Larry Moran is unhappy with me. This is fine; I knew that posting "On the need for grownups" would get people angry, and it did. I hoped it would spark some productive discussion, and it has, at least via email.
What bothers me is that the reasons Larry is upset seem to entirely misconstrue what I wrote:
Joshua Rosenau has fired another shot in the accommodationist war. As usual, he focuses more on rhetoric and mudslinging than on the logical arguments that are presented by both sides. In this case, he demeans all those who disagree with him in On the need for grownups [Updated]. Apparently, there are very few honest people on my side of the argument.
I'm not going to reply to Josh. He's gone beyond the pale as far as I'm concerned and no amount of rational argument is going to convince him that science and religion may not be compatible. His mind is firmly made up and now he's just making sure that his side gives out as many insultsâperceived or realâas it receives.
A few things to note. My comments were not directed at the honesty of anyone involved. I don't think Larry is arguing for a position he does not believe, nor that PZ, or Jerry Coyne, or Ophelia Benson, or I, or Chris Mooney, or Matt Nisbet, or any other participant is defending a position that is not deeply held. I do think that dishonest arguments are being made, and I wish that would stop. But I think anything I said which demeans his side in the fight could be said also of my own. Just as I can offer some defense of my own bad actions, I don't doubt that Larry, et al. can defend themselves. My point was that this creates a cycle of insult and defense and retribution which is unproductive. I wanted to urge people to move past that cycle and behave in a manner better reflecting the maturity and intellect of the participants.
When I called for grownups, I wasn't saying that the participants aren't already grownups. In most areas of our lives, we all behave very differently that we have in this particular fight. I was recognizing that my own "side" is no better than the other in terms of grownup behavior, and I was hoping others would join in breaking that cycle. Maybe it'll work and maybe it won't. Maybe I'm the wrong messenger for that.
But Larry also raises a point that is worth considering on all sides. He asserts that "no amount of rational argument is going to convince [Josh] that science and religion may not be compatible." First, I don't feel like I've seen nearly enough rational argument, so much as I've seen emotional argument. (Again, from both sides.) Second, I'm comfortable with the possibility that the two might be incompatible (indeed, some religions are admittedly and obviously incompatible with science; others, to my eye, seem to be capable of compatibility). My objection is to the claim that all religions are inherently incompatible with science. Third, I wonder what rational argument would convince Larry that science and religion may be compatible. My guess is that the same is true of him that is true for me, which leads me to a broader and overarching consideration.
This is a point that John Wilkins raises quite nicely in reply to my original post, which is that questions about the compatibility of science and religion do not seem to be amenable to scientific testing. And as Larry's definition of science seems to be coextensive and indeed synonymous with rationality or rationalism, then maybe these questions can't be resolved via rational discourse.
If we were discussing this in person, I might precede that claim by enquiring first whether Larry thinks theology counts as rational argument. I expect that he'd say it isn't, holding out the need for empirical evidence as an input to the logical disputation. He might not put it exactly that way, but some version of this reference to empiricism is common enough in the versions of the conversation I've seen over the last few years that I don't think I'm unfair in assuming the conversation would get there eventually.
And that's when I'd ask what sort of empirical evidence exists regarding compatibility of science and religion. Larry's post lays out the reasons why he rejects the evidentiary value of millions of religious people who find their faiths compatible with science, nor the numerous churches who have policies against setting their faith in opposition to scientific evidence or against scientific processes. Others in Larry's camp have also argued against allowing such evidence. And let us simply accept the claim without haggling over the right and the wrong of these arguments (but reserve the right to take up the merits of the argument later).
Aside from looking at people, though, what evidence could there be about how science works or how religion works? Both are human enterprises. Science is a practice, a way of testing certain sorts of claims (at minimum) about the world. Religion is a practice as well. I cannot conceive of some Platonic ideal of either science or religion which operates independent of the context of humans thinking certain things and doing certain things. If we cannot use the evidence of how people do those things as evidence, then we are solidly into the realm of the untestable.
Which is fine. Lots of stuff goes on in that realm. Art is, to my mind, the least controversial to point out, but I think that preferences for one sports team over another and indeed for one sport over another also qualify. So do matters of national pride, not to mention system of government and economic systems. The choice of computer operating system, or programming language for software authors, is in this realm. So is which brand of knife a chef uses, and which kind of food and which food preparer one prefers. I tend to think religion fits nicely into this series, but as that's fairly central to the dispute at hand, we can set that aside for now.
This is not, of course, to say that evidence has no relevance to these matters. There are things which are genuinely easier in Perl than in C, and things which can be made to run faster by programming in C than in Perl. But there's no absolute standard by which to say that speed of operation is better for a given job than speed of programming. And programming is a craft, so sometimes it's considered better to do something the hard way than the easy way. Sometimes that self-imposed constraint is exactly what makes a good program great. There may be answers that are clearly wrong, but none that is definitely right.
