351. Against the grain: There are questions that science cannot answer

Comment #72328 by Russell Blackford on September 20, 2007 at 6:39 pm

I don't think her age is an excuse - she's been saying stuff like this for a long time now, after all.

(And I hope that those of us in the baby boom generation will make more sense than she does, if anyone's still listening to us, in 30 or 40 years' time.)

352. Pentagon Sued Over Mandatory Christianity

Comment #71974 by Russell Blackford on September 20, 2007 at 3:42 am

I suppose there are legal reasons to express it that way, though we don't know (do we?) whether this is meant to be a quote from the court documents.

353. Against the grain: There are questions that science cannot answer

Comment #71961 by Russell Blackford on September 20, 2007 at 2:27 am

Some damn butterfly!

Thanks for the succinct reply to her nonsense, Richard. Midgley's ignorance was probably obvious to many, but it doesn't hurt to spell it out clearly and bluntly.

What I find especially tiresome, and would find bloody infuriating in Richard's situation, is that her comments are a pastiche of every cliched distortion or outright misrepresentation of his views that we've seen over and over again, and which Richard has already dealt with in a clear way innumerable times. Yet, we get people who think it's acceptable to trot it all out yet one more time, and one more still, hey, and maybe just once more ... with no acknowledgment that it's already been addressed. As I read what she says, it sure looks as if it is someone being too lazy to come up with anything new, and sufficiently cynical (or malicious?) to repeat the same old stuff in the hope that there will be a lot of people out there in Newspaper Land who are too ignorant to know the difference.

354. VOTE on the 'Faith smackdown': Richard Dawkins vs Francis Collins

Comment #71894 by Russell Blackford on September 19, 2007 at 10:04 pm

First, 14-year-olds can be pretty smart (though I'm not sure that that was the age Dawkins actually mentioned; I thought it was a younger age ... but perhaps I'm wrong, so let it pass).

Second, I can address it from my own experience: I was much younger than 14 when I decided that there is no god, but I did backslide through my teenage years. When I came to the conclusion that I did as a little kid, it may not have been as a result of the most sophisticated evidence, but it had nothing to do with faith. It was scepticism about what I heard all around me, not faith in it. It was peer group pressure more than anything else that made me backslide and try (with some success) to believe in God against all the evidence. That lasted for a few years.

Third, there is no reason to postulate any "purpose" for life. An individual's life can be "meaningful", in a sense - i.e. you can live it with zest and interest, and find value in many things. But I see no evidence that it has any literal purpose. No one would believe such a thing unless they already believed that some intelligence had brought life about for its own reasons. To assume purpose, then look to a deity to provide that purpose, is circular thinking.

355. Taking exception to Jake

Comment #71892 by Russell Blackford on September 19, 2007 at 9:46 pm

I'm not totally sold on PZ's description of the scientific method, either, but never mind. Although I'm not some sort of extreme Popperian, I think that hypothetico-deductive thinking is worth a mention. It's also very controversial saying that science rests on "naturalism". If it rested on philosophical naturalism, then any attempt to use science to argue that the existence of God is improbable would be circular! Perhaps science rests on methodological naturalism, but even that would create problems, and would in any event be controversial. I think that philosophical naturalism is an outcome - a meta-induction - rather than something that science presupposes, and that even methodological naturalism is not an ironclad requirement ... it's merely what tends to happen when you try not to overreach and adopt untestable or arbitrary hypotheses.

Science, in a broad sense, is just rational inquiry. Sometimes this can be be pursued by means that we think of as "scientific" in a narrower sense, such as mathematical formulae and models, instruments that allow observations which would not be possible with our unaugmented senses, controlled experiments to attempt to rule out, or narrow down, extraneous influences, hypothetico-deductive reasoning (as above), a preference for richly explanatory hypotheses, a search for consilient evidence from different fields of inquiry, a refusal to countenance merely ad hoc explanations, etc. The effect of these methods is to make rational inquiry as precise as it can possibly be in the given circumstances and to ensure reliability for chains of reasoning about things that go beyond what is directly observable. These methods enable the inquirer to draw the most robust and precise possible conclusions in areas where the truth is hidden from direct observation.

I think that whether some field of rational inquiry is scientific, in this narrower sense, is a matter of degree, but even a humanities discipline such as history has reason to use scientific methods to the greatest extent possible.

But who's counting? PZ's general idea is correct.

What can be said about religion is that it makes all sorts of claims that go far beyond our direct observation ... without using any methods that should give us confidence that its findings are robust. As PZ says, reliance upon revelation and tradition is highly unreliable.

356. Catholic school board in Halton may ban HPV vaccination

Comment #71838 by Russell Blackford on September 19, 2007 at 6:39 pm

Even if some of the Church's sex scandals involved people old enough to give fully reasoned consent (and I have no knowledge of that, one way or the other), and did not strictly involve pedophilia, the issue would be not so much homosexuality as hypocrisy. I'm prepared to believe that some of the scandals have actually been exaggerated, but, Zeus-almighty, it looks as if some haven't been ... and in any event what do these incidents say about the whole culture of the Church?

As for the immediate topic, credit where credit is due: religious morality was trumped in this case by commonsense thinking. At the same time, it was only religious morality that made it an issue in the first place. It remains the case that religious morality is always potentially in tension with good public policy on sex and reproduction, and that there is always good reason to fear a cruel outcome if religious morality is not challenged and restrained.

357. Catholic school board in Halton may ban HPV vaccination

Comment #71406 by Russell Blackford on September 18, 2007 at 5:34 pm

I suppose we need a reminder, now and then, as to exactly why the morality of the Roman Catholic Church is best thought of as a relic from more barbaric times.

Here's to a New Enlightenment!

358. State Senator Ernie Chambers Sues God

Comment #71196 by Russell Blackford on September 18, 2007 at 2:44 am

On topic: I must admit that I laughed out loud when I read this article, even though my first reaction was a more curmudgeonly one about wasting valuable court resources.

