Given my day job and the time I spend dealing with matters at this WEBSITE, I’m no longer able to keep up with, much less answer, everyone who wants to pwn me. For the record, , and so you can keep up with other folks’ criticisms of what I write, here’s what’s gone up in the past fewdays:
Larry Tanner at Textuality, an atheist, takes issue with my criticism of the Jersey Shore conference.
I don’t see why Coyne judges these topics to be “shallow.” I have some sympathy with the rest of his complaint, that academic pop-culture studies are “too infested with postmodern obscurantism, and … replace more substantive material that can actually make students think deeply about things”–but focusing on Jersey Shore and the like can indeed generate substantive material that helps students think deeply about lots of things, not least about the things all around them on campus, in the clubs, and on their computers.
It could, but I doubt that it does. But of one thing I’m sure: reading The Brothers Karamazov will make them think even more deeply.
And, like a dog returning to its vomit, Michel Ruse is back again. Over at the Chronicle of Higher Education, he acccuses me, and other scientists, of being shallow about philosophy.
Let me say that I don’t mind scientists talking about philosophy. I am glad that they do. I just wish that they would do us the courtesy of taking seriously what we are trying to say. It is not a subject that can be done over a few drinks in the faculty club at the end of a hard day in the lab. The questions are important and they are tough. I think science has much to say to philosophy. I showed that in my recent discussion of the foundations of ethics. But it doesn’t have everything to say to philosophy and the questions science doesn’t tackle need tackling.
Take just one example in which I have been much involved, the teaching of evolution in state schools in the U.S. It needs knowledge of science. It needs knowledge of the law. It needs knowledge of theology. It also needs knowledge of philosophy. What is science and is evolutionary theory science? What is religion and is Creation Science religion? Do the two overlap? Is Intelligent Design Theory science or religion? Should parents have the right in a democracy to decide on curriculum content? And so the philosophical questions continue.
It is bad enough that so many American politicians are philistines when it comes to the humanities. Do scientists have to follow suit?
I’ve managed to teach evolution for nearly thirty years, and yes, you do need to know science, but philosophy and theology? Not so much. The other stuff he talks about is more relevant to fighting creationism than teaching evolution. But Ruse will be Ruse.
David Klinghoffer of The Discovery Institute “analyzes” the debate in “Haught v. Coyne: The deebate of the century (not).” He’s got a tough job: he has to simultaneously dismiss both me and a notable theologian (the latter because Haught went after Intelligent Design at the Dover trial). Though Klinghoffer appears to be Jewish, his criticism seems suffused with a bit of anti-Semitism:
I don’t know what Haught — who I noticed stands about a head taller than Coyne — is so bent out of shape about. Coyne is a little cartoon Jewish atheist who makes Woody Allen look deep. At one point he calls himself an “apostate Hebrew.” Oh please. Everything he says is vulgar — not in the sense of potty talk but just so simpleminded and crude.
- Science, he says, “codifies common sense” in contrast to religion, which tells you “what you want to be true.”
- “If you’re smart you know that there’s no such thing as angels, but there is such a thing as evolution.”
- “The Bible could have told us about electrons and evolution and quantum mechanics but it didn’t.”
- On Adam and Eve: “These people ate a fruit from a talking snake.”
- On Haught’s theology which Coyne describes as holding that God did whatever he did with regard to life and the universe — and that’s unclear from Haught’s own characterization — so as to have a drama to watch and while away the time: “I don’t know why any omnipotent being would ever be bored. Ha ha!”
And more of this nature. But who would have expected anything better, given Coyne’s blogging on religion? He illustrates the point that only the quite rare and special self-described atheist — someone who’s got a genuine feel for the faith he rejects — deserves to be called an atheist, rather than our simply dismissing him as an ignoramus.
I stand by what I said. What Klinghoffer singles out as jokes are really lighthearted ways of conveying deadly serious points: the Bible is a man-made work of its time, the Genesis story is patently ludicrous, and Haught’s story of God’s creation as a great “drama” is laughable. And does Klinghoffer really think there are angels?
It’s very strange that all this criticism is levelled at a talk in which I think I bested a sophisticated theologian. If I can do that with the “Woody Allen”-like statements above, then all it shows is that sophisticated theology ain’t so sophisticated. Is Klinghoffer’s theology any better? Does he believe in talking snakes and angels?
So, according to Klinghoffer, what did Haught do wrong? Not much, really, except that he erred in expecting that I’d respect his religious views—even more so because he was an ally in our battle against intelligent design.
The episode, I think, shows us the pain that many theistic evolutionists must feel. Here they are, loyally denouncing ideas like intelligent design that confront Darwinian materialism on the latter’s own scientific turf. What a wonderful bargain that must have seemed to them at one time. Simply surrendering to Darwin and the most prestigious ideas in the culture was supposed to win them the benefit of not having to spend time weighing the scientific evidence on evolution for themselves, a project that also entailed the risk that they might arrive at an inconvenient conclusion on the question. Someone like Haught thereby freed himself up to spend that much more time on the subject that really interested him, his theological study and writing.
However the other party in the bargain didn’t keep what the TEs assumed was a promise: to accord them respect and honor in exchange for their not questioning evolutionary theory. In Haught’s “Open Letter” to Coyne you sense the grief of someone who, after selling something of himself, believes he got gypped.
There’s probably some truth in this, but Klinghoffer is merely gloating about Haught’s fate. And that gloating (which the DI has perfected to an art) doesn’t give intelligent design one more shred of credibility than it had before. What the Discovery Institute doesn’t seem to have realized is that they’re not going to get intelligent design accepted simply by carping at its critics. They have to produce some credible science, and they haven’t. They’re paid just to sneer.
“However the other party in the bargain didn’t keep what the TEs assumed was a promise: to accord them respect and honor in exchange for their not questioning evolutionary theory. In Haught’s “Open Letter” to Coyne you sense the grief of someone who, after selling something of himself, believes he got gypped.”
The paragraph above is just simply bizarre. Why would they even think there was a bargain? Did anyone ever promise them anything like that? Accepting evolution is simply accepting the evidence that reality provides and there’s no reason that scientists should make any concessions on that basis.
