I was going to write a post about how the recent “Dawkins is going to arrest the Pope” meme took off, then fell in a ditch. How it was for the most part, a fabrication of a News Ltd newspaper; kind of suss from the outset; how some people seemed to lap it up (especially on Facebook); how there was this stupid photoshopped picture of Hitchens and Dawkins arresting the Pope doing the rounds (with Dawkins sporting a mullet); but…
It seems that’s already been done. Go check out Rebecca Watson’s take on things. Almost identical to mine, so defer to her description of how things unfolded.
And as for how this stunt is going to hurt organised skepticism (not Rebecca’s take on things) – well.
To ‘skeptics’ fond of making these kinds of silly assertions about how Dawkins is making it all so much worse for us, you weren’t skeptical. You fell for a dodgy bit of journalism in The Times*. Rather than double-check, like a good skeptic should, you just accepted it on face value and used it to prosecute this ongoing, faux-skeptic concern trolling you’ve got going. It’s tiresome.
To ‘skeptics’ who thought this was all a good thing – you should be embarrassed by your credulity. And whoever it was that made that photoshopped Dawkins-mullet picture, I’m not saying that you’re stupid – but smart people can do stupid things from time to time. If you’re a smart person, this is one of those stupid things. Take it as a lesson learned.
And to both camps of people, pro-Dawkins fan-boys and anti-Dawkins concern trolls, who screwed this one up – this may just be one small screw up in an otherwise excellent skeptical track record (I’m assuming this is the case for Massimo Pigliucci – whom like Rebecca, I have no shortage of respect for). If so, admit it, forgive yourself, learn and incorporate this learning into your future analysis.
However, for some of you it could also be one in a line of repeated failures.
If it is – another in a line of failure – please consider that you may be competing for air with skeptics more competent than yourself. How do you see yourself helping skepticism? By lecturing skeptics who are better at skepticism than you? By drawing attention away from best practice skepticism, just to highlight your own questionable work?
I’ll tell you what doesn’t help skepticism – vain posturing. If you’re one of these concern-trolling or fan-boy breeds of not-very-good-skeptic, and you still care about the skeptic movement, here’s what you can do.
One – Stop wasting time conversing across other skeptics and telling them how to do what they’re better at and instead use that time to develop your critical thinking skills. Not only will you be able to give more to skepticism, but you’ll benefit personally as well.
Two – Find skeptics with a good track record for factual accuracy (like Rebecca Watson, Dr Rachie and a host of others) and until your wares are worth promoting, start promoting their work instead.
Skepticism isn’t supposed to be an exercise in posturing, self-promotion and in-house politics.
Could we have some decorum now?
~ Bruce
* Update (20/04/2010): A correction – I wrote “The Daily Terror”, when the original article was actually published in The Times.
I’m rolling around apoplectic at the moment. (No not really, I’m being sarcastic – this is all a bit of a laugh).
A few weeks ago, although while busy, I was going to start-up a thread about the historicity of Jesus because the blog post where it was being discussed, wasn’t dedicated to the topic. The intended stimulus was to be a YouTube video with Christopher Hitchens replying to Dinesh DeSouza about why the question of Socrates existence doesn’t matter compared to that of Jesus (one deals in argument, the other in revealed truth couched in divine authority), and the reason why Hitchens believes there may have been a Jesus under the mythology.
It wouldn’t have been a long post, but it would have provided a place where the afore-mentioned discussion could have taken place.
Now I was too busy to join in at any great length (the same reason why the historicity of Jesus thread never took off, and still sits in my drafts bin), but as far as I could tell from keeping an eye on things, people were being polite and there were no complaints. Even though John was doing a lot to politely entertain off-topic discussion.
You’d think that’d keep people happy.
Apparently not. In an article entitled “why debating atheists online is a fruitless pursuit”, Steve Kryger tells us…
Now the only atheists in the debate in question were John and yours truly, and I wasn’t really a contender – I just politely allowed the increasingly off-topic discussion to continue on my blog. John was pretty much the only atheist debater, so I guess this means that what Steve is saying, at least in this instance, is that debating John is a fruitless pursuit.
Given John’s patience, I think the least Steve could have done is said thanks for the discussion!
But no. Apparently John, along with the thread, gets lumped in with three choice comments Steve quotes from The Sydney Morning Herald.
“When reasoned debate is confronted by unreasonable faith, it is hardly surprising that the standard of the discussion is lowered. But to blame the reasoned debater for that outcome is surely unfair.”
“Let’s put Richard Dawkins’s comment about Steve Fielding in perspective. Dawkins had just sat next to a man – a senator, no less – who weakly and ineloquently confirmed on national television his belief that the earth is about 6000 years old. The real issue here is how anyone espousing such a belief and all that comes with it, particularly someone who makes decisions affecting all of us, escapes with a mere name-calling.”
“Neil Ormerod says ridicule does not pass for reasoned argument when it comes to considering candidates for sainthood, yet considers a reasoned argument to be: ”If medicine can’t yet account for it, it must have been God.” Ridicule is exactly what he should expect.”
It’s not exactly the worst company to be lumped in with. There’s nothing to get worked up about with respect to the first quote.
The second quote, is frankly, quite fair. Calling an individual senator (or Tony Blair for that matter) stupid, for venturing a stupid idea, isn’t exactly outside the bounds of normal discussion and therefore can hardly be indicative of a special problem with atheists – the only thing you can criticise Dawkins for on this matter is not being a complete saint (unlike the rest of us?) and for not having the rhetorical flair of Paul Keating. (Furthermore, you can’t reasonably construe a specific criticism levelled at an individual Christian as a general statement about Christians).
And if Paul Keating laid into Steve Fielding, would you then take his commentary as damning everyone who’s tribally Catholic? No double standards need apply, thanks.
As for ridicule – the mere act of pointing out that an idea or behaviour is ridiculous, is an act of ridicule. Democracy needs such ridicule of ideas and behaviours that are evident in the public square – which in the matter of sainthood was the case after our Prime Minister entered the discussion and effectively endorsed the sainthood of Mary MacKillop.
You can’t automatically equate this ridicule with abuse, and there are a host of spurious conclusions that don’t follow as well.
The general attitude of atheists towards Christians seems to be “We don’t have to be polite because you’re stupid”.
Now Steve didn’t just reach this straw man from the above quotes and John’s polite behaviour alone. Oh no.
He lists a number of articles as influential, including (surprise, surprise) Andrew Bolt’s utterly wrong-headed accounts, Melanie Phillips’ misleading jeremiad and some of Barney Zwartz’s problematic accounts. All of which have been compromised by bias, errors of fact and fanciful moral posturing. (At least Barney made an unequivocal retraction on one of these errors – which is better than Andrew Bolt’s non-retraction).
Being on the 17th of March, Steve’s post was on the cusp of the breaking of the story about how misleading these articles were, so you can forgive him somewhat for being mislead. Somewhat… You can see from the lead-in Steve makes on the topic, if you navigate back into his earlier posts, he was waiting for these consoling conclusions. And you don’t see him correcting his stance later on.
Furthermore, when selecting quotes from the comments threads of articles, why didn’t he notice the contributions made by his fellow critics of atheists. Applying the same standard when selecting quotes would have him choosing gems like…
“I’d bundle them all up with Paul Keating(aka the ugly mouth) and send them all off to some Muslim land marked “Never to be returned”” – Echo, 17th march.
“What I think is far less in doubt, is that if a vote had of been (sic) allowed on the 1935 Nuremberg Laws of Nazi Germany, Deveny’s type would have voted resoundingly in the laws favour!!” – Kiwi, 16th march.
…and…
“I can’t stand Catherine Deveney (sic). I saw Q&A;last night and she was so rude and arrogant. She is the reason why so many men decide to stay single.” – George P, 16th march.
Well, at least one of them is able to criticise Paul Keating! (Too bad Echo is too far cruder than Keating or Dawkins to be able to criticise free of hypocrisy).
Notably, all these comments are from only a couple of the threads of articles Steve linked to – I could go on. Oh, how I could go on! Only the comment by Echo can reasonably be assumed to be free from a supposedly fair scanning for quotes – being early on the 17th, but perhaps not before Steve posted his article.
At any rate, Steve’s obvious double standards aside, his conclusion – that the general attitude towards Christians seems to be “We don’t have to be polite because you’re stupid”, is unsupported. It’s not supported by the spurious articles he links to. It’s not supported by the quotes he cites.
Steve accusation is not in any way supported by the discussion in the thread of this blog that he linked to. Discussion here was quite polite, and frankly, quite generous to a fault.
And this is why debating with Christians like Steve Kryger is fruitless. (Note, I’m being far more specific in my scope that Steve is).
If you give them time and a polite forum, they won’t thank you for it, even if they aren’t entitled to it to begin with. They’ll misconstrue ridicule of an idea (essential in public discussion), as personal attacks.
They’ll misconstrue valid, personal criticism of individuals as smearing of an entire group of people. Yet they’ll damn and smear their interlocutors, like John, without a fair hearing.
They’ll hold their hands out for comforting allegations against their interlocutors, without due consideration of the truth of these allegations. And they won’t take into account the behaviour of people on their side of the debate when claiming the moral high ground of the home team.
A properly functioning civil discussion doesn’t brook this kind of mental gymnastics. Honesty is the coinage of the realm.
And this is why apologetics of this style – the kind that puts words in other people’s mouths, applies uneven standards and makes baseless accusations – has to withdraw from debate with atheists engaging in genuine, civil discussion (as ably demonstrated by John – read it – John’s not just being civil, but downright nice). It’s bankrupt. It can’t meet the price of admission – i.e. being honest.
All this kind of apologetics does is console its adherents with fanciful narratives about why they’re not ‘barbarians’ like everyone else, allowing them to hold their nose high in indignation. Safe from having to listen to members the unwashed masses like poor old John.
To be honest, it seems a lot like what the likes of Steve Kryger accuses Dawkins of.
Projection anyone?
Maybe I’ll start that historicity of Jesus thread another time, when I feel generous again.
As a part of Easter messages in Australia, atheists have copped an earful.
My first thoughts, aside from a mild irritation brought on by the sheer silliness of the claims, were that this was a beautiful thing. Yes.
I still feel this way today.
Dr Jensen
It was reported that Sydney Anglican Archbishop Dr Jensen, as part of his Easter address started out with a critique of atheists, that included sentiments along the lines of…
“It represents the latest version of the human assault on God, born out of resentment that we do not in fact rule the world and that God calls on us to submit our lives to him.”
Dr Jensen’s Christianity represents the latest version of the human assault on The Flying Spaghetti Monster, born out of resentment that we do not in fact rule the world and that the FSM calls on us to submit our lives to him. Submission to the laws of the FSM which conveniently coincide with my own opinions.
Flattering? No. But it should give any Christians who share Dr Jenson’s sentiments towards atheists, an idea of how silly his remarks look to the godless.
The fact that these ludicrous ideas about atheists are held by one so respected and educated (even if a bit too conservative on industrial relations and the ethics of science), someone so mainstream, is telling. This is why I welcome Dr Jensen’s remarks.
Mr Pell
In addition to some pretty questionable historicism about Rome and Christianity, wherein it was reported that George Pell claimed that in relation to a host of Roman ills, “Christianity changed all this” (in relation to a host of then Christian norms, didn’t Rome change “all of this”?), George Pell reportedly belittled the role of the godless with a particularly silly statement.
“But we find no community services sponsored by the atheists.”
