OK, so someone sent me a copy of The God Delusion and I have to say, I'm not impressed. Let's get this straight, it's not a work of science, but of philosophy. Dawkins is making a rhetorical case, not a logical or scientific one, that God is a hypothesis that can be tested and found wanting. I'll talk about that later. What I want to deal with now is his claim that agnosticism is a weak and bad philosophical position.
A technical point. Dawkins says that a deist is someone who thinks God is deus absconditus - a creator who once acted and now sits back uninvolved in the world. As far as history is concerned, a deist is someone who thinks that God does not need revelation to be known. This is perhaps a fine distinction, but a deist need not think God is uninvolved, only that He (She, It) acts in a consistent manner, and that the laws of Nature express the nature of God.
But his discussion of agnosticism is just bad. He falls into the fallacy of black and white thinking (false dichotomy), that there are only two alternatives here - to believe in God or to deny God. And his argument relies upon overgeneralisation. If one God belief has been shown to be contrary to facts, that does not mean that all have. Spinoza's god is not shown to be false just because Oral Roberts' God has been.
Dawkins says:
I'll begin by distinguishing two kinds of agnosticism. TAP, or Temporary Agnosticism in Practice, is the legitimate fence-sitting where there really is a definite answer, one way or the other, but we so far lack the evidence to reach it (or don't understand the evidence, or haven't time to read the evidence, etc.). TAP would be a reasonable stance towards the Permian extinction. There is a truth out there and one day we hope to know it, though for the moment we don't.But there is also a deeply inescapable kind of fence-sitting, which I shall call PAP (Permanent Agnosticism in Principle). The fact that the acronym spells a word used by that old school preacher is (almost) accidental. The PAP style of agnosticism is appropriate for questions that can never be answered, no matter how much evidence we gather, because the very idea of evidence is not applicable. The question exists on a different plane, or in a different dimension, beyond the zones where evidence can reach.
Okay, I'm happy to distinguish these two. A temporary agnosticism is justified when the evidence is not in, and a permanent agnosticism is justified when there is no evidence that can count one way or the other. Then, however, he says:
Philosophers cite this question as one that can never be answered, no matter what new evidence might one day become available. And some scientists and other intellectuals are convinced - too eagerly in my view - that the question of God's existence belongs in the forever inaccessible PAP category. From this, as we shall see, they often make the illogical deduction that the hypothesis of God's existence, and the hypothesis of his non-existence, have exactly equal probability of being right.
And this is not true at all. The philosophical agnosticism I adhere to does not say anything about probabilities at all. It says, instead, that nothing can count for or against either position decisively. Probabilities are based in this case on prior assumptions - one uses Bayes' theorem to determine whether or not the hypothesis under test is likely to be true, given other assumptions we already accept. And here is where the problem lies - which assumptions? To adopt and restrict one's priors to scientific assumptions is question begging. You in effect eliminate any other conceptual presuppositions from being in the game. This has a name in philosophy - positivism. It is the (empirically unsupportable) claim that only scientific arguments can be applied. As Popper noted, this is self-refuting. You cannot prove the basic premise of your argument that only provable (or, let's be generous, supportable) claims should be accepted. As this is not a supportable claim in itself, you have contradicted your own position.
Dawkins is being a positivist. Now positivism is not an incoherent view if taken as a personal set of prior assumptions, but it certainly cannot be used non-circularly to reject the arguments of others. If (say) John Henry Newman has priors that make a God hypothesis likely, how can Dawkins reject those priors without begging the question? All he can say is that if you take his particular view of scientific rigour on board, they are unnecessary.
An agnostic says that since one can make God likely or unlikely by shifting one's priors appropriately, at the level of metadiscourse there is nothing that can decide between them. As it happens, I share most of Dawkins' assumptions about how knowledge is gained, and it does seem to me that God is unnecessary in scientific reasoning, but I cannot show, nor can he or anyone else, that scientific reasoning is all that should or can ever be employed. And that is not "fence sitting" but a recognition of the limits of this kind of metalevel argument.
Of course as an agnostic I behave as if there were no God. I also behave as if there were no Invisible Pink Unicorn, or personal angels. But that doesn't make me a fence sitter - all I am doing is admitting that, at the level of philosophical discourse, I can neither affirm nor reject these entities, and that what makes them likely or unlikely depends crucially on the priors that one accepts. He says:
...agnosticism about the existence of God belongs firmly in the temporary or TAP category. Either he exists or he doesn't. It is a scientific question; one day we may know the answer, and meanwhile we can say something pretty strong about the probability.
It is true that either [a] god exists or not. There is no middle ground for existence. But it is not a scientific question, and all the examples he gives are not commensurate with the existence of a deity. That we can tell what the chemical composition of minerals is now, is a very different issue from whether there is a God, or at least, a God whose existence makes no empirical difference.
Let's look at that last claim - a deity whose existence involves acceptance of the claim that the world is flat, or that stars are lights in the firmament is falsified by science. But a deity whose existence does not imply this is not, and believers are free to distinguish between the theological claims made in their scriptures and the "allegorical" language used or the cultural context of the writers of that scripture. This is formally analogous to the truth of moral claims. Whether it is true or not that murder is evil is in no way either proven or disproven by the behaviour of animals in the wild. The biological facts are not moral facts (a mistake often made, though, and which has been given a name: The Naturalistic Fallacy). It would be a silly argument that murder is OK, because it happens in animals (and humans are animals) and has been shown to be true scientifically. That's a domain confusion. Moral truths (if they exist) are not founded on scientifically verifiable facts. Likewise, claims that a God exists are not, in the abstract, defeasible by empirical data, nor by probability assignments that exclude any desiderata that aren't scientific.
