Continuing our discussion of Platt’s classical paper on “strong inference” and, more broadly, the difference between soft and hard science, another reason for the difference between these two types of science mentioned but left unexamined by Platt is the relative complexity of the subject matters of different scientific disciplines. It seems to me trivially true that particle physics does in fact deal with the simplest objects in the entire universe: atoms and their constituents. At the opposite extreme, biology takes on the most complex things known to humanity: organisms made of billions of cells, and ecosystems whose properties are affected by tens of thousands of variables. In the middle we have a range of sciences dealing with the relatively simple (chemistry) or the slightly more complex (astronomy, geology), roughly on a continuum that parallels the popular perception of the divide between hard and soft disciplines. That is, a reasonable argument can in fact be made that, so to speak, physicists have been successful because they had it easy. This is of course by no means an attempt to downplay the spectacular progress of physics or chemistry, just to put it in a more reasonable perspective: if you are studying simple phenomena, are given loads of money to do it, and you are able to attract the brightest minds because they think that what you do is really cool, it would be astounding if you had not made dazzling progress!
Perhaps the most convincing piece of evidence in favor of a relationship between simplicity of the subject matter and success rate is provided by molecular biology, and in particular by its recent transition from a chemistry-like discipline to a more obviously biological one. Platt wrote his piece in 1964, merely eleven years after Watson, Crick and Franklin discovered the double helix structure of DNA. Other discoveries followed at a breath-taking pace, including the demonstration of how, from a chemical perspective, DNA replicates itself; the unraveling of the genetic code; the elucidation of many aspects of the intricate molecular machinery of the cell; and so on. But by the 1990s molecular biology began to move into the new phase of genomics, where high throughput instruments started churning a bewildering amount of data that had to be treated by statistical methods (one of the hallmarks of “soft” science). While early calls for the funding of the human genome project, for instance, made wildly optimistic claims about scientists soon being able to understand how to make a human being, cure cancer, and so on, we are in fact almost comically far from achieving those goals. The realization is beginning to dawn even on molecular biologists that the golden era of fast and sure progress may be over, and that we are now faced with unwieldy mountains of details about the biochemistry and physiology of living organisms that are very difficult to make sense of. In other words, we are witnessing the transformation of a hard science into a soft one!
Despite all of the reservations that I detailed above, let us proceed to tackle Platt’s main point: that the difference between hard and soft science is a matter of method, in particular what he refers to as “strong inference.” Inference, of course, is a general term for whenever we arrive at a (tentative) conclusion based on the available evidence concerning a particular problem or subject matter. If we are investigating a crime, for instance, we may infer who committed the murder from an analysis of fingerprints, weapon, motives, circumstances, etc. An inference can be weaker or stronger depending on how much evidence points to a particular conclusion rather than to another one, and also on the number of possible alternative solutions (if there are too many competing hypotheses the evidence may simply not be sufficient to discriminate among them, a situation that philosophers call the underdetermination of theories by the data). The term “strong inference” was used by Platt to indicate the following procedure:
1. Formulate a series of alternative hypotheses;
2. Set up a series of “crucial” experiments to test these hypotheses; ideally, each experiment should be able to rule out a particular hypothesis, if the hypothesis is in fact false;
3. Carry out the experiments in as clear-cut a manner as possible (to reduce ambiguities of interpretation of the results);
4. Eliminate the hypotheses that failed step (3) and go back to step (1) until you are left with the winner.
Or, as Sherlock Holmes famously put it in The Sign of Four, “when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.” Sounds simple enough. Why is it, then, that physicists can do it but ecologists or psychologist can’t get such a simple procedure right?
If Platt’s strong inference sounds familiar, it should: it is related to Francis Bacon’s method of induction, and Platt explicitly invokes the British philosopher in his article. The appeal of strong inference is that it is an extremely logical way of doing things: Platt envisions a logical decision tree, similar to those implemented in many computer programs, where each experiment tells us that one branch of the tree (one hypothesis) is to be discarded, until we arrive at the correct solution. For Platt, hard science works because its practitioners are well versed in strong inference, always busy pruning their logical trees; conversely, for some perverse reason scientists in the soft sciences stubbornly refuse to engage in such a successful practice, and as a consequence waste their careers disseminating bricks of knowledge in their courtyards, rather than building fantastical cathedrals of thought. There seems to be something obviously flawed with this picture: it is difficult to imagine that professionally trained scientists would not realize that they are going about their business in an entirely wrong fashion, and moreover that the solution is so simple that a high school student could easily understand and implement it. What is going on?
We can get a clue to the answer by examining Platt’s own examples of successful application of strong inference. For instance, from molecular biology, he mentions the discovery of the double helix structure of DNA, the hereditary material. Watson, Crick, Franklin and other people working on the problem (such as twice-Nobel laureate Linus Pauling, who actually came very close to beating the Watson-Crick team to the finishing line) were faced by a limited number of clear-cut alternatives: either DNA was made of two strands (as Watson and Crick thought, and as turned out to be the case) or three (as Pauling erroneously concluded). Even with such a simple choice, there really wasn’t any “crucial experiment” that settled the matter, but Watson and Crick had sufficient quantitative information from a variety of sources (chiefly Franklin’s crystallographic analyses) to eventually determine that the two-helix model was the winner. Another example from Platt’s article comes from high-energy physics, and deals with the question of whether fundamental particles always conserve a particular quantity called “parity.” The answer is yes or no, with no other possibilities, and a small number of experiments rapidly arrived at the solution: parity is not always conserved. Period. What these cases of success in the hard sciences have in common is that they really do lend themselves to a straightforward logical analysis: there is a limited number of options, and they are mutually exclusive. Just like logical trees work very well in classic Aristotelian logic (where the only values that can be attached to a proposition are True or False), so strong inference works well with a certain type of scientific question.
Yet, any logician knows very well that the realm of application of Aristotelian logic is rather limited, because many interesting questions do not admit of simple yes/no answers. Accordingly, modern logic has developed a variety of additional methods (for instance, modal logic) to deal with more nuanced situations that are typical of real-world problems. Similarly, the so-called soft sciences are concerned largely with complex issues that require more sophisticated, but often less clear cut, approaches; these approaches may be less satisfactory (but more realistic) than strong inference, in that they yield probabilistic (as opposed to qualitative) answers. Soft science, then, is soft because of very good reasons intrinsic in the nature of the object of study, certainly not because of the intellectual inferiority of its practitioners.
About Rationally Speaking
Thursday, January 29, 2009
Monday, January 26, 2009
Strong inference and the distinction between soft and hard science, part I
In doing some research for my next book (on the differences between science and pseudoscience), I re-read this rather stunning piece of writing: “Scientists these days tend to keep up a polite fiction that all science is equal. Except for the work of the misguided opponent whose arguments we happen to be refuting at the time, we speak as though every scientist's field and methods of study are as good as every other scientist's, and perhaps a little better. This keeps us all cordial when it comes to recommending each other for government grants.” Candid words about the nature of the scientific enterprise as seen from the inside by a participating scientist. And what makes these sentences even more remarkable is that they were not uttered behind close doors in a room full of smoke, but printed in one of the premiere scientific magazines in the world, Science. It was 1964, the year I was born, and the author was John R. Platt, a biophysicist at the University of Chicago. The debate between scientists on what constitutes “hard” (often equated with good, sound) and “soft” (implicitly considered less good) science has not subsided since.