Mr Pell may be controversial, but he’s no pariah. At least in as far as public discussion goes – he’s taken seriously even if his own congregation aren’t particularly fond of him.
And even allowing scope for interpretation, in case he’s become victim to the ‘Pope… Nazi’ effect (even though his remarks weren’t off-the-cuff like Dawkins’), it’s hard to find an interpretation any less silly. At least I can’t find one.
On-off, over the last ten years, I’ve been a volunteer for the Salvation Army, and I’m an atheist. My mother, an atheist, works for Centrecare – the Australian Catholic welfare agency. I wonder if George Pell’s sermon will be cause for awkwardness when she returns to work next Tuesday.
Non-church-based community services like ITShare, that frankly do better work than the church alternative, community services that don’t turn away support from atheists (or anyone else), are well worth the attention of the George Pell’s of the world. They do their good work in spite of two major obstacles.
Churches have an advantage – they have traditionally been seen as a source of welfare and have historically been a focal point for people’s good will, theist or not. This has resulted in a monolithic welfare infrastructure that newer providers have to compete with.
The playing field is still rigged. It’s easier to become a community service provider if you’re church based. This historical advantage attracts more tender from government (atheists do pay taxes), and the automatic religious tax-exempt status makes it easier going than for secular charities who have to jump through all sorts of hoops to demonstrate not-for-profit status. Church based institutions simply aren’t held to the same standard of accountability, and are the beneficiaries of greater government largess.
If you keep this in mind, along with the fact that non-church based community services don’t usually advertise that they aren’t church-based, and that atheist sponsors and volunteers are largely happy to use the existing infrastructure and to work alongside religious people, you’ll understand why you don’t see “atheist charity” left, right and centre. Atheists have been quiet contributors to the welfare of a secular Australia.
But it’s not just George Pell that thinks this. And even if most Australians don’t think it, they don’t need to in order for the problem to have unacceptable consequences. All it takes is a minority with institutional power, and a public that doesn’t realise that there’s a problem.
I once dropped into SA Unions (then still the UTLC) for a chat with their then youth officer a few years ago. I told her of a workplace in Adelaide run by a powerful member of the Paradise Community Church congregation that at the time, filtered the non-Christians out of their workforce. In response to which she told me that resolving discrimination complaints against religious not-for-profits, were common business.
I can remember having my own naivety broken by this – I was talking about a private, for-profit enterprise. I hadn’t entertained the notion that discrimination was happening amongst the altruistic, supposedly moderate, end of Christian not-for-profits.
Eventually, seeing the relative difficulties non-church not-for-profits had in setting up shop, seeing a couple of non-Catholic teachers being fired from secular roles in federally funded Catholic schools, and later finding out from a appalled staff member, that I’d been denied a secular job position by a religious not-for profit on the grounds of my atheism, the truth hit home. There’s a problem.
Heck, it’s not just that people are being discriminated against that’s the problem. It’s not good for the provision of community service. Things turned out more or less okay for me; I wasn’t that set back by the job refusal. What was absurd was that it turned out that I wasn’t replaced by anyone; the needed, specialised skills that I could have provided were denied the service recipients. It hurt their operation more than it hurt me!
If you really care about the provision of quality community service, then this has to get to you. This, as opposed to just being discriminated against, is why it gets to me.
The support given to religious community services by taxpayers and voluntarily by atheist individuals, and the support of non-church-based community services by atheists, is taken far too much for granted. This occurs at an institutional level, and thanks to poor awareness I think it’s allowed to do harm where institutions are mandated to do good.
Reform to the apparatus of secular pluralism is needed in Australia – especially where taxation, government funding, the church, and not-for profit organisations are concerned.
I welcome George Pell’s comments, bringing attention to the matter. Even if he’s wrong. Especially because he’s wrong.
Mr Fisher
Then we have Anthony Fisher, who is apparently tipped as George Pell’s future replacement, reportedly saying…
“‘Last century we tried godlessness on a grand scale and the effects were devastating; Nazism, Stalinism, Pol-Pottery, mass murder and broken relationships: all promoted by state-imposed atheism or culture-insinuated secularism.’”
Oh dear. Stalinism and “Pol-Pottery” weren’t pushed by atheism; Stalinism and “Pol-Pottery” pushed atheism. It’s like saying that canned peas pushed Soviet communism; i.e. back-to-front.
You honestly and sincerely have the conviction that canned peas are a good thing? Oh no! We can’t have you going too far in our culture; you may turn our nation into a Soviet state!
And as for Nazi ideology being born of atheism, that’s just plain stupid.
For a start, Nazism, and European totalitarianism of the time in general, were born of a hodge-podge starting conditions – an array of causes. Singling any one cause out is inherently wrong-headed to begin with, but it gets worse.
Nazi ideology selectively borrowed from Christian culture and had plans for its own bizarre Aryan supernaturalism. Mein Kampf talked of the virtue of mandatory religious education in schools. And the anti-Semitism that was integral to the holocaust, where did that come from? Which particular institution had been pushing that particular non-virtue for over a thousand years prior to World War II? Where did the Nazis borrow the idea of the collective guilt of Jews for the death of Christ? Hmmm?
There is obviously a case to be made for the role of modernism in the rise of early 20th century totalitarian ideologies. There is obviously a case to be made that the works of individual philosophers who happened to be atheists were a part of the bigger mix – Marx more obviously for Sovietism, Nietzsche not so obviously for the totalitarian right.
But these instances of atheism are far from the only conditions the totalitarian ideologies were born from, and as far as I can see there’s little indication that it was the godless aspect of these philosophies that led to disaster. Marx, in commenting that religion was “The Opiate of The Masses”, was alluding to its pervasiveness as something that can’t be wiped out. Contrary to some readings.
People seem to forget that living conditions aren’t what they are today. The start of the 20th century was a period of deep unrest with a lot to contribute in the way of angry, authoritarian motivations.
As for Fisher’s implication that godless societies are doomed to selfishness and totalitarianism – this is just empirically false. Denmark and Sweden are largely without God, but their societies are particularly harmonious, and demonstrate a greater than normal level of cooperative norms (i.e. they value welfare more than most nations). Clearly Fisher is wrong.
If Mr Fisher is to become the head of Australia’s Catholics, even if he isn’t well liked by Australia’s Catholics, then he’s likely to be treated with a degree of deference and taken seriously. Yet he harbours absurd notions about a good portion of the Australian population and as he has shown, isn’t afraid to use his position to foment sectarianism. This deference is a problem.
Thankyou and Happy Easter!
Dr Jensen, Mr Pell, Mr Fisher – I thank you for these gifts. Quite sincerely.
For too long atheists in Australia, especially the noisy ones, have been asked why they’re complaining as if it were self-evident that we live in a society that at least if not made up of a majority of tolerant, secular people, was free of institutionalised sectarianism. At least to the extent of it not being a problem worth complaining about.
This, more than many things, has been an obstacle for Australian atheists trying to get a point across.
Easter of 2010 can now be celebrated when this point of public debate was decided. There is a problem and now it’s obvious.
The message, even if wrong, is welcome.
This isn’t cause for mere atheist triumphalism – a recognition that Australia’s religious leaders are rattled. This isn’t something for atheists to get angry about – it’s too pathetic for that – anyone not already sold on the message of the atheist bogeyman isn’t going to take this bile on board. Australian atheists don’t have to worry about being fired or lynched by Christians any more than they did last week.
This is a win for secularism. Thanks to the credibility of Dr Jensen, Mr Pell and Mr Fisher, the issue – sectarian privilege and contempt over and toward atheists – is now out there in the mainstream; open for discussion. It was never a fringe concern, and now for the first time, it really doesn’t look like one.
I really, quite sincerely, thank these men for sacrificing part of their holy weekend to make functional secularism (and the secular provision of welfare – thank you Mr Pell!) a hot topic. Couldn’t have done it without you, guys!
Dr Jensen, Mr Pell, Mr Fisher – Happy Easter!
~ Bruce
Update (4/04/2010): Edited a few errors here and there.
And yes, in the face of it all, it appears that The Pope is playing the victim card. For being criticised. How was criticism not deserved? How is this criticism worse than what it criticises? Even if you made the most outlandish criticism with poor regard for the details, that wouldn’t seem as bad to me, as the offence committed under the most reasonably charitable interpretation of events. This isn’t ethics, this is PR.
And if this moral turpitude isn’t bad enough his holy-rollerness is yet to make a statement on Uganda’s proposed ‘kill the gays’ bill, popular with conservative Christendom in that part of the world (and in Rwanda). How hard is it? How much more serious is everything else on the agenda?
And that’s enough religion and related matters for now…
The Internet Filter
The Electronic Frontiers has generated a list of the top ten lies about Conroy’s Internet Filter. Something to start you on your way to researching the topic, if you plan to look further into it.
And that’s about that for this tab purge. In case you were wondering, no I didn’t make it to the end of this post without Firefox crashing. Which suggests that maybe I should again stop using Firefox.
As much as I’ll loathe repeating an advertisement for Windows 7, there’s one that illustrates a serious point.
Here’s the really, really, really simplified run-down of the benefits and short-comings of software like this.
It’s fallible. It will produce false positives. It will let the occasional unwanted content through. But so will Conroy’s Internet Filter.
You don’t have oversight over what makes the blocklist. But that’s true of Conroy’s Internet Filter as well.
It doesn’t encourage the horse-trading of votes in the senate. Conroy’s Internet Filter probably will.
It can be bypassed by anyone with the know-how. So can Conroy’s Internet Filter.
It (Windows 7) costs money. But Conroy’s Internet Filter does and will – in tax dollars and in ISP costs.
You can switch it off if it gets in the way of legitimate work. You can’t turn off Conroy’s Filter.
Opting in for this as a Microsoft support feature doesn’t place an imposture on your neighbour. Conroy’s Internet Filter will.
Microsoft’s Parental Control feature is an relatively elegant, simple solution to a problem. Conroy’s Internet Filter is a particularly costly, clumsy, inefficient piece of technology.
First of all, seeing as we’re on the topic of bias, I’ll make a disclaimer relating to the content of this post.
Andrew Bolt, whose work is criticised in this post, is a member of my extended family.
I’ve never met him in person, our paths merely having been near misses. But outside of my own family nucleus, his sister’s household is easily the family residence I frequent the most. She’s a good person and her husband, a cousin of mine, is almost a brother to me.
This compromises me in some ways. On occasion, I’ve consciously withdrawn from discussion of his writing, simply because things became too personal. I have an unwillingness to generate any ill-feeling in the family, and that includes Andrew.
I suspect I’d be more excoriating if I didn’t have this association.
When you come to something with different preconceptions, you can’t always be guaranteed to walk away with the same conclusions.
Something to keep in mind when considering what I’m writing here.
‘Pope Nazi’
A prominent atheist at a prominent convention of atheists, using the words ‘Pope’ and ‘Nazi’ in the same sentence, was bound to cause a stir. Independently, both words can provoke preconceived notions that can frame a discussion before one even knows what’s being discussed.
I’ve been going to write a post about the whole ‘Pope Nazi’ affair since earlier this the week when the misquotes first became apparent. Like Andrew, I didn’t go to the convention. In undertaking an analysis of the media reporting of the convention, I’ve relied upon correspondence with a number of convention goers – notes for a book I’m trying to write. Given my methodology, I thought it prudent not to go with first appearances or accounts.
