a Presidential Debate solely on the subject of science

reposted from: http://richarddawkins.net/article,1703,n,n

A New Debate

by Matthew Chapman

I am advocating for a Presidential Debate solely on the subject of science, and I hope you will join me in trying to bring this about.

Had such a thing occurred during the election in 2000, perhaps we would have discovered that George W. Bush believed "the jury is still out on evolution."

In this election, we have been provided with an excellent reason to ask for a scientific debate by the fact that three Republican candidates for president, Brownback, Huckabee, and Tancredo indicated that they do not believe in evolution. For them the jury seems not to be out, but to have rendered a verdict against the theory.

A publication of the National Academy of Sciences states: "The evolution of all the organisms that live on earth today from ancestors that lived in the past is at the core of genetics, biochemistry, neurobiology, physiology, ecology, and other biological disciplines. It helps to explain the emergence of new infectious diseases, the development of antibiotic resistance in bacteria, the agricultural relationships among wild and domestic plants and animals, the composition of the earth's atmosphere, the molecular machinery of the cell, the similarities between human beings and other primates, and countless other features of the biological and physical world. As the great geneticist and evolutionist Theodosius Dobzhansky wrote in 1973,

'Nothing in biology makes sense except in light of evolution.'"

Given the above, one is faced with two explanations of the three men's statements of disbelief. They are either honestly ignorant of the true scientific status of evolution, or are dishonestly pandering to the genuinely ignorant in order to get their votes. As a matter of politeness, one must accord them the benefit of the doubt and assume they are honest, which leaves only the first and more terrifying option, namely that they are genuinely and profoundly ignorant.

Is this level of ignorance shared by other Presidential candidates, both Republican and Democratic, in other scientific matters? If so, we have a right to know.

We are, after all, in a completely new situation. To quote entomologist Edward O. Wilson, human beings are "the first species in the history of life to become a geophysical force."

Through industrial pollution, the destruction of our rain forests, over-fishing, over-hunting and so on, we can destroy just about all life on earth. This is a problem that cannot be solved without an understanding of science, most specifically biology.

An American president who does not understand science - or worse, disdains it - is no longer just a fool, but potentially lethal.

The debate should be held in some august and inspiring place such as the American Museum of Natural History, or a great university, and should be attended primarily by people in the sciences.

The format of the debate should be simple. A panel of four or five scientists, specializing in a range of disciplines from microbiology and medicine to the composition of the earth's atmosphere, would ask the candidates questions. These might be on matters of opinion, such as whether stem cell research should be encouraged, while others would be purely factual.

Should a candidate respond incorrectly to a factual matter, or be incapable of responding at all, the scientist would provide the answer. If the scientists were famous, the event would be more persuasive and attractive (a Nobel Laureate or two would be good), but you would also need a scientific populist, someone like Gina Kolata, who writes about many aspects of science for the New York Times. Her job would be to translate and moderate if the scientific lingo became too arcane or the questioning too intense. In order to expand the debate, and perhaps clear up matters where educated audience members disagreed with scientific statements made by the panel, questions would be taken from the floor.

None of the candidates should know in advance what questions they will be asked. This would force them to study as much science as possible, and this in itself would be a marvelous thing. (To be fair to them, however, a statement would be read at the start saying that no one expects a politician to understand every aspect of the many scientific disciplines, just the basic ideas.) The debate's tone would not be adversarial, but cordial and educational. It could even be fun, almost like a quiz show. Indeed, if the event was sponsored by an influential scientific organization, there could even be a prize: the best informed of the candidates would win its endorsement. This would have the double benefit of promoting the idea that science is important, and also that it can and should be influential in the political process.

There is a secondary, but perhaps equally important reason for this debate, which is that

no discussion of science can really occur without understanding the scientific method. This would inevitably lead to reflections on the value of evidence, reason, and logic in the making of political decisions versus the uses of faith.

There is, of course, a chance that some of the candidates would refuse to attend, but an RSVP in the negative would beg the question: why on earth would a candidate turn his back on the opportunity to learn more about science?

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reposted from: http://www.secularhumanism.org/library/fi/angier_24_5.htm

My God Problem

by Natalie Angier

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The following article is from Free Inquiry magazine, Volume 24, Number 5.

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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?

In other words, the scientists wanted me to do my bit to help fix the terrible little statistic they keep hearing about, the one indicating that many more Americans believe in angels, devils, and poltergeists than in evolution. According to recent polls, about

82 percent are convinced of the reality of heaven (and 63 percent think they're headed there after death); 51 percent believe in ghosts; but only 28 percent are swayed by the theory of evolution.

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.

No, most scientists are not interested in taking on any of the mighty cornerstones of Christianity. They complain about irrational thinking, they despise creationist "science," they roll their eyes over America's infatuation with astrology, telekinesis, spoon bending, reincarnation, and UFOs, but toward the bulk of the magic acts that have won the imprimatur of inclusion in the Bible, they are tolerant, respectful, big of tent. Indeed, many are quick to point out that the Catholic Church has endorsed the theory of evolution and that it sees no conflict between a belief in God and the divinity of Jesus and the notion of evolution by natural selection. If the pope is buying it, the reason for most Americans' resistance to evolution must have less to do with religion than with a lousy advertising campaign.

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" 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."

In other words, for horoscope fans, the burden of proof is entirely on them, the poor gullible gits; while for the multitudes who believe that, in one way or another, a divine intelligence guides the path of every leaping lepton, there is no demand for evidence, no skepticism to surmount, no need to worry. You, the religious believer, may well find subtle support for your faith in recent discoveries—that is, if you're willing to upgrade your metaphors and definitions as the latest data demand, seek out new niches of ignorance or ambiguity to fill with the goose down of faith, and accept that, certain passages of the Old Testament notwithstanding, the world is very old, not everything in nature was made in a week, and (can you turn up the mike here, please?) Evolution Happens.

And if you don't find substantiation for your preferred divinity or your most cherished rendering of the afterlife somewhere in the sprawling emporium of science, that's fine, too. No need to lose faith when you were looking in the wrong place to begin with. Science can't tell you whether God exists or where you go when you die. Science cannot definitively rule out the heaven option, with its helium balloons and Breck hair for all. Science in no way wants to be associated with terrifying thoughts, like the possibility that the pericentury of consciousness granted you by the convoluted, gelatinous, and transient organ in your skull just may be the whole story of you-dom. Science isn't arrogant. Science trades in the observable universe and testable hypotheses. Religion gets the midnight panic fêtes. But you've heard about evolution, right?

So why is it that most scientists avoid criticizing religion even as they decry the supernatural mind-set?

For starters, some researchers are themselves traditionally devout, keeping a kosher kitchen or taking Communion each Sunday. I admit I'm surprised whenever I encounter a religious scientist. How can a bench-hazed Ph.D., who might in an afternoon deftly purée a colleague's PowerPoint presentation on the nematode genome into so much fish chow, then go home, read in a two-thousand-year-old chronicle, riddled with internal contradictions, of a meta-Nobel discovery like "Resurrection from the Dead," and say, gee, that sounds convincing? Doesn't the good doctor wonder what the control group looked like?

