It’s well known to us New Yorker fans that the magazine doesn’t much countenance criticism of religion. That’s always baffled me since it’s a magazine run by left-leaning New Yorkers. And I wish they’d get with the Zeitgeist: their current avoidance of the issue not only enables superstition, but bucks the tide of increasing secularism in America. There’s a reason for that tide of nonbelief, but the New Yorker stays well away from it.
A welcome exception, though, is a new piece by Lawrence Krauss at the magazine’s online version (why wasn’t it in the paper version?), “Teaching doubt.” They even head the article with this picture:
(Of course, that could simply be a sign about the metaphorical nature of the Bible, but I prefer to construe it as “The Bible is not true!”)
Krauss’s is a short piece, and most readers here have heard the arguments before, but remember that it’s aimed at New Yorker readers, not at us. And so those readers might be shocked–shocked, I tell you!—to hear that science and religion aren’t compatible. I especially appreciated Krauss’s dismantling of Gould’s NOMA hypothesis, which I do at great length in The Albatross. Gould, of course, didn’t devise the notion that religion and science should occupy separate spheres of influence, with the former dealing with values, morals, and meaning, and the latter with facts about the cosmos. That idea was limned by others before him, including Alfred North Whitehead. But Krauss takes it apart deftly, at least from one side:
Recent studies—including a comprehensive national survey by researchers at Penn State University, in 2007—show that up to sixty per cent of high-school biology teachers shy away from adequately teaching evolution as a unifying principle of biology. They don’t want to risk potential controversy by offending religious sensibilities. Instead, many resort to the idea, advocated by the late Stephen Jay Gould, that science and religion are “non-overlapping magisteria”—separate traditions of thinking that need not contradict one another.
“Non-overlapping magisteria” has a nice ring to it. The problem is that there are many religious claims that not only “overlap” with empirical data but are incompatible with it. As a scientist who also spends a fair amount of time in the public arena, if I am asked if our understanding of the Big Bang conflicts with the idea of a six-thousand-year-old universe, I face a choice: I can betray my scientific values, or encourage that person to doubt his or her own beliefs. More often than you might think, teaching science is inseparable from teaching doubt.
And that last sentence is the point of Krauss’s piece. It’s okay to say “I don’t know” when you don’t have the relevant facts. That’s the ethos of science that has yet to permeate society as a whole.
The implicit message of the piece, derived from its approbation of doubt, is that there is a clash between science and religion, and science wins—for religion has no way of ascertaining its confident assertions of truth. Yes, churches and pastors may pay lip service to the “doubts” of believers, but those are always supposed to be resolved—not by finding out facts but by devising ways to buttress one’s faith. Here are a few more passages that I’m still surprised to find in the New Yorker (my emphasis).
. . . earlier this year, an AP-GfK poll revealed that less than a third of Americans are willing to express confidence in the reality of human-induced climate change, evolution, the age of the Earth, and the existence of the Big Bang. Among those surveyed, there was a direct correlation between religious conviction and an unwillingness to accept the results of empirical scientific investigation. Religious beliefs vary widely, of course—not all faiths, or all faithful people, are the same. But it seems fair to say that, on average, religious faith appears to be an obstacle to understanding the world.
I’m stunned! I hope my friends on the New Yorker staff read and absorb that sentence.
And Krauss’s ending:
One thing is certain: if our educational system does not honestly and explicitly promote the central tenet of science—that nothing is sacred—then we encourage myth and prejudice to endure. We need to equip our children with tools to avoid the mistakes of the past while constructing a better, and more sustainable, world for themselves and future generations. We won’t do that by dodging inevitable and important questions about facts and faith. Instead of punting on those questions, we owe it to the next generation to plant the seeds of doubt.
I like the part about “facts and faith,” of course, for that’s largely the title of The Albatross. Kudos to Krauss for pushing the New Yorker‘s envelope, and let’s hope the magazine gets a bit more forthright in criticizing what “appears to be an obstacle to understanding the world.”
We must read different New Yorkers; I’ve never gotten the feeling they were soft on religion. Although it was good to see Krauss’s name pop up.
They totally are. Read the piece that Adam Gopnik wrote about religion (which touts my website but says that in several ways I’m really “religious”). You can find it, I think, by searching for “Gopnik.” On this site. And I’m not alone in my opinion that the New Yorker is soft on faith.