When I first heard of the words ‘Pope’ and ‘Nazi’ being uttered by Dawkins, an account that Barney Zwartz of The Age appeared gob-smacked in response, and having seen this kind of thing happen before, I expected confusion. That’s how I framed the issue in my mind from the outset – those were my expectations.
The emerging response was for a number of journalists to report that Richard Dawkins had called Pope Benedict XVI a Nazi. Tracey Spicer, Barney Zwartz, Melanie Phillips, and importantly, Andrew Bolt, amongst others, reported this as fact. As it turned out, this was wrong.
Andrew, in spite of the evidence of his error, has once again dug in his heels.
How does Andrew swat aside criticism of his mistake this time? In responding to a video of the alleged slur, Andrew expressed incredulity at The Australian Skeptics for not seeing Dawkins ‘sneering’ at Pope Benedict XVI. Going on to say…
“Which only proves that these sceptics aren’t sceptical at all in rushing to believe what suits them best. A sad case of confirmation bias, I’m afraid, but we’ve already seen on Insiders how non-sceptical the Skeptics really are when it comes to their preferred faiths, such as global waming (sic).”
I’m sure this will go down well with the atheophobes in Andrew’s audience who insist that us Godless types are just rebelling against an apparently self-evident God. (If not the creationists, history and climatology deniers that make up a good portion of Andrew’s audience).
Andrew is being bloody-minded. The video clearly shows Dawkins briefly listing people who are in line for canonisation such as Mary MacKillop, and when he gets to Pope Pius XII, who was controversially elevated to ‘Venerable’ last year, he falters with his name and off-the-cuff, being pressed for an answer, finishes off with ‘Nazi.. whatever…’ after stumbling with ‘Pope…’ The ‘sneer’ is imaginary; ‘cheer’ would seem a more accurate interpretation of the tone from where I’m sitting.
Watch it yourself.
For pity’s sake, being recognised as a saint by the Catholic Church is official recognition that someone is in Heaven – Pope Benedict XVI isn’t even dead yet. How on Earth could Prof. Dawkins be talking about Benedict XVI? He was talking about Pius XII – the WWII Pope who refused to condemn, or officially recognise the genocide even when it was reported to him by his own clergy.
Accurate? There is enough established history to make this a fair off the cuff remark. To go into minutiae over this is to take the remark far too literally.
The best rhetoric? No.
But imperfect delivery of off-the-cuff rhetoric, isn’t want Dawkins is being charged with. Andrew is alleging barbarism!
My interest in all of this is not to defend Richard Dawkins. He’s quite able to do that himself if he feels the need. Being in the process of writing a book about the misrepresentation of atheists (with sections dedicated to how prominent atheists are misrepresented to draw inferences about atheists more generally) my interest should be clear; if I’m defending anyone, I’m defending atheists against misrepresentation.
Andrew, and others, have used the misquote to draw inferences about attendees at the atheist convention.
Interestingly enough, Andrew mentions cognitive bias. Before I even read this tripe from Andrew, I wanted to talk about cognitive bias in relation to the misquote. So let’s talk about cognitive bias.
Cognitive bias
Upon waking on Monday, I found I had a series of tweets directed at me, a friendly challenge for me to defend Prof. Dawkins; which I did at some length (albeit somewhat facetiously). I needed more information before drawing a conclusion. At this point, I didn’t even know which Pope Prof. Dawkins was addressing as ‘Pope… Nazi… Whatever…’.
Even if he’d called Pope Benedict XVI ‘Pope Nazi’, I didn’t think it impossible that he was being facetious, or otherwise not actually alleging that Benedict XVI was a Nazi. Improbable, perhaps, but not entirely impossible in my opinion. So I waited for more details.
As events unfolded during the week, new details arose, I was scooped on the early reporting of the ‘Pope Nazi’ misquote by the talented young Jason Ball (who unlike myself, was actually at the event), so my focus shifted towards analysis more focused on how these mistakes could be made, what and who they served, and their consequences. (I’ll still be researching this well after I’ve published this post).
Then Andrew went and plonked himself in the middle of the issue. I’d rather it was someone else.
Before the misquote story broke, in questioning a number of people who attended the convention, something interesting became apparent. The people I questioned were all atheists. They were all non-hostile to Prof. Dawkins. I’m left with the impression that these people were able to receive Dawkins in good faith.
Yet, from memory, all bar one thought Dawkins was talking about Pope Benedict XVI.
Now this sample of people who I interviewed wasn’t large enough to draw reliable inferences about the views of all or even people at the convention. I don’t pretend to know the distribution of the views of the entire population of convention goers. (It may be informative for future events of this kind to poll attendees on a range of issues – if only to counter media misinformation).
But this doesn’t mean that no implications can be drawn. I think that this exercise shows that it is at least conceivably possible for people to misinterpret these things even with the best of intentions, and even when witnessing them first hand. A group polarisation effect perhaps?
“Obviously, your opinion is your opinion and I’d never question your right to it, but since it’s pretty clear that you are incorrect about the “Pope Nazi” reference (and having been at the conference myself, I can confirm that your interpretation was incorrect), it would be very gracious of you to publish a correction in your next column.
It’s perfectly understandable you got this wrong, of course, because Prof. Dawkins’s remarks were reported wrongly across the media – but now that you know, I’m assuming you will be keen to correct the misconception.”
(Ben Pobjie, 2010)
As Michael Shermer sometimes likes to point out, we’re all human and we all have biases. The group of convention attendees I questioned makes this quite clear. But what kind of bias?
There is so much exaggeration of what Prof. Dawkins and other ‘New Atheists’ actually say and write out there, it’s not hard to imagine an observer expectancy effect. The critics of Dawkins et. al. coaching people to find offence, hence helping make sure they find it.
The observer expectancy effect is frequently used as an example by skeptics to demonstrate cognitive bias. For example in the case of imagined ‘backmasking‘, instead of telling an audience what is supposedly hidden backwards on an album, you simply play it backwards first, then tell them what to listen for and play it back again. The before and after are markedly different – something that really exposes what’s going on inside your head.
“You can’t miss it when I tell you what’s there.” – Indeed!
In discussion with one of the attendees of the convention who just happens to have psychology qualifications, the idea was floated that Barney Zwartz may have experienced some kind of aural pareidolia that caused him to hear something he expected to hear. Such was the degree of his misquote.
“‘…well, the real theologians like Pope Nazi believe in miracles.”
There are of course other cognitive biases than those I’ve mentioned that could be at work, and I’m in no position to draw strong conclusions. Whatever they may be, the take-home message in all of this is that when you come to something with different preconceptions, you can’t always be guaranteed to walk away with the same conclusions. Which makes it all the more important when making these kinds of accusations, to check your ideas against those of others, check with witnesses and double check your sources.
Intellectual myopia
The one-eyed troll doesn’t like the two-eyed dogma of the ‘Global Waming’ faith! He’ll ‘wam’ you with his staff if you aren’t careful. (Source: Deror).
We all have something of the one-eyed troll inside of us, but I’m not sure as an explanation, that it’s going to be able to get Andrew off the hook for much longer. Since accusing The Young Skeptics of confirmation bias, Andrew has gone on to make a non-retraction, along with a thinly veiled accusation of equivocation levelled at Prof. Dawkins.
“Like many journalists and, I’d guess, many of the audience, I assumed from Richard Dawkins’ slur that he was referring to the German Pope Benedict when he sneered at “Pope Nazi”.
Dawkins now insists he was vilifying another Pope (and also with monstrous unfairness) – and isn’t sorry at all, either, for his playground insult of Senator Steve Fielding…”
You’ll notice that Andrew doesn’t actually state that Prof. Dawkins was calling Pius XII, ‘Pope… Nazi… Whatever…’ Andrew states that ‘Dawkins now insists…’
Now insists? What else has he insisted? There is no sign of Prof. Dawkins actually taking a different position to this, other than some poor quotations.
And given that Ben Pobjie had already pointed out prior to Andrew’s previous post on the matter, that it was understandable that Andrew could have got this wrong due to the ‘Pope Nazi’ meme spreading across the media, why is Andrew raising the matter as a defence only now? Shouldn’t he have addressed it when he was first made aware of it?
‘But everyone else was doing it, and I knew two posts ago, and I’m not actually retracting it now anyway’ to me, doesn’t exactly evoke the kind of understanding that a proper retraction would. Rather it paints Andrew into a corner – the ‘everyone else was saying the same thing’ defence doesn’t work twice, and now he’s wasted it.
Does he think the line about Senator Fielding serves as some kind of insurance?
For pity’s sake, someone calling an MP more stupid than an earthworm for saying something silly, is hardly big news. It happens all the time. We all do it. What makes Prof. Dawkins’ utterance so special? When Ex-PM Paul Keating lets go with his particular brand of insult, it hardly draws this kind of attention.
I really wish Andrew wouldn’t keep doing this to himself.
~ Bruce
P.S. I’m sure I’ll be ‘wamed’ about a typo or two. It’s 4am here in Adelaide, and I’ve been furiously editing through the wee hours. Hey, it’s a blog, not a book – publish now, clean up later. Need sleep now.
Update (21/03/2010): Andrew has yesterday, in his (alleged) final word on the matter, come around to referring to the ‘Pope… Nazi… whatever’ quote as having to do with Pope Pius XII. It’s been an interesting trek this past week; wrong quote; alleging wrong quote is correct even after being shown evidence; non-retraction with the claim that quote is now supposed to mean what it always meant since the beginning and finally, referring to it correctly as if there had never been any doubt. But with a failed reductio as a cherry on top.
That’s right. If Pius XII is a nazi for not calling the genocide a genocide, then Richard Dawkins is al Qaeda for a point he made at the convention. Namely that if you are too afraid to challenge Islam, then you should at least be honest and do so out of fear, and not pretend to do so out of respect. Of course, Bolt mangles the meaning somewhat, and manages to catch himself in a Godwin.
What would Andrew have us believe? That Islam is rushing across Europe, crushing nations and leaving death camps in its wake?
At any rate, here’s Richard Dawkins, going easy on Islam. Or not. Make up your own mind.
All this posting in relation to the Atheist Convention in Melbourne is finally getting to me. There’s only so much you can do when you aren’t there – I’m limited to meta-analysis, picking apart terms and form of argument of people actually in attendance.
The flip side is that not being there, I’m relatively free from group polarizing effects. But that’s not good enough, really. Will have to wait from some empirical content before continuing. I haven’t found any suitable YouTube videos yet.
What I did see on YouTube, a couple of weeks ago thanks to Shane, was a nice clip from our childhoods. So without much ado, I’ll just post it so you can have a break from my usual waffle.
If this doesn’t make you feel guilty for laughing at Ronnie James Dio, then you have no heart.
There’s a time and a place for ridicule, and it spans public debate.
If you’ve wondered why vocalise atheists ridicule so much, here’s why.
Broadly speaking, they have a problem with the way things are being run. The necessitates criticism. Such criticism necessarily involves refutation and all refutation in essence involves pointing out the ridiculous. Which is what ridicule is – pointing out that something is ridiculous.
You can’t avoid it, other than to shut up and not complain – which is then necessarily what people ask for when they ask for ridicule in the public domain to stop.
The only time that ridicule is problematic is when the refutation that it comes from is for some reason invalid. Any further problem, such as tone and tact, aren’t a problem with ridicule per se.
All ridiculous ideas are deserving of ridicule – this is self-evident. All ridiculous behaviours are deserving of ridicule. The only difficulties involve questions of degree, context, who by and consequence.
