Slaves to Superstition

August 13, 2007 4:42 AM

Episode one of controversial evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins' new series Enemies of Reason premieres on Channel 4 tonight. Here's a list of topics.
posted by chuckdarwin (310 comments total)

Erm, Themes:

Astrology
Paranormal
The Past
Prejudice
Wikipedia
Medicine

posted by chuckdarwin at 4:47 AM on August 13, 2007

The usual assaults on Dawkins as an extremist, despite the fact that the other side has literally millions of people doing the exact same thing (only without the facts on their side) every Sunday morning around the world in 3...2...1....
posted by DU at 4:52 AM on August 13, 2007 [7 favorites]

The Observer astrologer interviewed responds.
posted by edd at 4:58 AM on August 13, 2007

Don't forget Charlie Brooker's Screen Burn about the show.

Which is so beautifully rant-tastic that I'm still in awe.

and secret lust
posted by Katemonkey at 5:09 AM on August 13, 2007 [6 favorites]

That astrologer's response would have improved the FPP a deal more than three variations on the same channel4 link and a wikipedia page.
posted by Leon at 5:11 AM on August 13, 2007

Stern face!
posted by asok at 5:12 AM on August 13, 2007

Interesting that his response doesn't even have a defense of astrology (probably because it is impossible). Instead, he just attacks Dawkins.
posted by grouse at 5:13 AM on August 13, 2007 [1 favorite]

Both Dawkins and that astrologer are enemies of reason in my book. The astrologer, arguing for homeopathy, says that "the placebo effect is real enough" and in the same sentence bases his argument for homeopathy on "a wealth of personal testimony" -- which of course is undermined by the wealth of data on the placebo effect. And then the astrologer tries to nail Dawkins down on liking Yeats, and apparently Dawkins said to him "Oh, Yeats wrote a lot of pretty words...whether they mean anything is another matter". Dawkins reads poetry like a slack-jawed yokel or a sixth-grader apparently.
posted by creasy boy at 5:13 AM on August 13, 2007 [1 favorite]

'The Enemies of Reason'

No doubt he looks forward to the day where he can execute Theists. Dawkins hasn't demonstrated any familiarity with theology or even the philosophy of Religion (a field dominated by secularists. He is yet another village athiest, but if the French Revolution and Communism showed anything, it's that believers will never be able to match the brutality of the atheists. There is little rhetorical difference betweens Dawkins "enemies of reason" and the "Enemies of people."
posted by Gnostic Novelist at 5:18 AM on August 13, 2007

The money quote from that astrologer: "Scientism, of course, hates meaning."
posted by creasy boy at 5:19 AM on August 13, 2007

but if the French Revolution and Communism showed anything, it's that believers will never be able to match the brutality of the atheists

Oh do fuck off.
posted by ClanvidHorse at 5:24 AM on August 13, 2007 [31 favorites]

"Dawkins said to him "Oh, Yeats wrote a lot of pretty words...whether they mean anything is another matter". Dawkins reads poetry like a slack-jawed yokel or a sixth-grader apparently."
In fairness, explaining the difference between good literature and literature which has some fundamental relevance to the makeup of the universe isn't wonderfully easy to put into one sentence in a way that doesn't allow someone to portray it in an unintended way. I think it would be unwise to think Dawkins really does read poetry 'like a slack-jawed yokel or a sixth-grader'.

"No doubt he looks forward to the day where he can execute Theists."
Plenty of doubt.

"Dawkins hasn't demonstrated any familiarity with theology or even the philosophy of Religion"
Courtier's reply.
posted by edd at 5:26 AM on August 13, 2007

That astrologer's response would have improved the FPP a deal more than three variations on the same channel4 link and a wikipedia page.

The interview with Dawkins was meant to be the pivotal link. Funny how you completely failed to mention it.
posted by chuckdarwin at 5:34 AM on August 13, 2007

Edd: yes but it doesn't matter to me what Dawkins is like at home in his slippers. Its his public positions and his public persona that matter. If he sets himself up as a spokeperson of rationality and in this guise says that poetry is basically meaningless, this gets on my nerves -- since I'm more or less one of the people he alleges to be speaking for. Dawkins' only value as a public persona should be in speaking out against exactly this kind of dogmatic insistence upon ignorance, not mouthing it himself.
posted by creasy boy at 5:34 AM on August 13, 2007

Thanks edd, as ever, for the help.
posted by chuckdarwin at 5:34 AM on August 13, 2007

The Courtier's Reply presupposes that Dawkins is right. It does not address the claim that Dawkins is ignorant of religious matters. It merely says that 'Dawkins is right because religion is a put-on'. It's virtually an ad hominem attack.
posted by lyam at 5:38 AM on August 13, 2007

Katemonkey, that is an excellent article...
posted by chuckdarwin at 5:38 AM on August 13, 2007

Christ, Gnostic Novelist, even ParisParamus was a better troll than you are. Good trolls phrase things in such a way that there could possibly be some chance that they're not actually trolling. Posting nonsense like "No doubt he looks forward to the day where he can execute Theists." and "He is yet another village athiest, but if the French Revolution and Communism showed anything, it's that believers will never be able to match the brutality of the atheists. There is little rhetorical difference betweens Dawkins "enemies of reason" and the "Enemies of people."" demonstrates a complete lack of skill and effort.

That your trolling is so poor is far more offensive than any assault on minorities or homosexuals or atheists that you can come up with.
posted by Pope Guilty at 5:38 AM on August 13, 2007 [3 favorites]

Aye, Pope Guilty. I agree. After I had posted my response above I felt bad for being caught by such a piss poor trolling effort.
posted by ClanvidHorse at 5:41 AM on August 13, 2007

Good God that Charlie Booker rant reads like Michael Savage ripping the Democrats a new one.
posted by lyam at 5:42 AM on August 13, 2007

chuck: I didn't mention it because there was nothing wrong with it. Great link. Bravo, and all that. Pat on the back. Thanks for the heads-up. But you've got to admit, this:

channel4.com/culture/microsites/E/enemies_of_reason/
channel4.com/culture/microsites/E/enemies_of_reason/index.html
channel4.com/culture/microsites/E/enemies_of_reason/themes.html

is a bit weak.
posted by Leon at 5:45 AM on August 13, 2007

In fairness, explaining the difference between good literature and literature which has some fundamental relevance to the makeup of the universe isn't wonderfully easy to put into one sentence in a way that doesn't allow someone to portray it in an unintended way.

he doubted yates' poetry meant anything ... it's pretty hard to interpret that in any way that doesn't make dawkins look like a philistine ... he wasn't trying to explain anything, just dismiss it
posted by pyramid termite at 5:48 AM on August 13, 2007

I think that Neil Spencer's response is an ideal illustration of the problem that he (Spencer) can't see. He just doesn't seem to understand that there are things that are (or should be) covered by science and there are things aren't. Poetry is something that is not under the perview of science and can be enjoyed purely for its emotional (or whatever) effects. However, something such as astrology, which purports to link causes and effects has to be held to the same standards as anything else that claims the same. It may well be that when I concentrate really hard that I can make a die always roll a 6, but unless I can demonstrate this in a scientific way, then I would not expect anyone to take my claim seriously.


In discussions like these, I am always reminded of the Dalai Lama's response to questions about the inviobility of Buddhist doctrine - He has repeatedly said that when science shows that Buddhist scriptures are incorrect, then the scriptures should be rejected.
posted by daveg at 5:50 AM on August 13, 2007 [1 favorite]

I always thought that superstition was caused by a lack of reasoning ability rather than the other way around. If you could get someone to abandon their new age crystals, biblical literalism, young Earth theory or whatever, wouldn't they just run out and replace it with some other metaphysical security blanket? Perhaps one that the allies of reason would like even less?
posted by BrotherCaine at 5:56 AM on August 13, 2007 [3 favorites]

but if the French Revolution and Communism showed anything, it's that believers will never be able to match the brutality of the atheists

You've got to be kidding. Or you slept through most of history class. Ever heard of the Inquisition? Witch burning? The KKK? 9/11? No subset of the human race and no subscribers to any ideology have ever cornered the market on brutality.
posted by orange swan at 5:57 AM on August 13, 2007 [1 favorite]

The thing about poetry and meaning is that Dawkins is a material reductionist. From his standpoint, "meaning" is a particular configuration of brain chemistry. He may be right or wrong about Yeats, but he's not saying this just to stir up some shit- he's simply fully aware and accepting of the philosophical consequences of material reductionism, and those consequences are alternately horrifying and terrifying to people who are used to a quasi-supernatural conception of the self.

