Why Evolution is True is a blog written by Jerry Coyne, centered on evolution and biology but also dealing with diverse topics like politics, culture, and cats.
Courtesy of reader Doris. I won’t explain this, as it would take too long and involve showing why the caption, though funny, is wrong. If you know genetics, you can have a muted chuckle:
These are weird goats, you must admit. And there is at least one goat farmer among the readers who can explain this breed and the weird pattern.
The philosopher and atheist Julian Baggini has a new book called Freedom Regained: The Possibility of Free Will. As you can probably tell from the title, it’s a compatibilist book, claiming that although all our acts are determined by the laws of physics, we still have a kind of free will. And it’s reviewed in the April 1 Guardian by the theist Terry Eagleton, who agrees with Baggini’s determinism but also with his compatibilist solution to the problem of feeling like we have a choice when we really don’t. Here’s Eagleton’s precis on how Baggini solves the problem:
What, however, if our beliefs and desires lead us to act in a way that feels inevitable? Can we still be free if we could not have acted otherwise? Baggini is surely right to claim that we can. In fact, most of the things that matter – being in love, composing a superb sonata, detesting Piers Morgan, feeling horrified by the slave trade – have a smack of inner necessity about them, as this book argues in a perceptive chapter on art. What define the self most deeply are the sort of commitments from which we could not walk away even if we tried. The point, however, is that we don’t want to. Freedom from such engagements would be no freedom at all. True liberty lies in being able to realise such a self, not shuck it off.
This is of course making a virtue of necessity, as does all compatibilism. The smack of “inner necessity” comes largely from our genes, substantially from evolution, and partly from our environment. Take being in love. That emotion, of course, is determined by physics acting on evolved organisms (or so agree Baggini and Eagleton), and is a compulsion surely stemming by our genes, one that almost certainly evolved as a bonding mechanism. We don’t not want to be in love, for love feels good—like orgasms, evolution’s cue for adaptive behavior is often the sensation of pleasure—but what on earth does this have to do with “freedom”? It doesn’t—except for those who are desperately groping about to find some way, when we’re held in thrall by the connections between our neurons, to redefine that as “freedom.”
And what does it mean to “define the self” by the compulsions we feel and which we even know we cannot abjure? Where, exactly, is the freedom in that? If you have no choice about those things, what does it even mean to “realize a self”? What you’re doing is simply instantiating a self: the program run by your neurons which you feel is “you.”
What Eagleton says here is that we are compelled to behave and feel in certain ways, that we like some of those compulsions and at any rate cannot escape them, and that is “true liberty”. That, dear readers, is Orwellian doublespeak. Compulsion is both freedom and “true liberty”; black is white. As Sam Harris said, compatibilists view us as marionettes, but ones who love our strings.
The fact is that we don’t “make” anything of our compulsions, or use them to “realize the self”. We have no ability to “realize” our self; all we can do is rationalize what we do and re-brand it as “freedom” so people don’t get scared. So Eagleton’s simply engaging in nonsense when he says stuff like this:
Freedom is not a question of being released from the forces that shape us, but a matter of what we make of them. The world, however, is now divided down the middle between off-the-wall libertarians who deny the reality of such forces, and full-blooded determinists such as the US convict Stephen Mobley, who 20 years ago tried to avoid execution for the murder of a pizza store manager by claiming that it was the result of a mutation in his monoamine oxidase A gene. It wasn’t the smartest way to appeal to a jury of citizens likely to endorse Oprah Winfrey’s view that “we’re responsible for everything that happens to us”.
Yes, we’re “responsible” in the sense that someone identifiable as Stephen Mobley did a crime. It may not have been solely the result of his mutation, but it was solely the result of his genes and his environment. He was wired in a way that he had to commit that crime. It’s sad that people like Oprah don’t seem to realize that, but the sooner we do, the sooner we can reform our judicial system in a way that’s both empathic and efficacious.