What I don’t like, apart from the hollow moaning and sharing of the sour grapes, is use of the pejorative “gypped.” It essentially means “being conned, as by a Gypsy”. It’s an ethnic slur and Klinghoffer, with all his pretensions toward academic respectability, should know better.
Add in Ruse’s slur on the Philistines, who had a rich culture and were not the bumpkins that they have been portrayed. Shame on him for failing to follow History (archaeology too!).
Never thought about the origin go “gypped” though. Something to think about.
“Gypped,” IMO, crossed the bar into irretrievable common usage long ago; happily, its etymology has been lost to most people. I thought the “little cartoon Jewish atheist” was far more offensive.
I think that last paragraph ” … who, after selling something of himself, believes he got gypped.” is the key.
The religionistas & accomos are always thinking in quid-pro-quo basis, I help you if you help me, damn the reality. This is the core of “togetherness”. Of course, at odds with the spirit of science.
Yes, agree with the klingy-guy that Haught is bitter in his letter. I suspect mostly because he felt “betrayed” by this small-stature semitic guy (I think I read Haught approved Jerry prior to the meet: “no no dawkins, no hitchens .. aah this one seems ok”) which he select to boost his cred, actually pissed him off …
Funny indeed.
“…reading The Brothers Karamazov will make them think even more deeply.”
Ah. Here I disagree with you. Why would The Brothers Karamazov make you think any more deeply than watching Jersey shore? They’re both works of fiction. The Brothers Karamazov even has the disadvantage that it’s over 100 years old and can hardly be used to judge 21st century society.
Mike.
So by this logic, the Kim Kardashian wedding (also fiction!) tells us more about ourselves than Shakespeare. Good luck with that argument.
I would argue that it does, given the amount of money and attention lavished on it.
In a quantitative sense how many people watched at least part of the KK wedding or followed it online versus watched or read Shakespeare over the past few months?
Obviously I don’t have the numbers, but I would think that Kim gets the edge in that score.
Qualitatively, why would the story of Romeo and Juliet make us think more deeply or tell us more about ourselves than Ryan and Kim?
Ooops, that should be Kris and Kim.
I think this is one of those questions where we just have to say that if you have to ask in the first place then you’re probably not going to understand when we try to explain it to you.
In a quantitative sense how many people understand the theory of evolution?
Qualititatively, why would the theory of evolution make us think more deeply or tell us more about ourselves than the Genesis account?
Seriously, do you see how you sound? Is this some sort of hip cultural relativism that assigns no more value to Shakespeare than the Kardashians?
+ a couple
Okay, fire away, explain to me how Shakespeare has any more value to sociology or to understanding the human condition than Kris & Kim….
How many people understand the theory of evolution compared to believe in Genesis is not relevant to this discussion.
Finally you should be more concerned about how you sound. You do understand that Shakespeare is *fiction* right?
The quantitative comparison should hardly be cultural ubiquity of the last few months, unless one wants to take the position that culture history is inherently inferior to or less interesting than whatever’s contemporary. Fads are fads, whether fashions or whole families. Perhaps the executives of whatever network airs their program may legitimate care, but otherwise much of the hoopla included fawning by fashion-addled people who don’t know better, and those decrying the empty spectacle itself. The comparison should be between anyone who’s ever enjoyed R&J through reading, watching, or performing versus who’s ever given more than a moment’s though to those celebrities.
As for qualitative side of things, judging between one of the greatest narratives of romance ever written in the English language and a few month publicity stunt by a debutante and a sports star is really beneath considering. One tells you about humanity’s depth, and one tells you about current American culture’s shallowness.
If it was a question of only one or the other I wouldn’t hesitate to choose Shakespeare. But I think there is a place for studying the other precisely because of what you say in your last sentence, although I would replace ‘American’ with ‘Western’ (I’m British and we certainly have our share of that sort of thing over here!).
Fact is more illuminating than fiction. I think!
Depends on what you are trying to illuminate, I think.
You would do well to contemplate the motto “human nature never changes.” That’s why Shakespeare, Dostoevsky, and the rest of the great writers retain their value. Their writings give us insight into how we humans operate, in all our glorious irrationality and emotionalism.
Scientific thought tries very hard to overcome the limits imposed on our understanding of the universe by irrationality and emotion, but it never hurts to learn just what those are.
Some of Dickens’ characters are plainly as screwy as all get-out, but that’s the way some people are. We can’t expect them to change and if we want to free such folks from the incubus of religious belief, we have to work with them, not try to re-mold them.
And even the most rational, unemotional people are still irrational and emotional from time to time or on selected subjects. To be otherwise suggests there’s something “wrong” with a person.
Look at Kurt Godel, who in later life was as screwy as they come with his paranoia about food, a paranoia that led to his death by inanity. Yet he remained a great and influential mathematician, though his irrationality on some subjects was unchangeable.
“human nature never changes.”
How do we know this?
Just read some r-e-a-l-l-y ancient literature.
The Epic of Gilgamesh is an obvious choice, as is Homer, but the everyday missives unearthed at Oxyrhynchus in Egypt show that the concerns those Greek colonists a couple of millennia ago are not significantly different from ours today, especially when you take into account the differences in circumstance. There’s a good chapter on the Oxyrhynchus papyri in Leo Deuel’s “Testaments of Time.”
Read great literature to develop your sense of empathy, something obviously lacking in the minds of the xtianists and the 1%. “There but for the Grace of Dog go I.”
Distant Analogy: in art, the human nude has always been the gold standard among subjects.
I think most of any culture is unreflective fluff. However, the ‘great’ works of art and literature are those which, in hindsight, were found to either have had a profound effect on that culture, to have expressed it in some unique way, or to put the reader/viewer through a worthwhile experience.
What makes any particular piece of art worthwhile is somewhat subjective, of course. Usually the fluff disappears after a few years because it wasn’t worth much of anyone’s time. And why waste time with the fluff when there is so much better stuff to appreciate?
Ray (semiliterate Philistine whose artistic opinions can be safely ignored)
Are you suggesting or implying that there exists a sort of objective “quality filter”?
