…and this is a 
All the cool kids are currently attending the big Darwin festival in Cambridge, which sounds like it has been a lot of informative fun. A couple of the sessions, though, are funded by the Templeton Foundation, which sounds much less fun. Fortunately, Dan Dennett has taken a bullet for the team and attended those meetings, and files a report on location — he describes it as "wonderfully awful", with some exceptions. I wouldn't mind listening to Pascal Boyer talk on religion, but the rest…I shudder.
Here's his account.
I am attending and participating in the big Cambridge University Darwin Week bash, and I noticed that one of the two concurrent sessions the first day was on evolution and theology, and was 'supported by the Templeton Foundation' (though the list of Festival Donors and Sponsors does not include any mention of Templeton). I dragged myself away from a promising session on speciation, and attended. Good thing I did. It was wonderfully awful. We heard about the Big Questions, a phrase used often, and it was opined that the new atheists naively endorse the proposition that "There are no meaningful questions that science cannot answer." Richard Dawkins' wonderful sentence about how nasty the God of the Old Testament is was read with relish by Philip Clayton, Professor at Claremont School of Theology in California, and the point apparently was to illustrate just how philistine these atheists were--though I noticed that he didn't say he disagreed with Richard's evaluation of Yahweh. We were left to surmise, I guess, that it was tacky of Richard to draw attention to these embarrassing blemishes in an otherwise august tradition worthy of tremendous respect. The larger point was the complaint that the atheists have a "dismissive attitude toward the Big Questions" and Dawkins, in particular, didn't consult theologians. (H. Allen Orr, they were singing your song.) Clayton astonished me by listing God's attributes: according to his handsomely naturalistic theology, God is not omnipotent, not even supernatural, and . . . . in short Clayton is an atheist who won't admit it.
The second talk was by J. Wentzel van Huyssteen, a Professor of Theology at Princeton Theological Seminary, and it was an instance of "theological anthropology," full of earnest gobbledygook about embodied minds and larded with evolutionary tidbits drawn from Frans de Waal, Steven Mithen and others. In the discussion period I couldn't stand it any more and challenged the speakers: "I'm Dan Dennett, one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, and we are forever being told that we should do our homework and consult with the best theologians. I've heard two of you talk now, and you keep saying this is an interdisciplinary effort--evolutionary theology--but I am still waiting to be told what theology has to contribute to the effort. You've clearly adjusted your theology considerably in the wake of Darwin, which I applaud, but what traffic, if any, goes in the other direction? Is there something I'm missing? What questions does theology ask or answer that aren't already being dealt with by science or secular philosophy? What can you clarify for this interdisciplinary project?" (Words to that effect) Neither speaker had anything to offer, but van Huyssteen blathered on for a bit without, however, offering any instances of theological wisdom that every scientist interested in the Big Questions should have in his kit.
But I learned a new word: "kenotic" as in kenotic theology. It comes from the Greek word kenosis meaning 'self-emptying.' Honest to God. This new kenotic theology is all the rage in some quarters, one gathers, and it is "more deeply Christian for being more adapted to Darwinism." (I'm not making this up.) I said that I was glad to learn this new word and had to say that I was tempted by the idea that kenotic theology indeed lived up to its name. At the coffee break, some folks told me my question had redeemed the session for them, but I would guess I irritated others with my persistent request for something of substance to chew on.
After the second set of two talks, which I was obliged to listen to since the moderator promised more responses to my "challenge" and I had to stay around to hear them out, there was another half hour of discussion. I did my duty: I listened attentively, I asked questions, and the theologians were embarrassingly short on answers, though one recommended David Chalmers on panpsychism--a philosopher, not a theologian, and second, nobody, not even Chalmers, takes panpsychism seriously, to the best of my knowledge. Do theologians?
The third speaker was Dr. Denis Alexander of Cambridge University, and he had some interesting historical scholarship on the varying positions on progress and purpose offered by thinkers from Erasmus Darwin-who had surmised that all life began from a single "living filament" (nice guess!)-through Darwin and Spencer and the Huxleys and on to Gould and Dawkins (and me). Particularly useful was a late quote from Gould's last book (p468 if you want to run it down) in which he allowed, contrary to his long-held line on contingency, that evolution did exhibit "directional properties" that could not be ignored. The conclusion of Alexander's talk was that it is nowadays a little "more plausible that it isn't necessarily the case that the evolutionary process doesn't have a larger purpose." That is certainly a circumspect and modest conclusion. The fourth speaker was the Catholic Father Fraser Watt (of Cambridge University School of Divinity, and a big Templeton grantsman, as noted by the chair). He introduced us to "evolutionary Christology." Again, I'm not making this up. Evolution, it turns out, was planned by an intelligent God to create a species "capable of receiving the incarnation"--though this particular competence of our species might be, in Watts' opinion, a "spandrel." Jesus was "a spiritual mutation, " and "the culmination of the evolutionary process," marking a turning point in world history. A member of the audience cheekily asked if Father Watt was saying that Jesus's parents were both normal human beings then? (I was going to press the point: perhaps Jesus's madumnal genes from Mary were the product of natural selection but his padumnal genes were hand crafted by the Holy Spirit!--but Father Watt forestalled the inquiry by declaring that he had no knowledge or opinion about Jesus' parentage--something that his Catholic colleagues will presumably not appreciate.)
Afterwards I was asked if I had enjoyed the session, and learned anything, and I allowed as how I had. I would not have dared use the phrase "evolutionary Christology" for fear of being condemned as a vicious caricaturist of worthy, sophisticated theologians, but now I had heard the term used numerous times, and would be quoting it in the future, as an example of the sort of wisdom that sophisticated theology has to offer to evolutionary biology.
I had an epiphany at the end of the session, but I kept it to myself: The Eucharist is actually a Recapitulation of the Eukaryotic Revolution. When Christians ingest the Body of Christ, without digesting it, but keep it whole (holistier-than-thou whole), they are re-enacting the miracle of endosymbiosis that paved the way for eventual multi-cellularity. And so, dearly beloved brethren, we can see that by keeping Christ intact in our bodies we are keeping His Power intact in our embodied Minds, or Souls, just the way the first Eukaryote was vouchsafed a double blessing of earthly competence that enabled its descendants to join forces in Higher Organizations. Evolutionary theology. . . . I think I get it! I can do it! It truly is intellectual tennis without a net.
There is another Templeton session on The Evolution of Religion, with Pascal Boyer, David Sloan Wilson, Michael Ruse and Harvey Whitehouse. Dr. Fraser Watt, our evolutionary Christologist, will be chairing the session. It will be interesting to see how docile these mammals are in the feeding trough.
The second Templeton-sponsored session (at the Cambridge Darwin Festival) was more presentable. On the evolution of religion, it featured clear, fact-filled presentations by Pascal Boyer and Harvey Whitehouse, a typical David Sloan Wilson advertisement for his multi-level selection approach, and an even more typical meandering and personal harangue from Michael Ruse. The session was chaired, urbanely and without any contentful intervention, by Fraser Watt, our evolutionary christologist. (I wonder: should "christology" be capitalized? Ian McEwan asked me if there was, perhaps, a field of X-ray christology. I've been having fun fantasizing about how that might revolutionize science and open up a path for the Crick and Watson of theology!)