Platt was frustrated by the fact that some fields of science make clear and rapid progress, while others keep mucking around without seemingly been able to accomplish much of relevance. As Platt put it, in the same article: “We speak piously of ... making small studies that will add another brick to the temple of science. Most such bricks just lie around the brickyard.” Physics, chemistry and molecular biology are considered by Platt (and many others) as hard sciences, the quintessential model of what science ought to be. Ecology, evolutionary biology, and even more, fields like psychology and sociology, are soft sciences, and the maximal aspiration of people working in these fields is assumed to be to find a way to make their disciplines as hard as physics. Platt’s article is a classic that should be read by anyone interested in the nature of science, and he was right in pointing out the problem; he was not quite as right in diagnosing its roots however, and even less so at suggesting a possible cure.
Platt’s attack on soft science began by stressing the fact that some disciplines seem to make fast and impressive progress, while others have a tendency of going around in circles, or at best move slowly and uncertainly. Before we examine why this is and what could possibly be done about it, a more fundamental question is whether Platt is correct at all in identifying the existence of a problem. It seems clear from even a cursory examination of the history of science that Platt is at least partially correct: some sciences do progress significantly more than others. However, the pattern appears more complex than a line dividing “hard” from “soft” disciplines: it is true that, say, particle physics and molecular biology have made spectacular advances during the 20th century; but it is also true that physics itself went through long periods of stasis on certain problems, for instance the long interval on the question of the nature of gravity between Newton and Einstein. And such periods of slow progress may occur again in the future, even for “the queen” of sciences: for all the talk about a “unified theory of everything,” physicists have been trying to reconcile the known discrepancies between their two most successful theories, general relativity and quantum mechanics, for close to a century; they have not succeeded yet.
Organismal biology (ecology and evolutionary biology) is often considered a quasi-soft science, and yet it has seen periods of great progress -- most obviously with Darwin during the second half of the 19th century, and more recently during the 1930s and 40s. Moreover, there is currently quite a bit of excited activity in both empirical and theoretical evolutionary biology, which may be leading to another major leap forward in our understanding of how organisms evolve and adapt to their environments. Molecular biology, on the other hand, hailed by Platt as a very successful hard science on the model of chemistry and physics, may be in the process of running into the limits of what it can achieve without falling back on “softer” and more messy approaches to its subject matter: it is true that the discovery of the structure of DNA in 1953 is one of the all-time landmarks of science; but it is equally clear that the much-touted sequencing of the whole human genome has provided very few hard answers for biologists, instead leading to a large number of “bricks laying around the brickyard,” as Platt would have put it. We know a lot more about the human (and other) genomes, but much of what we know is a complex mess of details that is difficult to extricate and to make into a clear picture of how genomes work and evolve.
All in all, it seems that one can indeed make an argument that different scientific disciplines proceed at dramatically different paces, but it is also true that the very same science may undergo fits and starts, sometimes enjoying periods of steady and fast progress, at other times being bogged down into a spell of going nowhere, either empirically (lack of new discoveries) or theoretically (lack of new insights).
If we agree that the nature of science is along the lines that I have just described, next we need to ask why it is so. Platt briefly mentions a number of possibilities, which he dismisses without discussion, but that we need to pay some attention to before we move to his main point. These alternative hypotheses for why a given science may behave “softly” include “the tractability of the subject, or the quality of education of the men [sic] drawn into it, or the size of research contracts.” In other words, particle physics, say, may be more successful than ecology because it is easier (more tractable), or because ecologists tend to be dumber than physicists, or because physicists get a lot more money for their research than ecologists do.
The second scenario is rather offensive (to the ecologists at least), but more importantly there are no data at all to back it up. And it is difficult to see how one could possibly measure the alleged differential “education” of people attracted to different scientific disciplines. Nearly all professional scientists nowadays have a Ph.D. in their discipline, as well as years of postdoctoral experience at conducting research and publishing papers. It is hard to imagine a reliable quantitative measure of the relative difficulty of their respective academic curricula, and it is next to preposterous to argue that scientists attracted to certain disciplines are smarter than those who find a different area of research more appealing. It would be like attempting to explain the discrepancy between the dynamism of 20th century jazz music and the relative stillness of symphonic (“classical”) music by arguing that jazz musicians are better educated or more talented than classically trained ones. It’s a no starter.
The other factors identified and readily dismissed by Platt, though, may actually carry significant weight. The obvious one is money: there is no question that, at least since World War II, physics has enjoyed by far the lion’s share of public funding devoted to scientific research, a trend that has seen some setback in recent years (interestingly, after the end of the Cold War). It would be foolish to underestimate the difference that money makes in science (or anything else, for that matter): more funds don’t mean simply that physicists can build and maintain ever larger instruments for their research (think of giant telescopes in astronomy, or particle accelerators in sub-nuclear physics), but perhaps equally important that they can attract better paid graduate students and postdoctoral associates, the lifeblood of academic research and scholarship. Then again, of course, money isn’t everything: our society has poured huge amounts of cash, for instance, into finding a cure for cancer (the so-called “war” on cancer), and although we have made much progress, we are not even close to having eliminated that scourge -- if it is at all possible.
Part of the differential ability of scientific disciplines to recruit young talent also deals with an imponderable that Platt did not even consider: the “coolness factor.” While being interested in science will hardly make you popular in high school or even in college, among science nerds it is well understood (if little substantiated by the facts) that doing physics, and in particular particle physics, is much more cool than doing geology, ecology or, barely mentionable, any of the social sciences -- the latter a term that some in academia still consider an oxymoron. The coolness factor probably derives from a variety of causes, not the least of which is the very fact just mentioned that there is more money in physics than in other fields of study, as well as the significant social impact of a few iconic figures, like Einstein (when was the last time you heard someone being praised for being “a Darwin”?).
Platt was frustrated by the fact that some fields of science make clear and rapid progress, while others keep mucking around without seemingly been able to accomplish much of relevance. As Platt put it, in the same article: “We speak piously of ... making small studies that will add another brick to the temple of science. Most such bricks just lie around the brickyard.” Physics, chemistry and molecular biology are considered by Platt (and many others) as hard sciences, the quintessential model of what science ought to be. Ecology, evolutionary biology, and even more, fields like psychology and sociology, are soft sciences, and the maximal aspiration of people working in these fields is assumed to be to find a way to make their disciplines as hard as physics. Platt’s article is a classic that should be read by anyone interested in the nature of science, and he was right in pointing out the problem; he was not quite as right in diagnosing its roots however, and even less so at suggesting a possible cure.
Platt’s attack on soft science began by stressing the fact that some disciplines seem to make fast and impressive progress, while others have a tendency of going around in circles, or at best move slowly and uncertainly. Before we examine why this is and what could possibly be done about it, a more fundamental question is whether Platt is correct at all in identifying the existence of a problem. It seems clear from even a cursory examination of the history of science that Platt is at least partially correct: some sciences do progress significantly more than others. However, the pattern appears more complex than a line dividing “hard” from “soft” disciplines: it is true that, say, particle physics and molecular biology have made spectacular advances during the 20th century; but it is also true that physics itself went through long periods of stasis on certain problems, for instance the long interval on the question of the nature of gravity between Newton and Einstein. And such periods of slow progress may occur again in the future, even for “the queen” of sciences: for all the talk about a “unified theory of everything,” physicists have been trying to reconcile the known discrepancies between their two most successful theories, general relativity and quantum mechanics, for close to a century; they have not succeeded yet.
