Ed Brayton is a journalist, commentator and speaker. He is the co-founder and president of 
So says a professor from a community college in Iowa. The Des Moines Register reports:
A community college instructor in Red Oak claims he was fired after he told his students that the biblical story of Adam and Eve should not be literally interpreted.Steve Bitterman, 60, said officials at Southwestern Community College sided with a handful of students who threatened legal action over his remarks in a western civilization class Tuesday. He said he was fired Thursday.
More details from Bitterman:
Bitterman, who taught part time at Southwestern and Omaha's Metropolitan Community College, said he uses the Old Testament in his western civilization course and always teaches it from an academic standpoint.Bitterman's Tuesday course was telecast to students in Osceola over the Iowa Communications Network. A few students in the Osceola classroom, he said, thought the lesson was "denigrating their religion."
"I put the Hebrew religion on the same plane as any other religion. Their god wasn't given any more credibility than any other god," Bitterman said. "I told them it was an extremely meaningful story, but you had to see it in a poetic, metaphoric or symbolic sense, that if you took it literally, that you were going to miss a whole lot of meaning there."
Bitterman said he called the story of Adam and Eve a "fairy tale" in a conversation with a student after the class and was told the students had threatened to see an attorney. He declined to identify any of the students in the class.
"I just thought there was such a thing as academic freedom here," he said. "From my point of view, what they're doing is essentially teaching their students very well to function in the eighth century."...
Bitterman said Linda Wild, vice president of academic affairs at Southwest, fired him over the telephone.
And here's the school's vague side of the story:
Sarah Smith, director of the school's Red Oak campus, declined to comment Friday on Bitterman's employment status. The school's president, Barbara Crittenden, said Bitterman taught one course at Southwest. She would not comment, however, on his claim that he was fired over the Bible reference, saying it was a personnel issue."I can assure you that the college understands our employees' free-speech rights," she said. "There was no action taken that violated the First Amendment."...
Wild did not return telephone or e-mail messages Friday. Bitterman said that he can think of no other reason college officials would fire him and that Smith, the director of the campus, has previously sat in on his classes and complimented his work.
This could become very interesting. It's nothing but an accusation at this point, of course, but given the incredibly vague response by the college, it's hard to take their denials seriously.
Comments
It was broadcast, so there's a tape somewhere. We should find out soon enough.
Posted by: kehrsam | September 25, 2007 9:56 AM
Academic freedom's just another phrase for nothing left to lose.
Posted by: Jim Anderson | September 25, 2007 10:01 AM
"I just thought there was such a thing as academic freedom here"
There's no such thing as "academic freedom" at most Community Colleges. Academic freedom is a tool for researchers to be able to perform controversial research without interference or fear of termination by administrative staff. Schools that don't have research rarely have anything approaching "academic freedom". In fact, teachers at a Community College should expect to get about the same level of "academic freedom" as High School teachers, given where the funding for Community Colleges comes from. There may even be less "academic freedom" at a Community College since the administration worries more about ticking off students and losing their tuition dollars.
That said - what kind of "legal action" could students threaten that could get a Western Civilization teacher fired? I mean, good gods - the right to free religious expression doesn't mean that you have a right to never hear words that call your religious beliefs into question. It just means that no one is going to interfere with your religious practices. There's either more to this story, or else the legal staff for the Community College is a bunch of fools or the administration is a bunch of bedwetting cowards.
Posted by: NonyNony | September 25, 2007 10:15 AM
This is an interesting story, I was hoping you'd post on it. My gut instinct is that something is not quite right--that the full story of this guy's track record, or a complete rendering of the exchange will paint a different picture. I just don't see how a college would make such a mistake if Bitterman is relaying all the relevant facts. Obviously he does have the academic freedom to call the Adam/Eve story a fairy tale (professors have been doing that at secular colleges for decades)--but maybe he did so in a way that was particularly insulting? That a professor does not have the right to do.
It's one of those stories where something doesn't smell right. It's one of those stories where if I were inclined to trumpet persecution against atheists I would treat very carefully until more facts came to light.
But who knows? Maybe it is just as he claims. Stranger things have happened.
Posted by: heddle | September 25, 2007 10:22 AM
What do mean by "paticularly insulting"? Maybe to some people the very fact of calling Adam and Eve a fairy tale is itself "particulary insulting", regardless how you do it.
Posted by: Dave S. | September 25, 2007 10:28 AM
Dave S.,
No, what I meant should be obvious. You cannot (or should not be able to) claim that you were insulted because a prof, in a professional discourse, at a secular college, called the Adam and Eve story a myth.
To go to the extreme to make a point, it would be legitimate to complain (and it would be actionable because of gross unprofessionalism) if the same prof stated "and anyone who thinks otherwise is a moronic, homophopic, intolerant, rethuglican, misogynistic, fundamentalist, jackass bumpkin."
Since profs have been saying that the Adam/Eve story is a myth for decades (even at some religious colleges) it just strikes me as unlikely that we are getting the full story. I could be wrong. But if turns out that this prof has a track record of being insulting (not just disagreeing) with students, I won't be surprised.
Posted by: heddle | September 25, 2007 10:39 AM
Heddle may well be right, we have no way of knowing at this point. Time will probably tell, especially if he decides to file suit and there's discovery.
Posted by: Ed Brayton | September 25, 2007 11:22 AM
I don't know the specifics for how Iowa does it, but my experience with lecturer positions/JC/community colleges is that the instructors generally have an MA (and sometimes just a BA) rather than a Phd. They rarely, if ever, have anything like tenure, and that it is fairly easy to get rid of them from the administration's point of view. I'm rather surprised they didn't simply wait until the end of the semester/year for his contract to expire. The fact that they terminated him less than half way through a semester, during the first semester, suggests to me that there may be something to his story. If it was a "personnel issue" I would have expected them to not have granted him a new contract.
Posted by: dogmeatib | September 25, 2007 11:22 AM
I actually agree that it's pretty insulting to call the Adam and Eve story a fairy tale (fantastical, whimsical story not intended to be taken as true, told to children) though not a myth (narrative intended to convey important concepts in a religious or cultural tradition, told to people of all ages). It was poor judgment to use the term when speaking to one of his students, since it seems to belie his statement that he considers it an "extremely meaningful story."
Of course, that doesn't mean I think he should've been fired for it, rather than simply advised that he avoid telling students how to interpret the story altogether. Since presumably his western civilization course doesn't include a lesson on the origins of humankind, the truth or falsity of Genesis seems to be beside the point. A discussion of how it has been interpreted by others throughout history would, on the other hand, be relevant.
Posted by: Gretchen | September 25, 2007 11:42 AM
We can bitterly regret the fact that in the book of Genesis, "the fundamentalists" is not written instead of "Adam and Eve". Because then, we could be sure that they're a myth. And boy would it feel good...
Posted by: Christophe Thill | September 25, 2007 11:52 AM
Since presumably his western civilization course doesn't include a lesson on the origins of humankind, the truth or falsity of Genesis seems to be beside the point.
Hmmm. Parts of Genesis are taken from earlier stories, such as the Epic of Gilgamesh. That's relevant. Parts of Genesis conflict with archaeological and historical evidence. That's also relevant. And I think things like the ahistoricity of the global flood really can't be passed over.
I don't see how you can discuss a story and not ask the most basic question: is this story true?
Posted by: Gerard Harbison | September 25, 2007 11:52 AM
Gerard said:
I suppose it depends on the chronology and geography of what you're willing to consider "western civilization." I don't think the dawn of homo sapiens (i.e. the creation story of Adam and Eve) would qualify regardless.
The truth of a story is not the "most basic question" if your primary concern is its significance for a person or group of people. To give but one example, I'm currently reading an ethnography of an Afro-Brazilian cult who believe in spirit possession. The actual truth of whether spirits possess people is left entirely aside in favor of discussing the social, psychological, and neuroscientific aspects of the practice.
Posted by: Gretchen | September 25, 2007 12:07 PM
Note that the "fairy tale" label wasn't used in class (according to the instructor).