Agnosticism is a form of skepticism, but one here not about evidence or practical worth. It is a skepticism about the very ability of philosophy and science to resolve the conceptual issue. I like to express it this way: a question that merely has the form of an interrogative, but which admits of no answer even in principle, is not a question. And the existence of God is such a question. The Proofs of God that Dawkins reviews in the book are not decisive, true. Neither are the Disproofs of God. Dawkins is confusing personal conviction with formal demonstrability. He may be convinced there is no God. But he cannot demonstrate that. At best he can set up the dialectic conditions in which his conclusion is shown to be justified. But, and here's the kicker, so can theists. It's all about what prior assumptions you feed into Bayes' Theorem.
I suspect that what bothers Dawkins and other atheists who insist that agnosticism is "weak atheism" is that agnosticism is a hard position to maintain; it is vulnerable to instability and often adherents will find themselves "backsliding" (foresliding?) into theism or deism, sensu lato. The way I have reconciled it with my other beliefs is to become what is jocularly referred to as "apathetic agnosticism" (don't know, don't care). Sure, I act as if there were no gods. I also act as if there were. Neither position has any effect upon my moral, social and epistemic commitments. If there is a God, then I expect that I will change my epistemic content when that becomes testable, if ever. But in our present state of knowledge and capacities, until a Deoscope is invented, the issue has only the form of a question. It's rather like asking "Is there a blurg?" The question is meaningless.
Back in the 1950s, a famous essay was written by Antony Flew, entitled "Theology and falsification". In this, Flew considers an invisible undetectable gardener posited by someone trying to explain the order of a patch of plants. Flew asks the same question Dawkins does - what would falsify the existence of God, and concludes that if nothing will, then the assertion that there is a God is meaningless. But this also imports priors (in this case, the quasipositivistic metaphysics that only falsifiable claims are meaningful, something Popper did not hold). A theist might reply - a life that lacked meaning would falsify God (for me). Is this a scientific matter? I think not.
It is my view that agnosticism is the only viable metalevel hypothesis about God[s]. But that doesn't mean I don't think atheists are justified in disbelieving - just that I also don't think that theists are unjustified. Justification of these claims is something that depends entirely on the game one is personally playing.
That said, let's briefly look at NOMA (non-overlapping magisterial authorities, posited by Gould as a way to let theologians have something of their own that science cannot assail). I think that theology as I learned it is not a subject so much as a tradition of discourse within a faith community. And it simply isn't true that science and theology have, or could have if everybody just calmed down, distinct non-overlapping fields of responsibility. Science and religion have always been elbowing each other for space on the dance floor, and probably always will, so long as scientists insist on doing theology and theologians insist on doing science. But it's not a war of all against all - the bulk of both disciplines are distinct and known to be distinct by the protagonists. John Hedley Brooke has shown that the relation between science and religion, though sometimes hot, was not always competitive. Basically, it boils down to whether a theologian or religious leader makes claims that are empirically defeasible, or whether a scientist makes claims that are not. While I agree with Dawkins that NOMA is inherently false, both historically and conceptually, though, it remains true that there is a special subject of scientific investigation, and a special domain of theology, and the two do not overlap however much the periphery is contested.
And that's what's wrong with Dawkins' claim that God is a testable hypothesis. He's trying to claim the central domain of theology for science. It can't be done, and still be doing science. By all means conclude that there is no evidence for God in empirical terms. By all means make the philosophical claim that one has no need for God in science. Even claim that science is all the philosophy one needs. Don't think this proves anything, though, for it doesn't...
Brooke, John Hedley. Science and Religion: Some Historical Perspectives: Cambridge University Press, 1991.
Stumble It!
Comments
You are on some roll.
I could never have said it that well ... until now.
Posted by: John Pieret | October 26, 2006 10:19 PM
Again, well said.
Agnosticism is routinely dismissed - not least by atheists like Dawkins - as a weak and ineffectual position. More specifically, they mean that it is impotent in the political struggle against the conservative wings of Christianity and Islam. But is this true?
As we know, Huxley wrote of his newly-coined term:
In other words, Huxley was, in one sense, trying to distinguish his position of uncertainty from claims of complete knowledge made by various religious traditions.
And this, to me, is where agnosticism could become an effective political strategy.
Atheism is perceived, rightly or wrongly, as opposing one form of certainty - that of belief in God - with another - that of denying the existence of such a God.
Agnosticism, on the other hand, could be presented as a reasoned rejection of all forms of unjustified certainty. Atheism is more narrowly-focussed on religious belief but and agnostic campaign would be directed not just at religious extremism but any form of political totalitarianism as well. What is that famous scene from the "Knowledge or Certainty" episode of Ascent of Man other than Bronowski's impassioned statement of such a case?
Posted by: Ian H Spedding | October 27, 2006 12:43 AM
Nah, you haven't convinced me of anything yet.
Dawkins does not claim to have proven or disproven anything, so that end of the argument seems entirely irrelevant.
You say he's trying to claim the central domain of theology for science; yet above that you define theology as "a tradition of discourse within a faith community". You think he's trying to seize a tradition of discourse from the faith community? Or is there some other central domain you're talking about?
You seem to be playing games with what god is. You say he's not going to be able to touch "a God whose existence makes no empirical difference"...well, yeah, and who cares? This hypothetical god who doesn't do anything doesn't seem to be a pressing interest for either atheists or theists. Is that the god of agnostics?
Posted by: PZ Myers | October 27, 2006 12:45 AM
Well-said!
Posted by: Julia | October 27, 2006 12:46 AM
Wow. That was an excellent post. While I consider myself an atheist, I have not been impressed by what I have of Dawkin's latest book (the first half or so), and agree with many of your criticisms of it (although I would not have had the ability to express them as you did). Nicely done!