Organismal biology (ecology and evolutionary biology) is often considered a quasi-soft science, and yet it has seen periods of great progress -- most obviously with Darwin during the second half of the 19th century, and more recently during the 1930s and 40s. Moreover, there is currently quite a bit of excited activity in both empirical and theoretical evolutionary biology, which may be leading to another major leap forward in our understanding of how organisms evolve and adapt to their environments. Molecular biology, on the other hand, hailed by Platt as a very successful hard science on the model of chemistry and physics, may be in the process of running into the limits of what it can achieve without falling back on “softer” and more messy approaches to its subject matter: it is true that the discovery of the structure of DNA in 1953 is one of the all-time landmarks of science; but it is equally clear that the much-touted sequencing of the whole human genome has provided very few hard answers for biologists, instead leading to a large number of “bricks laying around the brickyard,” as Platt would have put it. We know a lot more about the human (and other) genomes, but much of what we know is a complex mess of details that is difficult to extricate and to make into a clear picture of how genomes work and evolve.
All in all, it seems that one can indeed make an argument that different scientific disciplines proceed at dramatically different paces, but it is also true that the very same science may undergo fits and starts, sometimes enjoying periods of steady and fast progress, at other times being bogged down into a spell of going nowhere, either empirically (lack of new discoveries) or theoretically (lack of new insights).
If we agree that the nature of science is along the lines that I have just described, next we need to ask why it is so. Platt briefly mentions a number of possibilities, which he dismisses without discussion, but that we need to pay some attention to before we move to his main point. These alternative hypotheses for why a given science may behave “softly” include “the tractability of the subject, or the quality of education of the men [sic] drawn into it, or the size of research contracts.” In other words, particle physics, say, may be more successful than ecology because it is easier (more tractable), or because ecologists tend to be dumber than physicists, or because physicists get a lot more money for their research than ecologists do.
The second scenario is rather offensive (to the ecologists at least), but more importantly there are no data at all to back it up. And it is difficult to see how one could possibly measure the alleged differential “education” of people attracted to different scientific disciplines. Nearly all professional scientists nowadays have a Ph.D. in their discipline, as well as years of postdoctoral experience at conducting research and publishing papers. It is hard to imagine a reliable quantitative measure of the relative difficulty of their respective academic curricula, and it is next to preposterous to argue that scientists attracted to certain disciplines are smarter than those who find a different area of research more appealing. It would be like attempting to explain the discrepancy between the dynamism of 20th century jazz music and the relative stillness of symphonic (“classical”) music by arguing that jazz musicians are better educated or more talented than classically trained ones. It’s a no starter.
The other factors identified and readily dismissed by Platt, though, may actually carry significant weight. The obvious one is money: there is no question that, at least since World War II, physics has enjoyed by far the lion’s share of public funding devoted to scientific research, a trend that has seen some setback in recent years (interestingly, after the end of the Cold War). It would be foolish to underestimate the difference that money makes in science (or anything else, for that matter): more funds don’t mean simply that physicists can build and maintain ever larger instruments for their research (think of giant telescopes in astronomy, or particle accelerators in sub-nuclear physics), but perhaps equally important that they can attract better paid graduate students and postdoctoral associates, the lifeblood of academic research and scholarship. Then again, of course, money isn’t everything: our society has poured huge amounts of cash, for instance, into finding a cure for cancer (the so-called “war” on cancer), and although we have made much progress, we are not even close to having eliminated that scourge -- if it is at all possible.
Part of the differential ability of scientific disciplines to recruit young talent also deals with an imponderable that Platt did not even consider: the “coolness factor.” While being interested in science will hardly make you popular in high school or even in college, among science nerds it is well understood (if little substantiated by the facts) that doing physics, and in particular particle physics, is much more cool than doing geology, ecology or, barely mentionable, any of the social sciences -- the latter a term that some in academia still consider an oxymoron. The coolness factor probably derives from a variety of causes, not the least of which is the very fact just mentioned that there is more money in physics than in other fields of study, as well as the significant social impact of a few iconic figures, like Einstein (when was the last time you heard someone being praised for being “a Darwin”?).
Friday, January 23, 2009
Superstition can kill your children
Just a few days ago I wrote about how people are killing around the world because of superstitious beliefs, for instance accusations of witchcraft. Well, this time around the tragedy happened in the United States, and the victim is Kara Neumann, an 11-year old who died of diabetes because her parents withheld medical treatment. Their reason? The “online ministry” to which they belong preaches that “Jesus never sent anyone to a doctor or a hospital. Jesus offered healing by one means only! Healing was by faith.”
Jesus may have offered healing by faith only, but did it work? If the case of little Kara is any indication, it didn’t, and an innocent child was killed as a result. (Incidentally, Jesus never preached via the internet. Jesus preached by talking to people in person only! So I strongly encourage Unleavened Bread Ministries to shut down their web site immediately, or they risk going to Hell "en mass"…)
As readers of this blog know, I have my disagreements with Richard Dawkins, one being that I do not think that religious upbringing automatically constitutes child abuse, as Dawkins maintains. But in this case that term surely applies. Kara’s parents, Leilani and Dale Neumann, claimed that the Marathon County, Wisconsin, State Attorney violated their constitutional right to religious freedom in charging them with a crime. But Judge Vincent Howard of Marathon County Circuit Court ordered them to stand trial anyway, responding that “The free exercise clause of the First Amendment protects religious belief, but not necessarily conduct.”
Indeed, it is the demarcation line between belief (or thought) and conduct (or action) that defines issues of morality, a point often completely lost on religious zealots. I have a close friend who was raised in the Church of Christ and who went through a terrible period in his late teens and early twenties. The reason was that he was absolutely convinced that he was going to Hell. Why? Because he had lusting thoughts about attractive women (imagine that!), and although he never acted on such thoughts, his preacher told him that thinking them was just as bad. I always wondered why he didn’t pursue the women in question anyway, then. I mean, if you are going to Hell regardless of your actions, you might as well enjoy the ride before you get there.
Back to the case of Kara Neumann, it may turn out to be important if it ends up setting a legal precedent. Apparently the law in the United States is very vague (and, as usual, an incredible patchwork at the state level), so that, for instance, 30 States (including Wisconsin) provide limited protection from prosecution in cases of child neglect involving religious beliefs, but it isn’t clear how limited such protection actually is, because the statutes are rarely challenged in court. The result of this protection, meanwhile, has been the death of a 15-month old girl in Oregon last year (pneumonia), and, in the same state, the death of a 16-year old boy of a very painful -- and eminently treatable -- urinary tract infection. Praised be the Lord!
The bottom line is that adults have the right to hold whatever insane and stupid beliefs they like, and even to conduct their life accordingly -- unless such beliefs directly lead to the death or injury of others, children or adult alike (think 9/11). As one of the Neumann’s neighbors put it, “That little girl wasn’t old enough to make the decision about going to a doctor, and now, because some religious extremists went too far, she’s gone.” Precisely.