In other words, if you believe that you have free will, and that concepts like "meaning" exist in some way other than as predictable patterns of brain chemistry, of course Dawkins looks like a Philistine- the implication that one is not endowed with that which the quasi-supernatural conception of self (which is the dominant paradigm) is rather abhorrent.
posted by Pope Guilty at 5:59 AM on August 13, 2007 [4 favorites]

But I looked great in a smock and I was the best turnip-chucker in the village!
posted by Abiezer at 6:01 AM on August 13, 2007 [3 favorites]

I always thought that superstition was caused by a lack of reasoning ability rather than the other way around.

That's an interesting point, but consider how you would convince someone that, say, Biblical literalism is untrue...you could never teach them just that, you would inevitably convince them of the value of more general principles of critical thought as well. Unless you somehow, instead of truly persuading them, just brainwash them out of their old brainsashing. I agree that this would be useless.
posted by creasy boy at 6:01 AM on August 13, 2007

The thing about poetry and meaning is that Dawkins is a material reductionist. From his standpoint, "meaning" is a particular configuration of brain chemistry.

Doesn't this come around to bite him in the ass though? If fundamentalist hogwash and astrology are just brain configurations with no "meaning", and scientifically sound theoretical models are equally just brain configurations lacking meaning, then why should it matter anymore to him or me or anyone who thinks what? Isn't this is a position that makes it impossible to argue for any position at all?
posted by creasy boy at 6:05 AM on August 13, 2007

scientifically sound theoretical models are equally just brain configurations lacking meaning

No, scientific models explain something beyond what's in a human brain. Well, except for the models of neuroscience, etc.
posted by grouse at 6:11 AM on August 13, 2007

If fundamentalist hogwash and astrology are just brain configurations with no "meaning", and scientifically sound theoretical models are equally just brain configurations lacking meaning, then why should it matter anymore to him or me or anyone who thinks what? Isn't this is a position that makes it impossible to argue for any position at all?

Not really. Certainly he could formulate the following based on self-interest (which I don't really think is what he's doing, but bear with me, this is theoretical):

1) Supernaturalism holds back science and therefore harms people.
2) I'm part of "people".
3) .: I'm harmed by supernaturalism and would benefit from a reduction of supernaturalism. (from 1, 2)
4) I can act to reduce the amount of supernaturalism in the world.
5) .: I should act to reduce the amount of supernaturalism in the world. (from 3, 4)

I think he'd couch things in terms of concern for human wellbeing (in a humans-as-a-whole sense rather than the self-interest sense that I've formulated above) or a distaste for what he perceives as falsehood.
posted by Pope Guilty at 6:12 AM on August 13, 2007

Bittorrent please ...
posted by homodigitalis at 6:22 AM on August 13, 2007

orange swan You've got to be kidding. Or you slept through most of history class. Ever heard of the Inquisition? Witch burning? The KKK? 9/11? No subset of the human race and no subscribers to any ideology have ever cornered the market on brutality.

The 9/11 terrorists were not Christian. As for the Inquisition, it was mostly a political matter of power, but I would never excuse it. Witch burning and the KKK were indeed mistakes, but only the former was truly rooted in anything resembling religion. The Klu Klux Klan were progressives, albeit they may have been a little on the racist side. They weren't primarily a religion organization. Atheists put up numbers that religious fundamentalists couldn't dream of. Islamic radicalism will never be as successful as the militant atheists were. I'd sooner tolerate a holy Islamic state than anything resembling an atheist one.
posted by Gnostic Novelist at 6:23 AM on August 13, 2007 [1 favorite]

Pope Guilty: so in your presentation either it's all premised on self-interest, which is bad given his outraged and concerned demeanour, or it's premised on some feeling of goodwill for others that he happens to have...and either way when asked why it matters what's good for him or why he's concerned for others he can basically only shrug and say "it's in my programming" or something similar. Here's where his programme for me begins to look irrational, because his very narrow conception of rationality means he simply cannot account morally or ethically for himself and his actions and opinions....but he continues to have them anyways....rather stubborn and dogmatic, it would seem.

Anyway I meant to attack materialism even deeper on the level of truth and not just surface ethics. One process for arriving at opinions would be listening to your local preacher. Another process would be examining evidence and inferring to the best hypothesis. (Both oversimplifications). Now both these processes exist, and as such for Dawkins both exist as mechanical processes, bits of matter colliding and reacting. But Dawkins seems to think that one process is more valid than the other. What is this validity -- another bunch of molecules? In other words, how is truth just a molecular state? And then this is a different question than how he justifies his moral concern for the truth.
posted by creasy boy at 6:27 AM on August 13, 2007 [1 favorite]

This is ridiculous Gnostic Novelist. If Dawkins and the rest of us who want to promote this sort of thing want anything it's that we want you to think and reason your way to your beliefs. If you end up an atheist because the law tells you to we're no better off than if you end up anything else because anything other than reason tells you to.

And I can't think of any reason someone might think Dawkins or anyone else like that was planning a brutal campaign to wipe theists off the planet by force. It defeats the whole object of what he's trying to get people to do - think.
posted by edd at 6:31 AM on August 13, 2007

The 9/11 terrorists were not Christian.

They were fundamentalists, and what they did was rooted in their religious beliefs. You said "the believers will never match the brutality of the atheists".

The Klu Klux Klan were progressives, albeit they may have been a little on the racist side.

A little? A LITTLE?

They weren't primarily a religion organization.

They called themselves Christians. So did Hitler, for that matter. So, they're "believers". You could argue that their ideology doesn't stem from their religious beliefs, but then to be consistent you'd also have to admit that Stalin's brutality didn't stem from his atheism, but was "mostly a political matter of power".
posted by orange swan at 6:38 AM on August 13, 2007 [8 favorites]

albeit they may have been a little on the racist side

A little? You think?

Atheists put up numbers that religious fundamentalists couldn't dream of.

You mean between the Inquisition, the Crusades, the witch burnings, the pogroms, the forced conversions, the "missionaries" in Latin America and Africa, the early Catholic-Protestant conflicts (and even current--remember the IRA?)? Then there's the corruption, the sexual abuse scandals, the Magdalene Sisters--and that's just Christianity. We're not even talking all the other religious conflicts that have existed since religion came about. Atheism hasn't been around long enough to rack up those kinds of numbers. And find, prattle on about how those were all using religion as a front for power and political battles--but then you argue that atheism and French Republic and the terrors of Communist Russia are not allowed the same consideration? When religious people do evil, it's not actually in the name of their god. But when atheists do evil, it must be because of the atheism and not anything else.
posted by schroedinger at 6:39 AM on August 13, 2007 [5 favorites]

Oh, whoops, orange swan got there first.
posted by schroedinger at 6:39 AM on August 13, 2007

Metafilter: a little on the racist side
posted by The Ultimate Olympian at 6:42 AM on August 13, 2007

YHBT guys.
posted by grouse at 6:42 AM on August 13, 2007

Dawkins's fatal flaw is that he is not nice -- it's not about being right, it's about being nice. but these are bad times for those who insist on relying on reason -- it's God vs Allah
posted by matteo at 6:45 AM on August 13, 2007 [1 favorite]

You silly knob-knocker. If you can dismiss the Inquisition as essentially about power, you could ascribe the mass deaths of Communist China or the Soviet Union to millenarian themes underpinning ostensibly atheist political movements. For a Gnostic, you're a bit of a know-nothing.
posted by Abiezer at 6:46 AM on August 13, 2007 [8 favorites]

It's not that Dawkins is a reductionist. The problem is that in his attempts to disprove religion he adopts a position as both a radical materialist and empiricist: you can only say anything exists if there is empirical evidence for it. It's not impossible to have a consistent philosophy based on that, but it leads you through a number of philsophical minefields which are very hard to negotiate. He seems barely aware of them, and his followers seem entirely ignorant of them.

Some of the problems:
1. The problem of induction
2. Descartes problem that you cannot know the senses to be reliable
3. Mathematics depends on assuming unprovable axioms, science depends on mathematics
4. It's extremely difficult to produce an ethical system relying on empiricaly verifiable facts rather than concepts like "human rights" or "the common good".

As a result, Dawkins followers tend to be fundamentally irrational, since they hold inconsistent belief systems.

