam and his followers don’t share this optimism, in which case one can understand their concern. JimmyGiro suggests that in the US Christians effectively make law, while in the UK they make tea. Sam gives the impression that making tea over here is merely the preliminaries to the takeover. But if so, they’re being awfully leisurely about it, since they’ve been making tea since Jane Austen’s day.
One final point: ‘militant atheist’ is not a terribly useful term (besides being a cliché). It just makes people angry. I didn’t intend it to be as disparaging as many have assumed, but in any case, I’ll look for something more accurate in future.
.. not particularly of what they have to say about my debate with Sam Harris of the Reason Project.
On the Why Evolution Is True website, stemming from Jerry Coyne’s excellent book of that title, we have a mind-boggling claim: “In this corner, representing reason, is Sam Harris; in the other corner, representing faith, is Philip Ball.” Representing faith? An atheist who states that religions accrue a lot of superstitious claptrap, is representing faith? Almost makes me feel sorry for faith. Have the lines of combat, then, been drawn in so tightly around Sam’s position that anyone outside of that is somehow advocating faith and religion?
PZ Myers, in his great blog Pharyngula, takes a view that one can perfectly well understand from someone who daily fights the good fight against the absurdities of creationism. But it’s a little simplistic on this occasion. For example, he says
“It's a weird thing to argue with an atheist who claims religion is unavoidable (Oh? So what's so special about you?) and isn't that bad or is actually beneficial (So why aren't you going to church for your health?), but they're out there and they are irritatingly inconsistent.”
Do I say religion is unavoidable? No, just that it is an example of what seems so often to befall human societies – so perhaps it makes sense to try to understand why it arises so repeatedly. And perhaps there is some reason for that beyond sheer stupidity. Is it inevitable? I have no idea, and neither does PZ, and it would be idle speculation to make a statement one way or the other.
Do I say that religion is universally beneficial to individuals, like vitamins or something? Do I even say it is ‘not that bad’? What could one possibly mean by ‘not that bad’? Isn’t this a bit like saying ‘government is not that bad’, or ‘families are not that bad?’
PZ then goes on to quote, and respond to, other ‘accommodationists’. I guess I should feel pleased that he needed to recruit other targets in order to shoot them down. Well you know, like those Muslims, we’re all the same.
One comment on the blogs, however, did resonate, though I’m not sure if it was meant favourably: one chap in Utah said ‘Ball doesn’t live where I live’. It’s a good point, and Dakobstah and JimmyGiro reiterate it on my blog below. If I was exposed daily to the excesses of US religiosity, it is perfectly possible that my atheism may have hardened into one like Sam’s. I’d like to think that if someone like Sam lived where I live, where religion virtually never comes up as a topic of conversation (unless by mutual consent), where belief in God is never assumed, where religion is not the organizing force of society, where you often don’t even know who among your friends and neighbours is religious and who isn’t, well… who knows? (Doesn’t work for Dawkins, though, I grant you.) This has been pretty much the case in the UK since it became acceptable to call oneself an atheist, and indeed by some measures Christianity here continues to decline. My perspective gives me a conviction that religion need not inevitably undermine science or reason, despite the undoubted contradictions between them. I see proof of that all around me – although we need to patrol the lunatic fringe, and I don’t by any means deny that the lunatic fringe has a disturbing grip on other parts of the world. I can appreciate why Sam and his followers don’t share this optimism, in which case one can understand their concern. JimmyGiro suggests that in the US Christians effectively make law, while in the UK they make tea. Sam gives the impression that making tea over here is merely the preliminaries to the takeover. But if so, they’re being awfully leisurely about it, since they’ve been making tea since Jane Austen’s day.
One final point: ‘militant atheist’ is not a terribly useful term (besides being a cliché). It just makes people angry. I didn’t intend it to be as disparaging as many have assumed, but in any case, I’ll look for something more accurate in future.
Thursday, June 25, 2009
And another thing…
My exchange with Sam Harris below has attracted some interesting comment on the Reason Project site. While it is natural that a web site like that one will have its share of cheerleaders, I’m heartened that there were several rather more thoughtful and even-handed comments than the posting of my original Nature article in the ‘Hall of Shame’ seemed to provoke. (Incidentally, now that the Hall of Shame has had a bit longer to develop, it seems clearer what kind of articles it will contain: anything that fails to match up to Sam’s uncompromising position. It’ll be a crowded hall.)
I have been thinking a little more about Sam’s last set of comments, and in particular the remark that ‘A person cannot (or least should not be able to) believe something because it “makes him feel better.” ’ I don’t want to fall for the tendency, which I saw in much of Sam’s comments, to plump always for the ‘worse case’ interpretation of any remark that permits of more than one. But I do wonder what he is implying here. It is hard to see it as anything other than an injunction that ‘you should not be free to choose what you believe.’ I guess that if all Sam mean is that we should not leave people so ill-informed that they have no reasonable basis on which to make those decisions, then fair enough. But it does seem to go further – to say that ‘you should not be permitted to choose what you believe, simply because it makes you feel better.’ Doesn’t this sound a little like a Marxist denouncement of ‘false consciousness’, with the implication that it needs to be corrected forthwith? I think (I hope?) we can at least agree that there are different categories of belief - that to believe one’s children are the loveliest in the world because that makes you feel better is a permissible (even laudable) thing. But I slightly shudder at the notion, hinted here, that a well-informed person should not be allowed to choose their belief freely. This doesn’t mean that we should desist from trying to persuade them of alternatives (so long as we do not do so with incessant and intemperate hectoring). And it doesn’t mean we must approve of their attempting to persuade others to share their belief. But surely we cannot let ourselves become proscriptive to this degree?
Although it seems to have perhaps flushed out Sam’s intolerance, however, I must say that my suggestion that for someone to believe in a religious doctrine “because it helps them in life and makes them feel better” … “seems a pretty good reason” isn’t the most transparent way I might have put it. Here, at least, Sam’s interpretation, while by no means unique, is not perverse. That’s to say, I can see how someone might imagine me to be implying not (as intended) that such behaviour is understandable, in a certain sense rational, and can in itself be socially tolerated, but that it is valid in some abstract logical way. All the more so given that this appears to be the only criterion of ‘correct behaviour’ Sam will accept. So let me be more explicit: I see no reason to try to argue out of their point of view someone who quietly and thoughtfully holds a religious faith that offers them support and solace in their life.
This raises the issue of whether or not we should actually approve of such a decision. I am honestly not sure how to answer that. I guess I feel that someone who finds comfort in religion, rather than being oppressed by it or using it as a reason to be judgemental, bigoted or dogmatic, is, in my own terms, seemingly making good use of a belief that I happen not to share.
Sam says “for a belief to be justified, our acceptance of it must be dependent upon its actually being true”. I think his subsequent comment hints at his suspicion that philosophers would tear this statement apart. I believe there was a Big Bang. Is it true? There’s very good reason to think so – but that is utterly different from the Big Bang being true. To think otherwise is to misunderstand science badly (which is why I actually suspect Sam does not mean quite what he says here).
Sam thinks that ‘my religious friends’ (I am in fact not simply arguing from my experience with friends who have a religious belief) are mistaking hope for knowledge. He says “If these friends of yours are really religious—that is, really conforming to the doctrine of Christianity, Islam, Judaism, etc.—they will have taken a further step toward delusion and mistaken this hope for a form of knowledge.” I have sad news, then, for ‘these friends of mine’: Sam Harris says you are not truly religious. Apparently Sam wants to ensure that ‘religious believers’ include only those people whose beliefs he can most easily attack. Well, that’s one way to win an argument, I suppose.
My exchange with Sam Harris below has attracted some interesting comment on the Reason Project site. While it is natural that a web site like that one will have its share of cheerleaders, I’m heartened that there were several rather more thoughtful and even-handed comments than the posting of my original Nature article in the ‘Hall of Shame’ seemed to provoke. (Incidentally, now that the Hall of Shame has had a bit longer to develop, it seems clearer what kind of articles it will contain: anything that fails to match up to Sam’s uncompromising position. It’ll be a crowded hall.)
I have been thinking a little more about Sam’s last set of comments, and in particular the remark that ‘A person cannot (or least should not be able to) believe something because it “makes him feel better.” ’ I don’t want to fall for the tendency, which I saw in much of Sam’s comments, to plump always for the ‘worse case’ interpretation of any remark that permits of more than one. But I do wonder what he is implying here. It is hard to see it as anything other than an injunction that ‘you should not be free to choose what you believe.’ I guess that if all Sam mean is that we should not leave people so ill-informed that they have no reasonable basis on which to make those decisions, then fair enough. But it does seem to go further – to say that ‘you should not be permitted to choose what you believe, simply because it makes you feel better.’ Doesn’t this sound a little like a Marxist denouncement of ‘false consciousness’, with the implication that it needs to be corrected forthwith? I think (I hope?) we can at least agree that there are different categories of belief - that to believe one’s children are the loveliest in the world because that makes you feel better is a permissible (even laudable) thing. But I slightly shudder at the notion, hinted here, that a well-informed person should not be allowed to choose their belief freely. This doesn’t mean that we should desist from trying to persuade them of alternatives (so long as we do not do so with incessant and intemperate hectoring). And it doesn’t mean we must approve of their attempting to persuade others to share their belief. But surely we cannot let ourselves become proscriptive to this degree?
Although it seems to have perhaps flushed out Sam’s intolerance, however, I must say that my suggestion that for someone to believe in a religious doctrine “because it helps them in life and makes them feel better” … “seems a pretty good reason” isn’t the most transparent way I might have put it. Here, at least, Sam’s interpretation, while by no means unique, is not perverse. That’s to say, I can see how someone might imagine me to be implying not (as intended) that such behaviour is understandable, in a certain sense rational, and can in itself be socially tolerated, but that it is valid in some abstract logical way. All the more so given that this appears to be the only criterion of ‘correct behaviour’ Sam will accept. So let me be more explicit: I see no reason to try to argue out of their point of view someone who quietly and thoughtfully holds a religious faith that offers them support and solace in their life.
This raises the issue of whether or not we should actually approve of such a decision. I am honestly not sure how to answer that. I guess I feel that someone who finds comfort in religion, rather than being oppressed by it or using it as a reason to be judgemental, bigoted or dogmatic, is, in my own terms, seemingly making good use of a belief that I happen not to share.
Sam says “for a belief to be justified, our acceptance of it must be dependent upon its actually being true”. I think his subsequent comment hints at his suspicion that philosophers would tear this statement apart. I believe there was a Big Bang. Is it true? There’s very good reason to think so – but that is utterly different from the Big Bang being true. To think otherwise is to misunderstand science badly (which is why I actually suspect Sam does not mean quite what he says here).
Sam thinks that ‘my religious friends’ (I am in fact not simply arguing from my experience with friends who have a religious belief) are mistaking hope for knowledge. He says “If these friends of yours are really religious—that is, really conforming to the doctrine of Christianity, Islam, Judaism, etc.—they will have taken a further step toward delusion and mistaken this hope for a form of knowledge.” I have sad news, then, for ‘these friends of mine’: Sam Harris says you are not truly religious. Apparently Sam wants to ensure that ‘religious believers’ include only those people whose beliefs he can most easily attack. Well, that’s one way to win an argument, I suppose.
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
Debating science and religion with Sam Harris
Since publishing my online Muse column in Nature News about the Reason Project (you’ll find all the links below), I have been having an exchange of views with the project’s founder Sam Harris. The results are below. I have added a final comment here that is not on the Reason Project site, but Sam knows about it and may or may not respond. I’ll say no more – judge for yourselves.
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5/21/09
Dear Phil --
Well, we seem to have a tempest in a teapot brewing. You were good enough to notice the birth of my foundation, The Reason Project, in your column in Nature (How much reason do you want?, Nature News 14 May 2009), and I repaid this kindness by hurling you into the Reason Project Hall of Shame for perceived indiscretions of rational thought. You then responded to your confinement on your blog ("“Whatever you do, don’t call them militant" 19 May 2009)--and life on earth has not been the same since.
I wonder whether you would like to have a direct exchange on these issues. I'm not entirely sure where our respective misunderstandings leave off and our genuine differences of opinion begin, but it might be interesting for readers to watch us struggle to sort things out.
Please let me know your thoughts.
Best,
Sam
Sam Harris
Co-Founder and CEO
The Reason Project
5/23/09
Dear Sam,
Thanks for this message. A tempest in a teapot seems an apt way to express it. I do suspect that most of our disagreement hinges on misunderstandings rather than genuine differences, although of course there’s no harm in the latter.
I can appreciate that you wouldn’t welcome the mildly skeptical tone of my Nature article, but I’m still puzzled about why you found it sufficiently objectionable to (as you say) hurl it into your Hall of Shame. (I assume this particular pit is not intended for all critics, but only for those whose message you find especially abhorrent or misguided.) At this point, I’m forced to guess that perhaps you share the views of those who have commented unfavourably about the piece on your site. The primary objections there seem predicated on two notions:
1. That I have said religion and science are compatible.
2. That I am parading Francis Collins and others who seek a conciliatory position as the good guys.
I sincerely believe that you will find neither of these points of view actually stated in my piece, and for the simple reason that I don't believe them. Perhaps my blog post made it a little clearer. My points are that:
1. There seems little point in making religion per se the ‘enemy of reason’. That creates a big and, frankly, invincible foe. And it's a foe that doesn't need to be vanquished. Plenty of religious people – certainly, just about all those I know – are perfectly happy to accept the tenets of science that the fundamentalists find so distasteful, which are mostly connected with questions of origin. That there are logical inconsistencies in that position really doesn't seem to me to be a big deal – we live with all kinds of contradictions, and often because we don’t feel any compulsion to chart our all beliefs with philosophical rigour until we discover where they clash. For many Christians (the religious community I am most familiar with), the Virgin Birth, the biblical miracles, as well as angels, saints and, goodness knows, even heaven and hell aren’t notions they particularly cling to or think about very much at all. They simply find that religion addresses some of their needs. I’m not even sure that I would consider this use of religion irrational – merely woolly.
This is what I meant when I referred to a ‘false dichotomy’ – the fact that I think science and religion can in principle coexist (as they always have done, even if not always comfortably) does not mean that I think they are logically compatible. I know some will say that this is a complacent view, because religion is (outside Western Europe) growing both in its strength and in its intolerance. That is absolutely a cause for concern. But it doesn’t pit religion per se against science per se. It’s a primarily political issue.
2. Religion is not a delusion to be corrected with a little hard science. A lot of the current ‘rationalist’ criticism of religion reminds me of the old deficit model that used to motivate the Public Understanding of Science movement: just give people the right facts, and then they’ll agree with us. This is not just deluded, but lazy. It’s trivial to take religious texts and show how, literally interpreted, they are utter nonsense. But we have to engage with (and sometimes do battle with, it is true) religion as it exists in the world. This is more challenging. On the longer version of my Nature article posted on my blog, I cite the example of Galileo. If we choose to believe that the Catholic Church condemned his heliocentrism because it conflicted with scripture, we have an unassailable case against superstitious dogma. If we recognize that the issue was at least as much about maintaining the Church’s authority, we have to concede some (Machiavellian) rationality in the papal position, however repugnant the motives. (And incidentally, let’s please not hear any more about Giordano Bruno being martyred for his heliocentrism. That’s the kind of contempt for history that polarized positions encourage.)
I claim that religion needs to be seen as a social construct, with all kinds of social functions. Some of the most thoughtful commentators on theology, such as Karen Armstrong, recognise the value and perhaps even necessity of the kind of myth that religion embodies. Many are now happy to accept that aspects of the Bible, and other religious texts, should be read in this allegorical way. We can't meaningfully engage in religion without recognizing this social and cultural aspect - it often functions as a component of how people construct their cultural identity. It seemed to me that this was really what the Royal Society’s former director of education Michael Reiss was trying to say when he suggested that it was best to understand religiously motivated delusions such as creationism as world views rather than as mere ignorance. Reiss’s remarks incited such outrage among a few vocal, prominent scientists that he was of course forced to resign. It troubles me when scientists (and others) get such horrors about religion that they seem no longer able to entertain or even notice any nuance of opinion in these matters. It all starts to sound disturbingly like George W. Bush’s comment that you’re either for us or against us.
The comments on your blog left me dismayed that the initiative you have started might tend to attract those whose views on religion are instead of the most simplistic and reductive sort ('But it's just wrong!'). But I also realise, on reflection, that it is unfair to judge an organization by its web feedback. Nature would not fare at all well if that were applied to them.
I am in favour of any movement that campaigns to kick out of schools the invidious misinformation of creationism, intelligent design and the rest of the shoddy fundamentalist agenda. I am very much in favour of a movement that aims to denounce religious intolerance and that attacks the kind of harmful and ignorant nonsense that seems increasingly to be coming from the Vatican. On my blog, I reacted to your actions and to the comments on your site with a mixture of amusement and irritation, neither of which is terribly constructive, because I have to choose words carefully within the incredibly constrained format that a Nature Muse allows and so am frustrated when they aren't read carefully. But it is possible too that I did not choose them carefully enough. And certainly, I would not want to misrepresent what you are trying to achieve, which I am sure includes much that I would support.
