The Guardian strikes back: Templeton and Rees are wonderful, Gnu Atheism is dead

April 8, 2011 • 5:29 am

Though I read the Guardian only when I’m in the UK, I’d always thought it was a bastion of liberalism.  And I was heartened when its coverage of the Templeton Prize wasn’t all worshipful: it included an announcement that characterized the Prize as “controversial,” an interview with winner Martin Rees that showed him up as a reticent accommodationist, and even allowed me a fairly long critique of Rees and the Prize.

But I shouldn’t have been so sanguine.  After all, the paper regularly publishes the mushy, anti-atheist rants of editor Andrew Brown.  And, indeed, the Guardian has struck back.

First there was a piece by ex-Anglican-priest Mark Vernon (remember his “holy rabbit“?), triumphantly declaring that the award to Martin Rees marked the beginning of New Atheism’s decline:

When the cultural history of our times comes to be written, Templeton 2011 could be mentioned, at least in a footnote, as marking a turning point in the “God wars”. The power of voices like that of Dawkins and Sam Harris – who will be on the British stage next week – may actually have peaked, and now be on the wane. Science could be said, in effect, to have rejected their advocacy. Rees brings a preferable attitude to the debate.

And then assistant editor Michael White angrily defended Rees.  Referring to critics, he used the word “abuse” three times in the first four paragraphs; I would have thought “criticism” was more accurate. And White, as well as the editorial I mention below, completely missed the serious point about Templeton’s attempt to mingle science and woo:

As far as I can see, there’s no suggestion [Rees] made his money as a crack dealer or a trader in sex slaves. What upsets part of the scientific community – needless to say, Oxford’s most militant atheist, Richard Dawkins, is part of the chorus – is their belief that Templeton, an enthusiastic Presbyterian, tries to blur the boundary between science and religion, making a virtue of belief without evidence.

Well, well, that’s pretty serious. Belief without evidence, eh? I was having a drink only last night with a chap who left the pub early to go home and catch the Manchester United v Chelsea game. He did so in the evidence-free (and misplaced) belief that Chelsea would win. We all do things like that, don’t we?

Yes, but we don’t force the rest of the world to bow down before Chelsea, or stone them if they support Man United, or tell them that they’ll go to hell if they’re Chelsea fans.  White goes on to accuse atheists of the same sort of intolerance that once (no longer?) characterized the faithful:

If that wasn’t enough, you might think that heavyweight scientists might remember the intolerance that marked the history of their own trade in the modern era.

From the 17th century until the 20th, they had to be wary of publishing conclusions which explicitly challenged the existence of a deity. You could lose your livelihood, or worse, if you were suspected of atheism. Surely we are not now so arrogant that we are tempted to reverse the proof?

Well, nobody is suggesting that Rees lose his job or his life; we’re talking about public discussion and criticism here, for crying out loud.  Are a few editorials and website critiques equivalent to the Inquisition, which is what religion does when it has the power?  Has any atheist shown Rees the instruments of torture?

Finally, today the Official Guardian “Comment is Free” Editorial on the matter appeared. It’s so lame, and so poorly written, that I suspect it was penned by Andrew Brown.  But never mind:  it’s characterized by several quacking canards. First, an implicit attack on scientism:

There are evolutionary theorists who describe scorpion flies as rapists, and Nobel laureate economists who insist that affairs of the human heart are best grasped through cost-benefit analysis. Clever people are, if anything, especially prone to intellectual tunnel vision—recasting every discussion in terms of the one discipline they have mastered, with no regard for how ideas that enlighten in one context often make no sense elsewhere.

I was one of the biggest opponents of the rape-as-an adaptation hypothesis, but the editor is going beyond mere criticism of evolutionary psychology; he/she is making a general accusation of scientism, calling it “intellectual tunnel vision.”  There’s no mention, of course, of whether religion has an even narrower view, or whether its methods have had anything like the success of science.

The next canard is the implicit claim that no religion sees scripture as anything other than metaphorical:

[Dawkins] has made quite a career of treating religious doctrines as scientific hypotheses and then demonstrating that they are wanting in this regard.

