All I did was get my beloved Powerbook 12" serviced, and what happens? The Interlub goes wild with great stuff. Or was it always, and I only noticed because I was unable to blog? So, here is a rough and ready roundup of interesting things.
Before I do, I'd like to note that Paul Griffiths and I had a wonderful time last night talking to the Philosophy Students Association about Dawkins' The God Delusion. You, my loyal readers, already know my views on this, so I won't rehearse them here. But Paul made a comment I had to think about overnight. He does that. It was basically about religious exceptionalism - the unfair access to the public purse, position and policy making that representatives of religion have. It wasn't what I thought...
Paul made this claim: not only is it inevitable that religions get this special treatment in a secular society, it's probably a Good Thing. Why? Because it allows dominant religions to contribute without allowing them to take over. He noted that this exceptionalism is the end result of several hundred years of religious strife in Britain and Europe generally. If we removed it, religious tensions might rise. It's not fair to us'n areligious, but it has a Greater Good. Maybe.
So stuff:
First of all the important news that Brook McEldowney's Pibgorn comic serial is coming back. About time...
Larry Moran has put up an index post on the decline and fall of the Three Domain Hypothesis.
Moselio Schaechter has a typically attractive post on a weird Eukaryote single celled organism that has an algal chloroplast.. That's nothing new - but this one doesn't divide the chloroplast, but one of the daughters acquires a new one from a free living algal cell...
Moran (who's on a roll) lists the eight marks of bogus science...
... and gets interviewed in Cell as a science blogger scientist [subscription needed].
Science reports on a study that rejects the multiple migration hypothesis of Australian aborigines, based on mtDNA and Y chromosome haplotypes.
That'll do for now. And if anyone, and I mean anyone, tries to play Mornington Crescent in the comments, well it won't be pretty.
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Anyone want a game of Calvinball?
Have you outlawed Tobermorys strategem ?
What were those views on The God Delusion again? They were kind of fuzzy, blurry, you know...sort of an agnostic waffle, weren't they?
Various political ideologies, I scarcely need to remind you, have also lead to fighting and conflict in Europe. If the primary justification of religious exceptionalism is that it prevents religions taking over or leading to conflict, whilst allowing them to contribute, then why not extend this to other forms of ideology?
Why not enshrine Marxism, Fascism and Bakunin-esque Anarchism in the state, allowing their proponents financial breaks and seats in the House of Lords (for example). The present liberal democratic consensus will not last forever, and such a measure would prevent political conflict and allow such ideologies to contribute to society.
Or rather, religious exceptionalism collapses under Griffiths' argument as it allows any and every contentious mode of thought an exceptional status; in which case, no set of beliefs is exceptional.
Something like that Myers. Not harsh and overly black-and-white like an absolutist...
Magpie, I think what Paul's getting at is that when an ideology is representative of a large proportion of the society, it helps to normalise its place in society to treat it as a representative worth listening to. Hence, in places where the Marxists are a large part of society, it might pay to include them this way to make them less likely to see themselves as outsiders. Might prevent a future revolution if they feel invested in their society.
Or I might have Paul's point completely wrong. Griffiths, not Myers. He's a raving atheist and we know what they're like...
Well, I think we agree. Sort of. If religions have this exceptionalism, then so should other forms of idea that mean something to a large proportion of people. However, I think we depart here. If Marxism is allowed into the club, it isn't a religious exceptionalism. You can call it an 'ideological exceptionalism' or whatnot, fine, but it's no longer purely religious in character. If this is what actually happened I'd be quite cock-a-hoop. What we actually get in say, the UK, is religious exceptionalism but not political exceptionalism - moves to have the major political parties state-funded have been rebuffed. You can't state that this isn't beacuse it's representative and no ones cares about it; many voters may be apathetic, but so are mnay worshippers.
If, in experience, we found other ideas being allowed to contribute in the exceptionalist way that religion does, I wouldn't have a problem. But just as religion is often shielded from the criticism that political ideas get, we don't find representative political (and other ideas - science for a start) being protected in this way.