Jesus may have offered healing by faith only, but did it work? If the case of little Kara is any indication, it didn’t, and an innocent child was killed as a result. (Incidentally, Jesus never preached via the internet. Jesus preached by talking to people in person only! So I strongly encourage Unleavened Bread Ministries to shut down their web site immediately, or they risk going to Hell "en mass"…)
As readers of this blog know, I have my disagreements with Richard Dawkins, one being that I do not think that religious upbringing automatically constitutes child abuse, as Dawkins maintains. But in this case that term surely applies. Kara’s parents, Leilani and Dale Neumann, claimed that the Marathon County, Wisconsin, State Attorney violated their constitutional right to religious freedom in charging them with a crime. But Judge Vincent Howard of Marathon County Circuit Court ordered them to stand trial anyway, responding that “The free exercise clause of the First Amendment protects religious belief, but not necessarily conduct.”
Indeed, it is the demarcation line between belief (or thought) and conduct (or action) that defines issues of morality, a point often completely lost on religious zealots. I have a close friend who was raised in the Church of Christ and who went through a terrible period in his late teens and early twenties. The reason was that he was absolutely convinced that he was going to Hell. Why? Because he had lusting thoughts about attractive women (imagine that!), and although he never acted on such thoughts, his preacher told him that thinking them was just as bad. I always wondered why he didn’t pursue the women in question anyway, then. I mean, if you are going to Hell regardless of your actions, you might as well enjoy the ride before you get there.
Back to the case of Kara Neumann, it may turn out to be important if it ends up setting a legal precedent. Apparently the law in the United States is very vague (and, as usual, an incredible patchwork at the state level), so that, for instance, 30 States (including Wisconsin) provide limited protection from prosecution in cases of child neglect involving religious beliefs, but it isn’t clear how limited such protection actually is, because the statutes are rarely challenged in court. The result of this protection, meanwhile, has been the death of a 15-month old girl in Oregon last year (pneumonia), and, in the same state, the death of a 16-year old boy of a very painful -- and eminently treatable -- urinary tract infection. Praised be the Lord!
The bottom line is that adults have the right to hold whatever insane and stupid beliefs they like, and even to conduct their life accordingly -- unless such beliefs directly lead to the death or injury of others, children or adult alike (think 9/11). As one of the Neumann’s neighbors put it, “That little girl wasn’t old enough to make the decision about going to a doctor, and now, because some religious extremists went too far, she’s gone.” Precisely.
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
Superstition can kill you
I just got back from a trip to Las Vegas, where the highlight was attending a Penn & Teller show. They are the magicians who have an entire tv series devoted to debunking the paranormal, appropriately called Bullshit! As a skeptic, one of the most annoying questions I get (and I’m sure P&T do also) is “why spoil other people’s beliefs? What’s the harm? Why are you so cynical?” (Note: skepticism is most emphatically not the same thing as cynicism, either in English meaning or in terms of the original Greek philosophical traditions.)
Well, ask the young woman that a couple of weeks ago was seized by some of her neighbors in Papua New Guinea, stripped naked, bound, gagged, and set on fire on suspicion of being a witch. She died a horrible and senseless death. This is not an isolated case in that part of the world (or in Africa). According to the local police more than 50 people were killed in the past year in two Papua New Guinea provinces because they were suspected of practicing sorcery. Anthropologist Bruce Knauft of Emory University has conducted a study according to which over the past four decades local families have seen a full one third of their adults killed violently, 90% of the deaths being connected to superstitious beliefs about witchcraft and the like.
Papua New Guinea is one of four Asian countries afflicted by an AIDS epidemics, but many villagers think it is witches, not the HIV virus, that spreads the disease (again, the same position held by many people, and even some governments, in Africa). Superstition is an easy “explanation” when the reality is either too difficult to comprehend or too hard to accept, but people are literally dying as a result of it.
But that’s the third world, right? Yes, but does witchcraft really sound that different from the practice of, say, snake handlers and speakers in tongues, right here in the good old U.S of A.? Do you remember Sarah Palin saved by a witch doctor? Moreover, plenty of people in the Western world die or get ill because they take homeopathic “remedies” (i.e., water and sugar) for treating serious conditions, for instance. And there is, of course, the psychological (and more often than not, financial) pain experienced by people whose grief and hopes are exploited by those who sell them instant Jesus cures, or tantalize them with the possibility of once again communicating with their loved ones.
That is why the work of the skeptic is not simply a matter of enjoying the intellectual challenge of exposing the frauds, or even the educational challenge of raising the world’s critical thinking abilities by a notch or two. It is work that helps reduce the exploitation of people’s fears for financial gain, power, or prestige. And it is work that may eventually save lives like the one of the innocent young woman who died in Papua New Guinea, yet another innocent victim of ignorance and stupidity.
P.S.: After writing the first draft of this column I went for a walk in my progressive and liberal neighborhood of Park Slope Brooklyn, where the average income and level of education are both very high (there seems to be an uncanny correlation between the two). In the elevator of my building I shared the ride with a woman from another floor. We made small talk about the Obama inauguration. I said we can hope for a better presidency this time around, to which she replied that we don’t need hope, we need to pray. You see, that’s the most important thing, period. She went on to explain to me that 9/11 was -- and I quote verbatim -- a “glorious day” because the whole nation joined in prayer. Oh boy, we really have a lot of work to do.
Well, ask the young woman that a couple of weeks ago was seized by some of her neighbors in Papua New Guinea, stripped naked, bound, gagged, and set on fire on suspicion of being a witch. She died a horrible and senseless death. This is not an isolated case in that part of the world (or in Africa). According to the local police more than 50 people were killed in the past year in two Papua New Guinea provinces because they were suspected of practicing sorcery. Anthropologist Bruce Knauft of Emory University has conducted a study according to which over the past four decades local families have seen a full one third of their adults killed violently, 90% of the deaths being connected to superstitious beliefs about witchcraft and the like.
Papua New Guinea is one of four Asian countries afflicted by an AIDS epidemics, but many villagers think it is witches, not the HIV virus, that spreads the disease (again, the same position held by many people, and even some governments, in Africa). Superstition is an easy “explanation” when the reality is either too difficult to comprehend or too hard to accept, but people are literally dying as a result of it.
But that’s the third world, right? Yes, but does witchcraft really sound that different from the practice of, say, snake handlers and speakers in tongues, right here in the good old U.S of A.? Do you remember Sarah Palin saved by a witch doctor? Moreover, plenty of people in the Western world die or get ill because they take homeopathic “remedies” (i.e., water and sugar) for treating serious conditions, for instance. And there is, of course, the psychological (and more often than not, financial) pain experienced by people whose grief and hopes are exploited by those who sell them instant Jesus cures, or tantalize them with the possibility of once again communicating with their loved ones.
That is why the work of the skeptic is not simply a matter of enjoying the intellectual challenge of exposing the frauds, or even the educational challenge of raising the world’s critical thinking abilities by a notch or two. It is work that helps reduce the exploitation of people’s fears for financial gain, power, or prestige. And it is work that may eventually save lives like the one of the innocent young woman who died in Papua New Guinea, yet another innocent victim of ignorance and stupidity.
P.S.: After writing the first draft of this column I went for a walk in my progressive and liberal neighborhood of Park Slope Brooklyn, where the average income and level of education are both very high (there seems to be an uncanny correlation between the two). In the elevator of my building I shared the ride with a woman from another floor. We made small talk about the Obama inauguration. I said we can hope for a better presidency this time around, to which she replied that we don’t need hope, we need to pray. You see, that’s the most important thing, period. She went on to explain to me that 9/11 was -- and I quote verbatim -- a “glorious day” because the whole nation joined in prayer. Oh boy, we really have a lot of work to do.
