Alert reader Dominic called my attention to a four-minute clip from Britain’s Radio 4, in which two distinguished scientists and public intellectuals, developmental biologist Lewis Wolpert and chemist Peter Atkins, discuss yesterday’s award of the Templeton Prize to Martin Rees. Atkins and Wolpert are both atheists.
Wolpert, whom I once met—he’s a lovely man—seems a bit naive, completely oblivious to Templeton’s strategy of co-opting science to promote religion. Atkins is not so sanguine. When asked about Rees’s acceptance of the Prize, he says this:
“Well if I were in his place, and I saw a million pounds dangling in front of me, I would find it extremely difficult to say no. But the Templeton foundation is an insidious foundation which is trying to insert itself into all kinds of rational bodies like, well, the Royal Society in this case, and the Royal Institution in another case; and it has a long-term strategy, and I’m afraid this is part of it.”
The interviewer asks, “But what’s insidious about it? It’s quite open about what it does–it’s trying to promote its cause: that’s what any foundation would do!”
Atkins responds, “It’s trying to undermine rationality.”
The interviewer follows up: “Does all religion—does all promotion of religion—necessarily undermine rationality?”
Atkins responds correctly: “Oh, absolutely! That’s the whole point of religion: it promotes faith over evidence.”
The interviewer seemed a bit taken aback with this answer, and asks Wolpert if he agrees with it. Wolpert responds that he agrees entirely.
Atkins then announces what he’d do with the money if he won the prize. You’ll be amused at his answer.
Which raises the question of whether religion on occasion does promote rationality. I can imagine possible affirmatives, like the Vatican-sponsored conference on evolution two years ago, but that was deeply compromised with woo, and in fact wasn’t designed to promote science but simply to foster the mutual osculation of science and faith. That conference was in fact sponsored by Templeton, and, with its usual cronyism, Templeton paid three members of its own Board of Advisors to attend and speak.
Can anyone think of ways that religion actually promotes rationality?
I don’t half get annoyed when people point out that famous scientists from hundreds of years ago were religious, such as Newton.
I was actually shouting at the radio in the car while listening to that on the way to work today.
Nothing like a good dose of angry washed down with morning coffee 🙂
I am pleasantly surprised to hear the discussion on BBC. Its ridiculous that there isnt such a discussion in the US mainstream media, Templeton being a US-based organization. Or did I miss it?
Didn’t Newton also explicitly invoke God as an explanation of how the planets’ orbits remained stable?
Indeed he did and it took 100 years for Laplace to prove him wrong.
Yes, and his religious mumbo-jumbo took up huge amounts of his time which could have been spent on something useful.
We should all be such underachievers. 😉
“Can anyone think of ways that religion actually promotes rationality?”
When I was in secondary school my religious education teacher was a Catholic priest.
He told me that the various pagan religions (Norse, Greek, Roman and Celtic) were untrue because they were obviously based on myths.
I suspect that most religions have no problem using rationality as a means of telling people why other religions are false (“Flew to Jerusalem on a winged horse! – Be serious, that couldn’t happen!”)
Imagine the size of wings needed to get a horse off the ground! Maybe it was a pony? No – let’s say it was an Arab, so according to ‘Horsedata.co.uk’ that would weigh 400-500 kg. A Great Bustard the heaviest flying bird, would be up to 16 kg & has a 2.5m wingspan. It is beyond my physics but that would be one helluva hoss!
The square-cube law is not a friend of flying horses (or humans for that matter).
It’s like trying to fuel a 747 with wood logs.
Maybe it was a giant horsefly!
I wouldn’t want to be the stoker!
Like one of the rabbis said in the Hitchens/Harris debate, everyone has extreme clarity when it comes to the gods they don’t believe in.
Or, as Dawkins puts it, the religious are generally atheists about all gods except one.
“ways that religion actually promotes rationality”
..er… nope!
Peter Atkins has a new (quite short) book ‘On Being’ from the OUP that might interest readers –
http://www.oup.com/us/catalog/general/subject/Philosophy/Methodology/?view=usa&ci=9780199603367
That does sound good! Thanks Dom! And what an enjoyable radio clip.