You wouldn’t tell someone who’s life immediately depended on them believing in God, that there was no God and why. As Daniel Dennett says “Stop that crow!” – a reference to a thought experiment in which the crows prematurely told Dumbo that the feather he was given wasn’t magic. (Without which he would have failed to fly and have plummeted to his death.)
That’s not an appropriate time for ridicule.
Context can be messy. Does it need saying now? Will you bore the pants off of your audience? Or part of your audience? Is there some other positive content you would be better off investing your time in? Have you been putting off ridiculing what you should have been ridiculing years ago?
And the question of “who by?”, in the case of religion is probably best answered in a Jeffersonian light; acknowledging that there isn’t a right of inquiry into privately held beliefs (although in this setting, ridicule of one’s own ideas is still a good idea in general – critical thinking), but that public manifestations of faith are fair game for criticism by anyone. We all have an interest in the public sphere, and hence we all have a right to criticise. The idea that a group should stop what other people get to take for granted, is to argue for a stratified social structure.
And no caste of ideas deserves preference over another either – politics, menus, religion, musical taste or whatever.
There is of course, as case to be made for measured tone.
Religious homophobia is a repugnant thing. People who can’t disentangle their religious prejudice from matters of equality, behave in a repugnant fashion. It’s not some huge breach of required tolerance to call religious homophobia a stinking pile of shit, nor its practitioners ethically stunted bigots. It’s not beyond the pale.
It’s no more unacceptable to find the concept of the crucifixion of Christ obscene, than it is to be offended by the killing of cattle for meat.
It’s perfectly within the bounds of civil discourse to complain that the prejudicial view that science can’t inform our view of human nature, makes Francis Collins an inappropriate candidate for the head of the NIH – which funds research into matters of human nature. NIH Grant HD-18381 supported research that went into Steven Pinker’s ‘The Stuff of Thought’ – which surprise, surprise, draws conclusions about aspects of human nature. Work on psychopathy also, inevitably, draws conclusions about aspects of human nature as well.
But after making criticisms of Collins, Jerry Coyne, PZ Myers and Sam Harris were roasted by many, including Ken Miller, of prejudice against Collins for being a Christian. Which is silly considering that some of the silly ideological views of Stephen Jay Gould are also prejudicial of the mentioned works; if an atheist in this respect Gouldian were proposed as the head of the NIH, you can be damn sure those evil atheists would be ridiculing their ideas as well. (It was Gould’s ideological intrusions on science that cause much, if not most of his rivalry with Richard Dawkins).
Calling Ken Miller a “fuckwit” for example (not that I would), would be going far, far too far. Fortunately nobody who’s anybody, did. Calling his allegations dishonest and wrong however, would not be beyond the pale. And this is ridicule – Miller’s accusations were ridiculous.
Considering the very real consequences of this particular debate, and the level of acceptance of Ken Miller’s false account of the affair, and similar false allegations of bigotry against Christians, conduct like this deserves repeated ridicule. In other words it needs to be pointed out that the idea is ridiculous, as is the behaviour, and a certain about of rhetoric and criticism of character is not beyond the pale.
In relation to criticism of the public face of religion, The Global Atheist Convention in Melbourne is a suitable setting. Nobody in attendance is about to jump off a bridge, the audience isn’t likely to get bored (although apparently Tamas Pataki made a pretence at inclusiveness that didn’t go down well – not to mention he mangled the definition of atheism),
Yes, it can potentially get a bit boring. Yes, it can be poorly delivered. Yes, it can be done to the exclusion of better talking points. Yes, careless rhetoric can contribute to group polarisation. But none of this makes ridicule a bad thing in and of itself, nor does it automatically support claims by those with a vested interest, that a group of critics should steer their conversation in a certain way.
Critique of critique needs to be a bit more specific; what signs were there that boredom was a problem? How else could the same point have been couched? What was missed out on in lieu of ridicule? How was the group polarised and is this specific polarisation a problem? Why?
Something that tires me more than the most boring, pointless, repetitive ridicule is the seemingly endless repetition of calls for ridicule to end as if it’s an a priori truth that ridicule is a bad thing. It’s not!
The people over at ABC’s religion website have a blog running to cover the Atheist Convention called Questions of Faith. If I’m too scary, bigoted and angry for your tastes, you can head over there and talk shop with the nice people.
There was a post by one Chris Mulherin that got up my nose somewhat, over here. Here’s something I posted in the comments thread (albeit corrected for a couple of mistakes I’m slapping myself for at the moment).
Chris, before you start throwing the ‘New Atheism’ term around, you may just wish to know that the term first gained prominence in 1986 (hardly new), and was like now, used to smear atheists who spoke out of turn, alleging intolerance (where none was demonstrated), declaring dubious, totalitarian motives and so on. The author of the book first publicising the term, ‘The New Atheism’, Robert A. Morey, went on to brag about his advice to the Bush administration that they should nuke Mecca and Medina – and he was serious.
The contemporary usage of the term doesn’t seem to vary much in recent times either, as Tina Beattie’s ‘The New Atheists’ (2007) demonstrates – Just read the claim she makes about Daniel Dennett trying to keep the religious out of discussion of religion – by way of misquoting the opening chapters of his book ‘Breaking The Spell’. (Ostentatious in that properly quoted, she’d be forced to admit the contrary – that Dennett is engaging and encouraging religious people to participate in an exploration of religion as a natural phenomena). At least she isn’t asking anyone to nuke people, which I guess is something.
Madeleine Bunting used the term in a controversial article in The Guardian, where she used Sam Harris as an example of a ‘New Atheist’, misquoting his ethical speculations on torture and ethnic profiling to make it look like he supported torture and ethnic profiling. This rubbish is par for the course with critics of the so-called ‘New Atheism’.
And Chris, Dawkins is skeptical of the term ‘New Atheist’ himself, calling it ’so-called’ on several occasions. He did not, as you wrongly claim, use it to deliberately do anything – it’s not his device at all.
Here’s a hint for your stay at the convention – people at the convention will probably tend not to like being called a ‘New Atheist’, except perhaps ironically, subversively or tongue-in-cheek by in-group members. Think of it as kind of like another ‘N’ word that you probably wouldn’t want to yell out in Harlem, except not quite so extreme.
Furthermore, in future could you please give us some meaningful examples of where ‘…proponents of the new atheism often seem to turn to ridicule and belittling of those who they disagree with rather than respecting them’? And no, I don’t mean ridiculing ideas – a reductio ad absurdum does that necessarily, and we wouldn’t equate that with a lack of respect.
(And I don’t mean friendly jabs either.)
The atheist as angry, disrespectful and intolerant is a stereotype, so you’re going to have to be more specific and give specific examples if you want to come across as trustworthy, much less avoid propagating animus.
And for pity’s sake, when you talk about being throw to the lions when you’ve been invited by a bunch of friendly people, it makes you look like the kind of person who feels guilty for crossing the street to avoid someone who’s black – something that can be avoided by throwing out prejudicial assumptions and not crossing the street in the first place.
I’d wish you luck at the convention if I were a wish-thinker, so I’ll just hope you take some of this on-board instead.
Apparently Chris thinks that ‘New Atheism’ is a term that Richard Dawkins uses to activate and polarise the troops. Yeah, I know. Next “White Trash” will be a phrase that poor, white folk use to agitate themselves into class warfare against the fair and proper middle and upper class. Go figure.
There are other goodies I didn’t address. There’s the whole shifting the burden of proof, atheists being believers in the same sense as believers, atheist fundamentalism and other talking points that have been put to rest long ago. 1980s apologetics tropes that were the playthings of people on alt.atheism in the 1990s. You get the idea.
At least he didn’t call Dawkins a social Darwinist.
They’re getting less comments on their blog than I am, which is saying something, so why don’t you go and participate. Apparently Margaret is complaining about a lot of derision at the convention – no quotes of course – so continue to play nice (as I know you already do).
I like his writing on evolutionary biology quite a lot; par for the course considering the ecology component of my science degree. I like his rebuttals of creationism. Again, par for the course.
I didn’t think ‘The God Delusion’ was a bad book at all, and I think that if you account for what I think is a flaw in his defining of religion (thankfully excluding “Einsteinian religion”, but not some other forms that he also doesn’t talk about in the book), a lot of the perceived slights and oversimplifications go away. That being said, I wasn’t more informed in my atheism as a result of reading it – others may have been.
I don’t know what I think of Richard Dawkins as a person, at least in as far as the possibility of me liking him. I haven’t met him yet, and even if I had, it wouldn’t have been enough for me to draw particularly meaningful conclusions.
I suspect I may like him if I were given the chance, but this is hardly fandom for pity’s sake. I’m not sure I’d like him, I’m not sure he’d like me and I’m not sure I’d actually care.
I avoid the whole “never meet your heros” dilemma by not having them in the first place.
Some other things he’s said about religion have been sublime criticism, and other things I think have tended towards the crap end of the spectrum. Maybe I’ll change my mind. Maybe I won’t.
On average, I think he’s above average when writing about atheism. And if you think I’m treading on Dawkins’ territory in passing this judgement – I’ve never been religious and without coercion, I knew I was an atheist by around age 8. I’m well within my own turf here, thanks. Nobody owns atheism anyway.
I’ve The God Delusion three times so far. “BUT THAT MAKES YOU A FAN!”
No it bloody well does not.
I’m going to read it a fourth, and possibly a fifth time over the next year, and with good reason. I think it was back in 2007 that both AV and myself mused that the response to The God Delusion was more informative (to us) than the book itself. This has been my position from the start and it’s my position now. The truth be told, I’m not entirely looking forward to these re-readings – I’ve got other things I could be reading for the first time.
Moreover, while I’m very interested in Dawkins’ writing on evolutionary biology, I’m also very interested in the reader response to his writing on religion. In order to do this I need to be very familiar with his writing about and views on religion.
I’ve got the essays, the articles and the books. I’ve watched the documentaries, lectures, seminars, interviews and debates. But this does not make me a fan.
The book I’m writing relies in good part upon my being able to accurately critique reader response – or put another way, to accurately be able to identify the religious memes that misrepresent atheists – including prominent atheists which naturally includes Richard Dawkins.
How on Earth am I supposed to do this without being familiar with the material that initiates the response?
So for people with preconceptions about Dawkins that I just happen to challenge; my extensive reading of Dawkins does not make me a fan, it just makes me harder working on the topic than you are.
Get over it. You’re going to have to find something else, something valid and altogether more honest, to dismiss my critique of your preconceptions.
Do you have any idea how silly people look to me when they accuse me of being a “Dawkins fan”?
Given that I’m likely to give some commentary on the media response to the ‘Rise of Atheism’ convention (and in some ways I’ve already done that in the last two posts) I should make a disclosure.
I’ve been a member of The Atheist Foundation of Australia since January of this year (the crowd getting this convention together alongside Atheist Alliance International). And while we’re on the topic, I’ve had another affiliation change since leaving the ALP last year (over Conroy’s duplicitous and underhanded pushing of his ludicrous Internet Filter). Nothing political. I’ve just joined the SA Writers’ Centre.
So yes, I’ve joined two disparate herds of cats this year. No political parties. Nothing with a central dogma.
At the very least, I haven’t signed up to anything that would obligate me not to bag the ‘Rise of Atheism’ convention. It’s a free-thought organisation and I’m a free-thinker.