Off topic: V., I had no idea what it was about when I was a kid, but a bit of googling shows that it was the birthday of Queen Victoria! See this article, for example

http://www.abc.net.au/canberra/stories/s1930741.htm

However, the article seems to be wrong in claiming that Empire Day ceased to be a half-holiday after 1958. We had cracker night long after that where I was - as you say, it was still cracker night in late May in the late 1960s - and my memory is that we still had some kind of holiday to go with it when I was in primary school. I must check around to see if I'm suffering false memory. Very odd.

Do you belong to the social network? Do you, BAEOZ? We really should take these off-topic discussions there, I suppose, but nothing ever seems to happen there so far.

359. State Senator Ernie Chambers Sues God

Comment #71151 by Russell Blackford on September 17, 2007 at 11:20 pm

That's odd - when I was a little kid growing up in NSW, cracker night coincided with Empire Day in late May. Something must have changed by the time us baby boomers came along.

360. The Nonbelievers

Comment #71126 by Russell Blackford on September 17, 2007 at 9:47 pm

heathen2:

I don't know if it is my increasing awareness of where I stand regarding my atheism, or my addiction to this site or all the books on atheist philosophy I've been reading lately, but I find that I just abhor and detest theism in a way I never did before. Do other people feel this too? It's as if I can barely tolerate it anymore.

Strangely enough, reading this site and some of the blogs over at ScienceBlogs tends to have the opposite effect on me. I'm still keen on harsh-but-polite sceptical scrutiny of all religion, and I'm still exasperated by dogmatists who argue from totally different premises from anything I can consider rational, but if anything I feel more tolerant of moderate theism. Go figure.

361. The Nonbelievers

Comment #71069 by Russell Blackford on September 17, 2007 at 6:17 pm

I dunno. I don't feel comfortable with this guy. Apart from the fundamentalism gaffe (which was pretty bad ... and he shouldn't be let off the hook easily), it all sounds too cultish to me.

Admittedly, this is more an emotional response than anything else, at this stage, because I don't know enough about him and how he works to have a really considered response. I'll make up my mind when I know more than what I've been able to get from a couple of newspaper articles.

362. The Dawkins debate

Comment #71064 by Russell Blackford on September 17, 2007 at 6:00 pm

For some purposes, at least, I'll welcome almost anyone on the team. I suppose it depends on how much we are trying to get agreement on a metaphysical claim - even a probabilistic one, such as "There are probably no gods" - and how much our concerns are political. I'm concerned about both, but my concerns tend to the political end. I'm happy to get widespread acceptance of something anodyne like "All the existing bodies of religious dogma are far too doubtful to form any basis for public policy or even for a publicly-accepted morality". One way to argue that is to argue that there are probably no gods.

In fact, I think that's the best and cleanest way to argue it. Someone who thinks it's all a fifty-fifty bet might be able to play on my team, though they might not if they think "There's a fifty per cent chance that there's a god, and if it turns out that there is it'll probably be the Vatican's one ... so maybe I should pay special attention to what the pope thinks ... maybe he's onto something." By all means invite the agnostics onto the team, but don't assume that they are all going to be good team players. I could imagine that some deists, neo-pagans, and even unorthodox theists might be better players on my team than some agnostics.

Then again, even some atheists seem so immersed in Christian morality, which they intuit as being correct without having any rational foundation for it, that they may as well be playing on the other team, so it's all too complicated for me this morning.

I just come back to the idea that what really matters is scepticism about traditional religion, at least if your aims are more political than metaphysical. It's not consistent to be sceptical about traditional religion while giving a free pass to neo-pagans and the like, so I guess it matters to advocate a sceptical attitude to the supernatural in general. But that's not the same as insisting on a strongly atheistic attitude. For example, someone who thinks the deist god probably exists, or that the process-theology god is probably some kind of work in progress, may still be sceptical enough for my purposes.

363. 'Jane Doe' Testifies as Trial of Polygamist Leader Begins

Comment #70801 by Russell Blackford on September 17, 2007 at 12:25 am

walk, I didn't mean that the particular US state should not enforce whatever laws it happens to have on its statute books (though there are a lot of laws that are now dead letters and are not enforced ... but it's not what I meant).

I meant that governments in general should not be enacting laws that try to stop informal polygamy, which I believe is the case in the relevant jurisdiction. Whether the state should give any sort of legal recognition to polygamous marriages is a different point. I don't have a strong view on that.

In an ideal world, I go along with Bill Maher and with BT Murtagh. I'd not have the government involve itself with marriages at all; it could simply keep out of the field, while legislating on child protection and equitable interests in property (and anything else absolutely necessary that involves relationships and children). However, since we don't live in that world, I support the legal recognition of gay marriages, if people want them, as well as straight marriages.

Whether polygamous marriages should be given legal recognition ... well, as I say I haven't made up my mind. But if people do have them outside the formal apparatus of the state, and if we are talking here about consenting adults, I don't think the state should attempt to stop them, any more than it should stop 3 people from simply shacking up in a menage a trois if they all agree.

364. The Dawkins debate

Comment #70777 by Russell Blackford on September 16, 2007 at 9:54 pm

Damn, it's too late now: I already have my T-shirt with a big "A" on it.

I have to admit, though, that I'm not all that super-comfortable with the word "atheist" for reasons similar to Dr Benway's. I describe myself as a philosophical naturalist, and in various other ways, in contexts where high falutin' talk is appropriate. Other than that, a word like "sceptic" is good (except no one can agree on how to spell it), as is "secularist". I'd not necessarily have used the word "atheist" of myself unless it was quite specifically salient, though my problem with it isn't so great that I'm putting my T-shirt away, disavowing the word in public discussions like this, or discouraging others from using it as much as they like.

365. Review of Richard Dawkins' new book 'The Fascism Delusion'

Comment #70577 by Russell Blackford on September 16, 2007 at 6:36 am

What's all this about virgins? I thought these guys were motivated by an expectation of 72 white grapes. Am I missing something?