Eagleton then dwells on the gene theme (which determinist ever said that physical determinism was solely genetic) to go after his favorite target—the now bullet-ridden Richard Dawkins:
Men and women aren’t authors of themselves, as a character in Shakespeare’s Coriolanus remarks of its proud protagonist, but neither are they slaves of their genes. When Richard Dawkins describes human beings as “survival machines – robot vehicles blindly programmed to preserve the selfish molecules known as genes”, his language is redolent of neoliberal capitalism as well as the scientist’s laboratory. To see people in this demeaning way is simply the flipside of the idealising talk of pure autonomy. If the former captures something of the bleak reality of the marketplace, the latter belongs to the heady rhetoric that helps to legitimate it.
Well, I’d take some issue with Richard’s statement here, for we’re programmed not solely by our genes, but by our genes and our environment, which are the only things that influence the configuration of molecules and neurons that determine our behavior and “choices”. Nevertheless, we are still robot vehicles, even if we don’t feel like it!
Is it “demeaning” to see people that way? I don’t think so, for it happens to be the inescapable truth. Eagleton and Baggini are, after all, determinists. Eagleton seems to be so blinkered by his hatred of Dawkins that he repeatedly equates physical determinism with genetic determinism (see below). It’s not. If we have an accident that injures our brain, so that henceforth we behave in very different ways, but ways predictable from brain neuroscience, well, that accident was determined by physical law, but its sequelae have very little to do with our genetic endowment.
At the end, Eagleton not only calls determinists “enemies of freedom” (equating us with, say, fascists or totalitarians), but manages to get in a final gratuitious lick at Dawkins:
For most people, Freedom Regained will seem like a kind of Maginot line, defending a territory that is not under attack. This, however, is because the new enemies of freedom are not much evident in everyday life. They are mild-mannered, soft-spoken men and women in senior common rooms, not wild-eyed dictators raving through public address systems. Among its other virtues, the book reveals how many of these soft-spoken types engage in one of the oldest of all debating devices: setting up a straw man of the concept under fire so as the more conveniently to bowl it over. It is just what Dawkins does with God.
Eagleton should surely know enough about religion, and about surveys of folk attitudes, to know that the idea of contracausal free will, in which we can choose to behave in ways other than we did, is palpably not a “straw man”. I suspect it is the dominant view of most people, and it’s certainly the dominant view of religionists, especially those who say we can choose whether or not to accept Jesus or Allah, or that evil exists on earth so people can choose whether to behave good or badly. Libertarian free will is not a straw man.
And Eagleton’s final slap at Dawkins is equally misguided, for the kind of believers Dawkins addresses—those who really see God as a bodiless human with feelings and a moral code he wishes us to obey—are quite common. Muslims and conservative Christians embody the Dawkinsian God quite well, thank you. That god is not a straw man. Just because Eagleton is a Sophisticated Believer™ shouldn’t blind him to the fact that the rest of the world doesn’t share his rarified notions.
At first I thought that Eagleton’s ascerbic review was an April Fool’s joke, but then I realized that the man has no detectable sense of humor.
Author Wendy Thomas Russell, a nonbeliever, just came out with a new book, Relax, It’s Just God: How and Why to Talk to Your Kids About Religion When You’re Not Religious; and PBS (the Public Broadcasting System) gave her a platform to talk about in. Her article, “10 commandments for talking to your kid about religion,” isn’t too bad, though I will grouse about a few. But at least there’s some advice out there to help heathen parents prepare their kids to enter a world of delusional faith. I suspect the time is ripe for such a book, and predict it will do pretty well.
Here are her commandments (her own words are indented, and these are excerpts, not the full article):
1. Expose your kids to many religions. Okay, but not at the expense of science (see below).
2. Embrace the ‘graven image’ of science. Russell says this:
A “graven image” is described as anything worshipped in place of God — whether it be other gods or demons, power, pleasure or money. Because science is something that can be valued in place of God, it’s possible to consider science a graven image. So be it. For every religious book you read, tell your kids one cool thing about the real world. Evolution, the stars and planets, you name it. But, remember, you need not set up religion and science as opposing forces — the way religious people often do. Present the facts. Your kids likely will figure the rest out on their own, and it will mean more when they do.