I learned something at the session. Boyer presented a persuasive case that the "packaging" of the stew of separable and largely independent items as "religion" is itself ideology generated by the institutions, a sort of advertising that has the effect of turning religions into "brands" in competition. Whitehouse gave a fascinating short account of the Kivung cargo cult in a remote part of Papua New Guinea that he studied as an anthropologist, living with them for several years. A problem: the Kivung cult has the curious belief that their gods (departed ancestors) will return, transformed into white men, and bearing high technology and plenty for all. This does present a challenge for a lone white anthropologist coming to live with them for awhile, camera gear in hand, and wishing to be as unobtrusive as possible. Wilson offered very interesting data from a new study by his group on a large cohort of American teenagers, half Pentecostals and half Episcopalians (in other words, maximally conservative and maximally liberal), finding that on many different scales of self-assessment, these young people are so different that they would look to a biologist like "different species." Ruse declared that while he is an atheist, he wishes that those wanting to explain religion wouldn't start with the assumption that religious beliefs are false. He doesn't seem to appreciate the role of the null hypothesis or the presumption of innocence in trials. We also learned tidbits about his life and his preference--as an atheist--for the Calvinist God.
Humanities & Social Science
Comments
Posted by: Louis | July 9, 2009 10:52 AM
I read this and my only coherent thought remains:
"Surely you have to be shitting me".
Louis
Posted by: NewEnglandBob
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July 9, 2009 10:52 AM
Jerry Coyne posted this a couple hours earlier, but Daniel Dennett's musings are priceless and should be posted everywhere!
Posted by: Lynna | July 9, 2009 11:01 AM
heh! Dan Dennett cracks me up. He gives Hitchens a run for his money in the dry humor department. Many thanks, Dennett, for taking the bullet.
It disturbs me that the Templeton Foundation is spending all that money to rake together what is mostly garbage. Surely that's a sin.
Posted by: Owlmirror | July 9, 2009 11:04 AM
Oooh! Oooh!
We've got a panexperientialist panpsychicist right here on Pharyngula!
Obviously, poor Dan Dennett has been deprived of the occasion of experiencing the glorious philosophothinkamajiggers who takes Whitehead seriously.
Posted by: Lynna | July 9, 2009 11:06 AM
Is the comparison of American teenagers published somewhere? That two peer groups would differ so much in self-assessment is odd.
Posted by: daveau
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July 9, 2009 11:10 AM
Who are the other 3 horsemen, again? Does Peasey make the list?
Posted by: Matt Penfold | July 9, 2009 11:12 AM
Would that be Matthew Segall by any chance ?
I am afraid I gave up reading his blatherings a while ago. I may have missed something, but I don't think I did, but he seemed to be talking total bollocks.
There is simply no comparision between the clarity of Dennett in the article above, and the stuff Segall has posted.
Posted by: Glen Davidson
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July 9, 2009 11:13 AM
Still, it's fairly harmless, and a whole lot better than what the IDiots do with their time.
The only real question is how much we need to respond to such inconsequential meanderings.
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/mxaa3p
Posted by: Bob L | July 9, 2009 11:15 AM
"I'm Dan Dennett, one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse,..."
Great line. It must be a curious experience for him to realize there are people who really think he is one.
Posted by: Bryan Firestone
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July 9, 2009 11:17 AM
"... intellectual tennis without a net."
Brilliant! Theology in a nutshell.
Posted by: Matt Penfold | July 9, 2009 11:17 AM
Dennett, Hitchins, Dawkins and Harris.
Of course they are just the advanced guard. There is a veritable cavalry charge of atheists not far behind them. I have visions of PZ mounted on a jet black charger than breathes fire.
Posted by: JBlilie | July 9, 2009 11:21 AM
DCD is incisive and funny, as usual. Right on!
His question in the first session should have been asked by the moderator at the start: It would have saved everyone a lot of time listening to nonsense!
Posted by: Richard Healy
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July 9, 2009 11:21 AM
This is brilliant. I agree about Dennett's sense of humour being dry!
I had to stifle a laugh at the anthropologist and the cargo cults!
RE: "I am Daniel Dennet" - I was slightly taken aback he wasn't recognised at the door!
Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM
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July 9, 2009 11:24 AM
You are right, and he is still blathering woo.Posted by: LtStorm
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July 9, 2009 11:25 AM
On the note of the Kivung cargo cults, I've also heard that if you expressly try to convert them to Christianity by implying their religion is false, they'll respond to the tone of, "You've been waiting for your saviour for 2000 years. We've been waiting for ours for 70."
Posted by: Owlmirror | July 9, 2009 11:25 AM
Bingo!
At no point was it my intention to suggest or imply that panexperientialist panpsychism was anything other than total bollocks.
Posted by: raven | July 9, 2009 11:27 AM
SHHHHH!!! Old European says, "If you speak of the devil, he will come."
Segall's idea seemed to be that the universe was one great big mind and we are all nodes or ganglions in it. An interesting idea but good luck proving it. Without proof it is just wishful thinking.
AFAIK, he has no plans to launch a crusade and wipe out all nonbelievers or sneak it into kid's science classes. Yet.
Posted by: Chris Richards | July 9, 2009 11:28 AM
Haha, I love their recommendation of David Chalmers' work. It's like...they haven't read his stuff. At all.
Sounds about their level of intellectual rigor!
Posted by: Feynmaniac | July 9, 2009 11:29 AM
That thought he was Santa Clause.
As for panpsychism, as Owlmirror said we have one here at Pharyngula. He's been transferred to the neverending thread to keep it alive.
Posted by: Pierce R. Butler | July 9, 2009 11:29 AM
Jesus was "a spiritual mutation, " and "the culmination of the evolutionary process," ...
So it's all been downhill for the last 20 centuries, then.
Did nobody address the hope offered by the Michael Bagaent/Dan Brown hypothesis that Jesus did not neglect to pass those advanced genes down? (Clearly Dr. Alexander's aristophrenic use of the double negative does not set an example that must not be followed.)
Posted by: Matt Penfold | July 9, 2009 11:30 AM
Good put down!
Posted by: JD | July 9, 2009 11:31 AM
They've resorted to creative, schizotypal theology. That's just great. Wow.
Posted by: Anonymous | July 9, 2009 11:33 AM
I'm not sure if one of these fine Horsemen of the Apocalypse is Dennet, but I'm sure that Dawkins and Randi are here:
http://www.viruscomix.com/page433.html
Posted by: Anonymous | July 9, 2009 11:37 AM
Segall's idea seemed to be that the universe was one great big mind and we are all nodes or ganglions in it. An interesting idea but good luck proving it.
So it's like string theory then?
Posted by: Joseph Kelly | July 9, 2009 11:38 AM
The Catholic church should have kept its distance from the topic of evolution. Let the "lesser" christian faiths make fools of themselves. The pope claimed that the Catholic church's official position is that it has no problem with evolution or any other field of science.
But now that Father Fraser Watt has introduced us to Evolutionary Christology (!!!), all bets are off. It sounds just as quacked as ID. What is a spritual mutation? Is there such a thing as spiritual DNA? Does it have imperfect fidelity? So, he's saying that Jesus was the product of a breeding program, like the Kwisatz Haderach? I find Dune to be far more believable than Evolutionary Christology (EC?).
Posted by: Lindsay | July 9, 2009 11:39 AM
Here's the DS Wilson article on teenagers, I think.
http://www.springerlink.com/content/g6j5896642734174/
Posted by: Otto | July 9, 2009 11:42 AM
I learned a new word today, yay!
Kenotic = self emptying.
I engage in kenotic activity several times a day.
Posted by: Matt Penfold | July 9, 2009 11:43 AM
Except that string theory, or at least some of them since there is more than one, is consistent with what we currently know.
Whether it is consistent with future observations remains to be seen.