I suppose one can argue that 1) religion preserved some of the ancient learning during the “dark ages” (after having caused those dark ages in the first place) and 2) helped create many institutions of learning, such as universities.
Now, does religious thinking ever promote rationality? As Sigmund said, sometimes it uses reason to debunk rival religions. Other examples seem harder to come by.
I highly recommend The Viking Discovery of America (Helge & Anne Stine Ingstad, who discovered and excavated L’anse aux Meadows in the ’60s), even though it’s not the most tightly-written book I’ve read recently. It clearly documents the difference between the original Groenlandiga Saga and the revisionist Eirik’s Saga, most likely produced by the Catholic scribe Adam of Bremen. Adam is the one who created the myth that Vinland was a land of grapes, which confounded the search for the original Viking landing site for generations – a good example of preservation of ancient learning.
Nonetheless, I’d have also suggested there was a time when religion was more of a rationality promoter–back when the most educated were often the clergy with time on their hands. Sad how things change…
Wolpert is known for promoting the idea that religion can have a positive effect on the lives of some people. This is not really a standard accomodationist position because he seems to limit those individuals to those with distinct personal needs. His youngest son, Matthew, seems to have had psychological issues over a number of years and Wolpert seems to think that religion (his son converted to evangelical christianity for a while) has been positive overall in addressing some of his sons needs. I would probably put this view in the same category of those who promote the alcoholics anonymous program.
he is also Vice-President of the British Humanist Association.
In his Six Impossible Ideas Before Breakfast, Wolpert remarked on his son’s fascination with suicide as a way to “be with God”. It would have frightened the hell out of me to have a family member talking like that.
It just sounds so condescending to me. “Oh, I’m an atheist, but those other people need religion”.
Agreed. Except that in his case he seem to draw on anecdotal information of a personal nature. I doubt he has been able to assess the idea without emotional involvement and with actual evidence.
And even so, he may think the putative outcome ‘sanctify’ the means. (Never mind that in other cases religion creates distinct personal needs and seem to promote psychological issues in the first place.)
Oh dear – I am guilty of being condescending. I had a big row with three atheist/agnostic friends on Tuesday (they are anti-RD) & I called religious people stupid.
Well of course religion can have a positive effect on someone’s life. So can war for that matter.
Religious institutions sometimes attack other religious institutions. And some have tried to undermine specific political/economic dogmas.
That’s pretty weak but it’s all I’m coming up with.
“Does religion ever promote rationality?” is a difficult question, because “religion” can mean so many things in different contexts. As to the question, “Does faith ever promote rationality?”, that’s a clear no.
Historically, of course, the church was the only significant source of funding for scientific endeavors. It’s not entirely clear if that makes the answer to the question at hand a “yes”, because a) the church’s motivations were not particularly rational, and b) there is plenty of evidence to suggest that pretty much any secular institution capable of rising to the task would have done a better job (there just weren’t any at the time). Still, there was probably a time when scientific inquiry would have (at least temporarily) decreased if religion were to vanish. Arguably, at least.
Then you have religious communities, which I don’t doubt promote rationality on occasion at the individual level — say a member of a congregation is contemplating doing something really stupid, and is talked out of it by fellow churchgoers or by clergy. Now that’s not the theology promoting rationality, but rather the community — does that count in our definition of “religion” for this question?
In any case, this intriguing navel-gazing aside, Atkins and Wolpert were quite right to answer the way that they did. For a general audience in a 4-minute interview… the subtleties of what you mean by “religion”, and whether it can claim to promote rationality when other institutions would clearly do a better job, that’s not really the point.
The point is that religion, as an institution, today, does not really ever promote rationality; and if it ever does, it does so in a half-assed and inferior way that simply draws potential resources away from secularly-promoted inquiry. Those caveats would have just clouded the answer, so good on them for keeping it simple.
I suppose when you look at the question in a broader way then you can easily find ways of answering yes.
