When fellow ScienceBlogger Matt Nisbet announced that he had put a panel together to talk about "Communicating Science in a Religious America" at this weekend's AAAS conference, he was greeted with what I'll generously call widespread skepticism among many of the bloggers here (including me). Nisbet, you see, is a well-known opponent of what's sometimes referred to as the "New Atheism". His own talk will focus on the "New Atheism". And he included nobody on his panel who is actually a "New Atheist".
A little while ago, he posted a copy of a press release describing another one of the papers that's going to be presented at that panel by William and Mary anthropologist Barbara King. One of the things that's going to be covered in that talk is - wait for it - some of the "problems" caused by the "New Atheism":
"I see a pattern that I call the 'confessional' or the 'testimonial.' They're writing about their personal beliefs about religion, so they are speaking as scientists, but they really want to confess," King said. "The majority of them say 'religion is an illusion' or 'science needs to replace religion.' Some of them display an evangelical zeal to convince people that science needs to rid the United States of God. To me, this is a huge mistake. Everything is wrapped in a personal confessional and I think that is doing a disservice to communicating science in religious America.""I see a pattern that I call the 'confessional' or the 'testimonial.' They're writing about their personal beliefs about religion, so they are speaking as scientists, but they really want to confess," King said. "The majority of them say 'religion is an illusion' or 'science needs to replace religion.' Some of them display an evangelical zeal to convince people that science needs to rid the United States of God. To me, this is a huge mistake. Everything is wrapped in a personal confessional and I think that is doing a disservice to communicating science in religious America."
She is quick to add that the trend also includes declarations of faith by Christian scientists, which are just as divisive as the testimonials by agnostic or atheistic scientists. In her paper, embargoed by AAAS until after the annual meeting, King names names, citing specific examples of confessionals/testimonials by her fellow scientists--with one exception.
"I have written this paper without mentioning Richard Dawkins," King said, referring to the author of The God Delusion. "Everyone knows that Richard Dawkins says that science has to oppose religion and we have to get people out of their sad delusions by making them think rationally. I don't talk about him."
I'm not sure that King and Nisbet are wrong about the "New Atheism". I'm not sure that they're right, either. What I am sure of is this: Nisbet should not have set up this panel without including at least a token "New Atheist". His decision to exclude them was not collegial, it was not respectful, and it certainly was not nice.
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Agreed (and I'aint a new atheist). Nisbet's position on all of this is getting increasingly annoying to me. It's smug and probably wrong.
Ironically, Frame Master Matt Nisbet usually frames his arguments in such a way as to transmit the message "Matt Nisbet sucks".
Barbara King says,
Thank you so very much for telling me what I really want! I could never have figured that out for myself. Perish the thought that I'd even try.
What a surprise that a person thinking of religion would see even the activities of atheists in religious terms — bounded in a nutshell, the anthropologist is king of infinite space!
So, we're supposed to communicate science by appealing to people's emotions, using metaphors which get them thinking in the right fashion and so forth, but we can't include personal stories when we write a popularized science book? Honestly, one would think that a "testimonial" would be the effective way to communicate science in "religious America". Which is it — do we have too much God or not enough?
"Rather than engaging with his arguments or discussing the section of The God Delusion in which he admits that he's not the person you'd want testifying for science in a Kansas courtroom, I'll just reassure everyone that their second-hand impression of Richard Dawkins is accurate, so I don't have to talk about him."
Creationists are fond of complaining that Intelligent Design has been kept out of academia by a "Darwinist orthodoxy" (perhaps projecting their own habits of thinking onto their enemies). It is ironic that a panel dedicated to "communicating science in a religious America" has aped the tactics of creationists and made flesh their projected image of science: the New Atheists have been Expelled.
You support an organization which excluded Ron Paul from speaking. This in itself is against science at it's core.
Science is the search for truth. All science must include all circumstance. No ommission or fact or possible fact.
If by your own action you create an outcome then your science is flawed.
You know this!!!!!
So don't complain. You brought it on yourself. Let Dr. and I repeat DOCTOR Ron Paul speak. You may not agree with him, but science seeks truth and required all the facts to make a decision. Otherwise you live in belief and religion and not fact.
Look to your own for the problem and see your error of observation. You call yourself a scientist? hmmmmmmmmm
..it does not require a majority to prevail, but rather an irate, tireless minority to set brush fires in peoples minds.
Samuel Adams
With public sentiment, nothing can fail; without it, nothing can succeed. Consequently he who molds public sentiment goes deeper than he who enacts statutes or pronounces decisions. Abraham Lincoln
During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act. George Orwell
The state cant give you free speech, and the state cant take it away. Youre born with it, like your eyes, like your ears. Freedom is something you assume, then you wait for someone to try to take it away. The degree to which you resist is the degree to which you are free
Utah Phillips
quixotic quest
I think King is committing a category mistake here. She's taking the religious testimonial--which is really just a subcategory of the human desire to share one's own thoughts with others--and subsuming the entire category under it, so that any communication of one's own beliefs can be labeled "religious" or "evangelical". But that's nonsense.