Just wanted to point out that some of us (me included) got to this website because of that New Yorker article . . . maybe it was notable because it was unusual for the mag. Whyever, am GLAD I learned about his site and PCC (and, of course, Hili and Cyrus!)
I never got that feeling either, but am very happy with this story. Not sure why it’s not in the print edition.
The NYer these days produces a lot of online content by various freelancers who are paid very little for their contributions in comparison to those whose work appears in hard copy.
From the NY Times, July 8, 2014:
“While The New Yorker has always limited the availability of its magazine articles online, it built a separate web operation that has tried to marry its magazine sensibility with a faster publishing and editing process. The website has popular strands available free, including the Borowitz Report, a humor column by Andy Borowitz, and the Close Read blog, by Amy Davidson, a senior editor at the magazine.”
I agree — kudos to Krauss!
…” there is a clash between science and religion, and science wins—for religion has no way of ascertaining its confident assertions of truth.”…
And here we see NOMA’s manifest Achilles Heel, where religion resolutely makes truth claims about the fundamental nature of reality.
I do have a general query, one I’ve oft received from my religious acquaintances: What is the most convincing response to the claim that science is ill-equipped to investigate supernatural phenomena?
(a) show how some other technique is better equipped to study anything.
(b) if its so ill-equipped, why did you proponents historically use it to investigate the supernatural? After all, telepathy, OBEs, Faith Healing, even the weight of the soul have been scientifically investigated by people who believed in the supernatural. The complaint is very much in the tradition of sour grapes: after trying it and not getting what they wanted, they started bashing it.
Ack my apologies for the html fail, but I don’t think it should affect the readability of the post.
That’s the problem.
NOMA only works if religions don’t make claims about the physical universe. They do, pretty much universally. Therefore NOMA is broken by definition.
I really don’t get why folks who are pro-NOMA still support it (well, unless they have ulterior motives, that is).
Very few people were ever pro-NOMA (IMO). Even from Gould’s inception, it’s been one of those ideas academics ‘love to hate.’ I.e., they love to bring it up just to knock it down, because knocking it down is so easy and makes them look smart.
I can make some comments about that, but I sure wouldn’t claim to know the most convincing response.
1st, people differ on what will convince them. There is variation within a single person and between people. And some won’t be susceptible to any argument no matter what.
But, I like to point out that anything that can be perceived in any way by humans can be investigated fruitfully using the methods of science because all that amounts to is using those same human perceptions, often augmented by technology, combined with particular methods that have a proven track record of successfully reducing error due to human failings. That is all science is.
Perhaps the supernatural entity is outside the scope of science, but surely we can observe His effects on this planet. This also goes for other supernatural tricks, google James Randi for more info. You’ll like him.
And if the effects of this supernatural entity can’t be observed or studied, then what’s the point? Why bother?
Last but not least, how does your opponent know the supernatural exist? I bet he claims something he can’t possibly know, unless he has access to information that is hidden from us. Press him (or her) on this issue.
Point out that many traditional supernatural matters would have very concrete effects. (Vic Stenger’s work might be useful here, as are others.) Conservation laws, for example, are violated by most such postulations – and hence are refuted.
Next step – putting Krauss’s article in the print version.
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I’m not the first to raise the issue, I’m sure, but I think it’s worth repeating.
It’s time to retire “The Albatross” as a nickname for your new book. (Especially when you don’t also mention the real title.) Let’s make the actual words more memorable for better branding – send readers to Amazon with a clear mission.
Besides, this should be the more enjoyable part of the ride: post writing, post editing, post proofing, post dead-bird-burden.
Just a reminder:
(1) Nobody is limited to buying only 1 copy of “Faith vs. Fact”. As a long-time reader of PCC, I am sure it would make a good gift to family, friends, your local school library, your congress man/woman, etc. In fact, “Friends don’t let friends have an excuse not to read “Faith vs. Fact” (i.e., not to place it under the nose).
(2) It is important to pre-order at least 1 copy. I’ve pre-ordered 3 copies (see (1)) It is important to rack up sales immediately upon release because getting on the bestseller list leads to additional sales (since many people take their cues as to what to read from the bestseller list). Even media attention to the book will be in part driven by its early sales.