For instance, many religions are involved in social programs – education or healthcare. OK, some of the religions teachings may conflict (evolution, contraception, end of life issues) but for major parts there will be no great conflict (mathematics, physics, geography, poetry etc in education, vaccination, antibiotics, surgery etc in healthcare).
Now the rationality here is simply the application of secular policies or agendas (education of the population and the availability of good quality healthcare) rather than ‘religious’ per se, but it is often the church that is closely involved in setting up and running such endeavors. From a religious persons perspective it may appear obvious that their church promotes rationality in this way.
Right, there’s just so much ambiguity in the question as it is phrased.
That’s a good point, though, that whenever “religion” can be seen to be promoting rationality, it is because a religious organization or community is carrying out a secular policy. heh…
I remember an atheist friend trying to make the case that the protestant reformation in Europe was, at least initially, a victory for rationality in that it promoted the right of the common man to read scripture for himself, and took the interpretation away from clerics.
Along with this came mass production of printing presses, the inevitable arrival of books, increased literacy and the spreading of ideas.
I’ve heard others say the enlightenment may have take longer to come along without the reformation.
Of course, the double edge to this sword is that this new found freedom liberated people and ideas so much that eventually rationality began to eat the hand of its emancipator.
Not sure how much ‘faith’ I’d put in this argument as I have never studied the historical period, but it’s an interesting idea.
I should add, nowadays, I haven’t heard any meaningful rational contribution from the pious!
I wonder though can you count it as promoting rationality when one religion only does something rational to get out from under the oppression of another religion?
Well yeah, you have a point! It’s not as if protestantism was going all out to promote rationality as we know it. It was probably a serendipitous co-incidence that freedom of thought came along and allowed us to progress to where we are now.
So, yeah in the strict sense of the question, religion probably hasn’t directly done anything to promote rationality – only by accident.
I can’t imagine many of the reformers having a great deal of interest in Copernicus and Galileo.
Was the development of printing presses due to the reformation or was it the other way around?
I think the reformation was more the result of the ability to mass produce the bible.
In other words, the Reformation and the Enlightenment both arose in spite of existing religious dogma, neither because of same.
Well said!
Historians may help, but FWIW I’m with Lynn on this one:
From Wikipedia Guthenberg’s press became known 1439, and its religious usage was from 1455 (Guthenberg Bible), way before Luther.
The printing press seems credited for both the renaissance and the reformation:
“The high quality and relatively low price of the Gutenberg Bible (1455) established the superiority of movable type, and printing presses rapidly spread across Europe, leading up to the Renaissance, and later all around the world.” [“Printing”, Wp.]
“It wasn’t until January 1518 that friends of Luther translated the 95 Theses from Latin into German, printed, and widely copied, making the controversy one of the first in history to be aided by the printing press.[35] Within two weeks, copies of the theses had spread throughout Germany; within two months throughout Europe.” [“Martin Luther”, Wp.]
As I understand it then, the most that can be said is that the preexisting religious product promoted the rationality of using printing presses; imagine trying to convince the local eateries to use printed menus. 😀
Agreed re: the Gutenberg press arriving on the scene before the reformation and then effectively aiding it.
Up until this point though historians seem to suggest that education and as a result literacy for the populous was controlled by the Catholic church. This was an obvious advantage to them since an ignorant flock was easier to control.
The reformation made it a virtue to be an individual peronsally accountable to ‘God’ without the need for intermediaries like priests. To get this accountability and become personally involved, one had to become literate. The increase in literacy is in some quarters put down to the influence of the reformation. Probably isn’t the only reason, but maybe a major one??
Anyway, literacy one would imagine was a big influence on the future enlightenment and eventually the triumph of scientific thought over superstition.
Prof Tom Devine in Scotland is a big advocate of the reformation contributing to the enlightenment in this way.
It’s just ironic that this emphasis on literacy and freedom from clerics eventually brought science to the point where it also conlficted with protestantism.
Science – always eating religion’s lunch.