Whether or not you believe in the literal truth of Genesis, this approach to the Bible text was standard for over 1,000 years (St Jerome? St Thomas?). It's only really since the rise of American protestantism and its international evangelical offshoots that looking beyond literal meanings has become unacceptable on such a scale.
Posted by: Ginger Yellow | September 25, 2007 12:22 PM
Gretchen -
What your saying only makes sense if you are looking at Adam and Eve as an explanation for the creation of the world.
If you're looking at the Bible as one of the foundation documents of Western Civilization (which it is) then a discussion of the myths it contains is not out of line at all, any more than would be a discussion of the contents of Bullfinch's Mythology or the Epic of Gligamesh or the Eddas. And a comparative discussion of the myths across all of the foundation cultures of western civilization is certainly not out of line at all.
Posted by: NonyNony | September 25, 2007 12:26 PM
He did apparently use that term with a student though Ginger, and I think 'fairy tale' is a more insulting term than 'myth'. Myth's may or may not have a basis in fact, but fairy tales do not, in addition to being seen as generally childish.
However I agree with the general tone that there may be much more to this story than we have seen thus far, and I'm prepared to reserve judgement.
Posted by: Dave S. | September 25, 2007 12:32 PM
NonyNony,
I didn't say that a discussion of the myths in the Bible (or any kind of myth) is out of line-- as should've been clear from my first post. I said that a discussion of whether the myths are true or not, especially in the case of the creation story (or any myth invoking the supernatural, for that matter), is not the main point or even necessarily something that needs to be brought up.
In short, you're agreeing with me.
Posted by: Gretchen | September 25, 2007 12:38 PM
I have a general question that I hope Ed (or someone similarly knowledgeable on constitutional law) will address.
First, I think it's fair to say that a US high school teacher could not legally teach that Genesis was a myth. That would be an unconstitutional favoring of a religious viewpoint by a government representative, correct?
Now, let's assume this community college teacher did, in fact, teach that Genesis was a myth. What distinguishes this from the high school case, from a constitutional perspective? Is it related to compulsory versus elective attendance? Taxpayer funding versues tuition-based funding?
Or am I incorrect in thinking these are constitutionally distinct situations?
Posted by: qetzal | September 25, 2007 12:49 PM
"He did apparently use that term with a student though Ginger, and I think 'fairy tale' is a more insulting term than 'myth'. "
I realise these things are different in the States, but I come from an academic tradition where a professor can say whatever the hell he/she likes to students on a one-to-one basis, so long as it doesn't veer into harrassment etc. Even in official teaching settings like lectures and tutorials, professors have enormous leeway. I mean, when I did Old English, I wrote a throwaway line saying how one passage in The Dream of the Rood reflected a contemporary Church compromise on some piece of doctrine. Marked on my essay was "NO! The Church does not compromise. It settles the truth." I laughed about it with my friends and thought nothing more of it.
Maybe it's an Oxford thing. The ethos (in the humanities at least) is that the professors aren't teaching you so much as challenging your research. You're expected to be able to defend your ideas and challenge theirs, not just be told the right answer.
Posted by: Ginger Yellow | September 25, 2007 1:18 PM
Actually, Gretchen, I'm not agreeing with you. You're right, the way I phrased it it looks like agreement, but as soon as you start talking about myths as myths and comparing them to the myths of other foundational cultures for Western Civilization you're making a statement that all myths are equally "mythical". You are implicitly making a claim about the veracity of the myths - you're stating that they are all equally false. Making that claim explicit rather than implicit should carry no less or greater weight than making the implicit claim.
Posted by: NonyNony | September 25, 2007 1:19 PM
Over at FriendlyAtheist, it's noted that according to the students, there was an issue with the teacher calling out a student in class and responding to her discussion with him after class: the students say he was meanspirited in the way he singled her out and the whole class got into an argument with him, making for some bad feelings all around, and it was this that led most directly to his firing.
No one knows if this part of the story is true or accurate, but it's definately right to be cautious in judging cases like this where there aren't enough facts available to people like us
Posted by: Bad | September 25, 2007 1:27 PM
I suppose it depends on the chronology and geography of what you're willing to consider "western civilization." I don't think the dawn of homo sapiens (i.e. the creation story of Adam and Eve) would qualify regardless.
You think it is possible to consider Western Civilization as a topic without considering the Bible? You think you can consider the Bible without considering its foundational creation myth?
The truth of a story is not the "most basic question" if your primary concern is its significance for a person or group of people. To give but one example, I'm currently reading an ethnography of an Afro-Brazilian cult who believe in spirit possession. The actual truth of whether spirits possess people is left entirely aside in favor of discussing the social, psychological, and neuroscientific aspects of the practice.
Surely it's left aside because it's considered unequivocally false, and therefore answered, for the readers of the ethnography? If there were even a possibility it were true, the issue of its truth would surely dominate all others.
Posted by: Gerard Harbison | September 25, 2007 1:57 PM
"You are implicitly making a claim about the veracity of the myths - you're stating that they are all equally false. Making that claim explicit rather than implicit should carry no less or greater weight than making the implicit claim."
I don't know about that. If you're talking about the impact of foundational myths on culture/civilisation, then it doesn't matter so much whether they're true or not as what relationship the people who were inspired by them had. For instance, it matters if a Renaissance painter believed in the Christian myth(s) but not the Greek myth(s), much as it matters if a Greek sculptor believed the Greek myth, but it doesn't matter so much whether they were true.
Posted by: Ginger Yellow | September 25, 2007 1:59 PM
it's pretty insulting to call the Adam and Eve story a fairy tale
Actually, it is very flattering to the story. It categorizes it with "Beauty and the Beast", "The Lord of the Rings" and "Animal Farm", all of which are far superior stories.
Posted by: bullfighter | September 25, 2007 1:59 PM
First, I think it's fair to say that a US high school teacher could not legally teach that Genesis was a myth. That would be an unconstitutional favoring of a religious viewpoint by a government representative, correct?
I think you're wrong. The truth or falsity of Genesis is not a religious question. It's a historical or scientific question.
If a religion makes a claim that is self-evidently contrary to the truth, then negating that claim may nominally be disfavoring a religious viewpoint. However, negating that claim is speech and therefore also protected by the first amendment. The courts would balance the two conflicting rights, and, I'm pretty sure, come out on the side of common sense.
Posted by: Gerard Harbison | September 25, 2007 2:03 PM
Over at FriendlyAtheist, it's noted that according to the students, there was an issue with the teacher calling out a student in class and responding to her discussion with him after class: the students say he was meanspirited in the way he singled her out and the whole class got into an argument with him, making for some bad feelings all around, and it was this that led most directly to his firing.
In 20 years of college teaching, I've had all sorts of disputes with students, and, reading teaching evaluations, have pissed some of them off in ways I didn't even anticipate. If I make jokes about beer (usually popular with most college students) I get an occasional sanctimonious little prat who preaches at me that alcohol is a great evil and a tragedy, and shouldn't be joked about. I steer clear of politics, sex, drugs, and religion, but still, there's ample opportunity to get someone's knickers in a twist.
If you're not offending somebody, you're probably a very boring teacher. And offending students is not a firing offense.
Posted by: Gerard Harbison | September 25, 2007 2:09 PM
Gerard Harbison: Also, a myth is not necessarily without true foundation, so merely calling something a myth does not automatically imply a statement that it is entirely false. "Genesis is a myth" is an undeniably true fact, and that finding can be made without any reference to its veracity.
BTW, any statements a teacher makes outside class time should be protected by the First Amendment, so a government-financed school should not be able to fire him for those statements (unless they are illegal per se, e.g., slanderous, harrassing or obscene).
Posted by: bullfighter | September 25, 2007 2:14 PM
OK, good point.
If it's private speech, sure. But I'm pretty sure that a high school teacher is not engaging in private speech when s/he's teaching.
In any case, that's not really the point of my question. Let me make it more abstract: do community college instructors have more constitutional freedom to espouse their personal religious views in class, relative to public high school teachers? If so, why is that?