366. The Dawkins debate

Comment #70525 by Russell Blackford on September 15, 2007 at 10:43 pm

Dr Benway Wasn't steve's point that the church, rather than agnosticism, provides (purported) moral certainties? Of course, those "moral certainties" are exactly (one of the reasons) why scrutiny of religion is needed.

Bazing Arrow, nice comment. Yes, despite everything, we should support honest scrutiny of religion and see how far it withstands it.

I've been trying to settle in my own mind two things: (1) why do seemingly irrational ideas persist? and (2) why do highly educated people who don't actually share those ideas object to robust criticism of them? Both are phenomena that I find difficult to understand, though I think I am gaining a better understanding as time goes on. Thanks to others here for putting up with all my thinking onto the screen that has turned up on relevant threads here in the past few days.

I do think that it will be difficult to wean people from these irrational ideas ... partly because there are reasons why otherwise-rational individuals can have them and resist criticism of them. I can also sort of see the point of people who object to harsh criticism of ordinary religionists (though I also think that this objection largely misses its targets).

And yet, it would be much better if all our natural allies strongly supported robust criticism of religion, without too much hedging and qualification. At the moment, a mixed message is going out from the Kitchers, Ruses, even Shermers of the world. That's unfortunate.

Monkey2 I suppose there must be many such books aimed at a young audience. In my case, I was fortunate enough to absorb a scientific worldview as a young child by reading such books. And then are good things like nature documentaries by David Attenborough, etc. There's plenty of good material, though some it may be too late to give it to a lot of people. Did you have a particular sort of gap in mind?

I was wondering, as I read your post about something a bit different, whether there's a market for somebody to write a popular book that explains, with good examples, just how firm the basis is for science in general, not just evolutionary theory, and how it has proceeded historically, from (say) Galileo's first telescopic observations in 1609 until now, to build up reliable knowledge. With the 400th anniversary of Galileo's observations fast approaching, it would be timely.

It would take someone with very special literary skills and a lot of scientific erudition to write it in a way that would sell lots of copies. I wish I were up to it, but I know I'm not. Richard could do it, or someone like Kitcher or maybe Dava Sobel, but I'm sure they all have ideas of their own. Maybe it's been done, but I can't think of such a book.

367. 'Jane Doe' Testifies as Trial of Polygamist Leader Begins

Comment #70505 by Russell Blackford on September 15, 2007 at 7:10 pm

I don't think polygamy, as such, should even be the issue here. If consenting adults want to practice polygamy, the state shouldn't try to stop them. If such relationships break down, those involved should have access to the courts, just like monogamous couples, to sort out any child welfare issues and any equitable interests in property. It might even be worth having legislation to guide and facilitate this.

The issues in this case are rather different. They are to do with the extreme youth of those involved, especially the girl, the terrible pressure that a young teenager was (apparently) placed under, and so on. Whether it's best handled as a rape case, I don't know. I suppose we have to hope that the facts will come out during the trial.

368. The Dawkins debate

Comment #70500 by Russell Blackford on September 15, 2007 at 6:27 pm

One problem is that the irrationality of armchair scientists is not all that irrational. It's wrong, but you don't have to be deranged to think that way. When we think about our ordinary lives and problems, we see much of the relevant data for ourselves by sense perception, and the rest can be taken on trust using very short chains of reasoning that we understand. I believe Mount Everest exists even though I've never seen it, because it is mentioned by so many sources, none of which cast doubt on its existence, I have good reasons to find many of those sources reliable from past experience, it would be simple in principle to take me to see it, which boosts my confidence in people who actually claim to have seen it (it is very plausible, and I have confidence that I could check if I were really worried). Conversely, I do not believe in the existence of Bigfoot or the Loch Ness monster, which are too elusive to produce confidence, are not well-attested, and so on.

Think about the ordinary punter's information on dinosaurs living in, say, the Jurassic period, or on the evolutionary origins of human beings. Here, the data is contested, not easily available to the average people except by hearsay, and, most importantly, only established by long chains of reasoning (it will not be obvious to the ordinary punter how strong those chains of reasoning nonetheless are, or how many convergent chains of reasoning are involved, all cohering to give a very robust result).

Contrast the ordinary punter's evidence about God. She may have some kind of experience which she's been taught to interpret as direct perception of God interacting with her. If not, she probably knows lots of otherwise trustworthy people who have had such experiences. It's easy to understand. The chains of reasoning are short. The chains of reasoning that cast doubt on such experiences are long, difficult to understand, and cause discomfort at many points in the process, so of course they are psychologically easy to resist.

As I said on another thread, we are now in a different position from Galileo, four hundred years when modern science was just beginning. Galileo, for all his problems had no difficulty in getting the Vatican astronomers to accept that the telescope was a reliable instrument, and it wasn't that difficult to convince people that certain moving dots in the sky were the moons of Jupiter. He had a basis to get the building blocks in place for a more modern cosmology and a more modern physics, even though both were counterintuitive. Counterintuitive or not, they could be validated in ways that most people could understand, and to deny them would mean abandoning ideas that were even more intuitive. You couldn't easily deny that the telescope worked with the moons of Jupiter, for example, without also denying the obvious: that it worked with nearby terrestrial objects.

Today, science is highly specialised, reliant on advanced mathematics that few people understand, and separated from immediately-perceived reality by a great distance ... in the sense that scientific findings build on scientific findings that build on scientific findings. It's true that scientific investigation is continuous with everyday reasoning, but the chains of argument to take a particular finding back to everyday observation may be very long, indeed, and never mind that every step may have been very strongly supported, with overwhelming convergent evidence, so that the whole chain is reliable.

Unfortunately, the fact that a finding is well-corroborated, robust, etc., does not entail that its grounding in evidence can be understood by ordinary people. Indeed, specialists in one area of science may be in no position to understand just how it is that a robust finding in some other area is well-supported by the evidence.