Posted by: Pierce R. Butler | July 9, 2009 11:44 AM
... kenotic theology. It comes from the Greek word kenosis meaning 'self-emptying.'
Wouldn't it be more accurate, as well as more comprehensible to modern audiences, to substitute the adjective "bulimic"?
Posted by: Paul Flocken | July 9, 2009 11:44 AM
Ruse is confusing the earnestness of the believers with the veracity of their claims. Makes one wonder if he truly earnest about the philosophy of science?
Posted by: raven | July 9, 2009 11:52 AM
LOL. Well yes, so far.
String theory is consistent with what we know now. It is also untested and may be untestable. Give them time, they will eventually either fish or cut bait and they know it..
Posted by: Brain Hertz | July 9, 2009 11:56 AM
Nice write up.
"Self emptying theology"? Oh. Well, whatever. I guess I'm just not, you know, sophisticated enough to understand the beard-stroking complexities of it all. [rolls eyes].
btw, if you're there, after you've been to see the exhibit at the Fitzwilliam museum, be sure to cross over the other side of Trumpington street to Fitzwilliam street, and find the plaque on the wall indicating one of Darwin's former residences. Should really make sure you see everything while you're there... ;)
Posted by: Pierce R. Butler | July 9, 2009 11:59 AM
... a large cohort of American teenagers, half Pentecostals and half Episcopalians (in other words, maximally conservative and maximally liberal), finding that on many different scales of self-assessment, these young people are so different that they would look to a biologist like "different species."
Put them on an island for a while, and I predict successful interbreeding.
Posted by: Desert Son, OM
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July 9, 2009 12:01 PM
Anonymous at #23:
The bearded gentleman with the knotted sword and pistol in the comic is Dennett, though, to be sure, he shares characteristic similarities in facial hair and a bald pate with Randi. The robed one is Harris, and the last on to speak ("Equality") is Hitchens. You are correct about Dawkins.
No kings,
Robert
Posted by: Sven DiMilo | July 9, 2009 12:03 PM
Zzzzzing!
Posted by: Desert Son, OM
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July 9, 2009 12:06 PM
That should read, "the last one to speak."
Preview: it's not just for breakfast anymore.
No kings,
Robert
Posted by: Matt Penfold | July 9, 2009 12:10 PM
You could just stand in the middle of Cambridge and realise that within a mile of where you are standing people discovered the structure of the atom and its constituent particles were discovered, where Newton developed many of ideas on optics and gravity, and where the structure of DNA was discovered.
You can do all this whilst sitting in a pub, the ceiling of which is covered with the names of British and American bomber crews who were stationed nearby and where Watson and Crick first told the world they knew what DNA looked like.
Posted by: Pierce R. Butler | July 9, 2009 12:11 PM
... it was opined that the new atheists naively endorse the proposition that "There are no meaningful questions that science cannot answer." ... The larger point was the complaint that the atheists have a "dismissive attitude toward the Big Questions" ...
Ergo, uh, Big Questions are not meaningful, or, meaningful questions are not Big?
/strawhominid atheist
Posted by: Moggie | July 9, 2009 12:12 PM
#13:
Perhaps he wasn't wearing his pimp hat.
That's got to be a real "oh shit" moment for an empty blatherer, when someone of Dennett's calibre announces himself and starts asking questions. I'd love to have been there to hear them expound on the excellence of the emperor's costume.
Posted by: Victor | July 9, 2009 12:13 PM
I had the displeasure of seeing J. Wentzel van Huyssteen speak at an evolutionary conference last year and I came to the same conclusion then. As much as he kept hammering on his point that theologians should be "consulted" when dealing evolutionary theory, he never said "what" he and other theologians were supposed to offer to the equation (other than keeping themselves employed). I wanted to ask the same question Dennett asked, but did not have the patience and walked out of his speech (along with hundreds of others).
Posted by: jackstraw | July 9, 2009 12:20 PM
Keep that up and you'll go blind.
Posted by: Matt Penfold | July 9, 2009 12:21 PM
The only place I see for theologians in a discussion about evolutionary biology is to say that they are not scientists, that religion is not a suitable means for understanding science and that anyone who wants to know about evolution should ask a biologist.
I suppose they could also be usefully employed as a cloakroom attendant at a public lecture given by a scientist expert in the field.
Posted by: Jason | July 9, 2009 12:24 PM
Thank goodness for Dan Dennett.
Posted by: Pierce R. Butler | July 9, 2009 12:27 PM
At the coffee break... I irritated others with my persistent request for something of substance to chew on.
You'd think that the conference organizers could at least engage a caterer to provide a plate of crumpets & scones...
Posted by: Quine | July 9, 2009 12:39 PM
I suspect many of the Theologians had been so removed from the real world that they truly did not know who Dan was. What went through their minds when some unknown man stood up and announced that he was one of the four horsemen of the End of Times? Could this be the beginning of the end of their jobs?
Posted by: Patricia, OM
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July 9, 2009 12:46 PM
It will be fun to hear Dennetts next few talks, and see how he uses the new words he learned. He seems to crack himself up as much as he does everyone else.
Posted by: Anonymous | July 9, 2009 12:48 PM
Robert at #34,
Thank you very much for identifying who is who in the Athiest Apocalypse comic. I've never actually seen a picture of Daniel Dennet before - that would have taken, whatchamacallit - research.
Posted by: Matt Penfold | July 9, 2009 12:49 PM
It has to be said that of the four atheist horsemen of the apocalypse Dennett has to be the one who is most easily recognised. You would have thought being at such an event, with such a beard, would be a big clue.
Posted by: Brain Hertz | July 9, 2009 12:53 PM
Nice! I should have thought to mention The Eagle. ;)
Posted by: Pierce R. Butler | July 9, 2009 12:53 PM
... his preference--as an atheist--for the Calvinist God.
Shouldn't Ruse then have been at Big John's Quincentenary celebrations instead of an event for that parvenu Charlie?
Posted by: John Phillips, FCD
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July 9, 2009 1:01 PM
That was almost a laugh a line report. I do enjoy reading Dennett.
Posted by: Blake Stacey | July 9, 2009 1:01 PM
Obscurantist babble about the universe being a giant mind has yielded no insights about phase transitions in superconductors, the viscosity of ultracold fermionic atom condensates or the flow of quark-gluon plasmas.
Posted by: Anonymous | July 9, 2009 1:04 PM
"What went through their minds when some unknown man stood up and announced that he was one of the four horsemen of the End of Times? Could this be the beginning of the end of their jobs?"
Just a tad triumphalist, y'think?
Posted by: Chris | July 9, 2009 1:05 PM
@38 (and generally)
What are these big questions supposed to be, anyway? I can study morality by studying moral psychology, and both normative ethics and meta-ethics. I can study the 'meaning of life' by studying what makes people feel fulfilled and satisfied with their lives. I can study the fundamental nature of reality by doing physics (and if you're so inclined, metaphysics as practiced in most philosophy departments). I can study our interfacing with the world via psychology, language, and epistemology.
Am I somehow missing what these people mean (I'm pretty sure that 'Big Questions' is just code for religion, which is not at all necessary for any of the above)? Can someone explain to me the Big Question I've missed? I'm trying to be charitable here!
Posted by: xebecs | July 9, 2009 1:10 PM
Boyer's views sound interesting, but what does he actually mean?
It *sounds* like he means that religion is all a farce, driven by institutions for their own institutional purposes. But that's just so obvious that there must be more to it.
Posted by: Stuart Van Onselen | July 9, 2009 1:12 PM
All those words! So many, many words! And so little meaning. :-(
Whereas I actually have to work for a living, theologians apparently get paid for intellectual onanism.