(By which the “great works” survive, and the dross is discarded?)
Not criticising, just asking.
You may be on to something here.
I just cannot quite ‘put my finger on it’.
Yes, I’m suggesting there is — but it’s obviously not perfect, either. Sometimes good works fall into obscurity, and crappy ones remain popular. (And the judgement of which is which is always somewhat subjective.)
But on the other hand, you can’t very well tell someone that something they enjoy is crap — if they get something out of it, it’s good art to them.
Now, if only we (I) could discern the constellation of filters by which one might determine such a gem, we (I) might be able to market it!
Although I suspect that we already have such a filter:
A rounded educated intellect.
Who hates Dean Koontz & Mills and Boon.
Oh, and C.S. Lewis at an age>30.
“…only the quite rare and special self-described atheist — someone who’s got a genuine feel for the faith he rejects — deserves to be called an atheist..”
How many people really have a “genuine feel” for more than zero or 1 faith (ok, a small number, in the case of people who have converted from one religion to another)? Yet, an atheist rejects all religious faith, so by the Klinghoffer definition it seems to follow that there is nobody who deserves to be called an atheist, or to put it another way, no true atheists.
Sorry, I should have made it clear that I’m quoting from Klinghoffer’s article for which Jerry provided the link.
I guess that makes me a Jainist. I don’t have a feel for Jainism, yet I reject it.
So, according to Klinghoffer, I’m not really an atheist because I don’t have a “feeling” for rejecting every religion.
So, using that logic, he’s a Taoist and a pagan and a wiccan and a Satanist and a Hindi and a Sikh and a Baha’ai…and and and and.
As a from-birth atheist, which faith am I supposed to have rejected? Or must I gain a genuine feel for them all? (And who decides whether my feel is genuine? Believers?)
The truth is the reverse. Atheism is the default position. Everyone should be deemed an atheist until they affirm a theistic belief.
No true atheist would believe that.
He seems to be arguing that no one who has not intensively (by his standards, whatever those are) studied the history/scholarship of a religion can make claims about its veracity. Why does he not then argue that religious people be compelled to justify their own beliefs in a similar manner? It is this type of double-standard that the new atheists have so successful in pointing out. By all means, let’s insist that everyone provide justification for their beliefs.
Wow, so Klinghoffer writes both “a little cartoon Jewish atheist” and “he got gypped”? He’s only lacking “the arguments were woolly-headed” to go for the racist trifecta.
Ad homs have reached a new low when someone’s height is counted against them. Klinghoffer could really demolish Stephen Hawking!
Is woolly-headed really a racial term? This is a genuine question – I’d really like to know and I can’t find the etymology. I’d assumed ‘woolly thinking’ (which I hear much more frequently) came first and referred to the cloudy/foggy appearance of actual wool. But even regardless of etymology – is it perceived as a racial insult?
“Woolly-headed” isn’t a racial insult. It’s akin to the synonym for fuzzy thinking or day-dreaming, which is “wool-gathering.” The head at issue is not external; it’s the mind.
“The Bible could have told us about electrons and evolution and quantum mechanics but it didn’t.”
This specially coded information can be gently extrapolated from the intersectionality by applying the heuristic praxis via meta-textual analysis and metaphorical reification.
How could you be so crude?
I want to know why the first commandment is not:
“Thou shalt Wash thy Hands”
So true. And keep the outhouse away from the well…
Rather surprisingly, the edict to distance the latrines from “pure” areas is emphasised in the dead sea scrolls.
Plus, “and if you used the last loo roll, then replace it” – which explains the state of some of the scrolls
Yes, I appreciate the humour, but the rules were in place for the opposite rationale.
They were paranoid about the need to *specifically* avoid possible cross-contamination of the ju-ju magic in the writing of the scrolls themselves with ‘unclean’ artefacts[1], not in any way for human hygiene!
The very thought of using magic-werdz to wipe one’s arse would have sent them into paroxysms of mania.
________________
[1] Both latrines and menstruating women were included in the same group.
The very thought of using magic-werdz to wipe one’s arse would have sent them into paroxysms of mania.
coincidentally, and just for that very reason, I did indeed utilize the last Gideon Bible I ran across in just that fashion.
Well, it’s not like it’s useful for much else.
When I smoked, bibles made very acceptable “rolly-paper”, if one had exhausted one’s Rizla packets.
As did the tiny Anglican prayer-books in the 1970s, being made from high-quality thin rice-paper, with a real gilt-edge.
(Catholic prayer-books came with a guilt edge to them.)
These were very convenient when I was an Army cadet. Re-supplied for free every Sunday!
All of this is absolutely GOOD news. It signifies that Professor Coyne is having an increasingly important impact on the hypocrites, the scientific illiterates, and those that are proudly and willfully ignorant about evolution. And don’t forget that “little” Woody Allen had a major impact on the film world – by using humor to tackle some “deep” aspects of human relations. Exchanges like these reaffirm that those of us who teach biology owe a great deal to those who take time away from their excellent research to perform such an important service to science education.
You teach biology? Good for you. And your students. I hope your students are open to knowledge.
You have “Groupies” and now it seems you have “Fleas”. Your arguements and ideas are really getting noticed Prof Coyne.
For those who may be corn-fused by the above remark regarding pride in attracting annoying parasites, I present to the Court of Dover the following evidence:
Richard Dawkins’ “Fleas”
(I hope that worked)
Either that or the good prof caught them of the kittehs!
The vomit the dog returned to is Klinghoffer.
Woody Allen is deep, Klingers, universally renown as a satirist, keen observer of humanity, writer, director, musician; a very talented, awarded and respected person.
Woody Allen is as much a success as Klinghopper is a failure. Now, that’s a fair comparison!
Wow, Jerry. Getting dissed by both Ruse and Klinghoffer in the same week. Bravo! Their rants seem to boil down to, “Oh yeah, sputter, sputter, well he doesn’t know what he’s talking about, and he’s dumb too, yeah that’s it.” Looks as if you struck a nerve.
“The Bible could have told us about electrons and evolution and quantum mechanics but it didn’t.”