In such circumstances, I try to apply the maxim: de gustibus non est disputandum (there's no disputing about tastes). This isn't to say you don't talk about them, but there's nothing gained by escalating discussion to dispute. My fiancée doesn't care to eat red meat, and while I occasionally try to tempt her with delicious bacon or a nice brisket, I do so knowing that I won't change her mind, and that actually trying to logic her into eating meat would only cause resentment. I hope the parallel to the current accommodationism fight is obvious.
And because the last post was so negative, let me say that folks like John Wilkins and John Lynch and Jason Rosenhouse and Sean Carroll have set good examples of discussing science and religion without (much) vitriol. I'd like to see other people (including myself) doing more of the same.
People will do what they want, of course. I'm not the king of the internet, and my feelings about what constitutes asshole behavior are also matters of taste. Disagree with me. My point is: if you treat me like an adult, I promise to do the same, and hopefully I'll do that anyway.
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Let's narrow the claim a bit. Certain religious practice -- believing in fantastic beings on the basis of faith and tradition -- is a form of intellectual dishonesty, one that is avoided in any serious intellectual pursuit, in fields from philosophy to history, but especially in science. The intellectually honest individual would examine the claim that Jesus rose from the dead in exactly the same way that they do the claim that vampires rise from the grave each night to suck blood. Those who erect intellectual walls so that the former claim is treated as somehow epistemologically different from the latter are practicing low deceit.
Now, yes, I fully realize that there are religions that don't require their adherents to believe in fantastic beings, whether Jesus, Xenu, Allah, or Yahweh. I'm also aware that there are people who practice science in the day, and believe all sorts of things "outside the lab." But really, this is very easy: when an individual erects intellectual defenses for a belief in one thing that they would never allow when investigating any other, they are being dishonest.
Anyone promoting science who says that will seem to be attacking most religion. So, should we stop saying that?
Art... sports team... national pride... system of government and economic systems... computer operating system... programming language... brand of knife... I tend to think religion fits nicely into this series, but as that's fairly central to the dispute at hand, we can set that aside for now.
While at least this has finally allowed me to understand why you argue for compatibility, that last sentence is where you (and others) go wrong. Religion is not like art, like loving somebody, like preferring Italian over Chinese food. Religion is by definition not about taste, but about beliefs*. Science is about knowledge, which equals true justified beliefs. See where we get the problem? They both deal with beliefs, but a scientist is supposed to accept only true justified ones, while a religious person is by the definition of religion supposed to accept unjustified ones. And conflict ensues. Or, in the case of religious scientists, mental compartmentalization.
So that seems to be the point of misunderstanding: religion really is about beliefs about the world and not, as you seem to imply, about taste or arbitrary preferences.
* Admittedly, the claim that "all religion is incompatible with science" may go too far if, but only if, you define religion broadly enough to include ritual practices or moral teachings devoid of any actual belief content, but the claim has to be seen against the backdrop of the religions we actually have around in our western civilization. And the Abrahamic religions are not Abrahamic religions any more if you cut off all that is incompatible with science, like souls, prayer, resurrection, creation, etc. The only religion in this Western sense that is compatible with what we now scientifically know about the world is one that believes in a god that never actually did or does anything, and that believes in the mortality and entirely material nature of humans**. Everything else is out. If you do not believe that to be true, you simply do not know enough about the state of science, and would do well to pick up a few books on neuroscience, astrophysics, geology, history and evolution.
** Sounds very similar to atheism, on a practical basis, doesn't it?
If one takes atheism to be the absence of belief in gods, that doesn't necessarily mean the absence of religion. I suspect there are practitioners of various religions who are indeed atheist in the foregoing sense. Which doesn't mean that such religions are devoid "on a practical basis." It just means that the categories overlap.
Joshua,
Off topic, but a curious post appeared on Jerry Coyne's web site. I wonder if you may reply?
The post by SLC reads:
"Just to demonstrate that the accommodationists are as closed minded as the creationists and just as adverse to being appraised of the facts, I posted a comment yesterday with a link to Prof. Coynesâ post about the Templeton Foundation lying about Mr. Drehersâ qualifications on Mr. Joshua Rosenausâ blog. Shortly thereafter, the comment was deleted by Mr. Rosenau."
Is this true, and if so, why?
Rosenau: "And that's when I'd ask what sort of empirical evidence exists regarding compatibility of science and religion."
And I'd ask what empirical evidence exists regarding compatibility of science and belief in the existence of an infallible, invisible and omnipresent entity for which there is no empirical evidence.