Also, I read King's book Evolving God, and while many parts of it are interesting and thought-provoking, much of it annoyed me because of her persistent inability to detach herself emotionally from what she's describing. She has not impressed me as someone who can give an objective and unbiased appraisal of situations or circumstances. She also does not vet her sources very well (her sources for "shamanism"--or what she thinks is shamanism--are atrocious).
There is no such thing as "New Atheists". Atheism has been around continuously since at least Greek times, probably since the first appearance of "woo". We have just reached an intersection of great doubt, great knowledge, and great capitalism that allows the best and brightest atheists of this generation to get book deals.
A kind of parable: Back when Christianity was starting up, the Pagans pointed out that the Christians were ripping off many elements of their legends, the Romans pointed out that no such man ever officially existed, and the Jews pointed out that their leaders not only would not, but could not act with the authority ascribed to them in the gospels.
However, the Christians were told they would meet resistance, so this only strengthened their faith, which they passed onto their children and anyone else who would listen. The others, I presume, started to just ignore them and hoped they would go away eventually, and did not pass onto their children a warning against this strange new cult, nor instructions to question, challenge, or ridicule them. In the end, Christianity thrived, while its detractors all but died.
It is heartening to see the "anonymous" attacks on scientology today, a full frontal attack to kill this silliness in one generation, so that it does not become reputable over generations as Christianity did.
I don't know what the problem is: All religions are false. Therefore, they all need to go.
It's asshats like Nisbet who are the atheists with dogma.
Remember how we were all pissed when CNN had a panel discussing atheism (any atheism) and not a single atheist was on it?
What's so much better about Nisbet having a panel discussing "new atheism" and not having a single "new atheist" (according to his definition) on it?
None as far as I can see.
Douchebag.
If any of you have ventured over to Mr Nisbet's blog, you'll find that the comments there are not of a supportive nature, and as a longtime Science Blogs reader, I'm glad to see it. Even as a non-scientist, it seems clear to me that he has been promoting his own agenda (postmodernist/relativistic baloney, of which 'framing' is but a small part) and good science be damned. This is just the icing on the moldy cake.
Wes:
Exactly! If a religious act and a non-religious act both share some common property, the non-religious act will be labeled as a new kind of religious behavior. This sort of thing has happened before, such as with the theologians who couldn't see the humor in the FSM.
Excellent observations, Wes, Blake Stacy. This is why I never take Nisbet's words on atheism and religion at face value. Every post he writes is based on this fallacy and he has an agenda to push where he's the good atheist for sugar-coating pedantically and we're the naughty atheists for speaking our minds.
If any of you have ventured over to Mr Nisbet's blog, you'll find that the comments there are not of a supportive nature...
That is surprising, since Nisbet censors comments on his blog.
I agree only partially to King's assessment, and I disagree completely with Nisbet's approach. Science communication should not accommodate the culture of a society. One tends to lose the science in the attempt to appease a pluralistic audience. If someone is offended by the fact that the Earth is round or that dinosaurs and humans lived millions of years apart, then so be it. If someone is offended by the facts surrounding global climate change, then so be it. they are free to wallow in their own ignorance and ineptitude, but why should I attempt to appease their sensibilities in fairies and human chauvinism?
Secondly, though it may be accurate to portray the writings of Dawkins or Atkins or PZ Myers as personal reflections (I don't like the equivocating of the word confessional with reflection), those who fail to see the difference between their reflections and the science have a failing level of reading comprehension.
The issue one needs to face is the ability of the public to comprehend science communication and develop basic tools in reading comprehension to tell the difference between facts and personal reflections. But I'm probably speaking to the wall on this issue, as I doubt Nisbet's panel will address such a topic.
Straying in by way of Sandwalk.
Excellent observations here. I don't necessarily agree with that Nisbet shouldn't push an agenda, say as an example of framing. But what riles me is that his chosen agenda is connected to his 'market' (religious US), and that he is obviously not interested in the views or knowledge of both sides, or more seriously the specific criticism the missing side engenders on his framing.
Nisbett's annoying habit is to discount all non-US based comments as being unimportant. The idea that most of the civilized world is not tip-toeing around superstition is seemingly a thought too far.
Sigmund brings up a good point. If you compare the US with Western Europe one difference that is obvious is that in Western Europe there is very little support for teaching creationism/ID, and no political support. The main religious groups also oppose creationism. Rather than dismissing the situation in Western Europe as being irrelevant one might have thought looking at how the science - religion debate plays in Western Europe would be worthwhile. Who knows, there might be things to learn.
All the posturing of 'framing' as a scientific discipline, with the accompanying jargon and claims of evidence obscures the underlying nature of Nisbet's approach. As a scientist, he really doesn't make sense - the selectivity of his sources, the quote-mining of interviews for snippets backing his arguments, and the curt dismissal of counter arguments are not what we should expect from someone who supposedly accepts the scientific method.
There is one way, however, that Nisbet makes complete sense - view him not as a scientist, but as a politician. Seen as a politician all his methods and strategies make complete sense, the only question is what is his end goal?
"Framing" = "Spinning"
no spin zone, framing as a career, same shit.