It could have told us to wash out hands but instead it tells us to use pigeon blood to cure leprosy. Hmmm.
A REALLY “god inspired” book would have Euler’s Identity hidden somewhere inside to confirm its superior origins. But no. Just the “Bible Code”.
Bwahaha.
You’re so vulgar. Clearly God did not include any science in the Bible so the awe of Discovery would elevate Man’s Mind into the Transcendent Cosmic Drama.
God just wasn’t clever enough. If he had waited until after Carl Sagen wrote Contact to inspire the Bible, he could have stolen some of the ideas.
I had an exchange with David Klinghoffer today about one of the things in his review that concerned me, a summary of which which he posted at: http://www.evolutionnews.org/2011/11/the_two_types_of_atheists052541.html
You are modest, and perhaps you could have won a debate on theological matters. However, there is certainly a third class (or perhaps a subset of your third class) of non-believers. It’s populated by people who quite simply don’t believe in the existence of a god or gods or at least do not know if such beings exist. Such a position may well be reached after careful consideration of the available evidence and would not require that the person in that position had any view at all on one or more religions (except to say that they were all mistaken).
No, being blissfully ignorant of theology as a field unto itself, I would probably lose, especially to someone like Dr. Klinghoffer. Or rather, my approach would be to dismiss the whole enterprise as irrelevant, which would probably be considered a forfeit.
There’s much more that could be said on the topic, and I’d be inclined to defend Dr. Coyne if he didn’t do such a good job of it himself — I just wanted to make sure Klinghoffer wasn’t asserting that all atheists were stupid or worse. His quick and conciliatory answer addressed that issue, at least for me.
I’m not sure you would lose, unless perhaps you limited your discussion to orthodox Judaism, but as you say, there would be a strong temptation to dismiss the whole thing as irrelevant.
Or rather, my approach would be to dismiss the whole enterprise as irrelevant, which would probably be considered a forfeit.
have confidence. It’s not in their logic (bad as it usually is) but in their presuppositions and premises that the fault really lies anyway.
you are quite correct to dismiss the entire enterprise of religion, as relates to having imparted any useful knowledge at all, as entirely irrelevant.
no, keep focusing on just that very idea. Don’t EVER let these people dicatate the terms of the debate.
after all, I can easily make an argument for flying unicorns that is logical and consistent, and uses no fallacies in and of itself.
it’s the very premise itself that is flawed.
also, Klinghofer is actually making a strawman of Jerry’s argument… in calling Jerry’s attacks a strawman in and of themselves.
it’s nothing less than a standard Courtier’s reply.
…and it’s a long standing traditional fallacy utilized by theologists for ages and ages:
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2006/12/the_courtiers_reply.php
K.M., thank you for the link. Perhaps he could have added, “there are broadly two views that we theists have of atheists. First, there are those who view atheists as unintelligent, knuckle-dragging, drooling, angry, amoral half-humans, who just don’t get it; and then there are those who… who… hmmm; OK, I guess there is only one.”
By the way, re: his last comment. I checked with my dog, and he says he’s a Buddhist 🙂
lol. That’d be the awesomest bargain ever!
Theologians will agree not to ask too many questions about evolutionary biology (they likely cannot even begin to understand it anyway) in exchange they will be able to make-up whatever stuff they want and Scientists on the other end of this bargain will honor and respect the stuff that the theologians make up.
lol. To borrow a phrase from a man wise beyond his years, Mike “The Situation”:
Scientist should just put Theologians on BLAST!
lol
This heathen doth dare to besmirch the deeper wisdom of Woody Allen?
(/Fie upon him.)
w/r/t the Humanities: Amen, Jerry!
I’m an undergraduate English major in his last quarter, and I can’t believe how infested my field is with Barthes/Sartre/Foucalt/Derrida and all the other chainsmoking French speudo-intellectuals who have wowed sycophantic assistant professors with their relativist bullshit.
The trend of elevating pop culture with theory is something I’ve seen first hand. Wanting to know what it’s like, I took a course in “Game Studies.” The fledgling field of “Game Studies” takes video/computer games and applies unrigorous “critical” thinking to them. Their writings are always bizarre or banal. And they willfully ignore any aspects of games that don’t go with their elevation strategy. The goal is to morally elevate games, or more generally, popular culture.
Pinker predicted this in his 1998 article, “How Much Art Can the Brain Take?” He points out that none of the academic scholarship on art really sheds light on why people consume art at all, and then he says “And that does *not* mean compensating for our slumming by dressing up the lowly subject matter in highfalutin “theory” (a semiotic analysis of [Peanuts], a psychoanalytic exegesis of James Bond, a deconstruction of [Vogue]). It means asking a simple question: What is it about the mind that lets people take pleasure in shapes and colors and sounds and stories and myths?” BINGO STEVEN! But Humanities types learn slow.
The reading of academic prose, verbatim, is a ridiculous thing I didn’t even understand fully until I participated in the Undergraduate Research Symposium earlier this year. I gave a presentation on my research on Donald Justice, and I did it by talking, with PowerPoint accompaniment. But most of the other presenters just read a paper they’d written. It was abominable! I wanted to walk out!
There is, let me say it in its own paragraph, a difference between critical prose and oratory!
And you’re right about titles too. Why do I have to see articles and dissertations with titles like “The myth inside the poesis: mythopoesis and Greco-Roman tragedy,” or something like that. It’s just silly; a single, descriptive title like “Why Evolution is True” works great. Alas, even Pinker has been guilty of this. His latest book should have just been titled “The Decline of Violence.”
I couldn’t agree more.
The concept of humanities is questionable, debatable, and probably obsolete.
Much of what passes, or rather, is being sold as ‘humanities’ nowadays has little to do with the long tradition of serious scholarship that allowed rational thinking and critical inquiry to establish the framework in which modern science could evolve in the first place.
The way it has been distorted in recent American, and American-inspired academic curricula, has damaged it beyond salvage.