In those circumstances, if you don't have a pretty high level of overall scientific literacy plus a lot of trust in the overall enterprise, you may end up being unimpressed by many scientific claims, especially if they contradict the seemingly commonsense views that you hear around you every day.

I think that science has a real problem here. I also think that anyone who wants to criticise religion has a consequential problem, to the extent that the critique depends, in part, on tensions between certain religious views of the world and the view of the world that science, in its totality, gives us.

I'm not sure that anything simple can be done about this problem. It means that people who are able to reject much of the scientific image of the world, or to compartmentalise it from their religious beliefs, are not necessarily being irrational. They may simply not be sufficiently immersed in the scientific enterprise to be able to understand the tension, and/or may quite rationally (by their lights) distrust any findings that are in conflict with their religious views.

That doesn't mean we should give up. For all that I've said, many of the arguments can be put in ways that will at least reach the educated public. Shock tactics such as calling religion a delusion (which it is, in a sense) do have their place to get some people to think outside the box of their current assumptions. Moreover, it's very important to have books that set out the reasoning as to why religion's claims are dubious, even if most people will never "get" such books, or even read them. Above all, it helps just to have a large number of highly intelligent and well-informed people express doubt about religion.

I suspect that a lot of religious morality will be eroded not by the prior destruction of religion, but simply by it becoming plain that the old desert-tribe/medieval monk style of morality does not conduce to happiness. After all, almost everyone now accepts sex outside of marriage, at least within romantic relationships, and many people accept homosexuality, IVF, and many other things. This change in moral intuitions didn't require the destruction of religion; it required only that the practices concerned openly went ahead, bringing many people happiness; and society continued just fine while accommodating them. Of course, there was also leadership by people who promulgated the intellectual arguments in favour of greater sexual freedom and tolerance, the acceptance of new reproductive technologies, etc.

If we want to get social change that involves the weakening of religion's grip and the abolition of the old morality of misery, we'll have to try many things to advance that aim. Direct critiques of religion are needed, but so are many other things, such as working on secular moral systems, and simply living our lives without religion or the old miserable morality. There are virtuous circles involved, e.g. we have independent reasons to try to create just and kind societies, but doing so will probably have the bonus of making religion less attractive, which might make it easier to pursue a just and kind society, and so on.

Meanwhile, we'll find that most people continue to misunderstand science, and that many are resistant to it. There are lots of things that can be done about this - better science education, more and better science books and documentaries. It won't be easy, given the problem I've outlined above.

The bottom line is that the debate that's reported on this thread is a good reality check. It suggests that it will not be easy to help people to understand science or to persuade them to trust robust findings that come from the scientific enterprise. We need to face up to that fact, and if it suggests some kind of change in tactics, we should accept it. Personally, I don't think it requires any particular change in tactics, just an understanding as to why perfectly rational people can be deluded about the existence of the supernatural, distrusting of science, and locked into a barbaric morality that is prejudiced against sex and the body, and which will regard many morally acceptable or desirable technologies as hubristic or otherwise wrong.

Don't despair. It really is going to be hard, because the world just doesn't look the same to a lot of (well-meaning, generally rational) ordinary people as it does to most of us. It may require quite a few generations to get the changes we want, and this may be a race that can never be won entirely - the psychological roots of religion's persistence, and of resistance to science, are all too tough and strong, and they go deep.

Yet, positive change does come about, and has been happening even within our lifetimes. With persistence of our own, we can continue to make social progress.

369. Review of Darwin's Angel

Comment #70382 by Russell Blackford on September 15, 2007 at 7:34 am

Dr Benway

Imagine you're a soldier bunkered down in some trench and catching a glimpse of one of your mates passing crates of munitions over to the enemy. That must be how religious people feel when they read apologists like Stanford and Cornwell.

But alas, I often feel the same way when I see people who claim to have no religious faith themselves tut-tutting about nasty, strident atheists, and calling for the preservation of warm, cuddly religious beliefs.

Thinking about it, there's something deeply offensive about their attitude, their idea that people who are restricted by a fundamentally false view of the world should be protected from finding out the truth. It's as if religionists are seen by these "I'm an atheist buts" as a quaint feature of the world left over from another time - something ornamental to be preserved for posterity, like a gorgeous Florentine cathedral or a Balinese ceremony - and not as real human beings who are entitled to the harsh, glorious, liberating truth and to opportunities to live their lives in accordance with it.

I realise that many religious folks are, if we look at the matter coldly, almost immune to the truth about their universe. Their belief in the supernatural is so ingrained, so central a part of their web of belief, that it may be impossible for practical purposes ever to get them to abandon it: huge components of their understanding would have to change first to make such a shift possible for then.

But that doesn't describe all of them. Even when it's true, surely it's something to regret, not something to celebrate, as many "I'm an atheist buts" seem to do. It's not something to justify making the job of speaking truth to religion even harder.

370. A Response to Jonathan Haidt

Comment #70312 by Russell Blackford on September 14, 2007 at 9:51 pm

^1. You're using a false analogy. To make the analogy work, we'd have to change many things. For example, it would be a fairer analogy if the scientific reasoning in support of evolutionary theory suffered a serious, genuine, and (once pointed out) obvious problem, such as the existence of Precambrian rabbit fossils. If you imagine for a moment that it's a fair analogy, as things stand, your presuppositions must be a very long way from mine, so far that it's not worth pursuing this.
2. The nature of the chapter speaks for itself.
3. When I expressed reluctance to speculate about Richard Dawkins' subjective intentions, I was discussing his artistic intentions - how he decided to solve certain problems of structure, tone, and content of a kind that all authors routinely encounter. Notoriously, it is difficult for readers to reconstruct such intentions with any confidence, and many literary critics have looked foolish, from time to time, when they've made unsuccessful attempts. Hence my disclaimer.
4. For what it's worth, yes I do think that all the supposed proofs of God's existence have serious problems that are obvious to a modern reader once pointed out. That is quite different from saying that theism is obviously false. If you find one or more of them convincing, fine. Maybe you should write your own book about it, in that case. This is certainly not a forum where that issue can be settled. A debate on that topic, which is getting tangential to the thread and to the questions of tone, etc., that I was discussing with JJ, could eat up my life, and I have no intention of letting it do so. However, if there was any unclarity ... again, yes, I certainly do think that; I don't just think that Dawkins thinks it.