Best wishes,
Phil
5/24/09
Dear Phil --
Thank you for a favorable and very substantive response to my invitation. I appreciate your willingness to have this exchange in a public forum. First, I should say that while I can't necessarily endorse every comment that appears beneath your article on the Reason Project website (in fact, there may be many I haven’t read), I suspect there is not much daylight between me and some of the more vociferous critics you encountered there. As evidence of this fact, here is the Letter to the Editor I wrote in response to your column. While I am its principal author, many members of my advisory board have read it, offered minor suggestions, and generally approve its contents. I have told your Editor in Chief, Philip Campbell, that he can print it with multiple signatories, or not, whichever is more attractive to him.
Sir--
In his column, "How much reason do you want?" (Nature News 14 May 2009) Philip Ball, a consultant editor at this journal, takes members of The Reason Project to task for being too critical of religion. While he accepts the value of "knowledge", "learning," and "intellectualism," he argues that these virtues need not, in principle, undermine the religious commitments of law-abiding men and women in the 21st century. Mr. Ball assures us that while the "abuse" of religion "to justify suppression of human rights, maltreatment and murder is abhorrent," there is no deeper contradiction to be found between scientific rationality and religious faith. As evidence of this underlying harmony, we are asked to contemplate the existence of The BioLogos Foundation, whose purpose (in the words of its mission statement) is to demonstrate "the compatibility of the Christian faith with what science has discovered about the origins of the universe and life."
To give you a sense of how bizarre Mr. Ball's opinions will appear to rational people everywhere, imagine reading a column in Nature that criticized scientists for taking too adversarial a stance with respect to witchcraft—even in Africa, where a belief in the efficacy of magic spells, invisible spirits, and the occasional human sacrifice remains widespread. If the analogy between religion and witchcraft seems hyperbolic, please take a moment to review the actual tenets of the world's major religions.
For instance, a reconciliation between science and Christianity (the explicit goal of The BioLogos Foundation) would mean squaring physics, chemistry, biology, and a basic understanding of probabilistic reasoning with a raft of patently ridiculous, Iron Age convictions. In its most generic and well-subscribed form, Christianity amounts to the following claims: Jesus Christ, a carpenter by trade, was born of a virgin, ritually murdered as a scapegoat for the collective sins of his species, and then resurrected from death after an interval of three days. He promptly ascended, bodily, to “heaven” -- where, for two millennia, he has eavesdropped upon (and, on occasion, even answered) the simultaneous prayers of billions of beleaguered human beings. Not content to maintain this numinous arrangement indefinitely, this invisible carpenter will one day return to earth to judge humanity for its sexual indiscretions and sceptical doubts, at which time he will grant immortality to anyone who has had the good fortune to be convinced, on Mother's knee, that this baffling litany of miracles is the most important series of truth-claims ever revealed about the cosmos. Every other member of our species, past and present, from Cleopatra to Einstein, no matter what his or her terrestrial accomplishments, will (probably) be consigned to a fiery hell for all eternity.
On Mr. Ball's account, there is nothing in the scientific worldview, or in the intellectual rigor and self-criticism that gave rise to it, that casts such convictions in an unfavorable light. This learned opinion is, frankly, amazing to me and to the other members of The Reason Project. One would have thought it might also amaze Mr. Ball's fellow editors at Nature.
Sam Harris
Co-Founder and CEO
The Reason Project
www.reasonproject.org
I suspect that you find this response indicative of the some of the misunderstandings and militancy you refer to in your blog post. I'm sorry to say, however, that your subsequent writings—both on your blog and in this exchange—only dig the hole I perceive you to be in deeper still.
On your blog you say the following:
But what depresses me is that the Reason Project and many of its supporters are so sure of the battle-lines that they have lost the ability of basic English comprehension. It is this that has earned me the delightful honour of a place in the Reason Project’s Hall of Shame, no less – because it has decided that I am placing the irenic BioLogos Foundation, the Templeton Foundation, and other apologists, on a pedestal, making them the nice, friendly good guys who only want us all to get along. Does my article say that? No, it simply quotes from the BioLogos mission statement (just as it quotes from the Reason Project mission statement). That this is taken as registering approval is a bit disturbing. The fact that I suggest the Reason Project in some respects ‘should be applauded’, and say no such thing about the BioLogos Foundation, doesn’t seem to be noticed. (The fact is that I’m utterly indifferent to the BioLogos Foundation. I find its aims uninspiring and its current statements about the relation of science and religion somewhat shallow.)
While you clearly expect a paragraph like this to fully acquit you, there is, even here, much to offend the sensibilities of reasonable people who are sensitive to the problem of religion. Please consider how your choice of words strikes a reader who desperately wants to believe that you, a scientist and an editor at the most prestigious scientific journal on earth, has his head on straight:
1. To call the BioLogos Foundation "irenic" is far too charitable. It is, rather, obscurantist and phatasmagorically stupid. If you took a moment to examine what its founder, Francis Collins, actually believes, as well as the means by which he came to believe it, you will see that he is engaged in an obscene re-branding of otherworldly hope and craving as a legitimate arm of science. I'm sorry to say that your charity toward Collins is part of a pattern at Nature, which I have pointed out previously in the pages of the journal. According to Nature, Collins’ atrocious book, The Language of God, represented a “moving” and “laudible” [sic] exercise of building “a bridge across the social and intellectual divide that exists between most of US academia and the so-called heartlands.” And here is Collins, hard at work on that bridge:
As believers, you are right to hold fast to the concept of God as Creator; you are right to hold fast to the truths of the Bible; you are right to hold fast to the conclusion that science offers no answers to the most pressing questions of human existence; and you are right to hold fast to the certainty that the claims of atheistic materialism must be steadfastly resisted….
God, who is not limited to space and time, created the universe and established natural laws that govern it. Seeking to populate this otherwise sterile universe with living creatures, God chose the elegant mechanism of evolution to create microbes, plants, and animals of all sorts. Most remarkably, God intentionally chose the same mechanism to give rise to special creatures who would have intelligence, a knowledge of right and wrong, free will, and a desire to seek fellowship with Him. He also knew these creatures would ultimately choose to disobey the Moral Law.
Half of the American population believes that the universe is 6,000 years old; our president has just used his first veto to block federal funding for the most promising medical research in all of biology on religious grounds; and one of the foremost scientists in the land had that to say. Stranger still, the most influential scientific publication on earth couldn’t find a nit to pick here. Collins’ scientific reputation has been undiminished by these ejaculations—indeed, he seems destined to be President Obama’s choice to run the National Institutes of Health—and yet his thinking here, as elsewhere, is a quite a bit worse than “woolly,” as you put it: it constitutes a perfect repudiation of scientific principles and intellectual honesty.
2. The way in which you paired The Reason Project and The BioLogos Foundation in your Nature column conveyed the sense—quite common in journalism—that the truth must lie somewhere between the two extremes on offer: On the one hand we have some extreme rationalists (who think that most basic standards of intellectual integrity should not be traduced at the highest levels of our discourse out of deference to the uneducated opinions of first century scribes); on the other, we have a man who is convinced that Jesus Christ is the risen Lord and eternal saviour of the earth because he happened to come upon a frozen waterfall while hiking and found it inexplicably beautiful. These two frames of mind are not equally scientific. I think you owe it to yourself, and to your readers, to clearly distinguish them.
There was much else in your column, blog post, and first volley here, that I have not addressed—of particular interest to me is the claim that religion is both an “invincible” and unnecessary foe. Perhaps we’ll touch on that subject later on.
Best,
Sam
Dear Sam,
I’m a little clearer now about what I’m being accused of, but no more so about why. Your letter to Nature repeats the claim that I say there is no contradiction between scientific rationality and religious faith, and repeats the failure to state where I say that. In fact, I state in my previous response that there are contradictions. Can we accept at least that this charge should be substantiated or dropped? That seems to me to be the rational way to proceed.
Your account of Christianity’s ‘most generic and well subscribed’ form is the scriptural literalist one. It is probably close to the medieval view, but I’d want more evidence that it is the generic view today. It is not the view of the head of the Church of England, which I suspect should count for something. But in any event, my point is, and always was, not that we need accept religious (and in your portrait, undoubtedly nonsensical) views as compatible with science but that you are not going to get very far by simply insisting to people who hold them that they are irrational and therefore should be abandoned forthwith. Rather, you need to consider the sociological questions of why people have a range of religious faiths, why religions as social institutions are so widespread, and why fundamentalism seems to be becoming a powerful political force in some religions in some parts of the world. (I don’t believe there is a universal answer to the last one – look at the resurgence of Hinduism in India, for example.)
To call the Biologos Foundation irenic is to use the word in its literal sense – they seek reconciliation of science and religion. It is simply a description, not a judgement. It may well be that no such reconciliation is logically possible – that doesn’t mean the Biologos Foundation cannot seek it, however misguidedly. There is not the slightest reason why one cannot be irenic for phantasmagorically stupid reasons. And then you’re off again, making criticisms of positions that simply don’t appear in my article. Criticize Nature’s other statements on Collins by all means – they are nothing to do with me or my views.
You end with a further supposition – that by describing two polar positions, I am suggesting that the truth lies in between. That’s your interpretation, and based on nothing I said. My view (and it’s not hard to see this, I think, from the strapline of my article) is that a more productive way to approach the issues lies elsewhere.
Sam, you’re calling yourselves the Reason Project and repeatedly stressing your scientific perspective. Science proceeds by inspecting the evidence objectively, not by prejudging what it means. The evidence here are the words I wrote, but they don’t seem to have been terribly germane to your comments so far.
Best wishes,
Phil
Dear Phil –
You still appear to be missing the point: the point is not that there is some legalistic parsing of your Nature column that allows for an (almost) exculpatory reading; the point is that everything you have written on this subject represents a basic failure to acknowledge (1) just how contradictory religious faith and scientific rationality are as modes of thought, (2) the actual profundity and scope of humankind’s religious bewilderment in the year 2009, and (3) the real world effects of (1)&(2). The most charitable interpretation I can find of what you have written is this: such truths could well be acknowledged, if we thought it wise—but it is not wise. If one wants to slay the Dragon of Ignorance, one shouldn’t first wake the Dragon, offend it, and then challenge it to fight to the death; one must be more cunning than this, or the whole project is doomed from the start. If THIS is what you intend to say, then fine, we can debate questions of secular/scientific strategy and marketing (and perhaps your own writing is an attempt to implement such a subtle strategy). But much of what you’ve written suggests that, whether or not you are chiefly concerned about such practical matters, you are also confused about points 1-3.
First off, the generic form of Christianity I described in my Letter to the Editor is not merely “the scriptural literalist one.” Without question, the beliefs I’ve highlighted summarize the majority view of Christianity. You seem to be, frankly, unaware of what most Christians (and perhaps religious people generally) claim to believe. Even your reference to the Church of England (which, I will grant, is more liberal than many) seems to ignore its actual doctrine. The C of E wears the resurrection of Jesus and other hocus pocus right on its sleeve. More generally, I could cite any number of opinion poll results and the doctrinal statements of the largest churches—all would conduce to the general boredom our readers, but would establish, beyond peradventure, that Christianity without a belief in miracles and magic books is not Christianity. And for everything that I would say about Christianity, there is worse to be said about Islam at this moment in history, as you surely must know.
As for your actual words, here is a quotation from your Nature piece, with some trivial modifications. I wonder if you see anything wrong with it:
In other words, this is not a matter of science versus faith [in witchcraft], but of the rejection of scientific ideas that challenge power structures... That’s not to minimize the problem, but recognizing it for what it is will avoid false dichotomies, and perhaps make it easier to find solutions.
So there is little to be gained from trying to topple the temple [of Magic] — it’s the false priests who are the menace. If we can recognize that [witchcraft], like any ideology, is a social construct — with benefits, dangers, arbitrary inventions and, most of all, roots in human nature – then we might forgo a lot of empty argument and get back to the worldly wonders of the lab bench.
Wouldn’t it be a tad strange to read this in the pages of Nature? Doesn’t it matter what people believe about the nature of reality? Doesn’t the nature of reality itself matter? If the basic claims of religion are true, the scientific worldview is so blinkered and susceptible to spiritual modification as to render the whole enterprise ridiculous. If the basic claims of religion are false, most people are living in a state of abject confusion, beset by absurd hopes and fears, and tending to waste their time and attention—often with tragic results. Is this really a “false dichotomy”?
Best,
Sam
Dear Sam,
You accuse me of “a basic failure to acknowledge just how contradictory religious faith and scientific rationality are as modes of thought”. Given what I have said previously, I must now interpret this as your way of saying “you acknowledge that religious faith and scientific rationality are contradictory, but fail to say that loudly enough”. (We needn’t argue further about whether my original Nature article said otherwise; my words can speak for themselves.)
So it seems that my sin, perhaps more venial than mortal, is not that of defending religion but of failing to attack it with sufficient vigour. This, you say, is a position that “will appear bizarre to rational people everywhere”. I will trust rational people everywhere to be the judge of that. You seem very keen to construct statements that Nature readers will find bizarre, but I think most will not find at all bizarre the notion that it is not science’s duty to eradicate all traces of religion in the world. This is not in any degree a weird or fringe position and it seems a pointless game to find ways of making it appear such.
From what you say, I suspect that what you object to most is my suggestion that the contradictions between science and faith need not in themselves be a big deal. By this I mean that I see no need to be so desperately worried about them when religious leaders and believers are moderates rather than are not scriptural literalists. I see no great threat to science from the kind of Anglicanism advocated by its current leader, or from the liberal forms of Islam that are held by thinkers such as Ziauddin Sardar. There are plenty of people, including many scientists, who are quite able to live with (or open to exploring) the contradictions and feel no need to rewrite or deny the mainstream scientific consensus. And these people are, in my experience, not at all “living in a state of abject confusion, beset by absurd hopes and fears”. It hardly needs to be said that science can thrive in societies in which religion is present (perhaps even strong) – it has done so throughout all of history.
That is why I don't feel a need to cast this in terms of science versus faith. It seems to me that our difference here is that you feel unwilling to live in a world where the contradictions between science and faith are tolerated, whereas I am not.
So I see no dragon that needs slaying, either by might or by stealth. If you accept that anthropology is anything of a science, this monolithic view of religion is in any event unscientific. Are you really saying that Christian fundamentalism, Indonesian Buddhism, African tribal beliefs and Chinese state-sponsored Confucianism are all part of the same beast, with the same causes and the same vulnerabilities? All, I agree, entail irrationality to some degree or another, and all are (as I’ve said) social constructs. But the reasons why, let’s say, fundamentalist Islam is in the ascendant in some parts of the world, and Hindu nationalism in others, are social, cultural and political. You might say that, regardless of the causes, the kinds of problems that ensue would be removed by simply eradicating all religion everywhere. But I don’t think you’d be so naïve.
I find your approach of highlighting and ridiculing all the most absurd and irrational aspects of these belief systems too easy. I too find the things you list as irrational (albeit perhaps not always as offensive) as you do. But the problems that religions can cause will be addressed only by engaging with them as social and cultural institutions, not as a string of silly ideas.
I did not say (sorry, this again) that the C of E shares none of the views you listed in your sketch of Christian belief. I said that its position is not that which you sketched, particularly in terms of the part that I suspect we both (and most other non-believers) find most objectionable: “Every other member of our species, past and present, from Cleopatra to Einstein, no matter what his or her terrestrial accomplishments, will (probably) be consigned to a fiery hell for all eternity.” Neither this nor a creationist viewpoint is an essential or inevitable component of Christianity today. If those beliefs are nevertheless on the rise (I simply don’t know if they are – creationism has always been strong in the US), then that is a problem with societal causes and needs to be seen and tackled as such.
Your minor rephrasing of my Nature article makes for interesting reading. To begin with, I’d challenge your implication that all religion is witchcraft – but before you leap down my throat, I do so because I would say instead that it is more accurate and more productive to say that religions and witchcraft are both examples of social constructs based on beliefs and ideologies that cannot be demonstrated and that, among other things, formalize social structures and hierarchies. Like it or not, it seems to be part of human nature to create such constructs. And they are not always expressed as religion.
With that in mind, I see nothing at all objectionable in the second paragraph. Benefits of witchcraft? There are very probably social benefits for the societies that practise it. They don’t necessarily outweigh the problems, and they don’t in any way justify witchcraft. But they help explain it, and we won’t understand these superstitious systems unless we recognize them.
I think that actually the meaning of my first paragraph remains pretty much unscathed too. The point here is that all kinds of irrational belief systems will accept a great deal of science, but some selectively reject those aspects that conflict with their power base. So all I am saying is that, strategically speaking, it seems to make sense to recognize a distinction between ideologies that systematically deny all of science (I’m not in fact sure if there are any such) and ones that exclude only the inconvenient truths. It seems to me that those two positions are likely to have different origins, and thus warrant different solutions.
Best wishes,
Phil
Dear Phil –
I trust that many of our readers will share my frustration at this point, as well as my sense that we have failed to get at the heart of the matter. As is so often the case in debates of this kind, more points get raised in each volley than can be addressed in the next—so permit me to ignore what seem like peripheral issues in an attempt to make some sense.