Well, we don’t “worship” science, and that should be imparted directly: tell the kids that science is a method, not a body of facts, and that it can be wrong, and is certainly incomplete. But I firmly believe that educating children about the methods of science, rather than presenting it as a body of received wisdom, is not only more useful, but is also more correct.
And really, you should be presenting to your kids a lot more facts about the real world than you do religious books. Seriously, you read the whole Bible to them and then, as a palliative, tell them that the closest living terrestrial relative to whales is the hippo? How is that “balance”? Finally, we’re hearing from lots of believers that religion and science are not opposing forces, so where does Russell get the notion that the faithful see them as inimical? Many see evolution and the Big Bang as inimical to their own faith, and see science and religion as sometimes in conflict, but by and large liberal religionists don’t “set up religion and science as opposing forces”. That’s my job!
3. Don’t saddle your kids with your anxiety over the word ‘God’
The Pledge of Allegiance. The Girl Scout Promise. The motto written on American money. There is religion all around us, even in school. But it need not be a crisis. Let your kid know that God is a part of our culture’s language, its songs, its poetry, its monuments and its works of art.
Good enough; they’ll have to face a God-soaked culture—at least if they’re American.
4. Keep in mind: There’s nothing wrong with faith
Faith in the supernatural is only as good or bad as the people who possess it. Most of the people your kids will meet during their lifetimes will have something wonderful to offer the world; that “something” may be accomplished despite belief in a higher power, or it may be accomplished because of it.
Dead wrong! There’s nothing “right” with faith! Teach your kids to believe things in proportion to the evidence behind it. Yes, not all religious people are bad, or use their faith as a club to beat others or a lever to influence politics. Remember, “faith,” even as defined in the Oxford English Dictionary as well as in the Bible, is belief without sufficient evidence to warrant strong confidence.
5. Honor your mother’s faith
Knowing someone’s religion is a far cry from knowing her beliefs; knowing her “label” is a far cry from knowing her heart.
Just because you’re a nonreligious parent doesn’t mean you have to shield your child from religious family members. If you give your child a context in which to hear about Grandma’s religion — or Cousin Suzie’s or Neighbor Bob’s — you won’t mind so much when those conversations arise. It may benefit Grandma to be able to talk with your child about her faith, and it may benefit your child to hear about faith from someone he knows and loves. And, as long as you’ve set the scene up front in a gentle, non-judgmental way, there should be very little worry. For example, you might say: “Some people believe that a magic power, often called God, created the universe and is watching over us. And many people say that if you believe in God, you will go to live with God in a place called heaven after you die. That’s why it’s so important to Grandma that you believe what she does.”
Here we have Russell telling kids not only to not question Grandma’s faith (is that really so wrong?), but also to “believe what she does,” i.e., play along with Grandma’s delusions. It’s fine to listen to believers, but you don’t have to buttress them. The grandmother of a young child is not liable to be on her deathbed, and might benefit from a little pushback.
6. Don’t kill your kid’s good time.
A child’s age, certainly, will dictate the tenor of your conversations about God, and which stories are appropriate to share. But don’t forget to have some fun. Go to the library and dig up as many interesting-looking books as you can. The more pictures, the better. And don’t just offer flat readings of the stories; inject the stories about Jesus with all the drama and excitement with which they were probably intended. The same goes for tales of Abraham and Shiva and Mohammed and Zeus and all the other religious figures, both past and present. The more fun the stories are, the more your kids will want to hear them, and the more likely they’ll be to remember them. And that’s good. What kids don’t know can hurt them — and that’s especially true when it comes to religion.
I suspect that injecting such stories with drama and excitement will give them extra credibility. If you must tell kids about Jesus, begin the tale with “Once upon a time.” But why not reach all your kids about the wonder of reality? Why inundate them with religious stories and neglect the science, giving them one bare scientific fact for every entire story about Vishnu or Jesus?
