I happen to personally accept both of these assertions:
1) A scientific world-view entails atheism
2) A scientific world-view contradictions Creationism
That being said, as matters of debate & discussion I think the former is an open question, while the latter is not an open question. When it comes to Creationism from where I stand there's nothing to talk about; the facts of the universe manifestly falsify Creationism. Creationism is a rather clear & distinct idea. I know what I'm rejecting, and I know what the Creationists believe. Aside from the Amish and a few other groups the vast majority of Creationists are embedded in a world whose technological apparatus is contingent upon a network of facts which taken together naturally lead to the inference that Creationism is false. When I was younger I did expend marginal time trying to explain to my Creationist friends why their model of the world is problematic, but at this point I have zero interest in personally investing marginal time in this task. The persistence of Creationism in the United States, and to a lesser extent other regions of the developed world, is a functional of historical and sociological processes. For a variety of reasons a subculture has emerged in the United States which rejects the authority of the scientific elite. Authority is very important, because most people who "believe" in evolution doesn't understand it with any plausible detail, rather, they accept that scientists in general tend to know what they're talking about, and they also are signaling their status as a modern educated individual who identifies with the establishment.
When it comes to the first proposition I think there are important qualitative differences from the second. Creationism is to me clear & distinct; I know whereof I reject. On the other hand theism is a very broad catchall term; ranging from unsophisticated fundamentalism all the way to Freeman Dyson's latitudinarian sensibilities. A subset of theisms fall into the traps of Creationism; e.g., I think Christian Science is false and its falsity in terms of the specifics of its doctrine are simply not issues which I would waste time debating about. But these are not all theisms. Some of the more advanced theologies are frankly impenetrable to me because of the obscurity of their terminologies and conceptual frameworks. My own assumption is that there isn't much there, and my confusion reflects not only my ignorance but the incoherency of the theologies, but ultimately my confidence in this domain is of a different order than that which I have in regards to Creationist propositions. The latter are wrong. The former are probably wrong, if what I perceive the arguments to be are correct, and possibly incoherent if my impression of the shape of the argument is incorrect. But ultimately a large subset of my opinions regarding theology are contingent upon philosophical reasoning and inferences, while my opinions regarding Creationism are plainly scientific.
I want to flesh out this distinction to make clear why I am relatively sanguine when it comes to scientists who believe in God, though I disagree with them on this question, as opposed to the much greater alarm I exhibit toward those self-styled scientists who espouse Creationism. The former concerns disputes over philosophical questions, while the latter concerns disputes over scientific ones (I grant that science can be categorized as a subset of philosophy, but that doesn't change my overall argument here). Operationally I don't think theism has much of an impact on many scientific workers in the former category, while the latter position takes aim square at the edifice of modern science. As a historical matter it seems to me that deep philosophical questions (outside of mathematics) remain indefinitely open (though there may be a consensus in one direction or the other at a given time), while scientific questions eventually close and a subset fade into the background as assumptions held without dispute in contingent networks of inferences. I believe that the battle against Creationism will be won, just as the battle against Geocentrism was won. Nevertheless, I wouldn't be surprised if the same social and psychological forces which gave rise to Creationism as a counter-movement to modern science in the early 20th century serve as the drivers behind other forms of Denialism. I don't have the same confidence or expectation when it comes to theism.
Obviously if you've read this far you can infer that I don't consider myself a New Atheist. As a pragmatic matter my own belief is that a distinction between Creationism and theism should be made. But, I hope it is clear now that in terms of a fundamental taxonomy of ideologies I believe that Creationism and theism are qualitatively different. The former is a particular (I believe insidious) subset of the latter, and the purview of the latter is extremely broad and difficult to encapsulate. The New Atheists (and many militant atheists before there was such a self-styled group) have a response to this distinction: at the end of the day they accept that fundamentalists are the most authentic and representative form of religiosity, with non-fundamentalism being a transient marginal state which simply serves to fill in the gap between fundamentalism and atheism. I tend to disagree with this assessment as an empirical matter, I would hold that fundamentalism is a particular strain of religion which emerges during periods of social stress and gives voice to populist sentiments. But I simply do not grant that it is any more authentic as an expression of religious truths, whatever these might be, than non-fundamentalists. I do not even concede that fundamentalists are truly much more fundamental in a substantive sense than non-fundamentalists. Fundamentalism is a style, a pose, a name for a social revolt which uses the language and trappings of religion. I believe to reduce religion to fundamentalism is simply wrong, and will lead to faulty predictions.