Posted by: tsg | July 9, 2009 1:14 PM
My impression is that "Big Questions" are usually ones that assume there is an answer. To wit, "why are we here?" (assumes there is a reason), "what happens to us after we die?" (assumes there's an "us" for it to happen to), etc. I usually compare them to "what's north of the north pole?"
s/Big/Meaningless and you get the idea.
Posted by: Matt Penfold | July 9, 2009 1:17 PM
#54,
The biggest "big question" seems to be "Why are we here".
The people who ask that question never seem to be able to explain why it means anything to ask it in the first place. Why do they think the universe owes us an reason for being ?
Posted by: QrazyQat | July 9, 2009 1:21 PM
Michael Ruse doesn't seem to have anything to say that anyone should be going out of their way to hear, and I don't think this is new. I happened to be at a university some years ago where Ruse and my late wife were giving talks and our hosts and we had dinners and lunches together and although Ruse had this great reputation for something, I remember (without remembering details) being incredibly unimpressed with him. And this was maybe 25 years ago.
Posted by: Jadehawk, OM
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July 9, 2009 1:39 PM
I predict a single 12-hr period would suffice, provided it's the dark half of the day, and there's sufficient beer :-p
Posted by: Jadehawk, OM
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July 9, 2009 1:43 PM
From the abstract on teen-comparison:
another proof that conservative religions are hive-minds :-p
Posted by: Onkel Bob | July 9, 2009 1:45 PM
Since I didn't see anyone comment about this yet, the Walrus has an interview with Hitchens here.
Posted by: raven | July 9, 2009 1:50 PM
Easy question.
First off. Where is a rock? Let's stone it to death. That seems to be the default solution to anything for many xians. Very Old Testament.
Second off. Great, far out. That means the Rapture is here. Let's all wave bye bye to the fundies, cheer loudly, and party for the next thousand years.
Posted by: Mozglubov | July 9, 2009 1:54 PM
Daniel Dennett does have a very enjoyable sense of humour. What irks me about reading this whole thing, though, is the idea that these peddlers of incoherence get invited to lavish talks and conferences, and I do not.
(Of course it makes sense that I do not, given that I just got my bachelors, but, damn it, I'm impatient.)
Posted by: AJS | July 9, 2009 2:04 PM
If scientists acted more like theologians, they would be arguing over whether the little minus signs on electrons were blue or black. And there'd be no electronics industry.
Posted by: Matt Heath | July 9, 2009 2:07 PM
Templeton have put that beyond all doubt now by funding this evolutionary christology chap. Making sense of the christian story of god-as-man in light of evolution is clearly a religious question and also a Small Question.Posted by: hallucigenia | July 9, 2009 2:31 PM
That would be for having helped invent the field of philosophy of biology. Seriously, nobody has to like Ruse if they don't want to, but don't misrepresent him or his views. When he says things like preferring a Calvinist god he's fucking with the audience--something he enjoys doing.
I think the person who wrote The Philosophy of Biology, The Darwinian Revolution, Darwinism Defended, Taking Darwin Seriously, Monad to Man, Can a Darwinian be a Christian? (answer: no), The Evolution-Creation Struggle, who has edited a huge number of important books (like the wonderful Evolution: The First Four Billion Years), and who has pretty tirelessly defended Darwin for most of four decades deserves a little more credit than he gets here.
I get it that most of you don't like his 'accomodationist' stance - fine. But I think if you're being really honest and ask yourself whether the 'cause' is better or worse for his having been around, the answer is unequivocally 'better.'
Quite frankly, I'm not sure the same could be said for Daniel Dennett. Besides being a loudmouth, what's he going to be remembered for in 50 years? He only really achieved notoriety for attacking Gould, and his work isn't taken very seriously by most of the scientists and philosophers I know.
Posted by: Matt Penfold | July 9, 2009 2:40 PM
That would only be after they decided how many angels could dance on a proton.
Posted by: Panpsychist | July 9, 2009 2:58 PM
To clarify Dennett's question concerning Chalmers' view of panpsychism:
"Chalmers’(1995, 1996) naturalistic dualism (ND) implies that phenomenal consciousness accompanies all information processes. Because information is taken to be a fundamental feature of the physical universe, consciousness is taken to be a fundamental feature, much like mass, space, and time are fundamental features of the universe (Chalmers,1995; cf. Wheeler,1990)."
The position is beginning to gain headway in consciousness studies because of the intractable nature of the hard problem.
Posted by: CJO | July 9, 2009 3:18 PM
The position is beginning to gain headway in consciousness studies because of the intractable nature of the hard problem.
Oh, piffle.
The Hard Problem's "intractible nature" is mostly a function of the intractable minds of the mysterian community and the intractibility of the argument from incredulity. Whatever promising avenues are opened up by hard materialist approaches to the problem, which consist mainly of reducing the problem from global="Hard" to smaller, more local="hard, but not intractable," the mysterians chime in, "Well, that's interesting, but that doesn't answer the Hard Problem."
It amounts to epistemological gerrymandering. Whatever questions can be addressed by neuroscience are ruled irrelevant, by fiat, to the by definition unassailable Hard Problem.
Posted by: Quine | July 9, 2009 3:35 PM
Ray Charles used to say "Everything is hard, until you know how." Taking the position that something you do not understand is "intractable" is to make a assertion without logical backing. A third person description of first person subjectivity is hard for humans to achieve about humans, but does not mean that something beyond biology is happening. If it were, when in evolution did it start happening? What special processes came into being that were not there before? All of biology was intractable for our bronze age ancestors.
Posted by: raven | July 9, 2009 3:36 PM
No way. This is forbidden by the Laws of Quantum Metaphysics. A gap may only be occupied by one intangible entity at a time.
Someone already stuck god in the consciousness gap. Panpsychism will just have to find some other place to hide out in.
Posted by: LouisIV | July 9, 2009 3:49 PM
I've read Harris and Dawkins and I've watched Hitchens in debate on you tube, but until today, I hadn't read any Dennett.
After belly laughing my way through this wonderful, incisive blog, I'm going straight out to the bookstore tomorrow to buy something by the last Horseman!
Posted by: Colugo | July 9, 2009 3:58 PM
"Jesus was "a spiritual mutation, ""
Jesus Christ: hopeful monster?
Posted by: AJ Milne | July 9, 2009 4:03 PM
Hee hee...
Now this is a man earned that pimp hat, knowwhatimsayin'?
Posted by: jimmiraybob | July 9, 2009 4:16 PM
67 - "...what's north of the north pole?"
That's easy, heaven. Then what is heaven? That which is north of the north pole.
Evolutionary Heavenology 101
Posted by: LouisIV | July 9, 2009 4:20 PM
I've read Harris and Dawkins and I've watched Hitchens in debate on you tube, but until today, I hadn't read any Dennett.
After belly laughing my way through this wonderful, incisive blog, I'm going straight out to the bookstore tomorrow to buy something by the last Horseman!
Posted by: LouisIV | July 9, 2009 4:30 PM
I've read Harris and Dawkins and I've watched Hitchens in debate on you tube, but until today, I hadn't read any Dennett.
After belly laughing my way through this wonderful, incisive blog, I'm going straight out to the bookstore tomorrow to buy something by the last Horseman!
Posted by: Dania
|
July 9, 2009 4:31 PM
Awesome. That made my day :)
Posted by: Steve Caldwell | July 9, 2009 4:37 PM
Theology is overdue for its version of the "Sokal Affair":
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sokal_Affair
Posted by: Ryan | July 9, 2009 4:58 PM
#67
I would hardly call Dennett a "loudmouth".