The answer is in the definition.
Rosenau: "de gustibus non est disputandum."
Those tasteless, tasteless atheists.
Rosenau: "I was recognizing that my own 'side' is no better than the other in terms of grownup behavior, and I was hoping others would join in breaking that cycle"
If you wanted to do that, likening the whole accommodationism conflict to that Tom Tomorrow comic in your earlier post was a bad idea, since that portrayed vile rhetoric coming from mostly one side. Mind you, I think that's actually a pretty good model for the conflict as it stands, but still ...
I believe the problem is that us anti-accomodationists are making a philosophical claim (though one with empirical underpinnings) rather than an empirical claim. That doesn't mean it's not also a scientific claim, because empiricism is not the be-all end-all of science. But you can't disprove it with empirical data, any more than "a lot of people do illegal file-sharing!" proves that illegal file-sharing is actually legal.
The empirical claim that "a lot of people believe in both science and religion" is trivially true. The philosophical claim that "the epistemologies of science and religion lead to a number of conflicting yet important truth claims" is in no way contradicted by that empirical claim. And there is a lot of empirical basis for that philosophical claim, with the only subjective part perhaps being what one considers to be an "important" truth claim. (Though if you define all of the religious truth claims which contradict science as "unimportant", there's not a whole lot left to religion, is there?)
And let me reiterate, just because something is a philosophical claim does not in any way mean it is unscientific, or that it does not derive naturally from a scientific worldview. For instance, there is no empirical reason to reject the claim that all of the evidence for evolution was planted by Satan to confuse people. That claim must be rejected on philosophical grounds. But it is not unscientific to make that philosophical claim. In fact, the philosophy of science rather insists that we do reject that claim.
James Sweet: "The philosophical claim that 'the epistemologies of science and religion lead to a number of conflicting yet important truth claims' ..."
... is considered incoherent in the eyes of many of us accommodationists here, for reasons mentioned above and by, say, John Wilkins.
J.J.Ramsey:
Could you elaborate? I do not understand how that is incoherent, and what I got from the post you linked to is merely that "the belief that science is the only way to gain justifiable beliefs is not, itself, scientifically justifiable".
I mean, that is true, in a way. But it does not matter. Firstly, sciences rewards the tiny leap of faith we make to get it off the floor by working well, consistently, over centuries, and never letting us down. Which again, and not coincidentally, is what you expect from good scientific models. It is not so much circular as bootstrapping.
Secondly, the question whether science is the only way to gain justifiable beliefs seems irrelevant, at first sight at least. I would even grant that there are others that work without empiricism, like pure math or logic, although it could be discussed whether they actually produce justifiable beliefs of the same kind as science (my money is on: no). Religion, for nearly any of its possible definitions and in particular for the definition relevant for the overwhelming majority of humans, and that is what I am getting at above, necessarily makes claims that are and can be refuted by science, or it is not religion.
To accommodate religion with science, you would have to tell the believers to change their religion to one of the following:
* pantheism (which is not so much religion as word games)
* some kind of moral philosophy or reading of inspirational literature without any actual belief content attached (again, not religion in the sense as most actual believers from most cultural backgrounds, be it the USA, Europe, the people of the Andes, Japan, India, native Australians,..., understand the term)
* Last Thursdayism (which is the only one I will grant to be religion at all, but then it is too patently ridiculous and unsatisfying for virtually all the religious)
Everything else is in direct conflict not only with the methodological approach of, but also with the body of knowledge already today accumulated by science. You want examples? I mean, we could get evidence for accommodationism and the other side, respectively, by taking individual religious scientists and scoring whether their personal beliefs conflict with science or not. Among my immediate colleagues, I know three people right off the start, a Muslim, a Catholic and a somewhat undefined spiritually interested person, who all hold beliefs that can only be maintained by applying a "logic" that would get them laughed out of the room if they tried the same stunt in their professional projects. They know it, too. They manage it simply by consciously not applying the very approach that defines science to questions like "do souls exist?" or "can we trust the bible/quran?". This is not compatibility, but cognitive dissonance, unless your definition of "compatible" would include being a fireman and an arsonist at the same time.
Mintman: "Could you elaborate? I do not understand how that is incoherent, and what I got from the post you linked to is merely that 'the belief that science is the only way to gain justifiable beliefs is not, itself, scientifically justifiable'."
Which makes that belief self-defeating and thus incoherent.
There is also the matter that the accommodationists just aren't using your definitions of science in the first place. We're not treating science as a world view, or an attitude, and your arguments tend to revolve around treating them as such.
