This was Michael Ruse last week, explaining why, as a nonbeliever, he was still trying to reconcile evolution’s randomness with the determinism—i.e., the inevitability that a humanlike creature would appear in evolution—demanded by science-friendly Christians. (My emphasis in second sentence below):
This is not because I am a believer, because I am not. It is not really because it is a politically good thing to do, although I think that is so. It is rather because, well, it is a problem that is interesting and challenging!
This is Michael Ruse two days ago, revising the reasons for his own accommodationism:
But my critics are right in thinking that my writing does have a political component. It is not, contrary to widespread belief, in the hope that I might win the Templeton Prize. They are never going to give it to a non-believer like me. Nor is it because I am secretly a Christian. I left my childhood Quaker faith at about the age of 20 and have never been attracted back.
. . . This said, I live in a country – a country of which a couple of years ago Lizzie [Ruse’s wife] and I voluntarily and with joy became citizens – where at least half of the people are genuine, believing, practicing Christians – and with others sympathetic or as committed to other faiths like Judaism. My neighbors go to church on Sundays and believe that Jesus died for their salvation. So did the teachers of my kids and many of the folk that we interact with every day. Lizzie’s closest friend is the youth coordinator at First Presbyterian and I am co-teaching a course this fall with one of my good friends, an ordained Presbyterian minister.
. . . Perhaps it is not so much a question of being mistaken, but of realizing and recognizing that others do not share your views, and that while you have the right – and the obligation – to oppose them, you must live with them.
And if I – a non-believer – can show the world that it is possible to be both a Darwinian and a Christian, that is all of the political motivation I want.
So it’s political after all! Doesn’t the man read what he writes from one column to the next? At least we’ve learned that Ruse’s sincerity is sometimes a ruse.
And where has he exercised his “right and obligation” to oppose Christianity? All he does is make the occasional remark that he’s an unbeliever. I wouldn’t call that opposition at all. In contrast, he writes books and columns not opposing their religious beliefs, but telling them how to make those beliefs compatible with science. If Christians were really Christians, they wouldn’t hold this against him. Is he that afraid to openly tell them why he disagrees about God?
In my estimation, all atheist philosophers who try to reconcile religion and science are doing so for political reasons—as are organizations like the National Academy of Sciences and the National Center for Science Education that engage in the same activity. It takes a profound hypocrisy to try to reconcile for others things that you can’t reconcile for yourself.
And the accommodation issue is just not that interesting as a philosophical problem. Anyone with two neurons to rub together can reconcile religion with any scientific fact. All you have to do is make stuff up. You might as well write discourses on how to reconcile belief in UFOs with the complete lack of evidence for them. Or reconcile astrology with the palpable fact that there is no connection between astronomical phenomena and human personality. After all, many people believe in UFOs and astrology.
Finally, Ruse throws in this little tidbit:
I see major similarities between the Tea Party and the New Atheists. There is a moral absolutism about both movements. It scares me. Always I think of Cromwell and the Church of Scotland. “I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, think it possible that you may be mistaken.”
What is the moral absolutism in saying “I see no evidence for a deity” or “I’m going to ask those who believe in one for their evidence”? Compared to scientists, religious people are far more absolutist.
Dennett has Ruse’s type well pegged: belief in belief.
I can’t believe Ruse campared the Tea Party racists, bigots and me-me-me members to militant atheists who refuse to fall for zombie dogma and stand up for human and constitutional rights.
Oh, I don’t know. Have you checked out how things are going at Free Thought Blogs recently? Absolutism can take many forms.
Like that series “Why I’m an Atheist”? Terrible absolutist stuff.
I said FTB, not Pharyngula specifically, but it’s certainly true that some of the Pharyngula folk post the kind of zero-tolerance, invective filled comments I was referring to. I think it stems from PZ’s (and others’) attempt to broaden the definition of atheist to be “someone who doesn’t believe in gods and holds the exact same socio-political views as I“. Not too surprising that that might cause a bit of a rift. Combine it with the spleen that accompanies many (largely anonymous) postings on the interwebs, and the result is frequent invitations to shove small spiny mammals up your nether regions. Nice. Ooh, I sound like a tone troll! So be it.
(As for WIAA, as I’ve mentioned before, not really my cuppa, but I have nothing against it.)
“I sound like a tone troll”
Now that you mention it, yes.
It has been my pleasure to note that agnostics, that for some unfathomable reason has been lumped together with atheists, no longer is automatically so. The majority of agnostics base their position in religious special pleading such that “we can’t know”, when in fact we can reject creationism and other magic based on observation and its likelihood consequences, and with it the majority of religion.
There is a small subset of agnostics, in theory and perhaps in practice, that can be genuinely undecided on the weight of evidence not because they are familiar with empirical and religious claims but because they are not. Those would be non-religious in the broader sense, and in that sense related to atheism.
It is hypocritical to use religious claims as if they were not. I think it is healthy for individuals as well as society to recognize what absence of religion is and is not instead of being confused on the matter. It is a rift that we need to see happen, preferably sooner than later.
If there is anything more in “holds the exact same socio-political views” I am not cognizant of it. Maybe you will care to explain in that case.