7. Don’t be a jerkwad.
Here’s the thing: When it comes to religion, most humans believe their way is the best way, the right way. But conviction need not translate into being snarky, arrogant or mean. There is nothing at all wrong with criticizing people for saying hateful things or doing harmful things. But let’s cut the vitriol.
That’s fine, so long as you tell kids that “vitriol” is not the same thing as criticism, or asking serious questions.
8. Don’t steal your child’s ability to choose
If you’re going to teach children that it’s okay for people to hold religious beliefs, you must be willing to let your children hold religious beliefs as well. Otherwise, the words sound hollow — and they are.
If you teach your kids to doubt, to accept things for which there’s evidence, then they’ll most likely come to the conclusion that religion is a sham. In that sense you’re implicitly telling them that it’s not okay for people to hold religious beliefs. I don’t see anything wrong with instilling a habit of skepticism in kids. And what’s good for the goose is good for the gander: is Russell willing to tell religious parents not to inculcate their kids with their own faith, and to tell them that not believing at all is fine? I’d love to ask her that question; it’s precisely what Richard Dawkins thinks.
9. Don’t lie about your own beliefs.
Everyone has the right to to his or her own thoughts and beliefs, and that includes you. Don’t hide them! Not only would you be sending a message that religion is an uncomfortable/scary/intimidating subject, but you’d be making it clear that it’s okay to be ashamed of your beliefs. You can put off the conversation for a while, but eventually your kid will ask. Admit when you are confused or don’t have all the answers. Tell them that the existence of God, in any shape or form, is something no one can prove or disprove, which is what makes it so easy to debate.
I’m not confused about God; there’s no evidence for such a being and so I don’t accept it. I’m no more confused about God than I am about Santa Claus. And it’s simply misleading to say to kids that the existence of God is something no one can prove or disprove. Surely there are ways to “prove” God’s existence (I discuss them in Faith versus Fact, though some readers will disagree). Further, it’s okay to tell kids that if there’s no evidence for an orange dinosaur living under their bed, then there’s no reason to believe that—and the same goes for God.
10. Respect the religious without tolerating intolerance
Teaching your kids to respect religious people is important. But that doesn’t mean they must respect religious intolerance. It doesn’t mean they must respect immoral, unethical or hateful words and actions simply because they come under the heading of religious righteousness. . . The bottom line: Don’t hold religious beliefs against people who are being nice. And don’t hold it in favor of people who are being mean.
This seems generally okay, except that you should teach people to respect people, not respect people’s religion, or afford them extra respect because they’re religious. I remember Feynman, in one of his books, recounting how his father taught him not to respect uniforms and what they stand for, whether they’re on soldiers, the Queen, or priests. I see nothing wrong with saying that to kids.
But maybe it’s good that I don’t have kids. . .
h/t: Barry
We have three “awesome” cats today. The first is truly a cat of distinction. SmallAnimalTalk, a site written by Dr. Anne Fawcett, a veterinarian in Sydney, posted this picture of Oz the Cat. She has a geographically accurate map of Australia on her nose!
One of the highlights for me was meeting this fellow during the vetting at the Sydney Royal Easter Show. Nicknamed “Oz” (formally named Siajavi Pai Wen), this longhaired oriental was born with a perfect map of Australia on her face – complete with a (somewhat disproportionately large and, if one must be nit-picky, a bit central) map of Tasmania on her chin. She belongs to breeder and steward Deborah Nugent. I’ve never seen a face like this (of course its not all about appearances – her temperament is wonderful).
Kiwi readers will be disappointed that there’s no New Zealand.
Oz as a kitten (from The Daily Mail). Australia wasn’t as accurate then:
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Is there a lazier cat than this? Here a felid assumes its liquid phase, allowing it to flow easily down the stairs (rrom Cheezburger via reader Su):
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And here’s a picture of a botched feeding opportunity, from imgur via Alan White via Matthew Cobb. I have no idea if it’s authentic, but that cat sure looks affronted.