Of course they are. Words can be used to joke or emote as well as inform, and neither scripture nor indeed poetry can be understood by mistaking it for something else. Metaphors ought not be metamorphosed into literal claims, while the test for moral edicts is reflective introspection and not the weight of the evidence that defines the scientific domain.

Umm. . . tell that to the howling mobs of Muslims who behead people on behalf of  literal belief in scripture, or the Catholics who terrorize kids with the idea of a literal hell, or the millions of Christians whose beliefs absolutely rest on the scientific truth of the Resurrection.  This editor needs to get out more.

Like White, the editor has no idea of what Templeton is up to, or the insidious way it enables faith by sneaking it into science:

Faith is a professional problem for scientists only where it demands that they close their minds to the facts. Neither Newton’s religion nor Einstein’s God of sorts (who refused to play dice) got in the way of their work. Conversely, the occasional book-promoting blathering of Stephen Hawking, about how with physics we can variously know the mind of God or prove he is fiction, is utterly wide of the mark. The question with Templeton is not whether it funds some wacky endeavours, but whether it does anything to undermine the core requirement of good science, namely falsification through the experimental method.

Tell that to Francis Collins, who gives lectures showing that the Moral Law scientifically proves God!  Or Kenneth Miller, who suggests that “fine tuning” shows the same thing.  Or Simon Conway Morris, who argues for Jesus on the basis of evolutionary convergence.

Yes, Templeton does undermine the core requirement of good science, which is that you don’t pollute it with untestable superstition.  And it does this by throwing its funding towards those endeavors that are likely to buttress belief in God or its coded alternative, “spirituality.” And about Hawking: if we can explain the origin of the universe through pure physics, without invoking a god, then we’ve removed one of the biggest props of religion, which would suggest that many people’s conception of god is a fiction.  (The “mind of god” remark was, I admit, a bit over the top, but I’m pretty sure Hawking was being metaphorical there.)

And finally, the Guardian‘s Big Quack: science and faith are buddies because many scientists used to be religious!

In any case, many of our greatest scientists—Darwin, Michael Faraday, Isaac Newton—were men of faith. If Newton, perhaps the greatest scientific mind in history, could reconcile faith and reason (“Gravity is God”) Rees should be able to sleep soundly, cheque in hand.

Darwin? Really?  Somebody hasn’t done their homework here.  And of course scientists were religious then because nearly everyone was religious.  Check out the religious views of modern scientists!

But even though I’m disappointed with these examples of sloppy thinking (and poor writing), I’m heartened overall.  As some commenters have noted, the very fact that papers like the Guardian, and journals like Science, characterize the Templeton Prize as “controversial,” or highlight its critics without dismissing them, shows that atheism is making real inroads in society.  It’s clearly gaining respectability—or at least less disapprobation.  I can’t imagine that twenty years ago I would have been allowed to write a Guardian piece criticizing Templeton, or that the announcement of the Prize would have called it “controversial”, mentioning and quoting its opponents.

Regardless of the wish-thinking of Mark Vernon, these are our victories, pure and simple. We must keep the pressure on, and keep fighting against the privilege that religion—and its lackeys like Templeton—claim for themselves in our world.

Harris speaks here today

April 8, 2011 • 4:09 am

As I announced earlier this week, Sam Harris will be speaking this afternoon at The University of Chicago.  The topic is morality, its roots, and the ability of science to determine what is moral.  Admission is free, and the location and time are given in my earlier announcement and below.

If you’re in the area, drop by.

Place: University of Chicago Medical Center, Surgery Brain Research Pavilion, Room P-117, 5812 S. Ellis Avenue (between 57th and 59th Streets; 58th Street doesn’t interesect Ellis Ave.).  Someone at the door will direct you to the room.

Time:  3 p.m. today, April 8

Harris vs. Craig: live online tonight

April 7, 2011 • 2:09 pm

Reader Heber Gurrola has reminded us that tonight’s debate at Notre Dame between Sam Harris and William Lane Craig will be livestreamed here, starting at 7 p.m. EST.