I will say one thing in passing, however, by way of addressing several specific points (your use of the term “irenic”, etc.): you frequently complain that I have either misrepresented what you have written or have drawn the wrong implications from it. While it is tempting to argue otherwise, it is too tiresome to rebut each specific charge. There is another principle at work that I think you should notice: our disagreement draws at least as much energy from what you have not said. To use an admittedly crude example: if the only thing a person can think to say about the morality of Adolph Hitler is that he was a “committed vegetarian,” this would say rather more by way of omission. In your Nature column, and in this exchange, what you haven’t said matters more than you seem to realize.
I am not suggesting that it is “science’s duty to eradicate all traces of religion in the world.” Nor am I denying that science can be practiced alongside religion (in most forms), or that religious people can become scientists, or that smart scientists can sometimes harbor incredible religious beliefs, or that religious imbeciles can hanker after the products of science. Clearly, a juxtaposition between bad ideas/methods and good ones is possible—in a single brain, in an institution, in a culture, etc. And as far as science itself is concerned, it has become all too obvious that many scientists practice their discipline like a trade, without ever attempting to form a truly consilient, or even consistent, view of the world.
But the fact that such things are possible does not in the least suggest that they are optimal—or, indeed, that they do not come at a terrible price. I think it would be very difficult to find instances where incoherence, wishful thinking, and dogmatism have aided scientific progress—or, in fact, progress of any kind. The argument that there is no deep conflict between scientific rationality and religious faith because some scientists are religious, and all religious people value some science, is a false one—and it has become a stultifying shibboleth. Is there generally no conflict between marriage and adultery simply because the two are so often found together? Would it matter if the BioLechery Foundation produced adulterers who could attest, without blinking, to their clarity of conscience? The analogy isn’t perfect, but perhaps you see my point. The cuckold, incidentally, is not merely science itself, but everyone everywhere, and those yet unborn. Who knows how much better our world would be if we had birthed a culture of genuine intellectual honesty in the year 1200 (or 2000)?
So the fact that you find yourself surrounded by scientists and other smart people who may be a little “woolly” on the subject of God is evidence of absolutely nothing worth discussing (on my account), apart from the fact that it seems to have led you to miss the bigger picture and to speak and write in such a way as to give shelter to the deeply religious, powerfully irrational, and shockingly retrograde convictions of entire cultures and subcultures. This is not (as you have charged) to paint religion with a broad brush. I am very quick to distinguish gradations of bad ideas; some clearly have no consequences at all (or at least not yet); some put civilization itself in peril. The problem with dogmatism, however, is that one can never quite predict how terrible its costs will be. To use one of my favorite examples, consider the Christian dogma that human life begins at the moment of conception: On its face, this belief seems likely to only improve our world. After all, it is the very quintessence of a life-affirming doctrine.
Enter embryonic stem-cell research. Suddenly, this “life begins at the moment of conception” business becomes the chief impediment to medical progress. Who would have thought that such an innocuous idea could unnecessarily prolong the agony of tens of millions of people? This is the problem with dogmatism, no matter how seemingly benign: it is unresponsive to reality. Dogmatism is a failure of cognition (as well as a commitment to such failure); it is the state of being closed to new evidence and new arguments. And this frame of mind is rightly despised in every area of culture, on every subject, except where it goes by the name of “religious faith.” In this guise, parading its most grotesque faults as virtues, it is granted a special dispensation, even in the pages of Nature.
Your frequent claim that we must understand religious belief as a “social construct,” produced by “societal causes,” dependent upon “social and cultural institutions,” admitting of “sociological questions,” and the like, while it will warm the hearts of most anthropologists, is either trivially true or obscurantist. It is part and parcel of the double standard that so worries me—the demolition of which is the explicit aim of The Reason Project.
Epidemiology is also “social construct” with “societal causes,” etc.—but this doesn’t mean that the germ theory of disease isn’t true or that any rival “construct”—like one suggesting that child rape will cure AIDS—isn’t a dangerous, deplorable, and unnecessary eruption of primeval stupidity. We either have good reasons or bad reasons for what we believe; we can be open to evidence and argument, or we can be closed; we can tolerate (and even seek) criticism of our most cherished views, or we can hide behind authority, sanctity, and dogma. The main reason why children are still raised to think that the universe is 6,000 years old is not because religion as a “social institution” hasn’t been appropriately coddled and cajoled, but because polite people (and scientists terrified of losing their funding) haven’t laughed this belief off the face of the earth.
We did not lose a decade of progress on stem-cell research in the United States because of religion as a “social construct”; we lost it because of the behavioural and emotional consequences of a specific belief. If there were a line in the book of Genesis that read – “The soul enters the womb on the hundredth day (you idiots)” – we wouldn’t have lost a step on stem-cell research, and there would not be a Christian or Jew anywhere who would worry about souls in Petri dishes suffering the torments of the damned. The beliefs currently rattling around in the heads of human beings are some of the most potent forces on earth; some of the craziest and most divisive of these are “religious,” and so-dubbed they are treated with absurd deference, even in the halls of science; this is a very bad combination—that is my point.
For the purposes of this discussion, the only “social construct” that I am worried about is the one which convinces a journal like Nature that its paramount duty is to be polite in the face of Iron Age delusions. If ever there were a place to call a spade a “spade,” it is in the pages of the world’s most authoritative scientific publication. Let me remind you that the physiologist Rupert Sheldrake had his scientific career neatly decapitated, in a single stroke, by a Nature editorial. Did his vaguely “woolly” thesis about “morphogenetic fields” deserve at least a ride in a tumbrel? Perhaps. Was his book, A New Science of Life, as flagrantly unscientific as Francis Collins’, The Language of God? Not by a long shot. As I have pointed out, the journal’s treatment of Collin’s risible theology has been abject. You’ve also cited Ziauddin Sardar with admiration—but his whitewash of Islam in the pages of Nature was a travesty. Here again is the “social construct” and the double standard that you fail to acknowledge. Religion is probably the most consequential and divisive species of ignorance at work in the world today, and yet it is systematically shielded from criticism, even where it explicitly conflicts with science, and even in the world’s most important scientific journal. Amazing.
Of course, all that you have written is of a piece with the inertia felt in the rest of the scientific community: most scientists are simply out of touch with the religious infatuations that rule the better part of humanity; when in touch, they can’t be bothered to take them seriously. I have met anthropologists who will say, with a straight face, that no one in the Muslim world actually believes in martyrdom, and no jihadist has ever blown himself up with an expectation of entering paradise: it’s all politics and terrestrial grievances and “social constructs” and “societal causes” as far as the eye can see. A quip by Steven Weinberg comes to mind (said in reference, I think, to post-modern critiques of science): “You have to be very learned to be that wrong.” Indeed, one does—and many are. If there is anything good that can be said about the Bible-thumpers in my country, it is that they understand that the Muslim world is ablaze with old-time religion. Needless to say, devout Muslims return the favor. It is the scientists, secularists, and religious moderates—still licking their spoons of Karen Armstrong’s latest pabulum—who are so often confused, mistaking even their confusion itself for wisdom.
Best,
Sam
Dear Sam,
From what you say, it seems that my article tapped into a reservoir of ill will towards Nature on this issue. Perhaps that explains some of the vehemence of your response. But I am not in any sense speaking ‘for’ Nature, and any views the journal has published on these matters in the past were not mine.
In any case, I think we are (this may surprise you) agreed on the nature of the problem in some respects. That’s to say, I share your view that many of the alleged ‘facts’ that comprise most religious belief – the existence of a deity (or deities), that deity’s capacity to intervene in the world in supernatural ways, the whole paraphernalia of miracles, afterlife, saints, sin, absolution, virgin births, resurrections – are not just outside of science but fundamentally incompatible with a scientific view of the world. And while some agnostics might insist that we cannot ‘know’ that a god does not exist, this does not compel us to give the ‘for’ and ‘against’ possibilities equal weight. We shouldn’t imagine things into being without good reason to do so.
Where we part company is largely (though not entirely) over the practical question of what is the appropriate response to all this. If I have understood it correctly, your view is that, while science need not embark on a crusade to wipe out religion, scientists should at every opportunity criticize religious belief for being a groundless fantasy that encumbers people with false hopes and obstructive (even destructive) dogma. My view is that science need not feel so threatened by religion. Clearly, science sometimes has been and is explicitly threatened and hindered by religion – the stem-cell issue is one such. But I don’t regard this as inevitable (after all, by no means all Christians were opposed to stem-cell research). When scientific advance is blocked because of superstitious beliefs, we should be unequivocal in condemning that (and elsewhere I have done so). However, I believe that sometimes resistance to new technologies and research has come from religious quarters for ethical reasons that one might also hold as an atheist, and which are defensible even if I don’t agree with them. So we need to consider those distinctions carefully.
You say it would be very difficult to find instances where ‘incoherence, wishful thinking, and dogmatism have aided scientific progress—or, in fact, progress of any kind.’ I’m not sure whether you mean to include all manifestations of religious faith as part of this ‘incoherence, wishful thinking, and dogmatism’, but one can certainly make a case that religion has sometimes played a role in promoting a scientific outlook. Since the time of William of Conches in the twelfth century, some people have considered it a religious duty to explore and understand ‘God’s creation’. It seems quite likely that one’s objectivity in doing that is likely to be ultimately compromised if one insists on continuing to see it as God’s creation; but as it happened, this exploration, initiated as a religious imperative, in the end found ever less use for God. Similarly, the value accorded to scientific learning in the Muslim world in the eighth to the twelfth centuries drew some impetus from the interpretation of Islam then in favour.
You might say ‘But wouldn’t have it been even better if people had studied science without reference to God at all?’ But this, as well as your suggestion that we might have ‘birthed a culture of genuine intellectual honesty in the year 1200’, seems to me ahistorical. I can think of no plausible route from the embers of the Roman Empire to the Enlightenment that would not have been centred in Christianity (unless the Muslims had conquered Europe, perhaps – but that was never really their wish). I’m not wishing to make religion the champion of free thought here (God forbid), but only to suggest that the issues are more complex than you seem to want to allow.
Moreover, there is plenty of non-religious dogma that has hindered science too – think of Lysenkoism and the Nazis’ criticisms of ‘Jewish science’. I realise that of course you will deplore these too – but my point is that if, by some bizarre circumstance, Europe had ditched religion in 1200, I’m not sure we could necessarily expect the state of knowledge to be any better today than it is. Some other social construct seems likely to have come along and foiled the Baconian utopia. That, sadly, is what we humans do.
I think we also differ in that you are more of an idealist – perhaps more of an optimist – and I am more of a realist. I think that religion, or ideologies that are mostly indistinguishable from it, are a part of human society. I feel that science needs to find ways of working with that. And I say this not as a defeatist statement of resignation, but just as a recognition of the nature of humanity. I happen to feel – in fact, I am fully confident of it – that religion has made positive contributions to the human condition, as well as unambiguously negative ones. You might again argue that those things, such as charity, can and do exist without religion, and this is surely true. But to my mind, religion is for many people an expression of the very human impulses that allow us to be (for example) charitable. In any event, I suspect that we can no more expect to eliminate religion (or something like it) from society than we can eliminate music.
If that is the case, I feel that science does need to find some way of working alongside religion rather than pouring scorn on it at every opportunity. The relationship doesn’t have to be cosy and convivial, and indeed I think in general it will be, and probably should be, a tense one. But I believe it can be good enough to prevent us from having to tilt at windmills. I agree with you that there should be no reason to handle religion with kid gloves for fear of offending. But neither do I see a need to thrash it like a furious parent, vilify it as though it were a loathsome criminal, or deride it as idiotic. I think we can afford to treat some aspects of religion in a forthright yet adult-to-adult fashion.
Perhaps the crux of the matter is your statement that, although the coexistence of science and religion in societies and in individuals is of course possible, it ‘does not in the least suggest that they are optimal—or, indeed, that they do not come at a terrible price.’ There is a great deal of distance between those two possibilities. If it is simply ‘not optimal’, it doesn’t seem a big deal. If it comes at a terrible price, we should worry. I suspect that both of those things, and all others in between, have applied at different times and places.
Incidentally, your ‘Hitler’ analogy sounds rather compelling until you consider that what you’re saying seems more like the following: rather than say ‘Hitler was German chancellor from 1933 to 1945’, one is always obliged to say ‘Hitler (in my opinion a vile and deranged antisemite) was chancellor from 1933 to 1945’. What is not said doesn’t always imply a particular point of view.
Best wishes,
Phil
Dear Phil –
I think we may be seeing the first rays of daylight. As I suspected, our dispute seems to be mostly about practical issues—When should we be scrupulously honest? How can science be best communicated given the state of popular opinion? Etc.—with regard to which intelligent people can have differences of opinion, while sharing the same a worldview. This is not to say that our differences of opinion are inconsequential. I happen to think that that the approach you advocate generally splits the baby and is currently doing much harm to the integrity of science. Perhaps I should mention in this context that I have just heard back from your employer regarding my letter to the editor. It was declined (with a form letter). While I don’t want to read too much into this, let me tell you why Nature’s behavior amazes me (and should amaze our readers) and how it exemplifies many of the problems we have been discussing:
1. Philip Campbell (Nature’s Editor in Chief) contacted me personally in response to your article’s inclusion in The Reason Project Hall of Shame. He wrote to say that, as your views did not represent those of the journal, we appeared to be condemning Nature for printing “individual points of view.” This complaint struck me as something less than a masterpiece of candor, given Nature’s repeated coddling of religion and the fact that you are not just any scientist; rather, you are a "consultant editor for Nature" (and had been a physical sciences editor there for over a decade). But okay, I thought, perhaps I was wrong to assume that your column might in some way reflect the current position of the journal. Needless to say, I told Mr. Campbell that I was overjoyed that he published “individual points view.” Perhaps, he would consider printing another—and then I appended my letter to the editor.
2. In submitting this letter to Campbell, I made it clear that some of the most prominent scientists on the Reason Project advisory board had contributed to it and were eager to sign it as co-authors, if this would make it more attractive to him from a publishing point of view. I didn’t name names, but I more or less gave him his pick of a dozen 800 lb gorillas. Campbell told me that the journal would be back in touch soon.
3. Weeks passed. You were kind enough to check on the letter’s fate and learned that there was some speculation on Nature’s part about whether our debate-in-progress might make such a letter “redundant.” Nevertheless, you heard that it might still be published, perhaps with a few edits.
4. This morning, some nameless correspondence editor or intern (email address = correspondence@nature.com) sent me a form letter regretting that my letter could not be published due to “limited space.” There was no offer of publication on Nature’s website.
So, here is where we stand: Nature's editors have just rejected a strongly worded letter written, as far as they know, by any possible combination of RP advisors. Again I don’t want to read too much into this, but given that we are talking about some of the most influential scientists and public intellectuals around, I find this a pretty remarkable editorial decision. Needless to say, “limited space” is euphemism—especially given the possibility of publication on the Internet.
It seems to me that there is still something that you (and Campbell) haven’t quite absorbed about the problem with, as you say, “working alongside religion.” By remaining politely silent and hoping to just get on with its work, the culture of science has enabled religious delusions of all kinds—because whenever it opens its mouth, all (real) religion claims to describe reality as it is. Silence in the face of these assertions is generally indistinguishable from assent. Of course, intellectual apathy on the part of individual scientists and their leading journals would be a bad thing all on its own, but add to this the advocacy of organizations like the Templeton Foundation, which uses its 1.5 billion dollar endowment to carefully blur the line between reason and faith, and the effect is an almost a total ceding of the argument in favor of religion.
Here is an example of “working alongside religion” in practice. You may remember that Nature recently published an editorial that read like a press release for the Templeton Foundation. While it included a few mumbled lines about the difference between science and religion, the piece amounted to an almost giddy endorsement of John Templeton and the work of his foundation. Indeed, the greatest sin attributed to the Templeton foundation was that it sometimes supports areas of research deemed “marginal” by some scientists. And the examples Nature chose to highlight — positive psychology and cosmological theories that posit multiple universes — are, it seems to me, perfectly respectable fields of inquiry. The editorial included several unctuous and embarrassing assertions about John Templeton being “deeply spiritual” and inspired by “his love of science and his God”—as though statements of this kind begged no questions at all from the point of view of science. In its effort to keep “working alongside religion” (again, your phrase), Nature counselled “strict atheists” (who, by implication, must be outliers in the scientific community) to just “happily ignore” Templeton. The journal concluded that “critics' total opposition to the Templeton Foundation's unusual mix of science and spirituality is unwarranted.” While I can imagine Campbell felt he had struck a deft balance here, all things considered, this editorial constituted as forthright an act of fellatio as Templeton could have ever hoped to receive from the world’s leading scientific journal.
The Templeton Foundation’s work is quite a bit more insidious (and clever) than funding marginal research, or even obscenely silly projects like Collins’ BioLogos Foundation. Two examples of their work should suffice [1. here and 2. here].