Posted by: tsg | July 9, 2009 5:02 PM
"Loudmouth", like "militant" and "angry" (and "new" for that matter), is anti-atheist-speak for "refuses to sit down and shut up". See "uppity".
Posted by: Panpsychist | July 9, 2009 5:13 PM
Actually there are quite a few empirical reasons the hard problem is so hard. Chief among them is the neural binding problem, which concerns how objects in the visual field appear unified with the correct features (color, location, etc.) when these features are neurally represented at different times and in different locations in the brain. Empirical study of the brain must be balanced by philosophical reflection upon the implications. Neuroscience can address the empirical questions; neither Chalmers or Nagel, or any other philosopher of mind would suggest otherwise. Further, the hard problem is not based solely upon personal incredulity, but upon the real problems neural imaging has revealed. I say not solely because contrary to what Quine remarks above,
a reduction of 1st person consciousness to a 3rd person description is not a solution to the hard problem. Rather, what is required to solve the problem is a coherent reconciliation of 1st and 3rd person perspectives. We need a neurophenomenology, not an eliminative reductionism. In other words, we want to know how each (consciousness and neural activity) relates to the other. Giving only a 3rd person account of consciousness doesn't address the problem, it just ignores it. But Quine is right, there is nothing beyond biology going on. Panpsychism wouldn't suggest otherwise, either; it is certainly not a "god of the gaps" position. It is thoroughly physicalist in its orientation, only physical processes come to be associated with phenomenological states.
Posted by: CJO | July 9, 2009 5:22 PM
Giving only a 3rd person account of consciousness doesn't address the problem, it just ignores it.
See?
Posted by: Otto | July 9, 2009 5:24 PM
jackstraw #41,
"Keep that up and you'll go blind."
Not with all that hair on my palm, it protects.
Anyway, I was talking about a more basic kenotic process based on the rear orifice. That seems to be much more in line with the idea of "kenotic theology"
Posted by: Naughtius Maximus | July 9, 2009 5:25 PM
Anyone want to contribute to this freakshow?
http://boards.ie/vbulletin/forumdisplay.php?f=38
Posted by: Jack Krebs | July 9, 2009 5:41 PM
Very interesting post - clear and entertaining. I loved this line (which maybe other had heard before):"It truly is intellectual tennis without a net."
Posted by: SC, OM | July 9, 2009 5:48 PM
Who are you, LaRock? Honestly, I've been reading these discussions here for the past few months, and I'm still amazed at how some philosophers have managed to wedge their way into neuroscientific matters by finding these little gaps. Rather than asking questions of people who are doing the research and being open to and positive about new discoveries, they seem to want to dictate to neuroscientists where the research can go, what its limitations are, and what it must mean. It's so snotty.
Posted by: Rick Schauer | July 9, 2009 5:53 PM
My favorite part:
Rotflmao - Dennett is a treat.
Posted by: Chris | July 9, 2009 5:54 PM
@Panpsychist,
Chalmers nowhere suggests that he endorses panpsychism. In his discussions of it, he merely says that it's not completely crazy. Moreover, he hasn't much discussed it over the past decade, preferring more of a Russellian or classical property dualist position. Most of his work has been defending the arguments that lead to naturalistic dualism, as well as more general technical work in metaphysics and philosophy of language. Nowhere (and I've read almost all of his works) has he endorsed the panpsychist answer to the hard problem. He thinks it has to do with information-bearing systems, which lends itself to a Russellian position, but doesn't imply panpsychism.
And the hard problem isn't based on reflections on the evidence (though the evidence raises conundrums of its own). It arises from an explanatory puzzle (how can we explain consciousness from what we know about the physical? experience seems totally different than the physical properties we're familiar with) that we're not sure how to solve yet. Some make the metaphysical conclusion that physicalism is false, and it's a controversial move (because it's so dramatic a conclusion).
And since when is panpsychism making headway in consciousness studies? The most popular positions are definitely not panpsychist positions.
Posted by: Phil | July 9, 2009 6:07 PM
From the article SC linked us to @88:
I'd be curious to hear some opinions on this matter... does science tell us what nature is, or does it tell us how nature behaves when subjected to our experimental methods?
Posted by: SC, OM | July 9, 2009 6:13 PM
What methods other than science do we have for reliably ascertaining anything about nature?
Posted by: LouisIV | July 9, 2009 6:18 PM
I've read Dawkins and Harris, and watched Hitchens in debates on the internet, but until today had not had the pleasure of reading Dennett. I'm going straight out to the bookstore tomorrow to buy a copy of the last horseman :0)
Posted by: LouisIV | July 9, 2009 6:32 PM
Gah! Sorry about the multiple posts. Think my brain has been a tad kenotic.
Posted by: Dologan | July 9, 2009 6:41 PM
Epic line delivered during his talk (paraphrased): "After Darwin, God has been reduced to playing the air guitar."
Oh, and I took a pic with him that day! And sat next to him during a lecture (on Universal Darwinism)! (He's left-handed, btw. Lefties FTW!)
Only two more horsemen pics to collect!
Posted by: Kel, OM | July 9, 2009 6:44 PM
Willing to bet that Michael Ruse won't wait for dementia for doing an Antony Flew...
Posted by: tsg | July 9, 2009 6:50 PM
Define is.
Posted by: SC, OM | July 9, 2009 6:51 PM
*clenched-left-fist salute*
Posted by: Phil | July 9, 2009 6:55 PM
What methods other than science do we have for reliably ascertaining anything about nature?
Hm, well I asked for answers, not more questions! But I'll play along... If science only tells us what its methods can glean about nature, rather than what nature is, then investigation into the ontology of nature itself has been ceded to philosophy and/or theology. I believe this is a centuries old, and still rather difficult to overturn, position elaborated by Kant. Science concerns rational analysis of phenomena, or how things appear to our consciousness. Science cannot penetrate the veil of phenomena to reach things-in-themselves, whether they be our own conscious apperception or nature.
Posted by: Aquaria | July 9, 2009 6:57 PM
#67
No, it's not Ruse's accommodationist stance alone that makes him an asshole that nobody likes.
It's that he has the gall to tell everyone that they have to do things his way, and then gets pissy when others disagree. Only he is the authority on how to be an atheist/scientist in the proper way when dealing with the religious.
This is also Mooney and Nisbett's problem.
He also says some amazingly stupid shit, like the bit about the Calvinist god, that has no relation to reality.
You can be excellent in you field, but that doesn't make you right about everything in it. It doesn't mean that you have all the answers, or that you're some sort of Messiah. He's not.
Far from it.
I'd also like to know what you've been smoking to call Dennett a loudmouth. I have never seen him behave in anything but a calm, polite, and soft-spoken manner. Does he have strong views and express them with certainty? Yes. But he's not loud, in any way.
Of course, I also thought Hitchens was amazingly calm and reasonable in God Is Not Great.
Posted by: another | July 9, 2009 7:01 PM
In fact, there is. It just seems to always involve the Shroud of Turin.
Posted by: SC, OM | July 9, 2009 7:04 PM
You haven't answered my question, though. Again, what methods are used in this "investigation" (please be specific), and how do they provide accurate, reliable data about nature? What information have we gleaned about nature through these methods? What substantively does it add to that learned via the methods of science?
Posted by: Feynmaniac | July 9, 2009 7:07 PM
Aquria,
Have you seen the thread where you are quoted at The Intersection yet?