Posted by: qetzal | September 25, 2007 2:25 PM
In any case, that's not really the point of my question. Let me make it more abstract: do community college instructors have more constitutional freedom to espouse their personal religious views in class, relative to public high school teachers? If so, why is that?
I don't concede that calling the story of Adam and Eve false is a religious statement.
But setting that aside, let me give you the argument the Nebraska ACLU gave me when they declined to pursue a case against Mid Plains Community College, who are offering a course this fall in 'Creation Science'. They said that at the college level, students were more capable of making an independent evaluation of the material; and that such courses tended to be elective anyway and therefore could be avoided by the non-religious.
Personally, I think the ACLU wussed out. Fortunately, AUSCS did not.
Posted by: Gerard Harbison | September 25, 2007 2:47 PM
qetzal wrote:
There are two relevant legal differences. First, those in college are considered adults and that triggers a very different level of scrutiny from the courts. Second, going to college is a matter of choice, while going to high school is mandatory by law. College teachers can legally teach damn near anything, including outright endorsing religious views and beliefs, because the point of academia as a whole is to have a wide variety of viewpoints; not the case with public secondary schools.
Posted by: Ed Brayton | September 25, 2007 2:50 PM
In the U.S. community colleges I'm familiar with, the usual task for someone teaching a broad informational course like "Western Civilization" is to teach the student the facts and the range of standard interpretations, without saying much about his/her own views. As the instructor also assigns grades, very often with tests he/she both constructed and marked, it's considered very important not to give anyone concern that they must parrot the teacher's own views in order to get a good grade.
This seems to me to be a satisfactory approach. In some schools, it's far more likely that an instructor in one of these local community schools will claim that the Adam and Eve story is literally true, rather than claim that it isn't. Better, it seems to me, that they should both keep their personal views to themselves in that context.
But it does seem there must be more to this firing than we yet have heard. With all the facts of the history of western civilization to cover, presumably in one semester or at most two, there seems to be something odd going on with a history instructor who spends even one class on the "poetic, metaphoric or symbolic sense" of one particular story, regardless of the source of the story. It would make more sense to me if he referred to the Bible from time to time as an influencing or participating factor in some historical event he was discussing.
Posted by: JuliaL | September 25, 2007 2:52 PM
Jewish and Christian theologians have been saying that these stories should not be taken literally for millennia. It is only with the rise of modern fundamentalism, with its selective literalism, that turns the historic Christian position into something controversial.
http://exploringourmatrix.blogspot.com/2007/09/teaching-genesis-creation-stories.html
Posted by: James McGrath | September 25, 2007 2:58 PM
Not necessarily. These are sometimes taped, but you can use this in a manner similar to a webcam: just a live broadcast with no backup.
Additionally, Bitterman has 2 Master's degrees, but no PhD.
I just wrote on this myself before I noticed your post, Ed. I agree this could get interesting, and right now the college is keeping pretty tight-lipped.
Posted by: Tara C. Smith | September 25, 2007 4:15 PM
I agree. If all he said was that it was a fairy tale big deal. There is apparently no group more thin skinned than the fundies.
This is the kind of crap I think of when people say how great religion is, BS. There are so many of these skirmishes around it would be a full time job to write about all of them. But it takes a war and death to be noticed. Religion kills the human mind using a million paper cuts.
Now if there is more to it the college may have a point but it doesn't seem like it to date.
Posted by: GH | September 25, 2007 4:30 PM
If you're not offending somebody, you're probably a very boring teacher. And offending students is not a firing offense.
You're tenured, aren't you? Remember the professor in Boston right after Virginia Tech that was fired for exactly that?
Posted by: Josh | September 25, 2007 4:51 PM
If you're not offending somebody, you're probably a very boring teacher.
Actually, let me modify my last comment...I meant to also state that I 100% agree with this sentence.
Posted by: Josh | September 25, 2007 4:54 PM
More here.
http://desmoinesregister.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070925/NEWS02/709250379/1001/COMM01
Bitterman appears to be rather acerbic, but not IMO more so than many of the faculty I know. I don't believe he was fired midterm, and the course cancelled, merely for telling a student to pop a Prozac.
But the article brings out something else. There's a reason community colleges suck, and the reason is that they treat their faculty like dirt and pay them virtually nothing. Better serve happy meals at the drive up window, than spend your days worrying whether your thousand bucks a course, or whatever the going rate is, is in jeopardy because you're offending a bunch of whiny, cerebrally challenged students. Students at real colleges pretty soon realize they're not in high-school anymore, and will be intellectually challenged. And high school teachers have a union.
Posted by: Gerard Harbison | September 25, 2007 5:00 PM
You're tenured, aren't you? Remember the professor in Boston right after Virginia Tech that was fired for exactly that?
Yeah, but I like to think I was every bit as offensive before I got tenure. :-)
(Actually, I teach mostly physical chemistry, and the chances for being offensive are rather meager. People just don't care if you make fun of Clausius for latinizing his name)
Posted by: Gerard Harbison | September 25, 2007 5:03 PM
I'm curious... I know my contract (I'm an adjunct professor) states that the university can terminate me for no reason at all if they so choose. Assuming we're not missing important pieces of the story, and assuming Bitterman has a similar clause in his contract, would he have any legal case at all?
Posted by: Davis | September 25, 2007 5:04 PM
Yeah, but I like to think I was every bit as offensive before I got tenure. :-)
Well, then I'm going to join you in that thought and cling to a putative bright spot in an otherwise murky ocean.
(Actually, I teach mostly physical chemistry, and the chances for being offensive are rather meager. People just don't care if you make fun of Clausius for latinizing his name)
Heh...yeah...teaching evolution tends to bring out the...shall we say...less tolerant folks.
Posted by: Josh | September 25, 2007 5:07 PM
I'm curious... I know my contract (I'm an adjunct professor) states that the university can terminate me for no reason at all if they so choose. Assuming we're not missing important pieces of the story, and assuming Bitterman has a similar clause in his contract, would he have any legal case at all?
At a state institution, he has a right to due process.
Posted by: Gerard Harbison | September 25, 2007 5:18 PM
He only has a right to due process if he has a property interest in his job. It is possible that as a part-timer, especially if his contract says he can be fired at-will, that he has no recognizable property interest in his job.
Posted by: Ratel | September 25, 2007 5:23 PM
I can trump all your "being offensive" stories. Following the tradition of a prof of mine when I was a student at Carnegie Mellon, when I was a professor (the first time) I used to, in my undergrad and grad physics classes, offer one cosmological ID (fine tuning) lecture each semester. I would make it optional, but virtually every student came. Invariably the discussion was fun and lively. In fact for some it was the only lecture in which they made a contribution. I did that both after and before tenure. I must have been nuts! Oh well, it was a different era, I left academia in 2001, before the ID movement shenanigans poisoned the well. As it turns out I am going back to the same university in January and even though I am again tenured I will not do what I used to do. Sigh. "We'll laugh again, but we'll never be young again."
Posted by: heddle | September 25, 2007 5:59 PM
Thomas Jefferson backs Bitterman:
Posted by: Gene Goldring | September 25, 2007 9:17 PM
Surely having a high-school teacher assert that Genesis was NOT a myth would be favouring one religion over others and using public funds to promote it.
Posted by: Monado | September 25, 2007 10:15 PM
As would asserting that it is. It is the teacher's job to instruct the students how to think, not to dictate the contents of that thought. Most teachers I know are happiest when their students don't have a clue as to their (ie, the teacher's) personal beliefs.
Posted by: kehrsam | September 25, 2007 10:25 PM
Gene Goldring-
Please do not repeat that quotation. It has never been found anywhere in Jefferson's writings. It is as fake as the many fake quotations that David Barton has foisted on the world.
