They keep using that word. I do not think it means what they think it means.

There was a science and skepticism conference in Manchester last weekend, where a lot of smart people got together to give their critical thinking skills and scientific skepticism some healthy flexing. Yet what was otherwise a commendable affair was marred by the frankly silly title (and topic) of one discussion panel: Is Science the New Religion?

How can fluent English speakers so egregiously misuse the word ‘religion’? Do they need to have its proper definition tattooed on the inside of their forearms for convenient reference?   

One person who won’t be facepalming with me in solidarity is the journalist Brendan O’Neill, who was on that ridiculous panel and uttered suitably ridiculous things about science and politics. O’Neill thinks that politics is in danger of being influenced by too much science. He warns us:

The worst thing is that politicians’ increasing reliance on science, and some scientists’ willingness to go along with this, shrinks the space for public, mass engagement in policymaking. The more politics becomes an experts’ pursuit, the less room there is for the public’s ideological or passionate or angry or prejudicial views.

And this is a bad thing? O’Neill gives voice to a sadly common anti-intellectualism displayed by those who think that, in the words of Isaac Asimov, their ignorance is just as good as an expert’s knowledge. O’Neill also confuses the (very real) problem of politicians cherry-picking scientific data that support their biases with the actual process of science; the former is a subjective vice on the part of dishonest politicians, while the latter is a provisionally objective pursuit of knowledge about reality that isn’t beholden to partisan views on government. Science is certainly affected by politics through government funding, laws and regulations, but no amount of political pressure can force physicists to change the laws of nature, or get biologists to concede that the theory of evolution is false.

The comedian and science populariser Robin Ince was on that panel with O’Neill, and he was “startle-eyed” by the copious amounts of inanity gushing from his fellow panelist. Ince comments on O’Neill’s anti-expert rhetoric in a sharply humorous blog post, which includes this observation:

There is a gaggle that seems to consider that expertise is an unfair advantage, that all opinions are equal; an idea that people who are experts in climate change, drugs or engineering are given unfair preference just because they spend much of their life studying these things. I do not think it is fascism that heart surgeons seem to have the monopoly of placing hands in a chest cavity and fiddling with an aorta. Though I have my own opinions on driving, I have decided to let others do it, as I have never taken a lesson. I do not consider myself oppressed by the driving majority. I own an umbrella and a thermometer, but I do not believe this is enough to place me on a climate change advisory body.

A charitable reading of O’Neill’s arguments might suggest that he is simply decrying ‘scientism’: the unjustified belief that science holds all the answers to all our problems, including ethical ones. I’m not convinced that O’Neill is actually criticising scientism. His comments clearly show that he is uncomfortable with scientific expertise itself, with the idea that politics is improved by the input of the best scientific knowledge we currently possess in various fields. O’Neill’s position is in stark contrast to that of the philosopher Massimo Pigliucci, who is a strong critic of scientism yet is a champion for science. In the aptly titled chapter ‘The Limits of Science’ in his book Answers for Aristotle, Pigliucci writes:

The idea underlying this chapter is that science is neither the new god nor something that should be cavalierly dismissed. As a society, we need a thoughtful appreciation not only of how science works but also of its power and its limits. This isn’t just an (interesting, I would submit) intellectual exercise: how we think about science has huge personal and societal consequences, affecting our decisions about everything from whether to vaccinate our children to whether to vote for a politician who wants to enact policies to curb climate change. We cannot all become experts, especially in the many highly technical fields of modern science, but it is crucial for our own well-being that we understand the elements of how science works (and occasionally fails to), that we become informed skeptics about the claims that are made on behalf of science, and that we also do our part to nudge society away from an increasingly dangerous epistemic relativism.

Pigliucci has an acute, even wise, understanding of both the limits of science and its power to affect change for the better, especially when politicians grant it the respect it deserves. O’Neill on the other hand just doesn’t like uppity nerds oppressing common folks like him with their ‘facts’ and ‘expertise’.