Posted by: Dave Carlson | October 27, 2006 12:47 AM
Oh, come on, Ian. Have you read the book? He specifically explains that atheism is not about certainty.
My objection to agnosticism is that it is effectively nothing but a political term...rather like "brights", a way to avoid the negative connotations of the word atheism. Atheists do not claim absolute knowledge; they claim that there is no evidence for a deity, and that gods are most unlikely and illogical things. When people claim an agnostic is just an atheist without the certainty, they are mangling the term "atheist" to take the same position that atheists do, but under an assumed name.
Posted by: PZ Myers | October 27, 2006 12:51 AM
Some serious doubletalk going on here. The mental aerobics required to maintain your viewpoint must be exhausting.
Don't think this proves anything, though, for it doesn't...
Maybe that's why Dawkins says God *almost* certainly does not exist.
Posted by: GW | October 27, 2006 1:07 AM
It really annoys me when people conflate certainty with knowledge, especially in discussing atheism. I can know something without being certain of it -- those are two different epistemological categories. In fact, I know a lot of things, yet I would not claim certainty about most of them (mathematical statements are perhaps the only ones I would claim certainty for, and even those could be debatable).
Atheism is a claim to knowledge, not certainty.
Posted by: Davis | October 27, 2006 2:37 AM
I agree with PZ Myers. The God which forces the position of agnosticism is a non-acting entity (expect, perhaps at the beginning of time). But the atheism of Dawkins is perfectly suited for the God believed by a large majority of the humans. The God that allegedly *has* an impact on our physical world.
Posted by: Nova | October 27, 2006 4:12 AM
Pardon an amateur's interjection here, Davis, but if one can't be certain that God does not exist, it puts atheists in a mighty risky metaphysical position - one which opens the door to Pascal's wager, and enabling the half-hearted theism of millions or billions worldwide. If atheism claims that the non-existence of God is uncertain knowledge, then anyone claiming to possess a method for (some kind of) certainty has an edge, logical, philosophical, valid or not - and in a world of poorly or uneducated billions, it's no-contest between unevaluated certainty and unevaluated uncertainty when the whole of existence is at stake. (I say unevaluated to suggest that most theists do not or cannot bother themselves with the nature of certainty). Is this the best humanity can hope for, given the nature of things, and the nature of philosophy and logic and knowledge? I don't think so.
To me, the whole question of the existence of supernatural-anythings boils down to a question of concept validity. We have loads of concepts, and among more mundane concepts, we recognize valid ones and invalid ones. Bunnies vs. Easter bunnies, chemistry vs. alchemy. Is the same possible for less mundane concepts? Yes. It's all a question of standards for knowledge. And these standards are prior to the more specific questions and topics of science, so I'd agree with John (and others) who say that you can't refute God on the basis of science. Quantum theory or evolution or materials science will never, in principle, touch the concept of God, though they can be co-opted willy-nilly once the God decision has been made.
But you can refute God with what underlies science - that is, with standards of knowledge. The standards then determine what is a valid concept, and what isn't, no matter how abstract or grandiose it claims to be. So, for example, if Nature is existence regarded as a system of interconnected entities governed by law, that is, acting and interacting in accordance with their identities - then the supernatural is a form of existence beyond existence - one or more things beyond entity-hood - a something beyond identity.
How then, would you know it? You can't. All knowledge is ultimately derived from perceived reality (developmentally and logically), and the regularities perceived or discovered in it, in which entities convey their identities. Any concept that invalidates that which is perceptually self-evident (i.e. I am conscious; existence *is*), is itself invalid. If we give it validity, out of generosity or laziness or ignorance, then we have severed the tie between consciousness and reality, the single tie that makes consciousness possible and powerful (although, philosophically, this is highly secondary to the previous sentence). Any jump of imagination or conceptualization beyond what is correct is certainly possible - but imagination is by itself no basis for knowledge, obviously.
I used to have an extremely strong and clear concept of God (and many other souls, since I was Catholic). Strength of vision is not, as Descartes would have it, proof or certainty or a statement about reality beyond your meninges.
So: I think certainty IS possible - within a specified context. (I hold a-contextual certainty to also be an invalid concept). And here I'm specifying as context all my perceptual experiences, and those of all other people whose knowledge and perspectives are available to me. This great summation of concretes we can extend to infinity, like an integral - the sum of all human experience, from zero to infinity (infinity being an epistemological concept, not a metaphysical statement). Within this context, the context that is the basis for building all knowledge, the very concept of God (or ghosts or gremlins or goblins) is in contradiction to the nature of reality and therefore the standards of knowledge. This is the widest possible (conceptually valid) context. Thus I am, for one, an atheist who is certain that God does not exist.
Posted by: Katie | October 27, 2006 4:17 AM
Excellent.
My two pence: it seems we cannot falsify the proposition that God exists by the scientific method, or at least not all God-propositions can be so falsified. To that extent the domains of theology and science do not overlap. However, we can evaluate the utility of the proposition, just as we can evaluate the utility of Newtonian physics, and conclude it is useful, despite the fact that we know it does not explain all the data.
I'd argue that the proposition that free will exists cannot be falsified any more than the proposition that God exists can be falsified. And yet free will as a model has proven utility (those who lack belief in their own self-efficacy tend to become deeply non-functional). And while I'd argue that some God-models also produce dysfunction, others are extremely empowering - for good. And who is to say that something that empowers us for good "does not exist"?
Posted by: Elizabeth Liddle | October 27, 2006 5:31 AM
Well, that's an enormous unsupported assertion, isn't it? I submit that the only ways to make God likely are a) picking a pathological prior, such that no data will ever change one's mind, and b) retrofitting one's theology to match the observed data. Neither is good Bayesian analysis.