You can make a strong claim for the Reformation being very important in making the world a better place. Northern Europe escaping from Popish Tyranny made a huge difference.
However, that’s largely down to how bad Popery is rather than how good Protestantism is.
Very true!
This makes me think of my ‘old’ statement that nobody in governing positions (cabinet-ministers, their subs, presidents, heads-of state, state-advisory bodies (health, energy, science) should be atheist. Theists are clearly not using their brains. They re also prone to be biased: i.o.w. not on the same attitude/foot towards all walks of life.
Yes … I do realize it s not going to happen anytime soon. If ever. But one can dream.
I don’t understand.
I think it was “should be A theist”…?
Oh noes, wont anyone mind the gaps anymore!?
I also heard this live driving into work – it was a shambles compared to most interviews on the Today programme. Evan Davies sounded like he hadn’t done any prep work at all as to why this is causing a (minor) stir. The two intervewees though, were excellent.
Just don’t listen to “Thought for the Day” (current affairs from a religious perspective!!) afterwards, though – it was terrible (as it almost always is).
Whether religion on occasion promotes rationality is one thing. Whether trying to tie religion and science together serves or undercuts rationality is quite a different thing. The latter is what they are doing and they are being disingenuous about it.
That said, I can’t help sneering at the fact that it is just money flushed down the drain. The incomptability between science and religion is not something you can make go away by throwing money at it. Let them squander their millions-easy come, easy go.
Religion most certainly does promote rationality — by serving as a warning to others.
In order to be a Christian, you have to believe that there’s an ancient zombie king who likes having his intestines fondled and who’ll have you roasted infinitely if he doesn’t like the way you osculate his rump when he get around to re-resurrecting himself.
If you can ever manage to see any of the mainstream religions in such a light, chances are excellent that you’ll be inoculated against all such mental viruses for the rest of your life.
Of course, I suppose that’s like suggesting that cowpox promotes health by providing immunity to smallpox….
Cheers,
b&
I know you mention this often, but where’s the intestine-fondling part come from?
I’m guessing it has to do with the “Doubting Thomas” story where Thomas insists upon examining Jesus’ wounds, including the one where a Roman soldier supposedly stabbed his abdomen while he was on the cross. Thus, intestines spilling out and Thomas fondly fondling them.
Somewhat along the lines of #11 Insightful Ape, I will claim that this is the wrong question.
First, demonstrating some ways or not does not settle the overall problem.
More to the point, the larger question seems to be if religion is useful or harmful for rationality in society. It is harmful. (Abortion, say.)
Oops. Disregard, wrong place.
John 20:24 But Thomas, one of the twelve, called Didymus, was not with them when Jesus came.
25 The other disciples therefore said unto him, We have seen the LORD. But he said unto them, Except I shall see in his hands the print of the nails, and put my finger into the print of the nails, and thrust my hand into his side, I will not believe.
26 And after eight days again his disciples were within, and Thomas with them: then came Jesus, the doors being shut, and stood in the midst, and said, Peace be unto you.
27 Then saith he to Thomas, Reach hither thy finger, and behold my hands; and reach hither thy hand, and thrust it into my side: and be not faithless, but believing.
28 And Thomas answered and said unto him, My LORD and my God.
I know i can’t make this shit up!
Cheers,
b&
Or that a pope promotes aids-campaining. Even thoug I understand your hunor, Ben, I do not think it ll reach the general public.
Then again – I do not assume they d be reading here.
Wow — the anti-Pharyngula-linkage thing sure is some powerful juju! I used the Google URL shortener, and my comment still instantly vanished into a black hole.
Anyway, I merely observed that it’s not my problem that hardly anybody appreciates my jokes; instead, it’s the problem of those, like Anthony Horvath, who dream of fondling Jesus’s intestines.
Google “PZ Horvath Dawkins” and the top hit goes where I tried to link to….
Cheers,
b&
I appreciate your jokes. The more guts the merrier! : )
Skipping ahead and therefore risking repeating what the smarter people say.