The topic is “Is Good from God?”, and here’s Notre Dame’s blurb on the debate:

Who is Sam Harris? Sam Harris, one of the “Four Horsemen of Atheism”, a neuroscientist, philosopher, and bestselling author, will seek to show that the separation between scientific facts and human values is an illusion. Harris will prove that science, not religion, should provide the basis for morality.

Who is William Lane Craig? William Lane Craig is an American Evangelical Christian apologist, theologian, and analytic philosopher known for his work in the philosophy of religion, historical Jesus studies, and the philosophy of time. One of the foremost apologists in the field, Craig has faced some of the best and has been known to hold nothing back in his sharpshooting style of debate. Point by point, Craig will show that morality must be based upon the bedrock foundation of divine revelation, defending the vital role of religion in our modern times.

I’m the skunk in the woodpile again

April 7, 2011 • 10:03 am

I’m getting a bit weary of being the go-to-dissenter when Templeton Prizes are announced.  But hey, someone has to do it.  Yesterday I was interviewed by Sara Reardon of Science about Martin Rees’s award.  Her report has some interesting information about his nomination.

“He’s an observant member of his tribe,” University of California, Irvine, astrophysicist Virginia Trimble, who nominated Rees for the prize, told ScienceInsider, adding that although she is a “third-generation atheist,” religion at least encourages its members to take life seriously. “So few people these days take anything seriously. That, I think, is not healthy. Scientific endeavor is a serious activity.”

Is this a consilence of science and religion because they’re both “serious”?  Holy Jeebus!  Yes, religion encourages its members to take life seriously—based on completely bogus premises.   By all means go to church, pray, prostrate yourself before Mecca five times a day, go to confession, worry about your sins, don’t work on the Sabbath: all that serious stuff, to no good end.  One might as well be serious about leprechauns or the Loch Ness monster.

And the skunk appears:

Asked about scientists’ concerns with the Templeton Foundation itself, Rees denies any conflict. But evolutionary biologist Jerry Coyne of the University of Chicago in Illinois feels that Rees, as a nonbelieving scientist, should have refused the prize and that this year’s award is just Templeton’s latest attempt to transmute money into credibility. “This just shows how far the Templeton Foundation has its tentacles into the scientific establishment,” he says. “[Rees] is a smart choice for Templeton: he’s highly respected, accomplished, and not a crackpot. It was a poor choice for Rees.”

Of Rees’s bringing cosmology to bear on philosophy, Coyne says, “He’s mistaken: religion and science are separate domains. If there’s no conflict between science and religion, why do I still deal with creationists?”

To be fair, Reardon’s piece is not that pro-Templeton, though she could have called on other scientists besides me.  An N > 1 makes opposition, which is pretty widespread among scientists, look more serious.

(Note to Ms. Reardon: Francisco Ayala, last year’s winner, was not a “Benedictine priest.”  He was a Dominican monk.)

Hitchens on Qur’an burning

April 7, 2011 • 9:41 am

Thank the Ceiling Cat above that Hitchens is back with his regular Slate column.  This week’s topic is Qur’an burning.  Hitch is not in his best form here—the piece almost looks phoned in—but the man’s been ill. Let’s be thankful he’s writing at all.

How dispiriting to see, once again, the footage of theocratic rage in Kandahar and Mazar-i-Sharif. The same old dreary formula: self-righteous frenzy married to a neurotic need to take offense; the easy resort to indiscriminate violence and cruelty; the promulgation of makeshift fatwas by mullahs on the make; those writhing mustaches framing crude slogans of piety and hatred, and yelling for death as if on first-name terms with the Almighty. The spilling of blood and the spoliation of property—all for nothing, and ostensibly “provoked” by the corny, brainless antics of a devout American nonentity, notice of whose mere existence is beneath the dignity of any thinking person.

Hitchens excoriates the incompetent and corrupt Hamid Karzai for inciting mob violence, and nearly calls for his ouster:

Already under constant pressure to make consistent comments about Syria and Libya, the Obama administration might want to express itself more directly about a man for whose fast-decomposing regime we are shedding our best blood.

We’re not going to “win” in Afghanistan, if “winning” means ousting the Taliban or other Muslim insurgents. And there’s no sign that we can help bring about an Afghan government who will. It’s time for us to take our lumps and leave.