Thursday, January 15, 2009
The Pope questions apparitions of Virgin, but only some
This is just too precious: Pope Benedict XVI is about to release a handbook to distinguish genuine divine apparitions from fake ones. You see, the Church has counted 295 apparitions of the Virgin Mary between 1905 and 1995, but only 11 of these are considered “genuine.” Funny, I would have ventured to say that they are all bogus, but clearly I’m not the Pope.Benedict thinks that one can tell the difference between real and fake apparitions “with utmost rigour,” and his new guidelines call for a series of steps to curtail false claims that might divert some faithful away from the Church and into (other) cults. Here are the steps that will be taken according to the Vatican’s version of CSI (actually the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith):
To begin with, the Church will tell the alleged witnesses to simply shut up. If they don’t comply, this will be taken as evidence that their claims are false. If you don’t follow the logic, don’t worry, it gets worse.
Next, the Vatican will call in some psychiatrists -- interestingly, either Catholic or atheists (what about Muslim or Jewish ones?) -- to certify that the visionaries are not nuts or hallucinating. (Good luck.)
Then the Church task force will consider the subject’s education. You see, if they are too educated they may have had access to reports of previous apparitions, which would have given them the know-how for effective fakery. This essentially eliminates anyone with a computer that can do google or wiki searches.
If the alleged visionary has successfully passed the preliminary tests, then he or she will be questioned by, I kid you not, demonologists and exorcists -- just to make sure that the apparition is divine, and not a dirty trick perpetrated by good old Satan. The implication, of course, is that a relatively well educated person like the Pope actually believes in the literal existence of an actively plotting Satan. Oh boy.
Just in case you were wondering, by the way, today is not April 1st, and the above material is not taken from the Onion.
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
Why I don’t believe in bipartisanship
President Barack Hussein Obama (sounds nice, doesn’t it?) wishes to usher in a new era of bipartisan politics, where things get done for the good of the country and across political divides. I’m sure he means it, but it’s a terrible idea. Bipartisanship is a nice concept, and occasionally it even works. It should be pursued -- with caution -- whenever possible, but one should be under no illusion that it is a stable new way to do politics. The reason for this is that -- contra to the nonsense spouted by the likes of Ralph Nader -- there are profound differences between Republicans and Democrats in the US, just like there are between conservatives and progressives everywhere in the world.
Let me start with an example from my native country, Italy. For the past couple of decades Italy has been de facto a country with two parties: although there are in theory many parties big and small, they gravitate toward one of two “poles,” and it is one or the other of these two coalitions that has held power in the country for several years at a time. Now, just like in the US, the Italian left often speaks of bipartisanship and cooperation, and they (largely) mean it; as a result, the Italian left gets almost nothing of relevance done while in power. Then it’s the other guys’ turn, and they plunge head down with their agenda, completely oblivious to and even openly scornful of calls for cooperation and compromise. The result is that Italy has been on a steady trajectory to become one of the most regressive, unjust and racist countries in Europe. And unfortunately I do not see a reversal of this slide for many years to come, given the apparent inability of the left to mount any significant opposition to the Berlusconi government.
Back to the US now. Let me give you an obvious example of why Obama should simply pursue his policies and pass as many bills (not to mention appoint as many Supreme Court and other justices) as he can manage with the help of a Democratic congress, before things inevitably will change again and the Republicans will be back on the upswing (thankfully, in a democracy there is no such thing as a “permanent majority,” to use the infamous Karl Rove phrase; unless, that is, that democracy is effectively dead).
The example is the recent passage by the new Congress of two bills to curtail decades of discrimination against women in the work place. You see, since 1963 it is illegal in the US to pay a woman less than a man for the same sort of job, and yet this keeps happening because of huge loopholes in the law. Business and even some American lower courts have argued that discrimination is justifiable because of “market forces” (imagine substituting “African-Americans” for “women” in this context and see how that sounds). The Democratic controlled House has now passed a bill that allows women more than just 180 days to file a lawsuit against their employer for alleged cases of pay discrimination, overturning a decision made by the conservative Supreme Court just last year. To put it as Representative George Miller (D-CA) did, “Under the [Supreme Court] decision employers can get away with years of pay discrimination if they hide it for the first 180 days.” The new bill, instead, treats every paycheck as a case of discrimination, which means that the employee can sue as long as the discrimination is going on. Duh!
You would think that this is the kind of no-brain legislation in favor of fairness (for, incidentally, half of the electorate!) that even most Republicans could get on board with. You would be wrong: the bill passed the House with a 247 to 171 vote -- only two Republicans voted in favor. The second bill, which makes it easier for women to prove discrimination when it occurs, passed 256 to 163, with only ten Republicans voting for it.
Not surprisingly, Bush threatened to veto both bills, citing the usual crap about the fact that the legislation will “invite a surge of litigation” and “impose a tremendous burden on employers.” Fortunately, Bush isn’t going to be able to veto either bill, because he will be out of office when the legislation reaches the presidential desk (after the Senate, hopefully, passes a similar bill). Obama has already said that he is eager to sign it.
That is why bipartisanship doesn’t make sense. Individual Republican or Democratic legislators have, of course, a right to vote according to their assessment of each bill, not necessarily along strict party lines (and the voters have a right not to re-elect them if they keep voting with the other party), but there are fundamental philosophical disagreements between the two parties on almost any issue of relevance to the public. These disagreements should be honored by the leaders of both parties, who should seek compromise when possible, but forge ahead with their agenda in any case they can. Needless to say, Republicans -- like their Italian counterparts -- know this and consistently play a highly efficient game. It is the left, in Italy as much as in the United States, that needs to abandon naive notions about cooperation in politics and get as much done as possible when they have a chance. President Obama, this means you have at least a couple of years starting from next week. Make good use of ‘em, there is no time to waste.
Let me start with an example from my native country, Italy. For the past couple of decades Italy has been de facto a country with two parties: although there are in theory many parties big and small, they gravitate toward one of two “poles,” and it is one or the other of these two coalitions that has held power in the country for several years at a time. Now, just like in the US, the Italian left often speaks of bipartisanship and cooperation, and they (largely) mean it; as a result, the Italian left gets almost nothing of relevance done while in power. Then it’s the other guys’ turn, and they plunge head down with their agenda, completely oblivious to and even openly scornful of calls for cooperation and compromise. The result is that Italy has been on a steady trajectory to become one of the most regressive, unjust and racist countries in Europe. And unfortunately I do not see a reversal of this slide for many years to come, given the apparent inability of the left to mount any significant opposition to the Berlusconi government.
Back to the US now. Let me give you an obvious example of why Obama should simply pursue his policies and pass as many bills (not to mention appoint as many Supreme Court and other justices) as he can manage with the help of a Democratic congress, before things inevitably will change again and the Republicans will be back on the upswing (thankfully, in a democracy there is no such thing as a “permanent majority,” to use the infamous Karl Rove phrase; unless, that is, that democracy is effectively dead).