Yes religion has imporoved rationality now and again. Ask Plato or any pre-Socratic philosopher.
Actually, ask post-Socratics like Aristotle and the stoics. The problem wasn’t religion per-se it was dogma. When someone draws a line in the metaphorical sand and says ‘not beyond this line’ then it’s no longer rational it’s just faith.
I don’t really understand how someone can both consider religion harmless, while at the same time “absolutely agree” that it undermines rationality.
I love Peter Atkins’ declaration of what he would do with the Templeton Prize money were he to win it:
“I would use the money to establish a foundation that fought the Templeton Foundation.”
Perfect!
I wish the Templeton foundation would realize that they are running at the windmill of science, realize that what they are trying to do is impossible. Therefore stop their lunacy, and actual invest their money in promoting real science. Think about what 1.5 billion could do for scientific research.
Does anything change over time?
I had read this posting earlier and went back to my re-reading of Dawkins’ “Unweaving the Rainbow” and came to this quote on page 30 of the paperback 1998 edition:
The distinguished biologist Lewis Wolpert once admitted that science is arrogant, and he went on to remark, mildly, that science has a certain amount to be arrogant about. Peter Medawar, Carl Sagan and Peter Atkins have all said similar things.
It’s an affront to honor and especially integrity to take this “award” if one is a true Atheist.
In a black and white world, yes. The reality seems somewhat iffier.
Physicist Sean Carroll which we know well here has IIRC posted on being on conferences where TF contributed funds, and his anguish.
Even further along the slippery slope is Tegmark et al, who sat up a theoretical physics institute (FQXi) for TF money but with explicit cut from any POV intrusions.
In the later case I personally think it was too much specific TF promotion to suit. It is like the police accepting the mafia paying its salary. It isn’t moral, and it is dangerous to boot (making the mafia out as doing social benefits).
The first case is more like being on a peace conference where a weapon company put in some goodwill money “to act for peace”. It isn’t exactly moral, but it isn’t too much of a problem either; there are more compelling things that should decide which conferences you go to.
Oops, I misread: *this* award as an affront to honor and integrity, surely!
In a superficial sense, yes: some particular religions, religious endowments, etc, promote education and thus rationality.
In a non-superficial sense, no; I can’t think of anything inherent in religion as such, as opposed to compatible with some forms of religion, or done by some clerics, that promotes rationality.
Like others, I immediately thought of religion debunking the truth claims of other religions as perhaps the only instance where it can claim to be promoting rationality. Of course, the conclusions often reached (therefore, MY religion is correct) are wide of the mark.
The so-called Jamesian ossuary also comes to mind. That was debunked in-house, as it were.
So, religion primarily aims its rationality at the lint in the navels of other religions.
In the long run, it does promote rationality. Look at the fundies. They are noisy, but not numerous, because less and less people are ready to believe the incredible. (Am I too optimistic?)
Just as a side note. Atkins chemistry texbooks are Great. I used them all through chemical engineering only to find out at the end he is also an awesome atheist!
IMO, Atkins is the most lyrical of all atheistic writers. His “Creation Revisited”(WH Freeman & CO, 1992)is a joy to read, easily comprehended, and an inspiration for rational discourse. This passage is gripping: “The coming into being of space and time is the central event of the creation … First, we shall think of something that could be ordered into what we now recognize as space-time. Then we shall have a glimpse of how it may be possible to allow the helping hand of the infinitely lazy creator let slip the last fingernail of assistance. The necessity of the creator will be seen to fade. Then as the creator drops out of involvement, so the universe comes into being without external intervention, out of absolutely nothing.” Beautiful. And, at the end of his text, he says: “We are almost there. Complete knowledge is just within our grasp. Comprehension is moving across the face of the earth, like the sunrise.” Except, of course, for the faith-bound.
One more Wolpert interview is here –
http://newhumanist.org.uk/2534/mortal-fear-laurie-taylor-interviews-lewis-wolpert
“I told Richard that the one weakness of his book is that he doesn’t consider how religion helps people.”
religion promotes rationality in the same way that alcoholics support sobriety…by giving glaring examples of what NOT to do.
