Natalie Angier is the Pulitzer-Prize-winning science writer for the New York Times, author of Woman: An Intimate Geography and most recently The Canon: A Whirligig Tour of the Beautiful Basics of Science. In a new piece at Edge, she points a finger at the hypocrisy of many scientists who wail and gnash their teeth at superstitious craziness like creationism or astrology, but invent elaborate rationalizations about non-overlapping magisteria when it comes to things like the virgin birth or life after death. A somewhat lengthy excerpt, as I can’t help myself:
In the course of reporting a book on the scientific canon and pestering hundreds of researchers at the nation’s great universities about what they see as the essential vitamins and minerals of literacy in their particular disciplines, I have been hammered into a kind of twinkle-eyed cartoon coma by one recurring message. Whether they are biologists, geologists, physicists, chemists, astronomers, or engineers, virtually all my sources topped their list of what they wish people understood about science with a plug for Darwin’s dandy idea. Would you please tell the public, they implored, that evolution is for real? Would you please explain that the evidence for it is overwhelming and that an appreciation of evolution serves as the bedrock of our understanding of all life on this planet? …
Scientists think this is terrible—the public’s bizarre underappreciation of one of science’s great and unshakable discoveries, how we and all we see came to be—and they’re right. Yet I can’t help feeling tetchy about the limits most of them put on their complaints. You see, they want to augment this particular figure—the number of people who believe in evolution—without bothering to confront a few other salient statistics that pollsters have revealed about America’s religious cosmogony. Few scientists, for example, worry about the 77 percent of Americans who insist that Jesus was born to a virgin, an act of parthenogenesis that defies everything we know about mammalian genetics and reproduction. Nor do the researchers wring their hands over the 80 percent who believe in the resurrection of Jesus, the laws of thermodynamics be damned. …
So, on the issue of mainstream monotheistic religions and the irrationality behind many of religion’s core tenets, scientists often set aside their skewers, their snark, and their impatient demand for proof, and instead don the calming cardigan of a a kiddie-show host on public television. They reassure the public that religion and science are not at odds with one another, but rather that they represent separate “magisteria,” in the words of the formerly alive and even more formerly scrappy Stephen Jay Gould. Nobody is going to ask people to give up their faith, their belief in an everlasting soul accompanied by an immortal memory of every soccer game their kids won, every moment they spent playing fetch with the dog. Nobody is going to mock you for your religious beliefs. Well, we might if you base your life decisions on the advice of a Ouija board; but if you want to believe that someday you’ll be seated at a celestial banquet with your long-dead father to your right and Jane Austen to your left-and that she’ll want to talk to you for another hundred million years or more—that’s your private reliquary, and we’re not here to jimmy the lock.
Consider the very different treatments accorded two questions presented to Cornell University’s “Ask an Astronomer” Web site. To the query, “Do most astronomers believe in God, based on the available evidence?” the astronomer Dave Rothstein replies that, in his opinion, “modern science leaves plenty of room for the existence of God . . . places where people who do believe in God can fit their beliefs in the scientific framework without creating any contradictions.” He cites the Big Bang as offering solace to those who want to believe in a Genesis equivalent and the probabilistic realms of quantum mechanics as raising the possibility of “God intervening every time a measurement occurs” [arrrgh! — ed.] before concluding that, ultimately, science can never prove or disprove the existence of a god, and religious belief doesn’t—and shouldn’t—”have anything to do with scientific reasoning.”
How much less velveteen is the response to the reader asking whether astronomers believe in astrology. “No, astronomers do not believe in astrology,” snarls Dave Kornreich. “It is considered to be a ludicrous scam. There is no evidence that it works, and plenty of evidence to the contrary.” Dr. Kornreich ends his dismissal with the assertion that in science “one does not need a reason not to believe in something.” Skepticism is “the default position” and “one requires proof if one is to be convinced of something’s existence.”
Read the whole thing. Scientists who do try to point out that walking on water isn’t consistent with the laws of physics, and that there’s no reason to believe in an afterlife, etc., are often told that this is a bad strategic move — we’ll never win over the average person on the street to the cause of science and rationality if we tell them that it conflicts with their religion. Which is a legitimate way to think, if you’re a politician or a marketing firm. But as scientists, our first duty should be to tell the truth. The laws of physics and biology tell us something about how the world works, and there is no room in there for raising the dead and turning water into wine. In the long run, being honest with ourselves and with the public is always the best strategy.