Free-thought whingeing
For example, I think ‘Rise of Atheism’, as conference title go, is a pretty crass and poorly thought out piece of triumphal wank. I think ‘Global Atheist Convention 2010′ is good enough on its own, and frankly, better on its own period. It draws unfavourable comparisons to B-Movie titles. ‘Global Atheist Convention 2011: Return of The Thing That Wouldn’t Die After Being Killed, After Being Given A Proper Burial, After Being Killed Twice Before, After Becoming Undead, After Being Killed By An Angry Mob The First Time Around – The Prequel’, isn’t a title I’d look forward to.
Don’t get the impression that I wouldn’t have liked to have been free to go along. I’m particularly interested in what Leslie Cannold, Russell Blackford, A.C. Grayling, Tamas Pataki, Taslima Nasrin, Peter Singer and Kylie Sturgess have to say, and wouldn’t have minded catching Julian Morrow and Craig Reucassel, but there are others that I’ve heard enough of for my own good, and others who I think don’t necessarily warrant a hearing.
As much of a mouthpiece as Dan Barker is, and high as his IQ may be, I think his greatest contribution is either in giving others a voice. Or in telling us tales of life-as-a-Christian which would be better told by the more disadvantaged ex-Christian. The voice he can buy with the royalties he makes off of the material he created to indoctrinate children in the ways of evangelical Christianity, is privilege enough without giving him an additional soapbox. Freedom of Religion Foundation not withstanding.*
And Catherine Deveny? She doesn’t have anything new or particularly bright to bring to the discussion – anecdotes of recent disillusionment going out cheap by the dozen. She’s there as a comedian, which is problematic considering that she’s not particularly good at it. Sure, she shouldn’t be outcast on the grounds of prejudice, but that doesn’t mean she should be sought out to begin with. Getting to speak at this convention is a privilege that warrants merit.*
You can be confident that my independence of thought, as a freethinker, is not compromised by my affiliation. Not that being a member of the ALP ever stopped me from expressing my opinions either.
And now there’s that plug to consider.
Blatant plug
For $30, as a non-member you can obtain a subscription to ‘The Australian Atheist’ from The Atheist Foundation of Australia. Or of course, you can join for one year for $25 ($15 student/pensioner/unwaged) and sign up for electronic versions to be emailed to you, but then you’d have to sign off as accepting the constitution. In either case, you can look here for more details.
What reason would you possibly have for doing that? Well the next issue has me in it for one! (Cue embarrassing silence).
Okay. Well it’s an exclusive article I’ve written for ‘The Australian Atheist’ that I’ll never blog-post, nor will I consider seeing it published anywhere else before AA has squeezed it for all it’s worth.
(Just don’t tell them the article isn’t about atheism or religion – I kind of snuck it past them. Sshhh!)
~ Bruce
Update (3/4/2010): I’m changing my mind about Dan Barker a bit. While a bit corny for my own tastes, having seen his debate with George Pell has left me considerably more impressed than before. And I still don’t find Catherine Deveny particularly insightful or witty, but reading some of what she did behind the scenes for the convention has impressed me as well.
First of all, let’s get the elephant out of the room. That moment.
I’ll paraphrase because it’s so soon afterward, and checking would cause a few logistical problems. That and my memory is still up to the task.
Sometimes I cringe at some of the things Dawkins says. Dan Dennett cringes at some of the things Dawkins says (religious memes = disease). And Hitchens cringes at some of the things Dennett says (“Brights”). And so on and so forth. Contrary to some of the stereotypes being peddled, this kind of disagreement is normal amongst “New Atheists”.
So with this in mind, a part of me cringes each time that Dawkins talks about “The Christian Positiontm“, or “if you are a…” then you believe X. It’s especially problematic when talking about the whole birth, death and resurrection business. If only because there are so many Christian takes on the position, and so many Christian takes on how to approach the issue.
I like clarity of terms more than most, but I don’t believe in reducing accuracy and/or precision in the name of clarity. There’s nothing “The” about “The Christian Positiontm” in relation to the birth, death and resurrection of Christ.
But this, while relevant, is just a pet peeve of mine, so I’ll get to the meat of it.
The charge levelled against Dawkins by other panelists wasn’t a lack of accuracy, but a lack of respect for other people’s beliefs – first by Julie Bishop, and then by Tony Burke, with the added charge of intolerance – which Dawkins didn’t get to respond to.
Given that Tony Jones, after re-affirming Dawkins’ above point, was spared a dressing down from Burke, this point isn’t what caused the inflammation. (Or maybe it’s not the point at all, but the person making it that matters – Tony Burke seemed unduly intimidated by Dawkins in the lead-up).
It was the “you can keep it!” phrase – in response to the value of the tale of the resurrection. It’s this I presume that Tony Burke called “ridicule”.
Okay, fine. It’s ridicule. (I think one could mount a defence that is isn’t, but that’d sidetrack this post).
So what? The tale of the resurrection has been proselytized in one form or another for 1800 years. You can’t reasonably expect that something that’s been so in people’s face for so long is beyond scrutiny, rejection or ridicule. There is nothing inherently wrong with ridiculing religious ideas.
And lets not forget that Dawkins was being questioned. There is something about the way his rejection was handled by Bishop and Burke that seems disturbingly similar to a spurned lover. Or disturbingly close to particular Orwellian interpretations of “secular” and “freedom” (HT: Liam Fox).
Australia (along with Canada) only just rejected the notion of the defamation of religion that was peddled at Durban-II, by boycotting the whole anti-Semitic farce. You should expect when you start defending ideas against defamation instead of protecting people, thereby trivialising actual intolerance, you’re going to leave yourself open to the adherents of actual intolerance.
Dawkins rejection of an idea was directed at the idea, not a group of people and not an individual. It’s not intolerance in any meaningful sense. Burke and Bishop need to stop pretending that disagreement on religion that’s in the public arena, is in any way significantly different from disagreement on points of politics.
But that’s just Qanda giving you your 8 cents worth.
More serious is a problem put to me by Dr. Jason Wilson. And in writing the book I’m trying to write at the moment, it’s something I’m going to have to address, albeit in more detail in the book than I will here.
“I guess my point is that it seems like a calculated attempt to limit the range of legitimate belief… that would seem to be the opposite of functional secularism – which is secure in Australia, and embraced by most religious ppl. You see what I’m saying? That open hostility to faith positions might weaken a particular form of secularism?”
(Jason Wilson, 2010)
I didn’t catch the start of Qanda, and thanks to a domestic communications monopoly, Jason missed out on a first viewing. I can’t confirm or deny from what I saw that Dawkins had called religious people deluded, although Jason was under the impression he had (or may have). After some semantic discussion, Jason his point down to the above.
I wouldn’t agree that there was a “calculated attempt”, on several grounds. First, it would be in stark contradiction to the dribs and drabs of Dawkins’ civics that you can pick up here and there. Second, it would be in explicit contradiction to the very permissive secular liberalism that the team of Dawkins and A.C. Grayling to to a public debate recently. And third, Dawkins is no political mastermind and Dawkins knows it – which is why premeditation is unlikely (and explains some of the obvious political mistakes Dawkins didn’t see coming from a mile away).
I don’t know how familiar Jason is with Dawkins et. el., but I’d like to think that after investigation, Jason would agree with me on this.
All the same, this doesn’t rule out the possibility that Dawkins’ rhetoric could inadvertently “limit the range of legitimate belief”. I’m not sure this is a problem either.
First of all, we don’t regard paedophilia and ritual homicide as legitimate beliefs, which tells us at least that we are willing to limit the range of legitimate belief if it robs people of their liberty – i.e. we are intolerant of intolerance. I’ll assume that Jason means the limiting of positions of belief ranging from apparently pointless but harmless, to defensible.
I think that according to what I can grasp of his tweeted logic, Jason may be forced to admit that there is a capacity for the likes of GrodsCorp, New Matilda and fake Twitter accounts do much the same with the range of legitimate belief – albeit at the differing levels of influence. In light of Jason’s notion above, I’m curious on his view in general of Scott Bridge’s comments on Fielding’s Pentecostalism over the years, or perhaps Ben Pobjie’s satire of Scientology.
The point I’m making isn’t intended to tie Jason to the “intolerance” of GrodsCorp, New Matilda and the fake Twitter accounts that he has an interest in. Rather, I suspect that Jason accepts that the satire and criticism put out by these authors are made in general in good faith. With allowances for acceptable human error of course.
I’d extend this to Dawkins, and the other “New Atheists” including Christopher Hitchens – the recognition of good faith in general, with allowances for acceptable human error.
I used to rail against Christopher Hitchens in stereotypical form. Only a couple of times in blogging but more often in real life. And I have to confess that this was undertaken in bad faith. I still have disagreements with many of Hitchens’ opinions – mostly involving the Iraq War and some of his more poorly thought out rhetoric. But, this narrative of Hitchens being a genocidal lap-dog of the neo-conservatives under the Bush administration, I’ve come to the conclusion, is phony.
The more you delve into the context of the man’s life, the more you find alternative motivations as more credible. And the more you delve into what he was actually writing during the years following 9/11, the more the lap-dog narrative finds explicit contradiction – his Slate article about Daniel Pipes in August of 2003 is particularly challenging to the myth. Lap-dogs for neo-cons don’t write off the likes of Daniel Pipes while at the same time talking up the likes of Edward Said. But Hitchens did – well after switching to an interventionist view of foreign policy. (Something Hitchens had adopted prior to 9/11 – from which he then criticised the Bush administration).
Hitchens is a more complicated individual, with more complicated ideas than may first be apparent. The myth surrounding him is misleading.
Tony Burke received Dawkins in prejudicial, bad faith similar to the way I once received Hitchens. And this I guess is my point.
Criticism and ridicule of an idea may push it outside the legitimate. But not accepting criticism in good faith (even if it’s made by way of ridicule from occasionally tetchy academics) has the effect of putting a range of criticisms outside “the range of legitimate belief” as well. The very notion that people should automatically respect ideas does just that – explicitly.
In good faith, I find racism and a host of other stupid notions to be stupid. I’m not going to respect them because some racist individual is made to feel uncomfortable. I’m not having my belief that racism is stupid (and I don’t mean just wrong – I mean stupid – let me emphasise my lack of respect for the idea) pushed outside “the range of legitimate belief” via a mandate of respect.
In good faith, I find team sports to be stupid – not just wrong but stupid. They’re training for the outgroup biases that are intrinsic to the game – team versus team and the assignment of superfluous gender roles. I’m not going to have my beliefs about team sports being stupid pushed outside “the range of legitimate belief” via some policy of mandatory respect. Maybe I’m wrong – I’ll gladly cede that a counter argument may be defensible, but I’m still going to call team sports a stupid idea in the meantime.
Criticism in good faith, even if wrong, isn’t the problem. It’s criticism in bad faith, and receiving criticism in bad faith that are the problems.
The problem isn’t the rhetoric of Richard Dawkins, or Christopher Hitchens, or Scott Bridges or Ben Pobjie, when made in good faith, that’s the kind of problem. If you want an example of critics who operate in bad faith, look to anti-liberal Geert Wilders*, or bogan-basher Catherine Deveny**. (I suspect that someone’s going to be unhappy with the comparison’s I’ve just made, but there you go.)
People need to get over their hurt feelings over the idea that someone may disagree with them – even think their ideas crazy. When there is public discussion, people need to get over the fact that their cherished ideas are open to ridicule if found ridiculous by others with an equal say in the public sphere. Qanda is such a public forum.
It’s attacking people for their ideas, and attacking people for their criticisms that’s intolerant. Alan Jones does it when he attacks people of Middle Eastern decent. And people do it each time they make a bogey-man out of Dawkins and/or the “New Atheists”.