I don't see any other way one can formulate a God hypothesis without it falling to a truly massive Occam factor.
Posted by: MartinM | October 27, 2006 6:20 AM
This whole discussion is irrelevant except to the degree that we choose to make it relevant. Bear with me.
It is impossible to hold meaningful discourse on some concept without first establishing and agreeing upon the base axioms, theorems, and lemmas involved. There are many concepts around that fundamentally fail to provide such bases, and of those the concept embodied in the word "God" has to be the most egregious.
First, on the subject of falsifiability. This is a core concept of the Scientific Method, and refers to the possibilty of conducting an experiment that demostrates incontrovertibly that some hypothesis cannot be supported by reality. Another core concept of the SM is that this universe operates according to a regular set of describable mechanical laws (mechanical in the sense that they are enumerable and operable, by which definition quantum mechanics and "spooky action at a distance" qualify). The pursuit of Science is an exercise in elucidating those laws. By definition, then, supernatural agencies are excluded from the search, and Scientific Method cannot be used to dissect/analyse/falsify a concept that originates outside its expressed domain. So both atheists such as Dawkins and theists such as the ID folks are SOL trying to apply Scientific Method to the question of the existence or otherwise of "God".
Second: "God". I have yet to find two people who actually agree in all respects on what they mean by the word, once you get them past their dogma. The most cogent comment I've encountered about that is "well, you'll have to look inside ypurself for what satisfies you". John C. Lilly gave me a useful idea: "god: that which mysteriously determines your experience of life". Note the lower-case 'g'.
Third: Epistemology: Since my mind is housed in a machine that is smaller than the universe (I consider this axiomatic for the moment), I know (Kurt Godel proved it) that I cannot in my mind model in detail even just myself, let alone the Universe. Positing that the word "knowledge" refers to the combination of both information and how to use it, then, I have to accept that I cannot actually be certain - i.e. know - about anything that I perceive from the outside world, nor most of what occurs internally, and most certainly not about the inner experience of another human being. I have to assume this is true for everybody else. The only recourse I have to dealing with the world is via simplifications and approximations and generalizations. I am successful at this to the extent that I can avoid bad things and find good things. And survive to tell the tale.
So, how to summarize and conclude? "god" is the label for a class of concept which can have only personal meaning. Approximating some measure of agreement with my fellow beings can help one's sense of community, but as a concept class it is used to explain away (note: not predict) those external forces for which I have no other functional model. Therefore I can not actually have anything to say to anyone else about the existence or non-existence of "God". So none of those four labels - (a)theist or (a)gnostic - apply, since It cannot be spoken of in such terms. Whether or not I hold any beliefs on the matter can be of no significance to anybody else, nor theirs to me, since at root we would not be talking about the same idea.
So I must be a member of the fifth column. Which has to be another story.
Fill in the holes. I know there are many. Books worth indeed. But getting here removed a lot of stress from _my_ life.
Posted by: david1947 | October 27, 2006 6:33 AM
... retrofitting one's theology to match the observed data ...
Like how the theory of evolution has been modified to take into account new data, such as genetics?
Posted by: John Pieret | October 27, 2006 6:41 AM
You seem to be playing games with what god is. You say he's not going to be able to touch "a God whose existence makes no empirical difference"...well, yeah, and who cares?
Believers.
Just because you (and I) find empiric evidence the only compeling evidence doesn't mean others have to. That is what (I think) John is saying when he says Dawkins is trying to claim the central domain of theology for science. "Ruling" that empiric evidence is the only admissible evidence in theological discourse is an attempt to turn theology into science (of a sort), which (rightly) appears silly and aggressive to theists given their priors.
Posted by: John Pieret | October 27, 2006 6:59 AM
No.
Posted by: MartinM | October 27, 2006 7:31 AM
I agree with david1947, especially on the point of defining what is meant by "god". I don't really believe that it is possible to give a coherent definition of the term and I've certainly never seen one. In that case, discussions about the existence of god don't really make any sense and, when someone asks me if I believe in god, I just smile. If they press me on the issue, then I tell them that I can't really make any sense of what they're talking about.
This doesn't mean that there isn't a spiritual dimension to human existence. There most certainly is. Even as a child, I would get this incredible feeling of being part of something so much larger when I looked up at the stars in the night sky. To make the leap from such feelings to positing the existence of god says more about how the human brain works than it does about anything else.
Posted by: ChuckO | October 27, 2006 7:51 AM
ChuckD: "This doesn't mean that there isn't a spiritual dimension to human existence. There most certainly is."
I was thinking: is this one of the ten or eleven dimensions in string theory?
But I think it may be harder to believe that there is such a thing than to believe there is a God (who could be material).
Posted by: Phil Thrift | October 27, 2006 9:05 AM
"I know (Kurt Godel proved it) that I cannot in my mind model in detail even just myself, let alone the Universe"
He didn't prove anything of the sort! I find it fascinating what people claim Goedel did or did not prove. Very, very seldom are they even remotely right!Come on Dave1947 have you ever read Goedel's original paper?
Posted by: Thony C. | October 27, 2006 9:25 AM
Nice post.
I too found Dawkins' dismissal of agnosticism to be perhaps the weakest part of his book.
Posted by: Orac | October 27, 2006 9:41 AM
I think discussion of these issues would benefit if people gave some serious consideration to a point John makes about the cognitive status of positivist assumptions. In a similar vein, while it's true that attempts to define 'god' seem always to be problematic, we should have the intellectual honesty to acknowledge that 'matter' is a similarly slippery "metaphysical" concept that can't be reduced to a nice, neat set of "protocol sentences." This isn't an argument for either theism or materialism -- just an observation about the shaky foundations of all our knowledge.