"Among my immediate colleagues, I know three people right off the start, a Muslim, a Catholic and a somewhat undefined spiritually interested person, who all hold beliefs that can only be maintained by applying a 'logic' that would get them laughed out of the room if they tried the same stunt in their professional projects. They know it, too. They manage it simply by consciously not applying the very approach that defines science to questions like 'do souls exist?' or 'can we trust the bible/quran?'. This is not compatibility, but cognitive dissonance ..."
Only if you use the word "science" to describe a belief system that can be in dissonance with other beliefs, or if you assume that scientists should use the same modes of thinking in both their personal and professional lives. The latter, in fact, is an impossible standard even for non-religious human beings, and if you look, for example, at what John Pieret really said instead of PZ Myers' strawman (really, the guy should open up a scarecrow shop :p), that was pointed out.
(What's funny is that Myers' attempt to refute Pieret led him to water down the definition of science so much that homeopaths could use it to call the "proofs" of their quackery scientific.)
"When I called for grownups, I wasn't saying that the participants aren't already grownups."
On the contrary, that was precisely what you were saying, isn't it? I'm sorry, because this isn't very nice to say, but I don't think you're a very good writer.
"Larry's post lays out the reasons why he rejects the evidentiary value of millions of religious people who find their faiths compatible with science, nor the numerous churches who have policies against setting their faith in opposition to scientific evidence or against scientific processes."
Let's start at as basic a level as possible: do you understand that the feelings of "millions of religious people" and the positions of "numerous churches" actually have *nothing* to do with the question of whether or not science and religion are ultimately compatible?
If not, please explain your argument. If so, why you do persist in calling this "evidence"?
bob:
That assertion hinges on what is meant by "science," "religion," and "compatible," as has been discussed ad nauseum on the earlier thread on accommodationism. If I don't buy the ideas from the incompatibilists on science being a world view or an attitude or Myers' newly watered-down take on science, then you can't expect me to buy the arguments for incompatibility that depend on those ideas.
Then can you give examples of definitions of "science", "religion", and "compatible" that will make the feelings of "millions of religious people" and positions of "numerous churches" relevant for the discussion?
JJ Ramsey:
This is hardly what I would call elaborate. Plus all your points have already been addressed in the very few posts I made here.
Which makes that belief self-defeating and thus incoherent.
You conveniently excised and ignored my refutation below. Science is a bootstrapping process justified by its consistent success. Alternatively, if you do not like that, it could be justified philosophically from "outside". (Which again is not possible for religious faith, see Russell's teapot.) Again alternatively, the problem you see is irrelevant. Even if science were completely unjustified, yes, even if faith were a valid way of getting true justified beliefs about the world, they could still be incompatible. Conversely, until you can suggest another process apart from science that produces true justified beliefs about the world out there, the above is all the argument I need to assume that science is the only valid way.
There is also the matter that the accommodationists just aren't using your definitions of science in the first place. We're not treating science as a world view, or an attitude, and your arguments tend to revolve around treating them as such.
Perhaps you have not considered the possibility that it could be both. Of course it is a methodology and process of finding true justified beliefs about the world. But if you have gained a number of true justified beliefs about the world, what else is their sum but a worldview? The trick to remain a religious scientist is to arbitrarily build an impenetrable wall around those of your beliefs that are religiously important to you and would crumble if you applied scientific methodology. That is the meaning of incompatibility. Bringing us to the final argument of yours that I have already addressed...
you assume that scientists should use the same modes of thinking in both their personal and professional lives. The latter, in fact, is an impossible standard even for non-religious human beings
See my first post. Nobody is saying scientists should use a double-blind peer-reviewed study to decide whom to love. They should use it for deciding about best descriptions of and explanations for objects and processes in the world. All religion with the solitary exception of Last Thursdayism makes claims about objects and processes in the world. Religion is not like taste preferences, religion is by definition a collection of (generally unjustified) beliefs about the world, and as thus in direct competition and conflict with the collection of true justified beliefs that is science (while, to reiterate, yes, science is at the same time the methodology to acquire those).
It could be added, in a similar vein as Bjørn's, that it never ceases to amaze me how remarkably blasé those who insist on the compatibility are about what religious believers actually believe. You addressed with no word the empirical fact that the people I mentioned, while being scientists by profession, believe lots of things that are actively disproved by science. And they could not continue believing them if they would just take the findings of their colleagues in neuroscience, particle physics and history as seriously as they expect our own field of science to be taken. Consistency failure much?
It seems to me that an accommodationist definition of religion has at least some grains of the No True Scotsman fallacy in it, by constantly claiming that all those beliefs which contradict science somehow do not matter at all. Unfortunately, this No True Scotsman applies to so many people and beliefs that religion would be left with at most a few hundred thousand adherents worldwide. To paraphrase what I wrote in another discussion of the matter some time ago: show me one believer whose faith is compatible with the state of science, and I will show you millions who consider that person to be essentially an atheist.