Update: In the Science Times, George Johnson reports on a conference in which scientists debated how to interact with religion. This was a non-Templeton affair, and most of the participants seemed to be somewhat anti-religion. Videos of the talks should soon be available at The Science Network.
Re: bodily resurrection of Jesus, this is what I’ve written about it before:
http://brahms.phy.vanderbilt.edu/~rknop/blog/?p=43
I know that most Christians would be a bit taken aback at the idea of somebody thinking themself Christian while not unquestionably accepting that the bodily resurrection of Jesus happened…. On the other hand, I have also known faithful pastors of Christian churches who question the historical fact of the bodily resurrection of Jesus.
They’re out there. It’d be nice to stop lumping them in with the enemy….
-Rob
The failure of our education system to teach better science is becoming abundantly clear. But the failure of our education system to teach basic philosophical and religious understanding is clearly evident in many of the comments above. Why do so many people feel so confident in discussing theology, metaphysics, and the history and phenomenology of religions without ever having taken coursework in those disciplines??
Sean’s points are quite valid. Scientists need to present clearer descriptive recitations to the general public to encourage a deeper civic understanding of scientific reasoning and thinking. Regardless of the philosophical or theological orientation of the scientist, the science itself is not, and cannot be, informed by normative based faith or belief. Science requires facts and verifiable (also falsifiable) evidence and proofs. The entire notion that the proven axioms of scientific reasoning can be suspended temporarily by divine intervention (miracles) cannot, and will not, be demonstrated to be true. Not knowing something, and in turn, assuming that that which you do not know is therefore controlled by some theological agency–with conscious intentionality to act independent upon the very structure of the universe–has absolutely nothing to do with science.
Myths should not be taken literally. They have great figurative power and make for great stories. But they are metaphors. Their real power lies in language and social connections, not in explaining physical reality.
With regard to miracles:
I’m just saying we should be pragmatic about this. First of all, those are often pretty harmless beliefs. Who cares if someone wants to pray for their sick kid, as long as they’re taking them to the doctor too?
And anyway, you’re not likely to change a believer’s mind with scientific arguments. And depending on how you phrase your argument (“folk tales”, etc.), you may end up alienating someone who could be an ally in the battles that actually *do* matter, like keeping the religious extremists from mucking with our education system.
I’m not saying that if someone asks you “Do you think miracles are possible?” you should misrepresent yourself for fear of offending them. But it’s one thing to say “No, I don’t think you can violate the laws of science,” and it’s another thing to suggest (as some atheists tend to do) that anyone who would think otherwise is a superstitious nincompoop.
Realistically, *most* people think that most of the world’s beliefs are flat-out wrong. I mean, you basically can’t be a Christian and believe Muhammad was a prophet from God (given that his prophecies contradict Christian doctrine), but that doesn’t mean that a Christian ought to get up at an interfaith summit and denounce Muhammad as a false prophet. The polite way to say “I think your most cherished beliefs are rubbish” is “That isn’t what I believe.”
There’s a guy in my town who thinks that standing on a park bench and shouting at every passerby that they’ll burn in hellfire unless they embrace Jesus is a great way to make converts. Really, it’s a great way to make non-Christians think Christians are condescending loudmouths. I’d hope that scientists would be more sensible than that. You can be “honest” and still pick your battles wisely.
Sean,
You continue to put the cart before the horse. The proper procedure for eliminating widespread belief in the supernatural is to first develop alternative beliefs that perform the same societal functions.
1. Formulate Seanism — a fully rational and secular basis for ethics compatible with scientific knowledge.
2. Test Seanism. Raise a generation or two of Seanists in a small community, then test it in one city.
3. Evaluate Seanism. Does Seanism create a better society by the usual indicators (crime, drunkenness, wealth, intellectual achievements, etc)?
4. Spread Seanism. If Seanism is a better way, preach it, brother!
You have jumped to Step #4 before even beginning Step #1. You are making the incredibly naïve assumption that current religious beliefs are not a net positive in our society, and that they play no import role in restraining uncivil human impulses.