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And lagniappe: reader Taskin’s cat Gus, who, you may recall, lost his ears from frostbite two years ago when he was trapped. Now he’s a loving and delightful little fellow. She think he looks skeptical in this photo, but I think he looks either sly or bemused.
h/t: Ben Goren
Reader Ed Kroc from the Vancouver, B.C. area sent some photos from the shore, and a story of his encounter with a pair of one of the world’s smartest birds, the raven.
Here are some wildlife pictures for your consideration. This is a batch from a trip to Tofino back in February.
First is a Purple Sea Star (Pisaster ochraceus) sitting just below the water’s surface in a tide pool near Tofino, BC. These guys are iconic on the Pacific Northwest coast. I always find it strange to think that this species is carnivorous, feeding mostly on barnacles and mussels.
Next, a selection of shots of a Common Raven (Corvus corax) pair on Wickaninnish Beach, in Pacific Rim National Park. Winter was just ending and so this pair was out combing the beach for some decent nesting materials. My partner and I crossed their paths as we were walking the beach. We stopped and sat on a nearby log to watch their work. In the first shot, the male is wrestling an attractive stick off a beached stump.
I tried tossing a stick in the general vicinity of the pair. The female was instantly intrigued and bobbed right over to the offering, examined it, then inspected us and the log we were sitting on. Her partner went about his stick collecting business, taking off a few times to bring an acceptable reinforcement back to their nest (presumably). She stayed and watched us for awhile. We tried offering a few other sticks that were in the immediate area, and each time she hopped excitedly over to the offering, inspected it, then peered back at us. This went on for several minutes.When her partner returned again, the pair moved away from our log a bit, perching on a different piece of driftwood a few meters away. In the second shot you can see them perched together here. They cackled and gurgled at each for a bit, then the male (on the right) flew back into the forest for good. The female hopped off her perch and sidled up next to me and my partner. She then poofed her feathers out and croaked right at us, bobbing up and down arrhythmically.
I can’t be sure of course, but I don’t see how the message could have been meant for anyone other than me and my partner. The beach was deserted besides for us three, and her partner was well out of earshot by then. She croaked at us for at least a minute. Maybe she recognized we were offering sticks and so she was trying to tell us what kinds she was really looking for. Or maybe she was scolding us for offering so many crappy sticks and foolishly wasting her time. Regardless, before she finished and took off back to the forest, I snapped the portrait.
Next, a colourful carpet of plant life. I love all the different varieties of moss and small succulents that grow year round on the damp rocks. No idea about the species IDs though.
And finally, a few plants in the intertidal zone of Chesterman Beach. The green grass-looking plant is Eelgrass (Zostera marina). This species is making a comeback on western Vancouver Island after many years of decline due to human activities. Standing among the eelgrass is a patch of Southern Stiff-stiped Kelp (Laminaria setchellii). Not as noticeable as the bull kelp that frequently washes up on shore, but still a fine looking algae.
Yesterday was exactly the 1982nd anniversary of Jesus being nailed to the cross (2015 – 33), and tomorrow is the same anniversary of his resurrection. To prepare for the day, here’s a Jesus joke:
Little Jesus is playing in the sand outside of his dad’s workshop.
Suddenly he jumps up and runs to his father.
“What dad, what?”
“Oh, nothing—I just hit my thumb with a hammer.”
I’ll be here all week, folks. Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili is fascinated by the video of the jaguar cub that Matthew posted the other day:
Baby jaguar
A: Hili, let’s go for a walk.
Hili: Not now.
Mały jaguarJa: Hili, idziemy na spacer?
Hili: Nie teraz.
.
Fill in the blank:
In what is believed to be a first in the United States, the Common Council of _________ has voted to amend the city’s equal opportunities ordinance “to add nonreligion as a protected class.”
The legislation adds atheists to the categories of people who could potentially face discrimination. It was co-sponsored by 14 of the council’s 20 members and approved without objection Tuesday night.