For example, consider the Judeo-Christian taboo against infanticide. That didn't exist in the pre-Christian Greek, Roman or Germanic cultures: it was introduced by Christianity purely as a consequence of Christian theology.

Somehow, many Dawkinsians hold fixedly to this strange Judeo-Christian taboo, and have no consistent moral theory to explain why a creature not capable of speech or apparent rational thought should be treated differently to any other animal.
posted by TheophileEscargot at 6:47 AM on August 13, 2007 [5 favorites]

I'd sooner tolerate a holy Islamic state than anything resembling an atheist one.

What would an "atheist" state be? Has there ever been one? I wouldn't want to live in Stalinist Russia or in China as it was under Mao, but that has nothing to do with their atheism and much more to do with the horribly repressive regimes they had. Any state that forces people to abide by any ideology without regard for civil liberties is likely to be a damned miserable place to live, and a secular government that allows and protects its citizens individual rights to religious freedom will be as close to Utopian as we're likely to get in this flawed world.
posted by orange swan at 6:48 AM on August 13, 2007

Abiezer: Are you talking about the Spanish Inquisition or the medieval inquisitions? They're not really the same thing.

The Spanish Inquisition is widely believed by mainstream historians to have been politically motivated.
posted by TheophileEscargot at 6:50 AM on August 13, 2007

Here's where his programme for me begins to look irrational, because his very narrow conception of rationality means he simply cannot account morally or ethically for himself and his actions and opinions....but he continues to have them anyways....rather stubborn and dogmatic, it would seem.

He doesn't have to account for himself morally or ethically. I imagine he does, but material reductionism would limit morality and ethics to behavior sets which maximise harmony or some other good-for-us goal without reference to supernaturalism.

One process for arriving at opinions would be listening to your local preacher. Another process would be examining evidence and inferring to the best hypothesis. (Both oversimplifications). Now both these processes exist, and as such for Dawkins both exist as mechanical processes, bits of matter colliding and reacting. But Dawkins seems to think that one process is more valid than the other. What is this validity -- another bunch of molecules? In other words, how is truth just a molecular state? And then this is a different question than how he justifies his moral concern for the truth.

What you're attacking isn't materialism but the scientific method itself. Science is a better tool than religion for gaining an understanding of reality because it's verifiable- anyone with the proper equipment and the education to use it can reproduce any experiment and see for him/herself. With religion, we are limited to revealed knowledge which cannot be verified because of its very nature- anyone can say "Well, god told me this..." and their claim of revealed knowledge is no more or less valid than any other claim of revealed knowledge. Science, then, provides not just facts but a toolset for discovering, verifying, and interpreting facts, while religion simply gives a set of facts. One may argue over religious facts, but no process exists to falsify them.

Now, a common retort to this goes along the lines of "Well, people's senses are falliable, so scientists, by trusting their senses, are no better than priests!" The flaw in this argument is that it presumes that useful knowledge involves a correlation between observable facts and the deep objective reality. We run into the problem Descartes ran into, in which he speculates that his perceptions could be inaccurate because there might be a Master Deceiver controlling his every sensation. The way forward is to note that while we may or may not be able to observe deep objective reality, the vast majority of the species exists within a shared world of perceptions and sensations- what is a table to me is a table to my brother, to my professor, to my lover. Perhaps there is a Master Deceiver, and science is simply exploring a shared hallucination. What is required, then, is a redefinition, wherein science is exploring the world which we can perceive. After all, if we cannot experience or perceive the deep objective reality, there is no purpose in even discussing it. (One might as well talk about Middle Earth, which, if there is a Master Deceiver, is equally relevant to humanity as deep objective reality.)

Even if we're simply in a shared hallucination, religion still fails to conquer science here, because even if priests begin to speak of knowledge of the deep objective reality, the content of their statements is still essentially arbitrary- there is no reason other than emotional attachment (I was raised with it, it makes me feel good/I find it comforting, etc) to believe in one particular set of religious facts over another. The facts uncovered by science are non-arbitrary, as they are formed through a process of empirical investigation that anyone can engage in and come to the same answers. This is simply not true of religion; if it were, there would be a single set of religious facts, with a tiny number of fringe dissidents, rather than thousands of factions with their own arbitrary, equally-likely-to-be-true sets of facts. And that's why people like Dawkins value science over religion. It has nothing to do with "Oh, I like science, boo religion!" and everything to do with science being more useful than religion for uncovering and investigating facts about the world.
posted by Pope Guilty at 6:51 AM on August 13, 2007 [22 favorites]

Oh yes, Theophile, I don't deny that. What I won't have is that somehow the history of religious movements and their role in power is nuanced and part of a complex reality, but the history of atheism is defined by its ideology alone.
posted by Abiezer at 6:53 AM on August 13, 2007

Atheists put up numbers that religious fundamentalists couldn't dream of.

Sam Harris has a line about how atheism is about saying "I won't believe what you're telling me unless you offer some proof." It's essentially skepticism, and excessive skepticism was not what was happening in Stalinist Russia or Maoist China.

Of course, to someone who privileges religious epistemology over scientific epistemology, I can understand how it's inconceivable that there is any way of knowing that is not fundamentally religious. It's like this:

A: "Do you worship God or Satan?"
B: "I'm an atheist."
A: "So you don't worship God?"
B: "That's correct."
A: "So you worship Satan."

Or perhaps better phrased, when you regard a hammer as the only valid tool, the concept of a screwdriver is impossible.
posted by Pope Guilty at 6:56 AM on August 13, 2007 [6 favorites]

I'd sooner tolerate a holy Islamic state than anything resembling an atheist one.

(Gnostic Novelist, you are genuinely deranged. Seek help. Spiritual help, even.)

I have no issue with the astrologer's assertions that the real world of "science" practitioners has it's share of bias, irrationality and other human flaws. (nice comparison between astrology types and Meyers-Briggs). I do agree that we need to pay more attention to homeopathy and acupuncture, etc, because they do work in many cases, and they should be explored with an open mind.

But that in no way justifies his assertion that the scientific method is just another belief process ("scientism") to be equated to astrology and other unproven beliefs.

As a sentient species, we're almost grown-up. It's time to face the truth about Santa and God. Or at least find a way to reconcile one's belief system with the evidence of one's senses and intellect.
posted by Artful Codger at 7:01 AM on August 13, 2007 [1 favorite]

1. The problem of induction

How is this a problem?

2. Descartes problem that you cannot know the senses to be reliable

See my comment at 9.51a.

3. Mathematics depends on assuming unprovable axioms, science depends on mathematics

They're not unprovable, they're tautological. And what's more, they work, and they produce reproducible results which reveal useful and verifiable facts about reality, as I explained at 9.51a.

4. It's extremely difficult to produce an ethical system relying on empiricaly verifiable facts rather than concepts like "human rights" or "the common good".

The logical formula from my comment at 9.12a is easily adapted to any ethical principle. Ethics can be based in self-interest without degenerating into egoism.

Somehow, many Dawkinsians hold fixedly to this strange Judeo-Christian taboo, and have no consistent moral theory to explain why a creature not capable of speech or apparent rational thought should be treated differently to any other animal.

Hell, I can answer this one- as I said in the Libertyville abortion thread, I don't regard newborn infants as morally considerable persons. I do, however, find infanticide repugnant, and can oppose it on the grounds that I find it unpleasant. There's nothing irrational about wanting to minimize things one finds unpleasant. The abhorrence itself may be irrational, but let's not expect people raised in a Judeo-Christian culture to overthrow all their social programming overnight and make themselves into new beings. The Soviets, with their conception of the New Communist Man, spent most of a century trying, and failed miserably.
posted by Pope Guilty at 7:07 AM on August 13, 2007

The problem with the Courtier's Reply is that Dawkins doesn't just make the case for atheism as the most reasonable position. Dawkins is also attempts to explain the sociology and psychology of religion using his own unproven science of memetics. And this is where Dawkins is often guilty of setting up religious strawmen to knock down. In this regard Dawkins is less effective a critic than people like Schermer, Wilson, or Hitchins who at least acknowledge the complexities of religious thought.

Pope Guilty: But haven't you basically created the same kind of false dichotomy that gets atheists criticize as being ignorant yobos in regards to theology? The counter argument to this is that while science may be quite good for developing one type of knowledge (generalizations about how the world works), it is not that great for developing other types of knowledge, (ethics, law, aesthetics, math.)
posted by KirkJobSluder at 7:08 AM on August 13, 2007

He doesn't have to account for himself morally or ethically. I imagine he does, but material reductionism would limit morality and ethics to behavior sets which maximise harmony or some other good-for-us goal without reference to supernaturalism.