Scientists, however, are a far less religious lot than the American population, and, the higher you go on the cerebro-magisterium, the greater the proportion of atheists, agnostics, and assorted other paganites.

According to

a 1998 survey published in Nature, only 7 percent of members of the prestigious National Academy of Sciences professed a belief in a "personal God."

(Interestingly, a slightly higher number, 7.9 percent, claimed to believe in "personal immortality," which may say as much about the robustness of the scientific ego as about anything else.) In other words, more than 90 percent of our elite scientists are unlikely to pray for divine favoritism, no matter how badly they want to beat a competitor to publication. Yet only a flaskful of the faithless have put their nonbelief on record or publicly criticized religion, the notable and voluble exceptions being Richard Dawkins of Oxford University and

Daniel Dennett of Tufts University. Nor have Dawkins and Dennett earned much good will among their colleagues for their anticlerical views; one astronomer I spoke with said of Dawkins, "He's a really fine parish preacher of the fire-and-brimstone school, isn't he?"

So, what keeps most scientists quiet about religion? It's probably something close to that trusty old limbic reflex called "an instinct for self-preservation." For centuries, science has survived quite nicely by cultivating an image of reserve and objectivity, of being above religion, politics, business, table manners.

Scientists want to be left alone to do their work, dazzle their peers, and hire grad students to wash the glassware. When it comes to extramural combat, scientists choose their crusades cautiously. Going after Uri Geller or the Ra‘lians is risk-free entertainment, easier than making fun of the sociology department. Battling the creationist camp has been a much harder and nastier fight, but those scientists who have taken it on feel they have a direct stake in the debate and are entitled to wage it, since the creationists, and more recently the promoters of "intelligent design" theory, claim to be as scientific in their methodology as are the scientists.

But when a teenager named Darrell Lambert was chucked out of the Boy Scouts for being an atheist, scientists suddenly remembered all those gels they had to run and dark matter they had to chase, and they kept quiet. Lambert had explained the reason why, despite a childhood spent in Bible classes and church youth groups, he had become an atheist. He took biology in ninth grade, and, rather than devoting himself to studying the bra outline of the girl sitting in front of him, he actually learned some biology. And what he learned in biology persuaded him that the Bible was full of . . . short stories. Some good, some inspiring, some even racy, but fiction nonetheless. For his incisive, reasoned, scientific look at life, and for refusing to cook the data and simply lie to the Boy Scouts about his thoughts on God—as some advised him to do—Darrell Lambert should have earned a standing ovation from the entire scientific community. Instead, he had to settle for an interview with Connie Chung, right after a report on the Gambino family.

Scientists have ample cause to feel they must avoid being viewed as irreligious, a prionic life-form bent on destroying the most sacred heifer in America. After all, academic researchers graze on taxpayer pastures. If they pay the slightest attention to the news, they've surely noticed the escalating readiness of conservative politicians and an array of highly motivated religious organizations to interfere with the nation's scientific enterprise—altering the consumer information Web site at the National Cancer Institute to make abortion look like a cause of breast cancer, which it is not, or stuffing scientific advisory panels with anti-abortion "faith healers."

Recently, an obscure little club called the Traditional Values Coalition began combing through descriptions of projects supported by the National Institutes of Health and complaining to sympathetic congressmen about those they deemed morally "rotten," most of them studies of sexual behavior and AIDS prevention. The congressmen in turn launched a series of hearings, calling in institute officials to inquire who in the Cotton-pickin' name of Mather cares about the perversions of Native American homosexuals, to which the researchers replied, um, the studies were approved by a panel of scientific experts, and, gee, the Native American community has been underserved and is having a real problem with AIDS these days. Thus far, the projects have escaped being nullified, but the raw display of pious dentition must surely give fright to even the most rakishly freethinking and comfortably tenured professor. It's one thing to monkey with descriptions of Darwinism in a high-school textbook. But to threaten to take away a peer-reviewed grant! That Dan Dennett; he is something of a pompous leafblower, isn't he?

Yet the result of wincing and capitulating is a fresh round of whacks. Now it's not enough for presidential aspirants to make passing reference to their "faith." Now a reporter from Newsweek sees it as his privilege, if not his duty, to demand of Howard Dean, "Do you see Jesus Christ as the son of God and believe in him as the route to salvation and eternal life?" In my personal fairy tale, Dean, who as a doctor fits somewhere in the phylum Scientificus, might have boomed, "Well, with his views on camels and rich people, he sure wouldn't vote Republican!" or maybe, "No, but I hear he has a Mel Gibson complex." Dr. Dean might have talked about patients of his who suffered strokes and lost the very fabric of themselves and how he has seen the centrality of the brain to the sense of being an individual. He might have expressed doubts that the self survives the brain, but, oh yes, life goes on, life is bigger, stronger, and better endowed than any Bush in a jumpsuit, and we are part of the wild, tumbling river of life, our molecules were the molecules of dinosaurs and before that of stars, and this is not Bulfinch mythology, this is corroborated reality.

Alas for my phantasm of fact, Howard Dean, M.D., had no choice but to chime, oh yes, he certainly sees Jesus as the son of God, though he at least dodged the eternal life clause with a humble mumble about his salvation not being up to him.

I may be an atheist, and I may be impressed that, through the stepwise rigor of science, its Spockian eyebrow of doubt always cocked, we have learned so much about the universe.

Yet I recognize that, from there to here, and here to there, funny things are everywhere. Why is there so much dark matter and dark energy in the great Out There, and why couldn't cosmologists have given them different enough names so I could keep them straight? Why is there something rather than nothing, and why is so much of it on my desk? Not to mention the abiding mysteries of e-mail, like why I get exponentially more spam every day, nine-tenths of it invitations to enlarge an appendage I don't have.

I recognize that science doesn't have all the answers and doesn't pretend to, and that's one of the things I love about it. But it has a pretty good notion of what's probable or possible, and virgin births and carpenter rebirths just aren't on the list.

Is there a divine intelligence, separate from the universe but somehow in charge of the universe, either in its inception or in twiddling its parameters? No evidence.

Is the universe itself God? Is the universe aware of itself? We're here. We're aware. Does that make us God? Will my daughter have to attend a Quaker Friends school now?

I don't believe in life after death, but I'd like to believe in life before death. I'd like to think that one of these days we'll leave superstition and delusional thinking and Jerry Falwell behind. Scientists would like that, too. But for now, they like their grants even more.

Reprinted from The American Scholar 72, no. 2, Spring 2004. (c)Natalie Angier. By permission of the publishers.

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Natalie Angier is a science reporter for the New York Times and author of Woman: An Intimate Geography, Natural Obsessions, and The Beauty of the Beastly. In 1991 she won a Pulitzer Prize for her science reporting.