Bjørn Ãstman:
To avoid repeating myself, I'll start with a post I made here: http://sandwalk.blogspot.com/2010/03/whos-grownup-in-science-vs-religio…
Mintman: "You conveniently excised and ignored my refutation below. Science is a bootstrapping process justified by its consistent success."
It wasn't a refutation, since to even start the bootstrapping, one has to do something that isn't scientifically justifiable, and if one really acts on "the belief that science is the only way to gain justifiable beliefs is not, itself, scientifically justifiable," then one can't even bootstrap.
Neither science nor people bootstrap. What they do instead is unwind their cultural inheritance. Foundationalism was never anything more than a false myth.
J.J. Ramsey:
Again, in the vain hope that rephrasing will make things clearer:
* Science is justified by working well. It is bootstrapping in the sense that the criterion of accepting science as valid (it has never let us down over centuries = it works when tested) is also the same that determines if we accept a model in scientific practice (it works when tested). There is no problem to start bootstrapping at all, but yes, it could still be that there are other ways to gain justifiable beliefs. You are right about that. However!
* ...in contrast, religion does not work as a way of producing knowledge, and it has consistently failed us at every step. When did we ever face the situation where we had to say, well, we examined this sickness and it turns out it is actually caused by a demon that has to be cast out? When did we ever face the situation where we found that the best explanation for the diversity of life or the structure of the universe turned out to be special creation? I'll assume you come to the same conclusion here as I do. So, we have precisely one approach that works - science. Not less, not more. That it needs a tiny leap of faith to start trying that approach is completely irrelevant as long as it works. So now, if you insist that the claim of it being the only valid way is incoherent, please present anything that refutes this claim. Can you come up with a second valid approach? One with a good track record of giving good results? Divine revelation? Oracles? Casting bones? Reading a book written by some misogynist, racist ignoramuses 2000 years ago? I am not holding my breath. Of course, you will probably ignore this whole argument and instead switch back to pretending that it does matter because religion is about taste and not about beliefs, oh no sir. For that, see my other posts.
* Even if science did not work, it could still be incompatible with religion if both approaches give you different answers to the same question; and look, they do - all the time!
No matter how long you criticize only one of my paragraphs while ignoring that your criticism is addressed in the others, it will always boil down to the same. Your and the accommodationist argument in general works only by redefining religion as not containing beliefs, or by redefining >99.999% of the religious believers as not being religious, or by redefining "compatibility" to mean being a liquor shop owner and prohibitionist at the same time. See, by the way: one is a practice, the other a worldview, but they are still philosophically incompatible.
Russell:
Foundationalism was never anything more than a false myth.
I have not claimed that somebody invented the modern, sophisticated method in one go. What this bootstrapping means is that this new mode of thinking was tried out at first carefully and in a still rather primitive fashion, under the hostile and watchful eyes of the religious establishment, and when it produced useful results, it was pursued ever more boldly, and gradually refined. It has never failed us, has always prevailed over religious dogma when not the test of popularity, but that of usefulness and factual correctness was applied, and now luckily dominates as a source for informing policy and personal decisions, at least in the more developed and prosperous countries, the USA being an outlier at least under Republican governance.
Neither science nor people bootstrap. What they do instead is unwind their cultural inheritance.
You cannot mean that seriously. So how did humans ever learn anything new? Where do engineering and academia come from? If we only unwound our cultural inheritance, we would still be sitting on trees and be going "ook".
Mintman: "Science is justified by working well. It is bootstrapping in the sense ..."
In the vain hope that rephrasing will make things clearer, that doesn't help you, because if Coyne's take on science is taken to its natural conclusion, then the bootstrapping can't happen regardless of how well science works.
I am not here to defend Coyne's personal view of science, but to argue for the claim that science and religious faith are incompatible and in conflict by their very natures and definitions.
And it would really help me if you would ever actually address my arguments, no matter if you are convinced or not. Maybe I could even go away from here having learned something if you dismantle them, but sadly you mostly ignore them. In this particular answer, I can only repeat that I do not care whether you think that the bootstrapping "can happen", because it obviously did happen, as we are doing science today while we did not do it 10,000 years ago, and we have reliable knowledge (= science sensu worldview) derived from science sensu method now that we did not have as little as 20 years ago.
JJRamsey:
Noticed a curious argument by yourself while going over the thread again:
Only if you use the word "science" to describe a belief system that can be in dissonance with other beliefs, or if you assume that scientists should use the same modes of thinking in both their personal and professional lives. The latter, in fact, is an impossible standard even for non-religious human beings...