Here’s one example: http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2011/02/01/why-are-you-an-atheist/.
[Treading very carefully here, pace CC’s request, but just to explain to Torbjörn what I meant…]
I wasn’t really referring to any atheist/agnostic split, but see, for example, PZ Myers’ op-ed in the Aug/Sept 2012 Free Inquiry (I can’t find an online version, sorry). His thesis (that atheists have duty to fight for social justice) is reasonably argued, even if I don’t necessarily agree with it. The problem for me is how it’s being implemented in, ahem, some quarters.
Well, dissing another set of websites isn’t really on topic here, so could we stay focused?
kthxbai,
CC
Surely that would be a narrowing of the definition, not a broadening?
It’s been months if not years since I went to Pharyngula, and I’m not sure at all that I’ve been to the rest of these “Free Thought Blogs” at all. So I don’t really know what they’re saying over there, but what you’re saying certainly sounds like narrowing the definition to me, since fewer people would fit the description.
Reduction to absurdity : the old definition of QWERTYist is someone who uses a QWERTY layout keyboard ; my new improved definition of a QWERTYist is someone who uses this layout of keyboard AND who has naturally green hair. The new definition is narrower than the old definition.
There likely is a correlation between political positioning and opinions on authority vs inquiry ; but beyond that I’d be loath to go because people are just so variable.
Which reminds me … one of the few interesting political sites I’ve seen in years tries to inject a little more clarity into the fairly sterile debate of “left wing versus right wing” by attempting to assess people’s opinions on an authoritarian – libertarian axis too. I’m not terribly sure that’s a good choice of axis ; or if their questionnaire actually separates people out on those axes well – it also uses the conventional L-R axis ; but the idea is an interesting one, and it does show the sterility of using an oversimplified dichotomy.
May be worth a visit : The Political Compass.
I suspect that a lot of people on this site would plot in one corner of that method of expression, but I’d be astonished if there wasn’t a fair amount of spread too. FWIW, over several years, I’ve seen my placement wobble around by several units on their calculation – the details of which I’ve not investigated. If nothing else, that reminds me that people – myself included – vary in time as well as between people.
I remember when I was atheist… It wasn’t an absolute position at all. It was just the obvious common sense. I mean, you know, isn’t it obvious..?
They totally need more nuance on that “rape jokes are never funny” position.
I think you oversimplify. I found this link via FTB discussion on the subject:
http://jezebel.com/5925186/how-to-make-a-rape-joke
Of course I’m oversimplifying. I can only know about the bits of FtB that I read. Isn’t it nice, though, that I actually posted a specific statement, rather than a vague insult, so you could look that up?
Very nice.
FTB is a fairly big operation with many different voices. Some of the hosts are more interesting (to me) than others (I like Greta Christina who enforces her comment policy pretty rigorously). IMO the hosts’ postings are generally more worth reading than the comments but that varies a lot from blog to blog.
Could you not?
WEIT is this tiny sheltered speck in the Internet universe that’s mostly devoid of the FtB battle(s). If you have an issue with FtB, couldn’t you keep it over there?
OK, sorry, sorry. My comment was a bit OT but I just wanted to make the point that the atheist “community” (whatever that is) is not immune from the kind of behaviors that its enemies are often accused of. I’ll say no more.
FWIW, Pete, I thought what you originally said was both on-topic — for the reason you gave — and true. After that, you simply responded to defend against people responding to you. You were fine. Thank goodness Jerry doesn’t allow his WEIT commenters to act like middle-school “mean girls” (or boys). Thank goodness he doesn’t allow hs commenters to shut down crticism of bullying behavior by deriding those critics as “tone trolls.” What a strange inversion of reasoning that is!
Caroline52 wrote:
I’ve never understood how a commenter could be “shut down” by another person’s comments. Why would anyone stop commenting just because someone called them a tone troll, or called them anything, for that matter. It makes no sense.
What, you’ve really never had the experience of being rounded on in an internet argument, had abuse hurled at you, and decided life would be simpler and nicer if you shut up? (FWIW, the most unpleasant experience I’ve ever had of that was at PZ’s site – talk of my ‘gaping asshole’ and whatnot. But maybe I asked for it, I don’t know).
This site is a constant delight, btw.
Clive wrote:
Well, IMO, if you can’t shrug off nonsensical insults, you’re taking things a little too seriously. Of course, others may see it differently.
People who fling shit while pretending their hands are clean are not delightful, and I’m seeing quite a lot of that here lately.
“People who fling shit…”
The problem with a statement like this is that it smears everyone who comments here, whether you intend it or not. I would prefer that if you object to something someone says that you make it clear what you are objecting to and not use language that makes everyone responsible for having offended you.
I’m confused. Are atheists amoral libertines with no moral compass, or moral absolutists? I guess we’re threatened with a nonexistent place of torment if we do, threatened with a nonexistent place of torment if we don’t. Does Ruse really think we should be lying awake at night wondering whether there’s some nuance that we’ve overlooked that shows that homosexuality should, in fact, be criminalized? Are there, as referencing the quote suggests, dire consequences to atheists’ positions? Is he suggesting that we have not ALREADY considered the issues BEFORE coming to our conclusions?