The example is the recent passage by the new Congress of two bills to curtail decades of discrimination against women in the work place. You see, since 1963 it is illegal in the US to pay a woman less than a man for the same sort of job, and yet this keeps happening because of huge loopholes in the law. Business and even some American lower courts have argued that discrimination is justifiable because of “market forces” (imagine substituting “African-Americans” for “women” in this context and see how that sounds). The Democratic controlled House has now passed a bill that allows women more than just 180 days to file a lawsuit against their employer for alleged cases of pay discrimination, overturning a decision made by the conservative Supreme Court just last year. To put it as Representative George Miller (D-CA) did, “Under the [Supreme Court] decision employers can get away with years of pay discrimination if they hide it for the first 180 days.” The new bill, instead, treats every paycheck as a case of discrimination, which means that the employee can sue as long as the discrimination is going on. Duh!
You would think that this is the kind of no-brain legislation in favor of fairness (for, incidentally, half of the electorate!) that even most Republicans could get on board with. You would be wrong: the bill passed the House with a 247 to 171 vote -- only two Republicans voted in favor. The second bill, which makes it easier for women to prove discrimination when it occurs, passed 256 to 163, with only ten Republicans voting for it.
Not surprisingly, Bush threatened to veto both bills, citing the usual crap about the fact that the legislation will “invite a surge of litigation” and “impose a tremendous burden on employers.” Fortunately, Bush isn’t going to be able to veto either bill, because he will be out of office when the legislation reaches the presidential desk (after the Senate, hopefully, passes a similar bill). Obama has already said that he is eager to sign it.
That is why bipartisanship doesn’t make sense. Individual Republican or Democratic legislators have, of course, a right to vote according to their assessment of each bill, not necessarily along strict party lines (and the voters have a right not to re-elect them if they keep voting with the other party), but there are fundamental philosophical disagreements between the two parties on almost any issue of relevance to the public. These disagreements should be honored by the leaders of both parties, who should seek compromise when possible, but forge ahead with their agenda in any case they can. Needless to say, Republicans -- like their Italian counterparts -- know this and consistently play a highly efficient game. It is the left, in Italy as much as in the United States, that needs to abandon naive notions about cooperation in politics and get as much done as possible when they have a chance. President Obama, this means you have at least a couple of years starting from next week. Make good use of ‘em, there is no time to waste.
Saturday, January 10, 2009
Christians complain atheism does not meet advertising standards
No, this isn’t a headline from the Onion, it’s the latest turn in the “atheist buses” controversy in England. As you probably know, the British Humanist Association has endorsed an idea by comedian Ariane Sherine, who was annoyed by Christian advertisements on British public transport that threatened eternal damnation. Sherine thought it would be nice to give people a bit of metaphysical relief by writing on buses and subways that “There probably is no God, now stop worrying and enjoy your life.”
To Sherine’s utter surprise, her campaign quickly raised £140,000, which has made it possible to run the advertisement on 800 buses across England. Not at all unexpectedly, this has generated an angry response by some religionists, despite the fact that church attendance in that country is one of the lowest in the world. And here is the kicker: Christian campaigner Stephen Green and others have actually filed formal complaints with the British Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) on the ground that the atheists are violating “guidelines on taste and decency.” According to Green “If you're going to put out what appears to be a factual statement then you have to be able to back it up. They've got to substantiate this proposition that in all probability, God doesn't exist.”
Oh really? Talk about a spectacular example of the pot calling the kettle black! Let me get this straight: a statement that supernatural entities probably do not exist is, in Green’s and his loony friends’ mind, less obviously substantiated than a statement that there is such a thing as everlasting punishment in hell? To put it another, perfectly parallel, way: claiming that Santa Clause (probably) doesn’t exist would also be less “tasteful, decent, and factual” than to claim that he really does deliver presents to the world’s (Christian) children every 24th of December. If you think I’m joking, you should read the excellent “Santa Lives! Five Conclusive Arguments for the Existence of Santa Claus” by Ellis Weiner (the arguments are: ontological, causal, from design, experiential, and moral -- sounds familiar?).
Now this hilarious insanity has put the ASA in the rather awkward position of having to rule on a long standing metaphysical dispute. If the agency lets the atheist campaign go on, it will implicitly be saying to the British public that it is in fact reasonable to state that god probably doesn’t exist; if, on the other hand, Sherine’s and the British humanists are found to be at fault, the ASA would in effect taking the position that there is sufficient evidence for the existence of hell, so that Christian groups are not violating its advertising standards. Philosophers and theologians the world over will surely be following this one with utmost interest!
By the way, I have to note that the only atheist who has (partially) objected to the campaign is our good old lovable curmudgeon, Richard Dawkins. He doesn’t like the word “probably” in the ad. This is because Dawkins, as I have pointed out before, insists on maintaining the indefensible position that science can disprove the existence of (all) gods, though he is a bit wishy washy about this even in his "The God Delusion", where he says both that he is not absolutely certain of god’s nonexistence and that science can disprove such a ridiculous notion anyway. The reality is that science cannot disprove the supernatural, but that a philosophical argument informed by sound science can, in fact, reduce the likelihood of the supernatural to the very, very improbable indeed. That’s why Sherine and the British Humanist Association got it exactly right in the wording of their campaign. So now go on and enjoy your day without fear, there (probably) is no hell.
To Sherine’s utter surprise, her campaign quickly raised £140,000, which has made it possible to run the advertisement on 800 buses across England. Not at all unexpectedly, this has generated an angry response by some religionists, despite the fact that church attendance in that country is one of the lowest in the world. And here is the kicker: Christian campaigner Stephen Green and others have actually filed formal complaints with the British Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) on the ground that the atheists are violating “guidelines on taste and decency.” According to Green “If you're going to put out what appears to be a factual statement then you have to be able to back it up. They've got to substantiate this proposition that in all probability, God doesn't exist.”
Oh really? Talk about a spectacular example of the pot calling the kettle black! Let me get this straight: a statement that supernatural entities probably do not exist is, in Green’s and his loony friends’ mind, less obviously substantiated than a statement that there is such a thing as everlasting punishment in hell? To put it another, perfectly parallel, way: claiming that Santa Clause (probably) doesn’t exist would also be less “tasteful, decent, and factual” than to claim that he really does deliver presents to the world’s (Christian) children every 24th of December. If you think I’m joking, you should read the excellent “Santa Lives! Five Conclusive Arguments for the Existence of Santa Claus” by Ellis Weiner (the arguments are: ontological, causal, from design, experiential, and moral -- sounds familiar?).
Now this hilarious insanity has put the ASA in the rather awkward position of having to rule on a long standing metaphysical dispute. If the agency lets the atheist campaign go on, it will implicitly be saying to the British public that it is in fact reasonable to state that god probably doesn’t exist; if, on the other hand, Sherine’s and the British humanists are found to be at fault, the ASA would in effect taking the position that there is sufficient evidence for the existence of hell, so that Christian groups are not violating its advertising standards. Philosophers and theologians the world over will surely be following this one with utmost interest!
By the way, I have to note that the only atheist who has (partially) objected to the campaign is our good old lovable curmudgeon, Richard Dawkins. He doesn’t like the word “probably” in the ad. This is because Dawkins, as I have pointed out before, insists on maintaining the indefensible position that science can disprove the existence of (all) gods, though he is a bit wishy washy about this even in his "The God Delusion", where he says both that he is not absolutely certain of god’s nonexistence and that science can disprove such a ridiculous notion anyway. The reality is that science cannot disprove the supernatural, but that a philosophical argument informed by sound science can, in fact, reduce the likelihood of the supernatural to the very, very improbable indeed. That’s why Sherine and the British Humanist Association got it exactly right in the wording of their campaign. So now go on and enjoy your day without fear, there (probably) is no hell.