Posted by: Ed Brayton | September 25, 2007 11:22 PM
NonyNony,
If you're teaching about myths in a religion or social science class, the generally understood definition is not "falsehood." This is something that is conveyed to students from the start. Myths are discussed as authoritative narratives that supply meaning to cultural norms. That's what makes their truth value (or lack thereof) beside the point. Teaching about the myths in the Bible alongside myths from other religions does not mean that they are all true or false, just like the existence of comparative religion classes does not mean that all religions are true or false. A student may ponder the comparisons and reach that conclusion, but that doesn't mean that that's what he/she was taught.
Gerard said:
No, and that's not what I said. I said that a Western Civilization course does not have on its agenda a discussion of the origins of homo sapiens, in which discussion about the truth or falsity of the Adam and Eve myth would be relevant. That's the kind of discussion that would happen in a biology or anthropology class.
(To give but one example, I'm currently reading an ethnography of an Afro-Brazilian cult who believe in spirit possession. The actual truth of whether spirits possess people is left entirely aside in favor of discussing the social, psychological, and neuroscientific aspects of the practice.)
No, it explicitly is not and no it would not. This is because science operates via methodological naturalism, and spirits, being supernatural, are by definition outside of the bounds of inquiry.* One does not have to determine whether spirits exist in order to examine how and why people entertain thoughts of spirit possession, just as one does not have to be an atheist in order to examine how and why people believe in God. Supernatural concepts are conceived and pondered in the brain and applied in human behavior, and the brain and human behavior can be studied scientifically. Gods and spirits cannot be.
*Of course, I say this with the caveat that the category of "supernatural" is itself in dispute. Nonetheless, I don't think it detracts from the point that the study of human religious behavior does not require a prior consideration of the existence of the referents of that behavior. It's entirely possible (one might even say necessary) to conduct the investigation from an agnostic standpoint.
Posted by: Gretchen | September 26, 2007 5:28 AM
This thread is fascinating and there are valid points being made on all sides, but still at the end of the day we're arguing over whether a university professor can call a 4,000 year old story contradicted by mountains of evidence in cosmology, physics, biology, and geology a fairy tale. That's insane.
Posted by: Ginger Yellow | September 26, 2007 6:21 AM
Sorry Ed. Dang. I knew I should have looked for a more credible source. I found the quote on http://www.positiveatheism.org/hist/quotes/jefferson.htm under "Religion and Absurdity". Credibility offered was
I saw Steiner and not Barton. If Barton, I would have definitely checked further.
Posted by: Gene Goldring | September 26, 2007 9:14 AM
Gretchen: I agree with much of what you said; my earlier comment expresses the same idea as your first paragraph. But I find two specific points in your last comment highly disputable. The first is:
It doesn't have to have it, but why shouldn't it? Western civilization has been driven by science in the last 400 years or so. Ignoring that part seems to me to make such a course incomplete. (Of course, a one-semester course on Western civilization will always be incomplete, so it is up to the instructor to choose the omissions. But my point is that you are stating a possible, but in no way obligatory choice.)The second, and more problematic, statement:
That argument ceases to be convincing as soon as those spirits are asserted to act on the physical world. Certainly, that is the case with spirit possession.Posted by: bullfighter | September 26, 2007 10:13 AM
As social researchers, we don't have the tools to prove or disprove such claims. Now, I reject supernatural claims outright, but my research techniques don't provide me with ways to falsify the assumptions of those folks. Instead, what they provide me with is a way to deal with and investigate how such phenomena are treated and understood in the social world. We've got this statement from W.I. Thomas, "Those things defined as real are real in their consequences."
The spirits don't exist. I'm perfectly comfortable stating that, just as I'm perfectly comfortable stating that the deity of the monotheistic religions doesn't exist. However, the belief that the spirits or deities exist, and the ways that such beliefs are integrated into social life, the consequences of the beliefs, are the topic of study, here.
Want to falsify the beliefs? turn to the physical, chemical, biological etc. sciences. Want to understand how they affect a society? Turn to the social sciences. We ask different questions and have different methods of study.
The same thing happens when sociologists study scientists. We don't have the tools to falsify or verify their claims. We treat science as a social practice, and are therefore interested in the social processes involved in the production of scientific knowledge.
Posted by: MAJeff | September 26, 2007 11:02 AM
MAJeff - but isn't there a difference in how false beliefs and true beliefs affect a society? Something defined as real that actually works has different effects from something defined as real that doesn't. In the case of spirit possession - if true, one would expect every unsolved murder to be followed by a revenge killing, when the first victim's spirit takes over a body long enough to track down his killer. A stranger would walk in off the street to tell Aunt Marge where late Uncle Bill hid the insurance papers. And so forth...
If spirit possession is believed, but not real, one would expect exorcisms as treatment for epilepsy, and "being possessed" used as a defense in a murder that DOES benefit the body that held the knife, and so on.
As you said, "...the ways that such beliefs are integrated into social life, the consequences of the beliefs..." are are the proper meat for a social researcher - but that HAS to include the effects caused by a belief that is false-to-fact.
Posted by: BobApril | September 26, 2007 11:48 AM
bullfighter,
I wouldn't put the origins of homo sapiens into a Western Civ. course simply because that doesn't fall under the category of "civilization," and certainly not "Western." Don't those courses usually begin with the Greeks?
I didn't suggest ignoring it. But the role of science as a social force in Western civilization is a completely different topic from the validity of a particular scientific theory. A discussion on the political impact of the assassination of JFK doesn't need to include a forensic examination of what exactly the bullet did to his head, and how we know for sure. The influence of science and the content of science are two different issues.
That's why I included the caveat about the term "supernatural." But I will also note this: a spirit is alleged to be a non physical thing. The host's soul that is temporarily displaced by the spirit is also alleged to be a non physical thing. The amount of wiggle room created by this means that any observable change in the host's behavior can be described as the behavior of the possessing spirit.
Posted by: Gretchen | September 26, 2007 11:51 AM
And part of what is interesting about those chain reactions not happening is the social process by which a group keeps them from happening. We're trying to uncover social processes. That's it. You may want more, but that's all we do.
And, again, based on my research techniques, how do I determine if the belief is false? It's not a radical relativism, but a methodological one. And it's there because of epistemological issues. We don't have the same luxury of control that the "hard" scientists do, which has a huge effect on what we can do.
Then again, I don't work in those areas, although I do find them interesting (and often very whacked out). I study social movements in modern societies and how they pursue change.
Posted by: MAJeff | September 26, 2007 11:56 AM
MAJeff: Your response to my comment is not related to Gretchen's argument to which I was responding. That argument was, I'll repeat:
That is a statement of principle, not of individual researcher's or any single discipline's limitations. In contrast, your response isIn the last part, you express agreement with what I said. In the first part, you are not addressing anything in my response to Gretchen. I never said an anthropologist has to refute claims of spirit possession independently. All I said was that their truth is not outside scientific inquiry, in principle.Gretchen:
No, there is no wiggle room at all. The claim postulates that there is a way in which supernatural spirits interact with the natural world. That part is automatically subject to scientific inquiry. (Same thing with virgin birth, resurrection, apocalyptic visions...) Every known attempt to escape this conclusion has been fraught with logical fallacies.As Daniel Dennett wrote in "Breaking the Spell", with respect to some Amazonian tribes' beliefs, possibly the same one you mentioned, it is important to acknowledge the fact that the spirits in which those people believe do not exist. We can't just postulate that certain facts are irrelevant.
Posted by: bullfighter | September 26, 2007 12:45 PM
Gretchen:
Would you care to clarify? Is Enlightenment not part of Western civilization? Is naturalism not part of it? WC begins before Greeks (I'd say with Sumerians because Gilgamesh is the earliest written text containing some myths later adopted by Hebrews), but it doesn't end with Copernicus. I've always been under the impression that I live in the Western civilization; have I been misinformed?That's a judgment call. I think it is way too simplistic. I don't think it is possible to separate the influence of scientific theories from their correspondence to reality. There are historically important ethical and political consequences that cannot be separated from the question of truth.
You are distorting the analogy. The aspect of JFK assassination relevant for this discussion would be an anthropological study of conspiracy theories and theorists. But I would say that any such study would be incomplete if it didn't consider whether the claims of conspiracy theorists are true.