Templeton’s recent advertisement about evolution (1. above), which appeared in almost every major newspaper and magazine in the United States, represents a very clever manipulation of scientific opinion. When faced with the question “Does Evolution Explain Human Nature?” even I would have said something like "Not entirely." Of course, Templeton knows that most people will only read the titles of these essays. The general effect of the page is to communicate the inadequacy of evolutionary theory and the perpetual incompleteness of science—and to encourage readers to draw the further the inference that one needs religion/faith to get all the way home to the Truth. It is an especially nice touch that the one unequivocal "Yes" comes from the journalist Robert Wright, who has become a committed apologist for religion. (Leave it to Francis Collins to deliver the eminently reasonable, "Not entirely.") Thus, whichever door one opens in this fun house of obfuscation, one finds a message that is comforting to religion. An earlier ad entitled “Does the Universe Have a Purpose?” played the same game with a carefully picked sample of respondents. Out of 12 responses, only two were direct answers of “No.” Glancing at the ad, one could only conclude that atheism must be a minority opinion in science. These ads amount to religious propaganda, pure and simple. And the Templeton foundation has spent millions of dollars on them (Full disclosure: I was asked to participate in an earlier series of ads, where I was told that the entire campaign would consist of one page of my heresy set against one page written by Francis Collins, to be placed in every major newspaper and magazine in the land. I declined.)
The d'Espagnat citation (2. above) produces a similar effect, at nauseating length. I’m not in a position to quibble with d’Espagnat’s science, nor do I intend to impugn him as a recipient of the Templeton Prize. But this citation represents another instance of religious propaganda. Reading it, one is given to understand that d’Espagnat would throw the full weight of his scientific reputation behind the following assertions: there is a hidden reality; science can't quite glimpse it; religion offers a glimpse of its own; thus, religion and science are complimentary--but religion is likely the deeper of the two. Of course, the juxtaposition of a brilliant scientist and the “world's largest annual award given to an individual” makes the Templeton Foundation appear both very important and intellectually credible. Whereas, in reality, all they are is a great pot of money surrounded by some very “woolly” ideas.
How is it possible that Campbell doesn’t see the problem with all this? Why wouldn’t Nature feel that it was editorially bound to draw the CLEAREST POSSIBLE distinction between real science and ancient delusions? After all, Nature fancies that it can distinguish groundbreaking science from merely pedestrian science—publishing the only former. Why can’t it see that there is a distinction of much greater consequence to society, and to the future of science, that it should also make: there is a difference, after all, between having good reasons for what one believes and having bad ones. Incidentally, this is the only distinction one needs to become a “strict” atheist.
All of this runs to the larger issue of intellectual honesty. Perhaps we can define “intellectual honesty” as the ratio between what a person has good reason to believe and what he will assert to be true. In the ideal case, this number would equal 1, and in science it approaches as near to 1 as it does anywhere in human discourse. It seems to me that most religions subsist, and even thrive, on values that can be brought arbitrarily close to zero for centuries on end—and, indeed, grow smaller the longer any religious authority speaks about content of the faith. This disparity between what counts for honesty in serious discourse, depending on the topic, is as strange as it is consequential. Is it really so “idealistic” to think that a journal like Nature might object to it?
Best,
Sam
Dear Sam,
I’m glad that you see ‘some rays of daylight’, by which I take you to mean, if not convergence then at least understanding of our positions. I’d like to feel that it should always be possible to be scrupulously honest in these matters, as well as polite as far as is warranted – I’m not sure there should ever be reason to hold back from saying to a religious believer ‘I feel there is no credible evidence for what you believe’ (so long as they don’t have a gun in their hand). But neither do I feel an obligation to say that at every opportunity, or to think that the debate ends there.
Incidentally, I note that I will no doubt be seen as one of those atheists who Richard Dawkins laments under the rubric ‘I’m an atheist but…’. But I’m not bowled over by Richard’s responses to the five variants he lists. For example, in suggesting that religion is a social construct I might be construed as a Type 1: “I’m an atheist, but religion is here to stay. You think you can get rid of religion? Good luck to you! You want to get rid of religion? What planet are you living on? Religion is a fixture. Get over it!’ That is (I hope this is clear by now) not at all how I’d put it, and frankly I don’t know whether it is ‘here to stay’ or not (who could?). I simply observe that since time immemorial human societies have organized themselves into hierarchical systems based on more or less arbitrary tenets, of which religions are a prominent example. That’s what we’re dealing with. I think this is probably a more productive way to regard the situation than to think that humans are ritualistically inculcated into stupidity for which a dose of cold reason is the cure. (It’s a shame, incidentally, that Richard doesn’t really address this position, but just caricatures it.)
And let’s not forget that, however much you might disagree with my position, it makes me closer to your own than Darwin was. (There is no tenable defence of the idea that he called himself an ‘agnostic’ rather than an atheist merely to spare people’s feelings.) But I don’t figure on seeing Darwin in your Hall of Shame any time soon…
It’s a pity that Nature rejected your letter, not least because that issue clearly preoccupied you in your last response. The problem is that I am not Nature, nor a spokesperson for Nature, nor in any way disposed to defend its decisions. The matters you cite had nothing to do with me. And while it is true that both Phil Campbell and I feel there is something to be said for ‘working alongside religion’, I don’t intend this to mean ‘remaining politely silent and hoping to just get on with its work’. I simply feel we need to choose our battles. And while you suggest that the distinction between science and religion is that of ‘having good reasons for what one believes and having bad ones’, I would disagree. By ‘good reasons’, you presumably mean ones that can be logically defended on the basis of objective evidence. I know plenty of religious people who believe because it helps them in life and makes them feel better. That seems a pretty good reason to me, even if I don’t share the view. (I hope it’s clear that, if ‘good reasons’ like that lead people to deny evolution or refuse blood transfusions, my magnanimity soon evaporates. I guess that makes me one of those British empiricists.)
I’ll say this about the Nature decision, however. I’m not a fan of form letters, although I worked long enough as an editor to understand the occasional need for them. My problem is that, as you say, they are euphemistic and often give little clue to the real reasons for a decision. I simply don’t know what the reason was in this case – it may really have been ‘limited space’, for all I know (for indeed space is limited). But I wish that had been made more explicit. However, bear in mind that it is almost unheard of for a letter about an opinion piece published only online to be given even a moment’s consideration for the print journal – normally the position is that the online-only content is completely separate from the print content, and so the latter does not carry comment on the former. Bear in mind also that you do not need permission to comment on the website – the feedback facility is open to all. (I suspect, however, that you were thinking in terms of something more than that.) There is also the consideration that the editors knew you intend to put some form of our dialogue online, and may feel that this will address the matter more adequately and comprehensively than a letter might have.
I was happy to help discover what Nature intended to do with your letter, but otherwise had no role in the decision (nor would it have been proper that I did, of course). I confess, however, to being a little surprised that you wanted to press on with having it published in the light of this exchange, which I feel has shown that your criticisms fall on a somewhat different target to the one the appears in your letter. I had hoped to assiduously avoid revisiting the issue, but the fact is that you have never refuted my argument that the letter misrepresents and misinterprets what I said, however much you continue to feel that I let religion too lightly off the hook. I’d be interested to know if any of ‘the most influential scientists and public intellectuals around’ would be inclined to defend putting their names to the letter in the light of this. I have deep respect for the scientists on your board, and would consider myself to be on warm terms with several of them – but even the most weighty of thinkers have to justify their positions.
All the best,
Phil
Dear Phil –
Perhaps I was wrong about that daylight…
In any case, I think our debate has run its course. I’ve participated in enough of these exchanges to no longer be surprised when a proper meeting of the minds fails to occur. But I must say that my feelings of futility and boredom are always compounded, in a way that I fear will be shared by many of our readers, whenever I find myself grappling with the vapors of “I’m an atheist but…” The problem with this view—which I agree, well summarizes your own—is that it so often takes the form of simply missing the point. In fact, “I’m an atheist but…” generally represents a commitment to missing the point—as it derives most of its content from simply not seeing what all the fuss is about. Such obliviousness can always be given a positive spin (“we need to choose our battles”), but there is no escaping the fact that yours is the perspective of one who does not quite see the depth and scope of the problem. This position is easy enough to maintain: all one need do is avert one’s eyes. Indeed, the “I’m an atheist but…” school generally believes that ignoring the problem of religion is the wisest course of action (some call this “realism”). I hope it does not seem ad hominem when I say that your view of these matters strikes me as intellectually lazy—but it is lazy in the extreme. There is a certain genius in laziness, however, as it can never be proven wrong. Or, rather, it can never be made to notice when it has been, again and again.
While I have little hope of getting through to you at this late hour, I should address a few points in closing: First, you seem to view my focus on Nature’s accommodation of religion as some kind of personal obsession and a distraction from the subject of our exchange. Here you have, I’m afraid, missed the point of our exchange (or at least missed my point in initiating it). In my view, your article was remarkable and worth debating for two reasons: (1) it appeared in Nature, and (2) it represented a further instance of Nature’s blinkered appeasement of religion. The point I have made repeatedly, and will now make one final time, is that it really matters that the world’s most influential scientific journal seems both deluded about religion and committed to remaining so. Had your article appeared in the Guardian, there would have been no reason for us to have this debate. (While I find it depressing, I actually expect a newspaper like the Guardian to pander to religion.)
Secondly, the fact that you can unselfconsciously assert that people believe in one or another religious doctrine “because it helps them in life and makes them feel better” and then say that this “seems a pretty good reason” to you indicates how little you have thought about the conflict between religion and science. If I told you that I believed that the H5N1 virus will never become a pandemic, or that string theory will be fully vindicated in the near future, or that complex life first developed on Mars and was later transferred to earth, and I gave as my reason for holding these beliefs that each “makes me feel better,” I am confident that your response would not be this “seems a pretty good reason to me.” Don’t you see how bizarre it is to accept such shoddy thinking with respect to the existence of a personal God or the divine origin of a specific book? A person cannot (or least should not be able to) believe something because it “makes him feel better.” The fact that people occasionally do manage such contortions is what renders phrases like “self-deception,” “wishful thinking,” “experimenter bias,” etc., so important to keep on hand. Please notice that these phrases describe how it looks from the outside when people believe a proposition because “it makes them feel better.” Please also notice that this frame of mind represents a failure of cognition and reasoning that all sane people decry in every area of serious discourse but one.
A world in which people believe propositions merely because these propositions “make them feel better” is a world gone utterly mad. It is a world of private and irreconcilable epistemologies. It is a world where communication, even on the most important issues—perhaps especially on the most important issues—is guaranteed to fail. Of course, you have tried arrest your slide into the abyss in your parenthetical remark about evolution and blood transfusions—but one can draw no such boundary unless one draws it based on some deeper principle. You cannot say that a person’s reason for believing in the virgin birth is “good” just so long as this belief has no negative consequences on his behavior. Whether a belief is well founded or not has nothing to do with its consequences.
Generally speaking, for a belief to be justified, our acceptance of it must be dependent upon its actually being true (and not be dependent upon how its being true would make us feel). Needless to say, the preceding sentence does not suffice as full account of epistemology: uniting both science and commonsense and reconciling their frequent disagreements. But there can be no doubt about the difference between a belief that is overtly motivated by emotional bias (and other non-epistemic factors) and a belief that is comparatively free of such bias. I wonder if we will live to see the day when scientists and their leading journals might be counted upon to recognize this difference without having to be pilloried by “strict” atheists.
Your blithe acceptance that belief can be something other than epistemic—something other than an effort to reliably map reality in our thoughts—makes it impossible to differentiate belief from mere hope. I’m sure many people you know hope that there is a God; they hope that they will see their friends and loved ones after death; they hope that their lives are aligned with some larger cosmic purpose; and they are disposed to make much of this hope—to celebrate it, and to gather with others who hope for these same things. Your friends might say that this hope has enriched their lives or has in some way become indispensable to their functioning in the world. But if these friends of yours are really religious—that is, really conforming to the doctrine of Christianity, Islam, Judaism, etc.—they will have taken a further step toward delusion and mistaken this hope for a form of knowledge. They may have yanked their bootstraps this way: “How could I find this hope so consoling if it were not, in fact, well founded? Perhaps this feeling of hopefulness itself attests to the truth of thing hoped for… Praise be to God!” Of course there are many other ways to chase one’s tail under the aegis of religion. Such “woolly” thinking is enabled by the fact that it almost never meets resistance, even from scientists (who, as we know, must “choose their battles”). It should be abundantly clear, however, that mere hope does not constitute knowledge, no matter how lovingly one tends it and props it up in the wind.
In your last email you summarize the situation as follows:
“I simply observe that since time immemorial human societies have organized themselves into hierarchical systems based on more or less arbitrary tenets, of which religions are a prominent example. That’s what we’re dealing with. I think this is probably a more productive way to regard the situation than to think that humans are ritualistically inculcated into stupidity for which a dose of cold reason is the cure.”
It is amazing that you can advance this as a serious position. First off, it is undeniable that most humans are “ritualistically inculcated into stupidity” from birth onwards by their religious parents. Second, it is a perverse (and highly condescending) article of faith among secular academics that people can never be reasoned out of their religious convictions. I have heard from literally thousands of people who used to belief in the God of Abraham—indeed, many used to be scriptural literalists—who were stripped of their faith after a proper collision with Reason. It is quite possible for people to notice how “woolly” their thinking has been, how they were part of a culture grown incandescent with lies, how their parents and elders raised them in a near total vacuum of critical thinking and in complete ignorance of the scientific worldview. Indeed, I once had the pleasure of having dinner with a woman could pinpoint the very moment she lost her faith, as it had been purged from her mind that morning while reading one of my books. Her overwhelming feeling was of regret for all the time she had wasted over the course of her life. No doubt such a terrific sense of sunk cost keeps many people stuck to a pew. Perhaps not everyone can be reasoned out of his or her faith—but the problem is that we don’t know how fully people’s minds could change because we haven’t really tried (please don’t feel tempted to make yet another tendentious excursion into history and bring up the French Revolution or the gulag). You’d do well to notice how easily children can be reasoned out of their belief in Santa Claus. The all enter school as devout believers, and they all exit as perfect sceptics. How is this dialectical miracle accomplished? Quite simply: there is no cultural support for a belief in Santa past a certain age, and no one likes to be laughed at. Do we replace Santa Claus with anything? No. We just oblige people to grow up.
In any case, the problem isn’t that human societies are organized in “hierarchical systems based on more or less arbitrary tenets” (can you really be serious? It is rare to find such a crystalline example of academic cant. I think you’d be wise to remove the letters H-I-E-R-A from your keyboard for a while). The problem is that intellectual honesty is still a very scarce commodity in our world; we are rather bad at producing it, and it is taboo to even try once the conversation turns to the subject of God.
I realize that my tone of chastisement has probably grown very tedious and could be mistaken for hostility. But I can’t help but feel that there is a great asymmetry between our points of view – both in how fully they have been thought out and in their degree of the moral seriousness. I see the perpetuation of ancient tribalism and ignorance (read “religion”) to be a grave problem, and the source of much unnecessary suffering in the world; you claim that the problem is either not very serious or that it is unavoidable—in either case there is not much to be done. You do not seem to see what an astonishing number of the world’s conflicts and missed opportunities arise from people’s false knowledge about God, and when specific instances are pointed out to you, you deem them to be inevitable (if it’s not religion it would be something else), or you defensively say, well of course I object to that instance of religious stupidity: parents shouldn’t withhold blood transfusions from their children!... But the truth is, a comprehensive response to the problem of religious ignorance is possible, and a piecemeal response is totally unprincipled and bound to seem so. Our world has be shattered, and is reliably shattered anew with each subsequent generation, by irreconcilable claims about God and his magic books. Until we stop enabling these competing delusions—by our silence and by our silly attempts to change the subject—we will have no one to blame but ourselves when medieval ideas come crashing into public life—as they do, and will, to our great detriment.
But enough… As I said at the outset, I sincerely appreciate your willingness to debate these issues at length. I remain hopeful that exchanges like this are useful (for someone, somewhere, sometime), whether or not the participants themselves budge an inch.
Thanks for your time, Phil. I wish you all the best,
Sam
Dear Sam,
One somewhat frustrating aspect of this exchange for me has been that you seem to insist that any disagreement with your point of view is not genuine disagreement as such but is missing the point. My sense is that you cannot conceive how any sane, rational person can hold a point of view different from your own, so that if they insist on doing so, they are obviously being either obtuse or stupid. Your first long paragraph is all rhetoric along those lines. I’d add here that, while I won’t accuse you of intellectual laziness, I do feel that your absolutism is, like most absolutisms, the easy way out. There is then always a right answer, and your convictions supply it ready-made. I understand everything you say about religion being generally filled with irrational beliefs, and it would be very easy for me too to say that ‘people should not believe anything for bad or invalid or flaky reasons, and therefore we must strive to ensure that they never do.’ I suspect that philosophers might find that an epistemologically dodgy position to take, but I can see that it makes life easy. I don’t find it either attractive or useful, however.
In your second paragraph, I fear that – dare I say – you have yourself missed the point in regard to Nature. Had I written a column saying that thank goodness the Reason Project has finally appeared to blast away Francis Collins and all apologists of that ilk, Nature would have published it. It is a matter of indifference to me whether you will scoff at this statement; I simply know it to be true. I can see that as it stood, my column fed into your disenchantment with what Nature has said before. But it is utterly independent of that, and to think otherwise is to become a conspiracy theorist.