Posted by: bob koepp | October 27, 2006 9:41 AM
.
I do not see that mentioning the great number and variety of god-concepts works in favor of existence. It reinforces the impression that every believer invents his/her own god(s), and weaknes the impression that there is any underlying truth.
Katie said: No, the door to Pascal's wager is blocked by a great number of obstacles. One of them is the plurality of god-concepts. Pascal's wager does not merit the large volumes of ink spent on it over the centuries.
Posted by: Mustafa Mond, FCD | October 27, 2006 9:56 AM
bob koepp: " ... This isn't an argument for either theism or materialism -- just an observation about the shaky foundations of all our knowledge."
Let's say we don't know if there is a "spiritual dimension" or a "God", but we do believe at least in a physical world (even if we can't know it). One could argue pragmatically: A "God" belief doesn't buy you anything, and in fact, it could only hurt -- that is, one should act as if materialism is true even if it isn't.
Posted by: Phil Thrift | October 27, 2006 10:12 AM
Agnosticism is a sort of atheism lite.
Sam Harris's critique of moderate or liberal religioneers can be applied as an analogy. Agnosticism is implicity an enabler of the superstitious.
Posted by: bernarda | October 27, 2006 10:24 AM
Mustapha, I totally agree about Pascal's Wager. In first year philosophy of religion I was taught that it fails as a payoff matrix as the number of possible gods rises, and as it approaches infinity (as it must, since all you have to do is map the number of possible gods onto the set of integers, even if only by saying that there are n gods), the probability of any one position being right approaches zero. Unfortunately this also makes the existence of 0 gods equally improbable :-)
But I would put in a good word for Spinoza here. His god is not an atheistic god by any means. God for him appears to mean the underlying true nature of the universe, yes, but it is more than just the assertion that the universe exists. As I recall (and it's a while since I read the Ethics) God has infinitely many properties, which the universe doesn't. God is in effect for him the space of logical possibilities. But I might be recalling it wrongly.
Posted by: John Wilkins | October 27, 2006 10:32 AM
If you're talking to a classical materialist, sure. If you find one, be sure to let me know.
Posted by: MartinM | October 27, 2006 10:33 AM
Geese, ganders and a basic sense of fairness in all things epistemic prompt the following... Pragmatically speaking, what does the posit of so-called "theoretical entities" buy us? One thing it buys is called "the theoretician's dilemma."
but we digress...
Posted by: bob koepp | October 27, 2006 10:34 AM
For over twenty years I have been arguing against the Dawkins version of evolution. I have pointed out that his assumptions (priors) are unsound; his logic is faulty; his science is over-simplified; and he uses his own unique definitions to support his case.
Many philosphers have defended the Dawkins version of ultra-Darwinism, ignoring the complaints of other experts in evolutionary biology. Some of these philosophers include Daniel Dennett, Michael Ruse, and Kim Sterelny, but there are many others.
Now Dawkins publishes a book about philosophy and the philosophers are highly critical. They point out that Dawkins is making unwarranted assumptions, he is over-simplifying, his logic is flawed, and he makes up his own definitions.
It's like they have just discovered that the emperor is wearing very few clothes. I'm loving it.
Now that they've seen for themselves how Dawkins constucts an argument it will be interesting to see if the philosphers are prepared to re-evaluate their defense of Dawkins' science.
There's no difference in style between The God Delusion and The Blind Watchmaker. I happen to agree with his conclusions about religion but that's almost in spite of, rather than because of, Dawkins' arguments.
Nevertheless, there is much of value in The God Delusion just as there are occasional snippits of good stuff in The Blind Watchmaker.
One of the good things is the attack on agnosticism. I agree with John's philosophical position, but so does Richard Dawkins. He's very clear about this on page 51 when he identifies himself with the position of agnostic but de facto atheist. He says, "I am agnostic only to the extent that I am agnostic about fairies at the bottom of the garden."
We all know the importance of avoiding the trap where you claim to be able to prove a negative. That's a fine position in a philosophy class but in the real world you have to make choices. Either you take your children to synagogue on Saturdays or you don't. If you walk like an atheist, act like an atheist, and talk like an atheist, then, for God's sake, don't call yourself an agnostic. :-)
Posted by: Larry Moran | October 27, 2006 11:04 AM
Excellent post, John--and great comments too.
Posted by: John Farrell | October 27, 2006 11:11 AM
I agree with John's philosophical position, but so does Richard Dawkins ... he identifies himself with the position of agnostic but de facto atheist. ... If you walk like an atheist, act like an atheist, and talk like an atheist, then, for God's sake, don't call yourself an agnostic.
Then shouldn't that be "If you walk like an agnostic, act like an agnostic, and talk like an agnostic, then, for God's sake, don't call yourself an atheist? ;-)
Posted by: John Pieret | October 27, 2006 11:33 AM
Then shouldn't that be "If you walk like an agnostic, act like an agnostic, and talk like an agnostic, then, for God's sake, don't call yourself an atheist? ;-)
Nah, you have to take a stand. If we had to formally "prove" everything we think, we couldn't function. I'm not even sure I can prove that I exist. And playing around with the definition of "god" is not very useful. If god is love, or physical laws, or the set of all possibilities, then no one is an atheist. But we're talking about the christian/jewish/muslim god here. Even though I can't prove it, I'm convinced that he doesn't exist. That makes me an atheist.
To some extent, the whole question may be cultural. If you were to ask it in ancient rome or greece, they'd say, "God? Don't you mean Gods?"
Posted by: jeffw | October 27, 2006 12:08 PM
[W]e're talking about the christian/jewish/muslim god here. Even though I can't prove it, I'm convinced that he doesn't exist. That makes me an atheist.