Remember, there currently exists no rational argument against committing murder and other crimes. [There are only arguments for not getting caught and for encouraging others not to commit crimes.] It is a huge mistake to erode the supernatural argument against crime (eternal hellfire) before developing a secular replacement.
It only seems to you and to the less perspicacious among us that religion is unnecessary, because we live in societies steeped in religions customs. If over time those customs are not reinforced by either religious or secular means, they will erode.
Then that guy out there — whose religious faith helped him suppress his urge to break into your house, rape your wife, and kill your kids — will feel rather less obliged to restrain himself.
Sean said
I’m confused again, why are double standards wrong?
Anyway,
I hear you are finally getting married. Here is an experiment for you. Once you have a child (assuming you want children) your wife (assuming you are marrying a women) will ask you if she looks fat in her jeans. Since you are a fearless defender of truth (fellings be damned) you can tell her “hell yea honey, you look like a cow”. This should be ok because weight gain from pregnancy is scientifically well understood.
Do this for six months and then report back.
Anyway, for those who *do* think that it’s somehow of great importance to convince people that a man didn’t walk on water 2,000 years ago, you need to at least know your audience. If they’re trying suggest a scientific mechanism for it, then of course you can debunk this claim with science. But a lot of people know perfectly well that this claim violates established scientific principles, but they just don’t believe the laws of physics are inviolable. You can argue that this is an irrational belief if you want, but explaining bouyancy and whatnot to them as if the only possible reason they could be religious is because they slept through high school physics can come across as pretty condescending.
In the 19th century artificial resuscitation was developed and the dead lived again. Do you really want to base your science on such a narrow basis as current knowledge and technology? Dead science it would be.
I’m a Jew, so the walking on water is meaningless, but parting the ocean is of course absolutely true. Okay, maybe not. But the plagues made for an excellent story.
I think the opposing argument is that without heaven/hell, the absolute worst thing you can do is hurt another human, since we all only have one life. If there can be no spiritual redemption, being caught and spending the rest of one’s life in prison (hell on earth, if you will) is certainly as frightening as spending an eternity in hell. At any rate, I don’t believe that fear of punishment stops one from being a sociopath.
I do believe however, that belief in God, in Heaven, does keep one from going completely nuts when one’s life is total shit, or when a loved one suffers brutality at the hands of another. For example, if your four year old child is kidnapped, raped, murdered, and her last memory is of pain and terror, I’d think that a mother may find great solace in the idea that a warm and loving god of some sort has taken all that pain away, and her child is safe and content in some Edenesque place, where they’ll meet again.
Convince that mother otherwise. Convince people suffering just about anywhere in the world where they don’t live in comfort with full bellies, warm beds, antibiotics, Playstation, pay-per-view, and a Starbucks on every corner that there isn’t a better life after this one. Do we think that the terrorized and abused and poor will suddenly rise up and and start commuting to the stream in Hybrid cars in order to bring back some water for a wholesome root stew?
For some, the belief in a better existence off in the distance is a reason to trudge on through really shit situations. I don’t find that ignorant, just very very human. So little of religion, I think, has to do with stories that don’t gel with physics. That’s all just semantics. Religion can and does cause all sorts of problems, heinous problems. However, I think for most humans, religion is just the byproduct of a desperate need for comfort when none exists.
You can prove that no one walked on water, that the stories that make up religion are crap, but since you can’t disprove God or Heaven, you’ll never be able to take it away from people, which I think is as it should be.
You can and should make sure to explain that god didn’t make the punch, just don’t piss in it at the same time, yeah?
Here ends the ramblings of someone who is not a scientist.
1) Jeez, Sean’s readership is rough. He just got engaged, and we’re already proposing experiments with his would-be family.
BTW, I tell all my girlfriends they’re fat, as a preemptive measure.
2) Allyson, would it weaken your case at all if you met all the veterans and cancer survivors who became atheistic as a result of their experiences? In the sample of people I’ve met, it definitely cuts both ways.
There is a simple issue of tact. I’m no more anxious to tell people bluntly that virgin birth is impossible than I am to tell them bluntly that they should lose 15 pounds, quit driving a car with an internal combustion engine, become a vegan, floss their teeth, and wash their hands more often.