To understand (2) better, see:
Wikipedia entry: Information cascade.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_cascade
The Economist: Authorpreneurship. Feb 14th 2015
http://www.economist.com/news/business/21643124-succeed-these-days-authors-must-be-more-businesslike-ever-authorpreneurship
Richard Lanham: The economics of attention: Style and substance in the age of information. University of Chicago Press, 2006
http://www.press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/E/bo3680280.html
Small correction:
“Friends don’t let friends have an excuse (‘I did not has copy’) not to read “Faith vs. Fact”
The New Yorker stays away from science-religious ‘controversies’ because it’s about money. It’s always about money. Advertisers with religious board members would drop them in the blink of an eye if they chose science over faith.
I agree 90%. You beat me to that comment. For instance, the New York Times’s motto is “All the News That’s Fit to Print”. But there is a better (though not perfect) way to understand what it publishes:
James T. Hamilton: All the News That’s Fit to Sell: How the Market Transforms Information into News. Princeton UP, 2004
http://press.princeton.edu/titles/7604.html
This is a price-winning treatment of why the news takes the form it has.
Ch.1, “Economic theories of news” is freely available (without copyright infringement):
http://press.princeton.edu/chapters/s7604.pdf
Of course, there are other, less important motivations for a newspaper/magazine to refrain from carrying articles that make the case against religion:
1. social conformism: do as others do; there’s safety in numbers
2. a desire for the quiet life: let’s not ruffle any feathers
3. confusion: “attacking religious beliefs amounts to disrespecting religious believers” (It’s people who deserve respect but not necessarily any of their beliefs)
4. incomprehension of science: “evolution is just a theory”. (It’s both a theory and a fact.)
5. making religion a private affair leads to a regrettable disenchantment of the world since scientists are devoid of a sense of wonder
6. the little people argument: religion is good for others, for the sheep; if they find out that there is, for all intents and purposes, no god, they will riot or engage in other behavior that upsets the status quo (which points back to point 2.)
Off the bat that’s all I can think of. Now excuse me while I get back to my chew toy which today is, dare I say it?, WEIT. Sorry Jerry, a man has got to keep his teeth sharp. (Will have to buy another copy.)
They’ve published two other articles by Krauss in the last year. Which makes me think that maybe the driving factor here is not ‘we like religion, so don’t publish much against it’ but rather ‘we like Krauss, but he doesn’t write much stuff for us.’
Just when you thought that witchcraft was the thing of the past…
“In a recent decision, Pope Francis officially recognized, under canon law, the International Association of Exorcists. He called exorcism “a form of charity.” (When I tweeted about the decision, another user pointed out that the policy must be working—after all, no one has seen any demons recently.)”
Indeed it is; you’re giving money to the church with no reasonable expectation of any return on your investment.
Nice.
About the comment on biology teachers shying away from evolution, and speaking as someone who just quit student teaching out of shear anger and frustration, I can understand. Parents are a constant pain in the ass, making excuses for their barely literate spawn. The admin is less than supportive, in every way, shape, and form. Students are unbelievably lazy, argumentative, and unbearably ignorant; hell, it’s amazing they can be bothered to write their whole names on what few assignments you are allowed to give them! We are raising and (un)educating a generation of complete morons. A biology teacher is lucky if they can find one in a hundred students who can tell the difference between a rock and a cow, that is, if they can be bothered to look up from their phones long enough to grunt a response other than to blame you for their grade of a high F.
Our current school culture is one where all opinions are valid, and no teacher is to challenge anything that might be offensive (that goes both ways, liberal and conservative) and in no way should any teacher expect any student to actually read a text book, write a paper, or do any kind of assignment for points. If we lower the bar any more, students are in danger of tripping over it.
Perhaps the only reason behind the increase in the non-religious is that the bible isn’t a level on Candy Crush.
Bitter? Me? Nah!
Well I don’t doubt you are right about the barriers to good teaching and the attitudes of the students, but I do doubt there is anything particularly worse about this generation compared to previous ones. True story, I had an uncle who got an education degree and wanted to be a High School teacher. He quit very early on because of the stress and frustration…to become a door-to-door salesman working solely on commission. He was much less stressed and frustrated. 🙂 This was back in the late 50s/early 60s.
Fully agree with Eric.