I already answered to the first point that well, what do you do with all the knowledge that the method of science produces if not use it to build a worldview? Science is a method and a worldview at the same time, just like democracy is a process of electing leaders and the political system resulting from that process at the same time.
Now for the second: am I right in basically understanding you to say that yes, science and religion are incompatible, but it would ever be so mean to expect humans to be consistent? And if that is your main point, what are we discussing here? Because the part between the yes and the but is all I and presumably most anti-accommodationists claim, no matter how limited or profound most people's abilities of coherent thought may or may not be; and even if a complete lack of cognitive dissonance is an unreasonably high standard, that should in and of itself not be an argument against aiming for a minimum of it, just like the fact that a world completely without lies is an unrealistic ideal does not keep us from expecting honesty in our dealings with each other, no?
Mintman: "I am not here to defend Coyne's personal view of science"
Trouble is, you end up running into the same problems as Coyne. For example, both of you treat science as if it were a belief system or world view, so you both run into the same problems.
Mintman: "In this particular answer, I can only repeat that I do not care whether you think that the bootstrapping 'can happen', because it obviously did happen, as we are doing science today ..."
You keep missing the point, which is that if one did follow Coyne's logic, then the bootstrapping couldn't be done. The fact that it already has been done just means that it is just as well that the people who started science didn't bother with Coyne's kind of reasoning.
Mintman: "what do you do with all the knowledge that the method of science produces if not use it to build a worldview? Science is a method and a worldview at the same time"
If a machine makes parts to build an edifice, does that make it an edifice? Come on, you are not only wrong, but trivially wrong.
Mintman: "Now for the second: am I right in basically understanding you to say that yes, science and religion are incompatible, but it would ever be so mean to expect humans to be consistent?"
No, I'm saying that it is an impossible standard to expect scientists--of any religion or none--to use the same modes of thinking both in and out of the lab, and that if tries to use that standard to support the idea that science and religion are incompatible, then one ends up with absurdities like the ones that John Pieret pointed out. If your attempt to support the incompatibility of science and religion leads to absurdities, there is something very wrong with it.
Rover: I don't see any comments by SLC caught in moderation or other odd corners of the blog software, and I didn't delete any comments lately. I call hijinks on SLC.
As far as I can tell, the comment from SLC on Dreher is still there.
Ah trying to have your cake and eat it too?
Lets be specific.
Is Judaism(Lets say Orthodox) compatible with science?
Is Christianity (lets say Roman Catholicism) compatible with science?
Is Islam(Lets say Shia) compatible with science?
Trouble is, you end up running into the same problems as Coyne. For example, both of you treat science as if it were a belief system or world view, so you both run into the same problems. [...] If a machine makes parts to build an edifice, does that make it an edifice? Come on, you are not only wrong, but trivially wrong.
I'd say I'm trivially right. The whole point of science is to produce a worldview, just like religion. Why do you think we do science? Why do you think we have the phrase "the state of science"?
You keep missing the point, which is that if one did follow Coyne's logic, then the bootstrapping couldn't be done. The fact that it already has been done just means that it is just as well that the people who started science didn't bother with Coyne's kind of reasoning.
Well yes (if that actually is Coyne's or were my view), but then go ahead and start other ways of knowing, not bothering about that kind of reasoning. Just go ahead, I have no issues with trying them out! And people do. And then we see that they are not compatible with science because they produce different answers to the same questions. We also see that they fail to be useful, consistent, able to make predictions, etc., leading us to the conclusion that science is the only valid way to gain knowledge. (If you say now that this is an unfair standard to judge other ways of knowing because it is the one of science, I can again only say that it is the only standard that makes any sense, which is also why it is the one of science, and which is also why science is the only valid way. What other criterion would we use to evaluate a way of knowing? Wishful thinking? Might makes right? It is trivially obvious that these are not criteria that can test ways of knowing)
No, I'm saying that it is an impossible standard to expect scientists--of any religion or none--to use the same modes of thinking both in and out of the lab,
It is also an impossible standard to expect me never to use white lies in my life, nonetheless it is rightly considered bad to lie, and we make the attempt to minimize it. You are basically doing for superstition in the god question what would be encouraging everybody to lie and cheat in the honesty question.
and that if tries to use that standard to support the idea that science and religion are incompatible, then one ends up with absurdities like the ones that John Pieret pointed out.
Not at all. His example dealt with love. If you ask yourself if you love somebody, this is a category error: while religion and science are both about claims of knowledge, loving somebody is about taste. If it is about whether somebody loves you, then yes, we would do well to take a basically scientific approach in that we should evaluate and weigh evidence. If my wife cheated on me, for example, that would count as a strong point of evidence against her love for me. The religion approach would be to close your eyes to all evidence and continue insisting that somebody loves you even after they have divorced you and married somebody else.