I learned the whole Christian canon as a kid, and I still find it comforting to say the Lord’s Prayer every day. As a scientist I know there is zero chance that the Creator is our Father who art in Heaven. The comfort comes from a connection with something I learned when I was little, and from activating the whole sensory memory of standing in church next to my parents (both dead now) and my siblings (who I rarely see now). I’m perfectly happy with the idea that religion is primarily effective group therapy originating from a distant past when the world was far less comprehended. If it makes people feel good to get together and proclaim faith in virgin birth or in fairies hiding in the bushes, all the more power to them.
Angier goes a bit over the top… evolution is hot because some Xian activists want to mess with its teaching in the schools. Those activists don’t seem much interested in teaching virgin birth theory or transubstantiation theory or aquapedestrian theory. We scientists focus on evolution because that is where the religionists have targeted us.
Belizean:
If there doesn’t exist a rational argument against murder then that means that any argument against murder is irrational and therefore flawed.
Sourav, no, it doesn’t at all.
In the words of the mighty Jane Espenson, beliefs are possessions. Beliefs can be traded in at the local freecycle for new beliefs when the old ones don’t fit anymore. But exchanging beliefs is deeply personal. If I invite you over to tea and you steal all my underwear and replace them with pints of beer, I’m going to swing my cat at your face and laugh as you try to pry her off.
Some would be happier with beer than underwear, but I don’t drink beer, so it’s useless to me. And also, you’re stealing my beliefs (underwear), which is a crime. It’s not really your decision to make. All you can do is try to explain why beer is better than underwear, and then if I come to the decision on my own to put my beliefs on Craigslist, it’s my choice.
Wait, I have a better metaphor that actually makes sense somewhere. Perhaps it’s in the sock drawer…
At any rate, if people are searching for comfort, and find it in a pair of hanes cotton bikini briefs (or god), and you can’t offer an equal exchange, you shouldn’t be surprised when someone swings a cat at your face.
This has to be the crappiest post at CV, ever.
What is the minimal speed with which a person can run on the surface of the water?
Answer to the Question 🙂
“Anyway,
I hear you are finally getting married. Here is an experiment for you. Once you have a child (assuming you want children) your wife (assuming you are marrying a women) will ask you if she looks fat in her jeans. Since you are a fearless defender of truth (fellings be damned) you can tell her “hell yea honey, you look like a cow”. This should be ok because weight gain from pregnancy is scientifically well understood.
Do this for six months and then report back.”
So religious belief is like spousal insecurity/gamesmanship in this thought experiment, then? Marvelous.
2) Allyson, would it weaken your case at all if you met all the veterans and cancer survivors who became atheistic as a result of their experiences? In the sample of people I’ve met, it definitely cuts both ways.
I suspect Allyson would take a line simliar to the one taken by many of us who disagree that teaching good science requires teaching atheism. Religious faith is a very personal thing. Some find it helpful, some have no need for it. Conversions any way don’t really undermine any argument of this sort. It will undermine a universal “my religion is the only right one” argument, but it doesn’t undermine the argument that for many, their religious faith is part of what helps keep them going.
So religious belief is like spousal insecurity/gamesmanship in this thought experiment, then? Marvelous.
Classic Internet deliberate misreading of analogy to make the analogy proposer appear stupid. Sigh. That kind of junk goes on too often.
It wasn’t my analogy, but at least I got the point of it : there is such a thing as not being completely honest with some audiences in the interest of long term diplomacy, harmony, and achieving of true shared goals with said audience.
Allyson,
However, beer is objectively real, whereas underwear is a psychosocial construct that is probably rooted in an overly-evolved perception of intentionality. As such, we have duty to beer, and none to underwear or the irrational who would wear them.
For scientists who think we should stay away from commenting on astrology or creationism or psychic communication with the dead for fear of offending people’s comforting-but-harmless beliefs, taking a similar attitude toward religion would be perfectly consistent. It’s the different standards that seem puzzling.
p.s. Allyson is right, the plagues and the parting of the Red Sea are pretty cool. If you’re going to have some myths, have some myths, man.
Count Iblis,
That’s exactly my point. We don’t refrain from crimes (that we could get away with) for purely rational reasons, but because we have been conditioned to as a consequence of growing up in a society steeped in customs reinforced by religions.