371. Good News: Both our Foundations are now Officially Recognized as Charities

Comment #70288 by Russell Blackford on September 14, 2007 at 6:11 pm

Great news!

372. Review of Darwin's Angel

Comment #70287 by Russell Blackford on September 14, 2007 at 6:03 pm

I look forward to reading Richard's letter. Meanwhile, this is a pretty dreadful review. It seems to be by someone who has either not read The God Delusion or (more likely) has not done so with an open mind.

It does matter whether any of the various wordviews offered by religion are actually correct. Does religion describe the house of reality or a castle in the sky?

I'm tired of commentators who think that religion is some kind of cuddly, touchy-feely social phenomenon with no epistemic content - no truth claims - and no designs on our rights. In the real world, religion claims authority to tell us how to live our lives and to tell governments what laws to enact. If its epistemic content cannot be justified, whence does it derive that authority?

At this point in human history, it's crucial that public intellectuals engage with religion's truth claims. Dawkins deserves praise for that. Actually ... Cornwell does, too! From what I've seen of Cornwell's views, he misrepresents Dawkins' work in a most unsavoury manner, and that should have been pointed out in the review (the review actually reproduces a ridiculous caricature of Dawkins rather than correcting it). In the penultimate para, Stanford is criticising Cornwell for the last thing about his project that merits criticism.

373. A Response to Jonathan Haidt

Comment #70283 by Russell Blackford on September 14, 2007 at 5:34 pm

When I reviewed The God Delusion in Cosmos, I praised it but noted in passing that the discussion of the proofs of God's existence was rather "thin" - by which I meant not only that it was merely one chapter on a huge subject, but more importantly that the proofs were not attacked with dense, rigorous counter-arguments. IRC correctly, I suggested that philosophical purists might be dissatisfied with this.

I've read the book again, since then, and the gist of my comment was, it still seems to me, quite correct. However, I remain of the view that it's a point to make in passing while praising the book; it's not a good stick to beat the book with.

Hmmm, I am conscious that Dawkins himself may read what I'm writing, so I certainly don't want to put words in his mouth or to speculate too much about his subjective intentions, but I think the approach taken was probably both deliberate (or, if not, it at least showed good literary instincts) and appropriate.

In the upshot, he gives us a rather swift, impressionistic, and at times humorous, account of a variety of these "proofs" to show that there are obvious problems with them all. He makes it clear that his account is not meant to be the final word, but just enough to convey to a popular audience how problematic the whole exercise is. E.g., he does not try to tie down the ontological proof to show exactly where it goes wrong, or how someone like Plantinga might try to defend it - and why that, in turn, might be criticised. He simply shows how, prima facie, such a line of argument seems to be silly and wrongheaded and should not, again prima facie, impress us. He leaves it to us to go and consult JL Mackie, Michael Martin, or whoever our professional philosopher of choice might be, if we want more.

Whether this is a fault in such a book is, perhaps, a matter of taste, but, contra JJ, I'm inclined to think it isn't. Perhaps Dawkins could have given us a bit more information about who else to consult, though (again from memory) he does refer us to Mackie.

Overall, although I have reservations about the chapter, I think that Dawkins gets it about right. Any attempt to handle the issue with more philosophical rigour would have eaten up the book. I know from experience how trying to nail down something that is not central, and which can get quite technical, can have that effect on a project, and I can just imagine the negative impact it would have had on the book overall if its author had tried to morph into Michael Martin for the duration of the chapter.

I suppose another approach would have been to write an even shorter chapter, and to have signposted even more clearly that it was not meant to be the definitive discussion of the issue. All I can say is that, on my second reading, I got the sense of a pretty good balance.

We really must try to read books for what they are, trying to get into their own spirit, rather than as botched attempts at the book that might have been written by some idealised version of ourselves. I should add that this also applies to books by our opponents.

All that said, I do agree with quite a few of JJ's criticisms of the Sam Harris article.

374. 'Jane Doe' Testifies as Trial of Polygamist Leader Begins

Comment #70150 by Russell Blackford on September 14, 2007 at 8:06 am

This sounds like a total mess all round.

375. Childhood Origins of Adult Resistance to Science

Comment #70136 by Russell Blackford on September 14, 2007 at 7:44 am

(Haymoon, psssst: it would never occur to me that I am well enough known in any circles that you or anyone else should have heard of me outside of my comments here. I'm obscure in the scheme of things.

I'm just someone who has long been a fan of Richard Dawkins and who - for various reasons - is now sufficiently focused on the issues raised in TGD to take an interest in making comments on this site and in doing something for the cause of critiqueing religion's pretensions.)

376. Childhood Origins of Adult Resistance to Science

Comment #70111 by Russell Blackford on September 14, 2007 at 5:30 am

Haymoon, yes ...

http://metamagician3000.blogspot.com/

... though I seem to have written some of my most elaborate pieces on other people's sites/blogs just lately.

377. Religion's Real Child Abuse

Comment #70081 by Russell Blackford on September 14, 2007 at 2:49 am

It's good to see this thread again. Dawkins cops a lot of ill-advised criticism for comparing the harms from certain kinds of religious indoctrination of children with those from sexual abuse, as if the comparison was obviously absurd and offensive. Here, he explains the basis of his position - and as always, he develops his argument clearly, carefully, fairly ... and particularly convincingly in this case.

The world needs Richard Dawkins. Here, we can see why.