I'm going to regret this...
"I'd say I'm trivially right. The whole point of science is to produce a worldview, just like religion. Why do you think we do science? Why do you think we have the phrase "the state of science"?"
Which worldview would that be? All science is is a method of comparing predictions with empirical outcomes, but the predicting theories are often underdetermined by the evidence available. Actually constructing an ontology or 'worldview' from this requires additional assumptions, whether that worldview' is a realist or antirealist one, or some combination of the two.
If it were otherwise and science pointed to one 'worldview', then antirealisms of various kinds wouldn't have been so appealing to many physicists in the 19th and 20th century.
Iorwerth Thomas:
Maybe we have different definitions of the term worldview. Of course you run into troubles if you want science to tell you if murder is moral without additional assumptions, as you call it. If religion would consist only of such assumption as "all humans should have equal rights" and derive some morals from that, then there would be no incompatibility, right. But then it would be called a moral philosophy, not a religion. So if you define morals and nothing else as a worldview, then science isn't a worldview.
But to me, the body of science is a worldview in the sense that it has produced an incredible amount of reliable information about the world. How its current state came to be, what is our place in it, how to combat sickness, how to achieve a good harvest. The answers to these questions - accretion of cosmic dust, evolution etc.; insignificant; take medicine; irrigate and fertilize - are part of the scientific worldview. The religious worldviews - and of course there are hundreds, all contradictory - give different answers (e.g., special creation; humanity is the most important thing in the universe; lay on hands; sacrifice a goat to appease the rain god) that contradict science, that are incompatible with a scientific worldview. And even the most rarefied, sophisticated religion must at a minimum postulate a creator god for the universe as a whole, or it is not religion at all, and that simply contradicts the current state of astrophysics.
"And even the most rarefied, sophisticated religion must at a minimum postulate a creator god for the universe as a whole, or it is not religion at all, and that simply contradicts the current state of astrophysics."
Jainism isn't a religion?
(Part of the problem here is that the term 'religious' is essentially meaningless; it's either too broad or too narrow.)
I'm also curious as to how a rarefied, sophisticated God-concept involved in some version of a creation [1] violates current
astrophysics. Perhaps it violates Occam's razor, but that's another matter entirely.
[1] Through secondary causation or creation viewed as holding the universe in existence eternally; that sort of thing.
I did not know anything about Jainism, but judging from Wikipedia it seems to include a belief in immaterial souls and reincarnation, which is ruled out by the state of neuroscience. So it is not a god, granted, but still, anything that can reasonably be defined as a religion instead of pure moral philosophy is in conflict with science.
I'm also curious as to how a rarefied, sophisticated God-concept involved in some version of a creation violates current astrophysics.
Well, the universe looks exactly as you would expect it if it were not created. Consider the alternative: science could have found that the universe is a firmament with the earth in the center, starting in a state of maximum order and decaying ever since the act of creation, etc. etc. But what science did find is no trace of or need for divine interference.
Perhaps it violates Occam's razor, but that's another matter entirely.
Not at all, because parsimony is an integral element of what science is. Can't really call it science any more if I am allowed to add fanciful ad hoc justifications about invisible undetectable fairies having thwarted my experiment. The use of this principle is precisely one of the most important reasons why it is incompatible with religion, together with the whole looking-at-the-evidence issue of course.
(Just to be precise: while I of course believe that science is correct and all religions are wrong, the incompatibility arguments does not depend on that. Jainism could be correct, and science wrong, or both could be wrong, they would still be incompatible.)
"Well, the universe looks exactly as you would expect it if it were not created. Consider the alternative: science could have found that the universe is a firmament with the earth in the center, starting in a state of maximum order and decaying ever since the act of creation, etc. etc. But what science did find is no trace of or need for divine interference."
I think that depends very much on one's preconceptions regarding what 'obvious design' would look like. To settle the matter empirically, you wouldn't happen to have a designed universe on hand, along with an undesigned one, so we could compare the two? ;)
(Saying 'but obviously, *this* universe is undesigned' is perhaps begging the question a little.)
"Not at all, because parsimony is an integral element of what science is. Can't really call it science any more if I am allowed to add fanciful ad hoc justifications about invisible undetectable fairies having thwarted my experiment."
That rules out quite a lot of actual scientific practise; mostly because one person's reasonable adjustment of an auxiliary hypothesis is another person's ad hoccery... In addition, parsimony isn't really appealed to in science as often as one might think. (Because there is no 'scientific method', just a collection of heuristics. How I go about things as a theoretical physicist is different from how psychologists go about things, simply because the nature of our respective areas of research and the corresponding methodological problems they pose are different.)