Via Pharyngula

17.4.13

For the elebenty bazillionth time, Nazism and Stalinism were NOT caused by secular, rational, scientific values

It’s like whacking gophers in that classic arcade game; no matter how many times you debunk the argument that too much reason and science gave us Nazism and Stalinism, it keeps popping back up. Which it did in a Facebook discussion I participated in recently. Apparently, all one has to do is promote reason, critical thinking and the scientific method as the only paths to (provisional) knowledge and eventually someone will feel obligated to play the ‘rational totalitarianism’ card as a corrective. Someone like the quitting Pope Benedict XVI, or the philosopher John Gray, the latter being schooled by his confrere A C Grayling on why making a tenuous connection between 20^th century totalitarianism and Enlightenment values – which include a healthy respect for science – is so full of fail.

In his typically elegant prose, Grayling demolishes the idea that Nazism and Stalinism were the logical culmination of overzealous rationality and ‘scientism’:

As to the weary old canard about the 20th-century totalitarianisms: it astonishes me how those who should know better can fail to see them as quintessentially counter-Enlightenment projects, and ones which the rest of the Enlightenment-derived world would not put up with and therefore defeated: Nazism in 17 years and Soviet communism in 70. They were counter-Enlightenment projects because they rejected the idea of pluralism and its concomitant liberties of thought and the person, and in the time-honoured unEnlightened way forcibly demanded submission to a monolithic ideal. They even used the forms and techniques of religion, from the notion of thought-crime to the embalming of saints in mausoleums (Lenin and Mao, like any number of saints and their relics, invite pilgrimage to their glass cases). Totalitarianism is not about progress but stasis; it is not about realising a golden age but coercively sustaining the myth of one. This indeed is the lineament of religion: it is the opposite of secular progressivism.

Other critics of scientific rationality like Max Horkheimer and Theodor Ardono are also guilty of false equivalence when they paint science as just another kind of totalitarian ideology, with the same capacity to oppress. In the introduction to The Britannica Guide to the Ideas That Made the Modern World, Grayling again rebuts these critics by pointing out the fallacies of their arguments. He writes:

In the crisis of the 1930s and 40s the oppressive power that Horkheimer and Adorno had in mind was Nazism, which they saw as the Enlightenment’s self-fulfillingly paradoxical outcome: in their terminology, “instrumental rationality” had been transformed into “bureaucratic politics”. In effect, Horkheimer and Adorno were claiming that the Enlightenment empowered capitalism and with it a deeply oppressive form of managerialism that served its interests to the exclusion of all others. 

This analysis does not survive scrutiny. Nazism drew its principal strength from a peasantry and petit-bourgeoisie that mostly felt threatened by capitalism, so it is not the latter which was the source of oppression, but in fact the former, viewed as descendents of the various constituencies that had most to lose from Enlightenment and which therefore reacted against it. The votaries of Nazism, had they lived in the eighteenth century, would have defended the traditions of absolutism, whether in Versailles or in heaven, against the “instrumental rationality” which expressed itself in the eighteenth century as secularizing and democratizing impulses.

And the key passage, with my emphasis in bold:

As this implies, the same answer can be addressed to the other example cited by critics as an inheritor of Enlightenment principles, namely Stalinism. The general point to be made is that totalitarianism, of which Nazism and Stalinism are paradigms, is a monolithic ideology that demands the unwavering loyalty and obedience of all. Whether in the form of a religion or a political movement, it is precisely opposed by the Enlightenment values of individual liberty, freedom of thought, consent of the people, rational argument, the constraints of evidence, and the absence of controlling hegemonies.

Not exactly rational guys.

So, for the umpteenth time, a commitment to reason and science does not lead to genocide, or gas chambers, or gulags, or personality cults, or delusions of ethnic superiority. Quite the opposite.

I’ll let Grayling have the last word, since he says it so well.

By resisting the counter-Enlightenment pessimism of Horkheimer and Adorno in this way one sees, by the intended contrast, how much of the Enlightenment remains operative in the contemporary world as the same force it was historically intended to be: a force for progress, for liberty, for rationality.

27.2.13  

Religious privilege? What religious privilege?

It’s no secret that critics of religion are often made out to be mean curmudgeons with inflated grievances. They exaggerate the harms of religion while downplaying or ignoring the good that faith and the faithful contribute to society. Whether they are atheists, humanists or secularists, strident critics of religion all have a vendetta against any public expression of religious ideals, and are not above bully tactics to get their way.