But to the meat of your argument. I stated in my original article that at least your position can claim some philosophical rigour. I think this is the one aspect of the piece I might now have to withdraw. You say:
“If I told you that I believed that the H5N1 virus will never become a pandemic, or that string theory will be fully vindicated in the near future, or that complex life first developed on Mars and was later transferred to earth, and I gave as my reason for holding these beliefs that each “makes me feel better,” I am confident that your response would not be this “seems a pretty good reason to me.” Don’t you see how bizarre it is to accept such shoddy thinking with respect to the existence of a personal God or the divine origin of a specific book? A person cannot (or least should not be able to) believe something because it “makes him feel better.””
There are two answers to this. One is at the human level. Let’s imagine a person, say a well educated doctor, who has thought deeply about the religious faith he feels, and concludes that it is something he cherishes and finds meaningful and doesn’t interfere with his trust in science. His faith in God is valuable to him. Now, you will say he is deluded and hasn’t thought deeply enough about all the contradictions this creates. I believe that he holds an incorrect belief about the world. But do I think that it is intolerable that he should continue to find solace in his belief? No, I think that the fact that he finds solace in it makes it perfectly rational on one level for him to maintain that belief, even if it is irrational in other respects. It is rational to do what makes us feel good. That doesn’t always make it right for us to do so, but that’s another matter. Your charge is that the problem comes because this chap considers he has a form of knowledge – he thinks he knows there is a God. Yes, often this is what happens for people who are superficially religious, and many, many are. And here they are plain wrong, I don’t dispute that. If my chap thinks this way, he is mistaken. Hold the front page: ‘Man is mistaken’. But if he knows his theology, he knows why religion – and in honesty I only really know about Christianity here – emphasizes faith, not knowledge.
Let me add that it strikes me that we have different imaginary ‘believers’ in sight. I agree with you that it would be condescending to think that no believer could ever be dissuaded from their belief by logical argument. Indeed, if they’ve been insulated from any logical thinking, they might very well be susceptible to that approach. But it is equally condescending to think that believers only believe because they’ve never thought seriously about the issues. I suspect that the ‘convert’ you mention had never had the opportunity or means to do so. Not all believers are like her.
Here is my other answer to your passage above. If you told me you believed those things about bird flu and string theory and life on Mars because they make you feel better, I’d say, well, we’ll find out won’t we? We’ll some day have objective evidence that proves or disproves your belief. If you told me that you believed in God because this gives your life meaning, am I going to say the same thing? Not if I know the first thing about philosophy. Despite what Richard Dawkins has asserted, the existence of God is not amenable to scientific testing. Or rather, we could come across evidence that God exists, but not that he doesn’t. But that’s the problem, you say! Yes, that is the problem. That is why belief in God holds no meaning for me. But it also means that your comparison here is utterly bogus.
A better analogy might be with someone who believes the universe will last forever ‘because it makes me feel better’. (I’m not totally sure that this isn’t scientifically falsifiable, but it’s hard to see how it might be given the present state of play.) That doesn’t sound so objectionable, does it? It sounds rather meaningless to me, but I’m not sure it need incite our outrage.
You might reasonably say that what is objectionable is if this person expects others to take his belief seriously and treat it with respect, and even to create academic departments and organizations devoted to exploring it. To put it another way (which you might recognize), we would not rush to create faculties of leprechology just because someone chose to believe in leprechauns. This is fair enough. But I believe it is disingenuous to compare the major religions with a belief in leprechauns, or even with a belief in the eternity of the universe. The major religions have an ethical code, a rich tradition of art, they are woven into social and cultural fabrics. (All of it based on a false premise, you might say, or rather, on a premise that is unfalsifiable and for which there is not a shred of evidence.) But my view is that, at its best, religions can provide ways to think about the human condition. I don’t believe it is fair to simply dismiss them as childish. I would like to think, as I suspect you do, that everything that is positive about religion could also be attained without a belief in God, let alone miracles and saints and all the rest. (I do suspect that ritual is less dispensable.) But it seems unfair to deny that religion has any of these good aspects, as well as undoubtedly becoming encumbered with a great deal of dogmatism, delusion and claptrap (much of which does not necessarily accord with good theology).
Onward. I’m not clear why you object to the notion that human societies tend to be organized ‘in hierarchical systems based on more or less arbitrary tenets’, because here again you use rhetoric in place of debate. I live in one; you live in one. Over a billion people in China live in one. Martin Luther lived in one. Your point is?
You say ‘You do not seem to see what an astonishing number of the world’s conflicts and missed opportunities arise from people’s false knowledge about God’. Which are you going to cite – Northern Ireland? Iraq? The Crusades? If only it wasn’t for that pesky God and his offspring, all these places would have lived in blissful peace! The Taliban? – why, they’d be lovely folks if they weren’t Muslim extremists! How wonderful, how simple and easy, to be able to blame all these things on a false belief in gods! Gosh, this counterfactual history is easier than I ever imagined!
Sorry, facetiousness is no help. I am afraid that I fall into it here as a substitute for real anger, because I find it maddening to see the suggestion that sectarian violence in Belfast, tribal conflict in Iraq, Hindu-Muslim violence in India, and goodness knows how much else suffering in the world could be solved if we could just persuade people to give up their ridiculous faiths. I fully accept that it is no good either to simply say, as I know some do, ‘Oh, it’s only human nature, and religion is just the excuse.’ No, the truth is, sadly, much more complicated. And that is why I think the answers are too. But I have been left from our exchange with the feeling that ‘complicated’ is for you just a cop-out. I guess maybe that is where we fundamentally disagree. You seem to feel that any attempt to introduce into the debate considerations about culture, history, society and politics are unwelcome and even wilfully deceitful diversions from the main business of demolishing religions for believing in things for which there is no evidence. That seems to be your ‘point’ – I’m afraid I simply can’t accept it.
Thank you for engaging in this debate. It has helped to focus my own thinking, and I hope you have seen some value in it too.
Best wishes,
Phil
Since publishing my online Muse column in Nature News about the Reason Project (you’ll find all the links below), I have been having an exchange of views with the project’s founder Sam Harris. The results are below. I have added a final comment here that is not on the Reason Project site, but Sam knows about it and may or may not respond. I’ll say no more – judge for yourselves.
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5/21/09
Dear Phil --
Well, we seem to have a tempest in a teapot brewing. You were good enough to notice the birth of my foundation, The Reason Project, in your column in Nature (How much reason do you want?, Nature News 14 May 2009), and I repaid this kindness by hurling you into the Reason Project Hall of Shame for perceived indiscretions of rational thought. You then responded to your confinement on your blog ("“Whatever you do, don’t call them militant" 19 May 2009)--and life on earth has not been the same since.
I wonder whether you would like to have a direct exchange on these issues. I'm not entirely sure where our respective misunderstandings leave off and our genuine differences of opinion begin, but it might be interesting for readers to watch us struggle to sort things out.
Please let me know your thoughts.
Best,
Sam
Sam Harris
Co-Founder and CEO
The Reason Project
5/23/09
Dear Sam,
Thanks for this message. A tempest in a teapot seems an apt way to express it. I do suspect that most of our disagreement hinges on misunderstandings rather than genuine differences, although of course there’s no harm in the latter.
I can appreciate that you wouldn’t welcome the mildly skeptical tone of my Nature article, but I’m still puzzled about why you found it sufficiently objectionable to (as you say) hurl it into your Hall of Shame. (I assume this particular pit is not intended for all critics, but only for those whose message you find especially abhorrent or misguided.) At this point, I’m forced to guess that perhaps you share the views of those who have commented unfavourably about the piece on your site. The primary objections there seem predicated on two notions:
1. That I have said religion and science are compatible.
2. That I am parading Francis Collins and others who seek a conciliatory position as the good guys.
I sincerely believe that you will find neither of these points of view actually stated in my piece, and for the simple reason that I don't believe them. Perhaps my blog post made it a little clearer. My points are that:
1. There seems little point in making religion per se the ‘enemy of reason’. That creates a big and, frankly, invincible foe. And it's a foe that doesn't need to be vanquished. Plenty of religious people – certainly, just about all those I know – are perfectly happy to accept the tenets of science that the fundamentalists find so distasteful, which are mostly connected with questions of origin. That there are logical inconsistencies in that position really doesn't seem to me to be a big deal – we live with all kinds of contradictions, and often because we don’t feel any compulsion to chart our all beliefs with philosophical rigour until we discover where they clash. For many Christians (the religious community I am most familiar with), the Virgin Birth, the biblical miracles, as well as angels, saints and, goodness knows, even heaven and hell aren’t notions they particularly cling to or think about very much at all. They simply find that religion addresses some of their needs. I’m not even sure that I would consider this use of religion irrational – merely woolly.
This is what I meant when I referred to a ‘false dichotomy’ – the fact that I think science and religion can in principle coexist (as they always have done, even if not always comfortably) does not mean that I think they are logically compatible. I know some will say that this is a complacent view, because religion is (outside Western Europe) growing both in its strength and in its intolerance. That is absolutely a cause for concern. But it doesn’t pit religion per se against science per se. It’s a primarily political issue.
2. Religion is not a delusion to be corrected with a little hard science. A lot of the current ‘rationalist’ criticism of religion reminds me of the old deficit model that used to motivate the Public Understanding of Science movement: just give people the right facts, and then they’ll agree with us. This is not just deluded, but lazy. It’s trivial to take religious texts and show how, literally interpreted, they are utter nonsense. But we have to engage with (and sometimes do battle with, it is true) religion as it exists in the world. This is more challenging. On the longer version of my Nature article posted on my blog, I cite the example of Galileo. If we choose to believe that the Catholic Church condemned his heliocentrism because it conflicted with scripture, we have an unassailable case against superstitious dogma. If we recognize that the issue was at least as much about maintaining the Church’s authority, we have to concede some (Machiavellian) rationality in the papal position, however repugnant the motives. (And incidentally, let’s please not hear any more about Giordano Bruno being martyred for his heliocentrism. That’s the kind of contempt for history that polarized positions encourage.)
I claim that religion needs to be seen as a social construct, with all kinds of social functions. Some of the most thoughtful commentators on theology, such as Karen Armstrong, recognise the value and perhaps even necessity of the kind of myth that religion embodies. Many are now happy to accept that aspects of the Bible, and other religious texts, should be read in this allegorical way. We can't meaningfully engage in religion without recognizing this social and cultural aspect - it often functions as a component of how people construct their cultural identity. It seemed to me that this was really what the Royal Society’s former director of education Michael Reiss was trying to say when he suggested that it was best to understand religiously motivated delusions such as creationism as world views rather than as mere ignorance. Reiss’s remarks incited such outrage among a few vocal, prominent scientists that he was of course forced to resign. It troubles me when scientists (and others) get such horrors about religion that they seem no longer able to entertain or even notice any nuance of opinion in these matters. It all starts to sound disturbingly like George W. Bush’s comment that you’re either for us or against us.
The comments on your blog left me dismayed that the initiative you have started might tend to attract those whose views on religion are instead of the most simplistic and reductive sort ('But it's just wrong!'). But I also realise, on reflection, that it is unfair to judge an organization by its web feedback. Nature would not fare at all well if that were applied to them.
I am in favour of any movement that campaigns to kick out of schools the invidious misinformation of creationism, intelligent design and the rest of the shoddy fundamentalist agenda. I am very much in favour of a movement that aims to denounce religious intolerance and that attacks the kind of harmful and ignorant nonsense that seems increasingly to be coming from the Vatican. On my blog, I reacted to your actions and to the comments on your site with a mixture of amusement and irritation, neither of which is terribly constructive, because I have to choose words carefully within the incredibly constrained format that a Nature Muse allows and so am frustrated when they aren't read carefully. But it is possible too that I did not choose them carefully enough. And certainly, I would not want to misrepresent what you are trying to achieve, which I am sure includes much that I would support.
Best wishes,
Phil
5/24/09
Dear Phil --
Thank you for a favorable and very substantive response to my invitation. I appreciate your willingness to have this exchange in a public forum. First, I should say that while I can't necessarily endorse every comment that appears beneath your article on the Reason Project website (in fact, there may be many I haven’t read), I suspect there is not much daylight between me and some of the more vociferous critics you encountered there. As evidence of this fact, here is the Letter to the Editor I wrote in response to your column. While I am its principal author, many members of my advisory board have read it, offered minor suggestions, and generally approve its contents. I have told your Editor in Chief, Philip Campbell, that he can print it with multiple signatories, or not, whichever is more attractive to him.
Sir--
In his column, "How much reason do you want?" (Nature News 14 May 2009) Philip Ball, a consultant editor at this journal, takes members of The Reason Project to task for being too critical of religion. While he accepts the value of "knowledge", "learning," and "intellectualism," he argues that these virtues need not, in principle, undermine the religious commitments of law-abiding men and women in the 21st century. Mr. Ball assures us that while the "abuse" of religion "to justify suppression of human rights, maltreatment and murder is abhorrent," there is no deeper contradiction to be found between scientific rationality and religious faith. As evidence of this underlying harmony, we are asked to contemplate the existence of The BioLogos Foundation, whose purpose (in the words of its mission statement) is to demonstrate "the compatibility of the Christian faith with what science has discovered about the origins of the universe and life."
To give you a sense of how bizarre Mr. Ball's opinions will appear to rational people everywhere, imagine reading a column in Nature that criticized scientists for taking too adversarial a stance with respect to witchcraft—even in Africa, where a belief in the efficacy of magic spells, invisible spirits, and the occasional human sacrifice remains widespread. If the analogy between religion and witchcraft seems hyperbolic, please take a moment to review the actual tenets of the world's major religions.
For instance, a reconciliation between science and Christianity (the explicit goal of The BioLogos Foundation) would mean squaring physics, chemistry, biology, and a basic understanding of probabilistic reasoning with a raft of patently ridiculous, Iron Age convictions. In its most generic and well-subscribed form, Christianity amounts to the following claims: Jesus Christ, a carpenter by trade, was born of a virgin, ritually murdered as a scapegoat for the collective sins of his species, and then resurrected from death after an interval of three days. He promptly ascended, bodily, to “heaven” -- where, for two millennia, he has eavesdropped upon (and, on occasion, even answered) the simultaneous prayers of billions of beleaguered human beings. Not content to maintain this numinous arrangement indefinitely, this invisible carpenter will one day return to earth to judge humanity for its sexual indiscretions and sceptical doubts, at which time he will grant immortality to anyone who has had the good fortune to be convinced, on Mother's knee, that this baffling litany of miracles is the most important series of truth-claims ever revealed about the cosmos. Every other member of our species, past and present, from Cleopatra to Einstein, no matter what his or her terrestrial accomplishments, will (probably) be consigned to a fiery hell for all eternity.
On Mr. Ball's account, there is nothing in the scientific worldview, or in the intellectual rigor and self-criticism that gave rise to it, that casts such convictions in an unfavorable light. This learned opinion is, frankly, amazing to me and to the other members of The Reason Project. One would have thought it might also amaze Mr. Ball's fellow editors at Nature.
Sam Harris
Co-Founder and CEO
The Reason Project
www.reasonproject.org
I suspect that you find this response indicative of the some of the misunderstandings and militancy you refer to in your blog post. I'm sorry to say, however, that your subsequent writings—both on your blog and in this exchange—only dig the hole I perceive you to be in deeper still.
On your blog you say the following:
But what depresses me is that the Reason Project and many of its supporters are so sure of the battle-lines that they have lost the ability of basic English comprehension. It is this that has earned me the delightful honour of a place in the Reason Project’s Hall of Shame, no less – because it has decided that I am placing the irenic BioLogos Foundation, the Templeton Foundation, and other apologists, on a pedestal, making them the nice, friendly good guys who only want us all to get along. Does my article say that? No, it simply quotes from the BioLogos mission statement (just as it quotes from the Reason Project mission statement). That this is taken as registering approval is a bit disturbing. The fact that I suggest the Reason Project in some respects ‘should be applauded’, and say no such thing about the BioLogos Foundation, doesn’t seem to be noticed. (The fact is that I’m utterly indifferent to the BioLogos Foundation. I find its aims uninspiring and its current statements about the relation of science and religion somewhat shallow.)
While you clearly expect a paragraph like this to fully acquit you, there is, even here, much to offend the sensibilities of reasonable people who are sensitive to the problem of religion. Please consider how your choice of words strikes a reader who desperately wants to believe that you, a scientist and an editor at the most prestigious scientific journal on earth, has his head on straight:
1. To call the BioLogos Foundation "irenic" is far too charitable. It is, rather, obscurantist and phatasmagorically stupid. If you took a moment to examine what its founder, Francis Collins, actually believes, as well as the means by which he came to believe it, you will see that he is engaged in an obscene re-branding of otherworldly hope and craving as a legitimate arm of science. I'm sorry to say that your charity toward Collins is part of a pattern at Nature, which I have pointed out previously in the pages of the journal. According to Nature, Collins’ atrocious book, The Language of God, represented a “moving” and “laudible” [sic] exercise of building “a bridge across the social and intellectual divide that exists between most of US academia and the so-called heartlands.” And here is Collins, hard at work on that bridge:
As believers, you are right to hold fast to the concept of God as Creator; you are right to hold fast to the truths of the Bible; you are right to hold fast to the conclusion that science offers no answers to the most pressing questions of human existence; and you are right to hold fast to the certainty that the claims of atheistic materialism must be steadfastly resisted….