Atheism is defined in the ordinance as “the disbelief or lack of belief in the existence of God or gods.”
If you know the answer, DO NOT put it in the comments. If you don’t, guess. Helpful hint: It’s not in the South.
Hint #2: the city hosts a famous secular organization.
This link will tell you the answer.
Just a reprise of my Good Friday up to 2 p.m.—while my memory is still fresh. This includes a felid, lunch, and coffee and conversation with Dan Dennett.
First, I am staying with old friends, and they have a 13-year-old cat named Garcia. He is is diffident towards strangers, including me, but it let me pet it this morning, so I got at least a bit of a cat fix. Garcia et moi:
Upon the recommendation of my hosts’ daughter, I decided to have lunch at a humble but excellent place in Davis Square, Somerville, just a few steps from the Davis Square CTA stop. It’s called the Amsterdam Falafel Shop, and gets nearly unanimous rave reviews:
There are only three items on the menu besides drinks: two falafal sandwiches on pita bread—small (3 falafel balls) and large (5 balls)—or a four-ball plate for those who go gluten-free. The falafel is great, but the bonus is their free “toppings bar,” where you can load you sandwich with any or all of 19 toppings, including baba ganoush, hummus, chopped lettuce and tomato, onion, yogurt, pickled beets, grilled eggplant, pickled turnips, and so on. To do that, they recommend squashing the falafel-filled pita till it’s flat, then opening it and piling the garnishes atop the smashed pita. Here’s what you get: everything is fresh and delicious.
They also have Belgian style fries, which you can dip into six different sauces that you squirt into small plastic cups. I chose peanut sauce and Dutch mayo:
Loaded pita and a paper cone of fries. This was an ample and tasty lunch:
After lunch I repaired across the street to the well known Diesel Cafe, described widely as a “hipster cafe” (I’ve only recently learned what a hipster is, and now know that I don’t want to be one!). There I met Uncle Dan, who had an hour and a half to spare before he met a journalist who wanted to talk to him about—wait for it—free will.
It’s always a treat to talk to Dan, even if we disagree about things like free will and the value of memes. We chatted a while about those memes, and I asked Dan what the advantage was to conceive of “bits of culture” as “Darwin-like memes” rather than simply studying how and why they spread without the meme-ish overlay. I also asked him to give me one example of a cultural change whose spread can be better understood by using the concept of memes rather than other ways of studying cultural transmission.
He said the main advantage of “memetics” was that one could adopt a Darwinian point of view when studying culture. I asked him why that was superior to just studying why things spread culturally, since the reasons for that spread are so varied, involving compulsion, mere imitation, usefulness, and the psychological propensities of humans. The reasons for spread of memetic traits, I think, are so varied that they differ profoundly and incompatibly with the spread of “genetic” traits via natural selection, which has only one pathway: a trait spreads when it enhances the number of copies of the genes that produce it. In other words, you can reverse-engineer a Darwinian trait by studying how it affects reproduction, but you could never do that with “memetic” traits like music, words, the use of forks, and so on. Each one spreads by a unique pathway, compelled by unique forces.
I proffered the recent adoption of the word “like” in American language, as in “So I, like, went to the store to get something to eat, but it was, like, so crowded that it was a real hassle shopping, and I, like, just decided to bag it and go home.” I argued that saying “like” spread because it was a meme is just a tautology, and didn’t explain why it was so infectious. Dan responded that words like “like” used in that way are equivalent to viruses that are infectious, and that is a quasi-Darwinian process. But to me that explains little: what we want to know is why people so quickly started peppering their sentences with the meaningless spacer “like.” What does saying it’s a “meme”, even an infectious one, add to our knowledge?
I’m still not convinced that the idea of memes, or the field of its study (memetics) is a significant advance in understanding human culture, though I’m willing to be convinced if someone shows me how the idea of memes helps us understand some cultural changes better than any alternative explanations.