This caricature omits one important detail: religion enjoys an unjustified and anachronistic kind of privilege that is denied – for good reasons – to secular ideologies and institutions. This religious privilege manifests as the automatic assumption of moral rectitude, and as special treatment from the government, like churches being exempted from both taxes and certain secular laws. It is this very privilege that allows religious groups in countries like Australia to discriminate against homosexuals, unmarried couples or anyone perceived to be egregious ‘sinners’. Given this, it is dishonest of its sympathisers to paint religion as the disadvantaged victim in any confrontation with its critics.

Our PM Julia Gillard may be an atheist, but her government is clearly committed to upholding the privilege of religious groups to break anti-discrimination laws simply because they believe that a sky-fairy would be quite cross if they had gays on the payroll. Labor’s new Human Rights and Anti-Discrimination Bill aims to consolidate existing anti-discrimination acts into one comprehensive law, but god-believers needn’t worry, the bill won’t remove their right to deny the rights of their fellow citizens. As David Marr wrote in The Age, the bill is a “bigots’ charter.”

Of course, religionists like Jim Wallace of the Australian Christian Lobby beg to differ. Wallace doesn’t think he’s a bigot because discriminating against, say, homosexuals is simply “a case of looking for people in employment of staff who represent your same philosophy of the organisation that’s employing them.” He goes on to compare religious prejudice with how an environmental group wouldn’t hire someone who was pro-logging, a false equivalence since the latter discriminates on purely ideological grounds while the former discriminates on things like sexuality, which is hardly a matter of choice.

Attorney-General Nicola Roxon seems a tad peeved with criticisms of the new bill. After all, the government’s aim was just to “simplify and consolidate the law, not completely re-invent the anti-discrimination system.” Because reinventing the system would mean ensuring that the rules apply equally to everyone, thereby removing any special treatment for religious groups. Roxon goes on to remind, and chide, us:

Labor is proud to have developed the sex, race and disability discrimination acts and established the Human Rights Commission. And we are proud now to be developing these important new protections from discrimination on the basis of sexuality… The fact that these new protections are being glossed over by some commentators is regretful.

Nice work Labor, except that religious organisations can still ignore these protections. And they are allowed to do so because of the divine mandate they supposedly possess, a mandate that they have convinced the public and government of Australia (and elsewhere) to be worthy of privilege. This is the same privilege that gives taxpayers’ money to Christian Evangelicals for them to proselytise to schoolchildren. It is the same privilege that equates religiosity with moral authority. And it is the same privilege that makes criticism of religion, unlike criticism of political, economic or scientific ideas, a specifically vulgar act.

HT: Grant Joslin

16.1.13

A quarter of Brits are non-religious

The UK’s 2011 census results are in, and they contain good news for humanists, atheists, agnostics and other non-religious people. You may remember the high-profile campaign ran by the British Humanist Association last year encouraging non-religious citizens to tick the ‘No religion’ box on the census. The campaign may have had an effect after all, as the results below indicate:

• The number of non-religious people has increased from 15 percent in 2001 to 25 percent in 2011.


• The number of Christians has dropped from 72 percent in 2001 to 59 percent in 2011.


• The number of Jedi Knights has more than halved, dropping from approximately 390,000 in 2001 to 176,632 in 2011.

That’s a dramatic decrease in the number of self-identified Christians with a corresponding large jump in the irreligious population. The BHA’s campaign urging so-called Jedi to stop being silly and just put themselves down as ‘no religion’ may have played a part in the massive drop in Jedi numbers. BHA Chief Executive Andrew Copson responded to the census data with the following comments:

This is a really significant cultural shift. In spite of a biased question that positively encourages religious responses, to see such an increase in the non-religious and such a decrease in those reporting themselves as Christian is astounding. Of course these figures still exaggerate the number of Christians overall – the number of believing, practicing Christians is much lower than this and the number of those leading their lives with no reference to religion much higher.