As Simon Leys (pen name of a noted sinologist) wrote in his scathing review of Edward Said’s Orientalism:
Some endeavours could only be undertaken by academics “with a huge chip on [their] shoulder and a very dim understanding of the European academic tradition (here perceived through the distorted prism of a certain type of American university with its brutish hyperspecialization [and] nonhumanistic approach…)
You are describing precisely the distorted prism.
Barthes, Sartre, Foucault, Derrida, since you name them, were horribly wrong on many counts, their relevance is doubtful, and I disagree with nearly everything they stand for. But one thing they were not: pseudo-intellectuals. The mass production of pseudo-intellectuals is an accomplishment perfected on an unprecedented scale by a certain type of “liberal” American academic establishment.
I’d like to nominate the above post for a Serendipitous Neologism award, but change the spelling to “spewdo-intellectuals”.
Reading David Klinghoffer’s article and his hilarious assertion about “ideas like intelligent design that confront Darwinian materialism on the latter’s own scientific turf,” reminds me to recommend to all of you the attachment that Jerry included in a posting on October 24. I’m referring to Maarten Boudry’s doctoral dissertation, Here Be Dragons, which I’m reading at the moment and finding to be immensely informative. If, per impossibile, you were having second thoughts about intelligent design, Boudry’s book will flush those thoughts out faster than a dose of Suprep.
Thanks for the tip. Something for my plane trip tomorrow.
I like how he terms “intelligent design” IDC. One could almost almost read that aloud as “idiocy”.
Alfred Ayer once said that philosophy consists of clarification and justification of our important beliefs written in straightforward prose. Boudry admirably demonstrates this.
But then what do I know? I’m just an am-ha’aretz when it comes to philosophy. However, I’m not an epikoros who insists on denying the truth of something, despite the most solid evidence in favour of that truth, like cdesign proponentsists.
If the DI needs some clear examples to refute the Intelligent Design hypothesis, they just need to read the ramblings of Ruse, Behe, Ham, Klinghoffer, Craig, etc, etc. If these represent the product of ID, then the designer has some serious ‘splainin to do.
With a bit of anti-Semitism? WOW.
“Coyne is a little cartoon Jewish atheist”
I would be on the floor laughing if this weren’t so eerie, and I German…
Ouch. Not does he call you a “little cartoon Jewish atheist”. But also, you blog. That’s gotta hurt.
Klinghoffer makes a good point:
“The [debate between Haught and Coyne] episode, I think, shows us the pain that many theistic evolutionists must feel. Here they are, loyally denouncing ideas like intelligent design that confront Darwinian materialism on the latter’s own scientific turf. What a wonderful bargain that must have seemed to them at one time. Simply surrendering to Darwin and the most prestigious ideas in the culture was supposed to win them the benefit of not having to spend time weighing the scientific evidence on evolution for themselves, a project that also entailed the risk that they might arrive at an inconvenient conclusion on the question.”
As if theistic evolutionists “surrendered to Darwin”, no, they weighed the evidence and found that natural selection was true. But Klinghoffer is correct that once that evidence is weighed, the idea of a directed creation is rendered impossible and can no longer be reconciled. In that sense the Creationists are correct to fight natural selection tooth and nail (no pun intended) in order to protect their specious world view. In that sense Catholics have indeed failed because they must either admit the “inconvenient conclusion” or flail about like Haught does with cognitively incoherent yodeling spewing from his pie-hole.
I want this person to post a video in which he talks about those angels he believes in. I want him to do it with a straight face and looking at the camera, without chuckling even once.
So this Jersey Shore show… what’s it like? Like California Dreams?
All I’m going to say is that it’s one of those things that you can never unsee.
All I’ve seen is a photo of some participant human, posted in adjacence of Carl Sagan for purpose of funny.
I went to school with someone who looked just like that and hated jazz.
It is hard to know where to start; “the teaching of evolution in state schools in the U.S. … needs knowledge of science. It needs knowledge of the law. It needs knowledge of theology.”
This is just too stupid for words. What has theology got to do with evolution? B*gger all.
I choked at that part, too.
I think Ruse doesn’t understand science’s commitment to philosophy.
Specifically with the philosophical pursuit of model dependent methodological naturalism.
What else is science other than a specific philosophical discipline?
And why in the world would a scientist need to be conversant in Akan philosophy of personhood in order to be an expert in his/her branch of philosophy?
And why in the world would a scientist allow someone who is not an expert in model dependent methodological naturalism to use a different philosophical theory to deconstruct model dependent methodological naturalism? What’s the point in that?
Ruse is very, very confused.
“[I]deas like intelligent design that confront Darwinian materialism on the latter’s own scientific turf. ”
Yeah, how’d ‘taking on Darwinian materialism’ work for you in Dover, eh?
Couldn’t wait to get them Darwinists on the stand where they couldn’t lie and weasel their way out….Now where have I heard that?
Ridicule is the only weapon that can be used against unintelligible propositions.
Ideas must be distinct before reason can act upon them.
— Thomas Jefferson
Egg sack lily.
Which reminds me: have I mentioned Jesus’s guts yet today?
Cheers,
b&
“Coyne is a little cartoon Jewish atheist”
That from a guy who worships a zombie jew. Are there any realistic reconstructions of what Jesus could have looked like?
There is this attempt of a reconstruction:
http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/health/forensics/1282186
But this reconstruction doesn’t look semitic at all. It resembles a young Lula da Silva:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/liacostacarvalho/178494514/
Better, but not convincing either:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jan/09/christianity-judaism
Correction: Klinghoffer is apparently an Orthodox Jew himself. *puzzled*
DI is still around? Thought they dried up and blew away after their 200th, or so, butt-kicking…
But the flagellum!
Oh, intercourse the flagellum.
b&
Search ATP synthetase evolution to see where they (or their ilk) have gone since the flagellum. And also (you’ll love this) Krebs cycle. Mantra’s the same. Forget the patient explanations on evolutionary relationships. Too complicated. Haddave been designed.
Quote: “Take just one example in which I have been much involved, the teaching of evolution in state schools in the U.S. It needs knowledge of science. It needs knowledge of the law. It needs knowledge of theology. It also needs knowledge of philosophy. What is science and is evolutionary theory science? What is religion and is Creation Science religion? Do the two overlap? Is Intelligent Design Theory science or religion? Should parents have the right in a democracy to decide on curriculum content? And so the philosophical questions continue.”