Dan showed me the new expanded edition of his book with Linda LaScola, Caught in the Pulpit, which recounts the stories of preachers who no longer believe but are either still preaching, or are leaving or have left the church. This is what developed into The Clergy Project, a communications network in which nonbelieving clergy can talk to each other online and exchange stories and ideas. Dan and Linda were involved in starting that, but have no access to the exchanges among clergy (which now number in the hundreds), for those are confidential.
Nevertheless, the book tells the story of some of these clergy (anonymously, of course), and the expanded edition has an introduction by Richard Dawkins, a new final chapter summing up the authors’ conclusions from their work with preachers, more stories from apostate clergy as well as updates on their lives, and a reprint of the authors’ 2010 paper, “Preachers who are not believers.”
I got an autographed copy of the new edition, which will be published by Pitchstone on May 1. It’s well worth reading. Here’s Dan showing it off:
Dan mentioned that he had a new paper in Scientific American with Deb Roy, “Our transparent future” (behind a paywall) which begins with a new theory by University of Oxford Zoologist Andrew Parker that the Cambrian Explosion resulted from an increase in the clarity of seawater, which led to the evolution of eyes, and that to the advent of arms races. When your enemy can see you and find you, and you your enemy, all of a sudden there’s the impetus for all kinds of adaptations like armor, better vision on both sides, faster movement and better evasive tactics, on so on. I haven’t read Parker’s theory but it’s a clever one.
At any rate, Dan and Roy’s paper is about how something like this is happening on the Internet, which has suddenly lifted the veil around many institutions and bits of data that were once clouded in secrecy, and this new transparency, they say, will transform society. Dan used the examples of Glenn Greenwald and Julian Assange making government secrets suddenly available to the whole world. I immediately thought of religion, and how, for example, the secret theology of Scientology, including its ludicrous scenarios about Xenu and thetans, is now easily found on Wikipeda: you no longer have to pay $30,000 to discover these stupid secrets. And that, I think, has helped lay Scientology low, for it’s no longer nearly as powerful as it used to be. Dan and I agreed that this new transparency will help spread knowledge about the malfeasance and folly of religion, and will, in the end, help erode faith in our world.
Although the Dennett and Roy paper is behind Sci. Am.’s paywall (ironic for a paper on transparency), he sent me an -ecopy, and I think he’ll post it on his website. I can make it available to people for free, I think, when I return to Chicago in 6 days, so if you want it send me an email with “want Dennett and Roy paper” as the header.
That brought up the subject of the world’s changing religious climate as revealed in the Pew Study I discussed this morning. Dan had also read that study, and said we shouldn’t be so frightened by the spread of Islam, for Muslims, at least in the West, will be forced to abandon their more invidious practices when exposed to other cultures. I’m not so sure about that, as Muslims in the West often band together in insular communities designed to stave off the influence of their non-Muslim neighbors. But Dan said that at least some of them will abandon the stricter tenets of Islam, and I agree with that, for all it takes is one! Nevertheless, it will be a dangerous and thing to do, and Dan said that such a change will necessarily involve bloodshed and sacrifice.
He also added, and I agree heartily, that one thing that would end a lot of the oppressive aspects of Islam would be if Muslim women were to band together, practice civil disobedience, and call for more opportunity and equality. That, too, will be highly dangerous for the pioneers. But, recounting how exposure to Nancy Drew novels had helped catalyze Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s departure from Islam, Dan thought that we should try to expose Muslim girls to more books showing them that they are capable of far more things than wearing veils, having children, and serving Allah and their husbands. Such a tactic might be instrumental in eroding the more oppressive aspects of Islam. Extremist Muslims know the danger of this, which is why they throw acid on Muslim girls trying to go to school.
So perhaps we should find a way to flood Muslim girls with such literature, letting them know they can far exceed what their faith demands. But at the very least, and this is my own view, we should be supporting the work of ex-Muslim feminists like Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Maryam Namazie, who are trying to get this message out, and who have far more credibility than a pair of Old White Male Academics.