It’s all psychological projection – to project your own flaws on other people to say “but you are no better than I am!”. This is what motivates people to say that atheism is dogmatic or absolutist.
+1
I think that is the underlying motivation when the religious claim that atheism is “just another religion”.
“Yes, my beliefs are not supported by evidence, but neither are yours!”
So the man stands up for the majority, not because he thinks they are right, but because they are the majority. His philosophy is born of cowardice.
+1
My thoughts exactly, he’s just frightened of upsetting his neighbours. Well I can understand that, I’m not good at confrontation myself, but there’s no need to waste your life trying to pretend that fairy-tales are compatible with reality.
One of the paragraphs in that piece is especially baffling.
First off, the first two sentences just don’t fit together.
Then the suggestion of some external threat to this comity, which he never identifies. This is a writer confident that coherence will not be required of him.
Well he is a philosopher.
I’m not sure it’s just science-friendly Christians… “If you replayed the tape of the universe from the big bang up until now, humans would still show up – in fact you and I would show up exactly as we are and make all the same choices – it could not be otherwise.”
Nature can haz no free will!?
Mostly, I just want to know how one might say on the one hand that all of our choices are inevitably determined but on the other that evolution of a humanlike creature was not inevitably determined — that is, without equivocating over different senses of “inevitably determined.”
I think that the idea is not that replaying the initial conditions of the universe would result in humans, but rather than, given pretty much any initial conditions, human-like animals would appear. If, conversely, the initial conditions of the universe belong to an extremely small set of initial conditions that would have resulted in human-like animals, then the IDers will claim that that shows that there must have been some designer who chose to have those initial conditions.
Maybe the point is that, yes, humans are inevitably determined in this universe, with its specific set of initial conditions, so if you perform the thought experiment of “rewinding the tape” then you will get the same outcome. That’s just a version of the anthropic argument.
But… that doesn’t take into account variations caused by quantum randomness. I don’t think that’s a red herring, because the outcome we’re talking about is so far removed from the initial conditions of the chaotic system we call “the universe” (however far back you want to define “initial” to be) that the minutest difference early on caused by some alpha decay occurring at a different time could result in huge variations later on.
Also, it ignores the reality that we can’t rewind the tape anyway, and in, say, a multiverse scenario, the initial conditions across budding universes would be different, so we’d expect wildly different outcomes, with life, let alone humans and intelligence, being not at all inevitable.
I think until we know how abundant (or rare) life is in this universe, it makes little sense to speak of its inevitability.
Have you been reading Simon Conway-Morris again?
I don’t really if it applies here, but can it not be helpful at times in an argument to begin from a counter-intuitive point-of-view?
It takes a profound hypocrisy to try to reconcile for others things that you can’t reconcile for yourself.
I am taking this quote deeply to heart. Jerry, you are one brilliant guy and you have helped me clarify my thoughts
It does take that, yes, as well as an awful detachment, and no felt responsibility for the truth.
Isn’t that at the root of why the Athenian democrats distrusted Sophists, gave Socrates a nice refreshing drink, and why people deeply distrust lawyers? (And politicians ; though since depressing proportions of them started out as lawyers, that’s almost a tautology.)
“At least we’ve learned that Ruse’s sincerity is sometimes a ruse.”
It may be as simple as Ruse just likes the attention he gets when he lobs these hand grenades into his own camp. Or, maybe firecracker is more apt than hand grenade. People that like attention will typically offer a more rational explanation for their behavior.
Ruse perfectly exeplifies Churchill’s line about appeasers
“An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile, hoping it will eat him last.”
In the case of Ruse it is his fellow atheists being offered up to the hungry jaws of the intolerant.
I think Michael Ruse was saying pretty much the same thing when he lived in Guelph, Ontario, Canada where most of the people in his neighborhood where probably nonbelievers. They certainly weren’t fundamentalist Christians so he didn’t have to worry about offending them by declaring that he was an atheist.
I wonder how he excused his accommodationism back then in the 1990s? (He moved to Florida in 2000.)
I got my undergraduate degree and Master’s at the department where Ruse started his academic career, although I never took a course with him. Eventually I gave up on academic philosophy because it seemed to be totally dominated by “games players” who never seemed to take seriously the stuff they were studying. Ruse’s statement about trying to reconcile Christianity and evolution being an “interesting problem” pretty much sums up the attitude of most of the professional academic philosophers I met at university.
I could never figure out the issues that seemed to be of life-and-death import were never more than “glass bead games” for these folks.
This attitude totally infected their work. I was routinely appalled at the disconnect between their attempts at consistency and logic within their papers and the rest of their life. It makes total sense to me that Ruse would say that he isn’t motivated by politics while at the same time making it extremely obvious that that is really what it’s all about.
Years later I was at a wake for one of the professors and heard many eulogies. I was totally struck by the way almost all of them talked about “scholarship” and “academics”, but I don’t remember one talking about “truth” or “wisdom”. I’m afraid that most academic philosophy is about career and “fun puzzles” but precious little about “love of wisdom”.