378. Childhood Origins of Adult Resistance to Science

Comment #70039 by Russell Blackford on September 13, 2007 at 8:26 pm

Science is counterintuitive. The world tends to appear one way - the so-called manifest image - to creatures of our size, capacities, habits, psychological dispositions, etc., that evolved on the savannahs of Africa. It appears another way when we start scrutinising it by the means that science employs (observation with instruments that greatly magnify our senses, careful use of experiments, mathematical models, and so on).

The scientific image of the world corrects the manifest image, but it is the latter that is intuitive. The longer the chains of reasoning that support aspects of the scientific image, the more difficult it will be to get people to abandon the manifest image where the two collide. Galileo didn't have too much difficulty convincing people of his (often counterintuitive) telescopic observations, but the chain of reasoning to establish that telescopes work was short. Likewise the chain of reasoning to show how certain observations were, for example, observations of moons circling Jupiter. Although we don't face heresy trials, as Galileo did, we are, in a sense, in a more difficult situation than he was.

The connections between scientific conclusions and the observations and experiments that support them are now far more difficult for non-scientists to understand and confirm for themselves.

Religions, alas, tend to build (in various ways) on the manifest image. Thus, the various religious images of the world are quite intuitive for most people. However, the image of the world in, say, the Abrahamic tradition, is in tension with science. After all, the scientific image is extremely difficult to reconcile with such ideas as libertarian free will, providence, explanation of phenomena in terms of agency and design, human exceptionalism within nature, the separability of ourselves (in some sense) from our bodies, the primacy of spirit over matter, and so on.

The problem we face is that a certain religious image of the world is highly intuitive to many people in Western societies - it has adapted over the centuries in conformity with the manifest image, and it has accommodated those parts of science that are supported by relatively short and obviously incontrovertible chains of reasoning. In the past three decades, or so, it has even made a comeback in many academic philosophy departments.

However, it is essentially false.

At the same time, the scientific image is essentially true, but it is not intuitive except to people who are trained to understand chains of scientific inferences and to see why the evidence supports findings that our brains tend to reject. That's what we're up against, folks. It's why people who are not deranged can so easily be deluded in the sense of having persistent wrong ideas about such things as the existence of a providential deity.

This is the sort of picture that seems to be emerging from the research of psychologists such as Paul Bloom. Just how we use it remains an open question, but it is valuable information to have. It gives some clue as to why religion is so persistent and what problems we face when we attempt to induce doubt in the minds of religious believers - or, at least, in the minds of true faith-heads dogmatists, who will argue from premises that many of us rationalist types find pre-scientific and bizarre.

379. A Response to Jonathan Haidt

Comment #69887 by Russell Blackford on September 13, 2007 at 4:51 am

Thanks to _J_ for expounding what I was getting at. Also, I think that some of the comments on this thread treat Haidt in much the way that Richard is often treated - i.e. with a hostility that leads to insensitivity to tone and nuance. Sorry.

Now that I've made myself unpopular, let me add that I just spent ages writing a defence (from my possibly idiosyncratic viewpoint) of the new atheists, and of Richard Dawkins in particular, over here:

http://scienceblogs.com/purepedantry/2007/09/why_pairing_science_and_atheis.php

Some of you might want to join in.

380. Griffin's 'offensive' Emmy speech to be censored

Comment #69817 by Russell Blackford on September 12, 2007 at 11:19 pm

funflower

"The speech drew fire from a leading Roman Catholic group, the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, which condemned Griffin's remarks as "obscene and blasphemous".

Anybody else think this is a wee bit ironic?

Exactly so. As someone else said, the very name of the group is an oxymoron.

381. A Response to Jonathan Haidt

Comment #69816 by Russell Blackford on September 12, 2007 at 11:15 pm

It is good, though I must say that I find Sam's final para rather unconvincing.

382. Censoring Sir David

Comment #69781 by Russell Blackford on September 12, 2007 at 6:42 pm

If the description is correct, this really does destroy the program's integrity. It's a mystery why Attenborough is so relaxed. I can imagine reasons why he might feel the need to keep quiet, but not for why he might say it's all fine.

383. Griffin's 'offensive' Emmy speech to be censored

Comment #69630 by Russell Blackford on September 12, 2007 at 1:44 am

Robert Maynard said:

I agree with Blackford that the only thing important about this is her right to blurt unfunny nonsense, and curbing the pathetic criticisms from Old Man Donahue and the Catholic League.

Well, it's nice to have a level of agreement. For the record, though, the above is putting a bit of spin on what I said. I actually found the remarks funny, given the context of all those other remarks that we've heard so often ... and it would have been even funnier for someone on the spot. Often, there's a lot of humour just in a person with a brash personality coming right out and saying what others (like me) merely think, but are too inhibited or polite to say.

Still, it's true that what most bothers me isn't the so-called "censorship" by a private organisation (which can really do what it likes within pretty broad limits). That is annoying, but within the organisation's commercial discretion. Robert is correct that I'm more worried by the attempt by Donohue to beat this up into an example of illegitimate hate speech. If that standard were ever accepted by governments, our free speech would be stuffed.

384. Griffin's 'offensive' Emmy speech to be censored

Comment #69588 by Russell Blackford on September 11, 2007 at 7:39 pm

The point isn't whether or not anyone is a fan of Kathy Griffin. The point is whether or not satire of this kind - regardless of whether people find it funny/effective - can be suppressed because religionists find it offensive.

I thought the comments were funny and very much to the point - she said what I, and I would guess many others, just think when we have to listen to all those sanctimonious celebs praising Jesus in acceptance speeches. But even if I disliked her and her message, I'd want to defend her.

I even defend Catch the Fire Ministries - a fundamentalist pentecostal outfit that was dragged before the tribunal here for supposed vilification of Muslims - though I have no reason to support the worldview of fundamentalist pentecostals.

We should be standing up for everyone's right to satirise religion and religionists, or to satirise the specific religion and religionists of their choice.