So the materialist offers some neutral description like: harmony-maximising behavior set (HMBS). HMBS could possibly in principle be describable in physical terms. But why is this good, i.e. which is or should this be my ethics? There is quite simply a leap from the description of anything to an endoresement of that thing as good. Let's say that Dawkins thinks that religion does in fact, if you look at it empirically, reduce or hinder HMBS. If this is true, then this is a fact -- whether it is good or bad is not in the fact or in the description of it. But he stands up in front of the public with outrage and moral concern -- he himself is committed to HMBS as a moral good. Why? I think he does have to explain this. If his only explanation is that he doesn't know why he holds HMBS to be good and dedicates his life to it, his brain just makes him do it, then this is where it seems irrational to me. It makes him seem like the religious believer who believes because it makes him more comfortable.
posted by creasy boy at 7:15 AM on August 13, 2007 [1 favorite]

Pope Guilty: (quoting Theophile Escargot) 3. Mathematics depends on assuming unprovable axioms, science depends on mathematics

They're not unprovable, they're tautological. And what's more, they work, and they produce reproducible results which reveal useful and verifiable facts about reality, as I explained at 9.51a.

Well, first in response to TE, I'd argue that science does not depend on mathematics because it is entirely possible to have completely qualitative scientific theories.

Pope Guilty misses the point that mathematics is a radically different system of knowledge compared to science. Science and math have fundamentally different goals, methods, standards of evidence and ultimate knowledge claims. "Reproducible results that reveal useful and verifiable facts about reality" are utterly irrelevant to mathematical truth.
posted by KirkJobSluder at 7:16 AM on August 13, 2007

but if the French Revolution and Communism showed anything, it's that believers will never be able to match the brutality of the atheists

Oh pshaw. I can name 100 examples of wide-scale persecution and mass slaughter in the name of "religion" for any one example of atrocities carried out in the name of ideological secularism. Maybe 1000.

People are brutal to each other often, throughout history. They justify that brutality by appealing to whatever ideological framework they have available. For most humans, throughout most of human history, that framework has been "religion."

Rationality (which entails atheism, but does not make atheism its central pillar, but rather reason itself) hasn't even been given a freaking chance.

I love Richard Dawkins. A very brave man. And he's right.
posted by fourcheesemac at 7:17 AM on August 13, 2007

I do agree that we need to pay more attention to homeopathy and acupuncture, etc, because they do work in many cases, and they should be explored with an open mind.

There's a difference between being open-minded and refusing to think critically. Homeopathy, rather than operating on the germ theory of disease, operates off the occult Law of Sympathy. Acupuncture claims to be manipulating an energy field that no device is capable of detecting, yet it can apparently be manipulated using pins. At best these provide a welcome placebo effect. At worst, they dissuade those suffering illness and pain from seeking real treatment.
posted by Pope Guilty at 7:17 AM on August 13, 2007

Pope Guilty: The way forward is to note that while we may or may not be able to observe deep objective reality, the vast majority of the species exists within a shared world of perceptions and sensations- what is a table to me is a table to my brother

Except, if you're like me, you don't know that. It's through your senses that you listen to yourself asking your brother what the object is, and also his reply of "duh, that's a table!"

grouse: No, scientific models explain something beyond what's in a human brain.

Nah, that's just what your brain configuration caused you to say.
posted by Gyan at 7:19 AM on August 13, 2007

The thing about poetry and meaning is that Dawkins is a material reductionist. From his standpoint, "meaning" is a particular configuration of brain chemistry.

if carried far enough, that argument is indistinguishable from nihilism - there is no "meaning" it's just brain chemistry

at which point the enlightenment sucks itself up and disappears like one of those cartoon vacuum cleaners disappearing up its own hose

The way forward is to note that while we may or may not be able to observe deep objective reality, the vast majority of the species exists within a shared world of perceptions and sensations- what is a table to me is a table to my brother, to my professor, to my lover. Perhaps there is a Master Deceiver, and science is simply exploring a shared hallucination.

the flaw here is that you can't prove the hallucination is shared ... in fact, it's not a hallucination, just a state of brain chemistry

The facts uncovered by science are non-arbitrary, as they are formed through a process of empirical investigation that anyone can engage in and come to the same answers.

unless they have different brain chemistry

and yet we can't prove that we are anything more than states of brain chemistry, therefore there is no "anyone" to come to the same answers, just a state of brain chemistry that makes certain perceptions seem possible and others not

Of course, to someone who privileges religious epistemology over scientific epistemology

but that's been done away with ... now it's all neurochemistry, isn't it?

it's a hopeless line of argument, as far as i'm concerned, and offers nothing to anyone
posted by pyramid termite at 7:20 AM on August 13, 2007

And as to your second point: What you're attacking isn't materialism but the scientific method itself. No, I assure you I'm attacking materialism and not scientific method. I believe that scientific method has validity. I don't see how materialism can allow for validity in any way, either moral validity or methodological validity, since it is stuck listing descriptions of material events and cannot explain how its own descriptions, themselves being mere events, can have validity, can be better or worse than any other events. Thus is my position today. So far I haven't mounted a very good argument for it but I seem to remember Frege, the founder of modern logic, making this point very convincingly somewhere.
posted by creasy boy at 7:21 AM on August 13, 2007

Pope Guilty: But haven't you basically created the same kind of false dichotomy that gets atheists criticize as being ignorant yobos in regards to theology? The counter argument to this is that while science may be quite good for developing one type of knowledge (generalizations about how the world works), it is not that great for developing other types of knowledge, (ethics, law, aesthetics, math.)

Ethics and law can be worked out logically from something similar to the logical formulation I provided earlier, and then modified to suit based on human experience. Aesthetics is simply a set of brain chemistry responses- what do we find pleasurable to look at? and soforth. Math can be derived logically.

We don't need religion to have philosophy- indeed, when practiced well, philosophy is precisely opposed to religion.
posted by Pope Guilty at 7:21 AM on August 13, 2007

They called themselves Christians. So did Hitler, for that matter.

Actually, Hitler wasn't too keen on Christianity. He was more interested in the revival of German paganism, so I suppose you could call Hitler the poster-child of neo-pagan atrocity.

I do think astrology can have some value as a Rorschach kind of test, though. What we do is so often shaped and influenced by subconscious desires and thinking that we don't fully understand, that this kind of test can really tell you a good deal about yourself that you don't necessarily consciously understand. That's certainly not what astrology claims about itself, but it's not worthless, either; mirrors are very useful things all around.
posted by jefgodesky at 7:22 AM on August 13, 2007

3. Mathematics depends on assuming unprovable axioms, science depends on mathematics

Reading things like this just makes my blood boil. I don't know how many times I can tell people that mathematics contains no information about the real world; they'll continue to believe whatever they want.

As a mathematician, I find your comment extremely insulting.
posted by King Bee at 7:24 AM on August 13, 2007 [3 favorites]

Except, if you're like me, you don't know that. It's through your senses that you listen to yourself asking your brother what the object is, and also his reply of "duh, that's a table!"

And as I say, if one is trapped within ones senses, the method which is most useful for investigation one's perceptions should be used. Science is a process that creates reproducible results and offers a framework for interpreting them. Religion offers facts, but has no method for generating new facts beyond divine revelation, which has throughout humanity's history shown itself to generate unreliable information without a method for discarding unuseful facts. When new scientific facts emerge, they come from investigation and experimentation- and facts which prove mistaken can be discarded and/or altered without calling the validity of science itself into question, as the possibility that a particular fact is wrong is built into the system. Religion does not offer a method for discovering new facts and verifying/falsifying old facts.
posted by Pope Guilty at 7:28 AM on August 13, 2007 [1 favorite]

Ethics and law can be worked out logically from something similar to the logical formulation I provided earlier, and then modified to suit based on human experience.

human experience is simply a set of brain chemistry responses ... what logical reason do you have for preferring one set over another and what do you do if my brain chemistry causes me to prefer a different set?
posted by pyramid termite at 7:31 AM on August 13, 2007

Oh yeah I think it's in The Thought. Der Gedanke. Sort of like pyramid termite and Gyan here, Frege argues that through an ironic twist of fate, materialism implies idealism. If you think everything is just concatenations of material events, yourself being concatenations of neurochemical events, then you've sawed off the limb you're sitting on, since you can't explain how these particular neurochemical events produce things like truth, compelling inference, rational persuasion, justification, etc. They might produce anything. They're just blind mechanical events and that's it. You've explained away the validity of the inferences you relied on to come to this conclusion. And then you might be stuck in yourself with nothing but images of these atoms & brain cells et al.
posted by creasy boy at 7:31 AM on August 13, 2007

Hell, I can answer this one- as I said in the Libertyville abortion thread, I don't regard newborn infants as morally considerable persons. I do, however, find infanticide repugnant, and can oppose it on the grounds that I find it unpleasant. There's nothing irrational about wanting to minimize things one finds unpleasant.