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Note to self: don't go easy on 'em

reposted from: http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula

Note to self: don't go easy on 'em

Category: Godlessness
Posted on: September 14, 2007 2:13 PM, by PZ Myers

I see that Matt Nisbet has organized a panel for the AAAS meetings,

(WASP posted this blog)

in which he has picked a squad of people sympathetic to religion to 'argue' that

"scientists must adopt a language that emphasizes shared values and has broad appeal, avoiding the pitfall of seeming to condescend to fellow citizens, or alienating them by attacking their religious beliefs"

, and he

doesn't have a single person on the panel that might actually challenge them on that recommendation to muzzle the godless.

He's also presenting a paper on "The New Atheism and the Public Image of Science," and we all know precisely how competent he is on that topic. Unless you're one of those god-soaked apologists who welcomes a chance to nod approvingly at yet more whining about bad ol' atheists, that session sounds like a real snooze. We already know what they're going to conclude.

Remind me to show no mercy.

Selected comments:-

Sympathetic to religion much as I'm sympathetic to A. smokers who give themselves cancer, B. retards, or C. old people who've fallen down?

Posted by: Caucasian Jesus | September 14, 2007 2:21 PM

More and more I'm wondering what people expect to be the result of science education. Yeah, yeah, we uppity atheist bastards are "sabotaging the cause", but what would victory look like? Would Mr. Gallup report that a majority of Americans can correctly state that electrons are smaller than atoms while the Earth goes around the Sun once a year? Sure, that would be nice. But that's not the only point of teaching science.

Put more precisely, the goal of science education includes familiarizing students with the methods of science as well as its discoveries. The lesson plan must include both — ultimately, because we want a citizen body instead of a proletariat. And what do you get when you have a scientifically literate population of students? Why, you get teenagers acting like Richard Dawkins. The alphabet of pseudoscience does not stop after astrology, biorhythms and crystal healing, and some fraction of any group which learns critical thought will recognize that fact.

Deal with it now, or deal with it later, but widespread beliefs are gonna get thumped.

Posted by: Blake Stacey | September 14, 2007 2:41 PM

Blake said "Deal with it now, or deal with it later, but widespread beliefs are gonna get thumped."

That's the whole problem in a nutshell: people may actually think.

I guess I'm only speaking for myself here, but that's all I want my religious friends (and others) to do. Just think. Some were never taught how, some find it uncomfortable, some are biochemically unable to do so, and some just don't want other people to figure out what they're really up to.

Posted by: shrimplate | September 14, 2007 3:03 PM

eh. Looking at Nisbet's post, I remember when Sean Carroll used that same magazine cover as evidence that the Uppity Atheist campaign was having an effect: shifting the Overton Window so that frank discussion of godlessness was possible.

Evidence: a few years ago, major newsmagazines (prompted in part by the efforts of the Templeton Foundation) were running cover stories with titles like Science Finds God (Newsweek, July 20, 1998). Pure moonshine, of course — come down where you will on the whole God debate, it remains pretty clear that science hasn't found Him. But, within the range of acceptable public discourse, both science and God were considered to be undeniably good things — it wasn't a stretch to put them together. Time: God vs. Science? Nowadays, in contrast, we find cover stories with titles like God vs. Science (Time, Nov 13, 2006). You never would have seen such a story just a few years ago.

Hmmm. "Windows". . . "Frames". . . One says yes, the other says no. . . Makes me happy I went into physics and not public policy.

(Of course, magazine covers are chosen by people who are probably in the intellectual upper crust of society, and they might move faster than others, but then again, I haven't been particularly impressed with Framism's track record of considering the diversity of people's personalities.)

Also, what's the point of filling a panel with people who will all agree with each other? Genuine science thrives on a diversity of opinion, because that diversity means there's a chance one person might be less wrong than everybody else.

Posted by: Blake Stacey | September 14, 2007 3:06 PM

This looks about as intellectually engaging as a panel discussion organized by the Discovery Institute to discuss the place of Darwin's Theory of Evolution in modern society.

Posted by: Caledonian | September 14, 2007 3:08 PM

PZ,
Your commitment to spinning and twisting my arguments to fit your ideology and to spark a feeding frenzy of anger among your like-minded followers is admirable.

Yet as a fellow atheist, at no point have I argued that we "muzzle the godless." And that's definitely not part of the panel at AAAS.

You have every right to run a popular blog that serves as an ideological safe zone for your preferred brand of Don Imus atheism.

On the other hand, with atheist and religious participants at the AAAS panel, our goal is different. It's to foster cross-cutting discussion, healthy debate, and innovative ideas, something every bit in the tradition of science and free inquiry.

Posted by: Matthew C. Nisbet | September 14, 2007 3:10 PM

Matt, your panel has the self-described goal of suggesting that "scientists must adopt a language that emphasizes shared values and has broad appeal, avoiding the pitfall of seeming to condescend to fellow citizens, or alienating them by attacking their religious beliefs". That's rather plain language. It's saying that it's imperative that scientists avoid attacking religious beliefs. It's not even a subject that's open for discussion, but an explicit assumption of the panel -- and it is saying that the New Atheists are bad for the cause.

Even worse, you're going to give a talk that I suspect will be a sloppy hatchet job on the "New Atheists", and you've carefully avoided having a single one of these "New Atheists" on your panel. That's just plain intellectual cowardice. And it's so obvious. Have you no shame?

Posted by: PZ Myers | September 14, 2007 3:35 PM

Why does Nisbet believe that religion should be exempt from criticism?

I'll bet his posse of apologists will be a real hoot.

Fairy tales and woo-woo deserve respect commensurate with what they can explain based on real evidence.

Mumbling priests waving incense burners and eating crackers don't deserve any more respect than a first rehearsal of a Monty Python skit.

Posted by: waldteufel | September 14, 2007 3:52 PM

We should have a rock group called "The Atheist Noise Machine". A typical show would include Dennett on the drums, PZ Myers dressed as Satan on guitar, Richard Dawkins dressed as Ming the Merciless on vocals, and they'd feed a likeness of Nisbet to a pus-spewing foam and rubber Cthulhu. I guess Hitchens would have to be in the band, too, but he'd be the crazy bassist who trashes rooms after shows.

That would be METAL \m/

Posted by: Dustin | September 14, 2007 4:00 PM

I'm just curious how the New Atheists interact with people on a daily basis. Matt Nisbet's suggestion that it is a tactical error to "attack religious belief" is caracterized as equivalent to claiming that "religion should be exempt from criticism."

The response here seemst to be that it is very important that religion be met with widespread ridicule because all religion is nonsense and y'all it is imperative upon you to make sure that your disrespect is public knowledge.

So, if you meet someone at a party and they mention the church they attend or are wearing a religious symbol do y'all launch into an explanation of the non-rationality of their religion? Or do you seek to find other things you might share and have a conversation based on that (say you find out you are both Charger fans or something)?

Posted by: fardels bear | September 14, 2007 4:02 PM

I don't know about the others, but I always bring a ball gag and a horsewhip with me for just such occasions.