Here’s how Judith Shklar, one of the most important post-WW II American political philosophers remembered the Harvard University experience of 1951:
“In many respects the Harvard that I entered in 1951 was a far less open scholarly society than it now is … Young scholars boasted of not being intellectuals. Among many no conversation was tolerated except sports and snobbish gossip. A kind of unappetizing dirty socks and locker room humor and false and ostentatious masculinity were vaunted. With it came an odd gentility: no one used four letter words and being appropriately dressed, in an inconspicuous Oxford gray Brooks Brothers suit, was supremely important. More damaging was that so many people who should have known better, scorned the poor, the bookish, the unconventional, the brainy, the people who did not resemble the crass and outlandish model of a real American upper-crust he-man whom they had conjured up in their imagination. For any woman of any degree of refinement or intellectuality, this was unappealing company. To this affected boorishness was added a slavish admiration for the least intelligent, but good-looking, rich, and well connected undergraduates. Their culture was in many respects one of protected juvenile delinquency … (pages 4-5)
From:
Judith N. Shklar: A Life of Learning. The 1989 Charles Homer Haskins Lecture.
http://www.acls.org/pubs/haskins/
More generally, consider:
Robert Ehrlich: Eight Preposterous Propositions: From the Genetics of Homosexuality to the Benefits of Global Warming
Ch.4. Are People Getting Smarter or Dumber?
http://press.princeton.edu/titles/7588.html
It is, of course, true that teaching is one of the hardest jobs in the world. See for instance:
David K. Cohen: Teaching and its predicaments. Harvard UP, 2011
http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674051102
Kids is kids, true. However, I offer up the new twist: Cell Phones.
That, and now students are not expected to read text books, not expected to do homework, any class work must not be for points, all tests must be allowed to be retaken, and everything is “critical”, especially “critical pedagogy”. Trust me, kids will always suck, the turd never falls too far from the asshole, but technology and the so-called “liberal education” movement has labeled everything educational as “oppression”. Trust me, this ain’t the 1950’s, for better OR worse.
I think the pain in the ass helicopter parent phenomenon is new. I taught high school math ( and some computer science ) for 20 years, and the last 5 of those were by far the most frustrating for all the reasons which quiscalus enumerates. I could usually deal with unmotivated and unruly kids before I had parents marching in and defending their angels’ every transgression and principals backing the parents up and spouting nonsense about student success (meaning give everyone A’s so that they, the admin, look good). Mostly wonderful job for 15 years, stomach-churning one for the last 5…). I do miss the students…
I wish you had taught me math. I might have been able to cope better with it that way. I was a very astute math student because I struggled in it. I was a smart ass in all my other classes and usually spent time in the hall in my language classes.
I hope you were a smartass IN all those languages:-)
The counts of the indictment are luxury, bad manners, contempt for authority, disrespect to elders, and a love for chatter in place of exercise. …
Children began to be the tyrants, not the slaves, of their households. They no longer rose from their seats when an elder entered the room; they contradicted their parents, chattered before company, gobbled up the dainties at table, and committed various offences against Hellenic tastes, such as crossing their legs. They tyrannised over the paidagogoi and schoolmasters.
Kenneth John Freeman, 1907. If they weren’t on their cell phones they’d be passing notes; the type of socialization may change, but not the fact that kids will ignore teachers and not pay attention in class in order to socialize. At least IMO.
” . . . speaking as someone who just quit student teaching out of shear anger and frustration . . . .”
Well, it must have been some tsunami of anger and frustration to cause you to bid adieu to that student teaching period. Not an easy (or not – perhaps it was THAT bad, eh? 😉 ) decision to make, considering how much you had invested in your undergraduate degree. I not merely sympathize but empathize with you, especially as regards bloody cellphones. (I bet you also got repeatedly interrupted and cut off when trying to communicate with students, eh?) I myself – at one time pursuing an alternative teacher certification program – have hoed the public school row and subbed full-time for some several years. I learned quickly enough not to take a gig for more than a week, having experienced the toxic if not near-lethal adolescent misbehavior you mentioned, misbehavior which is not a carrot to motivate one to enter and remain in education.
We ideally sing the praises of public school insofar as it facilitates equity in educational opportunity and quality of life. At the same time we live in a significantly and increasingly anti-intellectual and coarse culture, and its influence intrudes into the schools. (Re: Richard Hofstadter’s “Anti-Intellectualism in American Life” and Susan Jacoby’s “The Age of American Unreason.”)