God, who is not limited to space and time, created the universe and established natural laws that govern it. Seeking to populate this otherwise sterile universe with living creatures, God chose the elegant mechanism of evolution to create microbes, plants, and animals of all sorts. Most remarkably, God intentionally chose the same mechanism to give rise to special creatures who would have intelligence, a knowledge of right and wrong, free will, and a desire to seek fellowship with Him. He also knew these creatures would ultimately choose to disobey the Moral Law.
Half of the American population believes that the universe is 6,000 years old; our president has just used his first veto to block federal funding for the most promising medical research in all of biology on religious grounds; and one of the foremost scientists in the land had that to say. Stranger still, the most influential scientific publication on earth couldn’t find a nit to pick here. Collins’ scientific reputation has been undiminished by these ejaculations—indeed, he seems destined to be President Obama’s choice to run the National Institutes of Health—and yet his thinking here, as elsewhere, is a quite a bit worse than “woolly,” as you put it: it constitutes a perfect repudiation of scientific principles and intellectual honesty.
2. The way in which you paired The Reason Project and The BioLogos Foundation in your Nature column conveyed the sense—quite common in journalism—that the truth must lie somewhere between the two extremes on offer: On the one hand we have some extreme rationalists (who think that most basic standards of intellectual integrity should not be traduced at the highest levels of our discourse out of deference to the uneducated opinions of first century scribes); on the other, we have a man who is convinced that Jesus Christ is the risen Lord and eternal saviour of the earth because he happened to come upon a frozen waterfall while hiking and found it inexplicably beautiful. These two frames of mind are not equally scientific. I think you owe it to yourself, and to your readers, to clearly distinguish them.
There was much else in your column, blog post, and first volley here, that I have not addressed—of particular interest to me is the claim that religion is both an “invincible” and unnecessary foe. Perhaps we’ll touch on that subject later on.
Best,
Sam
Dear Sam,
I’m a little clearer now about what I’m being accused of, but no more so about why. Your letter to Nature repeats the claim that I say there is no contradiction between scientific rationality and religious faith, and repeats the failure to state where I say that. In fact, I state in my previous response that there are contradictions. Can we accept at least that this charge should be substantiated or dropped? That seems to me to be the rational way to proceed.
Your account of Christianity’s ‘most generic and well subscribed’ form is the scriptural literalist one. It is probably close to the medieval view, but I’d want more evidence that it is the generic view today. It is not the view of the head of the Church of England, which I suspect should count for something. But in any event, my point is, and always was, not that we need accept religious (and in your portrait, undoubtedly nonsensical) views as compatible with science but that you are not going to get very far by simply insisting to people who hold them that they are irrational and therefore should be abandoned forthwith. Rather, you need to consider the sociological questions of why people have a range of religious faiths, why religions as social institutions are so widespread, and why fundamentalism seems to be becoming a powerful political force in some religions in some parts of the world. (I don’t believe there is a universal answer to the last one – look at the resurgence of Hinduism in India, for example.)
To call the Biologos Foundation irenic is to use the word in its literal sense – they seek reconciliation of science and religion. It is simply a description, not a judgement. It may well be that no such reconciliation is logically possible – that doesn’t mean the Biologos Foundation cannot seek it, however misguidedly. There is not the slightest reason why one cannot be irenic for phantasmagorically stupid reasons. And then you’re off again, making criticisms of positions that simply don’t appear in my article. Criticize Nature’s other statements on Collins by all means – they are nothing to do with me or my views.
You end with a further supposition – that by describing two polar positions, I am suggesting that the truth lies in between. That’s your interpretation, and based on nothing I said. My view (and it’s not hard to see this, I think, from the strapline of my article) is that a more productive way to approach the issues lies elsewhere.
Sam, you’re calling yourselves the Reason Project and repeatedly stressing your scientific perspective. Science proceeds by inspecting the evidence objectively, not by prejudging what it means. The evidence here are the words I wrote, but they don’t seem to have been terribly germane to your comments so far.
Best wishes,
Phil
Dear Phil –
You still appear to be missing the point: the point is not that there is some legalistic parsing of your Nature column that allows for an (almost) exculpatory reading; the point is that everything you have written on this subject represents a basic failure to acknowledge (1) just how contradictory religious faith and scientific rationality are as modes of thought, (2) the actual profundity and scope of humankind’s religious bewilderment in the year 2009, and (3) the real world effects of (1)&(2). The most charitable interpretation I can find of what you have written is this: such truths could well be acknowledged, if we thought it wise—but it is not wise. If one wants to slay the Dragon of Ignorance, one shouldn’t first wake the Dragon, offend it, and then challenge it to fight to the death; one must be more cunning than this, or the whole project is doomed from the start. If THIS is what you intend to say, then fine, we can debate questions of secular/scientific strategy and marketing (and perhaps your own writing is an attempt to implement such a subtle strategy). But much of what you’ve written suggests that, whether or not you are chiefly concerned about such practical matters, you are also confused about points 1-3.
First off, the generic form of Christianity I described in my Letter to the Editor is not merely “the scriptural literalist one.” Without question, the beliefs I’ve highlighted summarize the majority view of Christianity. You seem to be, frankly, unaware of what most Christians (and perhaps religious people generally) claim to believe. Even your reference to the Church of England (which, I will grant, is more liberal than many) seems to ignore its actual doctrine. The C of E wears the resurrection of Jesus and other hocus pocus right on its sleeve. More generally, I could cite any number of opinion poll results and the doctrinal statements of the largest churches—all would conduce to the general boredom our readers, but would establish, beyond peradventure, that Christianity without a belief in miracles and magic books is not Christianity. And for everything that I would say about Christianity, there is worse to be said about Islam at this moment in history, as you surely must know.
As for your actual words, here is a quotation from your Nature piece, with some trivial modifications. I wonder if you see anything wrong with it:
In other words, this is not a matter of science versus faith [in witchcraft], but of the rejection of scientific ideas that challenge power structures... That’s not to minimize the problem, but recognizing it for what it is will avoid false dichotomies, and perhaps make it easier to find solutions.
So there is little to be gained from trying to topple the temple [of Magic] — it’s the false priests who are the menace. If we can recognize that [witchcraft], like any ideology, is a social construct — with benefits, dangers, arbitrary inventions and, most of all, roots in human nature – then we might forgo a lot of empty argument and get back to the worldly wonders of the lab bench.
Wouldn’t it be a tad strange to read this in the pages of Nature? Doesn’t it matter what people believe about the nature of reality? Doesn’t the nature of reality itself matter? If the basic claims of religion are true, the scientific worldview is so blinkered and susceptible to spiritual modification as to render the whole enterprise ridiculous. If the basic claims of religion are false, most people are living in a state of abject confusion, beset by absurd hopes and fears, and tending to waste their time and attention—often with tragic results. Is this really a “false dichotomy”?
Best,
Sam
Dear Sam,
You accuse me of “a basic failure to acknowledge just how contradictory religious faith and scientific rationality are as modes of thought”. Given what I have said previously, I must now interpret this as your way of saying “you acknowledge that religious faith and scientific rationality are contradictory, but fail to say that loudly enough”. (We needn’t argue further about whether my original Nature article said otherwise; my words can speak for themselves.)
So it seems that my sin, perhaps more venial than mortal, is not that of defending religion but of failing to attack it with sufficient vigour. This, you say, is a position that “will appear bizarre to rational people everywhere”. I will trust rational people everywhere to be the judge of that. You seem very keen to construct statements that Nature readers will find bizarre, but I think most will not find at all bizarre the notion that it is not science’s duty to eradicate all traces of religion in the world. This is not in any degree a weird or fringe position and it seems a pointless game to find ways of making it appear such.
From what you say, I suspect that what you object to most is my suggestion that the contradictions between science and faith need not in themselves be a big deal. By this I mean that I see no need to be so desperately worried about them when religious leaders and believers are moderates rather than are not scriptural literalists. I see no great threat to science from the kind of Anglicanism advocated by its current leader, or from the liberal forms of Islam that are held by thinkers such as Ziauddin Sardar. There are plenty of people, including many scientists, who are quite able to live with (or open to exploring) the contradictions and feel no need to rewrite or deny the mainstream scientific consensus. And these people are, in my experience, not at all “living in a state of abject confusion, beset by absurd hopes and fears”. It hardly needs to be said that science can thrive in societies in which religion is present (perhaps even strong) – it has done so throughout all of history.
That is why I don't feel a need to cast this in terms of science versus faith. It seems to me that our difference here is that you feel unwilling to live in a world where the contradictions between science and faith are tolerated, whereas I am not.
So I see no dragon that needs slaying, either by might or by stealth. If you accept that anthropology is anything of a science, this monolithic view of religion is in any event unscientific. Are you really saying that Christian fundamentalism, Indonesian Buddhism, African tribal beliefs and Chinese state-sponsored Confucianism are all part of the same beast, with the same causes and the same vulnerabilities? All, I agree, entail irrationality to some degree or another, and all are (as I’ve said) social constructs. But the reasons why, let’s say, fundamentalist Islam is in the ascendant in some parts of the world, and Hindu nationalism in others, are social, cultural and political. You might say that, regardless of the causes, the kinds of problems that ensue would be removed by simply eradicating all religion everywhere. But I don’t think you’d be so naïve.
I find your approach of highlighting and ridiculing all the most absurd and irrational aspects of these belief systems too easy. I too find the things you list as irrational (albeit perhaps not always as offensive) as you do. But the problems that religions can cause will be addressed only by engaging with them as social and cultural institutions, not as a string of silly ideas.
I did not say (sorry, this again) that the C of E shares none of the views you listed in your sketch of Christian belief. I said that its position is not that which you sketched, particularly in terms of the part that I suspect we both (and most other non-believers) find most objectionable: “Every other member of our species, past and present, from Cleopatra to Einstein, no matter what his or her terrestrial accomplishments, will (probably) be consigned to a fiery hell for all eternity.” Neither this nor a creationist viewpoint is an essential or inevitable component of Christianity today. If those beliefs are nevertheless on the rise (I simply don’t know if they are – creationism has always been strong in the US), then that is a problem with societal causes and needs to be seen and tackled as such.
Your minor rephrasing of my Nature article makes for interesting reading. To begin with, I’d challenge your implication that all religion is witchcraft – but before you leap down my throat, I do so because I would say instead that it is more accurate and more productive to say that religions and witchcraft are both examples of social constructs based on beliefs and ideologies that cannot be demonstrated and that, among other things, formalize social structures and hierarchies. Like it or not, it seems to be part of human nature to create such constructs. And they are not always expressed as religion.
With that in mind, I see nothing at all objectionable in the second paragraph. Benefits of witchcraft? There are very probably social benefits for the societies that practise it. They don’t necessarily outweigh the problems, and they don’t in any way justify witchcraft. But they help explain it, and we won’t understand these superstitious systems unless we recognize them.
I think that actually the meaning of my first paragraph remains pretty much unscathed too. The point here is that all kinds of irrational belief systems will accept a great deal of science, but some selectively reject those aspects that conflict with their power base. So all I am saying is that, strategically speaking, it seems to make sense to recognize a distinction between ideologies that systematically deny all of science (I’m not in fact sure if there are any such) and ones that exclude only the inconvenient truths. It seems to me that those two positions are likely to have different origins, and thus warrant different solutions.
Best wishes,
Phil
Dear Phil –
I trust that many of our readers will share my frustration at this point, as well as my sense that we have failed to get at the heart of the matter. As is so often the case in debates of this kind, more points get raised in each volley than can be addressed in the next—so permit me to ignore what seem like peripheral issues in an attempt to make some sense.
I will say one thing in passing, however, by way of addressing several specific points (your use of the term “irenic”, etc.): you frequently complain that I have either misrepresented what you have written or have drawn the wrong implications from it. While it is tempting to argue otherwise, it is too tiresome to rebut each specific charge. There is another principle at work that I think you should notice: our disagreement draws at least as much energy from what you have not said. To use an admittedly crude example: if the only thing a person can think to say about the morality of Adolph Hitler is that he was a “committed vegetarian,” this would say rather more by way of omission. In your Nature column, and in this exchange, what you haven’t said matters more than you seem to realize.
I am not suggesting that it is “science’s duty to eradicate all traces of religion in the world.” Nor am I denying that science can be practiced alongside religion (in most forms), or that religious people can become scientists, or that smart scientists can sometimes harbor incredible religious beliefs, or that religious imbeciles can hanker after the products of science. Clearly, a juxtaposition between bad ideas/methods and good ones is possible—in a single brain, in an institution, in a culture, etc. And as far as science itself is concerned, it has become all too obvious that many scientists practice their discipline like a trade, without ever attempting to form a truly consilient, or even consistent, view of the world.
But the fact that such things are possible does not in the least suggest that they are optimal—or, indeed, that they do not come at a terrible price. I think it would be very difficult to find instances where incoherence, wishful thinking, and dogmatism have aided scientific progress—or, in fact, progress of any kind. The argument that there is no deep conflict between scientific rationality and religious faith because some scientists are religious, and all religious people value some science, is a false one—and it has become a stultifying shibboleth. Is there generally no conflict between marriage and adultery simply because the two are so often found together? Would it matter if the BioLechery Foundation produced adulterers who could attest, without blinking, to their clarity of conscience? The analogy isn’t perfect, but perhaps you see my point. The cuckold, incidentally, is not merely science itself, but everyone everywhere, and those yet unborn. Who knows how much better our world would be if we had birthed a culture of genuine intellectual honesty in the year 1200 (or 2000)?
So the fact that you find yourself surrounded by scientists and other smart people who may be a little “woolly” on the subject of God is evidence of absolutely nothing worth discussing (on my account), apart from the fact that it seems to have led you to miss the bigger picture and to speak and write in such a way as to give shelter to the deeply religious, powerfully irrational, and shockingly retrograde convictions of entire cultures and subcultures. This is not (as you have charged) to paint religion with a broad brush. I am very quick to distinguish gradations of bad ideas; some clearly have no consequences at all (or at least not yet); some put civilization itself in peril. The problem with dogmatism, however, is that one can never quite predict how terrible its costs will be. To use one of my favorite examples, consider the Christian dogma that human life begins at the moment of conception: On its face, this belief seems likely to only improve our world. After all, it is the very quintessence of a life-affirming doctrine.
Enter embryonic stem-cell research. Suddenly, this “life begins at the moment of conception” business becomes the chief impediment to medical progress. Who would have thought that such an innocuous idea could unnecessarily prolong the agony of tens of millions of people? This is the problem with dogmatism, no matter how seemingly benign: it is unresponsive to reality. Dogmatism is a failure of cognition (as well as a commitment to such failure); it is the state of being closed to new evidence and new arguments. And this frame of mind is rightly despised in every area of culture, on every subject, except where it goes by the name of “religious faith.” In this guise, parading its most grotesque faults as virtues, it is granted a special dispensation, even in the pages of Nature.
Your frequent claim that we must understand religious belief as a “social construct,” produced by “societal causes,” dependent upon “social and cultural institutions,” admitting of “sociological questions,” and the like, while it will warm the hearts of most anthropologists, is either trivially true or obscurantist. It is part and parcel of the double standard that so worries me—the demolition of which is the explicit aim of The Reason Project.
Epidemiology is also “social construct” with “societal causes,” etc.—but this doesn’t mean that the germ theory of disease isn’t true or that any rival “construct”—like one suggesting that child rape will cure AIDS—isn’t a dangerous, deplorable, and unnecessary eruption of primeval stupidity. We either have good reasons or bad reasons for what we believe; we can be open to evidence and argument, or we can be closed; we can tolerate (and even seek) criticism of our most cherished views, or we can hide behind authority, sanctity, and dogma. The main reason why children are still raised to think that the universe is 6,000 years old is not because religion as a “social institution” hasn’t been appropriately coddled and cajoled, but because polite people (and scientists terrified of losing their funding) haven’t laughed this belief off the face of the earth.
We did not lose a decade of progress on stem-cell research in the United States because of religion as a “social construct”; we lost it because of the behavioural and emotional consequences of a specific belief. If there were a line in the book of Genesis that read – “The soul enters the womb on the hundredth day (you idiots)” – we wouldn’t have lost a step on stem-cell research, and there would not be a Christian or Jew anywhere who would worry about souls in Petri dishes suffering the torments of the damned. The beliefs currently rattling around in the heads of human beings are some of the most potent forces on earth; some of the craziest and most divisive of these are “religious,” and so-dubbed they are treated with absurd deference, even in the halls of science; this is a very bad combination—that is my point.
For the purposes of this discussion, the only “social construct” that I am worried about is the one which convinces a journal like Nature that its paramount duty is to be polite in the face of Iron Age delusions. If ever there were a place to call a spade a “spade,” it is in the pages of the world’s most authoritative scientific publication. Let me remind you that the physiologist Rupert Sheldrake had his scientific career neatly decapitated, in a single stroke, by a Nature editorial. Did his vaguely “woolly” thesis about “morphogenetic fields” deserve at least a ride in a tumbrel? Perhaps. Was his book, A New Science of Life, as flagrantly unscientific as Francis Collins’, The Language of God? Not by a long shot. As I have pointed out, the journal’s treatment of Collin’s risible theology has been abject. You’ve also cited Ziauddin Sardar with admiration—but his whitewash of Islam in the pages of Nature was a travesty. Here again is the “social construct” and the double standard that you fail to acknowledge. Religion is probably the most consequential and divisive species of ignorance at work in the world today, and yet it is systematically shielded from criticism, even where it explicitly conflicts with science, and even in the world’s most important scientific journal. Amazing.