Seriously, don't be ridiculous. The "atheist noise machine" that Nisbet wants to silence is a group of people who write books and blog entries -- not a gang of terrorists who attack people for wearing crucifixes. If I'm at a party and someone is wearing religious jewelry or mentions going to church, it is not the subject of a conversation and I let it slide. If the conversation is about religion, if I'm asked my opinion, then I do not compromise but do state my position strongly. What else would you expect? I know the apologists for religion would like me to bow my head and meekly shuffle away lest the Christian decide to dislike zebrafish research, but screw that.

Posted by: PZ Myers | September 14, 2007 4:09 PM

I'm an unapologetic atheist. But, to answer fardels bear-

I don't wear my lack of faith on my sleeve, and I really don't give a damn what others believe or don't believe unless they start pushing their religion on me.

Just because I would most likely try to find common ground with someone in a conversation doesn't mean that I would meekly nod and smile if they started to tell my how much I should love Jeebus. Or Thor. Or whoever their imaginary friend is.

Posted by: waldteufel | September 14, 2007 4:15 PM

PZ,
Based on your blog reactions to our original Science article, you're definitely the expert in authoring sloppy hatchet jobs. As for the paper presented at the AAAS meetings, when submitted to a journal, I will leave it to journal reviewers and editors to decide its' merits.

The focus of the panel is the public communication of science. The focus is not on promoting atheism or criticism of religion. In your opinion, science and atheism are one and the same. You have a right to express that opinion, but it is definitely not an official or consensus view of organized science.

Given that the panel is about science communication and not about promoting atheism, I didn't think it was necessary to invite a New Atheist to be on the panel. Moreover, the paper I am presenting is not a criticism of New Atheism but rather an analysis of how it is portrayed in the media and the implications for how the wider public perceives science, scientists, and science-related issues.

Btw, anyone is free to propose a panel for the AAAS meetings. I encourage you to do so in the future.

Posted by: Matthew C. Nisbet | September 14, 2007 4:17 PM

Why does Nisbet believe that religion should be exempt from criticism?

I can only imagine his (honest) response would be,

"Because if we dare to criticize them, they will come for us, with pitchforks and torches, and they will kill us and take our children."

Posted by: stogoe | September 14, 2007 4:18 PM

Sure, PZ, I figured as much. But I guess what I wonder about is why the "party strategy" doesn't work on the larger scale? You spend a lot of time on this blog pointing out that atheists aren't immoral, make good neighbors, obey the law, etc. In other words, there are a lot of shared values between theists and atheists.

So, to engage in a dialog, why not START with the things that are shared between the two communities? Emphasize the things in common and then work toward areas of disagreement. Now, it is certainly true that with some religious folks, the YEC and ID crowd, such a dialog is simply impossible since there are very few shared values at all and they are either completely corrupt of irretrievably dense. But the attempt isn't to persuade THEM, it is to attempt the hated "mushy middle" who aren't necessarily hostile to science but are religious. Aren't those the people that you should be trying to reach? And aren't they easier to reach by pointing out what you share with them rather than insulting their religious belief?

Posted by: fardels bear | September 14, 2007 4:18 PM

Abject Apologists for the Abasement of Science.

Posted by: melior | September 14, 2007 4:30 PM

fardels bear,

why should PZ, or any of us "new atheists" fail to point out what is false? The belief in supernatural deities has no basis in evidence. What is wrong with pointing that out, or the ridiculousness of so many religious beliefs, or the vile monster that is the monotheistic deity?

Again, it's "shut up nonbelievers."

Posted by: MAJeff | September 14, 2007 4:36 PM

"Don Imus atheism"? Is that intended to be a comparison with "Joe Liebermann agnosticism"?

Posted by: melior | September 14, 2007 4:37 PM

Am I the only one annoyed by the Nisbet camp's strawman that "New Atheists claim that science and atheism are one and the same"?

I can't say I've ever seen anyone say or even imply such a thing. Disbelief in deities is a conclusion of the scientific method, as is disbelief in fairies, a "life force", astrology, and an infinity of other concepts that are not supported by evidence.

I think the strawman comes from a failure to differentiate between science as a body of facts and theories about reality, and science as a method for discovering these facts and theories. Science as a body of knowledge often conflicts with religious beliefs, but such a conflict can be avoided by religious believers if they're willing to make their gods non-interventionist, superfluous, and nebulous enough. But scientific thinking is by definition opposed to faith.

So in a way the disagreement between the two camps of atheists has to do with how large their definition of science is. The Dawkins/PZ camp is concerned with defending and promoting the scientific method and the body of scientific knowledge, while the Nisbet camp is only concerned with the latter.

Posted by: Janus | September 14, 2007 4:50 PM

Based on your blog reactions to our original Science article, you're definitely the expert in authoring sloppy hatchet jobs.

O Woe! How do expect to win me over to your side when you keep attacking me like a big fat meanyhead?

The focus is not on promoting atheism or criticism of religion.

Correct. The focus seems to be on promoting religion and criticizing atheism. That's exactly my point.

In your opinion, science and atheism are one and the same.

It is? Really? You know my opinion better than I do? It's a little surprising that I think that, since, in my opinion, science is a method and atheism is a conclusion. That makes it very hard for me to equate the two.

Given that the panel is about science communication and not about promoting atheism, I didn't think it was necessary to invite a New Atheist to be on the panel.

The panel is about "Communicating Science in a Religious America", you've stacked it with religion-friendly panelists, you're going to be presenting a paper on the "New Atheism", and the first paragraph of the panel description talks about religion in every sentence. But yeah, it's only about science communication, and the "New Atheist Noise Machine" wasn't even on your mind when you thought about putting it together. How disingenuous can you get, Matt?

And I know it's not about promoting atheism, nor would I expect it to be. It's clearly about promoting religion, though.

Not one critic. Not one. Tsk, tsk.

Btw, anyone is free to propose a panel for the AAAS meetings. I encourage you to do so in the future.

Funny. You know, if I did propose a panel on, say, the impact of the new atheism on communicating science to the public, I'd try to get a few big name godless types on board with me, and then I'd also try hard to get a few people who urge more accommodation. The session is only worthwhile if you've got people honestly trying to address the different views scientists have. But that's just me. It must be because you can't do a proper hatchet job without a victim.

Posted by: PZ Myers | September 14, 2007 4:50 PM

No it isn't "shut up nonbelievers." In a religious discussion, by all means speak up. But the communication of science is not a religious discussion. Hence, there is no point in discussing religion.

Religious belief is not usually very relevant to talking about science. If you are interested in communicating about science, belief or nonbelief in God is not particularly important. I'm sure PZ doesn't start his neurobiology class with a long explanation about how the entire class is founded upon there being no God. Because such a discussion is not relevant to the class content.

From the general public's point of view, they have YECers and IDers telling them that God is necessary for science. Scientists should be telling them that God is irrelevant to science. What PZ and others here seem to argue is that that scientists should play by the rules established by the YECers: that the important question is the existence of God and that is where argument should occur. And folks round here seem to be anxious to play by their rules.