I’m not sure it’s even that much of an “interesting problem”. It’s well known that humans have the remarkable ability to hold two contradictory ideas in their heads at the same time, and we need look no further than Francis Collins and Simon Conway Morris to find poster boys for this particular example of it. Since Ruse is certainly not contributing to the neurological understanding of the phenomenon, I wonder what he thinks he is contributing.
Blog fodder for Jerry – but I doubt that was his intent 🙂
This is very much along the lines of what I said in the last thread discussing Ruse: he gives the appearance of a guy who is making a living – and very little else. I’d have vastly more respect for a guy who frankly admitted he was out of ideas or had lost interest in research – as long as he threw himself into some other worthwhile academic pursuit. Teaching, service, whatever. This politically motivated philosophy is cynical and annoying.
I’m starting to pity Michael Ruse.
I’m wrong about 72.0358% of the time as my friends are only too happy to point out, but at least I don’t have to squeeze what little intellect I have through the drinking straw of accommodation. There is no integrity in his position whatsoever.
There is a difference between accommodating people with beliefs that contradict your own, and accommodating the beliefs themselves.
In fact, if you feel so obligated to try to persuade your Christian neighbor toward Darwinism that you have to offer them Darwinism-light, you run the risk of being more insufferable than just telling them about Darwinism as it is if they ask, and conversing on other matters if they don’t.
Ruse:
Excuse me, but haven’t non-religious folk always been living with religious folk (often in the same household)? Is Ruse implying that somehow non-religious people are having some difficulty doing this peacefully? Even today, the most “strident” non-believers, the ones whom Ruse might regard as “fundamentalist,” do not not advocate violent uprisings, church burnings, or (in the U.S.) dialing back on freedom of worship. Non-believers already know how to “live with” religious folk. I wonder what, then, Ruse is talking about: where are these non-believers who are incapable of co-existence? Or, does “live with” mean something other than “co-exist”? By “live with” Ruse must mean “STFU, stop pointing out the all downsides of religion, and toe the accommodationist line.”
I think Michael Ruse is awesome.
“I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, think it possible that you may be mistaken.”
The holy pyloric sphincter fallacy.
Ben Goren will love that one!
That was Cromwell speaking to the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland (Presbyterian).
John Prebble, in “The Lion in the North” (IIRC), commented (quoting from memory)
“As they had never considered such a possibility before, they saw no reason to start at this time.”
That sounds a very “Free” way of thinking about it. “Wee Free” even.
Atheism is moral absolute in precisely the same way democracy or science is. Not because it is the ideal way but because it works.
And that is all what shores it up, evidence. What evidence does Ruse have that we can reconcile evolution’s randomness with the determinism of religion, or science with religion, in all but the trivial way that we can accept to live with incompatible ideas?
“I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, think it possible that you may be mistaken.”
Whenever I see something like this, my response is: “it’s always ‘possible’ that I may be mistaken, but if you can’t give me some reason to think that I am mistaken in this case, then you are just making noise.”
One sentence in particular stood out for me:
“It takes a profound hypocrisy to try to
reconcile for others things that you
can’t reconcile for yourself.”
Because years ago when I was a “born again” Christian and thought I had been called to preach the bible as the inerrant word of God I tried to put the four gospel accounts and the other New Testament references to Jesus’ alleged resurrection together in one single coherent, consistent, non-contradictory account by studying them in the manner which the bible scholar Bart D. Erhman calls “horizontally” just using the texts, omitting nothing and adding nothing and found that it couldn’t be done. I was forced to admit to myself that even if Jesus was resurrected from the dead, I couldn’t believe it based on the bible’s stories. I realized that it would be, to use Jerry’s phrase, “profound hypocrisy” to preach what I could not myself believe. Anyone who has read my Facebook posts knows that I disagree strongly with accomodationists and that I do not pull punches about why I do not believe in Christianity. I don’t try to convert anyone from religion but I realize that there are many who have grave doubts about what they have been taught but feel alone in their doubts. I feel that I would be doing them a great disservice if I were to withhold my views out of concern of offending someone, somewhere. As for my Christian friends, I respect their right to believe even though I can no longer believe in Christianity but I am not going to be dishonest with them and I want them to know why I do not believe. Some get upset with me for that but I think it is more honest to state one’s opinions than be a hypocrite
Right on.
Agreed. I think accomodationism is non-starter because science is “discovered”, through hypothesis, testing, falsification, backtracking, modification, and, occasionally, inspiration. Religion is “revealed”, which essentially seems to mean, “making stuff up and never admitting you’re wrong.” How can a system as rigorous (but at the same time, flexible) as science accommodate a philosophy that performs no self-checks and brooks no dissent (cf. the current spat between the Catholic bishops and the Leadership Conference of Women Religious)?
Better men, women, and other humans than you have tried, and failed, in that task.
Don’t feel bad about it ; it’s an impossible task.
WTF? How do you know about LilburnLowellDecker’s status within the ranks of men, women, and other humans? Where do you get the idea that LilburnLowellDecker is feeling bad about the outcome?
LelburnLowelldecker’s position looks well founded to me.
Whilst I’m sure the gravelinspector is perfectly capable of defending his own writing, I have to say that I think you are reading more into his comment than he intended. I take his main point to be “it’s an impossible task”. “Don’t feel bad about it” is a friendly way of putting it, not a way of saying that he believes that lld is suffering some sort of grief over it.