Not quite. Emotions are not rational. If your moral system is based on emotions like repugnance, it's not a wholly rational system.
posted by TheophileEscargot at 7:33 AM on August 13, 2007

if carried far enough, that argument is indistinguishable from nihilism - there is no "meaning" it's just brain chemistry

That you find a fact unpleasant is irrelevant to its truth.

the flaw here is that you can't prove the hallucination is shared ... in fact, it's not a hallucination, just a state of brain chemistry

I've addressed this at 10.28a.

but that's been done away with ... now it's all neurochemistry, isn't it?

Completely irrelevant. The brain chemistry results in some kind of consciousness, as far as we can tell. This consciousness perceives other consciousnesses and interacts with them. Nobody is proposing to abolish philosophy simply because our consciousnesses are the result of a stew of chemicals and electricity. Well, nobody serious, anyway.

it's a hopeless line of argument, as far as i'm concerned, and offers nothing to anyone

It offers a deeper and more thorough understanding of reality than can be gained by insisting upon the existence of the supernatural.
posted by Pope Guilty at 7:33 AM on August 13, 2007

human experience is simply a set of brain chemistry responses ... what logical reason do you have for preferring one set over another and what do you do if my brain chemistry causes me to prefer a different set?

There's no uberbeing, uninvolved with humanity, choosing sets. I'm talking about human beings working together to determine which metaset best serves humanity based on human preferences and experiences.
posted by Pope Guilty at 7:35 AM on August 13, 2007

Pope Guilty: Ethics and law can be worked out logically from something similar to the logical formulation I provided earlier,

Which is not science.

Aesthetics is simply a set of brain chemistry responses- what do we find pleasurable to look at?

Is it really useful to apply that kind of reductionism to aesthetics? Should we reduce all engineering to quantum mechanics, because all of the properties of the Sears Tower can be reduced to electron fields?

I think it is entirely reasonable to talk about Harry Potter novels as using episodes of tension and resolution, without invoking brain chemistry.

Math can be derived logically.

Which again is not science.

We don't need religion to have philosophy- indeed, when practiced well, philosophy is precisely opposed to religion.

Of course not. I'm not arguing for religion, I'm arguing against bad critiques of religion. When you create a false dichotomy between science/religion, you are creating a piss-poor critique of religion. Case in point:

Science is a process that creates reproducible results and offers a framework for interpreting them. Religion offers facts, but has no method for generating new facts beyond divine revelation, which has throughout humanity's history shown itself to generate unreliable information without a method for discarding unuseful facts.

In one paragraph, you not only have made a bold misrepresentation of religion, but you've also boldly misrepresented science.
posted by KirkJobSluder at 7:35 AM on August 13, 2007 [1 favorite]

Oh yeah I think it's in The Thought. Der Gedanke. Sort of like pyramid termite and Gyan here, Frege argues that through an ironic twist of fate, materialism implies idealism. If you think everything is just concatenations of material events, yourself being concatenations of neurochemical events, then you've sawed off the limb you're sitting on, since you can't explain how these particular neurochemical events produce things like truth, compelling inference, rational persuasion, justification, etc. They might produce anything. They're just blind mechanical events and that's it. You've explained away the validity of the inferences you relied on to come to this conclusion. And then you might be stuck in yourself with nothing but images of these atoms & brain cells et al.

As I've said before, that you find an idea and its consequences unpleasant is irrelevant to whether or not it's true.
posted by Pope Guilty at 7:36 AM on August 13, 2007

Pope Guilty :And as I say, if one is trapped within ones senses, the method which is most useful for investigation one's perceptions should be used. Science is a process that creates reproducible results and offers a framework for interpreting them. Religion offers facts, but has no method for generating new facts beyond divine revelation, which has throughout humanity's history shown itself to generate unreliable information without a method for discarding unuseful facts.

The irony is that your own conditional at the start invalidates the objectively-phrased statements that follow. If you're trapped in your own senses, how do you know that religious statements are unfalsifiable or whatever else that you claimed?
posted by Gyan at 7:36 AM on August 13, 2007

In a nutshell Pope the question boils down to this: religious fanatic A believes x because it makes him feel good -- according to Dawkins, he couldn't help this, his brain made him do it. So why is Dawkins mad at him? But to continue: materialist B believes y because he thinks it's rationally compelling -- according to Dawkins, he couldn't help this either, his made him do it. If "comfortable" and "rationally compelling" are both just arbitrary mechanical events, then how is one better than the other?

Dawkins seems to act like he's sitting above both of these brain states, belief-from-comfort and belief-from-purported-rationality, and finds the one truly better than the other. But he's ruled out this kind of objectivity.
posted by creasy boy at 7:38 AM on August 13, 2007

Not quite. Emotions are not rational. If your moral system is based on emotions like repugnance, it's not a wholly rational system.

Emotions are patterns of brain chemistry. We have sciences- psychology and neurology, for example- which in part explore human emotions. If emotions were not rational, psychology would be useless, and psychoactive chemicals would not work. Particular emotional responses may stem from stimuli which human beings regard as overreactions or mysterious, but emotions have causes.
posted by Pope Guilty at 7:38 AM on August 13, 2007

Pope the consequences are not "unpleasant" to me, the consequences undermine the position itself. I'm not personally squeamish about these things at all. This is a reduction ad absurdum.
posted by creasy boy at 7:40 AM on August 13, 2007

Since I already have a TV guide, I can only imagine that this post's real intended usefulness was more about initiating a debate. So glad I managed to miss most of it.
posted by hermitosis at 7:40 AM on August 13, 2007

Which is not science.

Logic is a fundament of the scientific worldview.

Is it really useful to apply that kind of reductionism to aesthetics? Should we reduce all engineering to quantum mechanics, because all of the properties of the Sears Tower can be reduced to electron fields?

I think it is entirely reasonable to talk about Harry Potter novels as using episodes of tension and resolution, without invoking brain chemistry.

It's far more useful to talk about such things by making reference to the more complex structures, but that is not the same as it being sensible to deny that the fundamentals exist. We talk about alloys when it is appropriate, and elemental metals when it is appropriate, and subatomic particles when it is appropriate, but we do not at any point deny that alloys are made of elemental metals, nor that elemental metals are made of subatomic particles.
posted by Pope Guilty at 7:42 AM on August 13, 2007

The irony is that your own conditional at the start invalidates the objectively-phrased statements that follow. If you're trapped in your own senses, how do you know that religious statements are unfalsifiable or whatever else that you claimed?

Because, as I have stated, religion offers no process by which to verify or falsify statements. One can debate the internal consistency of religious fact sets, but when you find a contradiction between two revealed facts, you lack a means by which to identify which of them goes. (This tension is usually resolved in reality by simply ignoring the religious fact that one finds unpleasant or inconvenient; an example is the fundamentalist who insists that witches be put to death yet eats dairy and meat together.)

Further, part of falsifiability is reproducibility- anyone can run a scientific experiment and get the same result that everyone else gets. This is untrue of religion- not everyone who receives religious revelation receives the same facts, whereas everyone who drops two unequal weights from the same height in a vacuum will discover that they hit the ground at the same time.
posted by Pope Guilty at 7:48 AM on August 13, 2007 [1 favorite]

Disbelievers, cower before MY CONCLUSIVE PROOF:

See for yourself: The eggplant slice that spells "GOD". Discovered by Felicia Teske of Boothwyn, PA, shown with her husband, Paul.
posted by The Straightener at 7:49 AM on August 13, 2007 [2 favorites]

I've addressed this at 10.28a.

no, you've completely avoided it ... you've just made the sweeping assumption that there is a shared reality (or hallucination) and it has such things as mutually agreeable facts

Completely irrelevant. The brain chemistry results in some kind of consciousness, as far as we can tell.

as far as we can tell ... in actuality, it may be the brain tricking itself into an illusion of consciousness ... and yes, this is being debated by neurologists quite a bit these days

This consciousness perceives other consciousnesses and interacts with them.

except that you can't prove this consciousness exists ... in short, you are basing this on a faith based construct of consciousness

Nobody is proposing to abolish philosophy simply because our consciousnesses are the result of a stew of chemicals and electricity. Well, nobody serious, anyway.

oddly enough "nobody" is exactly the right word here ... you and dawkins have just done away with the "self" and it's "consciousness" ...

now - on what basis do we construct a theory of science, when we've done away with the observer? ... perhaps we can just call it something that "appears" to work and let it go on - i don't have a problem with that

but - on what basis do we construct a philosophy of human rights? ... of government? ... of anything?