It seems to me to be a better option to change the rules. Insulting religion is a bad idea for science education because religion isn't relevant to science education. Insulting religion is as needed as insulting someone's musical taste or favorite baseball team. Religion has nothing to do with science. YEC/IDers are wrong when they claim that it does. Scientists are wrong when they make the same claim as the YEC/IDers

Posted by: fardels bear | September 14, 2007 4:59 PM

Why should conversations be made to accommodate the embarrassingly ignorant and foolish? I figure if the religious folks don't like what I have to say, they can take a hike. But, I'm not going to dumb myself down just to protect their delusions. Why should anyone give the veneer that they care about those delusions anyway?

Posted by: Dan | September 14, 2007 5:00 PM

fardels bear wrote:

I'm just curious how the New Atheists interact with people on a daily basis.
-----------------------
I(atheist) work with a several believers at my workplace. We get
along pretty well, but they know by now not to expect a "gesundheit" or
"god bless you" from me when one of them sneezes.. We've worked together
long enough for them to know that I'm a courteous person, but I just decided
around January I wasn't going to do it anymore.

About a year and a half ago, one of the new people at work asked me about what church
I was going to-
Me: "Um, I haven't been to church in a while...."
Him:"You don't believe in god?"
Me:"As a matter of fact, I'm an atheist."
Him:"Well I guess it takes all kinds I guess..."
No more discussion of religion from him.

Other workers: Have overall good relations with the more open-minded
believers. With the ones that tend to fundamentalism---we don't
communicate much at all except on work related issues...they
have their circle and us assorted heathens have ours.

Posted by: Dark Matter | September 14, 2007 5:05 PM

PZ,
I admire your commitment to hard headed dogmatism. And as a rhetorician and polemicist, you are certainly skilled.

1. When I read the hatchet job you did on our Science article, I was at first a bit stunned. Here was a scientist and a professor violating all the norms of his profession, twisting and distorting to fit his ideology and to rabble rouse among his blog readership.

Moreover, in your complaints, you specifically focused on our suggestion at Science that in communicating about the teaching of evolution, the scientific community should emphasize that many religious leaders see no conflict between evolution and faith.

From that, I could only assume that you view the implications of evolutionary science as leading to atheism i.e. science and atheism are one and the same.

2.I don't understand what you mean by "religious friendly"? By that statement I assume that you think I should have invited someone on the panel who is a "religious enemy"?

That's an example of the basic flaw in your logic and rhetoric. You write about science and religion in binary terms, as a battle between black and white, reason and unreason, with nothing in between.

In reality, there's no "anti-science public." Even among devout Americans, when asked in polls generally about science, they perceive it as promoting social progress and the economy. In fact, these are shared values that almost everyone agrees on, and the central reason why funding for science is so strong in the US.

Sure, several interest groups and leaders have worked against specific science-related issues such as the teaching of evolution. Yet, it's in part because of the inability of the science community to effectively communicate that these groups have been so successful in building public support for their cause.

Btw, want an example of the dogma and intolerance you are promoting by using your blog as an echo chamber for Don Imus atheism? Note comment #35 in your discussion thread:

Why should conversations be made to accommodate the embarrassingly ignorant and foolish? I figure if the religious folks don't like what I have to say, they can take a hike. But, I'm not going to dumb myself down just to protect their delusions. Why should anyone give the veneer that they care about those delusions anyway?

Posted by: Matthew C. Nisbet | September 14, 2007 6:08 PM

In reality, there's no "anti-science public." Even among devout Americans, when asked in polls generally about science, they perceive it as promoting social progress and the economy.

So...Matt Nisbet is not just a coward but a delusional coward. Good to know.

Posted by: MK | September 14, 2007 6:56 PM

MK,

For the so-called "reality based community" that hangs out at PZ's blog, here's a dose of reality:

Americans, who are overwhelmingly religious, strongly believe in the promise of science to improve life and to grow the economy. Indeed, American culture is defined by scientific and technological optimism.

It's on a handful of issues that support for science wanes, and that's where improved public engagement is needed.

Posted by: Matthew C. Nisbet | September 14, 2007 7:04 PM

Most people - at least in my neck of the woods, I don't know what it's like where you may be - perceive 'science' as a cross between a) white-coated, wild-haired and -eyed men running around with smoking beakers yelling about "gigawatts" and "flux capacitors", b) a source of entertaining technological gizmos, and c) a potential threat to sanctified tribal dogmas.

Posted by: Caledonian | September 14, 2007 7:05 PM

"Religious belief is not usually very relevant to talking about science."

Exactly, fardels bear. You pretty much just summed up the motto of the New Atheism.

For several of the preceding decades, we atheists have stood quietly by and politely waited for the religious people to figure this out for themselves, and stop sticking their faith into discussions about science.

You know what? It didn't happen. One might even say that the opposite happened. So, now we're coming out and stating it plainly. "Hey. Stop pretending that religious beliefs can take the place of science. Seriously, knock it off. It's a really poor idea, and here's why." For that we get accused of attacking religion and bringing it up when it's not relevant? We're not the ones who brought it up in the first place.

Posted by: Brian | September 14, 2007 7:10 PM

Caledonian,
You are arguing from anecdote and the bias of personal perception. Read the polling data at Pew and Gallup and the NSF's Public Survey on Perceptions of Science and Technology. Or better yet, take a look at the peer reviewed literature on public perceptions of science.

Posted by: Matthew C. Nisbet | September 14, 2007 7:16 PM

I hadn't *made* an argument yet, Nisbet.

I'm familiar with those studies - and they show startlingly different things when people are asked about specifics instead of generalities.

Posted by: Caledonian | September 14, 2007 7:22 PM

In reality, there's no "anti-science public."
Sure, if you define "science" as technology, which is what most people mean. What the public is largely opposed to, or at least feels squeamish about, is inquiry. They have no idea what science is or how it's done, but there are many who would echo Ned Flanders: "Science is like a blabber mouth who ruins a movie by telling you how it ends. Well I say that there are some things we don't wanna know. Important things!"

That attitude is anti science, no matter how much people enjoy low infant-mortality rates and iPods and what have you. Hostility to open inquiry is hostility to science. Period.

Posted by: CJO | September 14, 2007 7:27 PM

Mr. Nisbet,

One of the earlier commenters said it best - there is a substantial gap between support for the body of scientific knowledge (and its fruits) and for the actual process of science. People's support for what science and engineering have done is nice, but if that comes with a lack of support for the processes that enable such knowledge to be obtained, there is a problem. People don't understand the processes of science or its limitations, and without that understanding, new knowledge won't be found, and the benefits of science will disappear. It doesn't seem like constructive engagement makes sense here, because there isn't anything useful to gain. The religious people misusing science for their own purposes are likely aware of their logical flaws (or at least, their enablers are) and unwilling to change because it gets them what they want. The religious people not involved don't necessarily have anything better to say about science than anyone else, and appeal to authority is an antiscientific method. Explaining what science can do and what it can't would be helpful, and I don't know how engagement with people irrelevant to this helps science.