Besides the fact that we may not all be restricting ourselves merely to the multiple Gods espoused by "the People of the Book," those of us who don't feel a need to "take a stand" concerning something we are not "convinced" about should not have to withstand attempts by atheists to dragoon us into your ranks when we don't share your convictions. It is quite as bad as one minority set of Christians telling the world that all Christians are like them.
Posted by: John Pieret | October 27, 2006 1:08 PM
should not have to withstand attempts by atheists to dragoon us into your ranks when we don't share your convictions.
Well, we all have the right to free speech, but in general I agree. If you are actually undecided on the existence of such gods, then you are truly agnostic. My argument is with those who would alter or obscure commonly understood definitions of God, so that they can call themselves agnostic, rather than atheist. If you cannot clearly define the word God, then words atheist, theist, and agnostic have no meaning.
Posted by: jeffw | October 27, 2006 1:45 PM
Number one Dawkins is not wrong and I feel you are not fully understanding his point as another poster has mentioned.
I do think science has a allot of say in all matters of theology especially those who make real world claims. Now on the existence of a God there seems to be no evidence so I do feel one can be as Dawkins has said agnostic to the idea but functionally a 'weak' atheist.
I don't understand John Pieret's position at all however, it seems he argues against a word rather than an idea as if being an atheist is a bad thing. It's a line of thought. Big Deal.
Posted by: Uber | October 27, 2006 1:50 PM
Nah. "Agnostic" is the johnny-come-lately neologism. If we're going to follow the fads, why not just call ourselves "Brights"?
Posted by: PZ Myers | October 27, 2006 1:55 PM
Posted by: Mustafa Mond, FCD | October 27, 2006 3:27 PM
I don't understand John Pieret's position at all however, it seems he argues against a word rather than an idea as if being an atheist is a bad thing. It's a line of thought. Big Deal.
Oh, good. We can just call you a failed theist then, instead of an atheist. No big deal, right?
In fact, I think there is a real difference between an atheist and an agnostic (which John so excellently set out) and I do not think I am a "weak atheist". While I don't consider "atheist" is an insult, I resent being, in effect, told that I don't know my own mind.
Posted by: John Pieret | October 27, 2006 5:41 PM
Mustapha, my first comment is about Pascal's Wager. The second comment is about epistemic assertion. I don't think Pascal's Wager is worth much. But I do think that one can neither demonstrably affirm nor deny the existence of Gods, in ways that have nothing to do with Pascal's Wager.
Posted by: John Wilkins | October 27, 2006 8:24 PM
An agnostic is literally someone "without knowledge". Maybe such knowledge is impossible anyway?
"It's rather like asking "Is there a blurg?" The question is meaningless...." Yes it's meaningless because blurgs and gods are human terms. One of the reasons you don't hear atheists/theists/agnostics/pantheists defining Gods is that gods may be impossible to define, since gods are by definiton "beyond" reality, and when we define something, even "Platonic entities" such as "Wednesdays" and "numbers" talk about it in ordinary, finite, human-invented language, we're implictly assuming the entity we're describing is "natural". It all comes down to defintions. It comes down to the most paradoxical prior possible - that gods can be reduced to a human definition.
For example, what sense does it make to speak of God existing or not, when God is supposed to be "beyond", or underpinning existence? Yes it's influenced by culture. Polytheism, monotheism, therio-theism (animal/human hybrid deities) etc. But they all share a common paradox. When ancient writers referred to deities, they obviously had in mind beings in the sky, or "out there" someplace, but still in this reality, i.e. comprehensible enough to describe. They were "natural" in a sense. They had physical atributes, anthropomoprhic attributes. A supernatural being would be infinitely beyond human (finite) understanding, beyond any "natural" human definiton/logic/human comprehension/description, etc... To even discuss deities drags them to natural domains. And this immediately negates the whole thing.
Posted by: Pete K | October 27, 2006 9:21 PM
An agnostic is literally someone "without knowledge"
I think the word "ignorant" would be a better fit for that.
According to the american heritage dictionary:
agnostic (ăg-nŏs'tĭk)
n.
1. a. One who believes that it is impossible to know whether there is a God. b. One who is skeptical about the existence of God but does not profess true atheism.
2. One who is doubtful or noncommittal about something.
Posted by: jeffw | October 27, 2006 10:32 PM
John wrote
That puts me in mind of a political party I once thought about founding: Apathetic Anarchists. However, I never got my act together well enough to get around to actually do it.Posted by: RBH | October 27, 2006 11:45 PM
Thony C: yes I have. There are several corollaries, but the essential core is: for any given mathematical system, there exist theorems that cannot be proved. The stronger the system, the more this is true. In this sense, a "theorem" is a valid statement in the syntax of the system.
This can then be equivalenced in various ways.
One of the first one encounters in a Computer Science course is related to the Halting problem: the application of Godel's proof is that for any program that claims to evaluate whether or not any other program will halt, one can generate a new program that causes it to fail. This leads to an infinite recursion, causing the evaluation program to not halt.
Another path leads to the modelling conclusion I used: no computing system can emulate any system equal to or larger than itself. This derives from the expression of the emulation program as a statement in a language of the system that has to at least be able to represent itself. Since any valid statement requires certain meta-statements to be accepted as valid tokens by the system, it can not include itself.
Another way: the statement that represents any given system will take n bits to represent precisely, therefore any system that is to represent that statement must have at least n bits available for the representation. So it cannot represent itself, or anything larger.
Thus, since the world includes my brain as a proper subset, it is bigger than my brain, therefore I cannot precisely model the world in my brain since that would require also modelling my own brain. Approximations do not count if one is to have certainty for all events. And the word "Emulation" means to model correctly in _all_ respects. Distinct from "Simulate", which permits of approximations and is therefore not valid for all cases.