BTW, just to preempt one possible wrong conclusion. I am in no way saying that knowing some belief to be false would make it a less interesting or less relevant object of study.(E.g., there are theologians who are atheists.)
Posted by: bullfighter | September 26, 2007 1:04 PM
bullfighter,
In order to test the validity of a claim about the interaction of the supernatural with the natural, you must know the specific way in which the interaction is alleged to have occurred, and how to falsify that claim. If you can think of a way to test the claim that non-corporeal spirits temporarily displace non-corporeal souls, then have at it. But until you've done the work and proven that whatever supernatural entities you're discussing do not exist as described, you can't say "These people are wrong and I'm going to investigate why they believe these false things." You can, however, say "The spirits these people believe in may exist or not-- I'm going to examine what cognitive and social factors allow and influence them to believe."
Posted by: Gretchen | September 26, 2007 1:05 PM
P.S. I would even say that the questions of whether people are justified in their beliefs, and why they have those beliefs in the first place, are very different in nature and both worthy of study. The truth and/or justification of a claim is often not enough to make people believe it, and people often believe things which are not true or justified.
Posted by: Gretchen | September 26, 2007 1:08 PM
Gretchen wrote:
Yes, that's the fine neutral standpoint of the social anthropologist. But I suspect that an anthropologist who believes in the existence of supernatural spirits will not be able to maintain the ability to keep their views out of the descriptions as well as an anthropologist who does not. Their search for the reasons why people believe in spirits will surely be lighter on the cognitive and social factors if they themselves believe in spirits.
As for dealing with Adam and Eve as myth in a History of Western Civ course, that apparently came in when discussing beliefs of the times. It could also be brought in on a discussion of the differences between the medieval mindset, vs that of the Renaissance, and the Age of Enlightenment. Or, perhaps, contrasting Athens with Jerusalem. Or discussing the difference between the elite philosophers and theologians who define an era for us today, and the views of the Great Unwashed Mass who defined it at the time. I can think of a lot of ways it could be touched upon without breaking over into biology.
Posted by: Sastra | September 26, 2007 1:47 PM
One does not have to determine whether spirits exist in order to examine how and why people entertain thoughts of spirit possession, just as one does not have to be an atheist in order to examine how and why people believe in God. Supernatural concepts are conceived and pondered in the brain and applied in human behavior, and the brain and human behavior can be studied scientifically. Gods and spirits cannot be.
Then, if you don't need to consider whether spirits exist, surely in considering how and why people entertain thoughts of spirit possession, you must entertain the hypothesis that spirits do in fact exist, and the people are merely good observers.
If you don't consider that possibility, then you've answered the question, whether you're aware of it or not.
Nor do we have to categorize spirits as supernatural; in the 19th century, people were quite fond of positing spirits as made of some as yet unknown, but not necessarily unknowable, substance.
Likewise, if you ask why people believe in a god, many theists would answer that there is a 'God-shaped gap' in people's brains, put there by a creator. If you don't consider that possibility, you've implicitly accepted an atheistic stance. Not a totally atheistic stance, of course, but one that excludes certain categories of divine intervention.
So it is simply not true that the truth of the Genesis creation myth is not a germane question when considering it anthropologically or culturally. In asking was the flood story derived from earlier Sumerian texts, you are implicitly declaring it partly if not completely false as written in the Bible.
Posted by: Gerard Harbison | September 26, 2007 2:15 PM
Sastra said:
That's not necessarily the case. After all, presumably if (insert supernatural agent here) wants to be able to communicate with humans, then it's quite fitting for (insert supernatural agent here) to make sure that humans have the cognitive capacity and inclination to do so. I can't much comment on social anthropologists regarding this reasoning, but it seems to work pretty well for Justin Barrett, an unapologetic Christian and cognitive psychologist at Oxford's center for anthropology and mind.
Me too, as I've been trying to explain.
Gerard said:
Again, the fact that something is true is not an explanation of why people believe it. The fact that something is untrue is not an explanation of why people don't believe it. Truth is separate from epistemology. "Being good observers" is just not a good explanation of why people believe things when you're talking about something other than being able to recognize that which is right in front of their face (and sometimes even then, when it comes to optical illusions). Two people can be highly observant of the same situation and come away with dramatically different interpretations.
Sure, you can consider the possibility that spirits do in fact exist. Consider it all you want. But then what? And so what? That doesn't answer the question at hand. If you conclude that they do and that people who believe in them are simply "good observers," then how do you account for the fact that so many people on the planet apparently are not? The same cognitive scientists working on the question of why people believe in God are also working on the question of why some don't. Knowing (or thinking you know) the real answer to a question does not tell you how people arrive at the answers they do....and, conversely, knowing how they arrive at the answers does not tell you the real answer.
I didn't say it was not a germane question when considering it anthropologically-- in fact I said precisely the opposite. And I said it's not germane culturally when you're discussing myths in a Western Civ. class and their significance for a particular society.
We're not talking about the flood story or Sumeria, so I really don't know where this comment comes from. Presumably Western Civ. classes are not discussing Sumerian texts. And even if they are, Sumerian society happened a lot more recently than the actual dawn of homo sapiens, which was about 100,000 years ago. And I'm not sure why you think something in the Bible would be falsified by the fact that it exists in some earlier text. But regardless, this is way too far off the topic.
Posted by: Gretchen | September 26, 2007 3:16 PM
I nominate Gretchen for "Commenter of the Month". Nice posts in this thread, as always, Gretchen.
Ed, maybe you should institute some program like that, where your commenting community can nominate others in the group for excellence.
Posted by: Jeff Hebert | September 26, 2007 4:12 PM
If Robert's Rules of Order allowed for nominations to be seconded, I would second Jeff Herbert's.
Gretchen,
Precisely!
Yes, yes!
Well said!
Good point . . . Well, you get my point. Logical, well-stated, patient, reasonable, just plain good commenting.
Posted by: JuliaL | September 26, 2007 4:29 PM
Again, the fact that something is true is not an explanation of why people believe it. The fact that something is untrue is not an explanation of why people don't believe it. Truth is separate from epistemology. "Being good observers" is just not a good explanation of why people believe things when you're talking about something other than being able to recognize that which is right in front of their face (and sometimes even then, when it comes to optical illusions). Two people can be highly observant of the same situation and come away with dramatically different interpretations.
Sometimes people believe things simply because they're true and obvious. Most birds fly.
No pigs do. All you're trying to do is to add a level of equivocation to muddy the basic question: that the non-existence of spirits is assumed when you analyze why people believe in them. If spirits were as obvious as pigs, we'd all believe in spirits. We don't need a cultural analysis of why we believe in pigs. We see them groveling around in the mud on the neighbor's farm, going oink-oink.
The origin of the story of Adam and Eve is an interesting cultural question. But almost nobody approaches it from the standpoint that it is true - why? because we know from a host of evidence that it isn't. So when you ask about the origin of the principal creation myth of Western Civilization for the last 1500 years, and you ask where it came from, the very first item in your chain of thought is (1) that it isn't a literal narration of events.
Now assuming you're going to talk about the Bible in a Western Civ. class - and, of course, you have to - you must presumably talk about its origins in Jewish myth, and thence ask from where the Jews took their myths.
We're not talking about the flood story or Sumeria, so I really don't know where this comment comes from.
Genesis. Same book as Adam and Eve. If Genesis is true, then the flood story cannot be derived from an earlier and false text. But Gilgamesh is non Biblical and decidedly polytheistic. And since that part of Genesis is clearly derivative, you might make a working assumption that the rest might be.
In fact, the twin narratives of Genesis 1 and 2 have led many people to postulate two parallel sources for the origin myth. This is one thing Bitterman reportedly pointed out. If there are two stories, and they conflict, then one ain't true.