Posted by: Hap | September 14, 2007 7:29 PM

The public has a very poor understanding of science, and you want us to accept the results of surveys of their perception of science? I think this might be the root of your problem: you're seeing that the public likes the egg-headed man in glasses and a white coat and tells them that their toothpaste works wonders, and they like the abstract idea of a cure for cancer, and you're trying to tell scientists to be more like that avuncular and reassuring figure who fixes things and builds televisions and rocket ships. And we aren't like that. Never have been, never will be. Don't want to be.

Scientists are always going to be the possessors of uncomfortable truths, at least as long as people continue to cling to reassuring delusions. Most people like the kind of science that doesn't require them to think or change their minds -- and that's the kind of science this whole "framing" thing tries to promote.

Posted by: PZ Myers | September 14, 2007 7:33 PM

Nisbet's panel strikes me as simply pandering to the ignorant and religious. That AAAS would countenance this is amazing to me. Makes me want to reconsider my membership if this is where the organization is headed.

Science is all about open, honest, and diligent inquiry with a willingness, indeed a passion, to changing ideas as new evidence comes in.

Religious dogma is all about "unchanging truths" revealed to us by long dead ignorant men.

How can there possibly be open and free inquiry with people for whom open and free inquiry is heresy? I guess that's why Nisbet's posse excludes a good hard-nosed atheist. Better to feed the masses pabulum rather than harder to digest good red meat. Talk about condescending . . . . . .

Posted by: waldteufel | September 14, 2007 8:36 PM

Okay Mike. Since it seems I'm the example of intolerance, let's play a little game. Let's say I believe that instead of breathing oxygen, human beings actually breathe argon gas. Now, you've told me hundreds of times that I am wrong, and I refuse to believe you no matter what you say and how much science you show me. I am right, and you are wrong.

Eventually, you're going to get kind of annoyed and dismayed at my complete lack of understanding of reality. How long are you going to accommodate my delusions?

Do you see what I'm getting at here?

Posted by: Dan | September 14, 2007 9:20 PM

Dr. Nisbet:

I've read about all I can take without sticking my two cents in.

POINT #1: My name is Scott Hatfield. That's my real name. I am NOT an atheist, I'm a theist. I am NOT part of PZ's 'echo chamber'. I do, however, have higher regard for his honest doubt than the double-talk that seems to emerge whenever this business of 'framing' is raised.

POINT #2: It is unworthy of you, as a non-believer, to bait the other non-believers for their anonymity, especially when both you and PZ are academics in secular institutions, folk that enjoy greater job security and freedom of personal expression than the average fella on the street, insulated from the discrimination that many atheists experience daily.

POINT #3: Your crusade to reform how science should be communicated is conceptually flat. It's driven not by how science is done, but out of a desire to make science more appealing to the non-scientist. This is the WRONG approach. What is needed is to get non-scientists to think LIKE scientists. That's hard work, harder than getting some celebrity to pose with a 'milk mustache' or croak 'Be like Mike.'

POINT #4: Your approach would seemingly exclude many greats from scientific history from communicating science. Unpolished folk without press secretaries, who did not suffer fools gladly, people like Galileo, who had the nickname 'Wrangler', would have no place in your Properly-Framed Temple of Science, I think.

POINT #5: Finally, if this were truly an academic dispute, there would be no need to be personally exercised. PZ's view is a minority view, clearly. There is no cabal of atheism, New or otherwise, pulling the puppet strings of the scientific community. Why, then, do you act as if you have received some sort of mortal wound? How can you possibly complain that 'framing' hasn't received a fair hearing when you repeatedly 'frame' the discussion in the terms seen on this thread? Physician, heal thy frigging self.

I mean, I'm a theist, and in principle I should be inclined to agree with you, but I just can't take your arguments seriously, Dr. Nesbit. I'm a high school science teacher, which means I get PAID to communicate science content AND the strategies scientists employ. I know from experience that good pedagogy is not about making everything user-friendly, or making nice-nice with every interest group that's got a mad-on against science. You probably know that, too, but if this thread is any indication, perspective has gone out the window. What a shame!

Posted by: Scott Hatfield, OM | September 14, 2007 10:31 PM

Let me see if I get this straight. From what I see the folks generally hold to the following three points:

1. The public really has no good idea about what it is to "do science." They like the gadgets, but have no good idea of the method or practice of science. Teaching them about those things is important. Many of these people are religious.

2. Religion has nothing to do with science. Creationists and fundamentalists who claim it does are mistaken.

3. Attacking religion as irrational is a necessary and important part of teaching the public described in #1 about science.

So, I guess what I need explained to me is how someone can believe both #2 & #3. Especially because most mainline churches already agree with #2.

And does anyone have any good data to show that public ignorance of science is primarily due to religion? As opposed to, say football, Paris Hilton, and American Idol? All of which, I would argue add quite a bit to the nation's ignorance quotient.

Posted by: fardels bear | September 14, 2007 11:12 PM

Religion has nothing to do with science.

Indeeed. Now, when you get a chance, could you please explain this to Francis Collins, Simon Conway Morris and Ken Miller? Thanks.

Posted by: Steve LaBonne | September 14, 2007 11:41 PM

Steve Labonne: We aren't talking about convincing the YEC/IDers. I take it as given that those people are too dishonest or delusional to be persuaded.

We are talking about convincing the general public to reject the YEC/IDers. I maintain the best way to do that is NOT by attacking religious belief because it really has nothing to do with science.

Folks around here, on the other hand, seem to be convinced that the best way to convince the general public to reject the creationists is to ACCEPT the creationist argument that religion and science are at odds with one another. And I don't see it as a good move if you are serious about persuading the general public about the nature of science.

Posted by: fardels bear | September 14, 2007 11:49 PM

Football, Paris Hilton, and American Idol promote their own foolishness, but they don't try to convince people that faith is an alternative path to knowledge, and they aren't regarded as somehow privileged and exempt from both taxes and criticism.

Posted by: PZ Myers | September 14, 2007 11:50 PM

No PZ, Paris Hilton does not promote an alternative path to knowledge, but I've yet to see any evidence from you or anyone else that the religion promotes itself as a separate path to scientific knowledge.

Sure, the Fundamentalists say that "faith is an alternative path to knowledge" on scientific matters but most religions simply do not do that. Every mainline church has come out clearly that creationism is not part of their religious belief system. The mainline churches file amicus briefs AGAINST the creationists in legal cases, for cryin' out loud.

You, on the other hand, agree with the fundies that religion is an alternative to science. You are playing by THEIR rules. You are never going to convince the fundies of anything, they are lost. They are not the audience for pro-science arguments, the vast majority of Americans are.

Posted by: fardels bear | September 15, 2007 12:08 AM

Steve Labonne: We are talking about convincing the general public to reject the YEC/IDers. I maintain the best way to do that is NOT by attacking religious belief because it really has nothing to do with science.