Religious practice, identity, belonging and belief are all in decline in this country, and non-religious identities are on the rise. It is time that public policy caught up with this mass turning away from religious identities and stopped privileging religious bodies with ever increasing numbers of state-funded religious schools and other faith-based initiatives. They are decreasingly relevant to British life and identity and governments should catch up and accept that fact.

The UK is not yet as secular as countries like Japan, Sweden and Denmark, but amazingly it has become less religious, even less Christian, than Australia: 22 percent of Aussies have no religion (compared with 25 percent of Brits) while 61 percent of Aussies are Christian (compared with 59 percent of Brits). Still, both countries are much less religious than the US, which remains an anomaly among rich, developed countries with 73 percent of Americans identifying as Christians (though the number of non-religious Americans is rising).

The steady increase in the non-religious demographic in not only the UK, but Australia and the US also, is an encouraging sign that secular ideas and values are being embraced by more and more people in these countries. Religion will still be around for a while, and may even pull off a modest comeback, but social trends in the developed world are evidently not in its favour. Let’s celebrate that.

12.12.12

How important exactly is science to the economy?

When US senator Marco Rubio failed to acknowledge that the Earth was billions of years old during an interview for GQ magazine, scientifically literate folks pounced. Astronomer and science writer Phil Plait took particular umbrage at Senator Rubio’s dismissive statement that the age of the Earth “has nothing to do with the gross domestic product or economic growth of the United States.” In a Slate article, Plait retorts (emphasis his):

Perhaps Senator Rubio is unaware that science—and its sisters engineering and technology—are actually the very foundation of our country’s economy? All of our industry, all of our technology, everything that keeps our country functioning at all can be traced back to scientific research and a scientific understanding of the Universe.

Cell phones, computers, cars, machinery, medicine, the Internet, manufacturing, communication, agriculture, transportation, on and on … all of these industries rely on science to work. Without basic research none of these would exist.

And all of science points to the age of the Earth being much, much older than Senator Rubio intimates. Astronomy, biology, relativity, chemistry, physics, anatomy, sociology, linguistics, cosmology, anthropology, evolutionary science, and especially radiometric dating of rocks all indicate the Universe, and our home planet Earth, are far older than any claims of a few thousand years. The overwhelming consensus is that the Earth is billions of years old. And all of these sciences are the basis of the technology that is our country’s life blood.

Writing for the New York Times, economist Paul Krugman also criticised Senator Rubio’s view that geological knowledge is unconnected to economic strength:

Coming back to the age of the earth: Does it matter? No, says Mr. Rubio, pronouncing it “a dispute amongst theologians”—what about the geologists?—that “has nothing to do with the gross domestic product or economic growth of the United States.” But he couldn’t be more wrong.

We are, after all, living in an era when science plays a crucial economic role. How are we going to search effectively for natural resources if schools trying to teach modern geology must give equal time to claims that the world is only 6000 years old? How are we going to stay competitive in biotechnology if biology classes avoid any material that might offend creationists?

So far, I’m with Plait and Krugman. After all, isn’t it obvious that scientific literacy is essential for a technology-based economy to flourish? Not necessarily so, according to Slate writer Daniel Engber. Responding to Phil Plait’s article, Engber challenges the view that a country’s economy depends on an absolute knowledge of science. He writes:

What about Rubio’s assertion that the age of the Earth “has nothing to do with the gross domestic product or economic growth of the United States”? That’s the claim that gave Phil Plait “a chill,” since science is “the very foundation of our country's economy.” At Forbes, Alex Knapp declares that “this economy, at its root, is built on a web of scientific knowledge from physics to chemistry to biology. It’s impossible to just cherry pick out parts we don’t like.” If we get it wrong on Earth’s creation, these critics say, the United States will fall apart.

Will it really? It seems to me that Rubio is right. Lots of basic scientific questions have no bearing whatsoever on the nation's short-term economic growth. We can even go much further: Lots of scientific questions don’t matter all that much when it comes to other scientific questions. It’s possible—and quite common—for scientists to plug away at research projects without explicit knowledge of what’s happening in other fields. And when a bedrock principle of science does need to be adjusted—a not-so-unusual occurrence, it turns out—the edifice of scholarship doesn’t crumble into dust. DVD players still operate. Nuclear plants don't shut down.