There's no uberbeing, uninvolved with humanity, choosing sets.

i said nothing about an uberbeing choosing anything ... in fact, the point i'm making is that NO ONE is CHOOSING anything

there is NO ONE

there is NO CHOICE

there is simply states of brain chemistry

and that is where your logical reductionism has left us
posted by pyramid termite at 7:50 AM on August 13, 2007 [1 favorite]

In a nutshell Pope the question boils down to this: religious fanatic A believes x because it makes him feel good -- according to Dawkins, he couldn't help this, his brain made him do it. So why is Dawkins mad at him? But to continue: materialist B believes y because he thinks it's rationally compelling -- according to Dawkins, he couldn't help this either, his made him do it. If "comfortable" and "rationally compelling" are both just arbitrary mechanical events, then how is one better than the other?

You're ignoring what I'm writing. It's not about "comfortable" and "rationally compelling" being intrinsically better. It's about which one is better at providing useful information about reality.
posted by Pope Guilty at 7:50 AM on August 13, 2007

Scientific method is better at providing useful information. Is materialism useful at providing this information? I've never heard of scientists actually relying on the philosophical thesis of materialism.
posted by creasy boy at 7:52 AM on August 13, 2007

Because, as I have stated, religion offers no process by which to verify or falsify statements.

does your science offer me a process by which i can verify or falsify consciousness?
posted by pyramid termite at 7:52 AM on August 13, 2007

Pope Guilty: you seem to have missed my point. You started with the conditional "if one is trapped within ones senses" and then go on to make claims independent of the self i.e. "Science is a process that creates reproducible results" rather than "for me, science has been the process with reproducible results rather than religion". In essence, you are asserting an objective character for your claims immediately after prefacing them with the constraint of being trapped in your own senses.
posted by Gyan at 7:55 AM on August 13, 2007

Pope the consequences are not "unpleasant" to me, the consequences undermine the position itself. I'm not personally squeamish about these things at all. This is a reduction ad absurdum.

The whole point is that "truth, compelling inference, rational persuasion, justification, etc" are things we've come up with that enable us to understand and interpret the world. Don't confuse the tools with the materials.
posted by Pope Guilty at 7:56 AM on August 13, 2007

Sam Harris has a line about how atheism is about saying "I won't believe what you're telling me unless you offer some proof." It's essentially skepticism, and excessive skepticism was not what was happening in Stalinist Russia or Maoist China.

As an avowed believer in psychic powers and other nonsense, Sam Harris amply demonstrates that skepticism as a position is different than skepticism as a cultural allegiance. Dawkins shares this tendency, since he basically believes that human thinking owes itself to unfalsifiable processes that, thanks to a marvelous coincidence, happen to behave like his scientific specialty, and has effectively created a conceptual stratum to replace religious superstition. Dawkins is not a real skeptic, neither is Harris and they cannot be trusted to make genuinely skeptical arguments. Dennet too. They're just boring well off white men playing culture warrior.
posted by mobunited at 7:58 AM on August 13, 2007 [5 favorites]

Ah shit, why don't you bastards all go outside and eat some psilocybin laden mushrooms then see how much you know about all this.
posted by Burhanistan at 7:59 AM on August 13, 2007 [3 favorites]

Pope Guilty: Logic is a fundament of the scientific worldview.

Which is elevating science far beyond its reasonable scope.

Science is simply a process for building inferential knowledge from a large body of systematically collected examples.

Mathematics isn't science.
Logic isn't science, like mathematics, logic has fundamentally different goals, methods, standards of evidence, and ultimate knowledge claims when compared to science.
Philosophy isn't science.
Aesthetics isn't science.
Law isn't science.
History isn't science.

Science is science and not anything else.

Now, jumping to your straw man of religion: Religion offers facts, but has no method for generating new facts beyond divine revelation,

At least in regards to the mainstream Protestant denomination that I grew up in, human knowledge was said to come from multiple sources including:
science and other disciplines
the Holy Spirit
individual interpretation of the Bible
individual thought and conscience

So, clearly there are other methods involved beyond divine revelation.
posted by KirkJobSluder at 7:59 AM on August 13, 2007

Emotions are patterns of brain chemistry. We have sciences- psychology and neurology, for example- which in part explore human emotions. If emotions were not rational, psychology would be useless, and psychoactive chemicals would not work. Particular emotional responses may stem from stimuli which human beings regard as overreactions or mysterious, but emotions have causes.

I think you're confusing "rational" with "deterministic". Rational means pertaining to the faculty of reason.

Your repugnance to infanticide is not because you have exercised your faculty of reason to determine that it's bad. It's just an emotional response.

Now if you do want to track emotions back to causes, simple operant conditioning is a better answer than a nebulous appeal to "brain chemistry". Punish a child in proximity to something and it develops an aversion to it. Reward the child and it learns to like it. Moreover, children learn from the society around them and adopt similar responses.

Now, if you were raised by members of the Klu Klux Klan, you'd probably develop a repugnance to black people, and would seek to exclude them from your environment. While your response to that emotion has a degree of rationality, it's still not a rational action overall. Even if there are rational steps attached to it, there is an irrational element which is an essential link in the chain.

Now going back to the topic, if this KKK-child is a theist, he at least has a chance of saying: "this repugnance I've been indoctrinated with is inconsistent with the moral injunction to love my neighbour". If he's a Dawkinsian, all he can do is follow his cultural conditioning.
posted by TheophileEscargot at 8:01 AM on August 13, 2007 [1 favorite]

man, you people are retarded.
posted by Stynxno at 8:03 AM on August 13, 2007 [1 favorite]

The whole point is that "truth, compelling inference, rational persuasion, justification, etc" are things we've come up with that enable us to understand and interpret the world. Don't confuse the tools with the materials.

Do I understand you right here, that you think these tools of ours are not "materials"? Justification, for example, is something beyond mere matter? Rationality? Because this is the crux of the whole issue. Dawkins is angry at what he sees as irrationality, and he thinks he's justified in correctness of what he thinks and justified in his anger. Yet I contend that his way of explaining anything puts this "justification" on the exact same footing as religios belief from comfort.
posted by creasy boy at 8:04 AM on August 13, 2007

no, you've completely avoided it ... you've just made the sweeping assumption that there is a shared reality (or hallucination) and it has such things as mutually agreeable facts

...because without that "sweeping assumption", it's pretty much impossible to operate in the world. To not start from that point is to make oneself completely unable to do anything in any way other than sit in the corner shrieking in fear that something you can't perceive will suddenly annihilate you.

as far as we can tell ... in actuality, it may be the brain tricking itself into an illusion of consciousness ... and yes, this is being debated by neurologists quite a bit these days

Okay. So what? We appear to have consciousness. That's what enables everything else.

oddly enough "nobody" is exactly the right word here ... you and dawkins have just done away with the "self" and it's "consciousness" ...

now - on what basis do we construct a theory of science, when we've done away with the observer? ... perhaps we can just call it something that "appears" to work and let it go on - i don't have a problem with that

Hardly. Material reductionism simply refutes the idea that the self and its consciousness are supernatural things. That you regard the self as inherently supernatural is no more relevant than the child who regards blocks as inherently made of wood.

but - on what basis do we construct a philosophy of human rights? ... of government? ... of anything?

As I've said, we can figure out what we find unpleasant and abhorrent and speculate as to why. These emotions, born of experience, can become a basis for ethics, law, and so on, rather than on divine commandments divorced from human experience.

i said nothing about an uberbeing choosing anything ... in fact, the point i'm making is that NO ONE is CHOOSING anything

there is NO ONE

there is NO CHOICE

there is simply states of brain chemistry

and that is where your logical reductionism has left us

And I have repeatedly noted that your conception of the self is supernatural. We don't need it. We appear to have consciousnesses, which experience things as pleasant, unpleasant, and so forth. Why does the fact that our consciousnesses appear to be the result of material processes bother you so much? Animals seek food and reorder their environment based on what they find pleasant and unpleasant. Why on earth do we have to be somehow above nature to do the same?
posted by Pope Guilty at 8:05 AM on August 13, 2007

Homeopathy, rather than operating on the germ theory of disease, operates off the occult Law of Sympathy. Acupuncture claims to be manipulating an energy field that no device is capable of detecting, yet it can apparently be manipulated using pins. At best these provide a welcome placebo effect.