Notionally fundamentalists believe that their own mode of scriptural interpretation removes ambivalence, ambiguity and subjectivity from the process. I think they're wrong. Similarly, I would have to admit that I think that the conflating questions regarding atheism writ large as opposed to anti-Creationism also remove the element of ambiguity, interpretation and an admission of differences of confidence in regards to the issues at hand. Fundamentalists see the Bible as a unitary text delivering the divine message with minimal mediation. In contrast, non-fundamentalists may see the Bible as a a text produced by a range of historically contingent and contextualized voices with their own unique perspectives. The latter model is messier and requires a great deal of case-by-case analysis of meaning, and an admission that any given interpretation may not be definitive. In the minds of some atheists fundamentalists are the most true to the spirit of religiosity; non-fundamentalist religion is simply deviation in error from what the axioms of belief entail. This sort of model I think does imply that one might engage in a wholesale project of anti-religious argument as a matter of course in the battle against anti-science. By this logic pro-science and anti-religion arguments are perfect substitutes. There is no need for ad hoc case by case analysis when you can inspect the axioms of a religion and their clear & distinct fundamental inferences. As it is, I think reality of how religion and Creationism relate are more complex and not as clean as some might believe, just as I believe the Bible is not to be seen as a monologue from God on high.
Since it's totally made up out of thin air, theism can be whatever anyone wants it to be. Therefore, you can just go ahead and make up a theism that is consistent with a scientific world-view, thereby falsifying your proposition #1.
'Theism' is an extremely broad category that encompasses many different concepts. The important point, however, is that none of those concepts are compatible with a modern, scientific worldview that has available to it everything we currently know.
Sure, it's not unreasonable to speculate that there could be powerful entities beyond our comprehension that played an important role in structuring parts of the cosmos we live in - but there is as yet absolutely no evidence for these entities, so belief in any of the potential candidates is incompatible with scientific thinking.
It doesn't much matter whether we consider these hypothetical entities to match those of the deities of traditional religions or not. The Raelians are just as much a religion, and just as incompatible with reason and science, as any group of Christians, Muslims, Hindus, etc. etc.
Traditional religions also usually have additional baggage that either directly contradicts what we do know, or is incompatible with logic - but even if we eliminate those things, theism is not a plausible hypothesis given the current evidence.
Regarding this...
Why is this rejection of the authority of Scientists a bad thing?
Is it not a good thing, if these people not only reject the authority of Scientists, but, reject all authority in general?[1]
(To a "normal person", how is the acceptance of the authority of Scientists any different than accepting the authority of Priests? Without these "normal people" understanding what they are being told to believe, how are any of these not just blind belief?)
Isn't the acceptance of authority the problem?
Isn't an acceptance of any kind of authority really a blind belief? And is it not a specific form of this blind belief that leads many people to accept Creationism as well?
Would it not be better for these "normal people" to neither believe or disbelieve statements others make, unless there is some justified reason[2] to believe it? (Including Scientists, religious figures, religious texts, etc.) And simply remain undecided (unless there is some imminent reason that they must, at least, act as if they have made a decision)?
-- Charles Iliya Krempeaux
http://changelog.ca/
[1] Assuming that there is no imminent action that must be taken that depends on the whether the person believes, disbelieves, or is undecided.
[2] Justified meaning, some Rational reason to believe it is true. Or some empirical reasons to either believe it is likely true, or remain undecided, but "carry on" as if it were true.
"Isn't the acceptance of authority the problem?"
&
"Would it not be better for these "normal people" to neither believe or disbelieve statements others make, unless there is some justified reason"
should vs. is. humans don't spend most of their time analyzing all their actions, they draw upon reflex, custom and conformity. that's just reality. you might think it important that people should be agnostic about all their beliefs and reason through their actions, but that's not going to ever happen, and doesn't even happen for philosophers or mathematicians who reason for a living ("cults of reason" invariably end up to be rather irrational from the viewpoint of the rest of humanity).
so the question is, what issues and domains should we be focusing our reflective cognitive output upon? you can have your own opinion. scientists should be subject to some scrutiny, but my own view (based on my values) is that the world would benefit if populists who were critical of science devoted their marginal time to a deeper exploration of the nature of their governments & elected representatives.
also, there's a difference between physicists who are lobbying for funding for accelerators because they say it will advance their understanding of the universe, and organo-metallic chemists who assure you that group theory is relevant for their discipline. as a lay person you're somewhat outside of the loop in terms of both of these assertions, but i think there's a big difference between the two so that the former assertion is worth some deeper inquiry while the latter should be taken on faith.
I would personally have written "I would hold that fundamentalism is a particular strain of religion which emerges during periods of social stress and gives voice to disenchantment or disenfranchisement."