Ah, but does philosophy ever answer any of these questions? I’m not aware that it does. In fact I’m not aware that philosophy has ever answered any questions. Seems to me they are still wrangling over the same stuff that occupied Plato and Socrates….and still no “answers”!
It is arrogant in the extreme to imagine that philosophy has some kind of exclusive title to these questions which, in fact, would occur to anyone pondering the issues of teaching evolution and/or non-evolution in schools – and which will be answered without the assistance of philosophers.
Yeah… I’ve kind of noticed that…
“…to accord them respect and honor in exchange for their not questioning evolutionary theory.”
Since when does acceptance of scientific facts confer to religious beliefs immunity from criticism or scrutiny? Since when does not questioning evolutionary theory imply not questioning theistic evolution? Ideas don’t deserve respect and honor merely through sanctimonious posturing or even through offering itself as quid pro quo. It must earn it.
Coyne is a little cartoon Jewish atheist
Klinghoffer must also have these other little cartoon Jews in mind:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4VFs97rMw_U
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4y4lBqIXaU0
Aside from The Tick‘s Arthur, can anyone identity a little cartoon Jew that’s not antisemitic?
My favorite Bible omission is this.
Why wouldn’t the god of the Bible add to the 10 Commandments this one; it would have saved countless lives, especially those of children.
11. Wash your hands after taking a dump.
Klinghoffer is an example of something that is very common among Jews, a person who thinks that he can use negative stereotypes to attack others Jews but that it is antisemitism when others do that. Curiously, this is slightly a stereotype. So I may be triggering some sort of terrible strange loop here.
I think that’s typical of many ethnic groups, with the proviso that such attacks are themselves kept in-house, i.e., within said group.
Typical or not, intra-group or not, such slurs are not to be condoned. For them, Klinghoffer would deserve to be dubbed Klingstürmer. As in Der Stürmer.
Yes, that would be cheap, disgusting, ad nominem. But so are Klingstürmer’s jabs. He has put himself squarely beyond the pale, and I hope Jerry doesn’t waste any more time and energy jousting with such a grober traifnyak.
Klinghoffer was adopted, according to Wikipedia. He doesn’t look Jewish either, so his original parents probably aren’t Jewish. He was raised in Reform Judaism, but left it in favor of Orthodox Judaism.
So?
That makes his attempt of an insult even weirder and more difficult to parse.
He is neither a classical non-jewish antisemite, nor is he a classical self-hating Jew. The latter usually rejects Judaism, Jewishness, etc. Klinghoffer did the opposite. He embraced Orthodoxy.
So he apparently likes Judaism, but dislikes the Jew. (Incidentally the exact opposite of what Catholicism officially mandated).
Complete armchair hypothesis:
It could be that he, as an adopted child, feels insufficiently accepted by the Jewish community. He therefore feels resentment towards lukewarm or atheist, non-practicing Jews, like Jerry or Woody Allen, who are accepted, whatever they do.
Ruse is talking about the legal and political controversy over “the teaching of evolution in state schools in the U.S.” The sentence is carelessly written, but the embedded link makes the intended subject clear.
Most attention has focused on the cartoon Jew part, but
says a lot too. Any normal person would have written, “who stands about a head…” for such an obvious difference, but der Klinghofer seems to think he has special powers of observation. Or else he’s trying to claim some scientific credibility (what with scientists always going ’round taking measurements N@).
The conclusion remains the same.
Dr. Coyne, nice job. I agreed with almost everything you said in your debate. Except for your conception of “science” on your slide 11 as “Based on repeatable observations, experiments, replication, falsifiability” and “Knowledge changes based on confirmed or falsified hypothesis involving observations and experiments”.
The problem is this is not all of science. It is only the natural sciences part. Thus you do in fact fall prey to scientism, though probably not in the sense meant by Haught. I do agree wtih you in this post too that you do not need to know theology, but your dismissal of philosophy is, I think, too quick. The problem is even the philosophers who are criticizing you here fall prey to the same general mistake: monism and scientism. In my view the scientist must realize that the scientific method itself is adopted apriori. I believe the dualist epistemology and scientific methodology of Austrian economist Ludwig von Mises and his followers Murray Rothbard and Hans-Hermann Hoppe offers a better way to view the nature and role of science. There are apriori and deductive sciences e.g. logic, math, aspects of philosophy, and aspects of teleology, the study of human action, economics, and the like; and there are the causal sciences, like physics etc. The methods of the latter are not appropriate for the former. The fundamental mistake, IMO, made by intelligent natural science secularists like yourself, is in ignoring the former and treating only the latter as scientific. For more on all this see Mises’s Ultimate Foundation of Economic Science and Hoppe’s Economic Science and the Austrian Method. http://mises.org/books/ufofes/ and mises.org/books/esam.pdf
As is all of “philosophy”. Only even more so.
As for Economics, it is no more valid than voodoo, only less so.
Most of (legible, non-post-modern-bullshit) “economics” is based on a mathematical impossibility: that of endless continuous growth.
Would you care to cite a discipline that has materially contributed to global welfare that does not contain a priori assumptions?
I am willing to eat my hat should you provide such a convincing argument.
What’s you hat like, anyway? Readers want to know!
*your
x dot co/aqm5
(:
From observation, I can’t agree with any of that.
If you accept that, why do you try to change the characterization later? You say:
But that is preposterous.
Science as a method has been developing over centuries, it still is, and we predict that it will or science stagnates. It has been selected, by the very process Coyne described: testing and rejection of what not works.
Look at it this way, claiming that there are “assumptions” in a method is like claiming that a hammer needs to be made of iron. But iron was selected over stone for a number of reasons and can still be substituted by metals and/or ceramics. Even hammer design has evolved to suit tasks and materials.
Ultimately “assumptions” are empirically derived. They are also informative on the method.
And we know that very little of physics can be axiomatized, because very little of mathematics algorithms can. Axiomatic areas are embedded in a much vaster area of algorithmic methods, and they don’t allow for universal axioms aka “assumptions”.