Somewhat along the lines of #11 Insightful Ape, I will claim that this is the wrong question.
First, demonstrating some ways or not does not settle the overall problem.
More to the point, the larger question seems to be if religion is useful or harmful for rationality in society. It is harmful. (Abortion, say.)
*** Duplicate comment avoider ***
You will have the chance to ask Martin Rees this question in person on April 11 – at the school of the Art Institute.
http://news.uchicago.edu/article/2011/04/06/astronomer-royal-martin-rees-lecture-mysteries-universe-april-11
Hr will be delivering the 2011 University of Chicago Brinson Lecture –
http://astro.uchicago.edu/brinson/2011/
…& he will politely evade answering!
That should be interesting!
I think the closest religions get to promoting rationality is when a specific religion happens to denounce all others as baseless superstition; unfortunately the agenda there is to claim that they are the One True Religion. If any religion would also denounce itself as baseless superstition then I would applaud it for consciously promoting rationality.
Atkins responds correctly: “Oh, absolutely! That’s the whole point of religion: it promotes faith over evidence.”
Actually there’s plenty of very strong evidence for religion. But you have to be gullible or delusional to rely on it. (A couple examples: faith healing; talking to invisible pretend people, uhhhh, and they talk back; teleology.)
Oh yeah, let’s not forget the weeping statues and/or the Jesus face on a toast and/or Jesus jumping on a pogo stick.
Don’t forget near-death experiences…
I’ll add to the “it depends on what you mean by religion” chorus. I’ve been in plenty of Unitarian Universalist congregations (one led by a gay Buddhist minister) that have always fomented rational thinking, to the point of having ten times as many people in reading groups on general topics as about any religious texts. And several Buddhists, such as the Dalai Lama, have encouraged and helped scientific experiments on meditation.
Now, Buddhism does have its assumptions, as even humanism does. But I’d say that a religion or philosophy’s compatibility with reason varies inversely to its quantity of dogma. The more unique teachings a church has, the less its adherents are willing to learn elsewhere — one more strike against theology.
“To one who has faith, no explanation is necessary. To one without faith, no explanation is possible.” Thomas Aquinas
This is exactly why I cannot believe in a supernatural god, I simply do not have faith that such mythology is true.
Does religion (ie, supernatural religion) offer anything to rationality?
Theists will say that there are 2 ways to acquire knowledge: 1) through empiric observation, and 2) through Revelation from God or the Holy Spirit. I can’t argue with that, it’s just that I have not had the Revelation, nor do I believe that anyone else has.
Roman Catholics will admit (I think) that their faith does not detract from rationality per se since it is on a different realm altogether– like Gould’s nonoverlapping magisteria thesis and there will never be a contradiction between their faith and reason. (We know this has not always been true.)
Related to this topic, an ascending theme now is that Christianity is actually the *cause* of the rise of science. It’s weird, but there are several books out now about it.
“The claim: Christianity provided the cultural matrix, the womb, for the birth of modern science.” Link:
http://www.acceptingabundance.com/2011/01/christ-and-science-invitation-for.html
Odd.
There’s an account of a scientific experiment at 1 Kings 18:23ff where Ezekiel challenges the priests of Baal to use their incantations to make a sacrificial pyre light. (His does, theirs doesn’t, therefore Ghod) He even lets them choose their own bullock to sacrifice. Unfortunately he rigs the experiment supposedly against himself by pouring water over his own pyre – but what if it was actually petroleum? (If, that is, there is a word of truth in any of it…)
G K Chesterton remarked that absence of religious faith (Christian belief), far from making someone rational, makes him susceptible to superstition. You only have to consider Comte’s religion of humanity to get a flavour of that. Atkins is ignorant. Many people, and many insightful people in the past and present, will say that religion is where rationality leads! He simply hasn’t thought (or perhaps felt) hard enough to appreciate that, or he would be more reticent. He likes the sound of his own voice too much.