What a liberal, secular society needs more of is not a notion of sacred ideas. What it needs is a greater acceptance of robust disagreement, criticism and ridicule of ideas***, and for people to find it in themselves to maintain good relations in spite of what ever hurt feelings this may cause.
I think the absurdity of all this boils down to one simple question; what needs your respect more, an idea or a person?
~ Bruce
P.S. It’s 3:40am. I’ll edit this rambling mess tomorrow.
* If you want “calculated attempts”, Wilders is your man. Makes my flesh crawl.
** I make no representation about Deveny’s criticism of religion, because after reading her classist vitriol attacking the disadvantaged and working class, I’m not sufficiently confident in her ability to consider her worthy of consideration.
*** Indeed, the reductio ad absurdum is an excellent tool for whittling away at bad ideas in good faith, but always has the effect of producing something that can be construed as ridicule of the idea it critiques. Are we to just throw it out because of the offence it may cause, in spite of the good advice it gives?
As I’ve mentioned before, I’ve been pondering decisions that have to be made in relation to writing this, my first attempt at a book.
Not the least of these decisions has been the issue of applying for a grant.
I’ve decided not to apply. I like the freedom this allows. For example…
The book isn’t a work of theology, but one of cultural criticism. Theology books aren’t eligible for the grant, and if the book was misconstrued as theology, which I think it could, I’d have problems if working under such an arrangement. The grant could be spiked, or my creative direction could be compromised.
And what if I changed my mind and side-stepped for a chapter, or a section, to criticise a piece of theology?
I don’t want that hanging over my head. I don’t want these kinds of constraints.
All the same, I intend to join the ASA, which is something that popped up during the process of looking into grants applications. There’s supposed to be an emerging writer’s initiative of some sort. I’m taking that much away from my investigations.
Decision #1 – “Forget the grant” – made.
The reality that this book, if it’s published, is going to piss people off is sinking in. It should be obvious really.
I’m aiming to challenge commonly held stereotypes, which some people seem to have a lot of emotional investment in. People will bristle.
Further to this, there is an idea that I will be pushing in the book – that atheists are just as entitled to have their fallibility and idiosyncrasies realised as anyone else. This raises an avenue for criticism.
Atheists calling theists “stupid” – it happens. There are instances where this is defensible, just as there are situations when calling an atheist “stupid” are defensible, but in general it’s not a good thing.
The question relevant to my point though, is do atheists actually have a propensity for this kind of behaviour, more so than theists? If not, it’s just a sub-set of a more general problem and there’s no good reason for singling atheists out. If not, “Or when the ‘nones’ – those who are anti-theist – [say] ‘You’re stupid‘”, is just an example of a stereotype. I’ll have to email Prof. Bouma to see what research he’s used to demonstrate (not speculate) that atheists actually excel in this behaviour.
On a more inter-personal level, confirmation bias and cognitive dissonance make things difficult when discussing these matters – especially with those that have a self-image of tolerance, but an easily demonstrable behaviour of prejudicial reasoning and atheophobia. The mental gymnastics and defensiveness are really difficult to put up with. Everything you say is parsed so as to be as possibly offensive as it could ever be, and often beyond.
If you make someone feel stupid, they’ll look for some way of accusing you for abusing them as stupid – my most favourite being the pretence that calling one of their ideas ludicrous or silly, necessarily infers that you’re calling them ludicrous or silly. Which is a stupid idea because smart people can believe stupid things.
It’s not that they’re necessarily nurturing their atheophobia (although that’s a possibility). It’s that they’re nurturing a self-image of being a tolerant person and being forced to realise their own animus towards godless people would shatter that self-image in a none to flattering manner. Hence criticisms made in good faith by atheists, of ideas put into the public square, become contorted into visions of hateful vilification by the overly defensive theist, and their assorted atheist and agnostic enablers. Whether or not these criticisms are correct is beside the point – criticisms made in good faith, but ultimately wrong, still don’t constitute vilification.
Entertaining this brutal dishonesty by being extra-nice is too great an imposture, even if this dishonesty is all too human. An obligation to entertain this necessarily presupposes the notion that atheists have a lesser status in society – having to do more to achieve the same level of participation in the public realm. I have no intention of entertaining the notion of second class citizenry.
Furthermore, this state of affairs robs the atheist of more general equality in communication.
I call my friends’ ideas stupid with great regularity. I call my friends stupid; “you silly plonka”; “you great galoot”; “MORON!”. It’s all done with a smile and a wink of course, and it takes someone somehow divorced from empathy not to realise this.
I could call Neil a “Godbotherer” and I rather doubt that he’d take offence – he’d know the spirit in which the comment was made. My closer friends are the same and the nature of these exchanges is mutual. It’s not abuse. Why shouldn’t one aspire for public discussion to be so candid and friendly?
This is relevant because I intend to write the book in a candid, familiarly tone so as to get closer to the reader. I’m not trying to establish a professional rapport with them – I don’t need that kind of clinical detachment.
Not that I’m going to call the reader a “galoot” or “MORON!”, if this thing does get published, then I’m resigned to the expectation that my idiosyncrasies are going to be taken the wrong way by people with an interest in doing so. But I’m not going to neuter myself because that’d undermine an important part of the message – atheists are just as entitled to have their fallibility and idiosyncrasies realised as anyone else.
It’s often pushed as a matter of practical politics amongst skeptics that you have to be extra nice when being contentious. This may be true with homeopathy, moon landing hoaxes and creationism, but when the matter being debated involves the equality of acceptable communication, I see the maintenance of such an inequality as counter-productive.
I’m not naive to realpolitik, I’m just not going to do it.
A community’s unwillingness to see atheist candour in the same familiarly manner as it would the candour of believers, is to deny atheists the same opportunity for familiarly relationships in the community. It’s prejudicial, based on a double standard and it’s inherently discriminatory. I’m not going to entertain it. I’m not going to wait for a climate of equality to be wilful, I’m going to be wilful for a climate of equality.
Further to this, I think readers that don’t need to be mollycoddled could rightly be offended if I served my arguments like a spoonfuls of baby food. “Look! Here comes the criticism plane! Open up! Vroooom!” That’s tantamount to calling the reader stupid!
Decision #2 – “No wrapping the reader in cotton wool” – made.
While considering whether to go ahead with a grant application, I was operating in accordance with the guideline that work on a project should not begin until a grant has been approved. All the same I wrote two test chapters for the book based on a tentative structure. While some of the content of these chapters are still usable, I’ve decided that the original direction was too technical.
Yes, I will still have technical content and technical terms, and statistics and whatnot. But the book is ultimately a polemic for a recognition of the way atheists are misrepresented, how this is taken for granted, and for this to change. It’s an appeal, not a technical manual and as such the form needs to be changed.
I’ll be using more rhetoric. I’ll use pop-culture references. I’ll be more personal. And with a mind not to violate the purpose of the book, I’ll try to have a bit of fun. It’s a bit of a sombre topic, so some light-hearted literary therapy is well advised.
And I’m happy with this new direction.
Decision #3 – “More prose, less technical” – made.
The understanding that this book project should commence until the grant has been approved was taken on board in light of a certain fact – that approvals wouldn’t be announced until well into the latter half of the year. Now that I’m not going to apply, the waiting time has hit zero. I’m officially starting on writing the book now – and yes writing; there’ll be more research to be done, that’s for sure, but a lot of it I’ve already got done – thanks to writing this blog for a few years. (There’s more data here at the back-end than I’ve referenced in the past few years).
Decision #4 – “Get started” – made.
Which leaves the issue of the fate of this blog. I had tentatively made plans for this blog to this year write a long series of blog posts based on an informal course of suggested readings.
That plan looks to be out the window.
I’d aimed to have had that finished by the time that grant approvals were announced. I can’t do that and write a book at the same time.
I still intend to blog away. However blogging would not only be steered away from the previous plan, but would also undoubtedly shift towards content more closely related to the book – both topically and on the matter of writing in general.
What’s more, I’ve already got a private, locked blog that I was going to launch after I’d put this one on mothballs towards the end of this year. Should I speed up the process and transition to the newer blog sooner?
The newer blog is to have an increased emphasis on my writing aspirations and projects-in-the-pipeline; a kind of open writer’s journal with a healthy smattering of topical posts. Aspiring writer blogs do have a hint of desperation about them, but that could actually be part of the charm, I think. With my first few tentative steps into the broad community of writers, I’ve seen how they huddle together in solidarity. The struggles, the open, candid expression of hopes and anxieties is attractive and interesting in a very human kind of way.
The cliché of the struggling writer, when realised via blogging may be a disgrace, but it’s a glorious disgrace.
The question is how soon I want to foul myself in public. (Some would say I’ve done that already).
Decision #5 – “Move on to the next blog” – undecided.
Anyone who really knows me, or at least knows how I think on the matter, knows that I don’t rush to override other people’s self-identification.
“Muslim? You’re not a Muslim! Where’s your beard?”
Self-identification is something that is an important part of everyone’s psychological make-up. A human without a concept of self, even if a selfless member of a collective, is missing something.
As an atheist, it’s particularly annoying when someone (in disingenuous, self-serving fashion) tells me that I’m really a religious person who is in a state of rebellion. Naturally following upon this that I need to submit to God’s will, which strangely enough involves me doing exactly what the religious person wants me to do.
The religious people who make this kind of argument, at least those making it to my face, never do so in good faith. I’d be much happier if they’d just cut to the chase.
“There probably is a God, so start worrying and get on with doing what I tell you to!”
I’m not in the habit of going around telling people that they aren’t a “True Christian”, or a “True Muslim” or a “True” whatever else, at the very least because it often involves the No True Scotsman fallacy. Furthermore, I don’t do it because I know that in addition to being a bit logically flaky, it pisses me off so it’s likely to piss others off. I can appreciate something truthful and honest pissing people off, and I don’t care too much about that, but when it’s poorly thought out argumentation that offends, then I’m prone to take issue. I assume other reasonable people do the same.
Even further still, there’s the matter of what is essential to being Christian et. al. – you can draw the line anywhere, and people often do so for the sake of convenience. But what is essential to a True Christian? Belief in a literal Christ? Belief in the message of Christ, if Christ is only metaphorical? Depending how you define Christianity, you can exclude all sorts of people from being True Christians.
If you believe that St Peter was the recipient of divine revelation, and that the acceptance of this divine mandate defines Christianity, then Eastern Christians – the first Christians – aren’t True Christians. If you believe that St Peter had no divine mandate, and that this is essential to Christianity, then Western Christianity is an oxymoron. Both outcomes are absurd.
It’s clear that one can pick and chose with the greatest of ease, the essential qualities of any group in order to generate a convenient definition of group members. It follows that as absurd as these definitions may be, they do allow people to be selective with their samples. And when equivocation on these definitions occur, it allows people to apply conclusions derived from one population, to be applied surreptitiously to another – even if unintentionally.
(And don’t get me started on skin colour and race – I’ll get back to that in good time.)
The alternative, is not to engage in essentialism in the first place. Instead to just assume that any given cultural identity has inherent diversity, and that membership is something negotiated between self-identification and general group-acceptance. A role in which out-group members have little, if any, say.
Still, being able to self-identify is one thing. Having your own group-identity deferred to in a civil sense is another. And having other individuals accept the definitions of your own identity in is another again.