Posted by: Gerard Harbison | September 26, 2007 5:10 PM
Gretchen is a smart chick. :)
Posted by: Ed Brayton | September 26, 2007 5:12 PM
Likewise, if you ask why people believe in a god, many theists would answer that there is a 'God-shaped gap' in people's brains, put there by a creator. If you don't consider that possibility, you've implicitly accepted an atheistic stance.
Not necessarily. If the concept of a "god-shaped gap" could be more exactly defined, and evidence could be found to indicate it exists, then we would have found evidence of divine agency. The "atheistic stance" only comes up if we can't find evidence to indicate any such agency, and/or can't get an exact definition of "god-shaped gap."
In asking was the flood story derived from earlier Sumerian texts, you are implicitly declaring it partly if not completely false as written in the Bible.
No, we're asking whether or not there's a similar narrative in the Sumerian texts, and if so, how one might have influenced the other. I, for one, fail to see how such a line of inquiry "implicitly declares" the story false.
Posted by: Raging Bee | September 26, 2007 6:05 PM
No, we're asking whether or not there's a similar narrative in the Sumerian texts, and if so, how one might have influenced the other. I, for one, fail to see how such a line of inquiry "implicitly declares" the story false
I said 'derived from', not 'similar to'.
Posted by: Gerard Harbison | September 26, 2007 6:07 PM
Somewhere in his book Truth: a Guide philosopher Simon Blackburn talks about a "nightmare psychologist" who explains your belief that there is butter in the fridge by making analytical references to your upbringing, your social network, your culture, your sexual habits, your relationship with your mother, your insecurities, your toilet training, your religious views, your reading preferences, your health -- anything and everything, except actually going to the fridge, opening the door, and checking to see whether you believe there is butter in the fridge because there really is butter in the fridge, right where you put it after making a trip to the Piggly Wiggly two days ago.
I would have thought that, generally speaking, cognitive and social factors would become significantly more important in exploring the causes of a belief that there is butter in the fridge if there is no butter, has never been any butter, and nobody ever bought any butter or saw any butter, neither. But IANAA (I Am Not An Anthropologist).
Posted by: Sastra | September 26, 2007 7:32 PM
A lot of people seem to be assuming that it was the instructor who brought up the Adam and Eve story. That might not be the case. In my experience, students will from time to time cite the Bible in support of a point they are making in a discussion that has not intended to have anything to do with the Bible. These citations are sometimes on point, but I have had students cite the Bible as authority for things that are not in it. I would not be surprised to learn that what happened was that a student made an off-the-wall argument, citing the Bible as authority, they went back and forth for a few rounds, and finally, in exasperation, the instructor tried to end the argument by denying the authority of the Bible as evidence.
Posted by: Bill Poser | September 27, 2007 1:41 AM
Thanks to Jeff Hebert, JuliaL, and Ed...that was a nice way to begin my morning! I am, however, at a loss of how to explain this further to Gerard since it doesn't seem to be getting through.
Sometimes, yes-- but by "true" I mean "demonstrable," and by "obvious," I mean "material, right in front of them, and non-controversial." The cat is sitting on the mat. True and obvious. One does not generally need to go over and poke the cat or pull out the mat from under it, though a few loonies might insist on doing so.
Many people, if not most, would assert that the existence of God is true and obvious. One cannot poke God or pull the mat from under him, of course, but look around you-- where the hell did all of this come from, if there's no God? Don't most of us except a few loonies believe in him? Trying to deny this "true and obvious" thing will most likely get you nowhere. The same is true of spirits, though they don't have as many adherents, especially when it comes to the matter of possession.
Let's look at something "true and obvious" for comparison. There are cognitive scientists analyzing why you believe in your mother. Does that mean your mother doesn't exist? There are people who think so-- not your mother, of course, but theirs. This can result from a rare brain disorder called Capgras's syndrome. People who suffer from it fail to recognize loved ones, even going so far as to assert that they've been replaced by imposters so as to come up with some way to reconcile the fact that their parent or spouse is standing in front of them, yet apparently is not. One theory for the cause of this is a disconnect between the temporal cortex (where faces are recognized) and the limbic system, which stirs the warm emotions that come with seeing the familiar face of someone you care about. That's a cognitive explanation for what makes it possible and likely for you to believe in your mother. In order to explain "why not," you have to explain the "why."
An evolutionary explanation would be that you have to believe in your mother in order to get through your critical years of development and survive to adulthood. Until recently, children who ignored their parents entirely didn't stand a very good chance of surviving.
Likewise, we can turn this explanatory eye to supernatural agents. Some people think their existence is true and obvious, while others do not. But even if you're one of the people that do, it's not a scientific explanation, and therefore a scientist,not matter where he/she comes down on the matter, has to look further and deeper.
In the interest of full disclosure, I will say that of the cognitive and evolutionary scientists I'm familiar with who are studying religion, most that self-describe do so as atheistic or agnostic. But it's not necessary that they be nonbelievers, and only a couple that I know of are willing to approach the issue as a need to explain how people get things wrong. Cognitive biases abound-- people in real life get things wrong all of the time. A great paper from Hasleton & Buss on error management theory notes that "the human mind is designed to reason adaptively, not truthfully or even necessarily rationally." Many if not most of the true things in the world are far more complicated than cats sitting on mats, and our minds are not truth-discerning machines. This being the case, it's always relevant to ask why we believe.
Posted by: Gretchen | September 27, 2007 5:36 AM
Gretchen, consider the following example:
People used to believe that the Sun moved around the Earth. One can postulate, even with all the physical evidence, that the Sun actually does move around the Earth, but God made us feel and (mis?)measure forces and orbits in such a way that it seems to us as if the Earth moved around the Sun. (That line of argument, in its more primitive form, was in fact taken by some friends of Copernicus who were trying to avoid a controversy leading to dangerous confrontation with the Church.) If you assume that God is omnipotent, there is no way to conclusively refute such an explanation.
Now a few questions:
1) Can we say, without any reservations, that the belief in a geocentric universe was false?
2) If we can't (presumably based on the impossibility of absolute refutation of the God-made illusion explanation), is there anything (and I mean anything - pigs fly, there's an elephant in the fridge, my mother was replaced by a KGB agent...) that we can declare to be false without reservations?
3) If we can, how does this example differ from spirit possession?
4) Is the falsehood of the geocentric model relevant for the study of history, sociology and anthropology of the Western civilization? As an example, is it not at least a hypothesis worth considering that the resistance of the authorities to scientific inquiry in 15th-17th centuries and the persecution of "heretics" would have been very different (and less severe) if the official church position had been true?
In summary, I insist that (a) every statement about any phenomenon with physical manifestation or consequences is a valid subject for scientific inquiry and its truth can be evaluated in principle, and (b) the truth of beliefs is often relevant for their social/cultural/historical impact.
I don't want anything beyond those points to be imputed into my present argument. I am in no way arguing that false beliefs are less interesting, or that they are unjustified, etc. All I am doing is rejecting a methodological approach that a priori dismisses truth as an irrelevant quality.
PREEMPTIVE NOTE: Please no silly responses like "every model is false, so the heliocentric model is also false." Any such statement would be false in this context. The only relevant aspect of the heliocentric model is that the Sun has a much greater mass than the Earth. And that is an unqualified truth. Imputing any uncertainty or relativism here would be utter nonsense.
Posted by: bullfighter | September 27, 2007 1:42 PM
And that is an unqualified truth.
Not if you're speaking about it scientifically. There are NO unqualified truths in science. There simply aren't. We actually try to avoid using the word 'truth' for that reason. Science is asymptotic. We always have to leave open the possibility that we have it very wrong. I know what you mean in that comment, but we should really avoid using terms like unqualified truth. It's just not really the way science works. Are we 99% certain that the sun has a mass much greater than that of the Earth? Absolutely. Do we think the observation is wrong? Absolutely not. Is it well supported? Absolutely...it is very well supported. It is possible that we have missed something about the way we think we understand mass (in reality, a lot of physics) to the point where the statement becomes false. Yes. It is very very very unlikely at this point, but it remains possible.