The alternative (that LLD is absolutely the best theologian ever to have attempted a synoptic interpretation of the gospels) is a pretty low probability option, given that a lot of people have been doing that for a nearly two millennia.
“I was forced to admit to myself”
“I feel that I would be doing them a great disservice if I were to withhold my views out of concern of offending someone, somewhere.” : Sounds like someone who isn’t very happy about how things have turned out. Sounds to me like he / she / it / them is forcing themselves to do something, rather than being happy about the situation.
(Then again, not knowing which culture LLD comes from, this could be an expression of boundless joy. But it certainly doesn’t sound that way.
It would be unusual for someone that has dedicated themselves to christianity as truth to be happy about admitting to themselves that the foundations of their belief were unfounded. Reading the remainder of LilburnLowellDecker’s comment seems to support an uncompromising acceptance of the corrected conclusion that christianity has cracks at the foundation. Maybe LilburnLowellDecker currently feels bad about that but it isn’t obvious from the comment.
Better men, women, and other humans (children is the only alternative there), seems to me more belittling than consolatory.
I was rather happy about LilburnLowellDecker’s personal achievement and was surprise by what seemed to be a critical reply.
“I feel that I would be doing them a great disservice if I were to withhold my views out of concern of offending someone, somewhere.” That seems to me to be not only an honest statement but also intended as a contrast to the approach that Ruse uses of making up excuses for his christian neighbors, excuses that Ruse doesn’t think are worthy of believing. Seems like Ruse is performing a disservice to me.
“Compared to scientists, religious people are far more absolutist.”
The quote refers to “New Atheists”, not scientists.
Reblogged this on emmageraln.
Why don’t you start a blog with some original thoughts?
Perhaps Emma finds the WordPress reblogging feature an easy way of collecting various postings from different WP blogs (and a website!) for future reference.
If she was using, say, Evernote, to do this, or if WP didn’t sprinkle these annoying little “reblogged” messages automatically when she does, you wouldn’t know she was doing it at all.
I don’t think it’s any more objectionable than “sub” posts.
/@
OK Ant, fair enough, I hadn’t thought of it that way. I guess I was in “Grumpy Old Man” mode yesterday. Sorry Emma.
Colin.
NP. Even I have days like that… 😉
/@
Me too. I asked Emma why a few weeks back. I didn’t realise it was a feature of WP. Apologies.
It’s going to be interesting to watch when Ruse’s students begin submitting papers on ‘The Irrefutable Historicity of Lord of the Rings’ or ‘David Icke: Arguably a Genius?’
What goes around, comes around.
David Icke is, arguably, a genius.
The argument wouldn’t be very long – if I were defending the proposition I’d be rolling on the floor, helpless with mirth, within minutes of starting. But an argument could be made. That was part of the point of debating classes at school – you should be able to argue any case, even if you haven’t got any evidence for it. Your argument might not carry much weight, particularly if you were up against evidence such as what David Icke has actually said and done ; but that doesn’t mean that there hasn’t been an argument.
Deliberately arguing in favour of an unpopular, undesirable or dangerous interpretation of data is one of the things I have to do routinely at work : if someone isn’t going to argue in favour of the nasty (as in, “this could cost us hundreds of millions of dollars if we get it wrong”) interpretations, then we can’t honestly claim to have examined the situation properly and to have properly assessed the evidence.
If that costs $50000 of operational time … that’s a cheap $50000.
Jerry,
Look more closely at those two quotations: In the first, he says
It is not really because it is a politically good thing to do, although I think that is so.
In the second,
But my critics are right in thinking that my writing does have a political component.
There is nothing in the first statement that is incompatible with the second. In the first, he acknowledges that he does think reconciling religion and evolution is “a politically good thing to do,” but suggests that his motivation is primarily the philosophical challenge. In the second, he discusses the political “component” of his position in more detail.
I don’t see what the big deal is, and I certainly don’t think these two statements justify your comment that
At least we’ve learned that Ruse’s sincerity is sometimes a ruse.
Especially after you just posted that you were trying to avoid personal attacks on your website. And yes, this is a personal attack, as are the posts by commenters questioning Michael’s ethics and sincerity on this thread and many others. That’s very different from criticizing flaws or inconsistencies in his arguments.
You disagree with Michael, and that’s fine. I do too, mostly, on this particular subject. But I will say that Michael is one of the kindest, most generous people I know, and that he has made real contributions to our understanding of evolution and its social/philosophical context. He also often takes pains to point out how much he respects Jerry’s science and science writing.
I’m well aware of Jerry’s and Michael’s intellectual antipathy, but I’m always sorry when it gets personal here. The other day, Jerry posted that we should all remember, when our discussions get heated, that there are actual people involved. Well, Michael is an actual person, and he happens to be a very good friend of mine. I’m positing this because I often read this website, and sometimes contribute to discussions, and it’s often hard to watch a good friend get bashed like a pinata. I usually refrain from saying anything, but that’s what friends do–stand up for each other.
“At least we’ve learned that Ruse’s sincerity is sometimes a ruse.”
—
I do not believe this constitutes a personal attack; more extended exasperation with Ruse’s nonsensical position (doubtless Prof Coyne is better able to elaborate on his own position).