Here is another preposterous claim. Half of that list isn’t science! Philosophy, teleology (what!?), logic, math* – not science areas, and logic and math are methods adopted by science.
I don’t recognize the division here; except of course that it is an attempt to push a gods-of-the-gaps theology in as “teleology”. Seeing that science is using testing, we also immediately see that it is based on deduction – what does not work is rejected – and iteration – observing a convergent process. It has converged in physics, “The Laws Underlying The Physics of Everyday Life Are Completely Understood”.
I would say that every area has native methods that may not be generalizable. What of it? It should be expected from them being, well, different areas.
Hell yeah! Scientism is for me the observation that science works to generalize empirical findings, and nothing else. Learning is supplementary, but it is context dependent on observations. Only science has been found being able to reach outside a given context.
So of course I am a scientism scientist. How else?
—————-
* Returning to math and its inability to axiomatize itself, I and others like Chaitin maintains it is not formally deductive at its core but quasi-empirical.
– It is yet another field where you make constructs that work generally.
– You use heuristic methods like proofs.
– Proof construction and proof checking can be done by computers outside human verification.
– Proofs can in principle take more resources than the observational universe contains. Going through a written down proof expands resource use considerable. Deutsch notes that in a realist Many World Theory that means a quantum supercomputer draws on other, not yet fully decohered, alternate universes to arrive at a proof. Hence ultimately math depend on our physics and its ability to get to them.
– Constants like Chaitin’s can be empirically based. (Choosing the last 50 % probability bit by throwing dice.)
But going the full wheel, if the proof is in the pudding, using math, in say science, returns it to the same deductive state as science.
Torbjorn Larsson:
You seem to be so mired in the monism of the natural sciences that you cannot even understand what I have said even though I said it fairly plainly. Science is a broad field, that includes sciences pertaining to teleology and human action, the so-called “social” sciences (e.g. economics); and the natural sciences, which study causal laws. For the latter, (natural) scientists employ the “scientific method”–empirical observation, formulation of hypothesis, testing for falsification, and so on. That method is inappropriate for the former sciences. Further, the scientistic claim that you repeat here, that ONLY the natural sciences are “real” science, because the only standard of science is whether it adheres to the empirical testing method, implicitly rejects the validity of apriori knowledge. Yet the scientific method itself has to rely on apriori knowledge too. So it cannot deny its validity, and thus it cannot deny that the social sciences are part of science too.
I suggest you read the two short works I linked to before if you are seriously intersetd in this. You are doing what scientists and engineers typically do: try to just figure out epistemology and philosophy by brute force. And I never said the natural sciences are axiomatic (or apriori), though there is some work arguing that it is, the idea of “proto-physics” of Lorenzen (e.g. the idea that Euclidean geometry is apriori true because it is relied upon in the construction of telescopes and lenses which we use to try to argue against EUclidean geometry). But I was not arguing for protophysics. I was pointing out that apriori assumptions are unavoidable at the base of the very adoption of the scientific method itself, so the employment of apriori methods in the social sciences should be no surprise.
Again, I urge you to actually read up on this if you are seriously interested in it–see the Mises and Hoppe monographs mentioned earlier.
Aspects of all these are arguably science; certainly teleology, the study of human purpose, which underlies the science of economics, is. At least, as Austrian economists formulate economic science. The fact that you, mired in natural science scientism, cannot even conceive of the broader concept of science, shows how far the truncated concept of scientism has been lodged into the modern mind.
There are no gods. We are talking about different realms of study. teleology just means human purpose. To study the implications of human ACTION–economics–is a teleological study and this study must proceed from apriori assumptions and deduction. For example we know the law of supply and demand by deduction from the apriori categories of action–from what it means to act. Not from hypothesizing about a law and then empirically testing it. Same with the idea that increasing hte minimum wage increases unemployment, ceteris paribus, or inflating the money supply causes prices to rise, ceteris paribus. You do not need to test for these things and in fact they could never be falsified.
Study of causal laws uses testing. Natural sciences use testing. Not the teleological sciences–not economics.
Scientism as Mises defines it is the idea that ONLY the natural sciences are genuine science; it is the idea unfortuantely adopted today even by mainstrean economics, when they ape the methods of physics in their empirical testing and over-mathematization of economics. Austrian economics does not do this. It realizes that the scientific method is appropriate for the natural (causal) sciences branch of science; but not for the science of human action.
I guess your using monism and dualism to distinguish between science = induction only and science = either induction or deduction. There are no sciences that I’m aware of that rely on induction only. Deduction is used in both the generation of hypotheses and the generation of predictions to be used in confirmation/falsification. There are no sciences (in my opinion) that can rely on deduction only.
I see that your favoured school of economics claims to be such a deduction science only, with the sad outcome that their theories are (according to them) not able to be falsified by data – how convenient for them 🙂 This obviates the need to provide justification for ones economic policy advice – it’s just so obvious that they’re correct!
I only wish that when I was a grad student I could have avoided the nasty business of collecting and analysing data.
I even see you quote some of the so-called axioms of the Austrian school – I’m sure you’re aware that the vast majority of economists don’t consider them obvious and unchallenging.
The only fully axiomatic entities are mathematics and logic (and thus the overlap between the two). But I don’t consider them sciences as such, rather a tools to be used by scientists and others during the deductive phases of their activities.
I actually think you’re very similar to all theologians – you believe something to be true (i.e. the assumed axioms are real axioms) because you want them to be true (for whatever reason). However, it isn’t reasonable for theologians and it’s not reasonable for you.
GAS
GAS: “There are no sciences (in my opinion) that can rely on deduction only.”
Austrianism does not rely on deduction only. Emprical assumptions are introduced to make the analysis interesting, but that makes the results contingent. E.g. we assume there is money, so that we can analyze that. But it is not apriori that there must be money in society. It could be barter based.
“I see that your favoured school of economics claims to be such a deduction science only, with the sad outcome that their theories are (according to them) not able to be falsified by data – how convenient for them 🙂 This obviates the need to provide justification for ones economic policy advice – it’s just so obvious that they’re correct!”
this is not an argument. The Austrians give good reasons for theri views. Your attitude here is indeed unscientific, irrational, and dishonest.