Of course, all that you have written is of a piece with the inertia felt in the rest of the scientific community: most scientists are simply out of touch with the religious infatuations that rule the better part of humanity; when in touch, they can’t be bothered to take them seriously. I have met anthropologists who will say, with a straight face, that no one in the Muslim world actually believes in martyrdom, and no jihadist has ever blown himself up with an expectation of entering paradise: it’s all politics and terrestrial grievances and “social constructs” and “societal causes” as far as the eye can see. A quip by Steven Weinberg comes to mind (said in reference, I think, to post-modern critiques of science): “You have to be very learned to be that wrong.” Indeed, one does—and many are. If there is anything good that can be said about the Bible-thumpers in my country, it is that they understand that the Muslim world is ablaze with old-time religion. Needless to say, devout Muslims return the favor. It is the scientists, secularists, and religious moderates—still licking their spoons of Karen Armstrong’s latest pabulum—who are so often confused, mistaking even their confusion itself for wisdom.
Best,
Sam
Dear Sam,
From what you say, it seems that my article tapped into a reservoir of ill will towards Nature on this issue. Perhaps that explains some of the vehemence of your response. But I am not in any sense speaking ‘for’ Nature, and any views the journal has published on these matters in the past were not mine.
In any case, I think we are (this may surprise you) agreed on the nature of the problem in some respects. That’s to say, I share your view that many of the alleged ‘facts’ that comprise most religious belief – the existence of a deity (or deities), that deity’s capacity to intervene in the world in supernatural ways, the whole paraphernalia of miracles, afterlife, saints, sin, absolution, virgin births, resurrections – are not just outside of science but fundamentally incompatible with a scientific view of the world. And while some agnostics might insist that we cannot ‘know’ that a god does not exist, this does not compel us to give the ‘for’ and ‘against’ possibilities equal weight. We shouldn’t imagine things into being without good reason to do so.
Where we part company is largely (though not entirely) over the practical question of what is the appropriate response to all this. If I have understood it correctly, your view is that, while science need not embark on a crusade to wipe out religion, scientists should at every opportunity criticize religious belief for being a groundless fantasy that encumbers people with false hopes and obstructive (even destructive) dogma. My view is that science need not feel so threatened by religion. Clearly, science sometimes has been and is explicitly threatened and hindered by religion – the stem-cell issue is one such. But I don’t regard this as inevitable (after all, by no means all Christians were opposed to stem-cell research). When scientific advance is blocked because of superstitious beliefs, we should be unequivocal in condemning that (and elsewhere I have done so). However, I believe that sometimes resistance to new technologies and research has come from religious quarters for ethical reasons that one might also hold as an atheist, and which are defensible even if I don’t agree with them. So we need to consider those distinctions carefully.
You say it would be very difficult to find instances where ‘incoherence, wishful thinking, and dogmatism have aided scientific progress—or, in fact, progress of any kind.’ I’m not sure whether you mean to include all manifestations of religious faith as part of this ‘incoherence, wishful thinking, and dogmatism’, but one can certainly make a case that religion has sometimes played a role in promoting a scientific outlook. Since the time of William of Conches in the twelfth century, some people have considered it a religious duty to explore and understand ‘God’s creation’. It seems quite likely that one’s objectivity in doing that is likely to be ultimately compromised if one insists on continuing to see it as God’s creation; but as it happened, this exploration, initiated as a religious imperative, in the end found ever less use for God. Similarly, the value accorded to scientific learning in the Muslim world in the eighth to the twelfth centuries drew some impetus from the interpretation of Islam then in favour.
You might say ‘But wouldn’t have it been even better if people had studied science without reference to God at all?’ But this, as well as your suggestion that we might have ‘birthed a culture of genuine intellectual honesty in the year 1200’, seems to me ahistorical. I can think of no plausible route from the embers of the Roman Empire to the Enlightenment that would not have been centred in Christianity (unless the Muslims had conquered Europe, perhaps – but that was never really their wish). I’m not wishing to make religion the champion of free thought here (God forbid), but only to suggest that the issues are more complex than you seem to want to allow.
Moreover, there is plenty of non-religious dogma that has hindered science too – think of Lysenkoism and the Nazis’ criticisms of ‘Jewish science’. I realise that of course you will deplore these too – but my point is that if, by some bizarre circumstance, Europe had ditched religion in 1200, I’m not sure we could necessarily expect the state of knowledge to be any better today than it is. Some other social construct seems likely to have come along and foiled the Baconian utopia. That, sadly, is what we humans do.
I think we also differ in that you are more of an idealist – perhaps more of an optimist – and I am more of a realist. I think that religion, or ideologies that are mostly indistinguishable from it, are a part of human society. I feel that science needs to find ways of working with that. And I say this not as a defeatist statement of resignation, but just as a recognition of the nature of humanity. I happen to feel – in fact, I am fully confident of it – that religion has made positive contributions to the human condition, as well as unambiguously negative ones. You might again argue that those things, such as charity, can and do exist without religion, and this is surely true. But to my mind, religion is for many people an expression of the very human impulses that allow us to be (for example) charitable. In any event, I suspect that we can no more expect to eliminate religion (or something like it) from society than we can eliminate music.
If that is the case, I feel that science does need to find some way of working alongside religion rather than pouring scorn on it at every opportunity. The relationship doesn’t have to be cosy and convivial, and indeed I think in general it will be, and probably should be, a tense one. But I believe it can be good enough to prevent us from having to tilt at windmills. I agree with you that there should be no reason to handle religion with kid gloves for fear of offending. But neither do I see a need to thrash it like a furious parent, vilify it as though it were a loathsome criminal, or deride it as idiotic. I think we can afford to treat some aspects of religion in a forthright yet adult-to-adult fashion.
Perhaps the crux of the matter is your statement that, although the coexistence of science and religion in societies and in individuals is of course possible, it ‘does not in the least suggest that they are optimal—or, indeed, that they do not come at a terrible price.’ There is a great deal of distance between those two possibilities. If it is simply ‘not optimal’, it doesn’t seem a big deal. If it comes at a terrible price, we should worry. I suspect that both of those things, and all others in between, have applied at different times and places.
Incidentally, your ‘Hitler’ analogy sounds rather compelling until you consider that what you’re saying seems more like the following: rather than say ‘Hitler was German chancellor from 1933 to 1945’, one is always obliged to say ‘Hitler (in my opinion a vile and deranged antisemite) was chancellor from 1933 to 1945’. What is not said doesn’t always imply a particular point of view.
Best wishes,
Phil
Dear Phil –
I think we may be seeing the first rays of daylight. As I suspected, our dispute seems to be mostly about practical issues—When should we be scrupulously honest? How can science be best communicated given the state of popular opinion? Etc.—with regard to which intelligent people can have differences of opinion, while sharing the same a worldview. This is not to say that our differences of opinion are inconsequential. I happen to think that that the approach you advocate generally splits the baby and is currently doing much harm to the integrity of science. Perhaps I should mention in this context that I have just heard back from your employer regarding my letter to the editor. It was declined (with a form letter). While I don’t want to read too much into this, let me tell you why Nature’s behavior amazes me (and should amaze our readers) and how it exemplifies many of the problems we have been discussing:
1. Philip Campbell (Nature’s Editor in Chief) contacted me personally in response to your article’s inclusion in The Reason Project Hall of Shame. He wrote to say that, as your views did not represent those of the journal, we appeared to be condemning Nature for printing “individual points of view.” This complaint struck me as something less than a masterpiece of candor, given Nature’s repeated coddling of religion and the fact that you are not just any scientist; rather, you are a "consultant editor for Nature" (and had been a physical sciences editor there for over a decade). But okay, I thought, perhaps I was wrong to assume that your column might in some way reflect the current position of the journal. Needless to say, I told Mr. Campbell that I was overjoyed that he published “individual points view.” Perhaps, he would consider printing another—and then I appended my letter to the editor.
2. In submitting this letter to Campbell, I made it clear that some of the most prominent scientists on the Reason Project advisory board had contributed to it and were eager to sign it as co-authors, if this would make it more attractive to him from a publishing point of view. I didn’t name names, but I more or less gave him his pick of a dozen 800 lb gorillas. Campbell told me that the journal would be back in touch soon.
3. Weeks passed. You were kind enough to check on the letter’s fate and learned that there was some speculation on Nature’s part about whether our debate-in-progress might make such a letter “redundant.” Nevertheless, you heard that it might still be published, perhaps with a few edits.
4. This morning, some nameless correspondence editor or intern (email address = correspondence@nature.com) sent me a form letter regretting that my letter could not be published due to “limited space.” There was no offer of publication on Nature’s website.
So, here is where we stand: Nature's editors have just rejected a strongly worded letter written, as far as they know, by any possible combination of RP advisors. Again I don’t want to read too much into this, but given that we are talking about some of the most influential scientists and public intellectuals around, I find this a pretty remarkable editorial decision. Needless to say, “limited space” is euphemism—especially given the possibility of publication on the Internet.
It seems to me that there is still something that you (and Campbell) haven’t quite absorbed about the problem with, as you say, “working alongside religion.” By remaining politely silent and hoping to just get on with its work, the culture of science has enabled religious delusions of all kinds—because whenever it opens its mouth, all (real) religion claims to describe reality as it is. Silence in the face of these assertions is generally indistinguishable from assent. Of course, intellectual apathy on the part of individual scientists and their leading journals would be a bad thing all on its own, but add to this the advocacy of organizations like the Templeton Foundation, which uses its 1.5 billion dollar endowment to carefully blur the line between reason and faith, and the effect is an almost a total ceding of the argument in favor of religion.
Here is an example of “working alongside religion” in practice. You may remember that Nature recently published an editorial that read like a press release for the Templeton Foundation. While it included a few mumbled lines about the difference between science and religion, the piece amounted to an almost giddy endorsement of John Templeton and the work of his foundation. Indeed, the greatest sin attributed to the Templeton foundation was that it sometimes supports areas of research deemed “marginal” by some scientists. And the examples Nature chose to highlight — positive psychology and cosmological theories that posit multiple universes — are, it seems to me, perfectly respectable fields of inquiry. The editorial included several unctuous and embarrassing assertions about John Templeton being “deeply spiritual” and inspired by “his love of science and his God”—as though statements of this kind begged no questions at all from the point of view of science. In its effort to keep “working alongside religion” (again, your phrase), Nature counselled “strict atheists” (who, by implication, must be outliers in the scientific community) to just “happily ignore” Templeton. The journal concluded that “critics' total opposition to the Templeton Foundation's unusual mix of science and spirituality is unwarranted.” While I can imagine Campbell felt he had struck a deft balance here, all things considered, this editorial constituted as forthright an act of fellatio as Templeton could have ever hoped to receive from the world’s leading scientific journal.
The Templeton Foundation’s work is quite a bit more insidious (and clever) than funding marginal research, or even obscenely silly projects like Collins’ BioLogos Foundation. Two examples of their work should suffice [1. here and 2. here].
Templeton’s recent advertisement about evolution (1. above), which appeared in almost every major newspaper and magazine in the United States, represents a very clever manipulation of scientific opinion. When faced with the question “Does Evolution Explain Human Nature?” even I would have said something like "Not entirely." Of course, Templeton knows that most people will only read the titles of these essays. The general effect of the page is to communicate the inadequacy of evolutionary theory and the perpetual incompleteness of science—and to encourage readers to draw the further the inference that one needs religion/faith to get all the way home to the Truth. It is an especially nice touch that the one unequivocal "Yes" comes from the journalist Robert Wright, who has become a committed apologist for religion. (Leave it to Francis Collins to deliver the eminently reasonable, "Not entirely.") Thus, whichever door one opens in this fun house of obfuscation, one finds a message that is comforting to religion. An earlier ad entitled “Does the Universe Have a Purpose?” played the same game with a carefully picked sample of respondents. Out of 12 responses, only two were direct answers of “No.” Glancing at the ad, one could only conclude that atheism must be a minority opinion in science. These ads amount to religious propaganda, pure and simple. And the Templeton foundation has spent millions of dollars on them (Full disclosure: I was asked to participate in an earlier series of ads, where I was told that the entire campaign would consist of one page of my heresy set against one page written by Francis Collins, to be placed in every major newspaper and magazine in the land. I declined.)
The d'Espagnat citation (2. above) produces a similar effect, at nauseating length. I’m not in a position to quibble with d’Espagnat’s science, nor do I intend to impugn him as a recipient of the Templeton Prize. But this citation represents another instance of religious propaganda. Reading it, one is given to understand that d’Espagnat would throw the full weight of his scientific reputation behind the following assertions: there is a hidden reality; science can't quite glimpse it; religion offers a glimpse of its own; thus, religion and science are complimentary--but religion is likely the deeper of the two. Of course, the juxtaposition of a brilliant scientist and the “world's largest annual award given to an individual” makes the Templeton Foundation appear both very important and intellectually credible. Whereas, in reality, all they are is a great pot of money surrounded by some very “woolly” ideas.
How is it possible that Campbell doesn’t see the problem with all this? Why wouldn’t Nature feel that it was editorially bound to draw the CLEAREST POSSIBLE distinction between real science and ancient delusions? After all, Nature fancies that it can distinguish groundbreaking science from merely pedestrian science—publishing the only former. Why can’t it see that there is a distinction of much greater consequence to society, and to the future of science, that it should also make: there is a difference, after all, between having good reasons for what one believes and having bad ones. Incidentally, this is the only distinction one needs to become a “strict” atheist.
All of this runs to the larger issue of intellectual honesty. Perhaps we can define “intellectual honesty” as the ratio between what a person has good reason to believe and what he will assert to be true. In the ideal case, this number would equal 1, and in science it approaches as near to 1 as it does anywhere in human discourse. It seems to me that most religions subsist, and even thrive, on values that can be brought arbitrarily close to zero for centuries on end—and, indeed, grow smaller the longer any religious authority speaks about content of the faith. This disparity between what counts for honesty in serious discourse, depending on the topic, is as strange as it is consequential. Is it really so “idealistic” to think that a journal like Nature might object to it?
Best,
Sam
Dear Sam,
I’m glad that you see ‘some rays of daylight’, by which I take you to mean, if not convergence then at least understanding of our positions. I’d like to feel that it should always be possible to be scrupulously honest in these matters, as well as polite as far as is warranted – I’m not sure there should ever be reason to hold back from saying to a religious believer ‘I feel there is no credible evidence for what you believe’ (so long as they don’t have a gun in their hand). But neither do I feel an obligation to say that at every opportunity, or to think that the debate ends there.
Incidentally, I note that I will no doubt be seen as one of those atheists who Richard Dawkins laments under the rubric ‘I’m an atheist but…’. But I’m not bowled over by Richard’s responses to the five variants he lists. For example, in suggesting that religion is a social construct I might be construed as a Type 1: “I’m an atheist, but religion is here to stay. You think you can get rid of religion? Good luck to you! You want to get rid of religion? What planet are you living on? Religion is a fixture. Get over it!’ That is (I hope this is clear by now) not at all how I’d put it, and frankly I don’t know whether it is ‘here to stay’ or not (who could?). I simply observe that since time immemorial human societies have organized themselves into hierarchical systems based on more or less arbitrary tenets, of which religions are a prominent example. That’s what we’re dealing with. I think this is probably a more productive way to regard the situation than to think that humans are ritualistically inculcated into stupidity for which a dose of cold reason is the cure. (It’s a shame, incidentally, that Richard doesn’t really address this position, but just caricatures it.)
And let’s not forget that, however much you might disagree with my position, it makes me closer to your own than Darwin was. (There is no tenable defence of the idea that he called himself an ‘agnostic’ rather than an atheist merely to spare people’s feelings.) But I don’t figure on seeing Darwin in your Hall of Shame any time soon…
It’s a pity that Nature rejected your letter, not least because that issue clearly preoccupied you in your last response. The problem is that I am not Nature, nor a spokesperson for Nature, nor in any way disposed to defend its decisions. The matters you cite had nothing to do with me. And while it is true that both Phil Campbell and I feel there is something to be said for ‘working alongside religion’, I don’t intend this to mean ‘remaining politely silent and hoping to just get on with its work’. I simply feel we need to choose our battles. And while you suggest that the distinction between science and religion is that of ‘having good reasons for what one believes and having bad ones’, I would disagree. By ‘good reasons’, you presumably mean ones that can be logically defended on the basis of objective evidence. I know plenty of religious people who believe because it helps them in life and makes them feel better. That seems a pretty good reason to me, even if I don’t share the view. (I hope it’s clear that, if ‘good reasons’ like that lead people to deny evolution or refuse blood transfusions, my magnanimity soon evaporates. I guess that makes me one of those British empiricists.)