Ruse’s own words on this topic (and there have been many) have themselves condemned him. Either he’s been misread and needs to work harder at clarification or he really is being incredibly condescending towards believers, presuming to fix their beliefs for them.
Lastly, that little snipe at the end, comparing vocal atheists to the Tea Party and accusing atheists of “moral absolutism”, is – to be exceedingly charitable – inaccurate. A sophisticated modern thinker (or at least someone who appears to want to be thought of as such) should be above such obvious false, base insults. Perhaps you should counsel your friend to refrain from such blatant misreadings and mischaracterisations.
What’s a “mandrellian”? Michael has the guts to attach his own name to his ideas. So does Jerry. So do I. And before you start with that nonsense about being afraid your future employer will look you up online or something, Michael and I have taught at public institutions in the bible belt for years, and dealt with angry students, parents, legislatures, etc for teaching about evolution. It takes a brave person indeed to hand out high-minded criticism (“Ruse’s own words on this topic (and there have been many) have themselves condemned him”) behind the shield of anonymity. I’m impressed.
The issue about anonymity is debated over and over and over. Virtually everywhere. In every instance where it is raised as a criticism, it’s a complete smoke screen.
I don’t care what mandrellian calls him or herself. Even if he or she posted using his or her real name, you would have no way to know if the name he or she was using was, in fact, real.
I respect loyalty, and I appreciate yours to Dr. Ruse, but this “real name” crap is a useless waste of time. Get on with an argument that addresses mandrellian’s points.
And before you start with that nonsense about being afraid your future employer will look you up online…
Nonsense? It happened to me. I’ve lost jobs over it.
I like to think I have plenty of “guts”. Perhaps you’d like to suggest an alternate means of demonstrating this quality of mine to your satisfaction?
Smoke screen for what? I didn’t see any arguments in that post, anyway, other than “yeah, what Jerry said!” I’m sorry, but anonymity gives people permission to say all kinds of things they wouldn’t have the guts to say in real life, and that is, not to put too fine a point on it, pretty lame. I just don’t have conversations with people who can’t put their real names behind their words. People with real convictions take responsibility for what they say. Michael Ruse says things that are very unpopular in some quarters, but he doesn’t hide behind anything.
Anyway, I said everything I wanted to say. Feel free to beat up on me anonymously to your hearts’ content.
How do you go about verifying real names on the Internet? Ruse is a public figure, as is Coyne, and easily verified, but how do you verify an unknown name? You seem so sure of yourself, that you know whose names are real, that I just wonder how you do it.
Hey, David… Is this my real name? Am I worth conversing with?
>>I’m sorry, but anonymity gives people permission to say all kinds of things they wouldn’t have the guts to say in real life
And yet, if they are able to say what they need to say here, and present their arguments to you here, why concern yourself with issues of identity if the arguments have merit in themselves? After all, are “guts” more important in this context than thoughts?
Hear, hear. I’ve no doubt that Michael Ruse is a kind and generous person; I don’t know him, but this comes through in his communications. However, he can be really lax in development of his arguments, and calling him to account for this is not a personal attack.
Hi Ken,
Ah, but then the title of this post should be “Michael Ruse is very lax in developing his arguments.” Sorry, but calling someone “disingenuous” or calling someone’s sincerity into question is very much a personal attack. Both involve speculation about the person’s psychological state, or motivations. “Disingenuous,” as defined by Miriam-Webster, means “lacking in candor; also, giving a false appearance of simple frankness.” I.e., intentionally lying or misleading. That’s not the same thing as saying “this argument doesn’t agree with this other one.”
And that’s only what Jerry has said in this post. Go ahead and read some of the previous ones about Michael, and see if you don’t find the comments rife with statements accusing Ruse of being a closet Christian, or lying, or being unethical. Please don’t be all high-minded and pretend that doesn’t happen. My original comment simply had to do with wishing that intellectual disagreements could take place without those additional, unnecessary, personal slights.
Finally, as for the whole anonymity thing, I’ll just remind you that point #1 in Jerry’s recent posting about comment etiquette asked people to use real names and take responsibility for their comments, so I’m not alone in feeling this way.
Your concern has been noted.
I _do_ take responsibility for my comments and this username is something I’ve used for years, consistently, across numerous platforms including youtube, twitter, wordpress, blogspot and others. Feel free to google it if you like. It is not some off-the-cuff handle I chose just to make a single drive-by comment and I’m sure, were Prof Coyne inclined, he could provide an exact number of comments written here, by me, under this name.
Furthermore, my reasons for using this name _are none of your concern_ and you’re being more than a tad disingenuous, affecting the moral high ground and invoking our host’s comment rules while standing there maligning his intent and insulting his guests.
Now, you could respond to my comment substantively or continue to actively and petulantly derail and deflect. However, since you’ve already decided to establish yourself as little more than a troll with a vocabulary and passing familiarity with civility, I doubt if I should expect anything more than what we’ve already seen.