Philosopher Massimo Pigliucci agrees with Engber. On his blog Rationally Speaking, Pigliucci explains why people like Phil Plait and Paul Krugman (and Pigliucci himself, initially) are wrong to believe that the kind of ignorance of (or disrespect for) science displayed by Senator Rubio is ipso facto damaging to science, or the economy, as a whole:

There is a deeper philosophical reason why Engber is right and people like Phil and myself ought to be more cautious with our outrage at the cutting of scientific budgets or at politicians’ opportunistic uttering of scientific nonsense to gather supporters and votes. Knowledge in general, and scientific knowledge in particular, is not like an edifice with foundations — a common but misleading metaphor. If it were, it would be more likely that, as Phil so strongly stated, everything is connected to everything else, so that ignoring, denying, or replacing one piece of the building will likely create fractures all over the place.

But that’s not how it works. Rather, to use philosopher W.V.O. Quine’s apt metaphor, knowledge is more like a web, with some threads being stronger or more interconnected than others. […] If you see science as a web of statements, observations, experiments, and theories, then it becomes perfectly clear why Engber is right at pointing out that quite a bit of independence exists between different parts of the web, and how even relatively major chunks of said web can be demolished and replaced without the whole thing crumbling. There really is next to no connection between someone’s opinions about the age of the earth and that person’s grasp of the state and causes of a country’s economy.

Pigliucci’s use of the ‘science is a web’ metaphor is persuasive. But before you think that he is letting anti-scientific folks like Senator Rubio, creationists and ‘alternative’ medicine advocates off the hook, Pigliucci clarifies his position on the value of science and evidence-based reasoning (emphasis his):

Still, there is an important point where Phil is absolutely correct and that I think Engber underestimates. What is “chilling” and disturbing about people like Rubio (but not people like Obama) is that they have embraced a general philosophy of rejecting evidence and reason whenever it is ideologically or politically convenient. That is what is highly dangerous.

I can see Pigliucci’s point about how science isn’t a monolithic edifice that will collapse when its foundations are cracked by ignorance and rejection of facts. I accept his argument that science is actually a web, where torn or missing threads in one part may not affect the structural integrity of the whole, or other parts of the web. Still, as Pigliucci concedes, this does not excuse anti-scientific attitudes. A country’s economic prosperity may not be entirely dependent on the scientific literacy of its leaders, but a culture that enables, even encourages, ignorance and rejection of knowledge surely isn’t a healthy one.

1.12.12

Shame on the Irish government, on the Catholic Church, and on their apologists

I would rather not write a third consecutive post on the pernicious Catholic Church, but I write this to show solidarity with those who mourn the death of Savita Halappanavar. I don’t have much more to say that hasn’t already been said with righteous anger by PZ Myers. I can’t add anything substantial to what has been expressed by Grania Spingies. And I certainly can’t improve on Dr. Jen Gunter’s professional assessment of this tragedy.

But I will say this: if you think that the Catholic Church is innocent of Savita’s death, that the manslaughter of a young woman is a crime to be pinned on the Irish government alone, or the hospital, you are a shameful apologist for the Church. If you even dare to glibly mention how the Church doesn’t forbid abortion when the mother’s life is in danger, as if this oh-so-generous accommodation reflects the Church’s magnanimity, you only show how warped your moral reasoning is.

Let me spell it out for you: Savita’s death, and the deaths and suffering of other women like her under similar circumstances (having an abortion denied on religious grounds), would not have happened if the idea that fetuses had souls and that aborting them was a mortal sin DID. NOT. EXIST. We can thank the Holy See for such baseless, superstitious ideas, ideas that reach out far from Rome to blight the lives of people living in distant places. Like Savita, they don’t even have to be Catholic to be victims of the Church.

I will concede that the phrase “religion poisons everything” is an exaggeration. But only marginally so.




15.11.12

When a medieval law protects child abusers

In the wake of PM Julia Gillard’s announcement of a royal commission to investigate allegations of institutional child sex abuse, Cardinal George Pell bleated about how the Church was the victim of a smear campaign by the media. He also went on to defend the Seal of Confession, a Catholic sacrament whereby priests are forbidden to divulge the confessions of penitents, calling it “inviolable”. Here is Pell’s suggestion for how priests can avoid being caught between a rock and a hard place:

If the priest knows beforehand about such a situation [of sexual abuse], the priest should refuse to hear the confession. […] That would be my advice, and I would never hear the confession of a priest who is suspected of such a thing.