Secondly, parsimony isn't so much a good guide to ontology as it is to constructing easily usable theories. The universe can be as complex as it likes provided that its complexities produce results that are identical to those predicted by parsimonious theories -- but to say that the universe *is* as simple as the descriptions given by parsimonious theories requires additional argument. Describing the world as it is is probably secondary in science to constructing usable theories, even if we often (wrongly) conflate the two.
Mintman:
We use intuition and other quick-and-dirty mental heuristics all the time to gain knowledge, and these are definitely not science. That's not to say that those ways of gaining knowledge are infallible, and a big part of the reason the practice of science exists in the first place is that they can fail pretty badly under various circumstances, but they usually work, and they are usually how we determine, for example, whether we love someone, as well as other mundane matters.
Note, too, that without less formal ways of gaining knowledge, science couldn't be bootstrapped, so your claim that "science is the only valid way to gain knowledge" runs into the same problems as the arguments from Coyne.
Mintman: "loving somebody is about taste"
A question of taste is a question for which there is no right answer. Whether someone is in love with someone else is a question of fact. That blows away your complaint about Pieret making a category error.
J.J. Ramsey:
We use intuition and other quick-and-dirty mental heuristics all the time to gain knowledge, and these are definitely not science.
It is fun to compare Iorwerth's wide definition of scientific to your extremely narrow one. I use the wide one, I must say. Of course I am not doing the highly refined specialized science of a pharmacological experiment when I search for my lost keys; on the other hand, neither does an ancient historian or a bird taxonomist. Nonetheless, they are doing science. And my hunting for keys proceeds by trying to remember my actions from last evening, and by testing hypotheses such as "maybe I left them in the jacket", and very conspicuously not by reading in the bible, praying for them to be miraculously delivered or expecting them to be gone forever because invisible goblins stole them. In that sense, these "quick-and-dirty mental heuristics" are proto-science; I would even go so far as to claim that science is nothing but a formalized version, a seamless extension of what everybody in their daily lives does if they actually want to see results. That they do not extend that approach to their religious beliefs seems to be more due to tradition, fear, laziness etc. than due to anybody seriously having any doubts about its usefulness.
Note, too, that without less formal ways of gaining knowledge, science couldn't be bootstrapped, so your claim that "science is the only valid way to gain knowledge" runs into the same problems as the arguments from Coyne.
Argh. Again: I claim it because the existence of a better one has never been demonstrated - all others don't work! I do not claim to know that science is the only one because a scientific experiment told me so.
Mintman: "loving somebody is about taste" - A question of taste is a question for which there is no right answer. Whether someone is in love with someone else is a question of fact. That blows away your complaint about Pieret making a category error.
Oh come on, that was not so hard to parse. I described what to do about the question of fact immediately below that. What this "taste" refers to is the question whether to love somebody, which is an old canard of those who want to demonstrate that science is not everything (duh). But whether someone is in love with someone else, yes, that is a question best answered scientifically. If you actually strap them to an EEG or infer it based on more circumstantial evidence does not change that it is an evidence-based (sciency) as opposed to religious approach.
Iorwerth Thomas:
I think that depends very much on one's preconceptions regarding what 'obvious design' would look like.
Well, I have given an obvious counterexample. The universe does not look as described in the bible or the quran, for starters. Of course you are right, there is always the ad hoc evasion that the universe was still created, even if it looks as if a creator is unnecessary. But that is violating parsimony, and thus in conflict with science.
That rules out quite a lot of actual scientific practise; mostly because one person's reasonable adjustment of an auxiliary hypothesis is another person's ad hoccery... In addition, parsimony isn't really appealed to in science as often as one might think.
Not explicitly. But it is at the core of our approach, and not applying the same thinking to the question of creation is simply an exercise in privileging religious sensibilities. This becomes obvious as soon as we imagine a scientist using the same faulty logic in other areas; my favorite example is the author von Daeniken, who wrote books with the mantra "yes, science explains the pyramids so-and-so, but could it not also be that space-faring aliens built them?" Yes, it could be, but there is not evidence for that, so it will get you laughed out of the scientific conference and maybe out of your job if you claim that. Similarly, it could be that the universe is created, but there is zero evidence for it, and you are only tolerated while propagating the idea because religion is given special treatment that other silly ideas do not get. But it has precisely the same merit - none.
to say that the universe *is* as simple as the descriptions given by parsimonious theories requires additional argument. Describing the world as it is is probably secondary in science to constructing usable theories, even if we often (wrongly) conflate the two.
But that is the best we can do - all else would not be knowledge, but wild speculation. Which is why that is how we do science. And that is why science is incompatible with religion.