Um… what substantive points do you think you made? You made a blanket statement about “Ruse’s words” “condemning” him (which is so vague you can’t seriously expect a reply), and you flatly denied that Jerry (or anyone else, apparently) had personally attacked him. Well, you didn’t respond to my substantive points, which were that calling someone “disingenuous” (not to mention the many far worse things Michael’s been called on this blog) is, in fact, a personal insult, and furthermore that–as I pointed out–the comments Ruse made didn’t even contradict each other the way Jerry implied.
So why do you expect me to do something you aren’t willing to do myself?
The anonymity thing is just a pet peeve of mine. Call yourself whatever you want. I just don’t respect people who are scared to post under their own names.
Oh, and I’m one of his “guests,” too, friend. Don’t kid yourself that you’re so special just because you’ve been hanging around blogs for a long time. I wasn’t “maligning” anyone’s intent–Jerry has long held that he’s happy to be challenged in a respectful manner, and that’s what I’ve done.
By the way, just in case you’re confused here, an internet handle is not–no matter how many twitter accounts, youtube videos, or blogs you’ve commented on–a real identity. This is the internet. Not real life. Do you understand the difference?
Geez, enough already. This is degenerating into an unproductive argument, and no new points are being made. Time to stop, methinks.
Ceiling Cat says please.
CC forgive me, but I think this is a new point.
I do agree with the first paragraph of your first post, David. The rest, not so much. This, not at all:
From my professional perspective, as an analyst covering identity management for the world’s largest IT research and advisory organisation, that statement is naïvely correct (but for a different reason than I think you intended: no name or other identifier is, in fact, an identity) but just wrong in essence.
What makes you think the Internet is not part of the real world? Any online identity is just as “real” an identity as any other partial identity or persona a person has in any other locus of relationships and interactions in the world. A person’s civil or legal identity is also just a partial identity. (If you like, I can email you a conference presentation that discusses these ideas.)
And the very fact that people are using a handle, nym, or whatever over time (let alone over multiple sites) is far from anonymous. “Anonymously” is not a synonym for “pseudonymously”.
Ant Allan
Research VP
Gartner
David Sepkoski, you’re quite right that there’s no incompatibility between the two Ruse quotations. It appears that someone was trying to pick a fight.
I don’t buy that it’s a philosophical challenge at all. Sure, there may be a flavor of Christianity out there that’s compatible with all the findings of science. And sure, if there isn’t one, Ruse may be able to develop a new theology that is. But the flavor he discovers or invents is not going to be the flavor of 99% of the people who self-identify as Christians.
As Jerry (and Jason Rosenhouse) have pointed out, the God of the masses is not the god of sophisticated theolgians. Ruse is the analog – a sophisticated philosopher, if you will – and the same goes for him: his compatible faith is not the faith of the masses to whom he’s preaching compatibility.
Ruse:
It is not, contrary to widespread belief, in the hope that I might win the Templeton Prize. They are never going to give it to a non-believer like me.
But Ruse will happily accommodate it as a miracle of reconciliation, if it does happen.
“It takes a profound hypocrisy to try to reconcile for others things that you can’t reconcile for yourself.”
–
This is Ruse in a nutshell and Accommodationism in a big tent. Utter hypocrisy. It also reads as a presumption of intellectual superiority – “Here, let ME solve your problem FOR you.”
It also reads as “I think it’s nonsense, but here, let me help you take comfort in your precious nonsense” and just smacks of condescension. Were I a believer and had people attempting to “reconcile” my faith and reality on my behalf, I do believe I’d recoil.
There appears to be an inherent assumption that believers are precious, fragile things (or just stupid), can’t think for themselves when presented with truth and facts and require them to be soft-peddled.
I believe nothing is to be gained by patting people on the head and saying “There, there, I think it’s ludicrous and does not for one second gel with the facts of the world – but I had a great idea about how -you- can fit both ideas in your pretty little head at the same time.”
Another thing occurred to me – Ruse’s treating of this as some kind of amusing little game belittles the conviction many believers have, trivialises the importance of proper scientific education (and the effects fundamentalist opposition has on it) and elevates him to a position of detached, disaffected dilletante having a dabble in the affairs the common folk. It may not actually be that way, but the resemblance is striking.
The way it seems to me, exactly, and a great summary of what is so offensive about Ruse’s style of accommodation.
ps. “Marta” is my real name.
ps. “Marta” is my real name.
Not good enough. We need your entire name plus two pieces of photo ID.
And reveal that Prof Coyne happens to be a very good friend of yours.
Franky, if any very good friend of mine was in the habit of maligning his fellow non-believers as Tea Party-esque and constantly condescending to “fix” other peoples’ religions for them and reconcile them with reality even while he personally thought they were invalid fictions, rest assured I wouldn’t rush to his defence on other peoples’ blogs; I’d probably tell him to pull his bloody head in.