A rational anti-crime argument can probably be made, but no one has yet done so. This is a standing intellectual problem that should be solved, before we start tearing down our society’s primary mechanism for suppressing uncivil behavior.
What would disproving these myths prove? That scientists are right and religion is wrong. To a group of people who believe things on faith, not reason. That seems illogical to me. The motivation not to disprove religious myths may be timidity — risking offense is something best left out of intellectual pursuits — but what would the endgame be of such a campaign?
Religion is about faith. Many scientific pursuits begin in such a place. What separates the two is that science confirms what we observe. So we make leaps in science coinciding with leaps of vision on a physical and intellectual level.
Why not just teach the difference between these two very different forms of dealing with the world? There are two basic philosophies by which we understand the world: Faith and reason. Faith is religion. Science is reason. Faith cannot explain all of what we observe. Science can’t either.
The benefit of science, however, is that it causes us to question what we are told and what we see. The limit of faith is that it locates all truth beyond us, in an amorphous realm that leaves us powerless.
The benefit of faith is that it provides comfort for the inexplicable. The limit of science is us: That we need time, evidence and tools not always at hand to make discoveries that make clear what was once a complete mystery.
As Sean’s future wife, I feel compelled to defend my ass (whatever size it may be). 🙂
Okay, not really. Because ksh95’s argument is deliberately over-simplified, and s/he knows it. There’s nothing wrong with honest feedback from a partner — tactfully expressed, yet honest nonetheless. The key here is tact. E.g., telling your post-pregnant wife she looks like a fat cow is unnecessarily cruel. That’s not the same thing as openly acknowledging that she’s packed on some baby weight — which she already knows — and, say, assuring her she’s still beautiful and you love her anyway, even if her jeans don’t fit like they used to. There IS a biological/scientific reason why a woman gains weight during pregnancy; ditto for ALL the changes that take place in her body pre- and post- the actual birth. Being reminded that this is a normal, natural function might actually help a woman cope better with her changing body and wildly fluctuating hormones. So I’ll go on record as being pro-scientific honesty.
The same principle applies to one’s assumptions, beliefs, etc. Honest feedback from a trusted source can help you refine your beliefs. Asking challenging questions strengthens true faith, it doesn’t diminish it. I’ve always said that if someone’s faith can’t withstand the occasional challenge, then it’s a pretty sad, weak kind of faith.
Allyson,
The point isn’t to prevent people from being sociopaths, it’s to prevent them from indulging their sociopathic impulses.
Given that sociopaths are totally self-centered and lack a sense of moral responsibility, inducing hope for personal reward (carrot) or fear of personal punishment (stick) are the only known ways in which they can be dissuaded from anti-social behavior. As bribing people not to commit atrocities can become expensive, societies are well advised to use the latter approach.
Oh, burn, Rob! You got me so good I can’t even tell if I deliberately misread the point of the original analogy or altogether missed it. 😉
Dropping the snark, let’s consider this point:
It wasn’t my analogy, but at least I got the point of it : there is such a thing as not being completely honest with some audiences in the interest of long term diplomacy, harmony, and achieving of true shared goals with said audience.
There are many ways of making this point, many analogies one might construct that avoid getting personal in a cheap attempt to expose someone as a hypocrite. My initial snark was a bit of “turnabout is fair play” by giving an unfair reading of the point being made.
Consider also this answer to ksh95’s question: “Honey, if it makes you feel better, I’ll tell you you don’t look fat, so long as I don’t have to believe it.” I’d guess that everyone would agree that’s an insultingly patronizing answer. Yet advocating something like NOMA or “not being completely honest” in order to go along to get along treads perilously close to this non-optimal answer. In time, people will see through even polished lies of omission, and it’s an open question as to whether that will be more damaging than blunt forthrightness on the matter.
Sourav wrote:
Sourav, good point but I disagree with your assessment of String Theory. String Theory is fraud not because it is not testable but because Doctors of Philosophy who market the String Theory use the authority of mathematics to present String Theory as “the language in which God wrote Nature.” Any admittedly religious statement can be “a valid topic of scientific discourse.” This does not make the religious statement a scientific statement. String theory is a black box theory as admitted by the String Doctors themselves. That’s why String Theory is a modern religion pushed by the giant publishing industry and by evangelists like Doctor Greene.