Tuesday, January 06, 2009
Spirituality for the Skeptic?
I’m reading Robert Solomon’s Spirituality for the Skeptic for a book club meeting I’m going to later this month, and so far I don’t buy it (the argument, not the book). Solomon is a thoughtful philosopher, his intentions are good, and his arguments are sound. But I still don’t buy it.
The goal of the book is to sketch a broader view of “spirituality,” one that is not intrinsically religious or mystical, and to include secular skeptics (or, as we more often call ourselves, secular humanists) in it. There are several problems with this project, not the least of which is that the term “spiritual” is so intertwined with religion and mysticism that it is simply hopeless to try to rescue it.
Solomon acknowledges in the preface to the book that he finds “most of what passe[s] as spirituality something of a sham, fueled by pretension and dominated by hypocrisy.” Here here, brother. Nonetheless he enlists some of the big guns of philosophy, particularly Hegel and Nietzsche, to make the point that there are more genuine and productive ways to conceive of spirituality. Solomon wishes to “naturalize” spirituality starting from the standpoint that, in his words, “if spirituality means anything it means thoughtfulness” (p. 5). By this he seems to suggest that to be spiritual is to think about and appreciate the world as it is (as opposed to as how one wishes it to be). Spirituality in this sense is not just scientific or even philosophical inquiry -- though the two are necessary components of it -- but includes an aesthetic sense as well. So far so good, but why use the word “spiritual,” which immediately conjures up thoughts of, well, spirits? This is where I begin to lose Solomon (and it happens pretty early in the book).
For instance, the author says that forgiveness plays a role in spirituality. But he doesn’t apply forgiveness, as one might expect, just to what others do to you or to the world, i.e., to the agents of intentional actions. Solomon actually extends the concept of forgiveness to life itself, as in: “This is also true when the betrayer [of your trust] is not a person but life itself, when our hopes and expectations have been thwarted. … It means, through our actions and feelings as well as through our thoughts, forgiving the world” (p. 56). Come again? Even Solomon immediately realizes that this, as he himself puts it, smells of “implicit animism,” but that possibility doesn’t bother him because “even the most hard-headed materialists tend, in their personal dealings with the world, to be animists” (p. 56).
Oh no they don’t! First of all, I resent the “hard-headed” modifier to the term materialist, not so subtly suggesting that there is something wrong with materialism (in the sense of a naturalistic philosophy, not in that of Madonna’s “Material Girl”). Second, this is precisely what is questionable about attempting to co-opt a word like “spiritual” for purposes that most clearly are not reflected in its historical and cultural use. One ends up on a linguistic slippery slope that brings him perilously close to the sham, pretension and hypocrisy that Solomon decries at the beginning of the book.
Spiritual is in antithesis with material/natural, and it ought to be left that way; to talk about spirituality for the skeptic is simply not helpful. It plays straight into the hands of mystics and religionists who insist that there is something missing from a naturalistic worldview. There is nothing missing because there is nothing else to add. What we need instead is a new way to talk about how one can have an aesthetic and compassionate view of life, how one can be emotional in the positive sense of the word, and still understand the world through reason and empirical evidence. Indeed, an argument can be made that looking at the world the way it really is engenders true compassion and appreciation, freed of the distorting filters of mysticism and religion.
Still, we seem to need a new vocabulary to talk about the secular equivalent of spirituality, soul and the like. I think that there is a perfectly good sense in which, for instance, I am a “spiritual” person, or that listening to good music or reading a good book is good for my “soul,” and so on. But to use those terms is a cop out that I’d rather not engage in. Therefore, dear readers, what would you suggest we use as alternative words for terms like “spiritual” and “soul”? This is more than an academic exercise, you know. When my wife and I found ourselves through e-dating, we had both put “spiritual but not religious” on our profiles, and as a result had to wade through a pile of emails from new age fruitcakes before finding each other...
The goal of the book is to sketch a broader view of “spirituality,” one that is not intrinsically religious or mystical, and to include secular skeptics (or, as we more often call ourselves, secular humanists) in it. There are several problems with this project, not the least of which is that the term “spiritual” is so intertwined with religion and mysticism that it is simply hopeless to try to rescue it.
Solomon acknowledges in the preface to the book that he finds “most of what passe[s] as spirituality something of a sham, fueled by pretension and dominated by hypocrisy.” Here here, brother. Nonetheless he enlists some of the big guns of philosophy, particularly Hegel and Nietzsche, to make the point that there are more genuine and productive ways to conceive of spirituality. Solomon wishes to “naturalize” spirituality starting from the standpoint that, in his words, “if spirituality means anything it means thoughtfulness” (p. 5). By this he seems to suggest that to be spiritual is to think about and appreciate the world as it is (as opposed to as how one wishes it to be). Spirituality in this sense is not just scientific or even philosophical inquiry -- though the two are necessary components of it -- but includes an aesthetic sense as well. So far so good, but why use the word “spiritual,” which immediately conjures up thoughts of, well, spirits? This is where I begin to lose Solomon (and it happens pretty early in the book).
For instance, the author says that forgiveness plays a role in spirituality. But he doesn’t apply forgiveness, as one might expect, just to what others do to you or to the world, i.e., to the agents of intentional actions. Solomon actually extends the concept of forgiveness to life itself, as in: “This is also true when the betrayer [of your trust] is not a person but life itself, when our hopes and expectations have been thwarted. … It means, through our actions and feelings as well as through our thoughts, forgiving the world” (p. 56). Come again? Even Solomon immediately realizes that this, as he himself puts it, smells of “implicit animism,” but that possibility doesn’t bother him because “even the most hard-headed materialists tend, in their personal dealings with the world, to be animists” (p. 56).
Oh no they don’t! First of all, I resent the “hard-headed” modifier to the term materialist, not so subtly suggesting that there is something wrong with materialism (in the sense of a naturalistic philosophy, not in that of Madonna’s “Material Girl”). Second, this is precisely what is questionable about attempting to co-opt a word like “spiritual” for purposes that most clearly are not reflected in its historical and cultural use. One ends up on a linguistic slippery slope that brings him perilously close to the sham, pretension and hypocrisy that Solomon decries at the beginning of the book.
Spiritual is in antithesis with material/natural, and it ought to be left that way; to talk about spirituality for the skeptic is simply not helpful. It plays straight into the hands of mystics and religionists who insist that there is something missing from a naturalistic worldview. There is nothing missing because there is nothing else to add. What we need instead is a new way to talk about how one can have an aesthetic and compassionate view of life, how one can be emotional in the positive sense of the word, and still understand the world through reason and empirical evidence. Indeed, an argument can be made that looking at the world the way it really is engenders true compassion and appreciation, freed of the distorting filters of mysticism and religion.
Still, we seem to need a new vocabulary to talk about the secular equivalent of spirituality, soul and the like. I think that there is a perfectly good sense in which, for instance, I am a “spiritual” person, or that listening to good music or reading a good book is good for my “soul,” and so on. But to use those terms is a cop out that I’d rather not engage in. Therefore, dear readers, what would you suggest we use as alternative words for terms like “spiritual” and “soul”? This is more than an academic exercise, you know. When my wife and I found ourselves through e-dating, we had both put “spiritual but not religious” on our profiles, and as a result had to wade through a pile of emails from new age fruitcakes before finding each other...