As far as I know, homeopathy has never been shown to have results significantly better than the placebo effect, but that's not true of acupuncture. They just did a big study around the new year that showed that acupuncture had fairly dramatic effects on some kind of knee injury, although I don't remember exactly what it was. (might have been arthritis.) IIRC, it was actually better than mainstream treatment of the same type of problem.

We don't, in other words, know why, but it does appear there's something to it.

In other words, a magical explanation for something does not automatically disqualify it. Explanations are separate from facts on the ground; they might be wrong about why it works, but it does appear to work, at least some of the time. And it's entirely possible that the explanation is correct too, and that science hasn't caught up to it.

What matters is results, not the mental framework we use to get there; if other studies do confirm that acupuncture does indeed work, then science needs to bend to suit, not the other way around.

Your position in this thread is so rigid that I think it's fragile. Science is about what works, not about enforcing modes of thought.
posted by Malor at 8:07 AM on August 13, 2007

Pope Guilty: because without that "sweeping assumption", it's pretty much impossible to operate in the world

Eh? You said this before - As I've said before, that you find an idea and its consequences unpleasant is irrelevant to whether or not it's true.
posted by Gyan at 8:09 AM on August 13, 2007

At least in regards to the mainstream Protestant denomination that I grew up in, human knowledge was said to come from multiple sources including:
science and other disciplines
the Holy Spirit
individual interpretation of the Bible
individual thought and conscience

Let's see... science, divine revelation, extrapolating from divine revelation, and a method of knowledge generation that, I'm sure, would totally be respected if it led to something contradicting numbers two and three.
posted by Pope Guilty at 8:14 AM on August 13, 2007

I have to say I am astonished by the sheer idiocy of some of the replies to this post.

if carried far enough, that argument is indistinguishable from nihilism - there is no "meaning" it's just brain chemistry

For fuck's sake, have you never read Sartre, read the existentialists? Meaning derives from our embracing our terrestrial existence as our only existence -- it is absolutely materialist and fundamentally humanist too. The argument that material reductionism (which is a charge that can and has been leveled at all areas of science throughout recent history) necessarily implies a life devoid of meaning because it implies a life with no externally imposed 'purpose' (where else would purpose come from?) is not only fallacious but displays a lack of reasoning that is downright embarassing. It's, once again, another empty shibboleth hurled by irrational (usually religious) people everywhere and it doesn't mean a damn thing.

All Dawkins is arguing for is the aggressive confrontation of irrationalism with the application of the scientific method. Anywhere someone alleges that the universal, uniform laws of the universe that have been verified by that methodology are temporarily suspended without explanation or real evidence (resurrection of corpses, communication with the dead, foretelling the future, whatever nonsense is being sold), reasonable people should use their intelligence to rationally analyze and verify the veracity of such allegations. How is that so controversial?
posted by inoculatedcities at 8:14 AM on August 13, 2007 [4 favorites]

How is that so controversial?

The vast majority of humanity is committed to a worldview in which the universal, uniform laws of the universe that have been verified by that methodology are regularly suspended without explanation or real evidence.
posted by Pope Guilty at 8:21 AM on August 13, 2007 [1 favorite]

I'm glad you said that inoculatedcities. You are completely correct. I think most people who criticize Dawkins, particularly the secularist ones, have never read more than a few blurbs. Go pick up the God Delusion and read the entire thing. There he systematically responds to every single retort in this thread (and others). Mischaracterising the Professor Dawkins seems a common mistake.

And to those who either think science is as dogmatic as religion, or that scientists are choosing one fundamentalism over another, really never learned what science is. Or how it works. One wonders if they ever attended a single science class!

And lastly, to echo Prof. Dawkins, why do we feel that superstition and religion are somehow off limits to critical analysis and discussion? After all, we debate politics with more fervor than almost anything and that is as personal and intimate to our persons as religion. It also begs the question, how strong is your religious beliefs if it cannot stand under the scrutiny of reason? Why are so many fearful of the conversation? I suppose most would rather believe what they believe and not waste time thinking about it. Scary.
posted by Dantien at 8:22 AM on August 13, 2007

As far as I know, homeopathy has never been shown to have results significantly better than the placebo effect, but that's not true of acupuncture. They just did a big study around the new year that showed that acupuncture had fairly dramatic effects on some kind of knee injury, although I don't remember exactly what it was. (might have been arthritis.) IIRC, it was actually better than mainstream treatment of the same type of problem.

I have never heard anything even remotely like this and would like a link.
posted by Pope Guilty at 8:22 AM on August 13, 2007

Eh? You said this before - As I've said before, that you find an idea and its consequences unpleasant is irrelevant to whether or not it's true.

Don't conflate facts with assumptions.
posted by Pope Guilty at 8:23 AM on August 13, 2007

For fuck's sake, have you never read Sartre, read the existentialists?

inoculated, we've been discussing Dawkins' framework, not Sartre's. His framework seems to me to have two incompatible elements: 1) his belief that all beliefs are just concatenations of material, and 2) his emotional investment in the idea that one of these concatenations is clearly superior to the other, morally superior it would seem. I agree that scientific method is better than astrology but I don't think his framework can account for this normative idea that he himself also espouses. The question we pose him is: why -- according to him -- is the one concatenation better than the other? Pope mentioned feelings of repugnance. I think that's a terrible basis for morality and highly irrational. Hence I think Dawkins' tone of absolute certainty that he is rational and others not rather irksome. Believe me, if Dawkins starts to invoke Sartre I'll rethink his framework.
posted by creasy boy at 8:28 AM on August 13, 2007

King Bee

3. Mathematics depends on assuming unprovable axioms, science depends on mathematics

Reading things like this just makes my blood boil. I don't know how many times I can tell people that mathematics contains no information about the real world; they'll continue to believe whatever they want.

As a mathematician, I find your comment extremely insulting.

That's the point. Mathematics contains no information about the real world. If you use it as an essential part of your method of understanding the real world, you are therefore relying on something that you cannot prove empirically.
posted by TheophileEscargot at 8:30 AM on August 13, 2007

Science means unresting endeavour and continually progressing towards an aim, which the poetic intuition may comprehend but which the intellect can never fully grasp.—Max Planck. The Philosophy of Physics. New York: Norton, 1936.

posted by No Robots at 8:31 AM on August 13, 2007

As a mathematician, I find your comment extremely insulting.

"I find your comment extremely insulting" is not an effective argument unless you want to fully embrace relativism. After all, it is one that could equally be made by astrologers, priests, and homeopathists as it can be made by scientists, mathematicians, and atheists.
posted by grouse at 8:35 AM on August 13, 2007

Disbelievers, cower before MY CONCLUSIVE PROOF

Who is "GÅD" and why is he fucking with their eggplant?
posted by cmonkey at 8:35 AM on August 13, 2007

because without that "sweeping assumption", it's pretty much impossible to operate in the world

fine, but don't call it reason based, because it isn't

Material reductionism simply refutes the idea that the self and its consciousness are supernatural things.

or natural things ... if you can't prove they exist ...

And I have repeatedly noted that your conception of the self is supernatural.

you've got that turned around ... i'm saying that according to your ideas, ANY conception of the self is supernatural

YOU are the one who is arguing for the self, not i

Why does the fact that our consciousnesses appear to be the result of material processes bother you so much?

nice rhetorical trick but you are the one who's refusing to face the fact that according to your worldview, there is no self, no consciousness, no observer, no shared reality without a faith-based assumption that such things exist

The argument that material reductionism (which is a charge that can and has been leveled at all areas of science throughout recent history) necessarily implies a life devoid of meaning because it implies a life with no externally imposed 'purpose' (where else would purpose come from?) is not only fallacious but displays a lack of reasoning that is downright embarassing.

i suggest you tell that to someone who actually MADE that argument

my argument is that his material reductionism has left him with no choice but to construct his world view on faith based assumptions
posted by pyramid termite at 8:37 AM on August 13, 2007

Pope Guilty: Don't conflate facts with assumptions.