Posted by: CJO | July 9, 2009 7:11 PM
He also says some amazingly stupid shit, like the bit about the Calvinist god, that has no relation to reality.
And, he co-edited a book with the slimebag Dembski, allowing dandruff-like flakes of his rapidly disintegrating credibility to alight on the latter's sweater.
Posted by: SC, OM | July 9, 2009 7:19 PM
OK, I think that gets you a Molly nomination. Awesome.
Horrors! I may swoon!
(The comparative comment is more focus-group, pandering, condescending bullshit from Baby Nisbet.)
Posted by: 'Tis Himself, Quel Dommage
|
July 9, 2009 7:26 PM
If I thought that religious beliefs weren't false, I wouldn't be an atheist.
Posted by: Celtic_Evolution | July 9, 2009 7:36 PM
I know 'Tis Himself just commented on this, but I had to add to it...
What a wonderful example of complete self-contradiction! So, Ruse claims he is an atheist, which implies a denial of the existence of deities, and therefor by definition affirms that religious beliefs are false, in his opinion.
So he has either, by his own declaration, just disqualified himself, and every other atheist, from attempting to explain religion, or is lying about being an atheist and is actually an agnostic.
Either way, the statement is baffling.
Posted by: Josh
|
July 9, 2009 7:37 PM
And you're arguing that if science cannot, then perhaps philosophy or...theology...can?
Really?
Posted by: SC, OM | July 9, 2009 7:38 PM
(The comparative comment is more focus-group, pandering, condescending bullshit from Baby Nisbet.)
That was totally misleading on my part. Don't know what happened. The comparative comment wasn't, of course, from Mooney, but another Nisbetian entirely. Of course, it was a Classic, and therefore fully representative.
Posted by: Celtic_Evolution | July 9, 2009 7:47 PM
There... fixed that... ummm.... right?
Posted by: Teddydeedodu | July 9, 2009 8:10 PM
My favorite line:
"You've clearly adjusted your theology considerably in the wake of Darwin, which I applaud, but what traffic, if any, goes in the other direction? Is there something I'm missing?"
Gawd, I just love Dennett. He goes straight for the jugular with such finesse.
Posted by: Brain Hertz | July 9, 2009 8:14 PM
Yeah, but it was a rhetorical question...
That's because the questions beyond that point have become rendered mostly meaningless due to our inability to construct any conclusions which are testable. Since we can't distinguish between the validity of whatever answers we come up with, does it really matter?
If religion and philosophy want to claim as their own only those questions to which the answers are indistinguishable and therefore, at least in my own naturalistic mind, don't matter, I'm mostly ok with that. But the answers to these questions that religion comes up with are no more valid than those which I can make up.
No, science cannot penetrate the veil, and neither can religion. What religion does is not find out answers to these questions, but makes them up and pretends that it knows them to be true.
Posted by: Rey Fox | July 9, 2009 8:49 PM
Big Darwin festival? Ah phooie, of course it has to be over in England.
Posted by: tsg | July 9, 2009 8:55 PM
Again, define is, your emphasis.
Posted by: Dennis N
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July 9, 2009 9:15 PM
That's a conclusion, not an assumption.
Posted by: Quine | July 9, 2009 9:35 PM
Good luck.
Posted by: Wowbagger, OM | July 9, 2009 9:44 PM
What absolute fucking crock of shit. We're not talking musical taste here; what he said is like saying 'Well, I'm not a racist homophobe, but I wouldn't want to start with the assumption that those who are racist homophobes are wrong.'
This clown has managed the hard-to-achieve contortionist position of so bent-over-backwards that he's inserted his head into his ass.
Posted by: tsg | July 9, 2009 9:46 PM
@Quine, #116
I don't expect an answer. I don't even think he knows what he means by it. It won't stop me from asking, though.
Posted by: hallucigenia | July 9, 2009 10:00 PM
@ Aquaria #100
Give me one example where he's said any of those things. I don't think you actually know anything about Ruse, other than what you've heard other people say on this blog. Sure, he'll tell you if he disagrees with you (that is, if 'you' aren't some jerkwad commenting on a blog who he's never heard of). But how, exactly, does that translate to "hav[ing] all the answers" or considering himself a "messiah"? How about you try doing more than just talking shit?
Daniel Dennett had a personal vendetta against Stephen Jay Gould because he was jealous of Gould's popularity. He went after Gould in NYRB essays and in his crappy book Darwin's Dangerous Idea which is the only reason anyone knows who he is. He is arrogant (not unforgivable - Ruse is too) without having produced anything of philosophical or scientific substance. He is a loudmouth because he spends most of his time complaining about other people rather than doing anything original.
I repeat my earlier challenge: name one accomplishment of note that Dennett has produced. And if any of you have actually read anything Dennett's written, you'll see the irony in his complaining about Ruse's finger-wagging.
@ Celtic #107
How is that a self-contradiction? Can't he argue a philosophical strategy that is neutral towards his own personal beliefs? All Dennett quoted him as saying (and by the way, you're putting a lot of faith in a 1-sentence paraphrase from a guy who hates Ruse's guts), is
Right - don't start with the assumption (i.e. in philosophical arguments). He didn't say anything about what people should believe, nor did he proscribe any conclusions. Your comment doesn't make any sense.
@ TSG #82
I'm sorry, I wasn't issued the new atheist codebook. How about 'asshole' instead, then? Feel persecuted much, by the way?
Posted by: tsg | July 9, 2009 10:13 PM
Case in point ...
Posted by: Phil | July 9, 2009 10:15 PM
tsg #114,
when one asks what nature is, the 'is' refers to the ontological status of the Being called by us 'nature.' "Being" here doesn't mean anything other than the most general category imaginable.
Brian #112,
I suppose my philosophical training lends me to believe in the power of reason and critical inquiry into the necessary conditions of experience and/or existence, and so while it may not be possible to empirically test, say, the implications of Heidegger's Being and Time or Kant's Critique of Judgment, it is nonetheless quite possible to entirely reorient one's approach to life and the human condition after having read and understood them. Philosophy is, as Socrates said, learning to die. It's an existential exercise that some are passionate about, while others couldn't care less. But I hardly think the emergence of science in the past few centuries makes the tradition of philosophical inquiry into one's own existence obsolete or meaningless. Science does not and can not ask all the questions; so long as we remain mortal, there will always be room for philosophy (and yes, even religion).
You're free not to care, but at least in the case of serious philosophical inquiry (I can't speak for religion), one's conclusions are hardly "made up" on a whim. Science is solely concerned with what can be tested and observed. Wonderful! Let's learn as much as we possibly can about how nature reveals itself through such a method! But we should not pretend the numinosity of human existence has somehow been sucked out of the world by the clean and precise approach of science. There is plenty of room to contemplate what remains hidden behind the veil. Knowledge in philosophy is not of the objective, factual sort. This I fully concede. Philosophy is a pursuit of wisdom, a different sort of knowledge. I agree with you that philosophers nor theologians should pretend that wisdom provides objective facts concerning what lies hidden beyond phenomena. Wisdom is useful only for human relationships, for reconciling ourselves with death, and for ruminating on the meaning of the cosmos and our place in it. Of course, anyone is free to say that no such meaning exists, that philosophy is just word games. I disagree, but respect such a position. But if one claims this on the authority of science, I think they are mistaken. Science doesn't look for meaning--only for measurable facts. It should therefore come as no surprise that it finds no meaning. If it is meaning we want, let us use the proper method.