Posted by: Josh | September 27, 2007 1:58 PM
Josh, that is exactly the type of comment my preemptive note was supposed to... well, preempt. But it seems that there is always somebody whose urge to intellectually masturbate in public is greater than any requirement of common sense. Yes, we all know how science works. And it is still an unqualified truth that the Sun has a much greater mass than the Earth. Every philosophying that tries to deny that ends up committed to absurd conclusions. If "m(Sun) >> m(Earth)" is not an unqualified truth, then "Josh is human" is also not an unqualified truth. Your "99%" is nothing but obfuscation; for all practical purposes, we are talking about exactly 100%.
Posted by: bullfighter | September 27, 2007 5:44 PM
I'll try to avoid the intellectual masturbation, but I'm single and all, what am I to do? Still, I have to agree with Gretchen here. First, what truth/falsehood question are we asking of the text? That there was an actual man named Adam and an actual woman Eve in an actual garden planted by God "eastwards in Eden?" That "In the beginning God created?" There are a lot of potential true/false questions right there.
I unfortunately lost many, many books when I got divorced, but Karl Popper has a section in one of his books about how scientists have a problem in that they try to quantify everything. Non-quantifiable events are either ignored or else quantified in some ultimately irrelevant way. Here, the literal truth of the Bible text really isn't one of the ten most interesting questions it raises.
Last year I had an 11 year old in my Sunday School class tell me I was not a true Christian and damned to Hell since I did not endorse the literal truth of Genesis. You're in good company, bullfighter.
Posted by: kehrsam | September 27, 2007 6:42 PM
bullfighter, I think you misunderstand me. I am NOT asserting the following:
1. There is no such thing as truth and falsity.
2. The truth or falsity of a claim is irrelevant to why (and whether) people believe it.
3. There are some aspects of physical reality which science is prima facie incapable of studying.
I AM asserting the following:
1. The fact that a thing is true is not, on its own, enough to explain why people believe it. Nor is the fact that a thing is false enough to explain why they don't.
2. It is possible and useful to study religious belief and behavior scientifically without making claims one way or another about the reality of supernatural entities.
3. Insofar as a supernatural entity is asserted to interact with the physical world in a particular way, science is able to analyze such claims and determine their truth value (such as Dennett suggests).
Does that clear things up a bit?
Posted by: Gretchen | September 28, 2007 7:54 AM
Gretchen, I didn't misunderstand you at all. Also recall that I agreed with most of what you wrote in the first place. I disagreed with very specific points, and I've been clear about which points they were. I see nothing new in your response - and again I agree with you up to a point:
1. Agree completely, and I never disagreed with that. What I disagree with is the idea that the truth of a belief is irrelevant for its explanation and social implications. You may never have said that, but you implied it with your spirit possession example.
2. Again, I agree - it is possible. But it can be incomplete. The question whether the truth of a belief is relevant in any particular case is itself a valid scientific (or empirical, if you will) question. I protested against its a priori exclusion from consideration.
3. Here I disagree: scientific inquiry need not and should not wait for the maker of supernatural claims to propose a particular way in which supernatural entities interact with the natural world. (Typically, such specific propositions will never come. In the case of an Amazonian tribe, it would be patently unfair to expect them. In the case of some Western theologians, there is a deliberate attempt to avoid examination. My arguments here don't depend on the motives of the claimant.) On the contrary, it is the scientist's job to consider various possibilities and predictions they would imply for observable natural phenomena, and to evaluate such predictions. In many cases, people have done such investigations; an anthropologist studying a belief need not reinvent the wheel.
Posted by: bullfighter | September 28, 2007 10:18 AM
bullfighter said:
Scientists are evaluating such predictions as we speak. Those scientists (as far as I know) do not include anthropologists, however, because the job of an anthropologist is to study human behavior. If a study or series of studies are performed which demonstrate conclusively that spirit possession is impossible, then it would be entirely fitting for an anthropologist to include mention of such in his/her work. Such work is not, however, deficient or meaningless without such inclusion.
Posted by: Gretchen | September 28, 2007 10:27 AM
kehrsam:
There is a significant fraction of the population that believes that every word in the Bible is literally true. There were almost certainly such people among Bitterman's students. Yes, even a minimal examination reveals that such a belief is absurd and contradictory, but it is a fact, a very relevant fact, that those people sincerely believe that.
That creates a problem for those people if they want to study history and culture, because it is impossible to understand the Bible if you approach it with a prejudice that what it says is literally true, that its stories correspond to actual events the way we, modern Westerners, expect news and history to correspond to actual events.
I don't know how you can overcome that problem; it is effectively a learning disability. But at the very least, it should be obvious that the issue of truth - and even of the very idea of truth - is highly relevant for understanding of ancient myths and their influence on Western civilization.
So don't try to derail the discussion to irrelevant details about which part of the story is to be examined for truth. There doesn't seem to have been a misunderstanding between Bitterman and his students. I bet they knew very well what each other was saying and how it fit in the context. The students were offended because their preposterous claims were not given the same weight as products of real thought.
Posted by: bullfighter | September 28, 2007 10:38 AM
Gretchen, I am going to develop a reflexive answer to every one of your posts, and it will go like this: "Yes, yes, yes, yes,.... but no, no!" :-)
Yes, we agree about most of this. Certainly it has to be biologists, neuroscientists, and other natural scientists who examine the natural implications of those claims. I am not imposing an unrealistic duty on anthropologists. And, as I said before, I am not going to the other extreme and postulating that the truth of beliefs will always be relevant.
Still, there are scientifically sound conclusions we do know for sure, or at least with far more certainty than can arise in any analysis of human behavior. And the truth of beliefs is sometimes highly relevant. (Consider, for example, self-destructive cults, such as the followers of Jim Jones. I can think of a slew of behavioral, cultural, and social implications of such cults that would have to be interpreted very differently if there were a possibility that their beliefs were true.)
Posted by: bullfighter | September 28, 2007 10:48 AM
I'm sorry Bull...I didn't mean to intellectually masturbate in your presence, or to state something that apparently everyone already knew. I'm sorry if my comment was so far out of bounds in comparison to others on this blog that it was worthy of ridicule rather than a simple attempt at refutation. In my experience, in actuality, very few people know how science works. Considering this is a blog about science, I think how it functions is important to have sorted out, especially when the discussion centers on some of the more difficult things we could address, such as whether spirits are falsifiable. Rather than trying to obfuscate, I was trying to clarify. It seemed relevant since your comment, which I liked overall, went off the rails with your use of 'unqualified truth.' I'm sorry if my attempt to clarify annoyed you, but I did and do think it was valid. I agree with much of what you have written...honestly it is really only the word 'unqualified' that causes me to wince.
The statement 'Josh is a human' might be an unqualified truth in general speech, but to my understanding, the statement is NOT an unqualified truth according to science. I was taught the exact opposite. Are the error bars absurdly small? Yes...right now...and...well actually in some ways not. One issue is that saying it's unqualified eliminates time as a qualifier, does it not? Whereas it doesn't allow for us to be wrong in some major aspect of biology that would invalidate the statement (very unlikely in this case), it more importantly doesn't allow science to evolve to the point where the statement becomes untrue or meaningless (far less unlikely). Calling the statement a scientifically unqualified truth is to ignore rather large issues that exist with the species concept (Pan sapiens anyone?) and with the giant ball of wax that is the systematics of race, just to name two problems. Depending on the evolution of the field, it's not impossible that I could end up responding to that statement with: well, ok, but how are you defining 'human?' Do I think there is much chance that in, I dunno...200 years, the term 'human' could lose all meaning because we've begun classifying whatever the hell races are as biologically distinct groups? No. Not in the least. But to declare that it couldn't happen is to be profoundly ignorant of biology and how it has evolved (and well...probably sociology...). You might roll your eyes at that reply, but I'm not the one who called it a scientifically unqualified truth.