Sunday, January 04, 2009
The Atheist, the play
Yesterday I went to see The Atheist, a play by Ronan Noone. The only character is a morally bankrupt journalist, played by an excellent Campbell Scott, who cynically manipulates his mother, his colleagues, his girlfriend and the world at large in a single minded and ultimately devastating pursuit of fame. Though some of the details of the plot are scarcely believable, the character is absolutely fascinating, not in small part because of Scott’s spectacular performance at New York’s Barrow Street Theater. The real problem with the play is the title.
“Atheist” here is used as a straightforward and unquestioned synonym for amoral (not quite immoral, as the main character never really does anything illegal, always teetering on the fuzzy borderlands of morality, which greatly contributes to making the play interesting and the protagonist intriguing). Augustine Early, the Atheist, simply tells the audience how he arrived at the conclusion that he ought to pursue only his self-interest: “I didn't come into my own, understand my talent that is, until after I lost my faith in God, and once I let that go... fuckin' carte blanche!”
Now, imagine what would have happened if Noone had written a play about, say, sexual depravity, and entitled it “The Homosexual.” Or one about religious intolerance with the title “The Muslim.” Or one about corrupt financiers called “The Jew.” You get the drift. Augustine Early is not an atheist in any interesting sense of the word, and his behavior arises out of an ingrained lack of empathy for humanity, not a disbelief in god. Early doesn’t talk much about atheism during the play, with only a few sentences on the topic at the beginning of each act. Indeed, we glimpse the possibility that his cynical atheism was in fact a consequence of his rough upbringing with a single mother in a trailer park, certainly not of any deep philosophical reflection. It also becomes increasingly clear during the play that Early is naturally prone to the kind of behavior he engages in. Whether this behavior is due to his upbringing or because of some sort of brain dysfunction is left unexplored.
To be an atheist, contrary to what Noone seems to believe, has nothing to do with being nasty and exploitative toward fellow human beings. Sure, some atheists are not very pleasant human beings, just like plenty of religious folks of any sect are immoral despite their loud professions of faith (let’s remember that, statistically speaking, there are many more believers than atheists in American prisons, compared to the make up of the general population…).
To be an atheist means to take responsibility for one’s moral choices, a much more difficult task than the one faced by any religious person who simply has to follow a small number of dictated rules (and yet, as we see repeatedly, they can’t even manage that, particularly the one about not killing fellow humans). Atheism puts the human being in charge of charting her path through life, and charges that human being with full responsibility for her choices. Compared to the infantile worldview of a religionist, an atheist is fully aware that most moral questions are not black and white, that there are no easily identifiable heros and villains. Moreover, the atheist has a deep cultural and historical perspective, and is aware of the fact that while certain moral imperatives are truly universal for humans (again, chiefly “do not kill other human beings unless you have absolutely compelling reasons to do so”), most so-called morality is actually local and changes with the time and place. Accordingly, an atheist has to be able to articulate and deploy a complex view of morality that distinguishes what is really moral or immoral from what is only a matter of arbitrary custom, with a large and complex territory of gray in between. It is tough to be an atheist, much tougher than being a religionist, and certainly much more complicated than the cartoonish sketch that Noone presents in his play.
Noone’s casual equivalency between atheism and amoralism is insulting to atheists and downright dangerous in a society that still uncritically accepts such equivalence. Atheists truly are the last minority in the United States whom it is perfectly politically correct to bash in public, and plays like The Atheist contribute to reinforce and propagate the stereotype. Art is supposed to show us the way forward, to question societal stereotypes, to upset audiences and make them think. I couldn’t detect any thinking about atheism going on during Noone’s play, which unfortunately turned the work into a colossal wasted opportunity. I am seriously considering going back to the theater and greet patrons for the next performance while sporting a brightly colored “Your Friendly Atheist Neighbor” t-shirt. Care to join me?
“Atheist” here is used as a straightforward and unquestioned synonym for amoral (not quite immoral, as the main character never really does anything illegal, always teetering on the fuzzy borderlands of morality, which greatly contributes to making the play interesting and the protagonist intriguing). Augustine Early, the Atheist, simply tells the audience how he arrived at the conclusion that he ought to pursue only his self-interest: “I didn't come into my own, understand my talent that is, until after I lost my faith in God, and once I let that go... fuckin' carte blanche!”
Now, imagine what would have happened if Noone had written a play about, say, sexual depravity, and entitled it “The Homosexual.” Or one about religious intolerance with the title “The Muslim.” Or one about corrupt financiers called “The Jew.” You get the drift. Augustine Early is not an atheist in any interesting sense of the word, and his behavior arises out of an ingrained lack of empathy for humanity, not a disbelief in god. Early doesn’t talk much about atheism during the play, with only a few sentences on the topic at the beginning of each act. Indeed, we glimpse the possibility that his cynical atheism was in fact a consequence of his rough upbringing with a single mother in a trailer park, certainly not of any deep philosophical reflection. It also becomes increasingly clear during the play that Early is naturally prone to the kind of behavior he engages in. Whether this behavior is due to his upbringing or because of some sort of brain dysfunction is left unexplored.
To be an atheist, contrary to what Noone seems to believe, has nothing to do with being nasty and exploitative toward fellow human beings. Sure, some atheists are not very pleasant human beings, just like plenty of religious folks of any sect are immoral despite their loud professions of faith (let’s remember that, statistically speaking, there are many more believers than atheists in American prisons, compared to the make up of the general population…).
To be an atheist means to take responsibility for one’s moral choices, a much more difficult task than the one faced by any religious person who simply has to follow a small number of dictated rules (and yet, as we see repeatedly, they can’t even manage that, particularly the one about not killing fellow humans). Atheism puts the human being in charge of charting her path through life, and charges that human being with full responsibility for her choices. Compared to the infantile worldview of a religionist, an atheist is fully aware that most moral questions are not black and white, that there are no easily identifiable heros and villains. Moreover, the atheist has a deep cultural and historical perspective, and is aware of the fact that while certain moral imperatives are truly universal for humans (again, chiefly “do not kill other human beings unless you have absolutely compelling reasons to do so”), most so-called morality is actually local and changes with the time and place. Accordingly, an atheist has to be able to articulate and deploy a complex view of morality that distinguishes what is really moral or immoral from what is only a matter of arbitrary custom, with a large and complex territory of gray in between. It is tough to be an atheist, much tougher than being a religionist, and certainly much more complicated than the cartoonish sketch that Noone presents in his play.
Noone’s casual equivalency between atheism and amoralism is insulting to atheists and downright dangerous in a society that still uncritically accepts such equivalence. Atheists truly are the last minority in the United States whom it is perfectly politically correct to bash in public, and plays like The Atheist contribute to reinforce and propagate the stereotype. Art is supposed to show us the way forward, to question societal stereotypes, to upset audiences and make them think. I couldn’t detect any thinking about atheism going on during Noone’s play, which unfortunately turned the work into a colossal wasted opportunity. I am seriously considering going back to the theater and greet patrons for the next performance while sporting a brightly colored “Your Friendly Atheist Neighbor” t-shirt. Care to join me?
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