For fun, I refer you to Douglas Hofstadters classic "Godel, Escher, Bach". And if you can do the proof in the introduction, let us know. I know a correct formulation of the response. Finding it was one of those glorious "Aha!" moments that set Godel's theorem viscerally for me for the rest of my life.
Posted by: david1947 | October 28, 2006 1:08 AM
back on subject: interesting how asserting that there is nothing to discuss because there is no hope of truly common ground is something we humans can talk about all day, is it not? And ignore. And accept approximations as precisions.
re Godel: "God exists" is a theorem in the English language. That is, it is a syntactically correct formulation of symbols. And it cannot be proved. meaning, there is no sequence of re-write rules in the formalism of the language that can derive "God exists" from the true axioms of the system. Nor can it be proved by negation. But English is a very lax language for this purpose, so proofs in it are weak things anyway. Anybody got any idea what those "true axioms" might be? Inquiring minds wish to know ...
Note that I am saying nothing about my own personal inner experiences of the mystical sort. And what they might be can only be my business, and is pre-verbal ayway.
Posted by: david1947 | October 28, 2006 1:23 AM
Thanks for the posting and interesting discussion. I am not sure I understood everything, but many interesting points have been made. Cheers!
Posted by: orangeguru | October 28, 2006 5:42 AM
Just read Bertrand Russell's why I am not a Christian, and give it up. We are alone here, and that's ok. Just enjoy life and do good things with it while you have it.
Posted by: Richard M. Corke | October 28, 2006 9:32 AM
Just read Bertrand Russell's why I am not a Christian, and give it up. We are alone here, and that's ok. Just enjoy life and do good things with it while you have it.
Posted by: Richard M. Corke | October 28, 2006 9:32 AM
Which is just a silly way of saying that they don't exist.
Posted by: MartinM | October 28, 2006 10:13 AM
As to the contrast between agnosticism and atheism, indulge me in a little hypothetical (not a likely one, but that is beside the point):
Assume that a god (any one will do) appears in front of an agnostic and an atheist. The agnostic was right, the atheist was wrong.
What is the probability of this event occurring? We don't know. I assume it is extremely close to zero. I could be wrong. Note also that there is no scenario in which an atheist can ever be proved correct.
Atheism, like theism, is essentially a position that assumes knowledge that the believer simply does not possess.
Posted by: ashaktur | October 28, 2006 10:38 AM
"Which is just a silly way of saying that they don't exist"
Yes, they don't exist in the usual, inside-the-box sense of the word, since, by definition, nothing exists beyond reality! Think OUTSIDE the box! We can't!
If gods are defined as existing inside this reality, and amenable to measurement, cientific analysis, quantification etc, I'm certainly an atheist. But if you can't define supernatural beings (which is impossible since "natural" beings we're using "natural" "inside-the-box" language) then I'm agnostic. Define "god(s)" first before you accept, reject, or aren't sure about gods!
Posted by: Pete K | October 28, 2006 2:17 PM
In fact, both are wrong - but in different ways. Think about it.
Posted by: Robin Levett | October 28, 2006 2:36 PM
PZ said:
No; it's the god of a number of Christians on talk.origins, and no doubt elsewhere. Michael and Stanley, frex, have both said that their God is such a god.
There is a difference between a god whose existence makes no empirical difference - that is, a difference that is in principle detectable from within the universe under discussion - and a god whose existence makes no difference.
Posted by: Robin Levett | October 28, 2006 2:54 PM
1) Repeat the exercise. Replace "a god" with "invisible pink unicorns" or "orbiting teapot" or "tooth fairy." See if any of these conceivable entities are granted the same sort of slack that is granted to god(s). God, if he exists, is the most powerful, wisest, most absolutely stupendous being ever. And he needs to have the hurdles lowered? Lame.
2) Repeat the exercise as originally stated. Do you think the atheist, with a god standing right in front of him, will change his/her mind? If it were me I think I would.
Now look at the billions of theists who have inhabited this earth with absolutely no credible evidence for the existence of any god. And yet the vast majority of them have not changed their minds. It's enough to make me believe the human brain is the imperfect product of evolution, not the creation of an almighty being.
Posted by: Mustafa Mond, FCD | October 28, 2006 5:01 PM
3) Assume monkeys fly out of your ******. The disbelief that monkeys could fly out of your ****** is essentially a position that assumes knowledge that the believer simply does not possess.
Posted by: Mustafa Mond, FCD | October 28, 2006 5:12 PM
Larry Moran wrote:
So if Dawkins identifies with the position of agnostic, what's the problem with saying he's agnostic? Because maybe that doubt, even if it's just a sliver, is what's important. Maybe it's what we need to emphasise in order to immunise us against the arrogance of certainty.Posted by: Ian H Spedding | October 29, 2006 12:49 AM
PZ Myers wrote:
I'm waiting for the paperback.And, yes, I understand that he isn't claiming certainty, but that isn't certainly how he is perceived.
Huxley defined agnosticism as embodying the principle that belief should be in proportion to evidence. You and other atheists agree.
Agnostics believe that we have, as yet, no evidence for the existence of any kind of deity. You and other atheists agree.
Following that, some - though not all - agnostics act on the assumption that there is no God. When push comes to shove they are functional atheists. You and other atheists agree.
So where is the difference other than in the label?
As far as I can see, agnostics are being criticised for indulging in wishy-washy fence-sitting that is undermining the sturdy atheists struggle against the ignorance and superstition of the religious.
In other words the difference is political. You atheists enjoy a good punch-up with the pious and agnostics could spoil the fun.