The earliest fossil of a flying insect

April 7, 2011 • 6:19 am

I won’t belabor this cool new paper on a fossil insect, for Ed Yong has already done over at Not Exactly Rocket Science.  The paper is by Richard Knecht and colleagues, and is in the online edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.  It describes the earliest known fossil of a flying insect—a fossil that is 310 million years old.  Insects were the first animals to achieve powered flight, 90 million years before pterosaurs (“pterodactyls”).

It’s rare to find fossil insects, for their soft bodies rapidly decay before they can be buried and infiltrated with minerals.  This fossil is in fact a trace fossil: not the mineralized body of the beast itself, but the filled-in impression that its body left in mud—mud that eventually became sandstone (click to enlarge).  The insect almost certainly didn’t die from this contact, but simply touched down on the banks of a stream, left a body-shaped impression, and then took off again.

The mayfly fossil from Knecht et al.  Scale bar is 20 mm on the two left pictures, 10 mm on the right.

The authors identify this fossil, from southeastern Massachusetts, as a member of the stem group of mayflies (Ephemeroptera).  Here’s a modern mayfly. Note that its head and wings are raised when it’s alighted.


 

The wings and head are not visible in the trace fossil (the insect probably raised them as it sat in the mud), so how do we know it flew?  Three reasons.  First, there are some traces in the stone that may be impressions of wings as they lightly touched the mud while beating.  More important, the insect is clearly a mayfly, with all the body parts and appendages that testify to that lineage, and mayflies have wings.  Finally, and most important, since it’s a trace fossil, had the insect walked to the spot where it laid down, it would have left “walking impressions” (i.e., footprints).  There are none, suggesting that the beast touched down—that it landed after flying to the spot.

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Knecht, R. J., M. S. Engel, and J. S. Benner.  Late Carboniferous paleochnology reveals the oldest full-body impression of a flying insect.  Proc. Nat. Acad. Sci., early edition.

Does faith undermine rationality? Peter Atkins and Lewis Wolpert discuss the Templeton Prize

April 7, 2011 • 5:34 am

Alert reader Dominic called my attention to a four-minute clip from Britain’s Radio 4, in which two distinguished scientists and public intellectuals, developmental biologist Lewis Wolpert and chemist Peter Atkins, discuss yesterday’s award of the Templeton Prize to Martin Rees.  Atkins and Wolpert are both atheists.

Wolpert, whom I once met—he’s a lovely man—seems a bit naive, completely oblivious to Templeton’s strategy of co-opting science to promote religion.  Atkins is not so sanguine. When asked about Rees’s acceptance of the Prize, he says this:

“Well if I were in his place, and I saw a million pounds dangling in front of me,  I would find it extremely difficult to say no.  But the Templeton foundation is an insidious foundation which is trying to insert itself into all kinds of rational bodies like, well, the Royal Society in this case, and the Royal Institution in another case; and it has a long-term strategy, and I’m afraid this is part of it.”

The interviewer asks, “But what’s insidious about it? It’s quite open about what it does–it’s trying to promote its cause: that’s what any foundation would do!”

Atkins responds, “It’s trying to undermine rationality.”

The interviewer follows up: “Does all religion—does all promotion of religion—necessarily undermine rationality?”

Atkins responds correctly:  “Oh, absolutely!  That’s the whole point of religion: it promotes faith over evidence.”

The interviewer seemed a bit taken aback with this answer, and asks Wolpert if he agrees with it. Wolpert responds that he agrees entirely.

Atkins then announces what he’d do with the money if he won the prize. You’ll be amused at his answer.

Which raises the question of whether religion on occasion does promote rationality.  I can imagine possible affirmatives, like the Vatican-sponsored conference on evolution two years ago, but that was deeply compromised with woo, and in fact wasn’t designed to promote science but simply to foster the mutual osculation of science and faith. That conference was in fact sponsored by Templeton, and, with its usual cronyism, Templeton paid three members of its own Board of Advisors to attend and speak.

Can anyone think of ways that religion actually promotes rationality?