In a sense fundamentalism, to me, is a justification for actions by referring to a "holy text" that authorises them. These actions don't have to be the classic ones of terrorism against others, but also the more "ordinary" actions within their own group. (Which, of course, can seem extraordinary to non-members.)
@PhysioProf : Some theisms do apparently at least pay lip-service to a stance like that. I read once that the Bahá'à do, although they rather unfortunately took on "the ether" as a part of their "science" pretexts, which has subsequently shown not to be! This, to me, neatly illustrates one problem with religions: by their nature they tend to need fixed pretexts and if any of these subsequently prove wrong, they have terrible trouble coping. Witness the huge upheavals of the so-called "mainstream" religions over issues like homosexuality, female pastors, and so on. By contrast, science by its nature is spared this.
(I read my remarks about the Bahá'à in the wikipedia entry, but it seems to have changed! Oh, well... I havent time to confirm this elsewhere and given that, I'm happy to stand corrected.)
I've been pondering the God-belief of an academic (who has marginal views in his own field) elsewhere, as I previously believed he was an atheist currently think he is a former heathen, but don't know what reasons he has for accepting God.
[rancid tard-dump redacted]
I don't have much to add to your argument, Razib, aside from noting that Creationism as you've defined it is inherently the American evangelical version (though it's been exported to Turkey, as you've noted many times). As a scientist myself, I *would* define myself as a (small-c) creationist, and even a believer in (again, small i, small d) intelligent design, as a matter of logical extension from my status as a theist. But I am just adding nuance which ultimately detracts from your main point, with which (as a scientist) I am in complete and hearty agreement. Theism is not a cancer upon science the way that Creationism (and more specifically, ID) is. The mark of a healthy, science-compatible theism is that it doesn't seek to appropriate scientific terminology (in cargo cult fashion) to lend itself legitimacy. Honest theism is quite comfortable existing in the realm of simple assertion of belief. Or, as Douglas Adams put it, "proof denies faith".
I certainly agree that Creationism is scientifically wrong, in the way it is usually put forward - as a kind of alternative account to science. But I am pretty sure there are ways that Creationism could be 'literally' true without conflicting with science. I can imagine such ways. It all depends on whether people find them psychologically plausible - and even if I don't find them plausible, then other people might leigitimately diasagree with me, due to having different minds.
Understanding a religion should, I think, be more a matter of observing its consequences than its axioms. A religion is not meant to be, does not function as, a science; and to deploy scientific analysis of all the propositions and logical practices of a religion might be regarded being s misguided as examining all the activities of a scientist from a legal perspective.
(This sometimes happens in court - see, for example, Judy Sarasohn, Science on Trial - about the Baltomore Affair; in which it seems that the legal process applied point by point to scientific methodology led to a wholesale misunderstanding of the science.)
I think religions need to be judged comparatively - just as we judge scientific theories. The choice lies in what we compare. If we compare how scientifically-valid a religion is compared with a science in terms of its axioms and theology... well there can only be one outcome. But that outcome is surely irrelevant.
We need to compare the 'lives' (which could be psychological, sociological, or whatever) of religious people (of various types) with the lives of non-religious, or atheistic people (we could compare their subjective evaluations, IQ, fertility... various desirable or undesirable atributes) - we would need to compare churches with other analogous but non religious forms of social organization; we would need to compare theocracies with other potential forms of government which might be applied in a specific context.
The US is the leading scientific nation in the world, and also the most religious modernized society, and both systems are thriving - from this I infer the conflict between science and religion does not go very deep. Science and religion are potentially complementary because they have different functions. Creationism's conflict with science is merely a sideshow.
bruce, we don't need to do anything of the things you suggest, nor do we have to accept any of your definitions as useful in any way. additionally, as a matter of fact it seems almost no one is convinced by the quasi-functionalist arguments you are proposing (i've been aware of these ways of looking at religion since 1992). so ultimately this is like an atheist telling the religious that they should really be atheists, without the likelihood that anyone will follow along.
by the way, what do you infer from the fact that 95% of the *national academy of science* members (america's elite scientists) are atheists and agnostics? perhaps everyone should become atheists and agnostics so that we can increase scientific output :-)
Science and religion are potentially complementary because they have different functions.
btw, you know bruce that functionalism is a very small minority position among scholars of religion. that's why your arguments are going to basically be met with incomprehension. in any case, functionalism has some utility, if i might use that word, but it's pretty obvious that it doesn't explain a lot. i don't think 95% of america's premier scientists are atheists & agnostics because world class science can only be done by atheists & agnostics; it's more complicated as to why that datum exists. and that's why such a simple functionalism as you're presenting is going to be pretty much bogged from from the get-go (in south korea the stupid are less religious and more fecund than the religious, so that should make you wonder about functional abductions cross-culturally).