I sometimes think about teaching in a private school. You might consider it if an ember of the pedagogical fire remains in you. Not sure the benefits are as good as in the public sector, but at least administration is more enabled to kick out a miscreant. A teacher might be willing to take a cut in pay so as to avoid misbehavior and keep the stress level down and the quality of life up.
One thing is for sure, any know-it-all Romneyesque MBA/JD venture capitalist has as much “right” as anyone else to enter a classroom and deal with adolescent human primates.
I taught in a private school for a year when I was temporarily laid off by the public system. The aforementioned hassles were even worse there. I know that not all private schools are the same, but I don’t think it’s easy to escape these recent trends. I was very relieved to get rehired into the public system (15 years ago).
I had a similar career interlude. I did a transition to teaching program and started in a well run but difficult school system. I only lasted half the year. Most of the kids were fine, but there was always a handful that caused the ulcers. Since then I did quite a bit of subbing at a well run and better off suburban school. The atmosphere is so much better, I rather enjoyed the experience.
After having watched teaching for quite some time, I’ve come to greatly admire many of the teachers I’ve seen. They exhibit dedication, patience, and are masterful at classroom management. For all the troubles that schools today are up against, I think the public schools are doing a good and sometimes great job.
Interesting to see that nothing has changed in nearly 30 years. (I certified to teach high school science, student teaching in a fairly rough neighborhood). I finished & got my certification, and was told by my 55+ y.o. veteran cooperating teacher that I was clearly the best student teacher he had ever had.
I went into public health instead, partly because of the lack of administrative support, but mostly because of the parents and students themselves. After my cooperating teacher gave me a glowing review, I asked him “why are half of my students failing?” His response, with a smile: “only half?”
Since then, I’ve heard from others in the profession that electronic devices (and subsequent breakdown of discipline) are the crux of the current problem. Many parents insist on being able to call or text little Johnny at school, too.
It was pretty funny seeing the blood drain from some of their faces when they saw me after showing up in clinic because they were a contact to gonorrhea. Ah, memories.
Krauss has two previous essays in these daily postings from TNYr, both about science and religion.
Last I looked, his essay today was in 2nd place in terms of most read. First, was the essay on Israel and the election.
Providing a link would be appreciated.
http://www.newyorker.com/contributors/lawrence-krauss
The problem with Fundie ideology is not just that the tenets of belief are inconsistent with science and skeptical thinking, but that new areas of conflict are continually being fabricated: evolution has been an issue for a long time, and racial superiority was once more overtly held than it now is (it’s still there, just masked in euphemisms and dog whistles); abortion, women’s rights, public funding for religious organizations, and stem cell research are more recent additions to the Canon; and climate change is the most recent, unless you count anti-same-sex marriage attitudes, which evolved from contempt for gay liberation. Also with the ACA, healthcare coverage for family planning is a major target for Fundie outrage.
What’s next? Immigration reform could easily become an area of deep theological concern, just as taxation and wealth redistribution are frequently. If the day comes that a lecturer in economics can’t discuss Keanes vs supply-siderism because the former offends the benighted followers of an avowed resistributionist, I will not be surprised, but I will be disgusted. I hope I’m wrong, but I expect the trend to continue. But keep restricting speech and banning flags, young liberals! That will stem the tide of coporate hegemony!
A peer at work was expressing shock at a politician in Kansas and how incompetent he is, slashing education (violating the constitution in doing so), denying climate change, making poor fiscal decisions but he gets elected because he is all about Jesus and stopping Teh Gays.
It was sadly not shocking at all to me because I read about this stuff all the time on this site and am exposed to it from various atheist sources.
Sigh.
Maybe the NYT squishiness toward religion may be less about their increasingly secular readership, and more about the generally conservative nature of the advertisers in their pages?
The New Yorker…not the New York Times.
A while back I encountered an interesting approach to the age of the universe question. It goes like this:
“God may have created the universe 6,000 years ago, but if so, he created a 13.8 billion-year-old universe.”
Omphalos hypothesis.
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Or it could be a meta-comment on the Treachery of Images.
I guess the real way to test to see if this is a toe-in-the-water or a big change, etc. is to see whether the trend continues, whether letters-to-the-editor go crazy, etc.
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