Let's look at Gretchen's recent statement: The cat is sitting on the mat. True and obvious. It seems an obvious, irrefutable observation. OK, but is this observation scientifically true in an unqualified sense? Observations always have error associated with them. For example, how has she defined sitting? I know of several distinct postures my parents' cat might adopt when placing its bulk down on their fireplace hearth that my folks might (and indeed probably would) refer to as sitting, but which I might describe as lying. The postures I'm thinking of are distinct from each other and involve different aspects of a cat's anatomy being in contact with the mat. They describe pretty different things, but I'm confident my mother would describe both postures as sitting. From Gretchen's description of the observation, how do we know the cat is not 'lying' on the mat according to my definitions of cat posture? Without more information, Gretchen's statement is only 'true' at a particular level of precision (thus, it is not unqualified). Both sitting and lying refer to the cat on the mat, but if the posture can be described in both ways by different people, then 'the cat is sitting on the mat' ceases to be broadly 'true.' Some sort of qualifier (like say Gretchen's definition of sitting) is needed unless we're not concerned about the precision of the observation (which in itself is a qualifier). If we're talking about science, then precision is important and differences like the distinction between sitting and lying are not trivial. The distinction is certainly significant enough to make phrases like 'unqualified truth' problematic.
Posted by: Josh | September 28, 2007 11:34 AM
bullfighter said:
My apologies, I didn't realize you were a witness, or perhaps a mindreader. You might have mentioned that earlier.
Something happened in that classroom which made more than one student upset enough to threaten a lawsuit and the school summarily fire the instructor without a hearing. It may have involved "preposterous claims" on behalf of some person, or perhaps not. I don't know, and I suspect you don't, either.
Posted by: kehrsam | September 28, 2007 11:54 AM
Josh: All you say is true, but it is also a "textbook case" of arguing an irrelevant point, or, to use a cliche, not seeing the forest for the trees. Your challenges to statements "The Sun is more massive that the Earth" and "Josh is a human" are correct in every step, but they are still absurd, because such challenges can be mounted against every statement. However, if no undoubtedly true statement exists, then we can't communicate or even know what we are talking or thinking about.
BTW, the sitting cat is a weaker analogy, because it is easy to imagine a legitimate controversy over the meaning of "sit" for a four-legged animal.
Kehrsam: You are substituting theses in the middle of the discussion, and I am calling your fallacy.
Posted by: bullfighter | October 1, 2007 11:55 AM
Your challenges to statements "The Sun is more massive that the Earth" and "Josh is a human" are correct in every step, but they are still absurd, because such challenges can be mounted against every statement. However, if no undoubtedly true statement exists, then we can't communicate or even know what we are talking or thinking about.
I won't argue with your personal judgement of "absurd," but, yes, that is the way language works. Each language is an abstract system of symbols that correlates with certain human-brain perceptions of reality.
Thus a statement presents a model of reality as perceived by the recently-evolved brain of one animal on one planet in one solar system in one galaxy, but the statement is not itself the reality it models. Every such model is imperfect.
No statement is, or ever can be, convey or be equivalent to "unqualified truth." The truth presented is always qualified both by the limitations of the brain interpreting the reality and by the structure and limitations of the language. And yes, this applies to statements of scientific findings and conclusions and theories as well as to everyday statements of opinions and observations and personal judgments.
Posted by: JuliaL | October 1, 2007 12:22 PM
Bull: You are arguing two propositions, both of which are summarized when you write:
You appear to be claiming that 1) Literal belief in the "truth" of the Bible is nonsensical; and 2) that people holding this mistaken belief were to blame for whatever disturbance occurred during the class. Correct me if I am wrong.
My response logically follows: If statement 1 is to considered true, then you are claiming that every truth question raised by the Genesis text must be judged "absurd and contradictory." In other words, I decline to accept your blanket conclusion as to the matter. I am sure you feel you have adequate evidence for your assertion; I know plenty of people who have looked at the evidence and come to a different conclusion.
As to point 2, since neither of us was present, what happened in that classroom remains speculation. Perhaps a religious inerrantist objected. Perhaps not. Perhaps the teacher insisted on calling the biblical God "She" and students objected to that.
Not being an inerrantist, my original objection stands (as well as Gretchen's, if I am reading her correctly): You are simply asking the wrong question of the text. I understand why you feel the question of correspondence is important here, I merely disagree.
As for "substituting theses:" Whatever. there is more than one topic under discussion here, so diagram the logic however you like.
Posted by: kehrsam | October 1, 2007 12:26 PM
Sorry, I hit "post" instead of "preview" before I finished one of my sentences:
No statement is, or ever can be, equivalent to "unqualified truth," nor can it convey "unqualified truth."
Posted by: JuliaL | October 1, 2007 12:27 PM
Bull, you may think my point is irrelevant, and while I agree it's tangential to much that you've argued, I argue that it isn't irrelevant. I offered it because you have used wordings such as:
In summary, I insist that (a) every statement about any phenomenon with physical manifestation or consequences is a valid subject for scientific inquiry and its truth can be evaluated in principle, and...
when discussing science, but science doesn't actually evaluate truth. To put forth that it does misrepresents how science works. There is much more that I could offer here, but Julia did such a great job of making the point (and indeed expanding upon it), that I'm just going to point to her penultimate comment and agree.
I'm glad you thought the cat was a weaker analogy...I thought so to...I used that one specifically because it seemed so clear that various interpretations of the posture could be offered (thus I thought it was a good example of my point).
Posted by: Josh | October 1, 2007 2:19 PM
kehrsam:
You are completely wrong at many levels, and I'll try to correct you, but I am not sure I can correct someone who has so completely misread what I've written so far.
I did claim (1), but only as a preemptive answer to a possible derailing response to my central claim. It makes no sense to respond to (1) unless you want to say that the absurdity of inerrantist claims makes it possible and practicable to ignore the existence of those people. Since you seem to argue the exact opposite, you agree with me about every aspect of (1) that is relevant to this discussion. Why unnecessarily raise a new, and at best tangential, issue?
I did not claim (2). Your assertion is not even wrong: blame was not a relevant subject at all. Where you got the idea that I was discussing it is a puzzle to me. (As an aside: I do think (2) is true; but that doesn't mean that I said anything like it in a previous post, nor that it was being discussed at all. But I am disclosing it now, lest it become relevant later, I say it, and you fake a gotcha based on a purported contradiction.)
My whole point in mentioning the belief in literal truth of Genesis was to show the irrelevance of your question as to which specific true/false question we were asking of the text. Any one will do.
Posted by: bullfighter | October 1, 2007 3:34 PM
Josh and Julia: All you wrote is true. Oops, I apologize, it is not. It is true only conditional on this and within the limits of that and... well, you get the point: it may be complete crap, so I can only tentatively agree with it and expose it to attempts at falsification...
Seriously, you are not saying anything I don't know or don't agree with - in proper context. But I've been hinting all along that this is not the proper context for deep epistemological arguments. I could get into your line of argument and ask you what you mean by truth, and you could ask me, and so on. But we might get thrown out of this place, on the grounds of (intellectually) lewd behavior, and rightly so.
Most people on this planet take it for granted that there are statements that are true. Also, that for some of those statements, it is possible to know if they are true. As this discussion is not so esoteric that it would require scrutiny of those assumptions, can we accept them for the sake of being able to continue the conversation without having to write a dissertation for every post?
Posted by: bullfighter | October 1, 2007 3:58 PM
Bull, yeah...we can (accept them)...those who will quote mine us cannot. Well, they can...they will not is probably better.
Posted by: Josh | October 1, 2007 4:05 PM
Perhaps, but it seems, to me at least, that a literal translation is much more consistent than a non literal one. The non literal translation opens itself to an entire host of essentially unanswerable questions that render the entire excercise mostly silly. In this regard I have always found the fundies more admirable than the RCC because they are much more internally consistent.
Of course they are all trying to justify prior held belief with later learned facts and hence the conflict and inherent compartmentalization of thought.
Posted by: GH | October 1, 2007 4:28 PM
Seriously what and who are you defending? Defend somthing that has a purpose, instead of nothing that has no purpose.
Posted by: lol | December 4, 2007 1:25 PM