I think it fair enough to expect society and other individuals not to run rough-shod over your cultural membership/identification, but after some preponderance on the matter, I’ve come to the conclusion that this is different from expecting other individuals to accept your identity. After all I can’t just call myself Catholic, get my friends to accept that I’m Catholic, then rock up to a Catholic church and expect to be given communion. That would be an imposture upon the Catholic church – a coercion of its clergy. I’m entitled to no such thing.
(I’m unsure as to why I’d want a Catholic communion – to have communion with the Catholics in attendance who are my fellow human beings?)
So while not forcing my definition of “Christian”, what I accept as Christian is as I’ve detailed above; no essential qualities, just self-identification and a reasonable level (allowing for a degree of dissent) of group-acceptance amongst one of the denominations. This by-and-large leaves me deferring to Christian self-identification, and leaves me out of politics such as “Catholics aren’t real Christians”.
However…
I don’t see defining Christianity as a question of religiosity. I see defining Christianity as a question of culture. A very messy question.
Religiosity is another thing altogether. It’s an acceptance of a particular ontological persuasion. So the question in my mind is not “do you identify as religious?”, but “do you accept the ontological acceptance of a deity with an interest in human affairs?”
If you identify as religious, and you don’t accept the ontology of an interested deity, then I won’t accept your religiosity. You can self-identify as much as you like, and I won’t stop you. I won’t try to push to have culture exclude your perspective. But I won’t, I can’t, see you as religious.
I can’t see “religiously deistic” as anything other than an oxymoron.
I can’t even see the census question of selecting a religion as meaningful. “Are you religious?”, with “Yes” or “No” as answers, perhaps with another question for the tradition(s) one identifies as belonging to*.
And I see religious and theistic as synonymous. So when John Shelby Spong calls his approach “non-theistic”, I call it non-religious and atheistic.
Importantly, I still defer to Spong’s self-identification as Christian. I don’t think “atheist Christian” is oxymoronic. Dawkins refers to himself as a culturally Christian atheist with a fondness for the Church of England – in this respect I don’t actually see him as that different to Spong, although what they both take from the culture probably differs considerably.
Religious identity is something that I can no longer personally accept in deference to self-identification. I have an objective test for that – which is I think acceptable, considering that were are dealing with a priori concepts.
There is a meaningful consequence to this.
When I critique religion, I’m not going to be talking about the recognition of a deistic intelligence, or a metaphorical god, or The-Universe-renamed-as-God or God-infintely-beyond-any-term-we-can-apply-to-it. I’m talking about the observance of old-grey-beard-and-genocide.
There’s a penchant for some people to complain that “My God isn’t like that! You’re not addressing me! You’re attributing the wrong belief to me!”
This is true of responses to Dawkins’ writing, where over and over and over (ad nauseum), people self-identifying as religious complain that Dawkins is dealing with a caricature of religion as a strawman tactic against actual religion.
Of course, he’s doing nothing of the sort. Dear aggrieved; he’s not talking about your “God” because your “God”, being metaphorical, disinterested, beyond-ontological-comprehension, or whatever, is not an object of religious worship. Why would Dawkins consider your perspective as representative of religion if he couldn’t in good faith, define it as religious? That’d be dishonest!
Consider the following, typical complaint.
“Professor Dawkins is a good scientist but a poor theologian. His book quotes exclusively the views of fundamentalist preachers, many from the United States.
He ignores the significant range of alternative theological perspectives that understand God not in terms of “old man in the sky” caricatures but in such concepts as spirit, life, love, and mystery – concepts that have an ancient pedigree, being found, for example, in Celtic expressions of religion and many others.”**
But if you can’t define “spirit, life, love, and mystery” (and all the other empirical things re-branded as God) as theistic, one can’t claim that Dawkins “ignores the significant range of alternative theological perspectives…” (emphasis added), because these perspectives are in these terms, not theological. Or in other words, not-religious.
I’ve put my cards on table in this post. Although I don’t think that Dawkins did quite a good enough job of defining religion in The God Delusion (2006) and I think this may be a problem for some readers. However, for the book reviewers, and theologians and assorted critics who make a living out of their opinion, there is a responsibility to go deeper when critiquing Dawkins’ views.
A careful consideration by critics should at least speculate on what Dawkins means by “religious” and how that influences the examples he selects. An ideal consideration would look at his past works to try to elucidate further.
I’d recommend that the critics read Dawkins’ essay, ‘The Great Convergence’, wherein Dawkins addresses what he sees as “neo-deistic pseudo-religion”, and goes on to ask…
“But if ‘religion’ is allowed such a flabbily elastic definition, what word is left for real religion, religion as the ordinary person in the pew or on the prayer-mat understands it today; religion, indeed, as any intellectual would have understood it in previous centuries, when intellectuals were religious like everybody else?”
(Richard Dawkins, ‘The Creat Convergence’ in A Devil’s Chaplain, 2003, formerly ‘Snake Oil and Holy Water’ in Forbes, 1999)
The quote is in relation to the scientific awe of scientists like Goodenough, Davies, Hawking, Sagan, and atheist priests like Don Cupitt, being redefined as a religious experience. I would argue that this extends to any experience that Dawkins would define as natural; emotional spirit, life, love and mystery. I would argue that Randerson’s “alternative theological perspectives” would not in fact qualify as religious for Dawkins (I missed the opportunity to ask him in person this morning – although it seems like a bit of a Dorothy Dixer).
Dawkins isn’t ridiculing these perspectives by way of caricature, because he’s not pretending to represent them at all. Frankly, it looks increasingly egocentric each time that I see people complaining that “Dawkins isn’t addressing my beliefs”; he’s not talking about you at all buddy.
Now I’ve been mulling this over for quite a while. At first, in 2006, I simply didn’t accept Dawkins’ terms, and perhaps in some very specific cases, I still don’t.
I still accept that there is a diversity of religious belief, and that it ultimately needs to be addressed as a natural phenomena in full recognition of that diversity. But in my opinion, this diversity is over-inflated by the critics who add the views of ersatz religion, the views of spiritual-but-not-religious life stances – human experiences we have been told time and time again that you can’t have without God.
Perhaps if The West were more accepting of the notion that you can be good without God, there would be more recognition that there was no God in these good experiences.
At any rate, I’ve made my position clear. Take it or leave it, I’m not coercing you. Just as I won’t be coerced into accepting others’ terms; I’ll either take or leave them as well.
Self-identified-religious people…
If I don’t recognise you as religious, try not to take offence. Even if I don’t think much of your ideas, I don’t think any less of them because I don’t think them religious. And much less do I think that it reflects on your character.
Perhaps you should indulge me, and others like me, in the same way that I tolerate the people who compliment me that I’m “doing God’s work” whenever I do something charitable.
Perhaps you should view my including you in the club-of-the-Godless as a welcome sign to my in-group; take it that I’m not going to discriminate against you just because you’re culturally Muslim, or culturally Christian, or culturally whatever. (Not that’d I’d discriminate against the religiously Muslim, Christian or whatever, either – it’s just an added guarantee).
Those are the terms of my perspective, so please include them in any consideration of my views on religion!
~ Bruce
Update: I read The God Delusion three times between 2006 and 2008. I’ve just checked some of the above against a reading of the relevant part and it seems to me my issue with the way Dawkins defines religion is overstated. Dawkins seems to have defined religion quite clearly. The change from my prior position not withstanding, could it be a reader-effect due to having more contextual understanding than I did in 2008?
* Perhaps this could put to rest the dubious practice of the state denying religious status to religions based on their numbers – granting tax breaks and consideration to the big ones, while discriminating against the small.
** It has to be said that while Randerson’s triumphalism is unfounded, his civics on the matter of the New Zealand atheist bus campaign is to be commended.
… before pestering scientists and other non-creationists with their lists of questions.
1. Does the person you are about to ask about evolution have better things to do with their time than listen to your questions?
Seriously. If you’re reading this, you’ve probably met them over the net. Which means that you don’t really know how busy their offline lives are.
The same goes for other social settings. Are they present to discuss evolution versus creationism, or is it someone’s birthday? Is it a family get-together.
Unless they’ve signed on to some forum to address creationism, you should consider that it’s probably an imposture for them to have your ideas foist upon them.
2. Do you think you are creeping them out?
Biologists like Richard Dawkins and PZ Myers get death threats in the mail from creationists. Creationists once lied in order to get access to Richard Dawkins’ home. Not his work – his home.
The converse isn’t true. You don’t see biologists sending death threats and sneaking into creationist’s homes under false pretences. Creationists have therefore earned a reputation as being a bit creepy.
You may not be approaching Dawkins or Myers, but the person you have decided to have a chat with could very well find your creationism creepy. Watch your behaviour.
3. Do you expect your ideas to be given “equal time” and if so, have you done as much work with evolution?
Seriously. If you expect your critique of evolution to be given equal time, make sure that you’ve put in as much work on the topic as the person you’ve approached. And I mean on the topic. Exclusively reading the likes of Ken Ham does not qualify. I mean text-book biology.
Rote recitation of other people’s critiques of evolution is neither a familiarity with, nor an understanding of, evolution.
There is only one exception to this rule.
4. Do you really have evidence that really is mutually exclusive with evolution?
One needn’t understand the fine details of a theory in order to reject the lot. I don’t need to know what a certain alignment of Venus spells for my neighbour’s dog in order to reject astrology, and I’m not going to read as much astrology as an astrologer before I reject it.
What evidence do you have that is mutually exclusive with evolution? Do you actually have a knock-out punch, or are you just flailing around trying to score a random, lucky hit for The Lord?
Please note. This is not the same as an absence of evidence where it isn’t clear how something could have evolved.
It is unclear how remains could retain soft tissue for millions of years. This would have implications for evolution if it turned out that dinosaurs were more recent, but there is no positive evidence in this find that says such a thing. It just raises ambiguity for geology at this point. It’s a gap in knowledge. The only controversy this generates at this point is in relation to the understanding of how some fossils form.
The fact that creationists weren’t able to gain access to the tissue in question, which they whined about for a while, also is not evidence. No access to materials = no ability for direct analysis = limited conclusions.
This is negative evidence – a gap in knowledge. We’re talking evidence. Positive evidence.
This is your job. Not somebody else’s. If the person you are approaching is able to find basic errors that you could have found yourself, if only you’d applied yourself, then they aren’t going to be happy. Unless they want to laugh at you of course. They may got pleasure out of that.
All the same, presenting your ideas (or ideas you are copying from some pamphlet that you trust implicitly) without vetting them first is lazy. It’s rude. It’s a waste of other people’s time and an abuse of their good faith in entertaining you in the first place.
Furthermore, have you asked yourself questions like “with all the money they attract, why don’t the creationist think tank do field research?”, don’t bother trying to proselytize to other people. If you are going to be so careless, then at least don’t be careless at other people’s expense.
6. Is the “evolutionist” likely to have heard it before?
A lot of what passes for creationist thought isn’t new. After being exposed to this stuff in the 1990s, and arguing against it on the Internet ever since, I’ve long since stopped seeing genuinely new material. Just a lot of mutton dressed up as lamb.
If the “evolutionist” is likely to have heard it before, they aren’t going to be amused by hearing it again. Just because I haven’t written about every creationist argument I’ve seen, doesn’t mean that I haven’t seen a lot – it just means that I’m sick of rubbish about polonium halos and divinely rigged decay rates, misinterpretation of carbon-14 contamination, and misinformation about “polystrate” trees.