Nothing should be taken on faith. Of course I may be too lazy or too ignorant to research why organo-metallic theory is so relevant but, would I be interested in digging in the issue, I should do it and be able to find out.
Authority is never acceptable as such (i.e. faith). Authority is built on trust and for trust, the claims must be verifiable. If this would not be possible, then the difference between a scientist and a priest becomes blurry.
...
Also I don't think that atheism is derived from science, at least not directly. Atheism is derived from the inverosimilitude of religious claims: they are such incredible and unrealistic miracle-based doctrines that the logical reaction is rejection of such gods - and by extension atheism. Would we not have such doctrines in which the alleged gods become deeply involved (mythically) with the formation of reality and the evolutions (not evolution) of humankind, science would have nothing to say about divinity in abstract. In fact atheism and pantheism are broadly the same thing: what is the difference between Reality and God? Of course this is not the personal alien "god" of JCM doctrines and legends but just another name for Reality and/or the ultimate cause of existence.
Authority is built on trust and for trust, the claims must be verifiable. If this would not be possible, then the difference between a scientist and a priest becomes blurry.
*theoretically* science is verifiable. e.g., theoretically i could find the money to set up my own particle physics lab. or theoretically i have the mathematical skills to delve into the nitty-gritty of superstring theory. but realistically there's scarcity of time and cognitive power. the reality is that most people are just too stupid to see the relevance of group theory to organo-metallic chemistry, let alone the mechanics of string theory, if they put their energy into it.
so you have faith and trust in the system because you can tangibly experience and verify the efficacy of the material products of the system. for most humans science without engineering is a matter of faith and magic because pure ratiocination is thin gruel indeed.
(btw, having faith in science for me is not an assertion that science is proximately infallible. science is wrong most of the time, and most scientists are going to be wrong most of the time. but, i do believe over the long haul there's real signal in that noise)
btw, the analogy between scientific and religious institutions isn't a totally off-base analogy to me. as i said above, religion encompasses and enormous set of traits. some of those are going to be useful in the perpetuation of a scientific culture.
Razib said: "95% of the *national academy of science* members (america's elite scientists) are atheists and agnostics?"
I am impressed by the very powerful inverse correlation between IQ and fertility - and the other powerful inverse correlation between IQ and religiousness
(or, the positive correlation between IQ and atheism - which is probably more causal - i.e. IQ leading to atheism).
It seems very likely that most of the highest IQ people do not have a religious impulse - or only a weak desire for religion. I believe that this is the main reason why the best scientists are most likely to be atheists. They just don't see any need for it. And from their perspective, they are correct.
But this is just a matter of individual psychology. From the perspective of lower IQ people, this immunity to religion is simply a blind-spot of high IQ people.
The link between IQ and fertility implies that (unless genetic engineering/ therapy for IQ comes along quite soon) then the demographic suicide of high IQ people will also kill-off atheism
http://www.sneps.net/RD/uploads/06prospect-Kaufmann.pdf
I regard this as a major flaw in atheism as a world-perspective compared with some types of religion.
The 'revealed preference' of atheists compared to religious people is that the long term perspective of atheists is _inferior_ to that of religious groups with *chosen* high fertility (eg. US Evangelical Christians and Mormons).
To coninue the above, and to put matters more bluntly:
From an adaptive perspective, and under modern (post- contraceptive) conditions...
*there is something seriously wrong with atheists*
(as with very high IQ people generally).
And if there is something seriously wrong with atheists, then probably there is something seriously wrong with atheism.
(For what it is worth, I have been an atheist most of my life since age 6, and am/ was presumably of high IQ - as will be anyone reading this. But probably there aren't going to be many high IQ/ naturally atheistic people like me/ us around for many more decades. Biologically we are a (perhaps useful?) dead end.)
The reason probably lies in the evolution of high IQ, which I suspect was probably a very powerful selection pressure operating over a short timescale - so that potentially adaptively-undesirable traits evolved along with higher IQ. Since the demographic transition, the disadvantages of high IQ are becoming apparent in terms of reduced fertility.
Since religiousness is correlated with higher fertility, even controlling for educational attainment, then a greater tendency for atheism may be one of these IQ disadvantages.