SC #102,
Philosophy has only survived the march of scientific progress because it has become phenomenology: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phenomenology_(philosophy)
The method involves leaving conceptual games behind to return to "the things themselves" as they appear to us in experience. One brackets all presuppositions (including the presupposition that we know what nature is) in the hopes that the 1st person functioning of consciousness is opened to unbiased investigation. 3rd person science gives us no tools to operate in this arena, but phenomenologically clarifying the structure of experience is crucial if, for instance, we hope to close the gap between consciousness and the physical body. One of the most fascinating insights of the method was made by Heidegger, who observed that most of our bodily action within the world takes place tacitly. For instance, an accomplished typist doesn't think about how each finger needs to move when they want to compose a sentence. It just happens. It is only when something goes wrong or happens unexpectedly that we snap out of our embeddedness in the ongoing tasks of living. This may seem trivial, but prolonged accounts of the ins and outs of this shift in awareness may turn out to be very helpful for neurologists trying to understand just how the brain and body interact with the world to bring forth consciousness. We need to know as much as we can about conscious experience itself, on its own terms, if we want to understand its physical embodiment.
Posted by: tsg | July 9, 2009 10:22 PM
I was hoping for something a little more specific.
Posted by: Dr. P | July 9, 2009 11:04 PM
and I shall have to remember to order that proctologist consult for my patient with congestive heart failure......Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM
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July 9, 2009 11:14 PM
We book readers call the genre fantasy. Usually in found in book store with science fiction.Posted by: no2religion | July 9, 2009 11:34 PM
Great field reporting.
Posted by: Kel, OM | July 9, 2009 11:38 PM
I've got to say that it's nonsense like these arguments that have pushed me towards strong atheism. While I can't say with absolutely certainty that there is no god, the piutiful attempts to reconcile theism with modern science only serve to demonstrate how intellectually void the whole concept is.
Seriously, coming out and saying that God magically made Jesus is more intellectually defensible than using such asinine attempts to fit God into the framework of science. All I can conclude from this is that science killed god by virtue of being something that god isn't - an explanation as opposed to a non-explanation masquerading as one.
Posted by: Muzz | July 9, 2009 11:44 PM
Kenotic Theology is sure to be popular with Australian churches. Particularly after the once popular Bingotic Theology was brought under gambling regulations in most states some time ago.
Posted by: SC, OM | July 10, 2009 12:02 AM
Oh, fuck you. I adore philosophy. This is evasive nonsense. Let's inquire! And let's critically (and empirically) analyze the "answers" we develop.
Good mofoing grief. Do you all learn this vacuous verbal style in grad school? Can you write clearly? Camus could. Arendt could. Sartre could. Many contemporary philosophers can. Try, ffs.
Posted by: Phil | July 10, 2009 12:03 AM
Nerd #124,
No, I don't think "fantasy" is quite enough for it; it's worse...
Science, nor philosophy and religion can imagine fully what could be behind the veil, because perception is itself a veil. Modern philosophers turned inward in search of a thinking thing while scientists measured the material. Soon both their dreams ended in aporia, philosophy finding thoughts but no I, science waves of probability. Lost in all this was the body, our life, the "embodied mind" Dennett seems unable to understand ("gobbledygook"). He claims to be anti-Cartesian--you'd think he'd be drooling over the approach. Science and philosophy went in search of things-themselves, never finding them, but always continually discovering new ways of looking at them.
And further...
Science cannot explain all of human existence unless it becomes theology. There are some things that are sacred, if for no other reason than that they preserve for us the very scientific contact with the world we find so important. If the mind were not embodied, how could it ever come to perceive the world?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francisco_Varela
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cartesian_anxiety
Posted by: Quine | July 10, 2009 12:20 AM
Watch out for a common equivocation about "is." Whereas the question about "what is" presents as ontological (as in the question "Why is there something instead of nothing?"), the question about "what something is" does not ask about existence, but rather, about knowledge of the nature of something (as in "What is an electron?).
Posted by: SC, OM | July 10, 2009 12:20 AM
*eyeroll* Yes, and if the doors of perception were cleansed...
The hell they did.
Bleh-eh-eh.
Posted by: SC, OM | July 10, 2009 12:28 AM
BTW, how sad for you in so many ways:
http://classics.mit.edu/Carus/nature_things.html
Posted by: Phil | July 10, 2009 12:32 AM
Quine #130,
What is an electron, anyway?
Posted by: Wowbagger, OM | July 10, 2009 12:36 AM
Cobblers. 'Currently unknown' ≠ 'sacred'. 'Esoteric' ≠ 'sacred'. 'Sense of wonder' ≠ 'sacred'. One can view the world through all of these lenses without succumbing to the fluff of woo.
Religion answers no questions (satisfactorily - to the intellectually honest, at least) other than 'what can I choose to believe in that makes me feel special?' and/or 'what nonsense can I toss around to appear to adhere to the current fad of pseudo-spirituality as a substitute for genuine depth?'
Posted by: SC, OM | July 10, 2009 12:40 AM
What is it, Phil? How do you know?
Posted by: Quine | July 10, 2009 1:06 AM
Science is about making models (abstractions) that describe the properties of things and make predictions about what will happen in given conditions. There is plent of stuff on the properties of electrons. Typically, science will say that an electron is the thing that has these properties. Many feel an epistemological gap from there to "what an electron is" which is why I wished good luck on a general theory of "is."
Posted by: Phil | July 10, 2009 1:51 AM
Quine #136,
So would it be fair to say an electron is an unknown thing given certain mathematical properties describing its behavior under specified experimental conditions?
Perhaps the role of philosophy in the scientific age is to be the critic of science's abstractions. What would be a better general model, do you think, for the dynamics of the universe as a whole?
a) a clock, or machine
b) a string symphony
c) a membrane, or organism
Perhaps this is too Big a question. Impossible to test, most likely. But if the place of philosophy (and even religion) is to be the critic of scientific abstraction produced by specialized observation, perhaps there is still room for creative generalizations about the ontology of the cosmos. "What is nature?" isn't a scientific question (unless we ignore QM and say physics tells us what nature is), but should humanity therefore give up on it entirely?
Posted by: Marcus Ranum | July 10, 2009 1:51 AM
Phil writes:
Knowledge in philosophy is not of the objective, factual sort.
Yes, because philosophers have never managed to overcome the challenge presented by skepticism (either phyrronian or academic) - so it's been unable to say anything useful about objective reality. What you characterize as a search for wisdom and has mostly been a goofy kind of nerf-toy bashing session between rival sects of christians, trying to base their sect on (supposedly) something more than fideism while disparaging the others for being unable to refute skepticism. Does that about sum it up?
Posted by: Chris | July 10, 2009 2:09 AM
What? My education certainly isn't in phenomenology. But it's still in philosophy.Posted by: Marcus Ranum | July 10, 2009 2:11 AM
Phil writes:
Philosophy is a pursuit of wisdom, a different sort of knowledge.
But, to have this "wisdom" thing, would you not have to somehow get it into your consciousness through interaction with the outside world (objective reality) through the means of your unreliable senses, and think about "wisdom" using your unreliable human brain? Thus, to have "wisdom" you would have to know it, first, would you not? How would you know you are "wise" and with what? (cue infinite regression)
One of the things that's nice about science is that it appears to work OK without actually requiring true knowledge. It's kind of a selective form of trial and error; we don't need to "know electrons" but we can observe that doing certain things appear to cause other things to happen - that's not absolute "knowledge" in the philosophical sense, but you can still build cell phones and iPods and internet porn and all the things we appear to have. That's why some scientists always do the skeptical dance (and a beautiful dance it is!) "it appears that..." and "it seems as if..." you don't know that the sun will come up tomorrow and more than you know it exists -- but it seems to. I guess that's because the simulation we all think we "live" in has gotten a lot less buggy, or something. It's not necessary to "know" about an objective reality to make what appears to be a perfectly tasty seeming sandwich like thing. Nom nom nom.