“I only wish that when I was a grad student I could have avoided the nasty business of collecting and analysing data.”
again, you revert into scientism by assuming any real science must be empirical in the natural /causal sciences sense. Engineers and scientists seem to be totally warped by their training to dismiss serious thought about issues outside their narrow realm.
You’re starting to sound like Chopra.
Can you confirm that the austrian school takes the position that no data can falsify it’s theories?
You stated some of, what I took to be, economic theories (regarding the minimum wage and money supply) and you said they are unfalsifiable – can you give good reasons without assuming that the austrian school is correct?
You didn’t address anything about induction and deduction: do you think that natural sciences are purely inductive?
Try when replying not to make any assumptions that you know anything about me and what I think, know or not know – otherwise I might think it’s you who is dishonest and irrational: dishonestly promoting a methodology you don’t understand and irrationally attacking anyone who disagrees.
Graham AS:
What theories? Depends on what you mean. I gave two nice references. If you do not want to explore further, I can’t help that.
No, I can’t. Nor without assuming the law of non-contradiction is correct.
No, I don’t. This is not about deduction vs. induction exactly. It’s about the truncated scientistic belief that it’s only science if it adheres to the empiricial method of hypothesis, data/experiment, falsification. You apparently do not see that the *very formulation of this rule* refutes it–since the rule itself cannot be subject to this rule, so it must be an apriori approach.
I’m not attacking–some people are willfully ignorant, so there are consequences to this. And don’t presume that it’s hard to understand the perspective of the monist-scientistic type who understand only the empiricial approach. It’s really not that hard. The challenge lies in thinking in broader terms and trying to place this approach in a broader context. In realizing that it itself aplies only to one subset of phenomenon (causal) and that other approaches are appropriate for the scientific study of other phenomenon. But too many engineers and scientists have a dismissive view of anytihng other than physics and related disciplines, a sneering dismissal of the humanities and social sciences. You relegate them to quasi-scientific status at best. It is understandable why: the corruption of philosophy and social sciences makes some of its reasoning risible. but this dismissal is too quick.
Odds and ends:
– “expands resource use considerable” – expands resource use considerably.
– Since we are discussing gods-of-the-gaps and how they don’t pertain to science (or anything else), I should expand these:
* “iteration – observing a convergent process.”
Formally a god botherer* can protest that it isn’t deductive. But again, it works as we now know, and wasn’t eventually rejected.
You could perhaps formalize that by noting having finite alternatives and finite resources (sceintists and time), so either it converges before we run out of resources or the method is discarded. Luckily it turned out that since people started empirical science it took off exponentially.
* “not formally deductive at its core but quasi-empirical.”
Foremost it is, despite the current popularity among mathematicians, not supporting a platonic dualism. Show me the empirical evidence!
————–
* If you are unfamiliar with the expression, it is, I believe, an observation on the religious that either they are inventing their gods or they are telling their imaginary friends how to behave (aka theology). Gods-of-the-gaps and/or “teleology” is among those, agnosticism (“don’t ask, don’t tell”), et cetera ad infinitum.
Oh dear Kinsella has been reduced to saying he can’t confirm anything that’s asked, that he can,t provide any justification. We must read he’s suggested texts. He introduces the difference between induction and deduction but then says it’s irrevelant – ‘nough said.
Economics as theology -no thanks
“Sophisticated theologian”? Please.
Theology seems to me, simpleton that I am, all about “life after death”. Gimme a break, moron that I am, I’ve never seen any rational discussion about life after death. Honestly, I think that no one has a clue one position or another.
This is why I’m not an atheist: I simply don’t know.
I AM an atheist, and I simply don’t know either.
That doesn’t mean however I have to give the probability of life after death 50% chance of being real. Like all things we can weigh the evidence and come to a tentative conclusion. What happens to you when you die? The evidence is that you rot (if you are not cremated).
Yes, the evidence in fact is OVERWHELMING.
It’s just that some of us simply don’t want to believe it.
but, on a positive note, in the end, you are nothing more or less than you were before you began.
death is only a sad thing if you think that you deserve more of life.
but, would you think that if you were hit by a car tomorrow, that you would deserve more life than if you died of old age?
why?
Hit by a Rolls-Royce, or a Karma-Ghia?
“Here they are, loyally denouncing ideas like intelligent design that confront Darwinian materialism on the latter’s own scientific turf. What a wonderful bargain that must have seemed to them at one time. Simply surrendering to Darwin and the most prestigious ideas in the culture was supposed to win them the benefit of not having to spend time weighing the scientific evidence on evolution for themselves, a project that also entailed the risk that they might arrive at an inconvenient conclusion on the question.”
Funnily enough, those who didn’t “surrender” to Darwin have done an asinine job in showing the intellectual rigour of a non-Darwinian paradigm.
What’s that? The silly jew thinks he’s people? Oh, silly jew. You’re so silly.
Sophisticated!
You can’t touch this
You can’t touch this
You can’t touch this
My My My Bible hits me, so hard
Makes me say, “Oh my Lord!”
Thank you for blessing me
with a mind to lie and two Ph.D.s
LOL. Nice one!
I actually prefer a format of pity quotes now, since the site has become so busy for all of us.
Those are not philosophical questions, those are empirical questions.
Science and its surviving areas are methods and results defined by usefulness. If something is not useful, it is something else. Most of the time we find it is philosophy. (O.o)
This is why we call them IDiots:
1. This is a No True Scotsman fallacy.
2. Groups are allowed self-definition, they _must_ be allowed self-definition, or basic freedoms of meetings et cetera are sacrificed on a totalitarian view. What if scientists weren’t allowed to define science, but any crazy group could call themselves “scientists”? … oh, wait…
3. If 1 & 2 are skirted, applying this on Klinghoffer and his ignorant ilk would result in their exclusion from serious discussion anyway.
So, 3 tries and still no sign of intelligent design here.
Coming soon to a theater near you, kids: The Adventures of Jerry Coyne and Felix the Ceiling Cat.