The problem is that the word 'atheist' makes the debate about religion. But, as an agnostic (as well as a "de facto atheist") I see the problem as being about totalitarianism. When an Islamic or Christian fundamentalist proclaims their intention of spreading their bigotry by fire and sword then they should be stopped by whatever it takes. But the same applies to a Nazi or Ku Klux Klansman or Stalinist or Maoist. The proper target is not just religion but any creed or ideology that presents itself as being some sort of absolute an unchallengeable truth. It is the arrogance of certainty that is the danger and that is what agnostics are against.
The peculiar problem in the US is that it seems to virtually impossible for an agnostic or atheist to be elected to public office, in spite of the Constitutional prohibition against a religious test. That certainly needs to be addressed as does the privileged position of religion itself. For a country that was founded in part by people who had fled religious oppression in their homelands it is ironic indeed, although not perhaps unexpected, that it should tolerate the oppression of the irreligious by the religious.
Again, it is the arrogance of certainty that is the problem. The Kenneth Millers of the world may have a problem reconciling their faith with their science but they aren't trying to impose their beliefs on anyone. The right-wing evangelists, the Fred Phelps of this world, the creationists, the Christian Dominionists/Reconstructionists and Isamic fundamentalists are. If Miller and others like him are prepared to fight against them then so much the better and they should be welcomed as allies.
Posted by: Ian H Spedding | October 29, 2006 1:44 AM
"... it boils down to whether a theologian or religious leader makes claims that are empirically defeasible ..."
Yes it does, and the fact is that in the real world Christians and Muslims do not worship the desiccated philosophical entity under discussion here. Their God is an entity who acts in the world, who answers prayers. The etymology of the word prayer still vivifies believers' understanding of the practice today: precarius (Latin) - obtained by entreaty. Of this God, the real God (in the sense, that he is God that people actually believe in), not only am I a thoroughgoing atheist but will assert that the burden of proof (in a genuinely scientific sense) rests with believers.
But one of the problems with The God Delusion is that it wants to extend the object of its attack from this real God to the concept of God in general. This lands Dawkins in a couple of difficulties:
1. He is philosophically ill-equipped to prosecute the level of argument required.
2. It creates an escape hatch for the faithful, who just shift gear from defending the God they actually believe in to a concept of "god" that is little more than a catch-all for the mystery of existence.
So while I concur with PZ's "so what" about the philosophical argument, I sheet at least part of the blame for the confusion back to Dawkins for overstretching his argument beyond what he is capable of defending.
Posted by: johnc | October 29, 2006 3:32 AM
David1947 I almost agree with almost all you say about formal languages or formal systems however your jump from those to your own brain and the whole world involves a whole barrel full of very questionable assumptions, which very much effect the validity of your conclusions.
My copy of GEB is extremely dog-eared and more than well thumbed but I'm affraid I don't understand what you are refering to in the introduction. Can you elucidate please?
Posted by: Thony C. | October 29, 2006 4:55 AM
Thony C: Glad of your response. And that your copy of GEB is as dog-eared as mine.
The problem is in chapter 1: the MU-puzzle. (for lurkers) This chapter is focussed on introducing formal Propositional Calculus, the MU-puzzle is a concrete example. He does not give the solution in the book. A clue: the book is inspired by Godel's Theorem. The MIU system is sufficently strong for the purposes. The solution is out-of-the-box. Remember absence of proof != proof of absence, your solution must prove what it says.
Jumping from formal systems of representation to my brain and its place in the world: I stated as axiom pro-tem that "Since my mind is housed in a machine that is smaller than the universe (I consider this axiomatic for the moment)". In the absence of proof to the contrary, and much supporting evidence, I have to conlude that my mental processes take place within my body at least, if not solely within the even smaller bit that is my brain. Further, whatever the computation matrix is, what language(s) are used, what underlying hardwre model(s) are implemented, it has to be true that my one brain is less than the sum of the brains of two people, etc etc. therefore I cannot model exactly within my one brain the processes of any one or more brains, my own included. The point being: In order to claim conclusive certainty about some subject one has to either experimentally demonstrate it physically or via a complete model that maps reality without exception; since one cannot do that for things that are subjective experiences (other brains, remember?), it is therefore fundamentally impossible to claim certainty about what goes on in anybody's mind, and that is where the "God" concept resides. At least, until "God" is demonstrated as a physical reality by objective repeatable experimentation. That realization freed me from the evangelical phase of my search for spiritual fulfillment - I get fun out of the language play talking about these things, but no longer expect to get or give any certainty on the subject. Most especialy re claims to the only truth.
it might be fun to map this out as a formal proof. I'll think about it.
Posted by: david1947 | October 29, 2006 7:28 PM
I've never understood why so many people insist that agnostics are actually atheists. If the two are so nearly indistinguishable, it could very well be the other way around--all those atheists might be just a bunch of confused agnostics. But I can't prove it.
Excellent post.
Posted by: Roadtripper | October 31, 2006 8:17 PM
The ancient Greeks, among other peoples, had totally anthropomorphic gods and goddesses. They believed in them as much as monotheistists believe in their amorphous god today.
Yet the monotheists can't decide. Mostly they like to describe their god as "he"? Why? So their god is sometimes sort of anthropomorhic and sometimes not. At least the Greeks were clear about their conception of gods.
Why would monotheists' god have a gender, and what would "he" do with "his" sex organs if "he" had them?
Is this god a master masterbator?
Posted by: bernarda | November 1, 2006 6:51 AM
My position is that "not believing" is the default state. You "don't believe" in an infinite number of possibilities, and only come to believe those things you do believe for... reasons.
If you have not heard or seen a good enough reason, you do not believe. Of course, the possibility always exists that you will eventually be convinced, but "not believing" is what you do until or unless you eventually come to belie