So I ask you again, what is your attitude towards the NON-creationists- Nisbet's heroes- who seek to delude the public into believing that science supports religion?

Anyway, the claim that science does not conflict with religion is crap to begin with, for reasons that have nothing to do with creationism. Perhaps the biggest problem is that the great majority of religious believers are unavoidably committed by their beliefs to substance dualism, which is a total non-starter scientifically.

Posted by: Steve LaBonne | September 15, 2007 12:17 AM

Since I think that science and religion are unrelated, I obviously would disagree with anyone who claims that science supports religion.

I don't think that many scientists have the first clue about arguments about the mind/body split, substance dualism, emergent properties or a host of other deep, knotty philosophical problems. Nor do I think that we need to pledge allegiance to a particular solution to those philosophical problem in order to function as a scientist.

In which science classes did folks confront and solve the problem of substance dualism? In what chemistry classes did budding chemists contrast Cartesian dualism with say, Spinoza's double-aspect theory? None, I would think.

And doesn't your claim that the religious MUST be committed to substance dualism preclude the existence of a religious scientist? And haven't there been thousands and thousands of religious scientists? So how, exactly does substance dualism preclude people from being scientists?

Posted by: fardels bear | September 15, 2007 12:36 AM

So how, exactly does substance dualism preclude people from being scientists?

Boy, it's such a joy dealing with people who understand neither the subject, nor the topic, nor the arguments involved.

Posted by: Caledonian | September 15, 2007 12:53 AM

Rather, it appears that for many, the esprit de corps at this particular blog is to be out and proud about a preferred brand of atheism. Making statements about how stupid religious people are is part of that brand.

I know this will come as something of a shock to you, Nesbit, but sometimes when a great many people agree on something, it's not because of social forces or branding, and it's not because they got together and decided to create a consensus.

Posted by: Caledonian | September 15, 2007 12:57 AM

There's plenty of creationist godbots, that many of us, would rather not expose ourselves to harrassment from.

I would say the exact same things if my last name was attached.

Most of us don't think people are stupid because they are religious.
Just deluded. There's a difference.

Posted by: Steve_C | September 15, 2007 1:04 AM

You don't get it, fardels. Science puts great stock on clearly formulating ideas and rigorously exploring their consequences. Most of the concepts of philosophy don't survive that.

Dualism of any kind violates basic requirements of interaction. Scientists noticed that ages ago. Philosophers, who are a great deal more proud of their sophistication and a great deal less sophisticated than scientists, by-and-large don't comprehend the problem associated with philosophical dualism. In most cases, they don't care - they make arguments not to be correct, but to impress others.

Posted by: Caledonian | September 15, 2007 1:05 AM

Most of us don't think people are stupid because they are religious. Just deluded. There's a difference.

As the delusion becomes more and more obvious, the stupid and the deluded become functionally equivalent. How much thought is necessary to see through a delusion before we can conclude that only a stupid person would be subject to it?

Posted by: Caledonian | September 15, 2007 1:07 AM

but I've yet to see any evidence from you or anyone else that the religion promotes itself as a separate path to scientific knowledge.

Notice the switch? The original comment referred to religion representing itself as a path to knowledge, and fardels switched 'knowledge' with 'scientific knowledge'.

Bad news, fardels: there's only one kind of knowledge. And religion has no claim on it.

Posted by: Caledonian | September 15, 2007 1:11 AM

Are the people who believe the gold-foil woman is somehow producing gold foil from nothing stupid?

What about the people who think the David Blaine actually levitates?

What about the people who invest in schemes to build perpetual motion machines?

If none of these things are what it means to be 'stupid', what exactly DOES that word mean? Is anyone ever stupid, or are they always ignorant and misinformed?

Posted by: Caledonian | September 15, 2007 1:42 AM

The results from such a panel appear to be merely delaying the inevitable. Instead of advancing science, they are letting the fear of the ignorant INTERFERE with the advancement of science. Nisbit at some level recognizes this isn't really an issue of religion, but really IS an issue of "stupid"; or better, "willfull ignorance". However, religion IS the enabler of such ignorance in most cases, inarguably, and plans intended to try to reduce the levels of fear in the ignorant will inevitably fail, based on past experience.

Watching this issue for a couple of decades now has begun to convince me that it might be well past the time where the religious question should be answered by placation; at least superficially, it starts to look too much like how the dems have reacted to the war in Iraq, and the mishandling of just about everything by the current administration. How long do we play the "yeah, sure, compartmentalization works, just look at Miller" idea before the cracks get too large to cover up any more? How much longer will the "weaning" tactic work?

It might be time to say "Down in Front!"; let those who only truly represent the advancement of SCIENCE push this issue forward; continue to shift the framing towards that consistent with the scientific method itself, and for those who preach "compartmentalization works!" to be the ones to zip it.

might still be too early for that, but it's definetly too late to continue organized "placation".

Posted by: Ichthyic | September 15, 2007 1:46 AM

But that's the worst of it - compartmentalization doesn't work. It has tends to creep into other uncomfortable situations where you don't want to confront an unpleasant conflict - cutting corners is disturbingly habit-forming, and compartmentalizing one's beliefs about the world cuts all of science's corners.

Posted by: Caledonian | September 15, 2007 1:53 AM

Caledonian,

But that's the worst of it - compartmentalization doesn't work. It has tends to creep into other uncomfortable situations where you don't want to confront an unpleasant conflict - cutting corners is disturbingly habit-forming, and compartmentalizing one's beliefs about the world cuts all of science's corners.

I think Martin Gardner has managed it. He's a fideist deist who believes in an afterlife, but is quite adamant that there's absolutely no evidence for his position whatsoever--he believes purely because it comforts him to believe. And it really doesn't seem to have impacted his skepticism or ability to follow the scientific method anywhere, so far as I can see.

That said, I've never encountered any other believer who could completely NOMA themselves in that way. I'd be interested to meet some.

Posted by: Anton Mates | September 15, 2007 4:23 AM

the Fundamentalists say that "faith is an alternative path to knowledge" on scientific matters but most religions simply do not do that.

Untrue. Every single religion claims that faith (and revelation) is an alternative path to knowledge. It's one of the defining features of them, along with the quite specific piece of pseudo-knowledge that there's one or more superbeings running the show, again in some fashion over which they are often specific on no credible evidence whatsoever.

The fact of the matter is that the scientific approach is the only valid one for the acquisition of knowledge of any sort - even if not all of it is called scientific knowledge as such and not all the practitioners of it recognise the aspects of the scientific method that they too employ. Evidence, logic and testing for possible falsehood are core concepts of finding out stuff (not just stuff labelled "scientific") and knowing that you've found out something real. Faith, by definition, is in complete opposition to this - and is the core of religion.

Every mainline church has come out clearly that creationism is not part of their religious belief system.

So what? They haven't come out and said that faith, revelation and authority are not part of their religious belief systems - and those are the genuinely damning (anti-scientific) things about them. Creationism is merely one symptom.