What an odious, and utterly impotent, piece of advice. Pell is basically telling his underlings that they’re better off turning a deaf ear to possible cases of sexual abuse rather than ‘violating’ a Catholic injunction against snitching. How does refusing to hear the confession of a child abuser help to bring him to justice? To protect innocent children?

Cardinal George Pell

 

Independent senator Nick Xenophon has called the Seal of Confession “a medieval law that needs to change in the 21st century”, and stated that “Church law, canon law, should not be above the law of the land.” Others agree, as the ABC reports:

New South Wales Premier Barry O’Farrell, who is a Catholic, says he cannot fathom why priests should not be required to pass on evidence of child abuse to police.

“I think the law of the land when it comes to particularly mandatory reporting around issues to do with children should apply to everyone equally,” Mr O’Farrell told AM.

“How can you possibly, by the continuation of this practice, potentially continue to give... a free pass to people who've engaged in the most heinous of acts?”

Federal Liberal frontbencher Christopher Pyne, who is also a Catholic, believes criminal law should take priority over church rules when it comes to child abuse.

“If a priest hears in a confessional a crime, especially a crime against a minor, the priest has the responsibility in my view to report that to the appropriate authorities,” Mr Pyne told ABC News.

“In this case the police, because the church nor the priests should be above the law.”

If Australia is to remain true to its secular principles, the laws of any religious body must not take precedence over civil laws. The Catholic Church in particular is notorious for its primary allegiance to the dictates of the Holy See in Rome, and will often give those dictates priority over the laws of the country in which the Church operates. Whether it concerns abortion, contraception or gay marriage, the Church holds its laws to be above those enacted by civil, secular society. Such insolence must not go unchallenged.

Of course, the elephant in the room is that the very idea of the Seal of Confession depends on the belief in ‘sin’, a ludicrous concept that underpins almost every Christian doctrine. Without it, there would be no need for a formal rite of ‘confession’, no need for priests to wrestle with both the demands of morality and the demands of the Church, no need for Pellian loopholes where terrible crimes are ignored to avoid ‘sinning’ by breaking the Seal of Confession. It is the idea of ‘sin’ itself, among other religious dogma, that is the cause of much harm inflicted by the Church.

14.11.12

The Catholic Church deserves to be targeted

PM Julia Gillard has announced that there will be a royal commission set up to investigate allegations of institutional child sex abuse in Australia. This has been a long time coming, and it’s certainly welcome news. Even though pedophile Catholic priests immediately come to mind, the Australian reports that “[t]he inquiry will not be confined to the Catholic Church, but extend to all religious organisations and to children in state care, and into other institutions including schools.”

Now, don’t get me wrong. The commission should indeed investigate allegations of child sex abuse wherever they may have occurred. But when Opposition leader Tony Abbott and Cardinal George Pell whine about how the Catholic Church is being “targeted” and that the commission should be “wide-ranging” and not “focus solely on the Catholic Church”, they are being obscenely disingenuous. Abbott, who is Catholic, and Cardinal Pell are high-status members of a global organisation that has aided and abetted child molesters and sexual predators within its ranks for decades, an organisation that often shows outright contempt for civil laws because it considers itself subject only to the laws of its own theocracy.

As Labor backbencher Senator Doug Cameron observed, if the “extremely powerful and politically influential church was confident abuse was no longer occurring, it had nothing to fear from a royal commission,” and also that the church should rightly be the focus of any commission because “that’s where the major problem seems to be.”

Julia Gillard’s assurance that the commission will not discriminate is simply political correctness. Many of us are not fooled by the false equivalence being made. The Catholic Church’s role in child sex abuse and its subsequent cover-up is proportionately large enough to warrant a commission of its own. That the government has decided on a more extensive investigation should be considered an undeserved courtesy by petulant Catholics like Tony Abbott and Cardinal Pell.

13.11.12