Razib's claim that 95% of NAS members are atheists or agnostics is factually false. Surveys conducted over many decades have repeatedly shown that about 40% of the NAS have some sort of theistic leanings. He is correct if the sample is restricted to biologists like himself and me and most of his readers. Only 4% of NAS biologists have any theistic beliefs. Also re IQ and atheism. You are overlooking the near unanimous rejection of evolutionary explanations for human characteristics by faculty in the humanities and social sciences. For an example, see "Darwinian Fairytales" (Encounter Books) by Dave Stove, Prof. Philosophy (deceased), U. New So. Wales. Of course, you could argue that humanities and social science faculties are genetically stupid, but my wife is a counter example. (PS--To avoid misunderstanding, I think Darwin got it right even for humans.)
not sure I buy the 95% figure for NAS members, either. Even if it were true, is NAS membership highly correlated to "world-class science" ? While it is true that most nobel prize winners pretty much get invited to the NAS by default, what are other criteria for membership? From what I've seen, the NAS is an advisory body to the gvernment, and so its membership reflects a certain filtered subset of scientists willing to play that role. Im not dissing the NAS as a whole but I dont think that NAS members on the whole are necessarily as non-representative of the broader scientific community as all that.
Razib's claim that 95% of NAS members are atheists or agnostics is factually false. Surveys conducted over many decades have repeatedly shown that about 40% of the NAS have some sort of theistic leanings.
i exaggerated a bit, but i'm more correct than bob is in terms of magnitude
http://www.atheists.org/flash.line/atheism6.htm
"Disbelief in God and immortality among NAS biological scientists was 65.2% and 69.0% respectively, and among NAS physical scientists it was 79.0% and 76.3%. Most of the rest were agnostics on both issues, with few believers. We found the highest percentage of belief among NAS mathematicians (14.3% in God, 15.0% in immortality). Biological scientists had the lowest rate of belief (5.5% in God, 7.1% in immortality), with physicists and astronomers slightly higher (7.5% in God, 7.5% in immortality)."
You are overlooking the near unanimous rejection of evolutionary explanations for human characteristics by faculty in the humanities and social sciences.
do you have any data on this? i agree that in general humanists do reject darwinian explanations, but "near universal" is a strong term. in any case, atheism isn't necessarily correlated with rejection of conformism. lysenko was an atheist as were the scientists he forced to accept his ideas.
It seems very likely that most of the highest IQ people do not have a religious impulse - or only a weak desire for religion. I believe that this is the main reason why the best scientists are most likely to be atheists. They just don't see any need for it. And from their perspective, they are correct.
it's a heritable trait. religious propensity probably is weighted by environmental context.
The link between IQ and fertility implies that (unless genetic engineering/ therapy for IQ comes along quite soon) then the demographic suicide of high IQ people will also kill-off atheism
atheists have always been around. you know about frequency dependence right?
Im not dissing the NAS as a whole but I dont think that NAS members on the whole are necessarily as non-representative of the broader scientific community as all that.
some general trends
1) scientists in academica are more secular than those outside
2) scientists at large research universities are more secular than those at smaller teaching colleges
3) the proportion of atheists increases monotonically with eduction
these sorts of data tend to condition my assumption as to the relevance of the NAS figure which larson & witham report. additionally, what sort of individual is mostly likely to make orignal scientific contributions? someone willing to forgo family life (certis paribus)
Razib said: "atheists have always been around. you know about frequency dependence right?"
Come off it Razib! We are not in 'always' time now - we are in a new era.
Effective, acceptable and widely-available contraception has only been in existence for about 40 years. People couldn't previously limit fertility except by not having sex or deploying infanticide.
But they can now, and they do - it turns out that high IQ/ atheists are having very very few children (I haven't seen a breakdown - but the TFR will I should think be less than one by now for high IQ atheists.
This will halve the population of descendents of high IQ atheists every - what? - 15 years, 10 years?
It's a new era...
People couldn't previously limit fertility except by not having sex or deploying infanticide.
but they did limit fertility. i assume you read *farewell to alms*, so you must know that that is the very explanation that clark offers. so this isn't really a 'brand new era' when it comes to family size.
This will halve the population of descendents of high IQ atheists every - what? - 15 years, 10 years?
in a place like the united states most atheists are 'converts.' so you can't just focus on the descendants of atheists. your model is way too simple, that is all. i'm not going to go along with simple models just because they're tractable if i don't think they're going to predict the future with accuracy.
We are not in 'always' time now - we are in a new era.
speaking of new eras, you do know that the number of people who say they have "no religion" has doubled in the last 15 years in the united states?
http://www.gc.cuny.edu/faculty/research_briefs/aris/key_findings.htm
regarding family life, thats a great point. families are highly correlated to religion and families ar einversely correlated to output.
BGC, what you are not taking into account is that even "Dumb" Christians end up having kids which turn into atheists, "these days".