I’ll say this about the Nature decision, however. I’m not a fan of form letters, although I worked long enough as an editor to understand the occasional need for them. My problem is that, as you say, they are euphemistic and often give little clue to the real reasons for a decision. I simply don’t know what the reason was in this case – it may really have been ‘limited space’, for all I know (for indeed space is limited). But I wish that had been made more explicit. However, bear in mind that it is almost unheard of for a letter about an opinion piece published only online to be given even a moment’s consideration for the print journal – normally the position is that the online-only content is completely separate from the print content, and so the latter does not carry comment on the former. Bear in mind also that you do not need permission to comment on the website – the feedback facility is open to all. (I suspect, however, that you were thinking in terms of something more than that.) There is also the consideration that the editors knew you intend to put some form of our dialogue online, and may feel that this will address the matter more adequately and comprehensively than a letter might have.
I was happy to help discover what Nature intended to do with your letter, but otherwise had no role in the decision (nor would it have been proper that I did, of course). I confess, however, to being a little surprised that you wanted to press on with having it published in the light of this exchange, which I feel has shown that your criticisms fall on a somewhat different target to the one the appears in your letter. I had hoped to assiduously avoid revisiting the issue, but the fact is that you have never refuted my argument that the letter misrepresents and misinterprets what I said, however much you continue to feel that I let religion too lightly off the hook. I’d be interested to know if any of ‘the most influential scientists and public intellectuals around’ would be inclined to defend putting their names to the letter in the light of this. I have deep respect for the scientists on your board, and would consider myself to be on warm terms with several of them – but even the most weighty of thinkers have to justify their positions.
All the best,
Phil
Dear Phil –
Perhaps I was wrong about that daylight…
In any case, I think our debate has run its course. I’ve participated in enough of these exchanges to no longer be surprised when a proper meeting of the minds fails to occur. But I must say that my feelings of futility and boredom are always compounded, in a way that I fear will be shared by many of our readers, whenever I find myself grappling with the vapors of “I’m an atheist but…” The problem with this view—which I agree, well summarizes your own—is that it so often takes the form of simply missing the point. In fact, “I’m an atheist but…” generally represents a commitment to missing the point—as it derives most of its content from simply not seeing what all the fuss is about. Such obliviousness can always be given a positive spin (“we need to choose our battles”), but there is no escaping the fact that yours is the perspective of one who does not quite see the depth and scope of the problem. This position is easy enough to maintain: all one need do is avert one’s eyes. Indeed, the “I’m an atheist but…” school generally believes that ignoring the problem of religion is the wisest course of action (some call this “realism”). I hope it does not seem ad hominem when I say that your view of these matters strikes me as intellectually lazy—but it is lazy in the extreme. There is a certain genius in laziness, however, as it can never be proven wrong. Or, rather, it can never be made to notice when it has been, again and again.
While I have little hope of getting through to you at this late hour, I should address a few points in closing: First, you seem to view my focus on Nature’s accommodation of religion as some kind of personal obsession and a distraction from the subject of our exchange. Here you have, I’m afraid, missed the point of our exchange (or at least missed my point in initiating it). In my view, your article was remarkable and worth debating for two reasons: (1) it appeared in Nature, and (2) it represented a further instance of Nature’s blinkered appeasement of religion. The point I have made repeatedly, and will now make one final time, is that it really matters that the world’s most influential scientific journal seems both deluded about religion and committed to remaining so. Had your article appeared in the Guardian, there would have been no reason for us to have this debate. (While I find it depressing, I actually expect a newspaper like the Guardian to pander to religion.)
Secondly, the fact that you can unselfconsciously assert that people believe in one or another religious doctrine “because it helps them in life and makes them feel better” and then say that this “seems a pretty good reason” to you indicates how little you have thought about the conflict between religion and science. If I told you that I believed that the H5N1 virus will never become a pandemic, or that string theory will be fully vindicated in the near future, or that complex life first developed on Mars and was later transferred to earth, and I gave as my reason for holding these beliefs that each “makes me feel better,” I am confident that your response would not be this “seems a pretty good reason to me.” Don’t you see how bizarre it is to accept such shoddy thinking with respect to the existence of a personal God or the divine origin of a specific book? A person cannot (or least should not be able to) believe something because it “makes him feel better.” The fact that people occasionally do manage such contortions is what renders phrases like “self-deception,” “wishful thinking,” “experimenter bias,” etc., so important to keep on hand. Please notice that these phrases describe how it looks from the outside when people believe a proposition because “it makes them feel better.” Please also notice that this frame of mind represents a failure of cognition and reasoning that all sane people decry in every area of serious discourse but one.
A world in which people believe propositions merely because these propositions “make them feel better” is a world gone utterly mad. It is a world of private and irreconcilable epistemologies. It is a world where communication, even on the most important issues—perhaps especially on the most important issues—is guaranteed to fail. Of course, you have tried arrest your slide into the abyss in your parenthetical remark about evolution and blood transfusions—but one can draw no such boundary unless one draws it based on some deeper principle. You cannot say that a person’s reason for believing in the virgin birth is “good” just so long as this belief has no negative consequences on his behavior. Whether a belief is well founded or not has nothing to do with its consequences.
Generally speaking, for a belief to be justified, our acceptance of it must be dependent upon its actually being true (and not be dependent upon how its being true would make us feel). Needless to say, the preceding sentence does not suffice as full account of epistemology: uniting both science and commonsense and reconciling their frequent disagreements. But there can be no doubt about the difference between a belief that is overtly motivated by emotional bias (and other non-epistemic factors) and a belief that is comparatively free of such bias. I wonder if we will live to see the day when scientists and their leading journals might be counted upon to recognize this difference without having to be pilloried by “strict” atheists.
Your blithe acceptance that belief can be something other than epistemic—something other than an effort to reliably map reality in our thoughts—makes it impossible to differentiate belief from mere hope. I’m sure many people you know hope that there is a God; they hope that they will see their friends and loved ones after death; they hope that their lives are aligned with some larger cosmic purpose; and they are disposed to make much of this hope—to celebrate it, and to gather with others who hope for these same things. Your friends might say that this hope has enriched their lives or has in some way become indispensable to their functioning in the world. But if these friends of yours are really religious—that is, really conforming to the doctrine of Christianity, Islam, Judaism, etc.—they will have taken a further step toward delusion and mistaken this hope for a form of knowledge. They may have yanked their bootstraps this way: “How could I find this hope so consoling if it were not, in fact, well founded? Perhaps this feeling of hopefulness itself attests to the truth of thing hoped for… Praise be to God!” Of course there are many other ways to chase one’s tail under the aegis of religion. Such “woolly” thinking is enabled by the fact that it almost never meets resistance, even from scientists (who, as we know, must “choose their battles”). It should be abundantly clear, however, that mere hope does not constitute knowledge, no matter how lovingly one tends it and props it up in the wind.
In your last email you summarize the situation as follows:
“I simply observe that since time immemorial human societies have organized themselves into hierarchical systems based on more or less arbitrary tenets, of which religions are a prominent example. That’s what we’re dealing with. I think this is probably a more productive way to regard the situation than to think that humans are ritualistically inculcated into stupidity for which a dose of cold reason is the cure.”
It is amazing that you can advance this as a serious position. First off, it is undeniable that most humans are “ritualistically inculcated into stupidity” from birth onwards by their religious parents. Second, it is a perverse (and highly condescending) article of faith among secular academics that people can never be reasoned out of their religious convictions. I have heard from literally thousands of people who used to belief in the God of Abraham—indeed, many used to be scriptural literalists—who were stripped of their faith after a proper collision with Reason. It is quite possible for people to notice how “woolly” their thinking has been, how they were part of a culture grown incandescent with lies, how their parents and elders raised them in a near total vacuum of critical thinking and in complete ignorance of the scientific worldview. Indeed, I once had the pleasure of having dinner with a woman could pinpoint the very moment she lost her faith, as it had been purged from her mind that morning while reading one of my books. Her overwhelming feeling was of regret for all the time she had wasted over the course of her life. No doubt such a terrific sense of sunk cost keeps many people stuck to a pew. Perhaps not everyone can be reasoned out of his or her faith—but the problem is that we don’t know how fully people’s minds could change because we haven’t really tried (please don’t feel tempted to make yet another tendentious excursion into history and bring up the French Revolution or the gulag). You’d do well to notice how easily children can be reasoned out of their belief in Santa Claus. The all enter school as devout believers, and they all exit as perfect sceptics. How is this dialectical miracle accomplished? Quite simply: there is no cultural support for a belief in Santa past a certain age, and no one likes to be laughed at. Do we replace Santa Claus with anything? No. We just oblige people to grow up.
In any case, the problem isn’t that human societies are organized in “hierarchical systems based on more or less arbitrary tenets” (can you really be serious? It is rare to find such a crystalline example of academic cant. I think you’d be wise to remove the letters H-I-E-R-A from your keyboard for a while). The problem is that intellectual honesty is still a very scarce commodity in our world; we are rather bad at producing it, and it is taboo to even try once the conversation turns to the subject of God.
I realize that my tone of chastisement has probably grown very tedious and could be mistaken for hostility. But I can’t help but feel that there is a great asymmetry between our points of view – both in how fully they have been thought out and in their degree of the moral seriousness. I see the perpetuation of ancient tribalism and ignorance (read “religion”) to be a grave problem, and the source of much unnecessary suffering in the world; you claim that the problem is either not very serious or that it is unavoidable—in either case there is not much to be done. You do not seem to see what an astonishing number of the world’s conflicts and missed opportunities arise from people’s false knowledge about God, and when specific instances are pointed out to you, you deem them to be inevitable (if it’s not religion it would be something else), or you defensively say, well of course I object to that instance of religious stupidity: parents shouldn’t withhold blood transfusions from their children!... But the truth is, a comprehensive response to the problem of religious ignorance is possible, and a piecemeal response is totally unprincipled and bound to seem so. Our world has be shattered, and is reliably shattered anew with each subsequent generation, by irreconcilable claims about God and his magic books. Until we stop enabling these competing delusions—by our silence and by our silly attempts to change the subject—we will have no one to blame but ourselves when medieval ideas come crashing into public life—as they do, and will, to our great detriment.
But enough… As I said at the outset, I sincerely appreciate your willingness to debate these issues at length. I remain hopeful that exchanges like this are useful (for someone, somewhere, sometime), whether or not the participants themselves budge an inch.
Thanks for your time, Phil. I wish you all the best,
Sam
Dear Sam,
One somewhat frustrating aspect of this exchange for me has been that you seem to insist that any disagreement with your point of view is not genuine disagreement as such but is missing the point. My sense is that you cannot conceive how any sane, rational person can hold a point of view different from your own, so that if they insist on doing so, they are obviously being either obtuse or stupid. Your first long paragraph is all rhetoric along those lines. I’d add here that, while I won’t accuse you of intellectual laziness, I do feel that your absolutism is, like most absolutisms, the easy way out. There is then always a right answer, and your convictions supply it ready-made. I understand everything you say about religion being generally filled with irrational beliefs, and it would be very easy for me too to say that ‘people should not believe anything for bad or invalid or flaky reasons, and therefore we must strive to ensure that they never do.’ I suspect that philosophers might find that an epistemologically dodgy position to take, but I can see that it makes life easy. I don’t find it either attractive or useful, however.
In your second paragraph, I fear that – dare I say – you have yourself missed the point in regard to Nature. Had I written a column saying that thank goodness the Reason Project has finally appeared to blast away Francis Collins and all apologists of that ilk, Nature would have published it. It is a matter of indifference to me whether you will scoff at this statement; I simply know it to be true. I can see that as it stood, my column fed into your disenchantment with what Nature has said before. But it is utterly independent of that, and to think otherwise is to become a conspiracy theorist.
But to the meat of your argument. I stated in my original article that at least your position can claim some philosophical rigour. I think this is the one aspect of the piece I might now have to withdraw. You say:
“If I told you that I believed that the H5N1 virus will never become a pandemic, or that string theory will be fully vindicated in the near future, or that complex life first developed on Mars and was later transferred to earth, and I gave as my reason for holding these beliefs that each “makes me feel better,” I am confident that your response would not be this “seems a pretty good reason to me.” Don’t you see how bizarre it is to accept such shoddy thinking with respect to the existence of a personal God or the divine origin of a specific book? A person cannot (or least should not be able to) believe something because it “makes him feel better.””
There are two answers to this. One is at the human level. Let’s imagine a person, say a well educated doctor, who has thought deeply about the religious faith he feels, and concludes that it is something he cherishes and finds meaningful and doesn’t interfere with his trust in science. His faith in God is valuable to him. Now, you will say he is deluded and hasn’t thought deeply enough about all the contradictions this creates. I believe that he holds an incorrect belief about the world. But do I think that it is intolerable that he should continue to find solace in his belief? No, I think that the fact that he finds solace in it makes it perfectly rational on one level for him to maintain that belief, even if it is irrational in other respects. It is rational to do what makes us feel good. That doesn’t always make it right for us to do so, but that’s another matter. Your charge is that the problem comes because this chap considers he has a form of knowledge – he thinks he knows there is a God. Yes, often this is what happens for people who are superficially religious, and many, many are. And here they are plain wrong, I don’t dispute that. If my chap thinks this way, he is mistaken. Hold the front page: ‘Man is mistaken’. But if he knows his theology, he knows why religion – and in honesty I only really know about Christianity here – emphasizes faith, not knowledge.
Let me add that it strikes me that we have different imaginary ‘believers’ in sight. I agree with you that it would be condescending to think that no believer could ever be dissuaded from their belief by logical argument. Indeed, if they’ve been insulated from any logical thinking, they might very well be susceptible to that approach. But it is equally condescending to think that believers only believe because they’ve never thought seriously about the issues. I suspect that the ‘convert’ you mention had never had the opportunity or means to do so. Not all believers are like her.
Here is my other answer to your passage above. If you told me you believed those things about bird flu and string theory and life on Mars because they make you feel better, I’d say, well, we’ll find out won’t we? We’ll some day have objective evidence that proves or disproves your belief. If you told me that you believed in God because this gives your life meaning, am I going to say the same thing? Not if I know the first thing about philosophy. Despite what Richard Dawkins has asserted, the existence of God is not amenable to scientific testing. Or rather, we could come across evidence that God exists, but not that he doesn’t. But that’s the problem, you say! Yes, that is the problem. That is why belief in God holds no meaning for me. But it also means that your comparison here is utterly bogus.
A better analogy might be with someone who believes the universe will last forever ‘because it makes me feel better’. (I’m not totally sure that this isn’t scientifically falsifiable, but it’s hard to see how it might be given the present state of play.) That doesn’t sound so objectionable, does it? It sounds rather meaningless to me, but I’m not sure it need incite our outrage.
You might reasonably say that what is objectionable is if this person expects others to take his belief seriously and treat it with respect, and even to create academic departments and organizations devoted to exploring it. To put it another way (which you might recognize), we would not rush to create faculties of leprechology just because someone chose to believe in leprechauns. This is fair enough. But I believe it is disingenuous to compare the major religions with a belief in leprechauns, or even with a belief in the eternity of the universe. The major religions have an ethical code, a rich tradition of art, they are woven into social and cultural fabrics. (All of it based on a false premise, you might say, or rather, on a premise that is unfalsifiable and for which there is not a shred of evidence.) But my view is that, at its best, religions can provide ways to think about the human condition. I don’t believe it is fair to simply dismiss them as childish. I would like to think, as I suspect you do, that everything that is positive about religion could also be attained without a belief in God, let alone miracles and saints and all the rest. (I do suspect that ritual is less dispensable.) But it seems unfair to deny that religion has any of these good aspects, as well as undoubtedly becoming encumbered with a great deal of dogmatism, delusion and claptrap (much of which does not necessarily accord with good theology).
Onward. I’m not clear why you object to the notion that human societies tend to be organized ‘in hierarchical systems based on more or less arbitrary tenets’, because here again you use rhetoric in place of debate. I live in one; you live in one. Over a billion people in China live in one. Martin Luther lived in one. Your point is?
You say ‘You do not seem to see what an astonishing number of the world’s conflicts and missed opportunities arise from people’s false knowledge about God’. Which are you going to cite – Northern Ireland? Iraq? The Crusades? If only it wasn’t for that pesky God and his offspring, all these places would have lived in blissful peace! The Taliban? – why, they’d be lovely folks if they weren’t Muslim extremists! How wonderful, how simple and easy, to be able to blame all these things on a false belief in gods! Gosh, this counterfactual history is easier than I ever imagined!
Sorry, facetiousness is no help. I am afraid that I fall into it here as a substitute for real anger, because I find it maddening to see the suggestion that sectarian violence in Belfast, tribal conflict in Iraq, Hindu-Muslim violence in India, and goodness knows how much else suffering in the world could be solved if we could just persuade people to give up their ridiculous faiths. I fully accept that it is no good either to simply say, as I know some do, ‘Oh, it’s only human nature, and religion is just the excuse.’ No, the truth is, sadly, much more complicated. And that is why I think the answers are too. But I have been left from our exchange with the feeling that ‘complicated’ is for you just a cop-out. I guess maybe that is where we fundamentally disagree. You seem to feel that any attempt to introduce into the debate considerations about culture, history, society and politics are unwelcome and even wilfully deceitful diversions from the main business of demolishing religions for believing in things for which there is no evidence. That seems to be your ‘point’ – I’m afraid I simply can’t accept it.
Thank you for engaging in this debate. It has helped to focus my own thinking, and I hope you have seen some value in it too.
Best wishes,
Phil
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