Posted by: Quine | July 10, 2009 2:36 AM
Phil, it is my view that we don't know what Nature is, but we make these models that do better and better predictions. We can never know if we have found the answers, or if we just have something that gives the same results. For the purpose of using science to produce technology, it is a distinction that makes no difference. We use Occam's razor to pick from sets of any number of models that all give the same results, and go with it until new data shows that Nature was not so simple.
Posted by: Jeff | July 10, 2009 3:05 AM
I don't know about panpsychism gaining any ground in cognitive science, but the way Dennett sneered at the embodied approach to consciousness confuses me. Perhaps he felt it was being used to keep the door open to something other than reductionism, and that van Huyssteen kicked the door down to reveal God. Hopefully a video or recording of the talk will become available...
An excerpt from an interview with Evan Thompson, cognitive scientist and proponent of the idea that the mind is embodied:
Posted by: Almighty Father | July 10, 2009 3:38 AM
Proof of Creationism (or is it proof we evolved from apes?)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kF3L359yKjs
Posted by: Nominal Egg | July 10, 2009 3:59 AM
Are you kidding? All this proves is that Ray Comfort knows nothing about bananas. Also, it's strong evidence that you, too, are a demented loon.Posted by: windy | July 10, 2009 4:57 AM
Hallucigenia:
Explaining religion is not a "philosophical argument", it's a scientific undertaking (in a broad sense).
And I thought accommodationists were great fans of methodological naturalism? Isn't it a requirement of methodological naturalism that a scientist, when trying to explain a real world phenomenon, always assumes that there is no supernatural funny business in the works? And wouldn't that entail assuming that the supernatural is not messing and has not messed with his test subjects? And thus, require the scientist to start with the assumption that most religious claims (since they usually seem to attribute supernatural causes to past events and to religious experiences) are false?
Posted by: windy | July 10, 2009 7:10 AM
I don't think Kant was talking about only "science", but all cognition as having this limitation. You have given somewhat contradictory answers on whether you think some other discipline can do better. More Kant, less Platonic idealist mystic bafflegab, plz.
Posted by: hallucigenia | July 10, 2009 7:41 AM
Windy @ 145:
I don't know what the fuck 'accomodationists' are supposed to believe, because 'accomodationism' is a strawman dreamed up on this blog to stand for anyone who doesn't agree with PZ Myers.
You seem to be confusing 'explaining' (e.g. discussing the role or function of) religion with testing its claims. Anyway, how do you imagine science 'explains' religion (unless you're talking about evolutionary psychology, which is pretty much bullshit)?
Now, if what you meant was 'testing,' your point makes no sense. Why would you start out by assuming the very conclusion you're setting out to test?
Still no takers on defending Dennett's accomplishments against Ruse's?
Posted by: Kel, OM | July 10, 2009 7:48 AM
Are you honestly that fucking stupid, or just trying to stir shit?Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM
|
July 10, 2009 7:57 AM
I've noticed that philosophers who post here tend to mix their philosophical musings with nonsense. The reason for this is that their mental musings are not grounded in reality. They get so tied up in concepts like "something can theoretically exist", and get all hot and lathery about it, they don't check to see if it actually exists, and come off looking not like intellectuals, but like naive children. Then they get offended when we point this out.
Science just takes the simple position that unless there is some compelling reason for something to exist, like predicted from models (think the Higg's boson), it doesn't exist until evidence is available. And science will always include new evidence, and adjust its theories if necessary. Science is grounded in reality.
Posted by: 'Tis Himself, Quel Dommage
|
July 10, 2009 8:03 AM
Your problem is even more basic. you don't know what the fuck "accomdationism" is. But fret not, we'll be happy to cure your fucking ignorance for you.
Posted by: windy | July 10, 2009 8:15 AM
No, I pretty explicitly said that I was talking about the former, the study of religion as a phenomenon. Which step in my argument do you disagree with?
What do you think the session "Evolution of Religion" was about? Are Pascal Boyer, David Sloan Wilson and Harvey Whitehouse evolutionary psychologists?
Posted by: SC, OM | July 10, 2009 9:04 AM
Don't be silly. Scientists know the cosmos is pure taffy.
OK, I'll give this another shot. How do you go about doing this, specifically? Decsribe, in detail, the concrete physical actions that make up your method. How do you go about developing your interpretations and generalizations? Which have you gained? How do you know they are valid? How do you know if you're wrong?
Posted by: Celtic_Evolution | July 10, 2009 9:22 AM
hallucigenia #147
Umm... did you actually read Windy's entire post? She already answered that question:
Posted by: John Morales | July 10, 2009 9:22 AM
Nerd @149,
Please. They are self-proclaimed "philosopers", not philosophers.
They have the same relation to real philosophers as do pseudo-scientists to scientists.
(I admit I am biased, I have much respect for philosophy).
Posted by: SC, OM | July 10, 2009 11:58 AM
These are some strange sentences.
The brain is part of the body.
Sure. Saying such accounts may possibly provide (for all I know they have already provided) useful data in neuroscience is quite different from what you appear to be suggesting: that producing them constitutes an independent investigative method that stands outside of science and can produce valid knowledge (wisdom, meaning,..).
*furrows brow*
This sentence doesn't make sense to me.
Posted by: CJO | July 10, 2009 2:28 PM
Still no takers on defending Dennett's accomplishments against Ruse's?
Yeah, what do you know! Nobody's interested in your stupid dick-waving contast. Poor widdul dittums.
But a glance at their respective CVs shows the level of their contributions to be pretty much on a par. Dennett has more peer-reviewed papers, Ruse has written, edited, and contributed to more books (including at least one co-edited with Dembski: some accomplishment). As far as who is taken more seriously, I will note that there are more books by others about Dennett's work than Ruse's, but that Ruse is on TV more.
And there's this: In addition to their respective professorships, in which they each hold named chairs, Dennett is Co-Director of the Center for Cognitive Science, Tufts University. Ruse is an associate of the Center for Science and Religion at the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago.
Posted by: Kel, OM | July 10, 2009 7:56 PM
I suppose next time Myers criticises Behe or Dembski, hallucigenia will be out to compare CVs...
Posted by: OurDeadSelves | July 10, 2009 10:23 PM
But I learned a new word: "kenotic" as in kenotic theology. It comes from the Greek word kenosis meaning 'self-emptying.'
And now I have a new euphemism for masturbation! YaY!
Posted by: Rasmus Holm | July 12, 2009 3:53 AM
I attended the conference as well, and up to the very last session on Friday I had not noticed the sponsorship of the Templeton Foundation. Then we had the endure a prize award by the foundation to a young boy for writing an esay on religion and evolution. Brain washing at its finest. We then heard a talk about how we should be mindful on how various political and religious groups try to appropriate Darwin.
In the Q&A I asked if that wasn't what the Templeton foundation was doing. I have since regretted bitterly that I did not add that the prize award had soured the whole experience, and mentioned PZ's brilliant post on the problems with the foundation. Of course I should also have expressed my hope that the young boy receiving the prize recovers from the virus.
Finally Dennett was the highlight of the entire conference. He was more outspoken and critical than I have seen him before whereas Dawkins was slightly disappointing and repetitive, and it an honour to have my picture taken with Dennett.