Posted by: SEF | September 15, 2007 5:41 AM

the Fundamentalists say that "faith is an alternative path to knowledge" on scientific matters but most religions simply do not do that.

Untrue. Every single religion claims that faith (and revelation) is an alternative path to knowledge. It's one of the defining features of them, along with the quite specific piece of pseudo-knowledge that there's one or more superbeings running the show, again in some fashion over which they are often specific on no credible evidence whatsoever.

The fact of the matter is that the scientific approach is the only valid one for the acquisition of knowledge of any sort - even if not all of it is called scientific knowledge as such and not all the practitioners of it recognise the aspects of the scientific method that they too employ. Evidence, logic and testing for possible falsehood are core concepts of finding out stuff (not just stuff labelled "scientific") and knowing that you've found out something real. Faith, by definition, is in complete opposition to this - and is the core of religion.

Every mainline church has come out clearly that creationism is not part of their religious belief system.

So what? They haven't come out and said that faith, revelation and authority are not part of their religious belief systems - and those are the genuinely damning (anti-scientific) things about them. Creationism is merely one symptom.

Posted by: SEF | September 15, 2007 5:41 AM

Read More...

Summary only...

reposted from: http://richarddawkins.net/article,1638,n,n

How the Public Resolves Conflicts Between Faith and Science

by Pew Research, David Masci

Thanks to Tim DiChiara for the link.

Reposted from:
http://pewresearch.org/pubs/578/when-science-and-faith-compete-faith-usually-wins

On Subjects such as Evolution, Many Americans Are Aware of -- but Reject -- the Scientific Consensus

by David Masci, Senior Research Fellow, Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life
August 27, 2007

The relationship between faith and science in the United States seems, at least on the surface, to be paradoxical. Surveys repeatedly show that

most Americans respect science and the benefits it brings to society, such as new technologies and medical treatments.

And yet,

religious convictions limit many Americans' willingness to accept controversial scientific theories as well as certain types of scientific research, such as the potential use of embryonic stem cells for medical treatments.

Science and religion have traditionally, and often incorrectly, been viewed as enemies.

This perception has been fueled in part by a number of famous episodes in history that have pitted scientists, like Galileo and Darwin, against the prevailing religious establishments of their time. But more often than not,

scientists and people of faith have operated not at cross purposes but simply at different purposes.

Today the situation is much the same. Certainly, there are modern scientists who are actively hostile to religious belief. British biologist Richard Dawkins, for instance, in his best-selling book, The God Delusion, argues that many social ills – from bigotry to ignorance – can be blamed, at least in part, on religion. In addition, a significant number of scientists – roughly

a third according to a 2006 Rice University survey of more than 750 professors in the natural sciences – do not believe in God, compared with only one-in-twenty in the general population.

But

regardless of their personal views, most scientists tend to view the two disciplines as distinct, with each attempting to answer different kinds of questions using different methods. The late evolutionary biologist Stephen Jay Gould famously referred to this complementary relationship as "non-overlapping magisteria."

But there are times when the "magisteria" do overlap.

The debate over the origins and development of life is the most compelling example of this. All but a small number of scientists regard Darwin's theory of evolution through natural selection as an established fact. And yet, a substantial majority of Americans, many of whom are deeply religious, reject the notion that life evolved through natural forces alone.

Indeed, according to a 2006 survey from the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life and the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press,

42% of Americans reject the notion that life on earth evolved and believe instead that humans and other living things have always existed in their present form. Among white evangelical Protestants – many of whom regard the Bible as the inerrant word of God – 65% hold this view. Moreover, in the same poll, 21% of those surveyed say that although life has evolved, these changes were guided by a supreme being.

Only a minority, about a quarter (26%) of respondents, say that they accept evolution through natural processes or natural selection alone.

Interestingly, many of those who reject natural selection recognize that scientists themselves fully accept Darwin's theory. In the same 2006 Pew poll, nearly two-thirds of adults (62%) say that they believe that scientists agree on the validity of evolution. Moreover, Americans, including religious Americans, hold science and scientists in very high regard. A 2006 survey conducted by Virginia Commonwealth University found that most people (87%) think that scientific developments make society better. Among those who describe themselves as being very religious, the same number – 87% – share that opinion.

So what is at work here? How can Americans say that they respect science and even know what scientists believe and yet still disagree with the scientific community on some fundamental questions? The answer is that

much of the general public simply chooses not to believe the scientific theories and discoveries that seem to contradict long-held religious or other important beliefs.

When asked

what they would do if scientists were to disprove a particular religious belief, nearly two-thirds (64%) of people say they would continue to hold to what their religion teaches rather than accept the contrary scientific finding,

according to the results of an October 2006 Time magazine poll. Indeed, in a May 2007 Gallup poll, only 14% of those who say they do not believe in evolution cite lack of evidence as the main reason underpinning their views; more people cite their belief in Jesus (19%), God (16%) or religion generally (16%) as their reason for rejecting Darwin's theory.

This reliance on religious faith may help explain why so many people do not see science as a direct threat to religion.

Only 28% of respondents in the same Time poll say that scientific advancements threaten their religious beliefs. These poll results also show that

more than four-fifths of respondents (81%) say that "recent discoveries and advances" in science have not significantly impacted their religious views. In fact, 14% say that these discoveries have actually made them more religious. Only 4% say that science has made them less religious.

These data once again show that,

in the minds of most people in the United States, there is no real clash between science and religion. And when the two realms offer seemingly contradictory explanations (as in the case of evolution), religious people, who make up a majority of Americans, may rely primarily upon their faith for answers.


Comments http://richarddawkins.net/article,1638,n,n

1. Comment #70303 by Theocrapcy on September 14, 2007 at 8:16 pm

yeah, but no, but yeah, but no, but....

2. Comment #70307 by ChrisMcL on September 14, 2007 at 8:44 pm

This article and other indications show that if we want to produce more atheists in the world, we must do so indirectly. It's not enough to prove that somone's religious belief is wrong. Atheists have been doing that very effectively since Epicurus.

We might try to just create an environment more conducive to atheistic thinking instead of frontal attacks on religion. Many people get sucked into religious faith when they are sick or in some other trouble. Support of universal health care (in the U.S.) and a more fair distribution of wealth, among other things, remove some of the breeding grounds for religion.

3. Comment #70308 by oxytocin on September 14, 2007 at 8:49 pm

Just to let everyone know, there's a debate on this data with regard to the "framing" of science.

You can find it here:

http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2007/09/note_to_self_dont_go_easy_on_e.php

and here:

http://scienceblogs.com/framing-science/2007/09/aaas_panel_communicating_scien.php

4. Comment #70315 by atp on September 14, 2007 at 11:15 pm

I thought the conclusion to this text was a bit strange.

First it is shown that people reject knowledge if the knowledge contradicts their religion. Then "These data once again show that, in the minds of most people in the United States, there is no real clash between science and religion"

If science is rejected because the knowledge contradicts a persons religion, I would say there's a serious clash here. Is it only me?
http://richarddawkins.net/article,1638,n,n

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