There's an important free speech issue here, and though I realise there are no actual religious vilification laws in place in the relevant jurisdiction, it's important to keep hammering the message that such speech as Kathy Griffin's is legitimate and must not come to be seen as unacceptable "hate speech".

385. Griffin's 'offensive' Emmy speech to be censored

Comment #69580 by Russell Blackford on September 11, 2007 at 6:56 pm

Norman Doering, contact Griffin's agent, Tim Curtis, at the William Morris Agency: tc@wma.com.

386. Griffin's 'offensive' Emmy speech to be censored

Comment #69561 by Russell Blackford on September 11, 2007 at 5:48 pm

What is frightening is that Donohue and his lot apparently consider any satire directed at religious sentiment to be "hate speech" that should be suppressed. This is not a moderate position, folks. I draw two lessons:

1. This is further evidence that the Catholic Church is not a moderate institution. That isn't news to me, but I am continually dumbfounded when I see atheists and secularists talking about the Catholic Church as if it counted among the "moderates". (I have some further discussion here: http://metamagician3000.blogspot.com/2007/09/therapeutic-cloning-debate-moves-to.html.)

2. Beware of ever supporting religious vilification legislation. If it existed in the US now, there'd be people wanting to apply it to Kathy Griffin. If the litigation failed, there'd be pressure to give the legislation more "teeth". Where I live, the government has made a big mistake in enacting such legislation. So far, there is hope that it will operate fairly sensibly ... though only at enormous expense to anyone who is hauled before the tribunal ... but once such legislation is in place it makes free speech a hostage to fortune. I suggest that everyone in a jurisdiction without such legislation continue to resist it and that everyone in a jurisdiction where it exists monitor the situation with concern. Even restricted legislation is the thin end of a thick wedge.

387. Griffin's 'offensive' Emmy speech to be censored

Comment #69556 by Russell Blackford on September 11, 2007 at 5:28 pm

I sent a supportive note to Griffin's agent. Fact is, she said what many of us think - celebrities who sanctimoniously thank Jesus or God for their awards look like idiots. As if Jesus and God, even if they existed, would be favouring one bunch of celebs over another.

388. Review of Richard Dawkins' new book 'The Fascism Delusion'

Comment #69413 by Russell Blackford on September 11, 2007 at 6:59 am

... and the point is that you don't need to explore every nuance and variation of some phenomenon to be able to show that it is fundamentally harmful. People like Eagleton seem to think that doing so would show that religion is basically benign, but it simply isn't. In fact, the more you explore it, the worse it gets.

Yes, I did frankly concede that religion has evolved some rather benign strains of late, or however exactly I expressed it. I have nothing much against moderate Anglicans, for example. The fact is, however, that these strains are not representative, and they are benign in proportion to the extent that they differ from what religion has been like historically (and is still like, in the main). Moreover, the existence of a few nice Anglican bishops and the like is something that Dawkins is well aware and has acknowledged. It has nothing to do with Terry Eagleton's bizarre review of The God Delusion.

389. The Rise of Atheist America

Comment #69389 by Russell Blackford on September 11, 2007 at 4:27 am

I can't wait to read JJ's kinder, gentler critique of theism.

As I've said a few times, there are about six sentences in The God Delusion that trouble me - whether because they are overly snarky or for some other reason. The whole book is soooo careful and fair - as well showing a range of tones and registers, as appropriate. Often it's damn (so to speak) funny. Why the hell (as it were) can't this be recognised?

Of course, it's not the book I'd have written - even if I'd had the talent and stamina to produce something on this scale - and I don't agree with every argument or issue of emphasis. But that's not the way you judge a book's merit.

On the child abuse issue, I totally agree that labeling little kids as "Muslim child" or "Catholic child", or whatever, is irrational and destructive. I also believe that exposing kids to threats of eternal torture is a terrible form of child abuse ... and very likely more traumatising than some kinds of mild sexual abuse such Richard refers to having experienced personally. I'm sick to death of this issue being used against Richard as if what I have just said is an extreme thing to say. The fact that it is so regarded, and is used as a stick to beat him with, just shows how seriously distorted the mainstream perceptions of religion and religiosity are. I'm glad that he has had the courage to show leadership on this.

390. Review of Richard Dawkins' new book 'The Fascism Delusion'

Comment #69179 by Russell Blackford on September 9, 2007 at 10:25 pm

The point is that people who run arguments like this are assuming that the phenomenon in question is fundamentally benign. It is very difficult to say that with a straight face about religion. The best that can be said for it is that much of it - though by no means all, or even most - has evolved into relatively benign modern variants.

391. The Fleas Are Multiplying!

Comment #69115 by Russell Blackford on September 9, 2007 at 6:23 pm

In fairness, it's not really plagiarism and I wince every time I see it referred to in that way. It's not as if these writers are passing off Richard's work (or Sam's) as their own. They are quite open that what they are doing is replying to Richard and Sam. The titles, etc., often allude to the titles of the original books in clever-clever ways, but there is no pretense that the "flea" books stand alone or that they would have been written in the absence of the original books. The "flea" books make plain that they are part of a debate.

The phenomenon we are seeing wouldn't even be so funny if there had only been one book written in response, and or if the responses had not come out so quickly. As things stand, it looks as if the authors and publishers are opportunistic (or a bit desperate).

I quite enjoy the "flea" joke: the idea that these quickly-written, hastily-published books are parasitic on the original books by Dawkins and Harris, without which they would have had no point and no significant audience. That's true; the books are, indeed, parasitic in that way. But we can take it too far if we claim that plagiarism is involved. Plagiarism is something quite specific. Even Yeats didn't accuse his imitators of outright plagiarism.

392. The Rise of Atheist America

Comment #68885 by Russell Blackford on September 9, 2007 at 2:52 am

"Who you gonna call?" "God-busters!"