I’m sick of reading creationists making arguments based on misunderstandings about allopatric speciation, when they claim that according to evolution, suddenly one species gives birth to a member of another! Gah! WRONG! WRONG! WRONG! WRONG!
If the “evolutionist” isn’t likely to have heard it before, and you know other “evolutionists” have and have had reason to reject it, then you’re just being misleading.
7. Are you preparing to move the goal posts?
Irreducible complexity – the idea that the component parts of a functional protein can not evolve, because incomplete, a species can gain no evolutionary benefit from the incomplete version.
This is “negative evidence” again, not actual evidence, but we’ll put that problem to one side for a moment. We’ll also put aside the fact that the component parts of any given feature may in turn have a function we aren’t aware of (something that was found out in relation to one of Behe’s favourite examples - the bacterial flagellum).
The human nervous system is typically the system deigned too complex – for obvious ideological reasons (“God gave us consciousness!”). If component parts of the human nervous system were found in another species, would you abandon your position? It is alleged by ID proponents that these features are irreducibly complex; such a discovery (a reduction of the irreducibly complex) should then be impossible.
Consider the sea sponge. The most primitive of animals, having neither organs nor a central nervous system.
If genetically speaking, the sea sponge had anything resembling these more modern features, they’d have to be in some reduced form. Sadly for the ID camp, DNA coding for much of the component features of the nervous system – specifically the genes encoding for much of the proteins used in synapses. Notably, the sea sponge has a feature that incorporates these proteins and it’s only a matter of time before this structure is given a thorough investigation.
Now, if you are willing to hold that the proteins in the synapses that have component ancestors, you can’t also hold that the feature as it is in the synapse of a modern animal is irreducibly complex. The same is true of the bacterial flagellum – it’s component parts are known to exist and to have functions of their own.
“But we don’t know about the evolutionary origins of proteins! Therefore they’re irreducibly complex!” Yeah, until we find out about them as well…
Examples were picked. Examples were debunked. The original position held that irreducible complexity was pervasive.
To switch to other examples, or to revise the scope of ID to try to keep it in the game, is to change the terms of the debate. It’s to move the goal posts during game play. It’s flatly dishonest.
Now you can’t expect people to spend their time on your queries if you’re not being honest, can you? So don’t be.
8. Have you made a serious effort to develop your primary reasoning skills?
For a start, I’ve never met a creationist that didn’t either have a failure of primary reasoning when it came to evolution, or a general, all-pervading lack of primary reasoning skills.
But even if this is meaningless, even if creationists aren’t worse off than the general population – the development of primary reasoning skills in primary and high school isn’t something that’s necessarily sufficient to make you a critical thinker (the reason for Matthew Lipman’s efforts).
I’ve been told that my primary reasoning skills are pretty good. At the time, I found the logic component of my discrete mathematics course to be easy – and I seemed to be naturally a lot better at it than the others in my lecture, and the lecturer himself (I was however, crap at calculus). That being said, I made, and I’ve continued to make serious efforts to develop my primary reasoning skills since back in the day. And I look back on my prior reasoning and I find it wanting – at some points even embarrassing.
The lesson in this is that no matter if you have a recognised talent, or a disadvantage, there is always room for improvement. There will be even more room for improvement if you don’t make an effort!
So have you made a serious effort to develop your primary reasoning skills?
I’d suggest that if you haven’t, you aren’t in a fit state to be trying to debate anyone, much less to lead them to truth. If your arguments are getting shot down time and time again for logical fallacies, odds on you need to work on your primary reasoning skills.
No amount of “I’m not as smart or educated as you, but…” is going to make foisting the product of poor reasoning onto anyone truthful, nor will it make you meek. There’s nothing meek about preaching to people who have put more effort into their thinking than you.
9. Are you trying to reconcile the evidence with your idea of God?
If you are trying to make the facts reconcile with some pre-conceived notion, you’ve already lost. And I don’t mean the debate – I mean you’re at a loss for believing what you believe. If your notion of a God was such a well thought out concept, it wouldn’t need to be reconciled. The idea’s obviously a poor one if you need to undertake mental gymnastics.
Can you really expect a conversation with someone if you bring this rubbish to the table? A rabbit in the Devonian would compel any “evolutionist” to at least seriously doubt evolution. If you aren’t prepared to seriously doubt your notion of God in light of evidence, then that’s a bit one-sided isn’t it?
People will just call you dogmatic, and probably think you’re a bit silly. And nobody wants to debate with that.
10. Are you writing one of those “10 questions every evolutionist must answer!” pieces?
If you’ve failed to properly address any of the above, odds on you aren’t going to be taken seriously. If you have failed to properly address any of the above, you shouldn’t be taken seriously.
If you’ve failed the above you’ve demonstrated an inability to engage and most probably, a lack of good faith towards your prospective interlocutors.
Seriously, consider getting your act together before you publish any more garbage, thanks.
My old economics teacher at High School had a reoccurring* error that plagued their writing at University. Specifically, whenever they though “union”, they wrote “onion”.
I’ve identified as similar thing happening with my use of the word “dearth”. Specifically, that where I’ve intended to use the word to indicate a lack, I’ve written it as if it means “plenty”. Usually though the omission of a negative – e.g. “no dearth” meaning “no shortage” becomes “dearth”.
I was only aware of having done this once, but reading back through my blog after catching myself almost doing it again, I found a total of three instances. Argh!
There is a silver lining on this cloud though. Upon catching myself I became explicitly aware of the steps my mind went through in recalling the definition of dearth on-the-fly.
If you asked me flat-out what “dearth” meant, I’d tell you that it meant a lack, or a shortage or a scarcity or whatnot. But when I’m tack-tack-tacking away on the keyboard, my thought process is a little different. When this word comes along in this context, I go through a mnemonic – and a false one at that.
Given that I used to be into bodybuilding in the 90s, and probably will get back into it at some point, whenever I hear “dearth” I probably think of the ironically named bodybuilder. Or at least I probably, often go through this false mnemonic.
Now the problem is, if I remember this mnemonic explicitly, will it reinforce the problem or make it go away?
Maybe if I just remember “David Dearth is ironic”, it’ll be alright.
I wonder what was going though my (conservative) economics teacher’s mind. Unions make me cry?
~ Bruce
* Should be “recurring” as pointed out in the comments a while back. I’ve left it for the ironic value. Oddly enough, neither the spell-checker in my browser, nor in WordPress, is detecting the error. Curious if this is the same for other WordPress bloggers.
Recently I’ve been invited to consider a solution to a dilemma I may be facing when it comes to the writing style I choose to develop.
You know the argument that goes on between parents – especially separated parents – “why do I have to be the bad one?”
That’s pretty much my take on the situation.
Like a lot of people from a similar background, I’ve got a bit more than your average dark streak running through me. But I’m dealing with it and most of it is behind me. Well behind me. Over and out.
This darkness used to hang over my writing like a shroud, provoking various responses.
Throughout the nineties, and into the first couple of years of the “noughties”, my writing variously impressed, or upset people. My efforts were variously called “interesting”, “corrupting” and “disturbing”.
That’s with an exception of course. A glaring exception. The same dark streak that was tainting all of this was a bit destructive to my writing, by way of stress and anxiety. My capacity to write was largely compromised – variously being called “crap”, “garbage” and “unreadable”.
The quality of my prose suffered immensely, and then there was the poor editing. Oh boy! My writing took a nose-dive, headlong and full speed into the concrete. Splat!
At the lowest ebb, my writing read like an angry, disjointed flame-mail. Intentional hyperbole just came across as crazy speak. Black humor just came across as unnerving. Ribald just came across as lecherous.
A criminologists’ wet dream, or nightmare (or both – why do psychologists study psychology, again?) Albeit, I don’t have a criminal record. Not even a fine. And even at my worst I’ve always cared a lot about people’s well-being. Even if I’ve faltered at conveying my intentions.
At my darkest, I was never a risk to anyone who wasn’t a much bigger risk to everyone else around us. And I’ve been around some pretty high-risk individuals, let me tell you.
Through my broken writing I frightened a few of the people around me. And I scared more of them and frightened them worse than I was aware of at the time. I was even called “intimidating”, which was never the intention.
1998-2001 was the worst of it by far. I take a torch to everything I wrote in the period – emails, letters, essays; you name it, it was shit. The language centre of my brain fell out and died in a ditch. You should see the correspondence involving conflict resolution with neighbours. I’m glad you can’t.
And oh how I’ll never write bloody poetry again! (Truth be told, I should have learned this in 1992 when I was first complimented as being “corrupting”).
While this dark streak could confer a certain character to my writing, in large doses it was an unmitigated disaster. Like an acid that was made too strong, it just corroded through everything, ruining prose, deforming turn-of-phrase, and allowing the gaps to be filled with all manner of wrong impressions.
I had so much of this darkness running through my mind in the nineties that it was a forgone conclusion. My writing was a loss.
It took a lot of effort to get over it all. And a lot of effort not to fall back into it when my Father passed away in 2003. But at last it’s all over.
So you can probably appreciate that I don’t want to go through it again!
My writing has improved and is still improving. My state of mind is more enjoyable than it has been in a very, very long time. I’ve found an unprecedented inner calm.
All the same, and this is the problem, it seems sometimes that my writing has been permanently tainted. Even when not writing angry, upon later reflection my prose can come across as such. Even with clear recall of the mood I was in when I wrote it. With my writing finally coming back together again, it’s still haunted by my acerbic shadow.
Which brings me back to the point of being invited to consider a solution.
I posed my situation – the angry writing from a place of deep calm – to a nice lady from Arts SA.
First she suggested that this anger came from a deep, dark place that I wasn’t aware of.
I don’t think this is even remotely tenable because I’ve become quite well acquainted with that side of my mind, thank you very much! I’d know it if it was in the game again. My “problem” is more of an after-effect; a ghost.
I explained this briefly, to which she casually responded “use it”.
Gah! Does she really know what she’s asking of me? Why do I have to be the bad one?
Of course, I don’t always write angry from a place of calm, and when writing analytic prose, I make efforts to avoid, or at least moderate it. It can be quite unhelpful, this phantom mean streak. Even when the people who’s cherished ideas you are critiquing, don’t take things the wrong way.
“So what if people don’t get you! Who cares if they take it the wrong way!”
It matters if you’re writing analytic prose! Coming across the wrong way when writing critique, while sometimes the result of willing misunderstanding on the part of the reader, is about as bad as not having your side of a debate understood by the voting party. It’s not the same as fiction being interpreted a thousand and one different ways; except for when deliberately giving your readers a bit of interpretive exercise, you need clarity and precision; no deliberate overstatement; no sarcasm; no in-jokes or overly arcane subtext that could easily be seen as something bad when taken out of context.
And almost certainly no gory metaphors or puns!
But moreover, I’ve found calm through a great deal of difficulty and it’s this calm that’s enabled me to write again. I’m concerned that allowing the dark streak to run rampant with my prose will erode it away again. And perhaps rob me of my newfound calm.
At least I’d like the chance to write in this climate for a bit longer before risking it. Maybe gaining a bit of control over the dark side of my use of language before having to consider using it on a more regular basis.
I’d like to be the good one for once. Not the scary one. Not the evil-disturbing-angry-dangerous one.
I may have come across as a bit of an angry guy, even a crazy guy, but I’m still a good guy underneath all of it. And most everyone else amongst writers seems to get to be a “good one” most of the time anyway – both in terms of that afforded by a safe and sheltered life that I never had, and just in the way their language comes across.
Why do I have to be the bad one? Why can’t I be the good one for once?
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