A fantasticly wonderful comment from Richard’s site by Steve Z on the smallness of religion and the immensity of life:
” “So how do we overcome the widespread notion that a world without gods is somehow less wondrous, less amazing and that science is “cold”? ”
That is an extremely important question. I try to do this by showing that the world without gods is a vastly bigger world, in which we actually have a more significant place than one with gods. It’s hard to describe how much bigger the world really is than the ones described by scripture and theology. Past theological cosmologies have been tiny worlds, Earth-centred, temporary, mere millennia old. Even their infinities were tiny, cramped in around gods who wanted adoration non-stop. The world as we see it now seems so big that the visible universe is as a single star in our cosmos. The world is old, billions of years, so old that Biblical times would
too bri
And yet, even on these vast scales, we are significant. We are significant because the scientific view reveals to us the importance of complexity, and shows us how complexity can appear from nothing. I don’t care about the origin of matter and energy – that’s dull. What fires my imagination is the way that a simple universe can fill with ever richer complexity. The question of complexity has been answered, and the answer destroys theology: there is no need for a creator.
There is nothing so complex as life, and life isn’t just a touch more complex than anything else, it is like a supernova compared to a candle. If complexity was light, even the life on Earth would shine across the heavens.
We are cosmically significant because we are astronomically complex. We aren’t merely pawns in some celestial game between heaven and hell. We aren’t vague spirits which will drift away from our bodies when we die, we are our bodies, not some feeble ghost of an idea. ”
Thanks, Steve. I hope you don’t mind that I reposted this. It was just too good not to.
The only absolutism inherent in atheism is that of insisting upon evidence in the face of religious certainty.
I’ve said this many times before many theists. All I ask is evidence that your god exists. Prove it with evidence, and I’ll gladly convert.
The next words out of most theists’ mouths is to complain that I’ve set the bar too high.
Tough.
If it’s too hard, start small and work your way up. Prove fairies exist first, then. Or unicorns. Or aliens with anal probes.
How do you make an inescapable connection between having atheistic opinions and demanding evidence for them?
I see nothing in the statement “I believe that there is no god or supernatural entity in the universe” that demands evidence for this belief. It’s perfectly possible to believe the statement to be true as a matter of “faith”, and not feel the need for any evidence for it..
There is, I’m quite sure, a strong correlation between “being an atheist” and “accepting the importance of evidence as a basis for holding an opinion”. But, as we all (I hope) learned in kindergarten, “correlation cannot, of itself, imply causality”
Saying “there is no evidence that god exists” is precisely the same weight and character as the statement “pixies do not reside up my nose”.
Someone who believes otherwise is the one who is compelled to prove it.
And I am under no obligation to even consider revising my position until such evidence is proffered.
But I am an empiricist, not a dogmatist. If someone presents evidence sufficient to over turn the null hypothesis (ie, “no god exists”), then I would be a very bad empiricist indeed to reject such evidence.
In the decade or so I’ve been offering my challenge, no one has even gotten beyond stage 1. “What is god made of?” Although recently one guy said “energy”, and then bailed when I asked what its wavelength was, and what instruments I could use to verify his position.
Well, I think Ruse is wrong about atheists. The only atheist activist that was remotely as strident as the Tea Party was Madelyn Murray O’Hair (spelling??)
But I don’t see Ruse as in any way disingenuous or a hypocrite. He isn’t being motivated by politics as an extremely deferential politeness. He also seems to have a kind of nostalgia for religion, as long as its science-friendly, and capable (up to a point) of changing its mind. He ultimately is a “philosophical atheist” rather than a “scientific atheist”.
Atheism it seems to me is a more parsimonious “Occam’s razor” way of interpreting the world rather than theism which demands too many awkward adjustments for anomalous experience, like Ptolemaic astronomy.
Ruse compared the New Atheists with the fricken Tea Party? As far as I’m concerned he’s just Godwinned himself. I was never inclined to listen to him in the past, now I’ll give him absolutely zero attention.
Yes, I found his swipe at the New Atheists to be the most objectionable part of his essay. If he wants to equivocate on the degree to which his views are politically motivated, eh so what IMO. But to claim that the New Atheists are of the same ilk as the Tea Partiers — now THAT’s disingenuous.
Absolutely. I frankly wouldn’t care much at all about his (pointless, futile, patronising) attempt to help the commoners square their faith with reality if he could only resist spreading blatant falsehoods about others.
Perhaps Ruse does it on purpose – nothing’s guaranteed to get attention quicker than labelling an entire group as ‘moral absolutists’ or comparing them to a pack of infamous libertarian-when-convenient closet racists; then, when you receive your inevitable “wtf” reaction, you can claim the high ground and accuse the reactor of being strident.
“This said, I live in a country – a country of which a couple of years ago Lizzie [Ruse’s wife] and I voluntarily and with joy became citizens – where at least half of the people are genuine, believing, practicing Incas – and with others sympathetic or as committed to other faiths like the Aztec religion. My neighbors go to the temple on Sundays and believe that children should be sacrificed to the god Inti. So did the teachers of my kids and many of the folk that we interact with every day. Lizzie’s closest friend is the youth coordinator at the Cuzco festival and I am co-teaching a course this fall with one of my good friends, an ordained Inca priest.”
>>My neighbors go to the temple on Sundays and believe that children should be sacrificed to the god Inti.
“Of course, I have no belief in this god and I cannot condone child sacrifice, but I love the challenge of defending the ridiculous ideas that these simple-hearted believers dream up to justify their actions.
“And if I -– a non-believer -– can show the world that it is possible to be both a sophisticated public intellectual and a defender of simple folk traditions, that is all of the political motivation I want.”