I didn't. All the statements you made about the character of science and religion are presented as being (shared) facts, and yet there's an assumption underlying them. Doesn't that make them assumptions as well?

Finally, is this - you find an idea and its consequences unpleasant is irrelevant to whether or not it's true - a fact or an assumption? If the former, what's the proof?
posted by Gyan at 8:45 AM on August 13, 2007

creasyboy, he doesnt say anything like "one of these concatenations is clearly superior to the other, morally superior it would seem" anywhere...nor does he claim to think so. You are misreading Dawkins and misunderstanding reason maybe? He is saying that ANY belief should be willing and able to stand under the onslaught of critical thinking or be discarded! There is no arbitrary decisioning taking place. If we could provide a reasonable argument to contradict his thinking, he would (and should) recant and change his message. But he's not choosing one belief. He's not ascribing Christian thinking to feelings on infanticide. He's reasoning out his ethics and stating that they do not need to rest on any ideology or divine command theory. Belief is the absence of such reason and this is where he thinks we go wrong.

To me, if anything, he is subtlety espousing a Aristotelean Virtue Ethic. But that's a subject of a future grad school paper for me....
posted by Dantien at 8:49 AM on August 13, 2007

my argument is that his material reductionism has left him with no choice but to construct his world view on faith based assumptions

PT, can you elaborate some more? How did you come up with this?
posted by Dantien at 8:50 AM on August 13, 2007

The universe is vastly more complicated than you can possibly imagine. If you think you've found the the answer, you're more than likely wrong.

That doesn't mean it's not worth pursuing whatever answer you think works for you. For many people, belief in God is a model that works. It's not one that I find particularly convincing, but who am I to judge?

Life sucks, we're all alone out here, and it would be a lot better if we just made more of an effort to understand where each other are coming from.
posted by empath at 8:54 AM on August 13, 2007 [2 favorites]

Allright Dantien it's like this. I certainly agree with him that beliefs should rest on rational and critical thought. This itself is a normative position and Dawkins seems in my mind quite ethically concerned to promote this position. Which is fine in my book. I may not like his presentation style. I found his reductionism of poetry very off-putting given that he claims to speak for us rationalists. But it was when Pope in response said that he reduces poetry because he is a materialist that the argument began about whether Dawkins can reconcile his normative position -- that rational & critical thought is a good -- with his position that rational & critical thougth is just a bunch of neuro-chemical bumpings & grindings of bits. It seems to me that materialism, which is not the brunt of his message but a part of it, makes any normative position arbitrary and irrational, including his own.
posted by creasy boy at 8:59 AM on August 13, 2007

Pope Guilty, that's because you're so sure it can't work that you didn't even bother to do a Google search. From the second Google link for "acupuncture study knee arthritis": Acupuncture May Help Knee Arthritis.

And that article is two years old; I know there was something showing a much stronger effect just recently. But I'm not going to do any more of your research for you.

Like I said, your position is rigid that it's fragile; you're just as dogmatic as the fundamentalists.
posted by Malor at 9:03 AM on August 13, 2007

Sigh. "is so rigid". Prufreeding is gud!
posted by Malor at 9:05 AM on August 13, 2007

Although "it's rigid that it's fragile", along the lines of "it's enraged that it's weak" has quite the poetic ring.
posted by creasy boy at 9:08 AM on August 13, 2007

But I'm not going to do any more of your research for you.

I'm going to try that maneuver next time I write a paper:

"This runs counter to Descartes' assertions on the subject. I could explain how, but I'm not going to do any more of your research for you."
posted by Pope Guilty at 9:10 AM on August 13, 2007

So creasy boy, why cant a "bunch of neuro-chemical bumpings & grindings of bits" be a good? Are you claiming that materialism somehow cannot prescribe an ethic? Ethics are not, of course, some metaphysical claim. They are fundamental and practical and "real world". His claim seems to me to be stating that rational & critical thought is a good because of it's effectiveness and applicability (much like murder is an evil not due to a metaphysical claim but that it fails under the categorical imperative). But perhaps I am misunderstanding your point?

And "feh!" on the poetry thing. He's not claiming to speak for anyone but himself. And it's rather nit-picky to focus on that and ignore the greater message. My $.02. Let's move on.
posted by Dantien at 9:11 AM on August 13, 2007

PG, too funny!

"Sorry Professor. I can't elucidate Schopenhauer's theory on animal ethics since I refuse to do any more of your research for you!" Classic! I'm soooo using that.
posted by Dantien at 9:12 AM on August 13, 2007

Dantien:

You are misreading Dawkins and misunderstanding reason maybe? He is saying that ANY belief should be willing and able to stand under the onslaught of critical thinking or be discarded

Possibly.

For instance, science and religion have somewhat different domains.

Dawkins attacks religion because it isn't very good at making observable predictions of the physical world.

That's like attacking science because it isn't very good at telling us how to lead moral lives.

But anyway, let's keep going and say we're talking about scientific or religious world-views. After all, it's more elegant to have a single consistent world-view between your epistemological and ethical beliefs.

If you can attack a religious world-view for not producing good experimental results, you should also be able to attack an atheistic world-view for not producing consistent ethics.

I think Dawkins himself might accept that. But some of his followers tend to want to do things the easy way, where they can attack religion on both ethical and epistemological grounds, but they themselves can only be attacked on the ground they prefer.
posted by TheophileEscargot at 9:12 AM on August 13, 2007

PT, can you elaborate some more? How did you come up with this?

he says there is a self, a consciousness, an observer and a shared reality without having offered any proof that such things can be constructed from states of brain chemistry and be objectively real ... he seems to think that states of brain chemistry that result in belief of those things is better than a state of brain chemistry that believes in god ... he seems to think that a state of brain chemistry that is repulsed by infanticide is better than one that isn't ... but he's yet to demonstrate any kind of objective reason why the states of brain chemistry he prefers are superior to the ones someone else may prefer

he just believes they do

So creasy boy, why cant a "bunch of neuro-chemical bumpings & grindings of bits" be a good?

well, all i'm really seeing here is an attempt to substitute "my bible tells me so" or "my god tells me so" with "my state of brain chemistry tells me so"

that's not an improvement

If you can attack a religious world-view for not producing good experimental results, you should also be able to attack an atheistic world-view for not producing consistent ethics.

i agree with that
posted by pyramid termite at 9:16 AM on August 13, 2007

well, all i'm really seeing here is an attempt to substitute "my bible tells me so" or "my god tells me so" with "my state of brain chemistry tells me so"

Yeah this is basically the point I was trying to make. His framework leaves him with no other option than an irrationalist ethic. Now, there are philosophers who consider ethics basically irrational. They usually come to this conclusion reluctantly, and they face up to the problems involved, such as that they can no longer reproach religions with being irrational, as much as they'd like to.
posted by creasy boy at 9:22 AM on August 13, 2007

Wow. I'm beginning to see something in these responses akin to "That's like attacking science because it isn't very good at telling us how to lead moral lives." (credit to TE). this almost sounds like the response I hear from my religious neighbors who told me "If there is no God, what's stopping me from going out and raping and killing people I hate?!" to which I respond "If there was no God, why would you?"

Religion has only been a moral compass because it's taken on that role. But let's say, for one second, we remove God from the universe. Are we to claim that our ethics and morals would disappear? Or would we really say that our moral decisions are based on utilitarian, Kantian, and virtue theory?

Someone please point out to me where an atheistic world view (by which I assume you mean one where reason reigns supreme) doesnt produce "consistent ethics".
posted by Dantien at 9:24 AM on August 13, 2007

And PT, your definition of "self" seems strongly metaphysical, while I think Prof Dawkins is referring to it as the observer...I dont think he is making claims that the self has to be somehow outside our cognition and self-reflective abilities of our neurochemistry. And I dont see how that is somehow a problem in our discussion.
posted by Dantien at 9:26 AM on August 13, 2007

In further thought, let me quote Dawkins himself:

"Religious people do not derive their morality from religion. I disagree (with the interviewer) on this point. Almost all of us do agree on moral grounds where religion had no effect. For example we all hate slavery, we want emancipation of women - they are all our moral grounds. These moral grounds started building only a few centuries ago and long after all major religions were established. We derive our morality from the environment we live in, Talk shows, Novels, Newspaper editorials and of course by the guidance of parents. Religion might only have a minor role to play in it. An atheist derives his morality from the same source as a religious people do."
posted by Dantien at 9:31 AM on August 13, 2007