393. The Rise of Atheist America

Comment #68848 by Russell Blackford on September 8, 2007 at 11:44 pm

Richard Morgan

"God-denier"? Why do I have the impression that this sounds just a little nastier than "atheist"? But it was bound to happen - sub-editors the world over will be looking for and inventing synonyms for "atheist". Should we help them out or just sit back, amused, and watch their linguistic antics?
Any suggestions?

Theocidal maniacs?

Theorists of theomachy?

Deodenouncers?

Deodeconstructors?

Deodefenestrators?

394. The Rise of Atheist America

Comment #68832 by Russell Blackford on September 8, 2007 at 10:14 pm

Selling the T-shirt to young people? Well, also to not-so-young-anymore people. I'm pleased with my scarlet-letter T-shirt, and have already worn it a couple of times now that the (Australian spring) weather is warming up.

395. The smallest signs of retreat

Comment #68824 by Russell Blackford on September 8, 2007 at 8:22 pm

^Wow, fascinating. Who'd have thought that there'd be an active deist movement around still making a big thing about Tom Paine? Well, not me. Live and learn.

Let's see what they produce that's of substance, over the next few years. At least they have a nice website.

They need a book on a par with The God Delusion, but I can't imagine who would write it. Their only big name seems to be Antony Flew, if he really has joined their team, and Flew lacks credibility in various ways (I know this is ageist, but it doesn't help that he's now 80-something). I think that there's an opening here for Dr Benway ... but, dude, your deism sounds more like a tactical stance than something you really believe.

396. The smallest signs of retreat

Comment #68815 by Russell Blackford on September 8, 2007 at 7:08 pm

Great work, V. and Dr B.

I do wonder about one thing: are there any genuine deists left? Sometimes EO Wilson and Paul Davies sound like deists, but I find them a bit hard to work out.

Anyway, deism is a philosophical conjecture that strikes me as premature when there is so much we still don't know and the track record of agency-based explanations of natural phenomena is so bad. On the other hand, it was a very brave position to take, historically, since it denied religion's detail and its authority.

If there are any genuine deists around, I have nothing against them at all without knowing a lot more than that about them. Without more, there's no reason why they can't be my allies. At the same time, there are plenty of "I'm an atheist but ..." types who just don't seem to get the problem posed by religion and should be classified as enablers, along with those moderate theists and others who think that all religion is cuddly; I've gradually been working out that other atheists are not automatically my allies at all - I'd need to know more about them to draw that conclusion.

At the end of the day, I see the struggle as being primarily a battle between anyone who wants to confine religion to the private sphere and anyone who wants to let it loose to try to control public policy. There are other aspects of the struggle - such as psychological abuse of children with stories of supernatural torture - but that's the main one.

397. The smallest signs of retreat

Comment #68809 by Russell Blackford on September 8, 2007 at 5:47 pm

People can have whatever emotional, spiritual "truths" they like as long they keep them to the private sphere.

Actually, it's not quite so simple if they are also inflicting those "truths" on innocent children, but we need to put up with that to some extent for the purposes of public peace. But that issue aside, I have no difficulty with theists and other religionists immersing themselves in whatever mythic narratives and symbols they like. What I do object to is those narratives and symbols then being used as a source of public policy. That is what has created the situation of urgency and made it so important to put religion back in its box.

398. We need a more intelligent religion debate

Comment #68807 by Russell Blackford on September 8, 2007 at 5:24 pm

Yeah, such words as "creationism" and its cognates are not useful if employed so broadly as to apply to deists and the like. We need a batch of words that indicate something much more specific and anti-scientific than that. It doesn't take us far if we accuse people of being "creationists" or "fundamentalists" or whatever in some very broad sense, while trying to keep the negative connotations that attach to narrower senses of these words. It's the same when Dawkins et al are accused of being "fundamentalist atheists", where the word fundamentalist has been stretched to mean no more than "convinced" or "passionate".

399. The Fleas Are Multiplying!

Comment #68639 by Russell Blackford on September 8, 2007 at 1:17 am

Apologies to John Donne

Mark but these fleas, and mark in this,
What muddled thought within their books there is;
They suck'd JC and suck RD,
And in these fleas confused beliefs run free.
Thou know'st that this is truly said
A shame (though not a loss of maidenhead!);
These wily fleas are full of woo,
And proudly swell with newfound income, too.
And this, alas! is more than fleas should do.

400. Honest Mistakes or Willful Mendacity

Comment #68600 by Russell Blackford on September 7, 2007 at 6:58 pm

Just by the way, Parfit has every reason to be pissed off, not only that he is described as a "philosopher" with scare quotes around the word, but also because his theory has been misrepresented. Parfit does not claim that his theory of personal identity/personal survival should be consoling to someone who faces imminent death. Whatever the merits of the theory, it is meant to tell us not to worry too much about the prospect of our own eventual deaths in the (perhaps) distant future. It shouldn't bother me too much, Parfit would say, that, if "I" live to a ripe old age, someone not all that much like me as I am now might die in 30 or 40 years time - however, I still have every reason to get out of the way of oncoming trucks or to be distraught if I am diagnosed with cancer tomorrow.

It's all supposed to follow from Parfit's idea that our survival over time is a matter of degree.

Here is Parfit:

Egoism, the fear not of near but of distant death, the regret that so much of one's only life should have gone by - these are not, I think, wholly natural or instinctive. They are all strengthened by the beliefs about personal identity which I have been attacking. If we give up these beliefs, they should be weakened.

This is clear. He thinks he can weaken "the fear not of near but of distant death".

Admittedly, I'm not at all sure I agree with Parfit's metaphysical theory, and I realise that the idea is subtle and difficult to grasp. I'm not sure that I fully "get" it myself, even though I've had to teach it a few times. I'm not even sure whether my understanding of it exactly matches Richard's.

But all that said, Cornwell is surely dishonest or incompetent when he characterises the theory in the way he does. Parfit knows very well that it cannot console a teenager dying of cancer, and Cornwell should know that Parfit knows it.